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Last night, Charlotte and I completed our training as Neighborhood Emergency Response Team members!

This is one vital step in our multifaceted strategy to take over the world!

We have been studying disaster preparedness, fire safety, light search and rescue, triage, basic disaster medicine with the SF Fire Department. We even got to put out a real fire and make a mess in the parking lot with a 3A 40BC extinguisher (the kind of extinguisher that YOU should have in your home, car and workplace… you have one in each, right? If not, we’ll sell you one, at a very reasonable price…).

We got certificates. We’re NERTs!

We got gloves and super duper ity bity flashlights (I almost blinded Charlotte, oops. But the veins in our hands look really cool) submersible to 500ft and guaranteed against… let me read the manual, “Pelican Unconditional Lifetime Guarr… blah blah blah… defects in workmanship… blah blah blah…. THE ABOVE GUARANTEE DOES NOT COVER SHARKBITE, BEAR ATTACK OR CHILDREN UNDER 5.” Ha!

We were instructed never to walk into a building and shout “NERTS! We’re here to help!” People would just look at us funny. We’re supposed to say “Rescue Team!” Already our self esteem is being tested by the industrial firefighting complex. ;-)

This is an important part of our disaster preparedness business. Which, in all honesty, is looking pretty tenable.

The Serpent Mother at the Fire Arts Festival.

http://flickr.com/photos/mills42/sets/72157594199422098/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eponai/sets/72157594201435415/

http://www.philspitler.com/photos/faf_2006/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tabasco/sets/72157594199130295/show/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendyb/sets/72157594198709356/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80896306@N00/sets/72157594199281434/

Construction photos from Michelle

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadfotog/sets/72157594218122821/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49695992@N00/

Not my work but excellent photos of last year’s Angel of the Apocalypse
From InsideBayArea.com and the Oakland Tribune

Artists tame, manipulate flames
By William Brand, STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND — With a flick of a switch, Oakland artist Don Cain sent a streak of fire roaring 100 feet into the air late Thursday, casting an eerie shadow on a passing BART train and spinning a rush of hot wind across a once-empty lot on 7th Street.

Fifty feet away, a crew of San Francisco techno-artists on a 20-foot ladder adjusted the jaws of a glowing 30-foot-long serpent, its scales and bones a tangle of welded aluminum, steel, wires and propane pipes.

“The serpent will open her jaws, flames will shoot out and each of her teeth will have a flame effect,” explained Jessica Hobbs, a member of the Flaming Lotus Girls, who have worked all year on the project.

The tower of flame, the coiling serpent and many other fire-breathing installations destined for the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada next month are part of the Sixth Annual Fire Arts Festival, a benefit for the Crucible, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the fire arts. They include glass making, foundry work, blacksmithing, holography, fire eating and stilt walking. There’s even a class on installing solar panels.

…

The festival, which continues through tonight, is far beyond the cutting edge — acauldron of technical, artistic innovation. It features many performers and artist groups who regularly create works for the annual Burning Man.

Crucible founder Michael Stutz, 37, says fire is maligned in modern society. Many disasters are linked to fire, he said. “We’re trying to change the reputation of fire.”

It has attracted a long list of corporate and private sponsors and benefactors.

…

The lot is littered with projects destined for the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the annual Burning Man art festival, Aug. 28 to Sept. 4.

The device that shoots a river of flame skyward is called a fire cannon, explained crew member Scott Cocking of Arcata. In this case, the crew, which also includes the artist Bohdi of Oakland and Scott Simpson of Petaluma, has three fire cannons tied together. A click of a computer sends bursts of gaseous propane upward. A small pilot light flame burning at the mouth of the cannons ignites the gas in spectacular fashion.

“I was at Burning Man one year, playing with little torches and this guy fired off a cannon that sent a flame 50 feet into the air,” Cocking said. “I realized what I was doing was yesterday’s news.”

The serpent head assembled by the Flaming Lotus Girls is just part of the Burning Man project called Serpent Mother, Pouneh Mortazavi, one of the founders, explained. When completed at Burning Man next month, the serpent will be 168 feet long, made of steel, copper, glass, fire and light, coiled around a huge egg, which will have its own spectacular pyrotechnics.

The final performance is at 8 p.m. tonight. Tickets are sold only at the gate: $25 for Crucible members, $30 for non-members. Information: http://www.thecrucible.org/fireartsfestival, (510) 444-0919.

Information on the Burning Man part of the show can be found at: http://www.burningman.com.

Contact William Brand at bbrand@oaklandtribune.com.

FAF on ABC’s The View from the Bay (has a good video clip of Michael Sturtz talking about FAF)

Blanche Shaheen previews this year’s Fire Arts Festival live from The Crucible in Oakland!

Blanche Shaheen takes us to the Fire Arts Festival in Oakland, a four-day festival celebrating creations through fire and art.

