19 September 2012

A Smashing Success!

So as those of you in the Cleveland area know (and those others of you who ignored the instructions in the previous post) this past weekend we had our Salon and boy was it a success. In fact even the first night blew away our expectations. Right from the start we had a full crowd and tonnes of constructive conversation. It's something we will definitely be bringing back next year, if not sooner. The best part of all was that we had almost no issues with keeping it civil. Not everyone agreed all the time, but everyone was there with the same goal in mind so that helped.

In the next couple weeks we're going to take a step back and digest what happened, what worked, what didn't and figure out what the next steps are. In the mean time if you want to continue the conversation head on over to The Civic Commons and keep it going.

Special thanks go out to Mark from The Cleveland Hostel for providing us with some awesome wooden chairs that fit the mood just right, my mother, Emily Lucas, for letting us have her old couch and my brother, Brendan Lucas for helping us move it to and from and last, Peter Paras for covering our floors and Don Pavlish for providing us with a much needed sound system.

Don't worry, we're going somewhere with this. There's still plenty left to do.





We now return you to your regularly scheduled uncertainty.

09 September 2012

Shameless Plug

Those of you not in the Cleveland area can feel free to stop reading at the beginning of this sentence.

Those of you who ARE in the Cleveland area are hereby compelled to continue reading.

As some of you already know I have been working on a project with Andrew Samtoy (of Cash Mob and Booker fame). With him covering the logistical aspects and I the technical ones we have put together what we have dubbed The Cleveland Salon at this years Ingenuity Fest. It's three days of discussion leaders well versed on their individual subjects leading discussions and actually talking WITH people about everything from development and planning of the Cleveland area and how to inspire new leaders all the way to alternative sexualities and robots.

So get yourself down to Pier 30 & 32 (down by the Browns stadium and Science Center for those who don't know). We'll be in the Pier 32 warehouse. Along with all the other interesting activities at this year's festival it promises to be a fantastic weekend.




If we're ingenious enough perhaps there is hope?

06 September 2012

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE!

Okay, here's the deal. I need help identifying a couple things that I remember from childhood but I cannot remember their titles at all. Ten points and muffin to whoever can help me identify one or more of the following:

The first one is a book. No idea title or author or we wouldn't be in this mess, of course. I can't even properly recall when I may have read this book or if it was read to me. I am almost certain it was on a summer reading list of some sort. Anyway, from what I recall the book starts off with a boy who gets injured falling out of a tree or onto a rock, or both. All of a sudden he begins to shrink. The doctor says he injured a specific organ or gland that's making him grow backwards. He's not unmaturing, he's just shrinking. I don't really remember what prompts the next bit but he makes friends with a bird and his father or someone builds a little cockpit so he can ride the bird on some quest that he has to go on. He has a little sword that has a drop of poison or knock out juice or something in it and flies on this bird to some citadel or tower or house along the coast I think. There he infiltrates the building and obtains whatever it is he was there to obtain but not before stabbing the person there in the wrist with his tiny knockout sword. That's pretty much all I remember of that one.

The second item on the list is a TV show. A cartoon to be specific. I was reminded of it while watching a Thunderbirds clip on the interwebs. This particular cartoon was a lot like Thunderbirds in the sense that it had multiple ships and stuff. There was a blue rocket ship and some sort of space plan ship and a crawler type ship. I think there were four or five ships. But they all connected together to form mega ship or something. They would go off and rescue people in space who needed rescuing. In the only episode I remember they fly off to rendezvous with some sort of space freighter or space liner because it's power core is about to explode and they have to cut out the power core before it does that. I remember more about the video store where I rented the VHS (oh man remember video stores?!) than I do about the show.

So there you have it. I've tried to search the interwebs for it but can't seem to find anything of either.

05 September 2012

...Too Quiet

So things have been quiet for a while...too quiet.

Perhaps that means there is something epic in the works? Unlikely. Or is it?!

No, let's call it what it is: lazy. But even that's not it. It's not that I've been lazy. I've been distracted. There have already been several occasions where I've sat down to start writing something and then get distracted by something else. Only this tends to happen all the time. Or I sit there and stare at a blank page and wonder what to write. And then just start to type. Much like I've done here. Just rambling, searching for a topic, trying to avoid stupid, annoying, topics like politics. Which is even more difficult and annoying what with both parties having their conventions. Big parties that only make them both look stupider as they chant about how "we're better than the other party because of what we stand for and screw them we're not going to work with them on anything ever. Also screw the rest of America because we only care about ourselves." Dammit, here I go. Seriously though. As many opinions as I have on how much the politics of today is so beyond anything that we've ever seen in this country that's not what I want to turn this into.

Rather I would like to turn this to be a forum for the discussion of random topics. Topics such as the merits of various types of cheese and recipes for meat pie. Oddly enough in an effort to research various recipes of meat pies I found myself intensely desiring a steak and kidney pie. I might have to venture to the market one of these days and obtain some stake and kidneys and put them in a pie and eat it. I don't think I've ever had steak and kidney pie, but I feel as if it's something I will enjoy. Also beef heart. I've heard delicious, delicious things about beef heart. Though I imagine it's one of those things you have to be careful not to overcook or you'd end up better off munching on a shoe.

The quest continues for an engineering job. I could bore you more with how job searching is never awesome. But I won't. Rather I'll just say that the quest continues. Like I already did. Though I will add that I've started grad school. So far just a single class at CSU, but the hope is to maintain the appearance of relevance. It's actually fun. I finished my first homework assignment in five years the other day and that felt pretty awesome too. At the very least I'll (hopefully) be able to show academic improvement if/when I reapply to the Air Force in February, which I'm told is the next non-rated bored I'll be eligible for.

Actually you know what's been pissing me off recently? This damn layout/color scheme/etc. I don't like it. But I don't know what to do about it. And I don't know how to pick a font. Seriously. I think I'm worse at picking out fonts then I am at picking out ties. And I have a hard time with ties. I realized Sunday getting dressed that I need a greater assortment of colors/patterns of ties to go with a greater assortment of shirts. Also I need more shirts. I'd really like to sit down and learn how to actually code a website, but it's been so long since I've even tried any of that I wouldn't know where to start. MySQL databases and pearl and crap like that that I've only heard other people talk about. Not sure I'll have any time this year so I'll have to stick to web tools and app things. But then again, with all the web tools and app stuff available these days is it even necessary to learn how to do the base stuff? I guess it depends on what you want to do. So I suppose I should figure that out first.

I need to get back into working out. I feel that will solve a lot of blah that I'm feeling right now. Actually school's helped with that because now I'm forced to study either for school or for the GRE which I'm taking wicked soon. Either way activity is probably a good thing. Though I do bike to class because parking around CSU (as it is in any city) is terrible. I actually was late to the first day of class and was about two minutes from giving up and trying again next semester when I finally came across a spot. Well, I probably would have just gone to the next class, but it was super annoying as I had gotten down there about 30 minutes early so I would have time. Now I bike.

So that's it. I'm done. This was officially the worst blog post I've posted thus far. You really should not have read it. Seriously. Go back an unread it. It's mindless dribble. And it's still going! You're still reading this! I know you are because you just read this! Seriously! Stop!

///END///





If it were just that we ended up mindless, would it even matter? How would we know to care?