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I can't help but feel that a large portion of my generation is suffering from lack of purpose. There seems to be an innate knowledge that 'things aren't good'. Most everyone I know is not happy with the state of the world. These feelings are delivered by an entire regiment on unaddressable woes. We are at war in Iraq. An 8 sq. mile chunk of Canada just fell into the ocean: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7532435.stm. The government is spying on us.

I don't raise these points to be alarmist. There is little point in that. But hands down the #1 question that I here from my peers is, "Well, what can you do about it?" It got me to thinking about a lot of things. What can I do about it?

I lead a busy life. My friends do to. I realize that not everyone has the time or energy to devote a lot to saving the world, stemming from nothing but the goodness of their hearts.

So, I arrive at this statement. Little things matter.

Earlier this year, in the spring, I sprung the 4 hours and about $35 to make a container garden. I have basil, dill, jalepenos, cayenne, bannana peppers and a few less successful plants that are still great for show. It is my first year doing it, and I expect better results next year, not that this year was poor, but live and learn.

I water said garden, 3 times a week for about 5 minutes at a shot. And I have fresh herbs, and peppers.

I have fresh goods for less than I would pay in the grocery store. Fresher than you could ever find, literally off the stem. These have garnered many compliments on appearance from the neighbors. And all for about 10 total hours of my time, spread over 6 months. Prime requisite: access to sunlight and something that holds dirt.

That is just an example, I'll write more about the container garden in a later post, with photo's ad how-tos. The point of this is that this is the type of 'little' thing that has a high impact (do you know how much energy it takes to ship a Jalepeno cross country?).

When I originally conceived of this blog this was the type of thing I envisioned writing about. I've been kicking around the idea of a reorganization.

Sections:
Home: aggregation of all other sections.
Sustainability: Little things that matter
Book Reviews: Just that.
Forums: worthwhile?
Sam's life: just for kicks.

This is the type of site I might look for a guest blogger or two to round out. I could take or leave the current domain name, for somthing catchier that is more related to group blogging about these topics.

Thoughts? I know this has been done some before, but I think my friends could form a certain micro community of people who want to do little things that matter.

I don't post these much, but my friends will get a kick out of how I scored on "The Geek Test"

Your result for The Techie Test...

The Techie

Take The Techie Test at HelloQuizzy

I'll write the rest of this up later, but while it was fresh on my mind. I went hiking this weekend, and because I missed the train that goes to "Applachian Trail Station" I looked up the closest next station and found it to be only 1.9 miles away so I got a ticket to there and hiked back. However, when I got to the train station... there was no there, there. Nada. I back tracked, I forward tracked, I circled around. I was carrying ~40lbs of crap on my back, and 2 hours of this bumping around Rt.22 was getting old. And while I can be proud in this case I was ready and willing to ask directions, but this was the side of a highway.

Finally caught someone in their front yard and they set me straight, I was off by more than a mile. Or rather, google AND the MTA are both off by more than a mile. They correlate, reality doesn't.

Here is a map from the "Appalachian Trail Station" to "The real Appalachian Trail Station" - sattelite view shows you the pavillion that is the station.

More later - with pictures!

View Larger Map

Oh yes, How could anyone have possibly known this would happen!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121599777668249845.html

Really folks, we've known for over 6 years, that these guys were playing poker with the new improved "Taxpayer's Gambling Insurance" and almost exactly nothing was done to stop it. Incidentally, that implicit knowledge of a bailout gave them an approximate 40% edge when raising money from investors.

If you want big money, don't bother stealing it, get the feds to back you then drive your company into the ground.

I've been doing some thinking lately and it is leading me in a new direction on my thinkings about a fluid economy. We are in a recession. People can debate me about the technical meaning of the word recession, and those people can feel free to employ the term 'economic downturn' or 'slowing economy' - whatever; recession.

I had been of the opinion that 'economic downturns' were a fixture of a regular economy. That these things happen in pendulum swings of sorts, like the world economy breaths in and out and nations are just taken along for the ride. Breath in: growth and prosperity, breath out: recession and job loss. And that, to some degree, this was a good thing, as semantically everyone everywhere couldn't always be profitable.

