I’ve found that my quest to find a good direction (or two) revolves around big questions about the world and how changes in our lives will affect us in the future. Lately I’ve realized that I want to know what big questions other people have, too; maybe we can find some way to approach them together.

Here are a few of the questions that rattle around in my mind quite a bit.

• How can we learn to recognize bias and motives while at the same time encouraging research and reducing mistruths in news and other communication?
• How do we balance an increasingly documented and data-centric world with our need and rights to privacy?
• How can we encourage people to understand others’ points of view, even if they don’t agree with them?
• How does our changing view of friendship as a result of social networking and other tools affect interpersonal skills and our relationships in physical space?
• What’s the best way to approach law and government in a way that does not infringe on anyone’s religious beliefs or rights?
• How can we make waste reduction (including packaging reduction, recycling, etc.) a priority for normal people?
• What’s the best way to balance our energy needs with the risks associated with more productive forms of power generation?

Of course, you’ll probably notice a few common threads in those questions; those threads are my passions. Your questions will probably have some shared central ideas, too.

I’d love to hear what you think are the big questions that should be discussed and debated. If you feel comfortable sharing them publicly, leave a comment or send me a note on Twitter. If you’d rather share privately, shoot me an email. Hopefully we can build a discussion from there.

More of my American Folk Festival photos are on Flickr, of course.

One of the aspects that I especially love is the culture of collaboration within the YouTube ecosystem. A great example is Pomplamoose, a duo consisting of Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte. I’ve heard the name thrown around a number of times before, but for some reason I never watched their videos. That changed tonight, and I’ve been listening to their originals and their covers all night.

When I look back at a lot of the things I like on YouTube, I notice that a lot of them are collaborations in some form or another (OK Go and the Notre Dame Marching Band, Julia Nunes and Ben Folds, Molly Lewis and Jonathan Coulton…). It’s wonderful to see that people are able to join together and share an interest and passion in something.

Most of the ideas I’ve been planning and starting lately happen to be collaborations, too. Collaborations are great for the kinds of projects I like to do; the projects are often too big for one person to do solo, and it really helps to have another set of eyes and another body of talent available while you’re working. You’re able to explore different interests with different people, and the passion you share really shines in the end product.

I can’t wait to see how they turn out.

It’s tough to go back to work on Monday after you spend Sunday night watching the sun set from the top of Cadillac Mountain.

A couple of months ago, the folks down at Chimani, a Maine mobile development company, asked me to write a review of their Acadia National Park app. They sent me a promo code so that I could download it for free, take a look, and do my trademark rambling about it.

Frequent readers of my blog should realize by now that I really enjoy visiting Acadia. It’s one of my favorite areas of the world, and in fact I’m writing this post while sitting on top of Cadillac Mountain on my iPad. I wanted to write a fair review of the app, so I’ve brought it with me to the park three times since I downloaded it in June. I can honestly say that Chimani’s Acadia app has improved my trips to Acadia.

The first thing you’ll notice about the Acadia app is its comprehensiveness. If you want to know something about Acadia, chances are it’s in the app: hiking trails, ranger events, parking, and much more. Many of the most popular spots have in-depth descriptions as well as additional helpful information (for example, Thunder Hole’s info page has a link to the tide charts for the day so that you can see the best times to visit). I’ve learned a ton about the park in the last couple of months through the app, including new places to visit and bits of history about some of my favorite spots.

One of my favorite features is the built-in Island Explorer schedules. The Island Explorer is a fleet of free-with-park-fee buses that follow routes around the island. The app provides you with route information as well as upcoming times for individual stops. It even calculates how much time you’ll have at a stop before the next bus arrives.

As a developer myself, I really appreciate the extra touches they’ve put in throughout the app. The in-app auto tour features audio versions of each spot’s summary, making it really easy to follow along with the tour. The included map is incredible as well; it puts a marker on all the spots for a number of relevant points (parking, trail heads, etc.) on a zoomable map of Mount Desert Island that works just like the iPhone’s included Maps application. The search on the home page allows you to quickly find anything you need within the application as well.

