A while back I paid a dealer to “fix” my brakes because they were squeaking when I drive at low speed and put the brakes on. I would pull up to an intersection and SQEEEEEEEEK to a stop. Having the dealership work on my car did not work out too well. I paid $400 and I got… pretty much nothing for it.

Here is how to fix your squeaky brakes: just get your brakes very hot. That will clear the glazing off of them. Every now and then I have done this and my brakes stop squeaking. One way is to drive down the highway at about 50 miles an hour while holding your foot on the brakes pretty hard for 2/10s of a mile. After a riding like this for a short bit I notice that the brakes feel a little different and I am done. After they cool off, they feel the same only they don’t squeak anymore. just yesterday, I held the brakes on for two full blocks while driving through the Mission. No more squeaks.

:-)

Today: went to acupuncture. I feel great after.

Mailed off several boxes of photos from Morley’s house. Productive…

Went to the Box Shop. I was greeted with 3 different people wanting help from me :-).

1. Figuring out how to keep a Mac Mini cool on the playa (put it in an ice chest in a waterproof box, replace the ice daily, (to be experimented with))
2. batteries for Mutopia (loaned from the vast pool of batteries that Peter Luka gave SWARM)
3. Welding together some petals for this firey flower. I practiced and then was able to TIG weld the thin stainless steel for the first time. :-)

Finally got FL Studio. I’m excited about making 6 part music for SWARM. One thing I’m going to do is transcribe some poliphonic african drumming music I learned in college and have each orb play an instrument :-). That music from Professor David Locke’s class is STILL buzzing around in my head more than 15 years later.

Over the last few days, I’ve cleaned house in a few ways.

I went to my neighbor Samantha’s apartment and her place looked so gosh darn airy and serene. I vowed to make some of that happen in my apartment so I’ve cleaned the house and put lots of things AWAY. Clearning the sight-lines is the best… I cleaned the tops of bookshelves so you can see more wall and glass-doors. Charlotte got into the act and cleaned such that it’s easy to open and close the doors between the kitchen and living room. I was really struck that in Samantha’s place, all the doors were workable; in our place, we’ve blocked open one set and blocked closed one set :-(. That’s got to be some feng shui no-no. In any case, it feels better to have a clean place.

I’ve been cleaning at the Box Shop. SWARM’s work space had become a mess. Under our work table was this scary jumble of parts with no order. I found all the items that don’t belong and told the mailing list “claim it or it gets discarded”. Some items were claimed and some are destined for the trash bin. I put all the scrap in a scrap bin, put all the long items in one pile, got some parts boxes and put parts away. I threw away like 5 large cardboard boxes and 30 tiny boxes. I found that we have duplicates of lots of bolt-y things. Hopefully, that process now has a chance of reversing itself. Everything fits in 2/3 the space and is much more findable. There’s a ways to go with sorting through electronics items that we might or might not use any more but things are way way better.

WATCH THE TRAILER

SF-based, female-driven and fuel-powered art collective The FLAMING LOTUS GIRLS announce a benefit with the screening of “Dust And Illusions”, by director Olivier Bonin for our mega fire-art project MUTOPIA, destined for the playa of Black Rock City 2008. All proceeds go directly to the Flaming Lotus Girls.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE!! JUNE 28th 2008 at CELLSPACE.
2050 Bryant St., San Francisco, CA 94110. MAP IT

Door Cost: $10-$20 Sliding Scale

Doors open: 8pm

Movie at 9pm. Make sure to come early, 100 seats limit.

Meet the director at 10:30pm after screening.

Film Synopsys: Once a year, on a vast Nevada lake bed surrounded by mountains, the Burning Man festival brings together tens of thousands of people who are attracted by the festival’s promise of seven days of “decommodification,” “community,” “artwork,” and “revelry.” But increasingly, many question whether Burning Man’s mainstream appeal threatens—or even upends—the festival’s utopian vision. Through a series of in-depth interviews of the festival’s founders, organizers, and participants, DUST AND ILLUSIONS traces the festival’s history, while examining whether the festival is a victim of its own success.

Thanks for all your support!!
Your Flaming Lotus Girls

Last week I went to another wedding with Charlotte. This one at the Shipyard in Berkeley. The vows were performed by several Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Yes, really. It was a blast!

And yes, that’s the Neverwas Haul

Handfasting

And the space! That’s Charlotte and I in the lower left, talking with Michael P and his friend.

Comparing TJIC’s blog ranking to Lee.org on Alexa

Trav said he had only 15 readers. I disagreed, did the math and then…. agreed.

15? You must have many more lurkers than that. I get like 1000 page views a day. How many do you get?

Oh yes, that’s right. you have no idea because you don’t have any stats tracking. ;-)

Hmm. Maybe you’re right… click here

Wow…
.000097 / .00121 = .08
my 1000 page views * .08 = your 80 page views/day
your 80 page views/day / your average 6 posts per day = 13.3 readers.

OMG, you really -do- have 15 readers.

Then again, I’m betting that his readership is less likely to install the Alexa toolbar.

450: Number of people that voted at the 25th and Valencia polling place for the June 3rd election
1: Of those, how many that were registered Libertarians

Last night at about 7:45pm Charlotte and I walked in to the voting place at the Synergy School on Valencia. When I was signing in, I told them my political party, “I’m the Libertarian” and the lady giving out paper ballots said with surprise, “You’re the first one today!”

We ended up staying until the polls closed. I watched and was the last Libertarian as well.

This show was quite a lot of fun. The piece I found most fun was a piece involving real dancers. A dancer was moving around, dancing this repeating pattern and I saw a placard around her neck that read something like “1, 1 2, 1 2 3″. On the wall there was a sign that read “Put signs on the dancers if you can” There were signs like “Take a break”, “Double time”, “Slow Motion”. I had trouble getting the sign on the moving dancer until Charlotte noticed the pattern. She pointed out when the piece was going to end and I got to put my sign around the dancer’s neck. Groovy.

It was at the Climate Theater.

Airgas sells dry ice under the Penguin Brand name all over the place. Click here to find out exactly where you can buy dry ice in supermarkets. I found this dry ice box in the front of a Safeway in San Jose.

I sent this reply to Rick about… well, read for yourself

Don’t tell Charlotte. She wants a motorcycle but refuses to get one because she knows it’d be WAY too dangerous for her. And I should definitley NOT get a jet pack!
NOT
NOT!
NOT!!!

——– Original Message ————-
From: Rick Taylor
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 10:35 PM
To: Lee Sonko
Subject: Yves Rossy

http://www.jet-man.com/prod/index.html

You heard of this guy? Reminded me of your RC wings, thought you would be interested.
——– End of Original Message ——

Several years ago I ripped the original Hampsterdance.com homepage from Archive.org. It’s just a joy that every few months I get a thankful email from someone. Here’s the one I got today:

Hi Lee-

I just wanted to thank you for preserving the original hamsterdance so faithfully. I click on it whenever I need to smile!

Get some old-school internet joy right here.

(The sound plays correctly in Internet Explorer but not Firefox. Hey, it’s a faithful rip of the original site)