"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

The Springdom, the Flower, and the Glory

It's a fantabulous day here in the HC, going beyond the beauty of sping and offering a legitimate preview of what we enjoy come Summer. The sun is hot and the breeze is fresh. I spent the first half of the afternoon lazing about the plaza at the farmers market. I was hoping to score some organic cucumbers (for to make deliciously infused gin) but it's too early. Most people are just selling plant sprouts, herbs and gourds and leeks and salad greens.

But it's still a good place to hang out, to see and be seen. For instance, I ran into Aaron from Green Wheels, who's sort of a socially entrepreneurial peer for me here. He put a quote from me into his quarterly newsletter. I may try and help them out with the Drups on their website, etc. It's all part of putting down my own roots locally.

Farmers market is also a nice place to people-watch; solar power demos and pretty ladies. Nothing much happening there, just some hippy guy catching paper on fire and me lurking around, watching for beauty. Pretty cool though, and important for me to get out in the world. It's gotten to the point where people in #drupal tell me to "go meet real girls" (I'd said I had "a date with some javascript this weekend"), and it feels a bit like I've entered into a situation comedy based on how often people seem to want to fix me up. Not that I mind that, but it's definitely a new phenomena. New can be good though.

Anyway, I'm not stressing it. Someday I'll find a nice girl who'll talk nerdy to me and things will just click. The flutter will return. I feel pretty confident in that, even if the meantime is a tad lonely.

Well, I'd better get back to that javascript date, and my taxes. I want to wrap it all up and go see a play!

(Photo by Hamed Saber)

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Back in the HC

After a late-night drive I've returned to the HC, home of struggles over code enforcement and many other great things. I got out to a late start, but it was allright since there isn't any traffic in Santa Rosa at 8pm and I got a tip to check out Radio Lab, which provided great entertainment for the first four hours of the trip.

I woke up this morning and noticed how quiet it was. Contrast is nice.

Lots of goings on around here. Always more to do. It looks like I'll be burning the candle at both ends and also melting into it from various points in the middle between now and my 29th birthday (May 10th, also the date for the Country Soul Carnival!).

I'm hoping to have the time and energy to get my writing back into gear also. It may not happen, but I'm hoping my high-functioning nature continues kicking and I just operate at more RPMs rather than getting burned out and overwhelmed.

We'll see.

(Photo by Lynda True)

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Well There's Only So Many Ways You Can Give Your Loving To Me...

...But I'd give up my soul for just one of them now...

It's been a packed week down in the Bay. Wheeling and dealing, painting and sanding, whooping and shouting; the whole nine yards.

Went and saw The Avett Brothers on Friday night. They're pretty great showmen as expected, and I got me a t-shirt -- a much more effective way of supporting working musicians than paying for their music, btw -- but I felt the concert could have been more. Slims is not my favorite place to see a show, and the crowd vibe was a little off. That and I had great expectations, which is generally unfair and I try not to do for the sake of giving artists a chance, but c'est la vie. That's what you get for being real good.

They were touring on 2007's Emotionalism, which is a great album, the first one I heard -- coming via Pickathon and Chelsea late last summer -- and probably the most natural cultural fit for SF. But having been exposed to their entire catalog, I celebrate the mo' twangy stuff a bit more fully than that which leans indie. The crowd was on the other side of that leaning, didn't seem to know a lot of the other/older stuff, and just wasn't as lively as I'd hoped.

I suppose I was looking for something really wild and free, like when we saw The Devil Makes Three at the Starry Plough last month. That was hot and packed and foot-stomping scream-along-singing until you got light in the head and then another song would start up that was even better and more worth jumping around to; lather-rinse-repeat. By contrast, the crowd's energy at this gig made it tough to even break a sweat. I also felt the encore was a bit too scripted, and there wasn't sufficient demand in the room to draw out a spontaneous second round.

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Back Again With The Quickness

Fuck. That was lame. My hosting provider hosed my server, and because I pay not so much money, it didn't really get resolved until just now. Email is piling up and whatnot, and I've failed my three and a half loyal readers yet again.

On the upside, the server is all clean. I aught to do a redesign.

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