Alan's Blog

Video of "Where are your Keys?"

terminal@c0redump.org — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:32:26 GMT

I've posted a video from last weekend's "Where are your Keys?" workshop over at sunflowerriver:

Video of "Where are your Keys?"

Free Class: Learning How to Learn, August 22nd.

terminal@c0redump.org — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:12:17 GMT

On August 22nd, Willem Larsen and Evan Gardner will be visiting Albuquerque to teach a language fluency game called "Where are your Keys?"

"Where are your Keys?" is an integrated set of teaching techniques that creates fluent speakers in a language without resorting to textbooks or homework. You can play the game anywhere, anytime, with anyone, so long as you have a single fluent speaker of the target language.

Because "Where are you Keys?" is a game, learning how to play the game also trains you to teach the game. You can take your level of fluency and teach another person up to your level. It is a way for a community to rapidly teach themselves a language by making every learner a new teacher.

"Where are your Keys" teaches not only language, but principles of learning that can be applied to any skill or field of knowledge. It does this through the "Learning How to Learn" game, which will make you a better learner, even if you don't use the game to learn a language.

Evan's approach to learning has altered the way I get work done on my farm, treating every task as an opportunity to both teach and learn. It has changed the way I think about my farm projects, as I now see ways to create an environment that itself teaches--one open to observation and questioning.

If you are a teacher, if you have a passion for learning, if you are interested in language, I would really like you to attend this class. I'm interested in building fluency in myself and in my community, and I'd like to do it with you.

We'll be officially meeting at Sunflower River Farm on Saturday, August 22nd from 9AM to 1PM. We'll provide lunch afterward and refreshments throughout the day. If you can't make this time, Willem and Evan will be available all day Saturday, August 22nd and all day Sunday, August 23rd. More time slots will be created as the need arises.

Please comment below for directions or to RSVP.

I have personally committed $300 to bring these two people to Albuquerque. This only covers half of their travel expenses. If you are interested in supporting this project, a donation of $20, whether or not you can attend this class, would be greatly appreciated.

If you'd like more information, here are some links to published material about "Where are your Keys?"

An outline of the first round of playing "Where are your Keys?"
The "Where are your Keys?" Blog
a podcast where Willem Larson interviews Evan Gardner about WAYK

This game is still very new. The best material is only available orally. I hope to see you there!

Albuquerque Century 2009

terminal@c0redump.org — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:12:18 GMT

On Saturday, I rode the Albuquerque Century. I did far better on this course than I ever have before. Not only was my time smashing, but I felt really great afterwords.

I had planned on driving to the starting line this year, but a miscommunication prevented me from having access to a vehicle in the morning. I started timing from the moment I left the house, which was 13 miles from the starting line. (the start location keeps moving further away every year...)

I got to the starting line about 10 minutes late, picked up my rider packet and made myself official. I'd passed some of the early riders on the trail coming into downtown, and was pretty anxious to get started. I had the good fortune to start with a group of half a dozen riders or so, and we headed down Mountain Road doing a fair but not aggressive pace. Once we'd passed the first food stop, we had passed or caught dozens of riders, some of whom got in our peloton.

Riding through Isleta Pueblo, we had a formidable group, passing much larger but slower groups and doing 20-25mph, the pace we'd kept since starting the tour. We turned north, heading out of the Pueblo to catch Coors road, which is the first of two big climbs in this tour. A rider in front of me crossed tires with the rider in front of her, and in the span of a single bicycle length went from 25mph to being crushed into the concrete. The peloton erupted into a maelstrom of swerving bicycles, with one person shooting across my path while the person in front of me veered in the opposite direction. I briefly saw myself going down in the chaos, just as an opening developed and I reached the side of the road and stopped.

A few people in the peloton looked back and kept riding, while most people stayed to render aid. I pulled my phone out and called 911, which was an extremely frustrating conversation as I described what I was doing and where I was. The 911 operator wanted a physical address, and we're on Pueblo land along a more-or-less county road. I could describe where I was, but not with anything a computerized travel system could relate to. Fortunately, a SAG wagon arrived on the scene. They can directly contact EMS--clearly a much faster route that going through 911.

The Red River Century gives each rider the direct line to on-course emergency personnel, and I sat there wishing I could directly call the people who were going to be responding anyway. The only time I've used on-course medical services is in the Red River Century, now that I think about it. They've clearly got a great relationship up there.

That crash was the talk of the course all the way up the hill, as I rode with groups of riders up the hill talking about it. My peloton was scattered, though I had guessed that would have happened going up Rio Bravo anyway.

