etherfarm: Synapse

On To Two O One O

2009-12-31T20:13:00Z

Most of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances found 2009 a harder year than years past. The global economic downturn and its residual effects of course weighed heavily on all of us—some more directly than others. For me, 2009 really wasn’t bad, and I’m going into 2010 with some good momentum.

The Could’ve-Been-Better

2009 was a bad year for the Nayar dogs. Both Sadie and Lakshmi passed away, and their absence is palpable. I can say without hesitation that Lakshmi’s death was the low point of the year for me.

Other than at work and in regards to PS3 game trophies, I was spectacularly unproductive this year. In woodworking, I tried a lot of new things (like turning) and have honed some essential skills over the last year, but in service of nothing productive (sans more shop furniture). I’ll endeavor for more tangible results in 2010 and already have a list of pieces I hope to build in the first half of the year (and yes, dear, your side tables are on it ). I’m also empty-handed when it comes to etherfarm developments--I had grand plans for this site this year, but at the end of a day staring at screens and talking with people who stare at screens, after Ray goes to bed I find I’d much rather be at my lathe or at my bench in the woodshop than in front of HTML, CSS and PHP.

Sadly, though, I more often ended up with a videogame controller or mouse in my hands rather than a tool. This I lament, even though there were some amazing games in 2009, some of which I even found inspiring.

The Good

My work travel was less than 50% of my 2008 corporate globetrotting. That didn’t necessarily translate to more time at home; I spent almost all of my vacation days in Illinois. Which, for a variety of reasons, is a splendid place to be.

I might be one of the few people I know who likes their job. I took on a new role at work this year, and it’s full of new and interesting challenges. For the first time in a long, long time, I feel that when I’m engaged with what I’m doing, I can end just about every day having learned or done something new or having found new ways to apply the one or two things I actually do know.

I spent a lot of time with friends this year--old and new, near and far. Last year, my tolerance for West Coast Flakiness achieved a critical mass and I more or less went into seclusion. This year, a few of my friendships in the Bay Area seemed to take root and it somehow worked out that I had more quality time with friends in other locales. It perhaps goes without saying that I ate a lot of good food with some of these good people in 2009.

And to counter all that good food, I managed to swim at least 3 times a week all year this year (with just a few exceptions due to travel). This wasn’t really a goal (it’s an unintended accomplishment) but I’m ending 2009 feeling much more healthy than I have in years past. Which is nice, because despite my relatively low number of years on this planet, I’ve felt physically old and decrepit since my back surgery in 2003.

We transformed the front and back yards from worthless patches of horrible, clumpy grass to wonderful outdoor rooms. I admire them every time I leave and arrive home and probably will until we leave this place.

And of course, there’s Ray. I go on and on about him, and I’ve found that those who meet him tend to go on and on about him as well. It’ll suffice to say that in the last 365 days, he’s gone from toddler to little boy, and I find joy and poetry in almost everything he says and does.

Obviously, in balance, I really can’t complain about 2009—to do so would be absurd. It has left me exhausted in a good way, like being “just full enough” after a great meal. And I’m optimistic about 2010 for a variety of reasons, but Nara has the biggest one in development:

If all goes well, Ray’s little sister will arrive in early June. And if that’s not a reason to look forward to 2010, I don’t know what is.

Less Is More

2009-10-21T23:18:00Z

This year I’ve traveled only a quarter of what I traveled last year. Though I have friends in most places I visit, it has been nice not having to go overseas so much. The real difference, though, is not measured in miles traveled or time abroad. The difference is that this year Ray really notices when I’m away. You have my word that etherfarm won’t become a repository for quoted conversations with my son, but if you ever hear the following, it’s time to unpack the suitcase for a while (or be sure to pack him in it next time you leave).

Narayan: How are you today, Ray?
Ray: I’m fine. But I got run over while you were in Philly-delphia.
Narayan: You got run over?!
Ray: Yes. I got run over.
Narayan: What ran you over?
Ray: A lawnmower.
Narayan: A lawnmower?! Did it hurt?
Ray: Yes. But I also got run over by a jackhammer.
Narayan: Really?
Ray: Yes. It was a steel rod jackhammer.
Narayan: Oh, those are the worst kind.
Ray: And I got a boo boo.
Narayan: Where?
Ray: On the inside.
Narayan: You got a boo boo on the inside?
Ray: When you go away I miss you and I get run over on the inside.
Narayan: ...

