Homesick

So What do they do in there?

Well, in a word or two, a lot.



Simply magnificent.

A dog's blog / A cat's blog

Again, from my brother-in-law (who really should start blogging himself) I got this via email today. Hadn't seen it before. You? Since we're on the topic of animals... tee hee.


*/Pet Diaries Uncovered /*

*As seen in a dog's diary:*

*8am - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite!*

*9am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite*

*10am - Oh Boy! A walk! My favorite!*

*11am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite!*

*Noon - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite!*

*1pm - Oh Boy! The yard! My favorite!*

*3pm - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite!*

*4pm - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite!*

*5pm - Oh Boy! Mom! My favorite!*

*7pm - Oh Boy! Playing ball! My favorite!*

*9pm - Oh Boy! Sleeping in master's bed!! My favorite!*

-----------------------------------

*/As seen in a cat's diary:/*

* Day 183 of my captivity...*

*My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.
They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal.
The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture.*

*Tomorrow I may eat another house plant. Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded -- must try this at the top of the stairs.*

*In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair -- must try this on their bed. Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm, not working according to plan.*

*There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.*

*I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured.*

*But I can wait, it is only a matter of time...*

Excuse me, do you have a pig?

Good fences make good neighbors. That's been my personal mantra of homeownership since I first home-owned in 1988.

Strange thing about fences here in Georgia, at least in our county, is that there are no ordinances about which way a fence must face. In other words, when we built a fence in New York (and I think in any other state in the union), we would of course build our fence with the posts and rails facing INTO our yard.

For lack of a photo here--the pretty side faces out; the ugly side faces in.

There's no such rule in our county. Although our back fence faces into our property, it belongs to our backyard neighbor. In fact, he once got an insurance settlement on the fence, when a tree fell on it, but unfortunately had better things to spend the money on (aka his new hot tub). That was not good news for the fence, or for us. During the last decade, the six-foot stockade fence has been eroding away, slowly but surely.

We've done the things you do when your fence is falling apart. Even when it's not yours. Especially when there are dogs on both sides of the fence who, on most days, hate one another. We chickenwired, we rigged, we tied, we leaned. Those tricks definitely bought the structure another couple of years. But the fence is dying. Decaying, rotting, falling.

And we're stuck with a cheap, unfriendly backyard neighbor who has displayed zero interest in addressing the fence.

But these things--they have a way of a-changin'.

It's a southern thang.

---------------------

Let me go backwards for a moment. Clarify things. We don't live in the country. In fact, we live in an old (by Atlanta standards) subdivision, nothing fancy, no neighborhood pool, where the houses are about 20-25 years old. 3/4 acre lots, a good size yard, lots of trees, but we're not in the sticks. Okay? I can hear I-75 from my porch at night. Are you with me? Good.

Imagine my surprise, then, when George mentioned two weeks ago that he saw a pig in our backyard neighbor's yard. Disbelief is a better word, I think.

I explained it away--it was probably one of their retrievers gone fat, or it was one of their friend's dogs, or he'd had a dream about a neighborhood pig.

He insisted that he saw a pig. And I quote: "With my own two eyes."

My thoughts turned to those interesting pot-belly pigs I'd seen on television specials running through people's living rooms, over their oriental carpets. Always the t-shirt wearing wife in the fancy pants home flapping her lips about what great pets pigs make.

I asked George, "Could it be one of those pot-belly pigs?"

He licked his lips. "No, it's a pig. And I mean a pig."

"Like a p-i-g hog?"

"I know what I saw. It was a pig."

We can see our neighbor's back yard from our kitchen window. The lush trees outside our window, heavy with the summer rain that won't quit, block all but a slice of the corner of our neighbor's backyard.

For two weeks I glanced out the window, with mock wide eyes. Poked fun at my husband. "Yah, you saw a pig. Uh-huh." "Ooooo where's you're little piggy-wiggy?" and the obligatory "oink oink oink--I wants some ribs!"

And then late last week I saw it.

No doubt. No way. No how. A big fat pig. Right behind the fence that separates our dogs from their dinner.

No potbelly. A P-I-G hog.

And of course, the question weighing on everyone's mind: Why?

-------------------

The rain won't stop here. It won't let up. Late at night the moon comes out from behind the clouds, the stars decide to shine, and I want to slap the sky for these days filled with storms and nights filled with quiet.

Yesterday, it was pouring. Relentless. I decided to let our mutt Bando in, and as I opened the door on the deck, I noticed that in addition to our boxer mix, we had somehow inherited a purebred boxer in our fenced yard. Huh?

I ushered Bando in and went to step out on the deck, where miss lady boxer had decided to greet me with a snarl and a bark.

"Who are you?"

"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ROOOOF ROOOF MOOOF!"

I see heads behind the back fence, examining the dilapidated, half-hanging structure that belongs to them. Yes, the pig people.

"Is this your dog?" I shout through the rain. We aren't on friendly terms since they emptied their inground pool into our yard at the end of last summer.

"Yes--can you chase her this way? She won't bite."

"GRRRRRRRR ROOOF MOOOF MOOF BOOF!"

"Uh, well, go on now girl! go home!"

Like I'm going to step out on the deck with a full-grown boxer growling at me. Not.

"Look, why don't you drive around to our street and get her out the front gate?"

"Okay--we'll be right there."

Hmmmm. My mind is working already.

The Lincoln SUV pulls into our driveway about 60 seconds later, and the lady neighbor gets out. I tell her go on through the gate and get her boxer--that our dogs are inside.

Then I plot. I weigh the right way to ask it, to subtly remind her that I remember her chlorine-water dumping crimes of the past, and that I'm on to her new addition.

As she walks her boxer to the car, I say, as loudly as possible: "Excuse me, do you have a PIG?"

She ignores me. I could let it go. We'd all be more comfortable. The car's running. It's raining. She's got the dumbest boxer I've ever seen trying to figure out what exactly an automobile is for.

No way, baby. I've gotcha.

"Hello--I'm wondering, do you have a PIG?"

Still no response. I stare. She has to acknowledge me now--the dog is in the back seat and I'm looking her face on as she comes around to the driver's side.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you," she lies, looking for the door handle.

"I asked if you have a PIG."

She's defeated. She's busted. Her shoulders hang. I smile.

"Well. yes. it's my daughter's pet."

She looks up at me exasperated.

"I see. Interesting," I say. "We're going to have to talk about that fence,"

She agrees. Says they will get estimates. We'll talk next week.

You better believe we will.


The moral of the story is: Never look a gift pig in the snout.

Birmingham, Cut It Out.

We're floating away here. Not float on pool, but thunderstorms and rain and rain and thunderstorms. Makes me glad for the good dry indoors, even with the ceiling leaks here and there. The roof repair guy seems to have slapped the tar on in the right spots. I keep looking up for drips; just the ugly yellow stains look back at me.

Birmingham, do us a favor and keep your thunderstorms this week. Just keep your rain over there. We don't need any more. I promise. Ask the oak tree in the front yard, ask the weeds, or ask my old dog whose hot spot sprang up from the dampness.

See, I have a kid who's spooked of tornadoes, and she's starting to spook me too. I think I hear sirens now. She's in my bed waiting for me. And it's only sprinkling now. Just cut out all the rain and wind and thunder, and we can shake hands and make nice over the state line.

That's the last time I'm asking nicely.

What does genocide look like?

We who say what we mean say what we mean.

Mike my brother, I almost missed this one. Oh, it's the best I've seen, yah the best I've seen.

Thanks to Shelley for thanking you and for thanking AKMA, otherwise I might have missed your whole diss. And that woulda been tragic.

What I really thank you for is writing about the genocide in Sudan. Because, like, most of my neighbors are so busy slapping their Bush/Cheney 04 bumper stickers on and looking for Bin Laden at the Quick Trip that they've missed that news.

Now maybe they'll listen to me.

Fuckers.

Spontaneously yours...

Oh. Dear. Evil Genius at Work? Dog Island.

So I'm searching up hound mixes online, trying to start networking to find my sister a mix of some or other hound variety, and I come across Dog Island. Have you seen this? Well, you really must.

Check out the Rates page:


The Normal Route, Dog Island: Free Forever

Permanent residence for dogs at Dog Island is free! You will have to pass the interview process and so will your dog. It is not easy, we really want exceptional dogs, and we need dogs who have been properly trained for the island. We never make the implication that it's an easy transition, but the dogs experience themselves anew, so it's worth it.

Dogs never want to leave the island once they experience it, so you will not be able to have your dog again. You can come to the public visiting days, they are three times a year. Sometimes, someone sees their dog again. Usually the dog has either forgotten them, or has grown to resent all the years of captivity. Even with the sweetest relationship, it was always wrong for the dog to not be free.

Vacation Island: Three Weeks

Vacation Island, on the other hand, is very very expensive. It is only for rich people who have that kind of money to spend. This is the only way to visit the island with a dog and still come back with your dog.

If have you have the money, this is often a good way to show your dog what it has been missing, while helping to give it to many, many others. As a rich visitor, your dog will be in ecstasy for three weeks. However, once that period is over, we regret to say your relationship with your dog will be flat for a little while, only because your dog will have had such a great time, that he will now miss it thoroughly.

Not to be missed, get down with the Dog Island groove.

Special Note: We are booked for the next 12 years. Please consider supporting a local chapter.

I mean with a business model like this, what could go wrong?

If your dog is accepted, there is no cost at all! This is completely free. We make this possible by some funding from rich people with big hearts, and by the money we make from the rich people who like to use the Vacation Island.

Southern Africa's Beauty

Saw a special on Atlanta TV the night before last on Mateya Safari. A mere $1,500 a night for a piece of peace.

Mmmmmm.

While they're busy catching those bad guys without WMDs who had nothing to do with 9-11....

Hypocrisy

The U.S. Agency for International Development estimated that at least 350,000 people will die of disease and malnutrition over the next nine months.

