Medium Adhesion

PhotoWorks is worthless

2010-03-29T15:54:00.001-07:00

Just have to post in the chance that somebody from Solidworks is out there looking at blog posts.

Please fix PhotoWorks. It is absolutely worthless. It simply cannot be so difficult to make a rendering program that is easy to use. Just copy Hypershot. Sooooooo frustrated!!!!

PhotoWorks is worthless.

Growing Power redux

2009-11-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

A few further thoughts on Growing Power.

My thoughts continue to revisit the genius behind the aquaponics growing system. It's so simple, but so powerful. What is the biggest problem with large scale farming and the environmental impact thereof? Fertilizers, and their runoff. Oil based fertilizers no less. Flip side: what is one of the biggest problems with commercial scale fish farming? Feces effluent and nitrogen blooms. How do you kill these two birds with one stone? Combine the feces bi product of the farmed fish with the nitrogen fertilizer needs of the rapidly growing vegetables, and voila, a closed zero pollution system. It's totally brilliant. And actually, I'm very impressed that it appears to be a fairly stable system, counter intuitive though it may be.

One thing that was briefly mentioned on our tour of Growing Power was their inactive anaerobic digester. Sadly, inactive. Although this is fairly understandable, as it takes diligence and skills to consistently run digester and not clog the bugger up with goat poo. I've been thinking about the importance and environmental effects of composting. Specifically, methane gas. All those animal, vegetable, and beer mash wastes sit in these big piles outside warming themselves with voracious bacterial activity, producing nice quality dirt and worms, and bi-producing carbon dioxide and methane gas. I'm not calling foul on this - if these product were thrown away and buried in a landfill somewhere in New Jersey, the decomposed mass would still off-gas all the same. But methane is a potent greenhouse gas, possessing 20 times more heat trapping power than the equivalent CO2 heat trapping power. That's significant (although methane breaks down atmospherically after only a dozen or so years, where CO2 lasts nearly forever). But methane is also highly flammable. So, why not capture it, burn it for energy, and just put out a bit more CO2?! That's where the digester comes in. It could definitely work and make more than enough energy to compensate for its own heating needs, and probably enough energy to heat some of the fish tanks as well. But, I guess it's hard to keep running. Bummer. The world needs more robust small scale anaerobic digesters, that's what everybody keeps saying.

More thoughts on leaf decomposition, tree life cycles, human heat production, and beer mash to come.

Growing Power

2009-11-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

I flew in to Milwaukee this week for a little bit of Thanksgiving time with my family. On Tuesday afternoon, we were fortunate enough to score a tour slot of the Growing Power farm over on the near west-side of Milwaukee. If you haven't heard about his farm yet, check out the following links here and here. Here is one more link, from the NYTimes. Will Allen, the founder and CEO of Growing Power won the 2005 Leadership for a Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation, and last year won a MacArthur Genius award. People think he is on to something.

What struct me as exciting and made me and the family want to check it out (aside from the press coverage) is that there's a small farm in the middle of inner city Milwaukee. While this is a simple concept, this is the inner city, not exactly traditional farm land and the local community is not exactly the traditional market for fresh organic greens. They're growing food on about 19,000 square feet of land, a bit less than 1/2 an acre (rough calculation).

What are they doing at Growing Power? It is a farm - so they're growing food - with the stated goal of bringing high quality, safe, healthy, and affordable food to the community. The types of food I saw them growing here include: several greenhouses worth of greens (probably seasonally variant), about 150 chickens worth of egg production, several turkeys, about 20 goats, honey from a few bee hives, several thousand tilapia and perch, and loads of worms. You were with me until the tilapia, perch, and worms part, right? I'll get to that.

A lot of the greens are grown semi tradionally in row plantings. We saw spinach, watercress, arugula, lettuce, collards, and a few other random greens. Winter is approaching, so they've got heartier greens there now as the sun and temperature dip (they still grow all winter). The summer brings them more summery vegetables. They are also growing watercress and argula aquaponically. Here's the wikipedia link to aquaponics, which I include here mainly because I just looked it up, and the picture on the wikipedia page is a small setup from the Growing Power farm, nice coincidence. Aquaponics is basically a tiered growing system relying on fish feces as a fertilizer for growing plants. At Growing Power, at floor level are home made big fish tanks, 4 feet deep, 4 feet wide, about 50 feet long. Each tank is filled with tilapia or perch fish, at a density of about 1 fish per cubic foot of water - so about 800 fish per tank. Just above the tank is a rack of starter plants, in gravel and constantly moving water. Just above that is a dense layout of more mature plants in soil planters, with water flowing beneath them. Basically, the water is pumped up from the tank to the top tier, flowing from one end to the other, then down to the 2nd tier, and finally back to the fish tank. This is a closed system that is stable (water is only added to compensate for evaporation and the small amount kept by the plants). The fish poop, the fish poop nutrients are absorbed as fertilizer by the plants, the water returns to the tank nice and clean. Awesome. Of course, they have to feed the fish, that's where the worms come in, several buckets full per week per tank. They grow tilapia and perch because they are healthy, tasty, and are easy to grow and disease resistant; they take about 1 year to reach sellable maturity. It's an amazing system. The only thing I didn't love about it is that tilapia are warm water fish - so Growing Power needs to heat the water to about 80-85 degrees, which has to be a significant energy draw.

