{"id":34,"date":"2001-01-20T21:26:08","date_gmt":"2001-01-20T19:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.multiplicity.dk\/?p=34"},"modified":"2001-01-20T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2001-01-20T19:26:08","slug":"its-started-sunday-january-14th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s started!
\nSunday, January 14th
\nJFK airport, N.Y.<\/p>\n

In the confusion that is JFK, I was looking for a cab to take me to Penn Station….
\nThe adventure was beginning. A few months of initial excitement was waning, there was no turning back.<\/p>\n

It all started some time in late May 2000.
\nMy brother knew of my interest in development work, my long-time desire to do something useful with what I know<\/a>, the nagging thought at the back of my mind about my seemingly endless contribution to the concentration of wealth in the pockets of a small number of vc’s.<\/p>\n

He must have read the May 27th slashdot feature<\/a>, because he sent me an e-mail with a link to the geekcorps<\/a> site.<\/p>\n

I visited, wowed, wrote an application and submitted it, all in the space of a few hours. Nothing…..
\nAll summer, Nothing. I went to Mexico for a month with my girlfriend in August, when I got back, nothing….<\/p>\n

I think I’d more or less forgotten about it. Archived it somewhere along with a long history of other ideas, concepts, dot-org dreams and various miscellany.
\nIn short I was taken by surprise when an e-mail from geekcorps awoke me from my working slumber, some time in late September or early October 2000.<\/p>\n

Was I still interested? Was I?
\nI assume I was, or I wouldn’t be here, but at the same time it wasn’t going to be an easy decision. At that time I was in the business plan stages of starting a company with a “few good men”. A tech company to experiment in eXtreme Programming<\/a>, have fun and get rich quick \ud83d\ude42
\nThat really took some guts, to throw that away to pursue a long-time dream with a company, which until that point had been nothing but a web-site, a slashdot and an on-line application form to me.
\nBut I was seriously afraid I’d regret if I didn’t do it, now that opportunity was knocking on my door.<\/p>\n

A few e-mails, a month of linear time, and a phone call with Ana Maria Harkins, and I had quit my job, was off getting immunizations, researching malaria prophylaxis, and trying to get rid of my apartment in one fell swoop…. The rest as they say is history, or a the very least uninteresting trivia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the excitement had been there, through all the pulling up of roots, reorganizing and handing over old projects at work. The closer I got to January 14th, all through the holiday season, the excitement rose.
\nBy the time I landed at JFK, it was quite a relief to be on the way. That there was in essence no turning back, that I had made a commitment, and braved the first sted, seemed like a big thing.<\/p>\n

Well I took the ubiqutous yellow-cab to Penn Station, got my ticket and waited. Within about 20 minutes, there were 4 of us.
\nTrain to Albany. Picked up by Stephanie, Car to North Adams. Dropped of at our current home, just around the corner from MassMoCA<\/a>.
\nMeeting new people. Bed-time. jet-lag, rise-and-shine.<\/p>\n

So I was there, as I am now, expectations practically non-existant. I only knew I was in for about 10 days of training along with the other volunteers.<\/p>\n

