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Minnesota 2008

Sorry it’s been so quiet around here for a while. One of the busiest stretches in memory. This summer:

– Three Knight Digital Media Center workshops
– Rains-it-pours freelance workload
– Old friend Rinchen back from three years in monastery; hosted big party
– Old friends Will and Sage back from three years in Australia; hosted big party
– 25th high school reunion (coming up)
– Work crazy as always
– Week in Minnesota with Amy’s family (just returned)

Minnehaha Minnesota: Rolling hills and lush wetlands. Summer thunderstorms. Nieces and nephews and grownups. Golf and tennis on the teevee. Floating down Minnehaha Creek on our backs. Geocaching in warm rain. Mosquitos, mosquitos. Orange Julius Jamboree. Steaks and burgers. Solo bicycle trek in the afternoon heat, through the woods and around the lakes, stashing bike in woods while hunting geocaches (hint: mark location of hidden bike on GPS to find it again later easily). Set mother in law up with new 20″ iMac. Ultimate Frisbee in the cul de sac with extended family, finally understand concept of blocking+interception, which I can apply next time I try to watch football or basketball. Blown away watching nine-yr-old niece navigate her social network like lightning. Puzzled by mall culture; impulse to “shop” without going to buy something in particular. Minnesota Museum of Science to see Star Wars exhibit. Read Zora Neal Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” – amazing, moving. Fireflies. Reeds and rushes. Fish tacos. Humidity sweat, well water, sprinklers sputtering in the dusk. Idly strumming ukulele on the porch. Total recharge, much needed.

Flickr set.

Music: The Fall :: Reformation
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Star Wars Museum

Sand person Spent a day of our recent vacation at the Minnesota Museum of Science’s Star Wars exhibit – the largest collection of actual Star Wars props and models ever assembled. Miles was jumping out of his skin with excitement, seeing actual/life-sized land speeders and battle droids, scaled down ship models used by ILM in various episodes, trying to pierce the veil of the Jawas. The exhibit took every opportunity to use the props as learning opps – we got to assemble our own maglev trains, program R2 units to negotiate an obstacle course, build support systems for robots capable of standing both on flat and sloped ground, and C3PO hosted a 15-minute live-action educational robot show… a nice combination of education and learning. Finished up the day by jumping to hyperspace in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, very convincing. If the lines between fact and fiction weren’t blurry enough before last week, they are now!

Flickr set

Music: Silvana Deluigi :: Te amo
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Soapy Sponge

Amy and Miles are on vacation (I’m joining them in a few days), and I’ve been getting regular emails from Miles (he dictates them to Amy). His imagination blows my mind. Here’s a sample:

You know what? Last night when me and Jon were playing soccer, and we were playing a different kind of soccer. When someone, I mean, just someone puts on a disguise, so the person, I mean the other person, thinks you’re like a tree or something, so they try to kick the ball, but then the person jumps out of their disguise, and then, the person kicks the ball. I love you 100 times. HA! YEA! I hope you turn into a duck, so you can swim to Minnesota, and then turn back into a person, so you can be my dad again. Anyway, I hope you think of cuckoo songs and play funny games like smooshing a ball into your ear and then pulling it out the other side. And I hope you climb to the top of the state temple and eat the moon up, so me and my master Patrick can punch a hole in a boat, so the captain will sink, and they will blast out the other side of the state temple. That’s all.

I love you, and I hug you, and I smoosh you, and I beat you up in a really perfect way that might look like I’m cleaning you up with a soapy sponge. I love you. Goodbye, see you next time.

Music: Fujiya & Miyagi :: 04 Conductor 71
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ServInt Goes Climate-Positive

Worldopener-Small Several years ago, when Birdhouse Hosting was young, I was researching the market to find a reliable datacenter that was entirely powered by renewable energy sources. I did find a few, but none working at the scale I was looking for (some didn’t have 24×7 monitoring and support; others did, but didn’t provide cPanel licenses). I ended up going with ServInt, and have been extremely happy with their reliability and support.

Today got some exciting news: ServInt has just announced that their whole VPS operation has gone not just carbon-neutral, but climate positive:

ServInt’s commitment to climate-positive hosting applies to its entire line of Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting services. Each of ServInt’s VPS services is backed by a commitment to offset the total carbon-footprint of the VPS by at least 110 percent. ServInt accomplishes its carbon-offsetting goals through large-scale reforestation campaigns operated by American Forests (www.americanforests.org).

To ensure a truly climate-positive approach, ServInt calculates its reforestation commitment not only on the energy consumption of the host servers, but on its entire VPS infrastructure. That includes compensating for all core routing and switching equipment, for cooling and redundant power operations, and for an extensive back-LAN that provides customers with free backups and centralized update repositories.

Music: Elbow :: One Day Like This
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Contradictions

A gay friend writes:

In November, when we vote for the president, there will be a ballot initiative in California in which we will be able to vote on whether or not to amend the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. I think it’s ironic that on the same ballot I will be able to vote for the first black president of the United States, which represents an expansion of civil rights, as well as a ban on same-sex marriage, which represents a contraction of civil rights. Nonetheless, it is heartening to know that for at least 20 weeks I will be an equal resident in California.

