Post #MDCCCII

I just noticed that two posts ago I hit 1800 posts on my fair blog. This is #1802.

I have been tempted many times to jump ship from blogger, but at other times I am so happy that I have a record of all my posts. Although other times they are cringe-inducing. "I wrote what!?" is not an uncommon thought when reading over old posts.

Ah well. For the last three years I've averaged more than a post a day. There have been so many blogs that start up and die out after 10 posts, that I feel pretty proud of my 1800.

Thanks to all those who have read along!

Limerick o' the Day - X (Self Doubt Edition)

My lim'ricks are making me jokey.
And my blog pace has gotten more pokey.
Subtle nuance is hard
When grammar I've marred,
And all for something so hokey?

What do you think? Should I stop after ten or keep on plugging?

3 years later ...

Today is Parks Appreciation Day. That's a nice reminder for me of why I got back to blogging in April of 2005. That year Mary, my dad, and I visited every single MetroPark facility--from Northwest Trek to HQ to every ballfield in town. I blogged about a lot of them, although I never got to writing up all of them.

This may also be a good time to do what I do every April and look back over the last year of the blog. My posts were a little lighter this year, averaging just about one a day. I hope to at least continue that pace, or possibly even step it up a bit.

But I'm trying to do a lot more writing outside of this blog, too. This past year got me back into the creative writing habit a bit more. In the last year I wrote a short play, a very short film, and then a novel (which I'm still editing, but there's definitely progress).

I'm also going to try to focus more on writing short articles and "guest posts." I had a lot of fun writing for Andrew Fry's Living & Working in a Virtual World last month and I'd like to do more projects like that for web and for print. I'll be sure to link around to them when they show up. Actually, I should have a fairly long article coming out on a local online site Monday. Which one? ... Stay tuned!

Changes at ErikEmery

In a few weeks, ErikEmery is going to start to changing up a bit. It's going to be a trial and error sort of thing for a bit. For awhile I'll be dropping the site's current look of the Tacoma martini glass.

I'm still partial to it, but the Blogger template it's based on dates way way back. What you've been seeing is a sort of hacked site design, and I've learned plenty since then, so I'm going to try to do better.

I have wrestled with Blogger for awhile and wondered about converting things over to Textpattern or Wordpress. But converting old posts, something that is important to me, has been difficult at best, and Blogger is finally (finally!) adopting features that come standard elsewhere. So I'm going to stick with Blogger, although there might be some other back-end shenanigans.

In order to start the upgrade, though, I want fresh clean code, so I'm reverting back to the old-school look I used for so long.

Wish me luck.

Erik Update

So I haven't blogged since Tuesday (which is totally my bad, I'm sorry; I view every day without a blog post as a day I didn't do my job).

Since then I've been working on a few different projects. I have added another 5,000 words or so to my novel, and bumped that up to about 43,000, which is very exciting.

I've started and finished The Kite Runner, which was a good book that I would recommend. Looking forward to the movie.

I enjoyed a really great party at Suite133. The open house started at 5:00 and I left at 11:00 or so. It was a blast.

I also had the inspiration to write a sonnet about the Heidelberg Brewery for Exit133 on Friday. That was a great time, but took up most of Thursday night. I'm not sure I've actually written a sonnet before, so that felt good because it turned out none-too-shabby.

I might come off as a bit of a historic preservationist nut in it, which isn't true. It's just hard to get a complex development argument into 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter. I do like the Heidelberg and I would hate to see it go, especially because it has been a bad year for historic buildings (although the good news about the Luzon is pretty heartening). I don't really mind the Courtyard by Marriott although I know a lot do. But the impact it has on Tacoma is very high (thanks to my tourism days for better understanding how that works). What I don't like is another one that takes a cool old building with it.

If the new building created a cool new design concept, possibly with historic tax credits that might be available, I'd be all for it. (See why it didn't all fit in the poem?)

