This is what I want, to own and to be owned so thoroughly by even a tiny scrap of this earth. That is how I can be not just a line, but part of that three-dimensional world my one warm line passes through.
via Nat Case
Easy to get lost in the infinity that is the Web. Working to take what good I can learn from the web, and apply it locally to the people that surround me.
Feels good to contribute.
I’ve been getting involved with The Maine Hacker Club. @GarrettWilkin has been doing an amazing job organizing for Maine Civic Hack Day, which is going to be a great event, and the first of it’s kind in the area. Bangor seems primed for it; people keep jumping at the chance to help out. The city of Bangor has been supportive of the event. We’ve started the conversation with two great guys ( @JeffBangor and Sean Gambrel )in the City’s Engineering department about open-sourcing some of their data, and getting some into OSM.
Also should mention the amazing tools being built by Mapbox and CartoDB, notably, the Id Editor and Cartodb, without which, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now. We’re working on developing some awesome apps and datasets… Stay tuned, and follow us on Github.
Additionally, this last month I’ve been coaching the Acadia Fire’s U18 Boys & Girls. Making (and learning from) quite a few mistakes so far. In particular:
That said, we’ve got great players, and I think we’ll do pretty well. Looking forward to our first friendly, which I’m hoping happens this weekend.
Coaching aside, I’ve been enjoying Arsenal’s trot back into 4th. Firmly in the #WengerIn camp here. Zeman’s Roma were also fascinating to watch, but unfortunately, he was sacked in February. Rather than try to explain how they played, just look at how the kicked off…
Until this year, I’ve never watched much of Serie A, but I’m glad I started.
Reading
Had been using Goodreads, but switched over to Librarything as soon as Goodreads was acquired by Amazon. Turns out they’re based here in Maine! I’m over there as Gwak if you’re into that sort of thing.
Just finished PKD’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’. Not my favorite of his, but the man is a genius. Reading his books can seriously get you to trip. My head is never in even a remotely similar space after reading his stuff than it was before I started.
Gilbert Michaud’s ‘The Acadian’. The book barely exists (at least on the internet…). Gilbert was the father of my Dad’s best friend. It’s a devastating book, but is an absolutely fantastic read. Even in the face cultural homogenization that’s happening today, Acadians hold on to their heritage… This is explains a bit of their ‘mythology’. I was so excited to read this. If you’re even remotely interested this, let me know, and I’ll buy you a copy and send it your way…
Thinking
An excellent quote from why, via the always inspirational Tom Macwright
when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.
That said, I’m trying to become more of a creator. Currently working on a few responsive websites for Maine Hacker Club and a few friends.
Otherwise, still trying to improve my Javascripts… I’m on Github, you should follow me there! :)
Doing
I’m debt-free. Payed off the last of my school loans Friday. I’m probably happier about this than I should be, but it effectively feels like a new stage of my life. Of course, I was only able to because of some incredibly lucky circumstances, namely, in that I stumbled into a fantastic job with SHARE immediately after graduating, in my hometown, where I could live cheaply and unglamorously with my parents.
Work
I’ve been working on some interesting projects with SHARE. We’re such a small crew (2 of us most of the year), and Atlantic salmon restoration has so many facets, that there is never an end to the number of potential projects to work on. For instance:
Coaching
Just finished getting my D license, which coincides nicely with the start of my tenure at The Acadia Fire, where I’ll be coaching the HS-age teams.
Reading
We like to define things. Our dreams and desires, who we are, what we do, and why we do it. We’re social animals, so communicating these things is important. We rarely, if ever, achieve whatever our definition of success is, without effectively communicating with our peers.
The problem is, the most important things can’t be described. Language is throwing a net over reality. The words are the intersections of twine. We can count their positions, give them labels, and use them to describe what’s underneath, but we can never actually get the essence of what’s underneath. We can’t discard the net; it’s how we get by. But we can, and should be aware of it’s limitations. Most of the times, the words we use are suitable, and get the point across accurately enough, but there are a few ‘things’ that simply defy definition.
Christopher Alexander calls it the nameless quality.
It’s the wild smile of they gypsies dancing in the road.
Watts might describe it with a smile. Van Persie might describe it with a goal. We know it best as a feeling…
In The Timeless Way of Building, Alexander describes the quality negatively, showing how alive, whole, comfortable, free, exact, egoless, and eternal fail to capture the nameless quality. They circle it. Give you an indication of where to look.
Today, I learned a new word that also belongs in that list.
Waldeinsamkeit: Forest solitude; the feeling of being alone in the woods.
