Grant Me The Serenity
To Accept The Things
I Cannot Change,
Couage To Change
The Things I Can, And

Wisdom
To Know The Differe.ce

It was quite a trip: Flew from Oakland to Reno to Portland late on Thursday night, hung out with Comfrey and Micah for the evening, sleep, woke up, hung out in Portland for the afternoon on bike, and then drove back down to SF with Micah and h0mee without stopping (except for some dawn breakfast). We primarily battled rain and then exhaustion and then by the time we got to SF, I felt utter pain and sickness from drinking two cups of coffee right before leaving and staying up viritually all night. It felt like my soul was in the process of dying and/or escaping my body. The worst part was that I felt like I woul never feel normal again. But sleep is an amazing thing: 24 hours later and I am nearly back to normal.

The reason for such a short and hasty trip was to see Portland before leaving the west coast, visiting Comfrey, and helping Micah drive down (although sadly, none of us helped drive). From what I saw, Portland was a very cool city–> very bike friendly, eco-oriented, and compact. It kinda reminded me of a west coast Madison, WI which also has a lot of bike lanes, food coops, and greenery (except for the winter).

One thing for sure, I am not going to stay up all night long riding in a car for a long long while, not if I want to keep my soul in tact.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate
Rice and Beans
Green Platains and Yellow Plantains

Some of the sweetest things come in pairs. Last night, I found a new one:
Karaoke and Da Beach…

They do indeed go well together, the expansiveness of the beach really allowing you to get loose and belt it out. I now know where I will be having my SF good-bye party. About three months to go for the ultimate karaoke beach party.

Tonight, I have been working on this paper that among other things looks at the variegated moral spaces within the sphere of hacking in part to challenge the supposed notion of a unitary hacker culture or cultural sphere. As I finished for the night, I went to the kitchen to find my roommate munching on what are probably my third favorite snack food: Tortilla Corn Chips.

You can find TC nearly any day of the year in my house and there are various brands to satisfy the particular tastes of different roommates. And you know, I like them all but it struck me tonight that though tortilla chips are for the most part “the same”, they can taste quite different just depending on the thickness of the cut of the chip and the degree of salting. You look at the ingredients of like 2-3 bags and they will all say corn flour, salt, and vegetable oil yet the outcome can be so profoundly different at least having to do with the subtleties of the taste bud…. Made me think of my paper on hackers although I wish I could transfer the clarity of that sameness yet difference of the tortilla chip to the domain of hacking…

Sometimes it is just so so nice to get out of the complexity of the city into the simplicity of colors, lights, and patterns of the outdoors. I just got back from another snowshoeing adventure, probably my last of 2003, which was completed on very little sleep. The coolest part of the trip was a sighting of my favorite alien friend. I am not sure if he was really there or a hallucination due to lack of sleep…. But which ever the case, it was a pretty cool sighting!

From the protest last weekend…

Just in case you don’t read Slashdot (yeah, yeah, not cool but I still like it ), this looks like an interesting read about being treated as nerd in high school. Looks interesting and I hope to get to it sometime today.

I was for sure tagged a nerd although it was more a middle school phenomenon that for the most part dissapated by high school probably because I went to a really small school where it was easy just to find your niche. People just finally tagged as eccentric and unusual. Just in case you don’t read Slashdot (yeah, yeah, not cool but I still like it ), this looks like an interesting read about being treated as nerd in high school. Looks interesting and I hope to get to it sometime today.

I was for sure tagged a nerd although it was more a middle school phenomenon that for the most part dissipated by high school probably because I went to a really small school where it was easy just to find your niche. People just finally tagged me as eccentric and unusual. That little wacky Biella….

I have so much to write about but little time on my hands these days but soon, soon, I promise really to write some really great entries but I am so excited about this little idea of mine that I must broadcast it to the world!!!

So, there is a war protest this Sunday here in SF, among other places in the US and across the world and one of the things that I thought would be really COOL is to have everyone wear the color Orange, you know to make a colorful point about the high security alert (aka orange) that we are now under.

The second best option is to dress like a pirate! I am not sure quite yet why this is an act of protest but, it just strikes me is appropriate… You know, I know pirates are not anti-violence but they do have a sort of screw you cultural and political sensibility which is so needed right now…

I watched many movies this last week, I believe a total of five, all of which were quite distinct: Bowling for Columbine (for a second time), the Business Software Alliance “pirating is for losers (and illegal) educational movie, American mullet about the rare but never obscure haircut, a documentary on the Kali Mai churches of Guyana, and a very heavy and long Soviet made production of Cuba before and during the revolution, I am Cuba. It was a bit painful to sit through the 140 minutes of “I am Cuba” after so many movies mostly because it was long, all in black and white (which bothers my eyes) and was so unsubtle, that it was like they had huge banners of “THIS IS WHAT IS GOING ON” waving about for every scene. Nonetheless, an interesting movie that you must be in the mood for (by the way, does anyone know of a good Soviety movie?). I also played galaga my favorite childhood video game and I discovered that I still have a knack for it. All those hours may be in my past but part of them still remain with me……

After spending a couple of weeks in the Caribbean, it takes about a week to clean the sand from your ears. As you clean out your ears in the morning (or whenever one might perform this less than savory hygienic ritual), you sort of think to yourself: “Wow, the ear can hold a lot of sand” and then as the days pass on and there is less and less sand, you miss and miss your Caribbean beach even more. Nostalgia is experienced in weird ways at times.

Here are some pictures from the Vieques Protest I went to last Sunday. It was a good protest with a pretty large turn out considering it was organized pretty last minute. My dad and I argued (peaceably) about the protest, his sentiment being that it was useless or really frivolous because the US has already agreed to give up military training on this island, while my point was that it is good to yell and scream to make sure they don’t forget to leave not to mention they still need to commit more tangibly to the clean-up efforts. Anyway, he drove me to the protest which was nice given that he did not agree with it.

Back here in SF, the turmoil of Vieques and the idyllic life of the Caribbean seems far away. News about
the tech and intellectual property world moves around here as do fish in the Caribbean sea. Oh, and sad, frustrating news, like Eldred losing in the Supreme Court. I mean, I did not ever think it would be a sure thing but I thought Eldred had a chance and it was pretty depressing shoot out at 7-2??!!!!

Often when I come back from the Caribbean, I fell torn desiring to go back but also loving my life online and the research I do. Then there are those other things I like to dabble in such as Chi Gong and acupuncture that are not as accessible in the Caribbean. But I think I have found the solution of how to combine the different passions of my life–> living on a hacker/activist sailing vessel that has a satellite link to the net and whose purpose is two fold: to transport computers to places where they are needed and serve as an underground acupuncture clinic! I can then also teach Chi Gong classes, have year round access to the ocean and with all my extra time, I can just write, blog, and of course swim. And being on a boat where you tend not to go to the beach but just jump off the deck into the water, you never have to worry about sandy ears.