Bridge Mark 2

Tis complete at 3:50 AM.

Not quite what I had in mind, and frankly I have no idea how it will do.

Tomorrow will be interesting. Err... today.

Anyway I'm for bed to dream of Irish lasses, bagpipes, "Over the rainbow" played on the Uke*.

Just as soon as I can straighten from this decidedly hunched position...

*(One of the movies I watched while building the model was "Meet Joe Black." one of my favorite love stories. Turns out at the end is a cool little Uke rendition of "Over the rainbow/It's beautiful world.")

Nevermind...

So 5 hours into it I have to admit defeat that my cunning plan is not going to work.

The chipboard, although possessing stupidly good shear strength has no compressive strength. Add to that the water is sucks out of the dental plaster and you effectively have a soggy green cardboard noodle. (The plaster is green.) If I get the plaster dry enough so it doesn't waterlog the paper it sets before I can position it, to wet and the paper melts.

Some of the first peices I did 5 hours ago are still soggy...

So looks like I will be going with my backup plan of a building suspension bridge instead of an arch bridge. Problem is for my suspended members the 176 1/8 thin paper strips are to thin to drill. I have an idea of cannibalizing the plastic moving totes that have broken as members. However, it being 10:30 at night I suspect my neighbors would frown on me using saw and dremel.

It will have to wait until tomorrow, but I think it will actually go faster then the arch bridge, as it is not unlike building a suit of scale armor...

Bridges burning the midnight oil....

So the TA for our Arch 121 class is going in for surgery so instead of all the bridges being due next Wednesday they are due this Wednesday.

It would have been nice to know this over the weekend so I would have done more the finalize my design, I would have actually built it.

Tomorrow I have client driving all the way from Idaho so that I can rebuild his laptop while he shops for Christmas so that leaves tonight and tomorrow night to build.

Grrr.

Oh and our paper deadline is moved up so I have to write a 4 page paper on arch bridges in that time too...

A new holiday tradition...

I have lined up for this weekend of solitude:

3 Vampire Movies
2 Zombie Movies
1 Sci-Fi Movies
0 Movies with any redeeming qualities so far as I can tell.

I'm excited.

Done.

So after starting work on my final project for arch151 Friday at 4:00 PM I am finally done with all the drafting and rebuilding of my dog-eaten model at 6:49 AM on Monday.

I did pause for sleep for about 7 hours on Friday night, but I haven't slept since sometime yesterday.

So I should get about 4.5 hours sleep before class at this point. Unfortunately it looks like I may have to go into work after class or at least do an onsite visit, fortunately at the airport so when I'm done I can go home and whimper.

I suspect I have a 5 page paper on bridges due Wednesday.

Either that or my bridge is supposed to be built by then.

Ah well I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. (Hah!)

err..

right.

Sleep.

Something to Ponder...

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World's Weirdest mac and Cheese

So tonight I had a hankering for mac and cheese, and since I had all the makings I decided to do so.

I made two fatal flaws.

First, I have two different infused olive oils in nigh identical bottles. One is a orange infused, which works particularly well with sweet teriyaki dishes and the like. The other is black pepper infused which is spicy.

I meant to use the pepper. I didn't.

The second mistake is that I have two containers of soy milk in my fridge. Vanilla I use on my morning oatmeal and plain I use for everything else.

I meant to use the plain. I didn't.

I didn't even know what I had done till I tasted it for salt level.

The end result was a dish that dish that can only be best described as Orange Dreamcicle Mac & Cheese.

It's actually not bad. It's not sweet at all and I think without the hint of vanilla it would actually be quite good, as the orange pairs with the cheddar much better then I expected.

Umm... yeah... that's all I have to say about that.

Wishlist madness

So I noticed my Amazon wishlist was getting huge and trying to find a specific item I had stuffed there to buy later proved to be an painful task.

So I started splitting it into sections for my ease and also because that's the kind of person I am.

Of potential interest to you... if you feel so kind as to want to buy me a book, is the Art and Architecture book list. (Be sure to sort by priority not date added.)

If anyone want in particularly to buy me all the Ching books or the Graphic Standards (at $250) I would love you for a long time.

There is a joke in the Arch department that between the 8 or so professor they can only afford one copy of the Graphic standards and Arch151 prof can't answer any questions about drafting because it's not his turn to have the book.

Doomed and Dinner

Whilst getting signatures for my other spring classes I wandered into the art building to see if I could sign up for a metal-smithing class. Like the architecture classes, there are fixed number of seats and you need faculty permission to sign up for the classes.

Upon speaking to the admin-assistant for the department I discovered the beginning metal-smithing class was full. When I attempted to retreat gracefully she snagged a passing man in apron, told him that I was trying to sign up for the beginning class and I apparently had some metal-smithing classes in the past.