Wednesday Flaming Lotus Girls meeting and work on Serpent
Thursday Improv Party at Mary’s… waay too much fun
Friday Forbidden Island in Alameda with Michael and Karin from Improv
Saturday woke up late (darned tropical drinks! It’s the umbrellas, I tell you!). worked at Box Shop, Fire Arts Expo at Monster Park
Sunday Improv class, hang with Harmony and Crism
–now– midway between Sunday and Monday
Monday chill I hope!
Tuesday photo shoot for Flaming Lotus Girl Calendar (!!!) What should I wear (or not??)
Wednesday FLG meeting and work on Serpent
Thursday Going out for Shameless Heather’s birthday
Friday Treesa’s Memorial Day party overnight in Boulder Creek
Saturday prep for my folks coming to visit! Chill with Andre from work?
Sunday last improv class :-(

Phew!

Blogging has just taken a back seat lately to actually doing the things I might blog about :-)

When Charlotte was here, we went non-stop… From the 13th til the 22nd. I was -going- to chronicle it all for you my gentle reader but what do you care? So I’ll just blather about it randomly (isn’t that so much better?)

Shopped at Rainbow Grocery for like 2 hours for a fantastic Chobunnpeggelly Easter/Ostara lunch. Had fun frustration with all the fun things to buy… such that we needed to rest on that bench near the cosmetics.

Astounding Chobunnpeggelly lunch with 6 people in my tiny place (Crism, AJ, Vickie, Charlotte, Ion, and myself) with toys and eating too much chocolate and tremendous amounts of cheer and smiles and mimosas.

Tango at The Metronome, Tango at Cell Space… Drove around including Fort Funston… umm, what else.

This Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I showed up at The Box Shop (the home studio of the Flaming Lotus Girls and other groups). This was the first Wednesday I got around to showing up since Jessica Rabbit had invited me at Decompression last year. Wednesday was mostly talk about what’s going to happen and how work is being divvied up. I showed up Thursday because a team was meeting to make the flaming teeth of this 170′ serpent thing they’re making. Fire, fire, heh heh, fire! We played with propane and plasma cutting but didn’t get too far. I showed up Friday because that’s when the spine crew was meeting. Turned out that… umm, I think I was the only newbie that showed up. And after some time helping out I (foolishly?) committed to becoming a good enough MIG weldor to help put together the 116 or so 24 gauge sheet steel formed pieces into vertebrae!

Saturday I went to a Giants vs Diamondbacks game at Telephone Company Park with Barry and… oh my, I don’t know the relation… brother-in-law? and brother-in-law? It was a whole day and evening affair :-)

Sunday morning I went back to The Box Shop for MIG welding lessons but I could only stay til 2. I had an Improv class at BATS in Fort Mason. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon on the phone and catching up with little details like writing blog entries.

I really like my little studio apartment at 24th and Valencia in San Francisco. I commute to Cupertino 3 days a week and telecommute 2 days to Wavexpress.

I worked for Wavexpress back in 2000 and they hired me back this summer. We/they are still trying to make a video blog viewer that works a lot like television. I’m a little disappointed in the progress we’ve made, but I’ll keep plugging away at it because it pays the rent.

I have been doing my best to enjoy life… going to events like the Urban Iditarod, Kite Fight (although I have still never made it to a successful event, I have been trying now for two months… I am beginning to doubt that Rick really exists), Argentine tango classes, concerts, more concerts… I’m probably going to do Improv lessons at BATS soon.

For exercise, I’ve been running (occasionally). I feel good when I do it. I was thinking of going to Golden Gate State Park right after writing this…

For my commute to Cupertino, I have been carpooling with a coworker named Linden. Well, actually he works for Wave and I’m with Wavexpress (we’re just like Wave, only we don’t stop as much) We’ve been getting along splendidly. For the last month we have been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” on the way to and from work. It’s a fantastic book. Before that, we have been listening to podcasts that I have been downloading from the internet. over the last several weeks I have been watching the first three seasons of Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit”. I feel like they might turn me into an atheist yet. At the very least, they have reminded me of how important personal responsibility is.

I still haven’t put any art on my walls. I don’t know… I like the clean lines or something. I’ve got lots of art from friends and my own collection… I should just put a nail in the wall and see what happens…

A coworker (well, she’s with Wave…) showed me a model airplane field thats 10 minutes from my office last week. I’m getting my planes ready to fly!

I was introduced to a friend of Jeremy and Fiz.. Charlotte. She lives in Boston right now but she’s moving to SF this summer. I’ll give further news as it develops.

And I continue to find it to be near impossible task to keep up with all of my friends blogs. I do apologize. I’m not sure if it’s crazy that it often takes me a week to get back to people via email. The backlog just never ends.

Last week, I cleaned out my storage space. Everything is in my apartment or my downstairs garage. This makes me feel much more moved in.

I also got a snazzy bed frame and shelves last week.

