Disorderly Content

10:35	Terrible traffic on 880. Might have had something to do with that 2 lane closure south of Oakland.
19:27	When @simonhelberg @jocelyntowne & @jasonritter make their movie, I'll be an associate producer. How about you? http://kck.st/edR7h3

08:06	RT @ebertchicago: Roger Ailes calls NPR "Nazis." He's an evil, harmful man. http://j.mp/cdJNlJ [Who's more famous for The Big Lie than Fox?]
09:07	I got 19 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
09:33	@paulandstorm Harry Potter is long, tedious and ultimately pointless. #makingtrouble
16:27	I want Internet access at home as good as I have at work. Is that too much to ask? Granted, I do work for a networking company...
16:30	@mariancall Oh no! Not another windshield crack! Happened to me two days running in the South in May.

09:05	I got 6 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
09:34	Last scheduled interview for this particular job. Ending on a high note. Now we wait...
15:09	Amazing. Who knew you could lose money from fleecing your flock? http://bit.ly/clFtIG
19:33	Rare a TV ad gets my attention. But this one did: http://bit.ly/bQxsyB

09:18	Leaving Capital City. (Yeah!). But first: breakfast. Or breakfust, as The Creamery in Palo Alto spells it.
13:01	Home, with lots of #w00tstock and model pictures to edit. But not yet. Need to vegetate a while first.
13:50	Via @gruber, why is this article about writing shorter emails so damn long? http://tcrn.ch/d5Ajs1
15:14	@grantimahara Now that we have Bottle BeerBot, can Draft BeerBot be far behind? We need a Draft BeerBot movement!
17:15	Finally finished listening to Just a Geek by @wilw on the drive home from Capital City (yeah!). Funny, sweet, sad; great stuff.
18:44	Just uploaded a few pictures from #w00tstock 2.5 to Flickr. Front row table GOOD! http://bit.ly/aDf6NT
20:42	Tomorrow's Int'l Talk Like a Pirate Day, so enjoy the Captain's Wife's Lament from @paulandstorm: http://bit.ly/ar7AJ9
21:28	@cascio No worries. I think you wowed the crowd in the best possible way. #w00tstock

Today I got a call from a representative of the Glendale, California Police Department. They found my cell number in the phone of my friend Kevin Kenney and wanted to know if I could point them at any of Kevin's family. It seems that he had died.

I first met Kevin at RIT in 1973 or 4. We proto-nerds in the Computer Science Department had begun to organize, and Kevin, though a Chemistry major, became one of us. We were nerds before nerds became cool, and if it been left to us, it never would have become cool. But I digress.

I lost track of Kevin after college. We ran into each other again in the early 80s at a printing convention in Long Beach, where RIT had a presence and decided to hold an alumni event. Our friendship really grew there, and for the next several years we did a lot of nerdly and not nerdly things together. Kevin had worked for a company that designed toys and videogames, which got us entry into the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas years before it was opened up to the general public. We played tennis - badly - three or four times a week.

A few years later I moved from The Valley to Silicon Valley. We kept in touch online and by phone. He introduced me to Farscape, and was responsible for my attending years and years of Farscape conventions over the years. He was the cause of many of my interests and obsessions, and, I dare say, I did the same in return. Neither of us was ever going to be one of the popular crowd. I think he was more okay with that than I.

We got more distant over the last couple of years. That was my fault, although I'd like to think that I forced him to confront some bad life decisions he'd been avoiding for a while. Whether or not I deserve any credit, he did get back on track and was doing much better. I don't know how he died; I suspect his health did him in but will wonder. But I mourn him; he was a good, kind and generous soul. He deserved better in life than he got. I hope I gave more to him than I received. It couldn't have been enough.

Kevin P. Kenney 1955 - 2010 Requiescat in Pace

Update 09/05: One of Kevin's remaining friends tracked me down yesterday via Google to give me the news. We talked about Kevin, and she filled me in on his last days. When I'd last spoken to him, he seemed to be making small progress on getting his life back on track. Sadly, it didn't last; his life became the particular kind of hell you can't imagine for anyone you know and respect. I'm angry that I didn't know, angry at him and at myself for not keeping an eye on someone so obviously troubled. But what would I have done? What could I have done? Am I my brother's keeper, especially when his real brothers weren't up to the task? Or was any help we might have offered too little to make a real difference? I'll be asking myself that for a long time to come.

08:08	You can tell Moab's a tourist town. Lots of restaurants a short walk from my hotel, and many are open for breakfast. Most excellent.
08:14	Okay, fed and watered and ready to travel. Off to Dead Horse Point & Canyonlands NP's Islands in the Sky. Maybe a photo or two.
09:10	I got 27 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
14:34	@sheconsulting Some. And some nudes for which I finally got ID. Lots more Utah landscapes coming.
14:36	Weather report was right: donder und blitzen while I was shooting Canyonlands. No lightning pictures, but lots of dark clouds.
17:27	Argh! Weather report is more thunderstorms tomorrow. Guess that means no jetboat trip down the Colorado. *snif*
18:12	A former VP candidate who doesn't understand the Bill of Rights? Thank you, John McCain. http://twitpic.com/2g12ok

07:56	At Ontario Airport, headed home. Found it without Homer's help. So proud!
08:22	My mention of Ontario Airport just got retreated. By a twit in Ontario, Canada. Oopsy!
09:02	I got 40 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
10:19	Smooth landing. The best kind.
11:26	Home. But not for long...
16:43	Mark Williams too much a racist shithead even for Tea Partiers. Yeah, I'm surprised too. http://j.mp/aw45v7
18:05	Refudiate? Where do I sign up to refudiate Sarah Palin? I assume it's an amalgamation of refuse and repudiate, both of which apply.
22:27	Consumer Reports, you got some 'splaining to do... http://bit.ly/dB2LjB

