La Parilla, Mission, San Francisco, originally uploaded by Dervala.

Hard to believe she is even prettier in person. Easy to believe that she’s one of our better writers. The Irish have a way with the English language.

She devours experience and shares what she learns. For instance:

“When we hired you, we weren’t interested in your experience. We were only interested in how fast you could learn,” I was once told. At 24, that’s flattering. It’s also a relief—thank God, it doesn’t matter that I know feck-all. I’m a little bundle of potential. But at 34, it’s disconcerting to have a dozen years of your life dismissed. I could have stayed in bed rather than bothering to get trained on Wall Street? I didn’t need to sweat through those startups to learn why entrepreneurs have more in common with artists than with MBAs, and what it really takes to turn an idea into a change? I needn’t have bothered with volunteering, with learning to write, with riding the public buses around Bolivia?

For all that this amoral economy suits me well, I’m making a promise to my future self that if I hear at 54 that my experience is uninteresting to capitalism—and I expect to—I’ll stand up, excuse myself with a big smile, and go back to the woods for good. We’re human beings. Our stories matter. Grown-ups have more to contribute than babies. And where we have been and who we take care of matters more to me than symbols, models, and theories.

Spotted in an airport gift shop:

“Beer…
cheaper than gasoline!”

The potted plant, originally uploaded by Miss Aniela.

Miss Aniela has noted, ” Let’s get planning my future house. I want bookshelves with lots of books with old font in them. I want some kind of big, violent dog(s) lurking about (must be big, don’t like little dogs). I want several banana-coloured sports cars piled up in the driveway. I want a little baby called Roberta, who I call Bobby for short. She never cries, like other annoying, ugly babies. I want white trees in the front garden. I want the house warm at all times. I want a husband with the facial contours of Rik Mayall, his blue eyes squinting in the sun and nose scrunching to reveal his top set of lovely teeth, laying in the garden reading Tis Pity She’s A Whore. I want a noticeboard in the kitchen like the one Julia Tickell’s house has, which has all kinds of business letters addressed to me. I want big white gates at the driveway, with Home somewhere inscribed, like in A Clockwork Orange. And a loft, with a ladder you can pull up after you. ”

If anybody can clue me regarding wtf “open source wireless mesh networking” might be, I’ll be tickled pinkularly. I ran into Robin Chase, a bright and intense woman who has launched one successful company (Zipcar), and who is working on another company that will knock our local social networking sox off… I haven’t received permission to write about this so I’ll be purposely and obnoxiously vague here.

But more important than the purposeful social networking product she’s building, she has a vision for integrating wireless into transportation systems using “open source mesh.” Since radio geeks are a picky bunch, I’d like to nail down the definition of “open source radio” or whatever she means. Andrew Turner has blogged a little about it here. In our conversation Robin went deeper into a discussion of toll based funding of highway infrastructure that charges variable rates by time-of-day, congestion based rates, and so forth. Is the use of “open source” just a marketing marker? Or does it refer to application level stuff like GeoRSS, or what?

I remember when the streets belonged to the people. Soon, I’m afraid, the streets will belong to those who can afford to pay the tolls.