Hey there old friend! (cc:world)

I’ve tripped myself up with writer’s block on my first blog post, otherwise, this would have arrived minutes after creating my wordpress site.  People who know me well might be surprised at the thought of Dave with “nothing to say”.  But, when trying to re-enter the world of blogging, a simple  “Hello, world!” seems unworthy.

 My son suggested that I just “write” (a suggestion I’ve often made to him, so, turnabout and all that … )   Doc Searls suggested that one trick he uses might work for me:

“I think of blogging as writing public emails. Basically, cc:world. It’s a mind trick, but it works.”

 (I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing 😉 )

So, here goes. 

I’ve spent the past few years ignoring the internet as much as possible.  Coming from a technologist, this might sound like an odd confession.  There are so many exciting (and scary) things going on these days, why avoid even looking?  Perhaps it was technology overload or  some idyllic hope that it was just me dreaming, and that social networking sites had not replaced genuine human interraction.  But, the world is indeed what it is.

Recently, I’ve had the yearning to be involved, even moreso than in the past, and I have been immersing myself in some of the old posts and letters of the web, “catching up”.  While looking on to the conversations on the internet, I have  exercised an almost self-imposed period of silence, reflection and thought, mixed with a slight bit of inertia (or apathy, if you will.)   I have had things to say, but neither the forum to do so, or the will to dive in.  This changed yesterday, when I realized the following:

But for the absence of a blog of my own, there are many things this past month that I would have spoken about.   I’ll provide a short list, in no specific chronological  or symbolic order of importance:

• Ubiquitous high speed internet, in general, and North Carolina’s latest example of squashing fair competition in the name of protecting fair competition.  See here, and here (a link in Lawrence Lessig’s open letter to Governor Perdue on Huffington  , or even here (if you like the nitty gritty of the actual law)
• The Rapture.  If you need links, you haven’t been paying attention 😉
• “The Cloud”.  Ditto.
• The abysmal performance of my organic seed starts this year (as opposed to three years’ previous when my germination rate was near 100%, the last of which featured some form of inability {driven by economy [new job] and massively tiny start obliterating heat surge that coincided with a new 1 hour commute, leaving less time for watering} to get the whole thing working as hoped for.)
• And conversely, the amazing sheer performance of volunteer vegetable plants in last years’ weed-pit of a former garden.  (70+ tomato starts, a basil plant or two, some lettuce, and 4 already massive pumpkin vines out back)

Sitting here thinking .. “but wait, Dave, there was plenty more!”.  Call it time shortage.  Call it laziness.  Call it my mind not as good at instant recall as it was in my roaring twenties (or even early thirties) … but that will do as the list for now.  More on all that later.  I end this blog post as I began it, to those who will read, to the internet as it is now, and as it was:

Hey there old friend!  (cc:world)