There's one part I haven't mentioned yet: compost. Compost is clearly a very big part of this operation. Fresh, clean dirt is hard to get and important for growing tasty clean food. Growing Power has agreements set up with with local schools, coffee shops, breweries, food distributers, and restaurants to take their rotten uncooked food, coffee grounds, beer mash, etc, for use as compost. They also use the animal droppings. The compost operation produces a few things: fresh dirt for growing vegetables, fresh dirt to sell, heat (ingeniously used to keep the green houses warm), and worms, which are also a massive part of their operation. They grow worms for a lot of reasons: to help break down the compost, to keep working on the vegetable plant dirt, to feed to the fish, and lastly to sell. It turns out people really want to buy worms.

A quick look at the foods materials that go in and what goes out of the farm looks like this:
IN: waste food, compost, fish younglings, seeds, and likely animal feed for the chickens, turkeys, and goats.
OUTS: worms, fresh dirt, vegetables (I'm told approximatly 500 lbs per week in the summer), eggs (100 a day-ish), turkeys, goats, and honey.

Of course, that's not the only thing gowing in and out of Growing Power. They do a healthy trade in ideas, passion, inspiration, and hope. Will Allen is clearly a man that believes and inspires. To see his group of volunteers and interns scurrying about with passion in their eyes and dirt on their hands is impressive. They are doing something different on that little plot of land, and people are excited about it. The team there have inspired people to think about food and where it comes from, how it grows, and what that means in a broader sense for the human body, for a community, for the planet. Some people already understand that, but remember this is the inner city, this is not the community that is regularly shopping at Whole Foods. And let me add one more significant part: Will Allen is a black man. That is important, a white man coming to the predominantly black inner city of Miwaukee singing the praises of organic vegetables simply wouldn't be accepted by the community in the same way.

All in all, I don't believe Growing Power have stumbled on to some revolutionary way of producing more food than what comes from a well run farm. If they had, every farm would be growing food like this. But Growing Power have found a niche product in extremely fresh healthy foods offered in a unique market and model, and people are excited about that.

Please check out my Flikr page with photos from the visit, http://www.flickr.com/photos/siriusbw/sets/72157622902423796/.

I couldn't end this post without admitting that upon leaving Growing Power, we were hungry, so we drove up the road and stopped at the first place selling hot fast food: McDonalds. Ah Well, we try.

Back at church

2009-08-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since my last confession.

Here I am, back at the church. It feels so strange to be back here, sitting at this desk, right where I was 3 years ago on a hot summer day just like this one.

getting ridiculous

2009-05-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic of the houseboat nearly fully jacked up. It's getting ridiculous.

Raise Up!

2009-05-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Sandra D got jacked yesterday. We lifted her about 6 feet in the air.

We need to lift her a total of about 9 feet up to get to the right height to install the floats and stuff. But we need to pause at 6 feet for a day so we can spray on some insulation underneath the floor.

My back hurts today. I suppose it should, considering Jack and I lifted a 35,000 lb boat up 6 feet, completely by muscle power alone.

Oh, and here's one more picture of Tommy. I didn't prime him on this. The kid opened up my wallet and immediately went for the American Express gold card. Sandy and Jack should be nervous. But at least he's a zip car fan too.

Thursday's Progress

2009-05-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

After looking at the schedule and all the timing with Jack, we feel like we're probably not going to actually get this sucker in the water. But that's ok. The real hard part is just putting the floats on. That's really why I'm here. The floats are big, heavy, and big. So, the house boat needs to get jacked up 9 feet in the air so we can slide the float in underneath them. So that's the plan for the week.

Here's an animated gif what we did today. (update) damn, I'm having trouble getting an animated gif to work. I'll work on it more later.

The Sandra D rising, day 1

2009-05-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm in Seattle to help Jack raise his boat this week. Thought I would try to post a bit about it:

I got in at noon today, so it was just a half day. We got some teriyaki from Charlie and then received a delivery of a couple hundred 2x4s. We cut them to pieces to make cribs (cheap boat supports) We need to make 8 stacks of cribs, 7 feet tall. That takes a shit load of 2x4s. So we cut 8 footers down to 2 foot pieces. Lots of cutting. That's all we did today. Here are a few pics.

advertising juggernaut

2009-05-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

I flew into Seattle today. I'm here to help Jack jack up his boat and get it toward the water (maybe not all the way into the water, but closer...)

I had a little time on the airplane today to think, airplanes are great places to let your mind run without distraction, without the invasion of attention diversions.

(side note: don't fly US Airways. Those guys are cutting costs so hard, I can't help but imagine what kind of costs are being cut in the maintenance shop too, and that makes me nervous. My evidence is the little things on the plane: no peanuts, no pretzels, only 1 drink offering on a 5 hour flight... And then, there's the lack of sink water in the lav. Seriously?! That's a pretty disgusting health issue. 2 hours after takeoff on a 737, I have a hard time believing they ran out of water. No, I'm sure US Airways is carrying less water to save weight, ergo save fuel. That's just pathetic.)

OK, on to my real thought of the day. I'm here in Seattle, and I flew, and I had time to think on the plane. I've been thinking about new media, about web 2.0, about the future of the dissemination of information and the radical changes afoot in publishing and print media. It's a time when anyone can be a journalist, anyone can publish their rantings to the world (ahem). The costs and barriers to publishing the written word have fallen dramatically. But those costs aren't zero. It takes a few pennies to publish this blog posting, and others. And there are incredible amount of others And who funds those pennies? Advertising.

