Claire Berlinski is worried...

Claire Berlinski is worried ... and so am I...

I've been expecting this...

I've been expecting this...  But I didn't expect it to come from an (alleged) conservative.  Governor Awesome just became Governor CINO to me...

Before I retired, I paid hard-earned dollars into Social Security for 45 years.  For about 25 of those years, I paid the maximum amount.  If I live to be 100, my “benefits” won't even come close to matching what I contributed.  Had I invested that money even in something with really low yield, like CDs, I'd be far better off.  These days I'm considering that an absolutely best case scenario.  What I'm actually expecting is that before I can draw even a single dollar of my “benefits”, the progressives will find a way to deny them.  With, apparently, Chris Christie's encouragement and help...

I wonder...

I wonder ... what life insurance costs for this guy?  Full screen it...

A nice drive in the mountains...

A nice drive in the mountains...  We drove up past Hardware Ranch toward Ant Flats, just enjoying the signs of spring and watching for wildlife.  It was getting toward dusk, and the deer were coming out to forage – we saw lots of them, most especially along the road to Ant Flats.  We also saw a pair of peregrine falcons, several large hawks, and a multitude of ground squirrels.  The signs of spring are everywhere.

As we drove past the entrance to Hardware Ranch on the way back, we came across some horses enjoying themselves in the low sunlight:

Racer boo-boo...

Racer boo-boo...  Race's favorite entertainment is to chase a ball when I take him for a walk.  He doesn't do this like most dogs, because he's a border collie.  Instead, catching that ball becomes an existential challenge.  He accelerates toward it straining every muscle that could possibly help to the utter maximum.  He pays no attention to anything that might be in his way (which is how Debbie got injured a couple years ago while running him – she got in the way).  He pays no attention to his footing.  Consequently, with some degree of regularity he injures his foot – most commonly, by splitting a nail.  I think it happens when he's putting his foot down at supersonic speed and there happens to be a stone underneath. 

Those split nails bleed like a cheap horror movie, and they look like they must be painful.  He did it again yesterday, so we stopped by the Blacksmith Fork Veterinary clinic to see if they could patch him up.  Within two minutes Race was whisked back to see Dr. Russell, and just 8 minutes after we walked in, Dr. Russell walked out with a bandaged up Race (he had a nice pink foot) and all his front nails trimmed up.  I love this place!

Last night, we crated Race for the night (as usual).  This morning when I took him out for his morning walk, the bandage was gone.  There wasn't a trace of it anywhere in his crate.  He ate it.  He ate his bandage. 

I guess he doesn't like pink :)

So Debbie bandaged him back up with a purple bandage, and we put an Elizabethan collar on him to keep him from eating his bandage.  What a border collie!

Barn progress...

Barn progress...  The tile guys were here today, and they completed the grouting – their part is finished.  No photos, because I'm not allowed to walk on it until Thursday – the polyurethane grout takes that long to cure...

Turning some more hardwood...

Turning some more hardwood...  I found another log (box elder, I think), a little bigger, in my log pile.  I trimmed it up on the band saw, then mounted it on the lathe's face plate, and started turning a bowl.  You can see various stages below.  It's finished now, sanded down to 320 grit, and awaiting only some Watco finish.

This is quite a learning experience for me, as I've never tried my hand at turning wood before.  I've read a lot about it, but that's not at all the same thing actually as doing it!  On this bowl I experimented quite a bit with different lathe speeds, with and without the live center on the tailstock, and with all five of the carbide turning tools (a very basic set) that I've purchased.  I can now use the tools without digging into the wood, which is at least a very good first step.

I've also learned enough to understand the pro and con comments I've read about carbide turning tools.  Basically the carbide tools rip and tear more than high speed steel tools, because (amazingly!) they aren't as sharp as the steel tools.  I've ordered a set of high speed steel tools, which I think I'll be using for finish work – the carbide tools seem great for roughing out the shape.

Using the live center added a lot of stability to the process of roughing out the right side of the bowl (what is now its top).  On the other hand, I am kind of amazed at how little vibration I felt when turning the completely unfinished – and grossly unbalanced – log, even without the tailstock in use.  I think that's a result of the sheer mass of this lathe.