Hypocrisy

Returning from a recent trip to refugee sites on the border between Sudan and Chad, a team of investigators from Physicians for Human Rights issued a report that found several indicators of genocide in Darfur. The eyewitness accounts from refugees are heartbreaking. The destruction of villages, the killing, the hot pursuit of survivors, the systematic rape of women -- these crimes form a pattern the report calls genocide.

Hypocrisy

According to estimates by international humanitarian organizations, at least 1.2 million people in Darfur have been forced from their homes and scores have been terrorized or killed by Arab militias known as the Jingaweit.

And I'll keep talking about it.

Don't Sue Me, Or Do--I'm Posting It Anyway

My bro-in-law forwarded this article from today's Boston Globe. He said it reminded him of me, and even the writing did. He's a good egg. It is indeed well written, way well, better than I could do justice to, and it is also the stuff my brain turns round and round all the time. Go Dr. Ely.

-------------------------------

The subtler injuries kids bear

By Elissa Ely, Globe Columnist | June 27, 2004

MY LITTLE GIRL was in mourning for someone she loved. It was not a consequence of fire or war. The beloved in question was still alive. But logistics and distance had caused a natural separation, which time then extended. Calls were not answered, dates left unarranged. The love affair had become one-sided, and there was no explaining to her that intimate bonds can dissolve into yearning on one side and disinterest on the other, that this happens more often than not, and that, through nature and time, better bonds will form. After much unhappiness, she wrote a poem in pencil, then copied it in glowing yellow highlighter onto a piece of paper covered with hearts:

Life is good But not so good

Without a friend

Like you.

She mailed it off. There was no response. Over the next weeks, references to the beloved tapered off. After they finally stopped, I understood that her heart had quietly broken, along lines of cleavage I could not repair. That night we were watching a video of her choosing with two adults who have no children. We had convinced our friends to forgo more age-appropriate options by promising them charm, wit, and jaw-dropping technical effects. The video is considered a recent children's classic, a marvel of computerized animation. Most important, my little girl wanted to see it again.

She sat in my lap and looked expectantly at the adults across the living room. She is very fond of them and wanted them to love her movie. She was setting them up on a blind date for romance. "Isn't it great?" she said, the instant the title appeared.

They wanted to like the movie, too. They were prepared to chuckle at childish things and appreciate young humor. They lounged on the floor, pillows piled around, looking relaxed. It was a break from the profound films they usually take in.

But we had forgotten -- because we are so used to it -- that the movie was filled with incidental violence. The plot itself is benign, and the main characters emerge untouched, but there are dozens of unfortunate special effects: steel cutting skin, heads banging, and once, a little bird blowing up when a tone-deaf heroine sings to it. Our friends raised their eyebrows at first, then winced, then grew stiff and dropped all pretense of enjoyment.

My little girl could not understand. The violence did not interest her: Not one blow drew a chuckle. She put up with it, and watched for the sake of adventure.

Our friends did not want to hurt her feelings. After the video ended, they spoke in neutral phrases until she had gone, puzzled, to bed. Then they erupted. It was a critique full of inarguable thoughts about the hazards of children absorbing violence and the media honing it so attractively. They were appalled at the exploitation and enraged at a world where millions of dollars fine-tune hurtful visual effects so children will laugh harder.

My husband, always invigorated by the prospect of disagreement, answered with spirit. He said a parent's job was not to prevent media exposure but to help children learn discrimination. He pointed out that the mother doe's death in "Bambi" was far more devastating than a movie in which peripheral characters no one knew or cared about disappeared quickly off the screen. He said there was much worse out there in children's programming. He dropped Bugs Bunny into the argument to make a point about historical continuity -- someone was always being banged by Bugs's frying pan or wearing gunpowder from his musket, and our generation survived. He looked over to me for reinforcement.

My own thoughts were drifting elsewhere, to my little girl's recently broken heart, and her yearning, unanswered poem. I was thinking that there are gross violences, casual and pervasive, and so extensive that they become background voltage in the lives of kids. They are wrong, and of course children's movies would be safer for children without them.

But I was also thinking about the subtler kinds of injuries children absorb -- not intended, not life-threatening, not technically violent, not even anybody's fault, but still life-changing. I know it is a luxury to worry about a broken heart in a world where broken lives are standard trauma. I know how lucky we are that this is the worst the little girl has faced. And yet, it didn't feel that way. She had stepped away from Eden, and there was no protecting her.


Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

How ya feelin'?

This site can't be beat for emotive art. Thanks RB for the trip. I mean tip.

And the winner is:



Xanax 1993. T'was a very good year.

second runner up.

Why my child will never visit the Paynters

Lilapsophobia.

(shhh. no one tell her we live in tornado alley too.)

Dave Can't Shut Up

On Scripting today, Dave links to a comment he left at Shelley's place.

No matter how hard he tries to revise history--just one of his many endearing habits--I maintan that it was the OUTRAGE not the "outage" that moved things, that required MORE THAN that nice little request from Dave, which appeared on the homepage of all weblogs.com blogs one day, to simply "leave your URL and sometime in July I'll get you your files, if you don't whine about it."

Puuuhhhleeeaassseee.

If no outrage, those folks would still be waiting.

Plain and simple.

Not an Outage.

An Outrage.

A deliberate shutdown without a second thought.

One that is now all better thanks to the men of technology.

The outrage encouraged the solution.

The FOD (friends of Dave) responded.

None of them bothered to answer Shelley's technical questions.

And why should they?

'Cause as we all know, a woman blogger's place is behind the camera.

Bite me. Bite me. Bite me.

Dave, go pack a box, take in a movie, read a self-help book. ANYTHING.

I'm done.

The COACEOs Will Blog

Uh huh. Hmmmm. So the Chief of All CEOS is going to start blogging. This is interesting. It would be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. Bill Gates blogs. Every CEO in God's Heaven will blog.

"And so if I do a trip report, say, and put that in a blog format, then all the employees at Microsoft who really want to look at that and who have keywords that connect to it or even people outside, they can find the information." -- Bill Gates

Note to all other CEOs: You are not Bill Gates. His trip reports might be interesting because he's the COACEOs. Your trip reports, we can do without. Stick with the stuff you care about. Then We'll see how Bill Does.

Gates also has a stable of writers and communications specialists who help produce material. It's unclear whether they would help keep his blog going.

Probably so.

Looked this up for a new blog friend - Corporate Weblogging Secrets...

Me on corporate blogging a year ago. I hope you can see the lump in the side of my cheek, where my tongue is. ;-)


Recommendations -- The JBMCSE Roadmap: At the end of the JBMCSE process, the team will present you with your tailored JBMCSE Roadmap, which serves as a blueprint for putting your weblogging strategy into action. Recommendations we’ve made to current and former blue chip clients, include:

1) Rip up your org chart, or forget that you’re on the top line, for at least eight weeks.

2) Read six weblogs a day for six months before you type anything.

3) Tear up 4 (four) of your own business cards and put the pieces in your coffee mug. Every time you think about blogging, try drinking them to remind youself you’re human first.

4) Don’t touch the computer until every one of your employees has been encouraged to blog freely.

5) Tell your counsel that you won’t blog a single controversial word, and then do the opposite. Be prepared to cut them a big check.

These are just a few samples from JBMCSE Roadmaps we’ve developed for organizations just like yours. Remember, weblogging strategies are dynamic and complex. What’s “in” today may not be the savvy approach next week. With JBMCSE, we’ll keep our finger on the pulse of weblogging so you don’t have to.

Lilapsophobia

So it has a name. Good old Google.

Lilapsophobia, an abnormal and persistent fear of tornadoes and hurricanes.

Jenna's got it.

We're not talking curiosity, we're talking listening for sirens in the air on a partly cloudy day.

It started with watching a weather channel special on twisters. Educational, I thought. What could it hurt?

I have now heard the word twister or tornado approximately 139 times in the last five days. Most frequently as the last word before she falls asleep and the first word upon wakening. And then several times during the day.

"If a tornado comes, will it rip the top off our house?" -- she asked me that as I'm writing this. Just now. In the last three seconds.

As we reassure her and share with her our own fears at her age, I'm hoping that this is just a childhood phase that will wane in time.

But the look in her eyes--it's the look in her eyes and the biting of nails.

They spell Lilapsophobia.

Little girls... what makes them tick?

I should remember. I was one. And I'm not sure if it's that I don't remember, or I wasn't the way little girls are today.

Jenna has a best friend the same age. They met in dance class two years ago. We moms and the two girls started spending time together. A friendship blossomed. You'd think that would be good. But what was once a friendship of giving has turned into nothing but one argument after another, one "she said this, she said that, she did this, she did that." after another.

What I remember about being six and having a best friend is that her name was Debbie and she lived next door, and living out in the country, this was a good thing. We became best friends out of necessity--two girls, same age, next door, none other like us for a mile or so in either direction. Hence, the bond.

I don't ever remember having the kind of catty fights Jenna and her friend have. I've seen it at school too. The notorious: "I'm not your friend anymore." How many times did I see tears through the rearview mirror because Jenna got the word from missy-so-and-so: "I'm not your friend anymore," or the kissin' cousin, "I'm not your best friend."

"I don't want to play with you." tags along in third place, as little girls trade alliances like lunchtime snacks.

Anyway, all of this is to say, the difficulty we moms are having is untangling whatever mess of a fight they bring to us with the "she said, she did" NO "she said, she did" scenarios.

Which is where the baby monitor comes in. I just bought Mom number 2 a baby monitor for her shower. She's nine months pregnant. And 43. Surprise!

SO we've concocted a plan. Next time they play, we are going to straight out spy on them using the baby monitor. We will learn who starts what, how, why. We will trace the trends, examine the dynamics, and if we are lucky, learn more than we ever wanted to about the species known as the six-year-old girl.

Wish us luck, 'cause we're goin' in.

I can dance to it, I like the beat, I give it a 9.

Hee hee hee.

Schwartz Nearly Gets It.

