Category: Pop Culture

Maker Faire and lobsters

Carol and I went to Maker Faire today. It was held just a couple of miles away in San Mateo, so we were able to walk there — which was good, because so many people attended that some of the parking lots were four miles away from the event. If you’ve never heard of it, Maker Faire is kind of like a state or county agricultural fair for geeks and engineers.

We saw the gee-whiz showy things you’d expect to see at Maker Faire: strange metal constructions that belched fire; all kinds of robots; people riding around inside giant self-propelled cupcakes; a Rube Goldberg-style giant mousetrap powered by simple machines and a bowling ball; the CO2 eruptions that happen when you drop Mentos into carbonated beverages. My favorite gee-whiz showy thing was the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, an art car covered with fish and lobsters that danced in carefully choreographed movements:

BlogMay1813

And we saw the geeky technical things you’d expect to see at Maker Faire: conventional automobiles converted to electric power; too many projects made with Arduino microcontrollers; robots; drones; giant soap bubbles; a blacksmith; ham radio operators.

We also saw things that you might not expect at Maker faire: goats; chickens; beekeepers; a guy selling New-Agey devices to protect you from EMF radiation; a steam-powered scale-model train; lessons on how to walk on stilts; a really good drummer who used plastic trash barrels and other found objects for his drum set.

It was very satisfying, if for no other reason than being able to spend time hanging out with thousands of other geeky people who like to make things instead of consuming things.

Update: Because a commenter asked, here’s a video (taken by Carol) of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir:

Car

Carol took our 1993 Toyota Camry down to Dave’s Auto Repair. We thought there was something wrong with the hand brake, but it turned out the reason the brake light was on was because there was a leak in the brake line. It was going to cost three thousand dollars to fix. Carol called me up, we talked it over, and I said I thought three thousand was still cheaper than buying a new car. Carol told the mechanic to go ahead and fix the car. There was a moment of silence, and it became obvious he was not expecting her to say that. He told her that the gas tank was also rusted out, and the floor boards were about to rust through. It was time to get another car.

We looked at used cars online. The next day I rented a car, and we drove to the Toyota dealer in Palo Alto to look at some of the used cars we saw online. When you shop for cars, you enter a never-never-land where nothing is quite what it seems. The mileage posted in the online description did not match the mileage on the actual car. One online description said the car had a moon roof, and the sheet posted in the window of the car also said it had a moon roof, but there was no moon roof. The salespeople will tell you whatever you want to hear: does it have a full-sized spare? yes of course it does; but the spare tire turns out to be one of those little dinky ones. We finally settled on a 2008 Camry hybrid. Of course the price wasn’t what we thought it was. Carol haggled with the salesman; he tried to show her his sales awards, but she didn’t want to look; he went off to talk with his manager; he came back with a price that was still too high; Carol haggled some more; another talk with the manager; we accepted the deal; and when the salesman seemed too cheerful, Carol turned to me and muttered, “We could have gotten the price down more.” Then I went and talked with their finance people, and had to sign away all my rights to sue them if the car turns out to be a lemon — California law protects car dealers, not consumers — and wrote a check. And of course, the next day the driver’s side visor fell down and wouldn’t stay up; this in spite of being assured by the salesmen that they check every car over very thoroughly, which leads me to believe that we should never take the car to that dealer for service, if they could miss something so obvious.

We like the car pretty well, in spite of everything. So far we’ve been getting about forty miles per gallon of gas. But I miss the old car. I bought it from Carol’s mom before she died. It drove us across the continent five times (or two and a half round trips). It looked forlorn sitting in our mechanic’s parking lot as we emptied everything out of it — snow brushes and maps and jumper cables and crumpled coffee cups from under the seat. Now it sits there waiting for the junkie to come and pick it up and take it away.

Tragedy in Boston

By now, you’ve probably seen the news online: at least two people were killed by bombs placed near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Latest reports have another explosion at the JFK library as well. Live coverage at the BBC Web site show people being wheeled away from the site in wheelchairs, some of them with blood or obvious injuries.

Still don’t know who’s behind this — could be a U.S. group, just like the Oklahoma City bombings. I’m sure groundless accusations will abound out there on social media. Which is a good reason to stop looking at social media for a while.

One minor trivia point: today is the day that Patriots Day is celebrated, commemorating the Battle of Concord and Lexington, and the beginning of the American Revolution (the BBC described Patriots Day as commemorating the evacuation of Boston by British troops, but they’re thinking of Evacuation Day, celebrated on March 17). Patriots Day is such an obscure holiday, it’s hard to imagine this bombing is related to it. Rather, the bombing doubtless targeted the second-biggest sports event in the U.S., measured by media coverage, after the Superbowl.

Which one would you attend?

An old friend called me up yesterday, and told me a story. They were traveling, in a strange city over a weekend, and wanted to go to church. The sermon topic at the local Unitarian Universalist church: “Consciousness.” The sermon topic at the hip Christian church in town: “Bad Girls of the Bible.”

If this were you, which church would you attend? — and why?

UU kid on Obama’s Facebook page

One of the middle schoolers from our congregation went to a gun control rally, and a photo with him in it appeared on Barack Obama’s Facebook page. How cool is that?

Obama's Facebook page

Click on the image above to see the caption inserted by Obama’s social media staff: “Harrison Frahn listens to a speech on reducing gun violence at a candlelight vigil in Palo Alto, CA.” I’m sure Obama never even saw this post; I’m sure Obama has forgotten the year or two he spent in a Unitarian Universalist Sunday school; I’m sure that Obama’s social media team merely posted this because it’s a good photo to further their political goals. Nevertheless, it’s really fun to see a UU kid recognized in this way — recognized for taking a public stand on something he cares about.

Marriage as a religious act

I received an interesting and thoughtful comment via email on a sermon titled “Marriage as a Religious Act” which I recently posted on my main Web site. I realized that this sermon relates to some issues you, dear readers, and I have addressed on this blog — most importantly, the sexual revolution within Unitarian Universalism, and the theological basis (if any) for marriage in our tradition. Since this is something we have talked about here, and since I greatly value the comments I get from you, I decided to post this sermon and see what you might have to say about it. The sermon beging below the fold.

Continue reading “Marriage as a religious act”

Five words on what you like about this season

Wynne, chair of the board, asked us each to introduce ourselves by giving our names, our roles, and then by saying “five words about what you like about this season.”

Being Unitarian Universalists who like to talk, none of us kept to the five word limit. Except Louis, who said:

“After apocalypse, days get longer.”

Xmas jokes

I always need clean Christmas jokes, the kind of thing you can tell to a fifth grader. Philip came through for me in a big way this year. Below are some of the jokes he passed along to me. As the reindeer comedian said, These will sleigh you!

What do elves learn in school?
The elfabet.

How many letters in the elfabet?
Only twenty-five, because of Noel.

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Frostbite.

What do psychiatrists call someone who is afraid of Santa?
Claustrophobic.

Little boy: “Mom, can I have a dog for Christmas?”
Mother: “No, you’ll have turkey like everyone else in the family.”

Mother: “What’s the best thing to put into a Christmas cake?”
Little girl: “Your teeth.”

Little boy: “Teacher, what do you call Santa’s helpers?”
Teacher: “Subordinate Clauses.”

OK, that’s the last joke. You can stop groaning now.