Monday, October 31, 2005

Strongly Typed Women

So we're all up late doing our databases lab, griping about how much pointless busywork this class unfortunately is. Forrest was additionally griping about how much he hates Java, especially as compared to C#. While the subject of other languages was up, Jerry said that he liked Perl (he "just [didn't] know it yet"). Forrest, not so much the Perl monger either, declared forcefully:

I like my languages like I like my women: strongly typed.

After the initial, raucous WTF-mate laughter died down, Forrest tried to justify himself. "What about transvestites? Couldn't they be weakly typed women?" You do have to give him that.

Soon thereafter, Aaron announced that he was finally going to sleep. Forrest quipped, "Go off to your weakly typed women," in keeping with a running Firefly gag. So Aaron grabbed for Dominique. ;) It is so time for sleep! We are waaaay too tired right now.

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Friday, October 28, 2005

No Rob Here

So me, Forrest, Aaron, and Jerry are sitting in the living room of their apartment, each with our laptops out, doing our normally computery thing. It's one o'clock in the morning. We're not expecting any guests.

The front door suddenly opens and in barge two guys in rubber halloween masks. They are holding two beers each, loudly demanding, "Where's Rob?" We all look up and just stare at this very strange occurance in our living room. The other roommate who lives here is named Dan, not Rob, and none of us would normally associate with the type of people these strangers seemed to be.

"There's no Rob here," we told them, although they really didn't want to believe us. They repeatedly asked for Rob, in between commenting on the fact that we had a lot of computers in the room (there is currently a total of five plus an empty case, for the record). Forrest once explicitly asked them to leave, but they ignored him. We finally managed to convince them, after perhaps three minutes or so, that Rob really didn't live here. We suggested they try next door, where the other partying drunks live, and they eventually left.

As soon as the door closed behind them, we all busted up laughing at the weirdness that had just transpired. Our window was open, so I saw the two guys take off their masks and laugh at each other outside — this makes me think that it was supposed to be a prank, but what kind of prank is mutual, where both parties feel that the other was the idiot? An unsuccessful one, methinks, or a really weird one.

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Thursday, October 27, 2005

Of Garbage and Rupees

Some of my friends are rather enamored of Katamari Damacy, a weird Japanese PS2 game where the object seems to be rolling a ball of garbage around and trying to get as much stuff as possible to stick to it. Some of my friends are also familiar with the classic text-based adventure games of yore. So, to that subset of my friends, I present this amusing blog post. Enjoy.

And while we're talking about games, here is some funny commentary about a review of Bratz Rock Angelz, some game targeted at girls. Apparently, there is a double standard of what appropriate in-game rewards are, depending on the player's gender. Girls have the right to rupees too! Rupees in pots, rupees in the grass, rupees under rocks!

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Blog Popularity, Measured in Dollars


My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?

Too bad the site has no FAQ on how the heck they equate number of hits in Technorati to a dollar amount. Presumably they're saying that the more Technorati hits a site has, the more readers it has, and thus the greater the possibility of generating revenue off said readers.

And remember, I am always happy to accept donations! ;)

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Hard Wax Ring

The writing is the equivalent of the first six letters of my name, written in the kateinu yiréb. I'm carving it out in relief, and it's taking forever.

The reflections on the hard wax make it hard to read the carved relief writing, so I have an annotation overlaying the photo. I didn't have my drawing tablet with me in the UU, so the reason the overlay is so bad is that I drew it with my touchpad. :P

It's surprisingly difficult to carve this wax; it's much harder than parafin wax. We're using dentistry tools to pick away at the ring forms. Before I really knew what I was getting into, I decided to make the writing in relief, rather than carved into the ring. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the darn thing before the end of the quarter.

I stopped in for a half hour today and added two and a half more letters to the ring. (My first and last name, written in the kateinu yiréb, comes out to thirteen letters.) However, I think I'll have to go back and carve them all out in higher relief, so this is more like the rough draft version of the ring. Bah.

On the other hand, if it turns out okay, I'll have one unique ring when I'm done!

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Monday, October 24, 2005

Solutions in the Mirror

I couldn't find my hand mirror, and there was no one around to ask if my hair looked neat enough to go out in public. So, I found my own solution.

My mom always told me, "Think of solutions!" whenever I had a problem. This teaching has served me well. Nuthin' wrong with creative solutions.

