Lee.org

I might put this under the category of “Today’s Affirmation”

A Ted Talk

David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min

local version:

That place is a disorderly house injurious to the public welfare and morals. And JWZ put up the sign to show it.

FNA

I have trouble giving myself a day off because I’ve got a million things on my todo list. But today, I was off.

Went to the shooting range with Schuyler and his friend Mitch. While I was officially Schuyler’s Parent or Guardian because of his tender young age (!), I spent the most time with Mitch, giving him a shooting lesson. It was fun and sometimes funny watching him load the magazine backwards, try desperately to operate the slide, and hold the gun in a position where he’d surely bonk himself in the head if he were to fire the gun for real. All that said, he did great on the range! I was thinking it would just be good if he got out there but in his last round, he took 7 shots, all on the paper, most inside a small circle. And darn we had fun!

(and click on that image to the left. I wasn’t trying to but I caught the slide and kick of the gun perfectly!)

After, Schuyler and I came back home, we chatted and cleaned the gun and then off to Papalote, where I got 2 more stamps on my Burrito Card. My next burrito will be free! I liked the sound of that I asked the cashier to repeat the words, “Your next burrito will be free.” Wee!

I got a call from my dad and emails from my aunts Dorothy and Ernestine telling me how cool it was that I’m speaking at Techkriti and the company I’ll be keeping there.

Laurie came over and we all chatted about all manner of things… from niobium to the magic of twist ties to baking bread. We baked. I figured it would be good practice for my upcoming bread teaching class and, well, there was no bread in the house! Schuyler ended up staying so long that he got to have some and take some home. We opened up the last of my lonza and talked about making some of our own! It might be possible to sweat the meat in a refrigerator inside a plastic container and a drainage rack!

I’m already forgetting many of the nonstop jokes we chatted up. It was a really good day!

My car has been running a little rough at idle when cold. It would sometimes cut out for a moment and almost stall. The “Check Engine” light came on. It was due for a Test-Only smog check so I took it in for a smog test. The smog guy said the car passed except for the Check Engine light. He handed me a paper describing a $500 repair credit for smog-related repairs from the State.

I took my car to the mechanic at 400 Guerrero. He said, “I looked for a few hours. Maybe it’s the throttle sensor, maybe the computer. I don’t have the equipment to check the computer. Take it somewhere else. I won’t charge you.”

I took my car to a dealer in Walnut Creek, Michael Stead (because all the local Chrysler dealers are closed because of effing General Motors going into the shitter). They replaced the throttle sensor for $500. Before I got home, the problem manifested itself again.

I took the car to the dealer again and now they say it’s an intermittent open connection in the electrical system. They want to charge me $1,800 to replace the entire wiring harness. Is this reasonable?

The dealer will reimburse me the $500 for the mistaken throttle sensor problem. And I should get $500 free money from the state.

If I get a second opinion, might a mechanic be able to find and replace the one bad wire in the electrical system for less than $1,800? Do I dare try cutting and soldering wires myself? I mean, if it’s broken copper in a wire, it’s $1 of wire that’s gone bad.

My car is in for service. I just got a call from the dealer in Walnut Creek, Michael Steads Walnut Creek Chrysler Jeep Dodge.

…
The service rep asks, “The mechanic opened the hood and… has there ever been a fire in your car?”

“Hmm? mmm. Ha! No, but it’s been to Burning Man! All that dust under the hood! And you can never get it out. The mechanic has never seen a car that’s been to Burning Man, has he?”

“Ah, he thought that was fire extinguisher dust…”

This morning Sparkfun had a “Free Day” giving away $100,000 in $100 increments to shoppers. Obviously, their servers came crashing down.

Eric asked on the SWARM list
Eric: anyone get anything?
Lee: I clicked Refresh until my fingers were bloody stumps. But nothing. I’m writing to you now with voice recognition soft wear because I have no fingers.
Mark A: lolz… “soft wear”

I was lying in bed this morning (after being up a while) and the bed started rocking. An earthquake! Wee!! It was really tiny, like 5 seconds total. It felt like someone was at the foot of the bed wiggling the frame a little.

Just now I just tried to wiggle the bed like the earthquake but the frame is too stiff. It was the building doing that wiggling! The motion was entirely horizontal, head-foot / east-west.

The US Geological Survey says this about the earthquake:

Last night I reported how “it was on fire when I got here“. Well today, I get to report how my neighbor’s apartment caught on fire, nearly burning my building down.
Yipe.
I’ll write more later but the short form is:
I called 911 at 11:23am
The first thing they brought out was a smoldering mattress
nobody hurt
fire limited to 1/4 of one apartment, surprisingly little, maybe 1/4 the stuff in the place is smoke damaged.

Ok, they’re rude. But they’re funny. They are.

I’ve loved this list for years. I remember when Luke Sullivan started quoting them at me with funny faces. I laughed and laughed! Though, truth be told, I was and am jealous that he has such an awesome memory… he could quote most (all?) of this list from memory!

Don’t explain, just tell these to your friends, one at a time with a slow wry grin until they make a disgusted face at you.

Some of Larry’s favorite er-jokes:

Continue reading ‘ER Jokes’ »

My friend Marcus, the founder of the Berkeley Revolution is at this moment in New Zealand with his  unicycle basketball team having a blast playing against all the best unicycle basketball teams in the world!

local version:

He is at Unicom, The 15th International Unicycling Convention and Championships held in Wellington New Zealand this year!

I just read news and see that they are doing quite well in the standings. Of course, it’s much more about the journey and having fun, but it feels good to know that Berkeley is representin’!

From their website:

We won our second game 44-2 over NT Cyclones, and we won our 3rd game 32-6 over RSD United, a German team. RSD United gave us a game for a while, we were up just 6-4 at one point–they have some of the world’s fastest unicyclists. But things are going well so far. Tomorrow morning we play probably our toughest prelim, …against a French team (CYCL’HOP), and in the afternoon we will have our first quarterfinal game.

Marcus is 4th from left in the photo