Happy Birthday, LEGO!

We're honoring the 50th anniversary of the LEGO Brick on our home page today...

Larry and Sergey have always had a thing for LEGOS:

* A programmable plotter , Larry built out of LEGOS, years ago. He said the following on his Stanford webpage, while in grad school:

Legos and other lesser construction toys have been quite important to me. I have constructed numerous amazing contraptions out of Legos. I built a four foot wide inkjet printer out of Legos (and a few things from the hardware store and a bunch of electronics).

I attriubute (his typo, not mine) a great deal of my understanding and ability with mechanical devices to Legos and similar construction toys.

* Early hard drive enclosure (10, 4GB drives), encased in "faux" Duplos (see them in action)
Note: Sergey says they couldn't afford the authentic LEGO product!

* LEGO-infused photoshoot, as part of this TIME Mag cover story

Simply awesome...!

Step 1: Visit www.google.com
Step 2: Input these search terms: find chuck norris
Step 3: Click "I'm feeling lucky"

Note the site restrict!! ----> "pages from Chuck's Beard"

Attention Bay Area oenophiles!

This one is for you...

If you like drinking wine and discussing its attributes, we might be looking for you.

With our expansive (and continuously expanding) wine list, we need someone who can take a few hours per month to sample our new wine offerrings and compare/contrast with our existing wines. You will jot down your thoughts which will then be included in the monthly Educational Memo that is sent to our servers. While we need you to dissect individual wine notes for each wine, more importantly, we will need you to tell us what you believe the differences are between, say, the 7 different Pinot Noirs that we may offer.

A perk of this position is that you will be able to attend many of the wine and liquor events exclusive only to restaurant insiders as a rep of our restaurant. Spirits (and free food!) are almost always served at these events. Attendance isn't mandatory (and won't be compensated) but will be made available to you should they pique your interest.

If you are interested in this position, please send a quick email detailing your interest and qualifications for this position. Please also include what you are asking for as fair compensation.

Invisible Octopus...wow!

Weirdest discoveries in LA...

Was in S Cal for the day today. Lots of absolutely random things caught my eye...but these two "artifacts" share the title of the weirdest things I saw in Los Angeles.



If you're at a loss for what to do w/that spare elephant foot you have lying around your garage...here's an idea. The guy told me that the foot was rather "old," so I shouldn't really be concerned about animal cruelty! Whatehvuh!




Lovely Valentino dress meets a tub of tar. Yes, TAR. This particular "artist" also happens to have applied tar to things like a set of candelabras, and also to a bust of the former creative director of Italian furniture designer, Cappellini.

Congrats, Dad!

Featured on the Oregon State Univ. home page today...

Krane Honored by OSU's University Honors College

CORVALLIS, Ore. ­ The University Honors College at Oregon State University has selected Ken Krane as its '2008 Eminent Professor,' an award given in recognition of outstanding instruction to the university¹s honors students.

Krane is a professor emeritus of physics and has been active in teaching University Honors College courses since the program¹s inception in 1995.

"Ken Krane exemplifies how bringing OSU¹s best faculty together with highly motivated and capable students can leverage learning for those students, and for the broader OSU student body who enroll in physics," said Bill Bogley, associate dean of the UHC.

An innovator in science education, Krane most recently has worked to build a bridge between physics education and the curriculum for students at OSU on pre-medical and pre-engineering tracks. He has also supervised National Science Foundation-sponsored physics workshops at the university that focus on helping new physics faculty become better teachers.

In 2004, Krane was recognized by the American Association of Physics Teachers with its Millikan Medal, presented for outstanding instruction.

Krane chaired the Department of Physics at OSU from 1984 to 1998. He has written or edited nearly 20 books and monographs, as well as dozens of research articles.

Silence, explained... sort of

It has been awfully quiet around here as of late. For that, I apologize. It's a mix of the usual excuses...two kids, busy job, lots of outside distractions ---- and a focused attempt to spend a bit less time connected to the Net each day. The iPhone prevents me from succeeding at that last point. Genius device, in so many ways. And the Google experience on it keeps getting better.

Let's see if we can't pick up the pace of this blog a bit...