Silly

2009-07-06T00:44:00Z

Below are excerpts from recent conversations I’ve had with Ray:

Playing with Trains

Ray: ”Choo-a-choo, whoo-a-whoo...”
Narayan: ”Choo-a-choo, whoo-a-whoo… ”
Ray: “Slow down for the government!”
Narayan: “What did you just say?!”
Ray: “Slow down for the government!”
Narayan: “Wow. OK. What does that mean?”
Ray: “Slow down for the government!”
Narayan: “Yeah, but what does it mean?”
Ray: “It means you have to go slow so you don’t hurt anybody.”
Narayan: “Oh, I get it, the government says you have to slow down to be safe.”
Ray: “Yep.”
Narayan, strategizing: “You know what else the government says, right?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “The government says you have to take a shower this morning.”
Ray: “No it doesn’t!”
Narayan: “How do you know?!”
Ray: “Because you don’t take showers on the train, that’s silly!”

Watching a Jogger

Narayan: “There goes a jogger!”
Ray, wincing: “He was nekkid!”
Narayan: “He was?”
Ray: “His legs were nekkid!”
Narayan: “Yeah, he was wearing shorts.”
Ray: “His tummy was nekkid!”
Narayan: “Yeah, he wasn’t wearing a shirt.”
Ray: “And his head was nekkid.”
Narayan: “Yeah, I guess he was a little bald.”
Ray: “And his arms were nekkid and his neck was nekkid and his fingers were nekkid.”
Narayan: “...”
Ray: “Daddy?”
Narayan: “Yes, Ray?”
Ray: “HIS EYES WERE NEKKID! THAT’S SILLY!”

Making Pancakes

Narayan: “Ray, do you want blueberries in your pancakes?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Do you want blueberries on your pancakes?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Strawberries?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Butter?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Whipped Cream?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Honey?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Maple syrup?”
Ray: “No.”
Narayan: “Well, I’m out of ideas. What do you want on your pancakes?”
Ray: “Daddy?”
Narayan: “Yes, Ray?”
Ray: “You know what I want in my pancakes?”
Narayan: “What, Ray?”
Ray: “Flavor.”
Narayan: “Well, that’s silly.”

Five Years

2009-06-26T16:43:00Z

Five years ago today on a farm in northwest Illinois, my wife and I drove to our wedding on a tractor. She was wearing a dress she made herself and I was wearing a traditional ceremonial Indian outfit (complete with curly, pointy shoes!) brought to the U.S. by relatives. The tractor, a six-wheeled John Deere Gator, was a fitting chariot for an excursion through an apple orchard, a mud puddle, across a land bridge, and up a small hill to a throng of people wondering exactly which cultish ritual they had signed up to attend.

Our dogs and 80 or so humans were in attendance while a judge who, in a ceremony about as long as a trip through the Portillo’s drive-thru during non-peak hours, read vows we had written ourselves. We then stuffed our faces first with Indian food then a three-layer cake (carrot, chocolate, and Indian rice pudding flavors) which Nara and her mom made the day prior.

It was by far the best wedding I’ve ever attended and easily one of the best days of my life so far. Even though whole endeavor was completely improvised from start to finish it still managed, I think, to convey that the eclectic, creative, crafty, irreverent and beautiful aspects of her personality could blend rather successfully with the best I have to offer: emotionally distant anal-retentiveness (and a freakish absence of body odor). And I couldn’t be more thrilled to say that five years later, that nothing about that has changed. We’re still improvising, and we’re still blending successfully. And I still smell good.

Our wedding invitation, a postcard, aptly paraphrases the last 1800+ days:

Love you, honey.

Lakshmi, 1995-2009

2009-06-12T02:32:00Z

Today I had to say goodbye to my dog, Lakshmi. I’m not one for sentimental monologues--in fact I’m patently bad at them. I’m obligated, however, to at least a few words, as so many people absolutely adored Lakshmi. I was reminded of this just recently when I was in Portland, Maine, for the Food Bender. I lived in Portland for three years and anyone who knew me while I was there also knew Lakshmi--we went absolutely everywhere together. As I was walking down the street a few weeks ago, I thought I recognized someone walking toward me, and as she slowed down with a puzzled look on her face, it was clear she thought she recognized me as well. She said, tenatively, “Lakshmi’s dad, right?”

