Okay, on top of Maker Faire in October and the SCARE haunt the weekend after that... I may have a chance to DJ and do Flame Effects with my new, to-be-tested-this-weekend Fire Tube at... the launch party of the Alamo Drafthouse Film Festival mid September!
Maybe.
Yayyy!
For _this_ though I surely have to get my Flame Effects Operator License... and to do this I need to learn some sixty pages of regulatory goop, take a $45 test, and then get a $50 license to do the show. Ugh.
I'll have to decide if it's worth it soon.
So, my home-owner's association is being managed badly as of this spring -- at the last meeting, something happened, I'm not sure what. I'll have to go to future meetings and ... be difficult.
Anyway, the management person tasked with enforcement is either an idiot or malicious, possibly both.
We keep getting dinged by them for infractions... that aren't explained, against guidelines that are so vague as to be meaningless; it all boils down to "what Debra likes", as far as I can tell, and I've stated in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable.
With SCARE, the LoTV stuff, Maker Faire, work of course, and all of the usual activities of life -- Taiji is being frustrating, and Ballroom Dancing takes some attention, though I'm slacking on the book for that -- this HOA nonsense just put me over the edge; I feel sick, frustrated, and angry.
I yelled at the poor president on the phone today, but e-mailed an apology later... and a very detailed letter to the entire HOA board detailing why they are idiots (okay, I was more politic than that).
We've been in this house several years now, and it was just this spring that the HOA turned into assholes.
It's not that the HOA is bad, just the management person, and the CC&R is too vague to be of any use. Is this even legal? HOAs in Texas are among the worst, I find...
... so I'll either become that evil neighbor that abuses the rules right up to the very edge, we will come to an agreement and they'll fix their idiocy, or maybe it's going to mean moving. And I don't want to move. And I hope they don't want me as an active enemy...
... to write that I'm up to my eyeballs in Silona's projects for League of Technical Voters, via the We Are All Actors 2007 event, which is spawning the Illuminated Federal Budget project (ne' Transparent Federal Budget).
::whew::
And this day job thing is really cutting into my project times.
Goodness, has it been a month since I've posted? It's not that I've been slacking, but I've been busy... though not with much that is newsworthy.
My Make debut will still be the Halloween Issue (highlighted on the front page of simreal), but is two articles and not three (one is being held over for NEXT Halloween. Also, my BoomStick project should appear in Make 12, the next issue! PLUS I will have an article in Craft 6 or 7 (I'm not sure yet). The final article isn't due until Mid October, so it won't ship until.. who knows? Make 13? 14?
It's interesting -- the Craft people seem to be more organized and "official" than the Make folks; contracts and stuff even. Wacky. I guess knitters are a meticulous bunch?
As for OTHER work... I have all the parts for the final build of a Dancing Fire Tube (ne' Ruben's), one of two. I have most of the parts for the second one, too. I do need to order giant propane tanks, and probably a manifold to split the output...
This new Fire Tube will be at the September Dorkbot, where I will be using it to punctuate my DJ skills (which I will cobble together the night before, I'm sure).
It will _also_ be at Maker Faire (see the simreal front page!) -- where I will have a booth! Yay! I hope not to suck too much! I hope to have the fire tube, ANOTHER fire display (which Tall Matt and I and possibly Philip will poke at this weekend), a flying crank ghost, hot-glue cobwebs (and my compressor), silicon body parts, a revived Stewart (corpse in a barrel pop-up), life-casting of audience memebers (faces or hands; Smooth-On is helping sponsor this!), ummm... and stuff!
I need neat ideas for stuff to build for the SCARE haunt, that I can incorporate into the Faire. I hope to steal some walls from SCARE, too, to build up my booth. I'll find out more ... this weekend!