Made my first weld today. In addition to much more grinding, screwing and other laborious activities that can be mistaken for innuendo.
We paved the final stretches of the paths I dug out while the earth was soft last week and began locking the paving edges in place with mud. Final touches, including the wheel braces being welded with help from my brother in-law are going on the chook tractor. Tomorrow we expect to purchase some tenants to occupy it!
Total build photo log incoming just as soon as I can find a program other than iTunes that will let me get my photos off my iphone.
We will finally be able to buy some hens this weekend so the pressure is on to get the bloody chook tractor done and dusted. Cut my finger with a hand saw. Being stupid because I was hungry. I’m perfectly fine and the wood got cut too. I just felt a right idiot and stopped for lunch a good hour too late. Affixing the final bits and pieces, painting a few parts with ghastly and fragrant ancient orange enamel found in the shed.
A bloody software update from Wacom lost me an hour+ of progress on the castle card which was infuriating and compounded by needing to spend the next hour finding and fixing the issue. Wacom make what are hands down the best computer drawing tablets but they are not without their issues. My previous Intuous survived an ant colony deciding it would be a lovely place to live but died when not one but two of the micro USB cable connections snapped off the internal circuit board. This kills the tablet. So far the current one has been excellent, better constructed and apparently less desirable as ant accommodation but… the software has been crap, the multitouch functionality is of very limited use. Worse still the applet has continually forgotten custom settings, randomly decided it can no longer detect the still functioning tablet and last night they shipped a driver update that caused insufferable cursor lag and BSOD’d me for the first time in ages. Not happy, particularly as the castle card is going to be included as a print draft for play testing at an upcoming event in Brisbane. I had rendered out all the forest and blocked in the rocks at the castles base. Haven’t had time to redo that work and the submission deadline is up.
More painting to do. Took what I think is one of my best macro shots so far today.
Love that the facets of the eye are visible. Curious that a significant portion of what it can see would be it’s own antennae.
Covered a significant portion of the yard in bricks today.
Once begun there was no stopping until paths were connected, lest there will be furious infant traffic jams. I ran a path parallel to the first. Circled a garden bed tank and curved to join the other path. A couple of other tangents dug and prepped but not completed today.
Fortunately I kicked the cold, N was not so lucky.
Watched this while looking for good animal videos to entertain F momentarily. The Blue whale is always a very impressive creature, the animated rendition of the previous extinction events is excellent and worth watching too.
Creative
Work preparations to complete and then time for some painting.
Very excited to receive a ‘secret series’ of downloadable tutorials today just for being an existing customer of CtrlPaint.com
Fighting a cold today and I’m blaming snack packaging.
After a few years teaching I have become a fastidious hand washer but there are situations in which it is impossible to keep hands decontaminated. One of the worst is lunch duty, particularly so for the junior school. The problem is that the majority of lunchbox snack packaging is difficult for children to open. If my hands are wet or in any way greasy they can be difficult even for me. The quality and nutritional value of such snacks is not at issue here. I for one know full well the daunting horror of a pantry without good lunch materials and therefore maintain a constant stock of a variety of fillers including the now illicit tree nut varieties as well as backup corn kernels and ancient crispbreads.
The real issue is packaging. It is simply bad design to wrap a single serving of chocolate biscuits in a wrapper which requires pliers and a blowtorch to open and then market the product to the parents of school children. I contemplated all this as a line of infectious little darlings approached me for aide in freeing their rations of sugar and salt from their plastic confinement, each having quite clearly tried everything up to and including their teeth prior to approaching me.
