Old boxes: I don't know why I just like making old looking boxes, like something out of Myst or Riven (my favorite game series of all time) Start with some cheap ass pine, chop in six pieces on miter saw, cut finger joints on table saw, glue 4 box sides together (fingered jointed) then glue top and bottom on, finish outside of the box with oils, stains, wax, whatever (I like to make it look old) then cut box open on a band saw, finish the inside with old stain or tissue paper, apply hinges and clasp... next thing to attempt is carving or sandblasting some old style medieval or victorian patterns or Celtic vinework on the outside of the box.

Sandblasted bottles: I finally hooked up my sandblasting cabinet with a 3 HP compressor. Instead of throwing away some bottles (like Snapple bottles) I just wrap them in masking tape, draw a freaky pattern on the tape, cut away the pattern with a craft knife, put the bottle in the sanblaster and frost a pattern onto the bottle.

Wood stoppers: On the lathe I made a few quickie wooden stoppers for some of the bottles I blasted. First I tried oak, came out alright but oak seems to stiff to make a nice fitting bottle stopper. So I took a short length from a plain maple dowel, mounted it on the lathe, turned out a quick fancy stopper that fit snug and complimented the shape of the bottle.

Bowl turning: I cut the end of a thick maple board, mounted it flat on the lathe bowl turning plate (using a wood mounting plate, brown paper separator, and glue), and turned a shallow bowl. My mistake here was mounting the bowl on the lathe so that the direction of the turn was crossing the grain of the wood so the chisel would get jammed in the end grain and leave a gouge in the wood (and sometimes slam the tool in my hand into the toolrest, ouch)

Table saw: My table saw is an angry bitch. God help you if you the rip fence is not perfectly aligned and locked solid less the piece you're cutting gets snapped out of your hand, ripped to shreds, and thrown back in your face in one loud angry clap. Most unnerving sight I witnessed in a while was friend of mine ripping a long piece of walnut while standing directly behind the end of board pushing it forward into the blade while resting his STOMACH against the end of the board as if tempt my moody table saw to kick back the board and harpoon him right through the mid-section, luckily I was able to cut power on the saw before my friend learned the hard way why it is Norm Abram stands *aside* from the end of a workpiece on the table saw while its in operation. I use the miter saw and band saw whenever possible.

I still have all 10 fingers.

Got a portable electic generator to run my rotary saw and whatever else wherever I want outside. Now I'm looking for a stone workers lathe. Haven't checked ebay yet.

Saw "Jay and Silent Bob" last Saturday. I laughed but unfortunately the stoners sitting next to us couldn't stop laughing from title to credits so that was kind of annoying. Funniest part: Jay's vision of Planet of the Apes "They'll be taking our jobs and wearing our clothes... not on my watch!!"

Slashdot should be getting a 6th dual-Ghz web server today. I gotta be going to Logan to catch a plane to VA, meet with CIO.

This week we had to setup a bunch of new servers for Slashdot/Banjo, most of it anyway. The web servers are all new (5, 2251's dual 1 Ghz right out of the box), the DB server is not as new (still a 3350 with 4GB RAM, new kernel and a new BIOS image thanks to Karl and Yazz) we'll replace it with a 4450 as soon as Karl gets Debian installed on it. Kind of tricky to boot/install Debian without the DAC RAID driver in the boot kernel. Karl will figure it out.

It's 12:00 AM Friday night, I'm still at the office, had time for a McDonalds late-lunch at 6:30PM. Got Slashdot's ad banners updated on Banjo NFS server... let me check that actually... yeah that works. Trained Brian and CaptTofu on Arrowpoint config so they can adjust and check Slashdot's load balancing without needing our netops to do it for them. I trust Slashdot will stay up for the night so I'm going to bed.

This is why I do stone carving in my free time, it's so analog, so hands-on, so not having anything at all to do with computers. It's fun *and* productive. Just need a place to plug in my 3 HP air compressor, it draws 14 AMPS, blew a 20A fuse at my apartment last night. The outlet for my eleectric stove is rated for at least 3500Watts... hmmm...