The EastBay WestBay Boys

Had a rare back to back last night and the night before.
Doesn't happen much anymore.  Difficult herding the two WestBay boys together long enough to play some music with them.  We talk a big game about getting together but for the most part it's just that.  Talk, not sing and not play.

Thursday night was at the Vice Room with the EastBay'ers, Friday night was at the kitchen of Carroll in SF.

We like to play in near darkness apparently so I'll show you that.

Jules, his banjo and Mike on the wall.

Here's Tony talking to SIRI.  He had just invented a new cocktail and was telling SIRI to write it down for him before forgetting it.

We were told in photo school, "If you can't make it good, make it big."  What that means is you can take a ordinary shot and blow it up real big, it becomes 'gooder' somehow. 
Well, I can't even do that.  Meghan played with us on Thursday night as well but damn, I don't even have one photo of her I can make big, so like they also told us in photo school, "Don't show something that you have to apologize for."
So, you'll have to imagine Meghan with her violin and bangs and the ways she stands with one bent leg.

Last night.  In the WestBay, SF.

First lots of talking.

Then lots of tuning.

Then a tiny bit of music.

Then a race to Bart to catch the last train to Oakland.

Redirect to a Religous Experience

This place isn't the right place for this.  So like looking at a reflective surface, I'm a bouncing you to a place that better allows the story to unfold and to be told.

Jesse James and his experience in Death Valley.

Outgrowth

Me, this morning reflected in a bottle of Rosé Champagne I was photographing.
Last night, now that was so different then this morning.

Next door neighbor, Crystal used the studio to record and video one of her original pieces of music.  Nine piece orchestra.  Crystal plays the cello.

Mark, her husband setting up the mics, Crystal warming up.

 The rest of the players start to arrive.

Tuning and Mark still fiddling with the mics

Crystal had done some changes from the last time the group had played it.  They nuance out the differences.

Conductor asked how she wanted a particular part to be played, Crystal says "Like a slingshot to the Universe."

Checking sound levels before the audience is allowed in.

And of course, my camera gets put away since it gets in the way of listening so the last one of the evening is after final claps and the conductor wants a group shot.

I'll admit I'm not up to speed on classical music.  I just don't understand the math behind I guess but wow, last night I got it.  The opening violin parts were so fraught with impending failure I found myself clenching my fists until they were out of danger when the thicker string instruments came in to strengthen their resolve.  Gorgeous, lush, resonant without the razorness of other more live sound spaces.  Like the conductor said, it was the space between the notes that sounded so good in here.

"I'm not making 300 of anything"

So, I'm making 300 round aluminum/plywood tops for a stool/table to go into new buildings.
I remember saying I wasn't going to go into production of anything quite vividly as if it were only a couple years ago. Plans move slow when you're talking about building new buildings.
But Ken and I were coming back from something in his truck when the project was first brought up.  In my head, nothing could be further from what I want to do as making 300 of the same thing.
I said no way, no how. No.
One offs.  That's what I do.
I was reading a great essay/article "The Quest for Mastery Through Production Work" by Jarrod Dahl and that changed my opinion.  I told Ken I would do it.

These are the first 64 of them.  The ply cut into squares.

 Just moments after this photo, the stack crumbles onto Damian's painting behind.  I apologized to Damian for putting rips in his not yet sold painting and he lets off the hook pretty easy.  Said no big deal to repair them.

I take a walk out to Garden Buddha to say thanks

Cement applied to the two surfaces.

Why waste cement by putting it where it doesn't need to be?
Made a circle cutting jig for the bandsaw and ran them through.

Table is angled to give a bevel to the cut.

Then like a bus driver turning the big horizontal steering wheel, the cuts are smoothed on a belt sander.  Like slowly turning right while wearing hearing protection.  Although I know next to nothing about pattern makers, I did learn a little trick from them of watching the very edge of the top surface.  When you can see it just barely starting to turn upward, you know to stop.  Creates the finest of wire edges.

The little piece of green tape on the circle tells me where to start and stop.  Without it, you're always guessing on if you've turned the bus enough to get back to the starting point.

I also gradually stepped up the sanding jig so I could access fresh parts of the sanding belt.

The cut-offs (which are often times more interesting than the main piece) are unceremoniously tossed in the back of Ken's truck.  I didn't want them and he'll rip off the aluminum and recycle it.

Bonus pic of not an industrial product.

From the General's Residence to Fitbit

photo by my brother's son Will Kirchner


 Life altering things took place overlooking the bay behind the decommissioned General's Residence in Fort Mason.  A two year life altering time leading up to the backward slow motion walk with Taylor.
I'll try and take you from there to Fitbit.
The day before the pass off was the Tribal Feast where my people from mostly East Coast met the mostly West Coast people.  Our place.
The big equipment was wheeled out the new doors.

New doors bulge in the shed's windows.

Blue body cream bottle in light circle marks the spot where the fire pit was built for the two big paellas to cook. (Thank you Henry.  Thank you Laurine.)

Pre-mixed cocktails are chosen.

My brother's son, Will decides after the wedding he should stay with us for a few weeks.

His very first shipment of his new clothing business shows up from Guatemala.

At the same time, our next door neighbor who had moved on decides to move back.

Also at the same time, I learn a lesson from NapaJon.  About getting rid of stuff you don't really need or even want.  Slimming down and making it more visually succinct.

More is more, less is less.  Just right is just right.

Cary had a gig at The Utah.  Pretty good gig.  All the words were remembered, all the chords were right.
Waiting for the opening act to finish up.  I buy his CD, although it's not out yet. Will Griffith from Mississippi.

And Cary.

Well, it seems like it's four years old at this point.  I had built an outdoor table, a 16' long table for a winery in Paso Robles back in 2014.  I have been back a couple times to give it some loving maintenance.  The first couple years it had zero shade from the often time 100 degree heat and that took it's toll.
This year I went back to beef it up with some angle steel and carriage bolts, another coat of finish.

The vegetation overhead helps a lot from the sun.

Every time I'm in Paso I end up in San Miguel because The Elkhorn is there.  Second oldest bar in California.  I had to go twice because I forgot my glasses in there the first night.  The photo is from the second time.  The night before I sat next to a guy with swastika tattoos.  He was talking with the woman bartender about tying a hangman noose.  The right number of knots.   She was holding up a small noose someone tied for her the night before.  There was a much bigger one hanging over the cash register.  They seemed perfectly at ease with the whole concept.  The man sitting on the other side of me owned a high end restaurant and was the not the sort that talked about nooses.  I guess it balanced out.

From there I ended up at NASA and TequilaJohn's award he was getting.  A group of his drinking friends from The Utah headed down to Mt. View and the NASA Ames Research Center to watch him get acknowledged for "Exceptional contributions to NASA's robotic space flight missions by performing critical flight roles, increasing science return, and infusing novel technologies."  I felt proud just knowing him.
We were soundly dressed down by the NASA police (who knew they had their own force?) for not using the crosswalk to walk across a street.  Apparently they didn't understand what a bunch of misfits we were.  We also had to prove our U.S. Of FuckingA citizenship to get onto the base.
No photos of the event because I didn't know if they allowed cameras on the site.

Which leads me to last night.  I head over to Fitbit and it's happiest of happy hours to be a witness signing for the wedding license that should have been signed weeks ago.  The dates will have to be fudged because legally it should have done weeks ago.
It was such a most perfect way to end this trip from two years ago.  Sitting with Taylor and talking about everything, looking at photos of her and Nick (my new son) diving in the South Pacific, having some beer and putting my signature on this.

Cameras are ok at NASA but at Fitbit, I....guess this was ok to take.

This morning.