Few years back I had a gig traveling the country educating the geek masses about a brilliant Internet server security product which was highly unappreciated by the monolithic company which ended up first eating up then spitting out the mangled remains of previously well-oiled startup which I was about a minute too late signing up with before the chewing began.

Aside from the local crew in the Boston-area where I lived being super chill and on the whole way cool to work with, I also got the chance to meet a few folks in our parent office in Seattle, to where I traveled fairly frequently - usually to meet sales folks who had no idea what I did nor why I refused to join them in spending the bulk of my traveling expense account treating German hardware resellers to strip clubs and eight balls.

But amid that confusing din of the first Post-Dot.com Apocalypse arose a couple of short but meaningful encounters with people who not only shared my dig of tech, but were also incredibly insightful about maintaining some semblance of a work/life balance and have indeed changed my life for the better with their actions and words.

Karen Toast is one of those folks. She’s a self-described and obviously proven consultant, sailor, teacher and rock star mom.

When I met Karen she was essentially the heart of the tech publications and instructional training show at aforementioned product-killing behemoth company where we both worked. When next I spoke to her were hanging over the railing of a drizzling overpass in Seattle a week after 9/11 with her assuring me that despite me losing my shit in the face of the “We Hate Brown Guys!” landscape that the airports, subways and hotel lobbies of America had become, everything would eventually be alright. (Which it is most days. Thanks for being right, Toast.) And soon after and every since she become the foremost expert in high seas shenanigans and home schooling.

What’s the story here?

Couple of years back Karen and her man decided to buy a boat, name it the Don Quixote and leave all this beautiful land-locked nonsense of picket fenced homes and high rise offices behind to raise their 3 pretty kids on the ocean. Living, loving, learning and schooling sans land. And blogging like crazy. The result has been a highly entertaining, often insightful and frequently brilliant collection of writings on the truly ineffable chain of her and her family’s experiences.

These excerpts from her prolific blog, Toast Floats, demonstrate just why I’ve got a prose-driven crush on this such-a-super lady:

On office life:
I spent the last three months of my pregnancy attending bug meetings during which the engineering boy-man-children crunching the code stared at my roiling belly in horror, anticipating no doubt the emergence of an alien at any moment. Aeron herself dispelled all comparisons to Signorney Weaver as she sucked boob during project meetings after her birth. It was the first, last and only time I’ve felt that I was on the front line of the feminist revolution.

On rescues:
Aeron and I simultaneously came to the same conclusion and looked up. The only way out of there was through the ceiling hatch. Still gripping Aeron’s hand to staunch the blood, we each reached our free arms up to undog the hatch. I went up first, then helped her out just as Dr C boarded the boat. There are times when he earns his sobriquet as Dr and this was one of them. He immediately grasped the situtation, scooped up a now giggling Aeron, and whisked her off to do his professional medicine man dance to heal her hand. Ever the diligent sailor, I redogged the hatch and went to wash my hands and pour a glass of wine.

On gender roles:
The move to boat life, as a result, has been fraught with opportunities to fail in my endless non-effort to be a model of all that is 21st century woman. For one thing, I like to cook. I like messing with our gimpy oven and experimenting with two-burner cooking. I also like to navigate, communicate with our land-based friends, and provision the linens. In the sailing world, these are the Girl Jobs. Dr C in turn loves to mess with the engines, tear apart and rebuild the electrical system, and build a water maker from scratch. These are Boy Jobs. I teach school and take care of the children; he works at the office and brings home the cruising kitty. It’s like we threw away twenty years of marital equality and stepped into an episode of Leave it Beaver.

She paints a greater visual and emotional wallop into her verbal landscapes than all the profanity + manic yalps I stroke to keyboard could every hope to capture.

My nearly 35 and mostly still foolish soul is finally getting the hint that Karen’s got this whole live-for-happy-before-all-else thing mostly figured out. And I recommend you, too, take the time to pick up what she’s throwing down.

* All this pics in the post are most likely © Karen Toast Conger…seeing as I bit them all from her blog and professional sites.

Directed by “Mikey” from Swingers, starring “Julian” from Less Than Zero
+ “Djay” from Hustle & Flow…and rockin’ classic flanged out Black Sabbath Ozzy in the trailer’s close?

