Here is Ariel’s rather steampunk creation in brass and laser-cut acrylic: a school supply box made at Techshop Durham. I just advised and assisted: this is her creation. She’ll be 14 on Monday, so I’m pretty darn proud of her work!

TechShop has been a great influence on Ariel. She’s now talking about studying robotics at MIT. Anyone want to contribute to a scholarship fund?

(i.e.: make it out of cardboard first)

I’m planning to use the ShopBot and a sheet of 3/4-inch MDF to make a cocktail table (that sounds so much more glamorous and retro than “coffee table”, don’t you think?) for our living room. I’m designing the whole thing in PartWorks then I’ll feed the plan and the sheet of MDF into the ShopBot at TechShop Durham: ten minutes later I’ll have all the parts I need for a table accurately cut to thousandths of an inch. A couple of screws, a touch of sanding and a coat of paint and I’ll have a first class table for about $50.

We live in an Age of Magic in the most real sense possible.

Ah… the joys of growing older but not up!

Here I sit in my recently acquired reading glasses — which Ariel insisted must be similar to those of David Tennant’s version of Dr. Who.

A glass of wine. A plate of cheese. A load of laundry. Entertainment at it’s finest!

Our old washer (14 years old) finally broke again, so we bit the bullet and bought one a new washer and dryer (old dryer was 20!). High efficiency front-loader. Wow — estimated annual energy cost on the washer is $11!. Better for us, though, is the tiny amount of water it uses.

In any case, it was fun to watch while we sipped our wine and discussed our days. I don’t think it will be a regular evening event, though…

We returned from Ireland a few days ago — I do believe it would be a nice place to live for a while. The Irish are incredibly helpful, friendly, and people-focused. It’s an amazingly cool place.

What wasn’t so cool was the horrific stomach flu we caught. We’re still recovering a week later! Here’s my question:

Did we catch it from the Blarney Stone or deposit it there?

I want to accomplish something today… but I’m feeling scattered this morning. Hopefully a little breakfast — I’m making my mom’s Irish Soda Bread this morning — will get me more focused.

Yesterday was productive — repaired the back porch screen that Cali tore to shreds, spread some mulch, planted some impatiens, fixed the rear window of my convertible (which had pulled loose from the top), went for a run, fixed stir fry with my girls, and explored possible manufacturing sources for printed circuit boards.

So what today?

I’m 42 today! Funny, but aren’t I supposed to have all the answers at 42? Maybe I just don’t know the question…

We saw Star Trek today. I really wanted it to be good, but I had strong reservations. Wow. It really is good. Nice job.

The two of those two things together leads me to an interesting observation…

When I first watched Star Trek as a kid I wanted to be Mr. Spock. Funny thing… I grew up and found that I’m really a Scotty. Works out OK… I’m much happier doing engineering than science.

Speaking of which, I’m taking tomorrow off and heading out to Tech Shop for a little quality time with the Epilog Laser Etcher.

Tip: Soft tops must be re-installed on the Jeep at temperatures ABOVE 70, should be done during DAYLIGHT hours, and should be done well in advance of the the APPROACHING RAIN. ’nuff said.

Tip: It can take a long time to fully configure a Windows server to be ready for deployment. You can do the same with Ubuntu Linux Server in under half an hour: a Good Thing when you have to deploy 20 virtual Windows desktops on a server by next Wednesday. No weekend work for me!

Otherwise… I’m working to make the perfect Vesper, I ran 5 miles today, we went shopping and bought an ice cream maker attachment for our KitchenAid mixer (the ONE tool we should have bought for the kitchen years and years ago). Elizabeth is making Desdemona’s brownies for a gathering of the neighbors tomorrow, so the house smells like a fantasy bakery.

It was a Good Day.

Tuesday is Laser Etching/Cutting at TechShop. Things just keep getting better!

Time to break out the summer clothes and get ready for the beach! Desi is now dressed appropriately in her new soft top.

The instructions suggest that it takes about an hour to install… yeah, right. Of course, it might if (a) they used “passenger side” and “driver side” rather than left and right and (b) the parts in the diagrams looked like the parts in the box.

If you didn’t already know, some time back Cali ate our sofa. Finally, it’s out with the old, in with the new.

Yesterday the guys from 1-800-Got-Junk came out and removed our old monster of a sofa (or what remained of it). I recommend them highly — professional, hard-working friendly.

Here’s the old:

Mmm... sofa. Nom nom nom...

This morning Home Comfort delivered our new sofa and loveseat — the first real furniture we’ve purchased in a very, very long time.

Here’s the new:

What a difference!

The yellow ottoman in the middle is simply a placeholder for a future coffee table. In any case, it’s a big difference!