Only six degrees and sixty miles separate Mythbusters from Indoor Boys.

Let’s test out the six degrees of Kevin Bacon to get the attention of the friendly folks over at Mythbusters.
You see, I’m keen to feature the men of Mythbusters in an upcoming profile.

It’s time to harness the power of your social network, rally your re-tweets, and let the games begin. Tell the men of Mythbusters you want to see them on Indoor Boys. [And perhaps enlist the help of the all-powerful lone woman of Mythbusters, Kari Byron, to make it happen. Kari, equal opportunity objectification!]

Tweet: Indoor Boys loves the men of #Mythbusters. Let’s make this happen. http://ow.ly/78Yha

For your twitter-fication…

@donttrythis, Adam Savage
@grantimahara, Grant Imahara
@torybelleci, Tory Belleci
@karibyron, Kari Byron

Jaime Heineman doesn’t tweet. Please send carrier pigeons.

To YOU as a Scout,

“I suppose every boy [or girl] wants to help his [or her] country in some way or another. There is a way by which he [or she] can do easily, and that is by becoming an [Indoor] Boy Scout.”

Those are the opening words of the World Brotherhood edition of SCOUTING FOR BOYS—the book written by Baden-Powell that started the [Indoor] Boy Scout movement on its conquest of the [indoor-]boy-hood of the world more than fifty years ago. Since those early days, millions of boys have been Scout[ed]. [And the Indoor Boy Scouts] have had fun in Scouting—and Scouting has helped them grow into good citizens, has made it possible for them to help their country.

Today is your day in [Indoor] Boy Scouting.
You, too, will have fun. You, too, will help your country.
You know the old saying, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” In the same way, the strength of a country depends on the personal integrity, the personal effort of each of its citizens. The strength of America depends on YOU!

To a real [wo/]man, …HONOR is [their] most valuable possession. As a member of the [Indoor] Boy Scouts of America, you pledge yourself ON YOUR HONOR to work towards becoming a real Scout. It is not easy to become that kind of a Scout. It means dedication and work and perseverance. It means self-sacrifice–giving up some of your own pleasures for the sake of other people. It means doing what [or who] is right rather than what [or who] is easy. It means living up to the [Indoor Boy] Scout Oath and the [Indoor Boy] Scout Law.

As you use this [INDOOR] BOY SCOUT HANDBOOK as your guide toward good citizenship through Scouting, I trust you ON YOUR HONOR to strive toward becoming a real Scout and the kind of citizen our country needs and deserves.

Joseph A. Brunton, Jr., Chief Scout Executive
[Anita A. Stubenrauch, Sr., Chief Smart/Sexy Executive]

What are you waiting for? Your country needs you. Join Indoor Boys Scouts.

I dropped the ball and now tickets are sold out. Sad face. Maybe I can sneak into the after-party… I’m still trying to get WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg, featured on the site. He’s a bit shy, so wish me luck!

Remember Martyn Sibley: Positively Brilliant? Well, he’s been featured on the Badass Project and may be in the running for “Badass of the Year” which entails a $5,000 cash prize for themselves and $5,000 for a charity of their choice. Go, Martyn, go!

Making the wheels go round and round is kind of Corbin Dunn’s thing. A world-class unicyclist, a software engineer at Apple, and an all-around inventor, Corbin is incapable of stasis. He sat [and climbed and cycled and zip-lined] with Indoor Boys recently and we’re bringing you along for the ride. Catch up with Corbin and feel your heart race.

Interview and photography by Anita Stubenrauch

Introduce yourself. Who are you, where are you from, what makes you an Indoor Boy?
My name is Corbin, and I live in the Santa Cruz mountains. Put simply, I’m a maker and a do-er. I spend my work life playing with computers making software, and my home life making things I find interesting. When I’m not making things, I’m spending as much time as I can doing fun things. But fun can only be interpreted by the individual, and for me fun is something that is physically or intellectually challenging. Or even better when the two meet head on, which explains a lot of my esoteric hobbies.

I’m an Indoor Boy because I’m smarter than your average bear.