The wind was quite favorable for the northward ride up the mesa, and despite not having a group to ride with, I managed a very fast speed, passing groups of riders and eventually pulling one rider unfamiliar with the course. Coming back into town is the most challenging part of the course to memorize, with lots of poorly marked turns to get yourself back to the river. I was glad to help someone that didn't know where they were going.

At the river, the course diverges. If you're doing a metric century, you head back to the starting line, but if you're doing the 100 mile ride, you head into Bernalillo. Neither of these options really appealed to me. I was committed to riding a century, but I had a handfasting to attend in the early afternoon. The Bernalillo stretch of this course is absolutely my least favorite section of the ride, and with the strong wind (it had been getting worse all day), coming back to Albuquerque was going to really suck.

I decided to deviate from the course and cut Bernalillo out of my ride. With the potential for 26 miles of extra riding that day (to and from the starting line), I didn't consider this a big loss, and would still be able to do both hills (Rio Bravo and Tramway, which I refer to as the "half pipe" ride if I do them together), ride 100 miles, and make it to the handfasting.

I expected, when I rejoined the course, the find myself being passed by tons of cyclists well out of my league. Instead, reaching the photographer headed up Tramway, he informed me that I was the first cyclist to reach Tramway. I was shocked by this, and couldn't articulate that I'd either a) started early or b) skipped ~10-15 miles of course.

I was passed by a single cyclist as I went up Tramway, a bandit. A bandit refers to someone riding the course (and particularly, eating the food) without registering for the event. He had done 10 more miles in 15 fewer minutes that day, so there was no way I was going to catch him as he zoomed by me. At the last food stop, I encountered a second bandit, and he and I rode for a bit on the way back into town. He also seriously outclassed me, though I have no idea whether he had 90 miles under his belt that day.

Coming back into town, I managed to stay on the actual, official course, which I got lost trying last year. Once I'd worked myself back downtown, I had a weird mental adjustment, where I wasn't going to go to the official finish line, but start riding home instead. I realized I wasn't SAG supported any longer, and I was basically out for a day ride from here on out.

I decided to stop my "official" ride at the ATC downtown, which was just past 100 miles. Alas, I missed the bus by 10 minutes. I made some phone calls and coordinated with the other people I was going to the handfasting with, arranged to be picked up a few miles north of my house at a food joint, ate a meal and went on with my day.

I rode 100.56 miles in 5:25:12 on bike, with 5:59:33 wall time, giving me an average speed of 18.55mph. I've never finished Albuquerque in less that six hours, and given that this time counts picking up my rider packet as well as stopping to talk to 911, I'm fantastically happy to have had such a great ride. Of course, I didn't stay on the official course, and these numbers do reflect riding on a course I enjoy more. 100 miles is a 100 miles, however.

I'll probably do this same "personal course" next year, as it removes a lot of stress over finding a vehicle, is more fun, and won't leave me having to recover from a 130 mile day.

Story Games

terminal@c0redump.org — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:32:08 GMT

In September of last year, I wrote an entry on solo adventure games. Since that time, I've been playing several solo-adventure games, largely in three categories: single-page pick-up games, gamebooks, and a game I'm playing using the Mythic Game Master Emulator.

When I initially began playing solo games, I thought I would spend most of the time playing gamebooks. It turns out that the majority of my time has been spent playing Mythic. Briefly, I do the following:

I keep two books, my gamebook and my log book. The gamebook includes permanent information about people, places, and things of interest. It is a reference guide for the part of the world and story that is already baked. The log book is a chronology of the story as it is unfolding, as well as meta-level discussion about what each person knows when I needed to do processing to figure out what happens next. In theory, I could get a different log for each game and keep the gamebook as long as I found the world interesting.
Play the game a scene at a time, answering any questions that come up by using Mythic. In practice, I want the gamebook to contain slower moving and more frequently referenced material while the logbook is faster moving but less permanently relevant. As well, sometimes I feel like world building and sometimes I feel like story telling. Somes scenes go really fast, some take me weeks or a month to figure out.

I've been surprised how rapidly the world has converged into a reasonably coherent place. Each small decision informs the later ones I make, and since the world, on some level, has to make sense, unintended consequences from previous decisions contribute enormously to the shape of play.

I've tried, in playing, to steer the characters in a specific direction, only to find that the process of getting them there makes the original goal unattainable. In short, I haven't been able to anticipate the story I'm telling, there is a legitimate element of surprise.

I have learned, in playing, that I'm not very fast at moving through plot twists. I can only handle so much surprise before I have to put the books down and take a break. I'm not sure if this is a skill I should improve on, or whether it is more a signpost on the road to greater perspective. I do occasionally feel stuck in the story, and one of the things Mythic has given me is a methodology for resolving an impasse.