Yesterday afternoon I made a run to Home Depot, and they did have the Watco.  So today the bowl and goblet get finished.  Photos will follow, of course.  The Home Depot experience was frustrating yesterday.  I had a fairly long list of things to buy, all little things I need to finish off the hatch to the upstairs storage and mount the electric hoist up there.  At least half the things I needed were either very hard to find or were out of stock on the shelf, and I had to get help from one of the hard-to-find employees (it was busy, and they were all helping an endless stream of beseechers).  I finally managed to get everything I needed and headed home, stopping at Jamba Juice on the way home for a big mango smoothie.  When they called my name, a young man quickly walked up to the counter and took my smoothie and left.  I told the young lady serving what had happened, and she immediately called the police and started making my replacement smoothie.  Before she could finish my smoothie, a policeman walked in with the kid who had stolen my drink, verified that he had the right person, handcuffed him and left.  Wow!

That smoothie tasted wonderful :)

Springtime at my mom's house...

Springtime at my mom's house...  Near Charlottesville, Virginia.  Gorgeous!

She paints those rocks around the base of the flower vase – cute, aren't they?

Turning some hardwood...

Turning some hardwood...  Yesterday afternoon I just couldn't stand the idea of not trying out the lathe on some hardwood.  I have a small pile of logs, some of which we inherited when we bought this house.  Those logs are fairly dry, and the wood is fine-grained and hard.  I think they might be box elder (a kind of maple), which we have a lot of on our property.  I picked one of those logs, trimmed it up in my band saw, then sawed an 8 inch long piece of it off.  After mounting it to the lathe's face plate, I started turning it at low RPM and roughed it into the beginnings of a goblet (first photo below).

For the next hour I experimented with the five carbide turning tools I have, and figured out how to cut the shape I was after.  The only tool that gave me any trouble was a “hollower”, which has a large (about 1/4") circular carbide blade.  That tool kept getting jammed up and spun out of my hands.  The rest of them I had little trouble with.  By the time I was almost done (second photo), something recognizable as a goblet was appearing on the spindle.  I left the bottom inch or so of the goblet unfinished, as the screws that mount it to the face plate were in there.  In the third photo you can see the goblet after sanding.

The only step left at that point was “parting”, wherein I used a very thin tool (the “parting tool”) to cut a groove all the way through the wood to separate the goblet from the wasted wood (with the screws) against the face plate.  In the last photo, you can see that wasted wood still mounted to the lathe, and the large pile of shavings from the cup.  I'm going to pick up some Watco finish today (assuming the local Home Depot carries it!), and then I'll post some photos of the finished goblet.

One thing I can tell already: I'm really going to enjoy turning wood.  It's something I've wanted to do my entire life, and now I can finally do it...

Barn progress...

Barn progress...  The lathe is wired up to 240 volts, and it works beautifully.  As a test of sorts, I turned a simple bowl out of a leftover chunk of Douglas fir 4 x 6 – that gave me a medium-sized bowl about 5 inches in diameter and 3 inches high.  Softwoods in general don't turn very well, as chunks will break out when you're cutting across grain.  That happened to me with this piece; there are lots of places where the surface is deeply gouged.  But no matter – this piece worked great for trying out the lathe!

One feature of this lathe may interest those who are technically inclined: while it has a 3-phase 60 cycle 240V motor, it will run just fine on a single phase of anything between 105 and 250 volts, one or three phases, and 50 to 60 cycles.  How?  There is an inverter included as an integral part of the lathe.  Despite handling up to 2,500 watts, the inverter is quite small – the size of a small book.  As recently as 10 years ago, this was much harder problem than it is today.  Back in the '70s, the standard way to deal with power conversion issue like this was a motor-generator set (known colloquially as an “MG set”).  These were made from an electric motor on the same shaft as a generator.  The ship I was stationed on in the U.S. Navy used several of these – each the size and weight of a small car – to convert the ship's standard 3-phase 60 cycle 240V to single phase 400 cycle 110V power.  Our computers used 400 cycle mains to reduce the physical size of transformers and the size of filter capacitors for the linear power supplies.  Switching power supplies didn't exist.