But now, I feel I've been alive long enough, and have personally witnessed enough of these events that I think I can call that line of reasoning wrong. This change in thought comes at the heels of a LOT of thinking about sustainability. Every one of these economic downturn's in the U.S. has been caused in turn by a trail of overspending, poor accounting, and frankly bad common sense. That is to say, there is no chronological swing of the economy.

There are, natural economic events, that, I'll grant can cause micro-setbacks - as the recent events of the river have shown us; or rather our corn crop. But these events cause smaller ripples, and short of a long chain of natural disasters aren't going to provide the basis for a nationwide, or global economic downturn.

The difficulty lies in tracing any economic downturn to any single event and then quantifying a ruleset that is sustainable. Well, heck, what is a poor practice? I'm working my way towards a set of Sustainable Business Rules - which someday I may publish, but for the purposes of today's article, lets just look at some cases from this particular economic crunch. I like the fact that my blog has been online that I can point to some old articles where I spoke about these things as they were happening.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae just slid 18% on the market in a single day. Interestingly, recent accusations of cooking the books go back to 2004 http://www.workers.org/2005/us/housing-0505/ So, while it may seem like new knowledge now that the entire housing market was propped up on false data for an extended period of time, it wasn't. These early warnings were ignored or dismissed. Overstating profit of GSE's (government sponsored enterprises, or limited monopolies) seems to be a common factor in these things.

When Entire Stock Markets need to be bailed out by the Feds - Aug. 2007 - we should probably acknowledge that something went screwy and do something about it, instead of burying it in the news.

Congress allows National Debt to top 9 trillion (insert previous high water line here) for first time in history "The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes." in Mar.2006 - currently $9,506,133,823,396.86 - National debt in and of itself isn't a bad thing. Rising national debt out of proportion with revenue is.

I realize I most recently wrote this - about poor accouting in Iraq http://www.treslervania.com/node/427 , I had forgotten that I had also written this, long before the fact. http://www.treslervania.com/node/149 - "Funnelling Taxes Through Iraq" - the point isn't to say "I told you so" but that Government Accounting in general needs to be tighter on the Military Industrial Complex - particularly the contractors.

There are many more than that, but those are just grist for the mill. The larger point is that I think a periodic downturn, is really a periodic 'forgetting of the rules and why they are there.' Wealth - Disaster - Recovery - Caution - Laxness - Wealth cycle makes a pretty good sine wave, and it is easy enough to make Time the X axis, when perhaps "Recent Human Memory" would be a better X axis.

Of note, we also have tendency to refuse to look at the bigger picture, wanting to deal with specific issues. It is too big to think of changes in the housing market, student loan market, credit card market, national spending and taxation, hedgefunds, etc, but many of us feel we have a handle on any one or two of these. Too bad it is the big picture that matters.

Those wavy-line letter meant to stop spam-bots that work, but are so unintuitive and inhibitive that people get annoyed. HATE THEM, hate them, hate them, hAtE ThEm!!

Almost as much as I hated combing through 9,146 spam comments, but not quite.

Suck it up, deal with the form.

Chalk another one off the list of things I should write about. The BBC beat me to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7444083.stm

23 Billion unaccounted for in Iraq. 70 gagged court cases. I googled 23 Billion to put it in perspective, I think the most interesting was this:

http://money.propeller.com/story/2006/11/08/chinas-trade-surplus-reaches...

Now, it's important to clarify "unaccounted for" is not the same as "wasted" or "spent". This is money no one knows where it went... and it is more than the entire net revenue of a major country. Lost as in where-are-my-car-keys lost, not lost as in What-stays-in-Vegas lost.

Seriously? I don't mind a little on the down low for covert ops and such, but even *that* money isn't 'lost' its just 'classified'. I could deal with that.

A little transparency goes a long way, folks.

Long time; no post. This is because of the colossal amounts of Stuff going on.