I've mentioned here in the past how wonderful role playing games are for practicing most of the skills a well-rounded human being should posses. In playing solo games, I've also been slowly introducing myself to a world of role playing games that didn't exist when I first started this hobby.

I played D&D for many years, and the stories we crafted and the adventures we had form a significant part of the mythic narratives I brought with me from boyhood. But as a game, it really only appeals to a small fraction of the people I'd like to storyjam with--the intended audience is too narrow. The world, by design, is very black & white. Good guys are good, and they know it, Bad guys are bad and they know it. These days I demand a bit more relevance from my games. Ironically, given the fear inked about D&D over it's history, role-playing games are far, far more real to me than they were growing up. I expect to walk away from a session having learned something.

I've been particularly anxious for Jason Godesky to publish a new version of The Fifth World. I started reading Jason on The Anthropik Network, where his 30 theses distilled human history into a story I found topical and useful to incorporate into my own story. He is now working on a role-playing game focused on bioregional animism. Taking a map of where you live and creating characters whose story is the story of the land and the relationships within it. Inspiring stuff for exploring the mental changes that accompany participation in the environmental movement.

Reading about the process of creating The Fifth World, I've been introduced to the broad category of story games. Story games are the DIY/open source/free culture/anarchist/collaborative portion of role-playing games. These are games without game masters, as conflict resolution is built into the rules and distributed equitably to all players. You aren't given an adventure to play through, but rather a method for co-creating your own narratives. It is a way to discover your own stories, rather than consuming someone else's. A way to eliminate consumer culture as a mode of thinking, which is a prerequisite to eliminating it as a mode of being.

I've really begun to want to play story games with other people, and have generally been looking for pick-up style games that have simple rules. The kind of thing I could have ready to hand should the opportunity present itself. Playing story games alone, I feel compelled to write things down. That is helpful to me after the process, but it interrupts the flow while I'm playing. I haven't yet tried playing a game without writing, but it seems like it would be more fun when there are multiple people to hold the story. I think it would be easier to see in the air in front of you, having someone to bounce it off of.

Santa Fe Century 2009

terminal@c0redump.org — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:17:23 GMT

On May 17th I rode the Santa Fe Century. This was the first century ride I've done where I experienced any sort of mechanical failure, and that failure threatened to SAG me out of the ride.

I rode the train up on Saturday and stayed the night at Jaime & Rachelle's house. In previous years I've woken up early to drive up to Santa Fe, but any extra sleep you can get before a ride is to your advantage.

Though in my case I started an hour earlier instead. I rode from J's house to the starting line, collecting other riders along the way. By the time I got there, we had the largest crowd of riders I've ever seen starting at once on this ride.

The Santa Fe Century starts fast rolling downhill out of Santa Fe. I was in a group doing 35MPH. My heartrate pushed up to 180bpm. When I'm about to wear out climbing a hill, my heartrate is somewhere around 155pbm. I've actually never had it up to 180bpm before.

Once we turned into the wind, I lost the pelaton I was with. I later learned it was the New Mexico Bike & Sport team, and they were going for a sub-four hour century.

I rolled past the first food stop in Madrid with a much mellower crowd. At mile 30, my chain slipped from my large rear sprocket and got wedged between my sprocket and spokes.

On a normal bike, there is a metal or plastic guard that prevents the chain from doing this. On a racing bike, this component is omitted to reduce weight, and you are just assumed to have your bike well tuned so it doesn't happen.

My bike had been tuned just before the ride, so Albuquerque Bicycle Company won't be getting any more of my business.

Once the chain slipped off the sprocket, it locked my rear wheel up. I was able to come to a stop in a reasonably controlled manner, but I couldn't get my chain unwedged from my spokes. I was working through the prospect of SAGing out of the ride when a fellow rider stopped, and with four hands and a tire leveler turned pry bar, we got the chain free of the wheel.

My bike however was pretty damaged. The frame was bent back at the rear derailleur, several spokes were bent, and I didn't have several gears available to me. Worse, the chain was randomly jumping around as I rode, and on two other occasions again got wedged in my spokes and locked my wheel up. I didn't want to be rolling fast down a hill and have this happen, or otherwise going fast enough to flip my bike.

I rolled very tenderly to the next food stop at the base of heartbreak hill. Two Wheel Drive was volunteering at this stop, and they recognized me right away. They spent the next hour field servicing the bike, getting it in good enough shape to finish the ride. The rear wheel was still out of true, and the frame wasn't perfect, but I was no longer at risk for locking up my rear wheel, and they restored my full selection of gears.

All the same, any thought I had of finishing the ride in less than six hours wall time was shot. I got back on the bike hoping I was still warm enough to make the climb up heartbreak.