Granted, the app does have a few downsides. It’s a hefty app, weighing in at around 260 MB; that’s by far the largest app on my iPod touch. That size is put to good use with all the stored information, photos, and audio within the app, but it does slow down syncing when an new update comes down the line. It’s a fairly new application, so there are still a few bugs to work out (for example, the app doesn’t seem to show any afternoon times for one of the Island Explorer routes). I’ve noticed a few usability quirks and some crashes, too, but the app is constantly being revised and I’m sure it will continue to be improved in coming releases.

So should you buy the app? If you’re heading to Acadia for a weekend and just want to hit the well-traveled spots (Thunder Hole, Sand Beach, and the Jordan Pond House, for example), you might find a bus tour or a simple drive around the Park Loop Road suits your needs. If you’re a serious traveler who wants to spend some time and truly explore and experience the park, or if you’re someone like me who displays his annual Acadia pass on his windshield with pride, then there’s no question that you should buy Chimani’s Acadia app. It’s well worth the price.

Thanks to Chimani for letting me play around with the app. If you’ll excuse me, the sun’s about to set over Blue Hill. According to the app, sunset is at 7:57. I have to go.

I spent Friday through Sunday traveling to Boston and Manchester, NH. It was an incredible weekend of music, food, and fun. I’ll try to make the length of this post shorter than the weekend itself – but it might be a close call.

The music

The initial reason for my trip was a concert in Somerville’s Davis Square, just outside Boston. The performer? Jonathan Coulton.

I enjoy a wide enough variety of music that answering the classic “who’s your favorite artist?” question is pretty difficult for me. There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of JoCo, but I believe he’d be the artist at the top of my list of favorites. He performs catchy, smart, and geeky music with topics ranging from zombies to Laika, the first dog in space (and pretty much everything in between).

Usually a JoCo show consists of nothing more than Coulton and his guitar (and often the hilarious duo of Paul and Storm). That was the case when I saw him in concert back in November 2008. This time, the envelope was pushed; he added bass and drums to his act for two Massachusetts shows. I knew I didn’t want to miss that.

My good friends Ian and Kelley also said they’d like to go, and coincidentally the concert happened to fall on their son Mannix’s birthday. The concert was Mannix’s first “grown-up” concert, and there couldn’t have been a better choice. He clapped along to “Shop-Vac” and apparently sang the “all we want to do is eat your brains” line of “Re Your Brains” all the way home. His face lit up when Coulton played “Skullcrusher Mountain,” a song he’d heard and loved while riding around with Ian and Kelley in the car.

The concert itself was great. Jonathan played some songs solo and really rocked the songs that were backed with drums and bass. He also played a half-dozen new songs, most of which I expect to be stuck in my brain for quite a bit of time to come. The set included a couple of my favorite JoCo tunes that I’d never heard live: “Blue Sunny Day” and “Big Bad World One.” (I’ve uploaded a few videos of the show, and there are many more online as well.)

After the concert, the four of us waited around in the beautiful Somerville Theatre. Jonathan came back out while the crew packed up equipment, and he was nice enough to take a photo with Mannix. (JoCo is a dad himself; if you’re a parent, I think you might appreciate “You Ruined Everything.”)

The venue was perfect for the show: fairly large, but intimate. It was a great experience and a great performance by a great artist. You can’t beat a theatre full of people singing along with every word of “Skullcrusher Mountain.” That’s nothing short of magical.

The food

Over the course of three days, I ate meals in seven cities around Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

Before the concert on Friday, I met up with my friend Melody in Cambridge to eat at Picante in Central Square. I had a great chicken burrito along with one of the many salsa options they offered at the restaurant.

On Sunday morning I went with Ian, Kelley, and Mannix to IHOP. I normally don’t mention chains when reviewing food, but I have to say, the stuffed French toast with strawberries, hash browns, and eggs has been pretty tough to forget.

The highlight of Saturday’s dining were the “never-melting ice cream cones” Kelley had made for Mannix’s birthday party. These cupcakes-in-cones were dangerously addictive, and they might find their way onto a menu of my own.