Lakshmi’s dad indeed. And this happened three times over the five days I was in Maine last month, a full nine years after I left Portland.

Granted, this phenomenon is common among dog owners. But some of these people would also just stop by sometimes--not to see me--but to walk my dog. And this has happened everywhere I’ve lived (except now in the burbs). There were a handful of people who actually couldn’t wait for me to travel somewhere by plane because if I couldn’t drive there, Lakshmi didn’t come with me and would need someone to care for her at home. People who hate dogs have professed love for Lakshmi, and she did her fair share of recruiting dog owners-to-be.

We really did go everywhere together. She crossed the continent with me at least 4 times and went on every single one of my epic two-lane highway roadtrips. I gather that over her fourteen-year lifespan she probably logged 150,000 miles. She slept in the car and in tents with me most of those trips and for a couple of months, we even lived out of my car, graduate student office, and a few Santa Cruz laundromats and cafes due to a pathetic housing situation. We traveled to glaciers and through deserts, to the center of North America, and the Center of the Earth (she’s got an official, signed certificate of her own for the that last one). She rode the subway in NYC as I had to get her uptown somehow and I had to pretend like I was blind to get her past the ticket booth. She backpacked with me all over the U.S. and Canada and has gone swimming in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. She’s growled at moose, beavers, raccoons, bears, buffalo, bison, whales, fish, and hippies. And she ran. Boy, did she run.

Last September she had a buildup of fluid around her heart which almost killed her. When she made a completely unexpected recovery (she had lost about 1/3rd of her weight and there was a very high likelihood of the fluid buildup returning), the vet christened her “Miracle Dog”. Though she was as sweet as she had always been since that incident, she was noticeably older and more tired. Today I noticed that her back leg had swollen and brought her into the vet thinking she had sprained it or something. Unfortunately, an ultrasound revealed that the fluid was back in her chest and the swollen leg was probably related somehow to the root condition. And I really didn’t want to put her once again through the medical treatment which a few months earlier saved her life but seemed to take her spirit.

I’ll admit, regrettably, that in the last few years, the business of life with Ray has made us interact with the dogs more as furniture than as pets and as such, Lakshmi didn’t get the kind of opportunities she’s had in the past to run back and forth at light speed on a beach. But she seemed to understand her new role. When Ray was a baby, she’d sometimes lick his face while he was crying. And she was so patient with him as he grew from a helpless larvae in a bouncy chair to a kid who liked to make loud noises, pull tails and stroke her head with more vigor than he should have.

As she went to sleep for the last time today, I probably also stroked her head with more vigor than I should have as memories of all the crazy adventures we had together came to mind. It was a lot harder than I had thought it was going to be. But she had a great run of fourteen years and played such a significant role in making my last fourteen years as memorable as they have been. So yeah, I’m extremely sad. But also extremely grateful.

Here’s a photographic tribute to Lakshmi.

If I can, I plan on taking her ashes to the family farm in Illinois and burying them there in a box I’ll make myself, by hand, with as much love, compassion, and devotion that she showed me all those years. If you knew Lakshmi and have a few words to say in tribute, do leave a comment below. I’ll print out this entry and put it in the box with her ashes.

Maker Faire

2009-06-08T16:34:00Z

My family has been attending the SF Bay Maker Faire every year since its inception. It’s relatively easy to describe what The Maker Faire is—unsurprisingly, it’s a gathering for people who make things—but it’s very difficult to articulate its scope in a way that can be understood for those who don’t or can’t attend.

The horizon of creativity witnessed at the Maker Faire is mindboggling. In attending the faire one imbibes equal parts art, science, craft, hobby, delusion, and obsession, witnessing everything from master yo-yo performances to roving squadrons of cupcakemobiles to battle robot arenas to pipe cleaner art. I think of the faire as a local Burning Man but one which, in ways I find refreshing, substitutes the pleasure and delight of “just making stuff” for the increasingly annoying pretense of “being cool”.

One of the things I love about the Maker faire is that it’s so incredibly kid-friendly. This is really the first year that Ray is substantially cognizant in his exploration of anything, so even days later he’s still raving about the giant hydraulic hand (he’s fascinated by hydraulics--go figure) and the lego trains and the underwater robots.

