(March 22 - 25, 2008) K ATTENDS STARTUP WEEKEND IN BOULDER AND THEN SPENDS THREE DAYS WITH GOOD FRIENDS MB AND JB AND THEIR DARLING 8-MONTH OLD DAUGHTER, LB, DURING WHICH K AND JB CRAFT THREE BUDDING MICROBRANDS - JB’S LEIO DESIGNS, K’S DREAMFIELD COLLECTIVE, AND THE UNSPELLABLE CHAIN RESTAURANT K IS POTENTIALLY COFOUNDING AT BURNING MAN.

(March 26, 2008) K DRIVES FROM BOULDER TO LAS VEGAS AND CRASHES FOR THE NIGHT AT THE FOUR QUEENS HOTEL, WHICH WAS A BARGAIN ON ORBITZ. SHE STARES AT LIGHTS, SPENDS $10 OF HER OWN MONEY AND $4 OF FREE BONUS MONEY ON PULLING LEVERS, AND CONSUMES HASHBROWNS AND EGGS WITH A CHEAP MIMOSA FOR BREAKFAST.

(March 27, 2008) K LEARNS HOW RIDICULOUS THE LAX PARKING/PICKUP LAYOUT IS AS SHE RETRIEVES HER FRIEND JK SO HE CAN TIE UP STRINGS IN BAKERSFIELD AND PORTLAND BEFORE MOVING TO BRIGHTON FOR CHEMISTRY PROGRAMS OF BOTH THE PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC VARIETIES.

(March 28, 2008) K AND JK HANG OUT IN BAKERSFIELD, WHICH REMINDS K OF COLORADO SPRINGS + PALM TREES + IN N’ OUT - DR. DOBSON.

(March 29, 2008) K AND JK DRIVE TO ASHLAND, OREGON AND FALL ASLEEP.

(March 30, 2008) K AND JK STOP IN EUGENE FOR BREAKFAST WITH THE DEAR VHS AND CONTINUE ON TO PORTLAND WHERE THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NO SALES TAX AT THE APPLE STORE AND THEN GET DRINKS WITH JK’S OLD HOUSEMATE G? AND HER FRIEND ??

(March 31 - April 1, 2008) JK CURSES AND SELLS POSSESSIONS ON CRAIGSLIST WHILE K TRIES NOT TO INHERIT TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY JUNK, LAUGHS AT THE PET TORTOISE, DOES AN UNEXPECTED BIOFEEDBACK EXPERIMENT AT THE NEIGHBORS’, AND MEETS TIF FOR SUSHI AND SP FOR PIE.

(April 2, 2008) K TAKES THE BUS TO EUGENE TO CONTINUE CONVERSATIONS WITH VHS AND MAKE PASTA AND GLUTEN FREE COOKIE BARS.

(April 3, 2008) JK PICKS K UP FROM EUGENE AND THEY DRIVE TO SAN FRANCISCO TO GIVE A CLOCK TO JK’S FRIEND R? AND HANG OUT WITH KYNTHIA’S FRIEND EG AND MUTUAL FRIEND PJ. PJ PROPOSES A VERY EXCITING PLAN FOR A FUNDRAISING PARTY FOR THE GOLDEN CAFE, AND K FINDS RANDOM SHOES ON THE STREET, WHICH GIVE HER A BLISTER.

(April 4 - 7, 2008) JK AND K CONTINUE TO LA WHERE THEY MEET UP WITH SATI, LUCIFER, TEZ, THOR, ATHENA, AND DR DAVE & CO TO PARTAKE IN AN OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED HIGH-QUALITY SALAD BAR, A RANGE OF FINE COCKTAILS IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS, AND OTHER GENERALLY DEBAUCHEROUS ACTS CULMINATING IN A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LADYBUG AND CONCLUDING WITH DEAD BATTERIES AFTER DIM SUM AND AN AFTERNOON AT THE SPEAKEASY WITH ARES. PARTIAL SCHOLARSHIPS WERE AWARDED AND K ASSUMED THE ROLE OF KITCHEN MANAGER FOR THIS YEAR’S GOLDEN CAFE. FM’S DRAMATIC DEPARTURE LEAVES MANY STUNNED. K BUYS JK’S CAR ALL OFFICIAL-LIKE BEFORE LEAVING HIM TO HIS FINAL UK-BOUND PREPARATIONS.

