Quick meta-notes: my prestigious google ranking for the keyphrase "authentic experience" is not long for this world, methinks. Couldn't be eclipsed by nicer folk though. ;)

I did some good work today on the Drupal for Firebug project, which my colleague Matt has been rocking. It's interesting getting into new technological territory in terms of writing extensions for Firefox. Still following reliable trailblazer John Reisig, one of the real shining lights of the internet. Big ups and terrorist fist-jabs for him.

It's got me thinking about how much I'm over this old Dirtstyle website. Coming into the Autumn, I feel the need to start living the dream a bit more, even if that means experimenting around the margins of what the dream might entail. Fortune favors the bold, and I think it might be fun to work on my own website as a project. My entrepreneurial activities of the past two years have sucked a lot of the joy out of the web for me, and that's a real shame. Doesn't have to be like that.

This might also a good way of getting back into a regular writing pattern. I've realized that this (writing) is something I'd like to keep up, and that in the longer-run, maybe I can have some of my career based around writing english rather than writing code. That or I'll hit the high grade one of these days and can start living that charmed boho life that suddenly becomes possible when you've got a pile of cash on reserve. Ah, dreams.

Just wanted to back up my previous post about the upcoming election w/a quick look at polling numbers. These are from the current national averages where internal demographic breakdowns are publicly available.

It's interesting to see the continuation of the work I did last cycle, watching the Millennial wave grow. It makes me wonder how much of a generation gap we're seeing, as it's hard not to think about how differently media-savvy kids see the back-and-forth that goes on vs. Gen X'ers and Boomers.

So I was out of the world for the Democratic National Convention, and experiencing re-entry for the Republican shindig, so it's been catch-up on the politics front. It's definitely game-on at this point, with McCain taking his first ever national polling lead (slim, but statistically significant) and the state-by-state electoral college picture shaping up to look a lot like 2004, except perhaps with Colorado and Virgina as alternate "keys to the kingdom" from Florida and Ohio.

I've got a number of thoughts on the VP choices, so I thought I'd give a run-down of those before my take on the overall scene as it shapes up for the home stretch.

Vice Presidents

It's clear that Sarah Palin's selection shook up the campaign, something the McCain campaign needed badly, and they took a risk to get. While I doubt she'll peel off any meaningful numbers of Hillary Clinton fans from Obama -- they're not stupid -- she serves a much more important purpose for Republicans: as a devout Pentacostal Christian with strong socially conservative bonafides, she brings home many of the evangelical voters who put Bush over the top in 2004.

Palin also shook up the scene by virtue of her novelty, both in that she's relatively unknown, and in that she's a telegenic woman. It's a story, and conservatives are excited again. Paradoxically, while she brings home a devout demographic, she also gives more secular red-meat Limbaugh-lovers something to get excited about. VILF is the term, which sounds silly, but the anecdotal evidence is strong.

Another glorious time-compressed post from under the Embarcaderro.

It now looks like I'll be in SF through early next week. Got some important meetings to handle. I'm more or less dust-free now (though the back of my pickup is a hazard zone) and I'm enjoying being out and about on my Mission Bike here in the watered-down SanFranSwelter of summer part two. We slung out 41 bikes in August, and got ourselves on Current TV. Pretty neat!

It's back to the grinder though out here, and looks to be that way for some time. We're sort of at a critical make-or-break point with the biz: can we get our process solid enough and score enough high-quality Drupal work to last through the winter, or will we be the proverbial Grasshoppers of the internets, starving and shivering our way through the cold and dark.

Time will tell. Hard work until then. Here's comes the train again.

Just a quick note to all and sundry: made it back alive. Have 261 emails to ready, etc, and I'm down in SF for the week.

Overall I'm feeling quite good. Should take vacation more often.

Sometime this afternoon I'll be getting on the road, sliding off the radar for a week, hoping as do all vacationers that some distance from my daily grind will prove restorative. We're getting out by the skin of our teeth, a real hobo ramble into the desert. It's the least planned it's ever been, but maybe that's a good thing. We're relying on our cagey veteran status -- senior year and all. Personally, it would be great if I proved to myself that I'm up for that kind of risky business.

I'll be back next tuesday, spending some time in the Bay Area. See you all then!

The Redman Wants Out!

Sunlight breaks through the fog, the clouds lift, and the earth practically reeks of fertility. I roll down my pickup window on the safety corridor, letting the air waft up off the newly re-greened median divider and ease my troubled mind.

Things have been better lately; getting a little more balance in life, and starting to trust in The Others to do their thing at the office. That's an important thing for improving the overall outlook. Letting some of the weight fall. On the downside, the little muscle spasm that's been intermittently but persistently troubling my right eye has expanded its territory down to my right tricep, a much more noticeable flutter when it crops up. Seems like a bad sign.

Sometimes I wonder if this context really argues for taking my first real Time Off and going to a balls-out bacchanal in the Black Rock Desert. But wow, I'm sick of doubt. No more second-guessing, just forward progress.

As someone close said to me a few nights ago, it's hard being talented and gifted. I laugh that kind of thing off -- forbearance against deadly Hubris, doncha know? -- but it's undeniably true that those of us with pronounced personal expectations and ostensible potential have a tougher time finding our grove. There's always more, and it's never enough.

Not much to say of late it seems. I've been head-down trying to clear the decks so I can take off next week for a little Black Rock vacation.

Things to report briefly:

• I got a haircut. Less tangles, more angles. The barber is a local fixture in Eureka: a half-Yurok half-Irish man named Rockey who's been cutting hair in the same downtown spot for more than 35 years. He's up in everybody's business.
• Visit from The Big Irish on her long-awaited tour of California cheeses. People always think we're related or dating (hopefully not both), though neither have ever been true. She is my best female friend, and something of a confidant though, so it was well-timed for her to arrive what with all my Sturm und Drang of late.
• Also had a good talk with the moms about life in general. I'm feeling lighter about things this week as compared to last, but generally increasingly aware that I need to shake things up to get my life to be where I want it -- the lack of creative outlets and physical exercise is causing some serious moldering of the soul.
• Politics is a drag again. "Obama leads 20 points with 18-34s, McCain leads by 1 with everyone else." WTF? Hopefully the buzz will return post-convention.
• This music my blow your mind.

Things seem to be coming together slowly but surely. Life is a two-steps-forward/one-step-back affair most of the time. That's frustrating for a guy like me, especially when I make the mistake(?) of extending my sense of responsibility to include a lot of things outside my control.

I finally found a link (and a few more) supporting rumors I'd been hearing of a Red Dawn Remake.

Most people seem chagrined. I, for one, am most interested to see what folks come up with. It feels likely to happen to, as it's all about ze money, Lebowski:

MGM toppers Harry Sloan and Mary Parent announced the remake -- along with a big-budget rebuild of "RoboCop," which director Darren Aronofsky among others has recently been in to discuss -- in May at the Festival de Cannes. As the studio regroups, its executives have realized that the strong MGM library has numerous classic and cult properties it can exploit for a new audience.

That's smart, yo. It's all about catalog now.

So it may be shit, but it might not. I'll be interested to find out.

It's been a hell of a week. I made a promise to myself to take a true "day of rest" this Sunday.

Did a middling job catching up on correspondence, but am feeling better about the universe overall.

I really need some vacation; may try to take a three day weekend for Rest purposes before Burning Man at the end of the month.