I had an easier time with this hill than I ever have getting up it. I didn't have to walk, treat them like switchbacks, or really struggle very much. I rolled up it, taking it easier than I could have. I arrived at the top pretty charged and raced down the other side.

After heartbreak, the Santa Fe Century gets far less interesting. It gets much windier and a heck of a lot flatter, and there are parts of the course where I really struggle with boredom.

I rolled into the mile 60 food stop to refill my ~~cheer~~ water. A new coworker of mine who was also riding the tour spotted me, and we chatted for a brief while. He had started an hour earlier than I had and wasn't in a particular hurry. He was riding x-paced with tour other friends.

One of the things about riding through a flat, windy, and boring part of the course is that you get really inspired when it is almost over. As I approached Lamey, you start to get into more hills and scenic country. I took one last stop at mile 90 to get some extra water, having botched my Gatorade to water ratio at mile 60 and suffering from a sugar headache.

Normally, I can keep a pretty fast pace in the last 10 miles of this ride. I wasn't in top form, but I had been doing well enough to clock a sub-six hour on-bike time, so I tried to keep my pace headed into town. It is always nice to finish strong.

Unlike last year, I didn't cross the line to a cheering section, so I let out my own hooray and texted my finish time to the interested parties.

I then rode a "cool down" ride back to J's house, keeping over 20mph for the 3-4 downhill return miles. And even had someone along the way ask how my ride went. ^_^

I finished the 103.75 mile course in 5:48:55 on bike, 17.84mph. My wall time was 6:45:56, accounting for the 1 hour stopped for repair at mile 40. This may well have been a personal best on-bike time for this course, though if it was it was within minutes of my time last year.

Two Wheel Drive pretty much made my day, what with their gift of 60 miles I wouldn't have otherwise had. I've never needed the services of an on-course mechanic, and I'm really glad they were there.

Santa Fe Century 2009

terminal@c0redump.org — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:43:25 GMT

This would totally make my day, though I much prefer the DIY version.

The Santa Fe Century is this Sunday.

I have a fever right now, which sucks. I'm otherwise in great shape to do this ride. Hopefully it will pass by Sunday. If not, I'll still ride anyway. My goal is to finish in under 6 hours.

Sunflower River is in the news

terminal@c0redump.org — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:18:42 GMT

For those of you who don't read yarrowkat, sunflowerriver, or didn't get an e-mail from me: we've recently had Joy Slagowski, a reporter for a Phoenix area paper called the Daily News-Sun, write an article about Sunflower River for Earth Day:

Foursome enjoys connection with Mother Earth

In that article, I credit Dave Pollard's blog, How to Save the World, with being a turning point in my ecological awakening:

Post said his path began as a personal transformation a few years ago, after reading the "How to Save the World" blog of David Pollard, a writer and environmentalist.

"He was doing a lot of writing on intentional communities, social justice, and ecological issues," Post said. "And it struck a chord with me and I decided to manifest the kinds of changes he was advocating in my own life."

I wrote Dave Pollard telling him about the article when it was published:

Hello Dave,

I've written you once before, a year or two ago. It was from a different e-mail address than this message.

Roughly three years ago, I started reading your blog and as a result have radically changed my life: changed jobs (out of the financial industry), changed partners (my ex-wife and I were part of consumer culture, and I've distanced myself from it.), and changed the way I look at and relate the world to incoporate a far greater understanding of how my actions impact the environment.

As part of that, I purchased land with 3 other people, formed an intentional community, and began raising livestock and practicing organic gardening.

In that time, I have repeatedly mentioned your blog as my turning point, as the thing that woke me up and set me on the course my life is now on.

Today an article was published about my farm, and in it I credit you with inspiring me to the life changes that caused me to start it. I thought you might be interested to read it:

http://www.yourwestvalley.com/news/food_5888___article.html/water_day.html

Even though you and I have come to different conclusions about what one can or should do about the state of the world, You continue to inspire me with your writing, years past the day I read "The Truth About Nature and How to Save the World" and realized that everything about my life needed to change.

-Alan

Today he wrote me back:

Wow! Thank you Alan. I'll mention this in my next 'links of the week' article. Hope we'll meet some day! Cheers from Australia.

/-/ Dave

I'm excited to get a mention in his Links of the Week article, which I always look forward to reading. It is a look at what is going on around the world, and is often extremely inspiring.

I'll post a link to it after he publishes it, but I'll be out of town this weekend, so it will be a bit late.

Color me excited.

My e-mail is and was down

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:26:08 GMT

The physical machine hosting my virtual server has crashed in a more or less permanent way.