The fun

One of my favorite parts about Boston trips is the subway. I bought a one-day pass at Alewife and spent a fair portion of the afternoon cruising around on the Red and Green Lines. My first stop was Prudential. My original destination was the Apple Store, but I ended up spending a bit of time in the beautiful Christian Science Plaza.

After taking some photos, I headed down Boylston to the large glass-fronted store. There I was ecstatic to find a Camera Connection Kit for my iPad (I wasn’t patient enough to endure the 2-6 week delay on Apple’s site). I tried it out later in the weekend, and although it’s not exactly the same as my desired iPad functionality for photos, it’s a pretty darn good match.

The weather was beautiful, so I decided to skip the Green Line (my least favorite branch of the T) and walk down Boylston to Park Street. It was a really nice walk, even though it started to sprinkle a bit. I stopped at Au Bon Pain for a sandwich and resisted the lovely pastries that tempted my senses on the way into the store.

The weather didn’t cooperate quite so much when I emerged from the Red Line at Kendall Square. I managed to walk to Central and pick something up for Mannix’s party at the MIT Museum, but the rain had started to fall as I realized that I didn’t quite know Cambridge as well as I’d hoped. I found my way, but by the time I reached Central my shirt was drenched.

It’s pretty interesting to watch people in a city react to rain, though. In Maine we just go to our cars. In Boston people either find shelter or walk faster.

Mannix’s Willy Wonka birthday party on Saturday was a lot of fun, too. It even included a bounce house and, of course, Ian and I needed to make sure it worked correctly before we let the kids play around in it. The party was a great time, and the kids seemed to really love the Wonka-themed activities.

On Sunday I hopped back in the car, popped on the iPod (love that car integration), and listened to a couple of podcasts on the way home. These kinds of weekends definitely lead me to want to travel more often.

Mom and I made a batch over the weekend, but we added a bit of a kick: a scoop of cookie dough ice cream on top. I think we found a winner. Once home, I did a bit of experimenting and found that Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked is another great option for a topper.

Both variations of these little suckers have helped me overcome these hot summer days. (Chocolate always seems to have a way of doing that.)

Recently I decided to make one for myself. I’d made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and, as is often the case, my freezer was stocked with various kinds of ice cream. I chose to up the ante a bit: I replaced the normal vanilla ice cream with some Edy’s Cookies ‘n Cream yogurt. (Note that I used frozen yogurt. That makes this treat healthy, of course.) I melted some chocolate chips and butter together, dipped the sandwiches in, and voila: the JARbor Bar.

Rest assured, I’ll be trying this again. They’re a bit messy at first; it pays to let them sit in the freezer for a while, though it’s tough to resist a taste as you make them. The next time around I’ll probably try freezing the sandwiches first, dipping them in chocolate after the ice cream has frozen up a bit, and then freezing the sandwiches again to minimize meltage. But really, a little bit of a mess is well worth the reward.

I decided to wait a second before heading over to help. The woman grabbed the rock, found a good hold for her foot, and slowly climbed her way to the top of the ledge. Once she reached the top, she brushed her hands together and darted back to her starting point down a gradual slope that I had failed to see. The man followed suit, climbing the rock and then returning to the bottom of the ledge.

I watched the couple for a few minutes and thought about practice. Why do I return to this island after dozens of trips, grasping my camera in my hand even though I know every trail and every rock in some parts of the park?

Photography is my hobby, just as those two enjoy rock climbing. You may know a ledge like the back of your hand, but every time you climb offers you another chance to practice and another chance to take a new route to the top. Yes, I’ve seen Bubble Pond in the past, but I’d never seen a damselfly on a leaf there. That happens every time I’m here.

Every day, every trip, every climb is a new chance to reach where you want to go.

It turned out to be a completely new and definitely unforgettable experience for me.

Code away

After braving Boston traffic, I arrived at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development (NERD) Center on Friday evening. We met in the largest room on the first floor and briefly introduced each organization and worker. Every worker had been previously assigned to an organization for the weekend, and each team met to discuss the project and develop a plan.