Quickly:

New Server: 3x as fast, and MUCH easier to deal with. The transfer of all my clients sites is still in progress but this one just made it over this evening. Obviously, I bork-ed some things. If anyone uses those tabs along the top, they'll be back soon, I promise.

Work: Whoa! I'm a CTO. How'd that happen? It's not all just glamor an emergency-pages at 3am though, we are building a business here! Seriously, the further I go the more I realize my future is probably in business dev.

Life: I can screw anything up. Apologies to the last two girls I've been on dates with. Now is a shaky time in my life, I gots too much going on.

Money: Sc&ew you IRS and your self-employment rigamorale! That and the feline decided to go and get a blockage between the bladder and the out-valve. $800 and change later he is annoying me daily again. Never get a pet.

Sustainability: Home compost +, except make sure if you put packing peanuts in there, they are the corn-starch ones. Homebrew ++, just got an Irish red into the primary today - my first All Grain!! Home garden + - getting seeds in, planting next week(?), I think.

Twitter sidebar: I hate twitter, but it is easier than writing this, check it for the latest.

So, some people have asked about how the composting is done. Here are some pictures of how I did id. This no doubt isn't the only way.
Before we start, here is the finished deal:
Three drawers for composting, one as a catch basin. I just happened to have plastic Ikea drawers lying around, maybe you have something else that will work as well. Basically, the top drawer is always the 'active' drawer that you put things in. When it is full, move it down and put an empty drawer in the top slot. By the time you fill three drawers, the first will be ready for dumping in the garden (depending on the rate you produce compost).
The top three drawers need a drainage mechanism:
However, since plastic doesn't do the biodegrading part so well, you'll want to be careful to get all the plastic bits shaved out of there:
You can add almost all organic matter, no meat, no dairy. Eggshells, paper towels vegetable scraps, biodegradable packing peanuts, old bread (rip it apart though), apple cores - all work great. And start it off with 5 lbs of potting soil to give the worms some grist for digestion:
Add some worms - red wrigglers are ideal:
Wait.
Get Compost:
Get fruit flies.
Get Fruitfly traps:
Now, if you can do all this outside - do that. This is a system designed for indoors, because I live in Brooklyn and there is no outdoors area that is suitable. I do keep it isolated to a room, where I also have the planters for the garden and the beer brewing setup. So, thats nice anyway.
But yes, its pretty simple, just leveraging how nature works anyway. Closes the loop some.

The home experiment continues. I've been through a few full rotations of the bin, and have gathered in the vicinity of 30lbs of good potting soil after its left my kitchen and gone through the worms.

Some basic observations:

1) Brown paper is probably better for 'ecosystem'. Although I use any non-glossy paper without a lot of colored ink on it. When I was first reading the formulas I found called for nearly 50% leaves or paper, and I thought this surely must be an over estimate. It is not. Use more paper.

2) Aerate. Worms are lazy, about once a week turn the compost and make them find a new home. This also has the effect of mixing things all up which is good for the resultant soil. If you are using a drawer system, like me, you'll want to be careful about only filling the drawers about 2/3 full, or else this step gets difficult.

3) Packing Peanuts. If you get the kind that melt in water, these are just corn starch. Cheese doodles without the cheese. Throw them on in, just do it in stages, as too much freaks the works out.

4) Fruit Flies. My nemesis. This is the most difficult part about doing this indoors, and i am still developing a solution. Fruit flies are tiny bugs that can reproduce in batches of around 400. They have a lifespan on 30 days, unless I get at them. Easily a hundred can fit in an area the size of a bottle cap.

I would be perfectly content co-habitating with several thousand. But these guys take it too far, and must be stopped. I have Made some traps, and they work great, but not enough. I have the fly paper and it works, but not enough.

Then I got to thinking, plenty of things do this in nature. Spiders, lizards, frogs - all viable in my back room. But what I really need (thaks Elley!) is a Nepenthes.

