DaveNet 1997: Life
I want to go skiing more often. Getting out and on top of a mountain is a good way to eliminate distractions. 1/31/97.Don't let people use children as an excuse to deprive people of their power to express themselves. 2/5/97.
Listening is still a precious commodity. Nothing's changed there. If you want to make a contribution to making the world a better place, please listen to someone today, tomorrow -- every day. Have the courage to let them exceed your expectations. 2/9/97.
Boca Raton is a ghost town and Nicolae Ceausescu is dead. We beat both of them! Ye-ha. 2/14/97.
So have a happy Valentine's Day, all you lovers out there in InternetLand! 2/14/97.
The free channels are beating out pay channels in lots of areas. I believe they will always will, even after a shakeout. The free web is a reality. It's disrespectful to ignore it, yet that is what the money is trying to do. 2/27/97.
Honey let's play tonight? 2/27/97.
Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years. 3/3/97.
When the web is most eloquent it captures a story, tells it in a revealing way, and leaves you informed or inspired or touched, and wanting to know more. 3/3/97.
I look at my software friends and I see a band. 3/22/97.
The Internet isn't a platform, it's a rebellion. This epiphany is well-documented in the early issues of DaveNet. It's still true today, even though we're looping thru FUD and NIH once again. The cursor will loop around to rebelliousness again, I'm sure of it. Too many head-trips to be sustained much longer, I think. 3/22/97.
Hey it smells cheesy out back, where the bee traps are still holding their catches from last summer. The cheesy smell comes from a fertilizer that I applied earlier in the week. Powerful stuff! As cheesy as it smells today, it will be just as fragrant in a few weeks when the jasmine and roses and sweet peas are in bloom. 3/28/97.
Even when a newspaper is on the web we'll still call it a paper. Just like we still go to the movies, long after the novelty of movement has worn off. Go for a ride in an automobile! What other kind of mobile is there? It's funny! 3/28/97
When I get into a groove on a song, I repeat it over and over while I'm writing. A finite loop! The song repeats until the piece is finished. Believe it or not, when I edit the piece, I change the cadence of the words, in places, to follow the rhythm of the music. The goal is to delight people who play the music while reading the piece, as if we were dancing together. 4/9/97
White picket fences are great medicine! 4/16/97
We reveal a lot about who we are thru writing. The facts hardly matter, it's how one parses them that reveals so much. A divorce is a way of speaking about yourself. So is a platform war. Who cares what the names are, it's the themes that are interesting. 5/2/97
I think each of us has a kernel, under all the layers of experience and pain, that's ageless and perfect. Some people call this a heart, the organ that pumps blood thru our bodies. Others call it a spirit, the essence of the person. 5/2/97
Life can make you lighter if you let it. When your body dies you're going to let go of everything. Wheee! Can we have fun now? It's easy... Just forget something. After that, forget something else! 5/2/97
The paradox of life. Go inward and there's an infinite amount to perceive, and no time to perceive it. Go outward and the local infinity seems insignificant. It's impossible for our biological computers to grok the enormity of it. 5/5/97
When a friend changes you can find the bond that's connecting you at a deeper level. The surface stuff isn't a good thing to depend on. Physical bodies change as they grow. So do emotional bodies and intellectual ones. Take a deep breath. People move, life is more like a wild dance than a ceremony. You just can't tell what's coming next. 5/7/97
I've learned a lot. I dig fertile holes, plant flowers that will probably not get eaten by snails and slugs. I've learned what plants like what spots. I've got a great snapdragon spot. My roses are working. Roses are the best! 5/19/97
A better message for young people is that there is no mathematical formula that allows ranking of whole human beings, that everyone is great, including you. It could save them years of learning that on their own. To be a happy adult, I think, you have to appreciate the greatness all around you, including other people, including yourself. The self-centered approach of childhood gets ugly and smelly as it grows old. To have fun, to make a difference, you have to smell the roses. Really smell them! 6/2/97
The peaches I grow taste better than the ones you buy in the store. I experience this as nutrition, as opposed to fill. Food instead of sludge. Steinbeck writes about food and land and people, but the lessons apply equally to the late 1990s, but now we're fighting for the nourishment of human intellect, feelings and ideas, instead of mere food. 6/2/97
