The coldest winter I ever spent
This open source tool by Daniel Kinzler will convert CSV spreadsheet files into Mediawiki tables or HTML tables seamlessly. The program doesn’t hang on to your your data, it just munges it and spits it out. It works great. He has it hosted on his site and now I have it hosted here.
After 22 years in limbo, I recovered $700 from the State of Massachusetts. Wow. 22 years?
Short form: MissingMoney.com is totally legit. Go there, type in your last name and your state and it’ll tell you if that state owes you any money
Long form: About 8 years ago my friend Jen told me she noticed the State of Massachusetts owed me $653.25 according to MissingMoney.com. I eventually figured out that when I went to UMass Boston, they apparently didn’t know what to do with one of the tuition checks my family had given them. I followed up on it but since I couldn’t prove that I lived at that particular address, the state wouldn’t give me my money back. Then 7 years ago Charlotte tried with vigor to find some legal documents for me in the Somerville courthouse so I could prove my address but she couldn’t find them. Last year I tried to get my transcript from UMass Boston for my application to grad school and the issue cropped up again. They wouldn’t give me my transcript because of what I “owed them”!
I paid the money owed but was determined to claim the money. Happily, the Registrar at UMass Boston was happy to work with me. After some back and forth, she sent a letter to me proving my address. And a mere 5 months later…
It’s my money back, with interest!
Now go to MissingMoney.com and get your money back!
I applied to get a Burning Man Low Income Ticket. I think my application says a bit about me…
17. Financial Need
Why do you feel you need a Low Income ticket this year?
I’m changing careers so that I can keep making art the way I want. I moved to San Francisco in 2005 after Burning Man changed my outlook on life. In the past few years, I seriously considered becoming an industrial artist, began a (short lived) career in mechanical engineering, and began a career teaching several different industrial arts at The Crucible in Oakland. I’ve tried to make a career in connection with my love of the art of moving things. So far I have been unsuccessful so I have changed tactics.
I have been a student taking prerequisite classes for the past 1 1/2 years and hope to enter a master’s degree program in the fall. The plan is to retool my job skills so I can continue to afford to make kinetic art. I have plans for several art pieces, plans that have been on hold as my finances have dwindled. Plans that have to stay on hold while I’m in school for the next two years. But then, LOOK OUT!
In brief: I am 40+ year-old poor student who loves the art of Burning Man and wants desperately to make a contribution.
————————————————–
18. Your Contribution
How do you feel you are an asset to the community and how are you planning to contribute to Burning Man this year?
Right now, I don’t know! I’ve been so busy taking my classes. But rest assured, It’ll be something awesome.
In past years I’ve brought:
* a 168 foot long skeletal serpent made of metal and fire (The Serpent Mother)
* a fleet of semi-autonomous spherical orbs that dance, illuminate and sing (OrbSWARM)
* an array of parlor tricks that I’d show to new acquaintances
* a joke (hundreds of people got to hear my joke. It was epic!)
* hundreds of flaming marshmallow Peeps on a stick that we’d give to people around wood fires
* a kava kava experience for hundreds of people
————————————————–
19. What do you do for work? (How do you earn money?)
I’m underemployed right now. I teach Kinetics classes at the Crucible. I do some computer IT work in San Francisco. School is the most important thing.
————————————————–
20. What is your household’s average monthly take-home income (i.e. after taxes)?
1000
————————————————–
21. What are your average monthly expenses? Please explain.
$1,000 rent
$600 school, food, transportation, slush fund
Hmm, my expenses exceed my income. That’s no good. Welcome to the student’s life!
22. Proof of Income & Expenses
————————————————–
23. Interests
What do you enjoy doing? What are your hobbies, likes, loves, dreams?
I love teaching kinetics classes to kids and adults. I love when my students come back to me because they “get it” and they want more. I love experiencing kinetic art. I love model airplanes. On my refrigerator I have photos of the things I dream of:
family gathering
home
spouse
my own art piece
child
————————————————–
24. Burning Man
What does the Burning Man community represent to you?
My interaction with the Burning Man community continually reminds me that anything is possible. Anything.
The wonderment of a child can, and should be experienced by adults. It does a people good.
————————————————–
25. Comments
Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
If I’m accepted into graduate school this spring, I won’t be able to attend Burning Man this year! Having a ticket is a reminder that no matter what, something good is going to happen in September. Either it will be the beginning of my new career, or Burning Man!
Cindy is having a party at her place…. 5 (+ me = 6) making pork dumplings. Hurray!
Waaah! I have to get back to studying Sociology.
Megan got me the most wonderful chocolate for Valentines Day from Chocolatier Blue. It is so pretty, perfectly formed, hand painted, I almost couldn’t eat them!
Almost!
(click the image)
Taxes done. I used FreeTaxUSA again. It took a couple hours but wasn’t hard. Of course, being poor makes it easier.
(I’m archiving this for my own purposes)
Instructions on using VideoJS – HTML5 Video Player for WordPress, taken from the plugin page. More at Videojs.com
Continue reading ‘How to use VideoJS – HTML5 Video Player for WordPress’ »
You might not even notice a difference but I changed how I share my feed with Twitter and Facebook. I used to use Twitterfeed.com. It’s a fine service that reads my RSS feed every couple hours. Now I’m using the Publicize feature of WordPress Jetpack. Let’s hope it looks good and works well.
I don’t like it when content disappears. I go to lengths to make sure my files are backed up. I love that Lee.org leaves a permanent (-ish) trail of my doings. The notion of archiving videos have been problematic because it is just so easy to point to Youtube or Vimeo and forget about it. And video files are big. But storage is cheap, and when times change and those links eventually go dead, there’s often nothing to do but wonder.
I am now making a special effort to archive videos shown on the site. I was able to download about 100 of the 150 or so videos pointed to on my site. The others are lost, some forever. As I began the archiving task, I thought, “Phht, I’m 50 for 50. Why am I doing all this work?” Then as I got to the older archives, I started not finding videos. And when I say ‘older’, I mean just 2 years old. What do you think the hit rate is going to be in 5 years or 10 years?
A good Youtube Video Downloader was much harder to find than I expected. My final choice: 10youtube.com. All the rest looked very suspicious, like they were going to put malware on my computer.
A good way to embed video on WordPress was much harder to find than I expected. I finally found VideoJS – HTML5 Video Player for WordPress. It is easy to use and open-source from videojs.com.
You and I can now look forward to seeing more content on Lee.org and less of this:
Michael has been working on a flaming sword. He’s really got the thing dialed in very nicely! Custom welding, some custom machined parts, a novel filling mechanism, a safe pressure vessel, butane powered. Win all around!