Anton Zuiker's personal website and home of the Coconut Wireless weblog
©2000-2009 Anton Zuiker, a Zuiker Chronicles Online website. Sweetened with Textpattern, Textdrive, OSX, skEdit and memories of Paama.
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Summer recap, and ScienceBlogging is live
Summer isn’t officially over for another month, but with the start of school and Erin headed back to work this week, we’re clearly moving into a new season. Our daily lifestyle is going to get more intense, but the promise of our two darling daughters and the joys of little Oliver will keep us balanced.
At work, I’ve been at my new job — as communications director for the Duke Department of Medicine — for two months. It’s a big and busy department, with lots of challenge and opportunity. I’m honing a communications plan that will include a research blog (see below for a related development), an annual report multimedia project and a solution to the intranet challenge for keeping 500 faculty physicians and 1000 staff members up-to-date about department news and opportunities.
My office is on the first floor of the Duke University Hospital, just a few dozen yards from the cafeteria. Most days, I try to take a walk through the hospital and the busy clinics — some of the cancer clinic waiting rooms overflowing with patients and their families — and along the walkway where two new buildings are being constructed (see construction cam) to provide more patient-friendly spaces. There’s certainly a lot of activity — patient care, medical education, basic and translational research — to capture, and I’m in my element.
Online, I’m still building, too.
Last week, I teamed up with Bora Zivkovic (my ScienceOnline collaborator) and Dave Munger to launch ScienceBlogging.org, an aggregator of the many science blog networks’ feeds. The response to the site has been quite positive, and the ideas for making that site a more useful service for monitoring the prodigious flow of science blogging will keep us quite busy in the months ahead.
And then there’s the fifth annual science blogging (and more) conference, ScienceOnline2011, tentatively scheduled for January 2011. Bora and I have been the main organizers of that conference for the last four years, but this year, with the conference needing to expand to reflect the interest in the event and the many developments in the science blogging world this past year, we’re going to need quite a bit of help (especially since new jobs for me and Bora — he’ll have news soon, I hope). Watch for a post, a plea for fundraising and logistical and programmitic assistance, very soon.
It’s still hot outside, and the pool beckons. As I have all summer, I’ll continue to ponder these projects and brainstorm new activities, and discuss with Erin just how to accomplish all this in a balanced, healthy manner.
Life is great.
14 years and counting
Thanks to a good friend who offered to watch the girls and sleeping Oliver, Erin and I were able to celebrate our anniversary yesterday with dinner out at Panzanella (sea scallops for me, chicken for her) and then dessert and wine at Lantern. (Lantern is getting continued high praise in the food magazines — just this week, Food & Wine arrived with a feature Carrboro’s Neal’s Deli is also pictured with recipes.)
As happens each August 10th, I found myself gazing at my beautiful wife wondering just how I got so damn lucky to be able to spend my life with her.
And our daughters gave us yet another reason to be proud. They surprised us with a poster they’d colored the night before. This photo doesn’t show it, but along the sides they’d written this: Love is everywhere.
Perfection
A decade of blogging
Ten years ago this month, Frank the Beachcomber — my paternal grandfather, Francis C. Zuiker — was dying. He was 90 years old, and he had given the extended Zuiker family much to emulate and celebrate. His was a lifetime of hard work down at the Pullman Car Company, but also one of writing and storytelling, family camping trips and musical jamborees, and loving dedication to his spouse and children and grandchildren.
Grandpa meant the world to me, and I wanted to honor him publicly before he passed on.
I was just back from the South Pacific, where I’d spent my two Peace Corps years on an island without electricity and running water. I had the New Yorker sent to me for hammock reading, but by far the most important words that came in the mail were the Zuiker Chronicles letters that my grandfather wrote to me. He was still sharing tales of his earlier trips to the Outer Banks, and still angling for ‘trade goods’ such as sea shells and shark teeth that he could make into necklaces and earrings. Erin and I boxed up an armful of cone shells and black sand gathered from the beach a hundred yards from our house in Liro Village.
Back home in Ohio, inspired by Frank’s legacy of creativity and inspiration, I decided to create a virtual Zuiker Chronicles, a family newsletter for a new, digital age. To do so, I’d have to learn new skills (HTML programming and website management), write in a new way, and teach the rest of my family how to interact with Zuiker Chronicles Online. I knew Frank would be proud.
With the help of a colleague, I launched the site, at zuikerchronicles.com, in late July 2000. It had a few pictures, some essays about my time in Vanuatu, and an invitation to my aunts and uncles and cousins to contribute their own news. Within days, I was updating the site regularly — updating by hand, editing html files and uploading them to the server over a dial-up connection late into the night. I was blogging, but I didn’t know it.
At some point, my aunt showed Frank the website I’d created. He may not have comprehended the technology — he was just trying to breathe those last few months — but I’m confident he understood that his grandson had done something important to continue the legacy of a man who loved to write and report.
Frank died in September 2000, and with the site in place, there was a way for my family to honor the man. The tribute page to Frank that I put up is still online. (Later, I would edit and publish two books that Frank wrote, about his childhood and about my father’s Peace Corps service in the Dominican Republic.)
