Callies Adventures » Travels

Utah Geocaching Adventure

Minh-Kiet Callies — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 16:47:58 +0000

McKenzie and I are jetting off to Salt Lake City, Utah to complete our mission, to have found an active cache placed in each month of geocaching’s existence. Utah holds the missing piece, an active cache called Potters Pond placed in August of 2000. Unable to sleep last night, I began doing some recon on how to approach the cache: looking at the area with Google Earth, reading recent logs from previous cachers and looking at weather reports.

From the looks of it, this is going to be more of an adventures than even I had anticipated. The cache is located above 9000 feet in elevation high in the Wasatch Mountains, and based upon the last logs, winter has arrived. In addition to snow and mud, it’s hunting season in them hills.

In my youth, these conditions wouldn’t weigh so heavy on mind, but fatherhood has made me hesitant in the face of these risks with my daughter in toll. The light on my internal dashboard is blinking, warning me to proceed with caution.

Maker Faire 2010

Minh-Kiet Callies — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:20:33 +0000

Once again, we managed the journey to the Bay Area for another Maker Faire, and again, at the end of it all, I am always left in awe and wonder and look at McKenzie’s future with optimism. We are leaving the Bay Area with a renewed sense of creativity, problem-solving and design, a drive to develop those same attributes within McKenzie and a suitcase full of DIY projects to hone those skills upon.

For me, personally, all the various physical computing and 3D printing projects and displays have rekindled the interest within, so look for something neat this Christmas involving motors, lights, sensors and the Internet. It’s time to get designing.

For Jill, she managed to squeeze in a silkscreen printing clinic while McKenzie and I explored, watching exploding bottles of Coke Zero and Mentos or blacksmithing demonstrations. The whole Faire just leaves her head spinning, too much to see and do and never, ever enough time.

For McKenzie, there is the excitement and thrill of doing. She never stopped wanting to do something. She moved from playing miniature golf, to playing with hula-hoops, to beating on the Taiko drums, to blasting off into space on the Raygun Gothic Rocket, to building kazoos and laughing cups, to building drawbots. At Maker Faire, I see McKenzie’s potential and my role in helping her achieve it.

We cannot wait until next year’s Faire!

Heading to the Maker Faire in Austin, Texas

Minh-Kiet Callies — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:49:08 +0000

I am sitting outside Gate C30 in DFW, waiting for my flight to Austin, on my way to the Maker Faire.

The TMobile subscription I received when I purchased the GOGO OLPC is paying off. DFW offers the TMoble service, so I am taking advantage of it with this quick dispatch from the field. Since Starbucks switched over to AT&T, I haven’t been able to use the service as much as I would like. Anyways, back to the Maker Faire . . .

Since its release, I have subscribed to Make magazine and its sister magazine Craft, neat magazines about the DIY movement and neat projects you can do yourself. The magazines publisher hosts two Maker Faires each year – one in the Bay Area in the spring and the other in Austin in the fall. Usually, during the spring, I’m too busy with work, but the fall slows down for me, and Jill decided that I needed to take advantage of that.

She arranged this whole trip for me:

booked the flight,
arranged for hotel and car,
and even printed out maps for me.

Unfortunately, the trip is somewhat bittersweet for me. Jill and McKenzie aren’t with me on this grand adventure, and as soon as I was dropped off at the airport in Portland, I missed them both terribly. This is not to say that I am not excited about attending the Maker Faire.

There will be plenty of demonstrations of people showing off their DIY ingenuity and maker knowledge. Over the weekend, I hope to chronicle some of these things I will see and learn. Stay tuned . . .