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Sunday, October 23, 2005

Double Chlorinated Ears

My dad is rather infamous for having "peanut butter in his ears," as my family says. This means that people will say one thing to him, but he'll hear something completely and comically different. This trait seems to be genetic, as I'm exhibiting symptoms.

Just this "morning" (read: 3 o'clock in the afternoon), I swear Forrest told me, "Double chlorinated!" as I left the room. He claims to have said, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." Even a phonetic analysis can only give me an excuse for the first d-plus-vowel and matching up "-ted" with "hit". Cursèd genes!

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Friday, October 21, 2005

NaNo Synopsis

I spent a good portion of today's boring architecture lecture figuring out names for some of my NaNoWriMo story characters. In the process, I solidified some of my plot plans. I'm documenting them here so that they're written down somewhere, and those who are curious about what I'm planning can read about it.

Spoiler warning! Thought I'd warn you, just in case you wanted the content of my NaNo story to be a surprise. :) So anyway. My story is actually three interrelated arcs. I don't know what order I'll present them in the actual novel, but I'm going to discuss them in chronological order below. Also, because the various cultures have different personal naming conventions, I've emphasized the "first name" of each character when I first mention them, so you know which is their personal name. Also note that all details are completely subject to change. ;)

Ehalle & Dekiron

The first, chronologically, is about the Cresaean Ehalle 'sa Ghoterth and the Kegharn Radet-Tive Dekiron . They both join a minority movement that is against the constant warring between the races. Ehalle becomes pregnant. It is discovered that Dekiron is the father, and the couple is driven out by their respective societies. Kegharn follow them in their exile and kill them. "Legend has it" *grin* that a tree with an entwined trunk grew at the site of their grave, which was the couple rebelling against the societies that demanded they remain apart.

Kihál

The second story takes place a generation after the first. Shamenai Kihál 'sa Áribei was born and raised in the mountains east of the plains where the Cresaeans and Kegharn both live and fight. She is the first generation born of the movement that had been against the warring. Said movement had no illusions of being able to change both cultures, so they instead founded their own society away from both.

Kihál disagrees with the pacifistic, appeasing nature of her people after they are still attacked by Kegharn. This, combined with her mother Sham'tyir 'sa Ejhaliya's frequent bitterness about how much worse the mountains are than her hometown of Asharayu, lead Kihál to leave her home and seek out her mother's city. There she learns the story of Ehalle and Dekiron, a cautionary tale to the plains Cresaeans. She pieces together (how? dunno) that they are her real parents, and thus, as a half-breed, she couldn't possibly be welcome in this society if the truth were known.

She returns to the mountains, determined to make half-breeds acceptable to her own society. She combines goals by calling upon the other half-breeds–in–hiding to join her to protect, militarily, their cities. Kihál ends up establishing the "fighting arm" of the Ashyinave (the mountain Cresaeans), who live in the plateau between the plains and the mountains and keep the Kegharn from interferring with Ashyinave life.

The Changeling & the Pureblood

The third story arc takes place many generations after the establishment of the Ashyinave and the story of Ehalle and Dekiron becoming legend. An elite Pureblood woman contracts with a free Changeling in Edgewood to help her family profit off the current fad interested in Cresaean folklore. The Changeling has a reputation for finding just the right thing to sell, and the Pureblood's family has a reputation for being ruthless but also generous to those who serve them. He knows of the Ehalle-Dekiron story and thinks the tree-city–dwelling Purebloods would be especially partial to the entwined tree of that legend.

Details about what happens next are uncertain. I'll figure it out. :P

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Googling Needs

As told to me by my mom, the latest internet meme is googling your first name and "needs" to see what turns up, as blogged about here. So the first ten eleven unique and sensible hits for my name plus "needs" (searched in quotes, natch), are:

  1. I need to collect secretary materials. (Ghit #2)
  2. I need a sanctuary, periodic retreat from the world and long luxurious baths. (Ghit #6)
  3. I need to integrate spiritual energy. (Ghit #6)
  4. I need to free the yolk of Dad's legacy and deal with my sadness at his absence. (Ghit #7)
  5. I need an editor's report. (Ghit #8)
  6. I need to loosen up. (Ghit #9)
  7. I need to grow up and become a woman. (Ghit #10))
  8. I need to be brought down to [earth, presumably]. (Ghit #11)
  9. I need to be near and serve NUMH [Nyadire United Methodist Hospital]. (Ghit #15)
  10. I need a husband. But only temporarily. — Or so I thought. (Ghit #16)
  11. I need to plan ahead so I will know whether or not I will have enough cash available when I need it. (Ghit #17)

