The Faux Shaux

Erin and her gift

When I first drove in to Nashville, my navigation brought me to the main drag on Broadway. It’s similar to Times Square, in the sense that locals don’t really go there. Despite the drive I just made, I had to get back in my car, it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I asked some over-make-up’d women where I could find a ‘non-chain’ cafe for some java and grub. The younger of the two recommended a spot called Fido on the west side of town.

Fido is a large cafe with a lot of turnover, so you order at the counter and they bring the food to your table. While waiting in line, Erin and I began chatting. Feeling the pressure to make every meal in the South my new favorite, I checked with her if I was ordering the right thing. After we placed our orders, I asked if she’d like eat together. After we picked a table, I realized she’d only ordered coffee and she’d be watching me shovel down my first meal of the day (at 2:30 pm).

Salmon with cheddar grits, spicy kale, and fried onions.

Erin was from Nashville, but was attending school in Ohio. She was at the cafe to work on her research paper examining the money spent on incarceration and policy that encourages that rather than rehabilitation.

While explaining some of the projects I’ve worked on, 3D printing came up. She’d never heard of 3D printing before, so I explained the process to her – equating it to a moving hot glue gun. Luckily, I’d brought a white low polygonal tiger that I’d printed on New School’s Makerbot Rep2. The plan was to shoot the tiger in the timelapse videos, but I’d never gotten around to it. Seeing as she didn’t order food, I’m wasn’t sure I could count this as ‘dinner with strangers’; then I remembered about ‘give something away’.  A 3D print is a pretty amazing gift for someone that hadn’t know about 3D printing ten minutes before.  Nailed it.