Lee.org

Be there.

Nemo Gould, Eric Joyner, Mark Galt, Jeremy Mayer, Benjamin Cowden

Very cool event:

Kinetic Steam Works’ annual Roll Out event is coming up! Saturday, November 12th, from Noon to 10PM, come celebrate this autumnal steamy spectacular with us. There will be plenty of cottony cloud soft steam, food, beer/wine, a silent auction, mechanical entertainments mammoth and bijou, craft vendors, and a magnificent musical lineup including Lord Loves A Working Man, Beso Negro, Sour Mash Hug Band, Shovelman and others. Kinetic art and attractions include several wood fired steam engines including all 9-tons of “Hortense,” KSW’s lovingly restored 1923 traction engine, the Pumpkin Guillotine returns, steam powered abominable snow cones, Jon Sarriugarte’s “Serpent Twins,” Justin Gray’s jet-turbine powered “Robot Charlie,” Ben Cowden’s “Gathering” and “A Gentle Tugand,” and much more. We invite you to come on down and celebrate, you’ll be supporting Kinetic Steam Works, a unique nonprofit organization. $10 to $100 sliding scale. Kids under 12 get in free (they must be accompanied by an adult), the family rate is $20. Location Info: 2525 Mandela Parkway, Oakland, CA, 94607.

I didn’t feel the 4.0 earthquake in Berkeley yesterday at 3:15pm, but I did feel the 3.8 at 8:15pm. They were both really short, like 5 seconds.

These two earthquakes are obviously the earth readjusting itself after the news that Charlotte is moving from San Francisco to Seattle.

Charlotte tells me

1. Avoid ruminating/stop dwelling on a topic
2. Do good
3. Don’t sweat decisions (no looking back sorta things)
4. Spend well (people tend to be happier spending money on experiences//things no so very much)
5. Aim high
6. Be a joiner (being around people makes us happier)
7. Be grateful

.

And she relays (via):

The Seven Habits of Highly Happy People
By: Marc and Angel Hack Life
Highly happy people all share happy habits. It’s as simple as that. The happiest people I know share seven very obvious habits. If you’re looking to expand your general happiness, you may consider adopting these in your own life.
1. Be a part of something you believe in.
This could be anything. People may take an active role in their local city council, find refuge in religious faith, join a social club supporting causes they believe in, or find passion in their careers. In each case, the physiological outcome is the same. They engage themselves in something they strongly believe in. This engagement brings happiness and meaning into their lives.
2. Share time with friends and family.
A happy life is a life shared with friends and family. The stronger the personal relationships are and the higher the frequency of interaction, the happier a person will be.
3. Reflect on the good.
Quite often people concentrate too much of their attention on negative outcomes and leave no time to positively reflect on their successes. It’s natural for a person to want to correct undesirable circumstances and focus closely on doing so, but there must be a healthy balance in the allocation of personal awareness. It is important to mindfully reflect on the good while striving diligently to correct the bad. A continuous general awareness of your daily successes can have a noticeably positive affect on your overall emotional happiness.
4. Exploit the resources you DO have access to.
The average person is usually astonished when they see a physically handicapped person show intense signs of emotional happiness. How could someone in such a restricted physical state be so happy? The answer rests in how they use the resources they do have. Stevie Wonder couldn’t see, so he exploited his sense of hearing into a passion for music, and he now has twenty-five Grammy Awards to show for it.
5. Create happy endings whenever possible.
The power of endings is quite remarkable. The end of any experience has a profound impact on a person’s overall perception of the experience as a whole. Think about reading a well written, thought-provoking novel. Now imagine the ending totally sucks. Even if the story was captivating up until the ending, would you still be happy recommending the novel to a friend? People always remember the ending. If the ending is happy, the experience creates happiness. Always tie loose ends, leave things on a good note, and create happy endings in your life whenever possible.