Another Catherine has needs, too. This really, really reminds me of reading horoscopes, in that you can generally make any vague enough statement apply to you, if you look for the angle that makes it work. Amusing, at any rate. :)

Update, 1:03 AM: I had meant to do only the top ten results, but I accidentally put in an extra one. But because it fits me so well, I'm leaving it there.

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Thursday, October 20, 2005

Tonight's Links

Links from around the Web:

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Picasso Poster & Horchata Bundt

A belated gift: someone's presentation board, thrown into the trash, which we resurrected, beat into a pulp, and presented to Aaron. See Aaron be pleased.

Forrest and Jerry smacked this poor poster against just about everything on the way back to the apartment from the CSL. Pieces got torn out and reattached, so that it was like a Picasso poster by the time we gave it to Aaron. It's still sitting next to his chair in the living room right now; wonder what he'll do with it?

Forrest's first attempt at homemade horchata included this pastey, bundt cake–shaped stage.

Can't say's I've ever had horchata I liked... Granted, I've only tried it once, so it could have been that the brand just wasn't that great. But there's something weird about rice, water, and spices. But the rest of Them like horchata, so maybe I'll give Forrest's batch another shot if they all think his version's any good.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Mermaid and Couple

The mermaid didn't start life with a tail, but when I went to make her legs, they had fins instead. Who am I to tell her she can't be a mermaid?

Last Friday I went to the craft center with Forrest. He worked on some woodworking stuff while I played around with the soft wax some more. I didn't know what I really wanted to do, so I doodled around and came up with these two.

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Thursday, October 13, 2005

Jewelry Casting Class, Week 2

I brought my camera to my jewelry casting class today, so you all can see what it is I'm doing there. This is my project, currently still in wax. I'm holding it by the sprue, which is how the molten metal will get into the void left by the melted wax.

So I made that tree last week. This week, I wanted to do a little bit more stuff. I initially tried making one large blossom — a malformed rose or something — but the wax ended up weighing too much. I tried hollowing it out to make it weigh less, but I couldn't shave off enough weight to get under the 60-pennyweight limit that the final metal piece must meet. So I scrapped the large flower and went with a bunch a little ones, which are trying to imitate these Hawaiian Plumeria flowers that I've seen for sale commercially. I don't know whether I'll actually be able to attach them to anything, but it seemed like a decent enough thing to make when I was otherwise out of ideas.

Another girl in my class, Allison, saw my Hawaiian flowers and liked the idea of making a bunh of little flowers. So she made some trumpet-shaped flowers for herself. She thinks she's going to leave the sprues on them as stems and make them into a sort of bouquet.

At the beginning of this week, when I went in to take the pictures of my tree, I noticed this guy sitting on top of a shelf. Can you deny the familial resemblance between him and His Noodliness? If FSM were to spawn a draconic offspring, it would look like this.

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Cal Poly at Sea

The latest crazy idea is Cal Poly at Sea. I've known since freshman year that if I didn't do any sort of travel or study abroad, I would regret it. Now I'm in my fourth year of college, and I'm running out of time to fit that into my schedule.

The At Sea program had its first informational meeting today, where professors and past years' students talked about what it was like. The ship is the Golden Bear, a ex-navy "oceanographic survey" vessel, which is now used by the California Maritime Academy for training their cadets. They let Cal Poly on as guests to study and travel with them.

The program rotates between Asia, South Pacific, and Latin America routes; this spring quarter, the route is to Latin America. The ports that the ship stops at this year are: Zihuatenjo, Mexico; Callao (Lima), Peru; Valparaiso, Chile; Cocos Island (belonging to Costa Rica); and Caldera, Costa Rica. Look, they speak Spanish there! ;)

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the program costs more than a typical quarter at Cal Poly... Although their brochure claims that it's not by much, since it says the program costs $5570 and it claims a quarter costs $5504. I'd have to go look at last spring quarter's financial data to see how much it costs me, specifically. But then I've made some money at Microsoft this summer (and maybe next summer), and thus I've saved my dad that money that he otherwise would have had to spent on me this summer, so maybe it can work out... The thing is, I really really want to do something abroad before I graduate, so I want this to happen. I suppose I could always get a small loan to cover it, if nothing else. Wells Fargo would charge $260 or so for the privilege of a 12-month $6000 personal loan... I figure, if I want this enough, I can make it work one way or the other. (Not going into debt would obviously be preferrable, but with the Squirts going to college soon, I don't know what my dad's finances are doing.)

