a dark day brings balance to the force

We're in the middle of the innovators event. Some seriously epic shit going on.

And where there is large progress forward, it seems there needs to be stuff to bring balance to the force.

Yesterday was a helluva day.

I don't have the time to really get into it, but ...

I remember when we could hear the batteries boil in the polaris, the people from polaris said "it's supposed to do that." Which we later verified was bullshit.

So then I got the report that one of the bad boy buggies was doing that. And I found out that the guy that was paid to look after the batteries, didn't. Damn.

And with all the things going on and being short handed..... One of the bad boy buggies exploded. Since it was over by itself getting charged, nobody was near it. And it wasn't a hollywood explosion. There was a "boom". Fortunately Tim Barker and Randall had oodles of savvy about it and Randall and Fred took charge and got it quickly cleaned up. The current theory is that the batteries were boiling and that let to conductive material on top of the batteries, plus oodles of oxygen and hydrogen .... eventually the conductive material got close enough to completing a circuit and "boom." Since all of the batteries were boiling, they all exploded. The batteries are shot, but everything else seems fine. It's a good thing we had lots of sacks of baking soda on hand. That and diluting in water. I felt extremely stupid about all this. I think people were wanting me to step in and be super smart, but this is one of my weakest areas. So I'm very glad that we had knowledgeable people there.

I went to missoula to get more baking soda - just to be safe. We got about ten huge sacks from costco. After all, the shelf life on this stuff is really long. And we use it all the time for cleaning.

I was back about four minutes when Peter hurt his hand and needed stitches. So I took him back to missoula. We spent about four hours at the hospital - the stitches took about two minutes.

The day was frought with other frustrations and misadventures.

And the day was rich with amazing innovations, progress and get shit done.

Several of the innovators have been jumping in to a variety of different projects outside of the event, as well as contributing to the event.

There has been a lot of things falling short with this event and, at the same time, a lot of people stepping up to the plate and knocking things out of the park.

Maybe when I have more time I can give a shout out to the amazing people that have done amazing stuff.

Such is the nature of invention!

Rudolph Diesel almost knocked his own head off when the cylinder wall of his first internal combustion engine exploded and flew right at his face. Missed him by inches!

Yet he kept at it, built a stronger cylinder wall and revolutionized the world with his engine- and made modern life possible. Not only that, think of all the things that his engines led to that save lives...

That's what you guys are doing there in Missoula. You are blazing the paths to new technologies. Sometimes it is a wee bit dangerous....

But please do keep up the good work! Wish I could be there.

I'll just leave this here...

coulda been far worse ....

Burra, what a hoot! I liked it.

And as for the wild times at the pyronauts, well, I have been sorry to have missed out on the weeks successes, the kiln is looking great, but I don't mind missing the explosions and lacerations. I do hope all is well with everyone.

Thekla