06:40	RT @maddow: TRMS staff watching World Cup today - serving misconstrudel in honor of Rep. Barton. [Puns, Rachel? I'm shocked!]
07:00	Joe Biden speaks his mind about Rep. Barton's shakedown remark. Good stuff. http://bit.ly/adyhKq (Via @JackieKessler & @dianarowland)
09:15	I got 38 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
13:30	@JewelStaite If you were on hand Thu night for #w00tstock, it would truly be nerdvana. @paulandstorm
14:54	@paulandstorm @wilw I'd certainly like to know. Not that it'll change anything; I'll get my ticket as soon as they go on sale. #w00tstock
14:54	@gruber And don't you feel like a doofus for RTing it?
16:53	Just back from picking up my camera. Its sensor is all shiny and clean, and its viewfinder all seethroughable.
17:37	RT @billamend: Artsy rotoscoped animation meets Big Bang Theory...cool! http://www.nunub.com/ [As pointless as it is beautiful.]

Not sure how I got started, but the last few years I find myself taking on missions. It might have related to all the travel I was doing for work, and the way I'd race around in whatever free time I had (and sometimes I had a lot), photographing and otherwise documenting places for my website and then my blog. At some point I got fascinated with Route 66, and took quite a few trips to explore the remaining bits of the Mother Road in Arizona and California. That led to the first mission I put into words: to visit every town named in Bobby Troup's immortal song. Accomplished that a year ago in January, flying to Oklahoma City and then driving to Joplin, Missouri one day and Amarillo, Texas the next. Which of course left me missionless. But not for long.

My new goal was to visit all fifty states. I'd already been to quite a few: thirty-eight between work and all those endless car trips from New York to Charleston and Savannah to visit family. But now it was a mission, and I had a plan. Phase one got delayed a month, when my mom died the night before I was to set off for Idaho and a bunch of states in the upper middle. But I rescheduled, and I persevered, and I knocked five more states off the list. And then this month I got to four more, leaving only Maine, Vermont and Alaska yet untrod.

So now I'm making plans for New England in the fall, in hope of getting some pretty color pictures. And either before or after, I'll do something about Alaska. Which will leave me sadly missionless once again.

All of which leads me to ask the question: do you go in for missions, or do you think I'm some nutso travel version of a packet? Or both; I suppose both could be true.

07:47	@renatojr_rj It's be good to have you back in the Bay Area, even for a little while.
09:13	I got 37 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
14:42	@renatojr_rj You realize that if I were with you, this would never have happened. I don't miss flights. Ever. Well, hardly ever.
15:48	@VictoriaDahl Got to be my refusal to grow up, or at least old. I love seeing the world with the eyes of a child.
18:33	@VictoriaDahl Just as well my HS didn't have proms. We were not a fashionable generation.
19:28	Prehistoric sex toy and fire starter. Wouldn't think there would be enough friction down there to make sparks. http://bit.ly/bSHTYo
21:53	Now this is ironic: a book about corporate trust, with a cover image stolen from a microstock photo agency. http://bit.ly/9kXlYI

09:07	I got 39 images accepted to @shutterstock today! Check out my gallery here: http://tinyurl.com/ltgjp5
10:08	Verizon really doesn't like losing a customer. http://bit.ly/dz39Om
11:44	RT @iwatchTVshows: Daily Beast Headline: "Neo-Nazi Rally Turns Violent." When reached for comment, everyone admits to having seen it coming.
11:59	Sarah Palin misquotes President Obama with malice aforethought. AP goes along for the ride. http://bit.ly/amyuV3
14:26	Kelsey Grammar & Comcast working on Tea Party TV Channel. Guess Fox is too progressive for these guys. http://bit.ly/adI2e4
14:54	That failing external drive from last weekend? Looks like it was a flaky cable. Surprising; can't remember a USB cable failing on me.

08:21	Meg Whitman has a tax plan for California that would save a fortune for Meg Whitman. How considerate of her. http://bit.ly/9lyGz4
08:50	Peter Sagal of @waitwait explains why I find Tarantino movies so disturbing & unpleasant. http://bit.ly/ckuNqQ
13:01	Viacom demands YouTube take down videos uploaded by Viacom. http://bit.ly/91OQiJ
13:40	RT @BreakingNews: Retired U.S. general, former NATO commander, says Dutch army failed to stop genocide in Bosnia because of gay soldiers.
17:19	Apple working on new social network tech? So says the Patent Office. Where do I sign up! http://bit.ly/9G6vHz
18:41	Lovely. Windows bloviator Thurrott caught being a total hypocrite about lack of Copy/Paste on Win Phone vs. iPhone. http://bit.ly/dx5t1S
21:24	Christopher Hitchens on the Pope's role in covering up child rape. Read it and not be outraged. http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/

13:06	Forum member dared me to ban him. Do I need to tell you what happened next?
21:22	RT @ebertchicago: And if the Austin suicide pilot had been an American Muslim fed up with the IRS, how would Fox News have covered that?
21:30	RT @ebertchicago: Mr @ZALESKI4CONGRES tweets: "@ebertchicago another morron." Spelled "another" right, short on "Congress," fail on "moron."

17:30	@lomara Nope, Kim. I haven't seen Avatar either. Then again, it took ages before I caught Titanic.
17:31	Back from a long weekend at Yosemite. It was cold. It was wet. It was pretty gray. But it was kind of amazing too.
18:19	@lomara I liked Avatar well enough when I read it as Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe. I'm assuming James Cameron liked it that way too.