“Homelessness and soccer,” Josh said after we watched this and had dried the happy tears. “It’s like this movie was made for you!” Right.

Add to that the fact that we watched it online, we watched it together, I teared up often with very little provocation, it involved travel and interviews with beatiful people, and I’m now sharing it with my friends via social networking tools… even has a cameo by some cute little birds. Me in a nutshell! Current obsessions, what I love, what I do, what I see, what life is made of these days. The only thing missing is me writing a song about it or mixing some of the soundtrack into a set. (But this quote from the unlikeliest of sources rather covers that part of my life I think: “the limelight… sometimes isn’t the best light.” That and “I’m the king of the penguins!”)

All kidding aside, I would recommend this to anyone, even if you don’t work at a nonprofit or obsess about futbol. If you’re human, this beautiful documentary is worth your time. You don’t even have to know what a pitch is.

It’s available right now on Hulu for free, so please pass on the link, or embed it on your own site. I’d love to hear your thoughts. What/who moved you the most?

It all started with a tweet: Christine Lu linking to this photo with nothing more than the words “this is beautiful”. Who knows why we click on what, but I suppose the urge to seek out beauty is part of what makes us human, and is as good a reason as any other. Besides, if I’m following someone on Twitter it means they’ve already pointed me to something of value, so I’m more open to following their finger if they point and go “oooh!”. (Granted I opened it in another tab at halftime and didn’t acutally look at it until after the Sounders game ended and I started breathing again, but still you get the point.)

It was a photo on Flickr. One click away was a photo titled “Puzzle Grass”, of a plant we used to play with as kids in the forests and trails of the Pacific NW where we grew up. A very strong and familiar sight, I found it even more beautiful than the previous photo. I love how a person can wander around Flickr and get lost in the visual thicket. I couldn’t remember the name of this plant, so I read through the comments. Someone asked “how high do they grow and what eats it?” which made me want to know too. So I did the natural thing, and looked it up on Wikipedia.

While reading through the article I remembered that we used to call them “Tinker Toys”, and almost commented about that, but the whole thing had gotten so interesting that I couldn’t turn back. I also I couldn’t remember whether we’d even had tinker toys as a child, was that even a sensible thing to call it? And so I looked that one up too. Reading about Tinkertoys led me to Danny Hillis’s tic-tac-toe-playing computer built out of Tinkertoys, reading about Danny Hillis led me to The Clock of the Long Now, reading about The Clock of the Long Now led me to the Long Now Foundation, and reading about the Long Now Foundation made me feel warm and hopeful and made me think about thinking. And here we are.

http://www.seattlepi.com/

The presses at my favorite local paper stopped today.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/403845_deaths17.html

My heart aches to see something so solid, such a part of the history of our city, this solid daily familiar, up and disappear. I do not look forward to seeing the empty boxes on the street. I don’t see how they’ll do anything but stand empty and hollow.

146 years.

It will be interesting to watch as the paper goes online-only:
NY Times
http://blog.seattlepi.com/whatsnew/archives/164244.asp
http://www.seattlepi.com/connelly/403914_joel18.html

I think they’ve already made some great strides with their web efforts; particularly with the Big Blog, some solid reader blogs, and their photosharing service. I think the most unfortunate thing about the situation is the loss of their greatest asset – a big group of seasoned newspeople working together and constantly sharing knowledge and history. And not just institutional knowledge. There’s a lot to be said for collaborating with a large group of deep thinkers, be it in newsrooms, classrooms, or an office. See: thinktanks. Right? And from what I hear (and read) that newsroom was a collection of some of Seattle’s brightest minds. I have some faith that the small team that remains will be able to cover quite a lot as multimedia reporters and news gatherers; but will they have much time for reflection? And who isn’t sticking around?

I do love the writing that the staffers have been doing about their experience at the paper, the future of news, and about the whole process of the closure. There’s been a lot of very personal, open, and honest writing from all sorts of different voices, strong likable human voices. The writers and employees have become the story, and for the first time in many cases I feel like we’re seeing the people behind the news at the heart of our city. It really makes you aware that the employees of the P-I are our neighbors and it feels like an honor to be able to walk with them through a transition like this. Take some time to poke around and read some of their fine work from February. The stories are amazing.

Next Tuesday, wear green.

Tuesday after that? Plan on having some amazing conversations and meeting some cool people, because you’ll be mixing it up at another Social Media Club event. (Oh and you’ll also be wishing me a happy birthday, if I’m lucky.)
Details shortly!

http://woodlandparkzblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/ocelots-make-their-debut.html (I love the zoo blog!)

