Finn and I were up in New York State to visit my family over the Easter break, and spent the majority of the time sitting, eating, and relaxing, which was lovely. Their seasons are about three weeks behind us, so it was nice to drive south toward home and watch the trees go from gray to green. All of the fields in Pennsylvania are that brilliant iridescent shade of Kelly green I remember from Ireland, and the daffodils have mostly given way to the second wave of bulbs blooming. Apparently Hazel has caught the springtime bug; because everything outside is waking up, she’s pacing the house whimpering and barking because she can smell it all and the FOLO is overwhelming.

I went to the pharmacy yesterday to continue getting current on my vaccinations; we’ve decided to get as current on as many of them as possible before any political interference might occur, knowing who the current head of HHS is. I did a two-fer of Pneumococcal and Hepatitis B, both in the left arm, and I could clearly feel the needle in my muscle both times. Today it’s more sore than usual (I didn’t feel anything after the MMR shot two weeks ago) but I’m still able to move my arm, which is a relief. And so far I don’t feel any of the side-effects that a double-whammy might have brought, even with a suppressed immune system. BRING ON THE TYPHUS.

I don’t feel like I have a lot to share at the moment. Just trying to manage my anxiety and hang on to my sanity. I’m just going to keep focusing on the few things I can control, and try to do those things to the best of my ability.

I took the week off from work this week to burn up some excess PTO time, and I’ve been working on the truck and doing some small house projects to relax. On Wednesday, Jen and I signed up to be chaperones for a class trip Finn’s school was taking to the local community college and then to the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum. I wasn’t expecting much out of the college visit, but because this trip was organized by the graphic design/IT/CompSci teachers, they took us through the fabrication labs first and then up to the CompSci classrooms. I was thrilled to learn they’ve got an entire program focused on machine tool training.

The first room they took us through was lined with CNC machines, and the professor explained how they start with the math and programming, then move up to training on the machines. We then entered a second lab lined with Bridgeport lathes—there were maybe 15 of them—where they do hands-on training.

Down the hall is another lab with 3D printing machines—not the consumer grade stuff I’ve played with, but multi-process industrial units that do resin, powder, and plastic. And they mentioned that they’re putting in another lab in the summer to do more 3D processes.

It’s not cheap; I’d love be able to go through the entire course for a certificate, but that would cost many dollars. Individually, though, some of the courses are very affordable and are offered at convenient times after work hours.

The Cryptological Museum was fascinating. There’s a ton of stuff there to look through, including the machine that used to make and decode the nuclear launch codes, several Cray supercomputers, and a pair of original Enigma machines you can actually use to decode messages. I read a lot about Enigma when I went through my Neil Stephenson phase, and vaguely understood how the machines worked through his descriptions, but it was another thing entirely to be in front of them, see some of the rotors disassembled, and to see the American version of the Bombe, designed by Alan Turing and built to break the code on a daily basis. The math is mind-boggling but the physical machinery made it much more understandable. We were  also happy to see they’re still highlighting the unsung women and people of color who were instrumental in breaking codes up to and during WWII.

I stopped into the orthodontist yesterday for a test fitting of new Invisalign trays. I was alarmed to learn I’ve been doing this for almost three full years. I’m probably the poster boy for the extreme edge of what is possible with Invisalign. It’s been a long road, but my teeth have made major improvements. I have noticed that changes have slowed down in the last six months; I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not. Meanwhile, our orthodontist recently retired, sold his practice to a new guy, and this new guy is taking a different tack with my final series of trays. He actually re-scanned my teeth and moved a couple of the nubs on my teeth around to better hold the trays to push my front teeth out. The new trays fit my teeth better now than they ever have in the past. I’ve probably got another six months before there’s any chance of me being done, but I will say that I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of this process.

Finn is not a huge fan of chemistry this semester. Her grades have wobbled between “terrible” and “passing” with peaks and valleys along the way, and we’ve had to stay on top of her studies every night to keep things on track. I can understand her indifference; chemistry was never my strong suit (I had no patience, a raging case of ADD, and a terrible grasp of basic math) but the stuff she’s learning is light-years beyond what I was exposed to in my school. She completely surprised me last night, however, when I showed her the latest iteration of my silicone mold project.

So far I’ve done three metal pours after I got a silicone mold to set properly. The first pour was terrible because the metal didn’t find its way down into the cavities fast or smoothly enough before hardening, so I pulled it out after it cooled and re-melted it. The second time I used the sharp end of a file to guide it into the cavities but the fill was still inconsistent. So I pulled the metal and took the time with an X-acto knife to carve out all of the edges of the mold as much as possible to open things up. Then I did a third pour in three stages. This one was much more successful but still didn’t fill the entire mold. I’ve learned it’s very hard to control molten tin before it cools—I suppose I need to get it hotter than I have been—but even then I’m not thrilled with the results. The tin is very malleable when it’s cooled, making it easy to bend, and my design has a lot of small, easily bent details.

Showing this to Finn, she was fascinated with the cast and asked to make some molds and casts of her own. After I mentioned I was thinking about making some kind of small smelter to try aluminum instead of tin, she idly suggested I try using resin instead of metal.

Sometimes she surprises me with her wisdom.

Resin looks to be a much easier substance to work with, is tintable, and the heat resistant variants get closer to the melting point of tin: I found one at 300˚F, which I think would be good enough for something mounted on a metal box in direct sunlight. It’s worth a shot in any case, so I’m going to pivot to chemistry and leave my foundry days behind.

