All posts by johncohn

Wednesday night – geek night

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Busy evening..  after a really full day at work, left work around 5 for an unplanned trip to Homer’s to reprogram the delay units I’d made for his mechanized metal paintings .  I’d finished them last night.. fried all three of them with a bad power supply early this morning, rebuilt them.. homer picked them up at my house before work .. only to find that I’d miscoded the delays by a factor of ten (3 seconds where homer wanted 30).. Rather than dictating the code changes by phone.. I fugured it was easier for us both for me just to drive there and back (50 miles) for 3 minutes of code update.. not necessarily efficient.. but artists need to suffer.. don’t they ?

here’s one of my delay elements winking at me…

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here’s homer getting ready to wire them in..

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These photos don’t do the metal paintings justice.. they’re really beautiful.. you should come down to the Flynndog gallery on Friday for the opening and see them.

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I got home a bit late… friend Seth was already at the house waiting for me with his friend Vinnie from work. They’re both Interns at Microstrain. Seth has been working with me since he was in high school.. he’s a very good electronics hacker…

Diane had made a delicious fish taco dinner.. so we all dug in.. just  as we finished, my buddy John showed up.. he’s working with me on a music project i’m very excited about.. the four of us spent a few great hours geeking out..and talking shop . I managed to con Seth and Vinnie to help me figure out the last component of the  smoke machine setup for friend   Chris’s  Steampunk jetpack at the Fylnndog . Te challenge was to add a circuit that determined if the smoke machine as up to temperature to prevent misfires… the challenge was the crcuit had to be completely electrically isolated from the cheaply made smoke machine to prevent an electrical disaster (like the on I caused wiht smoke machine number 1.. ugh) .After a little fiddling we all came up with a great scheme: we taped (yes taped) a CdS (cadmium sulfide) photocell to the stupid light up switch on the unit. which shifts resistance when the ready light is either off or on.. Voila ! The lab was full of smoke.. just as it was supposed to be !

 

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I really want to encourage you all to check out Homer , Chris and their freind Ethan in their Flyndogg show which opens this Friday night.. Should be very cool. I’ll post info about it here and in FB..

for now.. must sleep..

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Tuesday night – fresh start

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Today was my first day of work for 2012…as it was  for most folks. .. It felt like the first day of school … I got my notebook together.. found a fresh pen…sat down at my desk.. .. then proceeded to do all the same things I was doing last year… paw through my mail, puzzle at my calendar, fumble around for todo slips of paper forget to water my poor plant (see below) .. wait.. rewind… … isn’t this a time for fresh starts ?   How many opportunities do you get like this ? A totally blank (!!!) calendar.. a clean white board.. four new shirts !  Hey.. maybe I can create an entirely new ‘me’ !…

Trouble is.. I kinda liked the old me…   I guess we’ll just have to see what this year brings for me.. and my poor potted freinds

nite all, nite sam

-me

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p. I apologize for any missing ‘s’s above.. I seemed to have been uing my laptop in the lab while machining.. the keyboard is full of metal turnings.. ouch..

Monday night – too late to write

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Its almost 1:30 and Ive just come in from the lab. It was my last day of vacation and I have been trying to get done two projects I promised Id do for friends. One is a micro controller driven smoke machine, sound player and light show thingy for Chriss jet pack. The other is a set of three random timer relays to drive some motorized artwork for homer . They both are doing a show that opens at the flynndog this Friday and theyre both scurrying to get done in time. I love helping on these art projects. Its so different than my own work.
Tomorrow starts. New year at work…. Ive been thinking a lot about what I want to get done this year . Above all I want to be useful and make an impact . Im pretty psyched about the way things are looking. Ill keep yall posted as to how its going
For now… Gotta sleep
Note all, note Sam

Sunday night – New year’s day

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Happy 2012 everyone.. there.. that’s the first time I’ve had to type it… and I got it right !   A fresh beginning. I love this time of year just like I love empty notebooks and unsharpened pencils.. it’s still just all possibilities.. I’m filled with resolve to do good in this year.. but no resolutions per sec.  I want to keep at my goals which are:

  1. be a fun and loving X (where X= dad, husband. son, neighbor, community member, coworker.. etc)
  2. have abundant good health
  3. do work that is meaningful and fun
  4. give back to the world
  5. find peace in my life

In my end of year stock taking I think I’m doing pretty well on 1, 2 and 4.. and I need to improve on 3 and 5.. all in all not a bad place ot start the year..

… and we’ve had a good start on the year.. Gabe decided about 3PM yesterday that he was going to have some kids over for new years.. w had planned to have a quiet evening at home….  instead.. we had about 35 kids.. come for new years and midnight breakfast. It was really fun hanging out with Gabe’s friends.. they’re really nice kids..

 

 

After toasting in the new year  with a Tesla version of Auld Lang Syne ..

we all sat down for a big breakfast..

Diane and I wereasleep by 2.. and I slept until 9:30.. not a bad way to start the year !

 

. It’s been a really great break. I had good hanging out time with Diane. Max and Gabe.. and got to spend time making stuff with both boys.. . now comes the job of easing off vacation.  Good luck with your own transition everyone.. hope it’s a good and productive year for you and yours !

 

nite all, nite sam

-me