Recently in Work-related Category

Yesterday was an interesting day for me—most days are, actually. But the planets seemed to be especially aligned, or maybe yesterday was a "rip, a hole in the time/space continuum" that "take us thru the event horizon." *

1. I got an email invitation to connect with another Tim Tyson on a social network site. What was particularly interesting is that I've been receiving emails for over a year, maybe two, intended for this guy. Apparently our email addresses at a particular email service provider are very similar, and people would type his incorrectly. Since we both have the same name, it's understandable.

At first I thought these were all some sort of junk mail. But they followed a pattern. Apparently he is a well respected videographer who travels the world filming special projects. Nice. (Maybe he's really me in another life?--hence my quotation above)

I'm not really sure how he figured out who I am or why he asked me to join his social network, but when I checked out his social network site (which talked about what he does for a living) along with his email address (which is almost identical to mine), I realized the connection. (You realize, of course, that this could only happen in a digital world with palm-sized, time-warping transporter devices, right?)

Even more amazingly, the "other" Tim Tyson recently finished projects with the British Council about Global Schools Partnerships. Amazingly, the last year I was a school principal, the Director of Bilateral Programmes from the British Council came to visit my school. She was interested in setting up partnerships between the UK and my school. And now the other Tim Tyson is shooting video about these projects?! What are the odds, I ask—even demand?!

The multi-year-long bizarre mystery of the Tim Tyson emails has been solved! But I save the best for last...

2. Imagine getting an unexpected email from a former student who writes this sentence: "I have come to realize that doing what is comfortable or popular tends to be far less rewarding than doing what is right." Now, this young man is only 18! He apparently has become somewhat of an activist for issues related to respect and social justice "for historically marginalized groups." His efforts have earned him national recognition, honors, and some significant opportunities.

My first encounter with younger students who felt a moral imperative to act on issues of social justice came during the Ronald Reagan years. (To cut big government spending, Reagan eliminated funding for homeless shelters thereby forcing the homeless to literally live on the streets.) Shortly thereafter, one of my 8th grade students first saw homeless people in downtown Atlanta. He was from an affluent home and had no idea such a thing could exist in our country. He was outraged, and, as an 8th grader, on his own, took it upon himself to launch a letter-writing campaign to the Georgia governor to have the issue addressed.

I've known many such young people since then—all with an inner calling directing their efforts to make the world a better place. I celebrate all of these young people who, at a very early age, feel compelled to act for positive change.

Their lives color the world with hope.

* Yes, I stole that line from a tweet by Miles Kahn, a producer for The Daily Show. That's actually part of what he said about tonight's show. I laughed out loud when I read his tweet.

I've whined before about my dislike for visual clutter and advertising trying to capture my attention on the web and in the news papers. Well, here's a nice little tool that won the New York Times Pogie Award for the Year's Best Tech Ideas: Readability.

Set your preferences: pick a style, select the font size, and select the width of the margin. Drag their little bookmarklet onto your browser's toolbar. Now, when you arrive at a webpage, click the bookmarklet to strip the page of everything except the text and related photographs in a plain, readable format without Times Square blaring in your face.

Nice.

So a friend of mine has been trying to convince me that the next big thing in educational technology (within 5 years or so) will be avatars going to virtual schools in a 3D space like Second Life. Schools and organizations are already buying islands in Second Life for their virtual learners.

I don't know what to think about this yet. I have never been a gamer per se. I tried Sim City a decade ago. After sinking an ungodly amount of time in the game, which was a hell of a lot of fun, I decided I was not being productive and have avoided them ever since.

I know Google is doing some amazing work with 3D realization of actual places, using 3D models of buildings. They are now even developing technology to take a variety of user-created digital photos of a particular place and render them together as an actual 3D representation of the place. Avatars will be able to "walk down the streets" and actually see what the mapped places really look like in the real world represented by a shockingly realistic virtual space.

Maybe my friend is right. Maybe the techno-enthusiasts at NECC 2007 are predicting the future in an effort to create that future. Maybe these virtual tools will be so seamless and transparent to the students a decade from now that going to school as an avatar will not be so cumbersome and so complicated as to get in the way of and distract from learning. Maybe it's all just nonsense or a phase. Maybe human interaction isn't necessary in the real world? Maybe I'd better shut up.