Fascinating, isn't it, to explore the parallel and simultaneous nature of blogging. Just the other day, I happened upon the first really good weblog written by a guy, who happens to be the President of a tech company (that's a VIM - very important modifier, as it's not vice-versa), who really gets blogging. That guy is Phil Libin, whose company is Corestreet.

But Corestreet's name isn't all over his blog, he believes in separation of church and state when it comes to blogging, and he avoids the usual C-Suite pitfall of blogging from his business card title. He talks about his brother, his love for all that is gadgetry, and he's really damn funny. The unintended result, or maybe the entire point, is that he's *likeable*.

incidentally, the PR firm getting credit for spurring Phil to blog is Schwartz Communications, and according to the case study, specifically, Chuck Tanowitz.

Fascinating so far. I am now Phil's biggest fan, since he's doing exactly what I urge CEOs to consider doing when I get questions on, how can we incorporate this blogging thing into our PR strategy..." Wrong question. Phil got the right answer. Chuck, kudos.

Contrast the Corestreet experience with the discussion going on over at Media Guerrilla, which I found through Elizabeth Albrycht.

The item up for discussion is whether or not a company should issue a formal press release when it launches a weblog. So far, they have one no, one yes, and me--well, I'm thinking it out right here.

Far from hypothetical, the question popped up in response to this press release announcing the newly-launched Wifinally weblog, written by the CEO, CTO, and VP of Marketing for Propagate Networks.

My answer to the question at hand will take more than one post.

What interested me, is that Propagate Networks has the same PR company as Phil Libin -- Schwartz -- as noted in the Propagate Networks' release. They are most likely serviced by different account teams, and it shows.

Compare Propagate's Wifinally with Libin's Vastly Important. While incorporating some similar practices, the weblogs are yards apart. Only one, I think, is really even a weblog. Only one, I predict, will get traction because it has a voice for readers to hold on to during the ride. That one is Libin's. The other reads, looks, feels, and smells like a mainstream wi-fi publication written by some industry veterans within an industry that is full of veterans.

And issuing a formal press release sans personality doesn't do anything to help the matter.

I understand that every client is different. I truly understand that many CEOs can't cross the chasm Libin has now widened with a challenge by example. Some of my clients could very easily, if they dared, be themselves online. They are likeable people with opinions beyond their industry, with a life outside of their business, that informs who they are within their businesses.

At the same time, because I care about weblogging, I don't encourage clients who wouldn't do well writing a weblog. I save the secret for the select few I know could resonate in this medium. I know three I wish would take the dare. I know six I will never mention blogging to. For them, there are brochures, white papers, bylined and contributed articles, and formal press releases.

But for the ones who get it, the game's wide open.

So, going back to the question at hand, perhaps what is better asked is, "Should Propagate Networks have issued a formal press release about its newly launched weblog?"

Yes. It fits with the voice, the tone, and from what I can tell, the objectives. It is more a publication than a conversation, so formal PR tactics can be used to support it.

Now, if you'd asked should Corestreet issue a press release announcing Phil Libin's weblog? I would have said no. Let the readership evolve there as it does naturally within this medium. Build trust and genuine relationships through the links that power our conversations here. Talk, don't report.

If a press release were to be issued for Libin's blog, I would want it to be better than, more than, different than, the usual, hum-drum press release.

More later--I have to run outta here and fast.

Another Goodbye, Kinda

The Happy Tutor noticed what I think was one of my best in a long time.

Thanks, Happy.

A final goodbye

Since I was twelve, my sister has never been without a dog, and in that time, she's had only two dogs. I'm 42 now. That's 30 years, two dogs.

Her first mutt, Mac, lived to the ripe old age of 16. I used to baby sit Mac when I was a kid, because he was hell on wheels. She lived on a farm, and on one particularly dicey baby sitting stint, I was talking on the phone to my best friend, it was 11 at night, and she heard the phone wires go dead as I said "Oh no!"

Needless to say, probably, that my friend's parents called my mother, who called the snipers in, and before I knew it, five people were knocking on my sister's front door, expecting to find me dead.

I was eating a ham sandwich.

Mac, aside from ripping up a nice throw rug that night, had also chewed through the phone cord. He was always a hoot.

When Mac's kidneys failed, I was about to turn 28. Mac had seen my sister through three moves to three different states, a marriage, a baby, a divorce. She had him put to sleep at home, and her grief was so big. So big. She went up stairs, and I sat with Mac while he got his shots--one to relax, the other to rest. I laid next to him on her living room floor, told him what a good boy he was, patted his head until the vet whispered, as they do, "He's gone."

She didn't know, then, what to do with him. He was too big for the mobile vet to take, and that wasn't a service he liked much to offer. So he loaded Mac into the back of my station wagon for us, and I set off to find the crematorium, a 40 minute drive. I don't remember what I thought as I drove with Mac, dead in the back. But I remember I thought a lot of things.

About three months after Mac died, my sister fell in love with a puppy, a clumsy hound mix whom her son named Blitz. We put him to sleep yesterday at 14. Blitz saw my sister through four moves, her single parenting of an asthmatic (and often hospitalized) child, that child's graduation from college, and my sister's remarriage.

If dogs could talk.

But then, they do.

I didn't think my sister would be able to go with me yesterday. Our pasts are loaded when it comes to death and loss and the inability to grieve. But she did. She went. She stayed in the room for the first time during the letting go of life. She wept, as we stroked Blitz's head, we shared kleenex, and he went to sleep.

With his nose resting at the tip of her sneekers the whole time.

When death is beautiful, it really is.

This one was.

Such a Good Good Boy

And so It was.

In memory of Blitz, as sweet as they come.
December 1990 - June 2004

If a CEO Blog Could Talk... Hey, Wait!

A guy who likes gadgets, has a brother with a big screen TV, and even writes about his company. He's Phil Libin, the CEO of Corestreet, and this is his personal weblog.

He doesn't blog from his business card title. The fact that he's in the security biz informs his writing, but this is no mainstream column about the space. Even when Phil is talking about his company, it's far from preachy:

About two years ago, when CoreStreet was just over a dozen people, our offices were two adjacent rooms in a (not very recently) renovated 19th century commercial horse stable. It was an inconvenient setup because even though the two rooms shared an interior wall, to walk from one to the other required going out one door, down the long hallway and in through the other door. This added a couple of hundred feet to the walk and required fumbling with keys two times per trip. Among our neighbors on the floor was some sort of “training” center. We never figured out what they taught, but judging by the condition of the single common bathroom, it may well have been toilet training. We kept our doors locked at all times.

This is a good example of what a CEO blog should be.

This is the don't example.

Thanks to PR Opinions for pointing out Phil's blog.

Tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning I get to take old Blitz, my sister's 14-year-old 80-pound hound mix for his final ride to the vet. He's a good old dog. It's time. I'll sit with him, look him in the eye, tell him what a good good boy he is, and pat him goodbye.

What, Not Ladylike Enough for You?

Jump it, Jump it, Jump It!

I like this one best so far. Scott, not Gerry, Mulligan laid it down over on Waxy.

makin' me smile so big.

David on Voice and Authenticity

A discussion of note going on at David's place about Voice with a capital V. I've commented too. Go on now, git.

Gonzo Enraged

Listen, gonzo engaged participants, what is, is. Stop jumping up and down. Now, another new template is in place. Sorry the other one was so sucky, but I'm in the middle of 25 other things over here, and I gave it a shot.

If you wish to continue posting to Gonzo, please update your blogger profiles within the next week. Otherwise I'll assume you don't want to post to the blog anymore and will delete your ass completely. Reason being, it's kinda nice the way blogger has set up the "Contributors" section of the template to pull your blogger profile info, which shows ALL the blogs you post to, as well as things you probably don't want readers of gonzo engaged to know, like your email address and town of residence.

Ah well, another day...

cross posted here.

Another day, another posse

Jesus, Frank. I'm a person, not a company!

Gonzo Engaged Has A New Look Because I Felt Like It.

Gonzo Engaged has lost it's circa 2001 weblog look in favor of a shiny new blogger-2004 getup. But there's a little problem.

If you know what tag I have to add, and where, within the template to get the poster's name (or blogger profile link) to read out at the bottom of each post, can you leave a comment here, or email me?

It's a team blog, so there are several different posters. And I don't know what I did to the lil doodadder what shows who's who.

byebyenow.

For Dads

It's been 36 years since you wrapped your arms around me, lifted me skyward, balanced me in the center of your broad chest, the buttons of a crisp, white cotton shirt pressing into my belly, getting stuck on the waistband of my shorts, carving a memory in my flesh.

There is something, isn't there, when a daddy lifts his baby girl above his own head and she looks down at him on high--to see the part of his hair, his eyebrows from the top, the way his nose forms a ball at the tip.

Little girls can't tell these things about their daddies when their party shoes are on the floor. But from a head above him, I can see everything. The roundness of his cheeks, their slight blush, the few hairs that wander from the rest.

Fathers, lift your daughters today. Spin them round if you can.

They will remember.

Amen, RB.

Can I get an Amen?

Look, I said this a long time ago, and I'll say it again... The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day. Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly free. Our heart goes on forever.

People of Earth, remember.

And that had nothing to do with Business®. I spit on Business. Ptui! I spit on Science® and Religion® and Politics®. Ptui! Ptui! Ptui! They are abominations, abhorrent to The Holder of the MasterRemote®, The All Merciful MindBreaker®. Defile not thyselves with these loathsome heresies. Ptui! But rather goest thou and kill the Infidel deader than A Fucking Doornail®. Then bloggest thou in Peace® and let not the vile lying vermin cosksuckers disturbest thy rapt contemplation of My Works®...

Keep Voice Alive. Donate.

Just Thoughts...

It has been a strange few days. It feels like a few weeks, but days. Only days.