He began to grill me in earnest, asking me pointed questions about what I could and could not do. I tried to answer honestly, admitting to only having basic skills in everything except mokume-gane.

He grunted, turned back to the admin, and said "Put him in the advanced class."
He then looked me in the eye and said "It's been a while since we have had an architecture student in our class, they frequently turned out to be our best students."

Then he walked away.

Confused I turned to the admin, and seeing my the look on my she simply said... "That was the professor."

Sooo, I am signed up for a 5 credit advanced metal-smithing class, and quick perusal of the gallery shows that I will have to bust my butt to even come close to the level of skill displayed.

~~~~

Since I arrived down here I have been eating a lot of Costco salmon and brown rice. About every other meal has been salmon. But it's cheap, it's good, it good for me and Costco is convenient. Last night I made salmon tacos, and while munching on the leftovers this morning I went digging through Grandpa's cookbooks looking for a salmon chowder recipe. I didn't find one, but I did find a salmon taco recipe that was nigh identical to the delectable dish I was currently munching on.

Great minds think alike.

Anyone got any salmon chowder recipes they want o share? I have about 4lbs of salmon, and bunch of fingerling potatoes that look cute.

Anyone want a dog?

So my darling mutt apparently has a taste for Balsa wood.

Unfortunately for me, she demonstrated this by chewing on my UNGRADED model that took me 20 hours to make.

I might be able to salvage the base shaving off 3 hours of work left to be redone.

I am not a happy camper.

I am the exact opposite of a happy camper.

This on top of about 4 hours of drafting homework I was working on when my boss called me into help deal with a crises. One of the big clients has lost their server, but we've got the data backed up on our old test server, and we need to point all their machines temporarily at our server so they can remotely access the network.

Oh... and they neglected to give me any admin passwords so for every single machine I am touching I have to blow away the password before I can log in and redirect.

Cranky.

The Language of Colour - Or Brits sure spell funny...

The latest MSU Gypsy scholar is world renowned Architect Tom Porter.

The e-mail invitation we go had the following to say "Mr. Porter is the author of 18 books including four books on environmental colour, and the best-selling series Manual of Graphic Techniques. One part of his series, entitled The Colour Eye, was telecast by the BBC in 1991. This television series was comprised of six documentaries exploring the psychology of colour - colour in architecture, interior design, fashion design, package design, and fine art."

So here is what I took away from the lecture:

1) The British apparently don't like being Called Gypsy *anything* they think it's shabby.
2) The man is absolutely stark raving brilliant.
3)We live in a transitional period where pigment is not the cutting-edge zeitgeist, but transformational surfaces/textures whether they be phase-change paints or informational displays are the new hotness.
4) Chromo-phobia in buildings is a relatively new phenomenon Sin = color = bad has only existed since the Inquisition.
5)Even being aware of the effects of color does not make you immune to effects. Case to point: they did a study on the effect of cup color on perceived taste of the coffee. Even the people who were aware that the same coffee was in all the cups showed tendency to report distinctions depending on cup color.

Quote of the Day

"Don't you miss those days when you had something to be nostalgic about?"

When kenpo attacks...

A short post whilst my bath runs.

My Kenpo class got changed from Saturday 8:00am to Tuesday 8:0pm. A change I am very very grateful for.

Tonight we didn't work on forms, since my thumbs are mostly healed we did bag and target work.

The last 20 minutes was spent with the instructor chasing me around with a large padded stick while I tried to block with arms that had been punching for 40 minutes. It was more fun then it sounds like. I apparently also surprised him because a feint that worked with 90% of the population doesn't work with me. I apparently block it the way I SHOULD instead of how most people DO. (Spinning back fist = get you head out of the way and deflect if needed... not hunch your shoulders and try to force block it)

The instructor had some praise for me as I left. "Your form is solid, and you don't have any bad habits to unlearn. You are going to do great as you get more in shape."

He also said that I will probably be ready for to (re)test for yellow belt by next week if I keep my practice up. The techniques are slightly different, but the fundamental principles are the same.

For love of Apples...

My bosses wife... who is also my boss... I think... umm anyway today as a thank you she brought me 5 lbs of apples off their apple tree and 2 gallons of cider squeezed fresh that morning.

I'm not sure what I did to deserve this, but holy smokes are the apples and cider good! The apples are tennis ball sized, crunchy and incredibly sweet. And I've never had cider that fresh and it's the pure essence of those incredible apples.

It makes the previous cider I've had seem fake and bland.

I've already drank 1/2 a gallon of it...

Gonna make some apple cupcakes tomorrow methinks.