Then the work began. For the next 48 hours, designers and developers worked together alongside representatives from each non-profit organization. Some workers floated between projects to use their talents in as many ways as possible. Considering each worker probably spent fifteen hours of the weekend on projects, I think it’s safe to say that GiveCamp enabled 1,500 hours of work on projects that in many cases wouldn’t have been able to be completed due to limited budgets or resources.

Bed, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more

Though the focus of the weekend was centered around project development, it was far from the only component of the event. Representatives of the non-profits at the event had a chance to attend workshops about tech-related parts of their business (web security, WordPress usage, and more). The workers (as is to be expected with those who work on the web) balanced their work time with a healthy portion of fun and play (mostly in the form of Rock Band).

The heartiest of the group brought along their sleeping bags and slept on the floors and couches at the beautiful NERD Center. Late nights allowed some amazing views of the Boston skyline as well as some obligatory sounds-like-they’re-drunk tweets.

And there was food. It seemed as though there was a new selection of gourmet options every hour in the common area of the floor: pizza, pasta, French toast, ice cream, cake, granola bars, salad… The workers may have been tired, but they were far from hungry.

The lessons

You may notice that I haven’t talked a lot about the actual coding that we did during the camp. The code was a big part of the weekend, of course, but in my mind it’s not really that important. We gathered on Sunday afternoon to present our work in front of the entire group and see what we had accomplished during our time at NERD. During the presentations it was easy to tell that the code wasn’t what mattered to the organizations; it was what the code allowed them to do. Maybe it helped plan activities for kids. Maybe it helped tag people and objects in photos from developing countries. Maybe it helped recruitment for a youth soccer league. The presentations were emotional for everyone involved with the work done over the weekend.

I made a point to walk around the floor as people were working a number of times throughout the weekend. Here were a hundred workers spending a weekend creating something for an organization which in many cases they’d never known until a few days prior. There was an energy and a sense of passion I’ve been lucky enough to experience a few times in my life. These people were doing something. There was no talk of budgets, no pestering from managers, and no complaining about a lost weekend. A hundred people came together and did good.

I learned a lot about myself over the course of the weekend. Some lessons were personal, but some have changed me in a way that’s visible to anyone I see. I rediscovered how much I love working with passionate, skilled people who want to do all they can to achieve a goal. I learned that I’d rather spend a weekend helping out than taking a trip to Acadia or laying around in bed. And I found once again that people coming together can accomplish great things.

Jim O’Neil concluded the weekend with a presentation about what we’d been able to accomplish. Jim, one of Microsoft’s northeast evangelists, had worked together with Kelley and many others to bring the idea of GiveCamp in Boston to life. On his last slide, he hinted at the possibility of a second New England Give Camp in 2011.

Sign me up now, Jim. I’ll be there.

First came the vote to defeat gay marriage in Maine last November. Now, with the choice of Paul LePage as Maine’s Republican candidate for governor, it’s clearer why; there’s a vocal part of the state that is quite happy on the far right side of the political spectrum. In my view, both as a Democrat and as a Mainer, that’s bad for the state.

Thoughts on the Democrats

I didn’t vote for a candidate yesterday. In fact, the two issues on which I did vote (yes on questions number 2 and 3) passed by a fair margin. I just didn’t have any real preference for any of the Democratic candidates, and to be honest, it was tough to distinguish between the four of them. A few thoughts about each:

• I liked McGowan’s views on a lot of issues, but he seemed too focused on a select group of areas. I also had a difficult time believing that someone so in favor of renewable energy would have mass appeal with more conservative voters.
• Of the four, I heard the least about Mitchell. Apparently she was able to muster up support from somewhere, but I didn’t really have a solid opinion of her either way.
• I like how Rowe thinks, but he’s just not a very compelling candidate. He’s a Democrat and I agree with him on a lot of things. That’s pretty much it.
• Scarcelli tried to differentiate herself, but those differences turned out to be the reason I didn’t really care for her. Her views on issues like class size and nuclear power didn’t do much to win my approval, though I liked a number of things about her campaign.

