Twenty Eleven, Thirty.

What a year

this has been. The last of my twenties.

From the first

few

hacks

onward,

I knew it would be something special. I felt it in my bones. I was ready for it.

But I couldn’t know how well it would go.

Or what it would look like, when I tried it.

I wouldn’t have believed you, had you told me, there’d be midnight rides from Ocotal to Managua;

daylight runs in the Hilux, Nicaraguan electronics shops.

No one told me I’d be soldering on mountaintops,

or leaving such great people behind.

or how it would leave me. What it would teach me.

Or that I’d go down to the swamp right after

with a system we built

together

to record

the last

gasp

of a dream.

This was the year of shadows, dust and sun.

of darkness, pine, and starlight.

of music,

wire,

and welding

of argon, steel, and

sparks.

of acetone

ozone

and salt

This was a year of press

and pressure.

This was the year the flood came

and went

and took my

Droid with it.

This year, I left you. And so

This year, I missed you. Like I missed you every other year.

Thank gods I got to spend time with you, my personal heroes and your libraries

heroines

partners

comrades

friends

and inspirations.

Thanks for making things with me.

For soldering with me.

For keeping track.

For getting it.

For taking me underground – not pictured.

For taking things further

and further

Than I ever could, alone.

This year, I built

machines

to build

machines.

I moved across California twice.

I slept in my truck ten or twenty times.

I saw, for myself, disorder

canaries in coal mines,

sick systems. I did stupid things

Smart people were in on it, much of it was for the better.

I did crazy things –
like field stripping laser TVs in NYC

like making buildings

into cameras

like making new things

from old things

Always hacking something from nothing

Sometimes roasting pigs in the ground

I built crazy things –
laser folding mirrors

illumination systems

optical tricks and traps

massive arrays

faked communication protocols

hacked my own truck.

I felt

the value

of comraderie;

I learned the wisdom in getting out,

in ending early. Cutting losses.

and I left.

And in the strange days that followed, I found a home.

Gonna park my whirlwind there for a while.