Here they are at 5 weeks old:

If you don’t have/need a sweetie, then go earlier for extra cute therapy and visit the red-tailed pandas, the baby gorilla, the snow leopard’s new girlfriend, the otters, and the tiny cute fuzzy nocturnal things at the end of the day/night exhibit. Always works for me.

http://www.zoo.org/
follow the zoo on twitter: http://twitter.com/woodlandparkzoo

http://iamkatia.blogspot.com/

“Look at his face.”
(Exactly what your gift can accomplish, my dear. Do the book.)

Really look at them, the people, the kids. What’s so different? And what is all of that mess and chasm that stands between us? What is it going to take, what can we do? Not just for other people, but about all the junk that blocks reasonable connection and passage. And whose fault is it? Damnit.

The people that made it happen:
social-media-club-seattle-who-we-are

As I walked around the room, I was so excited by the kinds of connections and exciting conversations developing right before my eyes. I got to talk to some very interesting people with some very interesting ideas (more on that shortly), and of course the great thing about social media is that we can all connect and continue the conversation online. Perhaps we were all just extra-open and pleasant because we’d had such a good day; but I really think that there was a special dynamic last night of valuable exchange between creative and future-forward professionals. And I don’t mean exchange as in barter/commodities, but a free, generous flow of ideas and willingness to learn. Now that’s my kind of party.

Photos of the event:

More can be found on flickr with the tag SMCSeattle. And we’ll have more on the SMC Seattle blog shortly.

Also thanks to our sponsors Visible Technologies and Spring Creek Group. Those are a couple of really interesting companies; even if they hadn’t provided a venue, food, and free drinks I would suggest that you check out what they are doing in the world of Social Media and business applications.

Next month’s event is Tuesday, February 24th. The featured speaker is Chris Heuer, co-founder of Social Media Club and Executive Director of the not for profit organization BrainJams, Inc. And of course, we’ll be meeting monthly so your suggestions for speakers, discussion topics, venues, and sponsors are welcome.

“If you get it, share it!”
(I love that.)

Here is his entry for the week of Jan. 5:
“Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process.” – Anne Wilson Schaef.

Lord knows I’m a process. My relationship with Josh, that’s a process, though fortunately still quite a pleasant one as we near the 4-year mark. You, dear reader: our relationships and projects and conversations are a process. And I certainly hope the universe is a process, because I’ll be damned if we’re stopping here.

The nice thing about a philosophy like this is that it can get you through unpleasant patches. It’s good to have a reminder like this on my desk, because I can get very impatient. And I’m sure Josh is aware that this sort of thought may be of comfort to me, because I can be quite hard on myself. And he knows I’m not 100% happy with where I am in life at the moment. So something like this can serve as a reminder to persevere.

As long as you look at it like this: You need to be able to take a punch and get back up, fast. Because there is a danger in comforting ideas and feelings from self-help-lands like the one Anne Wilson Schaef thrives in. It is complacency – and I’m sure she would agree. I can be too hard on myself, true. But sometimes, I also let myself get away with saying “there there, everyone has a hard time with that, wait it out, give yourself a break” when really what I need to do is get off my butt and/or stop feeling sorry for myself.

At least on a daily basis, one can’t ignore how important it is to still be able to focus on “getting it done”. Stressing out about finishing things can paralyze a person, true. But never finishing anything will scramble your mind, your living space, and your very direction on the process-ey feely-free journey. I know from both scenarios, and I’ll bet you I haven’t finished learning those lessons, either.

Often lately, my blog posts seem to sit in “process” mode as little notes to myself or half-written drafts until they expire or become irrelevant. Micro-blogging satisfies impusive blurtings, and it takes more discipline to have a conversation. I have such plans for this space, so many ideas I want to ask you about. I suppose I’m busy finishing other things, but really I need an exchange, so the unfinished thoughts don’t just clutter my brain and my margins, and are subject to reality. I’d like to believe that I won’t start and stop and waver and swerve, but I won’t deny that I tend to. I hope that watching me struggle to become a better person will help you, and I’d really love it if you would write back to me and others reading this blog to inspire us with your own stories. Because none of us really know what we’re doing. Or hey, yell at me if I’m being stupid, or point out the obvious stuff I repeatedly miss. Poke me if I slow down. Whip, if you must.

So provoked.