To:         Kitt
From:       Mom
Subject:    IPod

Got my fancy silver one! I'm happy, but stayed up WAY TOO
LATE ripping songs. :|

My mom. Ripping songs. And knowing the lingo.

Word.

One of the comments Jonas made last night, mostly in response to my comment that I know another Mark Smith was that there are, on average, six people in the country with the same name.

The distribution is probably a bell curve of some sort, with Kitt Hodsdens on one side, and Mark Smiths on the other. Although it makes finding me that much easier, I like having a relatively unique name. As far as Google and Yahoo! know, I'm the only Kitt Hodsden in the U.S.

Which makes me reluctant and not very likely to take Kris' much more common last name. With his last name, I'd probably have google duels with a lawyer in San Francisco, a 22 year old in Germany, a Colorado College graduate, some woman in England and a "Miss Kitty" who died recently in Florida.

And I wouldn't have the cool urls that I have now.

Sorry, Kris. You lose.

Note to self: even if it's a tech meet-up, I should still dress like a girl when I go.

Last night, I managed to make it to Tag Tuesday, as mentioned yesterday. And I'm very glad I did.

I managed to meet a few people I've been wanting to meet for a while, as well as meet up with an old acquaintance, and meet some new people, too.

I finally met Jonas Luster. I'd been hoping to meet him for a while now. I've been following his site for a while, and lamenting his switch from Drupal to Wordpress.

Jonas (pronounced as Yaw-nas by Jill, whom I also met last night) kept insisting he had met me before when I walked up and introduced myself. I told him we hadn't met, and he said sure we had and started listing conferences he had been to recently. When I told him I hadn't been to a conference since SiGGRAPH, he looked at me in disbelief, and turned to Niall to ask where the two of us had met.

Which is how I met Niall. We talked a bit, before Kevin Marks, who was going to be presenting, came up to talk to me. Turns out all of these guys work at Technorati. Go fig.

As did another Mark Smith. He goes by "Junior", and works at the opposite end of the building from Ian, who noticed my brand spanking new running shoes. We laughed about it.

At some point, I did manage to meet Matt, who seemed surprised I didn't know who Stewart Butterfield was. For those also not in the know, he's one of the two founders of Flickr, an online photo sharing site.

Eh.

I enjoyed talking to Matt, Mark and Kevin. After a while, though, people who knew each other showed up, and those of us not in the clique were left to fend. It was a little uncomfortable, so I made the best of it and talked to other people.

The entertaining surprise of the evening was seeing Dave McClure. We talked a long while (he's at Simply Hired, so we spent time talking about job-posting microformats, the job-hunting online sphere and a bit about community development and startups.

It was really nice to see a friendly face (and an ultimate player!). I don't think I ever truly appreciate how great the ultimate community is in terms of comform, belonging, friendships and networking. Always something to talk about, always a friend nearby.

When the presentation finally started, absolutely no one could hear anyone, and the presentation slides were projected onto the ceiling.

Note to self: do not try to give a presentation at a brewery.

Eventually, everyone clued in, and we headed outside, across the street and talked in a huddled group.

The party ended when we heard, from the Coast Guard alert station right next to where we were, a tsunami warning for the coast of California. Turns out, there was a 7.4 earthquake off the coast of Humboldt county, about 250 miles north of the Bay Area.

In disbelief, we all disbanded. We were going to continue, but Jonas insisted we all notify anyone on the coast that might be affected.

Zoom. We left.

Things are happening around me that are quite exciting. The area seems charged like it was back in the late nineties. Cool things are being developed, people are excited about the new opportunities, toys are around everywhere. Just a general feeling in the area that I can't say I've felt for a long time. Not quite heady/giddy days of the last bubble, but definitely one of promise and hope.

And in that vein, while recognizing that networking is crucial for new ideas as well as contacts for help, I've decided to come back out of my work shell and look around, start meeting up with these people that are moving and shaking things up around me.

In other words, I'm in the Bay Area, I might as well milk it for what it's worth.