At any rate, I was sent this little animated gif of myself to welcome me into this next leg of my journey. The hair color wasn't exactly right and the glasses were all wrong. So I went to the site and killed about 30 minutes. To get the shirt and shoes I really wanted, I would need to spend about $30 of non-virtual money! Can you imagine such a thing?! But now, with my new hair color and glasses (free, I might add) I look good!

It's just too much! :o) Oh, and yes, clicking on the picture will take you to the site where you can create your own avatar.

I just upgraded my MovableType installation to 3.35. I'm posting this post because, well... I needed an excuse to post something to confirm my blog is still a happy blog. If you can read this post, it is! Here are the three suggested things to look for in hiring someone that is really great:

First, drive. I define drive as self-motivation -- people who will walk right through brick walls, on their own power, without having to be asked, to achieve whatever goal is in front of them. ...

Second criterion: curiosity. Curiosity is a proxy for, do you love what you do? Anyone who loves what they do is inherently intensely curious about their field, their profession, their craft. ...

Third and final criterion: ethics. Ethics are hard to test for. But watch for any whiff of less than stellar ethics in any candidate's background or references. ...

Source: blog.pmarca.com: How to hire the best people you've ever worked with

Last week was incredibly busy but a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to present the closing keynote at the NECC 2007, which registered about 18,000 people I'm told. Also, through a special partnership between NECC 2007 and KZO Webcasting, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed, along with Hall Davidson from Discovery Education, by Chris Walsh of WestEd at NECC Live!'s Program Video-On-Demand. This webcast, and many others, are hosted on the kzowebcasting site for a full year. Pretty cool resource!

Well, I just arrived in Rome. I am exhausted. I don't sleep on planes.

The airline split my suitcase open. The fact that I made it to the hotel, especially considering the taxi driver's driving!, without strewing my underwear all over the airport, the Roma Termini, the streets of Rome, or the hotel lobby is nothing short of a miracle. The suitcase is ruined and will have to be replaced tomorrow.

I'm staying in a glorious hotel about a block from the Pantheon. I caught a glimpse of the Pantheon before the driver hit his brakes hard to avoid killing about 20 pedestrians. [UPDATE: Glimpse nothing! I can see the Pantheon across the street!!] I'm sitting here in the lobby blogging, checking email, and wishing my room were ready so I could catch a short nap and then go take pictures.

This is the only day I will be in Rome without rain in the forecast. It's supposed to be overcast now, but is very sunny (and actually hot). Maybe I will be lucky!

For all who care: I am now up to date on the TV series Lost. [Think iPod + long plane ride!] What is going on?!

Well, well, well...

Today was the big announcement. I guess I have been relatively silent on my blog for a variety of reasons. Aside from being astoundingly busy with this year's film festival, being afflicted beyond belief with allergies, and getting a horrendous head cold (probably as a result of an infection that was able to gestate because of the allergies), I have been investing a significant amount of my time and energy in a major activity about which I have felt a need to be silent.

My cold is much better now. I've been taking Alavert, which has really made a significant difference in my bodies reaction to the billions of allergens floating in the Atlanta air.

Last night the film festival went off without a hitch. It is such a positive and affirming experience for children. And they should be proud! Their work is nothing short of astounding.

And today I announced publicly to my staff that I have resigned from my position, effective at the end of this contract year. I don't think this was much of a surprise to anyone. Rumors of my moving on to other work have percolated for years. Today they became true.

I have noticed that I typically work in any one job for no more than 6 years. This was my sixth year.

So, hopefully now, my blogging can be a little less sporadic.

This has been a very busy time for me. I spent the first part of the week at Jekyll Island with students from the school. I'm presenting a few pictures I took during the trip.

The deer in the bottom picture is a little out of focus. I didn't have my zoom on the camera. By the time I did, the wild beast had fled. The lighting conditions were just not adequate for a good shot without a tripod. This was the best of the three I shot.

Yesterday I was in Las Vegas. I was told this was the tackiest city in the USA. Well, that's an understatement! Of all the cities to which I have traveled, I'd have to say that Las Vegas is the tackiest city in the world!