It’s fair to say that despite the flashing lights of walking robots and the spectacle of flamethrowers, the highlight of the 2007 faire for us was this gentleman, Zach Houston, who ran a “Poem Store” in the expo hall.

For whatever you think a poem is worth and on whatever topic you fancy, Zach will bang out a short poem on his tiny typewriter. In 2007, when Ray was just 1, we spoke for him, and the topic we chose was of course, Ray. Zach tapped out the following:

We looked for Zach in 2008 but unfortunately could not find him. We were thrilled this year, however, when we found him sitting under a tree, and we immediately queued for a sequel. When asked what topic Ray wanted for his poem, he thought for a few moments before saying, “ticket” (?!). Zach went to work:

Thanks, Zach. We’ll see you next year.

Here’s a bunch of photos from this and previous years compiled into a Maker Faire Flickr photoset.

Backyard Bowling

2009-05-24T15:57:00Z

A few weeks ago I had two medium-sized trees taken down in my backyard. Though shade trees, they weren’t providing shade in any meaningful place. In fact, they were fairly useless, dropped these crazy, spikey balls in my neighbor’s lawn, and sat in a corner of the yard where I want to build Ray a fort or clubhouse later this summer. So I decided to have them taken down.

I called an excellent arborist, Chris Regan, who told me the trees were water gums (Tristaniopsis Laurina, formerly Tristania Laurina), and who did an excellent job of sectioning the tree trunks and crotches into manageable chunks, discarding the rest, and grinding the stumps level. If you’re in the Bay Area and are looking to get some tree work done, I highly recommended him.

I’ve just started woodturning (those of you watching my Flickr photostream probably saw the photos of my lathe bench coming together) and this is the first time I’ve turned “green” wood. This is the first bowl to come from those trees, and in these photographs it’s just a rough turning. When you turn green wood, you turn bowls thicker than they’ll end up; while they dry, they warp, then once dry you turn them on the lathe again to finished shape. This bowl will probably take a few months to dry. I’ve got a small stash of 8-10” diameter trunk and crotch pieces which I’ll be cutting into “bowl blanks” over the weekend.

A safety-bespectacled Ray was watching me make the bowl and as the long, stringy pieces of wet wood flew off the lathe, into the air, and landed on the floor, he asked if it was a pasta tree.

For any turners who stumble across this entry, I haven’t found much information on the web on turning this wood. I read somewhere that it was used for miscellaneous items such as golf clubs and riding whip handles. As you can see, it’s very light-colored--an almost creamy color not unlike English boxwood, though who knows what it’ll look like when dry and finished. What you don’t see is the resin which forms on your bowl gouges. If you stop turning for 30 seconds or so, the resin hardens on the bowl gouge tip, so you either have to pry it off quickly or you have to grind it off. Maybe I’ll try burning it off with a lighter or something so I can save some metal.

Food Bender 2009: Portland, Maine

2009-05-07T15:53:00Z

Anyone who knows me knows that I love food. I enjoy cooking food, I enjoy reading about food, I enjoy discussing food with others, and I of course enjoy eating food. I subscribe to a rag called ”The Art of Eating” and at one point seriously considered becoming a chef.

Hi. My name is Narayan, and I’m a foodie.

I just got back from my first official “Food Bender”; a ritual I will repeat annually from now until circumstances dictate otherwise. Contrary to what you might believe, Food Bender 2009 was not, in fact, a convention for vegetable origami. It was a weekend in which friends and I traveled to a destination simply to eat. Some guys go to Vegas to gamble and whore. Some guys go to L.A. or N.Y.C. to party all night. We went to Portland, Maine—my old stomping grounds and in my opinion, one of the best foodie meccas in the country—to shove some particularly tasty food down our gullets.

A phenomenally successful weekend all around—the food was absurdly delicious, no one injured themselves (much) while eating, and it perhaps goes without saying that the company was beyond compare. Due to some scheduling oversights, some restaurants I really wanted to try were closed on Sunday and Monday evenings (details in the notes). As a result, there are some repeat venues in the list, but I’m a firm believer that if you find something good, stick with it, so that wasn’t a bad thing. Also, I stayed in Portland a little before and a little after my friends “from away” left so I could spend time with local friends; some meals here were part of that extended stay. And I’m leaving names out to protect the guilty.