I don’t quite agree that having a black presidential candidate represents “an expansion of civil rights” (that right has been present for decades, though the social fabric to make it a practical reality has not been), but I see what he’s saying, and it does underline the “two steps forward, one step back” pattern of social progress.

By the way, if anyone reading this can posit a rational (i.e. non-religious) argument against gay marriage, please post it here — I’d love to hear it.

Music: The Damned :: Neat Neat Neat
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Old Growth

Redwoods    Bone

After a waffle breakfast with friends, spent Father’s Day with Miles and Amy at Redwood Regional Park, hiking down to the valley floor to get up close and personal with giant old growth redwoods. Not quite Muir Woods scale, but utterly spectacular. Found a small handful of geocaches along the way, including one locked deep inside a cow femur, which just added to the “dinosaurs have walked this path” atmosphere of the day. At one point near the valley floor, just a few dreamy rays of light were left penetrating to the forest floor. Miles started to get scared, convinced there were ghosts in the trees. Ascending 1,000 feet or so out of there was a much-needed workout, rewarded with eventually walking up and out of the canopy into broad daylight.

Later quenched our appetites at a local sushi bar — a landmark moment for us to be able to go to a restaurant without a kids menu. Stuffed myself on crab and avocado, then chili-infused dark chocolate (didn’t get the chocolate-covered ants I had wanted, but lightly salted Aztec Chili chocolate tiles are complex and dreamy). A glorious day. I love my family.

Music: Cat Power :: Metal Heart
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Booglarized

Drunktank   Intercom   Amycameras

Three weeks ago, Amy came home to find a rear window of our house smashed, our house ransacked. Missing were my GPSr, a couple of digital cameras, a video camera, and two of Amy’s film cameras, including an old two-lens Mamiya and the Nikon FE2 she did her master’s thesis work on. Left behind, strangely, were a couple of Nerdz wrappers and an English class assignment to read two Shakespeare books this summer. We were sure the heist was done by some local high school kids. El Cerrito police dusted for fingerprints, took a report, and that was that. We never expected to get anything back, and started the insurance process.

A few days later, I realized my checkbook had also been stolen. Immediately checked my online banking and found that, sure enough, a check had been cashed, my signature forged. Since Wells Fargo showed a clear scan of the thief’s name and writing, I forwarded it to the police and called the bank to find out where and when it was cashed. The cop was then able to obtain surveillance footage of the actual “guy” from the ATM where it happened. Wow – a break! But then, two weeks of nothing.

Yesterday, got a call from the PD informing us that they had obtained a warrant, searched the perp’s house, and retrieved Amy’s two film cameras. Interesting that analog gear was the only stuff “he” couldn’t fence. And there was an extra twist – the perp was apparently a very large black transsexual in the midst of hormone treatments, now in custody. Life is so weird.

This morning we traipsed down to the department so Amy could I.D. the two cameras and Miles could get his first jail cell tour (pix of him behind bars unfortunately didn’t work out). But I did get a good shot of the inside of a drunk tank (complete with floors you can hose down in the morning). And of Amy walking out of the department, jubilant with her much-loved film cameras.

Just amazed we got anything back at all. Huge props to the El Cerrito PD for following up so thoroughly, and for caring!

Music: Ry Cooder :: Goose And Lucky
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Sailing, Thundermouth

Sailing   Thundermouth

Amazing day with family yesterday. Up early to join a friend of the family for a two-hour tour of San Francisco Bay on his sailboat. Miles first time sailing, and I hadn’t been on a sailboat in years. Perfect blue sky, 15-knot winds, and a chance to re-learn the difference between a jib and a jibe, a tack and a hank. What a way to start a weekend. Thanks Louis B.! Flickr set, includes a little video of Amy at the helm.

After a quick BBQ lunch, off to the Oakland Museum of Children’s Art for matinee performance of Thundermouth, part of the 6th Annual Matthew Sperry Memorial Festival. Thundermouth was an idea Matthew had had when he was alive – to roll out a giant sheet of butcher paper and let members of the audience write improvised poems. The band, also improvising, would then have one or more singers singing the lyrics as fast as they could be written – sort of improv karaoke. Great to see this idea of Matthew’s finally made real, and a perfect concept for a kids’ matinee. Flickr set here. We still miss you Matthew!

Later, perfected my orange julius recipe.

Music: Spike Jones :: Knock Knock (Who’s There?)
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Digital Media Lecture Series, June

Gearing up for another big week of webcasting, as we prepare to guide another group of visiting journalists through a week-long new media technology bootcamp. As always, we’ll have a bunch of great speakers during lunches and dinners, and those presentations are open to the public. Can’t make it to Berkeley? Check out the live webcasts. Especially Looking forward this week to Chad Dickerson of the Yahoo! Developer Network, and Richard Koci Hernandez, deputy director of photography for the San Jose Mercury News.

Music: Marva Whitney :: Unwind Yourself