I stayed at the Paris Hotel, complete with a horrific miniature of the Eiffel Tower and loud obnoxious "Parisian" music blaring everywhere! All I could think of was, "For just another 2 hours, and I actually could have been in Paris!" The room was very spacious, and the conference was wonderful. Oh, and I must give credit to the taxi cab drivers--I've never met more determined souls!

The flight over on AirTran was particularly dreadful, complete with these loud comments: "I've saved up for 6 months to be able to play the machines. I just can't wait." and "She let you take that picture of her? [ Naked woman on a cell phone] Man, that was really nice!" and this from a particularly loud passenger "You said you were going to start serving drinks in 20 minutes!" Flight Attendant: "Yes, 20 minutes after we take off." Loud passenger: "Now wait a minute, you didn't say anything about taking off first!"

It was a long flight! Thank god for my video iPod. I caught up on all of the episodes of Lost.

I'm sitting here at 1 Infinity Loop in Cupertino, CA (for the unwashed masses, that's Apple's corporate headquarters), blogging. I presented to a group of educators from Florida and legislators from Michigan. I delight in showing our students' work and the quality of what children are capable of producing with elegant tools.

The weather out here is spectacular! I'm heading home soon via San Francisco. Jeeze, I wish I had some time to spend there again! I need to live on the west coast!

The superintendent for Georgia's public schools came to visit our school yesterday.  She brought with her a number of guests from the UK.  What a delight to be chosen for this recognition!

Today we continued brainstorming a useful, relevant path to take our nation's schools to a different place, a place where technology is seemlessly integrated into instructional delivery (students and staff), data aggregation and disaggregation for data-driven decision making (assessment), and communication and immersion of stakeholders. Tim Magner, the Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, is bright, articulate, and a razor sharp thinker. I was immensely impressed with his grasp of the scope and complexity of the technological and political ecosystems in which America's schools live. And he is a young man. He quickly grasps ideas and issues brought to the table and distills them to their core components while reframing them in a more quantitative and qualitative context that creates new thinking for me. That is rare and utterly delightful!

The others in the room, mostly principals, are also amazing leaders in their own right. We were asked to come to DC to work with SRI and Xplane, who were contracted by the DOE. SRI is a think tank designing materials to shape policy and planning for the DOE (and many other agencies and companies). They have people sitting in the room word processing as fast as we talk, (and some of these folks break new speed barriers), designing interactive flash-based animations, recording and synthesizing the ideas and concepts being thrown around the room. Xplane is here to help us visualize the ideas brought to the table. The literally draw everything. "If you can draw it, you can do it." Over the past two days we literally repeatedly plastered the walls with color stickies and large sheets of brightly inked paper.

This is what a brain dump looks like I guess. Fifteen bright people brought into a room, being asked probing, stimulating, challenging, clarifying, difficult questions, sharing our ideas, successes, obstacles, and vision for our nation's schools and how technology invisibly fits into this complex stew of human undertaking.

Yesterday, from the 28th floor of what once was the USAToday/Gannett building, we had a spectacular view of the Mall: the Washington Monument, Whitehouse, Capitol Hill, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials as well as several other memorials near the Potomac--impressive and inspiring to say the least.

I am completely humbled by this experience--being asked to share what we have accomplished at Mabry, how we did it, and how this and more can be extended into our nation's schools in meaningful ways. I've never done anything quit like it. The process has been as amazing to me as the outcomes. I will gnaw on this experience for some time to come!

I've spent the day in the capitol city, a guest of the US Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology. I and about 15 others, mostly elementary, middle, and high school principals, were invited to spend time discussing School 2.0. More will follow when my internet connection is happier.

Tonight I ate at Clyde's in Georgetown. Go there and order the crab cakes and the Tiramisu. You will not be disappointed!

This morning I just finished a video conference with a group of teachers and principals in Shanghai, China. I talk a lot about leveraging connectivity on a global scale, but then it still just amazes me when such things unfold. The world truly is becoming a smaller and smaller place.