Say what?

Say what?

Geek: funnies...

Geek: funnies...  Fifty cartoons along the same lines as these three samples.  I don't think I'd seen any of them before.  Quite a few of them had me laughing out loud :)

Barn progress...

Barn progress...  The lathe is finished (at right)!  Next steps: connect compressed air and electricity; those will be tomorrow's projects.  Below are some closeups of (left to right) the tailstock, the drive shaft (with faceplate), and the headstock.  It's a sweet machine!

I was only able to put it together by myself by using the engine crane (at left).  The lathe's bed is one massive chunk of cast iron, and weighs something like 500 lbs.  Using the crane I was able to (easily!) lift it, place it atop the cast iron legs, and then move the entire thing to the exact place I wanted it.  I also used the crane to lift and move the headstock, which weighs almost 200 lbs.  It's a handy gadget for an aging geek :)

My neighbors were on TV last night...

My neighbors were on TV last night...  KSL covered the Lawrence family and their “Wil Can Fly!” Kickstarter project.  You can watch the broadcast story at right...

Barn progress...

Barn progress...  The tile guys finished setting all the tile in my new office.  I'm still amazed by how closely this tile resembles real wood.  It's made by using a specialized ink jet printer to spray different colored glazes onto the blank tiles, “printing” a photograph of an actual piece of wood.  The surface of the tile has wood grain texture on it as well.  The tile guys will grout it on Monday, and later in the week a crew will show up to install baseboard and trim for the windows and door.

Yesterday my engine crane showed up, and I had it assembled within a couple of hours despite the lack of accurate directions.  There were directions included, but they were for a (substantially) different model.  Mostly I used the photo on the box as my guide :)

Once I had the crane assembled, I used it to move the components of my new lathe as I assembled them.  By the time I knocked off last night, I had the legs attached to the base, it was positioned in its place, and I had the headstock, tailstock, and tool rest base all installed.  I should easily finish assembling the lathe this weekend, including wiring it up.  Then it's on to testing!

You're messing with the radio astronomers! Stop it!

You're messing with the radio astronomers!  Stop it!  Researchers have discovered the source of the mysterious perytons that are plaguing radio astronomical research.  It's your microwave oven, when you open the door before it has finished cooking.  The oven emits a brief burst of 2.4 GHz microwave energy before the door interlock switch shuts it down.  Incidentally, that burst is also cooking you, just a tiny bit.

The solution is simple: don't open your microwave door until the timer has completed, or you have manually shut it down.  Now all we have to do is get 4 or 5 billion microwave owners to cooperate, and the peryton plague will be over...

Wil can fly...

Wil can fly...  The Lawrence family is one of our neighbors here in Paradise.  They have five kids.  Their youngest son is Wil, and he has Down syndrome.  Alan, the dad, is a photographer – and he's using his skills to create images of Wil doing something that he loves: flying.

The entire Lawrence family is hoping to raise awareness of Down syndrome, and they've got some great ideas on how to do it.  They need a little funding, though – so this being the twenty first century, they have of course started a Kickstarter project to raise the money.  We've signed up as backers.  If you've got a few bucks to spare, consider doing so yourself.

And please: spread the word about this project!

Ayatollah Khamenei on the Iran nuclear deal:

Ayatollah Khamenei on the Iran nuclear deal: Obama lies, and has devilish intentions.

That doesn't sound like a leader committed to making this deal.

That's fine by me!

Geek: random numbers are hard...

Geek: random numbers are hard...  I've discovered this the hard way (via subtle bugs) on a number of occasions over my career.  The most recent time involved creating GUIDs.  It wasn't my code, but it was my job to find the problem – and it was caused by a random number generator producing a (very) biased stream of (allegedly randomly distributed) numbers.  Here's someone else discovering a similar problem, this time in C++.

Morning smile...

Morning smile...