We live in sludge! 6/2/97
You can make great goosebumps with just a 14.4K line. 6/11/97
In our best moments, this is what being a man is about -- taking risks, falling down, getting up and laughing at our good fortune. 6/20/97
The Internet gets free speech! Yahoo! 6/26/97
The web is a free medium. Could we use the web to revolutionize the political system in the United States? Technologically it's totally within our grasp. Could we somehow get our fellow citizens to care about freedom? That's the real challenge. 6/27/97
But there are unusual smells, like incense, that only come when dry hot dust gets wet. You never get those smells from northeastern summer rain, so they're new smells for me. The air is just full of these smells right now. I totally dig it. 6/30/97
Ye-hi is what cowboys shout when they're happy! 7/2/97
Jimmy Stewart played the dreamy American idealist. He stood up and fought and won. He made love to Katherine Hepburn and Donna Reed. Some of the best movie lines ever! They really get to you. 7/2/97
Before you click on the Send button, call a friend and tell them why you're upset. Someone who knows you, who will listen to you. Your brother or sister, wife or husband, girlfriend or boyfriend, therapist or golf partner. Get heard. Open your heart. Let it out. After that, if you still have something to say to me, let's hear it. Thanks! 7/17/97
Carl you're my brother. I love your passion. I love what you do. I agree, let's be nice to each other. Let's enable each other's creativity instead of paralyzing each other in fear. I'll keep saying what I have to say, and I'll keep listening to you. That's what friendship and brotherhood are all about. 7/21/97
I've found a secret formula that helps steer a conversation into safe territory. I ask the writer who he or she is. Where does your passion come from? 7/25/97
My goal is to wake people up. 8/28/97
If you don't know what respect is, take a deep breath, and call a friend and listen to carefully and really hear them. The more you don't want to hear from the person, the deeper the respect you will experience. 9/10/97
Save everyone some time. Start your empassioned email with a short paragraph on who you are and what you do. Keep it plain. 9/10/97
What if there were a ceremony on the birth of a child, in which the parent pledged, in spoken and written words, to love, honor and respect the child, in sickness and in health, till death do us part? 9/17/97
I'm a man yes I am. 9/22/97
Advertising is not merchandising. It can be, but advertising at its best and its most interesting can simply tell you who they are. 10/2/97
This is the 452nd piece. 10/7/97
I just tell what I want you to know. 10/7/97
At one point Shafer asked if we all really disliked what the presenter was saying. I offered a suggestion. "Dan, maybe we just like to make noise?" Everyone laughed. 10/17/97
Oh I know this sounds drippy, but what the heck. It was such a happy party! Everyone seemed to be in love with me. I just spooned it out in huge scoops, and it was delicious! 10/24/97
I've become a full-time Windows user. 11/3/97
The next time you're standing at a curb waiting for a light to change, notice which foot you step out with . You'll probably see that it's always the same foot. With me it's my right foot. 11/3/97
Thanksgiving is a positive holiday. The glass is half full! A fire in the fireplace, a full belly, the people who raised you, or who you grew up with, or who you're raising, close by. A chance to look them in the eye, raise a glass, and say thanks. 11/25/97
Empowerment is my big word for 1997 and maybe 1998. 12/7/97
On Canada Appreciation Day we look to the north, and thank the better half of North America for putting up with our self-centered approach for so long. We ask them how we could do better. And we listen! We try to imagine what life would be like without Canada, and be glad that we don't have to find out. 12/7/97
It's traditional in some families to wait until parents die before becoming friends with our siblings. I've seen this happen in my own family and others. My hope is that you don't have to repeat this in your lives. I want you to know that you can be free no matter what your parents do or say. You can be friends! 12/7/97
I got new glasses today! 12/23/97
What do I hope for in 1998? Friendship, empowerment, self-acceptance and self-love. Lots of new adventures, new growth, and no fear. A happy garden with lots of beautiful roses and no friggin deer! Most important of all -- happy friendships grounded in reality. 12/24/97
Maybe I should switch back to the old kind of glasses? 12/27/97
