friends

the emplayment agent is in

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

so, i’ve hinted at this a few times, but now i’m gonna make an announcement all official-like.

ready?

this year at burning man, i am going to be an emplayment agency.

yep, i said emplayment.
catchy, right?

the theme this year is metropolis, and in that spirit, my goal is to enrich the public service sector of our fair city by helping to connect camps who are doing awesome things with burners who are looking for awesome things to do.

my plan, as of this writing, is to construct a small wagon that can be hitched to two bicycles and thusly gallivanted around.

on this wagon, there will be a bulletin board.

on this bulletin board, i will post emplayment opportunities, as they come to my attention, either because friends tell me about them before the burn, or because i happen across awesome people during the week.

black rock city has some of those.

i will wander wherever the winds carry me, and converse with whomever i encounter.

when people wander up to me, i will show them the board, and if an emplayment opportunity appeals to them, i will write the details on a sticker and affix it to something they are already carrying.

if necessary, i will affix it to them directly.

or emplay a body painter, when available.

whether the emplayee will actually take advantage of their selected emplayment opportunity will be entirely up to them, and i will make no promises to emplayers.

i am but a portal.

i will also have a base camp, with shade, basic rations, and a coalition of fun people.

you should be one of those people.

we will all pitch in somehow and make the base camp better.

you don’t have to follow the emplayment wagon if you would rather be otherwise engaged.

but i expect that my journey will be highly entertaining…

inquire within.

then let me know what you figure out.
;)

UPDATE: thanks to those of you whom i have spoken with off-blog about the evolution of this idea. i now know for certain that i will be camped with a great group of people and all of our basic needs should be met. my father and uncle have also agreed to help me construct the actual wagon, and construction has begun with the materials that we have around. more materials will be needed, particularly to light the wagon so that it will be safe to travel at night. i also need to get the bikes and construct a hitching mechanism and a new handle to tow the wagon with. a friend of mine in utah may be helping with that end of the project, but the details are still being worked out.

here are a couple of sketches for the main design that my dad and i have been working on.

Emplayment Agency Design Sketch 1

Emplayment Agency Design Sketch 2

i’ll keep you posted as more unfolds!

transcontinental winterlude, part ii: journey to the east

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

my drive to pittsburgh unfolded pretty much as predicted in my itinerary, with the notable exception that i decided not to push myself to drive from boulder to chicago with only a powernap.

car-based powernaps suck pretty hard in the winter.

instead, i booked a cheap hotel in omaha, which split the drive into two easy 8ish hour pieces. i arrived at the hotel late after leaving boulder in a leisurely manner, woke up feeling rested, and headed out into a clear, cold nebraska morning. as i crossed into iowa, the sides of the interstate were quite literally littered with cars that had gone off the road during the dark and windblown night. i was glad that i had opted for the layover, and even more so when i was delayed getting into chicago, first by more snow, and then because i missed my exit and couldn’t turn around and had to figure out a new way to approach the city. this would have been an annoying turn of events at the tail-end of a nonstop from colorado, but as it was i remained relatively unfazed, and when i finally made it to my destination, i was rewarded by the homemade gnocchi and surly wit of dave carter, whom i had not seen in person in years.

FTW, as the cool kids say.

prior to chicago, i had stopped in san jose, ogden, and boulder, as planned, and i tell you whut, there are few warm fuzzies to rival four nights with four friends in four states, trailing behind you across your mental map like twinkling christmas lights, reminding you of how many cool people you know.

so thanks, everybody.
keep up the awesome. :)

the fifth and final light in my eastbound string was pittsburgh, and a bright and festive light it was, indeed. i made it just in time to follow reed on a gleeful crosstown slalom run through the snow-laden streets around cmu to meet a hardy group of friends who were gathered at the sharp edge to discuss the upcoming weekend and drink beer. i really like pittsburgh, and it was fun to have a couple of days to enjoy the town and see my friends. on thursday, colin helped me make two ginormous pots of stew for us to eat on sunday night, and on friday, we all headed north to set up camp and discover what frostburn had in store.

for those of you who need the cliff’s notes: there’s burning man, in the middle of the desert, for the full week before labor day, and then there are the regional burns, all around the world, all throughout the year. every year, more and more people complain about burning man being too big, too commercialized, too popular to be worth the time and expense, and the regional burns are productive outlets for addressing these complaints. don’t like big city life? take the spirit of the party back home. invite your friends. start your own traditions. put your creative juices where your whine is, and leave the gentrification of black rock to the suckers.

