So, long time no post. I was going to talk about one of the things I've been working on, which is IPv6. This'll take a little bit of background explanation, so if you're already tech savvy and know all about IPv6 just bear with me.

You probably have at least some idea of how the Internet works. Virtually every computer or device connected to the Internet (or just about any computer network really) is assigned an address, known as an "Internet Protocol" (or IP) address. These IP addresses are usually represented by a string of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by dots, like 74.134.239.209. Computers on a network send packets of information much like you or I would address a letter. The packet is addressed with the number of the computer that it wants to send the information to (like a web browser requesting a copy of a webpage) and sends the packet on its way. That packet makes its way to the target computer, which reads the information and puts it to whatever use was intended (like processing the correct webpage and sending it back to the web browser). Exciting, eh?

The version of the Internet Protocol that we use is known as version 4, and has been in use since 1981, and has worked well. However, we are in perilous danger of exhausting the total number of unique address numbers available. There are only 4,294,967,296 unique addresses available using the current standard. This might seem like a lot, but consider that it is not even close to as many addresses are there are people in the world (~6.5 billion). Now think of how many Internet-connected computers and devices there are in the world, each of which possess one or more IP addresses. Furthermore, there are millions of those addresses which are reserved for special purposes, like private networks, multicasting, and other network-architecture related functions. So our available address space suddenly seems quite small. In fact, current estimates of address exhaustion place the time that we run our of unique addresses at sometime in the first half of the year 2010, at which point without a solution architectural growth of the Internet will come to a halt. This situation is what is known in technical terms as Not Good.

Enter IPv6. IPv6 is the next version of the Internet Protocol (IPv5 was an experimental streaming protocol that was designed to complement IPv4 but was never used). In the words of Bill Nye, IPv6 is Really Bigly Hugely Big. The address space is so large (2^128 addresses) that it's difficult to even adequately describe, so I'll attempt to do so with a series of metaphors I found on Wikipedia and elsewhere. IPv6 has roughly 50 octillion addresses (a 5 with 28 zeros after it) for each person on Earth. If the population of the Earth were 18 quintillion, there would be about 18 quintillion addresses for each of them. If the IPv4 address space were the volume of an iPod, then the IPv6 space would be the size of the entire Earth. I especially like this one: there are a million times as many IPv6 addresses as there are IPv4 addresses...for each star in the known universe.

So you get the idea. IPv6 is big, and should last us for a while. It also solves a lot of problems that IPv4 has introduced. In order to stave-off address exhaustion, various network technologies have been introduced which break the end-to-end nature of the Internet. Originally, the intent was for the Internet to be the great non-hierarchical redundant network, with every single Internet-connected computer (or "Host") with an unbroken two-way path to every other host. However, technologies like Network Address Translation (NAT) have been introduced which allow hosts to share "public" (visible to the rest of the Internet) addresses. This is why if you've ever looked at the network settings on your laptop when you're out at a café or something, your address always seems to be 192.168.blah.blah or something similar (maybe 172.16.blah.blah). These are addresses set aside for "private networks," which are networks which are never visible to the rest of the Internet. Probably the café only has one IP, which it shares with all of its clients. The end-to-end path is broken, because a set of hosts are behind a hierarchical structure made by NAT. Often there is a similar situation at home, where all clients of an ISP are behind the ISP's NAT. This makes it difficult if not impossible for you to publish content to the Internet without utilizing third-party services and websites, or paying ISPs extra money for "business class" services on top of what you pay for bandwidth.

What's more, that one address is probably "dynamic" rather than "static." That means that the café's Internet Service Provider (and probably your ISP at home) assigns an address to them dynamically from a common pool as they become available. Why is this a problem? Well, it's not, unless you want to provide content, like a website. A protocol called Domain Name Service (or DNS) assigns human readable addresses (like ctcvista.org) to IP addresses (like 208.113.151.31) based on a database of those pairings. If ctcvista.org had a dynamic address, then if the ISP decided to change it to 208.113.151.32, ctcvista.org would no longer point to the right place and no one would be able to find the website. This means that in order to have a website, people have to pay hosting providers for space on computers that have expensive static IPs that don't change.

