joygantic

I Know Why You Hate My Industry

I've gone through four phones in the past two weeks. 

Ten Days

Lately I've been a whirling dervish of activity. This will not abate very soon.  The next ten days bring two out of town trips, three high profile presentations, and a long list of various and sundry projects to get ready for Burning Man. I must repair the crotch of the bear suit, project manage about 30 people converging on our camp, sort a mass of various electronic thingies and figure out what to do with them, and ship boxes of important items (top hat, tutu, kimono, etc) to L.A.  Somewhere in there we're also celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary. 

I'm not sure why I think a vacation that requires this much advance work is a good idea, but I do.

Midnight Update: I'm clearly not the only one in full prep mode.  Just discovered I'd received a text message and two voices mails: "can you send that pakcing list . . ," "We're at Home Depot and have a question . . ," and "We're at Lowe's and wanted to see if we needed anything for camp . . ," respectively.  8-)

Must be something in the water . . .

July 24th: Fisherman speared by blue marlin off Bermuda

August 8th: Jumping sturgeon whacks jet-skier

Tragic

What, No "Grand Emperor" Option?

These past few weeks I've been like a draft resistor eyeing Canada.  I haven't been on an airplane since I returned from California on July 6th (over a month!!!) and I've been working hard to keep it that way a little longer.

The realities of business, though, require that I pop over to Kansas for a 24 hour whirl next week and today I realized I have to go to Sonoma for another 24 hour appearance before coming home with about 36 hours to finalize prep for Burning Man. 

I'm only noting this because today I burst out laughing as I was registering for my hotel.  I'm moderating a panel discussion at the Sonoma event and it's being held at some high-end resort.  Free golf, wine tasting and spa treatments are part of the conference package.  In an alternate reality that could be fun (except the golf part), but I'm basically just in and out so these boondoggle luxuries will escape me.  No, that's not the funny part.  What made me giggle was the online registration form, specifically the field that asked you to identify your "Title" which, as you will note is a manadatory field.

My Own Private Fire

I'm sitting in our backyard, next to a roaring fire pit, thinking that our house is suddenly much more a home than it was two months ago.  This multi-year project called "re do the backyard" has passed a threshold where it's suddnly, qualitatively different.  I like it.

On Not Sounding Dumb

As expected, the TV station never called me back to see if I was game for their gas theft expose, which I'm happy about.

When I talk to the press about things I'm actually interested it's usually fun and engaging but then I find myself holding my breath that whatever I said isn't misconstrued, taken out of context, or generally dumb sounding.  This last scenario is my biggest fear. 

The first time I was ever on TV I was in high school and had just organized an invitational academic team tournament. (Yes, I know that's geeky but not quite as geeky as the fact that I lettered in Academic Team in high school.)  I considered myself pretty articulate but the dumbest thing ever came out of my mouth when the camera was on. I can't remember what it was I just remember it being really dumb and there being something especially painful about sounding dumb when I was pimping for the *ahem* Academic Team.

Today I'm featured in three stories and I'm happy to say I don't sound dumb.  I don't sound amazingly brilliant, but at least I can exhale.

• Chicago Tribune: "Fuse detonating new TV viewing trends among teenager" (not sounding dumb, but jeesh, she could have edited my stream of consciousness a bit)
  
• Technology Review: "Net Neutrality: Lessons from the Past"
• Marketplace: "Sprint-Nextel anniversary"  Audio

 

People I Know Doing Interesting Things

I fortunate enough to know a lot of people doing lots of interesting things in all sorts diverse areas. 

A round up of recent grooviness:

• Sean Ryan, a great and super smart guy, launched Meez in March. I meant to call it out but things have been hectic.  Get yer own digital avatar!  It looks like a goofy business if you're not carefully following trends, youth, or what's going on in Korea.
• Ranah Edelin, who I worked with only briefly but was always impressed with, just launched his company, SingShot, an online karaoke community.  I'm not sure whether to applaud or curse him (kidding!).
• George Kliavkoff moved today from MLB Advanced Media (you know, streaming baseball games) over to NBC Universal where he now holds the esteemed title of "Chief Digital Officer."  Mmmm, CDO.  That's a new one.  I'm hopeful George's move into the executive stratosphere won't mean his industry parties with a midnight start time are a thing of the past, or that I'll be knocked off the invite list.
• Elaine has a super cool new job but I probably can't share much more than that--Yay!
• George is doing new stuff with the Grameen Foundation moving from the mobile phone world to micro-finance. The lucky dog is currently in Tokyo. Wait he's probably in Manila by now.
• Ariel Meadow Stallings, retired raver, Salon of Shame founder, and word mercenary is on the verge of publishing her first book:  Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides.  Her timing is perfect as next summer's gonna bring a few offbeat weddings among my circle of friends . . .  Oh, and of course she has a blog for the book.
• Then of course there's Matt Harding, who's received plenty of Joygantic attention, but was received a shout out from that progressive rag the Wall Street Journal, identifying him one of the "unknown[s] . . . being catapulted into postions of enormous [media] influence." God help us all if Matt ends up influencing the future of dance. ;-)

Temple of Light Photos (so far)

My annotated slideshow.

See also Sally's photos, which are far better than mine!