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A small tortiseshell cat sits in a backyard full of tall grass and thinks it is harder to see than it really is

My Virgo Month of Leisure was a blur. Like many people, I’ve been alternating between torpor and panic as the days get shorter and colder. Here are a few things you might like to know if you’re someone who reads this space.

I turned on my heat, meaning the boiler, for the first time this season today. I actually enjoy the Vermont ritual of making small talk by talking about how you heat your house. My heat pumps have been a delight. Having them means I can keep my office and bedroom warm without heating a whole half-house at the same time (I have two zones!). But they can’t really make a chilly bathtub warm up very quickly and today was the day I woke up wanting to take a shower and not be chilly so on it went.

I applied for an ISSN for my other blog today. I just made a post there the other day and thought I should make one here too.

small groups of people, loosely joined

mossarium

I went to a mini-conference thing over Halloween weekend. I was invited by someone I’d sort of met at a library conference. She was now pretty geek-aligned and asked me to come speak at this conference-thing. I keep not using the word “conference” because it’s pretty tough to call 35+ people getting together at a music camp in the Canadian woods to talk and drink and play Werewolf and dress-up really a conference. Maybe it was more of a skillshare. Only a skillshare with Really Good Tech. It was called BitNorth.

I did one of the keynotes which means I had 20-25 minutes instead of 5-10 to talk about… anything. I knew I’d be talking to tech people and so wanted to talk about something a little offline. I put together an assortment of slides talking about moss and why it is so awsome, but scrapped it in favor of talking about how to change stupid rules which refers to the back and forth I had last week with the Des Moines public library over their “no photography” policy. I was going to talk more and link more to all the wonderful folks I met there, but it’s now two or three days later and I see myself not doing this so I’m just going to click “publish.”

So, I didn’t talk about moss, I saved the mosslike Keynote theme I made and now I still want to make a Moss Is Awesome talk. Maybe for next year. Three cheers to Alastair Croll and the rest of the Bitcurrent crew for inviting me and putting on such a terrific event.