Listen to the story on Talk ]]>

In Being Wrong, Kathryn Shulz encourages readers to see error as a gift, “a rich and irreplaceable source of humor, art, illumination, individuality and change.”

Listen to the story on Talk Nation

This is good. This is really good! Thank you to everyone who’s helped facilitate my growth in being self employed. I’m very grateful to be steadily moving toward my goals, especially in this economy! Please keep helping! Here’s how:

Promoting yourself is hard work. Discounts, freebies, extended hours, and other compensations take their toll when you’re invested in building a new practice. All that hard work is really starting to pay off. I’m excited and hopeful. Thank you for your support. I’m here if you ]]> Steady growth over the last two years. In the black since establishing my business in 2008. Clients trickling in from Yelp finally. Groupon return rate holding at 10%. Attracting the kind of clients I want. Booked in advance. Hitting my ceiling of 12 clients a week consistently. Doing awesome, creative, challenging work with people.

This is good. This is really good! Thank you to everyone who’s helped facilitate my growth in being self employed. I’m very grateful to be steadily moving toward my goals, especially in this economy! Please keep helping! Here’s how:

• Take a moment to review me on Yelp. They’ve added transparency to their service which make them a more trustworthy information source, and since then I’ve noticed that people are contacting me now based on my Yelp listing. http://www.yelp.com/biz/artful-touch-massage-seattle
• Refer people to me! Your referrals are the greatest compliment to me. If you know someone who would benefit from my work, let them know about me. http://artfultouch.info
• Tell me about promotions! I never considered doing Groupon until a co-worker at Qliance suggested I try it, and it’s been awesome for getting clients in the door. Let me know if you hear of anything cool sounding.
• Buy a gift certificate. I sell em, they’re pretty and printed and everything! A massage is an awesome no-brainer, yet incredibly throughful gift to give someone special in your life, and you can buy them online. http://artfultouch.info/seattle-massage.html
• Come in and get work done. You KNOW you want to!

Promoting yourself is hard work. Discounts, freebies, extended hours, and other compensations take their toll when you’re invested in building a new practice. All that hard work is really starting to pay off. I’m excited and hopeful. Thank you for your support. I’m here if you need me!

“Courtnee Papastathis has performed as Zita the Aerialist since 2005. During that time her focus has been to tell compelling stories through her aerial performances. The act you just saw was an illustration of the struggle to shed the defenses that bind us, finding strength in being vulnerable, and how sex contributes to the art of self discovery. It’s also a really awesome excuse to be naked.”

I was uncharacteristically nervous and emotionally raw before my first act, even for me at my most nervous I tend to get at this point in my career. I just couldn’t shake it. Performing, much as the rest of my life, brings an ebb and flow to things. Some days I’m calm as a cucumber, quietly beckoning the universe to bring it on.

Others, I have insecurity and doubt to deal with, or I’m worried about my body being hurt, or I’m highly invested in the emotional weight of the work I am presenting and going out there feels heavy, sometimes even scary.

Last night I had all of those things. It was potentially the last aerial performance I will do, and surely the last one I will do for a while. That was hard and sad and exhilarating at times, and it made for some emotional components to be present that I hadn’t gone through in a while.

I was also performing in an all aerial show, which can be harder on my self esteem and individualism than being the aerialist in a theater show. Even when I wasn’t looking, there were little things popping up, reminding me that I am just a drop of water in an endless sea. All the acts were very different, and all the acts were very good. We do what we do well and I am proud to be a part of such a high caliber production with such talented and creative people.

That said, some of these girls can do things I will never be able to do in less time than it took me to learn how to do a fucking hip lock – things I’ve wanted to do, tried to do and, depending on my perspective, failed at. In a way it can be hard to follow up someone who’s produced a rope act that embodied what I wanted to bring to rope the first 4 years of my aerial experience and never could.

On the flip side, what I bring to my work is unique and powerful, and I know that. In accepting my bodies abilities and limits, I’ve created the space to expose myself in a way that audiences rarely get to see and I am amazing at doing it. Maybe I can’t do open legged drops without wrecking my hips, and maybe my toes won’t splay the right way so I can do a toe climb, but god dammit when I am out there I own the living shit out of it. I own the living shit out of you.

The fact that I can’t even come close to doing the splits, that I don’t have a gymnastics or dance background and that I was a professional drug abuser in my youth rather than an athlete inspires and comforts my beginning aerial students. I have a triumphant and inspiring story to tell. That’s why I like teaching beginners – I want them to know that you don’t have to be a superhuman contortionist to be an aerial performer, and I want them to know that a lot earlier than I did.

Truly performing, for me, is taking people on a stirring emotional journey – along something that runs deep and strong in us as humans. Whether it’s my music, pretending to be a dancer or climbing things, that doesn’t change much. Sometimes I’ll put on a super cute outfit, hop up on a trapeze and practice while people are watching, and that’s really fun and fueling in its own right, but it’s not a true performance of mine. It’s not the meat and the heart of what I go out there for.

I brought that meat and heart and blood and guts and spit last night. People who had no idea of the health issues I am dealing with, or that I am potentially retiring from performing aerial, told me to keep doing what I’m doing with tears in their eyes. They told me it felt like an honor to be in the audience. They told me how inspired they were to create their own magic on a stage and share it. That’s the transformative power of the arts and it’s a beautiful thing that I feel grateful and privileged to have been able to cultivate for the last 5 years. Whatever comes after this, I’ll always carry that with me.

Stay tuned for more events. Maybe this is the time in my life where I learn to be graceful on the ground.

*sniffle*

(Thank you, John Cornicello, for the lovely images, and for allowing me to post produce them)

Who: The staff of Versatile Arts What: Staff show! When: June 9, 2010 7:30 PM Where: 400 Dexter Ave N Tickets: $20 at Brown Paper Tickets

Aerial acts can be many things: exciting, dramatic, comedic, emotional. They can also be sensual, even intimate – and that is the flavor of aerial artistry that we are bringing you with this event. This show features the fantastically talented – and drop-dead sexy – staff of Versatile Arts, returning to our original home at the Little Red Studio for one night only.

Some of the drink ideas for this particular event are:

o The Rope Burn: cinnamon schnapps and cherry-flavored brandy, either over ice (the mild burn) or as a shooter (the severe burn). o The Star Drop: lime vodka mixed with fresh citrus juice and a few drops of fresh lime juice, over ice. o The Ankle hang: a long island iced tea with chambord instead of coke. o Sex in the Sling, a cross between Sex on the Beach and a Singapore Sling.

If you haven’t seen me perform my signature red silks act.. well, let’s just say that you really, really should.

Get your tickets right ]]> *sigh* Man.. this is probably going to be kind of a ramble..

“Courtnee Papastathis has performed as Zita the Aerialist since 2005. During
that time her focus has been to tell compelling stories through her aerial
performances. The act you just saw was an illustration of the struggle to
shed the defenses that bind us, finding strength in being vulnerable, and
how sex contributes to the art of self discovery. It’s also a really awesome
excuse to be naked.”

I was uncharacteristically nervous and emotionally raw before my first act, even for me at my most nervous I tend to get at this point in my career. I just couldn’t shake it. Performing, much as the rest of my life, brings an ebb and flow to things. Some days I’m calm as a cucumber, quietly beckoning the universe to bring it on.

Others, I have insecurity and doubt to deal with, or I’m worried about my body being hurt, or I’m highly invested in the emotional weight of the work I am presenting and going out there feels heavy, sometimes even scary.

Last night I had all of those things. It was potentially the last aerial performance I will do, and surely the last one I will do for a while. That was hard and sad and exhilarating at times, and it made for some emotional components to be present that I hadn’t gone through in a while.

I was also performing in an all aerial show, which can be harder on my self esteem and individualism than being the aerialist in a theater show. Even when I wasn’t looking, there were little things popping up, reminding me that I am just a drop of water in an endless sea. All the acts were very different, and all the acts were very good. We do what we do well and I am proud to be a part of such a high caliber production with such talented and creative people.

That said, some of these girls can do things I will never be able to do in less time than it took me to learn how to do a fucking hip lock – things I’ve wanted to do, tried to do and, depending on my perspective, failed at. In a way it can be hard to follow up someone who’s produced a rope act that embodied what I wanted to bring to rope the first 4 years of my aerial experience and never could.

On the flip side, what I bring to my work is unique and powerful, and I know that. In accepting my bodies abilities and limits, I’ve created the space to expose myself in a way that audiences rarely get to see and I am amazing at doing it. Maybe I can’t do open legged drops without wrecking my hips, and maybe my toes won’t splay the right way so I can do a toe climb, but god dammit when I am out there I own the living shit out of it. I own the living shit out of you.