Blogger by any other name
Not long after, I encountered Blogger.com and quickly converted the site to that tool, which made it so much easier for me to write, post and publish updates to Zuiker Chronicles Online (by now I also had the site pointed to the domain zuiker.com). Ironically, my first post using Blogger starts with this:
Thanksgiving Day. I’m in my pajamas listening to National Public Radio, working on the computer.
Truth is, I would spend countless nights at the computer, writing on my blog, promising Erin I’d be done in just 15 more minutes, but crawling into bed well into the morning. I would use many blogging tools — Greymatter, MovableType, pMachine, Textpattern, Wordpress, ExpressionEngine, Tumblr — and try any beta that might help me build the online Zuiker community.
In j-school in 2002, I encountered the incomparable and real Paul Jones and eagerly took his class, Making & Living in Online Communities. Justin Watt and Jackson Fox were also in that class, and they helped me form the Tar Heel Bloggers group that began to meet regularly at UNC. (Justin was just back in town this weekend, and we held a brunch for him and Stephanie; they’ll be embarking on a container ship sojourn soon!)
Building community
The report I did for that class was about my Zuiker Chonicles Online efforts and blogging adventures, and the title, Blog Together, would eventually become the abiding concept and umbrella organization (replacing Tar Heel Bloggers) under which I would collaborate with many local and far-flung friends for online community building and offline events. My essay for the News & Observer, When blogging, face the conversation, set out the BlogTogether philosophy: online community building coupled with face-to-face events will strengthen and enrich our conversations everywhere.
Through BlogTogether, we have organized events small and large, from backyard barbecues to Blogging101 tutorial sessions to countless talks before affinity groups. Our major efforts started with the Triangle Bloggers Conference in 2005 — blogging pioneer Dave Winer drove in, and over brunch the next day urged me to ‘bootstrap the community’. Bora Zivkovic sat behind Dave at the conference, and he’s since become my close friend and collaborator on the annual science blogging conferences (we call them ScienceOnline now).
Brian Russell and Ruby Sinreich and Wayne Sutton and Abel Pharmboy are also at the heart of BlogTogether. There are so many others, for the Triangle is awash in talented, tireless individuals eager to participate in the conversation. They are a prime reason I was able to convince my wife, Erin, that North Carolina should be our home for good (Erin finished law school recently, and we could have gone anywhere).
I’m proud of what N&O editor Dan Barkin wrote about me in his article about the second science blogging conference
The Web has evolved into a tribal Internet of passionate bloggers like Zuiker, and he has become a sort-of local brand. He’s a quiet visionary. He’s a low-key doer. He’s a let’s-get-together-and-see-where-this-goes guy. It’s the Zuikers of this new, interwoven world who may play a significant role in determining how far Web 2.0 goes from being a sociable network to a social force.
Among the many ideas I’ve chased through the years, to varying levels of success: food blogging (highlighted by a September 2007 event with Michael Ruhlman — he called me ‘sweet’), medicaljournalism.info, storyblogging.org and narrativesofhiv.org, and the nascent The Long Table.
mistersugar
In December 2004, I separated my personal blog, The Coconut Wireless, from the family-focused Zuiker Chronicles Online and launched mistersugar.com.
If you’ve followed me through the years, you know I’ve had fun building the mistersugar brand and celebrating its roots in my service to the country of Vanuatu. Connecting my present to my past has been a key theme to my blogging — it’s my form of story blogging, and is a manifestation of the Zuiker Chronicles of Frank the Beachcomber and the weekly typewriter reports of my other grandfather, Louis Sisco. (From my N&O essay linked above: “I became a writer because they wrote. And then, with the Web, I became a blogger.”
Read my About page to learn more about the blog name and the pig icon.
I have a busy and full life away from the computer, with an amazing wife and darling children, intense career and important friendships, family gatherings and farmer markets, and stacks and stacks of magazines and books. My entries have slowed considerably over the last few years, but I’m proud that The Coconut Wireless still has a strong signal (and that Zuiker Chronicles Online is still standing). I’m proud to consider myself a blogger, and amazed at where blogging has taken me.
The last six months have been filled with introspection — I’m midstream, don’t you know — and, as you no doubt surmised, this look back on a decade blogging adds to my self-reflection.
At my core, I’m grateful to my family, my friends, my community and my country for giving me so much to experience. In 10 years of blogging, I’ve gotten to express my wonderment and joy at being so lucky.
Oliver's baptism
Little Oliver (or the Big O) was baptized along with his cousin Virginia Grace on Saturday, July 10 in a Solon, Ohio backyard. (There was a bit of confusion about Erin’s name at first, but Rev. Tom got it right a bit later.)
[Video removed for privacy reasons.]
Alone for the weekend, I keep busy
Aside from the fact that Erin’s still in Cleveland for a few more days, this weekend was quite enjoyable, and I’m feeling great.
I had a great massage Friday after work, where I’m enjoying my new role and excited about the big challenges and opportunities already piling up.