The Tropical Pitcher Plant thrives on insects like all carnivorous plants, however it has been reported that some larger Nepenthes pitchers contain the remnants of small reptiles, birds and an occasional monkey in their native jungle habitats! These carnivorous plants are well suited to year round growing in your own home or greenhouse.

As long as my garden doesn't eat my cat - that is the plan.

5) Leave it alone. The more you forget about it and just leave it be, the better something like this fits into your lifestyle.

Oh yeah, and I went to DrupalCon, presented there, barcamp is this weekend, DrupalCamp is the last weekend in March, I started the second round of homebrew, and I might be starting a BedStuy Food Buyer's group.

More later.

Increasingly I find myself sitting here in Bedford Stuyvesant, wondering when I'll next go fishing, or hunting, or plant a garden, or drink moonshine. The thought process always lands on when or if I'll ever move out of this concrete jungle. Buy myself a plot of land that is only accessible on foot or potentially by cable car, and retreat into my thoughts and hobbies.

But no. No! I like it here in New York. I like museums, I like the nightlife, I like the friends I have made, and the opportunities it has given me. I like it as a jumping off point to travel the world, and I'll never get over walking these city streets in a cold spring drizzling rain just to feel invisible.

But, alas, we are at an impasse, neh? Too many of those things I value are inherent to living full time at a place or at least half a year at a stretch. I can envision things like time shares or having a vacation home, but to be honest, that attitude doesn't sit well with me. I don't want this life here and that life there. I want both lives in both places. Yes, I'm greedy.

And so began the slow shift to being an Urban Redneck. I'll have to leave being a Metropolitan Hick for another blog post and stage in my life.

And what is involved in that you may ask. Well, I don't know. I started with slow food in increments.

I make my own bread, and pasta. I'm taking the New York State hunting course in May. I've made an in-apartment compost bin - complete with worms. This spring I'll be planting cucmbers, tomatoes, yellow squash, red peppers, green peppers, garlic, and various herbs.

I hae a food dehydrator and snack on dried apples and bannanas most times. This past season I've canned my own pickles and chili beans. Soon will come my own marinara sauce (to go with the pasta). My homebrew kit just came via UPS.

The point of all this? There is value in being self-sufficient. There is value in knowing how things work - even more so in the natural processes.

Next steps:

Off the grid in NYC - one appliance at a time.
Turning the back room into an entire garden.
Weekend camping trips within train ride of the city.
What do you do once you've shot the deer?
and much much more!

Been out and about for the past ten days. First Colorado for my first AdvoSummit, in which we were clarifying the future business plan and, particular to me, defining my role in the company. More on that later, but to say the least, work is interesting.

After that I spent a week in North Carolina. For the second time in twenty years I managed to wrangle all of my father's children in one place at one time. The previous time was at my sister's graduation from college, which was barely a half day event. Before that, was my mother's funeral - not the best time for visiting. This go around we covered a lot of ground. My sister will be having a child come March, my brother might be going on the road, and we all got to see the old man. In whole, a success.

I've created a posts-to-make block on the right. The intent is to spur me to write more on this, or at least keep a public running to-do list... even if I don't share items here. Too often I think of things that I want to write here and just end up not writing - lack of time, energy, or proper wording are all reasons - yet none are good excuses.

More soon.

Hmm... I've heard this story before

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7178878.stm

it went something like this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident

Remember when setting up Thunderbird mail filters to delete all email from a specific mailing list older than two weeks to click the "Matches all of the following" box.

I can pull important stuff from backups, but yes, I just nuked my inbox from the past 5 years. Go me!

I installed a "This Day in History" Google widget and am quite enjoying reading it each day. Today's ranks top on my list though, it led me to this page: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Christmas+truce

In 1914 on Christmas Day, the war just stopped. I think of this in context of today's conflict and the complete absurdity or the Iraq war stopping for a day, any day. There is a letter that sold at auction, that along with The Gift of the Magi, now ranks among my favorite Christmas tales.

