Meeting the Neighbors: Sandhill Trek

This is our third edition of Meeting the Neighbors, a feature dedicated to profiling the people behind the words that make up the daneweb.

Frank Paynter has a voracious appetite for ideas. His blog, Sandhill Trek is packed with concepts and perceptions culled from his readings both online and off. On his site he describes himself as being dedicated to “an emerging global culture with broad advances in international law, health and wellness, food and shelter for the billions, and equal opportunities for creativity and interpersonal cultural enrichment.” He also dabbles in pop culture, has a penchant for this increasingly wired world and isn’t afraid to tackle his disagreements with policies of the Bush Administration (typically laced with a hefty dose of wit). He also stands out as one of the earliest bloggers in Dane County, sticking his toe in the pool way back in 2001.

1. Where did the name of your blog originate from, and when did the blog start?

My company is named Sandhill Technologies. Sandhill is an IT consulting firm. I worked at Stanford for a while down Sandhill Road off the Junipero Serra Freeway. When we moved to Wisconsin we were enchanted with the Sandhill Cranes in our marsh. That is where the company name came from. Back in 2001 I conceived my blog as a long journey into web publishing. Sandhill Tech... hmmm, Sandhill Trek. I thought it had a ring to it.

2. What inspired you to start your blog?

On this go around, the Sandhill Trek incarnation of my blogging presence (I’ve blogged before… please help me or I’ll blog again!), my inspiration was Chris Locke, whom I consider to be one of the finest writers and sharpest minds of my generation. Chris published a web 'zine qua newsletter called Entropy Gradient Reversals and in late 2001 he told his readers he'd give them a link if they published a blog. I did, he did, and the rest has been the mundane slog through the desperately depressing chimp-boy presidency.

3. What is the most rewarding facet of writing on the internet?

Community and immediacy. We have grown to expect quick turn-around so there's a downside to that. There's not a lot of time to mull things over. But we also have a chance to interact with people around the world who share our interests or who have complementary perspectives, or who just plain knock us out one way or another. I’m fast friends with many of the people who were in that 2001 class of Locke inspired bloggers, and in the last few years I’ve made it a point to meet people whose work I admire face to face.

4. Describe the space you do your writing in.

Cluttered. I have a nice desk space that I pile high with books and bills and papers and techno crap... my office is a good space though. I have about eighty shelf feet of books in here, a bright light on desk and a floor lamp in one corner. Some detail - the desk: I'm looking at an old 19 inch CRT that's set on the corner piece of my workstation. There's a brass black faced analog clock on the wall behind the monitor and below the clock but about eighteen inches above the desk surface, is a reproduction of a nineteenth century plat map of the Town of Dunn. My place straddles the section 18 and section 7 section line on the southwest corner of Lake Waubesa.

To my left there's an eight foot stretch of worktable cluttered with a laptop, a wireless router, a 30 GB iPod in a JBL speaker stand, a bunch of CDs and DVDs, software mostly but I can see some David Grisman music peeping out of one of the piles. There are a couple of CSS manuals piled on top of Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality, which is stacked on top of a xmas present page a day gag desk calendar and a copy of Freakonomics that I picked up in an airport somewhere.

There's a digital camera, paperclips in a plastic cube, a couple of pairs of earphones (one noise cancelling) and some bookends holding Lamott's Bird by Bird, Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Mailer's The Spooky Art, Roget, Webster, The Columbia History of the World and a copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching that I've managed to hang onto since 1969.

Tax Cut software, a checkbook, a stapler, Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel open by my left hand, an initation to a party in China Basin that has passed me by, a bunch of 2 cent stamps, bills, a stack of HBRs and Network Worlds.

To my right there's a printer/scanner/copier (and screw the fax), an honest to god box half full of floppy diskettes, probably a mastodon corpse in there somewhere too, or a saber toothed tiger... telephone, Maxstor drive, some DVDs of David Brinn at the 2004 Accelerating Change conference, and a desk organizer mocking me with its burden of 2005 tax related stuff.

The walls have pictures of cranes by Michael Forsberg, an odd picture of a moose that my boys gave me, some pictures of those boys - men now - diplomas and certificates and a photocopy of Sandhill's first check from my first client... TDSNet.

Under the desk... JUST KIDDING!!! I'll move on... well, maybe I should at least tell you that there’s a subwoofer under there with a blown fuse, and this keyboard and mouse are attached via a clever switch I got at Best Buy to two Dell tower model computers. One is a pretty fast Pentium 4 and the other is a doggy 400MHz machine that refuses to die and provides some file services.

5. What do you do for kicks when you're not posting?

I have a two year old Australian Shepherd that has taken a lot of my spare time just in walking and playing fetch and such. I'd like to say I garden, but I've shamelessly neglected it for a while. We have a CSA here, Blue Moon Community Farm, so my gardening is more and more vicarious.

Really, I'm a big reader. I suppose that's what I do for kicks.

6. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Madison?

I've been so saturated with Madison all my life that there is no first thing. The University, the Capitol building, the sixties, old friends, family, the lakes... all that stuff.

7. Is there one thing about the city you wish was different or something the city is missing you wish it had?

Palm trees, a white sandy beach, surf pounding, warm and gentle January breezes...

8. Where do you enjoy eating the most in Madison (or Dane County)?

I like the variety of places that Madison offers. We like to catch a Sunday brunch at Bluephies on Monroe Street. I'm a big fan of Noodles in all its locations. We had Thai food the other night on Odana next to a Pho joint where I made a note to lunch soon. There's a great Japanese restaurant on Park Street at Emerald Street I think... not to far from Famous Dave's, another place I enjoy. In fact La Hacienda is down in there too, a great Mexican place. Jolly Bob's on Willy Street is fun, and of course all the upscale joints like Magnus and Johnny DelMonico's are fine too.

9. If you could replace the word "blogs" in the cultural lexicon, what would you replace it with?

Some more precise variant of web publishing, I suppose. I never liked the term much.

10. Finally, name one person you wish kept a blog and what you think they would title it (can be living or dead).

Mostly, they all do... and anyway, there are plenty of bloggers and I can't keep up with them all... I suppose my old school mate Peter Hoff would be fun to read were he to write regularly. He'd probably call it "Fore!"