Anyone who has been to this place before, and everyone new, knows I stepped into a fray by speaking out soon after the weblogs.com fiasco began. I wouldn't change a word of what I said. Not a word. Yes, I struggled for a bit with "Psychosis," since this seemed to be a sticking point around the whole "ad hominem attack" debate. I toyed with posting an apology saying that I should have used the word "Neurosis." In the end, though, after all was said and done, I felt okay with "Psychosis."

I had a talk with a blogger friend today on some interesting issues around getting personal, being real, and resonance. These same issues have been giving me pause lately about blogging. As blogging beats the door of the mainstream, with more bloggers covering more mainstream events/issues/topics, and fewer bloggers getting personal, I see a dilution of voice--the kind of genuine voice that kicked blogging into gear in 2001/2002--and a spike in the boredom level of blog reading and writing. Until this past week, FOX News was more exciting to watch than surfing the top blogs on Technorati.

Part of it is that. Driven by the evolution of tools that categorize us--whether we want them to or not--by mainstream standards. Technorati now makes it so easy to search on discussions around current news and current hot topics, even current books. But what about current loss, current dreams, current cancer, current love affairs, and current babies being born. Show me the top images recently posted across blogs, like Shelley's flowers and Halley's new tan. This is the place where I don't want to care about what I'm told I'm supposed to care about. This is the place where I want to care about you--and me.

In that phone conversation today, we also wound around the blogworld's notions of flamers and trolls. I don't know when the use of these terms became standard license for shutting people up, but that's what has happened. What is a flamer and what is a flame war? It's like obscenity; I know it when I see it. But these words, you see, they are tricky.

They can be so easily used by others who would prefer you remain silent. Stake your claim, get personal, say, "You're full of shit," and you're a flamer. Stick around somebody's site and call them on inconsistencies, or alert them that they've wandered too far from home, and "you're a troll."

No no no.

It's okay,
incite.
Spark to flame,
ignite.

Remember?

If you do remember, you'll also remember that the use of the word "Flamer/Flame War" and "Troll" were once rare here. I think maybe non-existent. Go back through your archives and comments from 2001/2002, or go through mine. You won't find folks in blogspace who disagreed with one another, and got personal about it, called "flamers." You won't find the folks who showed up in your comments to keep you honest called "trolls." Just didn't happen that way. And there's a reason for that.

It goes back to that mainstream thing--standards and protocols not of technology, but of behavior and voice. Copy-catting the status quo. Taking the easy way out.

Now, more bloggers measure what they say, try to provide "balance" and "fairness." Both sides. Equal time. Please, no profanity and keep it at the 3,000 foot level.

To me, that sounds like old-school journalism. Reporting, not blogging. Methodology, not creativity.

Nothing to see here. Go on home.

THIS is the place that asked us to get biased. To have an opinion. To matter, to count, to speak--To speak in a genuine voice, not like contrived, carved-mouthed ventriloquist dummies. At the same time, of course, there was a familiarity--stronger threads and a smaller web--because the communities were smaller and tighter. As a result, we cared.

A lot.

I don't mind so much that this place has become large enough where we can't target our care and concern like a laser beam anymore. I DO care, as a student of voice, about the dilution of what feels real, the seeping of mainstream expectations and policies into this world.

To bring it back around to the last few days, I will say that I hit upon something today that absolutely floored me. It's about the rush. The rush I feel when I read someone who is writing from the gut, from that raw place that feels so good to scratch, the place we used to scratch a lot more often. In writing, being real doesn't have to mean being nice. Being real can mean writing from the brink, you're walking the beam between here and there between madness and the mayhem, trying to decide the best way to keep your footing, or how to tuck a shoulder in during the free fall.

If I can say nothing else, I can say that Dave Winer was himself in this. In his written voice and audio posts, Through all of it. Through the twisted explanations of what happened and why, through the threats and accusations that came after, to the call for the posse. And there's something about that, God forgive me, that resonated with me beyond what was being said. Even about me. There was something that felt just a tiny bit right.

Maybe it was the raw spontaneous outrage -- his and ours -- emitted with taste and smell and sound surround. Damn the consequences--this is who I am and what I think, and don't get in my way.

I'm not suggesting that what are now called flame wars should become the new or revised golden standard of blogging; I'm CERTAINLY not suggesting that what Dave did or said was right. In fact, I'd argue it was 90-percent wrong, and 5-percent nearly criminal.

But there was something, in the in-between space.

A twinge, an energy. We were lifted right before we fell. From that single point, there was more resonance than echo, and I recognized it just before we were plunged into the valley of the horrible.

It was before the flames. It was the crackle of kindling, when the smoke carves its first impression in the night sky.

And it reminded me.

For the Record Only.

I don't care to discuss these comments, from Jeremy's site any further. Incidently, Jeremy received a death threat at home last night. PEOPLE, WTF?

When one calls for a posse to "get" other people--sorry, Powers, Suitt, and Sessum precisely--it doesn't surprise me that the freakish behavior escalates to that level. I'm sorry, Jeremy, that the insanity entered the threshold of you home. That is unreal -- or at least surreal -- and at the same time, really real. It hasn't been so warm and fuzzy around here, either.

I am glad you closed the comments. But I wish you had left ALL of Dave's wishes for us. Including the one re: Halley. Doesn't seem like you should need you to sweep up after him.

“Maybe this will be a lesson, not to the flamers, because their goal is to punish me for daring to exist, but it may mean something to those who listen to them who have a brain. I think Halley Suitt has the most to learn, this flaming is new behavior for her, and she still has readers who don't get it. I know because I've been hearing from them. I haven't said anything -- yet.”

“Ooops, I said Halley has the most to learn, but I meant most to lose.”

About a year ago I learned that the best way to diffuse threats of this specific kind is to expose them.

Follow dave's other comments here and here.

Lis Riba for another take, with lots of links.

NOW, I'm moving on, and going swimming.

I'm an old school blogger.

There was a time on Weblogs, not so long ago, two years or three, when we wrote with passion and danced like gulls. We swore. A lot. Even at one another. We said what we thought. We spit and we snorted. We called eachother out. By name. We hurled criticism and kisses just the same. We didn't candy coat our thoughts, temper our ideas with pros and cons, and wait and sees, and maybes and therefores, and perhapses and in my opinions, we said what the fuck we thought, read the same from friends and frustrators, responded, and used the dynamics as a catalyst for good writing, real conversation, and the birth of a few good ideas.

I still write like that. I wouldn't be here if I couldn't. I do boring business speak on my off time. But this is where I choose to show myself. And I'm fighting not to go away. Because it's so lame now. It's just so lame.

Gary, I really miss you today.

Air Cover

I'll continue to post threats I find floating around the Internet. Just so there's a record:

"I'm going to have to deal with these people, and I'm choosing now to deal with them when they don't hold the cards. If you want to help, let's get a posse organized so when a response is needed it doesn't just have to come from me? They're going to keep attacking until they feel the heat coming back at them. No more taking it lying down. Are you willing to help with this?"

Found here.

So THAT'S where all those anonymous comments come from. The posse. Huh.

Post-Social Relationships

OOOPS! Had the wrong link in this piece--you must have been as confused as I. It's corrected now.

Well written and interesting piece on post-social relationships and weblogging, which explores the human attributes some of us (I'm guilty) associate with our own, and one another's, weblogs. I agree that this was our initial impulse in the early days of blogging, when we rallied around the description of what we were doing here as "writing ourselves into existence," (heavy on the word "ourselves").

The online representations of the human form, blogs are our are avatars of voice, and more. As in, it's more than the physical (or virtual) weblog aperatus that takes on social importance and human attributes--it's the relationships swen among them, it's a variety of characteristics that vary from and among weblogs: the number of years a weblog/blogger has been writing, the depth of self revealed, the size and nature of the community, the intensity of various interblog relationships, and more.

I can't argue with the idea that weblogs are manifestations of the human form--they are the "us" that we can touch, hold, hug, love, slap, and strangle from a distance.

And they are also nothing at all.

There's the rub.

Granted, here is how you say it if you're not personally pissed off...

Been meaning to point to Law Meme's rundown. Good writing. Measured, concise, compelling. And right.

Because I Don't Feel Like Taking the High Road This Time - Period, Exclamation Point.

That is for the first, third, sixth and eighth person who as asked me why not take the high road in the heretofore mentioned Winer incident.

If your high road means shut up and make the coffee, sorry to have disappointed you. Well, not really.

Hope that answers your questions.

And now, I am departing for the Pool...

Yes, Dave + minions, I'm going now. If you want to come drown me, I'll see you in the deep end.

And with that, I defer to Shelley who says it better than I could.

As Dave Conspires to Bring Me Down Next Time...

This is too good. George, get ready, Dave's calling out his posse....

Dave suggests this the next time I call him on his antics:

4. Find out if they have the required background to draw the conclusions they do. For example, Sessum said I was a psychotic. (Probably other things too, I stopped reading her site when I saw her go off the deep end.) What was her claim based on? Is she a psychologist? An M.D.? Any history of mental illness in her background, in her family? (I did a simple search on one of the flamers and found he had a criminal record, he has been convicted of spreading viruses with his computer. There goes his authority to pass judgement. And all you have to do is search, it's right there to find.)

In other words, next time this happens, let's be prepared to respond to their mud with facts, have it be vetted before-hand, not seat of the pants.

If we could get this to happen, we'd definitely elevate the level of discourse in this community, get it out of Three Stooges mode. In order to get there, they have to be risking *something* if they make untrue allegations. That's what I'd like to see happen.

Sorry Dave, no criminal record. Yes Dave, plenty of therapy, which I have wished for you for the longest time. You have borderline written all over you, and yet, it's not healthy for me to take your inventory. Only to point out you need help. Yes dave, you have written me some VERY NASTY emails in the past. No Dave, I deleted them.

And for the criminal history in my family, you can do some research on the name Dimino. When you get to the story about the Dimino who ran over his business partner with a steam roller, that'd be my bunch.

As for the Sessum part, you can explore that too. Oh yes, please do.

Bring it on, Dave. Bring it on.

