Why Are Alkaline Batteries Considered Hazardous Waste In California? I understand that nicads are bad because of the cadmium. But alkalines haven’t had toxic metals in them for years. Am I missing something?
Chicken John’s Odeon Bar was another seminal institution that help draw my heart to San Francisco. It’s been closed for a few years now. Replaced by… a bar. Here’s Chicken John’s announcement:
Phoenix, Windy, Robin, Camilla, Ben, Jenner, Summer, Flash, Chicken, Tyler. 3223 Mission Street. The Odeon Bar. Thank you to Tracey for believing in us. Thank you to Mazin for letting us figure it out by ourselves. Thank you to Simone for taking care of all the things all the time. Thank you to Nieves for your leadership and positivity.
It was an impossible task, really. In the year 2,000 or so I set out to turn a failing bar into a variety arts empire. A bar in the Mission that would only book circus, theater, comedy, bizarre music and odd or unlikely variety acts. They all said it would totally fail and never make any money. And they were right! We kept it open, somehow. Little hustles here and there. Who knows how. Some of the magical nights there are burned into my brain. It was an amazing place.
I started seeing the acts that I had been promoting playing at other venues. Bigger venues. Better venues. I knew I could hang on and it would be a successful business. Someday. But that’s not what I wanted. And I learned to detest the alcohol. My work was done. Now, EVERY venue in SF has permanent rigging for trapeze. There are still tons of bands playing, but the newspaper or blogs will write about your chainsaw sharpening musical or your typewriter ensemble, which would have been impossible 15 years ago.
One of the reasons I had to sell was because I was diagnosed with Hep C (which I recently have been cured of), and had to stop drinking. Listening to all your drunkies while dead sober was awful. The other reason I sold was because it just wasn’t needed anymore. There were other places that were promoting the ideas I had latched on to. We had a vision. We saw the vision. I mean, you drink water NOT to be thirsty. That’s how the whole cause and effect thing works…
It wasn’t easy to re-build a new machine. But we did it. And the machine we built is mighty! The Odeon was an important part of the balanced breakfast that is the SFIOP. Alliances that were forged there are still honored to this day. It’s an honor to serve.
So ten years have gone by. I rented to the Knockout for the night, May 30th. . Zoli has arranged for some entertainments which I will tell you about in the next email I send out. Come raise a glass to the old days.
The Knockout is at (duh) 3223 Mission street, where Mission and Valencia intersect. Yes, they do. Yes they do I go there every fucking day shut up! (I haven’t said that for exactly ten years!) We all have kids now, so the show will start late, at like 10. Goes till 2. And we don’t have to clean up!!!!!!!
Remember The Dark Room?
That’s all we can do now. Somebody with a telephone finally noticed we were having too much improper fun and as a result, we must now say good bye…
One amazing memory is when I auditioned to be a Rod Serling. Jim’s feedback about my performance was so amazingly insightful that I knew I was in the presence of greatness. For that performance I read the back of a wet-nap for the audience; it was epic.
San Francisco is now quite a bit darker. I can’t wait for Jim’s next big thing.
When I pause music in Pandora, it makes a clicking sound about 70% of the time. I contacted support and they think I’m crazy. It only now bothers me because I am often listening to quieter music while wearing headphones.
Does this happen on your computer? Hit play, then hit pause a few times. Then write a short comment!
I’m using Chrome and Windows 7 on a Lenovo T530 laptop. The click happens through my speakers as well as headphones.
Hey, this video for Megabots took place at American Steel, my friends’ shop (Sheet Metal Alchemist and Minor Catastrophe among others)! That’s Michael’s car at 0:27! I saw the American Megabot chilling at the end of Bay 4 a couple weeks ago. It’s pretty sweet.
Oh to be famous on the internets. Well, at least I keep good company.
Malcolm is a good friend of mine and has been working on this project for a year or so. He is teaching new engineers how to actually make it in the professional world. He’s starting to accept students. Check it out.
The Engineer Accelerator August 2015
http://www.engineeraccelerator.com
The Engineer Accelerator is your entry point into the electrical engineering profession. It will introduce you to essential skills you will need as a in your career. It will give you the chance to begin developing your professional network and a portfolio of work. It will give you experience in producing professional level work at the pace required by industry.
The course will consist of two parts. The first part is focused on solidifying the skills that are the foundation of your professional career. Topics include:
Task Duration Estimation and Progress Monitoring
Working with Teams and Managers
The Hardware Development Process
Design by Documentation
The second part is focused on exploring the Hardware Development Process in detail. A selection of some of the topics that will be covered are listed below:
Product Definition
Architectural and Physical Design Constraints
Sourcing and BOM Management
Managing the Manufacturing Process
Schematic and Layout Design Guidelines
Black Box and White Box Testing
Each of these topics will be introduced in a seminar and lab. Then there will be be an opportunity for practice them through an ongoing project. The project will build up to a design review and demo at the end of the class. In addition to course work there will be optional field trips and other events that will give you a inside look at how the industry as it really works.
This course will run in August 2015 in Bay Area and is targeted to engineers who are in their last two years of college through their first two years of work. It assumes a background in electrical engineering such as a BS in Electrical Engineering or equivalent, or independent electronics project work. For students who are not local to the Bay Area remote options are available. If you are interested fill out the contact form at
My favorite Burning Man still photographer is putting out a stupendous book of Burning Man art. You can get a look at some of the images and buy the book at TheArtOfBurningman.com. It’s being put out by Taschen which is like “the” art book publisher.
One groovy thing is that two pieces I helped on are in the promotional video :-).
After watching this 90 second video, I registered to become an organ donor.
I registered here: https://register.donatelifecalifornia.org/register/. I told them they can have anything except my heart and they can’t use me for “research”, which is (I assume) mostly being a cadaver for med school.
Thanks to Jim Fourniadis and Paula Peters for pointing me to it.
