Mikes Thoughts

I started this thing back in 2005 with this post. When thinking back on those years, a few things never really dawned on me then. I never realized how the marriage thing which had seemed to last for so many years would be doomed to fail. Yet with hindsight being 20/20, the warning signs were all around me then. There was weirdness in the whole relationship thing that perhaps simple wanting to be in love blinds. My mom used to say,

there is being in love and in love with the idea of being in love

She had a few gems about people and events which when looking back, I should have applied more stringently. She would often tell me if someone says they have your best interests at heart to run for the hills.

Roger would also tell me things which seemed to hint now at the circumstance I ended up finding myself in years later. Its hard to really believe that there were only 4 years between the start of this blog, the end of various jobs, the start of Celestix, the end of the marriage. Wow! How many life events can a person cram into the passage of time and space?

Now when I think back on the humble starts of my Hello World post; it dawns on me that many of the things were doomed to fail but as I mentioned, I was blind. So many little events which happened which I never added up. It amazes me, being an anthropologist and archeologist, I could see so much of other cultures, values, mores, institutions; but never really see how mine was lacking.

I’ve come a long way baby!

Now we move forward in the life of the blog. Over 1880 weblog posts. So much of Android, Linux, travel, anthropology. I enjoy those categories the most on this blog. I love to deal Android and look at what I see are the reasons why open systems will always prevail against walled gardens. Its not just that you can download the code or modify it. Its the community that springs up much like the institutions which spring up to support societies when in need.

Android simply excels because its Linux. Linux is never done. There is another kernel to release. Another thing to get done. Apple has never really stood a chance given the juggernaut. They’d have to open the doors and its too late. They shoulda, woulda, coulda years ago. Now they are the victim of their own closed garden. Innovation in a walled garden seems pretty suspect to me.

On the anthropology side, I’ve never truly given up. I always remember the way of things. The gentle lessons that RWR taught me in the deserts of the Mojave. The hills and mountains of the Techachapi. Feeling the haboob winds stir up and whip my face in Barstow or sit in the pizza parlor and drink another pitcher of the golden elixir of life.

Finally, on the travel. The travel has been my narcotic. Its taken me to a country where I could live and dream of staying. India is the most beautiful, wonderful and sometimes strange place I have ever been. I enjoyed the friendships I garnered like precious stones during my days on the roads. The sidetrips to Japan were and are precious to me. They were mile markers and long jaunts in Kyoto and Shinjuku and Tokyo with beers in the evenings sometimes at the Lion Beer Hall in the Ginza.

Now I know though that the next two years are the formative years for me. The new thing haunts my vision and is just beyond the current thing. I’ll one day go forth and write more travel category posts. I’ll add more years to the blog. I may never set foot in India again; but there are the places I’ve mapped in Evernote. I know where I need to go. I’ve spent the last 4 years dealing with the whole divorce and finally seeing my life be re-born out of the ashes of some previous creature. There is no “doomed to defeat” after 8 years writing here.

I decided to write this a day early from that propitious day to merely mark the time. Eight years is a long time on a single thing folks. This blog has been the positive and negative force in my life. I’ve made friends and lost them with this thing. Its an agent of change and driver to Hell sometimes. I hate it often and wish some of the things it cataloged would disappear. I wonder about its reverse ordering at times.

The truth is though these are my 8 years and not yours. You may not visit the blog too often and search only on how to resize a VDI or some of my ramblings on Linux. I’m good with that. In the last 8 years I’ve seen friends come and go and I still feel that missing chord for the DaveR. He would have known a thing to say to me now.

So in the end I mark the passage of the eight years of time spent either well or in Hell. I’ve turned the fucking corner though. I think I forgot the seminal creed of the solitary person I am. There is loneliness and being alone. I’ll take the second. Relationships avail me not so don’t wonder if I’ll just meet another person and give up whatever remains of my life.

The blog persists and so do I. Bring on the next 8. I venture to say that this blog will live on and I will live on. The blog will be hosted right here in the good old US. But Mike will not. His hosting agreement runs out and a new plan dawns.

Welcome the next 8 years. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Fuck em all if they can’t take a joke.