So here I am, in Seattle. I flew in today on that shitty US Airways flight, where I was distracted by the granola bar advertisement plastered across the entire surface of my seat-back tray table. And now I'm sitting with Jack and Sandy - astounded to watch the advertising juggernaut that is American Idol. I don't have a TV, so I don't watch this shit at home. But damn, I'm really amazed. Is this what television has become? I'm amazed to see product placement and integrated advertisement so incredibly woven into every part of this show. itunes, Ford, Coke, past performers (and their record labels), future stars (and their record labels), royalties for song writers of covered songs. Damn, it's in every aspect. Ooops, I just spoiled the winner of Dancing with Stars after reading in on the New York times before it was on tv in Seattle. Wow, she's pissed. Who knew it was so serious? I was just told that if I tell who wins American Idol tomorrow night, I'll have to find a new place to sleep. Damn.

Point being: advertising isn't going anywhere. It's here in full force and spreading it's tentacles into every media-touched aspect of our lives. It's a bit frightening when I realized how often I'm being pitched to, even more when I think about how often I don't even realized it.

Ok, after all that, watching Steve-O and Woz dance on the dancing with the stars is actually pretty fun.

Return to form

2009-05-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Prior to exercise, it used to be generally excepted practice to stretch. Loosening up the muscles prior to vigorous work is important, so the theory goes. I've been mentally stretching a bit lately, getting ready to put my metaphorical feet back on the pavement. So, here's a first post after a long haitus. These are only first steps, so I'll keep it short. But the first steps are the most important ones, right?

you are officially having a better day than I.

2008-08-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

So, I work for myself now - so I don't have bosses to sh!t on me anymore, which is nice I guess. But that doesn't necessarily stop the sh!t from falling....literally. I'm feeling a little groggy this morning, so I decided to grab some coffee from this cute little cafe 2 blocks up from my place just a few minutes ago. Didn't have any cash, so I had to stop at the cash machine on the corner. So, as I'm stepping back from the cash machine stuffing my money into my wallet - it struck. I'm not gonna call it a bird, it was probably a falcon, or maybe small pterodactyl, possibly even a secret spy poo transport airplane. Dude, I got bombed. This thing drop a massive gooey load right on me - direct hit on my shoulder, some splashing up on my neck, all the way to my face, ricocheting onto my shorts, all the way down on to my flip flop and bare right foot - oozing warmly in between my toes, even inside my wallet!!!! Seriously!! I just stood there laughing. This avian terrorist almost assuredly went to taco bell last night and got a double order of the loose stool special. It was that much. I looked around and I don't think anyone at the bagel shop noticed, but I almost wish someone had. I would have made everyone else have a better day to know that I AM the guy who was pooed on worse than anyone has ever been pooed on before. Thankfully I was only a block from home so I could get back here and burn my clothes, shower, and jump on the computer to write you all about it.

we're in and up

2007-09-14T00:44:00.000-07:00

we're in.

it took 20 hours to get in and get assembled but we did it. an absolute huge debt to the riggers at GEFCO, mr pontieux and mr port who all worked some magic through so many things going wrong. wrong plugs for the compressor. the base being too large for the elevator.(see mr port trimming the base to the left here.)

now we are in testing mode. we had a full successful run yesterday. all the primaries, all the secondaries and all the inflatables. it was quite a run. not to mention there was a meeting of several of the people in charge of the bldg at the same time so they got to see it all. it was amazing demo karma.

some little animations of the move in process... thanks to jean-lara for camera and/or pix.

OH SHIT! IT'S IN!!!!!!!

2007-09-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

oh my god. it's in.

Jump to this like to see more photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/Bill.Washabaugh/AmorphicAugust2007

no sleep till c42

2007-09-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

jean-beeel has left the bldg. but do not fear, jean-dan is here.
9am this morning we had a meeting to go over scheduling until the opening. it lasted 3 hours and there were 18 attendees. 15/18 prefer french to english so it was pretty intense at times(i can usually understand words like chauffeur, limousine, croissant, laissez-faire, grec and not too much else). for the most part, there were 3-4 conversations going at once. also, it seems to be totally acceptable here to answer your cell phone during a meeting. at least 6 different people did it, mostly without even leaving their seat.

all that being said, there is a new jean in town, jean-phillipe. he is in charge of getting 42 champs ready for the opening and we're a priority. until the 21st anyways. well, almost. we do have to compete with one day for moving cars in and 2 days for a photo shoot so i guess that leaves us about 8 days to get it all ready. what, me worry?

we move in tonight and go to sleep on the 21st.

my last tango

2007-09-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

folks-

Yesterday, the Totemobile received its official certification from the French safety board. The path is finally clear. Monday night at Midnight, the Totemobile will arrive at 42 Champs Elysees, the sidewalk will be blocked, 2 very large boxes and 5 smaller ones will be floated across the sidewalk and into the basement of the building.

Sadly, after about 16 months of extremely hard work on this project, I won't be here to see it happen. I have to leave tomorrow to go back to the US. It's with a strange mix of sadness, fear, excitement, and relief that I leave here tomorrow. It's hard to believe we finally made it here after such an unbelievably difficult path, and I don't get to be here for the best part.

Well, maybe I can convince Dan to continue updating the blog - the next 2 weeks will definitely be intense. I suspect he won't have a waking moment to write, but who knows? Maybe I'm the only person who would read it anyway. And my Mom. Thanks Mom for all your comments, at least I know 1 person is reading this.

Well, I leave Paris, and I leave you (Mom) with a few pictures of the Amorphic Mission Impossible crew from the last few days.

