Sudden stop…  a day of transitions. I worked at home this morning. Began with a very difficult meeting.. left me in a strange mood for the rest of the day.

I took a break midday to help see max off… First it was time to test fire the newly finishde oven.   Our first pizzas !

The pizza was awesome !!!!!!!!!!!

Max had packed today t at 5 in the morning.. packing a whole semester’s stuff in his trunk.

It’s a happy/sad thing seeing max go.. It’s been so nice having him here for august. He’s such a great kid.. I love seeing him go off to school.. and.. I’m going to miss him so much..

There was still quite a bit of dismantelling and packing to do. I packed the lights inside the wheel rims as per homers idea and helped dave pack all of the electronics.. Then did odd jobs lifting and unbolting as we slowly moved the pieces on to the trailer.

I was lookign for a place to put a smastone.. I decided I’d put one on the grill.

I decided to wire it on.. that meant drilling some holes in one of the stones. Luckily.. we were at davids.. we made quick work of the drilling with the wonderful waterjet.

Now they’ll be traveling with style out at burning man.

This really is such a beautiful machine.. It’s an honor to have worked on it.. It’s so amazing to have seen this complex machine go from idea to complete in only 60 days..   It was equally amazing to see it being unmade again in front of us.. Slowly all the peices ended up on the trailer..

I finally decided to leave once the wheel parts.. with the LED’s inside them.. had been loaded on the trailer..   The guys still had a few more hours to pack.. but then they’re off. I think it will be tomorrow mornign before they actually get going.. three guys in the truck with 6000 pounds of mutant vehicle. It’ll be hard… but so much fun.. it’ll will be wonderful…   I’m sad I’m not going… but I’m glad to be staying here too..   My summer just got quieter still

I left around 7.. and headed home.. once again the pizza oven was fired up.. Gabe, Kristin and Diane made some wonderful pizzas.. this oven is so cool !   Diane and Jen had finished it this afternoon.. and added the finishing touch.. a SamStone.

Much better day at work today.. but several difficult meetings.. Sometimes I wish I could discuss my work days  here.. but that wouldn’t be a good idea..   After hours I headed home . spent some time with the family then headed to Bristol for the next to the last day of work before the Timecycle heads to Nevada.   Our friend Tim had stopped by so he and I caravan ed down to Bristol.. where he lives. I wanted to show him the mutant vehicle. The mood down at the build site was pretty good.. There were many things left to do.. but by and large, the vehicle was done .. and best of all.. working !..   It’s so very amazing to see this huge thing moving gracefully around David’s back yard. I have to say I have such mixed feelings.. It has been a wonderful project to work on.. The whole thing sprung out of Homer’s head.. and so many folks helped bring it to life.. At the same time.. my stuff was tough and frustrating.  I put in so much time on the lighting… but in the end,  I wasn’t able to accomplish as much as I had hoped.. and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that what I did do will be robust enough to survive Black Rock City.   I do feel good that friends Dave and Carlyn are well versed in the lighting.. I even have a back up set of lights in case things don’t work out. For those who are interested.. here’s a document describing the care and feeding of the lights.

My decision not to go to Burning Man this year was a tough one.. and one that I keep revisiting in my head.. but I think it’s the right call. I’ve spent so much time on the project that I’ve really gotten myself worn down and distracted.. I’d like to  take a few weeks to chill out.. but I have several big talks coming up.. *sigh*..

Anyway.. the mood over at Davids was peaceful and jubilant..   I loved looking at the device..

Here’s a view from up top

Here’s the newly mounted drivers seat.

the 40HP diesel engine with the hydraulic pumps.

And me in the rivers seat.. at least this once.

Tomorrow the guys are packing up the vehicle for shipping. Taking it

apart is going to be a challenge. I’ve bene calling around tonight

trying to borrow someones crane.. I’m also trying to make sure they

have a crane and forklift to meet them when they get out to the playa.

Anyway.. I’m wishing our Duane’s World crew a safe and mind blowing trip out to the Burn.. Enjoy guys !

I got home early enough to help Max and Diane work on the next layer of the mud oven. I’m so proud of Max in for his vision on making this..   Here it is earlier in the dayy with the 2nd mud/clay/straw layer.

Max mixed the clay up old school.. we  were all covered with clay dust by evening.

Max kept a drying fire in the oven all evening.. it was good against the chill.. It’s already in the low 40s outside.

Later tonight, max added the 3rd mud/clay/straw level .. II helped collect the mix, and spread it.. Max did all the precision work.. He’s crafting a very cool face and hands  on this oven.

Max was still working long after dark.. I know he’s proud of this project.. We can’t wait to use it !

OK.. that’s it for today.. more tomorrow..I need my beauty rest !
Night all.. night Sam !
-me

I woke this morning to find an article on the TimeCycle on the front page of the Free Press this morning. (http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090826/NEWS02/90826002) It’s a great article.. it shows the machine and the team.. and the challenges we have in getting the thing out to nevada by next week.  