You are the nexus of high and low tech. A software engineer at Apple in Silicon Valley and a guy who owns a couple of acres and chickens in the Santa Cruz mountains. How did the twain meet?
From a young age I was introduced to computers, starting with an obscure but often loved system called the Amiga. I always liked playing with technology, but I thought my original calling was to become a professional pilot. Being an ambitious person, I got my private pilots license when I was 17 and set out for aviation school in Arizona as soon as I graduated high school. With a commercial pilot rating two years later, I realized I had mastered the airplane and it simply was not challenging anymore. But that technological draw was always there behind my mind, and I was spending my free time teaching myself to program until I suddenly realized my true passion was to do that professionally.

So, I moved back to my hometown of Santa Cruz, but didn’t want to live with my parents. So what’s a 20 year old to do? For me, the solution was clear: build my own fully functional treehouse forty feet in the air and live in it full time. I’ve always loved alternative things, and the treehouse fit me perfectly. As I grew older I grew more eco-conscious of the world. I was much more aware of the things I put into my body, and I really liked the notion of sustainability, self-sufficiency, and anything organic.

Roll forward a number of years, and when it came time for me to get my own place I wanted somewhere out in the redwoods where I could grow my own food and raise my own animals. There’s nothing more satisfying than walking down to the garden and picking your own veggies for dinner that night, or collecting your own eggs for breakfast. Or fresh blackberry pies made with hand picked berries from the not-so-secret patch off Summit road. Eventually I want to create a more closed-loop system, in particular something with an aquaponics setup for self fish-farming and automatic hydroponics that feeds off the fish waste.

What was it like working on the iPhone before it launched? [I take it you're good at keeping a secret.]
Ah yes, the iPhone was a glorious project to work on and it was an experience I loved. I judiciously dedicated quite a bit of my life to it for a while, working away on the super-secret project. Now my friends weren’t so into it, as I was working a lot and missing quite a bit of unicycle rides and climbing trips. They came to call it “my mistress,” since I couldn’t talk about what I was doing, and I was staying at work late into the evening.

You have so many eclectic passions it’s hard to know where to start. I guess what first caught my attention was the mountain unicycling. Please explain.
What is there not to like about mountain unicycling? Take something that seems so preposterous to ride and place it in an environment that you can’t imagine going. Those are the types of situations I love! But what is it about unicycling that I really like? I think I enjoy the challenge. At first, it is hard to just to learn to ride the darn thing. And then later you move on to riding on fire roads. And then progress to single track trails…then hopping over logs..then riding down stairs…then riding mountain bike parks…then riding up stairs…then hopping off 5′ ledges…and the challenges never stop! There will always be something about unicycling I can’t do, and I absolutely love the challenge. It also stops to make you think. If you fall off, you can stop and contemplate, “Well, why did I fall off, and what can I do to prevent that from happening next time?”

I also like seeing people smile. I really enjoy riding my unicycle down the street and seeing people crack the biggest smile they may have had their whole day. Making other people happy brings me happiness.

At some point mountain unicycling led into longer distance unicycling on a large diameter wheel. This opened up the possibilities of touring on it, and since then I have toured on one wheel in some of the most amazing places: Africa, Vietnam, Madagascar, and New Zealand. I absolutely love traveling, and it is immensely enjoyable to travel at pace where you can really literally stop and smell the roses. Or, in my case, stop and watch a herd of zebras run in front of me with giraffes in the background.

Introduce us to your Plug Bug. What’s her story?
I’m not sure it is a him or a her; it’s more of a thing. I try to not get too attached to my things, since at any point in life if something happens to an object I own, I never want to be mad. Some people get really angry and pissed off at the world when their car gets a dent or scratch and I never want to be that way. Sure, I would be sad if my car got destroyed in a crash, but heck…it’s just a thing and not a person. So, I don’t truly associate my cars as having a people-personality.

