Sheesh. The login for this blog is very case-sensitive–username included–and I wonderedif WordPress had automatically changed my password for some reason… Nope, I just kept capitalizing a letter I shouldn’t have.
Anyway, the 24th of July is a big deal in my parent’s town, and I was recently asked by a sister-in-law if I could make some western-style crafts to sell at a booth on that day. Now I have to come up with some ideas. I have a wood burner my wife gave to me, and a Dremel from my parents. Those are great tools for little crafts like that, but I’m not yet sure what to make. Let me know if anyone out there has any ideas.
I work in a drive-in lumber yard. A customer with a large trailor drove in a few days ago. The inside was lined with plywood, causing it to look nearly like a miniature, very portable trailor home. As I watched the customer walking around inside, I observed my mind temporarily shut out the existence of most things outside the walls of this trailor. I did not forget them, I just stopped thinking about them–or at least my mind began to lean that direction, if only for a few seconds. The walls on every side of this (again, rather large) trailer had no windows, and seemed to unconciously block from my thoughts the objects and conditions outside of them. Please don’t think I’m psychotic or that there’s something wrong with my brain; the observed effect was extremely slight, yet it showed evidence of a more relevant tendency in the human nature. We sometimes surround ourselves so thoroughly with airtight shelter and modern conveniences that the world outside our walls begins to fade subconciously into nonexistence. We do not forget, per se, about the objects and circumstances outside our square walls; we just cease thinking about them. This is never wholly true, of course; how could we ever cease entirely to think about close friends and family, certain world circumstances, and some previous experiences? But how do you see the world as a whole after eight solid hours of work (with an indoor lunchbreak) differently than during a relaxed walk around the neighborhood? Or better yet, during a hike in the closest mountains? My proposal is not that we should seek to break away from the indoors or modern conveniences altogether; it is that amid those inevitable and necessary hours or days spent in the mental or physical walls that shut out existence beyond them, we owe it to ourselves and our friends to, when reasonable, escape into the much bigger and more broad world outside those walls–to consider the big picture. Only then, I believe, can we come to understand the big pictures that are happening in our lives, and ultimately, the big picture that makes up the purpose of our existence.
I must apologize to the viewers of this page. College, work, and getting engaged can be quite taxing on the time. Readers may expect more consistent posts from me now. Besides, during my last English class, I discovered a new interest in writing. To my surprise, I find it kind of fun sometimes. (-:
I personally find reading about miscellaneous events in the lives of those outside close friends and family to be on the boring side. Therefore, I want to make this blog more than a chronological (and sometimes tedious to read) record of events in my work or life, although I will not avoid telling of such things. Thoughts, ideas, observations, and impressions, are, to me, more fun to read, and a heck of a lot more fun to write. Plus, they require me to make attempts at digging through my brain until its contents resemble some depth. (-: Disclaimer: I tend to be a bit sarcastic in writing–moreso than in speech. Here’s to new beginnings!
When framing a picture, there are two major obstacles that I have always struggled with, and that slow down production. The first, is that no matter how good a miter saw you have, it is virtually impossible to cut an exact 45 degree angle. Therefore, when you finally put all four pieces of the frame together, the corners don’t completely match up.
The second challenge is keeping those four pieces together while the glue dries. Especially with large frames, corner clamps have always proven either useless or extremely awkward and troublesome to work with.
I finally have a solution to both these problems! I built a 3′ X 4′ table that is meant solely for building picture frames.
Other than providing 12 square feet of workspace, it makes 45 degree cuts easy, and has a built-in clamp system. Grandpa Hathaway has a technique he uses to perfect angle cuts–and he uses an ordinary hand miter saw to do it! One corner of this framing table has attatchments that allow me to use his idea, making it relatively easy to ensure good contact on all four intersections of a frame.
The opposite corner of the table has removable 1X6’s that serve as walls against which a frame with wet glue will be pressed by the clamps. Although it may only hold one frame at a time, it overcomes the second obstacle mentioned above.
In addition to the table, I now have a biscuit joiner to work with, which will allow me to insert small pieces of wood into the joints of each frame, so that once the glue is dry, they hold the four corners of the frame together from the inside of the wood.
I’m trying out all this new stuff on a frame that recently broke apart. On that frame, in order to compensate for the imperfect corner cuts, I had clamped the corners together so hard, that they smashed together despite their 46 or 44 degree angles. This created a huge amount of tension all around the frame, which caused each corner to break apart (simultaneously) when it was bumped. This new equipment is specifically meant to prevent that from happening to this or any other frames (and to make frame building a whole lot easier).
Ria asked me to make a frame for a recent picture she painted. Here’s the picture:
To be consistent with the nature of this picture, I chose to build it out of stained pine, with a very simple design. It’s almost done:
I think of this topic because of the music I’m listening to at the moment.
It’s amazing to me how consistently each society and culture embraces music in whatever form it takes. On an individual level, each person seems to have their preferences. Preferences, that is, that seem to change relatively often. Not long ago, I returned home from a 2 year mission in Texas. While there, I and many other missionaries would focus on inspirational music- often instrumental. This, of course, was according to the rules; the kinds of music that could be at all distracting from the Spirit was either discouraged or outruled. Some might say that this kind of rule is too much, that it is too limiting.
Returning home, I found that my preferred music had changed somewhat. This is what brings me to this topic most of all; I didn’t change interest because I had been surrounded by a different type of music. It was because of the kind of music it was. I found immediately that certain styles- yes, styles- were distracting to me, that, regardless of the listener, they pull attention to themselves in a very powerful way. Such can be the power of music. Instead of this, I preferred my own undistracted thoughts- accompanied by good music. I had realized how music can either build upon or stiffle inspired thoughts, hopes, and plans. Hence, my fascination with music in general. It really is a big part of humanity.
Speaking of deep or inspiring music, this is among my favorite compilations of such: http://willowrise.com/music.htm
