March 2011

The Archives

Book stuff, Sketchup, Timber framing
Boring buildings, books, and blogs
03.24.11 | Permalink | Comment?

My progress on the book continues to be slow going, but I’m nearly finished with the layout for the bulk of the book. I have about 12 more bents images to include, then it’s just the appendixes, glossary, table of contents and index (which sounds like a lot, but since it’s mostly text and few images, the process is fairly quick and painless). James has been making less and less changes, which is great for me. The other day however, he faxed me some drawings he forgot he needed. They were all super simple, taking me about an hour in total.

The most complex of the bunch was the logo above. No, it’s not a masonic symbol, nor does it have anything at all to do with masonry. I say that because it seems any time I wear my ISBA shirt I have to explain to some mason why their logo has nearly no relevance to their organization, and why someone who uses a square and scribe (the two main components of any masonic symbol) on a daily basis, should have the right to using similar symbols for their logos. This logo shows a round log with a perfect timber inside, a square and scribe, and the all important center line(s).

The other images I had to create are for the new “Perspective” sections in the book. They were mostly images of different post and beam and bents styles. The two above are German post and beam styles. The one on the left is called Geschossbau, and from what I can tell from this image is it’s basically the balloon framing equivalent for post and beam. The one on the right is called Stockwerksbau, and is more platform style. Most of this probably isn’t interesting at all to the average blog reader, but I dig it.

There was also a few images of different bent configurations. Surprisingly I was already familiar with each design, even before I took any timber framing course. It’s the one thing I found out on my own back when I did my first research into post and beam for a project I had to do at Niagara College. Speaking of which, I just recently discovered I still have that project… perhaps I’ll post it here sometime. It’s probably on par with the excitement level of the majority of my posts about building stuff.
Life
BFFBDay
03.22.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Sunday was my brother’s birthday. For those who don’t know, he’s three years older than me, an inch or two shorter, and a lot more athletic. He’s also my best friend.

When we were kids he was a typical big brother. He would: do mean things to me; play mean tricks on me; force me to do things that were dangerous or I didn’t want to do, before he would consider letting me play with him or his stuff; throw a fit anytime I was anywhere near his room or his stuff (even though I would always let him in my room, and didn’t really care about my stuff); break my bones (see next paragraph for more info). Despite all that, I still (being the younger brother) thought he was cool, and just wanted to hang out with him.

One evening when I was five years old, I was sitting with my brother on the highest part of our back deck (which was in the process of being expanded to surround the above ground pool my dad had recently installed), when he decided he would be able to jump off and not get hurt. I said it was too high, and we would get hurt for sure. He jumped. Two minutes later he was back sitting next to me, telling me how big of a chicken I was for not jumping, when he just proved it was safe. I figured I was too small and I would die, so I refused. Two seconds later I was on the ground screaming at my brother, telling him how much I hated him. My mother, who had been inside (probably enjoying some much needed, rarely available quiet time), heard me shouting and came to tell me to stop. When she saw me laying on the ground she changed her tone from angry mum to somewhat panicked mum. Although my leg was quite badly broken, I had failed to notice the pain because I was so angry at my brother, who had given up trying to convince me to jump and just pushed me off the edge. It wasn’t until I saw the look of horror on my mum’s face that the gravity of the situation set in. An hour later I had a cast from my toes to just past my knee, and got to spend the next six weeks of summer in a wheelchair. Over the next few years we fought constantly.

By the time he started high school, we out right hated each other. He didn’t want anything to do with me, and I had given up all hope on him liking me. He was much bigger than I was then, and would regularly beat the crap out of me or threaten me with a beating if I didn’t let him have his way. By the time I started high school, I was almost the same height as him, but heavier (like I said, he’s more athletic… I’m more fat). One afternoon he tried to give me a beating because I ate a slice of pizza he wanted (I hadn’t done it to piss him off, I had one of two slices, and saved the other for him) , and I decided to throw a punch. It was a lucky shot, landing right in his eye and knocking him on his ass. That was one of the last times we physically fought with each other.

After that it became really weird. My brother was a good kid. He didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs, got good grades, and tried hard at everything. I liked doing things I wasn’t supposed to, as long as I thought I wouldn’t die or go to jail, partying, and slacking off. I remember thinking that my brother was going to be like my dad – a hard working family man, with a career, and I would most likely never see 30. My brother was aware of my bad habits, and would regularly threaten me with using that info to blackmail me. I tried to avoid him for the most part since neither him nor my parents would have approved of most of the things I was doing, and I was terrified (as I am to this day) of breaking my mum and dads heart. It wasn’t until my brother and his friends started partying regularly that he and I began to get along.

To be more honest, it wasn’t until we started smoking pot together that we could finally tolerate each other. It started with my brother asking me to get some for his friends, then evolved into us regularly sitting around laughing together and having deep conversations about what each of us was doing these days. It wasn’t like we didn’t live together at the time, but we just didn’t talk to each other at all. Neither one of us really knew what the other was like.

Now we are closer than I ever imagined we would be, and I’m glad. I regret that we were enemies for so many years, but I fully understand how it is with older/younger siblings sometimes now. And I’m sure as far as younger siblings go, I was probably about as awful as they come. I am proud he’s my brother, and I still look up to him. He’s a great person, and I love being around him (even though he has tried to kill me).

Happy Birthday X!
Life
Cobra conveyance certified
03.09.11 | Permalink | Comment?

