Nefarious and I made a clock today since other than the stove and microwave, we don’t have one downstairs. I put it together and she painted the numbers..

I will probably still do a repaint of it, leaving her numbers but adding a picture of some sort. I’ve decided that I’m going to line the letters so they hover “above” the painting, and then I’m going to paint one of my lizardy guys looking at his watch, with the hands of the clock being the hands of his watch… I’ll post the finished version in a couple days.

Update: We added the background this morning (and are now off to go ice skating to celebrate)…

I have a new project I’m working on, thanks to the speedy delivery of parts from K&J Magnetics who sent me some strong neodymium magnets, and Nick’s Equipment Sales who sent me some high-torque clock movements. The plan is to build a clock something like the mockup on the right, where the clock has no visible moving parts (no hands) and steel balls glide over the surface with nothing apparently holding them in place. The way it’ll work is that the hands will actually move behind the face of the clock (I haven’t decided on a surface yet), and those hands will have magnetic neodymium discs affixed to them which will bond without touching to matched neodymium spheres which will indicate the time…

Hopefully it’ll look neat. I have a much cooler clock that I’m building with Caitlin that’s a pair of crocheted robots that point out the time that maybe I can post next week…

Earlier today Caitlin and I were looking at this amazing “natural bathtub” carved out of an immense boulder. It got us wondering — what if we got a bunch of boulders dumped on our foundation, and then built the walls around them, and carved much of our furniture out of immense stones? I mean, there’s really no reason why you couldn’t care out a couch and coffee table if you wanted to — other than the inconvenience of your furniture weighing an unmovable ton or two, it would be wonderful caveman chic, to say nothing of the thermal mass it would contribute (water in that tub would stay warm for days if the stone was at temperature).

Oh, and my daughter and I built a little tiny frame, which still needs to be painted, for one of her miniature doodle paintings (a striped unicorn-type being and a dragon climbing)…