I enjoy reading Stephen Downes blog because he tends to see beneath the superficial.  Here is his list of things we need to learn in school:

1. How to predict consequences
2. How to read

Oddly, by this I do not mean 'literacy' in the traditional sense, but rather, how to look at some text and to understand, in a deep way, what is being asserted (this also applies to audio and video, but grounding yourself in text will transfer relatively easily, if incompletely, to other domains).

The four major types of writing are: description, argument, explanation and definition. You should learn to recognize these different types of writing by learning to watch for indicators or keywords.

3. How to distinguish truth from fiction
4. How to empathize
5. How to be creative
6. How to communicate clearly
7. How to Learn
8. How to stay healthy
9. How to value yourself
10. How to live meaningfully

Dear god in heaven, another Nation At Risk report! As my readers know, I have only used profanity on my blog once. Well, I'm so angry, I'm totally tempted to fill this post with it! However, I will let this one sentence suffice: the Tough Choices Or Tough Times report from the National Center on Education and the Economy isn't sham poo, it's real poo!

When executives from Lucent Technologies (who participated in authoring the report) can get their own company out of the toilet, then they can ponder having the audacity to tell me what is wrong with America's public education system. Oh, but I forgot, according to them the reason Lucent Technologies is in the toilet is because of America's sorry public school systems.

I adamantly disagree! I will not quietly sit back and yet once again tolerate the public school bashing that started in 1983 with the Nation at Risk report.

Two weeks ago Georgia's governor, Sunny Purdue, publicly announced (after he was re-elected) he is considering abolishing medical benefits from the state employees' retirement plan. I wondered where on earth he got such a hair-brain idea! One doesn't attract the brightest and best into the field of education by taking such an ill-advised step. Well, his idea comes directly from this very report!

The report proposes to pay for these changes by phasing out today's lavish teacher retirement packages and moving toward benefits that more closely match those in private industry."

Let me tell you about the benefits in private industry: lower co-pays with more coverage for less money than I get as a public servant! I know this first hand. And to add insult to injury, William McGuire, the CEO for United HealthCare, the plan to which governor Sunny Purdue moved all state employees one year ago, earned $1.6 billion in stock options?! Yes, that's supposed to be a "b" as in billion!

Our new health plan with United HealthCare covers less and charges more. I have teachers on my staff that can't afford their medications, who do some of the most important work in our country, and William McGuire made what?!

This is immoral. It is wrong. This is the worst form of corporate greed and corruption!

And the governor wants to now eliminate medical benefits from all state employees' retirement plans?

You will hear a lot from me over the next few weeks about the Tough Choices Or Tough Times report. Bottom line: destroying America's public schools will destroy America, and that's exactly what these fools are up to!

Know the enemy: by clicking the icon at the bottom of this post you can read the executive summary of the Tough Choices Or Tough Times report if you can stomach it. If you want to read the entire report, you have to buy it! HAH!! I will do nothing to fund the dismantling of one of America's most important and effective institutions: our public education system.

I normally do not inject emotionality into my writing about professional matters, but right now I am profoundly offended and deeply enraged!

If the governor wants Georgia's schools to be the best in the nation, or just to improve a wee little bit, then he needs to put the money where his mouth is! One never gets something for nothing. America's public school teachers need to be compensated well and her schools more than adequately funded! Neither is the case. Instead business "leaders" and politicians bash our educators and deny them the resources needed to do their work.

This must stop.

Technorati Tags: education, reform, TCOTT

It's time to come up with a better national educational policy that does! Doug has an interesting post at his blog, Borderland. I totally agree with Kozol's statement!

Dismantle NCLB
From Susan Ohanian:

The Educator Roundtable: Ending NCLB is a grassroots movement of educators, parents, and concerned citizens who have signed a petition, rejecting the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act and calling for legislators to vote against its reauthorization. We do so not because we resist accountability, but because the law’s simplistic approach to education reform wastes student potential, undermines public education, and threatens the future of our democracy.

Jonathan Kozol, who spoke here recently, called NCLB a public shaming ritual to punish the public schools and to pave the way for vouchers. Since it’s inception, I’ve said that this law was never about improving public education. It’s emphasis on high-stakes testing is driving us toward mediocrity, and not excellence. Indeed, the achievement gap is not closing.

