Lee.org

Please join me in chastising Meredith Scheff who has MORE THAN HER FAIR SHARE OF FAME!

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/05/meet-the-makers-meredith-scheff.html

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My credit score is excellent, something above 760. I make sure to keep it that way by getting lots of credit, not using most of it and paying them off in full every single month. The travel offers on the credit cards I get are quite substantial. Just on Wednesday I got back from a trip to see my family, San Francisco to Florida, paid for with credit card airline miles. And today I got a new credit card that will give me 50,000 Continental airline miles after my first purchase. That’ll make a nice trip :-)

Here’s what’s in my wallet right now:
AT&T Universal Savings Rewards Mastercard – 5% cash back on up to whatever my AT&T bill is each month, about $150

Chase Business Ink – 3% cash back on gas, restaurants & home improvement

Chase ATM card – never pay for anything with a debit card. Never.

Continental Airlines Onepass Mastercard – 50,000 airline miles after the first purchase. Sign up here! 1 free checked bag, 1 mile earned per dollar spent (approx 0.8% cash back if you fly non-peak)

Gap Visa – make a purchase and get $20 free money (when I went shopping at Gap a while back, they gave me 40% off for signing up for this card)

If I could just pay off my credit cards WITH my credit cards.

Look what I made

Cutting the sign on the Box Shop's CNC plasma cutter

Welding it all together

Cleaning up the sign mount. Hi Lou!

New sign mounted!

There is still work to be done to finish it, but it’s starting to look darn snappy!

Check out JWZ’s images of the sign raising

Lou and I raising the sign in place

The new sign at dusk

Put this on your calendar

Attention friends of NIMBY! Let’s have a BBQ!

Time Sunday, May 15 · 3:00pm – 10:00pm
Location 8410 Amelia Street Oakland CA 94621
Created By NIMBY

More Info
NIMBY would like to ring in the new build season and thank all of our supporters for their undying support.

Sunday May 15, 2011
Come on down and see what you have helped create. Check out the new space, see what’s new. Hear some music and meet some friends. We will fire up the grills and sling some meats and what nots. If you would like to bring some food, play some music or help out let us know. Your participation always makes a better event.
This is an event for those that have helped NIMBY out in the past and present. Because so many people have helped in so many different ways. No one email list can cover everyone. Please forward this to anyone that you think needs an invite and we will do the same.
Please RSVP to RSVP@nimbyspaceNOSPAM.org

I’ve never been much of a wine drinker. I always get a headache before the glass is empty.

I like riesling, my home made (hooch-like) mead, chianti and now….. retsina.

Call me a sweet tooth. Done. Call me pedestrian. Done! But what matters is what I like.

The retsina discovery came when I went to Carmel a few weeks ago with Binka’s relatives, Senta and her mom. We had dinner at  Dametra Cafe in Carmel. They have, by the way, the best moussaka ever. And Senta’s recommandation of retsina was perfect!

West Oakland BART Station Sidewalk Construction

A lot of things struck me when I saw this scene last week:

Why has it taken 1.5 years to redo a 3 block length of roadway, all the while stealing parking spaces, rerouting traffic and somewhat blighting the neighborhood, traffic cones keeping people off the road and sidewalk.

What actually needed to get done that took all that time and money? I now see a slightly wider sidewalk (ripping up a perfectly fine one), a raised road divider, some bump-outs for traffic calming stealing a few parking spaces but helping pedestrians cross the road (I have never seen a car race down this road, traffic calming wasn’t needed), a new roadbed (the old roadbed looked fine), a few mounting holes for large something-or-anothers (look in the middle of the picture, I dunno what they are for), and some new pretty street lighting (the old lighting seemed reasonably ok when they kept bulbs in them).

Divisions between the concrete “panels” in sidewalks are all artificial, carved after the whole sidewalk is poured. So why do cracks tend to stop at the panel edges? That’s totally freaky!

Sidewalk finishing  is an art. With just sticks and sheets of metal, they make the surface exactly the way they wanted it to be.

Yes, those are real tattoos of solenoids. I took the pix.

Jane and Paul, I would light shit on fire with you any time.

FYI: A solenoid is the heart of what makes a propane poofer work. Things like this:

Wow.
The TED Talk “Handspring Puppet Company: The genius puppetry behind War Horse”
See the horse at about 9:20
(via)

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Did he just say “Autonomous Quadrocopters Play Ping-Pong”? Yes. Yes he did.

(via, and, and)

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From TED, Ads Worth Spreading

For my money, it’s this Chrysler ad.

Chrysler Born Of Fire Eminem Super Bowl Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJjMULMcS4k

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