I was in Florida for the Agile Development Practices Conference. The conference was good and I learn a lot about Agile development. The last day of the conference there was a shuttle launch. Several of us, (Mickey, Dimitri, and Vidus) took the hour drive there. Mickey had friends, Mart and Linda, in the area. We met them at a park on the water and watched the launch.
The launch was fun but the 4 hour drive back to the hotel was a killer.
I love bubbles. Last Fathers Day they got me a Chauvet B-550 Bubble King. It was our 4th bubble machine. We tried the cheaper plastic ones but they kept breaking and didn’t put out very many bubbles. We are still experimenting with different bubble solutions but whatever we try this machine puts out a ton of bubbles.So after playing with it for a while I had an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could make bubbles with smoke in them? I asked at work if anyone had a smoke machine I could borrow and sure enough Bruce had one in his office. First thing I gathered all the materials.
Here are my partners in crime.
Our first test we tried to make smoke in bubbles with Dry Ice. It didn’t turn out very good. The smoke from Dry Ice dissipated too quickly. It was then we thought of trying the smoke machine. After I borrowed the smoke machine from Bruce I tried it out in my house. Sure enough my smoke detector works. No more testing inside. Hence you see our outdoor setup.I started testing by making sure the Bubble King would work with the new cheap bubble solution I am trying.
It works but the bubbles are a little smaller than the last solution I tried. The video is of the smoke machine blowing into the bubble machine to make smoke bubbles.
Later I tried to make large bubble with small bubbles inside them. Here is a picture of that.
I then went on to try to feed the smoke though the bubble machine and make a large smoke bubble with bubbles inside of it.
The large smoke bubbles are cool because when they pop you are left in a large cloud of smoke. As show by Jordan from next door. The smoke is vanilla scented so it’s not a bad thing to be in a cloud of it.
I need to clean up how I am doing video links on the blog but all in all I am happy with the bubble experiment.
Stan Lee came to Disney and gave a lunch time lecture. He is amazing. He’s 85 now and starting a new company, POW entertainment. 
He talked about his starting in the business. He said that he almost felt bad after he was in if for a while. There were all these people that live around him that did real things such as plumbers and doctors and all he did was make comic books. It then hit him that people spend a large portion of their money on entertainment. It must be important to them. He WAS doing something that was important to people. I found this inspiring especially working in the entertainment industry.
This picture is him sitting at the signing table after his talk.
He has an amazing amount of energy and makes fun of how popular he has become. He thought all the movies that people are making about the character he created are great. Basically a bunch of talented people make cool movies and he get credit and gets a cameo in the movie. He said it’s a lot of fun to go on set and be treated like a star.
Just saw it. I took the wife but left the kids with friends. It’s a shame more people didn’t do that. I liked it. I think they did a good job making the book into a movie. Everytime I saw them change something from the book I thought… hey that makes sense I can see why they had to do it and it was a good choice. My cheif complaints were the kids behind me the teenager in front of me that kept checking his text messages (with a bright phone screen) and the damage to the movie screen. There was a shiny spot on the screen that jumped out when hit with a lot of light. I was able to tune most of them out but it would be really nice if I didn’t have to do it. I can see why people are turning to home theaters.
I just finished The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Very enjoyable. It’s like the Matrix but written on 1909. It’s only a little over an hour long so it’s not a big time investment. I wish it was longer or had a follow up.
I’ve been downloading audio books from Librivox.org. and I am very happy with what I’ve been getting. The price (free) can’t be beat. These books are public domain books read by volunteers. Most are good readers and read the whole book. Some books are broken up between readers. I’ve only hit one reader that was bad. I know they tried but… well… they just don’t have a voice for it. Not to worry though, it was free.
I’ve listened the following books:
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard
At 9pm tonight I was walking down the hallway at work and Glen Keane was walking out. We talked for a little bit. I told him that when I worked for Hughes on the B2 when people asked me what I do I would tell them that “I help kill people from very high altitudes.” Now though I get to tell people “I make millions of children all over the world happy.” He told me about the time he went to Disneyland and because he misplaced his ID and had a hard time getting in. He finally got into the park but was a little discouraged and was feeling down. 
He walked by Beast and thought “Hey, I animated that charater and they wouldn’t even let me in.” Then he saw a little child run up to the Beast and was hugging and kissing him. He then remembered that it wasn’t all about him. We talked about what a priveledge it is to get to work at Disney.
My parents wanted to get together for a San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park trip. We did it last weekend. It was really nice to spend time with the kids, wife and parents.
It wasn’t that expensive to get in. Danika and I paid $89 for a year pass for both parks. We paid an extra $24 and we also have a year pass for Josh. Since Christoper was under 3 he was free. We spent a day at each park. We enjoyed each park would go back.
There was more walking at the Wild Animal park than we thought there would be. There used to be tram to take you around the whole park. There is still a tram tour but now it’s a good bit of walking to get to it. Pictures are here.
Um Hi. Thanks for reading my blog. I will endeavor to compile things that are of interest to me and maybe others. When I see cool things or think of something interesting I like to tell people. This seems like the best way to do it. It is also a fun way to play with technology. Anyway thanks for stopping by.