Still with me? Okay, so IPv6 can solve these problems by assigning a public, static IP to every device on Earth. However, who gets to assign the addresses? Currently, all the IP addresses on Earth are assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). IANA delegates that responsibility to organizations in charge of large geographical areas. So all of the addresses in North America are assigned by the American Registry of Internet Names and Numbers (ARIN). ARIN allocates ranges of IP address numbers called "blocks" to qualifying organizations, mainly large ISPs. This makes sense in a way, because ISPs provide the connectivity and it is architecturally simplest for the assigned numbers to reflect the actual structure of the networks that make up the Internet.

However, there are a large number of community projects that require a large number of addresses but don't fit into the established model. These are projects like community networks, municipal wireless networks, community technology centers, and community-run ISPs. These groups are often short on cash but need a large number of addresses for all of their computers, devices, and members. But even though there are a huge number of addresses available, they still have to pay an arm and a leg to go through the large ISPs that maintain a stranglehold on the address space as if it were still running out.

So, finally, enter my organization, Acorn. Acorn is working with ARIN to do two things:
1. Get a large allocation of addresses that Acorn can then hand out to community projects that need them without them having to go through the big ISPs.
2. Change the policy so that in the future any other organization can do the same thing.

Number one is accomplished. Acorn's been awarded a /32 block, which is 2^92 addresses. Billions and billions, to say the least. Now we're working on a policy proposal for early next year which, if ratified, will set up a procedure for other community organizations to get their own IP addresses to provide services to the people in their neighborhoods without having to go through the ISPs for anything but connectivity. Hopefully with this work, we can make the Internet become a better, fairer place like it was intended to be before the critical date in 2010 before IPv4 runs out.

So I hope that this is a fairly straightforward explanation while still being accurate. I'm far from being the world's foremost expert on Internet architecture, so if I got any points wrong feel free to correct me.

Comment from Morgan Sully on November 30, 2007 - 5:49pm

Josh,
this is a GREAT article! Breaks IPv6 down without a lot of jargon while still tying the importance of our CTC work. A+

Would you mind if I submit this to the NAMAC website (where I work with media arts centers)?

It's really well written.

m

Comment from Josh King on November 30, 2007 - 10:36pm

Sure Morgan, I'm glad you liked it. If I get more positive feedback I might stick it on the ctcvista.org wiki, too.
--
Josh King, Acorn Active Media Foundation (http://www.acornactivemedia.com)

Comment from Jack Waugh on December 4, 2007 - 7:29pm

Yes, this is a great explanation and I think the link to this page should be published as widely as possible in the nonprofit world, as well as in any fora frequented by people interested in technology and in the social implications of the directions of technology's evolution.

Hello Folks,
I have been making some progress with the HELP Drupal web site. The test site is at http://wcni.helpofojai.org . I managed to get tinyMCE working and loaded the Nice Menu module and a few pics. I may call upon you Drupal folks for some help after all the basic site info is input.
I have some time before the PC lab opens again and we start doing classes to work on the site

Comment from Kevin Palmer on November 27, 2007 - 12:31pm

Hey Jim,
Great to hear you're getting the hang of Drupal. It took me two weeks of being locked away in a room with no windows to understand Drupal (definitely not a programmer by training). The site looks great so far.

Comment from Morgan Sully on November 30, 2007 - 3:02pm

Man, Kevin did it in two weeks? Took me about a month to get the basics down. And I'm still learning cool stuff. The only difference now, is that i know which modules do what and a am a little better at figuring out how to leverage which modules in conjunction with each other to work/achieve what my org wants.

I went at checked out the site Jim and it looks GREAT. SUCH a huge difference over the old one AND built by a Drupal 'newbie'. Certainly don't hesitate to drop us a line individually here at HQ with questions you may have - we're all big Drupal geeks here. Of course, don't underestimate the knowledge of your fellow VISTAs too. Many of them are also Drupalistas and may be able to answer your questions more quickly on the listserv than by us via individual email.

rock on,
m

Hi Everyone,

So I'm going to continue being good and write a second update report.

When do you finally settle in to an organization? This question is more rhetorical than anything else. I think I'll still be settling until my last day there. Either that or it will remain unsettled. Who knows?

In the wake of my supervisor leaving, it has left everything more helter-skelter than usual. (By the way, I hate helter-skelter things with a burning passion.) This has resulted in me being the bug-fixer for the new website which has given me victories such as modifying my first PHP doc to quandaries such as being expected to modify an RSS feed in that same doc.

