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All Bonnaroo Saga posts: tag/Bonnaroo 07

Pay The Snucka by Umphrey’s McGee
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/um2006-06-16.lateshow.neumann.flacf/um2006-06-16d1t08_64kb.mp3]

This is very cool: I got a large lcd screen to use for my projector. The screen cost me $200, the lenses were free thanks to some clever recycling, the wood will probably be free if we have enough scrap around (if not it’ll still be cheap). That leaves $100 from my initial budget to buy a lamp and something to keep it cool. The screen should arrive before I get back from Bonnaroo, so with some luck it will be done by the end of the month.
I’m pretty happy about this, and I’ll try to keep a buildlog in case anyone wants to replicate it.

Ready

All Bonnaroo Saga posts: tag/Bonnaroo 07

Thirsty in the Rain by The Keller Williams Incident
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/kwi2002-06-21.shnf/kwi2002-06-21d1t06_64kb.mp3]

I packed for Bonnaroo today. Since I’ll be working the next two days, and leaving early Wednesday morning, today was the best time. I’m throwing everything I need in my framed pack. I’ll need to keep it all under 55lbs if I want to keep myself from getting charged extra by Greyhound. That’s alright though, because with all my clothes, food, tent and sleeping bag, it is all still under 40lbs. Which is pretty cool considering the pack weighs 10 alone. I’ll probably add a little extra just because I can; a roll of duct tape to round things off.

I’m still not completely sure who I’ll be seeing, but I’m fine with that. I’ll probably post a more specific followup to this tomorrow night when I’m less distracted.

Definitions

Dondante by My Morning Jacket
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/MMJ2006-06-16..4011s/mmj2006-06-16.4011s.flac16/mmj2006-06-16d2t04.4011s_64kb.mp3]

What if a programming language could be made using nothing more than the English language? No, I’m not talking about something like Applescript which just replaces programming syntax with words, but I’m talking about a programming language which could actually understand English.

I don’t think this is as difficult as it sounds, at least not the creation of it. The hardest part of this would be making definitions for words in the English language. I would hope that such a creation would use something like Wiktionary, which uses collective input to establish a definition. I’ll be looking into this.
I want to learn more about linguistics; this sort of thing fascinates me.

I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof.

Plane Crash by moe.
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/moe2006-02-28.flac16/moe2006-02-28d4t04_64kb.mp3]

So yesterday I found myself in an odd position. I had to paint the side of the roof (a 10″ or so wide board that runs the length of the roof) of the house I’m working on. The problem that was posed was that since this board and the rest of the roof jutted out about two feet from the side of the house, reaching it was difficult and awkward on a ladder.

I did try the ladder with a brush attached to a pole, but that didn’t get the board covered completely. The top of the board, right next to the shingles, didn’t get the paint it needed. We tossed around a couple other ideas, and ultimately decided I’d just hang over the edge of the roof to paint them.

I’m scared of heights. In middle school, the IDEAS program went to this overnight camp somewhere in the backwoods of CT. The idea was to get us to challenge ourselves in not-very-subtle ways. There were different stations where the goal would be teamwork, or communication, or any other theme they could come up with. One was the Giant’s Ladder. This was a large ‘rope ladder’ made up of logs and steel cable. It was about 5 stories high. Each person climbing was hooked up to a climbing(repelling?) harness to make sure they’d be safe. The rungs were about shoulder height (I don’t remember how tall I was then, but it was shoulder height). I remember I partnered up with a kid who I had never met before that day, but we got along well. We talked it over, and figured that we could just vault ourselves individually up to the next rung, but quickly discovered that they were too far apart for that to work. So we cooperated (you win, program), and got ourselves halfway up, then we took a break. The method we used to get up each rung was pretty straight forward: one person (usually me) would steady themselves by holding the rung above, and balancing on the rung below. Then I would extend one leg so my partner could use my knee as a step. Once he was up, he would reach down, and pull me up. This worked extremely well, but there was one problem. Whenever I was pulled up, in order to get my grip, I’d need to be on my belly. That meant I was looking straight down. So at that halfway point, I started to get freaked out. Each time I looked down it got worse, until with about a quarter of the way left, I had to stop. The councilors and my classmates tried to urge me on, in a bunch of different ways. They saw this as another challenge for me to overcome. I never made it to the top (take that, program!), but I took a picture of everyone on the ground from that spot.

So yesterday when I was hanging over the edge of the roof, I was a bit freaked out at first. It is a two story house with an attic, so at the highest point it reaches about three stories. Painting those spots, you have no choice but to look straight down. I tried to distract myself by keeping an eye on what I was painting. That half worked.

