here's life

I finished my coffe cup shaped table, following a suggestion of aduma's. The glass and metal are from the 1KW light I got. The handle is a hollow nylon tube that I bent by melting it in the oven seen to the left. I wrapped the plastic in aluminum foil and put it in at 400 degrees until it was soft enough to bend, which was 10 minutes or so. Then I bent it in to shape and let it harden. The crumpled foil helped keep it from burning my hands. It did take me two stints with the oven to get it the right shape. Don't melt plastic. Death, injury or fire could result.

It sure took alot of coffee to fill this cup up, but it wasn't like I wanted to drink the stuff.



I picked up a lamp at a yard sale, because it had a beat up lampshade. I made one from fiber reiforced honeycomb. Six tapered pieces held together with stripped cat5 wire. Each twisted pair was hard to unwind, until I found I could put one end in the drill and pull apart the other ends, by operating the drill with my foot. My living room has seen better days, but it has been a while.

Other news:
I spent the day sunday at church where they were hosting a carnival. I was the trash guy, about a half dozen trashcans were all that needed my attention--others took good care of the rest. So it was just enough to keep me from feeling useless or bored. There were games, and big inflatable things, and bands and doorprizes and food and it was all free, YAC-style. Facepainting, popcorn, caricatures and cotton candy were also there. I think it was a success, they were shooting for 400 people and I think they probably had close to double that. I got something of a sunburn, drank over a gallon, and still was dehydrated when I got home after dark.

More pics, posted into the past....

So, there is blood around my sink. I was washing dishes and I thinks to myself, I'll go ahead and wash that bowl in the freezer. So I pull the glass serving dish of frozen paper-water mixture out of the freezer and notice there is some ice stuck to the bottom of the dish. As I go to run water over the bowl to melt out the block of icy paper, I run my hand over the bottom. The ice is especially sharp and then blood begins to run out of my thumb. I realize that the glass bowl broke out, and the shards of ice are actually the shattered glass, clinging to the frozen paper. Hot or cold water didn't stop it bleeding, but some presure did. So, now I have my thumb taped with yellow tape, and I am letting it clot some before going back to the dishes. It is cool yellow tape though--it is the stuff they use to mark tiny scratches and dings on the plane that need fixing.

So, it is like mid-morning and I cannot keep my eyes open. So I go grab a cup of coffee, pour in a lot of sugar---and presto! I am awake. I can think more clearly. I am smarter and better looking! I survived 4 years of school without hardly touching the stuff, and not really thinking that it had much effect on me. Now that I have something to wake me up in the morning, I just need something to put me to sleep in the evening---when I am totally not tired. I could feel fantastic all the time!

Here I am in the country which shines as the paragon of freedom and liberty for the entire human race. Where beyond the golden rule there are few limits on the creative nature. Here, where we broke out from under oppressive english rule because they dared to impose a few cents of tax on our tea. We are proud to have built a country where there is no one dictating the flow of our lives, where laws are passed to protect the poor and give them a chance to compete with the rich. Here in this country, if you want to make a better life for yourself, through hard work you can usually pull it off, and if you fall down, the government is always there to give you a hand up, and a guardrail, so you don't fall down again. And who doesn't need a guardrail--some fence to keep you from falling off a cliff? And there is danger everywhere! I don't even have to stand up on my own anymore, the fences keep me from falling over. But I can dream of climbing over the spikes on the safety fence, of roaming the world, maybe I'll be lucky enough to see a mountain! And when I awake, I am still in my nice safe cage.

So, I am trying to make this table, using sticks and string (to be replaced with cables). I have gotten this far, but I am not sure if I can make it stand up to any weight with the low angles I want (table wants to be a little lower than shown) I plan to add some more strings, help it keep it's shape. Any ideas?

The strike at Boeing has not stopped yet, but it looks like I will continue to work as usual, in the usual department.

I finally finished the endtable. It is much more stable, and more...Greek.
I am currently using a piece of glass that I got off a 1KW light I got at the Surplus Center. (the light works, but is much too bright and power hungry for my needs)

It appears that there are building codes in this area which puts a damper on my dream of building myself a house--unless I keep it under 200 ft^2. I can still figure out how to do it, which is probably all I would get around to anyway before I got distracted.
I can't get my current house cleaned up--what makes me think I could build one? Everything must wait for another day.

So, I went to Chris's wedding. The service was pretty simple, and what you would expect in a wedding. The brother of the groom supplemented the recorded classical pieces by playing an acoustic and singing some praise songs in Italian. The message was your normal exhortation to the couple--which they probably were too excited to hear, but knew already.

The reception was fun, talking to people, good food--I didn't feel like I had enough, so I ate several extra salads from empty seats, (can't let food go to waste). They used dinging-the-glasses in the way that I was culturally used to--I explained it to the others at my table, (who were expecting an announcement) that it meant we wanted the bride and groom to kiss. There was also a tradition I had heard of, but not seen: the groom was "kidnapped" and held for ransom, the bride going around with a pair of pants, gathering donations. Eventually he was released, and the money was given to the couple.
Four voices and a guitar from the groom's family added a nice interlude, although one speaker in a gym doesn't bring out the beauty of closely harmonized voices very well. The normal wedding cake was supplemented with Torta Claudia, of which I was able to bring home a few extra pieces. I liked the crunchy fried bread suspended in the cake.

Afterwards I helped clean up, which made me feel useful, and then I went over to the hotel where the out-of-town friends and family were staying and watched the OSU/TX game(we lost). It was nice to just hang with people. Even though my only connection was that I went to school for a few months with some of them, and they knew my siblings, I still was a strand in the web of interlaced lives. Among the ten there were people who had grown up in Ecuador, Italy, Thailand and the US and I felt at home.

Now I will go to bed before I come down off the emotional high of feeling that I belong.

This weekend I flew to Ohio and visited my brother, sister-in-law and other brother. And my mother came up a few days early so she could see me. (she was coming anyway)

I got there at the end of a two week scramble to make half of a duplex livable, as they were putting on the finishing touches, cleaning up, and moving in. There was wiring being done, plumbing being hooked up, appliances being swapped about, and then my brother's girlfriend came along behind and cleaned it all. By the time I left, they were moved in, and starting to make the other side of the duplex ready for a tenant.

Now I am back in Wichita, and work. The strike is still on. The big problem is that since Seattle is striking, Spirit doesn't have anyone to send the planes to when there are done. So, the shop is going to three day weeks and my department is sending a lot of people to other departments that don't produce anything. Or at least aren't financially intertwined with shipping a plane a day to the great wet north. I didn't ask where I was going--I'll probably find out tomorrow, and I am not sure how to feel about being shuffled to other places--could be good or bad either way. So, I didn't go ask. It will happen eventually. It is either stay, go to the -900ER or the 787. I think the 787 would be interesting, or stressful. Que sera

So, here I sit, listening to my fountain while I eat mango with a knife. I think my pump would put out a lot more water if it didn't have to pipe it through a block of wood.

Yesterday a 25 gallon fish tank came into my possession. I don't really need a fishtank, so maybe I'll make it into a terarium. It has the filters, light, heater and all (don't know if it works), so I'll have to figure out a way to make use of that. Yet another project that will have to be put on hold until I get back from visiting my siblings et. al.

I worked on my endtable this evening instead of packing. It didn't work out the way I had planned. Some of you may be able to determine the design flaws from the pictures. Hint: What happens on a rainy day?

I am going to need to make a new one, and I'm not sure what I can do with the old one...it lies on it's side quite stablely, maybe I'll make another and use them for my coffee table.