Nerds and Nepal, a mini travelogue of two weekend fairs (blog)

Last weekend was "fair weekend" for us. Saturday we visited the Maker Faire in San Mateo for the first time, and Sunday we dragged the boys to the Himalayan Fair in Berkeley. I would love to live in the neighborhood where the Himalayan Fair took place, but I doubt I'll bother going back to Maker Faire.

Maker Faire
I had high hopes for this after looking at the web site and hearing rave reviews from more than one friend. We expected crowds and were prepared for an all-day affair, but frankly I left feeling that it had all the charm of Comdex with all the discomforts of Disneyland. That is to say, it was devilishly crowded, terribly expensive, and frequently felt as much like an extended sales pitch as a demonstration of wicked coolness.

We started the day arriving at the remote parking lot which had nearly nonexistent signage (which led to many people parking in the wrong lot and getting expensive tickets), then waiting in line 45 minutes for the shuttle bus, which took about 20 minutes to get us to the drop-off point, which was a 10 minute walk from the main gate. All this time, for the price of admission, my expectations were building. This many people must mean it was going to be truly awesome.

The Faire had some pretty awesome things. Watching the Coke & Mentos guys do their fountain was fun, but to see the three minutes of action we listened to a 20 minute lecture we could barely hear, along with 400 of our sweatiest friends. The stage was raised so almost everyone could see, but throughout the day it became apparent that if you really wanted to see a demonstration or show, you had to get there 30 minutes early (or more) and wait. With seating nearly nonexistent throughout the grounds, it gets tough not only on an old guy like me but also on teenagers.

I especially liked the life sized Mousetrap game board. Clever and quirky, and as a feat of raw ridiculousness it really raised the bar to epic heights.

I never did see a 3D printer in action, and the robot competition area was fun but chaotic (it seemed to be a VEX-like competition, but it was unclear where the teams came from). We missed but the flying drones exhibit because we got tired of waiting for it to start, and the main exhibit hall was so crowded between the booths that even if you could get close enough to see an exhibitor's stuff you were constantly jostled and pressed by people trying to get through.

Overall, had we planned it better we may have had a better experience, but for $30 a person for a day pass, and then an overpriced lunch and drinks ($3 for a bottle of water!), I don't see any point in going back next year. Or ever, really.

Waiting in line for the shuttle builds skepticism.

STILL waiting in line for the shuttle.

Go Bears! The Cal version of a solar car.

Life sized Mousetrap. Cool.

More Mousetrap. Still cool.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

Himalayan Fair
The next day was a totally different experience. We found parking in Berkeley relatively easily, walked four blocks through a cute little neighborhood to a lovely, well shaded park, to be greeted by festive music, bright colors, and free admission.

Granted, our expectations were lower than for Maker Faire, but the payoff was far greater. The beautiful day was made more beautiful by the colorful strings of prayer flags and the stream running through the park. The food was very good (though we were hoping for Nepali or Tibetan options to go with the Indian), and the people were terribly friendly. It had an air of community to it. Even in the hot, crowded booths it still seemed happy and pleasant.

The entertainment was hit or miss. One group of drumming guys who I think might have been warming up for their dance demonstration, displayed a charming lack of rhythm. And the guy pouring free tea (for a donation with all funds going to a charity) was unclear on whether he was pouring Chai (as we suspected) or Chia (as his sign said).

Gotta love parking on YOLO street.

Shady goodness, photo taken from where we sat and ate our lunch.

Sam found a cool spot to sit while Mom shopped.

Festive colors!

More festive colors!

Music on the Big Stage.

Sam, caught in a not terribly flattering candid moment, examining the posters of the Himalayan range.

Ethan doing a quick sketch while waiting for the momos to arrive.

All in all, I would return to the Himalayan Fair every year but not bother with Maker Faire again. Maybe that's because I would love to relive our wonderful week in Nepal, but I have no desire to pay for a semi-pro version of Comdex.

Wachovia tower Charlotte

Just finished a long day of meetings. I'm first on tomorrow's agenda, but it's a gorgeous night and I may have to take a walk...

Did I mention that while I am working away in my hotel room, putting together my presentation for the morning meetings, my wife & kids are attending the No Doubt concert back home, gratis, courtesy of our good friend Lola?

Yeah, I'm jealous.

SF MOMA journal art

Dos Veces

We went to a restaurant tonight called Sweet Tomatoes, a competitor to Fresh Choice. My wife returned from a visit to the restroom talking about discrimination. I visited the men's restroom to see if it existed there, too. Here's what I saw:


Yeah, the sign in English says, "Employees must wash hands." But the sign in Spanish says, "All employees must wash hands two times." The implication would be, of course, that we would rather have Mexicans handling our food than English speakers. Since the Mexicans would wash their hands twice. (Living in California, it's pretty safe to say that most Spanish-speaking restaurant workers are Mexican.)

