It’s been a little while, and I am back. Without going into too much personal detail, life dunked on me and my family these past several months, and I moved twice: once internationally, and once cross-country.
I am doing “fine”—recovering mostly, but also getting pretty excited about some projects in the works, things happening with FBRC, exploring the new region I’ve moved to, etc.
It’s a weird mixture of grief, fatigue, and excitement.
Leaving Oakland
I ended up having to leave Oakland on extremely short notice. My friend stopped by to see me off and brought me one of his favorite craft beers he had suggested I try before I leave, “Pliny the Elder,” which apparently has a cult following regionally. Having my bags packed absolutely to the brim, with my personal belongings and also a small electrochemistry lab (I am a bit tired of lugging research equipment around), I simply did not have space for a giant bottle of beer.
But, I couldn’t waste it.
It was quite tasty, and captured the mood of the moment. Empty apartment, empty fridge, everyone’s sad, and we’re cracking open a cold one at 8:00 in the morning.
Oakland was a great time; I get why people want to live in the Bay Area now. We really enjoyed the East Bay in particular, and if we had to live in the area (which we could not afford long-term without selling our souls, lol), we would for sure want to live in the East Bay.
Special shoutout to East Bay Food Not Bombs, Counter Culture Labs, and Omni Commons! Also BART… and EBT/CalFresh… and Medi-Cal… which helped carry the load.
Turns out I am Missouri Rich, but California Poor… at least in terms of qualifying for benefits.
I had to leave before Open Sauce, where I had an accepted booth for FBRC, but hopefully I can attend in 2026.
What an incredible AURA
After a bit too much of “life” in a short amount of time, my partner and I (and our shit stuff) found our way to a collective housing project in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France (abbreviated AURA, which I love).
It’s not a housing co-op in the strict sense (which I would prefer), but it is a radical departure from the individualist, speculative housing market, and there are pathways to ownership in the collective that are much more accessible than the norm. While I’ve lived with many a housemate in the past (*cough* England *cough*), this is a different situation—something in between roommates and neighbors with our fellow inhabitants. The area is beautiful, the people are nice, and there is an infinite number of projects to take on if you’re so inclined. It’s going to be a good place to recover, reset, and start/finish some projects, as well as learn to live more cooperatively.
Also it’s not a cult, I promise 🤫
The region offers a lot to explore:
Setting up the lab, again!
I’ve broken down, moved, and set up my lab again! This time is probably the best version yet. I’ll share some pics in the future. Lately, I’ve mostly been doing paperwork (groan) and CAD/documentation.
At FBRC, Daniel and the community have been up to a lot. There is some very cool development happening with water-in-salt all-iron electolytes, documented on Daniel’s blog and in the forum.
We also collectively designed and fabricated a our “large-format” cell, which is 175 cm2, significantly larger than our 2 cm2 development kit. Daniel has leak-tested it with water it in single-cell arrangements as well as stacks of two and three cells. 175 cm2 is not really large enough for a “practical” stack for applications, but it’s enough to start stacking them and start tackling the engineering challenges. I plan to do the first chemical tests with this cell in the next weeks after it’s shipped from Spain to France.
The forum discussion the design and testing of this cell can be found here.
See ya!
