As those of you who read Get Rich Slowly already know, Kris and I recently returned from a long weekend in San Francisco. It surprises me a little that my first-ever business trip was made for blogging, but it’s true. A startup company flew me and several other personal finance bloggers to the city to participate in a workshop about financial software. They hope to develop the next big web-based personal finance tool.

But that’s boring. That’s not why you all come to foldedspace. You all come here to read about our adventures. And we had adventures!

We flew down to San Francisco on Thursday, leaving the Portland airport around lunchtime. While we waited to board the plane, I was annoyed by a family with two young girls. The oldest girl — about five — was a chatterbox. The youngest — about two — kept running down the boarding ramp. Her father would let her stray away, and then only run after her when she started down the ramp. (Or, alternately, begin pressing buttons on a control panel.) Why wasn’t he minding her more closely? It was obvious to everyone that she was just going to go down the ramp again every time she strayed away. But the father watched her go, and every time had to run after her when she started down the ramp. Then, on the plane, the family was seated a few rows in front of us. They were noisy, but fortunately I’d brought my noise-canceling headphones. (Yes, I know this rant is going to get me into trouble.)

When we arrived in San Francisco, we spent the afternoon wandering around Union Square. The weather was lovely, so we sat in the sun for a while. In the evening, we met up with Cap and Jim, two other personal finance bloggers, for dinner at Café Claude. Though Kris was seated uncomfortably close to the table next to us, I had a good time meeting my colleagues. Plus, I was amazed at the tasty ahi tuna in green peppercorn sauce. Very tasty.

On Friday, I spend eight hours meeting and talking with my “imaginary friends”. You can read more about that experience here. In the evening, our hosts took us to a fabulous dinner at Kokkari, a Greek restaurant in the financial district. Wow! The menu was fixed, but that was okay, because we were provided with serving after serving of delicious food: olives, bread, lamb, beef, potatoes and more. The “charcoal-grilled, dry-aged rib-eye with braised greens and potatoes” was out-of-this-world.

On Saturday, we drove to Berkeley for my birthday lunch. Kris took me to the world-famous Chez Panisse, where we were seated by Alice Waters herself. This meal, too, was amazing, if somewhat understated. The restaurant was crowded (to be expected), but the service was top-notch. My pork leg and pork belly with asparagus were very tasty.

On our drive home from Berkeley, we were rear-ended by an unlicensed and uninsured driver. Since I hadn’t taken out the rental company’s insurance policy, this has turned into a big hassle. I’ve spent about three hours processing the claim so far, and there’s a lot more work to do. (You can read more about the accident here.)

On Saturday evening, we met Andrew and Joann for dinner at a restaurant just behind our hotel. Le Colonial is a posh French Vietnamese place with prices to match. Though the food couldn’t compare with Kokkari or Chez Panisse, it was still excellent. I had a delicious curried salmon. After dinner, we walked u-p to Top of the Mark for dessert. Somehow we managed to muscle our way to the front of the line and get immediate seating. We enjoyed a panoramic view of San Francisco while enjoying our sweets.

On Sunday, Kris and I walked down to the Asian Art Museum and spent several hours browsing the exhibits. In the evening, we joined Ramit at A Taste of the Himalayas for good food and good conversation. Ramit is one of the most inspirational fellows I’ve ever met. I’m pleased to call him a friend.

Because of our wrecked rental car, we felt like we needed to allow ourselves extra time at the airport, so we got up at 4am. Turns out the return process was totally blasé. It makes me worry.

As we were sitting at the gate waiting for our plane to arrive, I was startled by a two-year old girl who was attempting to run down the boarding ramp. “No way,” I thought. Yes way. The same family that had bugged me on our flight down to San Francisco was there for the return, too!

“Did you enjoy the trip?” Kris asked when we got home. “Was it worthwhile?”

Yes. Absolutely, yes. I met some of my colleagues, spent time with friends, and ate my way across San Francisco. All with Kris at my side. What could be better?

So, I went out to lunch with Andy last week. Andy is one of my “imaginary friends”, somebody I know only over the internet. More and more, these imaginary friends are becoming actual friends. Crazy, but true.

