29 January 2023
My friend, DeAnna, on "Saltaire" works during the week. One day last week she mentioned that she wanted to play Cribbage, since I have a Cribbage board onboard, I suggested we play sometime. This morning, being a Sunday, she was off from work, so we got together to play.
She thought she knew this game, but when she read the instructions, she discovered it was new to her. I taught her how to play. While we enjoyed a few rounds of cards, her dog Whatley kept us company.
 |
| Whatley! |
30 January 2023
Today, Monday, I headed off to the library to check out the "3D Printing Lab". I have not had an opportunity to see a 3D printer in operation, so this seemed like an ideal learning experience. Clark pointed out that they would most likely not have a 3D scanner. It worked similar to the Cricut I saw in operation last week. The library has a website that can be perused to pick out the object to be printed.
Most items take over an hour to print. Many take many hours to complete. Besides the requests put in during the workshop today, the operator had a special request he was working on for a library patron. The patron wanted a special support for his telescope. The man teaching the class says he does not know what the finished item will look like. He has been creating the components one at a time that will be assembled to create the telescope stand - unlike anything currently on the market.
When I arrived at the lab, a 4-year old was in front of me in queue, and his choice got printed out before mine could be started. His chameleon took 1.5 hours to print. The lab was two hours long. While we waited for his chameleon to print, I had a lovely chat with his mother who is from Japan.
He husband is in the navy and they met when he was stationed in Japan. The four-year old is precocious and interesting to interact with. He even showed me the sign language sign for "play" but mischievously wouldn't tell me what he "said". I had to ask his mother. How exciting as I now know a word in sign language.
The 3D printing process was interesting, and I stayed to see the final chameleon come off the printer. I watched as my project was started, but told the teacher that I would pick it up when I came in for art the next day.
The instructor showed us the website where we could pick our object to print - thingiverse.com. If I go back again, I can search the catalog before coming to the lab. I decided to have a dodecahedron printed this time as I thought this would be a small object that I could add to my knickknack shelf on the boat.
To give us an idea of options, some of the items previously printed were on display at the library.
Before any printing could begin, the machine had to be warmed up to 200 degrees Celsius. In the picture below, the 4-year old is watching to tell us when 200 had been reached. I don't know how to spell his name but it sounded something like Mostacho.
 |
| Waiting for 70 degrees to appear |
 |
| Tools to cut the plastic and scrape the finished product off the mat when done. |
 |
| Chameleon printing. Piece of plastic to one side is his jaw that inserts later. |
 |
| Printer prints one layer at a time .. getting taller! |
While we waited for the chameleon to finish printing, we watched the boy and a new friend he met at the library (not shown in the picture) play a game. It runs on batteries and senses when you reach for the gold nuggets in its nest and then strikes out at random times to keep you from stealing the gold.
The finished chameleon has a flexible body like the unicorn shown below it. Both are fragile and subject to breaking easily - not exactly ideal for a 4-year old.
 |
| Unicorn - actually broken at front legs - very fragile |
 |
| Ella chose this spool for her friend's unicorn |
I could not hang around for another hour and more to wait for my "toy" to be printed. I watched it begin to print and then left to go back to the boat for lunch. I could have chosen a different color, but the instructor convinced me that the variegated color would be ideal for my object.
 |
| Dodecahedron just starting to print |
 |
| My finished dodecahedron! |
It now has a place of honor among my other "toys".
While I as out and about, Clark kept busy either with our boat or with other people's boats. He's gaining the reputation at Marlin Bay that he had at Faro Blanco as the man to go to with engineering type issues. He's helped folks with all sorts of issues including finding a potentially dangerous open circuit in one boat, fixing someone's VHF microphone so they don't need to buy a new unit, helping someone track down a starter issue, and fixing someone's AIS so that it does not alarm on the owner's own boat.
For that last item, the boat hadn't even finished tying up at the slip next to ours yet, and already Clark had been tapped as the "go to" guy to ask about the AIS issue. Clark had that situation "fixed" in under 10 minutes! Most people tell Clark they will buy him a beer for his trouble, but since he doesn't drink that debt never gets paid. The person with the fixed VHF radio brought Clark a thank you card and his favorite cookies to thank him for his help. Now that he could use!
31 January 2023
I am becoming a regular at the library. Today I went back once again for art class. Today I decided that I would try the water colors that the teacher wanted us to work with. She gave a long intro at the beginning of class on the plans for the day. By the time she was done, I had no idea where to start. I told her I was suffering from "Information Overload" and could she remind me as to step one.
It became obvious to me at the end of class (sadly not the beginning) that she had two different projects for us to work on. One was the watercolor and the other was sketching. The purpose of the sketching was to allow the watercolor to dry before finishing the work. I thought the sketching lesson was related to the watercolor project - not independent.
The drawing assignment was to learn how to draw faces - specifically caricatures. The painting assignment was to paint a snail on a watercolor background. It seems 'stupid' now, but the way I heard her instructions I thought the snail was supposed to be somehow drawn based on learnings from the caricature drawing. What she really wanted was a real snail painted on the backdrop.
 |
| What she asked for ... |
This is what I did!
 |
| What she got! |
Since this is only my second time ever painting with watercolors, I was happy with my cartoon snail. I found his picture on the internet and copied him to paint.
While I was in painting class, Clark was busy with boat "stuff". He had a few errands to run - shop at Home Depot, check out progress (or lack thereof) on the hinge he has requested be made for the boat door, and mail some cards for me that I put together to send to my grandchildren.
After lunch Clark took off in the dinghy to visit a boater in Boot Key Harbor with starter problems. The owner works at Marlin Bay. While he was gone, the diver showed up to scrape the bottom of Sunset Delight to get growth off the bottom. Clark asked me to get a full report on the work done as he is interested to know how well the ultrasonic system he installed is working.
We had some growth over the entire boat bottom with most of it on the trim tabs. The system was not fully installed until we got the fabricated mounting plates in place, so we are still in the early days of using the ultrasonic solution.
While Clark was gone, I pulled out my sewing machine to repair a pair of his shorts. Since I had the machine out with nothing scheduled for the day, I decided to make another outfit for my American Doll. I find sewing relaxing, and I like working on fun projects that can be completed in a short period of time, i.e. not stretched out over weeks or months to complete. I felt accomplished when I finished sewing her new dress. Now she needs new shoes to go with it!
 |
| Fancy part dress with necklace. |
1 February 2023
As I got ready for bed last night, I saw that I had an unexpected email from the local farmer's market. Today they had a special event - fresh-picked corn on the cob, strawberries, and juicy tomatoes. I had hoped to sleep in, but the corn was just too tempting to miss.
I was up early and arrived before 9:00 but was almost too late as everything was going fast. I got what I came for, but one woman was disappointed as she wanted sticky buns and the man behind me was buying the last package. Besides being happy he got there in time, he must have felt a bit guilty as he explained to me that his work crew sent him specifically to get buns, and he dared not go back without them.
When I got back to the boat, Clark was just leaving for his physical therapy session. He helped me get my bike back on board before taking off for the morning. The whole time he was gone I spent working on the boat. He had mentioned that our window shades were filthy, so I spent the time taking them down and giving them a good scrub!
February is Clark's least favorite month as it means tax time. He spent the better part of the day working on tax documents while I updated the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment