Some days I truly do wonder if sometime during the night, as I slept, I slipped through some rouge wormhole and woke up in an alternate universe.

Today is one of those days.

The New York Times: The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said.

New squatter settlements on a hillside in north Caracas, Venezuela. Photograph: Jonas Bendiksen/Magnum An internet flash journey through Mr. Bendiksen's Book The Places We Live is available at this link.

The issue of Mega-cities and its ancillary issue of Mega-slums have been of interest to me for quite some time, about two decades now. I've previously written briefly on the issue here and here - on Pandemic Chronicle. Inadequate housing is as intractable and complex an issue as it is ubiquitous. While the United States has its difficulties housing every single one of its residents to a standard that might meet Ms. Rolnik's standards I question not only her [and the UN's] motivation, but also their genuine commitment to the issue.

If anyone is truly interested in what the problem of "inadequate housing" really looks like watch this video.

The problems of housing in the US pales in comparison. In comparison, there is no problem. In comparison, every single person residing within the boarders of the US have access to a veritable palace, no matter how humble the abode may be in reality.

And so, given that I have at least a modicum of understanding on the issues, something I highly doubt Ms. Rolnik has, perhaps I can be forgiven for my WTF moment this morning....

Today was the very first BarCamp in Charleston, the first in the state of South Carolina.  Hopefully, it was the first of many.

I wish to applaud and thank the BarCamp Charleston coordinators, sponsors, and presenters. Having never attended a BarCamp event before I did not know quite what to expect. But being the inaugural Charleston event I didn't have any expectation that it would be "anything special", I figured "fun in a geeky kinda way," but nothing special.  

I am happy to say it was a wonderful event.  It was well run, fun, and informative and I am already looking forward to next year's.

So, what the heck is a BarCamp anyway?  And no, it has nothing to do with camping out in a bar as my very non-geek husband thought when I told him last night that, "...oh, by the way, tomorrow I will be busy all day at BarCamp".

Here is the introductory paragraph from BarCamp.org:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event. 

I'm not "rabid" about it, but I am a believer in Open Source, a concept I became aware of while trying to inform myself on influenza, BarCamps are the human equivalent of Open Source coding or research.  People sharing their knowledge, expertise, and passion, freely, unpretentiously, enthusiastically, with other people seeking it.

The event was free of charge, but not free of cost.  Sponsors made the "non-knowledge" part of BarCamp Charleston happen.  Platinum sponsors were the Lowcountry Innovation Center, Collecta, and Active Modules.  A complete listing of all the great sponsors can be found here.

I would also like to give a special shout-out Thank You to the city of North Charleston, one of the sponsors.  Nurturing the community's intellectual capital strengthens that community in ways that ripple outward in expanding and overlapping ways.  Instead of a direct economic multiplier effect - a multiplier effect of knowledge - which can easily begin a multitude of positive economic ripples, even if small, even if personal.  But the economic multiplier effect can easily mean one dollar in one individual's pocket equals seven dollars [or more] circulating through the local community during its "economic life cycle".

So here's my heartfelt "thank you" to the organizers, the volunteers, the sponsors and the presenters.  There's no way of knowing the actual impact of an event such as the one today at BarCamp Charleston, but there is impact -- of that there is no doubt -- to say nothing of 250 happy geeks.

I surrendered my life to Google shortly after I signed up for my first GMail account [I have a veritable plethora of accounts].  I've occasionally feared that I would suddenly wink out of existence if -- gasp -- Google suddenly disappeared.

Besides Gmail, I use Google Docs, Google Calendar, and I was among the initial invitees to Google Voice.  As the title of this post says: Google Rules My Life.  It truly does, in a "cyber kinda way" anyway.  So, it was only natural that when I became aware of Google Wave way back in the spring I instantly petitioned for inclusion in its initial rollout.

I eagerly, and somewhat impatiently, awaited the September 30th "go live" date for those lucky enough to snag one of the initial invitations, hoping [and praying to the Gods of the Internet] that I would be among them.  September 30th came and I could not concentrate for the frequent twitter searches for Google Wave trying to catch the moment of The Event.  The day of September 30th turned into the evening of September 30th, which turned into the night of September 30th... then turned into October 1st.

No invitation arrived.  Eventually, I gave up and assumed I would have to wait for the public offering.   

I was deeply disappointed. 

Then...

This evening when I arrived home and checked my general purpose [read: not in need of frequent monitoring] GMail account I found my Google Wave invitation had arrived at 5pm today.

To say that I was thrilled would be an understatement.  My Inner Geek squealed like a little girl on Christmas morning.  Even if "Christmas morning" was 23 days late.

There have been a lot of historic events in my lifetime, many of them I've followed.  Some have changed America, some have changed the world.  Some have even been good.  Google Wave is going to change the very nature of the internet... and my Inner Geek is still squealing will all the sense of anticipation I had when I first tumbled to the Wave way back in the spring.

I love this picture.  I remember the first time I saw it being a genuine "it took my breath away" moment.

I often use the phrase "Life's a journey" or some iteration. Some things that come up in our lives seem "destined" to happen. In a way, they are. Things roughly follow the A ---> B ---> C ---> D route where because we chose "A" then "B" logically follows, and "C" follows "B", etc.

Another way to visualize it is to think of doors. We go through a "door" along our journey and come to another "door" that would not be there had we not taken the original door... some other door would await us, perhaps, depending on the doors gone through earlier on our journey, no door at all -- no options.

This evening I was given cause to think of "destiny" and "doors"...

Photo credit: Slawek Puklo on Flickr