(April 8 - 10, 2008) K HEADS TO SAN DIEGO TO SIT ON THE BEACH WITH ERIK AND HIS LOVELY NEW FRIEND L?, COLLAPSE ON A BEANBAG PILLOW FOR SEVERAL HOURS, AND DELIGHT IN THE DISCOVERY THAT K AND ERIK SEEM TO HAVE BROKEN THROUGH A RECENTLY CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONAL DIVIDE, WHICH COULD LEAD TO EXCITING COLLABORATIONS IN THE NEAR TO MID-TERM.

(April 11 - 12, 2008) K EATS BISCUITS AND GRAVY AT THE BIG KITCHEN ON HER WAY OUT OF TOWN AND THINKS OF CALLING /_\ TO MAKE AN ATLAS SHRUGGED REFERENCE. SHE FINALLY TURNS THE NOSE OF THE CAR EASTWARD AND DRIVES, WITH A FEW NAP STOPS, TO COLORADO SPRINGS, WHERE SHE HANGS OUT WITH HER DAD, LEARNS OF A POTENTIAL NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, AND WONDERS IF SHE SHOULD COME BACK TO CO FOR HER BIRTHDAY.

(April 13, 2008) K FINALLY DRIVES BACK TO BLOOMINGTON, WHERE SHE ATONES WITH MVP’S CATS AND DISCOVERS THAT THE BATHTUB IS BEING REPLACED, WHICH IS EXCITING BUT RESULTS IN A DIVERSIONARY VISIT TO JN’S, WHOM SHE IS VERY HAPPY TO SEE NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF THE CHANCE TO SHOWER.

(April 14, 2008 - present) K SETTLES BACK INTO BLOOMINGTON, CLAMORS TO CATCH UP ON WORK FOR IMI, FIGURES OUT HOW TO HANG OUT WITH JN AND RR WITHOUT LIVING AT RR’S, BEFRIENDS AFOREMENTIONED CATS, DOES NOT GO TO PITTSBURGH AFTER ALL, WORRIES THAT ONE OF THE CATS HAS RUN AWAY BUT THEN HAS HER WORRIES RESOLVED, AND THINKS ABOUT HOW TO REALIZE THE PLANS THAT HAVE NOW BEEN SET IN MOTION. SHE PROCRASTINATES TOO MUCH WITH REGARD TO REGISTERING THE CAR AND ATTENDING TO THE WEEDS IN MVP’S YARD, AND OTHERWISE DELIGHTS IN THE SPRING WEATHER.

greetings from bloomington, people of the internet.

i arrived in town a few weeks ago under cover of friends whose circles overlap only somewhat peripherally with the HCI/Design/Informatics circles of my world, and since i tend to blog most consistently within the more techie circles, that’s the easy excuse for my silence since the new year.

the fuller story, however, is that i decided to take this hoosier hiatus not only because i am using this time to think about my plans from the perspective of finding work that puts my degree to good use, but also because i am growing increasingly convinced that the good uses that most attract me have to do with communities outside the hipster design bubble, and i want to reconnect with the non-university world of bloomington, which was the world that first led me to view this town as a home.

i am staying with good friends of mine whom i didn’t spend enough time with during school, playing with them and their kids, making up projects for myself in the name of my ongoing education, hacking out a little work back at the math department, and sincerely enjoying the chance to get my bearings for a while in a place that i know and love.

i haven’t felt too stressed about the question of reuniting with planet informatics, however, because right after i arrived i signed up for this: http://bloomington.startupweekend.com/ which is beginning in the room around me as i type. the school of informatics (principally kevin) is playing a major organizational role, and i’m really excited about it because it’s giving me the opportunity to merge my current personal business development goals, my love of design, and the larger-than-IU b-town that i am realizing i will always, at least in some fashion, call my home.

it’s a great opportunity to practice keeping the lights on in multiple areas of my personal and professional life, and i’m excited to see where it leads.

i should listen to the welcome talk for the weekend a bit now, so that’s this post.

i’ll be back soon.

i am hereby moving my camera into my purse even though it takes up too much room, because keeping it in my backpack clearly doesn’t do enough to ensure that i have it when i want it.

i got back last night from a little trip to palm beach, FL, where my mother is living now and where she was just officially ordained as a unitarian universalist minister after many years of preparation and hard work. the ceremony was a big success, and it was nice to see and hear so many people telling my mom how cool she is, because they are right. :)

congratulations, reverend momma. i am proud of you.

[insert touching photograph here]

it was fun to see both of my parents - my dad flew down for the weekend and i realized that i hadn’t seen him in nearly two years! - and i am going to colorado and then florida again during the holidays, so there will be more time to catch up, which is good.

i also enjoyed seeing the ocean, and floating in it for a little while yesterday morning before we ate lunch and headed to the airport to send me back west. i have been to the pacific ocean a couple of times this year but i swear that the water in florida is warmer and bluer in november than the water in southern california even under the august sun, and the shells on the beach push some buttons that giant seaweed creatures still don’t quite reach, as much as i love them and as much as i learn to appreciate the beauty of rugged, rocky pacific views.

[insert super blue ocean shot here, followed by fun close-up of the broken shell section of the beach where i made little mosaics for a while]

the autumn weather in portland has made me hesitant to make too many rain jokes, lest i reinforce false stereotypes or tempt bad weather sprites to teach me to be careful what i ask for, but last night i flew in to heavy fog and drizzling rain, which continues today, so perhaps winter is starting to stake its claim on the PNW. flying into PDX at night is kind of a ripoff because you can’t see any of the mountains, which are absolutely stunning from the air. i had a window seat on both flights this time, too, and it was fun to fly over cities at night and try to guess where we were. it’s actually quite hard. i started wondering whether, as we enter the age of satellite photography on every desktop, a new dimension of urban planning will emerge to play with how we look from above.

so now i’m back, WAY behind on nanowrimo, and confronting the task of gathering and/or redistributing my portland material footprint before i head out for a while. i am both glad to be here and glad to be in motion. the west coast has set some deep hooks in me over the past eight months, and now i begin the task of determining which lines i want to sever and which i want to continue to play out, no matter which ocean i swim in next.

tonight lauren and tif celebrate their november birthdays and some time in the next day or so victor returns from his bowling and supercomputing convention, at which point he may or may not have energy for portland adventures that will most likely involve neither. and sharon and i are inventing a tofurky dance. and chakra wants me to make a pie. and there may be another boat? and i might be hijacking jonathan’s car?

hello, friday. another cup of coffee, anyone?

because perhaps an online record should begin, no? considering we both aspire to full disclosure? ;)

other folks, please feel free to toss in any change your pockets care to share.

an excerpt from prometheus rising, by robert anton wilson, which i finally finished this morning after a multi-month hiatus:

Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode, and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.
If intelligence could be increased, obviously solutions could be found more quickly to the various Doomsday scenarios threatening us.
If each scientist working on the energy-resources problem could double or triple his or her intelligence, work that would require 20 years might be done in six.
If human stupidity in general decreased, there would be less opposition to original thinking and new approaches to our old problems, less censorship and less bigotry.
If stupidity decreased, less money would be wasted on vast organized imbecilities such as the Arms Race, and more would be available for life enhancing projects.
There is nothing rationally desirable that cannot be achieved sooner if rationality itself increases. This is virtually a tautology, but we must consider the corollary:
Work to achieve Intelligence Intensification is work to achieve all our other sane and worthwhile goals.
Maurice Nicholl, physician, psychiatrist, student of Jung, Gurdjieff and Esoteric Christianity, wrote that “the only purpose in work on consciousness is to decrease the amount of violence in the world.” This is Public Health Problem Number One in the nuclear age, the age of overkill.
We are not talking about mere increase in linear IQ - third-circuit semantic cleverness. We are talking of also the kinds of right-brain intelligence that Nicholl acquired from Jungian neurogenetic research and Gurdjieff’s meta-programming techniques. We are talking of, say, Beethoven’s intelligence, which so disturbed Lenin, who could not bear to listen to the Appassionata (Sonata 23) because it made him “want to weep and pat people on the head, and we mustn’t pat them on the head, we must hit them on the head, hit them hard, and make them obey.” More of Beethoven’s intelligence is needed, desperately, to create a signal that the current Lenins cannot ignore, that will make them weep, and stop hitting heads.