6. Use personal strengths to get things done.
Everyone possesses unique personal strengths. We all have different talents and skill sets. Emotional happiness comes naturally to those who use their strengths to get things done. The state of completion always creates a sense of achievement. If this achievement is based exclusively on your own personal ability to get the job done, the physiological rewards are priceless.
7. Savor the natural joy of simple pleasures.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the best things in life are free. They come in the form of simple pleasures and they appear right in front of you at various locations and arbitrary times. They are governed by Mother Nature and situational circumstance and captured by mindful awareness. It’s all about taking a moment to notice the orange and pink sunset reflecting off the pond water as you hold hands with someone you love. Noticing these moments and taking part in them regularly will bring unpredictable bursts of happiness into your life.

Update 2-15-12: Read my full review of Fungavir.

Text in bold italics below are updates.

I had written a scathing post about Fungavir, calling it a scam. I’ve removed this post. I now think I was a little too aggressive in my wording. I spoke with one of the owners of Fungavir a couple days ago and they  have begun rewording their web site and changing some of their practices to be more realistic. made a couple tiny changes to their site but the vast majority of the weasel words and scammer language remain. The ingredients in Fungavir are somewhat effective at fighting toenail and fingernail fungus, but there is absolutely nothing special about it. They charge 10 times the price for ingredients you can already find at your local pharmacy.

I was introduced to Fungavir by a comment spam that appeared on my site, which is not an auspicious start.

The wording on their site had some is full of scammer language:
* testimonials that seem too good to be true
* lies. For example, “Fungavir has double the amount of Undecylenic Acid than any other nail fungus treatment”. It does not. 25% is the legal limit for non-prescription strength and they have 10%.
* vague promises with meaningless copy like “double action” and “killing the fungus while working to heal the affected area” and… well, most of the words on the site.
* product images such that look like product only exists in Photoshop
* Site icons with no substantiation like “Green Certified Site”, “GMP”, “Made in an FDA Registered Facility”, and “Google Checkout” (they don’t use Google Checkout)

The ingredients appear to be just a collection of all the topical anti-fungals mixed into one bottle. Yeah, that might work, but I’m guessing it’ll work as well as well as any other topical, which is to say, “It might work but don’t hold your breath.”

The guy at Fungavir has said he is going to change their website. I’m going to give him the chance. But if he doesn’t since he didn’t come up with more realistic language on his site in a month or so, I’ll be reposting my original article and then some.

For more info on nail fungus, read the several posts and followup comments on my blog about nail fungus.

Here is the Fungavir homepage on 10-9-11:

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There are many discussions about nail fungus going on on my blog. Search my blog for the word “fungus” for more.

I got a nice note from Ali Davis, author of True Porn Clerk Stories. Ali wanted me to remove my archive because it’s now a book. Like I wrote to Ali:

all too often, good material like what you’ve written just fades away to nothing. I archived it so it wouldn’t die. I’m glad you put it in a book. I removed the archive from my site and put a little note up saying, “hey, buy Ali’s book”

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Sometimes the Kinetics department gets donations that we can’t use. We’ve had this box of powertools in a corner of the room for a while. Ben Carpenter picked up a nice old Craftsman circular saw. Man, they don’t make em like they used to, this thing is a beautiful beast! He plugged it in and it works! Trouble is, we just don’t need one in the department. So I walked downstairs with it and saw someone sorting scrap metal outside. I said, “Hey, you look like the kind of guy that needs a circular saw.” He looked quizzically at me for a moment and said, “No way, really? I mean, I was going to go shopping for one, like, today.” We spoke for a few minutes. He’s an intern at the Crucible… he might do part of his internship with Kinetics now. But even if he doesn’t, karma is served.

Nearly there!

Thanks to Michael Kearney who has helped tremendously with technical and inspirational matters. And Lou and Heather who have helped out earlier in the summer!

Through the magic of the internets, I was able to hire a veritable Squeezebox Hero to perform a happy birthday greeting for my mom!

Check it out!

local version:

Have him perform for you!
And than you Jen for pointing out Fiverr.com to me!

In June I went to Briones Park with Charlotte. It was very relaxing. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

mouseover this panorama or view it here
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Back in June I went to the US Air Guitar Regional Championships. I will let the image speak for itself!