Let’s not even get started on the fact that this whole town much less the school has no recycling whatsoever, let alone for the soft plastics that make up the bulk of wrappers. Let’s not even discuss the ability of children to pick up easily wind blown rubbish after themselves without prompting. But do let’s dwell for a moment on poor design, poppers (small tetra pack juice boxes) straws in a design unchanged in thirty years still come either blunt or deadly sharp wrapped in a useless cellophane sleeve ubiquitous to playgrounds right across the country. Tetra packs themselves are an abomination, layers of plastic, paper and foil irreversibly bonded for eternity. Yogurt and fruit squeezy packs many of which still come with the small rasp like and easily swallowed cap, which thanks to the ratchet seal is impossible for little fingers to open. Crisp and biscuit pillow packs with heat sealed seams of greater than an inch. Single serve biscuits and dips with impossible to separate foil and blister packs, let’s not dwell on the grossly inadequate proportions of sickly ‘cheese’ to biscuit. Fruit leathers that come in a pillow pack and in hot weather chemically bonded to a nearly indistinguishable cellophane sheet. Biscuits and lollies that come in not only a pillow pack but also a completely unnecessary plastic tray. Boxed snacks with pillow packs inside. Wrappings which require fingernails, wrappings which require great strength and dexterity, wrappings which to be perfectly honest should not even exist. All will be brought before me and I will indeed open all for how can I turn children away to starve.
I blame the packaging industry for many things, but most of all today for feeling like crap. I’ll beat this cold and be ready for exposure to new and interesting infections on Monday.
Creative
Not a lick of creative work accomplished aside from some daydreaming about projects I would like to start but cannot until the present horde of projects are dealt with. Taking the evening off and retiring early.
A couple of metres of paving and a whole lot of digging in the soft damp soil of the orchard. New paths are coming and the brick piles are finally dwindling. Scheming even more tank garden beds and a couple of additions to the orchard to utilise the bare earth remaining.
I Drew until my wrist ached, that’s not a euphemism.
Whichever damn fool past self had the idea of drawing a castle with curved crenelations needs a slapping.
Finished paving under the washing line today. Feels like it has been weeks since I started that job and I’m very glad to have it done.
I also attached another panel of chicken wire to the seemingly never complete chook tractor. There remains a couple of areas of wiring still to do as well as a ramp and door to the roost and the matter of attaching the replacement wheels, which as I’ve mentioned before will require welding.
I have returned some attention to Witcher 3 now that I again have a computer able to play it without melting. It really is the most extraordinarily well written game I’ve played in a long time. As an example last night I began the sequence described here. I may explore a little farther this evening.
Today I visited all three schools in the Cobar district and met with the principals at each. The outlook is positive I have 2 weeks for the end of the term locked in at the catholic school for the end of the term in addition to days and short contract prior. The State School and High School have both assured me there will be work available in the interim. I have a nineteen page Cath Ed application pack to fill out and I have discovered that I am short one aspect of NSW registration. I have the Working with children check, I have BOSTES registration I do not have NSW Department registration which requires the others and involves an interview. Paperwork will consume my evening from here on out.
N’s Path remains very close to finished, less than 2m left. I’ve been waiting on the paths completion to do a bit of concreting before I start yet another patch of paving myself.
Progress made on the chicken tractor, I was hoping to have the roof done today but it like every other part so far has proven more involved than anticipated. I’ve been inconsistent on my photography but I think I have enough to show a pretty thorough development process photoblog of the build once complete.
Tasks remaining in the build:
Attach the tin the roof frame (Frame and insulation completed today, tin cut).
Attach wheels.
Attach the roof to the tractor with hinges.
Put a door on the roost.
Add clasps and locking mechanisms to a number of hatches and openings.
Add a ramp to the roost.
Paint the roost inside and out.
Affix chicken wire and shade cloth around the frame.
Found some seriously amazing drone + photoshop photography work in my feed:
A huge shipment of live plants arrived from Green Harvest, all a bit the worse for wear, having no doubt sat on a shelf somewhere for the public holiday in addition to the weekend. They couldn’t have arrived to better planting weather though as we had an amazing storm this afternoon. This evening I planted all but the mint and lemongrass which I still need to prepare places for.
I managed to start some sculpting while the boys were occupied with playdoh this morning. I had to put it aside in short order though.
Finished three very rough evolution card mockups. Nothing, fonts, textures, proportions or decorations is final, just trying out some different looks.