This will be the most memorable Christmas I've ever spent or likely to spend: since about tea time yesterday I don't think theres been a shot fired on either side up to now. Last night turned a very clear frost moonlight night, so soon after dusk we had some decent fires going and had a few carols and songs. The Germans commenced by placing lights all along the edge of their trenches and coming over to us—wishing us a Happy Christmas etc. They also gave us a few songs etc. so we had quite a social party. Several of them can speak English very well so we had a few conversations. Some of our chaps went to over to their lines. I think theyve all come back bar one from 'E' Co. They no doubt kept him as a souvenir. In spite of our fires etc. it was terribly cold and a job to sleep between look out duties, which are two hours in every six.

First thing this morning it was very foggy. So we stood to arms a little longer than usual. A few of us that were lucky could go to Holy Communion early this morning. It was celebrated in a ruined farm about 500 yds behind us. I unfortunately couldn't go. There must be something in the spirit of Christmas as to day we are all on top of our trenches running about. Whereas other days we have to keep our heads well down. We had breakfast about 8.0 which went down alright especially some cocoa we made. We also had some of the post this morning. I had a parcel from B. G's Lace Dept containing a sweater, smokes, under clothes etc. We also had a card from the Queen, which I am sending back to you to look after please. After breakfast we had a game of football at the back of our trenches! We've had a few Germans over to see us this morning. They also sent a party over to bury a sniper we shot in the week. He was about a 100 yds from our trench. A few of our fellows went out and helped to bury him.

About 10.30 we had a short church parade the morning service etc. held in the trench. How we did sing. 'O come all ye faithful. And While shepherds watched their flocks by night' were the hymns we had. At present we are cooking our Christmas Dinner! so will finish this letter later.

Dinner is over! and well we enjoyed it. Our dinner party started off with fried bacon and dip-bread: followed by hot Xmas Pudding. I had a mascot in my piece. Next item on the menu was muscatels and almonds, oranges, bananas, chocolate etc followed by cocoa and smokes. You can guess we thought of the dinners at home. Just before dinner I had the pleasure of shaking hands with several Germans: a party of them came 1/2way over to us so several of us went out to them. I exchanged one of my balaclavas for a hat. I've also got a button off one of their tunics. We also exchanged smokes etc. and had a decent chat. They say they won't fire tomorrow if we don't so I suppose we shall get a bit of a holiday—perhaps. After exchanging autographs and them wishing us a Happy New Year we departed and came back and had our dinner.

We can hardly believe that we've been firing at them for the last week or two—it all seems so strange. At present its freezing hard and everything is covered with ice…

The letter ends:

There are plenty of huge shell holes in front of our trenches, also pieces of shrapnel to be found. I never expected to shake hands with Germans between the firing lines on Christmas Day and I don't suppose you thought of us doing so. So after a fashion we've enjoyed? our Christmas. Hoping you spend a happy time also George Boy as well. How we thought of England during the day. Kind regards to all the neighbours. With much love from Boy.

This year I'm cooking a roast for the neighbors and they are inviting a bunch friends over. I'm also about to start with some bread baking. I guess I'm just now realizing that somewhere along the line I started to dislike the holidays to a degree. I would much rather the event be about a good dinner with friends then any of the materialism, consumerism, or really anything that the media has come to associate with the season. I not only don't care, I'd much rather avoid it all.

Good food, good friends, and a phonecall to the various family. Thats all I want, please check the rest at the door.

Guess I need to go away and ponder things some more.

Happy Holidays!

Lots going on and invariably no time to write. The title more or less describes half a dozen scenarios playing themselves out in my lie right now. My living situation, my occupation, my family, my relationship towards material possessions, my lifestyle, my, my, my.

Today I bought a paper shredder. My indoor composting bin has been going quite well, but as I understand it, I can't help but to be carbon poor and nitrogen rich ergo, I'm composting my non-colored ink junk mail, and bills. I've also moved to a two bin system, and will have worms on site in a day or so.

This all is leading up to next spring, when I plant with a combination of this material and whatever else is needed. Yes. If all goes well, this time next year I will be eating my junk mail. You have a problem with that?