The fact that I can’t even come close to doing the splits, that I don’t have a gymnastics or dance background and that I was a professional drug abuser in my youth rather than an athlete inspires and comforts my beginning aerial students. I have a triumphant and inspiring story to tell. That’s why I like teaching beginners – I want them to know that you don’t have to be a superhuman contortionist to be an aerial performer, and I want them to know that a lot earlier than I did.

Truly performing, for me, is taking people on a stirring emotional journey – along something that runs deep and strong in us as humans. Whether it’s my music, pretending to be a dancer or climbing things, that doesn’t change much. Sometimes I’ll put on a super cute outfit, hop up on a trapeze and practice while people are watching, and that’s really fun and fueling in its own right, but it’s not a true performance of mine. It’s not the meat and the heart of what I go out there for.

I brought that meat and heart and blood and guts and spit last night. People who had no idea of the health issues I am dealing with, or that I am potentially retiring from performing aerial, told me to keep doing what I’m doing with tears in their eyes. They told me it felt like an honor to be in the audience. They told me how inspired they were to create their own magic on a stage and share it. That’s the transformative power of the arts and it’s a beautiful thing that I feel grateful and privileged to have been able to cultivate for the last 5 years. Whatever comes after this, I’ll always carry that with me.

Stay tuned for more events. Maybe this is the time in my life where I learn to be graceful on the ground.

*sniffle*

(Thank you, John Cornicello, for the lovely images, and for allowing me to post produce them)

Who: The staff of Versatile Arts
What: Staff show!
When: June 9, 2010 7:30 PM
Where: 400 Dexter Ave N
Tickets: $20 at Brown Paper Tickets

Aerial acts can be many things: exciting, dramatic, comedic, emotional. They can also be sensual, even intimate – and that is the flavor of aerial artistry that we are bringing you with this event. This show features the fantastically talented – and drop-dead sexy – staff of Versatile Arts, returning to our original home at the Little Red Studio for one night only.

Some of the drink ideas for this particular event are:

o The Rope Burn: cinnamon schnapps and cherry-flavored brandy, either over ice (the mild burn) or as a shooter (the severe burn).
o The Star Drop: lime vodka mixed with fresh citrus juice and a few drops of fresh lime juice, over ice.
o The Ankle hang: a long island iced tea with chambord instead of coke.
o Sex in the Sling, a cross between Sex on the Beach and a Singapore Sling.

If you haven’t seen me perform my signature red silks act.. well, let’s just say that you really, really should.

Get your tickets right NOW: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/110690

Sunday, April 30, 2000 By SHARON UNDERWOOD For the Valley News (White River Junction, VT)

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

Sharon Underwood’s e-mail is: sundervt@hotmail.com. I had the chance to speak with her yesterday. Her son is doing fine now, the first in his family to graduate from ]]> Published on May 04, 2000

Sunday, April 30, 2000
By SHARON UNDERWOOD
For the Valley News (White River Junction, VT)

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

Sharon Underwood’s e-mail is: sundervt@hotmail.com. I had the chance to speak with her yesterday. Her son is doing fine now, the first in his family to graduate from college.

They say self esteem can be defined as being capable of maneuvering the challenges in life, accompanied with a sense of being worthy of happiness. I’ve got the first part down in general, I’m alive afterall, but the second, I don’t know so much right now. I’ve been unplugged and cut off, guarded and gun-shy. It doesn’t feel good. It feels sad. I’m hurting because of it.

It seems some deep part of me has been thinking of Love lately as weakness. Showing mine makes me vulnerable and others showing theirs for the likes of me makes them crazy or completely stupid. That notion is preposterous, to use one of Beaus favorite words, and knowing that doesn’t seem to be stopping my guts and instincts from living there a lot more often than I deem acceptable.

So it’s an emotional concern, one of those things that intellectual pick pocketing isn’t going to solve. Even then I don’t know how much I’ve actually been considering what’s been going on versus just letting my moods dictate how little I’ve reached toward others or allowed them to touch me.

It takes a lot of energy to be down on yourself. I appear self absorbed because I am. The part that isn’t as easy to see is that I act that way not because I feel the world doesn’t deserve my brilliance, but because I don’t believe I deserve the brilliance of others.

In an age when I am managing to support myself through a recession as a self employed healer and artist, I am all too frequently made frozen by a lack of confidence in regards to the worth of what I have to contribute in the world. I’d like to think it doesn’t show. But I suspect it does.

So it’s out there now, cultivating focus. That usually gets things moving. Time to see ]]> I can’t say I really know when it happened, but somehow along the line in the last year, I seem to have reverted to a kind of post-modern version of myself. It seemed not long ago I was feeling open and loving and free. Now I feel insecure, judgmental and threatened.

They say self esteem can be defined as being capable of maneuvering the challenges in life, accompanied with a sense of being worthy of happiness. I’ve got the first part down in general, I’m alive afterall, but the second, I don’t know so much right now. I’ve been unplugged and cut off, guarded and gun-shy. It doesn’t feel good. It feels sad. I’m hurting because of it.

It seems some deep part of me has been thinking of Love lately as weakness. Showing mine makes me vulnerable and others showing theirs for the likes of me makes them crazy or completely stupid. That notion is preposterous, to use one of Beaus favorite words, and knowing that doesn’t seem to be stopping my guts and instincts from living there a lot more often than I deem acceptable.

So it’s an emotional concern, one of those things that intellectual pick pocketing isn’t going to solve. Even then I don’t know how much I’ve actually been considering what’s been going on versus just letting my moods dictate how little I’ve reached toward others or allowed them to touch me.

It takes a lot of energy to be down on yourself. I appear self absorbed because I am. The part that isn’t as easy to see is that I act that way not because I feel the world doesn’t deserve my brilliance, but because I don’t believe I deserve the brilliance of others.

In an age when I am managing to support myself through a recession as a self employed healer and artist, I am all too frequently made frozen by a lack of confidence in regards to the worth of what I have to contribute in the world. I’d like to think it doesn’t show. But I suspect it does.

So it’s out there now, cultivating focus. That usually gets things moving. Time to see what happens.

5 things you can do NOW to change the world:

I have very much enjoyed the interactions and access I’ve had with the people I am close to in my life by using Facebook, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with them all in such a way. I will miss the interaction and ease of having so many people in the same place at once online.

Due to privacy concerns, I am no longer maintaining a personal profile on Facebook. A bit more detailed information is included in the comments of this post.

People who have utilized my fan page and personal Facebook profile are highly encouraged to subscribe to the Neevita Mailing List, which I will keep up to date in light of taking a step back from corporate owned social media as a means of community.

Thanks so much for your support. If you find a good alternative, let me know and I’ll ]]> Dear friends,

I have very much enjoyed the interactions and access I’ve had with the people I am close to in my life by using Facebook, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with them all in such a way. I will miss the interaction and ease of having so many people in the same place at once online.

Due to privacy concerns, I am no longer maintaining a personal profile on Facebook. A bit more detailed information is included in the comments of this post.

People who have utilized my fan page and personal Facebook profile are highly encouraged to subscribe to the Neevita Mailing List, which I will keep up to date in light of taking a step back from corporate owned social media as a means of community.

Thanks so much for your support. If you find a good alternative, let me know and I’ll follow you.
-nee

Now offering REDUCED PRICE tickets, for people who don’t want to multitask by eating food while they watch the show! $15, available on Brown Paper Tickets and at the door.

Who: Friends of Vita Arts, 21+ What: Fundraiser for http://vita-arts.org When: Saturday, Feb 6 at 7pm! Where: Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way SW

How Much: $30 with food, $15 without!

We’re working on getting circus insurance so we can teach aerial in our Workshops! Juggling, singing, aerials, clowning and other performances, all infused with the cheesiest of sentiments. Will it be silly? You bet your fluffy cotton socks it will be! I’m directing the show which is sure to be a night of fun and frivolity, with all the proceeds going to Vita Arts. Obsidian was my dark and dwelling masterpiece; this is just going to be a shitload of fun.

Two courses of Snacky-food will be provided, and a cash bar with beer and wine will be available. Don’t come starving your faces off, but be prepped to graze and drink ]]>

Now offering REDUCED PRICE tickets, for people who don’t want to multitask by eating food while they watch the show! $15, available on Brown Paper Tickets and at the door.

Who: Friends of Vita Arts, 21+
What: Fundraiser for http://vita-arts.org
When: Saturday, Feb 6 at 7pm!
Where: Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way SW

How Much: $30 with food, $15 without!

