Plan the Friction

Morning routine. SESIG at Imagine Coffee. Planning Thursday's fall fashion shoot with Joey. First Tuesday Lunch at Nirvana. Ian on carbon electronics. Planned Experiences work. Walk to Woodstock's. Theater plans for Alice by Heart*. Yin Yoga. Election night check-ins. Hot tub with* Daemon*.*

A day of conversations, recommendations and arrangements

Events and activities that occurred on Tuesday, November 3, 2026

The SESIG face-to-face at Imagine Coffee gathered Larry, Tom and Peit for a morning that wandered pleasantly. Electric motorcycles and Sprinter vans gave way to a longer thread about how support calls feed back into design decisions, and about the systems companies build to support their products once they ship. The part I enjoyed most was speculative: how young people adapt to changes in technology, and what adaptation even means when you never knew the earlier way of doing things.

Much of the late morning went to planning Thursday's shoot with Joey, a fall fashion session. Joey confirmed she would arrive early in the afternoon and suggested Dancing Oaks Nursery, which only takes visitors by appointment this time of year, so I left a message and sent an email asking for a visit. The plan grew into a full day: the nursery, a stop at Airlie Winery, golden-hour shooting, dinner at Khalo Naser at her request, and a studio session to close the evening. I had a hunch she would ask for the Syrian place. When I asked about a fall wardrobe, she said she could throw something together. Building the day this way put into practice an idea I had been turning over: plan out the friction and leave the outcome open. The logistics deserve attention so the photographs don't have to fight them.

First Tuesday Lunch at Nirvana brought together Steve, Ted and Bill. Bill followed up with a recommendation for Oregon Revealed, an OPB aerial series about the state, with the advice to save the Willamette Valley season for the finale. Ian's latest research note arrived as well, asking whether carbon could someday replace copper and silicon in electronics and working through conductors, semiconductors and insulators in terms of how electrons move and the voltages each requires.

Most of the afternoon went to my Planned Experiences system, the framework that is replacing what I used to call expeditions, with some picking up around the house in between. Thursday's shoot became one of its first declared experiences, which gave the abstract work a concrete test case: a real day, a real collaborator, and a plan built to clear the way rather than script the result.

The afternoon walk doubled as a bench check of the Planned Experiences system, tracing it step by step in my head to see where it held up and where it didn't. It turned out to be useful and informative, the kind of review that is easier on foot than at a desk. The walk ended at Woodstock's, where I ordered wings and took them to the bar in Suds. Over the course of the afternoon, plans formed for Michael's production of Alice by Heart at Western Oregon University. I proposed dinner in Monmouth before the show, and Cathy could make the second Saturday, so we penciled it in. Yin Yoga filled the early evening, and afterward the family group chat checked in on election night: Sydne asking how everyone was doing, Loni watching WALL-E while following along on social media, and Debi fresh from a meeting about the Art Guild.

The day was mostly spent arranging time with other people, which can feel like administration but isn't. Each small decision about where to meet or when to eat is a way of saying the time together matters. Thursday's plan now has room for things to go wonderfully off script, which is exactly the point.

Back from yoga, I soaked in the hot tub for twenty minutes with Daniel Suarez's Daemon playing, a story about software that keeps acting after its author is gone, which made an odd companion to a night of returns coming in. I am very optimistic about what the election results could mean, though I am holding that optimism lightly for now, waiting to see how things settle before I trust it.