So I don't know what it is. I've been dreaming about building a dome home for myself (and my little family now) for as long as I can remember. It's just this nagging idea. I've never done anything about it though so I thought a couple weeks ago that I'd do what I can to start realizing this dream. So I went on the internet, found a simple plan to build a geodesic dome out of card stock and there it is! All in all it probably took about 6 hours to build with paper, scissors and glue and I'm really satisfied with the results. It gives me a great idea of the space involved and how simple it is to build a strong, spacious structure. I realize that this makes me a geek and why in the world should anyone care that I made half a ball out of paper but I see so much more than that. I'm looking forward to making another one twice the size with a sturdy frame and removable panels so I can start working on the interior and exterior architecture. I want the main structure to be two levels. The bottom level will be divided into a large living area and the kitchen with a large deck and picture window off of it. The upstairs will be the master bed and master bath. That's it. Any additional rooms will be smaller domes surrounding the main structure connected by modest "tunnels". I have every detail worked out in my mind and I look forward to posting my progress for any of you other geeks that are interested. Cheers!

Idea Stature: Medium. Flat screen T.V.'s. Video phones. - Why oh why don't flat screen T.V.'s have tiny cameras imbedded at the very top of the screen with facial tracking software as well as a built in microphone and wireless internet access? Are the marketing geniuses that design the best selling modern invention of our time holding out on us like apple did with the iphone? "Hold off on that until our sales dip, then we'll introduce it", I can see the board room reps greedily rubbing their hands together and saying this.

I've found recently that with a baby on the way and my parents, brother and other long-not-seen realatives are gonna want to see that baby drooling and flailing or even just sleeping in high-def on their flat screens! I'm sure that there are gaggles of americans and maybe even unamericans that wouldn't mind an incoming video chat on their television that pauses the program and asks you if you want to answer or ignore. I mean, if it's your annoying friend jimmy who's never so pretty in the morning you might want to pretent you're not there, but why aren't we taking reality T.V. to the realest level. Don't you sort of want to prank video dial someone in china just to see what happens? What about voice recognition software built into the thing that converts speech to text in other languages so we CAN talk to someone in china if we want? What better way to build a world community than from the comfort of our couches? In all the time we've had cameras in our laptops, I've seen someone I know use it only a couple of times.

So corporate America, let's please push the technological envelope yet again and bring on the HD video phone!... Thanks.

LUCK POCKETS

I spend a great deal of my life thinking about long term patterns of "what works". A recent observation of mine about "what works" is simply this: when you're into what you're doing, what you're doing works for you.

This may sound like a simple and obvious observation that most people may or may not have observed themselves. Here are few examples of what I mean;

Back in the day when I was taking courses in college related to philosophy and fine art I was taking an experimental painting class and trying to think of a great idea for my final piece of the semester. That week in my art history class we were reviewing the work of abstract expressionist Wassily Kandinsky. The thing I took great value from his work was the notion of "inner necessesity". The basic premise of inner necessity is basically the more intense the energy, emotion, thought, passion that you put into your creative medium, the more intense the viewer will pick up on and feel that energy.

So after I started thinking about this notion and how I could apply it to my final project I came up with the idea that I would do something that was a fun process for me that I would enjoy tremendously while working on it. I took a 4 foot by 3 foot piece of plywood, smeared joint compound, acrylic paint and spray paint all over it and then took a blow torch to areas of the piece. It was a completely uncontrolled process and went against everything I had learned in my class. I can't tell you how fun and liberating it was to make this "painting".

When I brought it in and displayed my final painting for my class, it stood out from everyone else's and I was shure it was going to get an "F". Not only did I get a "A" for the class, but the piece went on to win a blue ribbon in the year end college wide competition.

This was my first real experience of doing something that liberated me and in turn liberated others as well. I remember my friends roommate standing in front of this thing that was bigger than he was and exclaiming "It's Crap!" He was so angry that it went against what his idea of good painting was but it still got a strong reaction never the less.

Another thing I've noticed in my life is that when I'm in a casino and stand near a craps table that is losing, the people at the table are barely talking or looking at each other. However, the craps tables that are "on a roll" and are winning are the ones where everyone at it are drunk and laughing and talking and rooting for each other. I've heard that craps has the best odds of any casino game and I don't believe that it's solely because of the numbers. When you're doing what works or that is fun for you, that thing works and benefits you. I believe it has to be genuine joy though. If someone were to do a study where a control group acted like they were having a great time playing craps the winning results wouldn't be as good as people who were genuinely having a great time.

