I’ve finished the laserfingers. That was a lot of work: all the parts and stitches are small, and articulation is tricky. I made a mistake when I assembled the second battery pack, too, and had to carefully scrape away all the epoxy so I could re-solder a connection. But it’s all done now, and oh what fun it is to shoot laser beams out of your finger tips.

Now it’s time for bed, a book, and a little glass of bourbon.

I had my February cocktail party last night. I should really stop calling them cocktail parties, though, since it’s all about the wine; we opened five bottles, and nobody once asked for liquor. It’s so much fun to have people over. I sometimes wish I had more space to entertain in, but it would really change the social dynamic; part of the fun of it is that I can fit just barely enough people in the room to get more than one conversation going at a time, but it’s small enough that everyone can overhear all the other conversations.

Today I stitched a velcro strap across the knuckles of the left laserfinger glove, with slots between patches of hook-side velcro stitched to the glove through which the laser wires can slide. Lena suggested this design as a way to keep the wires straight and even, while preserving articulation and the ability to detach the lasers and wiring from the glove, and I think it’s going to work well. I still have to repeat the process for the other glove; in the meantime I assembled two little battery pack/switch units. I had originally planned to use pairs of AAA batteries, but happened to notice N batteries for sale when I was at Radio Shack buying switches, and realized I could cut the size and weight of the battery pack in half while still having enough juice to last for a full night out.

Tonight was supposed to be band practice, but there was some kind of miscommunication and neither Collin nor Greg showed up. Dawn and I played keyboard-and-drums renditions of a few of our songs, jammed a little, and then called it a night.

Since the night was still young, I headed over to CHAC for the second half of Ignite, which basically consisted of many very brief talks on a wide assortment of geeky/techy/artsy topics. It was fun, though it was often hard to keep up with the torrent of information the presenters were trying to get through in their allotted five minutes.

I think I’ll sign up to give a talk at the next Ignite, in April; it shouldn’t be hard to fill five minutes talking about my series of waterpack projects and the evolution of the current waterpack’s design.

The spec document I’ve been working on is, at last, finished enough. It’s thinner than I’d expected, but if I’d actually written it at the level of detail I had in mind when I started, there’d be at least a month of work left. Oh, well; I’m the one who’s going to be implementing this, so I can probably get away with a less comprehensive treatment than I’d expect were I trying to implement someone else’s spec.

I’m looking forward to seeing how people react to it. I went off in a distinctly different direction than the project originally called for, but I’m convinced that this approach is a really solid solution to the underlying problem.

I spent some time today accumulating supplies for my current batch of projects. I bought some little slide switches for the laserfingers, a battery pack for the snow-visibility-enhancer, and a few yards of fabric for my next party outfit.

The laserfingers design is coming along well. I think it will be another couple of days before I have them finished, but I expect to have them done for next Saturday’s Kinetic party. I’m not as sure about the new outfit: I don’t think the shirt will take much time, but the pants are a bit more complicated, and I’m not sure there will be enough time next week to get them done – especially not if I take an afternoon/evening off to go test the ski laser system…

It was a fun day on Mt. Baker. The light rain on the drive north gave us hopes of fresh powder, but no such luck: it was two-and-a-half-week-old slush. Oh, well. The mountain was practically deserted; we rarely saw anyone else on the runs, and never had to wait for a lift. Thomas P. and David L. are both more experienced than I am, so I spent all day pushing myself to keep up, and taking harder runs than I’d normally tackle, but it was good – I could feel my confidence increasing over the course of the day, and after lunch tackled my first ever double-black-diamond run.

The new skis worked out OK. They didn’t feel as tight at high speeds as the big carvers I’m used to, but they are far more maneuverable on the steep mogully slopes, and didn’t feel as much like they wanted to soar out from under me every time I pointed downhill.

After a nice long shower and some clean clothes, I picked up some sushi and headed over to Heden for Mez’s “chess night” (which has long since lost any association with the game of chess). It was a small thing – half a dozen folks there when I arrived – but it was nice to hang out and talk before packing it in for the night.

Quick update before bed:

It was a smashing weekend. Friday night, went over to Heden for the mellow version of Mez’s birthday party. Got out of the hot tub and went home around 1 AM. Saturday night was the blockbuster combined Mez-Jenny T.-Katie M. birthday party – I don’t know how many people came, but the invite list was nearly 200 names long, and the house was as full as I’ve ever seen it. It was a thoroughly rocking party. I spent hours dancing. Next day I went back to help clean up, around 2:30; the cleanup effort eventually turned into a lounge-around party over at Nathan & Miller’s place, eating pizza and watching Moulin Rouge.

And then it was Monday morning and I went right back into the long work hours. I’ve been going hard at a plan for a set of new language features. It’s an ambitious effort, and there’s a lot of research involved before I can get much design work done – but it’s going to be some very powerful stuff, if we can pull this off.

Tonight met up with Lesley for drinks and sushi, and through the magic of dodgeball pulled in Stuart, Julie, Geoff S., and Michael H. Modern technology is awesome.