Bill

rugby sucks

2007-09-05T07:08:00.001-07:00

not good news today.

Our install has now been postponed until Monday night. Because of....rugby. The championships are in Paris this weekend, and the streets will be crowded with rugby holligans, so we couldn't get a permit to block the sidewalk on the C-E until Monday night. Which really sucks, for so many reasons. but also because I have to leave on Sunday night.

The Legend of Jean-RoundSquare

2007-09-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

Here it is folks. The long awaited proof. I know, nobody else cares at this point. It's really just fun for me. But here's a great pic of Jean-Francisco, Jean-Beeeel, and Jean-RoundSquare in today's meeting, in the basement of the new building. Oh, and here's a pic of Jean-Dan with the glasses on. YES!

The results...still waiting. Meetings, emails...sit and wait.

We realize that we should have been here 2 weeks ago to organize what the French folks clearly didn't organize....

But wait, they were on vacation...for the last 6 weeks. I guess it wouldn't have mattered.

Fingers crossed, we move in on Thursday night..

hurry up and wait

2007-09-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

just sitting here waiting today....

We've updated the weight and re-submitted all the formal documents to the verifying agency. now we wait.

We had heard that there was a problem with the Air Cushion transportation system. (long boring story.) It turns out one guy had already bought them, but just didn't tell anyone else. Really, amazing stuff. I'm trying to figure out if the cloud of disinformation from our view point is just a language barrier, or if it is actually this bad. Beginning to think it's not the language. Ok, problem solved.

In order for us to move this beast into the building on the Champs Elysees - they need to close down a part of the street, so there are all kinds of police permits that need to happen. Now we are a few days behind and waiting. I'm sitting in my hotel room on a bright sunny Paris day, writing manuals. very exciting.

I hope to have more news soon. In the mean time, here's a picture of Chico sweeping.

who designed that thing?!?

2007-09-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

busy day of work here. We checked into our new Apartment-hotel. We were told it was a 4 bedroom apartment, and a 2 bedroom apartment. Not true. It's actually a 1 room apartment with 4 beds, and a 1 room apartment with 2 beds. That's not gonna work. Seriously. No, really, seriously, since we came to France last September, this has happened with almost EVERY single place we've stayed. That's 8 or 9 times. How hard it this? WTF???? I guess we move again tomorrow.

Anyway, I did get to run down to the Champs Elysees today. Got on 1 subway line at Charles De Gaulle (Chuck-D) stop. Jumped off at the Franklin D. Roosevelt stop (The Frank). Walked up the stairs, and here's what I saw.

You look at all the other building on the C-E, they're so beautiful and classic and they make sense. You look at this building and you think who designed this thing?!?! It just doesn't fit.

Oh, sorry, there was a big ugly machine sitting in front of the building when I took this photo today. Wonder who designed that thing?!?!

back to work, more adventures for sure tomorrow.

Jenny Craig vacations in Paris?

2007-08-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

Dude, Jenny Craig totally came to the shop today. She totally kicked ass too. We we're eating our vegetables, doing sit-ups, jumping jacks, the whole deal. She cranked up punk music on the stereo and made us do ab crunches for 6 hours, god damn it hurt. But that shit works.

Take a look at the first picture, that's the base of the Totemobile at 7:30am. The second picture shows what happens after 6 hours with a sawz-all, a couple disk-cutters, and a few buckets full of sweat, blood, and minthe intense chocolate. Somehow or other, we found 374 kilograms of extra weight floating around in the bloated belly and derriere regions of that thing. It was awesome.

This whole experience, it feels like the "mission impossible" theme song is playing in the background the whole time. I fly to Paris, I meet these guys at the airport, we go to work. We all have our specialties, we all have our quirks. But we show up, we shake hands, we tell dumb jokes, and we kick ass.

There's:
Me: (code name: Jean-Beeel) specialty: cutting steel, weighing things, eating minthe intense chocolate.
Chico: (code name: Jean-Francisco) specialty: never gives up, stinky farts when it get serious, often mistaken for a homeless person.
Dan: (code name: Jean-Dan, aka the Six Million Dollar Jean-Dan) specialty: mustache, mullet, 13-year's old sense of humor, sees 374kg where nobody else does.
France: (code name: The PitBull) specialty: swearing at vice-presidents of major car companies, getting lost, doesn't take no for an answer.
Jean-Pierre (code name: Jean-JP) specialty: can't pronounce the sound "th", badass programming skills, still can't pronounce the sound "th" - even when you make fun of him for it.

We also worked today with Jean-Claude, Jean-Etienne, Jean-Francois, and about six other Jean-somethings. I’m not kidding. Dude, everyone in France is named Jean-…..

We kicked ass from 7:30-1:30 today, removing more than 700 lbs of weight. Then the weighing crew showed up to take the weight of our machine again. It took them about 4 hours, because, well, that's a very French thing to do.

Sooooo, is that is? Is that, that? We move in to the new building Monday? Ohhhhhh, wait, not so fast.

You have to understand something that I don't even understand. There are a couple of key players to know here:

There's this guy named Mr. Satine. He WAS the CEO of Citroen. He loves the arts. He loves (bad) architecture. He decided to have a new showroom built and have a super cool transforming robotic sculpture put in this building. You know what he didn't love? Accounting. That's probably why he was fired last March for loosing loads of money and spending money on frivolous things. The new boss wants to save money and cut costs.

