Training Tanto

I fished this scrap of ash out of the rubbish and carved this training tanto out of it, because I like the way the grain goes.

All the swirls of tan and cream make it look like toffee, to me. Yum.

New Monitor Stand

Yesterday I set out to tidy up my workshop a bit. I didn't do much of that, because I got distracted, and accidentally built myself a new monitor stand out of some old rimu shelving.

It's taller than my old one, which is good: hopefully having the monitor a bit higher will help me to avoid slouching in my Kneely-Chair. Now the centre of the display is exactly at my eye-line, instead of me looking down at it.

An added benefit is that now I have a shelf to store my graphics tablet on, instead of having to leave it leaning up against the side of the monitor.

Quite apart from its better ergonomics, it's nicer to look at than my old one, which was just slapped together out of some bits of MDF and a vinyl cover stapled on.

There's nothing much to it in terms of woodwork, just a few housing dados, some glue and some screws. I could probably have got away without the screws to be honest; it's not as if it's ever likely to be under enough physical stress to make them necessary.

Judging. Harshly.

It both irritates and amuses me when the news media gets hold of the fact that some country's military has an invasion plan for some other country, and then they go completely doolally over the fact, usually presenting it as clear evidence that Country A is plotting some kind of surprise attack on Country B.

It's the job of armies to come up with plans for the remotest of contingencies, both for attack and defence. If the contingency should actually come to pass, it's far too late to start planning then. An existing plan may not be completely relevant any more, but at least it gives one a springboard to work from.

It's for this reason that I have no sympathy for EQC's excuses for their woeful performance after the Christchurch quakes. They claimed that the scale of damage was unprecedented, and therefore couldn't possibly have been planned for. But for decades, a significant part of their job was supposed to be imagining exactly this sort of contingency, and planning for it. It would have been nice if such a contingency plan had not been needed, but it was needed, and it didn't exist because the people whose job it was to make those plans DIDN'T DO THAT FUCKING JOB.

Jungle Bashing

Our back garden is a little bit overgrown.

I am waging a war with the ivy that I have let get completely out of control out in the back yard. It is proving to be bloody hard work.

Matters came to a head when one of our big trees, that had been strangled and killed by it, broke and fell into our neighbour's car-park. Fortunately the whole tree didn't come down, and there was nobody and nothing under the stuff that did, but it was a harbinger of things to come if I don't act.

I don't have the means to get right up to tree height to strip it off, so I'm cutting it back at ground level, and then will poison all the stumps and hopefully bring it under control that way. Judging by what I've already done on the fence on the opposite side of the property, it will take about five years of ceaseless vigilance and merciless brutality before I can start to relax again.

That patch of concrete wall at the back of the shot is the side of a carport next door. It's like uncovering the ruins of Angkor Wat, but with less sculpture.