And this weekend I headed out to Ephrata, WA, in the middle of the state for a night with the extended family. I do find Eastern Washington to be very beautiful, but judging by how good it felt to be back ... well, this is a pretty good side of the mountains too. After the trip Mary and I had lunch in Seattle with our friend, Deborah, who was visiting the area from Utrecht in the Netherlands where she lives. So a good weekend!

I'll try to be better about blogging this week ...

South Sound Technology Conference

I thought I would put a short plug out there: tomorrow I'm going to be leading a discussion after the South Sound Technology Conference. I'll be talking about crafting a voice on-line and blogging "as yourself" rather than an anonymous person.

The conference is at UWT. Adam Smith will kick it off and Derek from Exit133 will be leading a panel on Civic Blogging. Here's a schedule of the day.

Looking forward to it! And maybe I'll see you there.

A thousand freaks Xeroxing their worthless opinions

Thus Spake Homer Simpson.

In a 2004 episode about media consolidation, Homer Simpson pretty well summed up the "blogosphere," when he says, "Instead of one big guy controlling the media, now we have a thousand freaks xeroxing their worthless opinions." I just saw the episode recently and loved it.

Homer's description is, in many ways, accurate. I jot down my opinions about many unrelated topics--social policy, restaurants, theater, movies, national politics, etc.--because I can. Like a lot of other people.

In fact, the number of blogs worldwide was estimated at about 60 million in 2005 with more than a million single posts per day. So let's call ErikEmery.com's opinions what they are: the proverbial drop in the bucket.

And I'm pretty cool with that. I've started to drop back a bit on opinion-blogging, especially when the criticism is negative. The negative side does come out when something really gets under my skin (the videotape of two girls kissing in Gig Harbor, for example).

But the best criticism is creation. Someone famous said something to that effect. If I don't like a piece of art, then the best thing to do is to create another piece of art that's better and let that stand for my criticism.

Which is one reason I'm looking forward to National Novel Writing Month next month. Because I get to create something. And why I am proud of the Horatio, even though we've stalled a few times in this first year, for the same reason.

All that said, I am so incredibly grateful for blogging. Not my blog, though--other people's blogs. Because I would rather have a thousand freaks xeroxing their worthless opinions than one big guy controlling all the media. And bloggers have called out serious errors in the mainstream media. Cable news is the best and easiest target (anyone remember the miner debacle), but bloggers were pretty instrumental with the Blair scandal at the NYT. Blogs also have the ability to skip the "right-wing spokesperson said/left-wing spokesperson said" stories that pass for objectivity in newspapers. Bloggers can transpose Donald Rumsfeld's speeches over three years and show the changing message; newspapers would get drummed for it.

So yes, cheers for the thousand freaks. They have a lot of power and it's only going to grow. I'm pretty cool being on the sidelines of it. My goal the last few months has been one post a day. I'll stick to that for now.

Finding me on Google

Thanks to my handy Site Meter I can find out how people find me if they use Google or another search engine.

I think this is my favorite search that has found my blog yet:

"How do you start off a persuasive paper about Obama Barack and three major issues?"

It was an AOL search, but I don't think I helped the searcher too much with their paper. Sorry.

Some quick writing links

I try to put articles that I've written over in the "What's Erik Reading" list on the sidebar, but that's not exactly an accurate place for them, since--well--I'm not reading them.

So I'll take this time to update everyone on a few posts elsewhere.

Last week I reviewed Michael Chabon's new book, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, on the B Side. There are a couple short posts there about art and sidewalk dining from me too.

And this morning I got up at O Dark Thirty to catch a bus to Seattle, just so I could ride back to Tacoma on the inaugural "reverse commute" Sounder train, which I wrote up for Exit133. I got a cool luggage tag out of the deal. I also got 4 hours sleep out of it too. Which means early to bed tonight, despite the Season 2 premiere of Heroes. Unless I can stay up until 10, but that might be iffy at this point.

Writing About Tacoma

As I mention fairly often, I've been living in downtown Tacoma for five years (as of last month, actually). Which has been pretty great, I must say.

I've seen a lot of changes in downtown in that time and I've touched on it here every so often, but not in a lot of detail. That's why I'm happy to tell you all that I'll be writing about living downtown and my Tacoma activities on a new page of Exit133, Exit133 B (AKA: The B Side).