We’re working on getting circus insurance so we can teach aerial in our Workshops! Juggling, singing, aerials, clowning and other performances, all infused with the cheesiest of sentiments. Will it be silly? You bet your fluffy cotton socks it will be! I’m directing the show which is sure to be a night of fun and frivolity, with all the proceeds going to Vita Arts. Obsidian was my dark and dwelling masterpiece; this is just going to be a shitload of fun.

Two courses of Snacky-food will be provided, and a cash bar with beer and wine will be available. Don’t come starving your faces off, but be prepped to graze and drink responsibly. NOM!

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Things didn’t go as planned. Attendance was less than expected, and we quickly abandoned our impressively prepared structure and variety of offerings in favor of scaling back to a very simple, smaller, fluid system. Way better than being caught with our pants down, though – we were on the ball, overstaffed and over prepared. Anything that went ‘wrong’ was out of our hands. Our volunteers showed, lit the room up and had a good time leading by example. We worked with some kids, and they were great. You can ask for more than that with a first workshop, but it’s probably not a very good idea to expect it.

We did it. We are real. And we have an assload of supplies for ]]> We came. We saw. We made art. We helped other people make art. We learned stuff. We became one with humility. We both exceeded, and fell short of expectations. We thought on our feet and persevered. We were asked to return.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Things didn’t go as planned. Attendance was less than expected, and we quickly abandoned our impressively prepared structure and variety of offerings in favor of scaling back to a very simple, smaller, fluid system. Way better than being caught with our pants down, though – we were on the ball, overstaffed and over prepared. Anything that went ‘wrong’ was out of our hands. Our volunteers showed, lit the room up and had a good time leading by example. We worked with some kids, and they were great. You can ask for more than that with a first workshop, but it’s probably not a very good idea to expect it.

We did it. We are real. And we have an assload of supplies for next time.

http://vita-arts.org

I’m having to pan out quite a bit more to fit it all now, and I’m about on the track I thought I would be. My water bottle, containers for restaurant leftovers and heightened awareness have been making a huge difference in what I bring home with me. I’ve been very diligent about bringing home my trash from Qliance as well, though that won’t be as much of a concern now that I will be working from home again. *sigh*

Partially because of this project, I am eating out a lot less too. Generally when I’m hungry I will hit a produce section instead.

Even switching back to loose leaf tea has improved my waste output – and my quality of life. It’s such a more savory experience to make myself tea in the mornings or offer it to a guest.

During our Vita Arts meeting last week, we came up with the idea to use most of these plastic bottles as funnels for a project we’re doing – making juggling balls. Perfect.

I am thinking to glue all the layers of flattened cardboard waste together into a canvas.

Any other ideas on how to reuse ]]>

W.A.S.T.E.? - Week 5

I’m having to pan out quite a bit more to fit it all now, and I’m about on the track I thought I would be. My water bottle, containers for restaurant leftovers and heightened awareness have been making a huge difference in what I bring home with me. I’ve been very diligent about bringing home my trash from Qliance as well, though that won’t be as much of a concern now that I will be working from home again. *sigh*

Partially because of this project, I am eating out a lot less too. Generally when I’m hungry I will hit a produce section instead.

Even switching back to loose leaf tea has improved my waste output – and my quality of life. It’s such a more savory experience to make myself tea in the mornings or offer it to a guest.

During our Vita Arts meeting last week, we came up with the idea to use most of these plastic bottles as funnels for a project we’re doing – making juggling balls. Perfect.

I am thinking to glue all the layers of flattened cardboard waste together into a canvas.

Any other ideas on how to reuse this stuff?

Tickets $75, at http://flyinghouse.org/specialevents/justartticket.asp

Elegant glass sculptures. Vivid watercolors. Oil on canvas. Stunning photographs. Delicate iron and wood carvings.

The silent and live auctions feature exquisite pieces by some of the Pacific Northwest’s premier talents, as well as pieces by gifted up-and-comers who have not shown in galleries or other usual venues. Proceeds benefit the Seattle Men’s Chorus and Seattle Women’s Chorus and the contributing artists receive 20 percent of the selling price of their work.

For more information on how to donate contact Murray McKay at murraym@flyinghouse.org or 206.388.1413.

The event will include one LIVE and two silent auctions, hosted cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and entertainment by Seattle’s best Burlesque and ]]>

Who: Myself and Dyno performing aerial throughout the evening
What: Flying House Productions: Just Art auction
When: Friday, September 25 from 6:00 to 10:00pm
Where: Fremont Studios, 155 N. 35th Street in Seattle

Tickets $75, at http://flyinghouse.org/specialevents/justartticket.asp

Elegant glass sculptures. Vivid watercolors. Oil on canvas. Stunning photographs. Delicate iron and wood carvings.

The silent and live auctions feature exquisite pieces by some of the Pacific Northwest’s premier talents, as well as pieces by gifted up-and-comers who have not shown in galleries or other usual venues. Proceeds benefit the Seattle Men’s Chorus and Seattle Women’s Chorus and the contributing artists receive 20 percent of the selling price of their work.

For more information on how to donate contact Murray McKay at murraym@flyinghouse.org or 206.388.1413.

The event will include one LIVE and two silent auctions, hosted cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and entertainment by Seattle’s best Burlesque and Circus performers.

Who: The Circus of Dreams guild performers – http://www.circusofdreams.org/performers/

What: Circus of Dreams Guild (http://www.circusofdreams.org/) is a Children’s non-profit organization dedicated to bringing hope and joy to children with brain tumors.

When: I will be performing in the adult evening show Friday Sept 18th, 8pm ($25)

Where: Allen Theater at ACT Theater

Please join us on September 18, 2009 for the second annual Circus of Dreams benefit. This event features stunning performances by a collective of well known Seattle-area aerialists showcasing a variety of aerial arts including aerial hoops, silks, trapeze, and other amazing talent.

There will be three shows- an all ages evening show on Friday, September 18th ($25) and TWO Children’s matinees at 1PM and 4PM on Saturday, September 19th ($20 full/adult, $10 discount/child). Tickets are available at https://www.acttheatre.org/TicketsPlays/Play.aspx?prod=2337. Please note that the $10 child rate won’t be visible until the ]]>

Who: The Circus of Dreams guild performers – http://www.circusofdreams.org/performers/

What: Circus of Dreams Guild (http://www.circusofdreams.org/) is a Children’s non-profit organization dedicated to bringing hope and joy to children with brain tumors.

When: I will be performing in the adult evening show Friday Sept 18th, 8pm ($25)

Where: Allen Theater at ACT Theater

Please join us on September 18, 2009 for the second annual Circus of Dreams benefit. This event features stunning performances by a collective of well known Seattle-area aerialists showcasing a variety of aerial arts including aerial hoops, silks, trapeze, and other amazing talent.

There will be three shows- an all ages evening show on Friday, September 18th ($25) and TWO Children’s matinees at 1PM and 4PM on Saturday, September 19th ($20 full/adult, $10 discount/child). Tickets are available at https://www.acttheatre.org/TicketsPlays/Play.aspx?prod=2337. Please note that the $10 child rate won’t be visible until the ‘checkout’ screen.

I’ve had it with consumerism, yet I’m neck deep in it. I’ve had it with plastic bottles, wrappers, packaging, waste. It pisses me off. It’s unnecessary. It bugs me. A lot. And it’s done so for a long time. I’ve been noticing again. From Sara’s glass jar that she takes to the smoothie place to get filled instead of a Styrofoam one, to the bag I saw on set today, I’m noticing what these things are saying.

Hilarious. And true.

I’ve got like 4 of those kinds of canvas bags around here and can’t recall one time I thought to take one with me to the store. Perhaps if mine said what this one does… (To be fair, most of the time I put my groceries in my backpack, which was full today when i went shopping. But still.)

I feel like a raging tool every time I take my garbage out and sort all the recyclables, and see how much stuff I’m still generating. As it should be. I’ve supposed that because i dont bag each piece of my produce in 17 different bags I’m like, better than people who do or something – meanwhile each cup of tea I drink has a wrapper associated, every smoothie I drink has a cup I toss, I have vitamin water bottles all over the place, I buy stuff in boxes and wrappers all the time…

Thankfully though, I don’t think about it often – perhaps once a week when I take out my trash, sometimes 2 weeks if I’m really conscious and careful. But maybe I shouldn’t be thanking myself for that. Maybe I should be embracing my wastefulness full hilt and welcoming what a hypocrite I am.