Testing is not teaching. Sign the petition.

Source: Borderland » Dismantle NCLB

I was delighted when USAToday called me for an interview. I talked with Ashley Bleimes for over an hour. She called last week to tell me the article was significantly shortened and would appear in the paper on Wednesday, November 15th. Since it was tiny and was tucked away in the Life section, I post a scan of it here in my virtual scrapbook.

I wish politicians would quit playing with the future of our children. Instead, I challenge them to put some serious money where their mouth is! Results demand sufficient resources.

The full article linked below contains an interesting graph of test data.

“The Bush administration wants to hang a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner over N.C.L.B., but a fair assessment is that progress thus far in closing achievement gaps is disappointing,” Mr. Weiner said. He pointed to financing and teacher assignment systems that lead to schools with mostly poor and minority students getting less money, offering fewer advanced courses and having weaker teachers.

The 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a battery of reading and math tests administered to thousands of students in every state, showed some rising scores for all ethnic groups, and the black-white score gap narrowed in a statistically significant way for fourth-grade math. But on fourth-grade reading, and on eighth-grade reading and math, the black-white and Hispanic-white gaps were statistically unchanged from the early 1990s.

Source: Schools Slow in Closing Gaps Between Races - New York Times

This is being circulated around the net. I guess if would be funny if it weren't so close to the truth.

Here's the football version of what is going on in education right now.

• All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If, after two years, they have not won the championship, their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.
• All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!
• Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don't like football.
• Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. It will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind. If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad football players.

The Japan, 2006, photo albums are making their first appearance, rough though it may be. They presently lack an adequate navigation system and are not yet linked to the photos section of my blog. So, for the time being, in order to view them, you need to come back to this post to get to the link to the main index for the 29 different albums.

There are mistakes and errors, and I am cleaning them up as I can. And, finally, I have at least 1 more album to create and publish. Patience...

Click above to go to the Index of the 29 Japan Photo Albums

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the elementary school (grades 1 through 6 in Japan). The children were full of energy and the excitement of learning. Educators from the USA are treated like rock stars. The children ran up to us, hugging on us, wanting our autographs, posing for pictures, screaming with delight. Below you will find a link to a photo album of about 50 pictures of the children at the school. Enjoy.

(Click to visit the photo album)

Despite the North Korean nuclear bomb test, the tsunami, and the earthquake, I'm still very much alive. However, I may now glow in the dark since I'm so close to North Korea now! I've been in Arao, Kumamoto, Japan, for the past 9 days and arrived back in Tokyo yesterday (which is today in the USA). Regrettably, I didn't have access to the internet in Arao, so I spent most of the evening yesterday catching up on email.

A quick item of interest:
One of the emails I finally received yesterday (which had been sent several days ago) was a request for me to do a video conference, yesterday, with the teachers and principals from the international schools in Beijing, China. Well, heck...that's just next door! The time difference was minimal from here. How fortuitous was that?!

Well, I've taken over 2,500 pictures during the trip. I have so much to post! But the posts will have to wait. I'm bound for the USA tomorrow, have a lot of repacking to do, and a big reception to attend tonight. I'm sure it will take me years to recover from jet lag! Oh, and warn all of the cattle in the land: this man is tired of fish and hungry for beef!

Below is just a tiny hint of some of what is to come! These pictures were taken at the children's festival. Click each to enlarge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it doesn't make sense. I'm posting about my fourth day in Japan and you haven't seen much warning about the fact that I'm even in Japan. Well, such is life. My schedule here has been packed beyond belief.

I've been in Tokyo for the past 4 days. Right now I'm in Kumamoto. I'll be heading off to Arao tomorrow morning. I'll be without internet access for the next 9 days. So this is all you will get for a while.

Yesterday was our free day to explore. I decided to take the Ginza Line (subway) from the New Otani Hotel where I've been staying to Shibuya, one of the world's busiest business districts. Tokyo's subway system is the most elaborate of any I've seen anywhere in the world, consisting of 15 lines, not including private railways.

