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Clean air tip: If the air is smokey, go to the hardware store and get a really good furnace filter. Your home will feel like a bubble of good air in an otherwise smokey mess. (The bay area forest fires are getting kinda crazy. We’re safe but the smoke is everywhere)

Full instructions:

1. Get a magic eraser pad, any brand will do
2. Get the pad wet
3. Rub gently back and forth, up and down on the windshield. Rub gently, it’s an abrasive!
4. Clean the windshield with your favorite glass cleaner
5. Triumph in joy!

If you use Cricket Wireless, you may have found, like me, that Cricket Visual Voicemail sucks. Here’s how to change to using Google Voice voicemail.

Step 1: Get free a Google Voice account  with a new phone number

Step 2: Set up conditional call forwarding like so:

**004*[your google voice number]#

Step 3: Have someone call you and the call should be answered by your google voice. Rejoice in the non-suckyness!

You can disable this forwarding with  #004#

You can read more about conditional call forwarding for GSM phones here

Update 11-6-19: On the Google Pixel 2, I was unable to use the **004* code. It threw an error. So I did what a few websites recommended: Put the SIM card into another phone, type in the code above, put the SIM card back in your phone. Done!

Why do I say the Cricket Visual Voicemail Android app sucks?

• I have to push most buttons twice for it to work (sounds crazy? it is!)
• When I start playing a voicemail, the first 3 seconds play and then it stops. Hitting play (twice) restarts it as long as I’ve waited the magically determined amount of time. It’s crazymaking like having a big piece of lint under one of my keys!
• It often doesn’t transcribe my messages
• I’ve had these exact same problems for 3 years and 2 phones

What do you do with a sick boat?
Take it to the doc!

A neutron walks into a bar and asks “how much for a beer?” The bartender says, “for you? no charge.”

Two hydrogen atoms are walking down the street. One stops, looks in his pockets and says, “Wait, I think I lost an electron!” The other says, “Are you sure?” The first says, “Yes! I’m positive!”

A helium atom walks into a bar and the bartender says ” we don’t serve noble gases here.”
No reaction.

Did you hear about the uranium atoms that went to the anti war rally. They got bored and split.

Two uranium atoms are at an anti-war rally. From the other side of the way an atom throws a proton and hits one of them right in the head. The other says, “Don’t let his negativity effect you!”

What do you call a bear with no teeth?
Gummi-bear!

A drum and a cymbal fall off a cliff
[Ba dum bum, tssss!]

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?
Pumpkin pi!

What do you call a fish with no eye?
fffsssshhhhh

Why shouldn’t you write with a broken pencil?
BECAUSE IT’S POINTLESS!

What do vegan zombies love more than anything in the whole world?
Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!

What did one snowman say to the other?
Do you smell carrots?

what do you do with epileptic lettuce?
You make a seizure salad!

There’s two fish in a tank. One turns to the other and says
‘You man the guns, I’ll drive’

A man didn’t like his haircut, but it started to grow on him.

Guy walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under arm. Says to the bartender: “I’ll take a beer, and one for the road.”

Why did the cowboy adopt a weiner dog?
He wanted to get a long little doggy!

How does the man in the moon cut his hair?
ECLIPSE IT!

Where does George Washington keep his armies?
In his sleevies!

Why does a moon rock taste better than an earth rock?
Because its a little meteor!

Please help me. I sleep on my side. Most nights my hip sinks into my bed, pulling my back out of wack and giving me a backache. Nearly every bed I’ve had in my life has started to sag in the hip area after a few months. Do you know of a bed that doesn’t have this problem? Please don’t write saying “I’ve never had a problem with xxx bed.” Most people haven’t had a problem with ANY bed. I’d like to hear “I had a problem with several beds but found THIS bed to be better…”

For reference, I’m 6’1″, about 210lbs, and a sidesleeper.

A partial lineup of the beds I’ve killed:

