Meeting of the Mad Scientists Union, West Hartford CT

[Lug_Nut]

No reply to the PM request for an address, too late now to try the e-mail route. I have listed my cell number in another PM this morning.

[Improbcat]

Ack! I didn't know this board defaults to no email notification of PMs, so I had no idea they were there. I've fixed that for the future. (I seem to forget to turn on any of the notifications around here).

Left a message on your phone with the address and my number.

[Improbcat]

http://flickr.com/photos/improbcat/s...7604416692428/

Well the meeting was a success, the weather turned out excellent and we had several cool projects going. Ian brought his forge, which once he'd lit it off he made himself a spatula out of a bedframe, and started melting and forming pennies into scale plate. Chris worked on doing the spring tuneup on his scooter. Vikkie worked on cleaning & starting restoring her Nottingham Gazelle bicycle. And I worked on lowering the front suspension on Emily.

It was a lot of fun and exactly what I'd hoped for from the group. Lots of cool ideas, lots of good conversation, and always someone around when you needed an extra hand. The Mad Scientists Union is turning out just how I'd hoped. And we're *definitely* having another meeting in May. And you're all welcome. Even if you don't have a project to work on you're more than welcome to just hang out.

[Lug_Nut]

Yes, thanks for the call. It was too late when the phone message finally signaled its presence, as I was nearly home with my load of biodiesel, but I saved the message to input the address into the GPS for next time.

[Improbcat]

Next meeting is Saturday May 10th (was moved due to a conflict). Same as before I should have the garage open by 10am, and we'll be running until around 6pm.

Let me know if you're planning to attend so I have an idea of numbers to expect. Hope to see some of you this month.

[brucepick]

Just maybe I might make it this time...

[Lug_Nut]

I'll not be able to attend this month's meet. Four shocks/struts on the Camel to do this weekend.
What? A whole weekend to change dampers? Well, the fronts are about an hour each, but the rears are 6 hours of vehicle disassembly just to get them out of the car, another 6 hours for reassembly.
Just how bad can it be? http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread...ht=rear+shocks

[rancidhooligan]

Originally Posted by Improbcat

The concept for the Mad Scientists Union is to encourage people to "Do Things With Stuff", and get others to help them.

This is outstanding! There's a huge disconnect between people and their "stuff" these days.

People don't know where their food comes from, people don't know how their cars work, etc.

This has inspired me... I might see about setting something like this up in my town. Do you franchise?

[Improbcat]

Originally Posted by rancidhooligan

This has inspired me... I might see about setting something like this up in my town. Do you franchise?

Nah, franchises would require too much organization. Instead we just encourage people to host their own local Mad Scientists' meetings.

You're more than welcome to join the list, and host meetings in your area. Promote the mailing list, and use it to plan your meetings!

If local groups get big enough, we may spin off local mailing lists for local planning, with a larger overall mailing list. But for now the group is small enough that we're using one list for everything. I personally would *love* to see local union chapters spring up all over the place.

[rancidhooligan]

Cool. I signed up for the list and I'm interested to see what sort of stuff gets sent out.