crows to burnaby

Obviously I haven't been blogging much lately. You can see in the archives that I've dwindled from 10-15 posts/month down to about 4. I've been giving this some thought, and trying to figure out why.

The first thing I reach for as an excuse is time. I'm pretty much pouring myself into my new life these days, and when I'm not booking and promoting ARCTIC, practicing, working at that artist management company, or going to shows, I'm working on some web projects to make up the rest of my time. In the next month, I need to submit three grant applications and figure out how to get P2 visas for the two guys in the band. But really, am I so busy that I couldn't whip together some interesting blog posts if I wanted to? I don't think so. I occasionally spend twenty minutes or so playing Chain Factor (god, it's addictive, don't even try it) and if I invested that into a little writing, I could come up with something to post, no problem.

Next excuse? A sort of reticence. I'm a little hesitant to talk in any detail about some of the things I'm working on now. If they come to fruition, great, but if they don't, I don't really feel like advertising it. Also, I can't talk about most of my work with the management company, and don't think I should. And the private sides of my life, I just haven't felt like sharing with everybody en masse. I just don't seem to have the same drive to explain myself to the entire net the way that I did a few years ago.

But my main excuse - well, it's going to look like I'm picking a scapegoat. The blogging environment has changed, and the biggest change for me has been the growth of Facebook. I used to blog partly because it was a way for me to tell some of my friends and family what I was up to, a place to share things I was pondering and little random observations. Now I can do it much more easily and succinctly in a Facebook status or shared link. I know my audience, and I know I'm not talking to anyone I don't know or don't want to know. I still seem to give people the same entertainment value sometimes with one line of text than I do in a whole post here. It's more immediate, it's very comfortable, and it makes me feel like I'm staying in touch more easily with people with less effort.

Ironically, my first wall post on Facebook says "Don't expect this account to get the same maintenance that my blog, myspace, and Flickr accounts get..."

But I've never been that good at predicting trends.

Naturally there's negatives. Facebook doesn't give me a very detailed record of my life the way this blog does (ultimately, does that really matter?). And it doesn't have the same potential for serendipitous interactions with new people, the way this blog does - I find when I add people I don't have much of a connection with, it dilutes my newsfeed with chatterings about things I don't know or care about (and usually a ridiculous number of application requests, for some reason).

And of course not everyone is on Facebook yet, nor will be nor even should be. It does make me uncomfortable that it's a large corporate entity out of my control. I don't post anything terribly private there - after all, I have work colleagues and vague acquaintances among my friends - but there is more of a dark side to it than a simple blog on my own server.

What I haven't figured out is what I want to do about it. I like having a blog, and a soapbox on which to stand when I need to. I just don't need it right now. Will I feel like blogging again six months from now? I didn't six months ago. If I leave my blog that long, I'll lose whatever little traffic I still have left.

I've had other sites, pre-blogging days, that I gradually let rust over time. I didn't think that would happen here. Maybe crows to burnaby represents the version of me from six years ago, when I first came to Vancouver, before I changed my direction in life, and that's why I don't feel a strong connection to it any more?

Observations are welcome - both here and on Facebook.

Monday I was working from home, and noticed with increasing frustration that the web server seemed to be crapping out repeatedly. It'd be up for several minutes, flake out again for a few, come back for a while, and finally it seemed to die for good. I try not to snark at my hosting provider right away - usually they already know if something's wrong and are trying to fix it, and they don't really need me to nag at them - but after an afternoon of interrupted work I finally called them up around 5:00pm. They said that the servers themselves were okay, but there was some kind of connectivity problem at the datacenter. They're based near Toronto, and the owner (a friendly guy) suggested that since I'm in Vancouver myself I could try giving the system a kick.

It took a few minutes on the phone before it dawned on me that maybe there was a connection between my server outage, and the news story I'd read only minutes before, about how there'd been a fire underground in the electrical system downtown, and most of Vancouver's business district had been without power since the morning. I asked "Uh, where exactly is that datacenter?" The owner said, "Something called... Harbour Centre?" "Yeah... yeah... that could be the problem."

I gather they're still trying to repair the damage to the power cables, but luckily enough the servers came back to life less than an hour after that conversation. Good thing, because I get a little twitchy when I can't check my email for a while.

Still, it amuses me that the power was out downtown for seven or eight hours before I even knew about it. I guess that's the drawback to freelancing... it's easy to get lost in your own little world.

BTW, if anyone's looking for web design and solid XHTML/CSS work, with a side salad of web accessibility, social network knowledge and copywriting capabilities, I am accepting new projects again. Portfolio and more info at outsideinthesun.com.

When you next feel like being lightly amused, please check out One Song Per Station, a fun little concept developed while the band was on tour and noticed the increasing tendency of radio stations to play fewer and fewer songs more and more often. We figured someone had to take it to the logical extreme - it's what the people want!

Anyways... enjoy.

As a fair-skinned, freckled, redhead who burns easily and is a textbook candidate for skin cancer, I was a bit disturbed to read about how useless or dangerous the vast majority of sunscreens apparently are. I'd heard rumours in the past that some ingredients in sunscreen cause more harm than good - this certainly seems to confirm it. Out of 952 products, the Environmental Working Group only identified 143 that were both safe and effective - and most of these are brands I've never heard of and wouldn't even know where to find.

This report comes just as it's finally become summer in Vancouver; with the exception of a few days when I wasn't HERE, it's barely broken the 20 C mark for months. Now it's prime beach season, finally safe to wear tank tops, shorts or skirts without worrying that I'll be chilly later on.

I guess I'll just keep up my habit of dodging the sun and hiding in the shade, and in addition to tracking down a safer sunscreen, will give some thought to longer sleeves and skirts if I think I'm going to be exposed to good ol' UV for any length of time. It's a bummer, but I'd rather maintain my pale Victorian complexion than end up with lobster-red alligator skin with potentially deadly repercussions.

To the lady who paused at a stop sign at Commercial Drive today long enough to shout at me, "I know it's not my place, but on a hot day like this that dog should be at home!", I would like to say the following:

1. That's exactly where we were going. (I did get to say that before you drove off, but I doubt you were listening.)
2. My dog cannot use the toilet. Wouldn't it be more cruel not to walk him?
3. Hypothetically speaking, what if it was really hot inside my apartment?
4. So you're offering us a lift home then? Mind some dog hair on your car seats?
5. No, it really isn't your place.