(no subject)
Today is not being quite so stupid as yesterday. At least I've got some things I can get out the door, even if my main project is hopelessly moribund. I feel so much better when I'm accomplishing things.
We had our first fire of the season in our fireplace yesterday. Very nice. I think I'd like to have others come over and enjoy our fireplace with us. At least now the semester is over we have a fighting chance of conquering the mess that our house has become. I think I'd be happy to enjoy anybody's fireplace though, especially with some fun card games and mulled cider...
This weekend I hope to be working on nice, camouflaged, artsy-looking TV antennas for our house and for my mom. I've decided the "driven elements" (the parts of the antenna that actually pick up the signal) are in the perfect position for dragonfly wings. I'll array four dragonflies (bodies made of wooden spoons, wings made of paper over the antenna wire) up and down a wood dowel, and have a big paper origami lotus in the center obscuring the central connector to the CAT5 line. The "reflector" for our current antenna is just a sheet of aluminum foil. But for this nice one I'm going to make a large leaf shape out of metal window-screen, painted green with leafy veins. This has been a wonderful creative challenge since I have severe restrictions on material and shape, and want to minimize cost. It's also been wonderful from the learning standpoint - understanding how antennas of different shapes work for different radio frequencies.
Pictures will be forthcoming. Possibly plans as well.
Thanks to everyone who commented in the previous entry. I really needed that.
We had our first fire of the season in our fireplace yesterday. Very nice. I think I'd like to have others come over and enjoy our fireplace with us. At least now the semester is over we have a fighting chance of conquering the mess that our house has become. I think I'd be happy to enjoy anybody's fireplace though, especially with some fun card games and mulled cider...
This weekend I hope to be working on nice, camouflaged, artsy-looking TV antennas for our house and for my mom. I've decided the "driven elements" (the parts of the antenna that actually pick up the signal) are in the perfect position for dragonfly wings. I'll array four dragonflies (bodies made of wooden spoons, wings made of paper over the antenna wire) up and down a wood dowel, and have a big paper origami lotus in the center obscuring the central connector to the CAT5 line. The "reflector" for our current antenna is just a sheet of aluminum foil. But for this nice one I'm going to make a large leaf shape out of metal window-screen, painted green with leafy veins. This has been a wonderful creative challenge since I have severe restrictions on material and shape, and want to minimize cost. It's also been wonderful from the learning standpoint - understanding how antennas of different shapes work for different radio frequencies.
Pictures will be forthcoming. Possibly plans as well.
Thanks to everyone who commented in the previous entry. I really needed that.