I'll keep the majority of stupid things I trip across on the web to myself or my Reddit or Twitter or Facebook accounts and I'll use this space to create, store and share stuff I do myself.  Hope you like it, but I'm not too worried about it.

We're also getting ready to make and offer on a house so cross your fingers for us on that one.  

On top of all that, last week Matt received an email from a woman who was on the Press Corps with Obama during the election.   Apparently they insisted he watch the video...

Also, these are the most amazing bento lunches.  This guy's girlfriend makes them for him. 

I have never stayed anywhere as nice as this: 6 bedrooms, living room, dining room, pool – it’s absolutely beautiful and it is so fun to have the whole place for me and Matt, Danny, Nick, Jeremy and Munesh.  Most of the crew has friends in Bali. 

We got first pick so of course we took the master bedroom.  I took a few pix but their website is really the best place to see what it was really like – Karishma Villas. 

Bali is as hot as Singapore and the only place in Indonesia that is Hindu instead of Muslim.  Apparently this means that it’s more liberal, artistic and touristed than the rest of the country.  That’s one of many reasons Islamic fundamentalists have chosen to bomb it a few times. 

That night, everyone went out to party with their friends so Matt and I had the whole villa to ourselves.  We lounged, we swam in the pool, we placed board games.  

Next morning we had breakfast all together and went into town for the shoot.  This was a big one – beautiful temple, Balinese dancers and a bright, blaring sunny day.

There were about 20 little girls ranging from 6-12 ish.

Here is Matt with the older dancers.

The shoot took about half the day.  Danny’s been to Bali about 30 times and wanted to take us for the best bbq ribs on the island. 

The ribs were as delicious as Danny said and I washed down a whole rack with 2 beers. 

The afternoon shot was on the beach with a bunch of kids from the village.  They had a ton of fun spending the afternoon running around playing in the ocean.

Bali has perfect sandy beaches, turquoise waters and it was at least 100 degrees in the shade.  I don’t know how Matt kept dancing over and over.   

After the shoot we had about 2 hours to kill so Matt and I went to get massages.  I’m not a huge fan of massages but I have to admit, I enjoyed it.

On the way back to the beach I started to feel a little nauseous.  I thought it would pass but as I was sitting on the beach, in front of the seafood place, I realized it wasn’t going to get better. 

The evening sun was baking me, there was no AC, the only shade and fans were inside the hot, stinky seafood place and I just kept feeling ickier.  Between the sun, bbq ribs, beers and massage it was all over for me.  I started throwing up and decided that I probably shouldn’t stick around for the sunset shot.  I was kinda disappointed as it would have been fun to be with Matt in the ad but there was just no way. 

Luckily, they found a girl who lives in Bali to fill the “Matt’s girlfriend” role.  Mel knew her – she’s from LA and her claim to fame is a couple reality TV shows – Paradise Hotel and Property Ladder. 

After a couple hours in AC and a nap I was feeling much better.  That night we were having a big party/bbq at the Villa.  The whole crew plus a bunch of their friends came over.  We had great food, swimming, games and loads of drinking.  It was a really lovely night and we're all starting to get comfortable and have fun with each other. 

By the way, we're a pretty diverse group: Mel and her team (Dane, Manesh, Zinc and Jeremy) are all from Singapore, Danny is from Australia and Nick is from the UK. 

The next morning we all lounged around until the afternoon shoot.  We drove out into the rice patties.  Bali is extremely green and lush.  I hope to go back there sometime because I'd like to explore more. 

Matt and I didn’t have that much to do so we played hide-and-seek in the rice patties.

The storms finally moved in at the end of the shoot so we packed up and went back to town.  That evening Matt and I went to what Danny said was the one of the best restaurants on the island: an open-air, softly lit, flower petal decorated Italian restaurant right on the beach.  After that we went to a club down the beach – Ku de Ta.  It had great cocktails, funky house music, very modern decor and beach beds that we lounged in and watched the waves crash on the beach.  It was perfectly romantical and an excellent way to finish up our Balinese excursion. 

The next morning was a very early flight through Singapore to Hanoi.  I was stuck next to a nose-picking, throat-clearing Chinese man with jimmy legs. 

Day -3 Wednesday August 20th 2008

Vacation needed

Exhausted beyond belief

The Man will cure me.

Day -2 Thursday August 21st 2008

Is that a head cold?

Not an omen, certainly

I’ll pack tomorrow.

 
Day -1 Friday August 22nd 2008

Tomorrow is here

Pick up truck and load it up

Now must go to sleep

Day 1 Saturday August 23rd 2008

Plan to leave at noon

Or rather, three, and still we

Need to buy water.