Saturday morning I went to the Durham Farmers Market, where I wandered among the crowd and thanked my lucky stars that I live here, now. I bought a bucketful of blackberries, which I used later in the day to make a batch of blackberry jam. I ran a couple of miles on the treadmill at the gym, and bought a new pair of Nike Air Pegasus running shoes.
Saturday evening, I drove with two friends to Raleigh. These friends happened to know a musician named John Mayer, who was performing that night at the Time Warner Cable Pavilion at Walnut Creek. We got to go backstage to chat with Mayer before he did his rockin’ rock star thing. (Thanks G & J for bringing me along!)
Today, I mowed the lawn, scrubbed the shower (mildew be gone!), washed the dishes and folded laundry. Then, a rapid series of meetings, first with a neighbor to plan our new community directory, then with Bora and Christopher to plan ScienceInTheTriangle.org and ScienceOnline2011, and then to dinner with foodie Dean McCord, his children and friend Brooks Hamaker, a brewer extraordinaire. (Dean also introduced me to Phoebe Lawless of Scratch bakery.)
All in all, a fun few days.
Supa ukulele
The season finale of Glee last week featured a rendition of Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World reminiscent — but nowhere near the beauty — of the recording by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.
Everytime I hear that song by Iz, I recall the day I met him in the Ala Moana Tower Records in Honolulu in 1993. I think I happened to be walking past the store that day but noticed a sign about his visiting to promote his new record, Facing Future. I walked in, bought a CD and asked him sign it to my family.
Iz was a giant both physically and musically, and with his tiny ukulele and angelic voice, he was a Hawaiian superman. Meeting him was a highlight of my time in Hawaii.
Another highlight of my time in Hawaii was when I went to the Kona Coast of the Big Island to interview David Gomes, a master craftsman of ukulele and guitar. (Looking for the article I wrote about him; will post later.)
There’s a new documentary about the ukulele. Listen to this NPR story.
Midstream and taking a new step
The last months, with a birthday milestone and the birth of baby Oliver, have been a fertile time of self-reflection (explained in this post from February). I’ve looked back on my first 40 years with satisfaction and gratitude, and turned my middle-aged eyes to see what stepping stones might be arranged before me for the next 40 (read this post to understand my ‘crossing the stream’ guide to life).
No mid-life crisis for me, thank you, very much. Still, mid-life is also mid-career.
On the heels of ScienceOnline2010, I had jotted down a description of an ideal job, encompassing social media and online community building and the license to roam a large institution looking for opportunities to teach, train, converse and capture stories. (David Thomas at SAS is an example for all of us with this dream.)
I was starting to get somewhere with my search for such an opportunity — more and more companies and communities and institutions will be creating such positions, I’m sure — when an opportunity of a different sort pulled me in.
Later this month, I will become director of communications for the Department of Medicine at the Duke University Medical Center, working with the new chair of the department, Mary Klotman, M.D. I’m thrilled to be joining her team.
This new job keeps me at Duke (I’ve been working for the Duke University Health System since 2007, as manager of internal communications) and is an opportunity to continue using my medical journalism masters degree and various communications experiences to tell the story of the Department of Medicine, which is the largest of the departments that make up the Duke School of Medicine.
With more than 1,000 physicians, faculty, researchers and staff treating patients, training residents and investigating diseases and new treatments, the Department of Medicine is going to be a perfect mid-river island for me to explore, map and mine. I’m sure I’ll use social media tools and strategies along the way.
I’m fortunate to have had a full and wide-ranging life so far, and am grateful to all the family, friends and mentors who have made it so memorable. Thanks for sharing this journey with me — next month, I’ll celebrate 10 years of blogging. Keep reading, please, as I share my experiences and observations, from Duke and beyond.
More of the cup
World Cup 2010 begins tomorrow, and as you know from reading my I’m on the ball post, I’ll want to watch as much of the action as possible. Sure, it might be harder this time around, with the games mid-morning and afternoon, difficult to break away from the job (some news about that coming to The Coconut Wireless tomorrow). But, I’ll catch what I can.
Napping on a shag carpet
One day recently, feeling sunburned and weary from exertion, I lowered myself to the living room floor to rest on the white shag carpet that sits between our two sofas. The soft wool enveloped me, and I quickly dozed off.
When I woke — just a few minutes later, this being an active househould — I found myself thinking back to the summer naps I’d take as an 11-year-old after afternoon baseball games or laps at the swimming pool. The living room in our Idaho home was carpeted in a golden shag, and I’d curl up in a corner where the sun came through the front window.
That was the same place I’d often sit to listen to my parents’ records, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by Simon and Garfunkel or The Age of Aquarius by the Fifth Dimension, or play the mbira that had somehow found its way into the house.
One day, a fever-induced delirium woke me from my nap on the carpet. I’d been dreaming, somehow, in both miniature and large scale, about tiny pebbles coming at me in slow motion like asteroids at the Millenium Falcon. While that unsettling pressurized dreamstate is burned into my memory, fortunately I’ve never woken to that feeling again.
My feet are resting on the carpet as I type this, and I’m feeling sleepy again.
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