Yearly Archives: 2007

Spreading the Love

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I’ve got a few things I want to talk about today. First and foremost, I’d like to point out my friend Beth’s blog, Wandering in the Midwest, which has been an excellent and rewarding read so far. She’s in the process of doing a semester doing art of and about the wildlife and surroundings around where she grew up in Minnesota. She a damned talented artist, so it’s a real treat to get access to a workblog like this. (Fair warning: it’s not as bad as some, but it IS an image-heavy blog, so 56k-ers beware!)

Switching to an entirely different topic, I finally managed to see A Scanner Darkly this evening (I missed it by one day in the theaters… there was much gnashing of teeth, I assure you). Let me just say that while I wouldn’t use it for every movie, I am damn impressed with the rotoscoping techniques they used to animate the movie. Visually, it was a real treat, and narratively, it was an enjoyable rendering of a somewhat bittersweet Philip K. Dick novel (who, while more than a little crazy, was a brilliant writer), even choosing to show the dedication Dick had at the end of the book. The story deals with drugs but isn’t about drugs… the drug itself is imaginary (so far), and serves more as a catalyst for the real story: the progressive deterioration of the mind of the protagonist. Well worth watching, and I highly recommend watching it at your earliest convenience. (For those who are wondering what the hell I’m talking about, the trailer can be found here.)

I’m in the process of gathering budget and information for my move back to Seattle at the end of the month. I won’t be leaving the area until probably the 30th, but given how I drive, that should put me back on the west coast no later than the 4th or 5th. So, sometime between now and then, I need to finish a number of things, pack, and other prepwork. If we’ve been meaning to hang out but have been slackers about making it happen, ping me ASAP and I’ll make time, damnit.

My wireless perch is closing up for the night, so I’m going to have to wrap things up, but I would like to say that I’m really excited about the Apple Tech Talk next week, and both excited and nervous as hell about the move back to Seattle.

On Links and MUDs

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Ancient “Warrior” Found in Permafrost, found via Warren Ellis. That man is a treasure trove of neat esoterica (which as I’ve discussed before, I’m rather fond of myself). Also found via his site, I’ve added myself to MyBlogLog, which is a method to track users and links and in general help form the idea of a community a bit. I’d love to find a non-feedburner solution to tracking unique rss users as well…

Sorry for the hiatus from posting. I’ve kept to my goal of writing something every day, it just happened to not include posting on here… I’ve been working on a few projects for AvatarMUD the past few nights, involving some tweaks we’ve discussed doing, as well as a new area (and thinking about what I’d like to do to an old one). None of them are done, but I’m taking a breather for a bit, especially since those “tweaks” involve a lot of number crunching, and I’ve been going a bit cross-eyed with it. Avatar and I have somthing of an odd sort of interaction. I’ve been a player there for nearly a decade now, and an administrator for nearly as long. It’s seen me through several relationships, a marriage, a divorce, and several substantial moves. I’ve graduated both high school and college while there, and it’s even been integrated into some of my work (like my Online Communities paper). I’ve made friends through it, I have friends who even got married after meeting through it. It’s an important part of my life.

Don’t get me wrong, though, it does have its problems. I’m not going to get into details at the moment (though I’ve been thinking long and hard on doing a postmortem-like writeup at some point), but there’s definitely room for continued improvement, and some of those frustrations have encouraged some time distancing myself from the MUD. I never fully left, but it would be hard to argue that I didn’t take at least something of a sabbatical. I’m in something of an upswing in activity on the MUD right now, mentoring one of the new imms, writing, and working on a few projects. One of the biggest things I’m doing though (and reasons I’m back in this surge) is that I’ve taken on something of a Don Quixote role. My particular windmills fall into staff-to-staff and staff-to-player transparency, in terms of taking the time to actually communicate first with the general staff, and then also being more open with our players. I’ve also been pushing for more attention being given to casual players, as there has been a slow but steady trend towards “hardcore” (on all the time, min/maxing your stats and equipment, etc) players. I strongly feel that a healthy game is served best by maintaining a balance of both.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn by saying I’m pushing for these things. There’s been a lot of quiet support among staff and players, and I’m definitely not the only one speaking up and pushing for these things. It’s been energizing, nonetheless.

Links for the Moment

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A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods, discovered via Chris Pelsor’s snogblog. For those of you who dig on this sort of stuff, it’s totally a good find, lots of good information.

How To Be Friends With Your Ex is a good read, kind of relevant to me personally. There’s a lot to the whole notion of staying friends with an ex. My own personal philosophy stems from the idea that just because a relationship is ending, it doesn’t mean you suddenly stop loving someone. I still love all my exes, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. My opinion is that it’s a heck of a lot easier to process the loss of the relationship if you’re not trying to also suddenly “un-love” someone. Acknowledge that you still love them, and that they still love you, but that the relationship wasn’t working out. Something to consider is that you started dating this person because you felt they were good people. I won’t say that there aren’t some wolves masquerading as sheep so to speak, but generally, if you trust your judge of character elsewhere, you should trust it in this as well. If you trust your judge of character and believe that they’re good people, then why should that abruptly change because they’ve decided the relationship wasn’t working out? If you can accept that they’re still good people, but simply couldn’t remain in the relationship (for any number of reasons), then it becomes a LOT easier to become friends again a hell of a lot sooner. It’s a lot better in the long run, in my opinion, to change the nature of your love (from more eros to an agape-centric love), than to try and kill all feelings for someone and then maybe become friends at some distant future point.