"Powers or Suitt or Sessum - I am in good company

...versus Dave and Rogers and The-Silent-Kiss-Up-White-Male-Power-Bloggers.

I'd rather be me than you.

What George W. Winer might say, is you're either with me or against me. You good ole boys know where you stand. Your silence speaks volumes.

"If you didn't have a weblogs.com site, you can't complain."

Bullshit. I READ many of those sites, my friends WRITE many of those sites, and I'll complain like hell. Especially when I received emails from folks saying they can't speak out yet, until their data is safe.

"Next time Powers or Suitt or Sessum try to insert hysterics, we can swarm them with love, ask them to stand back until the problem is clear, to stop meddling and when there's an outage, please please don't get us Slashdotted."

Yah, Dave, maybe next time, when there is an actual outage. And please, don't swarm me with your love until you learn what it is. Oh my God. Oh Please. No, don't swarm me with love.

Women meddle.

Men enable.

And all the sheep are nervous.

Meltdown in Progress -- Big Strong Body with Glass Balls

Dave's latest rant, which leads us further into one disturbed psyche.

Dave asks: "Next time, would the Internet have a memory please?"

Oh, I hope so.

great post by Tom

Believe it or not, I too have been thinking more deeply on the issues AROUND winergate, one of which is who and what defines a "dead" weblog and who has the responsibility for calling the time of death, where should they be buried (archived), or should they be creamated, ashes scattered to the wind.

I began thinking about this because Jenna's blog, which we started when she turned four (she's now almost seven) sat for a year without a post. If that blog had been a weblogs.com blog, Dave would have viewed it as one of the many "dead" blogs he talked about. He said the majority of the 3,000 were dead blogs, and that only maybe only 40 folks (originally) cared enough to plead for their blogs back. His assumption, then, was that the majority of the 3,000 were abandoned or dead.

But that blog isn't dead to me. Even in the year without a post. Soon she'll take over that blog herself, and bring a different voice to an old space. The space doesn't die, really. Or does it?

Some "abandoned" weblogs, where bloggers have gone silent or have mysteriously stopped posting, are more alive for me than the drivel expressed in some currently living, oft-updated weblogs. So whose really "alive" here. And, who says?

I don't have time to post more on this now, but go read Tom Matrullo who, of course because he's Tom Matrullo, is using this latest upheval to explore some deeper issues of this Web we weave.

If I were you...

This is it on Winer, unless he pulls another stunt before I catch my breath. He's tiresome. He is his own health problem, and he has blasted the blood pressure of untold numbers. So I have to get away from his twistedness. It isn't healthy. And Dave, although he wouldn't care anyway, isn't the only one out here with glass balls.

But first, a word to my blogger friends who were part of the weblogs.com "community."

I have several friends who were affected by Winer's latest slash-n-burn antics. I'm addressing you here, to say thank you to YOU. Not to Dave, or to the buddies of Dave who have run to his rescue in email and in "servertude." I am glad that they are there--glad that Dave has friends like those--not just for Dave, but for you all. Because without those tempering forces, your wonderful writing could well be gone by now. Way gone. (Or revised and enhanced for you and uploaded in the middle of the night).

Thank you to you weblogs-dot-comers who have written with such passion these last years. You are the ones who have made "weblogs.com" mean something. A server with nothing on it has no value. It is worth the price of a server. It is not something you fight about, dig down and pound fists about, care about, love. It's a piece of hardware. The reason this is more than a hardware failure or outage is because of what's ON the server--Your voices. And regardless of Dave's ongoing revisions to what happened, I'm not comfortable with what was done to you without a second thought.

No matter where you live, whether you follow the Winer trail to Cadenhead or you decide to take this opportunity to forge new alliances, move into new neighborhoods, try new tools, your writing means something to me, and to the larger blogging community.

I will read you. I will link to you. No matter where you go.

So, back to the title of this post... If I were you...

If I were you--and you have to trust me that I have put myself in the very mindspace you've all been in over this last couple days--there is absolutely positively no way I'd hop over to Cadenhead's server and make it my home. I would not make the leap of faith necessary to assume everything will be okay over there because Dave's paws are off of it. Rogers doesn't see a problem with Dave's taking down 3,000 sites without notice. He says that he will have a users policy that will spell out such things. If you go there, make sure you read it. But if I were you, well....

There is no way, no way, no way. I would not allow him to upload my content. I would request that dave follow through on his "Non-Negotiable" deal--his published offer--to export your files to you, and I would haul ass as far away from that shit as I could.

Now that's me.

You may have other ideas.

Although Dave says he wants nothing to do with weblogs.com hosting or puttering around in Manila, um, he has been known to change his minds. The whole Dave/Userland enmeshment is not, from all that I have read, defined enough for me.

Do you trust him? Do you trust them? Does it matter to you?

It would matter to me. I would say, Nah, Dave. No thanks. I'll stick to your original, non-negotiable, one-time-only offer. And I want my Data according to the July 1 "commitment date" you've referenced in your most recent audio post. Or before. Since you're making great progress.

That's it. If I were you, I would be so ready to kick ass that my foot would already be in my boot and winding up. Of course, as I said, that's just me. And I'll link to you (and actually FIX my links to you, "Murphy-Willing") no matter where you land.

Now, go do the right thing.

Compare and Contrast

The now famous outage begins...:

This site is for people with sites that used to be hosted at weblogs.com.

1. I can't afford to host these sites. I don't want to start a site hosting business. These are firm, non-negotiable statements.

2. There are several commercial Manila hosting companies, including weblogger.com. Thomas Creedon maintains a list of commercial and free hosting services. If you want to have your site hosted more cheaply, consider the possibility of forming a co-op of some kind.

3. If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won't export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer.

Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site.

"I'd Like to Thank the Academy..." -- The Award for Best Euphemism Goes to Dave Winer

For calling a "Deliberate" shutdown an "Outage." Congrats! Dave also won for his supporting role as Oxymoron!

I've done a quick transcription of Dave' latest audio post about what he phrases a "deliberate" "outage" below. Enjoy... 'Specially the part about his glass balls... I always knew he had glass ones.

----------------------------

Hi. This is Dave Winer. It’s a little bit after 1:00 Eastern Time, June 17th 2004. I just posted the transition plan for the weblogs.com hosted sites. It looks like we’re going to be able to exceed the commitment by a lot. Basically, the free hosting will continue for 90 days on the new server that’s hosted by Rogers Cadenhead, who I trust. He’s a guy I’ve worked with now for a few months on various different projects. He’s very well educated on the Userland platform; he’s new to Manila, so he’s going to have a learning curve here, but we’ve set up a server and we’ve moved the sites from my server to Rogers’ server, and so I believe we’ve exceeded, well we will when this is working, have dramatically exceeded the commitment and also done it quite a bit sooner than July 1, which was the commitment date.

You should read the new document, which is at newhome.weblogs.com/hostingtransitionplan. And what I want to do in this voice post is to just thank the people who have been incredibly supportive. You know, there are so many good human beings on the Internet, and they are so often overshadowed by the loudest people on the Internet who often aren’t very nice. And, you know, try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and don’t focus too much on people who try to give you pain, don’t give them what they’re looking for, and try to teach whatever I learn, is also part of my philosophy. This time there were a combination of factors, however many, maybe five different factors that when all put together created an outage. It was an outage every bit as real as a denial of service attack, or script kiddies, or some horrible operating system bug, or a disk crash, or anything like that.

Since one of the factors was my health, people tended to discount that. And I think that’s mostly young people that have bodies that don’t get sick. When I was in my twenties, my body didn’t get sick and boy did I do things to it (chuckle), and you know I’m now 49 years old, a lot wiser for the wear and tear, but on the other hand, when I get sick, I really do get very sick sometimes. And stress of course is one thing I can’t do. Or at least the kind of stress that comes from hosting and serving people for free when, you know, you can’t even hire people to help.

I think it was hard for people to understand that this was an outage and when you’re dealing with an outage you basically say how can I help and you leave it at that. You don’t do anything that’s beyond that until the outage is cleared. And then you can do a post mortem on it. A thoughtful person will have probably better insights on what could have been done better than somebody who’s not close to the situation.

So we will do that. I mean, I will do that. And I will share what I’ve learned. But first we have to finish the cornerturn and the passoff. I need to move a lot of stuff from Boston to New York this weekend. Lots of other things to deal with…so in any case...so I want to… so the purpose here is to acknowledge and thank the people who made a public or private statement of support—not just support for me, that’s not even the important part. In situations like this what matters is the support for the users. If technology is a profession, the users are our patients. And maybe more accurately, their websites are our patients. And that’s what comes before everything else. So the support here mattered a lot and I appreciated it.

There are two people I want to call out. One is Evan Williams at Blogger. Evan posted a very simple message yesterday, and I linked to it from today’s scripting news, and I would highly recommend people go look at it. Evan and I have had some major disagreements, we actually have a disagreement out right now. But when an outage comes and somebody’s fighting to keep the servers operating, all that goes into the background and what comes to the foreground is that support thing, and that’s a very big picture type view of things and that’s what makes, what can make, an industry great, that if we know in the moment we need help it’s going to be available to us, we can try to do bigger things. I really appreciate what Evan did and if given the chance I will reciprocate and do it with absolute pleasure and pride, so thanks Evan and thanks for setting such a great example.

And then the one other I want to call out as special comes from Michael Winser. Michael is I think still a programmer at Microsoft. I know he has a Microsoft email address. I’ve never actually met him face to face, but Michael’s been a correspondent for probably eight years, since I started writing davenet, he’s been a regular reader and contributor. He was working on the browser team during the browser wars, and we were communicating constantly. And it was always a two-way communication thing. … It’s been a good relationship. Today after he sent me an email, I’m going to read you a quote he provided, I wrote back and said we’re friends, and that’s not a word I don’t use lightly, and I don’t.