Other than that, I've been nose in books about business, computers, and eco-friendly trends. Much to the chagrin of my social life, but much to the benefit of my plan for the future.

Maybe I'll talk about that here at some point.

Mostly, I'm writing to let everyone know I am alive and well. I hope ya'll are too. and Happy Holidays.

I keep forgetting this so I'm gonna write it here. Non-geeks, just keep walking.

The most common way to make a key on Windows is using Putty/Puttygen. Puttygen provides a neat utility to convert a linux private key to Putty format. However, what isn't addressed is that when you save the public key using puttygen it won't work on a linux server. Windows puts some data in different areas and adds line breaks.

The Solution:
When you get to the public key screen in creating your key pair in puttygen, copy the public key and paste it into a text file with the extension .pub. You will save you sysadmin hours of frustration reading posts like this.

HOWEVER, sysadmins, you invariably get the wonky key file that throws no error message in the auth log except, no key found, trying password; even though everyone else's keys are working fine, and you've sent this key back to the user 15 times.

ssh-keygen -i -f keyfile.pub > newkeyfile.pub

Should convert an existing puttygen public key to OpenSSH format.

Please feed the monkey on your way out.

I talked to someone long ago who does in-apartment composting and while it never seemed plausible with a roommate, I'm now trying it since I have the place to myself for a while.

I need worms, people. And carbon-rich material. And probably a psychologist if I'm trying this in a NYC apartment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_composting

I should add that this is all tantamount to having my own NYC garden - either in planters or on a backyard depending on where I move.

Oh, and I canned 4 pints of chili beans tonight - and I have about 16 pints left to can in the fridge... baby steps.

As some of you know, one of my big relaxation time activities is cooking. As things settle into a groove with the new career I am finally finding some time to do more of this, learn better techniques, and get adventurous in my culinary talents.

So, I feel like sharing. I've added a 'recipe' content type to the site, and posted a bread I made the other week. Hopefully this will be the tip of the iceberg. I have a lot of food ideas, mostly centered around the idea of living a more local, more sustainable, healthier, and better tasting life.

First step has been baking my own bread. Both plain white bread and various flavors. Next step will be canning and pickling. I have 4 lbs of beans soaking right now for cooking tomorrow and canning the day after, I think. I figure that I like chili beans and can't find them in the north. If I put them up in half-pints 4 lbs + onions and tomatoes should be about 20 cans of instant side-dishes or so.

After that I want to do spaghetti sauce. 1 pint organic sauce runs about $5-$6 in our grocery store. I think I can do better for taste, environmental impact, and price, at around $2 a jar... ... ...

More thought needs to go into this, but for now, its a good hobby. More later.

Another year down. Last year I wrote a lengthy three-part post regarding my adventures on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the special gathering I spend each year following it.

I realize now re-reading those posts that there is a lo I glossed over. But I think I'll save those stories for another time. This year had some of the bes weather of any parade I've worked, whereas last year was hands down the worst.

A new woman on our crew put it a way that I thought was interesting, "I worked the balloons last year and it sucked, I can't imagine what it would have been like for people doing this last year." Hehe. Some of the best compliments come in that form, I think.

I'm was in worse shape starting this parade with the remnants of a head cold, which I seems to developed to a full on cough and congestion thing, HOWEVER, I think I feel better today than the friday after Thanksgiving last year. Not-raining is a new type of weather for me, and we had 24 floats, down from 30 last year. I'm still sore all over, I have a nasty scratch on my hand from a crane cable that wasn't taped on the sharp edges, and a few bruises... all in all a good parade work-out.

Some highlights from last year's write up that are still applicable today.

Thanksgiving holds a special place for me in that after Parade I'm welcomed into some dear friends' home. Every year this gets harder for me. This people have known me for close to a decade, and in that time they've seen me through a lot. To repeatedly spend a holiday with them brings us closer all. I may not see them for over a year afterwards, but we all seem to know that in a very real way spending this time together makes us a quirky sort of family - with all the burdens and jys that bears.

