seems like its been a while

I'm terrible I know it. I need to update this more often but I don't. I'm doing this post just as a catch up post. I got into turning and it certainly took off. I became addicted to it right away. I have a 1950 Shopsmith Model 10ER which is a wonderful machine. I bought a jaw chuck and things have been easier since. I found a good deal on Teknatools website for a refurbished Teknatool G3. Picked up another set of jaws for smaller work but the chuck came with a 50mm set from the start. I mainly only use the lathe function. I also purchased a pen mandrel which Penn State Industries sells. I can mostly do everything on it.

1950 Shopsmith 10ER with pen Mandrel 

Shopsmith with Teknatool G3 scroll chuck.

First Bowl with my shopsmith since adding chuck. 

I have done some flatwork since getting the lathe. I made a bookstand in the William and Mary style for my moms birthday. The bookstand is mostly hand tool work. I cut the pieces to size on my tablesaw and lathe to turn the feet. Everything else is hand tool work. Fun project and I want to give credit to Chuck Bender for the design, work up on his blog, and magazine article.  His work on this inspired me to make one. Piece is made in walnut and has an oil and wax finish.

William and Mary Bookstand in walnut with BLO and wax finish

Also other work I have done lately;

Banana Holder for my Dad's Birthday

Chistmas Orniments I turned.

New Addition to the Linux Community

My Daughter was born on 6/29/2007 at 12:53 her weight was 6 lbs 11 oz and 21 inches was her length. We named her Abigale. What a joy she has been.

Changed format

Felt like changing my format. I would like to post stuff from now on about linux distros and the news relating to it.

For starters I will talk of Slackware. I have been reading through changelogs to find information about the 11 release coming in the future. One of my biggest dissapointments in the reading was that the 2.6 kernel will not be the default kernel. Instead the 2.4 kernel is going to continue to be the default. With no disrespect to Pat i think 2.6 is ready for Slack primetime. That is only my opinion folks. I do understand his hesitance however its time for the move. I did agree with his move to remove GNOME from the releases because of the same reasons however i will add one, its just ugly. GNOME I thought lagged behind in its visual apeal.

For Pat, Congratulations on your new daughter its a wonderful thing to welcome her into the world. I am a little slow on the news since it did happen in december of 2005 however the sentiment remains the same.

Just so everyone knows SimplyMepis 6.0 is scheduled for June 18th. I hope to experiment with this one on my notebook. I have heard good things about this distro. i have tried it on the Live CD premise but nothing more. Slax was another i tried that helped me actually move to the 2.6 kernel on my slackware install.