or at least, that’s one perspective.
;)

don’t get me wrong: i still love going to burning man, and plan to go for at least a few more years, life willing. it’s like going to vegas, or disney world, except the tourists wear glowfur instead of khakis, and there’s no money once you get there, which makes day-to-day decisions about what to do way less stressful. the sheer scale of black rock city, and the talent that it attracts, and the level of participation that it inspires in its citizens, is amazing. rejuvenating. inspirational. unlike anything else on earth. but it is, in fact, really big. and expensive. and exclusive. and lots of other things that mean that it shouldn’t be the only option on the table. so i wholeheartedly support the regional burns. and, of course, all displays of awesomeness completely unafilliated with the burning man network. i look forward to visiting many of the new temporary towns and cities that are emerging around the world during my time here, and i even hope to play my part in building some of them along the way. so it was fun to see what the pittsburgh burners had to offer.

it was a good group of people, and on saturday night, they burned a wooden snowman in effigy, which is a twist on the rite that i found somewhat clever and amusing, at first, but once there, it won me over on a deeper level.

it was very cold, and snowing lightly, and it took a while for the flame to catch, but when it did, i felt the crowd ignite with it. we stood there in the middle of one of the roughest winters in recent memory; three feet of snow had fallen in the past week alone; a recession was going on in the outside world, and two wars; our political discourse was degenerating into an ugly spiral of name-calling and publicity stunts; and there was still another long month between us and spring.

and yet, here we all were, camping in a small stand of woods on the fringes of suburbia, huddling together for warmth one moment, and stripping off layers the next, as the flame began to roar and reach high into the night. at one point, people began picking up handfuls of snow and hurling them onto the fire, as if daring it to go out, but it was far too strong. it was like a collective shout of “take that, old man winter! show us what you’re made of. we’ve got everything we need right here.”

in other words, pittsburgh gets it. and it was an honor to share in their burn.

on the way back to our camp, rachel led us to a dome i hadn’t visited yet, and we were met there by three people, sitting around a woodburning stove, discussing religion in rather serious tones. feeling somewhat dazed, and glad for the warmth after tromping through the snow for a while, we sat down. matthew was wearing a scarf made out of a chain of small stuffed elephants, and whryne kept interjecting comments, some of which were in response to the conversation that continued unabated around us, and some of which were random observations about other things that caught her attention.

i lay back on the bench that ran the circumference of the dome, and smiled blissfully in response to the whole situation.

soon, two of the serious sounding people left, and the one who remained took off his shirt and began making pizza after pizza in the woodburning stove, which suddenly had my full attention. the dome also contained several hammocks, suspended from the upper bars, and many dangling bike wheels, which sounded cool if you strummed their spokes with a spatula. in short, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and i will now do all that i can to help judy and adam make it to the playa, if that remains their goal.

i will also continue to banter with them on facebook.
:)

upon returning to camp, i finally tried my hand at flaming simon, and then a group of people pulled up with a small wagon and began constructing a statue out of precut pieces of balsa wood. i called it “the robot emperor”, because it reminded me of the emperor in my tarot deck, but it was also clearly a robot, so there you go. it was holding a book in one hand, and something i can’t remember in the other, and it was sitting on top of a pyramid, like a simultaneously ancient and futuristic deity. it was awesome to watch them erect it, which was clearly a part of the show, as it happened very quickly, like a puzzle being put together on fast forward. then, of course, they set it on fire, leaving nothing but a pile of ash for the people who wandered past later to wonder about.

and that is a pretty good summary of the events that took place between 7 and midnight on saturday, with the notable exception of the period during which matthew and i carved out a snowfa underneath the disco ball that was dangling from the porch at bat country, and proceeded to converse with everyone who entered or exited the bar. that was a good time, but honestly, the details kind of blur together, so i think that’s all you’re gonna get.

many other things happened over the course of the weekend, including probable low-dose carbon monoxide poisoning from the ridonculous jet-engine style kerosene heaters that we rented to heat our main tent, and the appointment of henry as pharaoh, due in some part to his forward-thinking planting strategies and commitment to gathering input from the people, but mostly because it was widely held that he looked killer in the shiny gold hat.

my eastward journey was therefore a complete success, and i had one night to recover in reed and sue’s lovely guest room before turning my nose back west and heading to bloomington, where i was due to be reunited with a great many things that were being stored for me, and also to visit with friends who had not make the pilgrimage to frostburn.

but for that story, you must wait for part iii…

i didn’t overcook the lamb! but i also didn’t make the sea cucumbers.

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

for the next installment in the “what have you been doing other than facebook?” series (hereafter referred to as WHYB.FB?), i will discuss the following:

i went to burning man!

Kynthia grinning in dusty goggles

for my third pilgrimage to black rock city, i agreed to run the kitchen for the golden cafe, which i also did last year, but this year i was excited because more people signed up to help cook, and i had more experience, including the experience of already acquiring equipment, which meant that part would hopefully be easier this time around.

