I posted my thoughts about WineCamp and NetSquared, in retrospective, over at the Web of Change site.

This here is the link that you'll need...

Since I haven't posted anything here recently, I thought I might as well direct you thataways... And while it keeps you busy, I'll try and come up with some compelling content. (Funny that San Francisco filled me with so much to feverishly blog about. Life in Vancouver can't be *that* much less interesting, can it?)

Check out the SF Gate today, where you'll find a picture of a bunch of geeks under a canopy of trees doing yoga, and a wee blog post about WineCamp – including a mention of Yoga for Geeks. I'm totally blushing!

I think Dan (the journalist) is actually working on a feature-length piece, which will hopefully include a lot more detail about the event, the people behind it, and the overarching vision... because it's a story worth telling. Keep your eye on the Chronicle for that one!

I've been at WineCamp here in Calaveras County, California, for the past two days. What's that, you ask? Well, the key ingredients have been geeks, camping, strategizing... and lots of wine. Believe it or not, we spent a full 36 hours without power, much less wifi – but we're back online now! Day one was for offline conversations, and today is for Building Stuff. It's been a lot of fun.

This morning I led a yoga session for 20 WineCampers. It was certainly the most beautiful Yoga for Geeks session to date – we were perched up on a bluff overlooking the most spectacular view in the western Sierras, surrounded by trees and bathed in dappled sunlight. And a good thing, too, since – surprise surprise – a lot of people had consumed a lot of wine the night before. I think the view distracted a few folks from their pounding heads.

Our class was peaceful and gentle (the perfect antidote to two nights spent sleeping on the ground), and there were 4 or 5 newbies in the crowd, which always makes me feel extra good. If I can offer a positive first-ever yoga experience to my fellow geeks, and leave them thinking that they'd like to do it again, then I've done my work in the geek world. :) 

There was a photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle on hand and I swear he took 200 pictures of us, so if you're in the Bay Area, keep your eyes open on the Tech Section.

Thanks to everyone who came out – it's an honour to get to teach at events like this. And special thanks to Patrick Dominguez for the photo above!

Only 8 days until I fly to California – it's been pretty much a year since my last visit and oh am I excited. (For those who don't know, I spent four months down there early last year, near Santa Cruz, and I miss the place. I loooove California.)

It's going to be a whirlwind of a week, I'm realizing. I arrive early Thursday morning, and will probably spend Thursday and Friday in San Francisco. Looks like I'll be spending the weekend at WineCamp, though I haven't yet registered and I'm fearful of geek-overload. I think it would be lovely to spend a fun weekend with cool people I'd like to meet, talking about social change and geekery, but I fear that combined with NetSquared the following week, my brain might turn to mush. Who knows, though. Maybe I'll just blast off into a different dimension of zen-ness with my laptop. Or maybe I'll spend the weekend having fun with real people and won't feel like it was a geek-out? That sounds wonderful.

I'm hoping to squeeze in a night at Mount Madonna, where I used to live, but that'll be tight, since NetSquared starts on Tuesday. And I'm excited. I'll be wearing a couple of hats – my Web of Change conference coordinator hat, and my DeSmogBlog Community Manager hat. Eager to recruit new WOCers, and eager to get great advice on how to help the Blog go next-level!

I've been poking through the session offerings at the site. I have a feeling it's going to be a 48-hour case of FOMS – Fear Of Missing Something. But some of the sessions that sound interesting to me are:

• Gender and the social web: new tools, same...stuff?

• From a Voice in the Wilderness to the Wisdom of Crowds: Citizen Journalism, Nonprofit Organizations and Social Change

• Social networking systems - chat rooms on steroids or a real tool for social change?

• The distributed grass roots marketing team... letting your community, advocates, evangelists, and fans do the heavy lifting

• I tag the hand that feeds me: examining aggregation and tagging in the nonprofit world

Phew. Participants have been encouraged to comment and add thoughts and questions to the topics... so far I'm feeling too overwhelmed by my actual obligations to get into it. But I think I'll try and contribute something in the next week.

So that's it from me... watch for an exciting announcement in the next day or two. Okay, it's probably more exciting to me than it is to the general public. But I'm *stoked*.