Where’s the Nerd?

Blah blah blah, don’t you hate it when people tell you how busy they are? Like you’re not, like you’re just sitting on the couch watching reruns of The Golden Girls and eating cookies. I know you’re busy, which is why I’m surprised you make any time at all to read Nerd’s Eye View. And in thanks for your loyal readership, I hope you’ll indulge me when I say that I’m busy, and that’s why you don’t see a lot of new writing around here right now.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

• Wrapping up a story about seeing Santiago, Chile by bicycle. Next up? Selecting and captioning the photos.
• Getting the “manuscript” for my “book” finished and proofing it. Don’t freak out, it’s just a vanity project, a compilation of essays and photos and yes, you can buy one but not until I’ve had a chance to look over the finished product. Hold please.
• Working on tech projects to pay the bills. I’ve gone from having no work for real money to being overbooked. Freelance life. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but the gods do like to mess with you.
• Meeting cool people and making plans to breathe a little life back into SCOOT, the unofficial Seattle Consortium of Online Travel. We have something great planned for late summer. There will be parking and free beer!
• Cooking various travel plans including Canada for TBEX, Austria for a press trip and time with the in-laws, and maybe, just maybe, a crazy winter adventure.
• Posting weekly to Practical Travel Gear, negotiating a regular gig with another webby publication, and fussing over a story for The Traveler’s Way. Also, continuing to slowly unravel my Antarctica trip on the Travel Wild blog.
• Noodling on my contributions to the paperwork for the Passports with Purpose effort to file for nonprofit status.
• Talking about Antarctica on my friend Scott’s radio show. Go listen. I also recorded a very short segment with KBCS, a local community radio station, I’ll let you know when that airs.
• Migrating my site away from GoDaddy. I’ve got no love for Bob Parsons, but I always got great service and they were cheap. Then, the sport hunting thing happened. I just can’t bear that my money supports that man. No more. I lost email for one morning in the process. Oops.

All this gets woven between grocery shopping, making dinner, planting peas, running errands, taking critical time to swing in the hammock reading, riding the bus to meetings, unpacking, wasting time on Twitter and Facebook, hanging out with the husband (who is also busy), and you know, the stuff that daily life is made of. Things will be a little slow around here for a bit while I work on other projects. I’m going to send you elsewhere (I’m hosting a link round up called The Carnival of Cities) soon, and I’ll let you know when my other work goes live. But I also hope you won’t abandon me.

It’s spring. There are things to do. I’m sure I’ll be back here blathering on about something in the lazier days of summer. Come hang out then, and bring cole slaw.

[Photo: iPhone + Instagram + stormy night from my friend’s houseboat on Lake Union.]