We stopped in Monterey, California to visit the Aquarium. They had a really interesting tank with a kelp forest in it, and from the aquarium's balconies facing the ocean we were able to see seals and sea otters. Plus - as this photo can attest to - I am a sucker for jellyfish. They are just so mesmerizing, and so unlike any other animals.
These are just a couple of shots of beautiful scenery along the highway. The whole trip was gorgeous, and right along the ocean for days of driving, but for some reason we didn't take a lot of pictures of it - too busy just soaking it in, I guess!
Balboa Park in San Diego has a world-famous zoo, a bunch of museums, and several parks. We spent our first day there. After the zoo we hit the Natural History Museum, and then came across an area full of art shops where the artists were actively working on things while we browsed - it was pretty cool. We ended up buying a pair of small glass vases from a glassblower there.
This year the road trip Carter and I took was from San Diego, California to Portland, Oregon - the majority of the Pacific Coast Highway. Carter took this photo on the flight to San Diego - I'm not sure exactly what we were passing over at the time, but it sure looks cool!
Actually, I just did some poking around on Google Maps and I think I may have figured out where this is - it appears to be Barett Lake, about 30 miles east of San Diego.
I've always wanted to give making a "circuit sculpture" a try - where the circuit is built freeform in space from brass rods and "floating" components. Here are some photos of my first attempt - which is a clock, of course. It was a lot of fun to make - I will definitely be trying this technique again at some point.
I just realized that I never posted a finished photo of the lixie clock I was working on in this post. Here it is in all its glory. It looks much better (and more readable) in person - for some reason it never really looks right in photos.
I built this domino clock to add to my collection of clocks at work. It's made of built-up layers of thin MDF cut on the laser cutter, with neopixels behind the dots. The first domino is hours, and the last two dominoes represent the minutes.
A couple of months ago I needed a quick weekend project just for something to do, so I tried making a pair of puzzle boxes. The trick to open them is centrifugal force - there are pins that can slide in holes that are drilled into the lid, and no matter which was you tip the box at least two of the pins will be engaged and prevent the lid from opening. But if you spin the box around its central axis, centrifugal force will push the pins into the body of the box and allow the lid to be removed.
I built this desk out of another chunk of salvaged bowling alley lane. It's three feet deep and seven feet long, so it's a lot more surface area than my old desk - which should help a lot when working on electronics projects. It weighs a ton - I had to cut it in half (the long way) for Sean and I to even get it up the stairs.
I saw some little ceramic ghosts online, and it inspired me to try and create some of my own. They were great practice for learning how to close a hollow form on the wheel, which isn't something I've really tried before.
