It's Getting Better All The Time

Our fourth year at Maker Faire (Bay Area) has come and gone and I have to say that it was the best one yet. There were even more makers on hand exhibiting their talents, as well as an impressive number of how-to activities available to attendees. It was a whirlwind few days full of friends, whimsy, discovery, absurdity, laughter, learning, and lot of fun.

ArcAttack's Tesla Coils and "The Imperial March"

E's 3-DIY exhibit has grown along with the show. He started out showing off some of his homebrew displays and rigs on his own and then expanded to sharing a small area in a large hall with a couple of friends on either side. This year, he was asked by the Maker Faire producers to curate an entire room of 3-D goodness, which came to be known as the 3-D Village. The dimly lit room contained Do-It-Yourself 3-D Cameras and Displays, 3D Phantogram Imagery, 3D Virtual Reality for the iPhone, Hologlyphics, [I am a Bird], as well as other live 3-D projection, demos, and imagery by at least three other artists. We were swamped the entire weekend. Fortunately, we finally managed to get some friends to come up, help out, and join in the fun.

Even with the extra hands on deck, we seemed to get away even less, perhaps because of the high traffic. I did steal away though to watch the ArcAttack group perform a few times (see video above) and managed to take a stroll with some droids. I also finally got over to the EepyBird Coke Zero and Mentos show, which was tons of fun! One of the guys visited our table and was super nice.

At the end of Sunday, a few of us got to shoot OK Go's supremely absurd (which I mean in a very good way) partially submerged performance in 3-D. Hopefully, some of that footage will be publically available soon. The video above shows "rehearsal" and some of the show.

If you didn't make it to this Maker Faire, hope to see you at one in the not-so-distant future!

Ferris: Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Ferris was pretty wise. I wasn't feeling it in 1986, but my mother always told me, "The older you get, the faster time goes." [insert surly teenage eye roll here] I'm certainly feeling it now, more and more every year. I hate talking about it as it's kind of like discussing the weather or Tiger Woods' indiscretions, but I do. Lately I'm hearing "I can't believe it's December already!" and I understand.

I'm not sure if it's an aging thing or the fact that almost every minute of a modern day is spent occupied. I commend those of you who take more time than I do to relax, zone out, go off the grid, get bored. Often I'm not doing something productive or a task that I should be taking on (waves at the basket of laundry waiting to be folded), but I always seem to be doing.*

More and more, I'm stopping to appreciate the things I get to do and make time for other things that I need, want, and have promised to do. Recently, I've been to a couple of fantastic concerts, watched two amazing fireworks shows within the span of a week, partied with the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, at his house, with his dogs (!), gone to Disneyland twice, attended my second taping of The Big Bang Theory, and chatted with Jabba the Hutt's chief puppeteer (who also did some sculpting and puppeteering of Yoda). Some of it was surreal.

By no means less exciting, I've also gotten to celebrate my dog Cosette's 17th birthday, take another hiking class with Rusty, learn to pan for gold, get to know some of my neighbors better, go to a brunch with co-workers, spend quality time with E, and take part in a small book club.

There is still much to be done, some fun of course as we move into the season of holiday parties, and much mundane because that's just how life it. The carpet's not going to clean itself and as much as I may try to train them, the guinea pigs aren't going to freshen up their own cage. I've got a lot of household projects to tackle, as well as Comic-Con prep that needs to start yesterday. There are appointments to book, stuff to organize, and basically shit to get together. My goal is to find some balance, waste less time while being more productive and having as much fun as possible.

The question isn't "What are we going to do?," the question is "What aren't we going to do?"

*Yes, napping counts as doing.