Hunting for the future

4:05PM - home

Right now I'm about 36880 feet in the air, heading east on an airplane.

I'm just coming back from Burning Man, 2009... an event perhaps 4 weeks ago I didn't think I going to attend...

Despite missing my lovely sweet girlfriend cybercrunchies, my long time co-burner sensesurfer... and pretty much failing to hang out with dearest friend bluepapercup... and the usual making myself miserable looking for cuddles and not really succeeding...

I managed to have a really wonderful time!

The Vibe was really great, and there was a ton of art...

I explored a lot more and found some music camps I really enjoyed.

I was done setting up my art, Sustainable Sound Version 3 (well I decided I was done) by Monday night.
I would have been by Monday Morning but my ride was slow so I lost Saturday night.

I'm really excited to have shared my music taste with the Playa, and even though I didn't spend much time with my art, I saw people using it, and as I was breaking down a number of people thanked me for the alternative energy musical alternative.

Instead I watched many of my friends burn themselves out working, despite me warning them to give up and go see Burning Man.

But I went out, saw things, danced and explored, mostly alone, and it was good.
There were times when I was incredibly sad and lonely, but my first 3 years at BM that's how it was through most of it...

Even Last year even though Sarah was there with me I worked the WHOLE time from early access weds though Thursday before the burn at 11pm... Sucked into other people's projects and forced to abandon my own.

Somehow I didn't manage to do a few of my favorite things at Burning Man, due to chasing cuddles... but I learned a lot about not wasting my time & happiness waiting for other people.

By thursday I had given up finding someone to share BM with... which made the whole thing much less disappointing and let me really connect with Burning Man. Saturday Night, I reconnected with some of my good friends and past adventure buddies, after trying to adventure with people who had different styles/desires, and it was excellent.

I took my pilgrimage to the temple late Saturday night... it's always really emotional for me to see all the people letting go... but at the same time it's amazing and beautiful to see how much heart people put into the Temple and the tributes there...

Sunday, the temple burn was... really perfect, despite me missing the beginning due to waiting for someone (didn't I say I wasn't going to do that? oops.).

Perhaps 35,000 people still there sunday night... and you know what?

They all knew to shut their music off and pretty much be quiet... out of respect for the temple, and all that people had to let go of.

35,000 people, spontaneously quiet and respectful of each other...
Without signs... yelling... I don't even think it's in the survival guide...

Seriously Beautiful.

And the vibe at the Temple Burn somehow manages to be somber yet still joyful and hopeful... accepting the inevitable end of each of us and celebrating what we can do, as our 2 week old city starts to unravel.

I had a really great interaction with a burner called, I think "Searching"... we talked for a few about our burn and fire spinning and steel wool spinning... and not 30 seconds later a spinner lights up steel wool on the Esplanade 50 feet from us, and goes at it with steel wool...

Some people might take that as a sign from god, but for me it's proof positive that WE are in charge.
We can manifest and make it happen... it felt really good.
"Playa Magic", as they say.

After the Temple burn was more of a Party than I remember in past years... Hookahdome was pretty much last man standing... but they threw an AMAZING party with great music, topped off by a Thievery Corporation performance. Conveniently they were about a block from where I was camped (3+esp), so even though I was too tired to dance for their whole set, I got to listen as I went to sleep.

It was so good that I was dancing and crying... appreciating Black Rock City, all it's beauty and how much work was put in to make it happen.

Hard as it was to leave (and deal with the flakyness of my ride and trying to get to my Flight in SF on time today)... Coming over the Bay Bridge and seeing San Fran, I felt home again.

It's sad that there are so many people in Boston that I love, but I will never be happy here.
The scale of what I want to do is to big for a city with so many sticks up it's ass...
The mooninite adventure was like MA telling me that they don't want my creativity, cause even though all I did was put those simple LEDs up, they called me a terrorist and wanted to hurt me.