Day 2 Sunday August 24th 2008

Gorgeous Northwest drive

To hell with waiting in line

Slept in Alturas

Day 3 Monday August 25th 2008

Cows stalled arrival

Greeted by epic whiteout

Worst day of my life

Day 4 Tuesday August 26th 2008

Glorious sunrise

I love this city so much

Living in the truck

Day 5 Wednesday August 27th 2008

Bikes don’t work that well

But Playa-vision is great

So, what do you got?

Day 6 Thursday August 28th 2008

Friends drop by, say hi

Evening plans delayed by nap

Deep playa teepees!

Day 7 Friday August 29th 2008

Last night on the town

Dancing, drinking, art and more

On the Rocket Bus!

Day 8 Saturday August 30th 2008

Thanks Nic for the Jeep

Left in dust storm for Reno

Slept through the Man burn

Day 9 Sunday August 31st 2008

Slept for thirteen hours

Showered twice and ate salad

Had drink, slept some more

Day 10 Monday September 1st 2008

Continued sleep binge

Watched bad TV, happily

Wished for more clean clothes

Day 11 Tuesday September 2nd 2008

Took truck to the dump

Drove toward Mt. Shasta, pretty.

Spent night in Ashland

Day 12 Wednesday September 3rd 2008

Loved the Oregon

Maybe move to Portland, but

Need to sleep on it

Day 13 Thursday September 4th 2008

Home in Seattle

Manic truck unloading and

Failed tries to make clean

Day +1 Friday September 5th 2008

Truck is a mess, but

Penske peeps think good enough

Bye Bye, fucking truck!

Day +2 Saturday September 6th 2008

Coffee, bacon, eggs

Lounging on couch, petting cat

Pizza for dinner

Day +3 Sunday September 7th 2008

Lazy Leschi brunch

Where we bump into playa

Neighbor Destiny

Day +4 Monday September 8th 2008

Full day back at work

Swimming through “urgent” all day

Let’s just burn something.

I'm certain that wasn't me swiping my (cloned) debit card at the Best Buy in Oakland to pay for $2,200 worth of electronics.  Nor did I use a credit card to pay for an energy bill in Mississippi and mobile phones in Texas.  And I'm completely sure that it wasn't me who used a second credit card, one sent to an altogether different address than the two previous compromised cards, to order $4,025 worth of "Christian supplies" on the Internet.  It's being handled.

The robbery?  I don't want to talk about it other than to note that I'm very happy with my new home security system and delighted to have found a friend to house-sit when I leave for vacation later this week.

Vacation.  That's what I want to talk about.  Actually, no, I don't want to talk about it I just want to get it started.  I will, for the seventh year in a row, be headed to Burning Man.

This year there will be no %*#! RV, no convoluted and stressful logistics that involve flying  to LA, and no ambitious theme camp.  Hallelujah.  Six of us will caravan down from Seattle this weekend, joining up with seven fine people from Sacramento.  Another Seattlite will be appear later in the week.  That's it, just 14 of us camping in the desert. 

Sure, there will be 49,986 other people there doing the same thing (Black Rock City is on expected to hit its permitted population cap for the first time this year), but whatever.  The word from the early arrivals is that it may be an extraordinarily dusty year, but whatever.  I just need to get off the grid and recharge my batteries.  I'm exhausted and running on empty so it makes perfect sense to vacation in an incredibly hostile environment, right? 

Well, yes.  I'm tired of self-actualizing and currently exhausted by my multi-screen, multi-tasking, fast-paced urban existence.  I want to climb down Maslow's pyramid* for a while and look forward to focusing for over a week on complex tasks like drinking water, seeking shelter, eating, and being with other apes.

* Yes, I realize that needs are likely not rigidly hierarchical as apparently Maslow posited (not that I've read him) and all that, but whatever.

via TechCrunch

I guess you can also customize this and make your own.

*whew*

A lot has been happening and, as someone who's always seen myself as energetic and pretty open about the details of my life, it's been interesting to watch both my desire and energy to write here evaporate as well as feeling quite suddenly that the most important stuff happening with me are not things I want to broadcast.

It's not that I've been out killing puppies or otherwise doing heinous, shameful things and it's not that I'm not sharing the details of the important stuff with the friends and family I see in person.  It's just that I've lost, for the moment, my public voice. But maybe I'm getting it back.

It's a moment where I've thought a lot about this blog, which in one incarnation or another has existed for over a decade (though the earliest years are either lost to the ether or incarcerated on a Zip Disk I've yet to find). 

