Monthly Archives: April 2012

Wednesday night – maker movement

Leave a comment

With all the excitement about the Mr Cougar event last night, I did not get a chance to talk abotu the other event that I went to earlier in the evening. It was the 4th event held by the Vermont Makers. Last night’s event was an Arduino workshop by SprarkFun‘s Jeff Branson. I wasn’t able to stay for the workshop, but I was able to come by and meet up with everyone before the event. Jeff had driven all the way from Sparkfun’s home base in Bolder Colorado to give this and many similar classes around the north east. Jeff’s entire job is to spread geekiness in the name of getting people to have more  fun with electronics and invention. Sparkfun is one of those companies that does well by doing good. they run free soldering workshops at makerfairs, sponsor robotic competitions, and give away 100’s of thousands of dollars of stuff to folks (like me) all over the world in the  getting folks to let their geek shine.

 

 

Last nights workshop, i heard, was a big success.. we had no trouble filling all 15 slots..available..

What’s amazing there is the growing interest in all things Maker in the Burlington area. When a couple of us at UVM began organizig our own Vermont Fablab last fall, we thought we were the only ones in the state thinking this way.. coem to find out that there are at least 8 groups that we’ve now brought in under the umbrella of something we call ‘Vermont Makers’ Vermont Makers is being lead by Jenn Karson of Sesemedia and a couple of her buddies. They are the ones that have organized these last 4 events including last nights workshop, two general meetups and a lecture by Casey Reas, the father of Processing. . The size of the group keeps growing as do the number of organizations who are aligning with us. There are rapid prototyping groups like ours, metal workers like Burlington Makers, cyber hackers at Lab-B, Arduino hackers at Champlain College and a number of other groups all devoted to Making things… Thees even a group planning a small makerfaire in Fall of 2012 .

Jenn is putting a complete list of the groups we know on the website at http:/vermontmakers.org (Its not there yet)

If you’re a maker, ad your reading this.. and we don’t know aout you.. please send me your contact info and we’ll add you to the mailing lists, etc..

ok.. gotta sleep now..more tomorrow
-nite all, nite sam
-me

Tuesday night – Mr. Cougar

Leave a comment

Tonight we had a real treat… we got to go see Gabe host the 2012 Mr Cougar talent show at MMU .. Gabe and his freind David did a really great job keeping the night fun and moving.. They both looked and sounded great and relaxed.. I was so proud of Gabe !!! (!!!!!!!!!!)

The acts were really great.. dancing, music.. and above all, incredible goofiness.. . I was glad that I wasn’t a judge. In the end Troy came out as Mr. Cougar. His winning answer to the question “what kind of breakfast food would you be” was classic. he said that he’d be an omelet.. because it was what was inside that counted…

OK.. that’s it for tonight. more tomorrow.

nite all, nite sam
-me

Monday night – dog days

1 Comment

People often speak of the dog days of summer i think were in the dog days of spring. It hit something like 85 degrees Fahrenheit here today… If it wasn’t a record, it must have been close .
Everyone was lazy and listless like mid summer… Ell, maybe not listless . Speaking as one who never needs it to go over 60 degrees, i never look forward to heat like this…. But somehow , todays weather was welcome. Maybe it was because the humidity was low… Or maybe because theres still snow visible on the mountains. Whatever it was, i have to admit that i really enjoyed the heat.I spent the whole day working the tower…being hypnotized by the sleepy sound of flies bouncing against the windows,,,so many flies, that had they not been hitting all windows equally, the house would surely have jumped one way or the other under the influence.. of all their tiny frustrated wings….. Even writing something like that makes me think of someone like Falkner or some other heat addled southern writer.

I think that Its too hot to think,
On that steamy note , i’ll say goodnight

Nite all, nite sam
-me

Sunday night – all over the place

Leave a comment

Very hard day to categorize… did lots of very different things. Day began with a run up in Honey Hallow. Another beautiful spot only 2 miles from home.

 


We were surprised and happy to see that much of Hurricane Irene’s devastation to the logging roads had been repaired . Where Diane is standing here was a 15 foot crater a few months ago. The river came out of its banks and erased the road for about 100 yards. . Somehow they found the money. time and dirt to fix it !  We didn’t think that  would happen for years !

Further up the road, thre was still some of the destruction. Not sure a car will ever make it up this far again.

despite the dry weather, the streams were bubbling magically..

 

Trillium were popping up. and the 65 degree weather made it feel more like summer than spring. It;s going to be mid 80’s tomorrow !

 

 

We always stop and admire our freind the Wootan’s home up there.. there’s no prettier place that I know..

Then.. with spring on our mind .. diane and I set up Gabe’s trampoline .. . a bit of an ordeal. but he was so happy to come home and  find it set up !

Mid afternoon, I headed in to UVM.. first th9guh. a quick stop to visit friend Ryan in the hospital. Ryan is lucky to be alive.. On Friday night some unknown guys (?!?!?!) pushed him out the 4th floor of the Burlington parking garage. He miraculously survived by landing on his feet. He broke both ankles and several vertebrae. He’ll b having surgery to repair them.. but for now.. he’s ok.. What a story. TH police are still trying to piece together what happened.   I took him some samstones..

he had a good cadre of freinds there keeping him company..

then a quick stop at UVM to check on the SEED team. they’ve made SO much progress.. Here’s the nearly completed device.

here’s Colin demonstrating one of the interactive modes..eventually this will have water and bubbles goign through it. as well.  this is going to be sweet.

Final stop in the day was freind Bill’s 60th birthday party.. Bill’s wife Julie had a wonderful spread of sushi and sparkling wines form around the world. Lots of nice folks from mad river valley there..

one of bill’s pieces gave the place a cool otherworldly look

then a cake

and of course.. with Bill, there had to be fireworks.. sparklers, and the real thing..

 

see what I mean.. a really busy day !

gotta sleep now..

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

ps. Folks,
Just found out that there’s still space in the Arduino class that Vermont Makers is holding at Champlain College EMC at 6PM this Tuesday night. Jeff from Sparkfun will be there to show off all his cool Sparfun shwag.. If you’d like to come, please send me your email address and I’ll forward it to the organizers. Please let me know ASAP. Thanks !