Lee.org

is what some lucky person said tonight. I can’t believe it wasn’t me. I played 10 tickets, I should have won!

I don’t know if this made me feel better or worse. But feeling is a very good start.

How To Be Alone by Tanya Davis

local version:

How To Be Alone
via

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There’s also the gym. If you’re shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).

And there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you’re hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they — like you — will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You’re no less intriguing a person when you’re eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching…because, they’re probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there’re always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might’ve never happened had you not been there by yourself

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one’s in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school’s groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you’re happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.

And it doesn’t mean you’re not connected, that communitie’s not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn’t get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

I just noticed this in the latest Burning Man “Jack Rabbit Speaks”
[BManUpdate] V15:#10:03.24.11
Burning Man Update: The Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 15, Issue #10
March 24, 2011

THE CRUCIBLE OFFERS COURSES IN ELECTRONIC CONTROL OF FLAME EFFECTS

Our friend Steve Young sends us this about a course at The Crucible in Oakland that miiiight just be of interest to Burners. Call us crazy.

“Entry-Level

In this hands-on flame effects and electronics class you will learn how flame effects work, how to design and build them safely and how to use a Arduino microcontroller to create complex fire sequences and interactive behavior, while building your own ‘poofer’ fire sculpture.

Topics that we will cover include solenoid valves, sensors and programming interactivity. You will also learn how these same techniques can be used with other fluids such as compressed air and hydraulic fluid, often used in robotics and kinetic sculptures. This class is a perfect ‘next level’ for any artist who wants to control their art in exciting and interactive ways.

There are no prerequisites for this class, though exposure to basic electronics and programming is helpful. A laptop computer is highly recommended but not required. Personal projects are welcomed. You will take home your final project and are welcome to add to it. This is a complementary course to ‘Flame Effects for Art’.

Sign up for the Flame Effects for Art class at the same time as this class and receive $40 off Flame Effects for Art.

*Young Adults age 16+ must request approval and register to take this class by phone at 510-444-0919 ext0

Cost: $425.00 (Tuition: $210.00, Studio Fee: $215.00), Members: $404.00”

That’s my class!
I’m terribly excited and terribly nervous. And it’ll be awesome.

I made it a triple-feature in Daly City tonight. Limitless, The Adjustment Bureau, and Hall Pass. 3 fine Hollywood films.

I always thought THIS was the original vision of a monorail:

Monorail pulling out of the Polynesian Resort in Disney World

Wouldn’t you rather ride on this gyro monorail? And this is just a prototype from 1903!

via

The future isn’t what it used to be, is it? Well, at least I have my jetpack.

And in case there was any question as to the origins of the monorail, Ya Got Trouble, right here in River City! (no seriously, click both of those links)

I’ve been putting Google Adsense Ads on Lee.org since 2008. Initially, it earned about $300/year. Now it’s down to about $100/year. The vast majority of my web traffic is from random passersby. Since I don’t want to bother my friends with ads, I’ve changed it so that the most recent 3 months of content are free of ads. About 1 in 1000 page views generates a click on an ad, each is worth $0.10-$0.30 to me.

I make the 3 month delay happen with WP Super Cache and the no adverts for friends plugin. I hand modified a line in friendsadverts.php to change it from the default 15 days to 90 days.

if( get_post_time() < date( ‘U’ ) – 7776000 )

7776000 is 90 days in seconds.

Thanks Donncha!

Hmm. Remember the $700 billion bank baleout called TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program)? It looks like it might have been money well spent.

via

The Treasury Department reported on Wednesday that six more banks repaid a total of $475 million in funds they had received as part of their participation in the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The reimbursement lifted the recovery under the program to about 99%. The program was initiated more than two years ago to rescue the nation’s financial industry.

There is more good news for the Treasury. In addition to the recovery of the entire TARP money, the Treasury expects the program to earn a handsome $20 billion in profit from banks.
…

But then The Huffington Post talks a little vaguely about how the government spent $4 trillion on the bailout and most of that money is gone for good. I don’t know!

As BrookeLynn writes

There once was a flock of birds. One fateful day, they found themselves distracted for just a moment. Before they knew it, a troop of villainous pigs had stolen their eggs! The birds were enraged and set forth on a journey to destroy the pigs and recover their precious eggs. Their story is tragic and triumphant, and is now the world’s most addictive video game.

