Rumor has it that several of you (Lisa and Will, for example) have been encountering an error when attempting to access foldedspace recently. I just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, which may have resolved the issue (or it may not have). If you were getting an error, but now are not, could you please let me know?

We held a memorial service for Paul in Eugene yesterday. It was awesome. It was awesome to see so many people gather to celebrate his life. It was awesome to hear their memories of Paul. It was awesome to spend time with other people he had touched.

I know that it’s trite to say, but Paul had an impact on so many people. We all know that he could be a pain in the ass, but this pain-in-the-assness was completely outweighed by the degree to which he improved our lives.

I’m having a hard time writing this morning. I’m a wreck. I’m bawling. Mostly I don’t do that. I handle death as a stoic. Monday was bad, though, and today is off to a rocky start. It’s as if I’ve walled off the grief for a week, put it behind a dam, and now it wants to break out.

Anyhow, I was awed by the gathering last night, and grateful to see so many people. When we sat down, I focused on talking with the people near me, so I didn’t realize how many people were in the room until I walked up front to make my remarks. When I turned around, I was stunned. “Wow,” I said, and I meant it. (I wish I had the presence of mind to pause, to pull out my cell phone, and to take a photo. I want to remember that moment forever.)

There will be another memorial service in Portland next Thursday the 29th at 6:30 pm at Ascension Catholic Church, a fact that would make Paul groan, I’m sure. But this isn’t for Paul — it’s for his family. And it’s for you. If you knew Paul and would like to make your remembrances, you are invited to attend. (If you have questions, contact me or Tom Stewart.)

Oddly, last night was also a fantastic time to meet and become re-acquainted with some of Paul’s other friends. I met Rob for the first time. I got to know Tia and Mariah a little (I went to school with them, but never really knew them). Tom and I had a chance to talk more about our long friendship with Paul. I saw Holly M. for the first time since college, and saw Melissa, too. I didn’t get to bed until after one, but I barely noticed the passing of the previous twelve hours.

I can hardly believe how modest my goals are for today, my first day back working since last Thursday. I have a 10:30 interview with Grist. I need to write a short bio of myself for a book I’m contributing to. And I want to make a mix CD that reminds me of Paul. Three little things. That’s it. Yet I still don’t know if I’ll get them all done.

One thing’s for damn sure: once I’m finished with my upcoming presentations (in mid-February), I’m going to focus on the essentials: writing and friendships. All of this other stuff is just a distraction.

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.