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a few nights ago barb & john, our neighbors, invited us over for dinner. it was good timing because we didn’t know what we were going to eat. barb made a delicious vegetable stew. later they were showing us the room where they keep exotic frogs in a terrarium, and jenny asked if she could hold one. i was really surprised when it didn’t jump off, john said “yeah, they’re pretty chill.”they told us that it’s really cool at night when they make those frog sounds. it must be like summer in their house all year round.

he’s not a juggler, but he looks like he’s done this before. wilson helped me gather infant mannequins last thursday after a CPR class. i always tell students, “please don’t grab the babies by the head, because they WILL come off– and then you’ll have nightmares, and i’ll get yelled at.” but someone almost always does it anyway. this guy rose to the challenge like a superhero to make sure none of the heads came off that night. thank you wilson.

3 workshops are coming to the JoCo Makerspace this december!
Giant Multiplayer Simon game – Dec. 7 @ 4pm
“You said it, I heard it, is that what you said?”
Come talk and play with Maker in Residence Dave Cedillo (hey that’s me!) we’ll chat about communication, conversation and collaboration from active listening, and learn how to turn almost anything into video game controllers with Makey Makey and make video games with Scratch.
Laser-cut teeter-totter – Dec. 14 @ 4 pm
“Up and down, back and forth, to and fro, stop and go”
Bring your best friend, your grown-up or your child and learn to make laser-cut and 3D-printed objects. You’ll learn how to build and customize your own teeter-totter tool to resolve differences, and better understand each other!
Speed-sketching phone game – Dec 21 @ 4pm
“We are not mind readers, we can be honest”
Come find out how well you can express yourself and listen to others using walkie talkies in a game of telephone and speed-sketching through the whole library!
***special thanks to Thomas Maillioux for his help producing these workshops!

johnny c’s pizza is closing for the last time tonight, so last night jenny & i thought we would beat the rush to eat there one more time & say goodbye– we were wrong. everyone else who is going to miss this little dive had the same idea, and there was a line all the way to the door. i don’t know cynthia rojas kernodle, but she has more stamina than me to wait 3 hours for nostalgic pizza.jenny and i went inside anyway to say goodbye to the owners, but they were swamped because of the massive throng of customers who began to rain insults and blows on us for cutting in line (just kidding, they really didn’t) so we took pictures of each other instead. gary and elizabeth introduced us to johnny c’s back in the 1980′s, and it’s been one of our favorite places ever since. i’ll miss their video & pinball games. we were lucky to have this little pizza joint for the last 35 years.

driving home from nebraska we caught the last part of an interview with greg boyle on the radio. it was amazing. i’m downloading it now so i can listen to the rest of it. boyle is a jesuit priest doing gang intervention in los angeles. krista tippett had him on her show, onbeing.org, a program that i first heard when she talked to glenn beck. that interview was an eye/ear opener also.

this thanksgiving weekend i recorded a song in western nebraska with my niece georgia. she normally plays guitar and sings, but when we were concocting this number i was singing & playing my guitar, and she was playing the theremin. she did sing with me at the end though.

ok, well the thanksgiving moment has passed, but we’re still lounging in the afterglow. hope everyone had a good time with family and friends.

i showed eli and his cousin joseph how to draw on the makerspace tablet this afternoon. this is how i made those cartoon heads that were laser cut on wood and chipboard. i just drew them directly onto the computer screen with a special stylus. the boys were trying to be patient, as they waited for the 3D printer that was making a fox. they kept asking me “how much longer is it gonna be?” i was already drawing cartoons next to their 3D printer. when they said something about my cartoons, i showed them how to use the tablet.

it’s always cool when a kid asks me what i’m doing at the makerspace. yesterday i met draven, emory, eden, zion, and asher. they were 3D printing a half lego man, half skeleton & i had just finished drawing, formatting, and laser cutting a cartoon girl on chipboard:it was their first time there & they looked at everything with wide eyed wonder. i’m sure they will create something amazing.

a few days ago i wrote about a game of “telephone” for my first workshop at the library. now it’s scheduled to be the last workshop, and we’re gonna use walkie talkies. we’ll also have a few fake phone booths for players in random locations, but hopefully no one will change clothes in them… however if a superhero does come out faster than a locomotive and leaps tall buildings in a single bound, i won’t stop him… or her.