As many wise people before him have tried to do, Andy suggested that instead of having a zillion blogs — one for each of my interests — that I might just post everything non-money related here. I know…it’s not rocket science (and I’ve even brought up this idea myself), but for some reason I find it necessary to persist in the belief that I can run five or six blogs and make them all profitable.

Well, no more.

Get Rich Slowly is providing enough income to support me, and it appears it will continue to do so for some time. My attention is best devoted to that, I think. Get Fit Slowly will continue because both Mac and I are using it as a platform to leverage our selves to healthier lives.

But Four Color Comics is dead. Dead dead dead. Animal Intelligence? I don’t know. It’s certainly in stasis. Vintage Pop? Stillborn. Spiral Bound? Bibliophilic? Too Much Cat? Etc. Etc. These sites will never see the light of day.

Instead, I’m going to funnel all of that stuff into foldedspace. I can’t promise daily updates like I used to provide — and there will be long spells during which you’ll just get funny videos — but I’m going to do my damnedest to revitalize things around here. Again.

I know, I know. You don’t believe me. But if you’re willing to put up with musings on comic books and intelligent pigs and my notebook collection, I promise that I’ll do my best to share stories about my life again.

And videos of singing cats.

p.s. That means I’m pulling the ads from this site. The $3/day isn’t worth the annoyance, wouldn’t you agree? We’ll let GRS be the profitable one…

I’ve got an itch that needs scratching, and a little time to scratch it.

I’m going to make an attempt to move the traditional foldedspace theme for Movable Type over to WordPress. This could be a pain-filled process. And things around here may look broken for a while.

Update: Not bad! Not bad! Yes, I know that many things are broken. But that’s okay. This is a tremendous first attempt, don’t you think? And it only took an hour. Now let’s see if I can perform the necessary repairs in less than three hours…

Update #2: Okay, folks. Everything seems to be working, and in only three hours total! If you notice anything that doesn’t work, please let me know. I know that the flotch is gone, as is the calendar. I’ll try to bring those back. I also know that there’s no good way to access the archives. John Bodoni has graciously offered to help me recover the old foldedspace archives, all the way back to 2001. When we’ve accomplished that, I’ll bring the entire archive system back online. But for now, you may rejoice:

The old foldedspace Movable Type template has made a smooth transition to WordPress!

Here’s the thing — as much as I love the theme I’ve been using at foldedspace, it gets in the way of things. It’s not appropriate for this site. I did pay $59 for it, so it’s going to get used somewhere. Just not here. Instead, I’m going to spend the next couple weeks playing with other WordPress themes until I find one I like.

Sure, it’d be nice to do something custom, but I don’t have the time or the inclination. Instead, I’ll just find an out-of-the box template I like.

Go here. It doesn’t work completely yet, but you can get a feel of what I’m after…

Whew.

It’s been a long time since I posted, I know. I’m not abandoning this site, despite all appearances. I’ve just been swamped. It’s not a state I relish, and I’m glad that there’s an end in sight. (We leave for Europe on the 14th, so the busy-ness is going to come to an end on that date, whether the world is ready or not!)

Here’s a partial list of things that have kept me occupied:

