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Today's forecast for gurdymonkey
Mar. 4th, 2012 09:44 amTired and sore with a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie for breakfast and a chance of chair massage this afternoon.
To elaborate, I did go into SF on Friday night to check out![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kproche's entry in the Barbot 2012 thingy. The spectral glow of LED lights led me to the proud parents of Thinbot and I got to be the first victim of the night.
The little black box on the table at lower right is a touch-screen controller which allows you to order one of several pre-programmed cocktails (or mix your own). Once ordered, Thinbot dispenses the necessary ingredients in the necessary amounts via a nifty multiple nozzle unit into your waiting cocktail glass, or in this case, plastic champagne flute. My guinea-piggery was a classic Gimlet, and the discovery that the hollow stem caused the ingredients to layer instead of mixing themselves. A stir with a plastic straw improved matters. If the guts of the thing interest you, visit K's blog. I'm not an engineer, but I thought it was kinda neat, myself.
There were other entries, of course, including a brass and wood steam-punkish elixir producer and a beautiful, bright red 50's looking butler robot. I only stayed about an hour though, as it was crowded and noisy, conditions I don't particularly enjoy. More photos can be seen here.
Got up Saturday morning with delusions of trying to go to the Oakland Library White Elephant Sale early, as it's just across the estuary. Parked on the Alameda side of the bridge, walked two blocks, saw a HUGE crowd and snarled traffic when I hit the corner and turned around. I had to be in Sebastopol by 3 for a taiko workshop anyway, so I got in the truck and decided to hit the outlets in Petaluma: the haul includes some clearance priced tops, bras and panties (my main goal!) and a pair of Bass clogs.
I drove through Sebastopol and had a leisurely tuna melt with sweet potato fries and very good coleslaw at the Henweigh Cafe and caught up on my latest issue of Smithsonian, then headed back to the south end of town to the local Buddhist Temple for a three hour workshop with Sonoma County Taiko. Some of you may recall that they played at Takeshi and Sora's Investiture last January, which is why Micah had tipped me off about the workshop and invited me to come up. Pretty good turnout and a mix of complete beginners, plus ringers (me and two of my classmates who had come up, plus a couple SCT members). In the course of the workshop we learned a piece for performance, which we did in front of an audience at the beginning of a concert in the evening. Then we got to enjoy a performance by our hosts. I made some mistakes during the performance, by which time I had a pounding headache that the Advil was not touching - the room was a wooden gymnasium, basically. Still, it was great fun and I got some nice photos of the performance.
. 
The rest of the set (huge and unretouched) is here. .
And on that note, I need to eat some breakfast and pleat my mo already.
To elaborate, I did go into SF on Friday night to check out
kproche's entry in the Barbot 2012 thingy. The spectral glow of LED lights led me to the proud parents of Thinbot and I got to be the first victim of the night.The little black box on the table at lower right is a touch-screen controller which allows you to order one of several pre-programmed cocktails (or mix your own). Once ordered, Thinbot dispenses the necessary ingredients in the necessary amounts via a nifty multiple nozzle unit into your waiting cocktail glass, or in this case, plastic champagne flute. My guinea-piggery was a classic Gimlet, and the discovery that the hollow stem caused the ingredients to layer instead of mixing themselves. A stir with a plastic straw improved matters. If the guts of the thing interest you, visit K's blog. I'm not an engineer, but I thought it was kinda neat, myself.
There were other entries, of course, including a brass and wood steam-punkish elixir producer and a beautiful, bright red 50's looking butler robot. I only stayed about an hour though, as it was crowded and noisy, conditions I don't particularly enjoy. More photos can be seen here.
Got up Saturday morning with delusions of trying to go to the Oakland Library White Elephant Sale early, as it's just across the estuary. Parked on the Alameda side of the bridge, walked two blocks, saw a HUGE crowd and snarled traffic when I hit the corner and turned around. I had to be in Sebastopol by 3 for a taiko workshop anyway, so I got in the truck and decided to hit the outlets in Petaluma: the haul includes some clearance priced tops, bras and panties (my main goal!) and a pair of Bass clogs.
I drove through Sebastopol and had a leisurely tuna melt with sweet potato fries and very good coleslaw at the Henweigh Cafe and caught up on my latest issue of Smithsonian, then headed back to the south end of town to the local Buddhist Temple for a three hour workshop with Sonoma County Taiko. Some of you may recall that they played at Takeshi and Sora's Investiture last January, which is why Micah had tipped me off about the workshop and invited me to come up. Pretty good turnout and a mix of complete beginners, plus ringers (me and two of my classmates who had come up, plus a couple SCT members). In the course of the workshop we learned a piece for performance, which we did in front of an audience at the beginning of a concert in the evening. Then we got to enjoy a performance by our hosts. I made some mistakes during the performance, by which time I had a pounding headache that the Advil was not touching - the room was a wooden gymnasium, basically. Still, it was great fun and I got some nice photos of the performance.
. The rest of the set (huge and unretouched) is here. .
And on that note, I need to eat some breakfast and pleat my mo already.