Bev, and Karen, and Jess, and Craig, and a bunch of others toil away for 3 days to make the most amazing spread you've ever seen. But that isn't what makes it so great. What makes it so great is that this entire group are mostly people that see me for about 5 hours a year. They welcome me (and others) into their home and celebration and don't think twice about the smelly, nasty, delirious people that just walked in he door. This is normal. This is expected.

At this point I start to lose focus. Talk of the years events. Talk of parade. Some staring off into space for myself. The entire place just goes out of its way to radiate comfort, and welcome.

An this entire episode, from Veselka's diner to the end of Thanksgiving dinner does a lot to put things in perspective. Sure, work encompasses a lot of my life. Maybe I've lost some things dear to me over the year. Maybe life is tough and stressful. But once a year I can put all that aside for three days (I do nothing on friday) and really remember what its all about, in a way I don't think very many can.

Thank you to all who make my Thanksgiving a unique, extraordinary, colorful experience every year!

This is almost exactly like it was this year, wonderful. The Mitchell's have a new son, and we reinstated a tradition from Thanksgivings past that I Really enjoy. We went around the room saying what we were thankful for. I'm thankful for that gathering where it is both understood that I am welcome, and where they understand that post-parade I am not in top shape intellectually or physically, for good weather this year, and for my new-ish career, that I am seeing success in and happy in.

In truth I'm thankful for a lot more too. Those are just the things that sprung to mind at the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

So, google the issue and you will find plenty of details. Long story short: The government spied on us. They listened to our phone calls, and the telephone companies gave them neat access to do this.

The telecom's knew they were potentially breaking a constitutional law and they didn't do one thing to stand up against it. Now, they are asking for retroactive immunity for what they did.

You know what happens when you or I get accused of breaking the law: We go on trial for it. We can't get a carte blanche from the Senate saying, "Oh, its ok, you were doing what you were told to do."

It's important to note that this IS NOT about guilt or innocence, it's about whether these companies can run to the Senate every time the break the law and get protected. That is wrong. Trials decide guilt or innocence, not laws.

Please call your Senator if they are on the judicial committee. Particularly, if your Senator hasn't come out against the new FISA bill yet. My Senator, Chuck Schumer is on the committee. He is taking a tally of what his phone in constituents think, and is expected to come out against the bill. So, if you live in a Fence state, Call Now.

it's just insomnia.... 4:02. Many things on my mind, but I know in the end, I should have just run around the block 3 or 4 times today.... idiot.

Alumni Night last Thursday made me realize just how closed in I've been over the past months. Work, Barcelona, Wasington D.C., learning, work. Pretty much in that order.

All of these have been largely solitary activities. And I'm continually surprised at how OK I am with all of that. I've referenced before on this blog that I am a bit of a loner. I do things on my own and am fine with that.

But I have to take a step back now and again and get some perspective. I've had more than one friend of late tell me they were worried that I was becoming too antisocial - that they didn't want to see me end up alone. And me, all I can think is: Would that be so bad?

Anymore on a Friday night, I stay in and read, I write code, I learn more about Immunology, I watch really cool indie movies, that are bucking the system and making money. If I do go out, I find a quiet end of a not too crowded bar and I think, by myself.

And I'm happy. I'm making strides in my career that are bigger steps than I've taken before. I have time to work on art. I broaden my horizons, cause I just get off on learning new stuff. I'm not stagnant. In fact, I'm right where I want to be. And while there is always a horizon to chase, I'm enjoying the trip now, no desperate urgency to get the next job, move onto the next project, come up with some idea to save myself.

Is being comfortable alone, all that bad? unhealthy? Am I gonna change my mind but then it will be too late?

Ok, thats the extent of my insecurity, hope I didn't rattle anyone too much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/washington/09nsa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slo...

"Scared to not be in the majority", "still think they need to do whatever the president acts", "fear they will be considered soft on terrorism". WTF?