In a rush to get to work and need something quick, someone else bought it for me, I’ll reuse it a couple times – All things I say to rationalize the bottles, wrappers, plastic bowls and other random shit I throw away on a regular basis. Recycling is still close enough to garbage to urk me. It’s an energy and resource suck that I initiate with my thoughtlessness and being lazy, that just doesn’t need to happen.

(Thanks for the video link, Miah!)

I’ve decided to live with all of my trash (sans yard waste, which we already compost and reuse), for two months — 2 weeks longer than it takes to form a habit. The effort is to document the process, and in the end, form better consumer habits based on the experience. I’m focusing mainly on things like vitamin water bottles and single serving packaging, grocery bags and other such things.

I want to see how much of this stuff I really contribute to our world. I just went and fished all packaging I could find here from the last week or so out of the trash and collected the various bottles from around my room.

I kept a few things I know are older to balance out the stuff I know I don’t have, like some clifbar wrappers and at least one paper to-go carton from my Pink Door gig last Sunday. I’m calling my official start date Sept 1. From now until Nov 1, the day before my 30th birthday, I will pack-out all of my consumer packaging waste and bring it home with me. If you’re someone who’s chosen a lifestyle that includes creative ways to be conscious of waste, I’d love to hear your advice.

Week 1 - sans the 4 plastic bags I forgot to put in the photo.

Looking at the word brought an acronym to mind – Why Always Soil The Environment? I hereby dub thee, the ]]> I suspect simply embarking on this experiment will produce an immediate decline in the waste I produce.

I’ve had it with consumerism, yet I’m neck deep in it. I’ve had it with plastic bottles, wrappers, packaging, waste. It pisses me off. It’s unnecessary. It bugs me. A lot. And it’s done so for a long time. I’ve been noticing again. From Sara’s glass jar that she takes to the smoothie place to get filled instead of a Styrofoam one, to the bag I saw on set today, I’m noticing what these things are saying.

Hilarious. And true.

I’ve got like 4 of those kinds of canvas bags around here and can’t recall one time I thought to take one with me to the store. Perhaps if mine said what this one does… (To be fair, most of the time I put my groceries in my backpack, which was full today when i went shopping. But still.)

I feel like a raging tool every time I take my garbage out and sort all the recyclables, and see how much stuff I’m still generating. As it should be. I’ve supposed that because i dont bag each piece of my produce in 17 different bags I’m like, better than people who do or something – meanwhile each cup of tea I drink has a wrapper associated, every smoothie I drink has a cup I toss, I have vitamin water bottles all over the place, I buy stuff in boxes and wrappers all the time…

Thankfully though, I don’t think about it often – perhaps once a week when I take out my trash, sometimes 2 weeks if I’m really conscious and careful. But maybe I shouldn’t be thanking myself for that. Maybe I should be embracing my wastefulness full hilt and welcoming what a hypocrite I am.

In a rush to get to work and need something quick, someone else bought it for me, I’ll reuse it a couple times – All things I say to rationalize the bottles, wrappers, plastic bowls and other random shit I throw away on a regular basis. Recycling is still close enough to garbage to urk me. It’s an energy and resource suck that I initiate with my thoughtlessness and being lazy, that just doesn’t need to happen.

I’ve decided to live with all of my trash (sans yard waste, which we already compost and reuse), for two months — 2 weeks longer than it takes to form a habit. The effort is to document the process, and in the end, form better consumer habits based on the experience. I’m focusing mainly on things like vitamin water bottles and single serving packaging, grocery bags and other such things.

I want to see how much of this stuff I really contribute to our world. I just went and fished all packaging I could find here from the last week or so out of the trash and collected the various bottles from around my room.

I kept a few things I know are older to balance out the stuff I know I don’t have, like some clifbar wrappers and at least one paper to-go carton from my Pink Door gig last Sunday. I’m calling my official start date Sept 1. From now until Nov 1, the day before my 30th birthday, I will pack-out all of my consumer packaging waste and bring it home with me. If you’re someone who’s chosen a lifestyle that includes creative ways to be conscious of waste, I’d love to hear your advice.

Week 1 - sans the 4 plastic bags I forgot to put in the photo.

Looking at the word brought an acronym to mind – Why Always Soil The Environment? I hereby dub thee, the W.A.S.T.E. project.

Who: Levity, Chimera, Dyno, Zita, and more fabulous aerial talent!

What: The first fundraising event for Vita Arts, my new non-profit arts organization

Where: Versatile Arts, 7601 Greenwood Ave, Seattle

When: Saturday, July 25, 2009 8:00pm – 10:00pm

Why?

Seems to me, many people spend a long time building their lives into something they can be proud of,  something comfortable for them, in order to be safe to accomplish another something that’s bigger than themselves.

I have done my fair share of struggling, trying different configurations, playing small and dreaming big. Over the last few years, I’ve contemplated what the bigger thing might be, for me. Sure, I sometimes make people happy with my art. I make money helping other people do cool things, I volunteer, and my financial/geographical footprint is about 15% of what it used to be when I worked for Microsoft. I even turn the water off when I brush my teeth most of the time. But what can I REALLY do to make a difference in life?

When it came time for me to serve the world somehow, I found that I wanted to create a non-profit organization to help perpetuate the transformative capabilities inherent in expressing ones self, artistically. To make a space for people to experience the healing opportunities I have had through art in a more tactile, kinesthetic way than I have with my personal offerings of performances, music, paintings and that sort of thing.

I know art saves lives, because it saved mine. I’ve seen the results, and heard the stories of others, about the power of artistic expression to heal and transform. Whether it be from seeing it, appreciating it, facilitating it, being it, creating it, failing at it, living it – I maintain that art has the power to touch absolutely everyone.

I’ve also seen how sharing myself artistically often effects and inspires people to action. How the experience of art opens people up to expressing life, to telling their once-quiet stories through a medium, helping discover courages and strengths we so often convince ourselves we don’t, or can’t, have. How art helps people face their fears, release difficult emotions, grieve, find direction and purpose.

Perhaps most importantly, I have seen how, no matter how bleak and helpless a situation may seem, one small, brave action creates a chain of them. Every time.

It’s never too late to choose to make a difference.

Vita Arts is sharing the power of art with the disadvantaged and transforming lives.

Our performances offer the public a chance to see our skills, and to be moved by the human spirit.  Our shows  also serve to fund and publicize our outreach efforts, working with individuals in small workshops, giving them a chance to experience creating art for themselves, perhaps for the very first time.

We are starting local, with two public performances and a workshop being planned in 2009 alone. We look forward to expanding our efforts in the coming years by collaborating with other organizations (such as disaster relief orgs, loss support groups, and those helping reform the incarcerated) to offer transformative art experiences to the disadvantaged of all ages, around the world.

Come find out more about who we are, what we’re doing,  see a great show, and best of all, help make a difference.

Please note: If you are unable to attend this event and wish to support us, we are gratefully accepting donations. Provisional 501(c)(3) status is in the works, and will backdate once approved for tax deduction purposes. You may send donations to Vita Arts, PO box 20233, Seattle, WA 98102.

Thank you, so much, for ]]> “No matter how enlightened you are, as long as there are people suffering, you still have plenty of work to do.”

Who: Levity, Chimera, Dyno, Zita, and more fabulous aerial talent!

What: The first fundraising event for Vita Arts, my new non-profit arts organization

Where: Versatile Arts, 7601 Greenwood Ave, Seattle

When: Saturday, July 25, 2009 8:00pm – 10:00pm

Why?

Seems to me, many people spend a long time building their lives into something they can be proud of,  something comfortable for them, in order to be safe to accomplish another something that’s bigger than themselves.

I have done my fair share of struggling, trying different configurations, playing small and dreaming big. Over the last few years, I’ve contemplated what the bigger thing might be, for me. Sure, I sometimes make people happy with my art. I make money helping other people do cool things, I volunteer, and my financial/geographical footprint is about 15% of what it used to be when I worked for Microsoft. I even turn the water off when I brush my teeth most of the time. But what can I REALLY do to make a difference in life?

When it came time for me to serve the world somehow, I found that I wanted to create a non-profit organization to help perpetuate the transformative capabilities inherent in expressing ones self, artistically. To make a space for people to experience the healing opportunities I have had through art in a more tactile, kinesthetic way than I have with my personal offerings of performances, music, paintings and that sort of thing.

I know art saves lives, because it saved mine. I’ve seen the results, and heard the stories of others, about the power of artistic expression to heal and transform. Whether it be from seeing it, appreciating it, facilitating it, being it, creating it, failing at it, living it – I maintain that art has the power to touch absolutely everyone.

