My First Maker Faire: Maker Faire 2009 (it was awesome)

I’ve read about Maker Faire for years.

Most of the art, projects, crafts and surrounding mix of disparate nerd/geek/counter culture is inspiring.

This being my first year living in the Bay-ness, I decided to attend.

Aside from my inability to wake  up early enough to see 10-2 (sat) or 10-3  (sun), it was perfect.

I spent 6 hours there on Saturday and convinced my housemate, Katie, to come for day two and we spent 3 hours at the expo center Sunday.

She and I both LOVED the whole thing.

We also found a cheap, cool, local, southern Indian vegetarian restaurant about 5 blocks from the Expo Center, Annapoorna.

The service was wonderful and the food was inexpensive.

We got two entrees and could have shared one as large as the portions were.

Photos and Video of Maker Faire below!

Click here for full flickr set

Tesla Coils

Life-size mousetrap




Human/self-powered midway rides.

Moss kirin


And more Bikes

Steampunk!

Things that shoot fire.

The gigantic mechanical hand.

Kinetic Sculptures

Colored Kinetic Fluid as a dress

Nice to be a place people WANT to visit

My friend Meg was in town as a chaperone for teenagers on a trip.

She got some time away on Thur and we ate a little dinner (and my leftovers leaked a little all over stuff)

Then we went to the Tonga Room.

It is a neat place, but the service was horrible (messed up a Jameson neat twice).

Luckily the company made up for the service.

Meg and Nate

At the Tonga Room

Bayto Breakers 2009: walking zombies.

I went to my first Bay to Breakers yesterday and it was super fun!

Here are some photos of me and my friends Sara and Travis as zombies.

zombie Travis on the phone

sara will eat your brains!

Zombie Zebtron

Hey that cozy is empty, get that bloody zombie a beer

Keenan wearing stuffed animal pants travis made for burning man

Random people walking

People dancing on the port-a-lets under the bridge.

and on the ground under the bridge

Click the panoramic image below to see a way better, larger version.

Zombies and french maids sit down for some food at the beach
(click it for a way cooler larger version)

‘Everything That Happens Will Happen Today’: I almost forgot about this album

Just bought the 2008 collaboration album from Brian Eno and David Byrne “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.”.

I got the vinyl/MP3 package and I’m digging the digi-ness while waiting for my 180gram vinyl.

There is a really cool deluxe package, but it is $70 (but damn cool).

Now I need to find someone(s) to go to the Show at the Greek Theatre (U.C. Berkeley)
Fri, Jun 26, 2009 08:00 PM

You can stream the album here

My cheap Vizio 22″ 1080p HDTV/monitor is a liar!

I bought this thing at Costco and it was pretty cheap.

It is freaks out when I plug devices into my PC.

And now it puts a message on the screen saying the VGA signal isn’t sending a signal.

It shows this message over top of the signal from the VGA input.

I found it mildly amusing.

My first (live) MLS match (was fun)

Due to [a cold/allergies] I’ve not been feeling super hot the last couple days, but despite a bit of a lack of energy I ended up going to see an MLS game.

The match between the San Jose Earthquakes and the LA Galaxy was at Oakland Coliseum.
(click any image for a larger view)

Matt on left Mike right

We got there 10 min after start and bought 3 tickets.

We missed only the first 15 minutes.

Other than watching a few of the World Cup matches a few years ago after just getting my first HDTV, I really don’t spend much time thinking about soccer.

And there were fireworks too

The match, despite being a tie, was fun.

Here are all my photos from the match.

San Jose Earthquakes vs LA Galaxy 04.18.2009 clip from zebtron on Vimeo.

Tekzilla at Web 2.0 Expo in SF (LIVE-ish)

I enjoy watching Tekzilla.

Patrick and Veronica bring a really good balance of use scenarios and personal perspective to things I find important.

Yesterday I say a tweet from Revision3 about a live recording for Tekzilla at the Web 2.0 Expo in SF.

Being a new bay area resident and a long-time fan of Revision3 content, I signed up and got my Exhibition Hall pass for the Expo.

I started following the Expo on twitter (@w2e) and was jazzed for the Rev3 meetup afterward.

I bik/BART/walk(ed) over to the Marcone center from Oakland and got my pass.

After wandering around on the floor of the exhibition hall, I walked outside and realized the show recording was up on the 3rd floor.

Waited in line for a 30 or so minutes and went inside.

The weird thing before and after finding a seat was that I recognized (and therefore thought i ‘knew’) the people from Revision3.
This was not limited to the show hosts, but also extended to interns, and company founders.

People I “feel” I “know” because I’ve seen them on my TV or computer.
That part was a bit weird, I guess like someone meeting a person they had read about in People magazine

The show recording was fun.

I think I would have clapped more if I knew a time to do so.
Sadly this makes me understand APPLAUSE signs a bit more.
Show content was expecially cool, including an interview with @ev of twitter.

The Meetup afterward was really fun.

Patrick knows his stuff and I enjoyed listening to him talk off camera.

He deserves everything he has as an “on-air” personality.

He knows the low-level details of what he is talking about and does a great job boiling down for online video consumption.

Please watch the show (next week?) to get some details about SSD use.

He has pretty well informed information and does a great job of extracting the key details (from as he put it a ‘10 page paper’).

I briefly intorduced myself to Veronica and saw Molly Wood.’
Overall, it was GREAT to get to see and thank some of the people who make compelling digital ocontent that I continue to consume.

Do some more!

Here are all the pics.

03.11.2009 Video from Artesa in Napa

Outside

Inside

03.12.2009 Video from CA Academy of Sciences

Retox video from 03.08.2009

RETOX LOUNGE 03.08.2009