I’m taking the day off tomorrow to go skiing at Mt. Baker with Thomas P. and David L. It rained off and on all day here, but it doesn’t look like much snow fell up north – oh well. It’ll still be a fun day of sliding downhill.

I went out to the Cedar River Watershed area today for a restoration project, but when I got there the gate was locked and there was nobody in sight. I neglected to bring the coordinator’s phone number, so I just wandered around the different parking lots, trying to find the group, but had no luck.

Oh, well. Since I was there, I decided to go say hello to Rattlesnake Ledge. The trail was as busy as ever, but still had that rough-edged, early-season feeling.

The rain started to fall on the drive home. Yes! I’ve been waiting impatiently through all these clear, warm blue days, looking forward to the next round of grey skies that mean “fresh snow in the mountains”. There will be plenty of time to play in the sun this summer – right now I want to ski.

Here’s a set of instructions for a neat little circuit that fades an array of LEDs up and down in pseudo-random fashion. It uses capacitors instead of PWM for the fade, but it seems to work pretty well, and the circuit looks adaptable. This might be worth a try for my next waterpack project.

First: my new mattress arrived today. After three years sleeping on a two-inch-thick futon, I’ve upgraded to something approximating a normal bed. That’s one more piece of my 2004-era minimalism left behind. The closet I use as a bedroom isn’t quite wide enough for a full-size mattress, so I had one custom-made to fit – there’s about an inch on either side in which to tuck in the sheets.

Second: I bought another pair of skis. My 191s are fun, fun, fun on the wide-open groomed runs, but too much work on steep, fluffy, technical slopes. Down in the REI basement I found a used pair of 170 cm Rossignols – they’re a bit dinged up, but the price was right, and they’ll be fun to play on for the rest of this season. If the experiment works out, and I decide I like skis this short, perhaps I can upgrade next season.

Here’s an incredibly cool piece of random freeware: iConcertCal is an iTunes plugin which creates a calendar listing all the upcoming local shows for all the bands in your music library. Looks like most of their calendar data comes from JamBase, who seem, as far as I can tell, not to be evil.

I started working on the laserfingers yesterday afternoon. I picked up a pair of summerweight kayaking gloves which looked like they would form a good base. They’re made of a neat silvery spandex which should breathe well. I trimmed the fingers back so they are clear of my knuckles, then removed the wrist cuff; I want these to be as lightweight as possible so they don’t trap too much heat. I’ll make battery holders out of the leftover nylon, which will be sewed onto the backs of the gloves. I haven’t completely settled on an attachment mechanism for the lasers, but I think I’m probably going to use velcro: I’ll epoxy a strip of hook-side velcro to the laser casings, then stitch a loop of loop-side velcro across the top of the finger, forming a sleeve between the glove and the velcro. This should keep the lasers in place without making it too difficult to remove them for washing.

I’m in a nice, mellow, happy, tired mood today. I’m puttering around, cleaning up the sewing machine, killing time on the web.

Dana and Carina held a weekend-long house party to celebrate Carina’s birthday, and I spent most of last night there. It was a good group of people, spread out all over the house, with little clusters forming and re-forming in different rooms. The environment fostered conversation, and I enjoyed the opportunity to spend time connecting with friends more deeply.

Just spent a couple hours over at Stitches, working on the jacket. It’s taking longer than I expected it would, but I haven’t been pushing very hard. I made my last few outfits for specific events, so there were deadlines to meet, but with this one I’m just trying to expand my skills. As a result I’ve been puttering away on it, an hour or two at a time. It’s fun, though, and I can feel those little neural connections forming as I work.

Today I finished sewing in the sleeves. I also used a pair of pinking shears to trim the inner seams, which will hopefully stop the corduroy from shedding fuzzies all over my shirt. Finally I sewed on the collar. It turned out that I followed the collarless “A” version directions when putting the body of the jacket together, instead of the “B” version, so I had to rip out the top seam and re-sew it with the collar in place. It didn’t take long, though, and now I’ve learned something new.

I think another two hours will do it. I have to finish the hems, which I’m going to trim with more of the burgundy fabric, then make buttonholes and sew on the buttons.

It has been a good day. I was out late last night, for Katie’s birthday party, but it was a good party and well worth being a little tired today.

At work this afternoon I implemented the last piece of a language-architecture project I’ve been working on, in slow bits and occasional pieces, for almost three years.

This evening I got together with Dawn, Collin, and Greg for our first band practice of 2007. We played much better than I expected, for having taken six weeks off, and the songs still sound good after time away. I think it’s time to record a demo and work on booking our first show.

Now it’s late, but not too late, and I’m at home with a mug of green tea working on my corduroy jacket. I pinned the sleeves into the body of the jacket yesterday, and now I’m basting them in place. Once that’s done I’ll stitch up the hems.

I skipped the State of the Union address. I can’t think of anything The Decider might have to say that I’d care to hear, save perhaps “I resign”.

I felt like working on a project today, but couldn’t get into sewing, so I decided to replace the light fixtures in my kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen light, especially, has been annoying me since I moved in; it’s just a bare 100-watt bulb mounted in a scabby old painted-over base. It’s too bright when you’re sitting at the table, but not bright enough when you’re trying to cook.