I had a good talk with my boss last Monday about being 5 months into the program and what I expected out of the next 7 months. I told her all of the tasks that I had been assigned (some of which she was unaware of) and how I could only put in 40 hours a week since I don't have an internet connection at my apartment yet. (I know that we are only supposed to work 40 hours a week and I'm behind that all of the way, but it's good to have some flexibility in that as well as the option to work extra if you want to.)

One of my big contentions with the talk was that I wanted to make sure that I was making finished products and adding to my technical skillset. The latter makes almost obvious sense professionally as well as personally. The former element has those as well, but there is also a morale element at work, as well. It takes away from your will to work if you don't have something that you can proudly say you did. I'm guessing this is a big issue in the nonprofit world, but I don't want that to prevent me from having the best possible experience with my organization that I can have.

When you're assigned to work with an organization, you can't expect them to take you by the hand, set you at a desk, and guide you along the way to work for a better tomorrow (or whatever). You have to pull yourself along and take a more active role in it than you might have thought originally. There is not only the work. There is also the value of it and the negotiations of managing where you work, how you work, who you work with, what you work on, what you get out of your work, etc. etc. (Let's not even mention the stuff that you have to deal with outside of your work.) That's some serious multitasking and also one of the biggest challenges I've faced being a VISTA.

So here I am, typing in my report at the Chicago Public Library by my house and thinking about what I need to do now and what I want to do later. It can get a little daunting, but I'm doing things little by little so it doesn't get overwhelming. I'm getting stuff done, tomorrow is another day, and all that jazz.

Comment from Kevin Palmer on November 27, 2007 - 12:58pm

Hey Karl,
Sounds like you're negotiating the telecommuniting aspect of your job pretty well. Any chance you'd like to contribute an article-style description of some pointers and how-to's of successful telecommuting/multitasking for a field survival guide for CTC VISTA's? Enjoy the library and good luck getting a connection at your place!

Disclaimer: The following CTC*VISTA work product requires several hours per week of grueling 1-on-1 meetings with super-opinionated people, endless hours of preparation for grant reports, and a schedule that is nearly impossible to share with any other VISTA project. Do not try this at home...(or a host org without an incredibly supportive staff!)

CCTV’s NeighborMedia project, your latest source of Cambridge news and information, has a mission: to foster the type of participatory atmosphere that’s been created by bloggers and YouTubers all around the world. That means our group of citizen journalists want to hear from you about the issues they’re exploring. Click on the NeighborMedia video channel at any time to read their stories, watch their videos, and find out how to get involved!

In the month of October, our citizen journalists generated a plethora of stories not covered in the mainstream media. Now, it's a brand new month, and that means new stories are being posted each and every week. Here are a couple of the best to give you a taste of what's to come:

In East Cambridge, our correspondents are investigating the role of the Mirant Corporation in the construction of a new boardwalk on the Broad Canal. If you have a stake in this issue, attend the November 8th BZA meeting and let your voice be heard.

In the Agassiz neighborhood,the future of Shady Hill Square is in dispute. Give our North Cambridge correspondent your two cents!

The above is from a recent blog entry at cctvcambridge.org and is meant to be a tool to help us use digital media for community organizing. Please disregard the fact that the digital media itself is at a minimum, as we are still in the early phases of the project.

In late October, I flew out to San Jose to attend the MuniWireless '07 Silicon Valley conference. As a VISTA I run a project that provides free wireless Internet access to low-income residents of subsidized housing in Boston's South End neighborhood. Ours is not so much a municipal wireless project as a community wireless project, a distinction that the conference helped me understand, but nonetheless, those of us interested in building smaller-scale "grassroots" networks designed to serve smaller communities such as housing developments can learn a great deal from the MuniWireless experience.

1. What is the purpose of municipal wireless and how is it different than community wifi efforts?

High-speed Internet access is and will continue to have a transformative impact on our economy analogous to that of the Interstate Highway System after it was built in the '50s. Eisenhower sold the expensive highway project to the American public as a military necessity, a solution to the military's difficulties transferring masses of troops and equipment across a vast country during wartime. However, although promoted as a military project, the highways were of course used to carry all sorts of traffic, from passenger cars to 18-wheeler trucks. By changing the way Americans traveled and moved goods, the highways also led to major changes in the way we lived and conducted business.

Ubiquitous access to broadband may have an analogous impact. Voice and video communications can be encoded into data and transmitted via the Internet. The days when we could purchase TV service from a cable company or a satellite company and telephone service from a phone company are over. One company can provide each family with a high-speed connection capable of carrying telephone calls, TV service, and Internet access all at once.

