here's life

After work on Friday I didn't have much time at the Surplus Store---just enough to buy some 1.5" linear bearings (it was a great deal,,,but I am not sure what I'll use them for) and a touch sensor for high precision machining applications. Then I hurried off to the parade. Yes, I was in a parade!  First we had to fill up the big helium balloon in the shape of an airplane. I'm not sure if it would have lifted me--couldn't get everyone to let go. We followed a band through the streets, pulling it down under the stoplights and dodging the sharp signs along the route. Some places we could let it up high. There was only one other parade entree that had similar large helium shapes--Raytheon had a humpback, an orca, and a white weather balloon with the company name on it. There were some other floats that were pretty cool--but I didn't see much of the parade since I was in it.

I stayed around to pack up the balloon.  We vented off all the helium---you could see it coming out, causing refraction like hot air on a still day.  They had a vacuum cleaner to help pull the helium out, and when the hose was stuck into the helium, the whine of the vacuum would rise considerably--like when it is clogged (because the helium is less dense).
After that I went a few blocks to an art show.  It was multiple art installations that focused on using technology along with art to further interactiveness. In fact, each one was created by a team made up of Electrical Engineering and Art students. Some were cool, some were ok.  The best was "Firefly Environment"---a darkened area with tiny lights hanging from the ceiling at different heights, with peaceful background of crickets.  On the walls were some fans to keep the "fireflies" moving slightly as they flashed in random patterns. On the floor was a 3'x3' grass area, with a mason jar on it, with more captured fireflies.  I want this in my living room. Another interesting one was a monolithic object with a microphone on it and a hole near the top that a dancing laser beam shined out of.  It hummed with sounds created by modifying the input sound an looping it, and feedback from it's own modulated, phase-shifted sound. The laser was driven by these sounds, tracing crazy lines on the wall. Later they moved it so it shone on a building across the street.  There was also a little room called "Secret Garden" that had things made of flowers and speakers with garden sounds that changed as you walked up. All in all it was pretty cool to look at, and interesting to talk to the people who had made it happen.  I think I might try to take this class. I talked to the teacher and he was a pretty cool guy and repeatedly said that it would be good for me to get involved.

As I drove home, I wondered about art. What good is it? So often it seems  to be an Emperor's New Clothes sort of thing; "If you were cool, you would be impressed by this."  And what does it accomplish?  Then I realized that what it provided was the happiness that I felt as I stood in the firefly-filled volume in that old building. It provides joy to people. Usually I attribute value to technical things a more efficient dishwasher, a better paperclip, a more user friendly computer program. They are worth my time because they make the world a better place---we can get more done, faster. But is anybody happier if I move a pilot hole in a piece of metal a fraction of a hundredth of an inch?  Maybe the guy who puts the fastener in, but that is only because then he can make airplanes faster.  Sometimes the things that we see no value in are the ones that matter while what we thought was important really was just a self-perpetuating illusion.  
I talked for a while with the guy who helped the teacher with the dancing laser.  He works at a local company that make power supplies for florescent lights for aircraft. He also makes things like this and this. He said "I couldn't work for a big company" and I realized that maybe my frustrations with my job are fixable--I have been telling myself that there are going to be problems wherever I go--which is true...ish.  After all, I left a start-up company, and my job was annoying because there was no system, and specifications changed all the time, and the job was not very reliable. Maybe there is a happy medium somewhere---or a whole different paradigm that makes it a moot point. Where the problems I beat my head against are real, not invented by the system, however necessary it is.


On the other hand, tomorrow I get to help out with the balloon some more---helping to deplete the world's limited supply of helium.