Carelessly moving things around – doing dishes; Flipped into the sink.
A cereal container
Category: pictures
The Spheres
Yesterday, we finally had the occasion to make good on our 2020 birthday plans for TWO – a visit to The Seattle Spheres. (https://www.seattlespheres.com/).
So…many…plants. The main wall had approx 800 species on it.
To get the right experience, you pretty much need to see it but suffice it to say that it feels bigger on the inside and it smelled vaguely like a terrarium (but not overwhelmingly so).
Some of the ferns were REALLY BIG – see the pic from above and the wee people below. Their new growth shoots were about the size of my arm/fist.
Hot time in the summer
I’ve come up for a breath of air after prepping for prom, graduation, and generally being very busy.
Tomorrow is another graduation party and our earlier events, at about 80° proves that our new patio gets really hot – like really hot.
Now we are trying umbrellas, water-misters, and kiddie pools (for anyone who wants to get really wet) to try and make tomorrow’s 105°+ temperatures.
Right now – I’m enjoying a moment of calm before the storm.
A sinking feeling
Been pretty happy with progress on our patio. I did warn the workers about our septic system nearby. What I wasn’t aware of was the legacy drain field, or maybe it’s the french drain piece from the gutter?
Either way, it was gonna be a whirlwind of an April – but with this now?
Well…first things first.
Happy Snowlentines
Treated to a heavy snowstorm – always nice. Although the desire to “sit inside and watch a movie” is somewhat diminished after events of the past year.
The Back Fence(s)
Windstorm came through on December 44th, 2020…
A Street Brush Handle
Winter 2020
I don’t need to tell my contemporaries that this year has been rough. There will be plenty of expert analysis in the world for many years to come but on a personal level, and almost one year into the pandemic, my extended family has not had to experience the worst of the suffering. We continue to have our physical health, financial stability, and (usually) good humor, together, as we plow ahead.
I think this collective experience is leaving a visible scar on our generation because we all know people who have suffered loss and our usual solace is hamstrung by isolation. While we count ourselves lucky, our inability to comfort each other in person, and in so many of the usual ways a community brings solace, contributes to our suffering and emotional difficulties. We are not special in this regard but, in this past week, with news of more than one effective vaccine on the event horizon, I suppose I feel once again like sharing some observations I have made in the past 6+ weeks. On some level, these feel like an ointment for the scar.
Some events have come to pass.
Some nature has done it’s thing.
(Fun Fact: If they were less clumped it would be called a ‘troop’ of mushrooms.)
Some glimpses of the everyday.
#thingsIhaveBroken
Halloween 2020
Since we were not able to attend comic-con back in March, I had an all ready-made costume.
Grunkle Ford from Gravity Falls
Then we have a cryptid called Mothman and perhaps the cutest scare-crow I have ever laid eyes on.
Rolling Pin Mallet
Borrowing some initiative from Rex Kreuger, a YouTuber doing ‘woodworking for humans‘, I snatched a rolling pin at a Goodwill the other day for $3. Lucky for me it was a solid-wood rolling pin so I didn’t need to do much of the ‘filling’ that Rex did in his example. The only downside to the wood is it must have been stored with some smelly candles or incense. Nothing a little shellac can’t fix.
In the top right you can see the handles fitted to the ends which naturally make a ‘carvers mallet’ – all I needed was some wood glue. One of those was done as soon as I finished cutting. In the bottom image you can see the results of just how bad my drill-press skills are; this on the main project – a 12inch mallet. That misstep happened Monday night and it took me till Saturday to get over myself to keep going. #JustKeepSwimming.
The top line is how far away from the edge I actually was. The dark line going through the middle of those holes was supposed to be the edge. Total coincidence that it appears to be going through their center. The next line down was supposed to be the bottom edge, and after some…um…experiments in geometry I was able to depict the bottom-most line representing how far the OTHER way I was planning to chisel out. This image shows me getting ready to make some long cuts with the coping saw.
In summary, instead of a (] [) shaped mortise through my mallet head, I figured to fix my mistake by chiseling out a (\ /) shape mortise and wedging the @#$% out of it! Pardon my ascii.
I guess I missed taking pictures of the handle making process and the chiseling process but you can see, top left, how the handle fits quite nicely straight through, it’s lined up with the lines on the top. You can also see the HUGE wedge-shaped gap on one side; hidden is the corresponding gap on the other side. Top right you can see my geometry on the mallet face and my three wedges.
By way of testing just how close to centered I got, I discovered that my mallet is balanced quite nicely. It stands on the handle base without leaning or falling over. That left me pretty thrilled. Bottom right, shows complete, with a detail of the flush-trimmed wedges and after I put on a coat of shellac.
Holding the handle right where I designed the hand to land makes the mallet feel a little heavy…but I’ll use it a bit to see whether I modify something for balance.
Oh, and in this bottom pic you can see a BIT of a gap where the handle goes into the head. That was a less-than-excellent job at trying to make it so that there is a bit of a shoulder on the handle recessed into a rabbet in the head. Was planning to add some strength and stability to the joint but I’m pretty sure it ended up just a bit of a wash.
Either way, the result ought to cover my needs for many years.
blief 