• This blog. Behind the scenes, I’m working to get things repaired. Anil is working on the old database. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out what is slowing down the current database. These two problems make me want to switch to WordPress, but Anil is lobbying for an upgrade to the latest version of Movable Type. I know this is gobble-dee-gook to most of you, but translated it basically means: there are technical problems with foldedspace that I’m attempting to resolve.
• Life and death. My cousin Ron died last Sunday. He was 46. The cancer that curses our family took him. (This is why I’m so anxious to get a colonoscopy now despite assurances that it’s not necessary until I am 50.) Ron’s death was not unexpected, but unwelcome nonetheless. Nick has been spending much of his time with the family, which means he doesn’t have time for Custom Box.
• Custom Box Service. Speaking of the box factory, we’re busy. July is not a busy month, but it is this year. To top things off, our truck driver is in jail. This is bad news because he’s an awesome employee. Jeff has done a great job filling in for him, but the fact remains that we need to hire a replacement. We’ve had no luck with Craigslist, so we’ll turn to the newspapers. When we have time. Which we don’t. Because Nick has been taking care of family matters while Jeff has been driving, leaving me alone in the office. On a normal day, this is just a minor nuisance. But now, when we’re busy, it’s a frickin’ pain in the ass.
• Get Rich Slowly. Because we’re busy at Custom Box, I don’t have “slop time” with which to work on my web sites, most especially Get Rich Slowly. That site now accounts for 50% of my income. Put another way, I make as much from GRS as I do from CBS. Guess which one I enjoy more? It has been a mad scramble to get entries written and posted lately. I do have a pile of guest entries I could tap, but I want to save them for vacation.
• Vacation. Our vacation looms large. I have a packing checklist (thanks, Paul H.!) and have been working toward getting things ready. One of my big chores is making sure that Get Rich Slowly has a full log of scheduled guest entries to publish. So far, so good. This site will be barren, I’m afraid, aside from occasional notes from the road. I’m still half-tempted to purchase an iPhone, use one of the many tricks to opt out of phone service, and use it as a mini-computer on the road. For now, though, I’m taking a Mac Powerbook, an iPod, and a digital camera. (I am not taking a cell phone. Everyone else in our group will have one. There’s no need for mine.)
• Ron’s funeral. Coming back to Ron, his funeral is on Friday afternoon. I’ve agreed to create a video presentation commemorating his life, but that takes time. I’ve spent the last two hours scanning slides and photos. I have several more hours to go. Then I have to piece them into a coherent video. (Nick will help me do that tomorrow.)
• Backpacking. Our annual Opal Creek backpacking trip is this weekend. There’s no way I can make the group hike in, but I still hold out hope that I can join the guys on Saturday. This is beginning to look like a feeble hope. I’ve put off many, many things to tackle the urgent tasks in my life. I’m going to need time to get things in order before I leave, and about the only time I can see is this weekend, if I don’t go backpacking. And yet I love backpacking. (In fact, I just spent $80 on a new tent!)

These are just a few of the things that have me buried. I’d write more except I can hear that the scanner has stopped scanning. It’s time to go start the next batch of slides. (In a feat of geekery that amazes even me, I had three Macs in use an hour ago. Each one was doing something related to Ron’s funeral. That, my friends, is efficiency.)

All this is to say: Have no fear — foldedspace will return, and with vigor. But right now it’s experiencing a moment (or thirty) of silence.

Although I know you readers like the current format of this blog, it’s just not working for me. The Moveable Type engine behind the scenes is archaic. It’s frustrating to work with. The database is basically dead, drowned beneath a sea of spam. This site is no fun to maintain in its current state.

What am I trying to say? I really am going to move this blog back to WordPress. I made an aborted attempt at this last fall, but this time it’s for real. I’ll see what I can do to maintain the look-and-feel that we’ve all grown to love, but there are certainly going to be some changes. It’s very likely, for example, that the flotch will have to die (sorry, Paul!). I don’t know of any way to replicate the current flotch format in WordPress. (Actually, the new blog may become mostly flotch. Who knows? It’ll probably be a category.)

Also, I’ll be moving to a “multiple posts per page” format. Again, I know you all like to read the comments on the main page without clicking through, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to exercise that mouse finger. I want to be able to have multiple entries on the front page, which is far and away the standard blog format nowadays.

I don’t have a timeline for this change. I want to say “soon”, but in reality it may be the beginning of August before it occurs. Meanwhile, posting around here may be sporadic. I can’t get the damn blog to work half the time, and that frustrates me.

If you have any requests or suggestions as I prepare for this transition, please let me know.

Dear foldedspace readers,

I’m here today to ask a favor of you. I’ve decided to bring back the discussion forums at Get Rich Slowly. When I launched the blog last April, I also set up a discussion board. It got a little use, but not much. Then the spammers found it. I shut the forums down last fall.

Fast forward to today.

I’m having trouble keeping up with all of the reader questions and suggestions. I’d like to bring the forums back as an avenue for people to seek additional help, and to have other conversations about wealth and happiness. I’m inviting you to help me get these forums started.

There’s not much there now because I’m just getting them off them ground. There are just a few sections at the moment — if needed, I’ll split things in the future. Let me know if there’s anything that could be fixed or made better. And feel free to add lots of threads.

The best way to make the launch of these forums successful is to have it seeded with many topics when I announce their existence to the public, which I plan to do on the site’s first anniversary, April 15th. In the next ten days, I’m hoping that you will help me get some discussions started.