About a month ago, Holly and I went to Windsor to party with her family, as well as pick up the car we bought from her grandmother. As soon as we got in the car we noticed something was wrong with the tires. The car was shaking tremendously at low speeds, but seemed to get smoother the faster we traveled. On the drive home the rear passenger side tire blew and Holly’s dad was forced to put the doughnut on (Holly’s parents drove the new car home, while we drove home in her work vehicle). Although the car drove a lot smoother with the doughnut on, it was now only capable of a top speed of 80km/h.

A few days after we got the car home I managed to locate a full set of used tires in Fort Erie. Two hours and two-hundred fifty dollars later, the car drives like a dream. Although it’s fourteen years old, there is less than 100 000km on it! That’s the ideal used vehicle – one bought by a 75 year old women who only uses it for groceries and church. The inside of the trunk looks like it came off the factory floor yesterday. The back seat looks like it’s been sat in maybe twice. There is zero rust that I can see. The only things in rough shape are a few of the interior trims; broken trunk release (neither the car or key-chain buttons do anything); multiple scratches all over the front driver side; and apparently the brake lines.

Holly’s grandmother was kind enough to get the emissions test done for us, so all we had to do was get it certified. Holly took it with her to work yesterday and dropped it off. It passed, but there were a few concerns from the mechanic. As mentioned above, the brake lines are in rough shape and so they will have to be replaced (preferably soon). So far I’ve used the car once for something that wasn’t the car itself. That was helping the Dude move some desks the other day.

I’m glad we got it – it was a deal!, but so far it’s just a driveway decoration. One day soon however, you might be seeing a cobra in your rear-view mirror, and I tend to imagine mimicking this video when behind the wheel. Watch out…
Music, Video
Space music / sad music
03.08.11 | Permalink | Comment?

This is another cool fan made video I found on youtube recently. It’s a song from another of my favourite bands, Estradasphere. The song, Flower Garden of an Evil Man, is swapped out for the audio track of the pilot episode of Gumby, Gumby on the Moon. It’s a perfect fit in my opinion.

I also thought I’d share two other songs I’ve been listening to a lot lately. Neither has a decent video, so enjoy some cover art, and the sun.

Song one

Song two
Random
Mechanical memories
03.08.11 | Permalink | Comment?

This morning I saw this image on reddit, and it immediately reminded me of something I had as a kid.

This:

It’s a piggy bank shaped like an apple. You put coins on the little yellow peg that sticks up sort of like the apple’s tooth (if apples had teeth of course), then a little worm comes out of the apple’s head and ‘eats’ your coin. I of course rarely ever put coins in it as a result of my addiction to Golden Axe, Slurpees, and penny-candy. However, it did see plenty of use. I would regularly incorporate it into my playtimes, having it eat parts of G.I.Joes, or sometimes I would cram a M.U.S.C.L.E. Man in there and just watch it chew on him over and over while it jammed.

I had a difficult time finding an image of the exact piggy bank I had as a kid, but I finally found one on someone’s etsy page. I think my mum might actually still have the one we used to own, but I could be wrong. Like I’ve said here many times before, I love things that force memories into my mind.
Book stuff, Life
Book update
03.04.11 | Permalink | Comment?

In the last week or so, James has changed his mind a half dozen times with regard to the introduction and opening paragraphs of the book(s). Aside from that, everything has been going fairly smoothly. I’ve had to redo every single image (some more than once), label everything twice, and fix a million little typos/edits along the way. I really wish I had a Mac so I could figure out how to access the character map for James. I spend probably about 4 hours in total (per book) just finding and switching every instance where there is a fraction or where he has written something like: 45-degree instead of 45° (which is pretty fucking frequent when you’re talking about a book on layout intensive construction methods). It would save me a lot of headache if he could just figure it out, but there is no chance. Until I show him exactly how to do it there is no chance he will do anything to figure it out.

I’m getting incredibly fast at this whole book layout thing. At first I hated it because it seemed so intimidating and like it would take forever. Now I realize there is nothing intimidating about it, nor does it take me that long, and I just hate it because I’m sick of looking at it, doing it over and over and over again. Soon it should be done though. Done for good.

I’m currently about two thirds of the way done the entire project. I need to do a final table of contents, as well as add the Bents appendix. That still has never been done. I have a ton of the images done, but a large majority of them are fucked up drawings some engineer gave James years ago. James doesn’t understand them, nor do I. The guy who drew them is dead, and now I have to figure it all out.
Angry Art, Sketchup
Zappy death-ray double-dukes!
03.04.11 | Permalink | Comment?

My shirt design was rejected. Apparently I should have submitted it for criticism before submitting it for voting. I kind of thought voting was, in a sense, criticism, but no. I then decided to submit a few other designs for criticism, and so far I haven’t gotten much feedback. One person told me to colour a button red, another told me to add the words “miss you” to my Atari 2600 controller. That’s it. I’m not really sure what they are looking for I guess, but I’m going to try one more time with the image above. I messed around with it this afternoon when I took a break from the book. I’m guessing it will get little or no feedback as well, but I might as well try.

Holly helped me decide on the image above for my criticism. If anyone reading this wants to help me get one step closer to getting my designs selected for print, then please take a minute and critique my designs. Simply clicking the ‘Awesome, submit this!‘ button will help a great deal. The image is a stock photo threadless.com provides people who are submitting designs. I still doubt I’m going to get any feedback, but I thought I’d use picture with a person this time and see if I got any more attention.

I kind of think I would have gotten more attention with this moustache guy, but I don’t know what is cool apparently. I’ll leave this and my other designs up for a week or two, and if there is no more interest in them I’ll give up.