Some florid and pretty calligraphy would be required in the first. The second is going for a more manilla folder like look and the third is grungy and torn all over. Texture is carrying through the image in two of the three.
I also did a side by side test of textures for all cards, prior to adjusting the green. Its a subtle but important addition to the images. I know which I like best.
Revisited the first downs card, adjusted the greens and removed the pond.
Altered the green in the first lake card to match.
Computer is struggling, system setting show only half of the ram is online. Installed Sketchup last night, planning on using it for a bit of perspective help in creation of village and castle cards.
Finished listening to the third, well really 2.5 book in the Old Man’s War series today. Still hooked diving straight into the next, I’ll report on the lot when complete.
Much progress on the Chicken tractor today. A design and perspective shift around midday undid an hour or two’s work but has resulted in a far better overall build. Photoblog will await completion which is likely still a day or two away. I’ve begun scheming a cubby/ treehouse based on a similar design, provided more of the motorcycle crates are available for free which I believe to be the case. N’s orchard path is on the home stretch and her wee patch of lawn is now positively verdant. Even requiring mowing with scissors today.
Working on colouring the lake card I drew yesterday this evening. I need to find an unwanted scanner locally as I spent the first hour of the cleaning up the image issues in my photo of the linework. My plan is to then put all four of the terrain cards I’ve done so far side by side and do a consistency check.
Edit. Having finished the Lake card I’ve decided I’m unhappy with the grass palette, which of course will directly affect yesterday’s Downs card.
Viewing the consistency check above I remain unhappy with the Downs card at left. The first I made ‘Mountains 1’ has very bright trees and not enough line weight variance.
The title has been the name of my wifi network for a number of houses now. Particularly appropriate here where for the privilege of running a surprisingly respectable 5Mbps down I am paying $80 for a mostly symbolic home phone and 100gb a month. I know full well that 5Mbps is incredible in a rural area like this too. I also know that if Labor’s FTTP NBN had gone ahead the figure would likely be closer to 100Mbps.
The mess that the ABC has made of coverage of the NBN has been making some interesting waves this past week. I am deeply dissapointed in the ABC and very curious to see what if anything will come of the revelations following Nick Ross‘s resignation. The fact that Turnbull in his capacity as communications minister made three appearances on Q&A without being permitted to field any questions on the mutli-billion dollar project he is making a mess of should be evidence enough that something fishy has been going on at ‘Aunty’.
I firmly believe AR (2 links there) is going to replace the smart phone in your pocket within the decade, possibly within 5 years. When it does bandwidth is going to be like the weather, a constant background influence in our daily lives. Only a real NBN can cope with these developments. Malcolm Turnbull’s Mess is going to put Australia at a serious economic and social disadvantage over the coming decade, one from which we will take a long time to recover.
No time for long rants tonight there is creative work to be done. Lots of progress made on the chicken tractor today. A detailed photoblog of the build process will come on completion. Progress is so good I am thinking it is time to make an order for day old chicks. I am particularly enamoured of the Double Laced Barnvelders and Plymouth Rocks but we may just go for a plain Isa brown. Who we get the chicks from remains to be seen, that site has nice pictures, reasonable prices and immunised chicks though.
I’ve also written a new board book called ‘Belly belly bum bum’ today. Got to get onto trying to get one printed soon.
Downs/Grasslands card complete. Going to need to revisit this one but calling it done for now.
Today I spent an hour each with two delightful children, getting to know them both and learning how best I can help them.
I promptly spent my earnings on sausages and beer to feed the ravenous horde at home. We have had two nephews about. Both playing very well with our boys while, during my absence N and her parents tore down the ancient and hazardous back fence and constructed an entirely new one using their wealth of fencing experience.
They found some pretty extraordinary pieces of metal in the process too. Some of which will feature in future projects.
I haven’t managed to finish the card I’ve been working on today, in truth I’ve barely touched it. Going to put some time into templates now.
Found a great early learning maths game for L and as a reward activity for my younger students. From the always brilliant ‘Dragonbox’ creators WeWantToKnow games ‘Numbers’ is rather brilliant for little ones.
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