As of September 4th, I am an Automattic “Engineer” (though I sometimes call myself “Consul General of Los Angeles” when I think no one can hear me).

I know what you’re all thinking (“Wait, he’s working at home now? Where will MDA go when he’s slacking off…?”). Allow me to respond to your aggregate thoughts by means of a friendly question and answer section.

What’s Automattic and why can’t it spell?

It’s a company devoted to making things simple on the web. Everyone communicates in some form or another; we want to give people the tools to make that communication easy. We can’t spell because we all grew up with spellcheck making our communication easy.

Hang on, didn’t you start life out as an Engineer?

Yes: Chemical Engineer -> Chemist -> Physicist -> Complexity Theorist -> Engineer (if I may play fast and loose with the labels). I find the whole cyclic nature of that chain a bit disturbing.

What about Caltech? Grad school not your thing?

Grad school is awesome. Yes, things have been a little slow lately, but I still think it’s all very interesting. Maybe this is even better, though. Besides, now I can say I was part of the web when it was still 2.0. (Plus, I wasn’t slated to graduate until 2017, anyway.)

So if you’re not working on amplifying QMA(k) anymore, what will you be doing?

A list parties. Casual disregard for social mores. First class flights from LAX to ONT. You know, typical engineering stuff.

A list parties?

OK, so I’ll be working on bbPress and other Automattic projects. But I will be cultivating a casual disregard for the term “Web 2.0″, if that helps.

Sounds like you’re excited. You do realize this all sounds very 1990′s.

You bet I’m excited. Good People. Good Products. It’s going to be a great year. And, hey, no 90′s bashing. Those were the formative days of my youth!

Created by MapBuilder.net. Click the little red “pushpins” for more information about each of our stops.

The map above should display a few highlighted stops we made along the way: Año Nuevo State Reserve, Natural Bridges State Beach, 17 Mile Drive, and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The short of it is that it turns out highway 1 is gorgeous. For for the long of it, see my flickr photos.

Since we stopped so often, we ended up spending the night in Paso Robles, CA at the Relax Inn. We were looking for something cheap, and we found it. We didn’t realize that the place would also be pretty nice. Comfortable and pleasant looking rooms, free pastries for breakfast and a charming proprietor (you might want to call ahead for the best price). If you’re ever in the area looking for a hotel, the Relax Inn has my recommendation.

More to the point, I finally got to meet Podz and Matt.

For all the readers at home, you can check out the wordcamp flickr photostream.

Update 08.07.2006:

After lunch I went to talks about WordPress MU, server optimization and a really good one on microformats. I also met Ryan, Mark, Andy, and Donncha.

The day was made all the sweeter by the bumping afterparty. By the way, Ryan, your penalty for not attending the postWordCamp bash is to recommend to me a favorite beer of yours.

It airs tonight at 9 (8 central).

Apparently you can see me several times during the show, so watch it and admire my too hot visage.

So I cancelled it, and it was ridiculously easy; no AOL is Amazon [2].

Check out these delightful screen grabs.

Not even a browser refresh between them; just click the button and, a little javascript fade later, it’s all done.

Nice job, Amazon.

Christ, you know it ain’t easy:
too many people to greet.
We should have secretly eloped
Like you in Code Davinci.

Shabbat we had on Friday at dusk
having just settled into our yurt.
We stand in the cold
with friends young and old
The wine made everybody go “yurt!”

Oy, this wouldn’t be easy,
for him who parted the sea.
And Moses he never saw such
long lasting high revelry.

On Saturday we finally had time
to frolic in the sun and relax
We slipped and we slid,
and saw dudes wet and naked.
This Doe Bay policy is sure lax.

Heck, now this is real easy
right here just resting our feet.
Nobody making us think now
(’till Nava wanted to meet).

Mingling at the party on this sunny day
Love Cannon and the Bro having fun
Last night to be free
Ever then to be
a troth built up from chocolate and yum (Think!).

Sunday afternoon we were wed
chuppah over us and the fam.
We stomped on the glass and
made off through the grass and
we finally ran and hid on the lam!

Oh, our life it ain’t easy,
but at least it’s a blast.
This weekend is good fun,
now let’s go see that it lasts.

We dined with our family and friends.
They laughed a good laugh at our expense.
But the beer how it flowed!
The musicians they crowed!
(in their outfits bought that day for two pence)!

They say marriage ain’t easy,
but we’re as pleased as can be.
The way things are going
we’ll ever after happy be.
The way things are going
we’ll ever after happy be.

It’s a really nice place.

Besides the wedding activities, the whale watching trip we all took was the highlight of the weekend.

Saturday morning, we headed to Rosario Resort‘s docks and climbed aboard Deer Harbor Charters‘ whale watching vessel Pelagic. Once aboard, our guide, James, talked about the orca whales’ history and behavior and pointed out other local wildlife (bald eagles, porpoises, seals, etc.) as we cruised out to sea. About an hour and a half after leaving the docks, we spotted our first orcas a hundred meters or so off the boat. Soon we were surrounded by whales, though none was particularly close. When feeding, an orca pod apparently tends to spread out unless one of the whales finds a large group of fish.

