Zenobia (the 14yr old girl reported missing, here and elsewhere) has been found. There has been a lot of flap and counterflap, about whether her kidnapping was a hoax. It's a topic so sensitive that even my well-spoken friends still find crow to eat over it.

I'll admit, even as I posted the report, I questioned the story behind it. Whether or not it was true, it's worth noting that "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" still applies: the danger of false reports isn't just the unwarranted fear they cause, but the way they slow reaction to the real thing. And (as with most parables) this points to an innately human foible that we'll likely never find a complete solution to . . .

Coincidentally, the title is both a (mis-)pronunciation for the name of my Maker Faire project, and the sounds that building it often elicits. Apparently, Meraki is too cool to provide a fully functional OpenWRT build environment. Hacking in the Makefiles is (mostly) working for now, but with the deadline approaching fast, every hiccup is worrisome . . .

Slowly, however, the parts for are coming together for the laser-tag alternate reality game, ARG:0. Bill Bush, an old-school electronics guru (and gaming buddy), has been helping me overcome my atrophied electronics skills to build the infrared circuits. Ian Quinn is working on the creative design, figuring out why people are shooting at each other so I can focus on how. Les Weiler provided the logo and some splash and concept art for the website. oldstingydragon has been building outer cases for the guns out of Legos.

We could still use help in several areas. The most obvious will be more gun mock-ups: anything fairly sturdy and gun-shaped (with a few appropriately sized spaces for circuitry) will work. We could also use a booth-babe or two, to help setup and present at the Faire (October 20th and 21st). If you're interested, drop me a line privately, join the mailing list, or just show up at Church Night tonight.

So I think it's time to admit: Braingumbo isn't going to be ready soon. The stock is still a bit too watery, and I don't have enough of the ingredients together, yet. Back on a back-burner to simmer, for the time being.

Not to worry: I've got plenty more cooking, and the ingredients lists for these dishes are much more reasonable. More on that, fairly soon.

Thursday at 7PM at Epoch Coffee, I will be running an informal "meet and greet" about mesh networking. Come discuss possible projects/uses for the Meraki mesh router and other wireless mesh technologies; a working demonstration of a Meraki network is possible, if there is sufficient interest and time.

RVSP not necessary, but appreciated. If you know of someone who would be interested, please pass this on.

Flight leaves for Logan airport in a little over two hours; putting final touches on packing and getting out the door, once this is posted. I'll be in Mass/N.H. area until Tuesday, though a good bunch of that will be tied up in Dylan-related drama.

After that, a week in Michigan visiting old friends, because it was only $70 more and I need a vacation from my "life". Possibility of trek out to Chicago, but forecast is hazy at this point. Returning to Austin the first of next month, hopefully a lot less travel-weary than the last time I made this circuit.

I've got most of the small stuff moved. Now comes the big and important stuff; two desks, an entertainment center, a table, a dresser, and a bed. I'd like to move them all by Thursday, so I can spend Friday moving the remaining small shit and tossing the trash.

If you have a truck I could borrow, let me know by Tuesday; if I don't hear from someone by Wednesday morning, I'm renting a moving van, but it's a waste for the amount that needs to move. If you don't have a truck, let me know when this week could help hoist some of the two-person stuff. Edibles (and intoxicants) of your choice, and hearty thanks, will be provided.

Then there is the stuff I don't want to keep: books and magazines I don't want to reread, cooking materials and old computer bits that I don't have time to use, etc. This is not connected with the move itself; all I ask for that is that you help sort wheat from chaff, and take away the wheat, so I don't feel bad about discarding the chaff.

Contact me here, or via any of the info on my profile page.

( Paid Positions: System Admin and Web Developer )
( Moving Across Austin: Truck Needed )

Robert Anton Wilson died yesterday morning, joining the ranks of personal heroes who passed before I could meet them. His last post explains him better than I ever could:

Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.

Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.

RAW

Thank you for always being a bastion of irreverent good humor, in the face of the oft-disturbing unknown. If a quarter of the world had half your wisdom, all our ills would be solved within a generation. Good night, good sir; may whatever fate receives you be kind.

I'm in the Windy City for the weekend (and maybe a bit of Monday, too). Tiamat is having a potluck dinner tonight. If you're in Chicago, and feel like seeing me, it would be ideal timing . . .

I'm in Boston until tomorrow night.  All I need to do before then is some minor holiday shopping.

