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Yup. You read that right…Tristan and I are pregnant!

I found out for sure early last week at LIB, though I had a strong suspicion before that she was. Here’s what a fetus and most likely our child, looks like right about now…

Our child is growing at least 4-5 major organs and/or other parts a day: today a heart, fingers and toes; tomorrow a nose, stomach and tonsils. And while not necessarily in that order, is illustrative of the fact that a fetus’ growth is simply a miracle of nature.

I’m really excited to see this process unfold and looking forward to the wealth this new life will bring to us and the world around it.

With so much happening at Lightning In A Bottle this year, I wanted to take a minute to share some final instructions for any of my friends or contacts that I haven’t been in daily touch with regarding festival details like ticketing system, emergency calls, etc.

If you’re one of these people not in daily contact with me on these issues or are but still have questions, please read on below for some final instruction. My time is uber-tight at the moment between final planning for LIB, an emergency container pack job for The Do LaB’s Portugal job/trip, the Distinctivefabric.com build-out and move into its new space, and some miscellaneous details like trying to find a new home with my girlfriend and still somehow maintaining time for the usual with my duties on the MINC board and as a Sugar Shack collective resident.

Needless to say, the last three are falling behind to varying degrees, for which those involved have my genuine apologies, but this scheduling mayhem wasn’t unforeseen, my life is what it is.

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Hello friends-

Hope everyone’s plans for LIB are coming along nicely! I’m really excited to connect with everyone on site, it’s going to be an amazing experience this year…just a few things to get out of the way and be totally clear on.

If anyone is planning to arrive at LIB before the gates open Thursday at 4pm, you will not be admitted unless you’re on the early arrival list.

If you’re not yet on an early arrival list, then most likely you don’t need to be as you plan to be there after the gates officially open. If for some reason you were planning to be on site before the gates open and are not signed up through the official volunteer channel, then please contact by 10am tomorrow (Thursday), to arrange these details.

For those speaking on a panel, please send me your preferred email to be used in conjunction with your event entry, details will be emailed to you, I believe (most likely with a link or print-out). Details on this still haven’t been made completely clear to me, so please bear with us as we’ve got a completely new system via Beticketing.com this year. I will make sure that the final details on this are made available to you as soon as possible…

If you have any final questions about entry, panel details, or any other needs, please be sure to email before this Sunday. I’ll be out on site as of this Sunday and will have limited time/Internet access to address last minute questions.

Please, please, please do your best to wrap things up in this time-frame: I want to take care of everyone’s needs and requests, but can only do so much, especially once we roll into high gear for build-out on site next week.

Also, once next Thursday night/Friday morning rolls around, I will more than likely be unable to reply to calls or text messages. If you absolutely must contact me and have already left a voicemail or text message once, please refrain from leaving others. If you’re at the gate and have a TRUE emergency (like your ticket print-out doesn’t work or for some freak reason you’re name isn’t on some list), then have someone with a radio there try to reach me, as I’ll be more likely to get a walkie call at that point.

Again, please do your best to finalize any details you’ve been putting off or were unsure of, now. I want to make both our experiences with this event from here on out as seamless as possible!

Thanks for your attention and cooperation with all of this. If you’re already receiving instructions from another Do LaB/LIB staff member, please just stick with them from here on out.

I believe it’s time for a Collective Council here in Los Angeles, CA (and beyond).

To that end I’m working on a new project but old idea (think Gathering of the Tribes, aka GoTT), something which I foresee benefiting all of the LA communities and others and am looking to get the word out to the various, key community leaders.

Below is an initial overview of the project. If anyone has any input on any of this, can suggest members, or wishes to get involved, please let me know.

Additionally, I see this expanding well beyond Los Angeles and our related communities at some point, as I often think big, on a global scale.

I’ve even worked on or discussed similar concepts with some of you out there before. I believe that this venture stands free and clear of anything else prior to this initiative and that any related ventures can serve some part in this. I am not looking to usurp anyone’s dreams or current ventures, but rather instead wish to connect and help strengthen them all, just as I wish to do with the community leaders and members here in LA (and beyond).

Many pieces are already in place or soon will be, to further fuel and catapult all of us to new realms of wonder and enlightenment. Some present pieces include:

Abundant Sugar, Amoration, Burning Man, Coachella, Creative Citizen, Dianovo, Empowerment Works, GLiving, GoTT, Green Nectarine, Green Sector, Growing Architecture, Hipgenesis, Lightning In A Bottle, Lucent Dossier, Moontribe, Mutaytor, Orangekids, Pocket Underground, Space Island, The Do LaB, The Sugar Shack, Tribe, Twitter, ToyShoppe Pro, WordPress, Words For The Many, Virgin Music Festival, YouTube, etc.

Official Description (subject to change):

You, the leading members/representatives from each of the major communities within the greater Los Angeles collective underground, are hereby cordially invited to join the Collective Council to help stimulate, educate and otherwise empower stronger bonds between each others organizations and the communities they represent.

I believe the time has come that each of your respective communities be brought together in a sacred and respectful manner to offer up each others strengths and wisdom to insure a healthier, wiser, safer and more protected collective community. From questions on business, to legal matters, to fundraising for projects, legal and health matters, to greater community outreach, we can all come to benefit from each others experience and wisdom for greater prosperity and evolution.

To that end I have begun several viral web initiatives including a tribe online to start connecting those that wish to play a part in this. For those who enjoy the micro-level of connectedness, a Twitter log has been initiated as well. You can find us online at these locations, more to follow soon:

http://tribes.tribe.net/collectivecouncil
http://twitter.com/thecollective
http://collectivecouncil.com

As a participating member to varying degrees, of a number of Los Angeles based collectives: Green Gurus, Green Sector, Mid-City Neighborhood Council, Moontribe, The Do Lab, Sugar Shack, etc. and as a maturing entrepreneur, Capricorn, and all around social architect if you will (those who know me well should understand this better) of collective bits, I’m confident I can help shape and lead a unifying body of consciousness to help council, develop, assist, and otherwise insure a stronger web of resources to be called upon as needed throughout all communities.

Should you wish to become active in this endeavor, I will greatly honor and appreciate you as a valued member and participant and take any suggestions, criticisms and all around council with the utmost respect and gratitude. All I ask is that you honor this vision with an equal amount of respect and formality, as this is an attempt to propel and unite each other into the unfolding universal flow and convergence that is now occurring and rapidly accelerating around us all.

I will be contacting many community members through the coming days and weeks to further shape these efforts. Plans are also loosely coming together for a first, formal meeting of interested parties.

I eagerly welcome your response, input and any questions that you may have.

Jedi Wright / Founder
The Collective Council
collectivecouncil [ @ ] gmail [ dot ] com

2007 was an amazing year of growth and change, on many levels; also, this year’s end saw my one and only Golden Birthday:

(Check out the rest of my birthday pics from at the Edison)

The year started out with a 3-week visit home after my mom broke her arm, shortly after New Years 2007. I spent almost 2-weeks at home with her to help out with her rehab, got her set up with a new Mac, and generally just spent a lot of quality time catching up with her and some of the other family members.

I then bounced down to Florida for a week-long visit with my Dad, step-mom and some old friends from the River: Tim and Doug.

Then it was back to Cali to return to work on Dianovo, but I just couldn’t get back into it or much of any other work: I was uber home-sick and caught up in the slow-pace that the East Coast so often is. So I decided to pack up my things and move back east, but first stopping back over in LA again to dump said stuff in storage and prepare my other business for my departure. But not surprisingly, I got caught back up with my friends and loved ones in LA and decided to push off my departure for a few months.

I hopped back on board hardcore with The Do LaB, for an amazing few months of work on Coachella, then Lightning In A Bottle, the Beverly Hills White Party, and then it was into summer with a 2.5 week long trip to Guatemala. My time there gave me a lot of opportunity to reflect upon what was important to me and what I wanted to pursue personally and professionally. So when I returned to LA in early June, I began in more earnest, to work on both my romantic relationship and professional path.

I continued working with The Do LaB, resumed work on Green Gurus and continued work on my relationship. Then in mid-summer I went back east again (and therein lies a constant theme for me and home) to help head up the Green Spot construction of The Do LaB’s lumi pods and towers at the Virgin Music Festival in Baltimore, followed up by another visit home.

While at home again, I heavily re-visited my passion for the outdoors as it related to my old job at Hidden River Adventures and my future plans for Rivertribe, but realized it still wasn’t time for that pursuit; I still needed something more from my investments living out West. So after some much needed time re-connecting to the river with some great kayaking trips, I headed back to LA.

One of my investments or more aptly, reasons for moving out west, was school. So the first thing I did was re-enroll in school at SMC for the fall semester. Then I headed up another gig for The Do LaB at the Future Ape festival, followed by one last get-away before the start of the school: this time back to Santa Cruz to watch my old house and base of operations for Dianovo.

Then it was a head-first dive back into school for an intense 3.5 month-long semester in computer science, design and programming; an intense and seemingly appropriate step with regards to my romantic interests; followed by a long-awaited move into the Sugar Shack, then my foray into local politics, the loss of my oldest friend Charlie, and continued work on Green Gurus.