Yet many technologists worry that broadband penetration in the United States is lagging behind other industrialized countries. One cause for this is the relative lack of competition in the American broadband market. In America, consumers can choose between a cable company and a phone company when it comes to access, and this duopoly leads to higher prices and lower speeds relative to the rest of the world. According to a study published two years ago, a 100Mbps connection in Japan cost $22 a month, while a 26Mbps connection in France cost the equivalent of $36 monthly. Today, I pay about $25 a month for a 768Kbps connection at my home in Boston.

Municipal wireless can provide an alternative to the cable/DSL duopoly for a city or region. Installing wireless radios is much cheaper than laying down fiber. Both MuniWIreless and community wireless efforts take advantage of this fact, and both seek to alleviate the "digital divide", which arises when low-income populations cannot afford the high price of broadband access. However, the primary distinctions between MuniWireless and community wireless is that municipal efforts seek to provide ubiquitous access for a large area (or at least for the outdoors areas as we'll discuss later) and to deploy infrastructure that will enable them to compete with existing Internet Service Providers. Community wireless projects serve much smaller communities, such as housing developments or individual buildings, rather than wide areas. Such small-scale efforts typically buy and redistribute inexpensive Internet connections from the same companies municipal networks seek to undercut.

One important characteristic of WiFi, the technology now in use for both MuniWireless and community wireless projects, is that it has a relatively weak signal. Unlike, say, shortwave radio, which can be transmitted across the globe, WiFi can be flaky. It doesn't travel through walls very well. As a result, municipal wireless projects have found that guaranteeing access inside buildings is prohibitively expensive, and many projects now aim to reach only up to the windows of a building, although users of the network can deploy repeaters to enhance the signal enough to provide indoor coverage. Community WiFi efforts, by contrast, typically aim to provide access throughout a building, so that resident's can connect to the network from their desktop or laptop computers.

2. What is the state of the municipal wireless market?

The conference I attended was titled "industry at a crossroads", and this was probably putting it politely. One presenter noted that his mother doesn't understand what he does for a living, but she feels bad for him as a result of all of the recent bad press about municipal wireless projects falling apart. Over the summer, some of the largest projects in the country, including those in Chicago and San Francisco were cancelled, scaled back or otherwise reevaluated.

There are a number of reasons for the recent stumbles. A new technology called WiMax will provide far greater improvements in wireless power and range when it debuts to the public in the next few years, and nobody wants to spend millions building a network that might be obsolete soon. Additionally, there are legitimate questions about whether public-sector projects should be competing with private-sector telecommunications companies, concerns that are beyond the scope of this article.

The biggest stumbling block at this point, however, is that providing ubiquitous WiFi coverage, while still less expensive than deploying wired infrastructure, can cost $100,000 to $300,000 a square mile, and without strong a business case demonstrating how the investment will pay off, funders have been hesitant to commit millions of dollars. Politicians have been eager to promise free or cheap broadband access to the public, but with Internet Service Providers already notorious for their slim margins, it is difficult to see how municipal projects can recoup their initial costs while undercutting ISPs on price and living up to the lofty civic goals that accompany public projects, such as providing open access to all partners.

I firmly believe that digital inclusion projects will have positive economic benefits in the long term. By providing free WiFi in the South End, we are enabling an underserved community to become technology users for the first time, helping to create a market that did not exist before. Unfortunately, the exact economic and social impact of what we are doing is amorphous and difficult to quantify. It is very shaky ground on which to base the rationale for building a multimillion dollar public project.

That's why digital inclusion, when it was mentioned at all during the MuniWireless conference, always seemed to be the last item on everyone's agenda. The industry has very quickly shifted to a new sales pitch for municipal wireless networks. Now, the idea is to use this new infrastructure to improve public safety and to reduce the cost of delivering municipal services. Specifically, a wireless network can be a platform for video surveillance cameras to monitor high-crime neighborhoods. Auditory sensors, such as the SpotShotter technology currently being deployed in Dorchester, can be placed around a neighborhood and can alert police when a gun is fired. The sensors are advanced enough to distinguish between a firecracker, a pistol and a rifle, pinpoint the exact location of the shot, and swivel cameras towards the scene, so that police will already have reviewed live video of the location in their cars before they arrive. A second, less exciting application, involves enabling municipal employees such as cops and building inspectors to submit reports from wireless devices out in the field, so they never have to waste time traveling to and from the office. It has always been easier to fund anti-crime projects than anti-poverty projects, making the first scenario far more attractive to funders than using a wireless network to ease the digital divide. The second scenario, offers municipalities an easy means of calculating the potential financial windfall that a wireless network will provide, and, in contrast to digital inclusion ideas that promise to increase economic activity in the future, that windfall comes directly from the city's budget.