I have much bigger and more wonderful plans, and Boston just ain't the place for me to do it :/

But that's still off a year or so in the future, and I'll come visit, so don't worry too much :)
It's not like anybody aside from my loftmates and Firefly sees me anyways!

So, yeah... it really was home, despite the huge and important missing pieces...

Where people respect each other and come from all over the world to share the best they have to offer, in Black Rock City...Born of San Francisco and more and more I see the commonalities.

So yeah that's what's up with me!

Next year, I will have an Alternative Energy Art Car, which I will ride with my lovely Girlfriend and play music and lights for the Citizens of BRC and beyond.

Thank you to all from Boston who have been part of my life at BM, from my beginnings with Rob at Sublimination in IGS, Autosub and all the years in container camp...

Next year I'll move out of the "Arse of the Esplanade" to a back street, but I'll be mobile and rocking out so it doesn't matter :)

I left BRC this year very sad to go, but also somehow satisfied...

Finding some new kind of therapy where being in an undeniably awesome place helped me more clearly see the less awesome things in myself...

And hey if you don't work the whole time it's way better for you and those you love... maybe even the whole world.

Current mood: satisfied

8:20PM - lets see how many times each of you sees this

Just booked flight to SF for BM2009.

wasn't gonna go but I think I've learned a lot in the past year or so and can maybe interact with people.

should be much easier, not being part of major projects...

yup.

I've been exploring Facebook/twitter more but I'm still here... :)

10:37PM - trending up/update

Things are doing much better I think...

Starting to recover from too much stress for too long, and re-emerge socially a bit...

Apologies if you've tried to get in contact in the last weeks or month and haven't heard back, I'm starting to catch up with things now.

I keep having this tendency to take on more responsibility for things I feel are important to get done...
But I feel like I've gotten a bit better at balancing it with something like sanity.

Also a few of my loftmates are shifting about 60 feet each, and this I think will lead to massive happiness increases for everyone involved.

I've got a few major projects under way, as well as being on the Firefly Board, but I'm FINALLY learning to delegate... it's nice to have so many people I really trust around.

My Girlfriend

10:36PM - Firefly News

• I've joined the Firefly Board of Directors!

• It's happening July 2-5, 2009

• Firefly Art Grant Applications Due: Monday, May 11th, 11PM.

• fireflyartscollective.org

11:28AM - Quartet.cc - Live interactive video streaming musical robot in Austria.

Go Play with it :)

You can make balls fly through the air and make music.

Still a few bugs and incomplete bits but mostly it is working.
(feel free to post bugs in comments here or e-mail me)

w00t.

I made the live video streaming interactive with lots of help from Mindlace coercing drupal into being a bit more realtime than it is used to.

A few friends of mine made the Physical Robot.

It was in NY last year but we redid all the web/video stuff.

So that's one of the major projects not quite done but at least past stressing me out all the time :)

Oh you'll need quicktime and flash.
Firefox 2/3 on Mac and firefox 2 on windows mess up the video, I think other than that it should be ok.

Current mood: accomplished

12:30AM - Vote Zebbler, Best Visual Artist in Boston.

He's Up for Best Visual Artist in Boston!

For anyone who's seen his performances or work, you know it's pretty mind-blowing.

http://thephoenix.com/theBest/Boston/vote/VisualArtist/

Hair questions be damned!
For Great Justice!

9:05AM - Ah, nightshifted

9am about to go to sleep after working all night again... Hopefully I'll reemerge after the new year!

I hope everyone had happy Holidays!
I was sort of grumpy and had to work. Oh well!
Ttys!

1:08AM - Yay!

sanity prevails!

seemed like a lot of negative progress on gay marriage sadly,

But other than that...pretty excellent.

Hope indeed.

Awesome work to all who helped out on the campaign... A lot of people worked hard for the right reasons.

2:09AM - flash update

So I wasn't off by 8 lines of code.

Instead 8 characters (instance) on some number of lines.

Sigh.

