on the road again.. writing form JFK airport.. How many evening have I been just like this.. waiting for a flight.. with not enough time to get anything done.. .As I sit and think about it.. I’ve come to really appreciate these periods of forced inactivity. When else do I allow myself to sit and think.. or better yet not-think. Travel has become a kind of moving meditation for me.. Most of the time I have some sort of pressing work with me.. but inevitably, batteries run out, the book is finished, the magazine’s been read.. and I’m left ‘just’ sitting there. Those times used to weigh heavily on me..my monkey mind would start to obsess about something.. usually work…. For some reason.. that rarely happens now. .. I can go from thinking to not much more easily.. I just kind of switch off and time stops .. Maybe it’s because I’m meditating regularly.. maybe because I write every night.. maybe it’s because I’m becoming boring… who knows..
I gathered from some of my friends Facebook posts that yesterday was Pongal .. a harvest festival celebrated in India.. It’s a time where you are supposed to “rise above petty preoccupation and mundane melancholy”.. not a bad sentiment !.. I celebrated by eating some of Diane’s Chole.. She’s an awesome Indian cook. I used is as an excuse to dip into my huge collection of Indian pickle.. (makes my mouth water even typing that !)
Including 5 different bottles of chili pickle.. some of them 3 years past date.. the BEST KIND !
Aside from eating weirdly preserved vegetables, I had a slow and peaceful day.. Diane and I took a great snowshoe wiht the dogs in the 18 inches of snow out in the woods. I spent most of the rest of the day working on my tesla coil .. Still got a few bugs.. but seems to be working .. I’m now working on the music interface.. Here’s a half power demo at various frequencies.. .. the sparks are just over 2 feet.. I hope to tune it to get another foot or so.. Sorry the video is so shaky.. I was twisting knobs and trying not to get zapped.. It looks better than it feels.. 🙂
So.. As folks following this blog may remember, I’ve been trying to finish up a new tesla coil.. This one will eventually be able to play music, run on 120V, 220V or 12v car batteries. It’s turning out to be a very. very complicated build.. the toughest thing I think I’ve ever built (except perhaps, our kids) .. I’ve had a bunch of missteps on the way.. I’ve blown out diodes, transient suppressors, capacitors… luckily, nothing more expensive than 17 bucks .. Anyway.. today.. it all started to work.. beautiful long blue sparks, a deep throaty roar as I turned up the juice.. I reached for my camera.. Oh.. shoot.. I dropped it on my hike up Camels Hump this Wednesday.. so grabbed the only camera I had.. my droid.. Now.. electronics and high voltage don’t really mix very well.. event though I was 2 meters away, my droid camera started going completely crazy as I tried to photograph the spark.. I thought I got a couple of movies.. but then the screen started to freak out.. Now as I sit to enter this blog.. I realize I fried my phone.. all the videos and pictures are gone.. ad the camera app is flipping out completely. The fields that a tesla coil put out can mess with electronics.. over the years I’ve managed to fry a variety of cordless phones, garage door openers, alarm systems, light dimmers.. but .. until tonight.. never a cell phone..
Three times over the last week.. no.. make that four times.. the key fairy struck.. On Monday I was using my friend D’s office .. he walked out while I was on the phone. I left and closed his door.. at the click I had a brief thought.. ‘did he have his key ?’ …he didn’t.. next day I went down to a 7:30 AM meeting in Burlington.. I got to work at 9AM.. reached in my pocket.. no key.. Argh.. I drove home and worked there for the day.. Wednesday, Max drove me to work. He’s in town doing a filming gig.. I wanted to lend him a car.. He worked through the day.. at nightfall, we’d gotten about a foot of snow.. . The town issued a snow emergency and he got parked in.. Blocked by several cars. Unfortunately, we needed the car the next morning, so he had to knock on doors until he found the owners of the cars that were blocking his path.. in the course of moving them, the door closed on one of the cars, locking the keys inside…. AAA had to come and help them out. Yesterday, Max took me to work again. He dropped me at the door of my work. I walked in to my job and got in to the first of my endless phonecalls.. about an hor later, I realized I still had the key to the car in my pocket. the Prius’s key works wirelessly.. When I got out of the car to go to work, max was able to drive away.. As soon as he stopped the car in Burlington. though.. the car wouldn’t restart.. Diane came and bailed him out
