This page has Ryan's small life updates. something like a microblog with its own RSS feed that goes out to the Fediverse and is linked to from The Lion's Rear .
Seizing the mandate of heaven: The first Eugene Makerspace rebuild work party
On we took keys to a new workshop after the last one was destroyed.
On we held our first meeting in the space, which we've taken to calling Mod Your Makerspace. When I was a member of HeatSync Labs in Arizona we did these meetings twice a month, we tried to empower the membership to build the space they themselves want to see, rather than just saying to the board "why don't you build it this way"... And so in the grand tradition of Eugene Makerspace basing its ideas on what someone cooked up at HeatSync Labs, we've started these meetings.
Maybe a dozen folks showed up, a handful of whom were new faces. A few old faces showed up as well, folks who were involved in the space years ago and decided to come back for the rebuild. Great stuff.
It's fun to come back to this process of building a maker/hacker community like this, this is the third or fourth i've been directly involved in, and i've advised and been friends with four more, so every time you get to try a few good ideas you picked up from here and there. EMS is in sort of an interesting position as a makerspace and as a community right now, it's been 13 months since a space which largely didn't have "a community" was destroyed. The community, as far as i can tell, was destroyed by COVID-19 before I moved to Eugene; thrown apart in to a couple dozen people who showed up at the space on their own, by themselves, and didn't really keep the space friendly to people who did not like a dirty woodshop.
I did not like a dirty woodshop. And so i came a few times after I moved here and decided I would just hack at home.
When the shop was destroyed and the community began to reconvene at a local barcade type place, I started to show up and we started to rebuild. And to build a thing that was different than before.
We started to meet as a community regularly. We started to organize art installations and table at events together. We decided to be excited not just about our own projects but about each others' and where they intersect with our interests and abilities.
One of the things I'm particularly proud of and excited to work toward is our new Community Norms which I worked out with some of the board members and then sought consensus and considerations from the other members. Key to this new space is the sense that those who show up and do the work are the people with a say in the matter. After the shop was destroyed most everyone involved in the space except for a handful disappeared and we filled in the gap. Some of us are board members, some of us aren't, some are total newbies who have never been in a Makerspace, some of us are old-heads. But if you show up and work well together and are curious and inclusive we can build a cool thing together and maybe even have some fun doing it.
And after a year of existing only in a Discord guild, I'm looking forward to the community existing in physical life together. We all agreed pretty quickly that, for example, the canonical list of to-do items to build the space out and keep the space running shall be canonically maintained within the space itself rather than being a JIRA or google doc or other online task list.
If you want to get something done, you show up and put your name on a post-it note and be the responsible person for that task. No "i wish this worked this way". We'll see how long that sticks. Hopefully long enough to have a sick grand opening party. I have been telling the folks building this with me that, rather than being on the board and trying to do things from that position that I would, as a regular member, seize the Mandate of Heaven and simply take charge of things that people might have loose opinions on or weren't confident or incisive enough to actualize. If the heavens and the community agree, you'll be rewarded with success and if not the community will adjust it. This started when Thomas and I got together and did some overhauls of the website that we had been considering and waffling over and stressing about, especially since it was time to start working with people who hadn't been seizing this opportunity with us.
Do something that is in the correct direction, solicit feedback, course correct as necessary.
"We're meeting in the space next Tuesday, who has a plan?" Well, I do, and I'll run with it until someone tells me they have a better plan. I don't need to be elected, I don't need to seek consensus before laying out my vision, we know that we are operating under a shared course and are confident in that for now. And this is our course:
Practical: Our shared shop has tools to facilitate wood-working, fiber arts, electronics, programming, and more. In-shop tools like 3D printers, CNC machines, and laser cutters help bridge the digital/physical divide.
Social: Our community helps point each other in the right direction to unlock knowledge and bring novel ideas to life. We strive to make both creative and practical tinkering fun, educational, and accessible.
Educational: We offer hands-on training sessions and workshops to help make the most of the tools in our shop, and also ensure a safe working environment.
Cultural: We hold public creative events which serve both as fundraisers and opportunities to show off our space to potential members who are unfamiliar with the concept of a “makerspace” of “hackerspace” but would benefit from one.
Hiked Horse Rock Ridge with some friends
Last weekend my friends and I hiked Horse Rock Ridge near home in the Coburg Hills north of Eugene, OR . It's getting to be "proper autumn" here in Lane County, which means mostly that it starts to be rainy with low clouds and low sun. We got out to the trailhead as the rain was starting to pick up, and the whole way up the ridge we were shrouded in fog.
The trailhead was, as is custom for the Coburg Hills, a logging work site, the basecamp for some clearcut operations. But we ended up in the Research Natural Area pretty quickly after scrambling over some log piles and slash.
via OSU Pacific Northwest Interagency Natural Areas Network:
Horse Rock Ridge Research Natural Area (RNA) was established to represent a grassy “bald” (treeless area) on the western margin of the Cascade Range and its associated botanical, wildlife, and scenic values. It lies east of the Willamette Valley and is part of the western slope of the Cascade Range physiographic province. Approximately two-thirds of the RNA has a southern exposure, and the rest of the area lies on a north slope. The topography is rugged with rock outcroppings and steep slopes. The RNA consists of a mosaic of open grasslands with young and old-growth forests.
The forest is dominated by Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla). Hairy manzanita (Arctostaphylos columbiana), poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum), oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor), and serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) dominate the transition between forest and grassland. The grass bald includes several seeps where most of the species diversity is located. The blue wildrye (Elymus glaucus) association dominates the grassland while Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis), lemon’s needlegrass (Stipa lemmonii)/racomitrium moss (Racomitrium canescens), naked buckwheat (Eriogonum nudum), Ross’ sedge (Carex rossii), seep monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus), and Kellogg's dwarf rush (Juncus kelloggii) are also present plant associations.
I had gone up this ridge a few weeks ago from a different trail with Charfn1 so I had a rough idea of what we were up against, but of course in the fog, in the wet, on exposed stone, it's a bit of a different story, a bit of a slog. Someone had gone up the trail ten minutes before us while we waited for the whole group to alive and came down early covered in mud and looking cold and sad.
We persevered though. You hike along this weird bald segment of the ridge with only mosses and grasses and exposed igneous rock, some cool and gentle ups and downs.... mostly ups... There are some sketchy rocks to climb over and around in the wet but overall it was basically fine with the right shoes and a rain jacket. still foggy and shitty and windy and wet though.
One of the better views on the way up:
We got to the top and you enter a nice stand of "proper" old growth to wander around in. We wandered around, we steeled ourselves for the wet shitty cold windy hike back down.
And we were greeted with an astounding view. It's funny how large this tiny little valley around a tiny little watershed feels so expansive. Perspective and height really do make a difference.
I was fistpumping, we were cheering. The hike down was gorgeous. We had Indian Buffet lunch afterwards.
A bit of My Poetry :
turn one, turn them all, every tree's colorful dance -- autumnal swiftness