The Spark Between

I've done the whole "stop working out for many months, then start again" thing enough times now that I ought to know the ropes.  It is never as bad working out as I think it might be, and it always hurts more the next day than I remembered.

On the plus side, tonight I biked & ran on some kind of elliptical machine for 35 minutes straight at my "target heart rate", which I think is longer than I've done in several years.  Yes, that's sad.  I'm working on it.

Tyson, Jeni & I went hiking at Wallace Falls today.  Tyson's a pretty good hiker :)

As in a real ninja.  This dog...

...laid carefully in wait for the first 7 minutes 39 seconds of my time lapse video.  He then rose suddenly from his bed, and a mere 42 seconds later...

...my surveillance operation had been systematically disabled.

For the remainder of the day, I successfully captured 8,598 photos of the bottom of a chair leg:

I completed my most recent project tonight.  It only took 2 months, $135, and as Jeni says: 412 steps.  Not going to win any speed awards here, but it is actually completed!  Compared to most of my projects, that's saying something :)

Wayyy back in early April, the weather suddenly turned nice for a few days and I was struck with a craving for a hammock.  I considered buying one, but then found an article from the May 1982 edition of Mother Earth News on making a "Heavenly Hammock", and convinced myself it would be a great project.

Materials

Twine - $12
Wood - $6
Welded metal rings - $4

Beer - $8

Hammock stand - $100

Tools

Drill
Candle
Netting Shuttle

Version 0

It took several nights over the course of a week or two to actually weave this thing.  The weaving was awkward at first, but after a few rows I got the hang of it.  I would advise anyone making their first hammock to weave some extra rows at the end, and then go back and cut off the top several rows that (probably) look terrible in comparison.

I started with several spools of twine and a homemade shuttle cut from a six-pack of Smirnoff something or other:

After weaving back and forth and back and forth the hammock took shape.  For higher-tension runners down the sides, I braided 3 22-foot strands of gold twine together, and then folded it in half and did a 4-strand round braid with two 10' pieces of white twine.  (For each side!) :

Version 1

The "completed" hammock sat unused in my room for a week or two or three without a stand, until Jeni convinced me today to just buy a pre-made (safe) stand and be done with it.  And so I present version 1!

... it hit the ground immediately when I laid down in it:

Version 2

After some rework to cut out about 8 rows' worth of inner netting, I produced Version 2.  It obviously went too far the other direction... though I could technically lay down on it:

Version 3

The good news is that I "cut out" my 8 rows by just tying the netting on farther in, without actually cutting the twine.  Because I needed about 4 of those rows back... This time, the hammock looks like a hammock, sits like a hammock, works like a hammock :)

... And the best part?  Tyson can jump me!  (He'll do anything for a dish of hose water...)

David Eddings, author of the Belgariad, Mallorean, and many other works passed away this past week.

We had some sort of reading hour thing in middle school, where you were supposed to read a total of a couple hundred pages or so and periodically write little reports about what you were reading.

I read all of those first two series, and they were awesome.  Thanks, David.

From PHD Comics:

I GOT PROMOSHUN IN DA MAIL!

HOW DEY GIT MAH ADDRESZ?

NO, SRSLY. HOW DEY GIT MAH ADDRESZ!? IZ BEEN YEERS AN YEERS.

Oregon is pretty awesome. Dead car batteries are not.