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Charlotte and I have been learning poi spinning recently. One thing we’ve been doing is watching videos on the intertubes. We came across this video that introduced us to Nick Woolsey. Nick is pretty amazing. His videos show his excellent teaching, a puckish grin and an earnest streak 2 miles long. Oh and also that he is a freaking amazing poi spinner.

Introductions done, here’s the video Charlotte found that introduced us to Nick. You can find more about this video on his site and find him at Playpoi.com. Nick’s Youtube page is worth watching.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

high quality .mov version: beauty_of_ashes

Today’s inspiration and encouragement comes from my downstairs neighbor. The only thing I can add is that, in the Author’s Corner, he writes, “this book was truly delightful to make”. I can visualize him saying that and I absolutely believe him. This is worthwhile. Click below and enjoy.

At Yuri’s night 2008 at NASA Ames, they had a ride called ISS. They’d put you in this capsule and slingshot you up to the International Space Station. We were really lucky because since the Space Station is orbiting so fast, only a few riders each day can get to see it up-close. You can see the space station in the reflection of the glass. It was really pretty spectacular! Charlotte and I had a great time. If you ever get the chance, you should absolutely go!

The fine folks at the Space Coalition hung out in low earth orbit and took photos of us tourists all night.

Update 4-6-10: There’s going to be a Neumann Prep Reunion June 26th 2010. Look here for more info.

Update 9-23-09: If you’re looking to be reunited with fellow Neumannites, I recommend Facebook. Right now there’s 271 people in the Neumann Prep group :-). Also check the Neumann Prep Classmates.com group.

Neumann Prep Class reunion June 26, 2010!

Romi, Cheryll and Michelle from the class of 1990 are organizing a reunion for all classes. You should go! Join the Neumann Prep Reunion group on  Facebook!

I graduated Neumann Prep, Wayne NJ in 1987. The school closed down in 1990 or so. My classmate George had a terrible time getting a transcript from the diocese after the closure!

I went back to the school in May 2005. Here’s some photos of the place

The farm across the street from the school is apparently for sale. I’m sure the condos will be nice.

From this intersection, turn left and then the school is on your right. In front of you is a W.R. Grace Superfund site (local copy) that held radioactive thorium and uranium infused sand from mining. Directly to the left and behind is the farm. Behind and to the right is some ancient chemical dump (nobody knew much about it. It was said to be a Superfund site but I can’t find reference of it). Trav and I wrote an investigative article in the Wildcat’s Roar. Yup, high school, farm, nuclear waste dump and chemical dump all within 500 feet of one another!

They didn’t take much effort in changing the sign. Under that placard it still says “Neumann Prep”.

A panorama of the front of Neumann Prep. You’ll do best to right-click to download and view this very large image.

A panorama of the front lot.  You’ll do best to right-click to download and view this very large image.

The front yard.

Looking in through the entrance on the right, near the chapel. Though I passed by here a thousand times, the thing I think about when looking at this is that the Junior Prom took place in the gym and a table was set up at that door you can see to take tickets. … … Hey, what happened to to the trophy case near the principles office?

The entrance to the left, the “Main” entrance. When I look here, I think about a lot… the library to the left (and the day a kid was walking out while I was walking in, he said with a laugh, “Hey, the space shuttle blew up.” I walked in to see the diverging con-trails on TV), the steps (where we ran up and down one day for Ms. Rawding’s physics class to figure out how many horsepower we could generate (about 1/3)), the door almost out-of-sight to the right where Latin class was (I didn’t take it) and yearbook met (where I was told that a previous class had sneakily scribed the word “FUCK” across the book with border-markings), the lockers around the corner (where the combination to my lock each year always had at least one “38”, weird!) and Father Lombardo’s theology class in the classroom through the wall to the right, and Mr… (ugh, I don’t recall his name! He had a bushy beard) music appreciation class… and… and… and…

Just outside the cafeteria. There were a few picnic tables here. That is where the super-cool kids ate lunch. I ate out there a few times but it was usually too cold, bright or… well, too super-cool for me. I like what they’ve done with the place with the bricks, shrubs, walkway and greenhouse.

As most people probably aren’t aware, tomorrow (April 3rd) is Cheese
Weasel Day!   Happy Cheese Weasel Day to you!

In honor of this momentous holiday, here is the Cheese Weasel FAQ:

Q: What the heck is Cheese Weasel Day?

Every year, on April 3rd, the Cheese Weasel travels the world,
spreading good cheer and leaving a bit of cheese under the keyboards
of all good little boys and girls in the high tech industry.

Q: What kind of cheese does the Cheese Weasel leave?

Kraft Singles were once the cheese of choice, although as time went by,
the type of cheese became less important than the spreading of
dairy goodness and the types and shapes of cheese given by the Cheese Weasel
became varied. This was considered to be a Good Thing, especially considering
how often most people look under their keyboards.

Q: You made this up didn’t you?

Nope, I didn’t make this up.

C.W. Day is a holiday that evolved on the Internet, probably sometime
in the last eight to ten years. The first I heard of it was in 1992,
and it’s being celebrated quietly by dozens, dare I say hundreds of
software and technical folks around the country as you read this.

Hallmark doesn’t make a card, and the American Dairy Association is
as yet unaware of it, so it’s probably the least commercial holiday
going. Hey, we wanted to add some culture to our lives, right? What
could be more cultured than cheese? There’s even a Cheese Weasel Song!

