Xcel Energy Center, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

I haven't been updating this site for awhile so here's a short recap of what I've been up to and what I'm doing this upcoming week.

I've been updating my tumblelog. Add it on Tumblr or your RSS reader if you'd like. I've also been covering the U.S. Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman at MNpublius. It's a ton of fun, honestly. As well, I've been maintaining my day job. This weekend, I pick up my press pass with The UpTake. I've been a supporter of the UpTake since day one and I'm happy to help them out during the Republican National Convention. I also pick up Rex Sorgatz at the airport and the upper floor of my house turns into his space for a project he's working on relating to the RNC. While there's going to be a ton of press locally, nationally and internationally on almost every aspect of the convention from the speeches, the reactions from delegates, the protests, the looming hurricane in the gulf, the newly chosen vice president candidate and everything John McCain, I'm going to focus on three things: Norm Coleman, Jeff Larson and the parties. I'm also going to be at The Daily Show on September 2nd. This upcoming week might be a huge mess but I think it'll be fun. Thanks for reading and my apologies for the lack of updates recently.

Noah Kunin with The UpTake, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Last night I crashed The UpTake's Correspondents' Meeting to check out their brand new office space. The last time I saw them was at their fundraiser in October.

The UpTake is a media and technology services organization that publishes and trains citizen journalists with a strong focus on video. While there are a lot of citizen journalists and unaffiliated bloggers, videographers and writers out there, there are not many part of an organized group. The UpTake is trying to fill that gap and already is doing a great job. They have correspondents in Minnesota, Colorado and Iowa and they're growing quickly. The UpTake helps people develop and capture stories as well as train people on equipment, software, journalistic ethics and storytelling. They're also a backbone for people that need help covering stories, editing and publishing. The UpTake also keeps track of events and stories so multiple people aren't covering the same thing. It's a pretty interesting model.

Their angle is to cover what the mainstream media isn't covering or can't cover or don't cover enough of. One figures, it wouldn't be as valuable for citizen journalists and The UpTake to cover what is already being covered elsewhere, right?

While not really a political organization, their focus now has been on covering local and national politics. Their new office is located a block away from the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican National Convention will be held in 2008. You can see the whole center from the roof too. A former dentist office, it has at least 12 rooms which will be converted into editing suites, offices and small studio spaces.

A couple friends of mine are deeply involved and I've been impressed with the organization. They really know what they're doing and are ramping up very quickly. They'll be a big player around RNC time.

UPDATE: The UpTake partners with Veracifier
theuptake.org