One too many mornings

Ancient Roman D20

admin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:58:48 +0000

Critical hit! $18k for a ancient roman d20

Price Realized

$17,925

Christie’s Buying Guide

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE
Circa 2nd Century A.D.
Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces
2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm.) wide

Pre-Lot Text

THE PROPERTY OF A
MARYLAND FINE ARTS PROFESSOR

Provenance

Acquired by the current owner’s father in Egypt in the 1920s.

Lot Notes

Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used.

Great interview with William Gibson

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:50:08 +0000

One of my favourite authors

clipped from io9.com

Yesterday William Gibson rolled into San Francisco to do a book signing for the paperback release of Spook Country, his recent novel about surveillance, augmented reality, dream politics, and advertising. The novel is also, incidentally, a fairly overt critique of the idea of “cyberspace,” a term Gibson invented early in his career, and which several characters in Spook Country describe as something that has been surpassed by newer ideas. I caught up with Gibson at a coffee shop downtown, and we chatted about everything from Godzilla movies and draft-dodging, to the novel he’s always dreamed of writing.

Building Do-17 Pt2

admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:26:47 +0000

clipped from aeroscale.co.uk

Last leg now. Decals applied they went on fine with just water, no wrinkling or tearing. I used a sludge wash to pick out the panel lines, and add a bit of grime, not too much, just a bit of dust and dirt on the underside.
Varnished it all with a matt coat. I’m just waiting on the props, aerials and pitot to dry before fitting them.
Here is the story so far.

Hope to finish next time.

Springtime

admin — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:06:35 +0000

Spring has sprung. The daffs are poking their heads through the overgrown grass in the back garden.
I’ve planted out quite a lot of veg this year. Some in a raised bed, leeks, carrots, chard, onions and scallions.
Cabbage and carrots and onions straight into the ground. The rose hips I took from the park are germinating. That is pretty amazing from one rose hip you could grow a whole rose garden, there must be fifty to a hundred seeds in each one.
Got to get some garlic and spuds. I’m going to try growing the spuds in tires or a bin to get max yield.

Tags: home, garden, spuds

Do-17 Fuselage halves closed

admin — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:53:10 +0000

Here are some pictures of the cockpit with the fuselage halves closed. The “reading the seams” thread in the beginners section of the forums is a great education as to how cement is actually supposed to work as opposed to how I’ve been using it.

Spent an hour or so last night cleaning up the the seams on the fuselage and engines, then fitted the wings.

No locater pins on the fuselage or the wings but after lots of test fitting it went together very nicely. Will need a little filler around the wings but otherwise looks passable. Far easier than the old sb6 and i-153 kits I’ve made recently, they had massive steps.

Next, clean up the wings fit the canopies and apply masking to all that glass, hmmm wonder if there are commercial masks for this? oh yes! eduard do one. Ooh and Extratech do PE flaps too. Tempting… need to find a site that does both, or maybe the local shop might piggyback them on their next order.

Tags: modellingdornier

Building Do-17

admin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:57:37 +0000

clipped from aeroscale.co.uk

Started my Dornier at the weekend. I’ve cleaned and test fitted the major fuselage parts, built the cockpit and engines, primed and washed the interior. This is a really nice kit so far. And the first time I’ve use resin and PE. Looking forward to seeing the cockpit when it is assmebled. The wash looks kind of messy, I’m not too worried as it is inside. I used black enamel and thinner. I’ve not done a wash on the undercarriage area, I’ll experiment with some other washes there.
Here are the results so far.

Next putting the PE details in the cockpit. It should look like this when I’m done.

Reading: Shooting War, Kidnapped

admin — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:55:15 +0000

Since there is a new library opening near me soon, and it’s construction is way behind schedule all the brand new books bought for it are in my local library. I got a few of them out.

A graphic novel about blogging, the reporting of war, media bias, and the trauma of war in Iraq. All beautifully drawn and scripted.

Ripping yarn set in post Rebellion Scotland and in and around the Forth, written in the most wonderful language, a real pleasure to read.

Merlin Lives

admin — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:46:51 +0000

Great youtube video of the restoration of a Mk1a Spitfire.

Just listen to the roar! Handy shots for modelling a spitfire too.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: spitfire

Scotland to Italy

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:44:02 +0000

I took myself off for four weeks on my bike. My only restriction was I had to get back to Belgium to get the ferry home. I went down to Italy rode the bike through the Swiss and Italian Alps, down into the Black Forest. Had the motorbike stolen damaged and repaired. Met some wonderful generous and hospitable people and some very unhelpful people too. In the end I took an extra week anyway.

In fact I’m enjoyed that freedom so much most of my trips end out like this now.

See more progress on: go on a road trip with no predetermined destination

Chooks

admin — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:09:45 +0000

Hannah, our nieghbour and the girl that runs Emmet’s nursey has just got two chickens. Now I have something to trade my veggies for! Next in the garden will have to be flowers for cut flowers as their trading value, or brownie points value is so much higher.

Also dug a flower bed in the back garden and planted some herbaecous plants in it, that Michelle picked in the garden centre. It gives us a start but I want to get the rest for free.

Joined Eurozone gym on Monday, so for the next three years I’ll be getting fit and happy.

technorati tags:home, garden, gym