The biggest downfall of the Democrats seemed to be that none of them had an extremely solid message. Some of the Republicans, on the other hand, did.

What it means for November

Let me say this first: if Mills won yesterday, there’s a big chance I would’ve voted for him in November. I wouldn’t have minded having Abbott as a governor, either. In my opinion, a moderate candidate would be best for the state right now (though a liberal candidate would work, too).

LePage, on the other hand, is exactly what we don’t need. In my mind he represents old, traditional thinking Maine. We need to attract people to the state right now, and a mindset like that just won’t cut it. (He also scores a weak 1.5 on my checklist; he’s not against renewable energy, as far as I can tell, and he only sent out 20 tweets. I’ll give each of those points a 0.75.)

Normally, I’d be happy about an extreme candidate in the opposing party. But Eliot Cutler is going to make November a three-horse race, and that means that the election could easily go in any of those three directions. I’m eager to see which candidate moderate Republicans choose to support. It’s going to be a battle, and that battle is going to signal a lot about Maine come November 3.

I want Maine to move forward. It’s time to speak up about it.

Which Maine gubernatorial candidate has generated the most buzz on Twitter today? Here’s a look at how we stand. The yellow area counts unique users on Twitter; the gray counts any additional tweets today from those users. Of note: the three candidates who have engaged with users the most on Twitter generated the largest buzz from unique users today.

The chart above shows tweets from midnight through approximately 6:00 p.m. Eastern time, as reported by the Twitter API. Calculations include mentions of a candidate’s Twitter handle or their full name (including variations where appropriate, for example, “Steve Rowe” and “Steven Rowe”). I headed back to the Google Chart Generator to build this one, too.

Will this reflect the outcome of the race in any way or is just another frivolous statistic? We’ll find out tonight!

UPDATE: I rearranged the bars to show a clearer indication of the differences within each party.

Today’s most active #megov tweeters seem to be @rosascarcelli and @Abbott4Governor Does this point to something?

Frequency is a good measure of confidence and passion on Twitter. Sure, there’s the argument of quality versus quantity, but in general it seems to be more valuable to keep your followers up-to-date more often than not.

But Twitter isn’t all about broadcasting. For me, the real value of Twitter is the possibility of engagement; a candidate has the ability to easily address questions and criticism from other Twitter users. How would the candidates stack up if engagement was taken into account?

I ran a quick analysis of each major party candidate’s Twitter account. Here’s how it breaks down:

The numbers above aren’t perfect; unfortunately, they don’t include new-style retweets and seem to be missing a few others, too (ah, the wonderful quality of the Twitter API). I defined “engagement” as any tweet that began with @ or that included an @ preceded by a space (to filter out email addresses). It seems to be pretty accurate. (The chart above was made with the Google Chart Generator. Great tool.)

UPDATE: Lyle notes that I didn’t include Eliot Cutler’s tweets in the data. I’d originally only geared the post to primary candidates, but it’s a fair point and I’ve added him to the chart. Derek asked about engagements as a percentage of the total number of tweets, and they’re as follows: Abbott, 7%; Beardsley, 1%; Cutler, 29%; Jacobson: 40%; LePage, 18%; McGowan: 24%; Mills: 22%; Mitchell, 1%; Otten, 4%; Poliquin, 6%; Rowe, 28%; and Scarcelli, 32%. As a whole, 25% of the Democrats’ tweets have been engagements; Republicans have engaged with users in 17% of their tweets.