Works out to perhaps 4 hours per character to figure it out.

Onwards!

12:28AM - about 8 lines of code (Flash/Actionscript experts?)

That's what I think I need for a major breakthrough in my project (Absolut Quartet).

Of course it's in a language I don't really know (Flash Actionscript)
So I'm not sure what the lines are or where they need to go.

I know I now have my networking code working, and 75% of the other code in the same project...

I've imported the non-network code, and it works, but I'm not sure how to get one to call the other.

So far this has taken about 2 days (including some other parts of it).

Anyways if you know flash/action script let me know.

12:29AM - Time to get to work.

As of right now, I can see my desk for the first time in a few months.
it has been covered in wires and paperwork and notes.

Now it's time to stay up all night again and try to start to catch up.

At least a bit.

WZBC is playing a great mix.

I figure if I'm never wanting to get out of bed...
I may as well sleep 6 days a week.

12:33AM - n things

Register to vote if you aren't so:
rockthevote.com perhaps.

Perhaps vote yes on 2, in MA
http://sensiblemarijuanapolicy.org/

I'm not a fan of anything that tells people what they can do to their own bodies and minds.
And there's been a lot of sketchyness with people in gov't trying to keep it off the ballot...
What's the harm in asking a question of the people?
----------

Our fridge magnets ended up saying "pain for presidency"
(after Ben, zen, and dmt all had their terms)

And we realized how close that was to "palin for presidency"
---------------

also
http://lolfed.com/

kthxbye! :)

2:05PM - Sean and Sustainable sound @ Rock for Peace at the Roxy TONIGHT..

I'm part of a benefit tonight, bringing my Sustainable Sound bike powered PA system (sustainablesound.org)

Rock 4 Peace is happening Tonight at the Roxy, to celebrate the 7th annual International Peace Day.

There will be:
a Drum circle (BYOD!),
Middle Eastern cuisine
Dance
Speakers talking about peace in the Middle East, Environmental awareness and the fight against Malaria.

This is a unique night of entertainment organized by Students 4 Peace in partnership with Headcount, Mass Power Shift and the Alliance for Middle East Peace. Rock 4 Peace will include some great local student bands, a drum circle (so bring your drum), Middle Eastern cuisine, dance and inspirational speakers talking about peace in the Middle East, Environmental awareness and the fight against Malaria.

Where: The Roxy - 279 Tremont St., Boston
When: Sep 21st - Door open @6pm, Show from 7-11pm
Who: Boston students, young professional and the entire community - 18+

The tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
Get advance tix by 4pm on Sunday online at www.students4peace.org or at the door starting at 6pm.

***Donations to help us raise money for the children of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fight against Malaria are much appreciated!!!

Check out the event on Facebook and invite your friends http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=40474871840

Hope to see some of you there!

3:17PM - Vote for Zebbler!

My dear friend and accomplice (literally!) Zebbler is up for Re-election, as it were...
He was voted the #12 VJ in the world last year...

Zebbler and I have worked on a number of cutting edge technical projects together, and he's determined to drag us to the top with him.

Not to mention that he's a true artist, able to turn emotion and concept into video in real time as a performance (his or other's) unfolds.

So!

Let's Vote Zebbler for Best VJ in the World 2008!

Last year, with all of your help, Zebbler scored number 12 on the top 20 VJ list by DJ Magazine (London). This year we can do better!

For immediate gratification, follow this link http://www.djmag.com/index.php?op=top20vj and give Zebbler a vote of your approval. It's ok to vote for just one person if you want.

Within the last few years alone, Zebbler has performed at well over 100 shows all over the continental United States. He continues to churn out visuals like a machine... a biomechanical cyborg of sorts ( http://vimeo.com/1728247 ). His recent audio-visual immersion performance at Berkeley Art Museum (CA) has paved the way for a performance at Lawrence Hall of Science (CA), Axiom Gallery (MA), Massachusetts College of Art and an invitation to perform at the Anchorage Film Festival (AK).

