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

The whackyness will commence at any moment.

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.

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.

Zeitgeist remains my favorite area establishment. Had a good old time with Nick and Zack and Neil and MFA Mark and Joe and Julie(?), talkin' trash and getting a little second-hand buzz from the pot-smokers we were sharing our outdoor picnic table with.

Tomorrow a little work and a few meetings and then a 7-hour Greyhound haul. For now, I'm totally drained.

JetBlue gets my approval as an airline for totally embracing technology. First of all, they have a kiosk check you in and then a person does your baggage which is much faster than having a person have to key in your info and get your boarding pass. Secondly, two words: free wifi.

The second person who I love and respect in a week just complimented me on my writing but also said they don't understand some of what I blather on about. That's fair enough -- and actually I'm pretty flattered in the first place that people think all this first-draft stuff is "well written" --- but that comprehension gap is something I really want to work on.

See, I do actually know what I'm trying to say most of the time. I'm not saying I say it well, but there's an intention to communicate. I'm doing a big writing project this summer, and the goal is to make something that's quite broadly accessible, grokable by all.

So, thinking about what that might entail... one thing I'm definitely going to be doing in the future is setting up some wiki-style linkage, so that when I use obscure terminology I can link to wikipedia (as above for "grok"), and maybe to my own pages when I use something specific. Also: diagrams, pictures, charts and graphs!

It's interesting, trying to express. I'm realizing that I have my own sort of Gestalt in which I operate. It includes a lot of weird and/or disparate things that I don't think most people necessarily have rattling around in their head. All things go. All things go. But it being my Gestalt after all, I think it's worth something. It's part of what I want to capture in the old writing.

I feel like it should be possilbe to break it down into simple bits, like axioms. I used to wonder if doing this would smart myself out of a job, but now I don't worry. There will always be people who need help applying abstract knowledge to their real-world problems (this gets complex; it's often even kind of hard) and these people will always be able to hire me to help out. In the mean time, the more other people who get more capable the better for everyone.

Not that I'll be able to bring anyone enlightenment (ha!) or smarts or even useful knowledge or anything, but I can try.

Vegas here I come. Yep. Looks like I'll be teaming up with some other heads to do an all-day CivicSpace marathon on Thursday at the Yearly Kos.

Hopefully I'll have picked up a camera by then (gonna try to do that tomorrow). Should have some fun pictures if so.

Just back from John and Noreen (Lavin) Yarwood's wedding. Great wedding. Beautiful cerimony and a kickass party. There was even a conclusive Journey sing-along.

What more could you ask for? Well...

Tip to sololakidan, Keelin Nelson and Whipple Newell III.

Whipple is the groom. WASPiest names ever? Could be!

Contratz, kids!