Lee.org

Bay Area Lost Horizon Night Market April 30, 2011. On a deserted street in Oakland.

Bay Area Lost Horizon Night Market. This truck had padding on the walls. A person would enter with protective gear and a big hammer. They'd have some time to smash all the objects in the truck as hard as they could. Awesome.

Billy Hiebert at the Crucible's Fireside Lounge

Billy Heibert smashed this amazing ceramic sphere he built in 1983 on stage. There was a moment when the hot hammer was going through the ceramic, and it had shattered into a hundred pieces but it was still roughly in the same shape. I could see bits of the wall behind it in slivers. It looked a lot like a water balloon that had just been popped, a tumultuous ball of water that had just forgotten what shape it was supposed to be. One moment it existed. The next, it didn’t. Wow.

Crucible Hot Hammer

And when I say “hot hammer”, I mean it! On stage, they poured bronze into a sand mold and made a hammer before our eyes! I was really surprised how fast the metal of the head cooled. They first pulled it after maybe 45 seconds but the bronze was slushy and only some of the hammer was formed. They smooshed it it back in and pulled out a red hot hammer after another 30 seconds. They handed it to Billy and he smashed the sphere!

Flower at Civic Center

I was walking up Market St last week and came across this giant flower near Civic Center.

Modern Times Bookstore moving

Walking home last Monday night, May 2nd, I watched as the Modern Times Bookstore closed it’s doors for the last time at it’s current location. I overheard phrases like, “I can’t believe this is it.” The vacancy rate of storefronts in my neighborhood always scares me. Modern Times is reopening on 24th St in a month so says their website.

The Mysterious Valencia Periscope

On my same walk home, I ran into an intriguing periscope-like contraption dangling from an apartment! Here is some great other coverage of the house on MissionMission, and. :-)

Competitive Swinging! That is Jen and I swinging.

On Sunday I went to the Headlands Center for the Arts with a better friend to see Paolo Salvagione’s “Competitive Swinging“. A set of totally grownup swings. It was cool. His girl Jen showed me Paolo’s art catalog from the Headlands Center, he has a bunch of pretty awesome pieces! From a Magic 8 Ball that always says “Yes”, to hopscotch that makes you light as a feather, brush bristle shoes, an eclipse machine, a crazy spinning mirror/window… I’m recalling these from memory because they all stuck with me!

Bowling at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Oo, gutter ball!

Did you know there is a bowling alley in the basement of the gymnasium of the Headlands Center for the Arts? Rumor has it that it has the oldest mechanically set pin machine west of the Mississippi. I took this photo from the position behind the pins because that’s where you stand as the pin setter. Groovy.

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

local version:

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

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.

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

local version:

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

(via, and, and)

local version:

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

local version:

Ugh, I haven’t been able to speak in a normal voice since Friday afternoon! Friday evening my voice got hoarse. I figured it was from teaching all week and maybe a bug. Daniel Bauen, my friend from Colossus came through town so I talked to him with my froggy voice. I really shouldn’t have. It hurt my throat to speak every time. Saturday morning I had no voice. I could whisper quietly but even that hurt a little so I generally refrained. On Sunday morning I was having a whispered conversation with Daniel in the kitchen. At one point he turned on the tap to get some water and I was unable to speak over the sound of running water, ugh.

Here we are Monday and I’m coughing up more phlem than ever and I still feel kinda sick. Not really sick but certainly under the weather. And I still can’t speak.