I hope that your vote for Zebbler will say something good about the underground culture of Boston to the world. On our part, we will try to return ten fold whatever nurturing support we got from everyone here over the year.

Please forward this email everywhere.
Thank you!

For more examples of Zebbler's art, feel free to check out some of these links:

http://www.zebbler.com
http://vimeo.com/1204279
http://vimeo.com/1546875
http://vimeo.com/1229594
http://www.youtube.com/zebbler

Please don't forget to vote @ http://www.djmag.com/index.php?op=top20vj
(you can just type in Zebbler and leave all the other slots blank if you want - it will still count)
Please follow the rules and don't vote more than once!

Thanks again!

PS - Please let us know if you would like to be included on the Zebbler Encanti public events email list.
http://www.zebblerencantiexperience.com/

12:49PM - heh

cold caller:Hi, do you do Mac repair? We're offering a service where we optimize your search placement.
Your prospective clients don't know to search for your company name, only what they are looking for...

me: well since the name of my company is Modern Mac Repair I'm already well placed.

cold caller: let me look up mac repair boston and see how we can help you!
Cold caller:where are you? I don't see you?
cold caller: Oh... you are the number 3 result on google. I guess we can't help you there.

me:I'm offering a special program where I can optimize my own search placement, and it's only going to cost you $49.95/month, are you interested?

lolcats.

He was pretty good, though, actually figured out what my company does, which most cold callers don't.

10:23PM - i can has website.

http://sustainablesound.org/

Finally made a simple site my pedal powered amplified music system, Debuted (and partially funded by) Firefly 2008.

Needs to be optimized and have more photos and video added.

Anyways, all for now.

Sustainable sound and I should be playing Rock 4 Peace this upcoming weekend, more details on that as I know.

2:25AM - Amazing technicolor dreamcoat...nearing completion

mwah hah ha.

It's awesome to have awesome friends who will make stuff for you.



I'm tired!

leaving for Burning Man in about 14 hours.
Haven't packed yet (well did the truck)

have to work in the morning :P

i can has sleep?

I think the photoblog will be back in effect for this trip:
http://seaniplog.blogspot.com/

more soon perhaps?

1:58PM - well that was fun

So in the course of about 24 hours friday/sat, I:

etched my slightly modified circuit board
Realized despite many checks I still managed to do it mirrored
etched a new circuit board

cleaned all the solder pads of toner
soldered on all the nice small surface mount components onto the board

realized I didn't have proper pcb drills, went to you do it, distracted a friend from her issues on the ride...

did some command line cross referencing to figure out how to write the images to the AVR (microcontroller)
flashed the chip

found a place where I put in an extra space
re-flashed the avr

plugged it in and now I have another working USB->DMX adapter.

Hooray!

Also figured out/tested various stuff for my coat's lights, should be pretty cool.

Boston will be the glowy-fuzzy-posse.

2:20AM - cloud computing

great idea when it works.

I think Instead I'm going to say communicating with the mothership.

sounds way cooler/funnier.

g'night

1:15AM - work and play (also work)

1. Anyone who know Mac Stuff wanna help cover for me while I'm at Burning Man? Hardware or software, onsite or off there are possibilities.... and it could continue past BM.
Let me know!


2. Transferred my first ever PC Board design to a copper board... (I've done design & sent in boards to be made, but not manufactured my own)

Gonna etch them tomorrow...Then Solder...Then Program.... and hopefully have working USB->DMX adapter sometime during the night.

Jumped right into surface mount, modded the design a bit in photoshop :)

-----
Fractal branching side projects involving the 2 arduino clones (stickduino!) I received at about the same time will wait for the moment.... Interesting how similar the hardware is, though ;)

Still need to figure out power supplies for light up coats being made for me and love by the awesomely awesome Tess... I'm pretty tempted to charge the AA NIMH cells @ 2 amps... outside of the coat, though.

uhh, yup.