The ambitious wireless projects that are deployed over the next few years, will be funded principally by an "anchor tenant", namely a government bureaucracy interested in using the network to achieve specific goals, such as improved public safety, or lower costs of providing civic services. But just as the Interstate Highway System was sold to the public as a defense project, but ended up carrying primarily civilian traffic, there is no reason to believe that municipal wireless networks, once deployed, cannot be useful for digital inclusion, increasing broadband penetration, and other purposes.

3. How should community groups interested in digital inclusion approach municipal wireless projects?

Non-profits and other community wireless projects should not see municipal wireless as a competitor, but as a platform for us to build on. When a municipal wireless network is built, the role of community wireless developers should be to deploy inexpensive technology that takes the municipal networks signal from the street and deliver it into the apartments of our constituents. A citywide effort of business leaders will quickly lose sight of the needs of underserved communities, which are inexpensive Internet access combined with inexpensive computer training and computer repair services provided by members of the community to their peers.

The HUD "Community Technology Centers" serve as an extraordinary resource for municipal networks. These institutions are already providing the necessary skills training, equipment donation and repair programs that will enable poor users to take advantage of municipal wireless networks. Because the infrastructure will already have been paid for by the anchor tenant, municipal network operators should be able to provide excess bandwidth at little or no cost to community groups, eliminating the need for those organizations to buy bandwidth from ISPs. The costs of providing access will then become so inexpensive (say $50 per family for a $100 router that can serve four families as well as other infrastructure, repair and training programs) that with a little grant money, community wireless groups should be able to achieve self-sufficiency with a combination of low access fees (say $5 a month) and advertising that is conducted in a tasteful and unobtrusive manner. These are of course back of the envelope calculations, but even if municipal networks refuse to provide free or cheap access to non-profits, their very existence will still help by forcing ISPs to lower broadband prices.

In the end, if municipalities and their partners can justify the cost of building municipal wireless networks, then non-profits, underserved communities and the public as a whole will be able to benefit from telecommunications infrastructure that is owned by the public and intended to be utilized for the public good.

(I intend on writing another blog post later to discuss the lessons that non-profits and community groups can take away from the muniwireless experience).

Comment from Morgan Sully on November 7, 2007 - 10:20pm

Hey Gabriel,
Morgan here from NAMAC. this is a great write up of your experiences at the MuniWireless conference. Do you have any pictures to accompany your post? are there any links to some of the reports you mention?

When I was a VISTA the San Diego community technology coalition, I compiled some reports on the digital divide and municipal broadband.

You can view the reports here: http://del.icio.us/sdctc

In the meantime, would you be interested in submitting your field report to either NAMAC or the next VISTA newsletter (or both)?

I think some accompanying pictures could be helpful for illustrating a bit of what you're talking about too.

Comment from Gabriel Fishman on November 7, 2007 - 11:07pm

Thanks for the compliment.

I'd be happy to submit it to either NAMAC or CTC VISTA, or both, whichever you think is appropriate. I didn't take any photos at the conference, but I'm sure that I can find appropriate pictures or graphics to illustrate. I didn't really know how to footnote the blog post, so I didn't bother, but I can definitely do that for publication.

Just let me know what the process and the deadline is.

Last week, I returned from NAMAC's 2007 conference in Austin: The Frontier is Here. Being a dilettante professional relatively new to the field, this conference was a great view from the frontier. From meeting other media makers and supporters from the ‘old school’ to hanging out with fellow VISTAs working at NAMAC’s member organizations, I was thoroughly ecstatic to have attended. In going forth with my work here at NAMAC, I feel better informed as their new Online Community Manager.