I’ve also seen how sharing myself artistically often effects and inspires people to action. How the experience of art opens people up to expressing life, to telling their once-quiet stories through a medium, helping discover courages and strengths we so often convince ourselves we don’t, or can’t, have. How art helps people face their fears, release difficult emotions, grieve, find direction and purpose.

Perhaps most importantly, I have seen how, no matter how bleak and helpless a situation may seem, one small, brave action creates a chain of them. Every time.

It’s never too late to choose to make a difference.

Vita Arts is sharing the power of art with the disadvantaged and transforming lives.

Our performances offer the public a chance to see our skills, and to be moved by the human spirit.  Our shows  also serve to fund and publicize our outreach efforts, working with individuals in small workshops, giving them a chance to experience creating art for themselves, perhaps for the very first time.

We are starting local, with two public performances and a workshop being planned in 2009 alone. We look forward to expanding our efforts in the coming years by collaborating with other organizations (such as disaster relief orgs, loss support groups, and those helping reform the incarcerated) to offer transformative art experiences to the disadvantaged of all ages, around the world.

Come find out more about who we are, what we’re doing,  see a great show, and best of all, help make a difference.

Please note: If you are unable to attend this event and wish to support us, we are gratefully accepting donations. Provisional 501(c)(3) status is in the works, and will backdate once approved for tax deduction purposes. You may send donations to Vita Arts, PO box 20233, Seattle, WA 98102.

Thank you, so much, for your support.

I first went in 1995, when I was 15 and neck deep in linux, drugs and Marlboro Reds, and I’d recently discovered this thing called the web, and frequently picked fights about Slackware being superior to RedHat. I recall, during a recent move, finally throwing away my Slackware 2.7 CD which I had been keeping for posterity.

I went to defcon religiously for a time, my entire social network of people living inside a computer. I didn’t know most of their real names. I spent night after late night online tinkering, listening to music for the jilted generation (come to think of it, I think someone I talked to used ‘jilted’ as a handle..) and waiting for the next defcon, so I could see all these people in person again – and hardly remember most of it.

When I got a little older, I started playing with music, and joined mp3.com in 1997. The internet was still like the wild west and we were changing everything. My hacker friends helped me choose my juno 106 (thanks tfish) and hooked me up with equipment to make recording easier (tip of the hat to you whiteknight). After I created my first original song in 1999, on the floor of my living room, juno fresh out of its shipping box, paid for with my job breaking software at Microsoft, I started making a little money with CD sales and streams on mp3.com.

I was interviewed with ABCNews for an article on female hackers, and later about my music being online, based on a recommendation from Jeff Moss, assuring the reporter (Sascha, another person I’ve kept in touch with) I was definitely not a scene whore. I’m not sure how accurate that assurance was, but it sure felt good at the time. I still boast that Jeff pierced my navel, under mild duress in my studio apartment, sometime in 1999. That sounds pretty scene whorish to me, but who am I to say. Maybe we were just, you know.. friends.

Countless things have happened since my first defcon, and my introduction to the hacker community. My first website complete with a blue satin background and ripped off animated fire gifs was created in 1995, hosting a splattering of terrible teenage poetry. In 1997, Lars from the IRC channel #suicide sent me a black and white quickcam, and the neecam was put online, one of the first webcams during the era of Jennicam and Anacam, both of which were more popular, active and racy.

I’ve occasionally contemplated what my life would have been like had I never discovered the internet and been part of a revolution. I can’t fathom it. I can’t fathom how I could have possibly found another pool of socially awkward, skinny, pale, wide-eyed geniuses to have sloppy, dysfunctional teenage relationships with either. One of many reasons I am very thankful that my life turned out how it did.

I happened upon this awesome article about some of my friends. The L0pht is a fine example of what’s happened with this culture of misfits and criminals, but this is something that’s happened all over the landscape we built 10 years ago and long before that. I remember writing a rant about the difference between the hackers, my friends, and the script kids that were getting all the bad press, writing worms and breaking websites for attention. The hackers meant for what’s described in this article to happen from the beginning. They were out to change the world.

LOpht in Transition 04/01/2007 Michael Fitzgerald/CSO

http://www.csoonline.com/read/040107/fea_lopht.html

Brian Oblivion. Kingpin. Mudge. Space Rogue. Stefan von Neumann. Tan. Weld Pond. That’s how the hacker group called the L0pht appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Government Cybersecurity on May 19, 1998. They said, among other things, that they could take down the Internet in 30 minutes. The senators listened closely and afterward praised them effusively.

It was a landmark moment for hackers, shunned, derided and loathed by the technology industry. And it was a landmark for the L0pht too. Though the group was already known for its vulnerability disclosures, for the Hacker News Network, for tools like the hash cracking tool L0phtCrack, now “everybody [in the hacking community] wanted to be the L0pht,” remembers Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences.

Not bad for a group that got its start when someone’s wife said it was time to get his computers out of the bathtub.

The L0pht shaped the way disclosures are handled and helped force vendors like Microsoft to change the way they address software security flaws. There’s no question, either, that by raising the visibility of security problems, the group spurred companies to begin paying more attention to security. “You knew you’d better rattle your own doorknobs before the hackers did,” says John Pescatore, a longtime information security analyst at Gartner.

Some think, though, that visibility has hurt software security. “They were the Led Zeppelin of gray hat hacking,” says Marcus Ranum, who is credited with creating the first commercial firewall product and is now CSO at Tenable Network Security. “By releasing gray hat tools and techniques they were able to get a tremendous amount of attention. And they opened the floodgates for all the bottom feeders that followed them.”

Ironically, it was Ranum himself who helped give the L0pht credibility. As CEO of NFR, which made software to find intruders on corporate networks, Ranum used the L0pht’s vulnerability research to strengthen his product, and hired the L0pht both to do a code review and to write modules for his product, giving the group a legitimate corporate client to tout. He says he considers the L0pht members his friends and says they are “great guys.” But he thinks those who have followed them find vulnerabilities almost as a way to blackmail corporations. He blames the L0pht, saying, “They have changed the industry for the worse.”

Nothing in the L0pht’s emergence from Boston’s bulletin board community in 1992 suggested it would achieve any more notoriety than other hacker collectives of the day. Brian Oblivion, a hacker with strong interests in radio communications, founded the group. Oblivion declined to be interviewed for this article, saying via Space Rogue that he was too busy. Chris Wysopal, who joined the L0pht in late 1992 as Weld Pond (a handle chosen by pointing at random at a map of the Boston area, because the bulletin board The Works forbade members to use real names), says that Oblivion “had so many computers in the bathroom that his wife couldn’t use it anymore.” She gave the group space in the South End artist’s loft where she made hats. And for several years, the L0pht was just a place for Oblivion and his friends to hang out after work and store their growing collection of computing equipment.

Among those friends were Space Rogue and a teenage hacker and skateboarder named Joe Grand, who went by the handle Kingpin (named for the bolt that runs through the truck, or axle, of a skateboard).

Grand calls from the road. He’s often on the road, literally—he is a triathlete good enough to have a sponsor. He’s 31 now and runs his own San Diego design shop, Grand Idea Studio, which has designed RFID and GPS modules for Parallax, an in-game videocamera for Gamecaster, and his best design yet, a video game accessory that he has licensed but can’t talk about.

Grand, an electrical engineer, has also written two books on hardware hacking and is a technical adviser to Make magazine. If all goes well with a pilot he’s recently shot, this fall we’ll see him on an engineering show on the Discovery Channel. Yet he’s nostalgic about the L0pht.

“I’m having a really hard time with realizing that I’m twice as old as when I joined the L0pht,” he says. “We did so many great things—what can I do to top that?”

The L0pht originally built a network so they could play Doom against each other. But they got more serious in 1994 and 1995, shedding some members and adding others with specific technical skills that complemented the group. They moved to a larger space in Watertown, Mass.

Excepting Grand, who was still in high school, all of the L0pht held various day jobs, often working together at places like Comp­USA, Massachusetts General Hospital or BBN Technologies, the fabled research lab (Weld Pond, Brian Oblivion, Mudge and Silicosis all worked there at some point). They kept their identities hidden, in part to keep their day jobs. Everyone in the hacking community knew Dan Farmer had been fired from his job for releasing the Satan network analyzer. But the group wanted to turn the L0pht into a day job.

