• Edit: The naval base is their old base. They're now in San Francisco, not Alameda anymore.

It was fun.

My time at the Instructables HQ was just awesome.

It was so cool.
At first, I couldn't find the HQ, so my family went into a Starbucks and then I called Christy, who helped us get there (while on the phone).

Unfortunately, I lost signal and I guess it hung up on her. I wonder if she thinks I did that on purpose and I was being rude. Hopefully not. =/

Meeting

Well, when I got to the HQ, I met Eric Wilhelm/ ewilhelm, this one guy (probably Eric's brother, I don't know.), Patrik and this lady who I suppose who is his wife. They were both holding Instructables Robot T-Shirts in their hands. Then I met Christy Canida/ canida.

So, Eric asked if I wanted to see the tower first or the shop. I said shop. Then tower. Then shop. Then I decided to stick with the tower. We took like 5 minutes or something to walk up A LOT of stairs all the way to the tower. During this time, I was still very shy of Eric, but I don't think he noticed. He looked at me like I was a demon. (Just kidding Eric.) But when I first met him, he was looking at me for like 7 seconds straight so I was like..... huh? It was weird. (No, I didn't really say "huh".)

The Tower

Amazing. Just simply, amazing. The view was amazing. There was a couple of Christy's friends there in the tower. They took images, as I did as well. The view was just amazing as I already said. Eric was talking to my dad and mom, and my brother accidentally bumped into one of the black couches. Then Eric looked at him. It was funny. But anyways, the images I could take from there were amazing. You could see the Bay Bridge, all around the Instructables Tower (well, most of it), the bay, and so much more. I didn't take a LOT of images, but I took some. Eric wore his purple shirt with like a duck on it, but it was cool looking. I wore one of those white outside shirts that I put an Instructables Robot on. It looks funny, but it's awesome. I could have looked better if I had my long hair... (I was still shy during this time).

Here's a video of the tower's view and stuff. I didn't record much, which I regret...

Thanks for making the quality terrible YouTube!

_{You can hear Eric talking to my dad in the background.}



After the tower, we went to...

The Shop

We got to the bottom of the tower, then into the shop. I accidentally didn't see the curb-like part, and almost fell. When I went into the shop, it was awesome. It was huge, with a whole bunch of stuff that I couldn't name because I don't know what these things were. Have you seen the Instructables Robot in the back of some of the random prize videos? That was made with this water wood thing in the shop, they told me the name like 3 times and I still forgot. It's cool though. You could like print images onto wood, and also it could like cut into things, but not like a laser cutter. If you put your phone in there, you would be leaving with two phones.... Well, actually, just 1 cut in half. The thing is super strong. Then we went to the back of the shop or something, and that was like an office. Then we went out back into the main part of the base. (Still shy during this time).

Then...

Outside

We left the back part of the shop, outside to their huge yard thing. They have a firetruck, but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it. Well, I was going to, but didn't. I regret that.. But anyways, guess who was on top of everybody's "junk" cart things? Tim Anderson! Yeah. You can see that he had his earphone things on, listening to the survivors of the Vietnam War or something talking about their lives. But it was funny. At first, Eric was like, "Tim!". He didn't hear. "Tim!". Still no reply. "Tim!!!" about 2 more times. Then Eric started to climb one of the things, which I didn't take a picture of him climbing (unfortunately.). When he got to the top, he was like ,"TIM!!!" Tim turned around all fast, and he was like, "Oh, hey!" Then Eric said, "How about coming down here and meeting some new people?" "Sure.", Tim said. "This is GorillazMiko from Instructables, and this is Patrik.", Eric said. "Oh, GorillazMiko!", Tim said, "Thanks for all the encouragement!" (You get it? Because I comment all his Instructables...). Then I heard Patrik whisper, "He usually comments first on all the new Instructables." to his wife, I suppose. Then I heard Ooooooh. But it was nice meeting Tim. He had this ship's steering wheel, and he was like, "Does anybody want this?" I thought he was kidding, but then he gave it to Patrik's wife (still not sure if wife.). Then I was like dang.... because that would have been on my wall. It was pretty heavy though. But then after that, we started talking about the website, and I saw the Squid Labs School Bus. Outside was where I took a picture with Eric, but not with Tim.... I wish I did take a picture with him though. It would have been cool. Two crazy guys (good thing I was not crazy there like I am at school, which is over 10 on a scale of 1-5.), just being cool. Not holding ship steering wheels. Yeah, that's how life is. That's how life is...

