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From November 15-22nd I’m driving across this grand land of ours, almost from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters!

I’m taking pictures of states with my company’s camera rig.

If all goes well, I’ll be sleeping in

1. West Wendover, Nevada Monday
2. north of Denver Tuesday
3. Topeka, Kansas Wednesday
4. Joliet, Illinois Thursday
5. Cleveland, Ohio Friday
6. The mystery day (in case of rain etc)
7. Washington, DC Sunday
8. flying to Nashville (with family for Thanksgiving) Monday

If you’re along the route, give me a call and I’ll stop to say hello!

I’ll be taking pictures of places like Salt Lake City, UT; Cheyenne, WY; Denver, CO; Kansas City (Kansas & Missouri); Chicago, IL; Benton Harbor, MI; Cleveland, OH; Pittsburgh, PA; Fredericks, MD.

I reiterate, don’t trust your data to Facebook.

(via,  and)

Google will no longer let other services automatically import its users’ email contact data for their own purposes, unless the information flows both ways. It accused Facebook in particular of siphoning up Google contact data, without allowing for the automatic import and export of Facebook users’ information.
Google said that while it makes it easy for other Web services to automatically import a user’s contact data, Facebook was not reciprocating.

“We have decided to change our approach slightly to reflect the fact that users often aren’t aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook, they are effectively trapped,” Google said in an emailed statement.

“We will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites,” Google said.

Our equipment hasn’t come in yet. Who knew importing near-military grade GPS equipment to Saudi Arabia would be problematic?

We’ve been twiddling our thumbs 8,000 miles from home for 3 days. Our hosts are great, the food is excellent, the  accommodations  very nice. It still sucks to be just sitting here.

285 cable channels, 15 in English. There’s nothing on. Though there is the Mecca channel… all Mecca all the time, with these long slow pans of the place. And there’s like 150 channels of religious singing, 60 channels of  unintelligible    (to me) talking heads with headdresses…

I really need a portable mouse. The trackpad on my laptop is getting old.

I’m not getting over jetlag nearly as fast as I would if I weren’t sitting around all day. Ugh, a 10 hour time difference!

High points so far

• the Saudi style dinner we had 2 nights ago was quite an experience!
• walking part of Riyadh and going to the top of Kingdom Tower.

If you care to, email or comment on this post to allay my homesickness. Please don’t call my cell, it’s $2.50/min whether I pick up or not. But I can call you via Skype when I have wifi…

From the roof of our apartment in Riyadh

The sound of all the prayers being sung from the innumerable mosques just after sunset is indescribable.

I’m off to Saudi Arabia today with my coworker Jack for Earthmine. I’ll be back, albeit jetlagged,  November 3rd.

Next, US cross country trip!! approximately November 14-22nd

1. San Francisco
2. Washington state
3. Utah
4. Colorado
5. Michigan
6. Washington DC
7. Flying to Nashville for Thanksgiving

Overlooking Putrajaya Malaysia at dusk from the infinity pool of the Shangri-La Hotel.

A vignette for you…

The Old Dog

One day an old German Shepherd starts chasing rabbits and before long, discovers that he’s lost. Wandering about, he notices a panther heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

The old German Shepherd thinks, ‘Oh, oh! I’m in deep doo-doo now!’ Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the panther is about to leap, the old German Shepherd exclaims loudly, ‘Boy, that was one delicious panther! I wonder, if there are any more around here?’

Hearing this, the young panther halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. ‘Whew!’ says the panther, ‘That was close! That old German Shepherd nearly had me!’

Meanwhile, a squirrel who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the panther. So, off he goes..
The squirrel soon catches up with the panther, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the panther.

The young panther is furious at being made a fool of and says, ‘Here, squirrel, hop on my back and see what’s going to happen to that conniving canine!

Now, the old German Shepherd sees the panther coming with the squirrel on his back and thinks, ‘What am I going to do now?’, but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn’t seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old German Shepherd says…
‘Where’s that squirrel? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another panther!

Moral of this story…

Don’t mess with the old dogs… Age and skill will always overcome youth and treachery!
BS and brilliance only come with age and experience.

My Flame Effects class had a little get together at NIMBY over the summer. Here are some photos from David Nichols

My favorite images from the set…

Great fun!

I’m septuple booked with fun stuff this coming weekend.

– meeting with Schuyler for burritos and mechatronic art fun
– going to SWARM Camp, upgrading SWARM for the singularity
– Picking up equipment (and coworker) from the airport and calibrating it over the weekend for my upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia
– Going to a relatively low key fire art kinda party
– Going to an over-the-top fire art kinda party
– Assembling RBBB kits for an upcoming Crucible class (I’m probably not teaching any of it though :-( )
– Going to a One Man Band festival (Cafe Du Nord, Sunday 10pm) and finally seeing Chicken John in the flesh

Trav writes a very thoughtful piece.

Wandering around the desert wearing nothing more than body paint, a jockstrap made from a $1 pair of used overalls, and a ceremonial staff covered with LEDs and driven by a microcontroller that you soldered together and programmed out of $15 worth of parts is the new conspicuous consumption: it takes $16 worth of materials, and 2,000 hours of time.

Yup. That’s how wer’re wired. Funny, i’n’t is? Go read the whole thing.

Darn, I see all kinds of interesting arguments I’d like to pick at. If only I could get my inbox below 400 unread emails. (yeah, I’m flaunting a little by saying that, but also it’s uncool of me to not reply to my friends’ emails :-o)