The charismatic, long-tressed Peiter “Mudge” Zatko had emerged as the group’s public face, if not its de facto leader. He developed, along with Wysopal, L0phtCrack, a tool that revealed weak passwords. Released in 1997, it’s still available on some websites today. “Back then, the companies would pretend [vulnerabilities] weren’t real,” says Bruce Schneier, the noted cryptographer and CTO of BT Counterpane. Schneier says the L0pht’s ability to build tools like L0phtCrack forced vendors to address security problems. “That’s the reason we have more secure software today. If it wasn’t for that, Microsoft would still be belittling, insulting and suing researchers,” he says.

By late 1998, the L0pht was actively trying to attract venture capital and turn itself into a real business—it had pushed out Stefan von Neumann and a couple of other short-lived members, and hired Christien Rioux (known as Dildog) and Paul Nash (known as Silicosis) to support L0phtCrack and do custom work for companies like NFR. The L0pht was not the first group of hackers to offer professional services or tools, but even in the giddy late 1990s, hackers still had an unsavory reputation. Finally, @stake, a security consulting firm, came to the group with $10 million in VC money and told the L0pht it could continue its research. The members voted to join it.

Even so, that merger, announced Jan. 10, 2000, marked the symbolic end of the L0pht. Over the next few years, its members were fired or drifted away, and @stake itself was gobbled up by Symantec in 2004. The only member of the L0pht still there is Nash. The transition was particularly difficult for Zatko, who spent six months on disability and left @stake after just two years.

Today, Zatko’s office at BBN is a rest area for sundry things. There’s a dead computer on a chair, and a working circa-1940s polygraph machine on a table. In a corner are two fishing rods and an antenna, part of an impromptu communications experiment. There’s a guitar signed by one-time porn stars Barbara Dare and Jamie Summers. A bound copy of the L0pht’s testimony in front of the Senate is on a shelf. On one wall hangs a picture of him with President Bill Clinton and Vinton Cerf, in which Zatko’s light brown hair is still rock-star length. It’s short now, parted in the middle. He has a goatee and wears glasses. He’s sore from a boxing workout the night before, a reminder that he’s in his late 30s.

Zatko says he can’t talk about what he does at BBN, other than to say it’s security-related and for some unmentionable three-lettered government agencies. He also says he returned to BBN, which employed him in the 1990s, before the L0pht was his job, in part because BBN told him there could be no publicity about the projects he was working on. “That was attractive as hell,” he says.

But Zatko can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight. He is the obvious model for “Soxster,” one of the main characters in former cyberczar Richard A. Clarke’s new novel, Breakpoint (the L0pht itself appears as “the Dugout”). And he acknowledges that he still “wants to make a dent in the universe,” the old motto of the L0pht.

After an hour of talking about the L0pht, Zatko suggests a tour of the older parts of the BBN laboratory in Cambridge, dating from when it was an acoustics consultancy. He shows off the silent room, the amplification room, the sonar tank, the place where it developed Boomerang—a technology being used in Iraq to help find snipers—and he talks about how much he likes the variety of the cool ideas BBN pursues.

“Originally, the L0pht was meant as a microcosm of here,” he says, with a wistful expression.

The spirit of the L0pht lives on most directly at Veracode, the security software company started by Wysopal and Rioux after they left Symantec in 2005. The company launched at the RSA Security Conference in February.

Wysopal post-L0pht helped codify responsible disclosure policies and establish the Organization of Internet Safety, and while starting Veracode he also managed to be lead author of The Art of Software Security Testing, published in December 2006.

Wysopal, at a rangy 6 foot 2 inches, was the tallest member of the L0pht and the oldest (he’s now 41). Rioux (whose handle Dildog was the original name Dilbert creator Scott Adams gave to Dogbert) was the shortest and youngest (now 29).

In early January, sitting in the conference room at Veracode, the two play Click-and-Clack about their time at the L0pht, and the purpose of Veracode, which in a real sense extends the L0pht’s mission: to make software more secure, in this case by offering a Web-based service that automatically checks software for security flaws, via a clever—and patented—technique for data flow modeling and modeling control flow analysis developed by Rioux.

Told of Ranum’s comments, Rioux makes a slight grimace. “The days are over when we should be flinging mud over the Internet about vulnerabilities,” he says.

Veracode has pulled in $19.5 million in capital from Polaris Venture Partners, Atlas Venture and .406 Ventures. While it has competitors, such as Coverity, Fortify and Ounce Labs, Veracode’s approach is “a cool spin” on existing security technology, according to Gartner’s Pescatore.

Both Wysopal and Rioux believe Veracode is ready to sharply reduce the world’s total number of software vulnerabilities.

The L0pht, then, are all now unquestionably legitimate, and their evolution serves as a metaphor for the security business, which is now mainstream. Companies like Microsoft and Oracle have developed methods to take care of vulnerabilities, and the L0pht deserves some credit for that turn of events. While the disclosure wars are again raging, thanks to bug-a-day campaigns and other ploys by the hackers of today, the L0pht’s overall impact on corporate security has been positive, say many, including Howard Schmidt, who knew the L0pht both in his role as a computer forensics investigator at the Air Force and as CSO at Microsoft.

Still, some vendors continue to try to shove security issues under the rug, and there is no question that more of the Internet is under attack today than ever before. So what of that?

Peter Neumann (no relation to the L0pht’s Stefan von Neumann) is 74 and still a principal scientist at SRI, working on security issues. He also testified before the Senate subcommittee on that day in May 1998. He says security vulnerabilities are a part of a much bigger set of problems that have existed for 40 years and probably will exist 40 years from now. But he chuckles when asked about the L0pht, saying, “They were pointing out that the emperor has no clothes on, and nobody wants to hear that, but they did it in a tasteful way that made people listen. They made a difference.”

I’m so very proud of my friends, and feel fortunate today to have had these people in my life as examples. Hell, just today I discovered a hacker friend of mine, Josh Klein (who I met after handles weren’t quite so important to ones safety, so I don’t know his) was not only the speaker in a TED talk, some of the most amazing presentations on the planet, but was in Oprah fucking magazine talking about his passions and experiments. My peeps are DOING something.

I, too, am out there doing my part to make a dent in the universe. I support a company I believe in as I make my base living to earn the stable springboard life situation I’ve built to do my more risky work. I’ve found a way to channel my compulsion to express and tell vivid stories, and the skills I’ve picked up along the way, toward a non-profit that matters. I have done some meaningful things, and I am growing, expanding, discovering new routes and possibilities nearly every day. I’ve come a long way from the girl who was found passed out under a van before defcon 6 had even started.

For a time, I wondered if my life choices, and the people I spent time with, were the reason I seemed so fucked up and constantly struggling. I wonder 15 years later, if they’re a part of the reason that, right now, ]]> I feel fortunate and full today. I am going to DEFCON this year. I just received my itinerary from whitetras and it’s official. I’m bringing someone important to me to show him vegas for the first time.

I first went in 1995, when I was 15 and neck deep in linux, drugs and Marlboro Reds, and I’d recently discovered this thing called the web, and frequently picked fights about Slackware being superior to RedHat. I recall, during a recent move, finally throwing away my Slackware 2.7 CD which I had been keeping for posterity.

I went to defcon religiously for a time, my entire social network of people living inside a computer. I didn’t know most of their real names. I spent night after late night online tinkering, listening to music for the jilted generation (come to think of it, I think someone I talked to used ‘jilted’ as a handle..) and waiting for the next defcon, so I could see all these people in person again – and hardly remember most of it.

When I got a little older, I started playing with music, and joined mp3.com in 1997. The internet was still like the wild west and we were changing everything. My hacker friends helped me choose my juno 106 (thanks tfish) and hooked me up with equipment to make recording easier (tip of the hat to you whiteknight). After I created my first original song in 1999, on the floor of my living room, juno fresh out of its shipping box, paid for with my job breaking software at Microsoft, I started making a little money with CD sales and streams on mp3.com.

I was interviewed with ABCNews for an article on female hackers, and later about my music being online, based on a recommendation from Jeff Moss, assuring the reporter (Sascha, another person I’ve kept in touch with) I was definitely not a scene whore. I’m not sure how accurate that assurance was, but it sure felt good at the time. I still boast that Jeff pierced my navel, under mild duress in my studio apartment, sometime in 1999. That sounds pretty scene whorish to me, but who am I to say. Maybe we were just, you know.. friends.

Countless things have happened since my first defcon, and my introduction to the hacker community. My first website complete with a blue satin background and ripped off animated fire gifs was created in 1995, hosting a splattering of terrible teenage poetry. In 1997, Lars from the IRC channel #suicide sent me a black and white quickcam, and the neecam was put online, one of the first webcams during the era of Jennicam and Anacam, both of which were more popular, active and racy.

