Blinky Lights and Shiny Objects

The wood was too wet, so the structure was still standing by the time our group left the scene to go to dinner. I think this was the best ignition I've seen - a flaming something was launched at the bonfire using a trebuchet !

While we were at Cedar Point (yes, again) last weekend, one topic of discussion in line ended with me thinking about if a Klein Bottle could be made in crochet. I poked around online, and found that while several people have patterns or product for sale using knit and crochet, no-one has something like what I've been mentally designing. The concept is stuck in my head, like a song you keep remembering, and I've spent enough time refining it that I think I can actually make it work in real life. At Stitches Midwest 2009, Habu Textiles had a booth. I bought many strange and wonderful things there, including two skeins of fique material. Here is a photo of the start I got on the Klein bottle next to the rest of one skein.

I found a stash of older image files on a backup hard-drive. It includes photos taken with my first digital camera, which was a Kodak peripheral for my Palm IIIc. Here is a picture of the whiteboard from some point during Senior Project at Rose-Hulman. I love that graph!

DSCN2694 Originally uploaded by prismglass I got my PIV (see http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/piv/index.html) on Friday. I put this pouch together this weekend. It is going to live in my purse and help shield my RFID stuff from bad guys. The Flickr set has more details in the captions for the other photos.

I've spent more time at work in the last three days using Microsoft Paint than ProEngineer. There was a communication problem with a supplier about what surface finishes should go where on some of my complicated machined parts. The drawing depicts this information using tiny filled dots on each surface connected to leader lines ending with note callouts. NOTE 2.1 is irridite, NOTE 2.2 is hardcoat anodization, NOTE 2.3 is Aeroglaze over irridite, and so on. One finish (usually Aeroglaze) is the default for the view, and I have notes calling out the other finishes. I'll be honest, the views look like porcupines. If that was all you had to go on, it would be tough to get a clear picture of what the finished part was supposed to look like, or even if I had any goal in mind. After consulting with the supplier and talking with the people who would have to do all the complicated masking, we decided that color coded pictures would be very helpful. I verified that no-one there wa...

Lee now makes jeans cut to actually fit against the back of one's waist without a huge gap. I was very surprised when all four pairs from three different brands I brought into the JC Penney fitting room were wearable, including a clearance model that rang up at $3.98 . That NEVER HAPPENS.