Andrew R Gross

What a weekend. An old friend, Peter, visited town on his way back to his current home in Uruguay. He came to LA for my wedding, then visited his family on the East coast before returning to Los Angeles to fly home. On Saturday morning we went to the beach with the intention of diving.  The waves were too rough, so we hung out on the beach instead, which was just fine.  Afterwards, we got Mexican food before heading to a friend's wedding. Regan and Schno held a very personal ceremony.  They encouraged all guests to dress in whatever garb made them feel powerful, so their wedding was attended by wizards and a guy who might actually be the real Thor.  Afterwards, we all went back to their house for a party for the ages. Regan and Schno throw great parties on a regular basis, so it should be no surprise that their wedding reception was one for the ages.  It included a variety show, in which I participated.  I can't express how much fun this was.  ...

This seems like it might be an opinion that is unpopular with both liberals and conservatives, but I honestly feel really bad for Paul Ryan, and I don't think he's spineless at all. Paul Ryan has been repeatedly called spineless for failing to openly oppose Trump.  I've heard many commentators -- Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee -- point out Ryan's own full-throated denouncements of Trump's behavior as evidence that Ryan clearly hates the candidate he purports to endorse.  They then charge Ryan with cowardice for not standing up to a candidate he knows is completely unqualified. I get the logic here, but I see a different set of calculations behind Ryan's actions.  I think Paul Ryan has continued to endorse Donald Trump for two reasons: 1)  He sincerely believes that upholding party unity is a cardinal virtue. 2)  He isn't willing to sacrifice his career for a symbolic protest. Now, there's certainly plenty of room for di...

So, in short I'm burned out.  But in a good way. I got married on the 22nd of September.  Woo!  Married! It was a lot  of work.  Honestly, declaring myself bound to another human being for life was less stressful than the logistics.  Venue.  Catering.  Cake.  Clothes.  Invitations.  Guests.  I just barely pulled it off, and technically I'm not done until I finish thank yous, receive and sort photos, settle payment and rate the vendors who all did a fantastic job.  Oy. I don't know if I made myself sick, from exhausting myself or if I just feel exhausted because I happened to get sick.  In either case, I'm exhausted and a little sick.  But not like, out of work, sick.  It's cool. In addition to the wedding, Julie, myself, and all our friends had a whirlwind week.  Both Julie and myself had family and old friends visiting. I'm just going to break it all down. Sunday the 18th Marge and Zeke arr...

I finally posted an overview of the build process for the chicken coop.  I'm hoping that it gets selected as a 'featured' project, completing a hat-trick setup by the Captain America costume and the Arc Reactor. I started building that coop in March of 2015.  I finished it officially in October of 2015.  I meant to share an overview, since as my posts and this website attest, I'm trying to improve my skills in not just building things, but documenting how I did so and compiling all such projects into a kind of portfolio (which is this blog).  I'm very proud of the coop, but I was pretty daunted by the process of compiling it.  The challenge to get a third featured post on Instructables motivated me, though, and I'm really proud of the result. As proud as I am, it's humbling to see the entries people submit to Instructables contests.  People build and program drones from scratch, and present a summary of their approach with better communication skills th...

Recently, Julie and I discovered kombucha. We were at a vegan restaurant near our house.  Although their food is great and as a vegetarian I appreciate the service they provide, vegan restaurants tend to incorporate certain elements which feel very 'new-age'.  This is stuff Julie and I generally want no part of.  Imagined gluten allergies, for instance.  Or GMO alarmism. So it was on a lark that Julie purchased a bottle of kombucha.  It's fermented tea, which happens to be two of yuppies' favorite words.  To both of our surprise, it was great.  It's tangy and carbonated.  It tastes a fair bit like hard cider, although it has negligible alcohol.  It's like soda, but it's only got 30 calories.  Of course, that shit's going to be like $4 a bottle. So out of curiosity, I looked online to see how it is made and discovered that it is supposedly very, very, easy to make. You make tea.  You sweeten your tea with sugar. ...

I'm feeling really good.  I just posted the full set of instructions on how I made Julie's Arc reactor on Instructables.  If you haven't seen it, Instructables.com is a website where users can submit instructions on how to make something.  It's pretty remarkable.  You can find instructions for changing the bulbs in your headlights, recipes for brownies, or an guide to making friendship bracelets.  Among these are a lot of electronics projects. It's odd and inspiring to see how much can be made with such cheap, available parts so easily.  I recently looked to it because I had an idea at work, and found instructions on how to build an ohm meter from $30 of parts.  It's exciting to be able to access so much knowledge. At some point, I decided that it'd be cool to be able to provide that level of usefulness.  Fortunately, you don't have to produce a college course, you just need to do a good job documenting a project well done.  So I started ...

Last weekend, Julie and I went to ComicCon. This was the second time I'd gone to a comic book convention, but the first one was much smaller. We went for a couple hours on Sunday, so we only experienced a slice of it, but that was more than enough. Someone gave her free tickets, so we went. Obviously, she went as Tony Stark and I went as Captain America. It was a lot of fun, despite the incredible burden it was for Julie. She spent the day walking around a bustling convention hall, which was a hell of a way to get back into walking now that she has her walking boot. While eating lunch, a stranger was gushing about what a great Drunk Tony Stark costume she had. She chuckled and sighed and explained that it had just been a regular Tony Stark costume when she'd left the house. Julie met Eric Powell, the creator and writer of The Goon .  If you haven't heard of it, the Goon is an incredible, funny, and original comic that is really worth buying.  If you have hear...

Enjoy some pictures of a fun Fourth of July weekend.