We motored around a bit to try and get a better view when a group of about six whales to starbord and aft started swimming (quickly) right toward us. Every ten seconds or so, a few whales would surface: each time a little closer. Finally, one whale surfaced about eight meters from the boat. Everyone scrambled to take pictures, but a feeding orca is not above water for very long. Just after it resubmerged, two more whales surfaced literally within one meter of the boat and dove underneath us. We saw them up close and, man, are orcas big.

After that, those several whales hung around us for five or ten minutes; we were apparently right above their chosen fish. I got a couple pictures but nothing as spectacular as being there in person. Hopefully someone else was a better shot.

The tour lasted about three and a half hours (Allen said he had the Gilligan’s Island theme stuck in his head the whole time) and was a lot of fun.

That afternoon, we drove up to the top of Mount Constitution in Moran State Park. My great grandfather was in charge of the CCC‘s construction of the stone tower at the peak of the mountain, so it was something of a familial pilgrimage. The view from the top is spectacular, and we could see tiny little whale watching boats down on the water. Indeed, with binoculars, we could see the whales the boats were watching!

Seeng whales from two feet was more exciting than seeing whales from two thousand feet, but both were a lot of fun.

On the abstract level, dressing up to go out to a club in LA sounds really lame. But in practice, Bar Sinister was a wholly unlame experience in part because the dress is themed and not just ‘typical LA trendy’ but mostly because the venue is just plain awesome.

The evening started with the nails. Michelle kindly offered to paint mine black, so there they were. Black fingernails. I still have them painted right now, and, let me tell you, they’re pretty distracting as I type. Little scarabs dancing around my keyboard. I then donned all my black non-t-shirt clothing (sans the trench coat and cum the dragon shirt of Paul.za’s (I’ll totally wash it, Paul.za, before you get back)), slicked back my hair with a pint of gel and at least an acre foot of hairspray, pulled it back into a pony tail (which Michelle and I dubbed “the Westley”) and stepped out into the bleak and Stygian night, lady in hand.

I considered wearing the red High-Life hat, but figured my first gothic bar experience should be as “traditional” as possible. Maybe next time.

After meeting up with our fellow night crawlers, we drove to the club, payed our blood dues and walked in. The inside was divided into four main sections. You enter into the stage area. There were a couple bands of good quality playing, though not receiving too much energy from the crowd. Perhaps that’s what it is to be playing at a goth bar: wailing away while the crowd amorally considers some fathomless eschaton, watches the original Nosferatu being projected above the stage, and drinks Newcastle of all things.

As you enter deeper into the club, you encounter the main bar and the dance floor (complete with hired dancing girls on platforms). The decor is exactly what you’d expect: dark, riddled with iconography and polka dotted with stone fountains, fog-machined, candle lit (even real ones in places). It is also quite pleasant. Cushy red benches and good ambiance lighting that manages to be quite subtle relative to the physical decorations.

All the people with whom I interacted were highly accepting and most downright nice (don’t tell anyone though, it might damage their image). The music, being spun from a balcony above, was rave-ish and loud (I am incredibly ignorant about different styles of techno and its otherwise electronica brethren). I found it fun to listen to, but difficult to dance to for the first half of the evening. Whether my eventual change of heart was due to a DJ change or my white boy self finally loosening up a bit as the night crept on, I don’t know.

Speaking of dancing, I managed to get a little freaky with the club-goer-of-honor (don’t tell Michelle). I mean, a birthday’s a birthday.

The final area of the club is the infamous and, to some, lascivious upstairs. From incomplete descriptions, I had expected to see various acts of oral sex and bondage with a healthy mix of heroin shootings once I ventured upstairs. And maybe some kinky, post-industrial futuristic themed twister. Wanting to see just how weird of an experience it would be, I walked upstairs but encountered a very different atmosphere than the one I had hypothesized: no oral sex, no drugs. No genitals or illegal activities at all, in fact. And the closest thing to goth twister was a kinky video along the lines of a powers of ten style view of some hot girls.

There was some bondage, though; thank goodness. I was beginning to think there wasn’t anything kinky enough to make the trip upstairs truly unique.

A happy dominatrix strapped in a willing “victim” to some sort of wooden S&M contraption and started whipping her with a leather, multi-tailed flogger. Afterwards they laughed and hugged and continued their respective evenings: the victim to the pleasures of the night, the dominatrix to the next client. Oh, and there was a pleasant transsexual couple engaged in some pretty intense spanking exercise.

Our party declined to participate directly, but we watched and filed the experience away under the “something to tell your grandkids” heading. Of course, to our grandkids the story may well seem staid and prudish.

All and all, Bar Sinister was a pretty happening place. I’d definitely go back.