To register, simply follow this link. You’ll also need to use the registration code 0325.

What a gorgeous day. The sun is out. It’s 19 degrees centigrade. (That’s 66 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who home-school your children.) The camellia and magnolia are in bloom. My lawn is newly mowed. The birds and squirrels are chattering while the cats — all four of them — explore the ground below. (Max was amazed — amazed! to see that the back doors allowed him another way in and out of the house.)

I’ve dragged the card table and a couple folding chairs out here onto the porch, so that I can have a real and proper writing table. I’ve been puffing my pipe. I’ve been reading comic strips. I’ve been answering e-mail. In short: life is grand.

And soon Kris will return from Virginia, making things that much better.

Today marks this site’s sixth anniversary. I’d had a site before that, of course, and even an “online journal” (which is what we called them back before they were blogs, back when we coded them by hand). But it was six years ago today that I signed up at some place called Blogger and began my experiment with formalized writing for the web.

That first year was rocky. I didn’t post often. I posted typical “here’s what I ate for breakfast” entries. I worried about the upcoming Lord of the Rings films. (With some cause, as it turns out.) After Septemeber 11th, I went silent for a whole month as I tried to wrap my brain around it. Notable entries from year one:

• First Post
• Toward a Pastoral Lifestyle, in which I yearn for a simpler life
• The Joy of Napster
• Tintin is Dying, in which the Best Cat Ever has mere weeks to live
• Yurting, which describes an outing with Mac and Pam
• The Lure of Digital Photography
• Reconnecting, in which we meet with all the cousins for the first time in more than a decade
• Who Owns the Memories? Blogging is a new type of writing. What can be shared? What remains private?
• Best Hearts Game Ever &mash; in retrospect, this was the pinnacle of a particular period in my life, and this entry documents how much I enjoyed it
• TAG Science, a typical memory post

During the second year, I left Blogger, which at that time was too unstable and inflexible for my liking. I moved to a new platform called Movable Type. It was great! It lived on my own server and offered all sorts of flexibility. Notable posts from this period of 2002-2003 include:

• Frustrated, an entry more notable for what is not said than what is…
• U2: A Love Story
• Star Wars Generation, of which I am a member
• Pet Cemetery, in which I bury another cat and name the fellows he joines…
• Simon comes to live with us
• Animal Intelligence
• adhesive capsulitis — For what seemed like months (but was only days), I had “frozen shoulder”. This entry has become a place for others to gather and share their suffering.
• FC Saints, in which I play city league soccer with Mac, Pam, and Joel
• Herb Nelson is my favorite client ever. I also wrote about him in Herb Nelson and the Autogyro Airplane.
• I gave my spiritual history in Genesis, Exodus, and Revelations.
• Peter Jackson’s Helm’s Deep sucked.
• Beyond the Basics was a photography class I took with Mac
• I shared the recipe for the best clam chowder ever!
• Better Living Through Wireless opens with a very important (and expensive) moment in my life

In retrospect, this blog’s third year was its Golden Age. It had many readers, and they left many comments. I wrote about a lot of things (especially Proust). I had fun. I wrote about a high-school leadership camp. I met Dr. Comic Book Guy. I dreamed I met an old friend (while naked). I fell in love with the iTunes Music Store. Mac, Joel, and I played with a videophone. I meditated on the simplicity movement. I wrote about Dad. Twice. (That last entry is one of my favorites.) I had knee surgery. I went clam-digging. I entered the photo competition at the county fair. I went camping with Mac. I took a writing class from Rick Piet. I started reading the Patrick O’Brian books. (And managed to get me, Joel, and Dave kicked out of a Patrick O’Brian movie.) We endured an ice storm. We spent time in Yakima with Jeremy and Jennifer. I wrote about the malleability of time.

The fourth year began with a bang. I changed the layout to the form you see here today. This layout has served me well. I’ve tried to change it a couple of times, but always you folks have risen in revolt. This year was marked by a sudden change: we bought a new home. Some favorite entries include:

• The Giraffes are Insincere, in which Kris and I join the Gingeriches for a trip to the zoo. And spilled ups of hot chocolate.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spgmffft, in which we do not see a movie
• The cats were active during this fourth year. Toto interviewed me. Simon tasted the blood of a squirrel. They founded Catfight Club.
• I shared Action Girl’s Guide to Living and discussed the tyrrany of choice.
• I went hiking with Andrew, Craig, Tim, and Mac.
• We took an Alaskan cruise.
• I peed of the back porch.
• Proust made another appearance.
• I discovered World of Warcraft.

