Thursday, May 06, 2004
And then a friend wrote:
I haven't had a "job" in coming up on a year now. I thought I'd never make the mortgage past the sixth month, and somehow, I'm still here...
I started doing some volunteer work these past couple months, and started paying attention to re-engineering quality of life - and trying to apply my skills to that....
I started off by trying to build a bike that I could plug my laptop into and be able to work, all day, at the top of a mountain somewhere, and now I'm having a blast helping out the free wireless folk (thirdbreak.org) so that people can work in a quality environment - like along Pacific Avenue, or the beach. One of the engineers ("Elf") at Thirdbreak puts it best - "We're builders. We have to build things. The money may not be there, the business model may not be there - but we have to build things anyway."
I was really pleased to see how a good ole boy from Estonia, my homeland, made the papers today bringing wireless as a public service to 2/3s of the country.
(and amused that noted nowhere in the article is that the entire country of Estonia has, like, half the population of San Francisco)
... and that the war-e-bike idea made techtv in Yuri's "Magicbike" - a MUCH better name than warbike.
Everytime I read stuff like this I think :whew: I'm not alone in feeling encased in a cubie. I'm, if anything, even more pleased that I'm not the first to be thinking these up (I love the half-bakery)
Through this puttering around with new technology in odd locales, I've met a lot of interesting people, and I figure someday, if I keep moving laterally like this, some idea will gel, some group will form, some contact will turn out to be a closet VC, or maybe I'll meet the perfect girl.
Another freeing thing I've been doing lately is borrowed from an Improv routine. You get stuck on a problem, and you walk through your environment, looking at something, say a clock, pointing, and yelling aloud what it isn't, whatever comes to mind - like "Bird!". You see a tree, and yell something like "Prick!", You see some deer crap on the road, and you yell: ("Ex-bosses name") It's astonishingly hard to keep up coming with different names for what you see for a whole minute. It frees your mind, neo....
Now I don't recomend that you do this in public unless A) You are alone, or with people that understand (and are willing to try it themselves) or B) there are homeless people about, also yelling in wild directions - or C) have a cell phone handy, so you look like you are having a conversation. Put it on record, you'll laugh later.
¶ 9:10 PM
- As of 15 minutes ago, I'm out looking again. Considering how this job has gone since I got here, I should be glad it lasted 2.25 years.
I haven't had a "job" in coming up on a year now. I thought I'd never make the mortgage past the sixth month, and somehow, I'm still here...
I started doing some volunteer work these past couple months, and started paying attention to re-engineering quality of life - and trying to apply my skills to that....
I started off by trying to build a bike that I could plug my laptop into and be able to work, all day, at the top of a mountain somewhere, and now I'm having a blast helping out the free wireless folk (thirdbreak.org) so that people can work in a quality environment - like along Pacific Avenue, or the beach. One of the engineers ("Elf") at Thirdbreak puts it best - "We're builders. We have to build things. The money may not be there, the business model may not be there - but we have to build things anyway."
I was really pleased to see how a good ole boy from Estonia, my homeland, made the papers today bringing wireless as a public service to 2/3s of the country.
(and amused that noted nowhere in the article is that the entire country of Estonia has, like, half the population of San Francisco)
... and that the war-e-bike idea made techtv in Yuri's "Magicbike" - a MUCH better name than warbike.
Everytime I read stuff like this I think :whew: I'm not alone in feeling encased in a cubie. I'm, if anything, even more pleased that I'm not the first to be thinking these up (I love the half-bakery)
Through this puttering around with new technology in odd locales, I've met a lot of interesting people, and I figure someday, if I keep moving laterally like this, some idea will gel, some group will form, some contact will turn out to be a closet VC, or maybe I'll meet the perfect girl.
Another freeing thing I've been doing lately is borrowed from an Improv routine. You get stuck on a problem, and you walk through your environment, looking at something, say a clock, pointing, and yelling aloud what it isn't, whatever comes to mind - like "Bird!". You see a tree, and yell something like "Prick!", You see some deer crap on the road, and you yell: ("Ex-bosses name") It's astonishingly hard to keep up coming with different names for what you see for a whole minute. It frees your mind, neo....
Now I don't recomend that you do this in public unless A) You are alone, or with people that understand (and are willing to try it themselves) or B) there are homeless people about, also yelling in wild directions - or C) have a cell phone handy, so you look like you are having a conversation. Put it on record, you'll laugh later.
¶ 9:10 PM
