Monday  26 Feb 2024           comment?

Part of what I like about working with wood is the feeling of participation in a craft with millenia of history. The basic operations (sawing, turning, ...) have been practiced for much longer than electric tools have been around. The mechanical properties of wood have been with us all along.

I also like that humans are not the only species to build things out of wood. A bird's nest doesn't use fasteners or glue but building one nonetheless requires skill to get a satisfactory result. I like leaving pieces of bark on finished wood products, partly because it reminds me of structures built by the creatures we share the Earth with.

All this is a roundabout way to segue into telling you that the Bald Eagle nest cam I mentioned last year captured a fun encounter last week of a squirrel jumping onto a sleeping eagle's back before dawn; see the first 16 seconds of this video.

Friday  23 Feb 2024           comment?

About 20 years ago, I strained the tendons in one of my fingers while climbing, badly enough that I had to avoid using that finger for a few months. I learned a bit about technique during that time as I had to think more carefully while not having full use of one hand.

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after his publisher bet him that he couldn't write a book with a vocabulary of only 50 words.

I have great respect for harpsichordists. Their instrument doesn't have the dynamic range that a piano does and subtlety of phrasing is everything.

Béla Bartók didn't write specifically for harpsichord but he did encourage people to play some of his piano pieces on one. Huguette Dreyfus, one of my favorite harpsichordists, recorded an album of Bartók on the harpsichord back in 1969. Here's the first 15 bars from her performance of Mikrokosmos #145 (the second dance in Bulgarian rhythm):

Thursday  15 Feb 2024           comment?

Sunday  11 Feb 2024           comment?

Friday  09 Feb 2024           comment?

Back in 1981, a friend told me he saw more misspelled signs in Los Angeles than he had in New York. Your Tommy saw this sign in Los Angeles today (and felt the magnitude 4.6 earthquake that hit at 1:47 in the afternoon). The L.A. Times misspelled 'southern' in the URL I've linked to here.

Wednesday  07 Feb 2024           1 comment

I worked for a printer for a little while in the late 1970s. They had this big press, about 60 feet long, that took paper from a huge roll at one end, printed on both sides of the paper at once, and had an oven in the middle to dry the first color's ink before the paper reached the drums that printed a second color. They also had a (smaller, sheetfed) press for four‑color printing. Most of the company's business was printing sheet music books.

The company let me have copies of stuff we printed. Around that time, I noticed a not‑unattractive dude at a laundromat wearing a t‑shirt with the artwork from Desolation Angels, a Bad Company album from 1979. We'd recently printed the sheet music book for Desolation Angels and I had saved a few untrimmed covers from it. I went home, grabbed a few of the covers, went back to the laundromat and gave them to the guy, which—although it did surprise and delight him—somehow did not result in him saying "clearly we should have sex" as occurs in xkcd 300.

I did cost estimating when I worked for that printer. The guy in charge of operations, Howard Harrne, gave me formulas that I coded for a primitive computer of the day. Howard was sharp and intense and fun and dedicated and I got along well with him.

Howard's son, Dae-soo, worked in sales. We shared an interest in music and—as one did in those days—I made a mix tape (open-reel) for him. He appreciated the gesture and made a tape for me. One song on the tape was his own work from a record he'd made when he lived in Korea. He said it was a small budget production, so where the song might've had a guitar solo he'd played a kazoo instead.

From how modestly Dae-soo described his record, I had no idea that it was a big deal in Korea. The song he put on that mix tape was, so Wikipedia tells me, a youth anthem. Dae-soo was in New York when I knew him because his lyrics had displeased the Korean government.

Saturday  03 Feb 2024           comment?

Friday  02 Feb 2024           comment?

Photo at right: after turning a pen but before cutting off the ends. Mouseover to see the finished product (or click for larger image in landscape format). Outside diameter is 27/64" (10.7mm): about as slender as I could practically make it (and, fortunately, just below the upper limit of what feels OK in my hand). It's thicker than the climbing rope I use. Maple with walnut tip.