Home Depot had a nice simple fixture with a couple of swivelling sockets, so I bought a pair. I also picked up a half-dozen compact fluorescent bulbs. I’ve been complaining about compact fluorescents for years, but while I was in Morocco, where they’re just about the only kind of light anyone uses, started to feel like it was time to stop griping about the future and just get used to it. I’m happy to report that the technology has improved significantly over the last five years, and there’s not much of an adjustment to make: these bulbs come on instantly and produce a nice clean white light, with none of the unpleasant greenish tint the older type had.

It’s not a huge energy savings, but it’s something. The 100-watt incandescent bulb in the kitchen is now a pair of 19-watt fluorescents, which actually put out more light than the old bulb did, and the swivel fixture means I can point most of the light toward the work area and away from the table. In my closet/bedroom, another pair of 19-watt bulbs have replaced the old 60-watt bulb, and again they’re pointed where the light will be useful. For good measure, I also swapped out the 60-watt hallway light with another 19-watt fluorescent. I don’t have a good way to measure overall power usage, but none of my lights consume more than 25 watts now.

This afternoon I started a new sewing project. It’s a three-button jacket, made of wide-wale grey corduroy, trimmed with burgundy gabardine. So far I’ve cut out all the fabric, ironed on the interfacing, and sewed the shoulders and facings together. The pattern is simple, as jackets go, but it’s the most complex garment I’ve tried to make, and I’m having to learn some new techniques. I think it’s going to work, though; I had to rip out and re-sew one of my seams, but overall it’s coming together just like the directions say it should.

It’s nine o’clock, but I can’t seem to stop working. I know there are all kinds of other things I could do with my free time, but all I really want to do is keep slugging away at this. It’s the final phase of the compiler-architecture project I spent most of last year on, and I’m within sight of the end.

I feel like I ought to be working on music instead, but I don’t have any motivation toward it right now.

Three Against One hasn’t gotten together since November; tonight was going to be a practice session, but nobody wanted to deal with loading gear and driving around in the snow. We’re going to try again next week and hope the weather is more typical for a Seattle winter.

La Bête has a new set of halogen headlights.

Other projects I want to tackle in the near future:
– build first prototype of the laser projector, for terrain contour visibility enhancement under low-contrast lighting conditions
– replace the kitchen light fixture (multiple CF bulbs instead of one big incandescent?)
– install Windows on my iMac so I can try out eMachineShop’s CAD software

Got up early, picked up Thomas and Eric S., drove up to Crystal, met Kevin, Leah, Eric L., and Erin, and spent the day sliding down fairly good snow. Not exactly fresh powder, but it was nice and crunchy, and no ice. This was my first trip of the season; it took a couple of runs to remember how everything works, but by midday I felt like I had my groove back. In fact, we did a couple of black diamond runs, and while I was thoroughly beat by the end of the second I also felt I was making progress. Shorter skis would help, I think (as Barry has been telling me since last year); my Völkl 191s are plenty fast, but the speed is actually a hindrance on the really steep slopes, and the extra length is harder work to turn. Also, I need to find some way to strengthen my quadriceps muscles.

Very cold today. I kept my hood/mask on all day, and could have used an extra fleece layer on top.

Talked to Eric S. a bit about my laser range tracker idea. He suggested making it helmet-mounted, instead of chest-mounted, so you can point it wherever you are looking. I had discarded this idea in an attempt to keep the laser below eye level, but apparently it’s less of a problem when you are using a diverging lens like this project will. It would have been great to have one of these gadgets today; plenty of foggy near-whiteout patches.

La Bête’s left headlight died on the way home. Not much fun winding down dark mountain roads that way. Oh well – it’ll be easy to fix.

I have uploaded a gallery of photos from my trip to Morocco. It was as strange and surprising an adventure as I’d hoped it might be; I don’t know how much of that comes across in photos, but at least you can see what I was up to while I was gone.

La Bête is in the shop today, getting a new set of tires. To nobody’s surprise, it turns out that Range Rovers come with an oddball tire size which costs a fortune and has to be brought in by special order. Much as I love this car’s idiosyncratic design, there are limits, and shiny new tires in a week or two do no good when I want to go skiing now. The solution is clear: I have to get bigger tires, in some standard American size. Naturally.

No, I promise, I’m not going to turn the Rover into a monster truck.

Make has a link to an article about what to look for in a microcontroller. Microcontrollers, just a few years ago, seemed exotic and high-tech; now they are so cheap, and so powerful, that plain old analog circuitry hardly seems to make sense. Why tinker with dozens of discrete components when you can just wire your peripherals onto what is effectively a single-chip computer and then throw a bunch of software at the problem? Ahh, what a world.

I felt like making music tonight, which is a clear sign that I’m almost done with this cold. (Another day of rest, I think, should put me past it.) I went straight for the drum machines and started working on some new loops. Starting with a couple of built-in patterns, I changed the drum sounds, laid in a straight-up 4/4 beat, tweaked the fills, shifted the parts around… and when I took off the headphones to give my ears a break, an hour and a half had passed. I’m not very good at this yet, but I can hear pieces of the sound I’m looking for start to come through.