1. I won’t vote for you if you don’t support gay marriage.
   The Democratic candidates have all supported gay marriage; Peter Mills is the only Republican candidate who does the same. It should be noted, though, that Jacobson has gone on record saying that the establishment of marriage should be kept in churches for both heterosexual and homosexual couples, and that the law should only use civil unions for both. I’d support this, too, although I’d think it’d be a much less popular view among voters.
2. I won’t vote for you if you think creationism should be taught alongside science.
   Science class should be used to teach scientific principles like evolution. I’m open to the option, as Jacobson has said on multiple occasions, to “teach creationism in philosophy class,” but I believe it’s best left to individual religions to teach. Among the Republicans, Mills, Abbott, and Otten think they should be separate.
3. I’m less likely to vote for you if you support nuclear power.
   Yes, I know the technology has come a long way. But we’re not there yet. Though I still have reservations about safety, my major concern is disposal; we need a solid plan for technology adoption and waste storage before we pursue new development. Most of the Dems oppose it, but Scarcelli is “open” to the idea. The Republicans all support it at some level.
4. I’m much less likely to vote for you if you support offshore drilling.
   Forget you’ve even heard the name Deepwater Horizon; offshore drilling is just a stupid idea. Does exposing and collecting a toxic substance in the same region as a rich fishery really make sense to anyone? No. Oil and water don’t mix. I have to hand it to Beardsley, LePage, Otten, and Poliquin for sticking by their support of it through the tragedy, but it’s still a stupid position.
5. I’m more likely to vote for you if you support biomass or offshore wind.
   McGowan has really been pushing for biomass, and I think that’s something to watch. The Democrats (surprise, surprise) seem to unanimously support renewable energy. The Republicans are a little less enthusiastic about renewables, but some (including Otten) support it.
6. I’m much less likely to vote for you if you think there should be an abortion ban in law.
   I don’t particularly mind if a candidate personally opposes abortion; I just don’t think it’s the government’s place to regulate it. The Democrats all agree with this, as do Mills and Otten.
7. I won’t vote for you if you don’t use Twitter.
   I know it seems petty, but honestly, if a candidate (or someone on his staff) doesn’t use Twitter, I don’t think they have a good grasp of current technology, and technology is crucially important to Maine’s future. Luckily, all of the major party candidates have Twitter accounts. (Bonus points go to candidates who have a plan to expand broadband access around Maine.)

MPBN’s Your Vote 2010 is a great resource for finding information about the candidates. Try to find a candidate who matches your priorities.

Rangers

Rangers, though one of the most recognizable classes of people, are sometimes hardest to spot. Dressed in clean, slightly olive gray outfits, these officials patrol the park to make sure everything runs smoothly. They’ll also occasionally station themselves at popular spots on busy weekends to assist other visitors in the park.

Bikers

Bikers, with their easy-to-spot bright tops and black bike shorts, often keep to the Carriage Roads, but they may also be spotted along the Park Loop Road or the state and town roads within the park. Popular entry spots include the Carriage Road crossing at Eagle Lake and the Park Loop Road stop at Bubble Pond.

Hikers

If you see someone in an earth tone or white t-shirt, rolled up cargo pants, and a hat donning a large, full backpack, congratulations! You’ve spotted the Hiker. These folks spread out evenly around the park’s dozens of miles of hiking trails and Carriage Roads. You’ll often see them sipping out of a bottle of Poland Spring water. 

Photographers

The most elusive class of Acadia visitor, you may see a Photographer stationed at an odd angle just off a trail or road while holding a digital SLR camera in their hand and wearing some sort of bag or backpack. They may appear to be standing in a spot looking aimlessly around Acadia’s dense forests, but they’re probably just waiting for you to pass so they can get a shot of the “real” Acadia, untouched by humans. This process may take hours.

Daytrippers

You may see the Daytripper wearing casual, everyday clothing while exploring spots not too far from main roads in the park. You’ll often see them climbing out of vehicles with a chickadee or loon license plate or with an Acadia annual pass sticker affixed to the windshield. A Golden or Labrador Retriever may follow.

Tourists

If you visit Thunder Hole, Sand Beach, or the Jordan Pond House, you’ll likely see a large portion of people wearing light shirts, large sunglasses, and garish hats. These are Tourists, and they provide a significant portion of Maine’s revenue. They often congregate around popular spots taking snapshots with small point-and-shoot cameras. They also frequent the hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, restaurants, and shops around Mount Desert Island, sometimes pushing children in strollers (or attempting to control them while running around). The telltale sign of the Tourist: a long-sleeve shirt or sweater in the middle of July or August. Seventy or eighty degrees is cold, after all.

