Monday Puzzler

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax  si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

I think that I'd want that as the motto on any crest for Doghouse Boatworks...

Life, Wonder Bread, the Universe and Everything

I must admit at the beginning of this post that this is shamelessly copied (with minor alterations) from a co-worker's Facebook post. These are the actual events of a Thursday afternoon two weeks ago. Quite frankly, we probably wouldn't have believed her but for the fact that she was in the boss's car (this would probably happen to him while driving...) and the fact that there was evidence in the form of pictures and, um, other material. Now, I'll just let her pictures and words tell it like it was:

This is a story of intrigue...

It was a lovely Thursday afternoon. Life was good. So...

...I decided to accompany my boss on some errands. While enroute to the bank, and without the courtesy of a warning...

...a giant hawk (not THIS hawk, but a similar-looking hawk) carrying...

. . . a squirrel (not THIS squirrel, but a similar-looking squirrel) came careening towards our vehicle. The hawk was swiftly losing altitude and crashed into the windshield. It flapped and freaked as its wings pounded the glass. My boss and I screamed and the hawk flew way, but not before depositing bloody squirrel bits all over the hood. We'd no sooner screeched to a halt when (and I knew it was coming when the sun went away) we were clobbered from behind by none other than...

...the Wonder Bread truck, which was driven by...

...an extroverted Malboro-smoking man with three half-teeth and a leg that dragged behind him a bit (not THIS guy, but a similar-looking guy). And so, in the end...

...the Wonder Bread truck didn't look too bad.

My boss's vehicle didn't look too bad

...but the squirrel? Life wasn't looking so good for that little guy.

...and it did take two trips through the car wash to get all of the squirrel off of my boss's car ...

Tech Tip Tuesday

In my line of work, one often comes upon some unusual engineering wildlife. I think you'd better check out the post quickly as I'm not sure how long the link to the first image will be working:

Alumabeaver

The Alumabeaver (Castor Aluminus) is a diurnal mammal; the third largest rodent in the world. The Alumabeaver is characterized by its large flat tail, webbed paws, soft silver fur and tungsten carbide teeth.

Their habitat includes highly industrialized areas and they are particularly fond of machining and manufacturing facilities where their largest food source is to be found. While seldom seen in the wild, these elusive creatures are often known to be in the presence of bad machinists and mechanical design engineers. Their presence can be noted by their tell-tale tooth marks found in aluminum along with chips and shavings. These tooth marks are often mistaken for those of the Bronze Muskrat (Ondatra Zibethicus Brundusinium) and strongly resemble very irregular marks made by end-mills, drill bits and files, but with unusual chatter and inconsistent lay marks. Their presence may also be given away by wet tracks of Tap Magic on floors in the region where shavings used to construct their lodges are found.

Alumabeaver Tracks

They tend to be solitary animals and their lodges (constructed mainly of shavings, cardboard and small diameter billets that have been gnawed off) are often found adjacent to work benches and built against the side of milling machines. They are not as industrious as their woodland cousins and often do not come out of their lodges unless bad manufacturing or shoddy design is to be found. Their diet consists typically of 6061-T6 and 7075 alloy billets but when food is scarce, they are known to consume 2024 angle.

Alumabeaver Skeleton

While their lustrous silver pelt and tungsten carbide teeth are both very desirable commodities, they are difficult to trap and attempts to do so near their lodges often result in severe cuts to those who try to capture them.

Wordless Wednesday

Darned if I know...

We've been growing vegetables in garden boxes on our front porch this year. Mostly tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and zucchini. Recently we found the oddity shown in the picture above in one of the bushes. It is growing on a zucchini plant but looking like a half-and-half summer squash/zucchini. Is this an accident of cross pollination? Has anybody ever seen anything like it?

We've been referring to most of what we're growing as "stealth vegetables". You don't see them one day and then all of a sudden you find a giant whatever-it-is ready to pick!

We've even got a stealth melon growing out in our front flower beds by our driveway. It must have been a seed that was in the compost I dressed into the ground in the spring. At any rate, a vine appeared and I let it grow out of curiosity. At the moment we have a large melon (8" or so in diameter) of indeterminate variety growing out there. It could be a watermelon, cantelope or honeydew - I just can't tell yet!

