Now with more tasks!

Rained like the dickens during the middle of the day. They said it would start after midnight last night but I believe they thought it might be a little sooner than the 7 AM start we actually had. The temperatures did get up into the mid 40s but with the rain and a stiff breeze blowing it seemed much cooler than that.

I even felt chilled down in the workshop despite it reading 64 on the thermostat. As a result, I spent the minimum amount of time working on my project. I'm really getting close to the final steps as it is. I've got all the diamond shapes glued up and the four corner "flowers" are glued up and squared. The only pieces left to cut and rout are the walnut borders to the central star and the frame.

To answer a couple of comments about the project:

ruthann:
If you're a good little sister, I'll consider it. I might even make a different. better one if you're really, really nice--and get me a good birthday present. It is an important one coming up in September, you know.

Joan:
The problem with this project is the quantity of geometry involved. The parts are so small and the number of joints/abutments so large that being off by 1/32 of an inch in one spot can--and does--multiply rapidly through the pattern. And it is ridiculously easy to be off by that little: if the saw blade isn't exactly perpendicular to the workpiece; or the 45 degree angle cut is really 44 or 46; put the glue on just a tiniest bit too thick....there are a myriad of errors to be made. That's why there are so many "adjustments" to be made as well. Even the plans must recognize this for they do not give dimensions for some of the pieces but tell you to make the final measurements yourself before cutting.

If I suffered any form of compulsive disorder, I'd be in the corner by now.

Instead of woodworking, I started another project: digitizing the thousands and thousands of 35mm slides I've got. I purchased a PlusTek 7200 dpi slide scanner earlier this week (Monday) from Amazon.com and it got delivered by UPS yesterday. I though, "That's bloody amazing speed on the delivery! Especially since I opted for the free delivery that's supposed to take 7-9 business days." Then I read the invoice and saw that the warehouse from which it was shipped is right here in PA: Lewisberry, which is just south of Harrisburg and about 2 hours from the Aerie.

(Yeah, driving north-south in PA is a 2 hour affair but east-west!?--ooh-boy that seems to take forever! Or at least it did when we were going home from a long vacation out west and were anxious to get back to Morristown, NJ. You get to the western line of PA and say, "Won't be long now! We'll be home in NJ in a blink!" And then the state seems to go into L-space. It just goes on and on and on. Yeah, I know it's just over 350 miles from end to end on I-80 but it seems like 3800.)

Anywho.... I first took all the game photos I had on my computer from the last six months of 2008 and put them onto three DVDs. That took me 1 and 1/2 hours. hey! There were a lot of pictures, okay? Once they were cleared off the hard drive, I started to scan slides. Very easy to use software and super results. I didn't use the 7200 dpi setting settling instead for the 2400 dpi pictures. They are still superb! A little fiddling with the settings and I could get great results from snow to green forest to people in the living room. (So far I'm kicking myself for not having many of the latter category. I seem to go in for wildlife and landscapes more than humans. But there are boxes and boxes of photographs too and they are mostly of family and friends.)

In about four hours of working I had scanned a couple hundred slides. At this rate, it cold take me several weeks to scan all of my collection. (Two 5-6 week trips to many national parks out west will really do a job on your photo collection! Then there was the circuit of the Great Lakes, the trip to Nova Scotia, Disney World, Williamsburg, and many, many more.)

So, between woodworking and slide scanning, I'll be busy for the next week or so.