Coming back from New York. Caught an earlier flight. Was really looking forward to going home and seeing my family. Unfortunately, we had a mechanical problem with Ben’s car. I had to go in and work with the guys to see if we could fix it.… And we could not. Another late night. It’s so late, that I’m dictating this note into Siri, in the hopes that she can translated into type. Period good old Siri, she seems to have done a pretty good job. Oh well, I will try to get some sleep tonight. Will try to get a fresh start tomorrow. Night all, night Sam – me
Were coming to the end of 10 days on our own. It was just gabe , me and the dogs at home while diane was down in nyc at a yoga class. We managed just fine. Diane doesn’t need to be away for us to realize how much she does to keep us all on track…. What did surprise me though is how much better at regulating things Gabe…and for that matter the dogs… Are than i am. During our brief temporary bachelorhood gabe managed to get himself off to school on time, cook meals, clean up, get all his work done and get to bed at a reasonable time. In contrast i pulled three almost all nighters… Ate irregularly , missed two days of exercise , got way behind on my email and missed my alarm twice.luckily the dogs stepped up and woke me up both times…
As i reflect on the week ii am intensely grateful for having a mate who i miss like crazy when shes gone, a kid who is more together than i will ever be… And two attentive dogs to keep things running smoothly. Thanks to all of them for getting me through the week…. I love you all !
Another very fun and too busy day..Readers will know that I have a number of techy projects that are coming due in the next few days .. I’ve been flat out trying to get them all done. I’m loving the thinking and stimulation but find myself longing for the relatively manageable hours and mental load of a normal work week. Today I spent most of the day working on a musical instrument project it’s a large interactive piece with lots of custom software and custom hardware.. Today we (homer, John, Colin and I) did a successful integration test that involved tying three of the prototypes together using wifi and OSC to create an interactive art/music experience.. when its complete it will be 30 feet long and will be controllable wirelessly by ipad and playable by a crowd of drunk people ,.. how cool is that. Last night our same team was working on a 12 foot tall, 20 foot long rube goldberg electropolitical (just made that up) device for entertaining folks and changing the constitution.. it too involves a fair bit of custom hardware and software done in very limited time with a very samll team..
It’s interesting thinking about the intersection of my hobby world and work… not just my work.. but everyone’s work. . How can we bring more of the energy and creativity of the maker movement into our day jobs. Don’t get me wrong.. Me and my colleagues work very hard and very creatively to solve the problems as they are framed in the context of corporate innovation. Somehow the rules are different though.> When profit and loss and job assessments are involved, we all tend to get much more linear and risk averse. When one is inventing for the shear joy of creating, the rules seem to be so much different.
I’m going to be thinking of that deeply for the next couple of months… stay tuned..
Nice day.. woke late after nearly 3AM bedtime. Gabe slept until almost noon. I spent the morning playing with the dogs, going for a run in the relative warmth (20’s) and working on one of the two projects I have due this weekend. Diane’s still in NY.. so I’m playing single dad.. gabe is so self sufficient these days that he doeS more taking care of me than visa versa.
Like yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on the stampmobile project.. we had a good session tonight.. but not yet done. We’ve accomplished quite a bit in two weeks.. e did have our first 100 % test today.. and it ran reliably as long as we cared to watch it.. but we still have quite a bit to do.. Mount tn the power supply, mount the arduino, chase the wires and test, test, test….. M brain hurts fro thinking so hard.. .. but its’ worth it.. i’m really digging working with these folks.,
One thing we did accomplish completely today was to make a horrible mess.. This is what making is like
