wow… i can’t believe i haven’t ever come across this guy before. he’s been doing things i want to do since the mid 80s… this is the main link and the current project that i came across, i guess from the makezine archives or some tangent of a web browsing adventure the other day, and then there’s the shacktopus that really caught my attention [ not for the technologically faint of heart… check out the schematic and the progress photos ] he’s also the mastermind behind the Winnebiko and BEHEMOTH projects that stretch back into the early days of his work where i found this little page about how he got started and what he was doing at the time that led to that…

Way back in 1983, I was doing what most struggling young freelancers do: taking on a succession of projects, destroying old passions by turning them into businesses, and trying to make enough money to stay afloat. [ … ] Where had all my passions gone? One afternoon I listed them: writing, adventure, computer design, ham radio, bicycling, romance, learning, networking, publishing… each of these things had at one time or another kept me up all night in a delicious frenzy of fun and giddy intellectual growth. [ … ] Combining the passions in my list and abandoning all “rational thought,” the obvious solution was to simply equip a recumbent bicycle with ham radio and computer gear, establish a virtual home in the nascent online networks, and travel full-time while writing and consulting for a living.

i don’t know about you, but that sounds like the life!