You’ll find the roster of vanquished delectables below. Note: I’m only listing dishes from which I partook significantly; the best way to order is for the table, of course. Every once in a while someone would order a rogue salad, side dish or gasp entree; these are not listed here. So believe it or not, more food was consumed than evinced in this list.

Table Play

2009-01-05T05:04:00Z

I kicked off the new year by finishing up a project I started last year. This is a play table I just finished today for Ray.

Most of the in-house projects I’ve taken on in my current woodshop have been either for the shop or for Ray. Given the way the last few years have been for me at work, I can’t see it having turned out differently. Adult-scale furniture takes me a long time to construct and finish, and as my shop is not very large it’s difficult to store large boards and panels while a piece is under construction. Also, an unfortunate busy spell at work can keep me out of the shop for months at a time, and the larger pieces tend to require a kind of continuity and focus not made possible by such a staccato schedule. So on a variety of fronts, these small-scale pieces are great.

I’ve made three pieces for Ray so far:

A desk and chairs made mostly with handtools, fabricated out of 2x4s:

A stepping stool made with the boards of a thrown away futon:

And this latest piece, a play table.

With all pieces I make for Ray I try to experiment with skills and processes I haven’t yet tried. The last two pieces used curves and sprayed finishes. The desk and chairs were my first legitimate (i.e. non-woodshop furniture) foray into handtools. And this play table was also the first show-in-the-house piece for which I used a spokeshave and which features exposed handcut dovetails.

A lot of people who see these projects while they’re being constructed wonder why I don’t just run down to Ikea to pick up a step stool for $10 or a desk and chairs for $25. They wonder why I handplane children’s furniture or throw pieces away that aren’t turning out well. Why all this effort for something so...ephemeral? And on some level, I understand where they’re coming from. It’s highly unlikely Ray will remember these pieces when he gets older. I certainly have no recollection whatsoever of even using a step stool, much less what it may have looked like or where it may have come from.

Perhaps I don’t really have an answer which would make sense to anyone who would go to Ikea or Target. Why I make these things goes beyond the fact that I just like spending time in the woodshop or that I want to make stuff for my kid. This might sound a little over-the-top, but through these projects I very much believe that in some small way I’m shaping the way Ray sees the world. I want him to know that it’s still possible to make stuff and to know the people who make your stuff. That not everything we use is disposable. That with just a little bit of effort and practice you can still have something to do with the very artifacts around which your life happens--something other than breaking out a credit card, lugging a box home, and cursing at Swedish assembly diagrams.

434 days and 20 hours

2008-11-20T00:07:00Z

There’s a very simple explanation for my year-plus absence from etherfarm. This simple explanation has fifty-seven parts, the first three of which are described briefly below:

Work: In either of the last two years I’ve traveled more by air than the combined miles from my life prior. I work on a project which spans four countries and I manage a team with designers in three of them: California, Israel, and India. That’s a lot of time on the road (the wife likes to remind me it’s a little over 2 months of the year), so when I’m home, I really prefer spending time doing things other than being on the computer.
Ray: I can’t begin to describe how much I enjoy being a dad, and no small part of that is due to Ray himself. He’s at a pretty amazing age right now: his language synapses are on auto-fire and he has a curiosity about the world which I so wish I could bottle and consume as an anti-curmudgeon elixir. The kid has excess charm and can extract a smile from just about anything, including inanimate objects (e.g. myself after a work week from hell). Or semi-animate objects, such as this Dalek:

Everything Else

manual competence

There are other things, of course, which have resulted in a farm less tended. No shortage of people or obligations which claim time. No shortage of emergencies and non-emergencies at work and at home. No shortage of distractions and time-wasters. And of course there’s the perennial contemplation of whether or not whatever noise I contribute to this whole web thing has ever been worth it anyway.

For whatever reason, the last month or so has brought a small wave of “you haven’t updated your site in a long time...are you OK?” emails. So all this to say; don’t worry, I’m fine. In many respects, I’ve never been better, actually, and there’d be some sound logic in believing that fact and my absence from this site are not unrelated. That said, a certain etherfarm v5, baked from scratch, should be making an appearance in January.

Until then, catch up with me on the following packaged sites:

Flickr: Still find the UI incredibly frustrating, but I haven’t found a better or easier way to share and socialize photos.
LinkedIn: You know, the uber-pimp site.

Kurdish Woman and Child

2007-09-12T05:16:00Z