So here’s what he wrote, a quote from Sandra Pianalto, who is the president and Chief Executive Officer of the federal reserve bank of Cleveland. This is part of the talk she gave at the graduation commencement at Ursuline College this year 2004. She says:

”Here’s a technique I find very helpful in reminding me to keep a work-life balance. You will have many responsibilities simultaneously in your life, like having to juggle several balls at once. Visualize that in one hold you hold a rubber ball, and in the other hand you hold a beautiful fragile glass ball. The rubber ball represents your career, your work and your volunteer activities. The glass ball represents your family, your friends, and your health. What happens when you drop the rubber ball? It will bounce. Someone will pick it up for you or it will stay put until you are able to pick it up again. What happens if you drop the glass ball? If you’re lucky, it will crack. But it may smash into a million pieces. Either way it will never be the same. So along with everything that you learn, there is something you should learn not to do. Don’t let your justifiable concern about your career
Cause you to drop the precious ball that represents your family, your friends, and your health.”

So what Michael said to me, he says, it’s very simple to me, you dropped the rubber ball. And it’s true, I certainly did. It was done deliberately, it was done by choice, and I wouldn’t do it any differently if I had it to do over again. I think what people responded to, people who were shocked at it, is that they don’t really ever see people do that. But I made a choice, and I decided I want to be healthy and I don’t want to give my life to this free hosting business. [sigh].

There was more that he said that helped me put things in perspective and if I get it I’ll post it. So anyway that’s it for this morning coffee note or non coffee note or afternoon air conditioner note, you can hear in the background the air conditioner running because it’s pretty darn hot here in Boston.

I’m gonna get some exercise, drink lots of water and I’m gonna enjoy my life, and I’m gonna help Rogers Cadenhead, Steve Kirks, and anybod else who wants to show up and help the weblogs.com community, I’m all over it. Just don’t look to me to do the hosting. Okay?

Thanks very much. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Glenn's got a Plan.

Glenn's got a way to get your old weblogs.com pages from Google. It has something to do with flibbertygibbit, and why shouldn't it? The whole big mess could be called flibbertygibbit.

Glenn points to Tara Calishain, who has even more advice, though I didn't see her use the word flibbertygibbit.

Best of all they're using the real world example of tom.weblogs.com, one of my favorite MIA blogs.

Quote of the Day

Well, one quote of the day anyway: Last sentence.

Well that's true. Self-control is highly overrated. You see evidence of this all the time. People just love to jump up and down.

;-)

Interim Dean

Dean Landsman has a temporary blog up. He talks about the surprise of the shut down and says no to survivor guilt for Doc and the few other weblogs.comers who remain:

...there's absolutely no reason to be suspicious, angry, hostile or any other such attitude toward Doc Searls' blog or any of the others that survived the change.

Doc didn't participate in turning off the blogs. That he got to keep his blog is not some sinister plot or the action of a cabal. It is simply a courtesy provided to him . . . one he neither requested in advance nor knew about until he learned that mine and others hosted at weblogs.com were SOL.

He knew nothing about it until it occurred!

Doc was one of the people I had called to ask to look and see if the odd page-view was on their PC, as well. He was as surprised as I was. And he, too, was seeing that peculiar screen, congratulating the new blogger. Doc noted that the problem was evident, and suggested I contact a fellow he and I know who is a Manila person, and who had helped me with some source coding last year.

Glad to see you up and running, Dean!

Still good advice coming in comments...

...for those looking for new blog homesteads.

Rageboy Reports from Boulder, CO.

The news takes a while to git to Boulder these dayz, but it's always a hoot when it comes back 'round.

/. - the morning after.

I've been out all day. Funny how the real world interrupts the other real world now and again.

The big news to me, this day, is that apparently SLASHDOT OWNS ME! Wow! How cool is that? Thank you for the comments from the non-anonymous SLASHDOTers who stopped by. To those who thought super geeky cool to post many many comments alerting me that SLASHDOT now OWNS ME, well, I have to say that's a load off my mind.

Since SLASHDOT now OWNS ME, SLASHDOT can begin paying my mortgage, my health insurance, my credit card bills--oh, and yes! MY HOSTING FEES!

And thumbs up to the folks at Blogspot/Bloogle, my revered host, who gave me free hosting for my first year or so of blogging, who never decided to drop kick me one day when they didn't get a mention in Time Magazine, whom I've paid for the last two years, and who, I may add, handled the extra slashdot traffic just fine.

Whoohoo! Thumbs up to indentured servitude!

You know, really, basically, without going into too much detail...

This is why I blog.

"People just love to jump up and down."

We need animation.

We need a monkey boy video.

We need all these things and more.

But in the mean tim, this is just damn hysterical.

Andy's got the geech from Brian Dear... and there's a contest underway to see who can slam jam the best Dave Winer Audio Blog Remix.

Let us all begin to heal, as men and women, as a nation, by simultaneously laughing our asses off -- and of course, jumping up and down.

The TechKnow People Have Arrived

Either from slashdot or from elsewhere, many have jumped into the comment thread below with offers for help to displaced weblogs.com bloggers.

In other news, I was at a friend's house tonight talking about northeast winters. She's from the Mississippi Delta. I'm from Rochester, N.Y.

Our girls were making forts in the bedroom out of blankets and chairs and newspapers, and I remembered the feeling of being inside a fort as a kid, a private hideaway too small for adults to invade, our first apartments, our island escape.

I started to tell my southern friend about the long winters and lake effect snow, the snow so deep that we spent half the year digging igloos and snow caves in the huge drifts that the snowplows made at the side of the roads. These were the forts I grew up in. Not treehouses or bedroom forts, but snow tunnels.

My friend remarked about the safety--or lack thereof--of living in snow tunnels. Sure, we'd lose a couple of kids each winter, back in the 70s when the snow was for real, kids who fell into drifts and couldn't get out, kids whose tunnels caved in and suffocated them. Somehow, that was par for the course, no different than the tragic swimming pool drownings you read about down here during the summer. Really. Snow accidents were part of the terrain, as water accidents are in places where folks enjoy the sun a good part of the year.

The snows ability to suck up children never stopped us from digging and tunneling and building our forts. Mostly, I guess, because there was nothing else to do. Our parents knew that compared to hanging from car bumpers skating down the street at 40 mph under the rear axel, an activity reserved for the *bad* kids, tunnel digging was relatively safe.

We built igloos too during those long cold months. We'd work for hours, skin so numb that our thighs would be covered in hives by the time we went in for the day. In all of this nostalgia, I remembered the name of the all-time best snow apparatus ever, and I asked my friend if she'd ever heard of the iggy snow maker.

Winter people over 40, do you remember the iggy snow maker? Do I have the right name? I googled it just now and didn't see a reference. Not one. But I'm pretty sure iggy snow maker was the red snow-brick maker that made igloo construction easy.

I wanted to show my friend, since she has something in her garage that looks just like it. The only difference is hers is for building sand castles. I almost thought to steal it and keep it for my next winter trip to Rochester.

I mean really, what good is an iggy snow maker in sand? You can't tunnel through sand piles.

Up for Adoption

Dave says these sites are looking for homes.

Folks willing to help the homeless in one way or another:

Tom Creedon

Steve Kirks will store dormant sites.

Dan Dickenson has offered to back all the sites up onto a DVD-R into perpetuity, in the off-chance someone misses this offer and wants to restore their site.

Ross Radar has a weblog friendly home for your content.

Anil Dash can help migrate your manilla site to a new Typepad home.

others who want to help the homeless, leave them a comment if you'd like.

Interim Tom

Tom Matrullo has an interim home while he waits for his words to travel back to him from Daveland. Hopefully. It's here. The first post is beautiful, and Tom sees this latest take-down as perhaps -- maybe, wouldn't it be nice, and I might agree with him -- an energizing force for blogging.

Last night was a 9/11 of sorts for the weblogs.com bloggers. Was it a bird, a plane, superman? Now they pick up the pieces and we help. Let's all help.

Tom tackles the issue among cultural comparisons of Mexico, from which he has just returned, and the U.S. And I am so glad he's still posting writing like this:

Where other cultures, e.g. Mexico, have long living memories, large historical imaginations, small routines and rituals and styles that bind together collectives into communities, what we we have heah in the US of A appears to fall into the category of media psychosis: A glacial world of aberrant reaction formations born of fear, (especially infantile nostalgia for Great White (or Orange) Fathers), usurping all that could be known in ecstatic longings for a world that isn't ever to be known. Blotchy burning suns set in plush radiowave velour, suitable for framing.

One way or the other, the monument will build itself.

Winergate 2004

Or, The Day the Cluetrain Jumped the Rail

Doc's still posting while other weblogs.com sites are gone, for now, til sometime after July 1, or after Dave moves, or after his friends help him out of this latest jam. So far, Doc hasn't posted about the absence of voices from his old server stomping grounds.

David Weinberger gives Dave Winer props for all his years of hosting, but forgets to mention today's historic takedown of thousands of bloggers until sometime next month, hopefully. I left a comment.

RageBoy, unaware of TAHDW's latest dump-taking, is writing about Facism, and somehow is synchronistically more connected to the moment than anyone else (not surprising) in his latest post about light, the new age, and facism:

Word History: It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini's group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.

chooo chooo...

Shelley Audio Blogs Back

Shelley Powers posts her own audio post responding to Dave Winer's audio post about why he can't program anymore, host blogs, and decided to take down all bloggers on weblogs.com until sometime after July 1st. And by the way, he's moving June 30th, so hope and pray that his move goes smoothly, offer to pack some boxes for him, do the heavy lifting, or start writing someplace else, my weblogs.com friends.

Typed Transcript of Dave Winer's Audio Post.

[[The links are mine. I typed the rest from the audio post.]]

Hi it's dave winer here. It's Monday night June 14th, and this is not a morning coffee note, but i wanted to talk a little bit about the hosting situation at weblogs.com and explain what is happening there.

I thought I would try doing it as an audio thing as opposed to writing an essay about this. My feeling is that people generally don't read essays, so if you want to present a subtle idea, that's not a really good way to do it.