I retrieved a skunk from under the trailer house.

• I watched the new Battlestar Galactica.
• My camera was stolen, but Joel found it.

During this site’s fifth year, I discovered The Decemberists. I learned that Tuesday is Sno-Ball day. The cats shared a weekend at Rosings Park and were fascinated by a squirrel. I actually shared too much cat. I also shared the golden rules of weblogging. I struggled to get better sleep. My heart was melted by the gin fizz.

And, of course, I wrote the most important entry ever: Get Rich Slowly! Little did I know at the time that this one article would launch my career as a professional blogger. But it did. And it has.

In the fall of 2005, midway through the site’s fifth year, Movable Type died. It suddenly decided that I wasn’t allowed to access my blogs. Nobody could comment. This sucked. Hard. I was forced to start from scratch. Since that day, I’ve been moving old entries over to the new version of the site gradually, but there are still many that cannot accept comments.

The past eighteen months have been up-and-down for me here. I suffered some mild depression, which affected my writing. I started some new blogs, which affected my posting frequency. I tried to move this site to WordPress, but again you folks opposed the change.

Finally, last fall, I found and equilibrium, and since then I’ve tried to return to the same posting schedule and content I had before. I know I haven’t succeeded completely, but I’m trying. For the past few months — and for the forseeable future — my life is Get Rich Slowly, the blog. This is my future. Because I spend so much time at it, I don’t have as much time to live, which means I have less to write about here. But it won’t always be this way.

Check back in another six years. With any luck, foldedspace will be in an other golden age!

It’s been an unusual year for me. Instead of just dreaming, I’ve taken action. I’ve pursued something I love — writing — and I’ve made money at it. This is the year I became a professional blogger.

On the 4th of March, I took the first steps to “monetizing” my web sites. Since then, I have earned $9000 from blogging. In December alone, I earned $2327. These numbers probably shock some of you. They shock me. I had no idea that it was possible to make money from something I loved so much, and yet it’s not only possible to earn money from this, it’s likely that I could make this my full-time job.

I know that foldedspace suffered for several months, but I hope you all understand why I opted to pursue other priorities. I’ve made an effort to return to my old posting habits recently. I’m not back to my old pace yet, but I probably won’t ever return to that until I make the leap to full-time blogger. (Well, I already work full-time hours at this, but most of those are at night and on weekends. Here it is, New Years Eve, and I’ve already written three entries for the coming week.)

In past years, I’ve written capsule summaries of what has come before (2002, 2003). My life was full of statistics: books I’d read, movies I’d seen, and music I’d heard. I still generated plenty of stats to track my progress this year — could I do anything else? — but my focus shifted in a big way. Still, here are some comparitive numbers:

* These numbers are for foldedspace only. The numbers for all my active weblogs (some of which are more active than others):

Animal Intelligence: 30 posts, 23 comments
Get Rich Slowly: 670 posts, 4279 comments
Four Color Comics: 166 posts, 85 comments
Foldedspace: 214 posts, 1754 comments
Total: 1080 posts, 6141 comments

This has been a wonderful year. I feel fulfilled for the first time in ages. My Depression has receded to a background buzz. I attribute this to my newfound purpose in life, and to the assistance of Lauren Muney, my wellness coach. Lauren helped me to confront my self-destructive behavior, and to see that I could make smart choices. The change has been remarkable.

2006 hasn’t been without regrets, however. Kris and I spent less time with friends than in past years, and I feel the lack of companionship keenly. I’ll work to change this in 2007. Also, I feel like the house and yard are beginning ot show ragged edges. I want to spend a little more time maintaining the place. (I always feel this way in winter, though.)

Thanks to all of you who have stuck with foldedspace through the years. I know it’s probably been hard — the content here varies widely depending on my current obsession and my mood. Believe me, though, that it’s readers this worth the effort.

Happy new year and best wishes for 2007.