I’ve occasionally contemplated what my life would have been like had I never discovered the internet and been part of a revolution. I can’t fathom it. I can’t fathom how I could have possibly found another pool of socially awkward, skinny, pale, wide-eyed geniuses to have sloppy, dysfunctional teenage relationships with either. One of many reasons I am very thankful that my life turned out how it did.

I happened upon this awesome article about some of my friends. The L0pht is a fine example of what’s happened with this culture of misfits and criminals, but this is something that’s happened all over the landscape we built 10 years ago and long before that. I remember writing a rant about the difference between the hackers, my friends, and the script kids that were getting all the bad press, writing worms and breaking websites for attention. The hackers meant for what’s described in this article to happen from the beginning. They were out to change the world.

LOpht in Transition
04/01/2007
Michael Fitzgerald/CSO

http://www.csoonline.com/read/040107/fea_lopht.html

Brian Oblivion. Kingpin. Mudge. Space Rogue. Stefan von Neumann. Tan. Weld Pond. That’s how the hacker group called the L0pht appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Government Cybersecurity on May 19, 1998. They said, among other things, that they could take down the Internet in 30 minutes. The senators listened closely and afterward praised them effusively.

It was a landmark moment for hackers, shunned, derided and loathed by the technology industry. And it was a landmark for the L0pht too. Though the group was already known for its vulnerability disclosures, for the Hacker News Network, for tools like the hash cracking tool L0phtCrack, now “everybody [in the hacking community] wanted to be the L0pht,” remembers Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences.

Not bad for a group that got its start when someone’s wife said it was time to get his computers out of the bathtub.

The L0pht shaped the way disclosures are handled and helped force vendors like Microsoft to change the way they address software security flaws. There’s no question, either, that by raising the visibility of security problems, the group spurred companies to begin paying more attention to security. “You knew you’d better rattle your own doorknobs before the hackers did,” says John Pescatore, a longtime information security analyst at Gartner.

Some think, though, that visibility has hurt software security. “They were the Led Zeppelin of gray hat hacking,” says Marcus Ranum, who is credited with creating the first commercial firewall product and is now CSO at Tenable Network Security. “By releasing gray hat tools and techniques they were able to get a tremendous amount of attention. And they opened the floodgates for all the bottom feeders that followed them.”

Ironically, it was Ranum himself who helped give the L0pht credibility. As CEO of NFR, which made software to find intruders on corporate networks, Ranum used the L0pht’s vulnerability research to strengthen his product, and hired the L0pht both to do a code review and to write modules for his product, giving the group a legitimate corporate client to tout. He says he considers the L0pht members his friends and says they are “great guys.” But he thinks those who have followed them find vulnerabilities almost as a way to blackmail corporations. He blames the L0pht, saying, “They have changed the industry for the worse.”

Nothing in the L0pht’s emergence from Boston’s bulletin board community in 1992 suggested it would achieve any more notoriety than other hacker collectives of the day. Brian Oblivion, a hacker with strong interests in radio communications, founded the group. Oblivion declined to be interviewed for this article, saying via Space Rogue that he was too busy. Chris Wysopal, who joined the L0pht in late 1992 as Weld Pond (a handle chosen by pointing at random at a map of the Boston area, because the bulletin board The Works forbade members to use real names), says that Oblivion “had so many computers in the bathroom that his wife couldn’t use it anymore.” She gave the group space in the South End artist’s loft where she made hats. And for several years, the L0pht was just a place for Oblivion and his friends to hang out after work and store their growing collection of computing equipment.

Among those friends were Space Rogue and a teenage hacker and skateboarder named Joe Grand, who went by the handle Kingpin (named for the bolt that runs through the truck, or axle, of a skateboard).

Grand calls from the road. He’s often on the road, literally—he is a triathlete good enough to have a sponsor. He’s 31 now and runs his own San Diego design shop, Grand Idea Studio, which has designed RFID and GPS modules for Parallax, an in-game videocamera for Gamecaster, and his best design yet, a video game accessory that he has licensed but can’t talk about.

Grand, an electrical engineer, has also written two books on hardware hacking and is a technical adviser to Make magazine. If all goes well with a pilot he’s recently shot, this fall we’ll see him on an engineering show on the Discovery Channel. Yet he’s nostalgic about the L0pht.

“I’m having a really hard time with realizing that I’m twice as old as when I joined the L0pht,” he says. “We did so many great things—what can I do to top that?”

The L0pht originally built a network so they could play Doom against each other. But they got more serious in 1994 and 1995, shedding some members and adding others with specific technical skills that complemented the group. They moved to a larger space in Watertown, Mass.

Excepting Grand, who was still in high school, all of the L0pht held various day jobs, often working together at places like Comp­USA, Massachusetts General Hospital or BBN Technologies, the fabled research lab (Weld Pond, Brian Oblivion, Mudge and Silicosis all worked there at some point). They kept their identities hidden, in part to keep their day jobs. Everyone in the hacking community knew Dan Farmer had been fired from his job for releasing the Satan network analyzer. But the group wanted to turn the L0pht into a day job.

The charismatic, long-tressed Peiter “Mudge” Zatko had emerged as the group’s public face, if not its de facto leader. He developed, along with Wysopal, L0phtCrack, a tool that revealed weak passwords. Released in 1997, it’s still available on some websites today. “Back then, the companies would pretend [vulnerabilities] weren’t real,” says Bruce Schneier, the noted cryptographer and CTO of BT Counterpane. Schneier says the L0pht’s ability to build tools like L0phtCrack forced vendors to address security problems. “That’s the reason we have more secure software today. If it wasn’t for that, Microsoft would still be belittling, insulting and suing researchers,” he says.

By late 1998, the L0pht was actively trying to attract venture capital and turn itself into a real business—it had pushed out Stefan von Neumann and a couple of other short-lived members, and hired Christien Rioux (known as Dildog) and Paul Nash (known as Silicosis) to support L0phtCrack and do custom work for companies like NFR. The L0pht was not the first group of hackers to offer professional services or tools, but even in the giddy late 1990s, hackers still had an unsavory reputation. Finally, @stake, a security consulting firm, came to the group with $10 million in VC money and told the L0pht it could continue its research. The members voted to join it.

Even so, that merger, announced Jan. 10, 2000, marked the symbolic end of the L0pht. Over the next few years, its members were fired or drifted away, and @stake itself was gobbled up by Symantec in 2004. The only member of the L0pht still there is Nash. The transition was particularly difficult for Zatko, who spent six months on disability and left @stake after just two years.

Today, Zatko’s office at BBN is a rest area for sundry things. There’s a dead computer on a chair, and a working circa-1940s polygraph machine on a table. In a corner are two fishing rods and an antenna, part of an impromptu communications experiment. There’s a guitar signed by one-time porn stars Barbara Dare and Jamie Summers. A bound copy of the L0pht’s testimony in front of the Senate is on a shelf. On one wall hangs a picture of him with President Bill Clinton and Vinton Cerf, in which Zatko’s light brown hair is still rock-star length. It’s short now, parted in the middle. He has a goatee and wears glasses. He’s sore from a boxing workout the night before, a reminder that he’s in his late 30s.

Zatko says he can’t talk about what he does at BBN, other than to say it’s security-related and for some unmentionable three-lettered government agencies. He also says he returned to BBN, which employed him in the 1990s, before the L0pht was his job, in part because BBN told him there could be no publicity about the projects he was working on. “That was attractive as hell,” he says.

But Zatko can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight. He is the obvious model for “Soxster,” one of the main characters in former cyberczar Richard A. Clarke’s new novel, Breakpoint (the L0pht itself appears as “the Dugout”). And he acknowledges that he still “wants to make a dent in the universe,” the old motto of the L0pht.

After an hour of talking about the L0pht, Zatko suggests a tour of the older parts of the BBN laboratory in Cambridge, dating from when it was an acoustics consultancy. He shows off the silent room, the amplification room, the sonar tank, the place where it developed Boomerang—a technology being used in Iraq to help find snipers—and he talks about how much he likes the variety of the cool ideas BBN pursues.

“Originally, the L0pht was meant as a microcosm of here,” he says, with a wistful expression.

The spirit of the L0pht lives on most directly at Veracode, the security software company started by Wysopal and Rioux after they left Symantec in 2005. The company launched at the RSA Security Conference in February.

Wysopal post-L0pht helped codify responsible disclosure policies and establish the Organization of Internet Safety, and while starting Veracode he also managed to be lead author of The Art of Software Security Testing, published in December 2006.

Wysopal, at a rangy 6 foot 2 inches, was the tallest member of the L0pht and the oldest (he’s now 41). Rioux (whose handle Dildog was the original name Dilbert creator Scott Adams gave to Dogbert) was the shortest and youngest (now 29).