Lucifer talking in the bar

i was basically responsible for:
– making sure that all of the basic equipment was purchased/borrowed/found and transported to the playa somehow;
– making sure that someone signed up to cook for each slot on the meal plan, or signing up myself, or letting lucifer buy MREs;
– making sure that each person who signed up to cook understood that they were responsible for either purchasing and transporting their own food, or giving me a list;
– making three supper club menus that were separate from the meal plan;
– recruiting people to help me cook on supper club nights (TWR);
– purchasing the food i needed for supper club and the food that other people asked me to get;
– transporting all the food i bought;
– making sure there was enough cooler/refrigerator space for all the food throughout the week;
– organizing the kitchen somewhat so that it could be used by many different people without driving them (or me) completely insane;
– communicating with the power and trash teams throughout the week;
– encouraging camp members and random passersby to wash dishes even though it was a disgusting job in an environment without running water or drains;
– making creative use of leftovers and unused/forgotten food so that food waste was minimized as much as possible;
– overseeing cleanup, packing, and distribution of leftovers and equipment;
– transporting my own share of the leftovers and equipment home to sit in a dusty pile until i get around to sorting through it (current progress ~ 40%);
– making notes about what to do better next year (current progress (~ 10%);
– vowing to do everything differently if i’m ever crazy enough to do such a job again.

considering that this list should probably be split between 3-4 people for maximum efficiency and enjoyment, things went quite well, though some concessions were made in the form of crazy supper club menu items that very few people even knew i was considering. i decided that going the safe route at the last minute was preferable, seeing as that way i got to do some other things, too, like climb on the giant monkey bars on our corner, or spin on the teeter-totter of death next door, or go all the way out to the giant slide. this year was a year of playground equipment, and i rather enjoyed that trend.

Rocket

purchasing and transport were way easier this year, but seeing as how last year i almost had a nervous breakdown in the week before the burn, and ended up going way over budget because i had to rent a hotel room to hold all the stuff i was buying and then rent a van to transport it, the bar to beat was not very high.

the worst thing on playa this year was that my back really hurt the whole week, and that made it harder to want to do other things when i wasn’t cooking, which kind of sucked. i did manage to get out several times, and i saw the big sights, and i made new friends, so all was well. one morning, a friend of the camp even stopped by on his way to volunteer at the heebie jeebie healers, and i got a reiki session without having to wait in line, so that was awesome. that was thursday morning, and the night before, an experienced line cook had sauntered in to help with supper club just as i was about to pull my hair out, so i didn’t have to grate any cheese, and then i had excellent company wandering around the city til dawn, so the universe provides. :)

Free2Go

and as for the kitchen, all three nights of supper club were very well received, so that was quite rewarding. i did, in fact, not overcook the lamb, and neither did i make the sea cucumbers, which was the name i came up with for cucumbers that i cored, stuffed with crab/seaweed salad, chilled, sliced, and flash fried. at one point, i also tried wrapping them in nori, but it didn’t really like to stick, so i ditched that step. i think it would work better with a layer of sticky rice, and i might try the whole thing again sometime, when not in the desert. more disappointing was the loss of the cheddar-apple ties, which were cool little apple and cheddar sandwiches that i wrapped in pie crust and grilled. i was stressing out that night, and we already had grilled cheesecake for dessert, so hassling with pie crust seemed silly.

in the end, i had a lot of fun, enjoyed some excellent food, and met many amazing and generous people, which is always the biggest joy of burning man. i was considering that i would not be in the country for burning man 2010, but now i think i will be, but i will not be running the cafe kitchen again, which will doubtless be a bit sad, but also very liberating. one of our most awesome new camp members – tigerlily – has agreed to take on the infrastructure portion of the kitchen alone, which means the meal plan and potential supper club portions will be handled separately, which is smart. i might be convinced to cook one meal, but as of now, i believe that my main focus is going to be the creation of a wandering employment agency and impromptu soup kitchen. the theme next year is ‘metropolis’ and i figure any real city needs social services. :)

Kynthia with a Popeye face

i do no real planning for burning man until after president’s day, however, as a personal concession to sanity.

so more thoughts there after the year turns over, yes?

in the meantime, i’ll keep trying to clear the brush of these WHYB.FB backstories…

little big distinctions

Friday, December 4th, 2009

and to continue our series in: “use your blog as a personal repository of memories, and let others read it and not read it as they will,” i present, a chat snapshot of me and erik, fly on the wall perspective.
Feel free to skim or click on through if you are not amused by semantic tomfoolery.