I love Homers message in the video that went with the story. The irony for me is that  in some sense , the project has been anything but joy to me.. I’ve managed to spend a good portion of my summer working on the lights which has been frustrating technically.. and now I’m not goign to burning man. On the other hand, i take real pleasure in knowing that I dragged Homer into this project as well as chris c and seth.. and all of them have had really good experiences. I’m hoping that we get this machine done  and out there and they have a blast. That will make it all worthwhile.

Closer to home we have another big project going, Max’s earthen oven is coming along really well we have been keeping a small fire in it all afternoon to dry out the dirt in prep for the next insulating layer…

Hey.. what’s this ?! 🙂

Not much else to report.. Oh, yes.. one more thing. I was interviewed for a ZDnet  podcast today. I just got a link to the podcast.. it’s got some good background on the show if anyones interested..

Eeek.  only 2 minutes of battery left.. gotta end here. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam
-me

Oy.. 1AM after another long and busy day.. very productive work day from 8 till 6 then three events afterwords..   First stop was the VOMIT (Vermont’s Own M. I. T.) club meeting at Good Times Cafe in Hinesburg.   I couldn’t stay but I did feel the need to stop by so we could toast the memory of our good friend and fellow MIT Club officer. John I/ John passed away about 2 weeks back after a long illness.. he was in his 80’s. John was a brilliant and eccentric man.. which can be said about most of the MIT grads I’ve ever met.   That said, John was more of both / John taught me how tree sap flowed and why certain bugs had such rigid sex organs.. He was a specialist in many things.. none of them normal things.. A great epitaph if I’ve ever heard one.. Here’s to you John.. I hope you have a good machine shop wherever you are now.

From there I headed out to David D’s for one of the last days on the burning man vehicle.. we’re down to the wire now.. the car has got to ship out on Thursday.. Friday at the latest in order to make the opening of the burn. Things are going well.. but there’s still a ton to do. I went to train   Dave who’s going to work with Carly on the lighting out on the playa..    I also went to finish the documentation and check out what still needed doing in the wiring. David D just finished the commutating connector hubs that will allow us to get 110Volts AC to the wheels.. These use the very cool mercury filled rotating passthroughs that I found.

There was a ton of activity and people there tonight.. people dodging forklifts, dodging falling parts.. lots of guitar playing and beer drinking.. it was almost like burning man.. but without the sand.

I did a walk through with Dave on the lights.. they were looking pretty cool toniht. I hope they’r erobust enough to work on the playa !

around 9 I took leave of the burners and headed up to Avery’s for our weekly fix of the colony.   The crouwd has been growing every week.. this time there were about 30 folks.. most of them kids. It’s awesome watching the show with them.. Tonight’s show was pretty good.. as always .. it’s what you don’t see that’s so interesting to me. It was hard watching the part about George leaving.. It brought back sad memories.. I’m sure folks are wondering why it really made us sad… after all.. we knew he wasn’t dead.. the trouble was.. he really was here one moment and gone the next. George was our glue guy.. he kept folks talking to one another and smoothed out many of the interpersonal problems in the group. He was the ‘perfect’ person to spirit away because his departure left the biggest emotional gap.. I’m not sure that viewers could understand the bond we had given what’s been shown up to now.

There were some other funny things about the show.. I like the way they treated the transmitter.. it’s a very complicated build.. but they kept in the most important parts.. I hope that didn’t bore too many folks. They did use a little license in editing.. I really did blow out the inverter fans with my first test.. but we were only without power for 45 minutes.. and that was during the day.. the implication that we spent a night without power was not quite right.. though we did have such nights when our fuel was running low pre-solar panel.   One thing I remember about that whole scene is how well mike kept his cool and helped me fix the problem I caused. At that point our technical relationship was really starting to work..  

I was also really glad to see that Morgan got to show her diode radio receiver.. The cool thing is that both the receiver and the transmitter actually worked !!!!   We actually had to be careful when we had mikes near the receiver. We had to tune carefully  because we were picking up a bunch of spanish and korean stations near the low end of the AM dial. Annother funny story:.. I originally sent out the SOS message that Leilani had written for me..”SoS, SoS, SoS, We are Colony. In need of food, water, security… blah. blah. blah …”  A  few days later it dawned on me that i was really transmitting.. so that sending a true distress message in code might be a bad thing to do. From that point on I sent a different message everyday about 4 times. It was  “Katherine is locked in warehouse, please send Rum.. ” (Katherine was one of our story producers)

We finally got home around 12:30.. I couldn’t wait to see Max’s clay oven.. He was nearly done with the first layer.. It was SO cool !

OK , I absolutely need to sleep now. my eyes keep closing.. more tomorrow friends. Nite all, Nite Sam !
-me