One year ago today: May 3, 2016, my 8 band rules.
Five years ago today: May 3, 2012, memories of the bakery.
Nine years ago today: May 3, 2008, so I’m not “direct enough".
Random years ago today: May 3, 2013, studying ROM.
Who remembers that Civil War frying skillet pan-like thing? It was brought here to the lab and given the standard de-rust and drill press scrub. I have sum zero knowledge of how these metal pieces may once have supposed to look, but demonstrates quality of legendary robot club workmanship. It would seem that Agt. R has seen these things new because he thought it wasn’t the same skillet, but that I had somehow replaced it. I never cooked anything on it because I’m not a fan of metal-handled kitchen gear and it has a rough surface, like a blotchy orange peel. I prefer smooth.
The [shed] roof is now bolstered up and didn’t leak in the afternoons shower. I still don’t trust it in a real downpour, so more on that later. The door needs repair and after that, the electrical. It’s a lot of effort but it’s also by far the best work shed in my group. And the only one that gets used regularly by the look of things. I still can’t cut glass but the obstacle is more practice. The instructional videos all have the same defect of editing out the mistakes. This blog doesn’t do that. We tell you what went wrong, though we’re more inclined to point it out in other situations than just our own.
If I can learn to make French toast, I can learn to make pancakes. This cowboy had breakfast in style watching the circus in my little front yard biome. You’d think the pigeons are the least aggressive, but they shoulder aside the squirrels and bluejay. That’s singular jay, there is no evidence of the female. I put out bread crumbs for the squirrel and today, thanks to French toast, I’ll crumble the eggshells like it says in the book. Maybe throw in some pottery shards and re-invent black earth. There, Professor Dan Crystal, I finally used “pottery shards” in a sentence. Told ya! (What the heck is a shard?)
Thinking over the guitar player situation again, I’m not out of ideas yet. It takes too long to train somebody from scratch and the existing players all revert to their own song lists, a set of tunes that really annoy me these days. I’ve avoided telling either group that until things are up and running, they have to do exactly what I say. It sounds harsh, but it is the discipline needed by beginners and a severe warning to all others. I realized that I have several people who fit the bill already but I haven’t given them a real chance. How do I know it’s an idea worth pursuing? Because I reached it under my prime thinking conditions. Sitting down with a cold glass of tea, or hold it, this morning it was my special powdered milk. The one with vanilla sugar and malt. I’m worth it.
Everglades.
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JZ called asking about women. They’re everywhere, except Miami and you bet he knows his missing out on everything. Miami is home, but home is where you can expect very few surprises or adventures. At least not the kind you want. Home is drama, which never teaches you anything useful. The bounce in the stock market means he’s got extra bucks but not enough for a new truck. Or he’d be out here. He’s already jealous of the work shed, so remind me to take another brace of pictures to really goad the guy. Hey, we had a bet over who’d be first to get a place.
What? Well of course I’m helping. These pictures don’t take themselves, you know. We had taken a day trip, me paying of course, through the Picayune Forest, and wound up driving through Immokalee for the first and only time until I drove through there by motorcycle last December. It’s something like the meth capital of Florida, a dirty little agricultural town of machinery lots and old saloons. The only people on the streets are foreign nationals pushing baby carriages. The pawn shop has two sets of bars on the windows.
That’s the trip where I first saw a drive-thru liquor store. A converted car wash, rather astute, and it was a baking hot day. We had to get out of the sun. We were the only customers, it was still morning, so we parked and walked inside. If you go back to then in this blog, you can see some of these pictures. We are from the generation that did not age gradually, so I’m still awed by how youthful we seemed compared to now. Why, I still had blonde hair. I can confirm the longer you look young, the greater and faster the aging process when your turn arrives. What? I was talking about Reese Weatherspoon.
“Do street cleaners get formal training
or do they pick it up as they go along?”
Mapping out the white shed, I’m going to need another $40 for that roof. Overall, this shed has become expensive as hell. But the benefits are there. It is an admirable work shed. Not just some lean-to or dusty shelter, it’s a tiny but fully appointed shop. Not to be mistaken for an assembly area, it is not intended to function like some mini-factory. Recall how I’ve referred to it as “the lab”. Well, I mean the shed, but the reason is the different way new construction takes place here. It is no like on-line, with smiling actors turning out perfect results every time. Mind you, I’m just like most actors, only better looking.
The difference is over here there is a tendency to build a scale model. This art seems lost to the Internet crowd. I’ve done the computer simulations and there is no comparison to handing somebody a beautifully hand-made physical model, the more so if you avoid plastic and use wood. (No kudos here, nobody chose wood knowing this, but rather because when the club started, I could only afford woodworking tools.) Remind me to run a twelve-foot oak floorboard through that jointer today. Just to see how it turns out. The wood really is red, but not dark red and no, I didn’t know that.
The lantern I built is not a scale model because it was already near the size and shape of a model itself. The holdup now is the glass and the router table, which is in Ft. Meyers and won’t be here until the weekend. Unless you want to go get it. It’s a hundred miles, but the good news is it comes with the router. Once I see how it works, I’ll quickly build a table for the club router used only for cutting the glass grooves. I cannot find any of these touted dado saw blades at any of the local suppliers. I’ve seen the small ones that fit on a 4” saw which I don’t have, but even those I can’t find.
ADDENDUM
Just because only the top events make mention, that doesn’t mean the other projects just evaporate. I’m still looking at easy ways to convert or create cheaper eyeglass lenses, for non-driving purposes of course. The DMV is the biggest salesman the optical industry ever adopted. I thought to fill you in on what I’m currently experimenting with. Reminding any newcomers that I am only targeting the average person who needs glasses in the average range. That’s simply myopia with bad vision beyond 40 feet. That’s 80% of the total.
My current approach is to take the lenses out of old eyeglasses and drill tiny holes to attach them to the inside of regular “Wal*Mart” sunglasses. I mean tiny holes such as only a robotics man who’s mastered pilot hole technology could hand-drill. These are attached by tiny nuts and bolts, as screws eventually work their way out. Alas, the only economical source of these screws remains other eyeglasses, that is, the nuts & bolts cost 25 cents a set. Anyway, these are the more salient discoveries of my research.
a) When using sunglasses, most people only look at fairly distant objects. Hand them a book or photo, they will slip the glasses off. So, kiss off, bifocals.
b) Distant vision isn’t important to “girl-watching” and women are both more shameless about ogling and more sensitive about being noticed doing it. Valuable market knowledge, guys.
c) My own vision is near the upper limit of terrible, so I’m able to test most lenses by simply looking through them. If I can see across the road, they are good enough.
Still with me? Combining the above, it would seem that since sunglasses and by extension, goggles, need a large lens. Not so, since these are best used when looking ahead to a distance and angle determined by your eyeball at rest. Simply close your eyelids and your eyes will naturally float to this position—and I learned that myself, world.
Even in goggles, where the lenses are typically 3mm further from your eyeball, the thin-wide style works best. You’ve seen these type of lenses in reading glasses. In some respects, this shape of lens works better for sunglasses because there is no tendency to nod and look over the rim, nor slide them up thread a needle. And such lenses are nearly weightless.
If you’ve ever been dazed at the price of prescription sunglasses, then take a better peek at what I’m doing here. My highest cost of a pair of sunglasses I’ve made myself is $4.00. That cost would plummet once I find a source of the tiny nuts and bolts and acquire a way to make lenses cheaply, or modify them into three strengths. Light, medium, or heavy. That would be the myopic’s choice until further notice. That notice arrives when I have a cool million buried in Colorado.
Remember, once again, you heard it here first.
Last Laugh
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