that’s what i really meant to say.

miyazaki is the best there is.

this week i learned that when i got home from burning man, i wasn’t really fully here. sure, i was in my apartment and sleeping in my bed. yes, i unloaded the truck and cooked with what edible options remained. yeah, i saw my friends and did my laundry and embarked upon a gin-weaning regimen with jonathan, and indeed i even began the employment quest in earnest, with no trip looming on the horizon to distract me.

but my mind was churning and calling out for california, where several new friends and two very special old ones were going about their business, and all i really wanted to do was mindmeld with them and careen about drunk on life in the last rays of the summer sun. this became particularly clear last friday when i realized that i was going to be in san diego this week with victor and erik whether my body deigned to actually travel there or not, so i’d best just shut up and get myself all in one place and enjoy the ride.

lemme tell ya, i’m a smart one sometimes, because i had an amazing week romping up and down california, and now that i am back? game on. all systems go. i got three new employment leads today alone. i had a lovely morning in eugene hanging out in a coffeeshop and time traveling to the beat of my shuffle on the bus ride home. i spent the evening out with good friends who i am so glad to be getting to know even better. i am resolved to make sunday dinner a part of my life again. and i really do love this town.

so cheers.

and check out my pics if ya wanna.

tonight, many of my friends are at sugar hill, a contra dance weekend just outside of bloomington that i attended for four years, and organized for two. it’s one of those things that, when you’re doing it, you can’t imagine not doing it, but i am learning that the worst part about living in portland is that flights in and out are expensive, so i couldn’t make the trip this year.

i’m thinking of everyone, though, and i hope the dance tonight was awesome, the stars were out for nightswimming, and tomorrow shines clear and not too humid. i’ll be there in the future whenever i can.

the whole reason to deny rituals and acknowledgement to those on the margins is to keep them marginalized.
denying those same things from ourselves and our friends in the name of solidarity is playing into that game and accepting disempowerment.
i do not believe in keeping people i love from things that renew and inspire them.

here are a couple of shots of my recent activity c/o tif:

erik has recently enrolled himself in his own private contest with tiffanie regarding number of photos posted to flickr, and yesterday he gleefully informed me that he had again pulled ahead, having posted nearly 150 pictures of mexican kittens, firepits, and eduardo caguama manos, which are basically beer bottles that remain duct taped to your hands until you drink all of their contents. the quality of these entries did not preserve his lead for long, however, and that was probably my fault because i told tif of these developments today at the harry potter meetup and, lo and behold, only two hours later she had again edged ahead with pictures from the last couple of weeks, even though she was supposedly going to spend her afternoon packing. :)

meanwhile, in my own flickr world, i made up for not having pictures to post by actually checking my internal messages, and there was one from some online scottish guidebook saying that they might want to use the picture below in an upcoming edition.

this amuses me because that picture was taken with absolutely no consideration for quality, simply because i had just taken a picture of tania and the new friend we had made at the hostel and it seemed like fun to try and get a shot in low light. that is a good bar, though, and i guess if you’re a guidebook such shots are more interesting than things like grit bins, which i document solely because they make me giggle.

but come on, this one’s kinda funny:

ok, i’ll take some pictures of current events soon now, i promise.