Rabbit hutch progress

It is going slowly. The base has been done for a while.

Click for more sizes

Now I am working on the top part. I have the long walls (which are a frame with wire mesh) – still need to put them together with the short walls, the hinged tops, and somehow figure out a partition.

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Squirrel feeder Redux

So I posted how I had put up a little feeder for squirrels on one of my trees. Well, some chubby American squirrel put his fat ass in the box and it collapsed (maybe the feeder was working too well). So I decided to build a sturdier one.

Click for full size

About 20 minutes after I got it finished there were already some birds and then this guy came back.

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Starship VC progress

Been getting into the habit of doing just a little work on the Starship each evening. It is the only way it is ever going to get finished. I am currently focusing on getting the VC geometry and texturing done. I am creating gauges as I go along, but they are mostly non-functional yet (that will come later). Here is the latest progress:

Click for full size

Click for full size

Here is more on the project: Blog posts and Flickr image collection.

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Squirrel feeder FTW

Since I saw the trees in our back yard, I’ve been wanting to put a squirrel feeder in there. A couple of days ago I found an old wooden chocolate box, attached it to the tree with some long screws, and filled it with some bird seed. Success!

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This little guy was munching for about 15 minutes. Then another squirrel came by, and a huge chase ensued.

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Rabbit hutch v2.0

Been working on the new rabbit hutch for the bunnies. Here is the previous one:

This time I am making several improvements – first off, it is bigger (2.25 meters long, as opposed to about 1.6 last time) – so that means power tools (last time I built the whole thing with hand tools, which was just a crazy amount of work). Also, the base boards are removable so that as they gets messed up (with toilet accidents etc), they can be replaced. But the base boards are carrying most of the load of the base (it is a ’stressed skin’ design), so the replacement means major surgery – but I think we won’t need to change the boards more than once a year. Here is one of the many pages of plans…

The increase in size has meant a big increase in complexity, so lots more planning this time. Even so, the plans change all the time; for instance today I found a great wire mesh for the walls, but it was 29″ tall instead of the 26″ I originally planned, so I had some more sketching to do when I got home. Still, it is coming together nicely.  Almost all of it is made of cedar wood.

Hope to have it done within a couple weeks. Still have not found skirting boards I like…

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Inaue Daikuroo Masatada

Kuniyoshi was a Japanese ukyio-e (woodblock print) artist who worked in Edo (now Tokyo) during the first half of the 19th century. Unlike many of his contemporaries who liked to depict peaceful country scenes (like Hokusai) or famous contemporary stage performers (like Sharaku), Kuniyoshi’s preferred subject was martial heroes from legend. In this work he represents Inaue Daikuroo Masatada, from the epic novel Taiheki eiyu-den.

Click for larger image

What did Inaue do to merit this depiction which seems like a scene crossed between Predator and Warhammer? According to the Taiheki, Inaue was fighting the Chinese in Korea (1597) where he fought off forty thousand enemy troops, by his skillful use of rifles, and of throwing rocks and trees. In case you are thinking that the gun he is holding looks a little big, that it is because it is in fact a cannon. Aaaarrnold has nothing on this guy.

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Exchange 2010 has left the building

With these simple words, Paul, our release manager, released Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to manufacturing.

It was quite a day. In fact as late as 9 pm yesterday (the day before RTM), I was in the office digging though some code looking at what were hoped were some false positive warnings on a security tool we ran against some of the code – lucky for everyone (because any of them could have been a ship stopping bugs), everything was clear, and I went to bed knowing we just had a little more bureaucracy to finish before 11:30 am, when Paul would make the Approve/Reject release decision. Everything went well, and as each manager shouted, whooped and yelled that their components were ready, Paul hit the approve button. Applause, champagne and a hand-cranked air air raid siren, which had been brought in to mark the occasion, blared throughout the building. I must admit – I have not drunk a lot of the Microsoft koolaid while I have been here, but it was an oddly touching moment. I know a lot of those guys (myself included), have sweated, torn their hair out, and spent too much time away from their families to get to the ship date. We were all smiles, hugs and handshakes. It was a very good day to be on the team.

Todd (center, blue shirt) about to crank the air raid siren some more

After that, we headed off to the soccer field for the ship party. Tons of food, drinks, games and for once Seattle played along – the weather was great. Just as well, because there were a half dozen hot tubs there which people used to dunk each other into. Unsuspecting folks would be swooped up by their team mates and just dropped into the drink. It was a very good party.

And of course we got a ship gift – a Zune HD (16gb model), in black, with ‘Exchange Server 2010′ etched on the back – and a very short email from Rajesh, the vice president in charge of Exchange – “You did a good job – take tomorrow off”.

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ANA annouces RetroJet 767-300

This via Seattle-PI airline news: All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced that it will be painting one of its Boeing 767-300s in the ‘Mohican Blue’ scheme it used in the 1960s.

The jet will run the Tokyo-Miyazaki/Tokyo-Kagoshima route for four years, starting December 1st.

The “RetroJet” fad is something new among airlines since about 2000. A small number of jets in the fleet will be repainted with  the some historic livery. Here are some good examples (click to enlarge):

In Europe, these are usually state owned airlines (deregulation is fairly recent so none of the private lines have any ‘retro’ to retro to), but in the US you do see some (like US Airways using the old PSA livery). Is it a terrible waste of money? Commercial planes need to be repainted every few years, so that is not an additional expense – although you would need to pay a design or branding firm (such as Landor & Associates or Newell/Sorrell Interbrand) to come up with the new livery.

I generally like retro jets, but I think the ‘Mohican Blue’ is not a great improvement over their current ‘Triton Blue’ livery.

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We’re ready to inspire you

I’ve been getting the odd view via the Brazilian gaming site Pensotopia on Flikr, so I decided to see where they are coming from. Turns out my old RPG group headlines the “Imagens Inspiradoras” goodie on their page (the ones marked in red):

Wierd thing is the pics seem to be hand picked. We’re here to inspire you while we eat chips and waste our afternoons! Original pics are on this flickr set: Last Hurrah of D&D in Cape Town.

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Some fun on the InterTubes(TM)

Here is a couple of Natalie Dee bits for you:

This next one makes me think of Koko:

Still here? Go and listen to some Owl City instead.

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