A friend of mine, Liz, made it a point to note the lack of a particular object in the banner image, as well as the entry regarding said image. To be completely fair, this object really has no place among all the other tools and parts depicted, and I shall explain why.
If you were to ask an auto mechanic to take a few photographs of items that represent their work or what it was that made them passionate about that work, they would likely produce something along the lines of a tool chest, a beefed up 427 engine with dual four barrel carbs, the vintage car owning that engine, perhaps a good ratchet set or even an air ratchet. You would probably not see a hammer. Yet, now that I penned that simple word, the name to that auspicious tool, the hammer, you probably have started to become aware of just how many mechanics love that implement.
It is used for everything, and never far from the reaching grip of a good auto mechanic. A tool that has become a very extension of their being, one they never put much thought into, but one they would be lost without. For myself that tool, that mechanical part of me, is the dremel; and it is that very thing which Liz noticed was missing (or rather assumed was buried under everything else).
Unless you are a dremel owner there is no way for you to fully comprehend my meaning when I say that there is nothing I can not do with a dremel. Beyond the regular cutting of objects, sanding and grout removal lies the pure beauty that this tool encompasses. If required, or even provided the proper opportunity, I am adamantly certain that I could not only build you an entire house using only my dremel, but could perform brain surgery in the newly constructed kitchen to remove the disbelief you would be feeling, followed by a complete teeth cleaning to show off the perma-grin splayed across your face. Drinks would be mixed inside intricately carved glass bowls followed by a fantastic barbecue cookout in the backyard gardens; and all of that, even the fire used to cook the food, would have been mixed by, carved with, spit roasted on and hedge-trimmed by my trusty dremel.
That is what the dremel is, at least to this owner. It is the one tool to rule them all, and had Gandalf possessed such an implement the LOTR movies would have lasted a short 15 minutes with the quick work the dremel would have made of the One Ring of Power.
Friday, January 25. 2008
The One Tool
Stumble ThisA Thousand Words
I do believe I have about finished the major design work on the site and settled on a theme that seems to suffice, for the moment at least. I reworked a few minor items, mostly noticeable only to myself, and added a "StumbleUpon" link for the entries. It seems to be what all the cool kids are doing these days. Alright, so perhaps it is mostly us geekiarchs. The remainder of the site shall forever, or at the very least a few days, be a work in progress.
Now, while I seriously doubt I will be able to produce a thousand meaningful words on the subject, I thought I might spin a few about the top banner image. I had a picture taken of a few odds and ends that tend to continuously find there way onto my workbench. Not being content with a mere photograph, I was required, per the code of all who work with technology, to "tweak" the image inside Photoshop to suit my tastes. As I look at the image for ways to best describe what is there, I am struck by just how delightfully the picture has captured my passions.
Going across from the left to the right, we first can see the head of my digital calipers. Unfortunately, the Sherline Lathe would not quite have squeezed into the 944X160 pixel image, but suffice to say the two really go hand and hand for me. I have only been machining for a short while now, 6 odd months, but there really is no replacement for properly manufactured parts, and the curly-qs produced are an added bonus. Of course the Maxim's Maxim had no small part to play in my diving head first (more of a belly flop, truth be told) into micro-machining, but that is a story unto itself.
Moving along we come to a circuit board, complete with all manner of components firmly soldered into place, not to mention a few LEDs. And who doesn't like LEDs? It is not just any circuit board, but rather the controller board for the Sandwich Line Following Robot by David Cook. Properly named "Herbert." The robot, not David. Of course all my robots are named "Herbert," is it really that surprising?
Resting atop the PCB board are a few miscellaneous parts including a micro servo used for, you guessed it, robotics. Directly below is yet another in the series of the robotics madness, a standard universal breadboard, showing off the latest in fall fashions with it's test circuitry all ready to assist in the solar charging of the NIMH battery pack used to power Herbert the gutter bot, with it's MAXIM (no relations) 8212 IC and MOSFET accessorizing the package. Excuse me, I seemed to have geeked out there for a moment. I am sure I have a prescription for that some place.
Now where was I? An Intel Pentium chip WITH MMX technology of course. Leading us into the Information Technologies field and my love for computers. Yes, I am as surprised as you are that I still have one of these processors. No, you can not have it. It was used in the picture mostly because I did not have a spare "modern" processor floating around, and I was afraid the 80X286 processor in my closet would have dated me too badly. I have a sixteen year old daughter to do that.
The last two objects rounding out the image are a soldering iron and a spool of inductive coil (aka copper wire), pretty self explanatory. Not quite the extravagant finish one could hope for in such a list. If only Sherline produced a Mill that would fit in the picture, now that would have been an ending. C'est la vie.
Oh, incase you were wondering (because who wouldn't, right?), the binary code at the top and bottom reads "I Am. When?", and the vertical states "Now" Four words instead of a thousand, but they will do.
Now, while I seriously doubt I will be able to produce a thousand meaningful words on the subject, I thought I might spin a few about the top banner image. I had a picture taken of a few odds and ends that tend to continuously find there way onto my workbench. Not being content with a mere photograph, I was required, per the code of all who work with technology, to "tweak" the image inside Photoshop to suit my tastes. As I look at the image for ways to best describe what is there, I am struck by just how delightfully the picture has captured my passions.
Going across from the left to the right, we first can see the head of my digital calipers. Unfortunately, the Sherline Lathe would not quite have squeezed into the 944X160 pixel image, but suffice to say the two really go hand and hand for me. I have only been machining for a short while now, 6 odd months, but there really is no replacement for properly manufactured parts, and the curly-qs produced are an added bonus. Of course the Maxim's Maxim had no small part to play in my diving head first (more of a belly flop, truth be told) into micro-machining, but that is a story unto itself.
Moving along we come to a circuit board, complete with all manner of components firmly soldered into place, not to mention a few LEDs. And who doesn't like LEDs? It is not just any circuit board, but rather the controller board for the Sandwich Line Following Robot by David Cook. Properly named "Herbert." The robot, not David. Of course all my robots are named "Herbert," is it really that surprising?
Resting atop the PCB board are a few miscellaneous parts including a micro servo used for, you guessed it, robotics. Directly below is yet another in the series of the robotics madness, a standard universal breadboard, showing off the latest in fall fashions with it's test circuitry all ready to assist in the solar charging of the NIMH battery pack used to power Herbert the gutter bot, with it's MAXIM (no relations) 8212 IC and MOSFET accessorizing the package. Excuse me, I seemed to have geeked out there for a moment. I am sure I have a prescription for that some place.
Now where was I? An Intel Pentium chip WITH MMX technology of course. Leading us into the Information Technologies field and my love for computers. Yes, I am as surprised as you are that I still have one of these processors. No, you can not have it. It was used in the picture mostly because I did not have a spare "modern" processor floating around, and I was afraid the 80X286 processor in my closet would have dated me too badly. I have a sixteen year old daughter to do that.
The last two objects rounding out the image are a soldering iron and a spool of inductive coil (aka copper wire), pretty self explanatory. Not quite the extravagant finish one could hope for in such a list. If only Sherline produced a Mill that would fit in the picture, now that would have been an ending. C'est la vie.
Oh, incase you were wondering (because who wouldn't, right?), the binary code at the top and bottom reads "I Am. When?", and the vertical states "Now" Four words instead of a thousand, but they will do.
