Season Three has begun. I'm showing this to Mark and Kelly from the beginning, so I'm not watching the new stuff yet, but I'm psyched. Check the torrentfeed, yo.

Season Three has begun. I'm showing this to Mark and Kelly from the beginning, so I'm not watching the new stuff yet, but I'm psyched. Check the torrentfeed, yo.

The redesign has got to happen.

This blog gonna be changing. I'm going to be doing some content creation this summer. Some of it will be here; some of it elsewhere, perhaps on sites yet unmade.

It's been in my rhetorical space for quite some time that I'm trying to try a shift of gears, and now that I'm back and I've cleaned my room and gotten my head into a Jefferson state of mind, it's time to start putting the theory into practice.

"Brace yourself, because this goes deep."
On this site, I'm definitely going to be digging into the personal again. This means all the good interesting stuff of public bohemia; sex and drugs and love and consciousness and people and all the human stories that are part of an honest account of life. I'm going to go beyond restoring the juicy old content on this site: it's going to get a thorough overhaul.

A word on method: I want to be circumspect about the other people who are involved, so you'll be seeing a lot of pseudonyms in addition to a general lack of particular detail about anyone other than myself. I think this is the only way to be respectful, plus it can be a fun literary exercise. Hell, I might take a downright poetic approach at times. Tease tease tease.

Produced Using Only Our Bare Wit
In addition to this sort of shift in focus, I'm also going to be getting into some multimedia stuff. My video-capable camera should arrive tomorrow, and I also plan to do some audio, as well as maybe some charts, graphs and presentation-ish stuff. Mark is down to be involved in some of the content creation. It should be damn fun. You should see the man: the Seventies are alive in his hair. "Pretty like Frampton" only begins to describe the situation.

So there are going to be lots of projects this summer. I am scaling back on regular worky work, but I'm actually looking to increase my productivity. Part of this is about trying out new working styles, collaborations, about getting a strong rhythm on. Yes yes. Stepping up in a holistic way.

Ok for now. Look for new things in the coming weeks.

Ok. Headed down. Should be getting a camera tomorrow and a bike on friday.

The whackyness will commence at any moment.

It's not really much of a debate because there's only really one side to this thing. Everyone except the big telcos (who want to maintain their monopolistic model) wants the internet to remain a level playing field.

But check this to see the lack of a rational argument from the Telco side in full flower.

We're staying up at Tommy and Dan's pad out at the end of Hawthorne, will saddle up to roll back south tomorrow. Portland is a pretty rad city. The east side in particular is rampantly overrun with young people, young families, young businesses, lots of bands and culture. Makes me think maybe I should take a shot at living here too.

Went to Powells and got me some John Dewey to read for the summer. That'll go on the pile along with Linked, Emergence (re-reads) and The Wealth Of Networks to contribute to the book idea.

I may be back up here around OSCON at the end of July.

As my belt buckle says, "Oregon is what America was." I don't really know if that's true, but I like the ring of it. We rolled up yesterday afternoon/evening after a somewhat late start, made the regular stops: all-star liquor on the CA/OR border (best bourbon selection around), the crazy Norwiegen for dinner in Port Orford. I made the faux-pas of pumping my own gas in Reedsport, but I was such a little hustler about it the attendant didn't butt in until the end. It's against the law to pump yr own petrol here. Keeps many a young man employed.

Finally made the Euge around 11, and met up with Mary, Shannon and Chelsea at the High Street brewery, a little monkey reunion of sorts. Chelsea's been in New Zeland for about two years, but wants a US college degree. She's currently working on bringing over Jess (who she would have married if it helped, but we don't let people do that here in Dick Cheney's America) and their dog, Banjo. It costs like $1,600 to bring a dog across the Pacific, so maybe there will be a Portland benefit concert.

And now I'm at the Momster's, enjoying the neighbors wifi and her excellent interior decoration skills. Tonight a BBQ at Mark's mom's place out Coburg Road for Little Ben's graduation, and tomorrow it's up I-5 to PDX for a day or two, then back down.

I'm enjoying seeing everyone of course -- priceless to connect with old friends and see that natural easy feelng is still there -- but I'm also antsy to get into my summer rhythm. This isn't supposed to be a vacation, and until I get that bike and a regular desk space worked out it's going to be tough.

I've been pondering the difference between stuck in a rut, a phrase I've used more than once (usually with the adjective "comfortable" thrown in) to describe my recent life in NY, vs getting into a groove, which I've used to describe what I'm looking to do this summer. Are my metaphors hopelessly muddled or is there something to be revealed here? Discuss.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow says, "it's a number." It's also a fuckload of lives. More than I can really comprehend.

Just scroll through the names.

All for a dead-end mission.

The cabana makes the house a more public place; like, people roll by or we meet down at the beach, kick the soccer ball around with someone's 9-year-old, then come back for a few beers and maybe some bb-gun action. It's going to be fun having a camera around and maybe taking a little audio... I need to work on my setup here, but I've got high hopes, a Surly Crosscheck on order, and two sugarcubes of Czech sunshine in the freezer. Good times are afoot.

For now, Mark and I are headed up to the Euge, him for to see his little bro walk at the U of O, and me for to hang with the moms and grandmoms.

The wireless network is active, and Mark built a sweet-ass cabana bar here, complete with a deck. I'm gonna be grabbin a camera soon and makin' all y'all jealous.

Bus ride was a slice of life as always; Bay to Arcata is a great stretch of road for weirdos. The best moment was the stop at a little deli/bus stop in Rio del Mar, a true slice of future America. The Arab (or maybe Persian) family that owns the place knows the bus driver (who's black) and mix up nice with the Native fisherman and the east-bay redneck hiphop whiteboys (that strange countryfied accent they have in Richmond). Everyone's happy at the Rio del Mar smoke break.

And it's all smooth and good up at the house; Mark's nursing that broken collarbone with a sling, but he's got some nice bourbon and plenty o' Pabst and we do a little catching up and I get a drag off surfer Paul's spliff, sit in the hot tup and Ohm for fifteen minutes. It's nice. You don't have to suck in your gut round here. I got high hopes.