I'll be attending the Carson Workshop on "How we built Flickr" next Monday. I was looking forward to meeting Matthew Mullenweg of WordPress fame (and who seduced Jonas away from Drupal), but he's heading to New York this weekend, so that one's nixed.

I have a bet with Mike, who is also going to the workshop, that the men to women ratio will be like 17 to 3. Though, from the pictures on the Carson site, I'm thinking it might be 19 to 1 (me).

Bah.

I'm also heading up to the city for the Tag Tuesday to meet up with a couple tag developers, see what they have to say. Since I'm finishing up with a tagging project for a client, other reference points would be nice.

And since tagging now works on my other site it'll be good to compare notes on implementations.

And then there's the Blogher conference in late July. It's a mostly "women in blogging" sort of thing, though men aren't exactly excluded. To be honest, I'm going for two reasons: to get information on what bloggers want in order to develop drupal modules for them, and to meet Heather B. Armstrong.

I have no shame.

All in all, a good start to this groundhog's shadow check.

Tonight, Kris and I headed over to Vinny's to meet up with Mark, Vinny and anyone else interested in participating in Mark and Vinny's Viking Operetta.

That includes those of us hoodwinked into it.

Mark and Vinny have been talking about this operetta for ages. They have a plot, they have lyrics for some songs, they have lots of ideas, but never quite managed to complete it.

About two months ago, I had an inspiration, and came up with (what I thought was) a catchy tune that could work for the only song I knew in the operetta: Much Too Stout. I mentioned it casually to Mark, that I had something to hum for him, and told him I'd get an mp3 of the tune out and email it to him.

Well, apparently that lit a fire under his butt, because he composed the next song, Triune Pedigree on the two hour drive home from a tournament.

Before we knew it, Kris was roped in to be the Cook, and I was the Taste Tester. Both of us singing and performing in Vinny's 3rd annual Talent Show and fund raiser to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem. I don't have stage fright, I'd be performing in front of friends, a few drinks and I won't notice a thing, all not a problem.

Except, I'll be singing.

Singing.

Out loud.

Not in the shower.

Yes, the performance will be an operetta. And I'll be singing. It'll be my stage debut. How exciting, eh? I have a major role in the operetta. I'll be singing a solo. I'll be dressed up to be 300 pounds. It'll be fun, but crazy.

The practice went really well. Only the first of three acts are complete, so we'll be performing that. There are three songs: the whole chorus, my solo and Kris' solo.

At least Kris can carry a tune.

Oh, and we'll be taping. So expect a movie sometime in the next three weeks.

Heh.

While driving home from the colo today, I started pondering the role of religion in the world today. More specifically, what would be the fundamental purpose of religion, figuring that would lead me to the reason for its existence in the first place.

I've been pondering religion a lot lately. One might wonder if it's the beginnings of a mid-life crisis starting up. Sure, it might be one of sorts, but it would have to be a quarter-life crisis, as I'm planning on dying on my 120th birthday and not a day before. So, this mid-life thing? Not there yet.

After a while of this religious thinking, I realized I wasn't actually pondering the whole topic so much as composing an essay. I had my thesis in the first few sentences, my supporting ideas next, then my conclusion. Or rather, tell 'em what you're goin' tell 'em, tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em.

All in one neat package.

Quick, quick! Write it down! Write it down! Write it down before you forget it!

Because brilliant ideas come along only once, and you usually don't remember them when you wake up, right?

Out comes one of my yellow index cards, and I start scribbling everything I can remember from my brilliant essay on the Purpose of Religion, from its Origins to Today.

Only I can't remember much.

Once I started writing my notes down, I drew a blank. All the great supporting argument I had so brilliantly crafted not moments ago were gone in the time it took me to think, "Write it down!" and grab a pen.

Rats.

"Think!" I think. "Think!" but nothing comes out. It's always been that way. Whenever I try to ponder something intensely, poof! away it goes. But if I just open my mouth and start spewing, "brilliant" things come out. I put "brilliant" in quotes, because sometimes I don't know who I'm fooling the most: me or everyone else.

The best course of action now seems to give up, and write about how I can't write about what I want to write about.

Bah.