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Monday, October 10, 2005

Salsa Poster Controversy, and Sexuality

So on the front page of the Mustang Daily today was the headline "CPSalsa covers sexy posters." The article is about the somewhat risqué posters the salsa club posted to promote themselves. Predictably, some people complained about the posters' sexual nature and requested they be removed. The club eventually compromised by pasting "Cal Poly Advisory: Too Tempting" stickers like black censor bars over parts of the posters.

Why can't people — adults — get over sexuality? These were sexy posters, certainly, but not pornographic by any stretch of the imagination. Chill, Winston! They were sexy images to promote salsa, which many consider to be a rather sexy dance. Like the Mustang Daily article says, there are plenty of women walking around campus showing off a lot more cleavage than that poster.

Note that I'm not arguing against the club's needing to work with the university environment; as an official club, they agree to abide by some rules the school sets down. What I am arguing against is our entire culture that feels that even these posters are too much for people to handle, which in turn makes the university need to ask the club to remove the posters. Why is sex considered so dirty? Violence and gore should probably be considered more disturbing than something as natural and loving as sex.

In our culture where parents worry about their children acting out what they see on TV or in the movies, sex is definitely more worrisome to them than violence. I know it was so in my family; growing up, I could see any rated R movie I wanted if it was so rated for violence or language, but heaven forbid it be for sexuality. In my family, I had to weasel for permission to see a movie where I wasn't old enough to automatically meet the age requirement if it was rated above my age because of sexuality. But even it if is true that children do things they see on the screen (and I'm not sure I believe that the causation is as strong as some people say), why would parents rather their children kill people than have sex as teens? Sure, I agree that the teens should hold off on sex, but I also think that violence is much worse. Maybe the thought is that kids don't have as much of a desire to be violent, whereas their sexuality is just waiting to cause problems? Still, the practice of shunning the topic doesn't seem to me to be the best way of dealing with it, either.

Looking back, it seems my parents were contradictory in how they dealt with the two subjects of alcohol and sex. For alcohol, they often stated that it was important to make drinking "no big deal," so that I would know how to handle it responsibly and maturely. We were able to have frank discussions about it, so that alcohol was no longer a "forbidden fruit" for me to be rebellious about.

Not so with sex. I don't remember ever once talking with either of my parents about sexuality. It was (and still is) a completely taboo topic, never brought up by anyone. So now, as an adult, I have only my peers and other adults' opinions and advice. I still sometimes feel like I need to be secretive about anything related to sexuality, even though intellectually I don't think sex is something that needs to be hidden away or shunned. I sort of wish my parents could have been more matter-of-fact about it, so I could have talked with them. Advice, you know, or something. But as it is, I would feel very awkward talking with either of them about sex, which I think is unfortunate. It's sad that there are some things I can't go to them for, if I ever wanted to know whether something was normal or whether a problem is common or whatever. They're great for financial discussions, or sociology, or religion, but I just can't talk about sexuality with them.

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Cupertino Flea Weekend

I didn't get up until 11:45 this morning, after seriously considering just skipping my noon class (the first of the day). But I got up (as an example to others, of course), got ready for class, and was on my bike and on my way by 11:55 or so. (Note, you non–Cal Polyians, that classes start at ten minutes after the hour, not on the hour exactly. So my "noon" class actually begins at 12:10.) I rode pretty fast, getting up to the Agrish/Engliculture building on time. I was just locking up my bike when a guy sitting on a bench across from me got my attention. He was from my noon class, and he told me class had been cancelled. Prof was sick or somesuch. So I could have slept in. Very sad... But since I'm up, I might as well blog about this weekend. :)

This weekend was the last electronic flea market of the season. Forrest really wanted to go, so The Gang packed up its camping gear, cleaned out Forrest's car, and off we went Friday for Cupertino. We stayed at Henry Cowell "Redwoods" State Park (so named despite the lack of redwoods in the campgrounds), which is where Shawn, Patrick, and I stayed one weekend back in high school.

