Throb

I think it is good I am always I might be crazy

It's so nice to be working so hard again; I'm at a place full of fresh new ideas and it's got the spirit to chase them. Life is full of predators and competition and dirty nibbling bastards with noisome and poisonous beaks... but it's also full of promising new horizons and deliciousness and doggone it, people like me.

I've been working on a few things. One of them is my silly taking-forever robot project. The basic idea is to create armatures, systems, of counterbalanced springs and hydraulic or wire-tensioned levers to conduct organized work. I think, if carefully done, that even low powered motors and actuators and a simple PC brain can make such a machine perform elegant things in the world.

I went to Orcas Island last weekend and saw an incredibly inspiring sculpture park belonging to the artist Anthony Howe. Talk about a fresh vision. This amazing man lives super close to Seattle and, while there's some inspiring stuff in our sculpture park, very little of the the projects displayed come close to the evocative lusty and raw elegance of Mr. Howe's strangely natural creations.
All I want to do is take what Anthony Howe has done and goose it with a little technology.

That said, probably this robot project is taking forever because it has no clear goals or milestones: it's just a funky tinkerer's mirage. Like most of you I am a mostly blind blunderer intently focused on creating a knockout story in my own personal dreamspace.

Here's a good thing to watch instead of American Idol or whatever tonight: www.ted.net.

Flickr faves

Here they come again:

I'm so outta here

Taking off for a couple of weeks in sunny not-Seattle Mexico. This is the least prepared for any vacation I've ever had in my life. Trying to find a threeway balance between there's-never-a-good-time-for-a-vacation, my interest in seeing the projects that I've been working on kick ass, and the need for a chance to focus on something that's not made out of pixels, dollar signs or sugar and spice. So I'm going to Zihuatanejo to take pictures, buy stuff and chase girls.

I'll see you soon,
Rob

Bikes

Jason and I found matching $50 Goodwill bikes for our bike hammock project. We are currently ridiculously synchronisticized.

Happy happy joy joy

So far this young summer has been an absolute blast. Surfing, camping, drinking, goto line 10.
Jason has some potentially incriminating pictures.

Thumbdance, etc.

I submitted a cou ple of videos to the Thumbdance 30 second film competition. What a gorgeous website!

I wish I knew more about what Thumbdance is supposed to turn into. I guess I could ask Elaine, who seems to be behind this, but I've been avoiding talking about it with her while this competition was open. I signed up for Thumbdance email updates, so I guess I'll find out, even if I'm too shy or lazy to lean over at the bar (one of my sites!) and talk to her.

LiveJournal Moment

Mood: [insert mischievious grin emoticon here]
Music: [insert broken iPod image here] [insert Rhapsody here]
Book: The Evolution of Useful Things
In General: Kicking ass, thanks for asking.

Hey, another thing I wanted to mention at some point... RealNetwork's support site, which I designed and (mostly) built, now has a customer forum. Since I glanced at this I'm feeling a little guilty that there's a question or three there that I could answer, but I'm going to stubbornly pass until I'm extremely bored, which never happens.

How about a round of santorums?

Oh, one more thing...

In honor of Dan Savage's coining of the icky word "santorum" in dubious honor of the troglodytic senator of the same name, Rendezvous bartender Babe helped realize my dream of creating a cocktail version of santorum.

Layered, poured in order, and in equal proportions:

Grenadine
Jagermeister
Fuacca
Bailey's
Cream

Thank you, back to my hiatus.

2005 Predictions

I'll come back and check up on these at the end of the year:

• President Bush dies following a bomb attack.
• Civil war erupts in both the US and in Iraq.
• The Army of California takes the west coast and invades Mexico.
• The Internet fractures into dozens of disconnected walled networks run by corporations.
• Russia and China are admitted into the European Union.
• Mt. St. Helens erupts, devestating southern Washington state and Oregon and darkening skies worldwide for a matter of weeks.
• Hail the size of Airstream trailers pummels the midwest in a freak storm.
• I am abducted and sexually tortured by a team of elite models/sexual torturers from beyond our galaxy.
• Armies of zombies are awakened due to a secret military project and roam the earth eating the brains of the living.
• The Earth splits open, revealing a new species of crystaline creatures who devour everything in their paths and poop diamonds.
• Evangelicals mysteriously start floating toward Heaven
• Martha Stewart is released from prison.

Meet the family

My family photography project worked out, kind of. I should have used a film camera and much better lighting. Anyway, this was fun.

When You Die

... this will eat you

Photoshoppyness