Painting from the roof was much much faster than with the ladder, and it was actually less freaky than being at the same height on a ladder. Its nice to have something (mostly) solid under your feet. I liked this because it took me out of my element, which is something I don’t do often. I like my element. Its comfy and familiar.

I had to go up again today to touch up a few spots that didn’t come out so well. It was easier today. I’m going to go on a tangent now. Today, the roof was far hotter than it was yesterday. And yesterday, it was hot. Yesterday, I poured water on the shingles to cool them off, and it steamed. In ten minutes it was dry again. So today, I went up there without any water, and I think I actually burned my hand. How absurd. Why would you make a roof black? It makes it harder to cool a house with air conditioning (using more power).
Also, in case you’re wondering what a ridgepole is, it is ‘a horizontal beam at the ridge of a roof to which the rafters are attached.’ I walked the ridgepole.
Continue reading “I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof.”

Udall Legacy Bus Tour

Link to their Blog

We’re taking our motor coach coast-to-coast highlighting people — especially young people — who are finding solutions to pressing environmental and Native American issues. And we’re going to be documenting the whole trip — with text, photo, and video

These guys are structuring and setting up their trip in a similar way to how I see the Juan Way Tour working. I’m going to keep an eye on it, and see how it pans out. Obviously, the subject matter is different, which will change the way it is presented. But they are more alike than different.

Big Talk

The Charmer by The Family Grove Company
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/fgc2007-05-27.shnf/fgc2007-05-27-t09_64kb.mp3]

So I went to my cousin’s wedding this weekend. Turns out I don’t like weddings all that much. I should clarify: traditional weddings. Formal affairs with lots of things done for no reason other than they have been done for years and years. Silly.

Anyway, today I was considering the reception, where I met a lot of people who may/may not be related to me. I talked to a lot of them, and forgot almost everything they said. I’m not big on small talk. Finding out what people are doing, how they are, how their mother is, just doesn’t interest me. I don’t care. So I don’t ask those questions. When people ask me, I tell them that there isn’t much happening. My answers aren’t longer than a few sentences. And its the truth. I’m not doing much this summer. But what got me thinking about this was a guy named Mike.

I think he was a friend of my cousin, but I’m not sure. Anyway, he talked to a lot of people at our table, and was really pleasant. A good guy to talk to. Why? Because he asked, and listened, and responded relevently. Simple. But everything that he was talking about falls into the category of small talk. I was thinking about how he could possibly be interested in these things in the lives of people he doesn’t even know.

I find people I don’t know facinating, but not because I don’t know what they’re doing, but because I don’t know how they think. Everyone has a different philosophy on life, and that is what I like to take from any conversation I have with someone I’m just meeting.

What prompted me to write this blog post was the biography on Mister Rogers I read last night. He did the same thing Mike did, but on a much larger scale. Mike and Mister Rogers reminded me of a lot of the principles from Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends & Influence People. If you haven’t read it, I would suggest it.

My Super Amazing Ideas

Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall
[audio:http://karneyli.com/KTTunstall/09-Suddenly%20I%20See.mp3]

So occasionally I’ll come up with these ideas that I wish were implemented in real life. The only problem is that I’m too lazy to do it. So here we go, free ideas:

Cell phones should have away messages. Push a button, record a 10 second message (“I’m at the gym”), and that will be the default voicemail until you turn it off or change it again. I figured this was a pretty obvious idea, but after running it by a few people, I guess it isn’t as obvious as I had thought.

#2
This is an idea that I started thinking about more and more as debate over Net Neutrality heated up. It is a little out there, but stay with me. I would like to see someone build a browser network that would sit on top of the existing internet. That is to say, A browser that in addition to viewing normal webpages, could also view pages located on someone’s computer (another user of this browser). “Well,” you say, “that’s just stupid – you’re just adding a worthless layer to the internet! That is exactly what the internet is.” The thing that makes this idea unique is that this browser uses bittorrent’s protocol to serve up files and information. So instead of a website having limited bandwidth, a site’s bandwidth is only limited by it’s popularity. Of course, it would still need a server (or just a computer) somewhere to serve up the original files. But as more people view that site, they can take the burden off the original machine. So I suppose this is really more of a P2P app that serves webpages, instead of a browser. Although I want to keep the idea of a browser, because it should not feel any different than using a browser. If a standard website is called (from the normal internet) this should still be able to fetch it.
(I concede that this is not perfect, and there would be some problems with server-side scripts and/or databases. I have a few ideas about how to fix that, but I’ll leave it to a smarter person than I to solve)

I don’t think either of these ideas are original, and I’m sure someone out there has thought them before, but they are currently not implemented, and extremely feasible. Take these ideas and run. I don’t want credit, I just want to use them.