this was an interesting weekend.
for quite a while now, i’ve been keeping tabs on most-things-tech by way of podcasts. i have heard plenty from the likes of leo laporte, robert heron, kevin rose, nick douglas, and others. i’ve seen so many pictures of events they talk about, many of them right in san francisco. last week i decided to bring things up a notch and attend some of these events. when looking for “high-brow geek parties”, as emery puts it, a great place to start is scott beale’s laughing squid.
on the list by way of our friend john, was yuri’s night, world space party. this event celebrated the first manned orbit of earth by cosmonaut yuri gagarin. think of the party as, space/science fair meets burning man. multiple DJs spinning, brief talks and presentations, robots, video projected onto the sides of nasa aircraft. this took place in a hangar at nasa ames research center in mountain view.
saturday i made my way to the de anza electronics flea market. i was shopping for vacuum tubes and other glass objects. i picked up a few incandescent bulbs and a pair of proper vacuum tubes. i did see one that i pined for. it was very large, had a very intricate circuit inside, and carried a $100 price tag. i didn’t buy it, but it inspired me to switch my focus to printing. if i can work on that and produce good prints, i can work on selling a few to further fund this project. ( boman is proud of me for this, i am maturing as a photographer.. :) )
soon after the flea market, i headed to the camera swap meet, which was sort of a non-event for me this time around. i have some new toys i need to work on, plus i didn’t see any barrel lenses of interest. i did see a nice speed graphic, which i would love to play with (and would be great to take to burning man), but i have other stuff i should finish first..
saturday night, emery, john, and i attended the one month anniversary party for justin.tv, a “lifecasting” website. i met and talked briefly with justin and his brother, scott beale, nick douglas, and some of the site followers.
sunday was a rest day. i started playing super paper mario on the wii. our friends matt and geoff piked me up later to rendezvous with ryan in mountain view, where we hung out and chatted over beer. seeing all of us sitting around with bottles of beer reminded me of my childhood: my parents sitting down with their friends mary and rita, all chatting over bottles of beer. final thought - i am more adult now than ever. i mean, i am becoming more like my parents.
this week brings cooking dinner for friends tonight, attending a vmware users group on wednesday, playing more with web two point zero stuff, and hopefully working on printing.
