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Today’s travelogue

January 5, 2009 By Travel 2 Comments

San Jose, CA

I’m in San Jose this week to help host a Core team retreat for the folks planning and executing the 2009 Food and Society Gathering, which will be here in April.   Here’s how I got here today.

  • Left BOwen Island last night on the 6pm ferry in the teeth of a southeasterly gale that drove sleet into the skin on my face.   Rocky ride across the Queen Charlotte Channel, but uneventful otherwise.
  • Grabbed a cab that arrived as I did and shared it part way with a lovely Finnish woman returning from a visit on Bowen.   It was snowing so hard in Vancouver that cars and buses were stuck on all the hills so we drove around looking for clear and free aterial roads to try to get me to my mother in law’s place in South Dunbar.   At one point it felt like we were just looking for the clean streets.   I remarked to my Persian accomplice that we were driving rather like Nasruddin, who seaches for his lost key under the lamp, because it’s light there.   The driver and I share a good laugh and some excellent conversation about Iran, Canada and Sufism.   The ride is an enjoyable 1.5 hour crawl.
  • Retire for the night but up at 4:45 to find a cab.   Get to the airport and it’s a disaster.   Lots of lines for all kinds of things, but mine are pretty manageable.   Check in for 30 mins, US customs is 45 mins (with a secondary approval for my work visa) security is a mere 15 mins.   IN Vancouver if you are an Air Canada elite member they give you a fast lane for security…looks like the regular lane was close to 45 mins long.   Lots of folks rescheduled on flights that were cancelled last night.   They were all tired and cranky, and it was kind of funny to see a planeload of sourpusses heading to Maui.
  • Flight gets delayed an hour once I’m through, so it’s into the lounge, where Air Canada has replaced the formerly excellent espresso machines with slow inefficient machines with too many choices that appear to download your coffee.   And then you get half a cup.   Went to Starbucks and bought something close to real espresso.
  • Boarded at 8:20, took off at 11.   Combination of a flight attendant stuck in the snow, delays at the SFO end of things and other stuff which I missed because I fell asleep as soon as I hit my seat.
  • Arrive in SFO at 1:00pm, figure I’ve burned enough carbon for one day so I opt for train to San Jose.   Two minute Air Train ride.   20 mins on the BART and an hour and 20 mins (including wait times) on the Caltrain.   Arrive in San Jose at 3:39, walk the mile to the hotel, in my room at 4:20.   Cost me $7.50 cents not including the Subway sandwich I wolfed down for sustenance.
  • So I’m here at the Fairmont, a luxery hotel in the middle of a strange city.   My first time in Silicon Valley, so passing through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Sunnyvale and Mountainview was cool.   Passing by Redwood City was cool too, as my dharma teachings come from there.   One tip for the Fairmont…Internet access is $13.95 a day but if you sign up for their loyalty program when you check in, it’s free, and they give Aeroplan points and other useful perks.
  • Waiting for mates to arrive, then I’ll see about dinner.   Any recommendations, leave them in the comments.

The way to San Jose

January 4, 2009 By Uncategorized

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.

What does connectivity do?

January 4, 2009 By Invitation, Leadership, Practice

John Dumbrille on our recent efforts here on Bowen Island:

That self governance will be better enabled using web tools is probable. After all, there are economic drivers (‘more for less’) propelling it. But probable success factors are all about money and efficiency and intention, spirit and design. Thinking the litmus test is – does this BOWEGOV etc help people come home to themselves. How to measure this may be ‘happy’ indices, or, put another way – ‘spirit of giving/sharing’ indices.

I am dedicated to the face to face.   Inasmuch as these tools bring us into generous relationship with each other, I say yay!   And they do that in spades.

Crowdsourcing at home

January 3, 2009 By Uncategorized 6 Comments

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.

Presencing absence

January 2, 2009 By Being One Comment

When we are hard on ourselves, or hard on others, isn’t it interesting how it is those small moments that define character?   Most of the time we are fine, everything is alright, things are calm.   Even in war, soldiers spend most of their time in tedious inactivity punctuated by bursts of frightening violence.   Cities are not in a constant state of crime.   Governments work perfectly fine most of the time.   It is the small aberrations that we notice and these then colour everything.

When you become aware of how much fear you don’t have, how much violence ISN’T happening, how much struggle ISN’T going on, you can take on fear, violence and struggle in context without a story that your whole life is like that.   It’s like becoming aware of how much space there is inside an atom or between stars.

Presence is fine.   Presencing absence is awe inspiring.   We are mostly made of space.