Plug Bug is more the name of the project itself. I purchased a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle with about 300,000 miles and restored it to practically brand-new condition. But, of course, with me there is always a catch, and the catch is that I converted it to run 100% on electricity. A few years ago I realized that electric cars really are the wave of the future. But I have always had a strong passion and desire to own cool old cars. But old cars are horrible polluters for the environment. Actually, heck, so are most new cars too! So I wanted to convert a car to be an Electric Vehicle (EV) and have it be more eco-friendly. I did most of the work myself, and after about 9 months of labor, I ended up with a very adorable little car that I can commute to work in. It gets somewhere from 70-100 miles per charge and I enjoy every minute I spend driving it. It’s also a great conversation piece; many people come up to talk to me about my “cool old car,” and then get blown away when they realize it takes no gasoline.

You have a pretty extensive [and enviable] workshop. Whatcha been working on lately?A bit of everything! I’m a constant learner in life and I love acquiring new skills, so lately I’ve been teaching myself to TIG weld. My next rather hum-drum project is going to be remodeling my bathroom. The next cool project will be making an aerial cube to take to Burning Man this year and play on in my theme camp dubbed “Circus Boot Camp.”

Are you secretly training for life in the circus? [Say yes!]
Apparently I am! I sort of fell into it and really enjoy the physical challenges that circus provides. I will sometimes see a performance and think, “That looks cool; I bet I could make that apparatus and do it.” Last year I saw someone perform a Roue Cyr (aka: Simple Wheel), and decided I could make my own. So, lately I’ve been practicing on the Cyr wheel learning how to do basic spinning and maybe some day I will do a performance on it. It’s quite challenging, and my progress has been slow, but I do enjoy learning it. I’m also considering learning some basic aerial silk moves just as a fun side hobby, since I have one hanging from the ceiling in my house. It also makes an awesome indoor swing.

What does the future hold for you?
The future holds more traveling to cool places in the world, ideally on one wheel. My next fun trip will be to Italy in 2012 for the Unicycle World Championships; I want to attempt to maintain my world champion status for the 27 mile marathon unicycle race. South America is somewhere that’s always caught my eye, and I’m thinking of a prolonged trip there in a few years. I also love warm tropical places and have an affinity towards them, probably because I was born on Maui. Other than that, I will continue to make things and do things I find interesting in life.

Want to learn more about Corbin?  Check out his website.

by Anita Stubenrauch

The internet has generously provided many ways for us to get our geek on and here’s one more. Follow these five steps when online dating and you’ll be well on your way to hooking a hottie.

1) Take a good picture, please.
You want to believe people can see your amazing personality shining out of your belly like a Care Bear Stare. They can’t. The photo you post on your profile shows the world wide web what you’re working with, so let’s try a little, shall we?

• Wear colors that complement those bright eyes.
• If you want to go all Cecil B. DeMille for your close-up, you can vaseline the lens, but soft lighting works just as well and it’s much easier to clean.
• There is a universally flattering angle. Hint — it doesn’t occur below your chin.

2) Be succinct.
Don’t tell your whole life story — if your profile drags on and on, one can only imagine a conversation with you flowing the same way. Yawn.

• Leave something to the imagination.
• Be a bit of a tease — in the nicest possible way.
• Give someone an incentive to ask more.

3) You’re more attractive without your “list.”
Maybe you have a checklist you want to tick off before you accept a date with Mister or Miss Right, but, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Having prerequisites sure didn’t help Scarlett O’Hara and I’m pretty sure it’s not doing you any favors, either.

• If you are going to venture forth with a list, make sure it’s a conversation-starter, not a conversation-killer. For instance, my list would go something like this, “My ideal man must have a deeper voice than I do and be able to beat me at an arm-wrestling contest.” Let the comments roll in.

4) Meet sooner rather than later.
There’s nothing like face time. Don’t get so attached to the witty online banter that you’re disappointed when someone can’t string two words together in person.

• Skip dinner and a movie that first time out. It’s strictly second-online-date material when you know you have a connection. Instead, meet for something noncommittal like coffee/tea/hot chocolate/scotch and leave space for “Gotta run!”/”It’s been real [high-five]!”/”Let’s go for a walk.”/”But I thought you said you loved me?”