My hotel is very close to the G05 (Akasaka-mitsuke) station at exit D, and Shibuya is "at the end of the line" at G01. The subway was clean, the passages wide. I'm sure my experience would have been considerably different had this been a weekday, but the space was not overly crowded at all on this "sports holiday" Saturday, well, not until I got to Shibuya.

The Shibuya station itself was very large, several stories above ground and below. People were teeming about going in every direction. Fortunately, upon arrival, I was able to make sense out of the exit signs to find my way to the street. Outside of the subway station was a sea of people. This area is indeed New York City's Times Square on steroids.

The streets of Tokyo, under the best of circumstances, are, like most of the major cities of the world, tremendously confusing. They frequently "V" off into multiple directions which then "V" off into other directions. One can easily lose your place. However, in this area, all streets seemed to come to one central area: the place where the subway station was. The station was like the center of the bicycle wheel.

Since I didn't have a street map (and doubt it would have done any good to have had one as everything is in Japanese) I had a systematic strategy: never veer to the right when the street splits, always stay to the left; go down each street as far as I wanted and then work my way back. As I headed back to the subway station I would explore each of the "V" splits, going off to the right this time.

My strategy was successful as I never got lost, and I think I explored just about every single block of this enormously compacted area for about a 2 mile radius from the center subway station. Here are some observations:

• The whole area was very clean. One man was picking up little tiny bits of trash with what appeared to be giant chopsticks both when I went up the street and came back down it at least 15 minutes later
• While there were many cars, I did not hear a single horn or see/hear a single driver yelling at another driver or pedestrian as is so customary in New York City
• American fast food is everywhere: McDonalds, Wendy's, KFC. I even saw an Outback Steakhouse.
• The McDonalds was a WiFi hotspot. The Japanese indicate them with BB (Broadband). A man seated next to me had his textbook in front of him watching his teacher on his laptop through the internet.
• Many people have mp3 players of many different kinds.
• Many, many people were using their cell phones but literally no one was talking. They were all text messaging or playing games. I frequently saw the 20 something crowd with the iPod earbuds in the ear listening to their iPod while text messaging or playing games on their cell phone.
• I ran across a handful of Japanese punk rocker types, all girls whose outfits were much more feminine than their US counterparts.
• People all appeared to be busy, very, very busy.
• All around were huge digital video screens with music playing. I didn't hear any rap at all. The music was all very melodic and not what I consider offensive.
• I almost could not fit through the bathroom door at the McDonalds. It was the smallest doorway I've ever seen in my life! I couldn't turn sideways because of the backpack and had to just duck down and force squeeze myself through the door.

I went shopping at Hands, which is like Target on steroids, to purchase a backpack for my trip to Arao. The store was huge. They had hundreds and hundreds of backpacks on floor 1A. I had already gone up 3 floors, including the hardware and woodworking floor, before I arrived at 1A.

As I was leaving, I went back into the subway station. However (big mistake) I didn't go in the same way I had originally exited. I could not find the Ginza Line anywhere. The subway station was as much like a really nice mall as it was a subway station. Finally, I had to ask someone. I just said "Excuse me" to a young lady who was passing by.

When I asked, "Ginza Line?" she did not understand what I was saying. I was about to point to it on a subway map when an older lady came up to her and said something in Japanese. The young lady then said, "Oh, Ginza Line." (I must have mispronounced it.) She then said, "I will show you." and led me several blocks through this maze of shops and tunnels. After several minutes we arrived at the sign for the Ginza line. She pointed, said "Ginza Line" and bowed as she stepped away.

I was astounded. I had heard that the Japanese will take you where you need to go if you are lost. I thought that was just well crafted public relations folklore. It's actually true! This young Japanese lady went considerably out of her way to help me. I was rather humbled by the experience. Too often I consider myself too busy to give people sufficient attention, let alone stop what I am doing to truly help someone in an inconvenient yet meaningful way. What a difference true kindness makes.

I kept thinking that this area must be astounding at night time. There were literally tens of thousands of neon signs and giant digital video screens at every glance. I came back after dark to snap some more pictures. It was like daylight outside from all of the lights. Enjoy the photo album, Shibuya by Day & by Night, by clicking on the picture below. This album does not yet link to my photo albums' page.

Click to visit Shibuya!