Sixfoot6.com - Putting Stuff Away.

We suprised my granfather for his 90th birthday, and it was everything we'd hoped. Grumpy (his nickname since long before I was born) didn't see the suprise coming; he laughed and danced to the mumbly-voiced keyboard player, cried during the slide show and his son's speech, danced with my grandmother like there was no tomorrow. I caught up with extended family, introduced people to Jenny, ate yummy food. And I watched Grumpy closely, trying to read his face for secrets, seated in that same green blazer.

The scrapbook gift we assembled contained photos of Grumpy with hundreds of people, letters praising his patience and generosity. How do I wrap my head around 90 when I haven't even hit 30? I don't event know what I'm doing in six hours. Breathe.

I'm starting to... get on my own nerves. Lately I'm sporadically caustic and impatient with people I care the most about. Not always, but too often. It took me until age 20 to feel like I had control over the words coming out of my mouth... and now I'm starting to regress, it seems. Wit makes for a wicked weapon when poorly wielded. What? Wait. I think the stress of long freelance hours, moving, money, wedding planning and daily banter with Jenny has begun to wear on me. Sometimes I wake up with a jaw sore from clenching. My body feels older. BREATHE.

I'm going to keep studying Grumpy closely. He listens, he watches, and doesn't mind waiting. This shouldn't be a race. I feel like I know the secret, but stopped putting it into practice. Is that the central irony of modern life?

So, for about five years I've been having this recurring daydream fantasy. Ben Franklin suddenly appears in my house, having just instantaneously travelled forward in time from the 18th century. He has no idea what happened, but being Old Ben he's quite curious about the world.

So naturally I must show him all the electrical appliances in my house (thanks for that, buddy!), describe the current political state of the world, summarize 250 years of history and satisfy his curiosity by explaining about space exploration, digital media, fashion, the internal combustion engine, mini-malls and wireless communication. I get him comfortable with fast motion, and we drive to Boston.

I daydream about all that, then take pride in having (what I believe to be) a balanced head of knowledge coupled with an ability to explain things well. Basically, I'm just full of myself. Does anybody else have these kind of self-serving daydreams? Are founding fathers involved?

Another SXSW in Austin come and gone. Thus far the withdrawal isn't as harsh as in previous years; probably because Jenny came with this year and we travelled home together. Or because the money is back and everyone's Web 2.0 crazy, and none of the panels really rocked my world. Or maybe because new photos keeping pouring into lego playpen so I feel like I'm still there.

You know what it is? Part of me feels like too many people, parties and projects watered down the simple adult-summercamp vibe that I've been in love with for 6 years. Not quite enough inspiring conversations about stuff I never thought about before. I felt closer than ever to friends I'd made in previous years, but it all didn't feel FRESH enough. I'm addicted to freshness.

I'm also probably dehydrated, so take all of this with a drop of water. I think I'm going to freshen things up around here.

I was in Switzerland during much of the Olympics, so I didn't get to see much, though the Swiss coverage was pretty good. (I could watch curlng in ANY language. Here's a good Nation article on why NBC olympic coverage sucked.)

This year I realized that I'm older than most Olympic atheletes. Some seem young and foolish to me, like they're training too damn hard or yucking it up for the camera. But sometimes physical skill is breathtaking. It's another in a long list of reminders that at 28 years old I've accomplished essentially nothing. (See also Pet Sounds, per Brian Wilson @ age 21.) I'm a tall and cranky old man.

On Sunday while watching the Academy Awards it occured to me that I'm also older than most hot young Hollywood actors and actresses. It must be interesting to be a Marlon Brando, Judi Dench or Clint Eastwood type, watching new kids win awards for their young roles.

Also: Stewart did pretty well. George Clooney is my hero. Michelle Williams is lovely. And sometimes Ben Stiller can still pull off his Ben Stiller character.

With soft snowflakes falling beyond yonder window I'm patiently pushing projects out into the world. Yesterday I implemented some cool scriptaculous DHTML stuff, and we'll see where it leads. Try out the box nav in the top right corner of my front page. I could click that stuff for hours. And I finally updated the "created" section of the promo area above. A Christmas miracle.

With help from Sooz, I recently launched a website for Interactive Playpen @SXSW. Our idea: fill a booth with Legos and other modular toys, add a bunch of clever adult geek types and see what happens. Can you help donate a few bucks so we can make sure to have enough fun to go around? It should be a great ice-breaker for the conference.

Back to work. Man, I need to eat something.