Inside

I laser cutted my phone. I laser cutted my Flip Video camera. I got stickers. It was awesome. When we were outside earlier, I asked Eric about my Pilot's License (if they laser cutted it), and he was like yeah, I'll show you the laser cutter in a little. OH wait up. I think he showed us the offices before the Tower. Oh wells. We didn't actually go into any offices except for his/ Christy's, but that's later. But I didn't see the laser cutter room until after we came inside. Dang, inside was awesome. So inside the laser cutting room.... stickers. Stickers, wow, stickers everywhere. Well, in huge 110 sheets (as zachninme said.). At first I was like woah... but then.... oh boy.... oh then. Christy gave me two huge sheets! It was awesome! "Now Billy won't have to cut those.", Christy said. "Hahaha.", Eric said. (Sounds un-enthusiastic doesn't it?) Then she was like, wait up, I think we have some leftover 2007 Halloween contests shirts. She asked for my brother's and I shirt sizes (me = small, of course 'cause I'm cool like that). She came back. I was like SUH-WEETNESS! (No, I didn't really say that.) Then she gave me a patch. The 2nd version of the Robot patches. Not to sound greedy or anything, but that would have been cool if I got one of the old ones. The one with the hand. I expected to get that the first time Eric sent me a patch, because I was going to take off the Jansport part on my backpack (with a seam ripper because I'm cool like that), then put that patch there. Unfortunately, well, fortunately I got a patch, but unfortunately, I did not get the banner one. Still, I got the Robot one, v2, so now I have 2 Robot Patches! 1 on my backpack (version 1), and the new one (all yellow robot. None of his parts are orange) yet to be put somewhere. Then we laser cutted the Robot onto my Flip Video Camera, then the Robot and Gorillaz Miko onto my phone. Then I asked if somebody laser cutted their arm.... and so on. I actually only expected to get like 20 stickers, but dang, now I have about 250. :-) Oh yeah, haha, Tim came in during that time with some fermented tea or something. It smelled/ tasted like beer. (Yes, I know what beer tastes like.) My dad liked it though. It's good for you. Then we started joking about how everything is on Instructables. So then we laser cutted, and did most of the stuff I just typed in this huge paragraph.

Here's the video of my phone getting laser cutted with my button pressing powers.
That's Eric's "deep" voice Weissensteinburg...

Shop Inside Place or Something Like That

Right outside the laser cutting room (sticker making machine room too) is their huge junk place. Somebody was making a human generator that would let you power things, charge things, and stuff like that, just by pulling 2 cords or something. They had a lot of junk stuff on the ground, like kites, and these bouncy thingies. It's that blue dinosaur/ weird thing in the images. We weren't there for too long.

Eric/ Christy's Office

I didn't actually realize that Christy disappeared until we went into their office. She was sitting there on her (awesomely laser cutted) Instructables laptop, and I didn't even know she left the room earlier! So Eric showed us his office where his kinetic thing was. You would like spin the wheel of the bike to make the wire move, and when you touch the wire, it wiggles and stuff. He also had his "Monkey In A Cage". Then he showed us this electric thingy-majig that would have the electric beam go up it. It could shock you badly if you touch that. Then he gave me some business cards, but not only were they business cards, they were also stickers!!! ;-) Then I saw Christy's Duck-Mouse which my retarded brain didn't take a picture of.

Ending... :-/

Here was basically the end. We got out the Robot, then I took pictures with Eric, the Robot, and myself. Then I took an image with Christy, the Robot, and myself. After that, we were just talking about the naval base for a while. Then we talked about Eric's projects that he had in these black IKEA shelves. (Heh, that table leg....) Then Christy gave me a Make: and Craft: book, which I already read. (Well, after she gave them to me, I read them at home like the next 1-2 days). Then I wanted to go to the Maker Faire, but since I got in trouble at school (Saturday works, guidance, referrals, stuff like that), I can't go. Then we talked about Jessyratfink interning, and I might come down on the day she's coming to see them just to meet Instructables again, and Jessy! It's going to be awesome. So after that we were talking a bit, and then Patrik left, and then I had to leave as well. They didn't make me, you just knew it was the time. But man, Instructables was awesome.

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<sub>Instructables HQ Trip: 4/13/08 -GorillazMiko

P.S. I will be adding more to this Slideshow if I remember stuff out of nowhere that I didn't mention.</sub>

Ask me anything you want about the HQ, and I can answer.

-GorillazMiko _{likes eggs.}