Going to the Super Bowl with my friends Jaime Waydo and Jason Hoffman was a peak experience, everything about the day felt par none. I captured some Spatial Videos so friends with Vision Pros could watch some of it, but there’s no good way to share those on blogs yet. Friends have asked for some photos from the day, so here they are.
My friend Neal Mueller, who holds a Guinness World Record for longest non-stop row in Arctic open water—1,000 miles over 41 days in 2012—gave me the incredible gift this morning of introducing me to the Dolphin Club in San Francisco, which has a rich lineage of these hand-built rowboats and love of the craft of rowing. It was awe-inspiring. He then rowed me to Alcatraz! We saw a rainbow (third from last photo in gallery)!
We captured some Spatial Video that will be fun to look at on the Vision Pro later (mine just arrived, but I haven’t opened it yet).
I think what I learned this morning is there is something deeply profound about the act of rowing, of being in harmony and synchronicity with others on your boat, how good it feels when you’re in sync, and how obvious it is when you aren’t. I’ve done rowing machines before many times but never been on the open water, and I saw also the impact of the variability of the ocean, currents, and waves had on the rowing. I think there is also something related here to when autistic people (and myself!) rock back and forth when something feels like it’s in alignment.
Luckily I was with literally one of the world’s best rowers, so I always felt safe and was able to enjoy the feeling of being on the water, and really felt the heritage and respect of these beautiful craft we were on, Cronin-1938. I introduced Neal to the concept of the Ship of Theseus, one Matias and I love to talk about in the context of Gutenberg. One of the most beautiful days I’ve seen in San Francisco. Here are a few photos from this morning.
My sabbatical is off to a great start. ☺️
I walked a week’s worth of the Portuguese path of the Camino de Santiago with a few friends, which was a nice bookend to my Rebirth and Yellow Arrows post at the beginning of last year. My feet are sore, and I have the first significant knee pain which has given me newfound empathy for the people I love who struggle with their knees. I traveled light and just brought an iPhone XS as my camera, and these are a few snaps of things I saw along the trail.
As I walked around Barcelona after everything was closed, I was really taken with the graffiti on the roll-down doors. Here’s a gallery of a few snaps.
Photos from WordCamp San Francisco 2014 taken by Sheri Bigelow.
I went for a run this morning and ended up with a pretty slow pace because I kept stopping to take pictures of the beautiful scenery around Stockholm. Here’s some of the snaps from that run and afterward. Amazingly, all of those photos are from an iPhone 6+. It blows me away the images you can capture with it.
I’m at the North Sea Jazz festival and it’s been really amazing seeing everyone from Robert Glasper (go Houston!) to meeting Derrick Hodge, Dr Lonnie Smith (72), Benny Golson (85!), Jason Moran (Houston!), and Jonathan Blake. Took a break today and visited the amazing restaurant De Librije from chef Jonnie Boer. Here are some pictures from that trip:
I visited the Jetpack team’s meetup which was on Pender Island, which I had never heard of before but as you can see is quite beautiful.
Chris Young of Chefsteps took me up in a glider while I was in Seattle and it was an amazing experience. There are some great organizations dedicated to it like the Soaring Society, and I’m planning on taking some lessons this summer, probably in the Tahoe area. The acrobatics were a blast, but my favorite was just the elegance of the more gentle flight, catching thermals and floating over the world with no engine and super-panoramic views. After gliding I met some fellow Automatticians for drinks, and Sam from Audrey.
Got to see a few of the talks including Harry Shum, Quddus Philippe, and Tony Hsieh, and got a few good pictures of Janelle Monae before my camera broke. Guest photographer: Matthew Spindler.
At the Life is Beautiful music festival in downtown Las Vegas, got to see Knocked Up Kids, Imagine Dragons, Childish Gambino, and San Francisco tech band Cover Flow.
A beautiful ceremony in the wine country, and ran into Ryan Vance and Miriam’s wedding afterward.
I went to Burning Man for the first time in 2013. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. It is probably the most visually stimulating place on the planet for the week it goes on, but I resisted the temptation to take too many photos and just tried to take it all in. I was mostly successful, here are some snaps I couldn’t resist taken over the course of a few days.
Photos from WordCamp San Francisco Contributor Day 2013 taken by Sheri Bigelow, Kevin Conboy, and Aaron Hockley.
WordCamp San Francisco 2013 was wonderfully photographed this year by Sheri Bigelow, Kevin Conboy, and Aaron Hockley. (I didn’t take any of these.)
I think it was Dustin Curtis who said something along the lines of “you can learn a lot about someone by their bucket list,” and he had posted his publicly recently. (Posting it is a great idea by the way, people will help you with it.) I began to think about mine, which was a little strange because I’ve been trying to move away from desiring things or experiences and just be more grateful in the present, but immediately a few music ones came to mind: have WordPress name-checked in a major hip-hop song, be in a rap video, and perform with one of my favorite artists (somehow).
It was less than a week later I got an email from a friend who was helping organize a hush-hush event where Jay-Z would sing his song Picasso Baby over and over 6 hours while interacting with various artists and an audience as a performance piece, and there might even be an opportunity to be one of the people he interacted with. My jaw dropped.
Continue reading Jay Z + MeFlying into Memphis, I believe.
Visiting 10 Downing (powered by WordPress) with some Web Summit folks and got a few pictures in the entry room. We spoke with Tim Luke, one of the Number 10 policy members focused on business and enterprise. I asked how the UK government thought about cyber security, and he actually thought about it as a growth area because they have a lot of security expertise. Afterward went to East London to visit with the Memrise team at their super-cool office.
Had a cool opportunity to walk up the cable to the top of the the first tower of the Bay Bridge today with folks from the Bay Lights project. You walk right up the cable/pipe to the top, it actually wasn’t that hard. Once on top the vistas were amazing. I tried to grab some photos of the hardware behind the lights at the top of the cables. The top of the tower is 526 feet high, and 280,000 cars drive on the bridge every day, making it the second busiest bridge in the world. Guest photos by Lucas Saugen.
Wandering around Geneva and dinner with the amazing author (and WordPress user) Paulo Coelho, and the MB&F M.A.D. Gallery.