(no subject)

[randomdreams]

A month or so ago I welded together the shift linkage for a coworker's 1928 Model A Ford. Now he's driving it to work again. We get along even though our politics are almost diametrically opposite. I try to maintain at least some friendships like that.


I saw a bumpersticker on a car. It shows a scantily clad woman in silhouette, with the legend "NO HOT LIZARDS". I have no clue.


Today Monty spent some time staring mournfully at her kibble ball, which she has to push around to get kibble out of it when it's full, but by this time it was empty.


Then she went and collapsed theatrically beside her foodbowl and proceeded to sigh dramatically.


This may have been because I was making dinner: pizza with tillamook sharp cheddar cheese, turkey sausage, sliced bell peppers, and mushrooms.


I printed a wax casting sprue for an eventual aluminum casting session. The sprue is 92% air, and only 8% wax, so it should melt out easily and without a lot of smoke. Investment castings, especially large ones, sometimes split during the process of melting out the wax, because it expands as it heats, and is a terrible heat conductor. That shouldn't be a problem with hollow wax forms. (I do hope none of the investment gets inside, though.)


Monty and I went on a brief walk to wear her out, at the park down the street, where gold was discovered in 1859 or thereabouts. It's the reason Denver exists. There are almost always people there panning for gold. This group looked like three generations of panners, who also had a flow sluice and a power sluice.


It was ferociously sunny. Sometimes that matters a lot more than air temperature for melting snow.


The bridge, with the fancy suspension cables, is one of three along this bike path, between downtown and Golden, that together celebrate "Denver's maritime history", which pronouncement never fails to make me laugh out loud. Until people got aggressive with making dams and reservoirs in the 1870's, you couldn't even float a rowboat anywhere in the area.

My huge laser cutter showed up today. Well, it's not that huge. The box is the same size as the chest freezer, but that's because the machine was very securely packed. I have yet to fully unpack it.

It's going to live in the garage because it can't be allowed to freeze, but spits out massive quantities of toxic fumes. I'm adding a fume extractor out a window.

Comments

[grrlpup]

I can't tell if you're joking! But, she said earnestly, I think it might be NO LOT LIZARDS.

[armiphlage]

I thought they only used that term in Canada - interesting how widespread slang can be.

[randomdreams]

What on earth are lot lizards? It may have said that.

[randomdreams]

Urban Dictionary answered the question. Yeah, I guess that's possible?

[pr0ject_mayhem]

Yeah, that's what I thought it was, too- especially with the way the figure is dressed.

"I'm just here to camp- no, I don't want to buy sex, but thank you anyway."

[secretagentmoof]

What are you using for 3d modeling and printing? I've been attempting to use Fusion360 - but possibly because I come from an old-school drafting background (lead holders! paper! AutoCAD 10!) I'm finding some things Stupidly Difficult to create (e.g. "I have two rectangular holes where the center points are 1.25" away from each other horizontally") and am wondering if there's something else I should use.

[randomdreams]

Since I'm cheap and using linux I'm on FreeCAD. The stuff I've read about Fusion360 makes it sound like it's a better choice than anything else free, and comparable with stuff that costs hundreds of dollars, and you have to get into the thousand dollar range before you find stuff that is feature competitive.

I do appreciate that freecad allows people to model from solids, through unions and intersections between primitive solids, or by a more classical draw-shape-extrude-draw-shape-pocket-on-extruded-surface or by a combination of both. (The above was a square extruded, followed by a circle extruded, topped by a solid cone joined as a union.) Freecad does specifically include parametric modeling, so in the process of drawing a shape you can define points similar to how autocad would and establish constraints between those points (exactly what you're talking about.) When you change the constraints the object itself will update to reflect the changes, so you can in theory draw an enclosure, define the shell wall thickness, and then change a dimension and maintain the shell thickness and all other dimension.

I say in theory because freecad is under heavy development and often does wonky things like you change a parameter and suddenly half the objects in the tree hierarchy rotate 90 degrees for no reason and then you have to go fix that. But for the price, it's absolutely excellent as a parametric modeller on linux.

[amaebi]

You sound more energized, and I'm glad!

Adults panning for gold make me Wary. Because some are chronic gold seekers who identify as such. Most of them are pleasant eccentrics, but some, as I'm sure you've encountered, are broadly erratic and hold nasty views views....

[randomdreams]

My time as a child in Leadville mostly exposed me to hobby miners, who worked in the big mines full-time and were out looking for borderline feasible sites for themselves. I've only met one person who was avidly into panning as an adult, although he was pretty weird.

[elusis]

Venn diagram containing those who go out with metal detectors on the beach, and those who pan the Platte for gold - pretty close to a circle?

[amaebi]

Idaho Springs was full of banners and prospectors, and the employed miners I knew were not among them. There was a very high incidence of weird.

[annie_r]

Monty is such a sweetheart. I hope she's OK; please give her extra-dramatic pets.

[randomdreams]

She seems to be okay so far. Another one of her hematomas burst in the middle of the night so we woke up to a bloodbath, but she doesn't seem to care at all about it. What we're looking at, though, if it is a hematoma, is a very big, very deep one.

[ivy]

Yeah, I was going to say, she's adorable when she's being dramatic. WOE.

(Yikes, to bloodbath.)

[armiphlage]

You have cool toys!

[randomdreams]

Now I just have to figure out how to use them.

[lantairvlea]

I think the lady silouette has a tail.

Poor Monty, you obviously starve her constantly. I'm sure Rolo and Monty would comiserate on their lack of proper feeding.