What country are the democratic leaders living in? I know I have a left skewed perception living in New York City, and all, but how many Americans out there want our Federal government to be able to spy on us? Show of hands? One, two, mumble-mumble, Cheney put your hand down.... yup, looks like 14, maybe fifteen, but you only have your hand halfway up, sir.

New plan. Instead of this elect-a-democratic-majority-and-expect-them-to-do-what-we-want strategy, why not just start over. I'm thinking we can replace our entire democratic elected official cadre in little less than ten years. How's that sound?

Let's see where did I leave off? This week in the hostel has been pretty good, nice place, has its own bar on the first floor for meeting other travelers, and is pretty much in a perfect area.

WiFi has been atrocious, however, making it hard to get work done and also keep thing here updated and I'm afraid things have gotten a little out of hand. So, I'm giving up n giving a day by day accounting and just gonna let you all know the highlights, and even that might be too long.

Ciutadella Park is like a mini Central Park. It has a zoo, and sculpture garden-esque things, includeing a sculpture called 'Grief' by Josep Llimona, whom I may need to look more into.

The Barcelona Aquarium is the point when I really got serious about my Spanish, I went through all 20+ tanks only reading it all in Spanish, then cross checking myself on the English translations. They had a really fun final tank that was 35M across and 5M deep with sharks that you actually walk through a tunnel under it. Pictures when I get back.

The Picasso Museum increased my respect for old Pablo Ruiz. I'd only ever seen his later works from the Cubism days, and frankly, I don't much like cubism. But I was really enthralled with his earlier works. Particularly one called Wagon that is a picture of a wagon in a barn - sound bland but really well done, and google images is denying me at the moment. I took the time to stop and draw it and will scan my humble results later.

Gruell Park is up on a hill overlooking all of Barcelona, great view . Saw the Gaudi museum and am quickly becoming a convert to his works.

Museo de Historia: So, a museum is cool in and of itself, especially if you are a history nut like me. This museum was the palace of the counts of Spain in the past, that was moved here for the worlds fair. When moving it they found Roman ruins underneath it and began excavating, but then a civil war hit and they were temporarily forgotten. Just recently (in the 90's) they began excavating the basement again, but since its a museum they put an elevated pathway through it. There is a 4th-5th century early Christian Church, and a earlier winery and fishmonger, about 6-8 feet below that. At first it can be disorienting cause the way its excavated makes it look like they were gutting fish in the chapel. All this is underneath the adjacent Paca del Rei!

Barcelona Cathedral, Inside Sagrada Familia, walking along the coast, Actually finding the four existing Roman columns that no one has directions too (hint, they are beside the millstone embedded in the pavement marking the highest point in Roman Barcino, walk uphill.)

Too much to get into, just amazing. Today after walking along the Mediterranean for abotu five hours I found the street artist who had caught my eye last week. I bought original pieces (for peanuts). None are completely original but I liked this guys style. The guy selling was actually the nephew of the guy who painted them. I realized as I walked away that it was actually a different artist that had caught my eye my first week here, but it turns out I like what I bought more. They will be gifts for three people, and two canvases for myself.

Last night I was supposed to go to Passia the, purportedly, best club in the city with two new Norwegian friends, but I fell asleep and woke up way too late. Ah well.

So, the adventure continues. I fly back to NYC tomorrow, where I have about a day and a half before I head fro Washington D.C. to see William officially wed. After that the nose goes back to the grindstone. I am closing out old clients, getting my new assistant up to speed, and need to launch 2-3 side businesses, but this trip has very much affected my future plans.

I've joked about getting a houseboat or some mobile means of housing, my brother suggested an R.V., but I am beginning to think boat is the way to go - something that can cross the Atlantic, satellite internet, working on my art, working on the web, doing my thing... this deserves some thought.

The other thing this trip has taught me is more about the value of my time. If I am in a reasonable financial position to be doing things like this on a regular basis, the price of stress just went up. I have a decently secure job that lets me do stuff like this whenever I want (within reason), why am I still taking sidework that I don't much care about?

Thats it for now. See ya'll next in the States.