There’s a lot more to all that than I’m really writing down, but for now that will have to do. It’s already a kind of cluttered explanation, but until I sit down and let it percolate for a while, I don’t think I’m going to do better.

What a Day

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I know I said I was aiming for a lengthier post, but it ended up not happening. Today kind of sucked to be honest. My friend Eli finally updated his blog, but for a really unfortunate reason. I had a big fight with someone I love very much, which resulted in me realizing just how broken I am and choosing to walk away for both our good. I found out that my friend and former classmate Justin Kautz was killed in an avalanche on Friday out in Jackson Hole. It’s sort of a fitting way to go, given his love of the mountains and skiing, but still really really unfortunate. He was a hell of a person, one of the few genuinely nice guys. Last time I’d touched base with him, he was working on a book (a collection of short stories) out in Jackson Hole. Ironically, I was just thinking about getting ahold of him to see how it was coming a week or so ago. It may be something of a pipe dream, but I hope things were done enough to be published posthumously… I think he would have wanted that. He’ll definitely be missed. Requiescat in pace.

Home Again

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I’m a bit wiped at the moment, but I did want to officially report my return to the Upper Valley. The drive from DC to Vermont went surprisingly quickly, listening to my collection of King Crimson with the sunroof open in the 70 degree air. I haven’t taken an exact total, but I drove roughly 4000 miles in just under a week… not too shabby, if I say so myself. It felt really good to have some time with the road. I’ve mentioned before that it’s a meditation for me, but it’s also a catharsis. If I don’t get on the road every so often, I get stircrazy and depressed. (Not saying I’m not depressed anymore, but it did help. Any time where you’re alone with your thoughts for an extended period is something of a double edged sword, but on the whole I think it did more help than harm.)

I’d like to sit down and write something a bit more substantial about the trip sometime soon… maybe for tomorrow’s post, once I’ve had a chance to slow down and rest for a bit.

Still Alive, Aromas

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Sorry for the lack of post yesterday… I spent the day driving. And then the night, driving, and then the morning driving… oh, and then the rest of the day driving. I started out in Tallahassee, headed west on I-10 into New Orleans (sorry I didn’t visit people), then north on I-55 up through Arkansas into Missouri, where I grabbed I-57 into Illinois, got onto I-64 eastbound, caught two hours sleep in a rest area, and spent the rest of the day driving I-64. I’m now at Aromas in Williamsburg, VA, but they’re closing up… starting to drive north momentarily. I should be back in New England sometime tomorrow night.

More of a post when I’m not moving anymore!

Tallahassee

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I spent today driving across the Florida peninsula from Daytona to Tampa… it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but I opted to take surface roads rather than the far more convenient interstate. It was in the 80s for the entire drive, and I made the most of it, windows down and blaring Animal Collective on the stereo as I drove down the road. Fun times!

I got out to the coast near Tampa in time for sunset (but not in time to stop and grab the camera (the Gandy Bridge is kinda long, and there was traffic). Really excellent, with plenty of rich golds illuminating the clouds. I continued to wander for a bit, then started meandering north on I-75, then grabbed I-10. I finally decided to stop in Tallahassee, and have holed up for the night. I need to decide whether to start heading north, or continue my westward trend… I couldn’t really afford this trip in the first place, so I should probably take this as a cue to start homeward. I’d really like to continue, but as far as the goal of the trip (a recharge and sanity check) is concerned, it’s been adequately accomplished, so it’s hard to justify staying out just because I want to.

I’ve been meaning to have a longer post… I think it may have to wait til I’m in one spot for more than an evening. Hope everyone is having a good 2007 so far!

Daytona Beach

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Let me just say, goddamn does it feel good to be back on the road. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly describe my love affair with wandering and travel, but trust me, it’s real and stands the test of time. I took off on Sunday morning, and made my way south. I ended up spending New Years Eve in DC, which was an excellent time to say the least. The next day, I took off again, and wandered down into South Carolina… I could have kept going, but I wanted to stop in time to actually fiddle with Be My Patron and get that at least tentatively up (which it is).

Today, I’m in Daytona Beach, counting my blessings that hotels that are off-season and down south are so much less expensive. (I’m prepared to sleep in my car, but am just as glad that I haven’t had to, a sentiment I’m sure many could get behind.) I’ve stopped early tonight, in the hopes of catching up on some of the sleep I haven’t been getting the past few nights, and maybe work some more on my to-do list.

This whole trip has made it clear just how much I needed to get back on the road. I feel better about things when I’m out wandering. I don’t know when I’ll be heading home, I don’t know where I’m going next, and I like it like that. I’m scrambling to find things I can do to justify the trip, and moreso to justify making it longer. I’ve been keeping to this coast, mostly because I know the most people over here, and I can be home in maybe a day and a half if something came up. That said, if I can arrange for an interview, or some project that would be best done over there, then I’m all for heading westward. We’ll see what comes.

Announcing BeMyPatron.org

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BeMyPatron.org went live as of a few minutes ago. The site still needs to be fleshed out a fair bit, but I did want to keep to my schedule of launching it “today”. Things still on the to-do for it: add some custom buttons for people who’ve donated, add a list of projects I’m looking for funding for, and some little stuff.

Bigger update later. Currently it’s 3am, I’m in Florence, SC, and I really should have just gone to sleep rather than try to keep my silly launch schedule. Anyway, time for bed. Much love!