I spent the day working on my project. at home. It’s very satisfyung being able to jump nto a hardware/software project like this… 

Mid day I took a break and took our freind Kristin out for lunch. Krisitn is one of our burning man crue.. and helped out quite a bit on FLuffy 
She’s had a tough couple of months.  First she found out that she needed  heart surgery and then found out she had another latent disease that needed treatment. 

While she undergoes this therapy , She’s spending time with her family.. and doesnt have a chance to go out much. I decided it would be good for her and good for me to get out of the house today so I picked her up and we drove down to the Skinny Pancake on the waterfront. for lunch. It was great catching up with her..    She’s a really nice and interesting person.   She told me about the work she does to get veterans together to talk… THants how she met Rebar !After lunch,.. we took a walk up battery street to see the old marble statues there.. one of my favorite things to do down by the woterfront.

THen I took her to her house.. and headed back home for a long afternooon and night of soldering and programming.. 
Its one of my happy places !

 

Missing diane a bunch.. SHe’s having fun with Gabe and NOva.. sh sent me some great granddog pics

nite all. nite sam

-me 

I took diane to the airport this morning at about 4:30 AM.. she’s heading out to Oregon a bout a week earlier than I am for our next trip.

WHenever DIane is gone, I tend to unregulate.. I dont eat or sleep  regulalry and have to remember to get exercise. I miss her already !.. 

I went home for a bit more sleep  then heade in to work. I have a fun project  going and need to get it done by Monday . I spent most of the day working on that.. partially at home, then in to work. I’m working with Bobby on some new embedded code.. and we both ended up at work around 6pm. I took the opportunity to take him to dinner in thanks for all the work he’s done to help me witht hsi project. We went to “aromas of India” in Tafts corners.. its now one of diane and my favorite resturants 

 

It was also fun getting to know bobby better. He’s an interesting guy. he’s been an engineer and a high school physics teacher ,l He got an MBA.. and he’s rassed his son on his own for more than 20 years. His son is now living in China.. Bobby moved up to burlingon to work at beta.. and baught a house  in walking istance from work.. 

Its really fun workign with him.
Nice to make a new nerd friend !

nite all, nite sam
-me

Luckily, DIane noticed that my drivers licence was expiring on my birthday next week. I’d actually applied for a renewal by mail, but had forgotten to enclose a check (d-oh !) .. That emant I had to go to teh DMV in person just as they opened to get my new license.   That can often mean a long wait.. but I was lucky.. I was able to walk right up to the desk. I recognized the woman working there.. I thanked her for all the donate life signs that were in the DMV.. She remembered  me and the samstones and had one on her desk. ..   She said she loved sam. I gave her another samstone to share.. It was a nice way to start my day

It was a busy day at work.. Though Crawford, Kristine and I took an hour over lunch to hike between South 40 and D2.. We are trying to find a route that would allow BETA folks to walk between building (with landowner permission of course !)

It was a good mucky wa;lk.. very pretty.. we found some parts that might be right for a futre trail.. but  it still needs a lot of thought

It was fun gettign to hang out with my freinds !

 

AFter lunch I went back to North hanger to work with my new freind Bobby on a project.. He’s really fun to work with.. and a very good programmer 

I also got to work with freind Cullen, Sam and Alex.. Turns out Alex does electric wood burning like Max. CHeckl this out !

Beautiful work !  

Speaking of beautiful work.. diane surprised me when I got home with a freshly repaired buddha incense holder. I’ve had that thing with me since high school.. and  the other day it broke 🙁 .. I’d been meaning to glue it back together… but hadnt done it yet

Turns out that our freind Jne… who’s an excellent potter.. was learnign the art of Kitsugi 

which is an ancient Japonese method of repairing broken pottery  with gold.  Wikipedia tells me that Kitsugi is  ” a philosophy, (that) treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise”

Jens katsugi is made of epoxy and mica flakes.. but it sure looks like gold. 
I am so happy to have my little freind back in one piece !

THank you jen and diane for making this happen !

nite all, nite sam

-me

We started the day with a quick hike up Bamforth.. We didnt have time to go to the window because I had a meetign I had to get to.. It was a beutiful, frosty day !

After work, DIane, Rebar and I met up at Elliott’s shop to do our first round of casting. Elliott had been working on the molde we made the other day. 

First step was to assemble the two sides of the mold “we’d “made..  I say “we’d made” because elliott had made most of it to include the filling sprue holes and vents. He’d also used low sulfer clay to smooth out the cavity.  We actually had 2 moleds.. one of a stylized Alia airplane  which Ben had 3d printed for me.. and one was a samstone

Next we waited for the pewter to melt.. Elliott gae it a little torch assist. The melting point of this lead-free pewter is about 500 degrees fahrenheit. 

Then it was time to pour the hot metal. I believe the crucible held about 6 lbs of the molten metal. My job was to pour it in the mols as quickly and safely as possible. I poured both molds. The speed is necessary to make sure the metal; spreads evenly through the mold Liquid metal is sooooo beautiful !

Voila.. the molds filled well (I thought) 

Then it was time for the metal to cool. In about 30 minutes the mold was still hot.. but not too hot to handle. We pulled the molds apart. The alia mold was hard to get out because of the complicated pattern of sprues we needed to fill in the ssmall parts. It took some muscle and some cutting to be able to free the cast of the plane. Elliott is a master of this stuff.. 

FInally the plane was free. Pretty good !.. THere was one part of the tail that didnt get filled.. but we have plenty of metal.. and anything thats not great we can re-melt !

The samstone came out perfectly.. It actually had a golden cast due to the baby powder we used a releasing agent. 

THis was a great first try .. and so much fun. Huge thanks to Elliott for teaching us about casting. He’s such a wonderful guy.. its really an honor to get to work with him !

Nite all, nite sam

-me