Breadcrumbs of life

Happiness in a box

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I have made a couple of trolleys for my friends' kids and this is my 4th one. This time I made it as simple as possible, took out the long wood handle to push it around, but instead attached a rope to pull it. Easier to build and safer for kids as well.

This time I gifted it to the school of special needs kids where my friend teaches at and I think this is one of my best gifts ever. I find that gifting something like this to just one kid is not even worth the labor, since they move on to other toys way too soon. In a school setting, on the other hand, a handmade wooden toy gets the use it deserves.

After I dropped this off to my friend, the next day I got a photo that made me very happy. We keep forgetting that such a simple toy can bring enormous happiness to a bunch of small kids playing together. Practical hands on things never go out of fashion, and I think these are the things to grow up with, not cheaply made plastic electronics stuff that break in a few days after opening the package.

First bowl on the new lathe

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I always like to make my own bowl blanks by glueing up different types of wood from my stash of scraps. This time it was 4 pieces of 4x4 redwood fence post sections and some light colored pine. Not being green (wet) wood, it was a bit difficult to curve up the inside, but it turned out ok. The diameter of the bowl is around 8 inch.

New 12" wood lathe

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Just when I thought my hands were full with hobbies, I had to makespace for another one. I have been postponing getting a lathe again, simply because the size I wanted were too expensive. And then all of a sudden I found a new 12"x36" central machinery brand lathe for under 300 bucks at harbor freight. The temptation was too much, so I had to get it home.

First project: spindle turning a spatula from a scrap piece of pine wood.

Home theatre

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Ever since we got rid of the TV, life has only become better. Six months of no useless shows saved a lot of time for creative use. We missed watching good movies on a large screen, so with enough pokes from roomie and wife, I ended up getting the simplest HD projector and a bare bones sound system. Thanks to my uber geek roomie (Dinesh) we got a completely satisfactory setup for under one grand. 900 bucks for an Optoma 1080p projector and 60 bucks Cyber Acoustics 5.1 speaker system. For the screen I got reluctant to get yet another bulky gadget, and went the DIY way - painted a wall with matte white after making it slightly grey. So far, zero complaints and hope it stays that way.

Much, much more fun to watch HD videos of hang gliding now. Next week I am trying to get it mounted on the ceiling, a little further back for a bigger image.

Kings Canyon trip

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We had one hell of a 3-day trip to Kings Canyon, our backyard winter wonderland. Thanks to the immaculate planning of Arupda and the flawless culinary arrangements by Pampadi, it made for a very memorable trip. We enjoyed snow sledding, show shoeing, and ofcourse a lot of winter photography.

Note: I took very few photos using the cell phone. Will share a bunch of DSLR photos via flickr very soon.
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
  
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