C’mon, dude. I’m not made out of wood here. How am I NOT supposed to see a movie that could so easily turn out to be a geek classic post-modern self aware celebration cum condemnation of America! Fuck Yea!ism…or, barring that, just a really slick movie about Robert Downey kicking ass in a full body metallic hard on?

Either way, the potential for rockatude is uber high.

Ask anyone: I like suits. They feel good. I look good. Vegas pit bosses seem to think I’m the prince of Qatar or some similar billion capita desert country, worthy of comp’d cabanas and lobster cocktail, whenever they see me in my one. Chalk it up to the genetically inherited fashion sense of an absentee father who’s paisley silk ties and tailored 110 wools were his only legacy worth remembering…or just that I’m metrosexual enough to realize that a closet of bespoke 3-buttons is all that most of us bums need to hid our physical sins just long enough to let the masses realize the true worth of our words and might of our character.

Due to my recent embrace of frugality - and love of spending cash of food, drink & friends over clothes and other material goods - I’m an unabashed economical convert to Calvin Klein off the Men’s Wearhouse rack. They keep your measurements nationwide so you can call in a fitting in most major U.S. cities with a minimum of guff and a max 1-day turnaround to replace the wedding tuxedo American Airlines already lost with your luggage…and offer same day pressing for premium members for the wrinkled number you threw in the bottom of your carry-on 20 minutes before O.J.’ing it to SFO on the way to that (as always) last minute funeral trip.

But back when I was flush in dot.com bucks and ex-model ex-wives, Brooks Brothers was my weapon of choice. So, if you’re down with the comfort of a few wonderfully tailored suits at the right price, I strongly advise you check out the deal they’re running right now: buy one clipped-to-fit 2-piece, get $400 off the next. I imagine Rocket, AMF, Mexican Ben & Sir Andrew Brown as the prime targets for this unsolicited advert in the guise of blog post…but I encourage any cat with a desire to look severely slick at a price that’s right to check out this sweet promo.

And if this post makes no sense to you…? Grow up, already, Doris. Every guy over 30 should have at least 3 unique suits: one for births, one for deaths and one for the promise of death till we part.

My sister and her Bajan boy celebrated their first anniversary by getting married again in Barbados. Marched the 80° cool oceanside aisle in pin stripes, scarlett saris, gold trimmed tunics, floral’d sun dresses. Bathed in the bright light of friends from around the globe and family from around the island. Photo ops and barefoot conversation on the beach at sunset. Double-brother Gowda toast realized by his interpretive dance groove and my baritone crooning of the theme from ‘Beaches’. Champagne funnels (compliments of Gov’t Issue Arun) and appearances by Mexican Ben’s nipples unexpectedly bountiful throughout the rest of the night.

Danced fantastic on white sand-flanked red tile with Princess CC, the fattest Cambodian I’ve ever met & a girl named Saadam. Dove through azure waters at darkest midnight chased by laughter, striking beauty and a bobbing liter of rum. Still waiting on the police report from Utha Brother Gowda and leggy redhead Wolf’s decidedly risky (but, at the time, highly entertaining) experiment in high seas breaking & entering onto a motored 35-footer named the Scotch & Soda.

Arrived in NY to learn of cancer’s final call to King Neil, one of the baddest muthas ever to grace this planet and, in my eyes, the undisputed epitome of not one but all the 5 boroughs. My one sorrow: bearing the patience of waiting for my strut to the other side till I hear his barbaric yalp again. (Writing this somewhere in Brooklyn just before dawn, listening to the floating wails of Muslim morning prayer, I imagine his soul sped aloft on deliciously smoky air, screaming down past concrete & glass valleys, his wake shaking the cities’ every gold turned leaf, flecked red brick and flaked wrought iron.)

Fell faster & harder than granite off the Empire State for a strong, stunning Bed-Stuy dream who writes like once to which I aspired, radiates a fever for life that makes my typical frenzy feel like I’m whispering underwater, and is able to school me on hip hop present, past and future like I just failed kindergarten. Reports of the death of my once idealistic & fire-filled heart found to have apparently been greatly exaggerated.

My life and its cast of characters realized as far greater & grander than any script I could ever spin.