There's this woman named Mmme Gautrand. She's an architect. She won the design competition to design the new Citroen showroom for this guy named Satine. Her new building is amazingly ugly. She thinks it's just amazing. She really doesn't want some robot stealing the show and taking the glory from her ugly building.

There's this guy named Round-Square. That's not really his name, but his name isn't important. He wears glasses. One lens is round, the other is square. It's so ridiculous it's hard not to laugh in his face. He works for the architect Gautrand. He clearly drew the short-straw and got stuck with us. Somehow, he ended up semi in-charge of this endeavor. And it's clear that his prime directive is make sure our piece of art never gets into Gautrand's new building. Did I mention his glasses?

The Amorphic team and our 9,300 lb robot are very caught in a political war. We just won that weight battle by the skin of our teeth with about 30 seconds to spare, but the war ain't won so easy. As soon as we reported our new weight, 3 new issues popped up that we aren't in compliance with. That fast. 6pm on a Friday night in France. Almost nothing happens that fast in this country. That's ok, we've performed no less that 4 miracles so far with this project. What's a few more?

another weird dream of Paris

2007-08-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

it's been a really long time since my last post on this blog. I feel like it's time though, considering where I am and what I'm doing.

Here I am, back in Paris....again. It's August 30th 2007. Dan, Chico, and I arrived this morning from New York, here to continue and hopefully conclude the great Totemobile saga.

The quick back story, for those who didn't know or don't remember, is this: The Totemobile was mostly built in Brooklyn last summer by a team of awesome people, Amorphic Robot Works. In September we flew this giant transforming car to Paris for the Paris Auto Show. We then, somehow, ended up staying here in Paris for about 6 months to work on it. Along the way, we learned that it was nearly twice as heavy as the elevator rating for the building into which it will go: the new Citroen Showroom on 42 Champs Elyees, Paris. TWICE as heavy. That's OK, we just cut it in half. Really, not a big deal.

Weight has been a major issue with this damn machine all along, so it goes.

We finished our work last April, and on the last day we weighed the machine to verify that we meet all the required limits to get this thing in the building. There's a weight limit on the elevator, a weight limit on the floor, and everywhere in between. And we're damn close to exceeding all of them.

Well, Citroen, being the on-the-ball kind of folks that they are, decided to weight he machine as well. They could have done this in May, June, or July. No, why rush it? They waited until last week, 1 week before it is scheduled to go into the Champs Elysees building to weight it. And it came out almost 10% heavier than when we weighed it last.

That's the emergency, so here we are, back in Paris a few days early.

We landed today and went straight to the Conservatory, Citroen's museum of all their great and not-great cars of the past. That's where the Totemobile is being stored. (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/08/23/automobiles/20070824_CITROEN_SLIDESHOW_index.html)
We re-weighed it, and quickly realized our crappy scales are just that, really crappy. Not trusthworthy at all. To be fair to myself, I last weighed it in April, after working nearly 48 continuously with no break, it was 4 in the morning, and I was sketchy at best. I didn't realize the scales were quite so prone to error.) Sadly, we have to assume that Citroen's number from last week is probably correct, and ours was off.

But, there's always the last minute, right?

Our big weighing was supposed to happen today with all the major Citroen people witnessing and us there too. The situation is very serious, we're facing the very real possibility that they won't let the Totemobile in the new building because it is too heavy for the floor loading specifications (not the elevator, the floor!). It would be doomed to a life stored away in a warehouse outside of Paris. Well, lucky us, the meeting was rescheduled for tomorrow at 1:30pm.

So, here's the plan. We wake up tomorrow, get to the shop by 7:30am, and we have 6 hours to cut 300kg out of the base. We think we can do it. It could get crazy.

(Just to complicate things: Mr. Pontieux, the guy who is officially weighing the car and transporting it, hasn't been paid by Chico - even dating back to when he transported the car from Brooklyn to Paris in September '06. France just called Dan 5 minutes ago (it's 10pm Thursday night here.) to say that if Chico doesn't wire Pontieux the money tonight, he won't weigh it tomorrow. Of course, Chico is complaining he never got the bill. We just had this conversation with Chico through his door as he tries to get down with his lady friend in the hotel room. Seriously, just now.) I wish I was making this up, but it's much too ridiculous for me to invent.)

So, the story will continue tomorrow.

I'm exhausted, so I'm heading to bed.

good night folks.

The Videos are here

2006-10-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Johnny's keen websurfing skills, the videos have been found. Some random frenchy posted them on YouTube. A bit long, but worth your 5 minutes. And, you get to hear the music that I have to listen to every 23 minutes. It's glorious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHOYFSbqocU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifQeXZoQjCc

Paris by night

2006-10-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

Six Million Dollar Dan and I went out on the town last night for "Nuit Blanche". It's a night of lights and arts that goes on from 9pm until 7am all night. Paris does this once a year and invites dozens of artists to make pieces just for this one night. Wonderful stuff. In a city already bathed so brightly in lights, it was even more impressive last night. It was great to see the streets of Le Marais crowded with people at 3am. I mean packed.

Guess I'm not feeling particularly wordy today, probably cause I was up all night roaming the streets. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

crowd photos

2006-10-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

check out the crowds, it's kind a crazy.