Cruisers

A storm is brewing in downtown Bar Harbor. On a calm Maine morning, you hear a rumble on the water and spot a ship the size of a city in Frenchman Bay moving toward the shore. While it idles, small sentry crafts emerge from its towering decks and send hundreds of loud visitors to flood downtown with bright polka-dot shirts and hats with an absence of style that makes the Tourist’s headwear look like it came straight from Milan or Paris. The Cruiser saunters around the narrow sidewalks of the town at a snail’s pace with little or no awareness of others around him, not venturing any farther in the park than the downtown shops or a scheduled bus excursion to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Bikers, Hikers, Photographers, and Daytrippers go out of their way to avoid this group at all costs and silently cheer when the ship turns around and heads back into the Gulf of Maine.

Keep in mind that this post is written in good humor and that all visitors to Acadia contribute to the economy and help with awareness of the park. It should be noted, though, that as I sit here overlooking Jordan Pond at the one spot in the park where the types above intersect the most, stereotypes are sometimes frighteningly accurate. 

I’ve been reading a lot about the candidates up for election next week around the web, and as it does every election cycle, the rhetoric being used really concerns me. Politics is a competitive game, and it’s reasonable to assume that discussion and arguments between candidates will grow heated as the election nears.

But there’s a point at which it needs to stop. I’ve read a number of comments from Democrats accusing the Tea Partiers of trying to “destroy America.” I’ve heard Tea Partiers say the same of Obama. Just stop. Please.

Politics isn’t baseball¹; we’re all trying to make the best country we can. Sure, we have differences in how we believe that should be done, but the end goal is the same. We all want what’s best for the people who live in America.

I don’t normally consider myself to be an overly patriotic person, but I do feel extremely lucky to live in such a great country. As you talk about politics, and as you discuss candidates up for election, remember what our veterans have fought to maintain. America is a place where we’re free to have discussion and disagreement, but we’re also all working to build the best country we can. America is an experiment, but it’s undoubtedly a great one.

1. I don’t enjoy most professional sports for this same reason. When I watch the Red Sox and the Yankees play, I don’t see two teams and fan bases who hate each other; I see a couple dozen people who have spent their lives becoming the best at what they do. Honestly, I’d much rather watch a lower-key college game. I think they’re a lot more fun.

I’ve been thinking about that lately. I still don’t feel like I have any kind of definite plan about where I want my life to head over the next years or decades, even though I feel as though I should by this point.

In a lot of ways I really don’t feel as though I’ve changed much since my graduation. Assignments from teachers have changed to assignments from clients. Final exams have changed to final revisions. But many of the same questions I asked myself in 2005 are the same questions I ask today.

I have realized over that time that I’m a very passionate person, even if I haven’t had the outlet to fully express that passion. That’s where it gets complicated.

Followed passion

When I happen to find some free time, I usually head to YouTube or to blogs. I’m inspired by people who follow their passions, whatever they may be. I end up sending messages to a lot of random people just to ask how they became interested in whatever they do and to provide just a little bit of encouragement. (I’ve found that it’s really tempting to give up a passion if you feel you’re not supported.) Over the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to develop some really great friendships this way.

I’m also fortunate enough to have friends – both online and in person – who are really good at what they do. One quit her day job in order to become a photographer. One’s turned a dance hobby into a successful life of instruction. And I often hear how surprised they are by the level of improvement or ability that they’ve been able to reach.

They all inspire me. And honestly, I’m jealous of them.

The crowded parking lot

My brain’s a parking lot. It was my favorite metaphor while I was growing up; I can only hold so many “cars” (pieces of information or things that capture attention) at once, and if I want to focus on something new, something else has to leave.

