A Good Day in Carkeek Park

Sun, beach, late summer Seattle.

Wilco Live

Just a short post about the soundtrack to my summer. Wilco has been playing over and over in my car, home and iPod. Great rock, well-made, rich and textured. Attached to this post are a couple photos and a short video clip from my old Treo phone which was laid to rest right after this show. They played outside in Marymoor Park, Redmond, Washington. Bill Frisell joined them for a few songs. A lovely night for humans and dozens of freshly-hatched dragonflies.

Family Friendly Digital Media

Sometimes I hook my laptop up to our home LCD TV and I watch videos and play games with my kids. One thing we’ve noticed is that it is often a challenge to locate appropriate music videos for the whole family. An innocent search for "Oh Suzanna" on YouTube.com might display a frat boy fart contest. We've been saving links to good videos on a new website we slapped together called FamilyMusic.tv.

Lately, rather than searching the web, we’ve been producing our own family-friendly digital creations. It is true that one of the drivers of user generated content has been users not finding what they want, so they create it themselves. Below is a sampling of our latest experiments. These were all created using consumer tools in our home. So, ah.. watch out!

The Mystery of Lazy Hill Farm
A music video made using toys and art supplies found around the house. The song was written by me and brilliantly brought to life by Ray, Zack and me at Andrew’s home studio.


The Camptown Ladies
A classic old tune spiced up by The Family Music Party Experience. Zack, Ray, and Todd played on this. Andrew engineered and produced.


Little Boxes
Written and recorded originally by Malvina Reynolds in 1962. I recorded it at Poolhaus Studios in Burbank, CA. I played all the instruments and sang all the vocals.


Faces on My Money
The kids and I tried to record a song and shoot and edit a music video in 4 hours or less...and it shows! I wrote the lyrics and part of a song and Ray supplied the better part of the melody and some real chords.

Joybubbles R.I.P.

Joybubbles
(May 25, 1949 – August 8, 2007)
AKA Josef Carl Engressia Jr.


As a young computer nerd in the mid 80s, with my first-generation Radio Shack TRS-80, I would hear the legend of phone phreak Josef Carl Engressia Jr. He was blind and possessed perfect pitch and could whistle 2600 hertz. This allowed him to fool AT&T phone systems, impersonate the early computer tones and hijack phone calls and conference lines for free for him and his buddies.

This early pioneer of virtual community used the only massive network widely available at the time, phone lines. He joyfully ran amok over long digital distances, exploring.

He died today. The history of the web and social networks originated with many of those early hackers and phreaks. Lest we forget!

Space Case Race

Some days I look directly up. I wonder how soon humans will be living and working and conducting business in outer space. This century will see entrepreneurs, investors and various adventurers teaming up to colonize, democratize and commercialize off-earth properties.

Looking straight up makes me remember how I often daydreamed as a boy, dreaming of what it would be like to leave Earth. Apparently many Internet and computer industry veterans have the same desires today...and some of these guys have a tremendous amount of resources to draw upon. Today, as you read this, hundreds of smart, dedicated and imaginative engineers and scientists are using the most modern tools to make traveling to the stars a routine experience for our grandchildren.

The Seattle area alone is home to a few space exploration companies. Kent-based Blue Origin is headed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and is building launch vehicles. Bremerton-based Liftport is building a space elevator. This super-strong cable will be tethered to the earth and stretch up to a geosynchronous satellite. Planned completion is the year 2031...check out the countdown on their website. And then there is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen whose team won the $10 million Ansari X Prize by flying a private space vehicle 62 miles straight up. Oh, and then there's a little aerospace start up called Boeing.

Kirkland-based Kistler Aerospace has merged with Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Limited to create Rocketplane Kistler, a company creating reusable aerospace vehicles.

Believe it or not, things actually happen outside of Seattle. Elon Musk, creator of PayPal has started SpaceX, a space exploration technology company.

Sir Richard Branson has created a space tourism company called Virgin Galactic.

Burt Rutan, visionary of modern flight, has been intimately involved on the projects with Paul Allen and Richard Branson. He is tha man behind the investments, engineering ideas into reality.

The New Mexico Space Port, a $200 million launch pad, is going to be a center of activity over the coming years as more and more space entrepreneurs bring their products to market.

As with any speculative industry, there will be companies that never make it, like the Forks, WA company Space Transportation which closed its doors in 2006. Another Seattle company called ZG Aerospce is also now defunct.

A list of dozens of private companies in the aerospace market can be found here.

Enjoy your flight. Please make sure your seat-back and tray table are in the upright position. Please secure your helmet and gloves.