Oh la la

2006-10-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

We're coming towards the end of week #1 (of 2) of the Paris Auto Show. In my opinion, it's been a smashing success thus far. (Smashing, operative word - nah, I joke.) Things have been great, which probably means terrible events are just around the corner, but I'm trying to be a glass half full kinda guy here, so let's say that everything is just peachy. The crowds watching the car everyday continue to grow. Maybe word is spreading - 'dude, you gotta go see that robotic car, it's sooooo groooovy.' - or maybe it's just my ego inflating and thinking the crowds are getting bigger. But there's usually 200-400 people watching every time we run. They seem to dig it, some overheard quotes:

"C'est belle" -Pretty French woman with pointy shoes and way too much makeup.
"C'est pas mal, non?" -Neanderthal looking French guy.
"Oh la la." - Seriously, I just heard that, no shit.
"Look, it's turning into a car!" - Little kid in Brooklyn with chocolate on his face.
"Oh, it's just like a real Citroen." - as Dan and I were making some adjustments to the car yesterday and a Frenchman asked me what we were doing - I says: "oh, the mechanism of the car just needs a little fixing."

I think they like it better most some of the other car booths anyway. See - these car shows are all about attracting people through whatever means necessary. Every car manufacturers exhibit is full of young attractive sales women, every car exhibit has bright flashing lights and water fountains, music, djs, blah blah blah. Ford has a cheesy salsa band and little kids that perform a song and dance every hour. They've also got a guy carving the newest Ford car out of ice. (I think they're trying to compensate for their crappy cars. - sorry MK) Peugot is launching midgets out of cannons across their exhibit floor. But do they have a transforming robotic car???? Noooooo.

I'm watching the video tech do a serious head bobb as he's falling asleep in front of the video monitors right now, it's awesome.

We had a little part of the car flip out on us yesterday. We've got a whole bunch of gas shock springs mounted all around the base structure to assist with some load carrying (totally ghetto engineering, but that's what you gotta do when you're desperate, and we were, and it sort of works, except when it doesn't), and yesterday one of them decided to get caught on another steel part and thusly bend the hell out of itself - accompanied by a nice crunching sound. Dan and I had the pleasure of trying to fix this thing at mid-day - which involved lifting the car about 10 feet up in the air and crawling underneath, over, and inside of the lifting structure (yes, it's sort of safe to crawl beneath it, sort of.....not really). This turned out to be quite a show in itself. For the 3 hours we were in there, there was never less than a crowd of 50 people watching and taking pictures. I'm not perfect on my french translations, but I think I heard a couple people say: "Hey, check out the funny looking, funny sounding Americans sticking their little white asses out at us. How cute!" Dan and I certainly felt like animals trapped in a cage.

More later from the funny looking, funny sounding american in paris.

more little ones

2006-10-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

here's more photos.

Damn french internet

2006-10-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

no, it's not your computer, it's mine. let's try this again.

I think they like it

2006-10-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

A few photos, look at all those french people, in one place!

Photos from Paris

2006-09-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

So, I was gonna post some pictures here, but Dan already has and I'm really lazy.

Check out Dan's website and view the slideshow. Good stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46835425@N00/

-
-B-dub

An American Amorphophalus in Paris

2006-09-26T21:13:00.001-07:00

The blog is back, the blog is BACK!

Folks, I decided to bring back the blog from the deepest darkest depths of despair. It was long overdue. Sorry it went on such a long hiatus but the blog needed time to think, time to reflect, and time to go surfing in Indonesia. Now the blog is back, and it's pissed.

Here's the quick back-story. We we're supposed to ship our giant exploding car robot thing 2 weeks ago. We had a little, ahem, "event" which set us back by a sleepless week and set me back a least a year of my life. We really quickly removed the "eventful" park, sent it out for repair, got things fixed up, got really drunk, and shipped the machine 5 days late. To make life even funnier, just 1 day before shipping, Citroen called to say they didn't want the machine because it was now too heavy. After some deep sighs and a few homicidal thoughts, we sent it anyway, just to piss them off. So The Church gave birth to a 10,000 lb exploding car in a big box, we loaded it on to the truck with a seriously under rated forklift, and I flew to Seattle 1 hour later. The best friends a guy could have came out to help me move my stuff out of my apartment, I'm officially homeless again - and I flew to back to NYC 36 hours later.

The continuing adventures of the Amorphic Robot Works Citroen DS car project goes on. We're not in Brooklyn anymore, we've moved on to Paris where the food is worse, the beer is more expensive, and the smoking is indoors. I joke, sort of. Ok, I have to be honest, it's 6 in the morning here, I'm not really sure when was the last time I actually had a full night's sleep in a bed, it's been a long time. I'm surly, and my feet smell awful.

I'm happy (happy is the new sad) to say that seemingly despite all of our best efforts, the car actually made it Paris. I'm also really happy to say that the big wigs from Citroen saw the car run today, somehow - and I'm serious about divine intervention here - the machine ran flawlessly. It was awesome. They loved it. They gushed. Nothing but love. It officially has been accepted for its center place in the Citroen stand in the Paris Auto Show starting in 3 days. I'm really excited, and really nervous. I guess that's what I get paid for. Oh, and we're surrounded by Genie Scissor lifts. Kinda funny.

Here's the run down of the Paris ARW team:
Cheeks (aka Cheeks) - he's the mad man behind it all.
The Haus (aka Frank) - he's lumbering around like an elephant because of the terrible blisters he just acquired. Damn those French blisters.
P. Dilly (aka Paul) - Motion programmer with a Long Island accent to kill for.
Bubba (aka Shawn) - the master car body craftsman and wide eyed naive internationalist.
Six Mil (aka Six Million Dollar Dan, aka Dan) - much funnier the less he sleeps.
Six Bil (aka me) - The laws of physics do not apply to me, or, really make sense either.

