I was walking through a store this evening when I came across the aisle where you buy things like maraschino cherries and those little umbrellas for your cocktail. My eyes rested on a jar of pickled onions.. .. For some reason, these things have always held a special place in my heart.. MY dad would put them in his drink.. I’m guessing in hindsight it was a martini… but I was too young to know.. My first recollection of hard liquor was always tinged with that delicious sour pickled onion taste that meant ‘end of a long hard day of work for my dad’.. He would always let us eat the onions.. I think i was a grown up before I realized that martinis didn’t taste that good.. it was just the onions.
Seeing them on the shelf tonight made me miss my dad .. and his martinis and his onions very much.
Greetings from austin. I’m down here on a very short (less than 24 hour) trip to Austin. I didn’t have time to connect with many friends. I did get a chance to meet up with Carl and Brynn / Always really good seeing them.. and I had work to discuss with Carl..
One treat tonight was getting to see their new ‘train mansion’ .. a 2000 sq foot out building that carl built mostly to set up his 10 billion model trains.. ok.. maybe not 10 billion.. maybe only 7 billion.. but this man has lots and lots of trains.. .. I saw this on a box among the many stacked up int there.. it looked like a good motto for the whole house !
in addition to trains, carl collects old toys of the type i love.. like this 1930’s erector set zeppelin !
or this 1960’s chemistry set. complete with acid etched hole in the back
or.. get this.. a ‘lab technician set .. for girls ?!?!”
microscope sets
and loads of other cool collectables
i love seeing these guys.. what nice and interesting folks… thanks for the hospitality !
Went to see my buddy Jleigh in the hospital. She’s not feeling too well. was great to see her. .. SHes a good friend and my thoughts are with her Do me a favor.. send her good waves..
Work is in flux.. many changes going on right now. Most of them good.. still the swim makes me seasick sometimes… Had to completely change my plans for the week 3 times in the span of 24 hour and feeling the churn that i cause to others..
if you’re out there..I’m sorry.. just trying to do the right thing… whatever that means
I still managed to make good on my commitment to myself to spend every monday night that Im in town at the generator geeking our.. Tonight I went in with a project I really wanted to get done.. but (happy;y) got pulled in to others projects.. We didn’t fix anything.. but figured pout in part what was broken.
I’m really energized by being around other folks who are trying to solve good technical problems .. it’s good for my soul !
.. ever seen a laser cutter being cleaned.. a really unique multi sensory experience.. ..
I had a great maker day today.. I spent the day creating a pair of bluetooth controlled light up goggles. I bought a ‘kit’ of sorts form adafruit that came with two LED rings and some funky burning man like goggles. It was designed to be used with an arduino ‘trinket’ a vow cost arduino clone. I want this to be cell phone connected, so I created my own code for an rfduino chip that has a built in bluetooth low power radio Then I created a simple IOS app using Cordova.. Not much yet.. but I can turn the goggles on and off and control them from the phone.. Fun !
Next I’m going to hook them to BlueMix.. should be fun.. Watch this space !