The moniker "joygantic," I've always thought of it more as an appellation, was picked for a bunch of reasons but, thematically, has always described to me a feeling--something instantiated in a moment or thing--that just made me instantly feel warm and fuzzy, giggly and elated, grateful and optimistic.  There was a period of time, years ago, when I felt I'd slipped into a blogging mode that was "and then I did that, and then I did this" and I backed away for awhile, thought about shutting down this project.  But I found a voice which was authentic, surely warbled here and there, but seemed true. 

Right now I'm waiting for that moment to percolate up again; it's starting to right now as I type.  Because I don't have any desire to add to the noise or the bullshit that is so easy to find online.  These pixels are mine and are about expressing my enthusiasm, sharing my life, and connecting with people.  It's going to be awhile still before I've fully got my feet under me, but a note from a friend in New York today made me realize that there are some folks out there I love who I don't get to see often in person, who might want to know what's going on.

So here's some of what's been going on over the past 60 or so days, in no particular order:

• Dia moved to San Diego on July 4th.
• I've been eating more ice cream than usual.
• With no couch I set up a tent in the living room for a week.  It was like a fort.  Or a dog crate.  Good stuff.
• Occasionally I get pain in my stomach from my surgery--I can feel the muscles adapting to being pierced by staples--but this seems to be part of the never-explained healing process since things that hurt for a while stop hurting and new, adjacent things hurt.
• I have been working hard to make the acquisition of our company a success, despite having low energy reserves and a flaky short-term memory.  I am having some success.
• I spoke at a conference in DC and wowed the audience.
• I've been to NYC, San Diego, DC, VA, Chicago, and San Francisco since I last posted.
• From the sixth row, I watched a gaunt Steve Jobs show off the new 3G iPhone, but have not yet bought one.
• I bought a flat panel TV and an X-Box and have decided that GTA4 is a form of meditation.
• This last weekend I spent 36 hours unsuccessfully trying to get to the East Coast.  My airline sent me an apology email.
• I officiated the wedding of two lovely people I'd met twice before.
• I saw my brother and sister-in-law for the first time in . . . too long . . . and had the best time.
• I toasted my mother who's spent the past 10 years surviving breast cancer.  And I got to talk to and hug my dad a lot.  I'm happy to report I just love my parents.
• I planted some squash, basil, and tomatoes.
• I've spent some lovely time with Erica and with a host of other dear people that I don't see often enough . . .
• I "acted" in a couple of videos that will premiere in a few weeks as part of friends' burlesque performance.
• Today I made the first To-Do list I've made in four months . . .
• I bought two couches: A cheapo IKEA thing that currently occupies my living room, and a lovely lovely couch that's coming in October.
• Today I took a picture of Alex the cat peacefully sleeping in the sun.  Sadly, he will not be with me much longer.
• The countdown to Burning Man has begun and I'm so so looking forward to my annual New Year celebration.  Now more than ever.
• In general, I'm at the beginning of a period of examining habits and assumptions and general ways of being; I'm rebooting. 

http://www.collegehumor.com/

bamobrien
In other news: Fat People Continue to Open Themselves Up to Ridicule

jkr0sc0
In fairness, they do offer a wide target.

barryicide
Well, I guess I know where you weigh-in on the subject of obesity.

carsonce
He's right, obesity is a very large problem.

brobak
Perhaps we should try to lighten up this heavy topic with some fun puns..?

darntastic
That would only minimize the gravity of the situation.

digitalistic
I don't know about you guys but I can't weight to see this movie.

Indierocka
What are they blubbering on about anyway?

brobak
Hey now, this is a big issue in some peoples eyes.

GooZshooZ
C-C-C-CORPULENCE BREAKER!!!

I've been working on a few things. One of them is my silly taking-forever robot project. The basic idea is to create armatures, systems, of counterbalanced springs and hydraulic or wire-tensioned levers to conduct organized work. I think, if carefully done, that even low powered motors and actuators and a simple PC brain can make such a machine perform elegant things in the world.

I went to Orcas Island last weekend and saw an incredibly inspiring sculpture park belonging to the artist Anthony Howe. Talk about a fresh vision. This amazing man lives super close to Seattle and, while there's some inspiring stuff in our sculpture park, very little of the the projects displayed come close to the evocative lusty and raw elegance of Mr. Howe's strangely natural creations.
All I want to do is take what Anthony Howe has done and goose it with a little technology.

That said, probably this robot project is taking forever because it has no clear goals or milestones: it's just a funky tinkerer's mirage. Like most of you I am a mostly blind blunderer intently focused on creating a knockout story in my own personal dreamspace.