The Cheese Weasel Day Song
(Sung to the tune of…..hm well there isn’t one that I know of.
C.W. Day predates MP3)

Who Brings the Cheese on April 3rd?
It’s the Cheese Weasel!
He’s not a silly bunny or a reindeer or a bird
He’s the Cheese Weasel!
He’s got a funny little tail and funny buck teeth
and he doesn’t bring fish and he doesn’t bring beef
so you’d better be good if you want to get some cheese
from the Cheese Weasel!!!!!

And I’m the named artist. :-)

Of course, SWARM is actually a rag tag fugitive fleet of about 25 people. But this is still pretty dern cool.

For the last 2 months or so I’ve been taking poi spinning classes with Jon Dickinson of Fire Arts Academy and Fire Arts Collective. All I’ve got to say is that he’s really good… a very good teacher in a good physical space with good students and… well, if you’re going to learn to spin poi, I highly recommend him.

Here’s his recent flier. If you missed these sessions, never fear, the cycle will repeat at some point!

Fire Arts Academy is offering sessions of Poi & Staff classes in Oakland. FAA is now taking registration for poi & staff classes in Oakland starting Tuesday March 11th. Private classes in San Francisco and weekend workshops are available, please contact us or check our website. Continue reading ‘I Spin Poi’ »

Internet Explorer viewers of this blog can now see what Firefox viewers have been enjoying for the last year or so…

The green bar behind “Lee.org” at the top of the blog wasn’t visible in IE til I fixed a .css file. Actually, the issue was that IE didn’t follow CSS specs, but it’s hardly worth griping about. IE 6 doesn’t see the background image in my CSS file when it reads as such:

background-image: /* url("http://lee.org/blog/images/reason-villege-old-spring-green.jpg");*/

url("http://lee.org/blog/images/reason-villege-old-spring-green-right-justified.jpg");

I suppose it’s because IE sees the text being on 2 lines (there’s a carriage return in there)   as being 2 elements. But I’m not going to spend any more energy figuring it out.

The writing actually phonetically spells my name in Japanese. Logically, it’s an odd collection of thoughts… “Lee” sounds like “Reason”. Then “Son” and “ko” sound like “village” and “old”.

I have to thank Miki Kawabe for the translation. At Burning Man in 2004, we won the Second Annual Semi-authentic Finnish Wife Carrying Event. We won her weight in beer.

Yes, really!

2 weeks ago I found a CMS system called Pligg. Before using it, I took a look at the blog on the site. I noted what looked like an overly emotional post about Dreamhost and a billing problem they had recently.

The line was crossed not when they billed me prematurely for two years of service, but rather when they issued an apology email and blog post which felt unapologetic and insincere.

Dreamhost’s blog post opened “Um, Whoops” and had an image of Homer Simpson holding up his finger, an arrow pointing to his finger saying “fat finger”. The post was in Dreamhost’s usual overly plucky tone. If you’ve ever gotten one of their monthly updates, you’d know what I’m talking about. Every one is a parody of itself it’s so plucky… It’s their shtick.

I wrote on Pligg’s blog a comment describing what I thought about Pligg’s criticism. The comment didn’t show up immediately, the system said it had entered moderation, which is a common spam filtering method. I was very surprised when I came back a week later and my comment hadn’t been posted. So I posted it again. A week later, still nothing. Apparently, moderation isn’t just for spam but for differing opinions as well.

My comment was mostly a response to Eric “Yankidank” Heikkinen’s followup comment to his post

January 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Transparent about the whole thing? You mean admitting to charging users $7.5 million that they don’t owe? Dreamhost is a host I have supported for a long time, but their friendly/amateur approach to everything isn’t something that I’m comfortable with in situations like yesterdays debacle. I am especially upset when I feel that a sincere apology is due and they take their usual playful route “oops, we have a fat finger that caused some users to be billed for thousands of dollars”. Granted the charges were reversed within 24 hours…

Here is the comment I was trying to leave on the Pligg blog. Admittedly, it’s a bit sarcastic, but I welcome comments about it (unlike Mr Heikkinen)

>but rather when they issued an apology email and blog post which felt
>unapologetic and insincere

Would the insincere part be the part where they explained exactly what went wrong, why it went wrong, how the problem was fixed, and how they made sure it wouldn’t happen again? Or is it the part about how this problem was discovered and remedied within hours? Maybe it was the part about taking full responsibility for the problem and then doing something about it. Any way you slice it, I see what you mean. I wouldn’t trust Dreamhost after this either.

>Dreamhost has lost our endorsement

And Pligg has lost mine. He he. Pretty funny, huh?

In a recent calendar update from Scott at PlantTrees.org, Scott interjected this one-liner:

High-Fructose Corn Syrup, High Fat Diet = Severe   Liver Damage http://www.naturalnews.com/022836.html

I emailed a response to him today saying:

Scott,
You would do well to point out some of the other studies that indicate animals fed on high fat diets (sans high-fructose corn syrup) in a sedate lifestyle is also bad for 2 and 4 legged creatures. This recent mania about high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t seem overall helpful for the people or the land. This single product is not solely responsible for the many ills that have been attributed to it. Making it a scapegoat misdirects where the critisism should really lie. The real reasons for poor health are nearly as easily understood.

Here are some articles about fat-sans-high-fructose corn syrup that I am referring to:
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=62967-liver-fat-sugar
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2008/02/25/do_fast_food_binges_lead_to_liver_damage.php
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071101144851.htm
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112228929/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Thanks and have a great day,
Lee Sonko
http://lee.org