In the infinite wisdom of the state park officials and the government contractor in charge of their online campsite reservation system, you have to register a campsite at least two days in advance but the rangers cannot download the registration information until the day of. This means that walk-ins can only register for one night at a time, even though the data exists to tell the rangers whether anyone has reserved the campsite for up to two days into the future. The upshot of this is that we were told we would have to completely break camp the next day and re-register for a campsite, because they "didn't know" whether someone had reserved the site for tomorrow — even though the database knew if the site was reserved or not. Grrr. Government.

We had no space in the car for the propane tank, so we tied it to the roof rack. Then, at the campsite, we were too tired to take the tank down, so we just put the lantern on top of it as is.

Now, the Flea starts very early in the morning. Last year, we woke up at 4 in the morning. We decided to "sleep in" until 6 this time, which I think worked out for the best, even if some of the very earliest/best deals escaped. All the tables and tarps are set up in rows, and we check out all the junk gunshow-wise — that is, by systematically going up and down each row, so as to assure no places are missed. I'm not sure why I like going to the Flea, since I don't have any hardware projects that I need cheap parts for. But they have some neat stuff to look at and it's a fun adventure to do with The Gang. As for me, I ended up with a glass globe of the Earth and a $10 computer.

Actually, we each got a $10 computer just as the vendors were all packing up to leave. He threw in a fifth computer free. What we're going to do with them, we're not quite sure, but at $10 a pop, we really couldn't say no. We have since named them after the crew of Firefly: I have Zoë, Forrest has Kaylee, Jerry has Wash, Aaron has Jayne, and the extra one is Mal. Realizing that some key crew members were missing, we then extended this naming scheme to the access points we have: Inara, Book, Simon, and River.

The only problem with these new purchases (plus the other things people bought, like three $5 access points and a Model M keyboard) is that we didn't really have too much room in the car to begin with...

Leaving the Flea with our new purchases, we had even less room in the car.

So after the Flea, we had lunch at In-n-Out. The rest of The Gang then went to SVGL while I decided I was tired enough to nap in the car in the parking lot. Half an hour later, the heat in the car woke me up and I went inside. I didn't feel much like playing at the arcade, though, so I ended up chatting with my mom for another half hour before The Gang had had its fill of the arcade.

After some more fooling around in the Sunnyvale area, we headed back to camp. Forrest's mom was nice enough to reserve a site for us while we were at the Flea, and it was a good thing she did, 'cause the campground was completely full when we returned. We didn't get the site we had the previous night, but it's not like we were strongly attached to it or anything. While we still had light, we went about unpacking the car and setting up camp.

Aaron had only been camping a few times, and Jerry never. While I was busy with Forrest's tent and Forrest was busy with the stove, Aaron and Jerry started putting up the tent they had rented from Poly Escapes. I was only half paying attention to them, so when they declared that their tent was seriously weird and had no bottom, I just agreed that that was very strange without really thinking about just how weird that would be. I didn't think to question their tent-upputting abilities. Silly me.

The "weird tent" that had no bottom turned out to be the rain fly.

After Forrest and I recovered from our almost painful bout of laughing at Aaron and Jerry's attempt to turn the rain fly into the tent proper, they then set to getting the tent poles into the actual tent...

Their second attempt at least used the correct part of the tent, but something went wrong and their tent was horribly deformed.

We laughed some more, took more incriminating photos about their lack of l337 t3nt0r 5k1llz. They eventually got the tent into a usable state, although it still remained funky. I think some of the poles actually were bent in their own right, so it wasn't only their tent-incompetence. ;)

Even after doing everything seemingly correctly, the tent still looked weird, but they declared it good enough.

In contrast, Forrest and I managed to put up our tent on the first try. There's something to be said for camping experience, I suppose.

And here is Forrest's tent, looking pretty and camoflagued and not malformed. ;)

Then we went back into the city of Santa Cruz. Forrest had been telling me about this crazy brick building, so we finally went out to take a look at it. And he was indeed correct; this is one strange-looking building.

The strange brick-and-abalone building was built by two brothers back in the 60's or so. It's in a normal neighborhood, so it is exceptionally out of place.

