Lee.org

Being human, I often worry about not fitting in, not being good enough, not being… blah blah blah. Geez, you’d think after 30 or 40 years, I’d have gotten over all that. But no.

Well, here is a reminder to myself that things are ok on that front.

Here are some compliments I’ve received in the last couple weeks, copied and pasted directly from emails:

• I woke up yesterday morning thinking about you, so I think I must have been dreaming about you.  I bet it was nice. :)
• always remember we would love to see you some time!
• Thanks again.
• Best regards,
• Peace,
• Hugs
• Right on Lee! Thanks! See you tomorrow
• Thank you. It was nice meeting you too. do you have a myspace? most cool,
• funny story: the other week I actually went to plain old lee.org… since the minute I learned your name I wanted to sing the Tenacious D song at you, but I was like ‘mehhh, he might not know what the hell I’m talking about, and then I’d just look silly…’
• yay! sounds like a productive night!
• Great minds!
• aWWWWWWWeeeeeesome!

This doesn’t include the compliments paid to me in person and on the phone.  So now I can officially let go of my angst.

Now if my angst would just let go of me.

My friend Marnia made these beautiful  porcelain shells. She’s planning on bringing them to life by putting them in an environment with moss and such, having them glow and make sounds with some microelectronics. It’s going to be very cool. She took this photo just after taking them out of the kiln to check them out.  

Charlotte got me 200 billion Zimbabwe dollars for Christmas. I love it. But now there is a 10  100 trillion dollar note. Must have for the collection! They are worth WAAAY more as collectibles on eBay than they are “worth”. A 10 Tril will set you back almost ten bucks US.

Hey wait… When I got my $100 billion notes, I heard that $100 billion would buy about 3 eggs… so they’re worth maybe $1 US. So the $10 trillion notes should be worth 100 times that… $100 US. But they are selling on eBay for $8 US…. Oh this inflation will continue / through the morning I am listening / to the bells of the cathedral / I am thinking of your voice… / and the midnight picnic / once upon a time / before inflation began…

Friday started with a battle to the death with house ants. They always come out when it rains. So I went under the bathroom sink and found the super-toxic goo the pesticide guy squirted out to kill ants. I put a chip of it on a piece of paper, added a drop of water and put it in the path of the ants. I got on the floor and watched as the ants came along and took a sip from the poisoned well I had created. I kinda feel bad.

Friday night we went out without a plan. First Charlotte Brendan and I went out looking for pizza. Standing outside our garage, bikes at the ready, our evening plans seemed kind of weak. So I called out to these people standing around, “Where should we go to dinner?” They suggested a couple different pizza places. At least it got us going. We biked all over the Mission and ended up having sandwiches at St Francis Fountain on 24th. We followed it up with going to a Super Hero Party on 24th. We met a feline superhero/villan and her friend Michael K from KQED. I mentioned Soon I Will Be Invincible  to him. Oh and the little girl at the front door asking everyone what their super power was and how they would save the world was just a joy.

Saturday, Charlotte is continuing to take classes at the Cupertino extention of Santa Cruz College to become a trainer. She’s now taken 2 weekend-long courses. She described to me how she got pleasantly tipsy after class Saturday showing the bartender how to make a Sloe Gin Fizz in a good ol’ boy bar.

Saturday night Rick, Charlotte and I went to an “Apple Pie, Poker & Booze” Party at Dan Schick’s house. We all met some nice folks and I parlayed my 3 excellent hands in Anaconda into 1 ok pot and 1 large pot. The last game was intense. I started with 4 kings (a very good hand) and Alexis accidentally passed me a 3… a wild card! That card had been passed to her by her neighbor and she just passed it on! After the game, we were talking about why no one else folded even though I kept raising like a crazy person. Josh said he thought I was really crazy and didn’t have anything. Apparently I should play the crazy card more often.