Just a few finishing touches and I’m totally moved in! Rug, comfy chair, art on the walls.

Tonight I met crism, who I had been introduced to by Charlotte, who I had been introduced to by Fiz and Jeremy. He held a whiskey tasting party. Twas a good time! There was whiskey and bread pudding with whiskey and salad with whiskey flavored dressing ;-). The bread pudding was actually excellent!

I gave Sean (who had just tried out for Jeopardy in LA and sadly just missed his shot) a ride home and met a bunch of nice folks. Crism even plays Cosmic Encounter. I’m going to have to ping him on that!

Wee!

Bed time now.

Running/urban hiking in the morning. I’m going on a hike in Sonoma County Sunday and want to be as ready as I can. This is my last chance. I might try to tackle Twin Peaks. I’ve already gotten my running times in the last 3 weeks down from a hopeless 18 minute mile to a pitiful 11 minute mile.

Then testing the latest server-side feature of TVTonic, sucking blogs into our distribution system (with permission, of course). And trying to do some good marketing for TVTonic. I’m liking the marketing stuff.

I may be soon buying weights to excercise at home. But then my apartment might get stinky sweaty and my downstairs neighbor might think the sky is falling…

I’ve been feeling pretty good lately. Running has taken off a few pounds and Laura even said my arm muscles felt tighter (flattery is the devil’s food cake (-; . I’ve been eating/drinking lots of veggies with the Veg-o-mat^H^H^H^H Magic Bullet that Carmen gave me (in response for me giving her a Magic Bullet).

There is even a good chance that I’m getting a bed tomorrow!

My cutting board came with instructions in 18 languages. I’m almost surprised that English was at the top. It cost me $10, 75% less than similar ones I found at Bed Bath and Beyond. And by appearances, it is one of the better and more attractive cutting boards I have owned. The instructions it came with are clear, concise and useful. All hail the Swedes!

My new kitchen table is just about exactly the size I needed, 47″x30″. It’s stylish in it’s simple lines and real wood construction. It’s rather small but it’s a small eat-in kitchen. I’ve been shopping around and I nearly bought a set at Macy’s that wasn’t quite the right size for $750. I found some that were close to right at “Furniture 2000″ near my office. But no.

I’d like to find something that totally grabs me but I’m getting tired of shopping, and tired of eating dinner on the edge of my bed. I’m not sure the table I got is exactly what I want, but the Swedes took 85% off the price and sold me a quality eat-in-kitchen table and chair set for $100.

Purchases like this are blowing my budget for shopping for my apartment. I had set aside $6000 (great thanks to my folks) to furnish the place and so far my expenses, top down have been:
$900 bed (that I might get rid of, it’s giving me a back ache)
$400 tableware for 4 (they make me happy :-)
$120 office desk off craigslist (It’s the right size, I can’t think of what more expensive things would replace it)
$100 table and chair set (see above)
$90 overpriced but fabulous santoku kitchen knife (satisfying my kitchen nesting instinct)
.. umm..
$18 cookie sheet
$15 shower hanging thing
You can see where I’m going with this…

My budget is being blown in the other direction. I can’t think of what to spend this money on. Though I still have 2 rugs, a desk chair, some kind of comfy chair and wall art to buy. Four grand for all that stuff? I’m going to have to get like… real art or something. Now I’m seriously thinking about that Sharper Image massage chair too.

Oh and I need a bike (motorized?) but that comes out of the transportation budget and not the housing budget. Maybe Housing will float a bond ;-)

I’m getting a lot of my stuff out of storage tomorrow. We’ll see what that spurns.

West Of mission Street - If you like it interesting and culturally fun, get a place also between Mission Street and the Castro, but closer to Mission street. If you can swing it, and if you like gentrified instead of funky, I would get a place between Mission Street and the Castro, closer to the Castro. The closer to Castro, the more wonderful, well-cared-for and personal the neighborhood gets. This area stops at Church street, which is parallel to Mission street. Church and Mission are about six blocks apart.

(source) (photos of the area by the same author)

I’m finishing the paperwork with the realtor on Friday! I’ll be moving into my new well appointed studio apartment in San Francisco on November 15th!

It’s a nice studio apartment in a very nice building, in a nice sunny part of town, near lots of things and culture and -stuff-, and (I grumbled at the realization that this had to be on my “must have” list) near 101 for my thrice-weekly carpool commute to Cupertino.

Now that I’m getting what I feel I need to thrive, I feel obligated to the universe to do something great with it!

.

Yipe, I have no furniture!

From an email to a friend

>Are you still looking for a permanent apartment?
Yup. Do you have any pointers?

>How is the hunt for a meaningful existence going?

I’m wearing comfortable shoes and I’ve found a steady path but I’m not sure if it’ll lead into the fire swamp, the pit of dispair, or true love. I’m hoping for more of the latter and less of the former.