Frriends..
  Max and I had a wonderful day at Makerfaire in San Mateo CA today.. We left Rafe’s and Lauerence’s at about 9 AM… the girls all waved us goodbye..

After a bit of wrestling with traffic and directions  we found the fair ground remote parking .. There was a long line of folks heading into the fair.. it was really packed !

We picked up our tickets at will call.. and went inside.. It was truly amazing and overwhelming. We spent all day there and I don’t believe that we saw a full half. THere was a bit of everything including art cares straight out of burningman.

There were also some great high voltage shows including this battery powered marx generator.

And these large tandem tesla coils with a 15 to 20 foot spark !  These were made by Greg Leyh.. a hero in the tesla coil community.

These guys had a chapter of engineers without boarders. THey showed us the wind generator design they’d developed for folks in gutemala.

This guy had a squid hat.. (squids are my favorite !)

This guy built a machine that printed any 3D solid using sugar !

there were a ton of blinking lights everywhere.

.. and lots of volunteer scientists.. just like me. In fact.. these guys even looked like me !

I tran into my freind Eric from NY.. that was a nice suprise !

Jacob Von Slatt… a  famous stema punk guy from Mass. was there demonstrating his wares..

therse guys developed the high spede camera rig that Max and sam used to take soem stop motion pictues.. I just happen to have those pictures with me.. what a cool coincidence !

there were all sorts of things you could buy then buiild.. like these cosmic glasses that made sounds and lights to sooth your head..

I particulalry liked this jelly fishe display ..

One high point was a GREAT talk by Mythbuster’s adam savage on the improtance of failing.. ihe got it just right.. Failing is how you find out the boundarieds of what you know. It was an inspiring and human talk..

As it turns out, adma is also inspiring and human.. we talked a little abotu our own Discovery TV show..

there was a ton of stuff outside.. including this wood gassifier..  just like one we’ve recently built.

I liked this creepy walking, solar powerd electric thingy..

and this steam powered motorcycle was pretty cool, too.

Max and I saw this at the last burning man.. there were a tun of burners here…

like the flaming lotus girls.. here’s a pretty piece of theirs.

This huge robot hand wasn’t doing anythign when we came by..

We saw a freat demo by the diet coke and mentos guys.. they did a show with 102 bottles of soda.. very impressive (movie tomorrow when I get more bandwidth)

I saw several folks peddlign around dressed as cupcakes.

We foudn a guy selling maps of last years burning man.. Max managed to find our camp in the map.. 2:10 and fairlane

We were just abotu the middle of this picture,

Max got to sit in an Elctric Tesla motors car

We saw these sperical roots at the burn also ..

We had the honor and pleasure of meeting with Dald D and Cindy… Dale’s the founder of Make magazine, MakeTV and the makerfaire. I got a chance to tell him how much I and the rest of the plante appreciatewhat he and his freinds have done here. we had a great talk about poissible collaborations.  Dale had soem excellent ideas.  I’m sure we’ll worktogether on soemthing soon !

I foudn the IBM bus on the way out..

We got back to rafes exactly on time.. Sabine was sitting there already dressed as a zebra !

Then we had a wonderful and ecliectic dinner party hosted by laurence and Rafe.. t included the former principle clarinetist fromt eh SF orchestra, his wife a classics prof, afreind of Rafes from Googe My couasing Mark and rafe’s sister rima and mom Katie clare. it was a great mix of people.

I’m glad I’m out of pictures.. I can’t write another line.. Im so sleepy.. Max and I are goign back to the faire tomorrow.. there’s still so much to see !.
OK.. I love you family.. Gnite Sam
-me