Sunday morning: Waffle Time! Rick (he stayed at our place), Charlotte and I went to Treasure Island to investigate the Fire sale of the TV show Prototype This. I got some nice shelving and a big giant pile of scrap metal that SWARM can hopefully turn into something awsome.

Charlotte and I were discussing this a little while back…

When you are telling a child that they are good at something, you shouldn’t generalize, you should be specific. You shouldn’t say, “Oh you are very good at math.” Instead, say, “You did very well on that test.” If you say that they are very good at math, the first thing they will think of is how terribly they did on their last test…. they got one or two wrong. Along those lines, when you are speaking to an adult it works much the same way. If you say, “Oh Lee, you are really good at writing.” The first thing I think about is how difficult it is to write well and how much effort it takes (regardless that my final product may come out well). Instead, you can stress things like interest level and specific tasks… how well someone performed on a specific task and how they might do something more interesting and more different the next time. Don’t suggest they do something “harder” next time. Though an adult frequently associates “harder” with getting a pay raise, which would be a good thing. But that’s entirely another subject.

The San Francisco Bike Coalition keeps talking about how great it would be if Market Street in San Francisco were car-free. In this post on the San Francisco Streetsblog, they made their standard jab in that direction. (see image).

I wrote this comment on the post:

>How great would a car-free Market Street be?

Not so great. Go ahead and click the link above
“New York City has embraced livable streets principles” and watch the video that points to New York City’s revitalization program. There is talk about  temporarily  making a car-free corridor for the but no talk at all about any permanent car-free spaces.

Maybe 1-4% of SF rides a bike on a daily basis. In the recent French bike experiments, bike ridership has roughly doubled. So that’s 2-8% biking in SF. What about the 92-98% that would not be helped by making a car-free Market Street?

The best way to kill the vitality of a street is to remove the traffic.

I wrote to Burning Man recently:

I ordered 2 Burning Man tickets. They recently arrived and it had an Atomic Fireball in the envelope. I love the sentiment, thank you!

It would be much appreciated if I had received one Fireball per ticket. That way, both my partner and I could have our Fireballs. Last year I ordered two tickets and received just one Fireball as well.. :-(

You spent the effort (and used that big envelope) to include a Fireball, having one per ticket is only right. :-)

Here was the response from Frog at Burning Man

Hi Lee. The secure mailing option as required by the post office says we need to have our envelopes 3/4 inch thick so your package can be signed for. We thought it would be fun to send something useful that keeps the envelope 3/4 inch thick for the post office requirements, but we found that if we sent more than one fireball the flap on the envelope has a tendency to come open and tickets have been stolen in the mail. So, as much as we want to make people happy by sending a piece of candy to each and every one of you, we would rather you have your tickets safe and sound.

I did a little digging and.. yup, the least expensive way to send a letter that requires signature confirmation at the receiving end is to make sure the letter is at least 3/4″ thick. That way you can call it “First Class Package” and get Signature Confirmation service for $2.20. Total price for a 3 oz letter is under $4. Otherwise, you’d have to use Priority Mail with Signature Confirmation for $7.15.

So it looks as though if you give USPS a letter that can’t be machine sorted, it’s less expensive than if it’s machine sortable. Hmm.

Today I…

• worked for Rich H all day. We figured out the majority of running an LDAP server for user authentication (it’s amazing how something so straightforward can be so convoluted!)

This evening

• had a good conversation with Charlotte

and with SWARM..

• picked up a shelving unit that Erik S donated to SWARM (and had an adventure “stealing” it back from its former basement home
• chatted up about robots with my SWARMie friends
• helped install lighting Michael donated to SWARM for the container. It looks great!
• installed the shelf in the container. It’s amazing how much stuff fits on a shelf :-)))
• made some hooks with Jon to hang stuff on the walls of the container.
• They worked out great :-)

CTP is looking to get a super-fancy button making machine. He’s got a sweet deal for you to help make it happen. Check it out.

I’m thinking of making an assurance contract with ThePoint.com so I can chip in $20 instead of $100. That’ll be fun…