What made me think of writing this blog today was that I had a half day at work today and was thinking that i wouldn't get much done. I do both customer servicing as well as sales. I DON'T like customer servicing but I love the sales because it's always exciting to get a new sale since it makes me MONEY. So I decided to follow up on some leads. By chance a guy in new york that i've had a hard time getting a hold of picked up the phone and said his email was down and he'd been planning to get ahold of me to put his new policy in force. Excited after getting off the phone with him I received a call that minute from another pending prospect giving me the go ahead to put her auto policy in place! I believe that the energy and excitement of what I was doing literally drew the next sale to me.

We make our own luck pockets. Pockets of luck are created when we are thouroughly enjoying whatever it is we're doing and that energy draws more like energy to feed and benefit us.

Now take that information and get a lotto ticket, but make sure that you are completely in love and totally desire winning the lottery. You can try to fake it, you can pretend you really want to win, but there are only a select few with that genuine power of desire for that particular thing and they have created a luck pocket for the lotto.

Do what works and it will work for you.

Baby Poo

Idea Stature: Medium. My wife and I are expecting a baby any day now (due Sept. 28th). After seeing all of the crazy gadgets, toys and furniture that these pint size people require it absolutely boggles my mind that nobody has come up with some sort of automatic baby changer. This thing should be so awesome that you just lower the baby legs first into some sort of harness, the contraption releases and disposes of the dirty diaper, you take the baby out of it and a new clean diaper is dispensed, you lower the baby in again and it fastens the new diaper to him. If someone could perfect this, I think we'd be looking at an invention with time saving implications similar to the microwave. I bet the Jetsons have one.

Water Friendly Tech

Idea Stature: Big. Interesting thing about humans, when we jump in a pool of water we don't break. I wish I could say the same for my iPhone. Not only do we not break, but we actually perform better when we ingest more water. It seems to me that animals on every level function on a minimal amount of electricity. When thinking about new ideas for the next big gadget, maybe we should be using the brain and the nervous system as a perfect model. I would love to see tech that we "feed" organic material or water in order for them to function. Until then, I'm not sure we can evolve as a technology-wielding species. It's interesting to me that when we see robots in futuristic movies, they are based on the same clunky - dry and unreliable technology that we use now. I think that any animatron in the future will thrive in the rain, be amphibious to some extent like most animals and possibly be powered by or excrete water - the most abundant resource on earth. Not only that, but the more they are used, the stronger they should be unlike present tech that breaks long before the lifetime of the user has expired. These fundamental elements that are present in all sentient life are what are holding present technology back from being a truly superior tool. To see some promising steps in the right direction, check out this site: http://webecoist.com/2009/04/19/liquid-technology-12-wonderful-water-powered-designs/

Brake Lights

Idea Stature: Small. U-turn lights on cars? It would be nice to know if someone is pulling a u-ey instead of just turning. Still - would like to see statistics of folks who got in accidents because they didn't know someone was flippin' a B.

Dome Home

Idea Stature: Big. Your neighbors may not think they look so cool but did you know that dome houses are way energy efficient and way cheap to build? Not only that, but they are super resistant to catastrophic events such as high winds, earthquakes, floods and fire - especially if they are constructed out of steel and concrete. It's hard sit back, watch tsunamis, earthquakes and large fires kill our people and not consider these super awesome structures as the wave of the future in terms of human survival. Why shouldn't everyone have a house that not only is built to be impervious to mother nature, but also free to live in because it has a fully functional hydroponic greenhouse, composts all of it's waste or converts to energy, is hooked to solar and wind power sources, has gadgets to desalinize water and/or pull it from the air and is just super high tech? The hippies were on the right track, but just didn't have the tech to implement their ideas. This is America and if we can't live independently, then we haven't come to fruition. Side note: why are solar panels on on flat surfaces? Why wouldn't they conform to the triangular dome system to fully benefit from all the suns angles and rotations throughout the year? Thanks Bucky Fuller, It's time to sit on your shoulders and reach for the future. You get the Idea.