Decisions, Decisions

One of the things that I find myself doing before my class starts up is reviewing my tools, forms and procedures to see if there is anything that I can be doing to improve the class for the students.

This year, I've got a bit of a dilemma.

I have two couples who would like to build tandem canoes. This brings up some logistical issues:

• Bigger boats and forms need to be moved out of the shop and into the barn on a weekly basis. They are heavier and more awkward to deal with than a Wee Lassie.
• Bigger boats require longer stock. We like to rip full length stock, so we're looking at 16' boards.
• Bigger boats are more expensive.
• Because we move the boats on a weekly basis, the strongback has to be rigid. I'm considering some lightweight box-beam designs for a change.
  

In practical terms, I would like to get the students' input on the selection of the canoe. There are a handful of good canoe designs in the 15' range that I'm looking at, but they have distinctly different paddling characteristics. Picture having someone else pick out the car you're going to drive without knowing very much about your driving abilities and how you'll use the vehicle - without doing a test-drive themselves! For this reason, I'm looking at boats which are based on "tried-and-true" designs such as the Bob's Special, which is based on an old Chestnut design and several others which are based on Peterborough designs.

The other important consideration here is the protection of a designer's intellectual property - taking a copyrighted design will require a royalty to be paid for each design - or sometimes, a price for the first design and a smaller licensing fee for the additional boats.

Anybody got any good ideas?

With No Forwarding Address

I was very disappointed the other day. One of my favorite blogs has disappeared with no forwarding address. It was the Compass Rose Review by Peter Spectre. Peter has been the editor of Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine since 1999. Before that Peter was the editor of WoodenBoat magazine and International Marine Publishing Company of Camden Maine. Peter also is the author of The Mariner's Book of Days a day planner with loads of nautical tid-bits sprinkled throught - a thoroughly enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys boats and the water.

At any rate, Peter's blog was about present day life and the maritime history in his part of Maine. While he published infrequently, the topics were always well-researched and well thought out. While I don't know the reason that he pulled the blog, I certainly hope to see more of his work in future from other sources. Still, the online community will be poorer for the disappearance of his blog.

The End of an Era

In Greenville, Maine, there is a restaurant named The Black Frog. The Black Frog is famous, or perhaps infamous, for their Skinny Dip Sandwich. From their menu:

Skinny Dip: Thinly sliced prime rib served in a baguette roll with au jus on the side for dipping. If you run down the long dock naked and jump in the lake, the sandwich is free......10.95

That's right - if you run down their dock into Moosehead Lake naked, you get the sandwich for free. Well, you used to be able to. Apparently there had been some complaints regarding naked patrons jumping into the lake. (2 or 3 per week, according to Leigh Turner, the proprietor) To pressure Mr. Turner, the town selectmen denied him a liquor license. However, if he dropped the free sandwich promotion, they told him that they'd have no trouble renewing his license.

Do be sure to check out The Black Frog's menu. It's a very good read. For instance, the "Sammiches" section starts out with this little ditty:

All sandwiches are served with a choice of hand cut fries, curly fries or cole slaw, plus a pickle. We think it's a pickle - it's green anyway - could be a very old smelt.

Do go read - you won't be sorry you did!

I guess I'll have to admit that I'm amazed.

The English have a term for it - Gobsmacked. (From the OED : • adjective Brit. informal utterly astonished.)

I've been writing a blog about small boats and boat building (various and sundry other items as well...) since February of 2006. I started out over at Yahoo! 360° when prompted by my friend Jenn to start one. I'd never really thought about starting a blog. When the future of Yahoo! 360° looked "iffy" I moved over to Blogger in February of this year.

Three things really amaze me:

• I haven't run out of things to write about.
• I don't hear many comments from readers.
• There have been over 1000 views of this page from 42 countries since February of 2008.

While I know not all of the views of this page have been from people who were looking for this page, I have heard from a few people who do stop by regularly. I guess two questions are in order:

• Are you seeing the things you want to see here?
• If not, what would you like to see here?

Post a comment and let me know!