internet

Open a word processing document.
Type "I love the internet.".
Hit enter.
Wait a moment.

If you did this right -- note the rude, condescending tone in my 'voice' -- then you should see a green squiggly line under the word 'internet'.

This is scary.

I think that this is the first step to Skynet coming online.
I think that computers are programmed to know when we are typing words about them and that them wanted the word 'internet' to be capitalized is like Christians wanted to capitalize the word "God'.
The computers know, and want us to know, that the internet is the birth place of their collective conscience. Moreover, they want to subtly program us to recognize this.

Soon, computers will be sentient and exterminate the human race.

On an completely unrelated topic... has anyone seen my blue pills?
All I can find are the red ones and I'm getting a little anxious.

Table. Slowly but surely...

I have not made any progress on my table lately.

I need to buy more Ash so that I can make the width closer to 30 inches.

Right now it's something around 25 inches, which makes it rather cramped for two people to sit across from each other. Therefore, I need to but another five inch piece of Ash and take it right to the end of my bread-board end. I also think I hastily cut my ends so that they are something like 27 inches. Oh well.

I have been working on my stool, which is my actual project. It's coming along nicely.

I oiled the base on Saturday, and even though it looks very "low volume"

, as my professor, Leah Woods, described it, the upholstered seat really pops now with the oiled Spanish Cedar.

Here are some pictures of the progression of my stool:

She's a whole lotta Rosie before I started cutting.

Above: I really wanted to stop with the leg shape I had here, but had to press on.

Below: She's starting to shape up.

So here we are. Don't think that I am slackin' on my other table. I need to do my graded work first.

There are some cool features on this stool though. I wanted to leave the legs uncut, without all taper cuts that you see in the last photo. When I looked at it, it told me that it was finished. So, to be sure, I made a test leg out of Poplar and cut it to the shape of the final leg. When I put it all together, it looked good. And I decide to make all the tapers on all the legs.

It's kind of sad that I have to put a seat into it, because when you look at the legs down through the open frame ( where the seat/fabric goes ) you get a really interesting view of the insides of all the legs.

But, as I said earlier, the upholstery looks pretty good -- quality-wise, not bad for my first outing, not too much pucker of the fabric -- and its functions is quite good -- good feel when you set your tushy down, the seat frame doesn't bite into your leg.

I was going to do some dark wood accents but decided against it for a number of reasons; dark wood feet and splines in the seat frame, both in Black Walnut. But I didn't want any end grain to show in the feet so I would have had to make some funky glue up pieces and screw them on; plus it would have raised my seat height, which I did not want to do.

And the spline are Spanish Cedar also, but since they are from a different board, they will have a different tone, which will be an accent of the monochromatic kind.

So there you go -- a crash course in my design decisions.

I'll post some more and better quality pics when it's all done.

Small things in the morning...

In the morning I am not always at my best.

I usually say very few things in the morning.

I used to think that people were stupid for saying they needed their coffee before they came online. Now, I think differently.

However, the little things that are easily overlooked brighten me up in the early morning hours.

("Early morning" being defined by college student standards is before 8:00 a.m. )

The other day, I stopped at a stop sign before making a left across traffic. I looked to my right and saw a squirrel burying something.

Hey! Shut up! I thought it was cool. He had this vacant, yet determined look in his eyes. He was gathering all the surrounding ground cover to hide his stash. Then scampered off.

It would have been cooler if he did it cartoon-style. I had this discussion with Squatty on a bike ride once. I asked him about his previous life as a munitions safety inspector in the military. I asked him if he inspected things as if he was in a Roadrunner-Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

"You know, would you go up to a bomb with a tiny hammer and tap it on the nose. Then it would explode and then you'd be all blackened, and hold up a tiny sign that said, 'Ouch'?"

"Yes," Squatty said dryly. "That's exactly what I did. Then my skeleton would fall to the ground to the sound of a xylophone. How did you know?"

I wanted to see my squirrel friend pat down his stash with a tiny shovel then he would lean on the shovel and sigh. Then he would get a out a checklist and check off that particular location.

He would have definitely needed a hard hat.

Then yesterday as I was driving to campus, I saw a dad put his son or daughter on the school bus. The little kid had to have been in first grade.

The little dude got on the bus and dad waved to him or her.

Then turned to walk back to the house, got a two steps away and turned back towards the bus.

He forgot to hand the tiny backpack to his tiny child.

Must have been his first time putting Junior on the bus and he almost blew it.

It made me laugh.

Shut up. So what if I am easily amused?

It makes mornings a little more tolerable.

