her: “We have to name the bike.”

(referring to the two seater bike we were rescuing from a party for a ride around the neighborhood.)

me: “OK, yeah.”

her: “My name is Daffodil.”

I thought she was saying her own name was Daffodil, and that confusion somehow erased the memory of her actual name. I started trying to think of a name for myself; for my half of the bike.

me: “My name is Chrysanthemum. We’ll call her Daffo… Dafforum.. Daffodi…”

her: “Daffothem…. Daffo… Chrysanomil….”

me: “Daffo… Daff… affomum…”

her: “santhom… aff… aff…”

me: “Chr… Chrysanthofil… Chrys…. Chrysanffodil!”

her: “Chrysanthodil!”

We walk Chrysanthodil out to the street and started to climb on, in our underwear. I didn’t mention that we were in our underwear. It’s a whole other story. And no, it’s not the obvious story. If it were that it wouldn’t be a whole other story, it would be a disgusting wink.

We climb on the bike, me in back. Two seater bikes put you up close and personal with whomever is in front of you. Your knees inevitably bump into their rear every now and then. She starts to pedal. I’m scared to pick up my feet, as I perceive them to be providing an important stabilizing function. Like training wheels.

I get over it, and pull my feet onto the pedals, preparing for chaos.

Being in a two-seater virgin, in the back of a two-seater bike, with a two-seater virgin at the helm… it is a little scary. There’s the swerving of course, and the flashbacks to recent bike crashes. But there’s also the laughter. There’s the woman with a mustache drawn on her face pedaling in front of you. There’s the night sky, and the empty streets. There’s a seemingly endless supply of cul-de-sacs.

We switch places, so she can experience the terror that is the back seat. She says she feels out of control back there too, but she’s less of a fraidy cat than I am, it seems. Good communication is at the heart of double-bike riding. Like sex. We create jargon. “I’m going to make a big sweeping turn!” “OK, sweep!” “Look a cul-de-sac!” “Sweep!”

We turn down a street and a huge downhill opens up in front of us. My heart beats a little faster. We haven’t taken a downhill yet. We talk excitedly about heading towards it, approaching cautiously, and releasing the brake. Riding a double-bike is an ongoing discussion about consent. We agree to go for it. The street steepens and we let go.

The bike hums, the houses stay silent, the world blurs, the city lights spread out in front of us. We feel the wind on our faces, and we fall silent for a few seconds, enveloped in our sensory experience. “This feels wonderful,” I hear from behind.

I still can’t get over how often there are clear nights in San Diego. There aren’t a million stars, but there are some. There are enough.

So, we bought skirts. And they are pretty sexy, and totally hilarious. Camille and I are stoked for next Thursday.

The punchline happened as we were checking out. The older lady who rang us up was pretty quiet as she was taking my credit card. As she handed me the skirt, she said “What is this for?”

Camille and I stared blankly at her, not sure what she was asking.

“Are you going to a costume party?”

*blink*

“Uhh, we’re playing tennis.”

A boy meets another boy at a reception. They leave to lie in the grass and talk about the stars.

Cousins, looking up to each other, get into their dead grandfather’s liquor cabinet. Mischief ensues.

Best friends get together after too many months. They drive to the shore, talking about their deepest concerns. They dance crazy on the beach and take flash photography of each other doing cartwheels in the darkness.

A girl climbs on her bike seat while her friend holds it steady. He carefully climbs on in front of her and awkwardly gets the pedals moving. She holds onto him and they make their way haltingly through the city streets, chattering into the night about feminism, love, sex, and activism.

A man rides his bike to his friend’s apartment to help get ready for a dinner party. They walk to the grocery store. They chop veggies. They riff off each other’s suggestions for secret ingredients. Both thinks the other’s idea was the one that really pulled things together.

A close friendship becomes an amazing kiss.

A boy, in love and abandoned, calls a friend 1000 miles away. He pours his despair into the phone. She says she feels powerless to help, but the sadness and empathy in her voice makes him feel human again.

Three friends squeeze in a late Saturday afternoon trip to the beach. They climb down the cliffs, leave their shoes behind, running, tossing a frisbee, wading out to tempt the bigger swells. They linger, talking in the sunset, standing with their feet sinking deeper into the sand with each wave that rolls in.

A boys sits, listening to a friend he hasn’t seen in a long time, and realizes how much he missed her.