• Actually, the waterbed I had in high school (thanks mom & dad & 1980’s!) didn’t have a problem.
• I killed a bunch of beds through college and after but I can’t recall the deets.
• 1999: I think it was a new Sealy Posturpedic. I killed it
• 2003: Bed in NJ. When I moved in 2005, it was starting to feel pretty bad
• 2005: I slept on a portable Aerobed for 6 months. It was awesome.
• 2005: store model Macys bed. I lay on it in the store for an hour and loved it. I had it at home for 2 weeks and my butt sank so low, it felt like I was in a lounge chair. Returned.
• 2006: new Ikea Sultan queen bed. I had to throw it away after 3 years
• 2009: another new Ikea Sultan queen bed. I killed it.
• 2012: Megan’s queen size bed for 3 years. I killed it.
• 2015: Nest Alexander Signature Select — Medium, King size. After 1.5 years, to keep my back sanity, I have a mattress topper, and I put a towel between the mattress topper and mattress (over the course of 2 months I go from 0-3 layers of towel to give increasing support) and every 2-3 months I have to rotate the bed 90 degrees. Originally I had to rotate it every 4-6 months. December 2018: putting a 1″ thick, 18″x 24″ piece of foam helped a lot. Late January 2019: I’m starting to get back aches and leg tingles again.
• 2019 I tried a Sleep Number P3 bed for a week. I couldn’t ever get comfortable on it. It felt like… it felt my middle was sleeping on a bag of air; my head and feet were over the edge of it so they felt different no matter how I slept on it. Felt just as weird on day 7 as it was on day 1. In one configuration, my middle felt like it was going to roll off the balloon under my butt while my head and feet were “fine” or my butt was in a hole while my head and feet were “fine”. There was no middle ground :-(
• 5-14-19: tried a “Lucid” hybrid spring and latex memory foam twin bed from Amazon.  The bed started sagging seriously after 2 months. Fail.
• Update 8-17-20: We went to Bay Bed & Mattress in Santa Cruz in January and got a king size bed. The cover on the bed can be unzipped and the latex cushions changed out. We went with 4 layers: something like medium, medium, firm, firm. After about 2 months, my side was sagging so I fluffed the cushions. After another month, it sagged again. I reduced it to 3 layers and a sheet of closed foam. That has held me for a few months. The adjustability of the bed will hopefully get me through! It takes maintenance but at least I <strong>can</strong> do maintenance because of the unzippable cover. They are a small company with very good customer service. Check them out   https://www.baybed.com/

Can you help me get a pair of RC cars for Abigail and I? She took an interest in my RC plane but the learning curve is way too steep there for someone who’s never done RC!

I’m thinking we want:

• Offroad, through our back yard, on woodchips, in playgrounds, I think that means a buggy or truggy.
• Probably under $100 including everything for each

I tried looking online for some good vehicles but finding real and legitimate buying advice was daunting. Sadly, I don’t really have a local hobby store. I’d be happy to buy used if I had any idea what I was getting!

While I didn’t get to go to Burning Man this year, I got to help build one of the most dangerous pieces at the event this year, so that’s pretty awesome!

I love teaching a flame effects class at The Crucible. A student of mine took what he learned in the class (and his own moxie!) and made this fire happen in 2016:

This year, Toby upgraded the fire on the Boring sign! More fire! Bigger fire!

And even more wonderfully, he consulted me about  a very awesome piece he put the fire on called “Night At The Climb In” by  Dustin Weatherford. The fire sits on top of a 50 foot tower that’s been skewered with cars and a camper!

It’s got multiple solenoid valves including several 1″ valves and a 2″ valve, a sweet (and safe) propane warming system, and a diffusion plate that let it create huge rings of fire!

Are people climbing on top of a stack of junked cars without any kind of safety equipment? Yes they are! Sounds dangerous? Yes it is! That could lead to headlines like this in USA Today:  Burning Man towering art car installation closed after someone fell off!

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — Safety rangers have closed one of the most popular art installations at Burning Man after someone fell off it late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning.

Artist Dustin Weatherford on Wednesday confirmed someone fell off “Night at the Climb In.” He said he didn’t know their condition, adding, “I hope they’re OK.”

Burning Man officials didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Weatherford’s installation consists of seven junked cars topped with a small RV trailer, spiked onto the desert with a tower about 50 feet fall, topped with flamethrowers.

The annual Burning Man event, which is actually a pop-up city where pretty much anything goes, is in the Black Rock Desert, 120 miles north of Reno, Nevada. This year’s festivities run from Aug. 26 through Sept. 3 and are expected to draw 80,000 people.

Wednesday morning, a trickle of attendees rolled up to the sculpture, which is now surrounded by yellow safety tape and guarded by volunteer Burning Man rangers. Rangers said they also had concerns that one of the cars about 20 feet off the ground had either bent or broken in half. Weatherford said the car posed no safety risk and the sculpture remained structurally sound.

Until Wednesday morning, Weatherford’s tower had been one of the most popular attractions at the festival, with dozens of attendees climbing up. Like many of the interactive Burning Man sculptures, the tower had no safety rigging or guardrails for people as they clambered over the stacked cars to reach the top.

 

Was this the most dangerous art piece at Burning Man 2018? Tell me in the the comments!

I overheard a conversation among some people that had hired wedding photographers. some weren’t happy with the results… not enough photos, not dynamic shooting, “could have done as well myself”…

It reminded me that Megan and I are VERY happy with the wedding photography we got from Lydia Daniller  some 4 years ago!

This message is about 11 months overdue but I still have to say that last September, for our birthdays, Megan and I went to Chez Panisse for lunch. It was an amazing food experience, a culinary touchstone for years to come! Going to Chez Panisse had been on my bucket list for almost 20 years and, having gone, yes, it deserved its place!