In early January, sitting in the conference room at Veracode, the two play Click-and-Clack about their time at the L0pht, and the purpose of Veracode, which in a real sense extends the L0pht’s mission: to make software more secure, in this case by offering a Web-based service that automatically checks software for security flaws, via a clever—and patented—technique for data flow modeling and modeling control flow analysis developed by Rioux.

Told of Ranum’s comments, Rioux makes a slight grimace. “The days are over when we should be flinging mud over the Internet about vulnerabilities,” he says.

Veracode has pulled in $19.5 million in capital from Polaris Venture Partners, Atlas Venture and .406 Ventures. While it has competitors, such as Coverity, Fortify and Ounce Labs, Veracode’s approach is “a cool spin” on existing security technology, according to Gartner’s Pescatore.

Both Wysopal and Rioux believe Veracode is ready to sharply reduce the world’s total number of software vulnerabilities.

The L0pht, then, are all now unquestionably legitimate, and their evolution serves as a metaphor for the security business, which is now mainstream. Companies like Microsoft and Oracle have developed methods to take care of vulnerabilities, and the L0pht deserves some credit for that turn of events. While the disclosure wars are again raging, thanks to bug-a-day campaigns and other ploys by the hackers of today, the L0pht’s overall impact on corporate security has been positive, say many, including Howard Schmidt, who knew the L0pht both in his role as a computer forensics investigator at the Air Force and as CSO at Microsoft.

Still, some vendors continue to try to shove security issues under the rug, and there is no question that more of the Internet is under attack today than ever before. So what of that?

Peter Neumann (no relation to the L0pht’s Stefan von Neumann) is 74 and still a principal scientist at SRI, working on security issues. He also testified before the Senate subcommittee on that day in May 1998. He says security vulnerabilities are a part of a much bigger set of problems that have existed for 40 years and probably will exist 40 years from now. But he chuckles when asked about the L0pht, saying, “They were pointing out that the emperor has no clothes on, and nobody wants to hear that, but they did it in a tasteful way that made people listen. They made a difference.”

I’m so very proud of my friends, and feel fortunate today to have had these people in my life as examples. Hell, just today I discovered a hacker friend of mine, Josh Klein (who I met after handles weren’t quite so important to ones safety, so I don’t know his) was not only the speaker in a TED talk, some of the most amazing presentations on the planet, but was in Oprah fucking magazine talking about his passions and experiments. My peeps are DOING something.

I, too, am out there doing my part to make a dent in the universe. I support a company I believe in as I make my base living to earn the stable springboard life situation I’ve built to do my more risky work. I’ve found a way to channel my compulsion to express and tell vivid stories, and the skills I’ve picked up along the way, toward a non-profit that matters. I have done some meaningful things, and I am growing, expanding, discovering new routes and possibilities nearly every day. I’ve come a long way from the girl who was found passed out under a van before defcon 6 had even started.

For a time, I wondered if my life choices, and the people I spent time with, were the reason I seemed so fucked up and constantly struggling. I wonder 15 years later, if they’re a part of the reason that, right now, I’m not.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World “Stand By Me” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

There’s also world versions of:

“One Love” http://vimeo.com/3097281 and “Don’t ]]> I hope these videos go as viral as I think they will…

Playing For Change | Song Around The World “Stand By Me” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

There’s also world versions of:

“One Love” http://vimeo.com/3097281
and
“Don’t Worry” http://vimeo.com/2903195

It’s like bartering but better – they keep track of your non-cash money (dibits), which are equal in value to dollars, and send you a tax doc at the end of the year to keep you legal. Rather than finding someone who’s services you want to trade for, you offer your own services for dibits, and then spend those dibits on whatever you want from the other businesses offering on the site.

From the looks of it, two guys run the thing. My initial support question, about setting up multiple businesses, was answered within about 5 minutes (soon, it will be possible to set up more than one business per account – which is good, for me.). It could easily out grow its staff, so I’m personally preparing for growing pains and looking forward to being on the ground floor to help out.

This site has even got me considering offering services I might not offer usually – like setting up a wordpress website for 150 dibs or whatever – and already thinking more creatively about how to get by in tight times. Oh, and they give you 100 dibs to spend just for signing up and adding your business.

If you join, please use https://www.dibspace.com/users/new?referral=courtnee@gmail.com – I get 30 dibs if you use me as your ]]> It seems to me that this has been done somehow before, though I can’t think of an example offhand. I just signed up to DibSpace, a new online marketplace that uses a non-money currency as a bartering tool and have been playing with it. The design seems rather preliminary – the sites been around for about two months or so now – and already has about 600 members offering goods for up for dibs.

It’s like bartering but better – they keep track of your non-cash money (dibits), which are equal in value to dollars, and send you a tax doc at the end of the year to keep you legal. Rather than finding someone who’s services you want to trade for, you offer your own services for dibits, and then spend those dibits on whatever you want from the other businesses offering on the site.

From the looks of it, two guys run the thing. My initial support question, about setting up multiple businesses, was answered within about 5 minutes (soon, it will be possible to set up more than one business per account – which is good, for me.). It could easily out grow its staff, so I’m personally preparing for growing pains and looking forward to being on the ground floor to help out.

This site has even got me considering offering services I might not offer usually – like setting up a wordpress website for 150 dibs or whatever – and already thinking more creatively about how to get by in tight times. Oh, and they give you 100 dibs to spend just for signing up and adding your business.

If you join, please use https://www.dibspace.com/users/new?referral=courtnee@gmail.com – I get 30 dibs if you use me as your referral.

Sweet!

Now that the votes are in, Dr. King’s dream is that much closer to realization. We all have dreams. ]]>

Now that the votes are in, Dr. King’s dream is that much closer to realization. We all have dreams. What’s yours?

I was skeptical at first, like I am about a lot of things. They are, however, stupendously awesome. Better health care for less. Better care for less than my copays under my free-to-me insurance through my old job, even. I spoke, on the phone with a doctor, about becoming a patient for 20 minutes today. 20 minutes. Have you ever done that?

In my search for a health care alternative as I lose that insurance through my former job, they have been an absolute breath of fresh air. For primary care, and the loads of little things I have break on me, I decided to go with them without hesitation last month. I am actually giddy to go in for my first official appointment next week – my 90 minute initial visit with my new doctor.

I’ve been asked a lot about how Qliance works, specifically how they can stay in business for how little they charge, and of course what the ‘catch’ is. I am happy to talk with people about Qliance and my experiences with them, and why I chose to join them vocationally as well as being a patient. I highly suggest that if you’re interested in learning more, you hit up their website at http://qliance.com or give them a call and ask them about it. They are open 7 days a week.

Additionally, though their site has some testimonials if you clicked around, it really bares mentioning a few of these:

http://chaunceybell.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/concerned-about-healthcare-watch-this/

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=490773

http://www.yelp.com/biz/qliance-medical-group-seattle

As someone with many medical challenges, who’s involved in multiple forms of the medical profession including practice as well as insurance administration, and as a human being, I am so glad to see someone finally doing this. I am ]]> I am excited to be working part-time at Qliance (http://qliance.com/), an amazing health care facility in Seattle which operates completely outside of the bloated US health insurance system.

I was skeptical at first, like I am about a lot of things. They are, however, stupendously awesome. Better health care for less. Better care for less than my copays under my free-to-me insurance through my old job, even. I spoke, on the phone with a doctor, about becoming a patient for 20 minutes today. 20 minutes. Have you ever done that?

In my search for a health care alternative as I lose that insurance through my former job, they have been an absolute breath of fresh air. For primary care, and the loads of little things I have break on me, I decided to go with them without hesitation last month. I am actually giddy to go in for my first official appointment next week – my 90 minute initial visit with my new doctor.

I’ve been asked a lot about how Qliance works, specifically how they can stay in business for how little they charge, and of course what the ‘catch’ is. I am happy to talk with people about Qliance and my experiences with them, and why I chose to join them vocationally as well as being a patient. I highly suggest that if you’re interested in learning more, you hit up their website at http://qliance.com or give them a call and ask them about it. They are open 7 days a week.

Additionally, though their site has some testimonials if you clicked around, it really bares mentioning a few of these:

http://chaunceybell.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/concerned-about-healthcare-watch-this/

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=490773

http://www.yelp.com/biz/qliance-medical-group-seattle

As someone with many medical challenges, who’s involved in multiple forms of the medical profession including practice as well as insurance administration, and as a human being, I am so glad to see someone finally doing this. I am an advocate.

Bravo.