This domain name was inspired by one of my heroes, Howard Zinn, who said
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now, as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Howard Zinn
I don't quite know what I'm going to do with this site, but I'm presently (June 2010) trying desperately to learn to create websites. So I'm doing what I've often done with computer topics: buy a ton of books. But I'm also doing something I seldom do with computer books: I'm actually reading them. With interest I haven't seen in myself since the last Harry Potter book came out.
So it's February, 2011 now. I'm enrolled in an online class through the San Diego Community College District to learn Microsoft Expression Web. I've also been learning Drupal. And busy as hell with the new Girls Think Tank website. Mostly I'm trying to learn CiviCRM, and my new friend Doug is doing a bang up job on the new Drupal site -- it should be live Monday at www.girlsthinktank.org. Meanwhile, I posted a few photos from Girls Think Tank events and of some homeless people I met one night with Audra of Girls Think Tank, and made a page here, which I'd like to share.
I'm going to throw up a couple of pages I already have and just link to them, and maybe as I write more I'll create some actual menus and such. Nah, eventually this will turn into a Drupal site. For now, I'm going to do it the simple way.
The first one is a page I wrote a couple years ago when I was in a seminar for political campaigns, and they were talking about the voter data available from the government. Since I had just learned how to deal with that as part of the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign, I had some information I thought worth sharing, and put it up in this site.
So here it is again, all about California Voter Data.
The other is a page I started on quite a while ago and don't quite consider finished, but I'm going to throw that one up too.
It's Tips for the New Motorcycle Rider.
I got my first bike 3 years ago, and on June 21, 2007 went out camping around northern California and Oregon for a month. Had to learn a lot by experience, and was lucky enough not to drop the bike in the process. Maybe it will help you avoid some of the stupid mistakes I made.
This is now old news, but in July I went on
And just for Kate and the rest of the GTT webteam, here's a handy manual with more than we ever wanted to know about CiviCRM. I'd email it, but it's too big.
OK, two places. It's supposed to be at
http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm/booki/civicrm/civicrm.pdf
but that link isn't working right now, so in case that's still true, I've put it here and hope the nice people at Floss Manuals don't get mad at me. It's 14.5 Mb so it will take a while to load, but trust me, it's there. Unless I've violated some file size limit on GoDaddy and they've removed it, but it's been there for a few minutes now so I think we're ok.