Permission to Play:: Think:: Make:: Tinker:: Go!

We are home from the Bay Area Maker Faire, and I don't think our family could have found a better place to play, learn, and ... to celebrate the Chickenblogiversary :: Eight Years of Deep Thoughts and Other Musings! To celebrate our passions for art, engineering, DIY, SteamPunk, robots, crafts, expression, and learning. It really was "like finding our people, our hearts, our Geek brothers and sisters, our Steampunk Counsins, our DIY mentors," to quote Me. Actually, I am not sure why we came home. I feel like we could have runaway and joined the Maker Faire.



There is too much to share, too much to announce, for sentences and paragraphs, and so I am going to revert to the blurt post... a quick shout-out and run down of Chcikenblogiversary announcements and Maker Faire highlights.

Ready?
Set.
Go!

1. Thank you! Everyone that left a comment made me smile and laugh and reflect and get happy. I plan to visit your blogs, and hear your stories very soon.

2. And from the fez I drew two names...

drumroll please

For a Geektastic goody assortment, we have Warren and his very cool family of kitty rescuing, bee keeping, strawberry picking, patent holding Geeks! You will find Warren et al living in their Home Among The Hills.

And for the winner of the I Heart California goody assortment we pulled Susan's name out of the fez. She is the lovely, reflective, cooking, gardening, reading, happy grandmother, loving life on her mini-farm in Ohio. You will find Susan's beautiful reflections at Bear Swamp Reflections.


3. I met Gever Tulley.
Him, of the TED talk that I have so frequently linked too.

I was sitting in the middle of the Make Shed, nursing my bruised, scraped, and bloody leg, when I see a T-shirt walk by... "Think, Make, Tinker..." and I think: I know that guy! And I get his friend's attention, who taps Gever, and I suppress my geek celebrity sighting spazness just long enough to confirm that he is He... the Gever Tulley of Think, Make, Tinker! The TinkeringSchool, and it is!

hold on a sec... I have to catch my breath... I am almost as spaztic now, recalling this awesome encounter, as I was meeting him.

4. He signed Alex's notebook.

5. He denied being "a celebrity."

6. I confirmed to him that he is indeed a celebrity, because anyone that appears on TED (twice!), teaches, tinkers, makes, and thinks is heroic.

7. I bought his book(s).

8. He signed all my copies.



9. Warren is getting one!

10. I thought we were doing great with our "Five for Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do," but it turns out there are "Fifty Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do."

I covered our experiences in three posts:
a. Fire

b. Own A Pocketknife

c. Throw A Spear

d. Deconstruct Appliances

e. Break The DMCA- Drive A Car


11. Alex hung out with SteamPunk legend and artful engineer, Jake von Slatt, and he saw the amazing Wimshurst Spark Generator.


12. Maria hung out with Rose of The League of S.T.E.A.M.


13. We were Paradoxians and visited with FLL, FTC, and FRC teams, including those wonders of FIRST Robotics: 1868 Space Cookies!


14. We also crossed paths with La Jolla HS Robotics, at the Electric Giraffe.


15. Cupcakes.


16. eatART and Mondospider!


17. Saphira... fire breathing robo-dragon!


18. Lego Jeep!


19. Hermes Remote Cockpit. Maria loves this space craft.


20. We are going back!


21. Chickenblog is Geek-Craft-Farm-Cook-Think-Make-Tinker-Write-Go!

**This post was originally published in Chickenblog, May 24, 2010. Used here by permission from Chickenblog.**