Chico and Six Mil are joking about taping holes... Why that's really funny right now, I don't know. It's 6:15 in the morning after all. I gotta say, Six Mil just showed up after sleeping a good 8 hours, and he's not nearly as funny as when he hasn't slept in 30. The guy is hilarious when he's totally exhausted.

More to come. I'm certain it's gonna get better, and then 5 seconds later it's gonna get a lot worse.

"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry"

2006-07-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm better now. The rage has subsided. I'm like Bill Bixby by day, but when I get on my bike, I turn into the Incredible Hulk. Except, I'm a little skinnier (just a little), and less green. And Lou Farigno never really cursed on television. I curse my head off when I'm on my bike. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

But you know what's good, emails like this:
-----------------
The coolest thing I've done so far:
Diagnosed a malpostitioned calf and then birthed her!!!!! Pulled her
right out. It was totally awesome.

The most embarrassing thing so far:
Collect semen on Phil the dog. Imagine one professor and three
students crowded around watching. I won't say more.
-----------------

new york's finest revenue generation scheme

2006-06-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

You know what's awesome? I got a $150 dollar ticket this morning for running a red light on my bicycle. That's awesome.

Yes, I ran the red light. Just like I run every red light. Just like every single cyclist in New York City runs every red light. The same way that every god damn fucking pedestrian in the city walks red light, j-walks, crosses on don't walk signs, etc. etc. As the cop was writing me the ticket, I watched 20 pedestrians j-walk from across the street right in front of me. One guy looked at me dumbfounded, he was as dumbfounded as I that they were actually citing me for this violation.

OK, I broke the law. Fine, write me a fucking ticket. But the cop was dumb enough to try to convince me as she was writing the ticket that she was keeping me safe. Fuck you. You want to keep me safe on a bike? Cite the 4 fucking cabs that cut me off on the rest of my commute to work. Cite the idiot who opened his cab door into my bike lane (which I kindly closed for him). Cite the 86 delivery trucks parked in the bike lane every block. Cite the city for giant pot holes all the way down Broadway. Cite the fucking judge who parked in the bike lane in front of the court house, where he parks every morning. That's what makes it dangerous to be a cyclist in this city.

Ok, enough venting. Time to go listen to some Ice Cube. Today is not a good day.

Less Talk, More Photos

2006-06-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the crew of people I work with, if y'all is interested.

Chico is in the white T-shirt. He is the artistic director and visionary behind ARW. He's a gentlemen, a scholar, and a classically trained pimp.

Sue is the little red-head with the hat on. She's Irish, petite, dainty - but don't be fooled. She swears like a sailor, drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and uses simile like, uhh, a washed-up ancient greek comic book writer. Today was literally the first time I've ever seen her without combat boots on.

Frank is the big guy in the blue T-shirt. Somethings may change in life, like the tides, the phases of the moon, the smell wafting up from the dirty Brooklyn sidewalks - but Frank's T-shirt does not change. It is always blue. Always.

Bruce is the really nice and goofy guy in the green t-shirt in front of the car frame. Bruce used to be a Masai warrior tribesman in east Africa, but it turns out he couldn't jump more than about 1 and 3/8th inches (we measured) - so they kicked him out of the entire African continent in shame and sent him to Brooklyn to eat rice crackers and weld aluminum.

There's a few more team members that I didn't get to here, cause I'm limited to only 5 pictures at a time. There is a nice shot here of us sitting down to one of our meals in the shop. It's one big family. Frank is wearing blue.

peace, bitches.

The Photo Album, part 1

2006-06-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I've had a few days off from the blog, a few days off from work, a few days off from reality. It's been a wonderful break. Kristin made the long journey out from Seattle and we spent the weekend hanging out in Manhattan, being tourists and generally relaxing. It was great!

I've got a few photos here. It looks like this blog thing will only let me put on 5 at a time, so here's the first 5. I'm primed and ready to put more on soon, so look for more pics in the near future.

Ok, so what you're looking at here is my actual work environment. Like I said, not your usual engineering office. Yes, this is where I've been spending upwards of 60 hours a week.

Thanks for your comments you guys, glad to see somebody is reading all this. Here's the photos..

June 13th, rubber meets road

2006-06-13T16:38:00.000-07:00

New York City is that place. That place where the rubber meets the road - however it may happen, it happens every minute of the day. Sometimes it's a wonderful event in all it's excitement and ferocity, sometimes it's just ugly and necessary and downright violent. I'm not sure what I'm talking about here, but it's the feeling of the day.

Take my morning commute to work: Last week, I'd tell you that I had the best bike ride of my entire life. 12 miles of pure joy. I start way up on Amsterdam and 101st, I cut over to Central Park. I ride south down the length of the park surrounded by trees and early morning joggers. At the south end, I join the commuters at Columbus Circle. Puffy is my beacon for a good ten blocks – I'm always looking up to the big Sean Combs billboard in Times Square. I dodge massive potholes, delivery trucks, diesel clouds, obnoxious buses, taxis, and pedestrian commuters all the way down Broadway, passing through Union Square, Soho, and the financial district, towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Across the bridge, Statue of Liberty on my right (good morning darling), and Empire State Building back to my left. Down the bumpy roads of Brooklyn to find my morning bagel and tea (with lemon) at my favorite little breakfast spot around the corner from The Church. Mario hooks me up every morning.