It’s been a week since I went snowboarding and I think this might be the first morning where my rib is feeling better. The larger  soreness and pain in the overall area disappeared on the second day, but I’m still feeling a sharp jab right under my armpit, at probably my fifth or sixth rib. Yesterday morning I woke up feeling really good laying in bed next to a snoring Hazel, and yawned deeply, which seemed to aggravate it almost immediately for the rest of the day. On top of all this, the girls and I went to the local pharmacy and got our Covid shots Friday afternoon. Without thinking about it, I got mine in my left arm, so Saturday I felt sore pretty much all over my body. I fought through it and worked outside for the entire day, because I spent all of last week trapped behind my desk. Despite all of this it felt really good to be outside and moving around, even though by about noon, all I wanted to do was go inside and take a nap. Today it’s sore but not actively reminding me it’s there, so I’ll take it extra easy and see if I don’t make it angry again.

I’ve been working on a new project: pouring a silicone mold of the 3-D printed dealer badges I made. I bought a simple mold kit off of Amazon last week, boxed in a square on a piece of scrap wood, mixed the silicone, and poured it on Tuesday evening. The silicone didn’t set overnight like it was supposed to, and a little reading revealed that that was probably due to the cold in the house, or perhaps my imperfect non-scientific mixing process. The silicone is supposed to be mixed according to weight, which is about as easy as measuring the volume of a sneeze. I put the mold on top of a radiator in the spare bedroom and let it heat up for a couple of days until the top was tacky to the touch—by then it should have been completely solid. To get it to firm up, I put it down on the workbench under a photography bulb and let it sit for a couple of hours. What wound up happening was that the silicone heated up to the point where it started melting the PVA plastic underneath and the whole mold basically fell apart into a sticky glob. So I’ve got to go back to the drawing board. I’m going to make an appointment to go back to the library and spend a good three hours printing a new version of the badge, then remix some silicone and try to set it up for success this time.

Sunday morning the cats and dog seemed to be really interested in the fireplace. Sipping my coffee in the den before the girls got up, I heard a flurry of commotion in the living room and investigated, but found nothing. Nox sat in front of the fireplace, staring into the glass as if he was watching a really good episode on TV. The sound was not a cat sound, and the dog was laying next to me on the couch, so I was perplexed—but saw nothing wrong.

Later in the day the same thing happened, but this time I was in the room. Both Hazel and Nox were glued to the fireplace window. I heard a fluttering and realized there was a bird trapped behind the woodpile. I got my welding gloves from the garage, we shooed the animals away, and I opened the glass to find a very frightened, very tired catbird waiting to be released. He fluttered over to the window and sat on the sill, so I opened the one next to him and gently shooed him outside, where he flew up to sit on a branch on the oak tree. By the time I made it around to the back door, he was gone.

A brief internet search for the symbolism of meeting a catbird brings up as much contradictory information as a horoscope. It could mean good news, it could mean deceit; it could be a harbinger of new relationships or it could warn against manipulation. I choose to believe he was sent as a reminder for me to stick my head into the flue and check on the chimney, which is clean and clear.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this retro commercial from back in the days of beepers. Someone on a video I was watching referenced it, and I LOL’ed just as hard watching it yesterday as I did back in 199-whatever.

I spent four hours on Friday talking to a nice older man about guns. Specifically, we talked about a handgun qualification license, which I’ve been interested in getting for a while now, but have been stalled by for different reasons. This course was very good. He’s been training for forty years, so the class went by smoothly and he filled it with a ton of good information. We went over safety first and he had me handle several different types of actual guns after we talked about correct grip and fit. It turns out my long fingers require a fat grip to get my finger in the right place on the trigger. We talked about the dominant eye in relation to sighting and I learned my left eye is dominant, which made him suggest I learn to shoot with my left hand, something I was not expecting. Then we went downstairs to the range and reviewed range safety before he had me set up and fire three different pistols: a SIG chambered in .22 for target and stance practice, a SIG 365 chambered in .380 and a Glock 48 chambered in 9mm.

The .22 was easy to shoot and got me set up for the larger calibers. He had me shoot 10 with both hands in a combat grip, then 5 with my right hand and 5 with my left. I got the best results with my left hand, followed closely by the dual grip.

The .380 also felt very good—it’s a smaller frame but fit snugly in my hands—and I found the amount of recoil to be just right. I got a good grouping with this one as well, better than the .22, actually. I was very impressed with this pistol, and it’s a modular design which allows for longer and wider handgrips in various sizes, and can be chambered in 9mm. It’s also smaller size, which is good for concealment, but at the end of the day I’m not interested in carrying it.

The last Glock I shot years ago, a 17, I didn’t like so much because the grips didn’t fit me well, but I also found out yesterday that I was holding the trigger wrong. My finger was hooked around the trigger past my first knuckle, when it should have been centered on the first pad. This 48 had a sleeve over the grip and fit much better, and I got a very clean grouping in the 9 ring. As much as the other guns were good, I think I would go with the Glock and get it set up for my hands better.

So next up is a fingerprint card, and then I send in my paperwork to the State Police to hopefully get approved.

• When someone pronounces et cetera (/et ˈsedərə/) as “eggseddera”. We are not making salad with mayonnaise; we are denoting the fact that there are more things in a list we aren’t mentioning. There’s a T in there, friends, let’s use it.
• The word trainings, e.g., “we’re having some trainings on proper use of company credit cards.” I know we talk about meetings, but trainings was never pluralized until I entered the NGO space. Now I’m going to go have a walkings with my dog.
  • Corollary: Learnings. E.g.: What learnings have you taken away from this event?
• When someone talks about being orientated towards something. Especially when it’s a BBC reporter. I suppose this is a British English thing, but it still hits me like nails on a chalkboard. You’re oriented towards something. You attend an orientation.

What bastardizations of the English language have you heard lately?