When Sherry Huss, director of Maker Faire, first introduced me to Angry Birds, I was skeptical. But soon I found myself spending every free moment trying to get those eggs back from the pigs. And, like many others, I needed to express my love of these Angry Birds in new ways. So I turned to my favorite craft, needle felting.

Make your own!

I’m going. You?
————————————————–
Saturday brings Chicken John’s Lost Vegas to NIMBY. We have plenty of off street parking,
almost 4 acres, the weather will be great and if not, don’t worry, we are
mostly indoors though the enormous burn barrel will need to stay
outside…

We are featuring this year:

Cockroach Racing
Rat Roulette
The wheel of SMUT
Quantum Physics Dating Game
Crackjack
Poke-her
Human Wheel of Death
Crap

These are all games you can win big on. Big. Big!!! BIG!!!!!!!!!! The show
goes late, so come early all over the place.

LET IT RIDE!: Just like the big boys, you can win big! Big! BIG!!!!

ROCK!: To the sounds of KALRI$$IAN !

WEEP!: Like a baby as our sharks take all your chips!

MARVEL!: Time Traveler Anton Berteaux will jump the ramp of death!

VOW!: Dr. Hal & Rev. Burke will offer short duration marriages!

CROON/CRINGE!: At the Kareokie station with Beyond Paul!

POPERATTZI!: The PHOTOBOOF will be in effect!!!

SWOON!: The Ukaladies Strumming Club are the only all gal uke band!

CASH OUT!: At the redemption booth with Tracey and Don!

OOGLE!: The loose ladies and the Miami sounds of Freaktronic!

CRY!: Out in disgust at our cockroach racing!

YO!: David Capurro rocks the Yo Yo to Black Sabbath!

SLURRR!: Your words, by patronizing out bar!

RACK!: Your brains to the Can Cannibals!

DRESS!: To the nines; Lost Vegas has an un-enforced dress code

FOUL!: Chicken John is your host with the least…

Short duration marriages performed by Dr. Hal and Rev. Ben Burke! Discount
at the door for those wearing Bridal attire!!!

More entertainment as follows:

Mirium on the Trapeze
Azana’s Arial acrobatics
Bruce Tomb’s Maria Del Camino
Michael Christian
SOL by Alex Nolan
The Tub-o- Hurrle
The Yo Yo King
Ukaladies
Mongo Lounge
Cheese Puff
Sparkle Motion
Belly Dancing with Rose Harden and friends
The Can-Cannibals Dance Troupe
KALRI$$IAN
Freaktronic
Naked Fire Babes
Shipwreck Tiki Lounge
and much, much, more.

It’s an evening to dismember, so put on your finest and come on out to
NIMBY to do the Lost Vegas grind!

All gambling is real. You play with chips that you cash out for valuable
prizes. Ahem. This is less spectacular and more action-oriented. You place
the bets! You race the roaches! You spill your drink! It’s all about
you!!!!

Lost Vegas, where everybody’s nobody and that at least all of you…..
This marvelous event (now in it’s 18th year) is everything you’ve never
wanted in a casino experience and much, much less.

Come on down and hang out all over.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/157303
We have enough off street parking for everyone
Autos and Bicycles
http://www.facebook.com/nimbyspace

Homepage

Help keep NIMBY open and alive.
All proceeds will help us with past and future endeavors. If you can’t
make it to this show, please buy a ticket and give it to a friend.
Please forward this invite to your favorite lists

Mr. Snook
“refuse to live vicariously”
A DIY space
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http://lists.nimbyspace.org/listinfo.cgi/nimby-list-nimbyspace.org

I got laid off from earthmine. While they loved me, (and gave me the best recommendation letter eva) they said they need a mechanical engineer instead of a jack-of-all-trades. I really enjoyed the job, the building stuff, cameraderie, travel. That’s the “looking down” part.

Looking up… I just got the go-ahead to make a new sign for a new local Pizza Cafe. It’ll involve using the newest, coolest tool at the Box Shop, the CNC plasma cutter.

More looking up… a friend asked if I couldn’t help her by helping relatives go sight-seeing in Carmel, that’ll be fun.

More looking up… I’m now the head of the Kinetics and Electronics Department at the Crucible! And youth classes are starting up soon so I’ll have a month of crazy projects and youthful exuberance!

And the latest looking up: Yarn Bombs! Finally, a graffiti I can get behind.