[[coughs.]]

Basically, you may or may not know that I haven't worked at Userland for two years. We started hosting weblogs.com sites when I was CEO of Userland in the year 2000. They've been hosted for four years, and basically there's been a management change at Userland that happened about six months ago.

In that management change it became clear that there were two sort of branches to userland. There was one which was the commercial products (which radio userland and manilla were the two products), and there was another branch that consisted of formats and protocols and open stuff that was non commercial.

So we divided it along those lines, to keep the non-commercial stuff non-commercial, and to allow the commercial company--the product--to go forward unencumbered by a lot of obligations to do things for free, which really wasn't consistent with the mission of a commercial company.

So, basically, things like OPML.org, outliners.com, XMLRPC.com, Soapware.org, stayed behind in the old company. And then we gave RSS to Harvard Law School, which then in turn released it under the Creative Commons License. Then we're going to take the Frontier kernel and release that under an Open Source license sometime this year.

So we've gradually been moving sites off of userland servers onto servers I've bought and deployed here in Massachusetts. And we did the work with Lawrence Lee at Userland this last month to move the sites from Userland servers over to my servers. We saved the hardest sites for last, or the most significant sites for last, and the last two sites we did were scripting.com and weblogs.com.

Weblogs was by far the harder of the two. In the process of moving them, we didn't anticiapte all the problems we'd hit. We came across the question of how are we going to do the hosting of the old sites that were hosted for free on weblogs.com? The DNS service provider just can't handle the number of different domains under weblogs.com. We had to put them all in one place, and they had to be on one of my servers. Lawrence and I moved the sites over, and when we put the sites on the machine the performance of the machine became incredibly bad.

If you were in the loop during that period, you saw that people were having problems. I watched it very carefully over the space of a few hours. It was very clear that this was not going to be running very well. I felt that I could get these sites working, get the server back up and performing well, but I'd have to do a lot of programming to do that and it would take quite a few months to actually get it to happen, and these are months I just simply didn't have. I'm really not doing programming. There's a reason why I'm not too--it has to do with health issues.

Without going into too many detail, the stress of keeping servers running for users that expect free service, it's just deadly combination for me. It's no fun, it's highly stressful, and it literally is dangerous given my health situation. It's like smoking cigarettes, it's one of those risk factors. I really don't want to go into the details on it; I'm sure you can use your imagination.

So basically, I sort of looked at it and said, "What can I do for people?" I could not put the sites up and say, "You have two weeks to download your sites" for a couple of reasons. I didn't know if that would work. The server had never been used for that before. It couldn't run those sites for two weeks without me having to take everything else that was running on that server off.

So I just did the best I could, which was to say, if you make a request by July 1st, then I will go through that list of all the sites that are there on July 1st, and I will create exported versions of those sites on that day.

This gives people basically the heads up that they were asking for. I understand that you would like to have had your site remain accessible during that period, but I just couldn't simply work that out. And you could say I should have explained it, and I could have done better, and you may be right. That I should have and I could have... it's possible... but it's also not clear to me that people wouldn't have found something else to find fault with. I mean, this is sort of the attitude on the Internet. It's sort of like people just love to jump up and down and it hardly matters how well you do something because basically certain thing happen and people will jump up and down so just accept that.

On the other hand, most of the people who are actually affected by this, who actually have sites that are hosted on weblogs.com, have been perfect ladies and gentlemen about it, which is something I'm enormously proud of, the association I've had with people who used editthispage sites and weblogs.com sites, these were pioneers, early adopters, people with a vision, people who understood blogs before they were written up in all the magazines they've been written up in since, before their were war bloggers, before most of the people complaining were even blogging for that matter.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I will help you to the best of my ability, and I'll try to get others to pitch in. I've already talked with Rogers Cadenhead who wrote the excellent Radio Userland book and is one of my colleagues on the RSS advisory board, and he says he's going to help, and Thomas Creedon has provided a list of blogging hosts that can run Manilla sites.

If there's anything that we can do within reason to help. But understand that I'm moving on June 30th and my life is in sort of an upheaval state. This is not a company here. This is a person. So, to expect company-type service is un.. well, it isn't going to happen.

Anyway, so that's about it. Um, if you have any comments or questions, please send me an email. You'll find the link, look for the mail icon in the right margin at www.scripting.com, or you can send me email at dwiner@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Thank you very much and see you again, talk to you soon.

Good night.

An invitation to weblogs.com bloggers who want to post

Hey Dean, Craig, Tom, and others... If you want to post over here until you get your blogs back from Dave, I'll add you as team members. Just let me know. I haven't been using the place much lately anyhow.

Hope all ends up okay with the fine work you and others have contributed to the blogworld over the years.

No, it's not okay.

It's not okay for 3,000 weblogs to revert to a post by the software vendor one day without warning.

I assume from the comments of weblogs.com bloggers--which have an edict from on high to be positive only--this came as a shock to them. I wonder when we'll know. I guess sometime in July when Dave decides to give them their blogs back.

So many are thanking Dave for the years of free hosting in their comments. I wonder how many comments he's deleted that were less self-deprecating.

If blogger/blogspot did this to George's hosted-for-free blog or Jenna's hosted-for-free blog without warning, without a thoughtful, non-condescending message on why and what's next, I assure you I would be throwing a fit the size of Massachusetts, or maybe Texas. I certainly wouldn't be saying, Thanks.

Shelley, who has hosted the blogs of many nomads in her day, has an interesting perspective on Dave's latest.

It will be interesting to see what the affected bloggers say if and when they return.

The Death of Blogging -- Brought to you by Dave Winer's Psychosis

Some things, I used to think, are even beneath Dave Winer. But no, I take that back. He has single handedly done more to hinder the medium of blogging, which he believes he created, than any other power blogger around. He's anti-voice, though he's pro free expression, as long as that expression contains accolades for Dave Winer.

I just saw this over at Halley's place and went to Tom's blog and read Dave's post on Tom's private weblog. Tom is traveling back from Mexico, not sure if he's landed yet, but I doubt that the first thing on his mind is how hard Dave Winer wants his old Manilla users to blow him in this special "one-time" offer.

Dave, I'll take a copy of Tom's weblog if he doesn't get back to you in time. I'll save it for him, because I read him and value what he's created (not you, him) over the past several years.

Notice, in the Comments section of Tom's blog, Dave takes over the blog to make his "One time offer" to give users copies of their blogs sometime in July. He warns commenters thusly:

"Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site" he writes at the top of the comment thread.

Dave, you're the biggest Winer out there.

Exhibit A -- Read Dave's #3 stipulation:

"If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won't export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer."

I'm quite sure that Dave Winer has lost what little judgment he had left. WHY the big boys of weblogging refuse to stand up to him and call his actions out for what they are, I don't know. A bunch of cowards with too much to lose.

That's the long and short of it.

Good Call, We'll See.

I had a good call with Mike Sigal of Guidewire Group discussing my take on BlogOn, business and blogging, voice vs. identity, and the like.

Mike called me after reading my post on the event, and I give him a 10 out of 10 on careful listening to my take on what's wrong with talking to businesses about blogging this way, why the same-old folks talking among the same-old folks promising new solutions from the "tool" called blogging makes me itchy with hives (i think I did say hives, right Mike?), and why the voice and message (and claims) on the BlogOn Welcome page rub me the wrong way. In other words, I had my say.

For his part, Mike explained that things will soon unfold on the site that will represent and facilitate a larger discussion among the weblog community around the event. I told him I look forward to that. And I do. Mike welcomed my continued critique, except I think he said criticism, on what they're doing with BlogOn. He never once asked, "Why'd you have to call it Blow Gun?" You have to respect that.

I told him I don't always criticize, that sometimes I'm downright euphoric about what's happening on the Web (take my affair with Orkut and Flickr as evidence). And I told him that I would indeed keep an eye and an ear on BlogOn and hope it does take a more inclusive dynamic form online. I hope it's something different. Jay Rosen can tell you that I'm all about participating in pre-conference think tanks.

Mike also welcomed me to the event as a responder for one of the panels, but as is my problem with most of these events, I can't get away from my own business, my own family responsibilities, or my own bank account easily. I will most likely partake from the stands.

Anyway, thanks Mike for an interesting talk and for being an officer and a gentleman. ;-)

Happy 45, George!

Yeeehaw! "King George," master of all things bass turns 45 today.

Two geminis under one roof. You do the math.

I got you a cake, honey. You won't read this before I surprise you with it, but everyone else knows now.

SURPRISE! yum yum.

It's that time again...

In his book Gonzo Marketing, Chris Locke wrote the single best business book sentence of our generation. Four simple words: "The solution is poetry."

In honor of RB, Gonzo, and my sorrow over the death of blogging, I've started another team blog. Bring your solution, your poetry, and email me if you want in.

The way I see it, there's one way to resonate past punditry. And that's through poetry.

How now, brown cow?

The Dreaded July-August: A Call to All Indies

If you're in business for yourself, you know what's coming. The dreaded July and August. I've met them before, looked them in the eye, and dared them to take me down. They almost did last year. Work dried up. Not a sound from anyone, except for the occasional, "Yah, me too"s. In my second year, I am fairly certain that the entire global economy goes to Disney Land for the summer. Do the global roll call and you hear a sustained echo answering you back: "Sorry, I'm on break."

This is no surprise, but the reason for it is seldom revealed. The fact is this: Kids run the global economy. That's right. Kids. Millions of them on summer break, spilling grape jelly on the marble floors of the homes of CEOs and power brokers, falling off bikes, needing bandaids and stitches, fighting swimmer's ear, searching for pajamas for the sleepover at a friends' house, needing rides to birthday parties, requiring one more layer of sun screen, bug spray, always one more. There are basketballs and tires to pump. There are relatives to visit. There are snacks to buy.

It's summer, and even the Husbands and Wifes of Power in Business find it impossible to *not* spend time with their kids. What started as a fad is now a mandate. This is when the powerful schedule family trips, take the vacation they rolled over from last year.

