Entries this day: Marble_track Ultimate paige_pole_to_pole!

Marble track

11:59am JST Sunday 14 January 2007 (day 13444)

Thanks to Jesse's camera, I was able to get some pics of Marble Track 2. I'm working on another zig zag for big marbles that will basically mirror the one that has been installed for a while. I've been stuck in the detail of getting the switch to work. It's been far more finicky than I'd like, but it seems that it's come to a point that will work. There is a stabilizer on each end of its rotation, and, most importantly, the bottom actually switch part seems to work.

If I can knock out the rest of the switch soon (need to make one more gate (on the top) to toggle the switch and allow the ball to go through, then there will just be one more super-difficult part to do.

I've got to gently lower the large marbles about 3 or 4cm and 3 or 4cm horizontally onto a track with basically no side rails, and no room to build any. So I've got a scoop-thing under construction that will rotate down (and a counterweight on back to make it "slow" (I wonder how slow it can realistically go)), release the big marble on its track, and then lift back out of the way so the small marbles can go by on the adjacent track.

I'm thinking of what to use as the counterweight. Perhaps I can lift an entire section of track, and allow small marbles to be triggered into action from a stopping point, perhaps a couple at a time, that will go down different tracks.

Students' most common question is on the lines of "do you have some sort of blueprints for this?" and most of them cannot fathom creating something 'freestyle' like this. I basically say there is no blueprint as in a master plan, but I do have these varied short term visions of what it could do, but they're quite vague, and change on a whim.

I just "decide where I want the marble to go, and then figure out how to make it go there." Bonus points for cramming tracks in small places, and for gentle descents.

Ultimate

3:00am JST Monday 15 January 2007 (day 13445)

Dang. I didn't write about ultimate today, nor even vlog about it or nothing. AND I forgot to record video of us while we played. Fun times; I covered Jason most of the time because he's often funny in his varied commentary during the game. It was a bit chilly, but I still played barefootedly. Until the sun went down, the weather was quite acceptable for me in shorts and t-shirt, but once it went below a cloud that reached the horizon, I was like, "the sun's gone so I gotta go!"

"What, are you a vampire?"

A reverse vampire, but yes, maybe so.

paige pole to pole!

2:59am JST Monday 15 January 2007 (day 13445)

 small steps to massive change  
		
It appears that procrastination is a key point where my warrior does not show up.  This happens when it's time to

1) meditate
2) work on anything without a deadline, or with a far-away deadline
3) get ready for bed
4) write updates to you

#1 and #3 above just fell out of my fingers now; I hadn't thought of them before.


I have just gotten a huge trigger of desire for something that has nearly disabled my ability to think.
http://www.poletopoleleadership.com/site/TR?px=1011082&pg=personal&fr_id=1030
The woman pictured had already been around the world 3 times with Peace Boat when I met her.  She's tall and beautiful, and super friendly.
She's been working for the UN in Amman, Jordan, and *now* I just got an email that she's involved with this thing called Pole To Pole, which looks amazing

and the maximum age is 28!

Fuck!

This means a couple of things:
1) she's basically younger than my minimum age for dating (this may give an indication of how well I know her)
2) I'm too old to join Pole To Pole
3) I should have already been doing this kinda stuff 10 years ago!  15 years ago!

argh


---

The subject of this email is a tagline on the PTP site  "Small steps to massive change"

That tagline helped bring me back to reality to the point I was able to write this email to you.

but seriously, I'm nearly mentally disabled to the point of I don't know what.

I'm going to sit meditatively for a few minutes and then go to bed.  (it's 2:55am as I write this)

    - Rob