In the same week, I gave the same amount to support Red Cross efforts in the Philippines and a 3D printer for a school.
The future is bright, even in the midst of disaster or education funding shortfalls.
In the same week, I gave the same amount to support Red Cross efforts in the Philippines and a 3D printer for a school.
The future is bright, even in the midst of disaster or education funding shortfalls.
A special nod to those who are providing assistance for the storm-ravaged country of the Philippines. Any support you can provide — financial, logistical, etc. — would go a long way toward binding our global population together in ways that make sense.
While bouncing around in my laboratory/playground, I sometimes forget about the larger goal of Moon/Mars settlement, a mere 13,325 days/sols to go.
We are making a lot of progress in that area and, for my colleagues, I thank you — planet Earth — for providing us the resources and means to make intentional space exploration possible.
After all, waiting around for a large comet to hit our celestial sphere and send chunks out of Earth’s gravitational field is beyond virtuous patience.
Let us give praise to those who focus on the longterm, putting aside the daily distractions that wish to make mountains out of political footballs.
We maintain more than one storyline, a few that give hope to the destitute and desperate, a few that produce more wealth for the wealthy, all in the plans to spread life-as-we-know-it as soon as viably possible, rather than as soon as feasibly feeble.
Now, back to the story subplot currently in progress…the development of robots by a small group of hackers thinking inside and outside of Pandora’s Box.
…or did she love me with torture?
Yeah, it’s that recurring theme again — the love of mine for a woman I’d spend more time with if I could afford the torture.
Afford?
Oh, indeed.
Today, I sat through several hours of people up on a dais dazzling me in a daze about their love and passion for philanthropy.
The only factor that kept me awake and alert during their entertainment of financial advisors, their clients and nonprofit organization representatives, other than seeing some familiar faces, was knowing that my reward for creating a derriere falling fast asleep would be getting Abi’s hands, wrists and elbows on me.
And boy, did she ever!
I’ve never been one of those sadomasochists who gets a certain thrill from pain.
Well…I mean, sure, I do get a certain thrill from pain but…is it getting hot in here?
Where was I?
Seriously, with my body supine and then prone, either way, Abi worked her magic on me.
That beautiful woman has a spell on me that I can’t describe.
I’m just glad she’s still in love with her man and I’ve got a steady woman of my own.
Otherwise…growl!
She is the only woman, and I mean the only one, not even my wife, who I would let touch me the way she does, working on knots in my back, neck and chest muscles that almost make this grown man cry.
I still don’t know if I’ve experienced the level of pain I’ve endured under the careful, delicate surgical procedure of Abi’s massage work.
I don’t know if I want to ever again.
Yet, somehow, I go back for more, letting the special love of my life have her way with me.
In those moments, alone on the massage table, my thoughts adrift on puffy clouds in a blue sky, just her and me in her flat, a crime drama on the tellie, her elbowing me while texting with clients for upcoming weekend massages at dance competitions, I ask myself how special is our love.
She doesn’t let me drive my elbows into her back or twist my fingers into her biceps.
She knows I love her even if I hate her when she’s sending me into Dante’s deepest levels of hellish pain.
For her, I would hunt animals, killing for meat bare-handed.
She has opened up my body for new experiences, giving me the happiness and courage I sought to feel confident on the dance floor, adding Jessica to the list of new dance wives.
Jenn, Abi, Jessica…and, of course, my wife…and Kelly…the list of fun dance partners grows. Is Naomi next? And, after her, who will look me in the eyes and want to have fun like there never was any fun before?
I was distracted most of the day today from work on the desktop robotic art sculpture that serves as a scale model for a yard art sculpture piece I’ve been slowly working on between daydreaming about the imaginary life this set of states of energy has convinced itself is real.
I returned this evening to program four LEDs and some sensors after working out the design details on dancing mannequins.
Abi, I’ll miss you desperately while you’re physically out of my life for the next two weeks. You torture me in so many ways I’ve got to add sadomasochist to the list of adjectives in front of my name, or does the acronym S&M get added afterward like “Esq,” “PhD” or “MD”?
Thank goodness, there’s Jenn still teaching dance lessons. And Naomi. And maybe even Jessica.
Jenn the mechanical/rocket propulsion engineer inspired me to create a robot. Abi the creative/artistic dance instructor/massage therapist inspired me to create robotic dancing mannequins. My wife the rocket test engineer inspired me to create dancing snake charmers. Naomi the hair stylist inspired me to colour my hair and let loose on the dance floor. Jessica has inspired me to have chaotic fun while remembering to dance the West Coast Swing style. And now Kelly has inspired me to see that not only can a person be a fiduciary advisor by day but dance “Sexual Healing” with a financial client at night and say it was good fun!
Thanks to the folks at Baron Bluff for hosting the philanthropy summit today; The Ledges for hosting Fred Lanier of JP Morgan who gave an economic seminar tonight on wealth management; Mandy at Club Rush.
I was happy to see the core group of Rocket Westies work out organizational problems tonight — without you guys, I wouldn’t be here right now.
And Jessica, darling, I’ll miss you, too, while you’re gone.
Now, time for some shuteye — I’m already a day behind on my coding but we’re a day ahead on our dancing mannequin design schedule!
So, today I’ve spent several hours with the design team deciding what we want our dancing mannequins to be.
I’ll get to that in a minute or two.
Meanwhile, I’ve been uncrating and sorting the parts for the Arduino kit, starting to wire up the PIR/ultrasonic sensor array for controlling the dancing mannequins.
Wired up everything just fine.
Wrote some code in the Arduino programming environment and compiled just fine.
One small problem — couldn’t program the Arduino Uno.
Enter the duh factor — I had chosen the wrong COM port.
Sometimes the simplest details will stop progress.
Thanks to the dude N. Fletch, the problem, avrdude stk500_getsync(): not in sync resp=0x30 error for Arduino Uno, was fixed!
A shoutout to RobotGrrl, Michael Overstreet and others at the Robot Hacks community for their help and encouragement!
And the estimated cost for this DIY 3D-printed robot at home…? The body itself is relatively inexpensive — one to three spools. Total cost goal for the “standard” Jimmy is around $500, less than $1000.
Right, guys?
Sure!
Levels of personalisation include the simple (such as voice) to the more complex (number of servos/sensors) but the idea for the design team is to build other models that scale up with specific features.
Great news!:
Subject: Robot Hacks – your package is on its way to you….
Thanks for signing up as a participating team in the Robot Hacks Maker Session. We are pleased to inform you that a package of MAKE materials, components and parts has been shipped out to you and if you have not already received it, you should be receiving it any day now.
We kick off this series with a Google + Hangout on Air live from Olin College with Brian David Johnson, and more Maker Masters this Sunday, November 3rd, 2013 (from noon – 3pm ET). We’ll be discussing his vision of the 21st Century Robot and talking to the makers behind Jimmy the Robot, and more… We are also encouraging teams to get involved and create their own open source robots – and have set aside kits for teams that would like to get involved.
An overview on Maker Sessions, Robot Hacks can be found here: http://makezine.com/robot-hacks/
If you would like to check it out online, Sunday, 11/3 from 1pm-2pm ET, please join us here: http://bit.ly/19THpub
And, be sure to sign up to become a part of the Make Robot Hacks community, by signing in here: http://bit.ly/robothacks This is the perfect forum to ask questions, follow other #RobotHacks makers and post photos of your progress. We will be hanging out here throughout this program.
The twitter hashtag for this program is #robothacks — share your progress via twitter!
Thanks in advance for being part of this program! We very much appreciate your support.
Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Sherry
@make #robothacks