Sunday afternoon visit to Noisebridge
Monika and I went to visit Noisebridge this afternoon. It was a bright, sunny and brisk day in the City. At Noisebridge, members may host classes. Today, there was a class with about 15 students focused on the intersection of technology and entertainment.
The machine shop has a miniature CNC milling machine. We were looking at it when two members came over and explained the work they are doing. One of the members donated it to Noisebridge.
The other member is reverse engineering the control mechanism, and had its control cable wired to an Archer brand breadboard. He had hooked up what appeared to be a potentiometer to one of the wires, but it was actually a more complicated control. From what I understood of the explanation, the knob was a digital mouse of sorts that sent control pulses to the mill. When the knob was turned the milling head moved up and down. The member who donated the mill said his original cost for the device was $3,000. It looked well made and seemed to be in good condition. One of the things I want to do one day is learn to make handmade custom watches. A CNC mill of this size would be a key tool in that effort. We didn’t catch the names of these two guys, but I saw one of them at the party Friday.
Monika and I had lunch at El Balazo at 2187 Mission Street. We shared the mixed vegetable burrito. This was the best vegetarian burrito I have ever had. It was bursting with interesting flavors. It had sautéed zucchini in it, which I love. The burrito was huge and was only $4.95 – and it was plenty for the two of us. The walls were bright yellow, with a pattern of blue stenciled figures. This restaurant is a chain, and there are a dozen locations according to their menu. One suggestion I have for them is to list the other locations on the menu. This place has four stars on Yelp.com, but the reviews are variable, so maybe it’s not always as outstanding as it was for us today.
Next on our excursion was a visit to Adobe Books, at 3166 Mission Street. This is partly a used book store and partly an art gallery. The art gallery was quite interesting, with an unusual and creative mountain of used books set afire. No, there were not real flames, but one of those ‘fireplace simulators’ nestled into a quarter pyramid of books tucked into one corner of the tiny gallery space, which is at the very rear of the book store.
The book store itself was warm, cozy and inviting, with all kinds of fascinating books stacked everywhere. Monika bought The Satanic Verses by Salmon Rushdie, as neither of us has read it, and we’ve both been curious about it.
In the cookbook section, I was surprised to see a copy of the Chinese cookbook given to me years ago by my dear late friend Stan Pasternak. There also was a beautifully photographed book about canning fruits and vegetables. The photographs of tasty food in glass bottles reminded me of my long standing project to photograph the hundreds of glass bottles I have been collecting for photography since the mid 1980s. Most of these bottles are in records storage boxes stored under my parents’ house in the crawl space. My father reminds me to come pick them up every so often. They’ve been there for twenty plus years so far, but I maintain that the containers are only getting more rare and interesting with every passing year. The Planters peanuts glass bottles from the 1980s are very distinctive and identifiable. Now that I have a good digital camera, I am particularly looking forward to completing the project, which I started in 1983 while I was studying at Brooks in Santa Barbara, California.
Before we went to Noisebridge, we picked up some vegetables at the farmers market at Divisadero Street and Grove streets. We got there just before closing time at 2pm, and there were few customers. But there was plenty to buy, and the prices are lower than at the 9th Avenue and Irving street farmers market closer to our house, where we usually buy produce. We picked up some chili peppers that were still on the branches. I cut them off when we got home, and we probably ended up with 150 small chili peppers, which I plan to use in my Chinese cooking. We also bought some bitter melon, strawberries, plums and onions. Later in the Mission we bought some beautiful large red tomatoes that were a huge bargain at just $1 for three pounds. I wish I knew where the produce in the Mission comes from. If someone knows, please leave me a comment. The prices are just so attractive that I don’t know how they do it. We love farmers markets, and try to go every weekend during the season. At the Irving street market there is a vendor who sells just fresh dates. They are $7 a pound, but they are the most flavorful dates I’ve ever tasted. Eating them is like eating fantastic candy. Monika and I had a great afternoon.
I spent $25 today and I logged every penny of it in my new favorite Apple iPhone software application called iXpenseIt. This free app lets you quickly log every dollar you spend, and makes it super easy to use the iPhone camera to capture each receipt. Then, you can look at bar and pie charts on the phone to see where your money goes among expense categories. You get the data off the phone by sending yourself a spreadsheet by email. I highly recommended iXpenseIt based on my few days of experience.