The front page of Exit133 will keep its focus on development, urban issues, arts news, etc. But I'm going to be on a second page with more of a lighter look at Tacoma. One of the other writers is Kimberley Tibbert, who moved to town this summer and will have some first impressions of Tacoma posted.

There will also be reviews posted as well. Andrew Fry, who I've mentioned here a few times, has a review up of The Steward of Christendom. I posted a review of the art-house thriller "Sunshine" when I saw it at the Grand last month and threw it up on The B Side as a test post, but it's still there for your reading pleasure.

I'm excited to have a new sandbox to play in, so I hope you'll check out the B Side (if you like Tacoma you should already be reading Exit133 anyway).

I'll post links to any reviews I write plus the random post or two, as well.

The geography of my life

I've been playing around with Google Earth for a bit today. At some point it dawned on me just how incredible it is to have access to satellite images of the entire globe. So I started typing in places I've seen to check them out by air.

And that's when I was inspired to find the satellite images of every place I've lived and see what my life looks like from space.



Stonewood sub-development, University Place, WA - 1980 - 1987
Many formative years on this cul-de-sac



Geiger Street, Tacoma, WA 1987 - 1998 (then summers after than until 2002)
The home street. With my grade school's ball field and gym in the top right.



Carleton College, Northfield, MN 1998 - 2002, with lots of breaks for summer vacations and study-abroad trips.
Dorms included: Watson, Meyers, Hager, and Burton.



Sea Education Association, Woods Hole, MA - Jan & Feb 2000
On my first study-abroad I lived here at the Sea Education Association campus in Woods Hole, MA.



Port Royal, Roatan, Honduras, 2 nights in March 2000
Legitimately I wasn't here that long, but it's the best satellite photo to represent the six weeks I spent cruising on the SSV Westward. We anchored here for 2 nights. I hiked that dirt trail you can see that crosses the island with Alison and Mark.



Avalon Hotel, Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury, London, England - 10 weeks in the fall of 2000
My second study-abroad trip. It was a pretty awesome place.



St. Helelns Ave, Tacoma, WA - 2002 - 2007
I've lived on two different pieces of St. Helens for the last 5 years.

Is there anything to be gained by the exercise of looking these places up? I don't know. It's a shock to see some of them and find out even how vividly a satellite image can bring back memories. And it's surprising how much you can learn by looking at the surrounding environs of each photos. Suburbs for the first two; rural town for the second; eventually to an urban core by the end.

If you don't have Google Earth, I recommend the free download. It's a pretty awesome world out there.

365 days can feel very short sometimes

One year ago I signed a document that ended my time as the Managing Director of the Grand.

It's been quite a year since then, one I certainly could not have expected or predicted at the time.

Producing theater, returning to my old high school, creating podcasts with Exit133, my first trip to New York, getting to compete in the 72 Hour Film Competition after creating the event two years ago ... there have been many surprises.

But one of the biggest surprises has got to be a whole re-ordering of perspective. One of those kinds of shifts where a few months of thinking hard and reflecting back on some experience makes the world look a little different. Which is great. Because I get to explore all over again.

Tag - but not the theater

I mentioned Andrew Fry below, who Simpsonized himself. But I want to also mention that he has a very cool post over on his site about Tag Clouds. What are Tag Clouds, you ask? Well, notice at the bottom of posts I will sometimes tag what's contained in it

For example my post on hosting out of town guests in Seattle is tagged Tacoma, which is the key word I can use that lands a post of FeedTacoma; St. Helens Neighborhood, which I use when I'm doing hyper-local blogging and talking about the goings-on within a few blocks of me; and Restaurants, because I mention a few.

The idea is that if you like an article that discusses Obama or Urban Studies you can read more about that topic by just clicking the tag.