I haven't been able to receive e-mail the last 5 days or so as a result of this. If you sent me something important, you probably already saw the bounce, but if you didn't, sending it to me again wouldn't suck.

I've just put a temporary solution in place to handle e-mail, and DNS is probably still updating across the internet. But I'll be getting delivery again soon.

My VM is being migrated to greener pasture, but that process is hung currently and will take a day or two (*hopes*) to resolve. That doesn't affect anyone else nearly so much as it affects me.

Oh boy, the stress that has been going 'round this fair shire.

Ecopsychology and Mirror Worlds

terminal@c0redump.org — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:04:38 GMT

The field of ecopsychology concerns healing one's sense of disconnectedness and curing mental illness by exposure to the natural world. There is a related meme that I have encountered, which is that our destruction of the natural world reflects a mental illness of self-destruction in ourselves. That our attitude and treatment of other people mirrors and parallels our treatment of the natural world.

Did this idea come from ecopsychology, or is there a separate body of work exploring the parallels between the way we treat each other and the way we treat the natural world?

I'm doing some research on this topic, and I'm looking for pointers from people that have already covered this ground. Thank you!

Arguing basic values vs action-oriented labels

terminal@c0redump.org — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:49:17 GMT

I occasionally run across two independently published articles that I draw an unintended connection between. Recently, on Overcoming Bias, the article The cost of talking values discussed how an organization can become paralyzed by arguing over their basic values. That effective organizations execute on a presumed shared value, and focus the discussion on execution instead of the worth of the value in question.

Jeff Vail recently wrote Towards a Scale-Free Energy Policy. I focused my energy in this article on organization style, given that Jeff writes about Rhizomes as a metaphor for non-hierarchical organization. I've talked about this concept briefly in talking about wirearchy, which covers a lot of similar ground.

The connection I found interesting is that scale-free energy policy is a lot more prescriptive of action than "rhizome network" or "wirearchy," both of which are much more suggestive of ways of being. It presumes a shared goal, but doesn't make that goal the focus of the effort--it is more a non-ideological way to frame the discussion, and means that you might personally work on your share of the problem using consensus process, while your broader community integrates that solution as part of the overall community's goal using representative democracy.

Thoughts?

My telephone is online

terminal@c0redump.org — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:55:50 GMT

My telephone is functioning again. I've lost my address book. If I normally interact with you on the phone, I'd love to get your number back. Reply here (comments screened) or by e-mail/text message.

My telephone is offline

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:50:48 GMT

My telephone is off-line, starting from late last night. While I'm getting it replaced, you won't be able to call or text me. It may be several days before I have this issue resolved.

I need to borrow a 1 terabyte drive

terminal@c0redump.org — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:38:59 GMT

paean, who is a photographer, has an external hard drives he uses to store his photographs on.

The filesystem on this drive has become corrupt, and new data cannot be written to it. He needs to reformat the drive, but before doing so needs to copy the existing data off of it to temporary storage.

Do any of you have access to a 1 terabyte removable drive? We'd need to be able to plug it into his mac and reformat it. I can return it to you empty. Failing that, do any of you have a mac with 1 terabyte of disk attached? I would bring his disk down and use your mac to cycle the files.

Please let me know if you have this kind of hardware that you can loan on a short-term basis.

Tight fit driving my truck.

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:04:58 GMT

Yesterday I moved boxes from our office to Josh's house. I managed to drive into his backyard, which made unloading into his garage a heck of a lot easier.

Dream: The world with new eyes

terminal@c0redump.org — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:43:14 GMT

While I'm posting, I'm going to describe the dream I had this morning.

I was on the phone describing an experience that I had recently been through. In the conversation, I had described being captured by aliens, and being tortured for three days before escaping. The torture had slowly escalated, each hour building on the last. Alas, I was eventually recaptured by this same group, and this time I could not escape.

I was tortured in the same manner for the first 3 days, and tortured still for 7 more. I experienced every form of suffering it is possible to experience. After 10 days, the aliens released me back into the world.

I was describing to the person on the phone how that experience had changed me, how I would never have escaped the first time if I'd known what the whole "program" was like. That having experienced so many ways of suffering, nothing would ever stand in my way again.

Rented a stump grinder. But how do I return it?

terminal@c0redump.org — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:26:14 GMT

Driving a 16' trailer without trailer lights, at night. Check.
One broken taillight on my truck. Check.
One blown tire halfway through the trip, causing me to drive on the shoulder with my emergency lights down I-25. Check.
Three separate police cars pass, none show the slightest sign of concern. Check.
Arrived safely home without incident, stump grinder in tow for a full day of work tomorrow. Exhale.

Thank you New Mexico. I deeply appreciate not having my night be any more complicated. One tire exploding on the interstate was enough fun for one night.

