Back from Portland, Angry at work hours

Hey, the funtimes in Portland shambled drunkenly to a close, and now I'm back in dear old Reston working a hell of a lot.

Portland was awesome. I'm not sure why I came back.

I was in a lovely relaxed mood when I left Portland on the redeye. By the time I'd landed, driven 4 hours to Reston, had an equivalent of 12 cups of coffee, and stayed up till wicked late AM coding more goddamn SAS, I'd managed to leave both the jet lag and the sensation of calm all behind me.

Now I breathe in a continuous high-pitched whistle and my heart's BPM approaches rave music. When I get a chance, I'll upload some cool pics and videos I took while I was in Oregon and perhaps recall the sense of calm I enjoyed while snapping them. Until then, you should try to find that video of a concerned snowman asking candidates Democratic about the goddamn environment. P.S. large parts of England and the US are flooded, so thanks for being so on the ball about Kyoto George!

later y'all. Big shout out to Matt, who I chatted with yesterday about how much grad school drags at the end. Can I get a hell yeah from other grad school survivors?

Get a 1st life!

This week I'm out in Portland, OR, a place I'm seriously considering a move to now that I've seen it. Today I'm wearing my "Get a first life" T-shirt.

It's a parody of Linden Labs' whole SecondLife business/movement, and I got one because I'm both a geek and a skeptic. I also think they're funny.

Anyway, because the wedding I'm attending is today, I got a haircut this morning. I ended up explaining what the shirt meant because none of the people working at Aveda had heard of SecondLife. I also got a compliment from one of the other friends of the bride and groom on the shirt, but ended up explaining all about second life and WoW to other people sitting about.

Finally, as I'm sitting in Peet's coffee doing a totally crap job of catching up on work, a guy approached me and told me he liked the shirt. Turns out he works for Linden Labs and is on vacation out here.

It's a funny little world full of web memes these days.

I've also managed to identify and swap winks with a few folks wearing Threadless t-shirts. Turns out the t-shirt is the preferred medium of communication in the world of the web geeks.

I'm free?

I just started my week of vacation and I'm already back to work. I actually need to submit requirements for a project I'm part of before I decouple myself from the exciting world of working all the damn time.

I'm feeling both elated that I'm getting some time to myself (as well as time to see K--- - who I quite like to see), and chagrined that I'm leaving work in the middle of a big push. I feel like I'm letting my end down, which I sort of hate.

On the plus side, I'm going to spend some of the time away working on defining a long term community plan for my company's website. I'm very excited about this because I like to think I'm actually pretty smart about community - at least figuring out what people will want and use. Now I have to get smart about what elements of community we can use to pay my salary.

Speaking of interesting community stuff, D-- (to whom, shouts out while he's laid up in bed ) sent me this story from USA Today about more crowdsourcing from NASA. NASA was involved in the Mars Clickworker project as well, so they've clearly got some smart folks thinking about this crowdsourcing stuff. I just love the idea of getting people to participate in the principle of "many hands make light work" when they have no social capital to gain from it.

I've got to think how to use this impulse for the benefit of the site. Google's doing the same sort of thing with the label game they host to help with image cataloging.

So, thanks D--. Feel better! Now I've got to get to work so I can finish packing and get up early to drive to NYC

God Bless America!

As you already know, I'm British by birth. I spent a few years in the English school system, so I've been made aware of an alternative history to that doled out in American K-12 classrooms. I don't know that it's any closer to the truth, but it provides a counterpoint to the notion that maybe the US of A was set, jewel-like into the golden filigree of the Western Hemisphere by the sweat of brave explorers, doughty freedom fighters, Jesus, Washington, Lincoln, and Santa Clause.

I heard something more like, a bunch of godawful puritans got tossed out of England for being such a fucking bore all the time, landed on Plymouth rock, died, tried again later, finally got it right, swapped the natives smallpox for land, set up a nation that despite being free for all men, kept slavery around for a hundred years or so longer than any other country, and then defended it against the English using wits, cunning, and bravery, or at least such as could be purchased from mercenaries or tricked out of the Indians, who outnumbered Americans something like 4-to-1 in the US army of the time.

Here I am thinking fondly of the founding fathers, and hoping one will come along and unchain me from my desk.

Either way, I think the constitution is pretty damn cool and I like fireworks.

What I really love about the 4th of July though, is that it represents the first day off I'm getting in a long stinking time. God bless paid holiday!

I fell off my bike for America!

It vexes me!

Because I'm a dolt.

Have you ever known for a full couple of seconds that you're about to eat it, and hard, but there's nothing you can really do about it?

I have. I was just cycling home, thinking giddy thoughts about the upcoming 4th of July when I peeled a leg off the bike so I could stand on one pedal and glide to a graceful halt, stepping spryly down to the sidewalk as I reached walking speed.

That would have been wicked acceptable.

Instead, I started gliding on one pedal, looked down, realized I had a scant moment before catching a curb with the selfsame pedal I was balanced on, sighed, and took off over the handlebars like an utter asshat.

Yeah, I'm pretty awesome. My mother told me so.

Speaking of dear old Mom - in case you're reading this, I was wearing two helmets and a kevlar vest when this happened, as I make a conscientious point of doing every time I ride anywhere.