My brain is so frickin’ full right now. I attended a tech conference in SF from Sunday through Tuesday. The Nonprofit Tech Conference rocks. Seriously, if you’re not on the bandwagon yet, get on it. I attended my first NTC last year in New Orleans. This year’s production was even bigger. In fact, they sold out at 1600 attendees. Anyway, it was intense. As usual, I was a lame networker but it’s ok. I learned tons and of course, now I have a long list of things to research further. I’m psyched and yet very overwhelmed by how much there is to study.

Btw, the plenary speaker, Eben M., a law prof from Columbia, gave a totally deep talk about the ownership of knowledge and how that restricts education and access to a better life. Everyone knows I heart Microsoft AND Google, but he spoke of them like they were Sauron in Lord of the Rings. Interestingly, he suggested that if Gmail were a “free” tool owned/operated by the government, people certainly would not be handing over all their information so nonchalantly. Rather, they would be throwing fits about the violations or potential violations of privacy. Eben is hard core. Dude does not have a Gmail account, and he runs his own servers and shit. In the end, I couldn’t help but feel a bit whorish, like I had sold myself out to all of them : Yahoo, Gmail, FB, Twitter… He suggested that all of this knowledge (behind the tech tools) should be open source; it should be treated similarly to physics: everyone should have free access to knowledge because by depriving people of knowledge, we are depriving people of a right to education and to a better life. I dunno, I’m probably muddling all this stuff up, but let me tell you, at 8:30 in the frickin’ morning, this was heavy shit. Still, I appreciated his boldness, his sort of unapologetic candor, particularly at a conference where half the expenses are underwritten by Microsoft and Google and the other tech titans. In the end, I suppose I hang on the belief and hope that MS and Google ultimately do care about things beyond making money. I want to believe in a sincere goodness. Maybe I’m naive. Or maybe I’m just too damn lazy to go totally open source. Do you know how much of a hassle that would be? Baby steps perhaps. Maybe we’ll start by opening our home wifi network: everyone should have access to free wifi, right?

In other news, yoga class is moving along. I enjoy yoga a lot, but I’ve come to realize that I don’t love it as much as I used to and I attribute this shift to my ADD. Seriously, I find myself thinking about work-related items even as we’re getting ready for the “yoga sleep.” Thankfully, my grampie instructor has upgraded his cassette tape (?) from the 15 minutes/side format to like a 45 minutes/side version. Nice to have a bit more peaceful music before being jarred by the flipping of the tape. Anyway, teach is really good but I need to get on with things, you know, move on to standing poses and shit. Enough with the stomach exercises, please! Ugh.

Speaking of exercise, John got me an exercise ball for our anniversary. I’m skeptical but opening up to an alternative to my conventional desk chair. I also ordered “Miracle balls” online. Can’t wait to give those a try. Would be wonderful to work out all the knots in my back on my own on a daily basis.

So you know how my latest thing is bboy/bgirl dancecrew events? Well I totally found one on Saturday, and I was all up for going. And then I read the flyer again more closely. Admission is $5 and requires a middle/high school ID. Say what? Can old geezers not enjoy such events? So then I was thinking: well if they required college ID, I’d rummage around for mine and go. But middle and high school? Do you know how fucking long ago both of those were for me? At this rate, I probably identify more with senior citizens than I would middle/high schoolers. Totally depressing.

K. Other interesting developments but can’t share right now. More soon I hope. Off to bed.