Yesterday I went over to help my friend and neighbor Charles secure his house for the storm. Charles lives with his wife, Michelle, their 2-and-a-half year old, Hannah, and Michelle’s mom. And, there’s a new baby on the way. Michelle’s due date was yesterday. When Charles started setting up his…

Hurricane Irma is bearing down on Miami, and I’m restless. I’m doing a bunch of work to help coordinate and support our journalism team and our community over at The New Tropic. I’m volunteering some with the Irma Response civic hacking team. I’m also talking with a lot of really…

It’s been a wild year, huh? With the rise of fake news, election hacking concerns, filter bubbles and more, many are questioning technology’s impact on our society, particularly as it relates to democracy and government. The Atlantic recently asked me to contribute an essay to a series on the question…

We spend a lot of effort on building trust, authentic local engagement, and ultimately a strong community through stories and experiences at WhereBy.Us. After a rough election season in which media were battered and “fake news” became a buzzword, I think what we’re working on matters now more than ever…

Developers, designers, government staff, community organizers and civic-minded volunteers in Miami will join Code for Miami and thousands of volunteers throughout the United States on Saturday, June 4 for National Day of Civic Hacking, or Hack for Change, an annual event that asks volunteers to hack their communities. Miami’s fourth…

We’ve read a couple of interesting stories in recent months about how hard it can be to make friends as an adult. At WhereBy.Us, we think about community and friendship a lot, and working to solve this specific problem is embedded our work in both content and event design. Everything…

When I was 7, my mama took me into the voting booth for the first time. My class was following the Bush-Dukakis race through the Weekly Reader, the premiere elementary school news source of the ’80s. Our class held a mock election, and I got really into it. My mom…

In which LGBTQ people enjoy equal treatment under the awkward questioning of married people … — 10. As soon as we can book Sleater-Kinney to play our wedding. 9. When drunk straight guys stop asking us about scissoring. 8. *Glare while slowly sharpening the dowel of a mini pride flag with your pocket knife and revving your truck engine.* 7. We need to learn how to…

Our spider arrived two weeks ago, her abdomen as fat as my finger and her spindly legs extending to the width of a quarter. She’s an orb-weaver, I think, and when the light strikes her she glows ghost white. The hairs on her legs and abdomen look like thorns in…