Well, I did my first public performance of the new Fire Tube last night, at the Alamo Drafthouse South. For those not local, the Alamo is the best theater EVAR here in Austin; dinner, beer, and a movie! And comfy seats! And quiet, respectful audiences!
This was the opening party and first movies of their Fantastic Film Festival, and featured actors, directors, George Romero, all kinds of fun.
Not that I saw any of it; I was outside trying to burn the place down.
At least, that's what one patron thought. Apparently, someone contacted a manager, all concerned and worried, but did not receive enough hand-holding and/or ass-kissing from said manager... so they took it upon themselves to call the fire department.
That was fun.
And, I'm telling you, I don't know how they found a fireman tall enough too loom over me while asking me pertinent questions. I was not terribly amused, but "yes sir"'ed my way through it all and was left with one more good idea to improve my safety setup, and relief at not being shut down. I was inspected by a fire person and passed! Mostly. He even called me "son" once as I started thinking on a tangent about my wimpy fire extinguisher, as in "are you listening to me, son?".
So he got into his big flashing truck and, as I was about to return to making pretty fire for my adoring public (many of whom had cameras, yay!)... he got out again to leave me with that one good idea... a propane detector near the display.
There was extra concern from him, apparently, because there was a propane explosion just last week out of a beer truck. However, I run out in the open, lots of ventilation, very little chance of buildup, even if I did have a leak. But I'll add that detector anyway, because I said I would... and because it wouldn't hurt to have it in the garage anyway.
Anyway, back to the fire.
Ryan's and Seth's custom songs (oh, I got some good friends to write music for the fire tube) did wonderful and beautiful things with the flame. And I found a number of really really good commercial songs that danced the flame too!
I have a test video I'll put on streaming on simreal soon, and I'll have to make a nice long video later of the final custom tunes and stuff.
Now, on to the colored fire column...
... and burnt body parts! Lots to do this weekend, corpses to make, fingers to cast, metal to weld.
Fun!
Ran the new fire tubes at Dorkbot last night -- they worked very well!
Paul was experimenting with propane flow; less flow gives a better effect; more responsive. I want max flow ultimately, so I may need to enlarge the holes to reduce back-pressure in the tubes.
Or... more powerful speakers.
The holes are easier.
A couple of cell-phone snaps on Flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/1380733274/
http://flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/1380733266/
More pics and, ultimately, video, will appear on simreal eventually.
I like Big Machines. Giant, steel, complex, durable, powerful machines.
It's great when there is construction going on near a stoplight -- I'll sit there in my little truck and stare at the machines, only to pull ahead with a sigh when the light turns green again.
In a similar vein, I like working in metal. It's soothing (except when it's lacerating my fingers, or burning holes in my skin, or something). There's something to be said for projects where it's an appropriate response to BEAT IT WITH A HAMMER when something goes wrong.
Oh yeah.
In software development, my opportunities to hit things with hammers are severely limited.
Came home just now and wandered into the garage to feed the spare cat (his food had run critically low today) only to find four raccoons (that I saw!) milling around his food place.
Little juvenile raccoons! SOOOO CUUUUUTE! And disappointed, because, well, the food was empty.
Sparky made some pitiable meowing noises from his sleeping box high on the shelf and eventually made a showing, but wasn't interested in eating any dry food at the front porch. Mostly, he wanted the intruders to leave.
Now I have to go see if they've LEFT yet.
Cute!
And hungry. Not really good guests in the garage.
I was in my driveway welding little supports to my truck's headache rack (after unbending it, so it would stay unbent; so I could buy 100# of propane, yay!) when some guy wandered in and asked about the neighborhood and stuff. Nice guy, thinking of buying the house across the street. But he said something that just struck me as... mad.
"Yeah, I mostly sit around the house on the weekend, I'm almost 50, there's not much I can do."
Ummm. No?
And... today, preparing to put some holes into some 4" EMT elbows (yay!) I moved one and thought, "dang, there's a bit of raccoon poo. Ewwww, what's that smell?"
Then I noticed the icky spot was wiggling... and then I noticed the dead rodent stuck to the bottom of my tube. Ewww. It was very dead, in the sense that it had re-achieved life... of a sort. Eww.
Threw it away, before the maggots could escape too far, and tidied up, used some isopropyl to clean the area, all while Sparky, the instigator of this little scene, meowed curiously at me. "Whatcha doin? I wondered where that went! That's still good. Whatcha doin?"
Eww.