For me, July and August are when all of my clients forget that they have a strategy, decide that September will be here soon enough and there will be budget to blow through before the end of the year.

For 8 weeks, they forget that they'll ever have another performance review. They forget about getting ink. They forget that anyone might visit their Web site and wonder why nothing's new. They forget they have a boss, because She's on vacation with the family. They like to meet for drinks. Have company picnics. They don't care much about invoices, especially about paying them. They let projects drag through the lazy days and weeks of summer -- the same projects that would have *had* to be completed overnight any other time of the year.

And so, for you, for me, for those of us working without a net on the Net, we say, here goes nothing. Hi there Summer. Hold on tight. The autumn deadline panic will come all in good time. The business will come back when businesses come back. Be patient, go the pool, and enjoy your own kids. Treat them well because the children are in charge of the market.

Just don't spend any money, because come August, you're going to need it.

90-Year-Old Gerald Ford Dies - Nation Says, Tough Doo Doo.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 13, 2004 -- Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States, died late Sunday evening at the age of 90 from natural causes. Sources say wife Betty was at President Ford's bedside at the couple's home in Ann Arbor, Mich., when he died, shortly before 11 p.m.

Sources close to the family say that the President, who served from 1974 to 1977, had been recuperating from pneumonia and had insisted on attending President Reagan's memorial services last week with the other living American Presidents. Speculation has arisen that attending the Reagan memorial events may have been too much for the ailing President.

"Now what the hell are we supposed to do?" asked one White House source, referencing the recently-completed period of national mourning for President Reagan. "We just closed the banks, the libraries, shut down the whole government -- people aren't even back to work yet! Are we supposed to do this whole shebang again? What timing. We're at WAR you know."

Customers at Tom's delicatessen in Washington had mixed reactions when told of the news.

"Well, I think if they just get him in the ground quick, we'll remember them both at the same time, and since they're both republicans, that seems pretty fair," suggested Ted Nielsen from nearby Herndon, V.A. "No sense closing down the country one more day for another dead President. Besides, he was clumsy and he didn't look as good as Ronnie. He couldn't act for shit either."

Margie Wilson sees it differently. "CNN's been war-war-war since 9/11," she said. "Me? I like to break up the monotony of war with a good two-week memorial fest, topped off with a romantic hillside burial service. It's the least we can do to honor our dead presidents. And those who've died in the war. And, well, everyone else who's dead too. For goodness sakes, our dead are national heroes. Really, who knows better than the dead what our country needs right now?"

The passing of Presidents Ford and Reagan raises the issue of the aging crop of Presidents: President Carter turns 80 this year, while President George Bush Sr. marked his 80th birthday today by skydiving in front of thousands of onlookers at Texas A&M University. It appears only President Clinton will escape a funeral within the next five to ten years.

"I was sorry to hear about Gerry," President Clinton said. "And Ronnie," President Clinton said again. "And the thing that really blew me away was that Ray Charles died, and you didn't hear jack about that. You know? Here you have dead Presidents, and, now don't get me wrong, I was a President, but you see we're representatives of the people, and we are paid as public servants to do our jobs. And we have done our jobs. President Reagan did his job. President Ford did his job. And I did my job. But NOT ONE of us could blow like Ray Charles. Not one of us had the soul, the hot ache from the pit of the gut like Ray did. Shit. Awe, shit. Ray's the one I'll miss the most."

###

Reagan and My Money

He eliminated the social security death benefit for children of deceased parents when I was 18. Not much, but I needed that $300 a month for college, and my father worked and paid social security throughout his short adult life, not thinking he'd die at 36, no life insurance, leaving a widow and three kids behind. Thanks, Ronnie.

He capped the low interest student loans I needed to pay for college in the early 80s, so that I couldn't borrow any money for my junior and senior year. Thanks, Ronnie.

He blew interest rates through the roof, so that some of us who had to borrow money 20 years ago are still paying it off.

And, I'm assuming since the mail lady hasn't come today, in his last moments in the public view, he's delayed the check that was supposed to arrive today -- money I need -- by probably two additional days.

I had no fondness for him as a President. I didn't know him as a man.

Bye.

Oh for the love of Pete--Now we've got BlowGun?

Apparently no one told these folks that blogging surpassed the "hot trend" category last year and is now on its way to passe-ville. Well, at least blogging the way they understand it. Really, someone should have clued them in that blogging is dead (long live writing).

DIG, if you will, exhibit A, also known as the intro page, which attempts to jazz up conference attendee wannabes and speakers. Okay. I am a cunning linguist myself, and I understand that the writer is trying hard, if badly, to create in his or her readers an ultra-orgasmic state, or at least a longing for this brand new, hot-so-hot trend called blogging.

For instance, the welcome message urges us to take advantage of this fast-emerging technology and the unique language it uses.

Unique language? Oh no. Oh dear. I've begun to perspire.

But there's more:

Yet, despite this phenomenal growth, no one company has prospered from blogging or social media. BlogOn will show you why this day is imminent. The real question is: Who will be in position to ride this new wave?

no one company has prospered?

why this day is imminent?

who will be in position to ride this new wave?

Well, for one thing, people who can WRITE, or at least have something meaningful to SAY.

The Blogon (Pronounced Blow Gun by the common folk who already speak the unique language known as pigeon-bloggish) people are urging you to LEVERAGE ! AND QUICKLY!

They want you to understand and harness this gathering disruptive phenomenon.

[[what's a gathering phenomenon? anyone?]]

That's right--rein it in. Harness it, capture the power and use it to sustain your competitive advantage. Sure: Harness, which in business speak is kin to leverage. Believe me. I wrote the book.

Best of all, you will notice that all of your favorite (mostly self-proclaimed male) A-listers are speaking at BlowGun, except at this conference they are called leading bloggers.

One of my favorite absurd claims of the BlowGun folks is that the conference will enable you to Discern for yourself the difference between vision and hallucination among key players.

Well, I don't know for sure who the "key players" are, but I sure as hell am hoping that this whole BlowGun thing is a hallucination.

And while we're at it, I'll take hallucination over business vision any day of the week.

I have to wonder: when will a conference come along that Our Regular Representatives decide NOT to attend--not to give credibility to? When will they say, "naw--this sounds way too goofy" to the kind of anti-voice crap mantra bullshit this page reeks of?

When?

Someone, load the blow gun and shoot me now.

Shelley?, Stavros? Anyone?

Writing Letters

Dear Friends...

note to self...

Happy 42nd to Nina June...

That'd be what my daddy thought to name me.

stumbling on

I don't think I'm going to blog anymore. I'm going back to writing instead.

in 2001 I saw it this way

"I'm meeting folks I wouldn't know unless we happened to win their business one day. Great people. SMART people. With really good ideas about blogging, kids, what makes marketing work and not work, why some companies suck to work for--stuff like that. So as this (so far) loosely-knit group of really cool people takes shape among organizations (hell, we all work somewhere--this Internet's an expensive addiction) a very important cross-organizational culture begins to emerge. We understand each other. We know the secret handshake. It's powerful. It is already amazing me. I'm so glad I caught the train."

--me, Gonzo Engaged, October 2001


"It ain't over til it's over, but it sure feels over."

--me, today.

and the survey says....

I've written nearly a half million words on blogger since 2001.

If I had a dollar for every word

I'd have probably spent it on good coffee and fancy-pants shoes for jenna by now.

I am starting a reparation movement for bloggers.

Starting immediately the Greater World At Large (GWAL) owes each of us

a dollar per word.

It's a reasonable rate for writing as fine as this.

Motherfuckers.

Swear words are half off.

It's a special offer.

Today only.

A half million words.

How many of them

meant something?

I think

every single

one.

.

Fahrenheit 911 trailer: here.

Doctors without Borders - 5 staff killed in Afghanistan: here.

MSF has been active in Afghanistan since 1980, through the Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban regime. The politicization of aid underway since the fall of the Taliban, condoned by the international community with the tacit acceptance of many non-governmental organizations, has proven dangerous for humanitarian organizations and has undercut Afghan’s access to assistance that is truly needs based. Security has deteriorated and humanitarian agencies have increasingly become targets of attacks aimed Western presence.

Stay tuned for Afghanistan II, coming to an Iraq near you.

got better got worse got better got worse

new brand of feeling shitty over here. from the worst stomach flu I've hand since I was 11 years old to feeling better enough to work the "holiday" to feeling shitty again with a sore throat and ouchy ear.

who wants to know all this? none of you if you are smart.

suffice it to say, or don't suffice it to say, but blogging just isn't helping me feel any more better than shitty. It's a responsibility that I don't feel responsible for anymore. I saw that gary had closed up shop (for a while?) this eve and went, well shit. Gary. Our Gary. An identity crisis of sorts, he says.

Anyone who knows how he feels, say heeeey. throw your hands in the air wave em round like you just don't give a crap.

Of course you do. Unless you're stitting out here just stroking it for your own get-off, you have to know what Gary means.

He's one of my bros, you know. Turner and Golby for starters, and Paynter and MOCC and more. We who started back in the era of the RB dare, whether it makes senes or not, whether it sounds sappy and weird, we're brothers and sisters and we can no sooner separate our geneology than identical twins can. We ebb and flow pretty much at the same time. some of us. we do. whether we're vibing off of one another's writing, or whether it's a natural cycle that doesn't much care how we feel about it, we ebb and flow together.

gary ebbed. i'm ebbing.

so here I come back to say I'm hoping to be around when I feel better, but folks we gotta do better out here. we gotta get it back. what's "it"? JOY. The joy of it. Harder and harder to find. There's no joy left here. not for me, not now.

Shelley wrote about it too. death and famon and flood and war and punditry. all the things we were running away from.

No, this isn't supposed to be one of those "Ah, we were so cool back then" posts, or one of those "I'm quitting" posts, but fuck if we weren't and fuck if I wouldn't like to.

and my damn ear hurts too.