NAMAC Youth by jazminrjones
One thing I was particularly sensitive to, was the intergenerational engagement between those from the ‘old school’ and those from the ‘new school’. While there were many people throughout the conference who had been involved with media far longer than I (some nearly thirty years!) there was a good portion of young people there under twenty. Many of the panels and workshops that the youth presented on were attended mainly by other youth – not as many other, more seasoned professionals. It would have been nice to have more intergenerational ambassadors to bridge dialogue between the two, perhaps provide some context and mentorship. I myself am in my late 20s and did my best to connect some of the VISTAs (mostly in their mid-twenties) to other people at the conference as well as each other.

Only Morgan Loves Me in the Pink Kiddie Hat (thanks for the pic Danielle!)

Meeting up with the other VISTAs was excellent and our panel went well. We even had a personal endorsement at the end of our panel from Jack Walsh, co-director at NAMAC. When I’ve met-up with VISTAs in the past regardless of what state, organization or project they’re from, there’s always been an uncanny feeling of camaraderie. The unique communal support that the CTC VISTA Project provides its members is priceless - both professionally and personally. Ben Sheldon (now Acting Director of the CTC VISTA Project) in his characteristic salty style, was professionally spot on and attentive with his polished schpiel about the project throughout the conference. Danielle (Martin) –the unofficial CTC VISTA queen mother – was as supportive as ever to organizations with questions as well as some of the other presenters on the panel. Her being there on the panel reminded me a bit of when I was in grade school and forgot my lines during a play – I was fortunate enough in that my co-star had some of the lines memorized much better than me, whispering them to me as I stood in that bright, naked spotlight.

One panel that I found particularly engaging was the panel on place-based media. For this panel, the presenters discussed the relationship and responsibility that media makers in rural and urban contexts have to their communities. Being a media maker myself and having lived in both contexts I felt excited to participate in the dialogue that the panel opened up. In the discussions that followed, conversations about class, race and community stewardship as the context for mediating between these sites was nothing less than fascinating. I really enjoyed talking with other media-making ‘in-betweeners’ afterwards.

Me jamming with Michelle Mayer (thanks again for this pic too Danielle!)

I must say that the highlight for me was an improvised performance with one of the installation artists at the conference. At midnight in the conference ballroom, I met with Austin-based video artist Michelle Mayer for an impromptu audio/video jam. Michelle connected her laptop up to the ballroom projector, while I plugged mine in to the main PA. Using nothing but the built-in mic for my laptop and the live, on-site recordings generated from this, I created rhythmic textures for Mayer to ‘dialogue’ with me using her own library of original and sampled video. Mayer had an amazing fluency with her manipulations and was an utter joy to perform with.

I feel the collaboration succinctly captured what the conference was all about: creating, engaging and acting.

Hello Everyone,

Its been awhile since my last field report, I seem to keep forgetting about writing my reports. It kind of gets lost in the shuffle of the assignments I get from my organization. Anyway, I just recently attend the She's Geeky (un) conference in Mountian View, CA. The conference was for women working in the field of technology. I got to meet a lot of people outside of the nonprofit tech world such as, google reps, yahoo reps, and AOL reps. It was awesome I even got free public speaking training from acting and speech prof. from UC Berkley. Its amazing how much I learned in 3hrs, needless to say this session was very effective. On another note life at Grassroots.org is pretty good, I will keep everyone updated.

Hi Everybody,

This is my first post since...well...my actual first post. Lots has happened to me including a few trips and two moves. I've marked a time to write my update on Google Calendar, so I'll make it a point to pump those reports out.

My work is going crazy. I have the tasks that I'm assigned to including client intake for our programs and developing new content for our new site that will be coming out in the near future. The thing I don't like are all of the loose threads of other ideas/projects that I've had to both take up and drop. Recent developments, including my supervisor recently leaving, will definitely restructure my duties. This situation reminds me of when I used to work at a restaurant. There you had to know how to multitask and know your priorities. Here, it's the same, but also different.

I'm still getting an idea about this organization and how it functions. Being away from the center of Grassroots.org has definitely let me work more independently. (It's definitely a testament to my work ethic.) Unfortunately, it's also made me unsure about the specifications my coworkers accept out of me since a skype message or phone call is much different than an in-person check. I have since learned to care less not about the quality of the work but about what other people think.

But, I'm finally getting settled in. I have an office. I'm getting business cards made as I write. Most of my Americorps benefits are in order. Things are going well, but I promise to go into more detail later.

Good to Be Back,
Karl

Comment from Kevin Palmer on October 29, 2007 - 11:44am

Hey Karl, Good to hear things are settling down. Quick question: Have you been assigned an interim or new supervisor by grassroots?