Mythbusters Volunteer Recap, Part I

I've been meaning to post my Mythbusters photos for quite a while now. I've been informed that, with good reason, they would like us NOT to post the photo we got to take with Adam and Jamie, because it was in the room where the experiment took place and they don't want to give anything away prior to the airing of the show. So I'm also not going to say much about the experiment itself until then (though, if you know me well enough to e-mail me about it, I'll probably tell you one-on-one). Anyway, just the lead-up to the experiment itself was a novel experience. After responding to their Twitter call for volunteers, I was selected to be part of a group that would be experimented upon on Wednesday, January 20.

That morning, I left the house at 6:30 a.m. in order to ensure I could get to San Francisco, specifically the edge of the Mission/Cesar Chavez area, by 9:30. This may sound like overkill, but it turned out I needed that entire time (plus a little) due to the fact that it rained heavily throughout the trip and didn't let up until I got there (of course). But it was worth it, of course. Once I arrived, I knocked on the door of what appeared to be a sort of warehouse, which houses the Mythbusters/M5 Industries offices and workshop. In the photo above, you can see the check-in table and a few of the other volunteers (there were about 25 of us). We got name tags and proceeded to wait in what seemed to be the kitchen/break room area until we were called down for our turn to participate in the experiment.

While we waited, we were asked a few inevitable questions such as our ages--at which point I found out, happily, that I was NOT the oldest person there by a long shot, though the group was a bit skewed towards 20-somethings. Also, we were asked The Ethnicity Question. That's always been a fun one (or not) for me. As a child, I enjoyed giving the most complicated possible answer by going into excruciating detail about every single fraction of my ethnic makeup. Now I try to suit the answer to the situation, usually going for less rather than more detail. But this wasn't a multiple choice situation, just the check-in guy going around and writing the answers down.

So I opened my mouth and said "Pakistani, Czechoslovakian, and Caucasian." And then realized how that sounded, after everybody else was all "Caucasian" or "Scandiavian" or "English and German" or whatever nice and simple answers they were lucky to be able to provide. The guy kind of laughed and said "Cool," and then I was glad I hadn't given him the really detailed answer but instead just went for the largest fractions. For a second I thought I should have given him one of the mashup ethnicities that Rob and I came up with--Pakislovakian or Czechistani--but figured I sounded weird enough already. He didn't need to know that anything my maternal grandmother said about her heritage is suspect except for the Irish and probably the English parts, nor did he need to know that the Pakistani part actually originated in India but has quite a bit of Arab blood mixed in, too.

Despite the fact that discussing my ethnicity makes me sigh sometimes, and also that my answer to that question at the Mythbusters studio probably made me "the weird volunteer," I had a good time. As for the experiment itself--I'll just have to give you a post-airdate debriefing, during which you'll find out why I'm also probably now "the problem volunteer."

Check Me Out

You may have noticed that the blog has a new look. That's what I did most of yesterday instead of, well, possibly more productive work. But I'm happy. I really wanted to make this blog more of a home for my creative burblings as well as occasional random thoughts, so now there's a nifty menu up top where you can check out some artwork posts, some creative (and not-so-creative) writing, or just browse my day-to-day blathering. My sidebar widgets are much improved, though still under construction (gotta revamp my link lists in particular) and I'm ridiculously pleased with the new graphics. I have to give props to the excellent Blogger Templates site and the template that I reconfigured to create this new look--it doesn't look much like the original, but I REALLY needed someone else to put the Blogger code together because I'm sure as hell not going to do it. Tinkering, I can do, and did.

So...enjoy. I'm planning to post a bit more creative work here, show what I'm working on on a day-to-day (or at least week-to-week) basis, and hopefully encourage myself to do more.

New Ideas

Yeah, I'm still behind on my promised photo post...I scanned in a few that needed scanning (that's right--in the early 2000s I did not yet own a digital camera) so I'm almost there, I swear. In the meantime, I'm wrestling with a new idea that may or may not be either wise or a good use of my time but nevertheless, it's tugging at me. Ever since writing my first found poem as part of the New Year's Poetry Challenge (a challenge I have yet to complete...) I keep coming back to that form in my mind, especially after Tanita sent me this link. I keep wanting to write more. I'm not even sure I'm doing it "right" or creating anything particularly meaningful, but I've written one other since then and it's fun. It's intriguing, like a word puzzle. A brain puzzle. Finding some hidden meaning in somebody else's writings. I of course wish I'd thought to do what Austin Kleon is doing, but it's a bit late for that.

What I AM thinking about is creating a blog that would be a sort of found poetry experiment, using articles (as I have been) available online. I have minor concerns about legal issues that might arise, though I would hope that providing a link to the articles I use would help to prevent that.

Alternatively, I could just post them here. But this poor blog is already a cluttered mishmash of random crap, so I'm thinking a separate space would be better. Maybe some artwork to go with the poems, from time to time. Not that I have any extra time for extra stuff. It would be an occasional diversion. IF I decide to do it. I get a lot of ideas I don't really have time for...Plus the "what's the point?" monster rather quickly shows up in my head. Of course, the answer is, just for fun. For enjoyment. To see if it leads anywhere interesting. I might just make it a poetry/flash fiction blog in general, so I can keep the formal writing separate from this very casual rambling that I tend to do.

We will see. Or not, as the case may be.