Suggestions?

My mother (holly_as_mom) is covering my expenses while I make the transition to freelancing.  We had a long discussion tonight about finances (its taking longer than I'd hoped), and we agreed: building my reputation is far more important, right now, than how much I'm paid.  This means I can make bids that are competitive with the glut of foreign coders in the freelance computer market, until I've established myself enough to be worth more.

It also means that I can do projects that my friends can afford.  So I'm offering $100 websites, to anybody I know with a good idea:

• Want to sell something online?  I can build you an ecommerce site that takes credit card orders securely.
• Want to organize a crazy project?  I can setup groupware (login & password: demo) or content management system to fit your needs.
• Need a pretty page for something?  Well . . . I can try.  I'm better at functional than pretty, though.
  
• Got some other crazy idea?  Ask me, I'm probably game.  I could make you a joke site as a Christmas gift to someone, for instance.

What's the catch?  Well, there's a few:

• It has to be interesting.  I already have a source of boring $100 jobs.  However, I'm not too picky, especially if bribed.
  
• I'm not paying for hosting.  I can host it for you off my server, but that would cost $5 a month, and you'd be sharing space, bandwidth, and servers with all my other projects.  Depending on what I make you, a host of your own may cost you $10/mo or more.
• I'm not paying for domain names.  I can set them up for you, though; they cost about $30 a year.
• You'll need to pay me (in escrow) through GetAFreelancer, and give me a good rating when I'm done.  This is free to you, although it requires a $5 deposit.
  
• I'm going to put in a lot more than $100 worth of work, and producing a functional site.  I'll entertain some customizations, but when I say I'm done, I mean it.

This offer is valid until I have a steady stream of work.  I won't bunk out on a project that's already been escrowed, though.

Who's got $100 to throw away on a neat idea?

So I'm baring my bod for the Boyz of Tiamat Calendar. Problem is that as Tiamat's Roving Reporter, I'm far, far away from the photographers who are distilling the other boys into pure sexy.

There are basically twothree options, here:

1. Austin photographers could take risque pictures of me at their leisure.
2. Chicago or Ann Arbor photographers could take risque pictures of me during the narrow window of time around New Year's that I whirl through that area.
3. I could become a religious martyr, and mail Leah the inevitable image of me found in a burnt tortilla once it surfaces.

I am, of course, open to other suggestions . . .

Sign up at The BrainGumbo Project to help grow a monstrosity.

nationelectric and I hereby announce a special Celebratory Meeting of:

The Council Of Nathan

In commemoration of my shrieking entry into this world on November 30th, and (eerily enough) Nathan's corresponding entree on November 29th, we shall convene on temporal neutral ground -- Friday, December 1 -- to relax, eat, imbibe, and discuss all things Nathan.

God, what a tormented sentence.

If you are reading this, you are welcome to come, on the condition that you are a Nathan. We've had problems with imposters before, so in order to attend you must certify that you are a Nathan by wearing all of the following:

• Slacks or dress skirt.
• A white business shirt.
• A name tag stating that your name is Nathan.

Name tags will be provided. You should also be prepared to sign a contract certifying that your given name is, in fact, "Nathan." Notary publics are also welcome.

Location to be announced within 24 hours. Stay tuned, my brethren.

My birthday's in three days. It's a little late to organize a serious party, and I've been too busy with other stuff to care much. I might do something informal this coming weekend, but I get to go to enough parties; being the focal point of one isn't really a priority. I've also gotten my big birthday wish, and don't really want to encourage more presents.

Plans for the future have been distracting me. While I would still love to travel more, my recent car trip to New Hampshire and back pointed out that my digital gypsy plan needs some heavy refinement, probably of the "table until further notice" type. I don't have the money cushion to handle the rockiness of constant road travel and the freelancing market; I might be able to change that, but only if that's all I do.

And while traveling would be fun, I've got bigger ideas. Specifically, I think the brain gumbo is done cooking finally. Surprisingly, it's not an altered reality game, but a bootstrapped internet movie studio. Of course, to get it working I'll need to enough money to live on, and enough time to work on it. I'm not going to be as insistent on telecommuting; I'd still like to contract, but my primary goal is a semi-stable income that doesn't burn me out.

