While Dan is away on his quarter-life crisis mountain adventure, he showed even greater courage and foolhardiness by giving me (his friend and co-worker Steven Garrity) the reigns of his website. As you might expect, at first I explored the many ways in which I could use this privilege to humiliate Dan.

I considered a fraudulent marriage proposal to his significant other, coming out as Dan to endorse Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election campaign, or perhaps fraudulently submitting his resignation (or trying to have him impeached) as the self-declared and undisputed President of the Internet.

In the knowledge that such tomfoolery would be returned to me ten-fold upon Dan’s return, I’ve opted to give you a few updates that Dan would probably want you to know about.

First, we know he arrived safely in Vancouver. He posted some amazing photos of the forest fires he flew over on the way out. We haven’t heard from him since, but such was the plan, so I’ll take that as good news.

Second, were Dan here, he would probably be making a post about the upcoming Zap Your PRAM Conference. Dan, myself, Daniel Burka of silverorange, and Peter Rukavina of Reinvented Inc. are organizing a small conference to be held in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island on the weekend of October 24-26.

The Zap Your PRAM conference will be a gathering people interested in technology, the web, weblogs, and all kinds of other related topics. Read up on the details and if you think you might be interested, drop us a line and request and invitation.

Also, if you’ve been emailing Dan (about the conference, or anything else), you’ve probably already noticed that his handy robot is replying to his emails while he’s away. Please note that he won’t have access to his email until the end of the month. If there is something that I might be able to help with (such as the Zap conference), drop me a line.

As one of the people to whom Dan’s work responsibilities fall in his absence, I’m earning a great respect for what he does. Apparently he actually is busy. We all look forward to his return.