Ramblings of a Technology Addict

Saturday, May 3, 2003

Making Something From Nothing or Why Tom Misses California

This evening, after helping move Krempasky and his roommates to new digs over in Fairfax County, I caught a few episodes of Boomtown on Bravo, and the last I've watched so far is the first episode.
The title sequence of the episode is a black man speaking, ostensibly to the camera, though he's not always looking at it. He talks about how the large cities have rivers. London has the Thames, Paris has the Seine. Washington does have the Potomac, this is true, while all Los Angeles has is a drainage canal. However, there is something about the new-ness of the West, a sort of pioneering spirit about raising a city from the dust and starting things anew. That sense of adventure that seems somehow missing from the East.
I miss the wide open spaces, the farms and fields that extend across the horizons, the hills along the coast, the mountains that hid the gold that drove us across the continent, caused us to build the railroads. I miss the small town feel that a community of 50,000 can have.
I suppose I want to be closer to the pulse of technology. So many people are there. I've met so few. Courtney, Chris, Gretchen, and a whole host of others who are on a daily basis affecting the course of technology and its flow. We can only do so much over the internet, there's a face to face element that the internet lacks. Meeting someone makes them real.
Laura pointed it out the other day. I'm a West Coast person. I'm not an East Coaster. I suppose I could live and die by each day in the Senate or the House, or what George Bush is doing, but truly, I am more concerned with the local school board than El Jefe. I don't live and die by the Hill. I don't live and die by the stock market. I live and die by technology.
California is representative of the new world to me. That's why I want to go back there.
11:17:27 PM comment []