The pond is very, very close. Most of the week was spent trying to fuse the rubber liner to the huge boulder protruding into the pond. Triple expanding foam to fill the big gaps, minimal expanding foam to fill the little gaps, and then a few applications of silicon sealant to seal all of that.
It's messy, unexacting work. Rubber being what it is, rubbery, and rock being what it is, rocky, there just wasn't a simple solution to joining it all together. While the final application dries I started filling the pond and even turned on the pump for the first time, the results of which you can see cascading down the top photo.
Yesterday I noticed that two frogs already moved in. Not good. The published project timeline below clearly shows frogs moving in AFTER the pond is full of water. Bad frogs, no stock options for you.
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email thisWent down to the Embedded Systems conference in Boston the other day. Word of the day: SOC (System On Chip). Also saw more single board computers in one day than I've seen in my whole life. Geek fun.
I noticed one thing about the conference that I don't remember from any other conference I've been to: the smell. For a conference room full of miniature, presumably low-power, computing devices they sure put out a lot of hot electronics molecules. This was no doubt helped out by the guy demonstrating his unsoldering product for surface mount components, which involved lots of smoldering solder and hot circuit boards. Jeff thought it looked like an infomercial.
The other smell was hot chocolate chip cookies. One of the vendors was making a grand effort to liken their offerings to cookies. Eating a hot, gooey chocolate chip cookie with a cold carton of milk in hand was a nice break, even if it meant having to sit through a sales guy in a chef outfit speaking in a bad french accent on how chocolate chips are just like an SOC with your own IP over USB...or something like that. All I remember is . . . g o o d . . . c o o k i e
We picked up piles of brochures, talked to a bunch of booth people, and then got ready to head back north. I had my powerbook and digital camera stuffed in the backpack along with the ten pounds or so of trade show crap. Stopped in the bathroom, hung the backpack from a metal peg in the toilet stall and, you guessed it, someone slammed a nearby stall door and sent my precious laptop plummeting.
Powerbook on ceramic tile, what a horrifying sound.
It's the sound of precision electrical, mechanical, and emotional constructs being released back into the unorganized brownian motion that is the universe. It happened too quick for a reaction and then I just sat and stared at the fallen backpack, imagining piles of parts and a shattered screen, maybe a few big clock springs jutting out for effect.
When I was in the Air Force working as an electronics tech we used to have what we called a "three foot tune-up." Usually reserved for the older, tube type HF radios, this last-ditch effort involved raising the stubbornly broken unit up a couple feet above the work bench and letting gravity have a shot at fixing it. Can't say it ever solved anything other than relieving the frustrations of having to work on such ancient gear.
With a lump in my throat I waited until we got back to the car before surveying the damage. Zipped open the pack, eased out the powerbook, and laid it on my lap. Hmm, it looked pretty good. No springs. The PCMCIA eject button was sticking out like a blown circuit breaker and there was a slight indentation in the titanium case, but otherwise no rattling of parts or cracks across the screen.
Opened it up, the screen illuminated and everything...just...worked. Thanks Apple!
UPDATE: forgot about the camera being in the same backpack and when I checked it today I found that the case has sprung open a little bit. Time to take it apart.
Update to the update: after much fun and small screw finagling the camera was opened, the parts re-aligned and reseated, and the whole thing clipped and screwed back together just like new. It was tempting to keep taking things apart, but I resisted.
Apple does make them pretty tough. I had an iBook that fell off out of a basket on the back of my 50cc scooter when I wiped out going around a sandy corner. (The iBook was in a neoprene sleeve in a backpack.) My knee and my new pants were wrecked, but the iBook was fine.
Moreso than palm PDAs, that's for sure.
Back when I was a traveling internet dude I had to send my palm pilot in for replacement three times. Often from relatively small drops.
I wanna be a traveling internet dude again...Arkansas doesn't count!
COOL!! I'll bet you feel just like Slartybartfast - you know the guy from _Hitchhiker's Guide_ who did the fjords of Norway.
Hey, have you looked at Mars lately? The polar ice cap looks gone to me, but I want to get a second opinion.
Sheesh, frogs! Just can't get good amphibians lately.
Ok, I'm impressed with your project. My idea of a backyard stream is a hose left running.
Fjords...that reminds me of the small rivers and irrigation ditches in Nebraska that have old cars lining the edges (in the water). I guess it's to stop erosion? They probably don't do that anymore.
The waterfall and stream make a lovely and hypnotic sound that you just can't get from standard issue garden hoses.
Looked at Mars last night. Just a little point of white left.