Well, tags are also an interesting visual way to assess whether a site has something you're interested in. By scanning through tags and their frequency, a Tag Cloud can show what is discussed regularly and makes that word bigger. Here's mine, courtesy of Andrew's hard work on technorati:


Tacoma scores high, with theater and Horatio noticeable as well. I like that "The Issues" scores high, too, since that's the tag I use when I'm ranting about something. And "travel blogging," which I love to do as well (both the traveling and the travel blogging, actually).

It's a cool way to look at a site. After two years of blogging I can look back and say ... "Oh, so that's what I was interested in." Not that it's been a secret or anything, but it's fun to see the trends.

Weekend in Town

I was gone last weekend for the big trip to Las Vegas but this weekend I'll be around doing a lot of work on the ol' place as well as some good hanging out time. Tonight it's a trip to Seattle, too, and last night it was a great dinner at Primo Grill to celebrate Mary's big b-day.

Lots of fun planned. More blogging after the weekend, or maybe even as the weekend progresses...

Erik believes he is clever

So let's say that you are in a monstrosity of a parking garage, similar to one in Las Vegas and you don't know where to turn.

You're on floor 5, which is color coded blue (not that you'll remember that later) near post 21H.

How do you remember these trivial details after a few hours of shopping and fun?

How about this:



Yet another easy use of the cell phone cam for practical purposes.

Feel free to use my idea in any parking garage you find, but you must give erikemery.com credit. It's only fair.

Happy Birthday, Exit133

Today marks Exit133's 2nd birthday. Congrats to Derek and all the readers.

It also reminds me that erikemery.com turned 2 this month (May 4 if you want to be specific) when I posted a review of Revenge of the Sith and Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. In my first year of the blog I posted about 60,000 words. This past year it was close to 90,000 which is basically a novel, had I opted to write on of those instead.

I have dropped back a bit in posts and I'll try to pick it up again soon. But it's been crazy busy! This weekend it was the 72-Hour Film Competition. Next week I'll be writing a 10-minute play for the Doubleshot Festival (more on that later, but suffice to say, you should go) and staging it within 24 hours.

After that it's Vegas for Memorial Day. (Vegas, baby, Vegas!)

Crazy times here in T-Town.

Find every random thing I've ever written

You might notice erikemery.com has a new feature at the top: a Blogger search bar.

Most blogger-based blogs with their own domain usually do away with this search bar (it's one of the perks of having your own domain). But the more I looked at it and played around with it, I saw that it's search function was actually very strong. So I've put it at the top of my site and I'll see how it works out.

I've also put to use the Google Reader service to share some of the interesting things I find out on the web. My Reader has 54 site feeds from a whole bunch of blogs--from Tacoma blogs to friend's blogs to tech blogs--and when I find cool sites I add them to the mix. Reader has been great, and I'm now excited to use it this way too.

You might also notice that there is a place for Google ads on the side of my page. I've sold out and soon hope to have some ads there. I expect to get rich off my blog the next time Boing Boing decides to link to me. Maybe I'll earn enough some month to splurge and get a vanilla latte instead of drip coffee.

Ah, the life of luxury.....

At the Lake

A nice Saturday away ... the first Saturday I've had totally off since early February.

Feels good. Lots of rain, but it still feels great to be at the lake. Can't wait till summer!

Backstage at Molly Sweeney

Well, I'm not actually backstage. I'm enjoying listening to the show from the lobby while I take care of some e-mail marketing for the show. So it seemed like a good time to say 'hola' and catch up.

I finished Andrew Sullivan's "The Conservative Soul" earlier today. I'm seeing "Proof" at TAG at the Saturday matinee. Plus I'll be at the three shows of Molly Sweeney, of course.

Gotta run to turn on the lights for intermission, but I'll keep you updated with some reviews and the like.

Deeply Surprising

Hmm.

So I wrote about a cactus and suddenly ... wham.

I spent some time browsing conservapedia Sunday morning (I'd link but the site is not funcational after the swarm of traffic) looking for the funniest entry I could find.

I got a cactus. I posted. Boingboing.net got it, and I see now that there's a link on the Guardian's news blog. Perhaps it shows what an Anglophile and geek I am that I'm more excited about being linked to from the Guardian then Boingboing.

This whole Internet thing is crazy.