Normally, this bike ride is a magical experience. There's a Zen moment there, when the lights all turn green at the perfect moment, when the traffic parts like Red Sea, when pedestrians actually look up from their zombie state to see you coming. I can predict the future. I can make people move when I want them to, where I want them to. I can cut through a crowd of people at full speed with enough awareness to smell the coffee from the woman in the short skirt, 6 inches from my handlebars. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck tingling before somebody steps out from in front of that parked delivery truck. I can spot a cab cutting me off with a sudden right turn - 2 blocks before he swerves. I have enough time to organize my thoughts into a string of well orchestrated profanity long before he makes his move.

But not today. Some days it's an up river swim. Don't worry, I didn't get hit today, nor did I hit anyone. But too many close calls for one day. I was close enough to a woman driving her BMW from New Jersey to reach into her car and grab the coffee out of her hand – and she never even saw me. Imagine her surprise when I yelled at her just before she cut me off. (she might have spilled the coffee, maybe I should have grabbed it from her.) Today, there were just too many potholes, too many red lights, and I think my rear wheel is finally starting to give out. Some days you go with the current, some days you just have to fight I guess.

Maybe this was all precipitated by strange event last night on the subway ride home. Apparently the man who sat down next to me on the train wasn't happy with me (just cause I exist I guess), cause he started by saying "May my God be as white as your God." Then he said it again, louder. Then he said it again, full roar, at the top of his lungs...over, and over again. I was the only one on the train not staring at him, my eyes were fixed on the little print of my book, not daring to look up. I didn't have the heart to tell him my god isn't white, black, green or purple – better not to say. It's an adventure, where the rubber meets the road.

Here's a picture of the floor at work.

June 10, 14th street, garbage swells like a cyclone

2006-06-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

Man, busy week! Somehow I made it to Sunday, my 1 day off of the week. I spent the day still recovering from my Friday night binge drinking-fest with fellow Seattle-guy Dave Couture (drinking too many Manhattans in Manhattan), and riding my bicycle around the city dodging taxis and inhaling unhealthy amounts of diesel exhaust....it was wonderful. When you're spending the day biking around Manhattan, don't forget to put sunblock on your forearms too, or you'll end up with really sunburned arms like mine. I think beer fixes that though.

Oh hey, I've found a much better website explain the project I'm working on, it's even got video! Check it out:

http://www.amorphicrobotworks.org/car/

Well, folks, are you ready to enter The Church where I work?!? Who's with me? Everybody hold hands, tightly, here we go. Hope you enjoy the pics.

(wouldn't you know, I'm having problems uploading pictures to the web tonight. It's gonna have to wait another day. I know you're on the edge of your chair with excrement....)

From the Backside

2006-06-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

Good People - We (the powers that be) interrupt this normally boring blog to give you a picture of my sister with her hand up a cow's ass.

Love. Nothing but love.

The Project

2006-06-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Dunno if anyone's reading this, it feels kind of like I'm a radio DJ: I'm talking and maybe somebody is listening, maybe not. I enjoy the ambiguity

I'm jumping from Brooklyn to Paris today. Mostly photos today, my brain is too tired to write anything creative, or not creative. Here's a couple shots of my trip to Paris two weeks ago and the building, the installation, the project, etc. check it.

by the way, anyone can make comments now, you don't have to be all signed up as a member or anything.

Welcome to The Church

2006-06-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Isn't it fitting that I would travel across the country to work....in a church? Yes, it's true. Amorphic Robot Works is housed in a former church in the Redhook neighborhood in Brooklyn. (that's on the water, about a mile south of the brooklyn bridge.) This church was built back around 1840. Through the years, it was....a church, a Smo-King ash tray factory, a mob-run car chop shop, and now it houses...us. Redhook is a pretty funky little neighborhood, lots of colorful locals and lots of young manhattanites seeking cheaper living. Of course, the week I start working here, Redhook suddenly gets cool. The 'Hook made the Time Out magazine cover story this week for nyc:
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/

Anyway, back to The Church....be warned, this is not your normal engineering office. It doesn't include the long drive out to the suburbs, the dry and boring office staff, the cubicles, the endless process meetings, the old engineer who sleeps at his desk because he knows they can't fire him... None of that. It might be a little different. Maybe I'll just start with a photo of the outside today, slow introductions. Welcome to the church.

Rain on Amsterdam

2006-06-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

It continues to rain, and Snoop Dogg continues to flow. so things are in order - be it in Seattle or Manhattan. Snoop can flow, I'm not sure if I can keep up though. I wasn't created for that, but I'll give it my best in this unlikely format. I'm just waiting for JP to chime in with : "you got a cell phone, you got a laptop, now you gotta blog too? Sellout." sellout, indeed. Sell out, early, and often!

I'm sitting on high above Amsterdam ave on the upper west side. The rumors are true, I've gotta pretty nice balcony, perfect really for dropping toenail clippings on the unsuspecting below. I got a picture of my view attached.

I wish I could find a way to take picture as I ride my bike to work in the morning, cause that's the best part of the day. Maybe one day I'll strap my camera to my chest and let it snap away. It will mostly show my handle bars are few inches from the left rear quarter panel of a homicidal new york cab.

I'll hit it again tomorrow with some work pics. It's a unique place. That's why the blog is here. People kept telling me:"dude, you're doing some crazy shit, you need a blog." Ok, here it is. Crazy shit, and shit.

June 3, Off the Hook

2006-06-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

I can't think with all this noise. The rain hasn't stopped all day, my toes are wet.