I also worked on the last few gigs for the year with The Do LaB, at the Global Mala Project and a random job for Goldenvoice. Also during the last half of my semester, I started counseling for the first time in years, to help kind of clear some of the noise in my head from everything that year, followed by a renewed start in work on my longest running romantic relationship, through couples counseling (which has been a great decision).

Another big event of the year was my first surgery, in which I finally went in and had a lumptectomy performed to have an overly uncomfortable and ample-sized cyst removed from directly beneath my left nipple; the surgery was flawless and there was very little pain involved afterwards, thanks to the great job performed by my doctor.

While there have been countless other events and random bits of interest from this year, nothing is more noteworthy than the pending sale of my first internet venture. The sale was posted back over the summer and negotiations have been taking place on and off for the last few months with several different parties. Now it looks very close to happening, perhaps within the first month of this new year, so I have been doing a lot of work to prepare for this possibility, both for the business itself and my own well-being; it’s definitely one of the biggest, most life-changing steps I’ve had to prepare for in a long time. But I definitely believe it’s time to make this change and what better time then at the start of the new year?

So as this year starts to unfold and all the previous year’s seeds start to yield their fruits, I look forward to the work in store: for my companies, myself, my family, friends, and the world. I am going to make this my best year ever and I hope you are able to do the same!

Much love and blessings for everyone’s prosperity, health and happiness.

In the spirit of the holidays and my good friend Douglas, an old-time baker, I’ve snapped off a shot of my girlfriend’s sister Olivia’s gourmet-style, Christmas breakfast.

The menu included baked eggs with herbs, French toast seasoned with nutmeg and cinnamon, and lightly seasoned Morningstar vegan bacon, with a side of clementine fruit, and a hot cocoa blended with coffee for a delicious mocha mix.

Here’s a pic:

As I think back over the last 15 years of opportunities I’ve experienced in watching and learning from great masters, I realize how fortunate I’ve been to learn from, work and train with, and come to know the people I’ve met along the way.

In some cases, I’ve tangled one-on-one in the dojo with internationally acclaimed Vittorio Carelli (Carelli Design and Carelli International) or in the fields of hard grass with the most commanding of martial arts instructors, with Sensei Gregory Hofler (5th Dan, Chairman Tozai Aikido Assoc. & founder, Itamar tactical martial art); while in others I’ve practiced the art of design, customer relations and branding in my small, hometown with locally known entrepreneurs (though equally intelligent and knowledgeable) such as John Flemming (JAM Screen Printing) or Tim Reeser (Ghosttour.com); and most recently with Adam Wiggins (founder of TrustCommerce, Distinctivefabric.com, Bitscribe, and now his latest venture…Heroku).

Still others have included some equally great thinkers and motivators such as Ryan Wartena (co-founder of Nano Sol Systems), Elizabeth Marley (Architectural Consultant w/Farmlab), Blue Cobalt (founder of Dianovo.com), Jim Strickler (founder of RedRox, Cragmaker and the Bouldertron), Garo Kuyumcuovic (founder Rooftop Promotion), and Tristan Edwards (who continues to teach me the meaning of commitment, something I’ve been known to struggle with in most area’s).

Also, a number of my fellow hometown friends, school mates and siblings have met with varying degrees of success and encompass a number of really great qualities as musicians, artists, designers and entrepreneurs: Dede, Jesse and Josh Flemming (founders of The Do LaB), Brent and Chad Hurley (YouTube), Daniel Rattigan (co-founder French Broad Luscious Chocolates), Pierre Pressure (ringleader of The End of The World Tour Circus), JP Ettel and Charlie Fillman (expert laborers and craftsmen), Douglas Reeser (partner in Green Gurus) Ben Wright, Amanda Jayne, Gregory Johnson, Josh Maddox (co-owner of Distinctivefabric.com), and many others along the way.

Each and every one of these ladies and gents are shining examples of what ambition, determination and hard-work can accomplish and I am profoundly proud of all their accomplishments to date and, am equally honored to have known each and every one of them, even if was just to go at it for a few hours on the mat once a week or growing up in attendance together, at the same school.

I just hope that I have or can at some point, return the favor to them all, in this life or another. And, as another friend Ethernight, points out:

“The people you choose to surround yourself with define you.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Another old friend from little ol’ Morgantown, Mr. Pierre Pressure.

He’s one bad-ass artist (though not specifically because of his scanned sketchbook, but other works of art I’ve seen over the years: murals, puppets, body-painting, etc.); a sampling of his art can be seen online at his website.

Warning: explicit material, parental guidance suggested!

(Due to the potentially wide-ranging age of my readership, I’ve removed the link to his site…if interested in the link, please contact me for it.)