Much less blogging when I’m also speaking. Blogging is sort of like speaking to a mid-size group in a dark room. You can’t quite see them out there, but you can occasionally get everyone talking a little — and you interacting too.

We had a good meeting in which a bunch of folks ended up piping up and I got to learn a lot about the digital preservation challenges in this area. Like many places, who owns what and who manages what is a problem that is so locally specific and often tied to personalities more that organizations or content. That aside, there is much to be done in this history rich area and there are great folks that want to help get the job done.

Asheville is now more Boulder than Boulder. ID and I went to “green drinks.” Folks meeting at a local art gallery and bar that work on various eco-friendly projects. Whist there we met a couple from Boulder who had been in town about 18 months. He was going to do a show at the bar later on maybe. Things were vague. An art show? No music sorta. What does he play? Drums but now a jazz or rock set. You know drums. And some electronic. He’s really figuring it all out sorta. Then a tall slender woman approached us. She was wearing a lot of Egyptian jewelry. She has a sorta Egyptian name although she looked more northern European. She leads spiritual quests to Egypt. All the holy places of the pharaohs. Nevermind that the pharaohs shifted the religion as it suited them politically, I thought seeing Amenhotep listed beside Ramses in her flyer. What the heck is all about energy points she was explaining. The trip is a little expensive she apologized, over $4K. But for only $1600 more you can be initiated at a power spot and the Knowledge will be yours if you are ready. I tried to find out what you would be initiated into, but somehow even when asked directly she wandered in her talk. Where? To the Secret. She knows people in that film and in that book. They are sincere and know the Power. I am looking at ID for help. We escape and go to an upstairs place that ID calls “a punkrock veggie eats place.” It is! Full of folks who are too young to miss the Ramones but would die to be them. And pretty good veggie food too. The place is nicely crowded without being overly so. Rosetta’s Kitchen. ID is on a good tear about sustainability for the planet. To that end, we decide to walk to coffee up at a French Bistro beside what used to be the oldest store in Asheville. Back at the hotel the GI Joe Summer Convention is setting up. Plastic men are being put on display by folks who go to the gym more than I do.

Up now and heading down the mountain. Thinking of rural mountain cultural heritage and digital preservation in midst of the Asheville I just visited.