A meal and then clubbing with My Girls, a few inspirational quotes, and some Rube Goldberg gadgets. :o)

Went out for a meal last night with a load of staff ('My Girls') I used to work with last year, and then to a big pub, which is pretty much a night club in all but name……. the same one I went to a couple of weeks ago or so, with the bunch of staff I work with now.

It was a great night out, and we had a great laugh. They are a good bunch, and the humour is terrific when we are all together. I was in ‘Entertain’ mode, and the restaurant owner said they were all welcome back, excepting myself. He was smiling though.

(Thankyou God for a great night out.)

I got back home, and it’s silence had the usual ‘flattening’ effect. Another rare night out in the company of people with full lives, and another return alone to a quiet house. Jeees, how many times have I come back to a quiet house? Still, at least I don’t have to put up with someone else’s shit I guess. Some would gladly swap places with me in a heartbeat, eh? :o)

(Thankyou God I don’t have to put up with someone else’s shit!) :o)

Had a bad night………. bad dreams which kept me wakening up through the night. Stood outside for a while pondering on it all, and calling for Lomax, as I do every time I happen to get up at night. Made a cuppa, had a read, and back to sleep at four-ish. Slept on and off then until nine.

Exciting life, innit? :oI

(Thankyou God for waking to another day)

This blog isn’t kicking off today……… no inspiration.

Give up for today, eh? Sometimes you’ve just got to let it go.

Instead,……….. here’s some quotes I found whilst browsing around the ‘net this morning. I just might inspire someone else today. :o)

"I never knew I was going to get to the result until I got there." -- Pablo Pardo

"The perfect state of creative bliss is having power (you are 50) and knowing nothing (you are 9). This assures an interesting and successful outcome."
-- Tibor Kalman

The good news is that you can become more innovative just by taking some action, however small, today. My favorite book on this subject is The Knowing-Doing Gap. In one section of the book, 49ers coach Steve Mariucci explains how he stamps out inaction by not sporting a watch:
"Always know what time it is. It is always NOW. And NOW is when you should do it."

"The best measure of a blog is not how many people it reaches, it’s how much it changes what you do. Changes your posture, your writing, your transparency, your humility. What blogging has done for me is made me think. I get to think about how the outside world will understand something I’m trying to do, for example."- Seth Godin

Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found
-Emily Dickinson

................ And here's some U-Tube links:-

This wooden marble 'adding machine' would be fun to make........... maybe a lot bigger with more adding slots to calculate a far bigger number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcDshWmhF4A&feature=channel

Here's a link to a music machine........... whether you think it sounds good or not is immaterial really.............. just think of the work to put it together, eh????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Ajg1G3vik

That got me looking at Automata........... something that's always fascinated me, and which I'd love to get around to making someday. I'd love to make something that is complicated, and goes all around the woods to do bugger-all in the end.

I love the setups where, like a row of falling dominoes, a whole series of events results in something trivial happening at the end. There's a name for these chain- reaction mechanisms but it escapes me right now.............

Ah, yes............ Rube Goldberg Mechanisms.

There's several on U-Tube........... Honda did one, which was an advert called "Cog", and was quite brilliant in itself, using nothing but Honda car parts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYabfifhEPE

The best one though is absolutely fantastic, called 'The way Things Go'. It used many more spectacular chain reactions, fire and fireworks being amongst them, and although it's a little more amateurish and less 'slick' than the Honda one, it's actually far better, at over a hundred feet long, and lasting for 30 minutes in the full version

Here's a U-Tube link to a shorter version...........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82eWptFxSs

There's bloke called Theo Jansen who designs and builds the fantastic Strandbeests:-

"Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life.
Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat.
Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives."

have a look at his website........... fascinating, it really is. No electronics whatsoever, which means absolutely no computers of any size at all.

here's a link to them working.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_eY22R0TWE&NR=1

........... and here's a U-Tube link to a lecture of his..........

http://www.strandbeest.com/

There's a BMW advert on the end, and a bit at the beginning, but ignore that. I guess he needs sponsorship, and I won't knock this absolutely genius guy for that! :o)

Ok, y’all have a good day out there,…. well, what’s left of it anyway .............. it's pretty much over here, as it's just gone 5.30pm.

Another day without Lomax bites the dust. I sure hope he's ok, wherever he is. :o(

K.