So if you want to do something for my birthday, here's what I'd like:

• Get my resume to people who might need some computer work done. If you live in the Austin area, I can give you a handful of business cards to pass out instead; they've got the link, and are easier to carry.
• If you're interested in the Braingumbo Project (or are just curious), get me your contact info so I can hit you with the expanded plan. You can email it to me if you don't feel like putting it up on LiveJournal. Don't worry if you can't think of how or how much you can help; we'll figure something out. I'll also be posting information here and elsewhere, as I finalize it.

Anybody have a recommendation for a linux virtual server? I'm looking at the limits of what I have, and trying to decide whether to upgrade in place, or move to a new server.

I'm also vacillating between getting one bigger server, and getting a handful of smaller ones to distribute work among. The second is theoretically more stable, but also more vulnerable to network latency and more of a PITA to run. On the other hand, it also gives me an opportunity to stress test several different providers, which will help if I'm asked to make such a recommendation, down the line.

And, for those of you following my technomantic employment follies from afar, yes, this means good things. It means, specifically, that I'm getting work that's overloading my current digital toolset. Almost overloaded my mental toolset, but I've got extra tools packed away up there . . .

Milestones

1. Steal Underwear
2. ??? <-- working on it
3. Profit

A lot of you will be out sick tomorrow.

One of the hurdles to my digital gypsy plan is that my car needs to be in top shape for it. Right now, all it needs is brake shoes and an oil change, which I can trust just about any shop to do.

Before I leave, however, it may need work on the suspension and exhaust. Those are more expensive, and also more succeptable to the "oh, this is bad" manipulation that dishonest mechanics can do.

Long story short, I'm looking for a trustworthy mechanic in the Austin area, to do work on a 1993 Toyota Corolla. If you have a mechanic you trust, now is the time to sing their praises.

I finally have a court date to clear up the stupid Alcohol in the Park ticket I got almost a year ago. And I realized what I didn't explain in the original post, which makes this whole thing incredibly absurd: I don't drink . . . alcohol.

It's not some grand moral stand. I certainly used to drink it, and enjoy it. But at twenty-two I had gotten bored and disgusted with the bar scene. Sometime shortly after that, I got blasted on hard lemonade with some friends, and had the worst sour-stomached hangover in existance the next day. I swore off drinking for a while, but (like many others I know) came back several times more before it stuck. It makes me mopey and tired long before it relaxes any inhibitions or makes girls (or guys) prettier and wittier than they actually are.

So I eventually stopped altogether. I have other ways of entertaining myself, most of which are cheaper and less dangerous than lots of drink. I don't object to others drinking; if nothing else, drunk people can often be quite entertaining. By the time I moved to Austin, that had solidified from a preference to a practice. I had one shot of fourty year old whiskey at Myschevia (mostly to chase away the cold), and I've taken small tastes of cordials and wines. Otherwise, I've declined drink altogether, often to suprise and confusion.

So, yes, I was with a group drinking alcohol in the park. No, I wasn't drinking it myself, it being some cheap beer (I want to say Natural Ice, but it's been a while). Last I knew, guilt by association is valid only on conspiracy charges. May 3rd, at 3:30PM, I get my chance to make that argument to a judge, finally. Anybody care to sign an affidavit as witness to what a strange (and non-alcoholic) character I really am?

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Edit: Thanks to silona for the suggestion to get signatures instead of actual bodies.

Ad-lib any portion of the following drama: "The Bible . . . As Directed By Joss Whedon". I'll start you off:

Moses: Let my people go!
Pharough: Or what? My priests can make snakes!
Snakes hisssss.^[1]
Aaron: Boy, it'd be nice if we had some swords.
Moses: Psha, my snake's better.
Snakes expire.
Aaron: Shiney!

I'm considering running a GURPS 4E Firefly campaign, by the book. Which is to say, solely by the materials directed by Joss Whedon; since the show is dead and the movie not insanely profitable enough, there will likely be no changes in canon to contradict. And if it is, we'll just have to go renegade "Star Fleet Battles" style, or something. I'm even considering allowing canon characters. Anybody but River; she breaks balance unless she's still absolutely insane, and PC precognition and telepathy gives me hives^[2].

Note I said "considering", not "planning on". That's why I'm not saying anything like TL or starting points. But if you're absolutely drooling on some particular role . . .

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1. Sound effect supplied by the air slowly leaking from my brain.
2. Mostly because I remember what I did with them as a PC . . .