Mitt liv som Tobin

* Weekend trip to Sacramento.
* Visit fam in Davis, by airplane if possible.
* Drawbridge.

* Pancakes on Mt. Tam.
* Hike with the Cal Alpine Club on Mt. Tam.
* Infiltrate the Tourist Club.
* Find the tree nets on Mt. Tam.

* Visit the Core of Engineers' Bay Model.
* Swim in various swimming holes.
* Meet Wes Modes.

* Essex.
* Fort Awesome.
* Swim in the Aqua Delta pool again.
* Ephemerisle.
* Delta adventure.

* Blue Sky Sustainable Living Cntr.
* Kayaking in the delta.
* Kayaking somewhere bioluminescent.

>> The Miss Rockaway Armada is both a collection of individuals and an idea. At its most basic, the idea is this: we’re going to float down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans on rafts that we built ourselves. The crew can be called many things: artists, musicians, builders, travelers, organizers, dreamers. ... We are floating down the Mississippi River on a raft we built from trash. The catch is that we don’t know much about boats or rivers, and we don’t have any money. We know we are blowing crazy hot air, but if the idea makes your eyes glow like coals then you understand what we’re doing. <<

http://www.flickr.com/groups/missrockaway/pool/tags/forsite/show/

http://www.missrockaway.org/wordpress/boat/

Not so much resolutions, but a to-do list

* graduate!
* detect gravitational waves
* learn general relativity
* work less, think more
* host a potluck
* host a cocktail party
* meet the neighbors for real
* explore new orleans for real
* live in mexico for a month or two in the summer w/ four et al
* actually go places on weekends
* overnight roadtrip to houston
* go sailing/camping on the gulf islands
* have a bonfire on the banks of the mississippi
* replace my stolen bike
* go on the full moon midnight bike ride
* go to zydeco breakfast
* ascend the mighty driskill mountain
* return to marfa tx
* start the baton rouge wiki (à la daviswiki, rocwiki)
* start the baton rouge roving coffee shop (à la marfa)
* stay in touch
* visit aunt pooh more frequently
* tour the abita and lazy magnolia breweries
* arrange a tour of the exxonmobil refinery
* visit the republic of west florida historical museum
* convince ant hill co-op to buy their house
* [find a job?]
* [something meaningful with my life]

EDIT: additions:
* visit avery island
* roadtrip to florida to see the space shuttle launch (STS-119 scheduled:Feb 12)
* have a cool costume for mardi gras (Feb 24)

It's amazing how quickly a year goes... here it is November and my upcoming move to Louisiana is more and more on my mind. Meanwhile there's plenty (understatement!) still to do in here in Los Angeles. It's not nearly as awesome as my friend Jason Finley's (uniace's) "To-do before leaving Los Angeles, CA" list, but here's mine so far:

• Visit Yosemite in the wintertime
• Visit the Center for Land Use Interpretation
• Bicycle along the Arroyo Seco to the Los Angeles river
• Visit Pasadena's farmer's market
• Visit Path to Freedom / Dervaes Gardena
• Go to a theatre/musical performance in Los Angeles
• Go to a big movie premier in LA
• Visit all of the museums (ha!)
• Go camping in Baja with a bunch of friends
• Go on an Architectural tour of LA
• Go hottubbing at Caltech
• Go to the top of a scyscraper downtown
• Travel the Mojave Road*
• Visit Saline Valley*
• (suggestions?)

* = probably not until a future stint in LA

I'd like to build a radio. Perhaps several. AM then FM. Receiver. It's just something I'd like to learn more about, but also I feel ridiculous with a degree putatively in Electrical Engineering but without having ever constructed any radio device more complicated than a crystal set. It seems like there ought to be a nice book out there somewhere with progressively more sophisticated designs to play with?

One little idea I had was to try to build a clock would listen to and decode the time signals broadcast by NIST; those are on nice integer fixed frequencies, so maybe something simple (with a crystal oscillator) would work? ioerror, Google came up with a link to some neat pictures on your flickr account in response to the query, "homemade fm radio receiver". What's the story behind this nifty little contraption?