Here in Maine, we’re midway into Fall. The trees have lost most of their leaves. Branches rattle. It’s an environment most of us don’t spend much time in, but it’s one we’re naturally comfortable in. Alone, you feel like you belong. You feel mortal. It’s bittersweet. ‘It’, has that nameless quality. It has that feeling. There’s no point to ‘the nameless quality’, but I think we would all do well to try and embrace those times when we feel it.
Nothing to keep, nothing to lose. No possessions, no security, no concern about possessions, and no concern about security: in this mood it is possible to do exactly what makes sense, and nothing else.
Excerpts from The Timeless Way Of Building are going up on Github.
The most beautiful, best made ‘things’ aren’t imposed. They’re generated naturally. They’re emergent systems. They’re egoless, and unconscious. They have intrinsic beauty, and are never artificially decorated. It’s why nature is such a powerful, and obvious source of beauty and inspiration. Life is this result of what are essentially tiny, pure functions, repeated over and over again. Directionless, but always resulting in beautiful output.
As humans, it’s very hard, maybe even impossible for us to consciously emulate this sort of process. But the closer we get to it, the better things we can make. Imposing a structure isn’t good enough.
When we set out to build a structure, and then fill it in, it’s not just that we will build the wrong thing, it’s that we won’t notice we’ve built the wrong thing until too late, and won’t be able to easily fix it.
Go take a moment and read Isaac Schlueter’s Node Dublin presentation Escaping Captivity: Social Apes making Software in the Wild. It’s a great read and gives some direction on how to move forward, and why we should.
Doing
Reading
Wanting to like Rinus Michels’ Teambuilding, but it’s quite disjointed. Maybe I’m just getting too used to short, webish, to the point articles, but Michels seems to be all over the place. Some great ideas, but you have to dig for them.
Another football text, Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid is great. It’s amazing how drastically the ‘normal’ has changed in a such a short period of time. Football really is a beautiful thing. In the same way a great espresso can surprise you with it’s depth and nuance, a Football team can do the same thing. I’m just now realizing how central a component football is to my life.
Just starting to dig into Dalio’s Principles. At a glance, seems fantastic.
Aside from that, I’ve been bouncing around all sorts of other books. As much as I like the convenience of an iPad, choosing what to read is an issue because there are too many choices…
Upcoming
September has been crazy, and it seems like October won’t be much different.
If you’re reading this, and you’re attending either of the two, get in touch! @jacquestardie or email.
Aside from that, SHARE is working on finalizing a report detailing the effects all of our Open-bottom arch culvert installations have had on the hydrology and fish communities in the Machias watershed.
Took the day off last Friday. Wanted to give Katahdin another try. Had been there the week before with friends; we’d intended to head up Helon-Taylor and make our way across Knife Edge, but the wind was gusting too fast. A Ranger suggested we find another route. So we did. Cathedral up, Hamlin down. But I still wanted Knife Edge…
Drove out Thursday night in the Tacoma. The plan was to spend the night in a sleeping bag in the bed of the truck. Logistically, it’s the simplest option, which is why I keep choosing it, but it never really works out. Sleeping in the bed seems to invite condensation, which made it a cold night. Temperature aside, the Logging Trucks were running pretty hard. Scary. Didn’t sleep much that night.
3rd car to enter the park, I got going on Helon-Taylor at 6:30. Lack of sleep may have played a part, but all that I remember from the first part of the hike was the sound of birds, the beating of my heart, the sound of my breathing, and a text from my mom. Not that I was aware of it, but I got into the flow state pretty quickly…
Passing the tree-line, all of a sudden you’re exposed to some gorgeous views of the land below you. At 7:30 AM, it beats any number of cups of coffee. 
Soon you see Katahdin itself. 
I’d never been up Helon-Taylor before. I’m afraid of heights, and I’ve always been a bit skeptical about my ability to go across Knife Edge. My fears were well placed. 
It’s funny how the scope of your existence can change so quickly. The night before I was looking up at the stars (which are beautiful on a clear night in Millinocket), viscerally aware of that I was infinitesimally small, on a rock, spinning through space. On Knife Edge, everything there was existed within 2 feet on either side of me.
Check out the rest of the photos here.
In the last four or five years my thoughts have been coalescing into a strange, self-reinforcing amalmagation. Like a good pet, it’s always there by my side, shaping and directing my activities in ways that feel correct. The problem is that the feeling is more intuitive than logical. More of a comfort than something solid I can stand on.
Which is why I’m starting to write. Putting words on paper forces me to think more logically. Faults in my reasoning are more visible once they’ve been scribbled out.
So, that’s the plan. Looking forward to any conversations this might begin.