If anyone has a truck I could borrow tomorrow to return this device, I would really appreciate hearing about it.

Alternatives to Amazon?

terminal@c0redump.org — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:54:35 GMT

I've been buying books from Amazon since they've existed. I'm not sure how many days they existed before I purchased a book, but it wasn't many. I was living in a small town, and the closest bookstore was well on an hour away, and no way did they have books on topics I was interested in. Buying books from Amazon was a complete no-brainer.

However, the world has changed an awful lot since then, and I'm wondering now whether I would be better served purchasing books from other bookstores. My question to you, interweb, is what bookstores would you recommend? And in recommending them, can you explain why I would like them?

I recently purchase a book through lulu, which is an on-demand self publisher. That was fantastic, and I got a book I love that would never garner enough attention to be published through regular channels. I have also made at least one order from alibris, which was a reasonable place to find used books. I've probably had more success with our local used bookstores, however. I know there are places that specialize in technical books, but don't know who they are. Often I have luck purchasing directly from the publisher.

I think I'm looking for specialized booksellers, or for general bookstores with social missions. Really anything that is an alternative to Amazon without being another Amazon. I'd consider anything that doesn't self-profess to be the "Wal-Mart of the Internet." Suggestions?

Professional-quality didje for my birthday.

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:47:14 GMT

I've just finished celebrating my 2⁵ birthday. (That is "two to the fifth", not "twenty-fifth" if your browser renders mathematical markup as terribly as mine.) Twice, actually. LongDance was celebrated a week late this year, meaning that LongDance happened over my actual natal birthday. As has become custom, I also celebrated my birthday on New Year's Eve, when it is much easier to get a large group of people together.

What was not the least bit customary was the enormous energy and support that went into getting me a birthday gift. yarrowkat launched a plot that grew to include 22 people. Together all of you purchased a professional quality didjeridoo made by a local artist and friend.

I've never had anyone get me a gift of this magnitude. I am absolutely and utterly shocked at how many people contributed to make this happen, and I never expected that I would ever own such a fine instrument.

We're developing a tradition at sunflowerriver of pitching in together and getting a gift for whichever member's birthday is coming up. As yarrowkat was putting all of this together for my birthday, she hatched the idea of getting me a didje. Nice didgeridoos are very expensive, beyond the budget of our farm, even working together.

To overcome this, yarrowkat put out broad but discrete requests for small donations and other help, and got an absolutely overwhelming response.

sunflowerriver: desertwind, korith, and yarrowkat. desertwind made a case to carry it in!
My brother craigpost and his wife Kristin.
My Mom & Dad: cpostrn and grumpygranpa.
My covenmates paean and paganboi_nm.
Future triathlon teammate catcheshiseye.
my umfriend royalspice.
The ever gracious Michelle & Rennick.
My metamour (and fantastic friend!) jaime88.
My camping partner and friend crankles, stronger than the rest of us put together.
hannah_phi, whom I've known for such a short amount of time I'm particularly grateful for her generosity.
riebeckite. I missed you last night but your party was legendary enough to steal people from mine.
chilefudge, if that grape isn't planted yet I will help you this spring.
So supportive it makes me cry buckets appleang.
My ever dear _wirehead_.
Beth, who I thought conspired *with* me!
And finally Rev, who made the instrument in question!

I can't believe that I'm now the proud owner of a nicer didje than I ever thought I'd own. I believe less how many people wanted to make it happen. Never in my wildest dreams would I believe so many people would come together do something this incredible for me.

Thank you.

I need rinsed wine bottles

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 18:09:48 GMT

I'm in need of rinsed wine bottles to bottle mead with. They don't need to be washed or sterilized, just rinsed with water.

I've had a good collection of bottles for most of this year, but the thing about being a *good* mead maker is having patience. I've been bottling both this year and last year's mead, trying to keep more of it around until it is actually ready to be consumed.

This means I'm finally getting a good supply of properly aged mead to give away, but I've come up short on bottles.

If you could start saving bottles for me, that would be fantastic. After you're done with them, it helps to immediately rinse them out. You don't need to wash or sterilize them, just rinse them and set them aside. I'll happily make arrangements for their transport to me, if it is not convenient for you to do so.

Thank you!

terminal@c0redump.org — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:20:49 GMT

I didn't sleep very much last night. I lay awake listening to the world slowly come awake, judging the time by the number of cars I could hear on the road or how many roosters I could hear crowing.

Last night I dreamed I was at my parent's house, though looking out the window I could see an abandoned ruin in the process of sliding off a cliff. I knew that so such thing exists at my parent's house, so I was able to deduce that I was dreaming. I wanted to go explore that ruin, but I knew that if I walked outside I'd just be outside my parent's house, no ruin in sight.