Here's a good thing to watch instead of American Idol or whatever tonight: www.ted.net.

We launched a first-of-its kind service, won paying clients, expanded globally, launched more first-to-market services, and built a reputation as the leader in our space.

It hasn't been easy and hasn't been without its bumps, but more often than not we've been able to do the right thing at the right time, with great integrity, usually having fun in the process.  Along the way we've grown and built a business that feeds 80 people and their families, which makes me proud. 

It's been an amazing and exhilarating experience that just entered an exciting new chapter; today M:Metrics was acquired by comScore, the global leader in measuring the digital world.

It's a great move for both companies and I'm excited about the things that are now possible being part of a larger (but not gigantic) company.  As an entrepreneur, I couldn't be more delighted than to have been there at the beginning and helped take us through a successful exit that made our investors and employees some money.  Very personally, I'm happy that one of the sources of work and stress that's been piled on over the past few months as we negotiated this process has disappeared.  We did it.  Now we can get back to work. ;-)

Things are . . . things. 

We are in the process of buying an awesome condo in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego and the current plan is for Dia to move there around the 1st of July.  I'm healing well from my unexpected surgery.

Things are . . . things.

My dear friend Suzi has told me, when asked how things are: "Well, I'm feeling feelings."

That about sums it up.

t

Needs a lobotomizing claw, but other than that it's almost perfect. Maybe duct tape a phone to it so you can control it remotely while you ever so gently take over the world...

That’s a statement that might seem curious given that I grew up on a consistent weekend diet of ABC's Wild World of Sports, played organized sports (mostly soccer) for years as a youth, and in my teenage years briefly dreamed I would follow in Peter Ueberroth’s footsteps and eventually be in charge of staging the Olympic Games. 

Hindsight tells me that my love of playing sports had far more to do with loving being active and enjoying the social component of being on a team (I love teams) than actually loving the sport, my desire to stage the Olympics was really about my fascination with events that draw people together (c.f. Burning Man), and my love of Wild World of Sports was all about hanging out with my dad and--crucially--being genuinely riveted by "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."

These days, I tune into sports only for the crux:  I watched the last quarter of a couple Final Four games this year, I watched the last half of the Super Bowl. 

I was in LA on Saturday and on the plane ride down read the New York Times pre-coverage of the Kentucky Derby.  My friend Karen in NYC has gone to the Derby for years and sung its praises.  I was in Kentucky for a lovely wedding a few years ago and got a glimpse of the horse farms and the gorgeous rolling countryside, so I felt some vague social connection with the event.  The race lasts, like, 3 minutes and based on my NYT reading was fraught with drama.  I was in.

I turned on the TV at 3pm, knowing that post-time was 3:04.  Perfect.  My sports victory/defeat button was gonna be pushed in, what?, ten minutes or so of TV watching?

The Derby is interesting to me from a business perspective.  Typically--think Super Bowl--the advertisers and sponsors are out there trying to get TV viewers to buy their products.  Their beer, their pizza, their car.  But the Derby is different.  Thoroughbred racing is not a middle-class sport and the ads reflected this even though it's on broadcast TV.  While I haven't seen this written down anywhere, it was clear that NetJets bought the "jockey pants sponsorship"; every jockey was pimping for fractional private jet ownership. And Yum Brands--Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC--was sponsoring the event not so they could sell more pizza/tacos/chicken but rather "to attract more individual shareholders."

A weird little window into social class, broadcast for all to see.

And then the race.

Starting from the outermost stall, Big Brown just dominated.  It was glorious to watch.  Riveting.   Just amazing.  OMG.  Wow.  "Thrill of Victory"?  Check. 

And then the second place horse, Eight Belles, "broke down" . . . which I've come to understand is apparently horsey talk for "won't live long."  The filly was cooling down and just collapsed with compound fractures (!) in both front legs.  She was euthanized on the track.

WTF?!!

"Agony of defeat" is one thing, but dying for sport?  "Sorry kiddo, you failed to win, we gotta kill ya."  That's basically the plot of a Steven King novel I read when I was a kid, but here it was on TV.  And the TV folks were ill equipped to handle it.  There were faint mentions of Eight Belles--a shot of the equine ambulances on the track, a note that she was injured, a brief statement from the track doc that she'd been put down.  And then . . . nothing.

I don't have any great thoughts about horse racing and what's wrong or what's right. I love the rush brought by the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" but remain completely upset that a gorgeous being had to die to complete that story.

I don't have a coherent ideology to draw on here to make sense of this, but I've been feeling dirty ever since.

Eight Belles . . . sorry.