This is version 0.2 of ForkCode, the web-based IDE that I’m working on. IDE is an acronym that means “software for making software”.

There are a bunch of fun geeky turns of phrase that apply to what I’m doing right now. First, ForkCode can “bootstrap” itself which means I’m using ForkCode to create ForkCode. You know, like “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!”

The second thing I’m doing is “dogfooding”. That means I’m using the software I’m writing. The term refers to eating your own dogfood, which is, ostensibly, what the head chef at a dogfood factory must do to ensure a quality product.

Lately I’ve been feeling like I should be moving forward, faster on things that’ll lead to my 2nd year project. But I’m not raring to go on those things, for better or for worse. So I decided: Erik, just do the project that you’re dying to do. And right now, it’s this. And maybe I’ll fall behind, but it’s better to do something than nothing.

And honestly, truly… I love this project right now.

Right, so back to music. In the 19th century, most music was happening in fancy pants opera and symphony halls and stuff, and it costed, like, GOLD pieces to get in. Most people didn’t have bronze pieces, let alone gold pieces, so that was TOTALLY an issue. The only music available to most people was travelling minstrels who would play music for pennies in the town square. The nice thing was, even if you didn’t have any pennies, you could still listen while you tried to sell winter squash in the market.

Another issue in 19th century was that it was mostly romantic. That’s fine if you’re a Duke or something and you want to take your Dutchess out to a romantic evening, but what if you’re all alone? There was no Linkin Park equivalent in the 19th century.

In conclusion, the 19th century was, like, forever ago. There weren’t even records, let alone ipods. Music was pretty weak, and way bougie. I’m pretty glad I grew up in the 21st century when music really became for the the masses. The Beatles, Punk Rock, Britney Spears. Who the heck could live without this stuff?

I glance back and assume he was talking to someone else, but he responds to my glance with a “yeah, you.”

I stopp and look back at him. He slows down a little bit, looking slightly confused and then says “oh, I thought you were someone else…”

I start to turn away to start walking, and he continues “… you look just like a guy I just got out of jail with.”

Aha. I guess I wasn’t that far off on my assessment of his character. Not particularly interested in continuing a conversation with a convict, I grunt and keep walking, but he continues to address me. I can’t quite hear what he’s saying, but in my overactive imagination it sounds roughly like “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father prepare to die.”

“Huh?” I say.

“You’ve got a twin walking around here,” he says.

“Oh,” I meekly return, imagining my ex-con doppelganger and what a pleasure it will be to someday cross paths with him on the street. “Maybe I’ll meet him some day.” I continue hurriedly on my way.

As I walk away I look at my reflection in the windows of a vintage clothing shop.

Maybe it’s time for a shave.

Click here to watch

Skinny dipping in glacially fed Isabelle Lake

More fun to come…

Anyway, I was stressing out, so I wrote myself a letter so I might start today off a little better.

4/29/2006 4:38 AM
Dear Future Erik,

You might be feeling a little stressed out. You might be doubting your work. A lot of people you admire are doing great work in your field. Andrew Ko is doing great design work with programmers, with really superb process. At least as good as yours, probably better. Henry Lieberman, Allen Cypher, Brad Myers, and Margaret Burnett are all actively trying to push EUP forward. They’ve been on it for a long time. Mitch Resnick has been doing this stuff forever.

There are lots of great projects happening… big enduring ones like Alice and Scratch, and smaller, lesser known ones like Electronic Bricks and Curlybot that seem to have faded away.

I’m here to tell you: don’’t be stressed. Don’t doubt your work. You’ve started doing some really provocative design work with biologists. You’ve got things to show for it. You’ll keep it up for the next month, and you’ll have a great capstone. It’s different than the other stuff out there. It’s not huge, but it’s unique, and it’s good work. You’re 24, and that’s a good place to start.

And BusyBodies is a really interesting project. The problem is: it doesn’t exist yet. Put some work into it. Move it forward. You’ll be surprised how much it can move in a week.

Don’t worry about how things will end up. Focus on what you are going to start today. You’ve been doing great lately, and you can keep it up.

You’re getting there.

Now I’ve got to ride home and get some sleep. We won’t be getting an early start tomorrow, but let’s get a good start.

Best,

Past Erik

“You get a $15 credit, so your undies were free today.”

Undies? Please, boxer briefs.