The Nerd's Eye View

Living in San Francisco has been pretty good - I know you've been waiting for an update - but it's rather weird. It's the techie's version of living in Hollywood. By that I mean that the casual resident (if such a thing exists) frequently encounters either the locations most closely associated with producing the technological diversions that litter the modern world, or the people who are responsible for creating those diversions.

Example: You are currently reading my blog, which is - perhaps mediocre is a bit harsh, but at the very least is somewhat commonplace. One forgets that there was a time when blogs were not quite as common and seemed to be the exclusive province of the Netaratti. Impossibly hip, and eloquent, they entertained some of us with tales of life in a place where the tech savvy and the aesthetic cognoscenti rubbed elbows and were in many cases the same people.

All of that, that is, till Six Apart began to distribute things like Movable Type [disclosure: the author actually uses Movable Type and rather likes it]. One can say the same thing about Blogger for that matter. Suddenly any of us smart enough to be able to install the code on our servers were looking for things to write about for audiences numbering in the single digits. Being a part of the second wave wasn't as glamorous but it certainly was rewarding.

Hence my delight at finding myself walking past the extremely modest, but neat, offices of Six Apart last week, as I strolled home from the train station. It was late and the offices were closed by I found myself smiling and wondering if I should swing by when they were open. After all, I thought, it's always good to see where your possessions are made - and while my blog is mine, they were the ones to make it so easy to produce. The only thing that they didn't provide was the inspiration, which brings me to my next surprise spotting.

On the train home from work two weeks ago I found myself passing a familiar face. It was a woman in her mid- to late thirties, knitting with bright lime green wool yarn. She was talking animatedly to her seatmate, a similar looking girl. It was only after I had passed through the car that I realized she was none other than Heather Champ, the creator of such seminal sites as Harrumph and the Mirror Project. Those two sites alone prompted me to such an output that for a while I was synonymous with mirror images in the cutlural wasteland of Phoenix. But what does one say to someone like that? "Hey, you inspired yet another talentless hack to put his life on display"? Not exactly compelling. So I just walked to my seat and smiled, knowing that somehow or other I'd found myself at the end of a minor pilgrimage.