5) Safety first [though numerically last?]
A little advice from Mamma Bear.

• There’s some strange wildlife out there. Have fun making friends and checking out the scenery, but tell your clan where you’re going and when you will be back at the den, or at least when they can expect to hear your familiar growl. No ifs, ands, or buts.

PS Not that you asked, but my favorite online dating site is OkCupid. A free dating site founded by Harvard grads which uses math to get you dates. What’s not to love?

Don’t let what you see be all that you perceive. People have layers, even when they have Photoshop layer masks.

by Frank Morgan

A recent conversation I had stuck with me. I was in a chat room listening to people discussing their ideal woman. I don’t really buy into this stuff, as I’m pretty sure the ideal woman doesn’t exist. If she did, she’d look like a physical impossibility, be filthy rich and probably have a jetpack. Of course, if we’re going to play this game, I’d have to be her ideal man. So, my favorite things would be listening and boutique fashion, my biceps would be the size of my thighs, I’d be a Prince Harry and I’d never wear Motörhead shirts. That’ll never happen. There is no “ideal me,” and there sure as hell ain’t no “ideal her.” So, when I hear someone tell me he only likes a certain ethnicity, she has to be thin yet curvaceous and have his sense of style, I call his bluff. Then I start to wonder why he wanted all that in the first place. So, let’s take a step back so I have a little more room to rant.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (random poet dude, don’t worry) described a photograph as “a mirror with a memory.” He was of the opinion that a photograph would take a true image and preserve it for all time. He also thought that picture would be the most honest, unbiased method of capturing that memory. A lot of people disagree with that, myself included. Civil war photographers posed bodies to make better, more gut-wrenching pictures. Soviet officials airbrushed dead people out of state portraits. Heck, you think settlers and cowboys never smiled? Not according to their pictures.

Fast forward to today. Not a single goddamn picture in a magazine is without some form of photoshopping. It’s so rare to see an un-doctored image, people freak out when it happens. Remember that Kim Kardashian thing a while back? The magazine she posed in screwed up and ran a picture of her without touch-ups. When people noticed Kim had cellulite there was a huge media sensation. Kim said that she didn’t care what people saw, but that little mistake brought all this airbrushing and fixing back into the public’s eye. As a society, we see what the media shows us. We get our perceptions of what is supposed to be beautiful from magazines, movies and celebrities, so what are we supposed to do when nothing we’re shown is real? If that’s all we see, how do we reconcile the ideal with reality?

Something I’ve noticed among people, guys and girls, is that we tend to have an expectation of what we want. Guy must be tall, have huge shoulders, white teeth and loads of money. Or that dangerous tattooed look. Women are supposed to have Jessica Rabbit figures, and do that whole maiden/slut thing. Any deviation and the person is brushed away as not good enough, or out of their league. As much as I hate to say it, nobody’s ever going to be perfect. Human nature being what it is, look for something wrong and you’ll find it. Ten bucks says you’ll never even say hello. So why start with negatives all the time?

If my last rambling paragraph described you, try something a little different. Rather than looking for reasons why someone isn’t good enough, start with the positive. Is he a blast to hang out with? Sweet. Does she make you laugh harder than anyone you know? Awesome. Now that you have something interesting to work with, then maybe look into those negatives, like that Elmer Fudd laugh or his love of Wrestlemania. If there are too many negatives, at least you tried. If the positives outweigh the negatives, where’s the problem?

Don’t expect people to ever look like they do in movies, TV or magazines. They have entire departments whose sole purpose is to lie to us, and they get fired if it’s not believable. Besides, unless you hang out in one of four locations on the globe, you’re not going to be around movie stars, so get used to disappointment. Rather than having a checklist of requirements, try to find something fun about the person. That way, you’ll actually want to find out more, rather than brushing off Mr. Potentially Right ten seconds before he tells you about his job rescuing baby seals from killer whales during blizzards. Or whatever interesting thing you’re looking for. Don’t tie yourself down to what you think you deserve, better or worse. Some of the best relationships I had were with pretty much the polar opposite of who I was looking for. I have no regrets.

