MantisBlog

This is a post to announce the creation of the Secret Mantis category. Posts in this category will be hidden from all those except for the chosen few…

Cool, can this thing integrate a permanent photo library? Along with that can there be protected parts of the site that only people logged in can see?

In a stunning turn of events, Joey and Elina actually spent most of the day in the Caltech Student Shop constructing an end-grain hardwood cutting board. Obviously this must have happened because Elina was part of the project. Everyone knows Joey’s projects all end at the “purchase the raw materials” stage. Yay.

We started with a big 1.75-inch thick plank of alder and sawed/jointed/planed it down into 16 1.5×1.5×16″ pieces. We’ve now glued these together into four planks of four pieces each with the grain doing the best possible approximation of a laminated quartersawn board. As I write this, the glue is drying on those. Next, we’ll refinish those down to have flat edges and then cut them into 32 6×1.5×2″ strips which will be glued up into the final cutting board which will be 18″x15″x2″.

As I said, we’re using alder for the wood. Hard maple would undoubtedly have been better, but it costs almost twice as much. Alder is not particularly well-suited to this task, but it’s not terrible either, and it’s the cheapest hardwood I could find at Arroyo Hardwoods. We’re gluing it up with Elmer’s polyurethane glue which is a new process for me — I’ve only ever used yellow AR wood glues in the past. This is supposed to be waterproof and very strong, so we’ll see how it goes.

So far, the materials have cost about $60 for this, and we’ve put in about 5 hours in the shop. I imagine we’re about halfway done. We’ll probably have the whole thing assembled tomorrow, though there may be some finishing/surfacing work left to do.

Willie has been spotted at a Japanese restaurant in SF.

Doh, I forgot about Twiggy…

Twiggy was last seen shopping for houses and wedding dresses online. Bryan was last seen running from Twiggy, credit cards in hand.

hmm so this seems pretty coolio… i must have missed this in my term induced stupor. I LIKE IT. Im not really adding anything new to the update thing, I am just getting some of the annie sanctioned shit done so i can yell at people. ANNIE give me yer CARDS… oh yeah never mind. MO.. bring a fucking camera next time, or get one NOW. GO MAVS .. and SPURS. and i dont give a fuck what your cause is, if you cant speak at least better than I no one will give a shit. take your BROWN POWER and go fuck yourself.

• No one has heard from Jenjen since her wedding. We assume that she is still alive in Singapore, and hope that she has managed to avoid flogging.
• Chekkie is permanently brain-damaged. He is currently on Mantis life support and hooked into zephyr class Skank intravenously.
• Elina is pregnant. Joey claims he is the father of the sprog but early ultrasounds clearly indicate that the sprog is a half Korean boy. Hmmm…
• But Mo is still a virgin.
• So Joey and Elina are still getting married on June 12, in San Francisco.
• Willie’s gift to their child will be the Barrett M107 .50 caliber rifle. However he will be unable to attend the wedding this June, thus the rifle will be shipped to the boy via private courier the moment he surpasses 33 pounds.

Stay tuned for more…