Since I was very young, I’ve just had too many cars: too many interests. Around the same time as the parking lot metaphor, I’d set up fake little businesses around my house: a library, a post office, a restaurant, and even a mini-golf course. My parents would order business cards for each of them, and over the years I developed a pretty strong collection of them. At one point I think I had cards for seven or eight different ventures.

You never had to tell me not to put all of my eggs in one basket.

Dream jobs

If I had to choose a fourth question I most frequently ask, it would probably be one that’s pretty simple for a lot of people to answer: “what’s your dream job?”

I’ve never had one. Part of my frustration with passion is that I’ve never been able to figure out my vision of an ideal job.

I really do enjoy web development, and I’m pretty talented in that role. But would I consider it a dream job? I don’t think I would. A lot of people assume that I’d be a full-time photographer if I had the chance, but that’s not the case; I think it would spoil my love of the art if I always had to shoot how other people wanted me to shoot. I’m fortunate enough to have some level of control over the photography I do now.

At this point at my life, I just haven’t been able to pin down what my idea of a dream job would be. But I have been able to figure out a couple of threads that run throughout the things I enjoy doing.

Jobs creation

You might notice I mention Steve Jobs pretty often. That’s because he has two traits I truly respect: perfectionism and a desire to make things better.

Ah, perfectionism. It’s a mixed blessing. I’ve been a perfectionist since… well, probably before I made dioramas of Pompeii and the Great Plains for projects in fourth grade. I don’t like doing anything I can’t do well, and I always try to push my skills whenever I tackle a new project.

Perfectionism has a downside, though: more often than not, it doesn’t work very well in team settings. There have always been horror stories of Apple employees failing to achieve Steve Jobs’s vision or expectations and paying dearly for their failure. But it happens in everyday work, too; I’m often not able to be the perfectionist I want to be in web development, for example, because of time constraints or because I want my co-workers to continue to believe that I’m not a complete jerk. It’s unfortunate and frustrating, but it’s just one of the concessions necessary when working at a service-based company.

The desire to do the best possible work often goes hand-in-hand with the desire to make things better. I love doing what I can to try. RateMyPage – my first real web app – was an attempt to make a better feedback system for web designers. DatAvenger is my/our attempt at creating an easier and better way to manage a site. The projects I’ve been helping to design lately also try to improve systems that already exist but could be better.

The road ahead

Five years after my college graduation, I’m at a point where I think I should really do all I can to figure out what’s important to me and what I can do to improve it. The process will take some time, but I want to be open about what’s on my mind so that I have a record of where I’ve been. Maybe you’ll have some ideas for next steps I can take.

You may notice that I’ll be talking more about passion in the future. I think it’s an extremely important topic, and it’s been on my mind a lot. We’re fortunate enough to live in a time where we can do more than we’ve ever been able to do in the past, and I think we should do all we can do embrace that opportunity.

Now I just need to figure out what I want to do.

It’s amazing how connected you can feel to people you personally don’t know very well. My first dance concert was back when I was in college, and since then I’ve watched student performers grow as their performance styles mature. Quite honestly, the last piece of the night was one of the most emotional works I’d ever seen performed in person. UMaine has incredibly talented dancers.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I brought my camera to both of the performances. I love the diversity of the styles, and each of the thirteen pieces was top-notch.

I can’t wait to see what’s next!

I don’t agree with the Arizona law. I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of it are found unconstitutional in the future. But the piece this morning reminded me that a lot of the news we hear today is a second- or third-hand report; instead of interpreting the law and the world around us ourselves, we’re interpreting an interpretation. The quality of this information relay degrades significantly with every step.

Almost every issue in the world has two sides. Instead of taking the word of the radio program this morning, I read the Arizona immigration law for myself. It’s a short read, and it’s an important piece of legislation that will ultimately affect how we view immigration and civil liberties in America. It took about ten minutes for me to read, and even though I don’t agree with it, I felt better.

If you hear someone say a position on an issue is absolutely right or absolutely wrong, never accept their opinion at face value. Find out why it was done and decide for yourself what to think. The issues of the world aren’t black and white.

It’s that nothing, and everything.

Hello, Acadia. It’s nice to see you again.