August 2007 Archives

Finally in Maine!, originally uploaded by festiva_maxima.

And my phone is working again!

1. Spending three hours to go four miles in Chicago, because the Good Citizens of Indiana don't want to pay enough in taxes to maintain their roads above third-world conditions. There's no excuse for how badly the closed interstate was handled: five cones and a blinking arrow sign dumping you onto city streets with no detour signs. And come on, how long does it take to pump the water off the road? Not three hours, to be sure.

We lost a total of one and half days of time to delays like this, and this one was so bad that we ran out of time and just could not stop for the night. We ended up cat-napping in a truck stop and getting to my parents' house exhausted and filthy. But we got there.

Technorati Tags: travel

OK, so that was kind of a terrible few days of driving.

The road work in Utah delayed us half a day, so we'd driven late into the night Friday to make up for it. By the time we got near Chicago on Saturday evening, we thought we were good to get into Ithaca on time for dinner Sunday evening with my godparents.

Of course, before that, we had to stop at the WORLD'S LARGEST TRUCKSTOP, run by some sort of fundamentalists with all sorts of Jesus stuff all over the place. Because all good Christians believe in making a buck off the savior.

Technorati Tags: travel

I-80 leaving Chicago is FLOODED. What kind of 3rd world country has rain in the summer, anyway?

Technorati Tags: travel

We woke up this morning in Lincoln, Nebraska. Which is a good thing because that is where we went to sleep last night, or rather earlier this morning. We would be much further along the road, after two days of travel, if it were not for this:

No, not the appallingly filthy windshield, but the long delays for road work. It took us three hours to get out of Utah: a distance of about 70 miles. And while Wyoming and most of Nebraska have been faster, they have also had their share of ridiculously long stretches of construction and lower speeds.

Technorati Tags: midwest, travel

Dinner in Nevada, originally uploaded by festiva_maxima.

T-Mobile

Image004.jpg, originally uploaded by festiva_maxima.

T-Mobile

On the road!, originally uploaded by festiva_maxima.

T-Mobile

Well, the end of Summer Quarter, at least. Tomorrow, or later today if one is strictly technical about the time, we have our final review of the quarter, then Thursday we do our quarterly exit interviews. This evening I pinned up my posters and spent some time finishing my models -- I have to get some tape to finish putting my posters up but that will be easily accomplished tomorrow morning.

As you can see, the posters are drooping on the end, because the wall material changes and it's impossible to set tacks into the corner where they need to end.

I need to spend some time thinking about my setup for these crits: it'd be nice to be able to take up less space with posters. Because posters are a major pain to hang. Anyway. Plenty of time to think about that in the next few weeks.

Technorati Tags: architecture, design, model building, school

There's no artful way to say it, and if there were, I'm too tired to come up with it. Cutting plastic on the laser cutter takes forever. Here's the laser cutter in action on some 1/16" acrylic. This much cutting took two hours, and as you can see in the photo the plastic curled from the heat.

I spent three sessions on plastic cutting and got, well, barely anything actually done. That sucked. Of course, had I been trying to make this stuff by hand I would be nowhere near as done as I am, but that is small consolation.

Technorati Tags: design, model building, school, techshop

So what the heck am I doing with all that laser-cut stuff, anyway? Here's a little view of one piece of the stuff I've been assembling. My next iteration will have vellum screening glued onto the backs of the inner pieces. Maybe I should spray paint it black, too.

Technorati Tags: architecture, design, model building, school

I've now done a couple more sessions on the laser cutters at Techshop, this time using the Helix. Big, big difference. The Helix can cut the material the first time! Without torching it!

Tedious details follow:

Technorati Tags: design, model building, power tools, techshop, school