And the people who are waiting for that perfect someone, checklist in hand? That one-in-a-million, everything’s perfect someone? They’re still waiting and it’s gonna be a while.

If you have questions or disagree with the author, feel free to email him at frank@indoorboys.com. Frank welcomes all differing opinions, no matter how wrong they might be.

But we’ll let you in on a secret — the trick is finding the right crowd so you can find the one who stands out in it.

by Frank Morgan

Time for a bit of honesty here: I get most of my ideas for Modern Love from things that happen to me. I’m no crazy expert on emotions or psychology, and I’m nowhere creative enough to make up stuff like this. Usually, odd stuff happens to me and tt’s only later I decide it’d make a good article. Such is the case this week. I got into a conversation with friends and coworkers (great testing group, I know) about meeting people. Not in the sense of barroom hookups, but actual conversations. I wasn’t looking for article bait, I was looking for places to hang out. My only requirements were no bars/clubs, nothing online, no phone and no speed dating crap. I wanted actual face-to-face awkwardness. My co-workers started off with a bang: I heard truck stop restrooms, glory holes, emergency rooms, funerals, bar mitzvahs and the Olympics. In that order. Thankfully, the subject changed and we actually started talking about useful stuff. When I transcribed it, the conversation turned out to be about eight pages, so I’ll pull the main ideas. Here’s what I got.

The most popular choice was the bookstore, by quite a bit. This was a bit of a surprise for me, as I read mostly sci-fi and fantasy with a smattering of classics and other fiction. I spend most of my time in the deepest darkest nerd cave of the bookstore, an already nerdy locale. I’ve become accustomed to getting in, looking at books and pointedly ignoring the other, cooler people in their sexual deviancy or investment banking aisles. Apparently, some people go to bookstores to with the intent of meeting people and don’t buy any books. Weird, right? The idea that I could be social while scratching my nerd itch was alien to me, but it kind of made sense. In bookstores, I’m surrounded by people who enjoy reading almost as much as I do. You know, the people I can never find in bars. And all of you that go to bookstores for their DVD section, not only do you kill my soul a little, you probably aren’t the target audience of this website, so we’re going to ignore you now.

After bookstores, the next best choice was some variation of house parties. This should be pretty basic, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention them. House parties, barbecues, birthdays and weddings aren’t great for the alcohol (though it helps). They’re not great for the celebration and food, although that helps too. They’re great because of friends. In my experience, friends are the best ways to meet people, period. If you don’t have friends, make some. It’s not hard, just to talk to people. Even Dahmer and Stalin had friends, and they were way worse than you’ll ever be. For you math people, think of it like this: your circle of friends share interests, humor, etc. with you. Your friends’ circles of friends share interests, humor, etc. with them. Put them all together for that Venn diagram effect of overlapping circles, hopefully with you in the middle of a bunch of people who share interests, humor, even that coveted et cetera. Now add all that flawed quasi-math to a barbecue? Good food, drinks and people who almost automatically have stuff in common? It’s pretty hard to mess that up.

The last two were the DMV and the airport, and I found to be pretty successful in a weird way. Have you ever watched a person wait all the way through that behavioral experiment of a DMV line just to get told by a snotty receptionist that his signature wasn’t cursive and he’s gotta wait in line all over again? Or something equally inane that results in six more hours in that God-forsaken place? Nest time something like that happens, look around you. You’ll see total strangers making conversation about how much the DMV sucks, the last time they were there, or some other “screw this place” story. Same thing with the airport. Delay a flight fifteen minutes, not much happens. Delay a flight three hours, passengers start talking. Five hours, they’re on a first name basis. Any longer, they’re damn near naming kids after each other. Shared misery unites people. Usually against the bringer of the misery, but hey, united’s united.