We walked further down the street, until it dead-ended at the bay. It was getting near to sunset, and the wind was cold and picking up strength, so we didn't stay very long.

We walked out to the cliffs overlooking the beach. A lot of surfers were taking of the waves before the sun set.

Then it was back to camp. That night, we had hot buttered rum (using a batter mix, not from scratch). It was decent, although I think I would have preferred it with brandy, rather than rum. The campground had "alcoholic beverages prohibited" signs posted everywhere, so we kept the rum in the car and went to the backseat occasionally to refill our mugs. What's hanging out around a campfire without some drinks, eh? (I have this one cousin [technically speaking, my first cousin once removed] who cleaned my family out of all the camp's liquor one night. Our liquor bill that year was at least double what it normally was.)

In the morning, we packed up, returned the borrowed equipment, and went out to lunch. Forrest and his mom spent some quality time together at Zachary's Restaurant, while Aaron, Jerry, and I went to the China Szechwan Restaurant a couple of blocks away. Then we killed time at Borders until Forrest showed up.

We headed out of town along the backroads, rather than the highway, through Watsonville. We decided to take Highway 1 along the coast home and to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Unfortunately, we hadn't expected it to cost $18 plus tax each, so we ended up not going. We wandered around the tourist traps for a bit; I bought a cute stuffed sea otter (very soft!) and we wasted some more time being confused and frightened by some sparkly expensive clothing.

By this point, we were hungry, but we didn't want to spend the money that Bubba Gump Shrimp would charge us, so we drove off in search of other food. We ended up at a McDonald's, where we played on the play structure and did our best not to squish the little kids that were also there. :P I'd forgotten how much fun those tubes were to crawl around in. The rest of The Gang, being all over six feet tall, didn't fit quite as well as I did; woohoo for being short! They should so make play structures intended for adults...

It was pretty late by this point, so we scratched the plan to take the coastal highway back. As a consolation, we took the Carmel Valley Road to connect to 101. While I can see why this would be a motorcyclist's dream, I was not so happy with being on it at night, wondering whether some drunk rancher's kid would come zooming around a blind turn or something less drastic but still bad might happen. I really don't like windy roads, especially at night, especially not when we drove past one point where tire marks went off a turn and into the grass down a sharp dropoff. But we survived — even stopped to check out the stars (which were very clear, out there in the Carmel Valley).

We got home around midnight, and that was my weekend. Overall, good times. :)

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Thursday, October 6, 2005

Jewelry Casting Class

Just got out of my first jewelry casting class at the UU. It's a six-week class, each class lasting two hours. Included in the $40 class fee is an unlimited quarter pass, so I can go use the Craft Center any time I want to work on my casting projects. Considering that the quarter pass normally costs $20, I'm only paying the teacher $20 for the instruction. Good deal, y'ask me.

We're doing a variant of the lost wax technique, where we create what we want our final object to look like in wax first. Then, that wax model is put into a container, ceramic clay "investment" is poured around it, and the whole thing goes in a kiln to burn out the wax inside. A negative image of the object is left in the clay, which is then put through a centrifuge to push the molten metal into said negative. For this class, we have our choice of bronze (included in the price of the class), silver (purchased by the ounce), or copper (if we can find any).

Today we learned the general process involved, then the instructor (a Cal Poly student named Ellie) turned us loose on some soft wax. The point of today was to just play around with the wax and get used to using the tools. (Apparently casting technique follows, but lags behind, dentistry, of all things. They had a bunch of dentist cleaning tools, and even a mirror — in case our wax models have cavities, I guess. ;)) They also have harder wax already hollowed out circularly, meant for making rings. That seems to be the most popular type of project people make via casting in the Craft Center. But since soft wax is less regular than the hollowed out hard wax, Ellie recommended we make something less exact, like a pendant or such.

I attempted a little tree scuplture. I really wish I had a cameraphone! I got as far as making the positive wax model of the tree, which is maybe two inches tall. The trunk of the tree is actually two trunks entwined in a spiral. (This tree will feature in my NaNoWriMo story, so maybe this sculpture can be a little writing inspiration or something. :)) Next week, I think we'll get to put the wax into the containers for the kiln.

So, any of you have requests for this master-jeweler-to-be? Or, to put it another way, any of you want a hunk of metal vaguely reminicent of what you asked for? *grin*

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