Soccer in the suburbs

Spent a brisk Saturday afternoon (49 degrees) at Foothill High School here in the SF East Bay, watching a scrimmage between the Rockridge Sting and Pleasanton Rage U12 teams. I've known Mekala, who played midfielder for the Sting, since she was a toddler — now she's eyeing a soccer scholarship. Here's a Flickr set of the game.

Chris and Ponzi tie the knot

Chris Pirillo and Ponzi -- the masterminds behind Gnomedex -- got married a few days ago ... and, naturally, blogged about it. (Man, I love weddings!) Here's Chris's entry. And here are some photos from Scott B and from others.

Halloween photos

Here are some photos of Bobby, 7, in his Power Rangers getup, and of an elementary school parade today.

My longest day. Ever.

I'm here at the Participatory Academy at Vaxjo University in southern Sweden -- barely. Here's what happened.

After an 11-hour flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany, I asked a fellow passenger for the local time. He gave it to me, and I set my watch eight hours ahead, from 12:45 am to 8:45 am. Had a long layover, so went to a cafe and did some work. Then headed to the gate to catch the final leg of my flight to Copenhagen. I got nervous when the terminal was empty. I stopped a maintenance staffer and compared times -- his was an hour ahead of mine. I missed my flight by 5 minutes. Apparently my fellow passenger had forgotten to factor in daylight savings time -- there's a 9-hour difference this time of year.

Fortunately, there was another flight three hours later. "You're lucky -- these flights to Copenhagen are usually filled," the Lufthansa agent told me. I caught it and arrived in Copenhagen wiped out from no sleep in 24 hours. An hour later, caught the train to Vaxjo and arrived at 10 pm.

Only one problem -- no one was there to meet me. I had emailed my contact person at the university from an Internet terminal at the Frankfurt Airport nine hours before (can't wait to see the bill on that one), since my Cingular account doesn't cover Europe (or at least I haven't been able to get my Nokia cell phone to work here).

I put on a jacket, accosted two local Swedes, Britt and her college-age son, who called a contact of mine in Malmo, who in turn called my contact's boyfriend, who directed us to a nearby hotel (the wrong one, it turned out, but by then I insisted on a room to collapse in). Finally hit the sack after more than 30 hours.

I never found out why my contact didn't show, but next time I'll insist on getting her phone number in advance. And I'll double check on that time change.

A nice surprise

My mother called two months ago with some odd news. She spotted my name in small print in a local newspaper in New Jersey. Something about unclaimed property when I was living in Garfield, NJ.

Since I moved out when I was 2, we figured it was a savings bond my parents bought me, deposited, and forgot about. Maybe $100, but who knew?

I wrote to the state to lay a claim and, a few weeks later, after getting a copy of my birth certificate and having it notarized, a check arrived in the mail today for $1,974.

Not a bad haul for a 2-year-old.

Josh Marshall's dad dies

The first-class political blogger Josh Micah Marshall writes about the death of his father.

Jersey shore pix

Just back from a week at the Jersey shore — at a house rental with a dock overlooking Barnegat Bay in Lavallette, NJ. Here's a Flickr photo set.

Birthday

Hey, it's my birthday today.

Back from Italy and France

I'm back from two weeks in Italy and France, and still feeling whomped by some major jet lag. It was my first trip to Italy, and we were captivated everywhere we went, from Rome to Venice, Lake Como and Milan to Florence, Orvieto in Umbria to the seaside resort of Lido di Ostia.

Here's a quick silly video of the blogger dinner that Paolo Valdemarin hosted for me at Il Verdi Trattoria in Milano:

Ourmedia page | MPEG-4 video

Here's a video I shot in the hills above Lake Como, where Deirdre Straughan and her family put us up for two days:

Ourmedia page | MPEG-4 video

One highlight in Milan was meeting Massimo Esposti, the Italian publisher of "Darknet." "Darknet" will be the first title published by Unwired Media (about 2,000 copies will go on sale in bookstores in Italy in early June). See their Area 51 blog for more.

After Italy, Malo Girod de l'Ain of MM2 Editions, the French publisher of "Darknet," flew me up to Cannes, where I spoke on a panel about the future of filmmaking and took in the majesty of the south of France. And then it was on to Paris, where I gave a presentation about We Media to a group of new media folks. (You can read about it in French at Pointblog.)

I'll post photos of Cannes later today, and photos of Italy in the days to come.

Bobby turns 7

Bobby turned 7 today, nearing the end of first grade, and playing his first season of Little League. I've shied away from posting photos of him on Flickr — until today. There's a new Flickr photo set of my favorite shots of Bobby.