I didn't like Kamala, & still don't. However I believe she was the better choice overall. Oh well...nothin' else to do but keep calm & see how things play out.

One more update coming soon, folks. Most likely tomorrow; if not then Friday for sure. Mahalo, everyone.

I didn't buy the saw as a lark... Yes, I need the thing. This is because earlier this year, due to years of preparation, patience & a bit of luck, I bought some land. Not much...I have one acre*. But it's a start. It also has no manmade structures of any kind (unless you count the obsolete power line in the ground), brambles & thorny vines around most of the perimeter, & a lot of trees. So after a little shopping & some advice from a local small biz owner (tree service), I went out & bought it. A Husqvarna, model 440. Been breaking it in slowly. You can see some results here.

I have a plan for the land. It's a bit rough but I have a fairly specific idea of what to do. By the end of it all, I will have a little house. But first I'm gonna hafta cut down some trees. This I don't mind doing because 1) I've cut trees before, albeit a good while back, & 2) whatever I cut down, any decent wood will be stacked, left to dry, eventually milled & used to build other things I will need or just want to have around. Even the pines might work...pine ain't my favorite species but for most furniture it works well enough. Even wild pine (when it isn't rotten or grub-eaten) is better for framing a house than the crap you find at BLowe's & Home De-Hoe. (All those 2x4's are from plantation-grown pines, which are fertilized & bred to grow fast. As a product to sell, corporate tree farm pine is great; as a building material it sucks. Almost anything is better than that stuff)

Edit: It looks like this week will be tricky...might have to work over the weekend, depending on how it plays out. Fuck.

With that out of the way, please read the following:

WARNING

If you have never used a chainsaw, do not go out & buy one. Seriously, just don't. Nothing I post here or anywhere else is meant to suggest that you try out a saw, nor should any of my posts be construed as such. Of all the power tools around today, the chainsaw is the most dangerous type by far. Many, many people have been injured &/or killed upon making a mistake. About as many people have been killed while felling trees; many more have been injured &/or crippled for life while cutting up fallen logs. This includes professionals as well as amateurs...yes, really. All it takes is one screwup or for something to go wrong to put you in danger...when that happens, it happens fast. A properly maintained chainsaw can cut through the hardest densest woods with ease; next to that, bones are no challenge & flesh will not even slow it down. Power tools in general can be, & often are, dangerous machines. They don't know the difference between wood metal or flesh, nor do they give a damn. Remember that.

If you want to own & use a chainsaw then be smart, find a reputable dealer in power tools & talk to him first. Or find a local tree service & ask the owner about it. Yes, there are youtube videos aplenty but there is no substitute for learning directly from someone with experience.

*Dunno how much that is in hectares for you metric-oriented folks. I'm still working on converting feet to meters & back!

I will post an explanation later...probably later this weekend. Stay tuned, folks!

...I'm reposting my best piece here.

Plus a WIP snapshot, from when I was working on it:

It fits the holiday spirit, does it not? Also, I'm proud of this piece. It's one of the best things I've ever done. I have at least one similar piece planned. Probably won't do it this year, though...my life is busy now.

My OC is hidden in the picture, btw.

It wasn't an easy choice to make as I have a few nuggets amidst the ore here, if I do say so myself.

Was tempted to post In the Catacombs as I'm proud of that one, but it is b&w & so not colorful enough for the kinda audience one gets around here. When that occurred to me, the choice got easier. My candidate is

Enjoy.

the spot price of gold per oz., as of about 9:56 p.m.

the spot price of gold - its change from Sept. 16th to now

I was hoping it would clear the $2,700 level. Awesome.

...for just under five bucks:

Also, when I was slumming in the forums (was up at night & bored) I came upon a thread about blocked users... Of course it was locked before I got there, but I wouldn't have posted anything in it in any case. Right now I don't have too many people on mine....as my time here piles up, however, I suspect the list will too.

Father Time is not a gentleman...to put it mildly.

If he were, then we would retain our abilities (even if not our looks) until shortly before our passing. But we don't...no lifeform with any complexity ever does, when it lives that long. Time & entropy DGAF.

Been looking at the last few canes I built, & how I plan to slightly alter a couple of 'em...

For years I've known about the Krenov School. I never went there, not even for any of its short courses offered in the summer. Something I didn't previously mention here: my first woodworking teacher was my mother's 2nd husband. Under him (it was an apprenticeship, basically) I built a Shaker-style desk out of big box-store pine. Other than my not making any drawers for it, it turned out pretty good for a mid-sized project. This was in the early 1990's.

I can't go to the Krenov School now, mainly because of chronic issues & the commitment I made this year. (Eventually gonna put a house on a place I bought, but it'll take a while to do. My health issues are a major reason for that) So learning the craft in a structured curriculum, especially in a great place like that, is not possible for me now...

Jesus in an Edsel, how I wish it were. I'd just love to enroll, & be out there for weeks or months & soak up all the knowledge & build something better than anything else I've made in my life. But that six-day-per-week daytime schedule is impossible. (Also, it's pretty expensive now)

There's no point in feeling this way about it, but emotions have nothing to do with reason.

...the older you get, the more conscious you can become of roads not taken. The young artists I see on here don't know anything about it...yet. Some of them will, in a few years. They'll know soon enough.

"The thing is to become a master and in

your old age to acquire the courage to do

what children did when they knew nothing."

- Ernest Hemingway

Some new names have been showing up on the follower list in the last few days. To those of you who recently found me, welcome...feel free to hang out for a while. You can call me Shade.

If you need something to pass the time, you can always browse through my art here. As of now there are 49 pieces in the gallery. I'm especially proud of the Mixed Media section; most of my best work on NG is in there. I do fancy writing & text-based art sometimes...you can find it in Lettering/Calligraphy. If you want to know more about me apart from my creative work, read a few previous entries in my blog here. My interests involve history, finance & investing, geopolitics, & not taking life any more seriously than I have to.

Edit: With all that out of the way, here are some interesting pictures:

from my weather app, 0330 hrs

same but with IR mode layered on it, at 45%