I had to walk through the glass instead. It should be no problem, knowing I was in a dream. I closed my eyes and went forward... bumping into the glass. This happens to me often when I lucid dream. I can be completely aware that I'm dreaming but still be out of control. I closed my eyes a second time. With great difficulty I passed through the glass, out of my parent's house; out of my lucid dream, and into a vast pier on the ocean.

I was not aware I was dreaming until I woke up in fright, having been abandoned inside the runis by my partner after climbing up a steep slope and discovering a body.

I laid in bed last night wishing to dream, to have the experience of my head telling me a story I wasn't in control of. Given my state of mind, I actually began focusing on that as an experience, instead of letting myself slip into it. Which is typical of times I can't sleep.

Shepherd's Pie recipe.

terminal@c0redump.org — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:20:26 GMT

By request, here is my Shepherd's Pie recipe. This is the large batch version, but it is what I made. Aside from missing lamb, this is a fairly traditional recipe, with the obvious substitution of animal milk for rice milk and leaving out butter. Shepherd's pies were originally a way to use leftover meat, so any number of ingredients were thrown into them depending on availability. The only really odd one here is celery, which wouldn't have been available this time of year. Unless you pickled it, I guess!

4c dried lentils
1# carrots
1 stalk (bag) celery
4 medium-sized onions
1 clove garlic
enough diced potatoes to fill a 2g pot
32oz-64oz rice milk
1/4c olive oil
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp rosemary
salt & pepper to taste

Bring lentils, thyme, & rosemary to boil in 8c water. I use a pressure cooker, which is a little different, but over a stove you cook them for roughly 45m. You'll have to continue stirring them and add water as you cook.

Dice potatoes and boil until soft.

Dice onions and garlic. Place olive oil in wok/skillet. Bring to a medium heat, and add onions, garlic and salt. Cook until just clarified and set aside.

Dice carrots and celery and set aside.

After lentils have cooked, remove from heat and add carrots, celery, and half of the onions and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir ingredients together and line bottom half of casserole dishes with mixture. You'll need 3-4 casserole dishes, depending on their size.

Strain water from potatoes and add 32oz rice milk. Mash together until smoothly blended. You might need more rice milk to reach desired consistency. Stir in remaining onions and garlic into potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Spread potatoes over top of lentil mixture until fully covered. Score top of potatoes with fork to increase surface area. Place in over preheated to 400 degrees and cook for 30-40 minutes. You'd like to potatoes to just be browning without being too dry.

Remove from oven and consume, though they will also store for many days in a refrigerator.

Shepherd's Pie for Yule

terminal@c0redump.org — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:11:23 GMT

Kit (Our WWOOFER) and I have just finished baking a shepherd's pie for Yule. I make a few casserole dishes worth every year, and I usually don't take home leftovers. Shepherd's pie is one of my favorite dishes, but it is usually too time intensive to make for an average dinner. This is the only time of year I'm certain to make it.

yarrowkat has been calling this dish my "hypoallergenic shepherd's pie," as it is vegan and doesn't contain wheat, soy, or refined sugar. All things that various members of the community are allergic to or don't eat.

I had loosely planned on making this year's dish with cow milk, as I'm the only member of the community who has been vegan. Kit came along and kept me honest, however. As I fell off that bandwagon, I find myself feeding someone on it.

With the meal prepared, my favorite part of Yule is over, heh. There is the actual going to Yule, socializing, and enjoying the feast yet left, but it can't live up to making shepherd's pie. Noms.

I need virtual machine hosting

terminal@c0redump.org — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:15:34 GMT

I need a place to park a relatively large virtual machine (32gb disk+512mb memory) that I can assign a public ip address to. Latency is a concern (I log into it nearly every day), and bandwidth is relatively low.

Are any of you doing something like this? Any suggestions on what to look for and what to avoid?

Update on the Burglary.

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:40:26 GMT

While I was gone, this story was published in the Albuquerque Journal about tracking the burglars with a GPS signal. It tells the part of the story I didn't have when I left, how exactly the police caught the burglars.

Albuquerque Journal Article

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Victim 'Tracks' Suspects

By T.J. Wilham
Journal Staff Writer

When Joshua Link's wife called his stolen cell phone, the thieves answered. And then they laughed at her.

But it was Link who had the last laugh.

A few hours after the thieves broke into the 31-year-old's Northeast home, police were knocking at the thieves' door.

Link had contacted his cell phone carrier, activated the GPS function and was able to relay the thieves' whereabouts to police.