I am wondering what possesses the restaurant to put up two different sets of requirements based on the type of language you speak. Presumably, bilingual people must wash their hands three times.

Test from my new blackberry

because I didn't have anything interesting to take a picture of at the moment

Teaching my kids to exercise their first amendment rights

Rally against prop 8

Prop H8: Because some Americans are less equal than others.

UC Berkeley

Janitor strike in San Francisco

Raccoons on Mount Diablo

Wells Fargo free hot dogs!

Imagine the pleasant surprise when I went to Wells Fargo in Bend, OR to get cash at the ATM. The evening was gorgeous--75 degrees, beautiful sky, just amazing. And there were my team mates from my company giving away free hot dogs, soda, and beer! I was so thrilled that I forgot to get cash out of the ATM.

San Francisco farmers market

Update: This picture email from my phone did not include any Verizon spam text! I don't know when they made this change or if it's an anomaly or if they heard the voice of the consumer revolt (yes, many people tell me I'm revolting). But no spam text. Life is good.

Four dollars

Yeah, yeah, $4 a gallon doesn't seem much to you Brits and other Europeans. But over here it's symbolic. (Side note: Just beyond that sign is where I witnessed a pretty bad non-injury crash yesterday. Saw it coming long before the two drivers did.)

The $4 a gallon threshold here should be noted as an historic event, however. I believe it is the moment that the rest of the American population finally will come out of their state of denial and realize that holy shit, we'd better find an alternative to gasoline, and pronto.

It was not so long ago that "experts" said things like this:

But gasoline is unlikely to top $3 per gallon absent an unexpected supply hit, such as a hurricane disrupting operations at key Gulf Coast refineries. [Houston Chronicle, September 13, 2007]

I laugh when I hear people (especially in the news) say, "... and it may not go down again."

Well, DUH.

The $4 a gallon threshold is a harbinger of ever-spiraling gasoline prices here. It is simply one more indicator that we as a nation can no longer consider ourselves better than everyone else. Our arrogance has lasted too long and turned into hubris, and it's time to acknowledge that as long as we are reliant on foreign oil for our energy, we are not truly independent. (In fact, we can never truly be independent, ever again, and the quicker we realize that our neighborhood now knows no boundaries, the better shot we have of staying in a world leadership role.)

$4 a gallon was inconceivable to all those people who proudly bought Hummers just three years ago. I laugh at the guy who wrote a local op-ed saying he was proud to drive his Hummer and emit carbons into the air as it demonstrated his invincible control over nature. Take >that<, smackhead. But I feel awful for the people truly hit hard by $4 a gallon gas. I don't care about the families with their big SUVs, oh boo hoo it costs sooo much to get Billy to ballet and Susie to rugby now. No, I feel for the people who are unable to make a living any more. The pool service people. The yard service people, including the legions of immigrants in this state who may or may not be documented. Taxi drivers, who often have to take fuel costs out of their receipts. I feel bad for the people who could not afford houses close in to our cities and so moved out to the exurbs in the late 90s and early 2000s. They already struggled, and now their mortgage rates have skyrocketed at the same time their commute has doubled in price. They were only trying to have a better home and school for their kids, and now they're unable to maintain what they could afford just three years ago. I know everyone will tell me to "get over it," but imagine where we'd be if Gore had been elected in 2000. Sure, 9/11 would have happened anyway. Gore would have smacked down the Taliban and bent all the US military might into finding bin Laden. We would not have spent a trillion dollars in Iraq. We would have had oodles of national guardsmen on hand to help rescue and rebuild the Gulf Coast. We would have poured a huge amount of the nation's vast intellectual and creative resources into alternative fuel and green technologies, because that was Gore's biggest passion. Oh, wait. Gore was elected in 2000. He just wasn't allowed to become President.

$4 a gallon represents record profits for oil companies like Shell and Chevron. $4 a gallon represents an imminent threat to our Alaskan wilderness and California coastlines. $4 a gallon points to higher prices on staple foods. $4 a gallon points to more families unable to make ends meet.

It may seem cheap to much of the world, but look at it in the context of having nearly doubled in a two year period. When our society is based on the automobile, that's a huge, and mostly hidden, part of many families' budgets.

My typical Tuesday morning.

This is one of the two crosswalks I guard on Tuesday mornings and afternoons. Beautiful, no? This is before the inattentive children and wacko drivers arrive.

When I first posted this from my phone, for some reason Verizon decided to add all this garbage about how it was sent from some service. I had to delete all that crap. How annoying.

Annoying email tack-on text. How bourgeois.

New monument to be dedicated on Sunday in SF

San Francisco day

lunch in the plaza

I am a big fan of hawks in the city. They keep the pigeon population in check. This guy was just chowing down outside the Rincon Center in San Francisco at lunchtime today.