Legend of Zelda fans are gonna love this.

100 years ago this wouldn’t have happened.  People had homes then.

I’ve recently come to realize, again, that I have no home.  When I was 18 I left for college like most of my generation (this is itself a seismic shift), and after I completed it, I moved elsewhere.  I grew up in Minnesota, and I still call it “home,” but in reality I haven’t been home in over 8 years.

I went to school in Boston.  I spent 7 years there, earning my two degrees from MIT, and then promptly set out for the complete opposite side of the country.  I moved to Los Angeles, somewhat on a whim, and managed to settle down (I’ve got a good job and a decent apartment, though I’m still trying to figure out how to live with my sister).  And my friends are no different.  Even friends who went to school in Minnesota left promptly after graduation, moving to major cities like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.

I should stress that this is not unusual anymore.  The ability to communicate cheaply over long distances (indeed worldwide, and even beyond that) has deteriorated the sense of home, the sense of place.  And I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing.  But my how life has changed since I was a kid.

I’m about to head “home” for the holidays, and reflecting on a year of decisions I’ve made, both good and bad, and places I’ve been, I can say that while I have no home I am often glad to be a citizen of the world.  The people I’ve met, far and wide, have shaped my life in some amazing ways.  And for that I am eternally grateful.

See you in the new year.

Mobile photo blogging workflow issues, originally uploaded by revrev.

I did a couple experiments today using posterous.com and ping.fm in an attempt to achieve a specific workflow with my mobile photo blogging. It’s fairly simple, but specific enough that it wouldn’t be an out-of-box solution that most services offer. Here’s the gist of it:

1. Take a photo on my Blackberry
2. Email it to a single address
3. Photo posted to Flickr, Facebook, Blog
4. Shortened URL _from Flickr_ posted to Twitter (or possibly the URL of my blog, with Flickr image embedded)

Ping.fm allows me to post to a whole bunch of places – assuming I’m only sending text. With photos, it’s a whole runaround process. Flickr upload works just fine. Facebook upload requires that you moderate every photo, requiring an extra step and an extra login to Facebook. Blog posting works, but the image is linked from Ping.fm servers, not Flickr. And Twitter post is a shortened URL to Ping.fm also.

Posterous came much closer to giving me what I wanted. One email address. Photo automatically posted to Flickr, Facebook, blog…. but unfortunately the Twitter link is only to my Posterous. Now I can understand this, but why not offer options?

Fortunately, after I noted my frustrations on Twitter, the creator of Posterous instantly responded, and after a brief email exchange, he left me with the email above.

I guess I’m in good company, huh Jason?

Posted via email from mike’s posterous

My family went to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving.  Apart from the traffic (7 hours to get from LV to LA) and the usual family bickering, it was a pretty fun trip.  Even got to see LOVE.  Here are some photos (all shot with my trusty Blackberry, so excuse the quality).