Author: aaronchoate

I have enjoyed a career in digital libraries development, digitization, digital preservation, internet & web applications and technology integration program management. I now work at the University of Texas Libraries as the Director of Research & Strategy guiding our exploration of the impact technology innovations have on our systems and services and the people that rely on them. During my “spare” time, I work to tinker with sustainable technologies, machine learning, robotics/automation, obsess over advances in transportation and design and build custom electric vehicles. Once we even had a company that did this work for others through REVOLT Electric Vehicles. I continue to support the electric vehicle community in Austin, TX through AustinEV as well as national electric vehicle efforts as the Director for Technology and Strategy for the Electric Auto Association. I have a continued fascination with sustainable technologies, automation, connectivity, electric vehicles and transportation.
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Chevy Fast and Fuel Efficient

Thanks to Chevy, I experienced something completely new that got me excited enough to brave traffic from Central Austin to San Marcos during rush hour on a Thursday. I was invited to participate in and blog about the Chevy Fast and Fuel Efficient driver/blogger challenge.

The stakes?

The winning team of the event got four tickets total (two per person) to the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway with one-night reservations for the Marriott Hotel in Dallas, as well as a week-long Chevrolet Camaro or Corvette loan. So, something for somebody who is interested in cars to compete for, though not necessarily what an electric vehicle enthusiast would find themselves normally doing. Good thing I’m both.

Continue reading “Chevy Fast and Fuel Efficient”

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National Plug-In day

Austin National Plug-In Day event

AustinEV worked with the Sierra Club to host the Austin National Plug-In day get together. We were really excited to get the turnout that we did. We had a good showing of home built vehicles from the club as well as production cars from the Nissan Leaf owners and the Chevy Volt owners. We had a treat in that Ford had their electric Ford Focus and electric Ford transit van in town and were kind enough to leave them on display. We also had several local companies who are involved in electric vehicle development attend. Thanks go to REVOLT Electric Vehicles, Electric Ave. Scooters, Actacell, Gridbot and EVAutos of Texas for taking the time to join us.

95,738 Gas Free Miles at the Austin National Plugin Day event
REVOLTEV Boxster at the Austin National Plugin Day event
Volts at the Austin National Plug-In event

If you would like to read more, please see the following posts that mention the event.

Austin’s National Plug-In Day was a Blast!
Kari Banta, Transportation Associate

Kiss an Electric Car: Highlights from National Plug In Day
Gina Coplon-Newfield, Sierra Club’s Senior Campaign Representative for Electric Vehicles

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Landscape design in Eugene, Oregon

I got to partake in a pleasant anniversary again this year. My friends at Mosaic-Gardens had me work on their site several years ago and I help them update their portfolio in preparation for their busy seasons. Each year, about now, I get an email with a series of the most amazing attachments. I always look forward to seeing the photos they have taken of their projects and relish the opportunity to work with such amazing material. If you are in the Eugene, Oregon area, I highly recommend that you contact Mosaic-Gardens. They are some of the most conscientious, inspiring people I have had the opportunity to work with. If you aren’t in Eugene, Oregon… you are in luck! They now have a blog where you can ask questions!

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Hoping the Drupal community really does wake up

I hope this bit of introspection from tsvenson over at drupal.org (Wake up community – WordPress.org should scare you!) gets some traction. He makes some excellent points about how the drupal.org experience is likely to scare away anybody but the most hardy self implementers. I believe that the system is worth the effort, but acknowledge that it does take a huge amount of effort to bridge the gap from considering an install and actually doing one. Drupal 7 has made some good improvements in being easier to use as a novice, but if people are scared away when they try to play with it… where are they going to go? (and yeah… my blog is … in wordpress…)

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Electric commute

I was worried last night when the rain started to come down, but it let up and I was able to ride “Mine” our electric scooter in to the office again today. I’ve been really enjoying getting to ride in this past week. The weather has been beautiful. Finally, it is spring. Thanks go to Electric Ave Scooters for bringing this EMax scooter to the Austin market! The silver eMax looks right at home in the motorcycle parking area at UT.

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smugmug and lightroom

Just a quick note that I’m REALLY liking the integration between smugmug and Adobe Lightroom 3.  You can see my smugmug stream at:

http://aaronchoate.smugmug.com

The only thing I’m looking for is the ability to sync photo metadata back from smugmug (since it offers the ability to allow others to tag, caption, etc)