Investigators arrested three people. Isabelle Vela, 23, Kendall Bland, 19, and Hadeem Bland, 17. Who they believe were involved in the break-in at Link's home and six other burglaries, investigators said.

"When we heard about this, we dropped everything we were doing," said Albuquerque police Sgt. John Sullivan. "We were pretty excited. We have never heard of a victim tracking someone like this before."

Link's wife came home about 2:30 p.m. Friday, found a broken window, realized they had been burglarized and tried to call her husband. Not realizing that the cell phone had been stolen, she got the thieves on the other end.

She contacted Link at work, who came home, got online and activated the GPS function on his phone. Then, he pulled up an online map showing where the phone had been.

"My first instinct was I just wanted to catch them and get my stuff back," said Link, who is vice president of a company that provides computers and software to the legal community. "I just wanted some justice, and I figured if I was able to do it, there was a much better chance of catching them."

Link called police and, for about two hours, relayed locations to officers. Eventually, the dot on the map rested in the 400 block of Georgia SE.

"We were chasing our tails for a while, because they were moving," Sullivan said. "It ended up being very rewarding." Officers knocked on the door of an apartment where they saw people coming and going. The tenant allowed them to search, and inside police found Link's two cameras and a laptop. And his cell phone.

Within five hours of the break-in, Link had most of his property back.

And when he looked at the memory on one of the cameras, the thieves gave him one last surprise. they had taken pictures of themselves.

Boston => Albuquerque Trip Report

terminal@c0redump.org — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:31:53 GMT

I've just completed the 2,374 mile trip from Boston to Albuquerque. I was supposed to be back yesterday, but an ice storm in Oklahoma kept us in Oklahoma City overnight. If you want real time updates from my trip, here they are:

(For your reading convenience, here was everyone's codenames:)

Blackwing = desertwind
Falcon = catcheshiseye
Golden Egg = Moving Van
Mother Goose = korith's mother.
The Sherpa = aisa0
Tigerfly = korith

09:45 am 12/8/08 Tigerfly and the Sherpa have taken flight in the Golden Egg.
10:15 am 12/8/08 The Golden Egg is in Connecticut traveling west on I-84. Qui Transtulit Sustinet. [He Who Transplanted Still Sustains.]. We're in the Constitution State!
11:38 am 12/8/08 The Golden Egg is in New York heading west on I-84. Welcome to the Empire State!
01:09 pm 12/8/08 The Golden Egg has entered the Keystone State headed west on I-84. Hello Pennsylvania birthplace of tigerfly.
05:12 pm 12/8/08 The Golden Egg has entered Maryland going south on I-81. Welcome to the Old Line State!
05:25 pm 12/8/08 Staying on I-81, the Golden Egg continues into the Mountain State. Welcome to West Virginia!
05:49 pm 12/8/08 The Golden Egg passes into Virginia, the Old Dominion State. We'll keep to I-81!
07:12 pm 12/8/08 The Falcon is in position to receive Mother Goose and Black Wing.
11:29 pm 12/8/08 The Golden Egg has entered The Volunteer State heading south on I-81. Tennessee however is not volunteering to drive.
07:49 am 12/9/08 Heading west on I-40, entering the Natural State. Arkansas' natural state seems to be wet and windy. The Golden Egg had its bath.
12:36 pm 12/9/08 We've entered the birthstate of the Sherpa going west on I-40. Welcome to Oklahoma, sorry we couldn't get here "Sooner." ETA 12h, 30m. Midnight tonight.
05:18 pm 12/9/08 The Golden Egg has found shelter in Oklahoma City for the night. Snow and ice on the roads threaten to make us into a Golden Omelet.
11:02 am 12/10/08 The Golden Egg passes into the Lone Star State west on I-40. We'll be driving through the narrowest part of Texas. Current ETA 5PM!
01:30 pm 12/10/08 The Golden Egg has arrived in New Mexico. Welcome to the Land of Enchantment. Welcome home. ETA 4 hours. 4:30PM.
05:04 pm 12/10/08 The Golden Goose, after 2374.1 miles, has hatched. Operation Move The Goose is completed.

Sorry for the latency.

This was a fun trip, for two major reasons:

korith is a good traveling partner. This means that he is willing to survive on car food for 3 days and sleep in the passenger seat instead of a hotel room. We managed 22 hours per day until weather stopped us, and I'd say it was my fastest cross-country trip except that it was my first.
We were ridiculously well connected. Both of us had phones with internet access, though korith's iPhone steals the show here. We could get weather updates, traffic conditions, find gas stations and keep ourselves entertained. Our coverage was extremely good the whole trip. Good thing he brought a DC charger.

If I've been ignoring you the last several days, let this post be an explanation.