During summer 2012, several UK football players had the opportunity to visit the Lexington Farmers Market for the first time. Each student recorded his impressions of the market, combining words and images collected from market visits.

Demarco Robinson's reflection. Demarco is from Atlanta and plays Wide Receiver for UK.

Bookie Cobbins' reflection. Bookie is from New Orleans and plays Wide Receiver for UK.

Teven Eatmon-Nared's reflection. Teven is from Mansfield, Ohio and plays Offensive Guard for UK.

So for the past 10 weeks I have been in Paris working on artificial intelligence research at Universitie Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC). As I wrap up my work for the trip and prepare to come back to the States, I wanted to write about the research part of the trip as opposed to the previous posts I have done that have focused on spending time in the city.

I have worked for the past year with Dr. Judy Goldsmith in UK's computer science department. When I expressed interest in going abroad this summer, she arranged for me to come to Paris and work with one of her friends on research that was very similar to the on going project I had. Her friend, Dr. Patrice Perny, was also very helpful in finding out what kind of visa I would need and arranging some funding. Dr. Jinze Liu in the CS department was also very helpful with getting financial support. So with the exception of almost falling into a housing scam, getting to and settling in Paris went very smoothly.

"Documenting Lexington Farmers Market History," WUKY. February 10, 2012. 

When I was taking French classes in middle school the go-to video for when we had a substitute teacher was a documentary on the Chateau at Versailles. Seeing the same documentary five times a year did not make me want to go to Versailles anymore then I already did. Fortunately it did not dull my interest so six weeks into my stay in Paris I decided to check it out myself. Versailles (Vear-Sie) is about as close to Paris as Versailles (Ver-Sales) is to Lexington. I was accompanied on my excursion by a group of students from Chicago who were visiting Paris. The other students had museum passes that let them avoid the long line to buy tickets but since I did not I rode along with a friend of the students' teacher who drove ahead early to get her ticket.

As Versailles is very big (and incredibly takes up only a small percentage of the entire estate) it would be impossible to describe everything. The most striking feature is how ornate everything is. And I mean everything. Every wall, ceiling, fireplace, statue, whatever. If it was in the palace it looked as if an artist had spent months on it. It is easy to see why the French people rebelled against this type of extravagance using tax money.

The A&S Podcast team is diligently working on an audio tour of campus! Designed to be smartphone and web-compatible, the tour is run through an app called AudioBoo. It allows you to record stuff wherever you are and share it (much like other audio sharing apps), but it also has a handy geotagging system integrated into its interface. This means we can upload stuff and make sure the file is associated with the right spot on the map! So far we only have a couple of locations on campus up, but we're making good progress and hope to have all of our entries done by K-Week. I wonder if other Colleges at UK will do this, too? It could be a great navigational/informational resource for freshmen, newcomers and visitors!

After four weeks in Paris, I left the city for the first time to spend the weekend just outside of Geneva, Switzerland. I was going to be visiting my girlfriend's father who works for Lexmark there. As I took the train away from Paris I began to see what had become an unfamiliar sight - nature that had not been completely shaped by human hands. It's not that Paris has no grass or trees but when you see green it is usually in a park that has been manicured to perfection. The three hour train ride gave me my view of France outside of Paris. The land itself very well could have been from within the United States. It was only the interruptions of farmhouses and other man made structures that confirmed the landscapes French identity.

Some of you may have noticed a new little piece at the end of each podcast listing that looks like this:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

These little boxes with letters in them are Creative Commons Licenses - meaning that we, as the A&S Podcast team, have decided to indicate clearly what type of copyright we would like to exert over our own work. The "Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike" license means that people may use the podcast for non-commercial purposes (ie, to share for free, for educational purposes, remix for whatever purposes they wish, etc), they must attribute the work to its originator (whoever is listed as the producer for the podcast), and is obligated to share their derivative work under a similar CC license. 

Roughly a year ago, the primordial nebula of A&S administrators, designers, podcasters, videographers, instructional designers, software developers, and help desk support workers was tasked with coming up a name to reidentify and unify our staff. Prospective names came and went. Finally, it was decided - the Hive. As you may have heard from some of our podcasts, the Hive is A&S' newly unified team of both creative and technical services which provides the College with support on web and print media projects, public relations, and computing and information services. We are organized into 13 structured, yet fluid teams. We are a higher education-multimedia-information-technology-powerhouse.

The day that is Memorial day in the United States is also a holiday in France. So instead of going to work today I once again set out to see more of Paris. The goal for today: L'Arc de Triomphe, Les Champs-Elysees, and Place de la Concorde. L'Arc de Triomphe was my number one must-see for my time in Paris.

So a metro-ride-across-Paris later and I was at Charles de Gaul-Etiolle metro station, walking up to street level where the arch is. As I ascended I looked to my right and the arch came into view. First impression was very much dissapointment. While very tall, the arch was not nearly as wide and I thought it looked in pictures. This gave it a misproportionate look and made it seem much less grand. As I reached ground level though I realized I was on the side of the arch and not looking at it straight on. Then I remembered from pictures that the arch is actually 4 arches supporting a platform. Together they look like one big arch. Second impression: wow!