So what did I take from this, besides ignoring most of what friends tell me? The best thing to do is to get out there. As cool as your house/apartment/room is, you’re not going to meet anybody until you leave it. Fun things are great ways to meet people, terrible things are great ways to meet people, there doesn’t seem to be a wrong way of meeting people. Even drunken hookups occasionally end in marriage (but don’t bet on it). So just get out there and do stuff. Go wait in line somewhere. Go to a concert, join a cult, start a riot. They’ve all worked for someone, you just gotta find what works for you. Now if you’ll pardon me, I gotta to go buy some books.

Generously donated by Frank “Share that Misery” Morgan.

How to be sure the real you is not some creepy stranger.

by Frank Morgan

Looking back at the last couple of articles I wrote, I got a bit sidetracked. I’d originally started this thing as a way to sort of offer my perspective on dating, love, romance, etc. And as an excuse to tell a few funny stories. I figured I’d go into beauty, women’s first move, mild dating advice and see where things went. Right about the time I planned on doing the advice thing, I had a hilariously terrifying evening that I wanted to write about. Then I got sidetracked by pickup artistry. Now that I have those out of my system, I think I should get back to what I set out to write. I’ll try not to ramble too far.

I’ll assume that you’ve had some experience dating. As I’ve said before, a date’s just a chance to get to know someone, maybe do something interesting. So I’m going to skip all the drunken hookups, awkward introductions, online setups, smoke signals or however you met Mr. or Ms. Hypothetical Date. I’ll also assume that you managed to get past the first couple phone calls/texts without any creepy breathing, prank calls or fake numbers. So now you’re trying to figure out what to do.

A date isn’t a date unless something happens. It could be a walk on a beach, an overpriced, dimly-lit meal, a pretentiously subtitled movie, anything really. After a few conversations, you should have a halfway decent idea for something you both can have fun doing. If not, movies and dinners are a pretty safe bet. Try to avoid religious functions or anything overtly political. Unless you both like arguing or agree on hot-button issues and spirituality, it’s not good to start a relationship on an argument.

Another thing to avoid are crutches — alcohol, spending more money than you own, fake accents (even if they work). All these things are fine in small doses, but relying on them for every date will end badly. I love chemical romances as much as the next person, but having a date who’s always shithoused gets old fast. The problem I found with all those little dating crutches is they became habits. The habits were things I hid behind out of fear I wasn’t interesting/ruggedly manly enough for whoever I was dating. It got to the point I couldn’t see people without that little safety blanket. If you aren’t comfortable enough to date a person without outside help, it ain’t gonna work. I’m not saying that a funny joke or a glass of wine is dating kryptonite, but relying on them is. Sooner or later your personality’s going to slip out. Don’t make the real you some creepy stranger.

The other stuff is pretty obvious. Body language is important, so don’t fidget so hard. No creepy stalker jokes until after the fourth date, unless she likes your sense of humor. Don’t take a vegan for veal, trust me on that one. Remember to relax. You’re here to have a good time, maybe even romance it up a little. The more stuff you try to control, the worse it’ll turn out. One of the best dates I ever had was a complete disaster. We went to a restaurant that was supposed to be amazing, only to find it closed. Then we got lost in a terrible part of town, finally found a restaurant. It catered to a post-retirement crowd, so we ate geriatric food and boiled meat. Eventually we wandered into a random bar because we heard live music. The music ended up being rockabilly covers of 80’s hair metal, which was the saving grace of the entire evening. We laughed at ourselves the entire time, ended up having a blast.

So, as I sit here, listening to Iron Maiden (don’t you dare tell me Maiden’s not romantic), the best advice I can give about dating is to relax. Unless your date’s attracted to anger management issues or inventive cussing, freaking out won’t fix anything. You’re here to have fun with a person; they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t at least mildly interested in you. Don’t rely too much on good luck charms or massive amounts of somewhat-legal chemicals, unless that’s your thing. And, if it is, well, knock yourself out.

Someday, Frank will find someone who thinks Iron Maiden’s romantic.

Nominate an Honorary Indoor Boy and show the whole-webbed-world what you’re workin’ with.

First 100 entries win free membership to The Boys Club — with smart and sexy perks for your smart and sexy self — more details coming soon!