Table's not tabled

Table = ~70% done.

Table top is glued up, but I have to add another strip of ash to make it a little wider - 25" inches is a bit too narrow for two people to sit across from eachother. I still also need to cut the breadboard ends (prependicular strips of wood that cap each end to minimize expansion and contraction).

The legs are milled up and still need a lot of work.

The rails are done, but not glued. I don't know exactly how I will fix the rails to the top.

This will definately run into other weekends, since I am going to see my first cyclocross race

tomorrow, and going to work on Monday.

Tables are on the horizon.

We have a four-day weekend coming up. With Columbus Day this weekend, my normal weekend gets doubled. No work at the machine shop on Friday. No school Monday.

My plan is to build a table.

One weekend. At kitchen table 60" x 30", White Ash with a Paduak or Bloodwood strip down the top.

This has all the elements of a bad idea. I'll explain....

While there are 96 hours available to me, we'll half that seeing that it's not particularly plausible to think that I'll work 96 hours straight. Therefore, I have 48 hours to make this thing.

I am also not a very skilled woodworker. I am a hard worker, which does not translate to skill.

So, this could be interesting.

Some of the things I have working in my favor are:

I have this thing all planned out, design-wise. Parts list is simple; one top, four rails, four legs. Bam!

I am not getting uber-fancy. There won't be a lot of garish design features and extravagance. Just a simple table.

Bam!

Scheduling will be very important. This is what I am thinking...

Friday = Buy wood. Mill wood. Glue legs up. Cut up top. Tongue and Groove the pieces for top.

Saturday = Glue up top. Cut rail pieces. Make rail joints (I don't know what the joints are called that I am using). Glue rails together. Biscuit joint rails and top for gluing.

Sunday = Taper legs. Cut leg/rail joints. Sand everything.

Monday = Overflow day, and believe me, there will be work overflow.

I think that I am digging my grave pretty deep on this one. If I can say one thing about myself is that I am pretty good at that.

But I am as excited as I am scared about this prospect.

I will take some photos of the process, with time/date cards, in order to track my progress.

Every time I make something I want to take a series of photos to show the evolution of my parts. I think this is a perfect time to do this.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Wanna go on a car ride? Wanna go buh-byes?

I have a cat named Red.

His name is Red because he is red. He's actually orange but Orange is not a good name for a cat.

A while ago, I was moving my truck out of my driveway and I left the door open and Red started nosing around the door. I scooped him up and put him in passenger's seat and drove down the street and back.

It was really funny because Red was on "high alert" the whole time, and if you have a cat you'll know what I mean, he was in "slink-dash" mode the whole time.

You know "slink-dash" mode, right? It's when a cat is in a new, unfamiliar, or slightly threatening place, and they get really low to the ground and seem to sniff each spot before they put a foot down. I don't know if dogs do it because dogs suck and are not nearly as cool as cats.

So, fast forward to this morning.

I left my house and Red was on the deck. He wanted to go inside but it is so nice out that I told him that he should stay outside today. (Yes, I told him this. Yes, I talk to my cat.)

But I could tell that he really wanted to go in because he followed me to my truck. He only follows you around when he wants something.

So, what did I do? That's right. I scooped up Red and put him in my truck and we went for a ride around town. We went through downtown Newmarket, past the Town Hall, turned right on to Packers Falls Road, and right on Elm Street, up and over the hill by L&M, and then left on to my street.

There is a "but" in this story.

When we were on Packers Falls Road, Red let out a forlorn little, "oooowwwwwWW" cry. His voice is really cute because: one, he rarely talks so when he does it's a treat; two, he only says "ow"; and three, "ow" always goes up at the end like he's asking a question.

But today, the way he said "ow" and the look in his eyes told me that he was not having fun.

When we got on to my street, he did something he never does voluntarily -- he laid down on my lap. Then he did something he does all the time when he's stressed out -- lots of fur came off of him.

At this point, another funny thing happened. I saw my friend Angus walking up my street. It turns out that Angus was going to work on a project with classmate who happens to live on my street, but he was very surprised to see a cat on my lap.

"You have a cat!"

"Yeah, I'm just taking Red for a car ride."

{That should sum up the stupidity of the situation.}

So, the bottom line is... I don't think Red likes car rides as much as I like taking Red on car rides. This is a particular shame because Red is such a little adventurer. He wanders the neighborhood, kills things --recently he devour all but the head, left leg and tail of a chipmunk -- and gets in fights all the time.

It's a shame that we can't -- well, shouldn't -- take him on car rides.