And here I am, a week into boot-camp, were all here at the office trying to redesign the geekhalla.org site, add a primitive publishing system, and our own personal touch. Everyone seems genuinely entusiastic about the prospect of 3 months in Accra, and the past week of training has opened our eyes to what we will be experiencing in the next 3 months.
\nJust spending 6 days with a handful of people who are also in the tech industry, and equally into doing something worthwhile has been worth it all. And the training we have gotten from the people at geekcorps. The Ghanaian dinner at Ethan’s house, the lunches, the beers, and not to be forgotten, the fascinating discussions with each other, the geekcorps crew and Geoffrey and Colin from Harvard University’s Center of International Development (Information Technologies Group ). I have to say, I haven’t been this inspired to go out and DO something since I got back from Sout America 3 years ago, and I’m not even in Accra yet…..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s started! Sunday, January 14th JFK airport, N.Y. In the confusion that is JFK, I was looking for a cab to take me to Penn Station…. The adventure was beginning. A few months of initial excitement was waning, there was no turning back. It all started some time in late May 2000. My brother knew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th • krag.be<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th • krag.be\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s started! Sunday, January 14th JFK airport, N.Y. In the confusion that is JFK, I was looking for a cab to take me to Penn Station…. The adventure was beginning. A few months of initial excitement was waning, there was no turning back. It all started some time in late May 2000. My brother knew […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"krag.be\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@tkrag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@tkrag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tomas\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/\",\"name\":\"krag.be\",\"description\":\"I am multiple and various - Tomas A. Krag\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/\",\"name\":\"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th • krag.be\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0\"},\"headline\":\"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th\",\"datePublished\":\"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#webpage\"},\"wordCount\":713,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0\"},\"articleSection\":[\"krag.org\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0\",\"name\":\"Tomas\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c551b8d07191bf152b7a271de3489235?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c551b8d07191bf152b7a271de3489235?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Tomas\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/linkedin.com\/in\/tkrag\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tkrag\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th • krag.be","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th • krag.be","og_description":"It’s started! Sunday, January 14th JFK airport, N.Y. In the confusion that is JFK, I was looking for a cab to take me to Penn Station…. The adventure was beginning. A few months of initial excitement was waning, there was no turning back. It all started some time in late May 2000. My brother knew […]","og_url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/","og_site_name":"krag.be","article_published_time":"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00","twitter_card":"summary","twitter_creator":"@tkrag","twitter_site":"@tkrag","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tomas","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#website","url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/","name":"krag.be","description":"I am multiple and various - Tomas A. Krag","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/krag.be\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/","name":"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th • krag.be","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#website"},"datePublished":"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00","dateModified":"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/krag.be\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th"}]},{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#webpage"},"author":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0"},"headline":"It\u2019s started! Sunday, January 14th","datePublished":"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00","dateModified":"2001-01-20T19:26:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#webpage"},"wordCount":713,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0"},"articleSection":["krag.org"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/20\/its-started-sunday-january-14th\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/0a3bccef1d3b78b8f864bee3ed963db0","name":"Tomas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c551b8d07191bf152b7a271de3489235?s=96&d=retro&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c551b8d07191bf152b7a271de3489235?s=96&d=retro&r=g","caption":"Tomas"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/krag.be\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/linkedin.com\/in\/tkrag","https:\/\/twitter.com\/tkrag"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8poVB-y","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/01\/23\/preparations-for-a-new-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":0},"title":"Preparations for a new experience","date":"23\/01\/2001","format":false,"excerpt":"It's started! Sunday, January 14th JFK airport, N.Y. In the confusion that is JFK, I was looking for a cab to take me to Penn Station.... The adventure was beginning. A few months of initial excitement was waning, there was no turning back. It all started some time in late\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47,"url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/02\/15\/20010123-preparations-for-a-new\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":1},"title":"20010123 Preparations for a new","date":"15\/02\/2001","format":false,"excerpt":"20010123 Preparations for a new experience It's started! Sunday, January 14th JFK airport, N.Y. In the confusion that is JFK, I was looking for a cab to take me to Penn Station.... The adventure was beginning. A few months of initial excitement was waning, there was no turning back. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "krag.org"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2001\/07\/13\/in-the-past-few-months\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":2},"title":"In the past few months,","date":"13\/07\/2001","format":false,"excerpt":"In the past few months, many people have asked me about my trip to Africa. And while it takes a lot to tire me of hearing my own voice, at times it seems a little futile to explain the same things over and over again. Also I have gotten the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "krag.org"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":611,"url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2010\/06\/14\/12-years-ago-today-my-first-blog-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":3},"title":"12 years ago today… My first blog-post","date":"14\/06\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"12 years ago today, on the 14th of June 1998, during the World Cup in France, I posted my first ever blog post. Back then I was blogging at krag.org, what was in fact a very personal blog. I'd written a few blog-like pages on what was then my website,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":441,"url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2004\/02\/15\/emergingtech-writeup\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":4},"title":"EmergingTech Writeup","date":"15\/02\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Offline and unable to sleep because of a really painful lower back, I spent my laptop battery writing up some notes from my experience at Emerging Tech. The advantage of doing it from that vantage point is probably a bit more reflection than in my previous entries. The disadvantages inclue\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mixed Bag"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":185,"url":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/2002\/07\/15\/in-the-why-oh-why-section\/","url_meta":{"origin":34,"position":5},"title":"In the \u201cwhy, oh why\u201d section\u2026","date":"15\/07\/2002","format":false,"excerpt":"Howard Rheingold sent me an e-mail with a fairly innocuous question about my peronal reason for leaving a 'normal' job to work with Digital Divide issues and wire.less.dk. It's something I've spent a part of my recent vacation (Vienna, Slovakia, Prague) thinking about, so it prompted a bit of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ict4dev"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krag.be\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}