(more…)

where that last post left off

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

well.

since my last entry in this blog, i have begun using facebook, extensively, and i find that it has in some ways replaced my blogging, because it is good for me to be encouraged to be pithy, and the reward in terms of feeling more connected to so many people in so many different spheres of my life is addictive.

somehow, in the past year, facebook has managed to swallow up so much of the general population that it’s network now includes: the more computer savvy members of my extended family, in both colorado and florida, which means many cousins whom i see once every couple of years, if i’m lucky; most of my friends from highschool and college, including people whom i have not really seen or heard from since, but liked at the time, and now i really appreciate having a window onto where their lives have led; designers and techie people whom i have met and/or worked with since going to grad school, and who are now dispersed; bloomington townies i knew and loved before ever going to IU, and have been anchored by since; and various other people i met while traveling in the UK, living in portland, becoming involved with burning man, and generally circling the western 2/3 of this country for the last two years, while keeping as many tops spinning as possible in order to figure out what the hell to do next.

that’s quite a list, when it comes down to it, and it makes facebook by far the easiest way for me to keep up with the world right now. better than email, better than the phone, better than christmas letters, better than blog posts that i always Wish i could find time to write but then never do…

facebook is like just being able to think of the title of a blog post, and then not actually having to say anything else about it, unless people prompt you, which is a really nice option for my brain. :)

and i do like the freedom to write more than a 140 character twitter update, and attach pictures and links, though as with any new freedom, a learning period wherein we all must learn what it means to be judicious with our powers is part of the deal.

i still like twitter, and i should use it more, but it only includes the hci/techie circle i mentioned above, and celebrities and companies and news sources, which is nice, but not nice enough to win over facebook, when i’m pressed for time.

when i explain twitter to people, i call it a virtual water cooler, and i think that facebook status updates have really grown into the potential of that concept. it’s like a network of water coolers, with one in every building of your life, from which you draw not water, but random sequences of interesting tidbits of news and commentary, from everyone you have ever known.

and friends who don’t know each other – who live in different countries even! – can meet through your comments!

and we are forced to choose which sorts of conversations we WANT to carry on this publicly, and which to have more privately — how much do we talk about what we Really did last weekend? or what we think about our boss? or who we are going to vote for? or what we think about our neighbors?

and what does our willingness or reluctance to be transparent about these things say about us?

it is fascinating.

and i am thrilled to be able to witness it, much less shape it.

it is an example of why i continue to err more on the side of technophilia than technophobia.

so…

find me on facebook if you want, k?
:)

i logged on here because i was reading old blog posts, and realizing how long it has really been since i wrote, and how i do enjoy the record of my life and thoughts that my blog provides me, regardless of whether other people enjoy reading it, so i should do my best to avoid letting the gaps get too large.

and i don’t know about you, but when i have trains of thought like that, i find it best to follow them through, which in this case, meant just hit “write post” and see what happens.

and now it seems that i have written a post about facebook, which is fine.
it really is the best answer to “so, where’ve you been?” when it comes to the part of me that lives in the blogosphere, so it’s as good a place to start as any. :)

it’s characteristically not pithy, however, so i’ll just have to come back later with updates about, you know, the part of me that lives in the real world. ;)

i know i say ‘i’ll say this later’ a lot, but eventually, i might just surprise us all.

one potential benefit of winning nanowrimo this year is that it will make a daily writing habit easier, so i just have to structure my time, and that’s kind of my focus right now with kwerk, so ding! winner!

oh, yeah! i just won nanowrimo! :)

remember two years ago when i first tried it and failed miserably after a week or so of nervous effort, and then went on a trip to florida wherein i barely wrote at all?

don’t worry, i don’t really remember it, either.

but i really did blog more in those days, didn’t i?
huh…

anyway, i’m kind of in shock about it this time, because it was too easy, and that means that i really have no excuse to not write a novel…

but that’s another post, too.

hasta.

headlines from the month between the last two posts

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

(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.

mediacasters.tv at work

On the creek in the Baby Bjorn

(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.

You are getting sleepy...

(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.

Petal out of place
(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 ??

Welcome to Portland

(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.

Good to know

(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.

The Cascades are a different animal from the Rockies

(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.

They do know how to twist

She sees

Timing

(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.

My vote for the next costume is cuckoo clock maker

(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.

The lines feel real here, for a minute...

Enjoying my long-awaited glasses upgrade

(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.

Not much joy for the bathing crowd this week

(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.

Impressions of a nuzzle

Lots of plantlike matter that may or may not hide treats!

Sill considers photography an interactive sport

Open for the season

this must be the start of something

Friday, February 8th, 2008

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.

southern exposure

Friday, November 16th, 2007

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?

for erik, re: angles of approach, aka the bigger-than-burningman convo i wasn’t sure how to begin as we walked home across the UCSD campus with much in our arms and minds and hearts

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

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.

this time, we’ll build a better town

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

that’s what i really meant to say.

miyazaki is the best there is.