It’s 3:00 in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’m not sure if it’s because of the heat or because I feel like I just woke up. This was a tough year for me thus far. For the first time, perhaps ever, I truly felt disconnected from my parents. Someone who was a heavy influence on my life committed suicide in March. In the beginning of the year, I moved out of my girlfriend’s condo. More recently, we stopped dating altogether. It’s felt like a lot of loss.
The loss of my Nino as my partner in life was my breaking point. I fell deep into self pity for a while. I have amazing people in my life. Some tolerated my pity party while others gave me just the right direction I needed. Tonight I am extremely content with my life. Furthermore, I’m really excited about my future. I haven’t felt this way in some time.
My first online community effort happened in 1994. I didn’t have a vision or understand what I was doing. It was low tech and attracted a small population, but it filled a need so it sustained for several years. Back then, building an online community was actually rather easy.
In 2007, I was hired by a big name health and fitness company to develop an online community. The effort began well, but was quickly derailed by many of the most common mistakes that big companies seem to make. I departed the venture in 2008 and moved on to social media centric projects. I went back to check on their progress and found that the entire community, one that used to be hundreds of thousands of users strong, was wiped from the face of the Internet entirely.
And that’s how some people want to approach the issue of illegal immigrants in the USA. Everything I know and understand about life aligns clearly to say that building a wall between the US and Mexico is a horrible idea. It’s not like Mexico is mounting an attack and we have to defend the castle. They’re sneaking into the country to find jobs. To cover the issue from my own perspective, I’ll offer three planks and then a plan.
As part of the whole van vision, I’m wanting to put a dual sport motorcycle on the back like Badgertrek. I’ve never owned a motorcycle nor a license. This weekend, Nino and I attended an Abate motorcycle course. The course was a little slow for my tastes, but very thorough. The part where we actually got on some bikes and took to the course was fun. We logged about 25 extremely slow miles over the course of this weekend. All in all, I would definitely recommend this course both to someone like us – inexperienced – as well as someone who just wants to learn some good safety habits.
Having completed the course, all we need to do is give the DMV a few dollars and we’ll be ready to hit the streets. Well, first I’ll have to actually buy a bike. That will be a whole new adventure.
What am I doing for New Years? I don’t know. What am I doing for Christmas? I don’t know. Christmas decorations? Never got them up. Family? Celebrating without me this year. Friends? I forgot, yet again, to collect addresses and send out cards. Today? One of just a few at the office, everyone else has already left for vacation.
This year feels like it was a waste of life. I got a job and paid off some debts. Actually, right now I’m debt free. My most significant commitment is the 2 year Sprint contract that came from my phone this summer. One would think with this kind of financial freedom that I would feel liberated, but I don’t.
Since 2004, I’ve maintained a snowboarding blog at my old Shobek domain. Last night I moved all of those hundreds of posts to this blog and replaced the old site with a redirect. I also once maintained a blog on building virtual communities on blogger. I imported those posts as well. Unfortunately, blogger doesn’t allow an easy method to redirect traffic. Eventually, I’ll pull that blog down entirely I think.
A respected friend of mine (who happens to be a feminist) sent me a link to “Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced.” I wouldn’t have read the article at all, had it not been for the recommendation from my friend. After reading it and stewing on it, I’m going to respond. I’m responding not only to the author, but more so to the women who identify with the post itself.
In this blog post, I want to do what I feel Phaedra Starling failed to do. I’m going to attempt to talk about this topic across the gender line. It took me 4 different sessions to read her blog post from start to finish. The first few times, indignation overtook me. I suspect I’m not alone as the comments appear to have been heavily moderated before being closed.
If you haven’t followed the media noise over Lily Allen and filesharing lately… it’s a lot to catch up on. The highlight came, for me, when Lily started an anti-filesharing blog, reposted another author’s content without citing the source (irony much?), and then took the whole blog down when she was getting too much “abuse”… I can’t speak enough about how brilliant and accurate Dan Bull’s response is. Go get the MP3 and share it!!!!
It’s over! I made it through Burning Man and the only damage done was a cut, a second degree burn, and a sinus infection. Ok, actually, that was more damage than I was expecting. It was a good experience, but lacked much of the impact I experienced last year. Still, there were many wonderful moments and it was everything I had hoped for.
Since my return, I’ve totally abandonded the fitness and healthy diet I adopted before I left. Fighting off the sinus infection seems like a pretty good excuse. I thought I was going to pass out at work on Friday. I think I’m in good shape to get some work done tomorrow… This is good, because it’s about to get really crazy for a few weeks. It’s kinda like finals in college, only I’m not that young and eager anymore.
So I’ve been at this fitness thing for 24 days now. After the gym this evening, I decided to take another set of photos and check them out side by side from where I started. I had no idea I’d put on so much weight. Even now, looking at the Day 1 photo, I feel like I was really losing control. I suppose, in a way, it’s a sign that I was enjoying life. I’ve been in a new relationship, have a pretty stable job, and have gotten fairly comfortable.
It’s 3:00 in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’m not sure if it’s because of the heat or because I feel like I just woke up. This was a tough year for me thus far. For the first time, perhaps ever, I truly felt disconnected from my parents. Someone who was a heavy influence on my life committed suicide in March. In the beginning of the year, I moved out of my girlfriend’s condo. More recently, we stopped dating altogether. It’s felt like a lot of loss.
Since 2004, I’ve maintained a snowboarding blog at my old Shobek domain. Last night I moved all of those hundreds of posts to this blog and replaced the old site with a redirect. I also once maintained a blog on building virtual communities on blogger. I imported those posts as well. Unfortunately, blogger doesn’t allow an easy method to redirect traffic. Eventually, I’ll pull that blog down entirely I think.
