I’m closing up shop, unplugging and dropping out for two weeks and going on holiday, and I don’t have time to work through this problem, but can anyone speculate about why my wesite shows up as a smiley face in Explorer but works fine in Firefox and Chrome?

See you on after the 24th

San Jose, CA

We’re planning a gathering of the good food movement, so naturally, the pursuit of good food is everything.   Since arriving here yesterday I’ve eaten in three places, all of them good for various reasons.

First, the Grill here at the Fairmont is crazy expensive, but if you cover your eyes and just order, the food is good.   I had a cabrese salad with buffalo mozzerella that melted in my mouth and some lamb chops cooked on the rare side of medium rare (which is how I like them).   Lamb was good, but the side order of creamed spinach was heavy and unpalatable.   Not to quibble but at 35$ for that entree, you expect a little beeter on the veg.

Today, lunch and espresson at Cafe Trieste near the hotel.   Good espresso, mellow taste and well made shots.   Had a heavy cream of brocolli soup and a nice salad.   My mate Tim had two orders of the quiche and reported good things.

Best of all though, tonight we hiked through the San Jose State University campus and ate at the Naglee Garage.   they’re a small place with seasonal food and all cooked in good time.   Tonight I had a winter salad of squash and pear and pecans, a cornish game hen with a maple glaze and a side order of kale, squash and bacon.   Lovely all round and capped with a desert of choclate and vanilla bread puddings which got shared around our table.   Worth a visit if you’re downtown here and only a mile or so from the hotel.

God willing and this storm lets up, I’ll be bound for San Jose at 8am tomorrow morning, arriving in San Francisco at noon.   No promises to be able to meet up with any Bay area friends, but if you get this, I’ll be staying at the Fairmont (no it’s NOT my usual digs…).   Call me there at (408) 998 1900 and we’ll see what’s possible.   Be nice just to say hi, and who knows, I might have time.   Leaving Friday morning.

We`re living through a mighty big snowfall here on Bowen Island, the likes of which haven`t been seen for at least 40 years.   As a result there is much handwringing about what other people should be doing about things like keeping the citizenry informed about the current road conditions and such. Most of our municipal government officials are on holiday and there have been no official releases of information since before the snow started falling on December 16.

As a fan of passion bounded by responsibility, I decided yesterday morning to set up a weblog which provides a space for the crowd to get to work.   The idea is that people will visit to check on road conditions and while they are there, leave a comment about how things are in their neck of the woods.   It’s a gift exchange and so far it’s working marvelously.   Yesterday, up for half a day, the blog had posts from 7 people describing conditions on most of the major roads on our Island.   Today with a massive snowfall (30cms) ongoing since early morning, we have had reports from 16 people covering all of the major routes on the Island. Even the bus company folks wrote to announce schedule cancellations.

A group of us were also up late last night tweaking the blog and working on a Google maps mashup creating a road status tool that users can colour when conditions deteriorate.   Stu Cole is leading the charge on that one.   Also, one islander, Boris Mann created a FreindFeed home for some of the Bowen Island eGovernment iniatiatives that John Dumbrille and Peter Rawsthorne have been musing about.   Richard Smith, James Glave and Brad Ovenell-Carter are looking into a wifi mesh and a webcam network across the island.   James Glave and the One Day Bowen crew are hosting the development pages for these projects at the Bowen 2020 wiki.   Most of the development chatter has been happening over twitter.

Everything we are doing is gift based, and we are hoping that the municipality will steal it (or better yet , post links to all of this on their infrequently updated web page.   What amazes me is what a small group of us can do, in responding to a need, in so short a time using freely available tools.   We’re lucky that this has happened while we have had a little time, being snowbound and all over the holidays, but when there is a need, it’s amazing to see what can come of it.

If you have anything to add to our efforts or tools we should know about, post them in the comments or visit the Bowen2020 wiki and join the effort.

The Friday “From the Feed” returns for 2009.   Great finds by other people:

• John Dumbrille blogs Clay Shirkey talking about egov and citizen engagement.
• George Nemeth retweeted Valdis Krebs‘ link to a list of great ambient recordings from 2008.
• The Tyee publishes a great series of 10 new ideas for the new year
• The Edge posts its annual question edition: “What will change everything?”
• Jordon Cooper and Stowe Boyd on the best windows desktop and web apps of the year.   I love posts like these.   If you have others, add them in the comments.