One year ago today: November 8, 2024, define “good”.
Five years ago today: November 8, 2020, damn politics.
Nine years ago today: November 8, 2016, neatly folded up.
Random years ago today: November 8, 2009, that single day.
I used to smoke some twenty years ago. Because human hair absorbs the aroma, I used a product solely because it smelled good. Alberto VO5. It’s scented Vaseline. I just saw it on-line for $20 a tube. Good morning and I’m still on a French toast kick. I can have a batch ready in six minutes. It’s wonderful how Nature made one egg exactly the right size for two slices. There’s food in the house just like there must be over in Welfare City a week after SNAP died because we’ve seen no food riots. I’ll have another coffee.
Here’s an object some of you may remember for some time. I have tried and failed to find somebody to design and create a toothpick holder. Just not what some of you are thinking. I need as tiny as possible a little square of any suitable material that will hold 100 toothpicks. This is not the finished product and it probably 1.5 times larger than I need. It is proof that at least in concept, cutting this holder is not as complex an operation as so many others went on about. My thinking now is that it could somehow be accomplished by trial and error. There will be challenges getting it right, but we’ve gotten further this morning that all four people we’ve asked over the years.
It was also with interest I viewed several documentaries of “experts” check out the machines and you know something? They don’t really know any more than we already do. Their approach to cutting something different or new is the same seat-of-the-pants method I use. There is no masterful input of dimensions, just adjust the size and throw on another piece. This is my first shot at designing something useful.
A third pass is is needed for thin balsa, which by this time is hotter than you think. And who told you blogs never taught us anything. Try finding a word about this in the manual or from a GenXer. Admit it, not many blogs show you a picture of their very first laser fire.
As we learned majorly recently, the laser won’t James Bond any metal, so I’m thinking to build a wire tray with a sheet bottom that looks surprisingly like a piece off an old stove. It would both ward off fires and allow cutout pieces to fall down through for disposal. We’re learning. My desk leaf now has a brand. Let me open a window, it’s kind of smoky in here.
We have also learned that my calipers in the shed, the ones I used for boxes, will find a new lease as an accessory to laser beams. We learned that I don’t have the means to product vector files, so I must use the overscan feature which detectably slows down the laser. And what you see on screen does not faithfully match the cut. Get a set of those picks from Harbor Freight in the mechanic aisle. While you’re there, pick up some welder’s goggles, not the mask, because you will be constantly taking them on and off. Write down your five settings, as the system always changes them at the end of a run, sometimes to your previous settings, sometimes to default.
If you are cutting instead of etching, keep a spray bottle of water handy and set your whole assembly atop a good half-inch thick plate of sacrificial wood. I’ve worked with enough idiotware to know there is still lots of nudging before I get a suitable prototype.
Norwegian tide.
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The first and major sheet of flooring is in place. Tomorrow we shop for a stove. I can’t complete the hookup until I know what model cable is used. The old one is kaput. The pressue is on, I have not baked a pie since spring. The hotplate is fine, but I’d like to make all four pancakes at once again. I also like making sauces, which goes on hold when you have just the two burners. Same with cooking very much ahead. I want my nice retirement stove because breakfast, mainly.
This was a lot of work today. There were several cuts to be made to remove the old flooring and I hit two nails. Stepping from the old to the new flooring is instantly detectable. This sheet is central, down the middle of the kitchen where most traffic is expected. There is no completion schedule for the remaining work. The new kitchen stove goes all the way to the back of this photo.
It was also dusty work with three big fans working full blast. One quart of lime juice, part of the delay was the 11-1/4” offset encountered everywhere. That left-handed carpenter again. That slight mismatch on the flooring, I just accepted it. Once everything settles, I may just add a sheet to build it up level. The old flooring is heaped up outside, please don’t hurricane. I’ll know by early morning if I overdid things. Um, by 8:00PM I got my answer, this time right across the shoulder blades again. My bass-playing group, the worst time was when I was 27, nowadays, I know when to stop.
The only movie interesting enough is “Jack Reacher”, I’m moving twice more today. Once to the comfy chair for this movie, and once to crawl under the covers until dawn. I am really, really sapped, but it was hard work. There permanent flooring is full sheets of plywood and that has never been my favorite. By 9:00PM I’m half-seized up and Reach has commenced the classic bar fight.
The grains are all around this size with the same speckled surface. They are crumbly if you squeeze them just right. And, the itch, something which at first made suspect they were some weird insect. I have a better microscope but it does not yet take pictures and I have no way to make slides yet. Why do some of these grains itch and not others? I have not yet laser zapped any of them.
Oh boy, the obligatory car chase, Reacher is a suspect. And can that lady lawyer be any more obvious? An excellent movie.
ADDENDUM
Wide awake, let’s glance at the midnight news. The Democrats are eyeing a grab at private pensions. Houses are being sold with 50-year mortgages. (Later, I learn the 600-month mortgage is only at the approval stage.)
