Notices by Dave Polaschek (he/him) (davepolaschek@writing.exchange)

Sad. A professor of Spanish (and Jewish and Native American) descent is getting Spanish citizenship after UC Boulder required him to prove his citizenship (at ICE’s behest). His family’s been in the territory that became the US for at least 200 years longer than the Drumpfs have been. https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-02-09/a-university-professor-of-spanish-descent-in-the-days-of-ice-a-foreigner-in-his-own-country.html

@inthehands @wronglang Same impression here. It’s an attempt to get Chuck Schumer to say, “ok, good enough.”

@inthehands There were 80 in all of MN before this term.

@soatok These two posts were adjacent in my timeline, and it made me stop and ponder whether the RAM was a noun or a verb.

So… a week or two ago, just getting over my flu, I decided I needed a second wooden spatula in the kitchen. So I made one from cherry. Then I made five more from maple because I figured I could do better. Three are already spoken for, but I suspect I’ll be giving one away on here this coming weekend, once I’m done finishing them (they need 3 or four more coats of tung oil, with 24 hours of cure time after each coat). #WoodWorking

ETA: full writeup at https://peekachello.art/a-batch-of-spatulas

@inthehands There’s some folks down here in NM taking about the general strike. Wouldn’t mind seeing a few other blue states joining in. And maybe even some blue cities in red states. Pretty sure we won’t shop or eat out on Friday.

@soatok It makes sense, but where it says, “it only gets more technical from here on,” it wasn’t kidding.

So I’m interested, but already have so many projects, I can’t spend the time to dig into any of the other docs. But I’m still interested. So I think you’ve succeeded in your goal of making it readable. And I like the sound of the general idea.

Does that help?

@mattly Yeah, I’m coming up on 40 years of using Macs. Never again. Am actively moving my stuff off the platform, and haven’t powered up my Mac more than twice since 26 dropped.

The #sunrise is doing that colorful thing again, #NewMexico

@skinnylatte Have I mentioned the Feit “corncob” LED lights to you? They screw into normal fixtures, and replace 300W halogen farm or yard lights. I have three of them lighting my workshop. https://www.feit.com/products/300-w-equivalent-daylight-corn-cob-high-output-led-light-bulb-c4000-5k-ledg2

I’m pretty sure one of my ham followers knows of a Linux Morse trainer that wouldn’t have the latency problems of Android. Perhaps? #AmateurRadio https://hachyderm.io/@jbcrawford/115702788572739032

For the first time in months, I started turning a new bowl. It began as a crotch from a chokecherry tree, then I turned it roughly round, with the pith running horizontally in the bowl to be (yes, I know, that will probably cause cracking). Also, there was a bark inclusion in the blank, which I am now filling with purple-pigment-filled epoxy. If you’ve seen a yarn bowl, the bark inclusion looked similar to the curved hole in yarn bowls. At least one more pour before it goes back on the lathe.

As for any eventual cracking, my plan is to fill those cracks with epoxy as well, though depending on their size, I may need to use cosmetic mica and CA glue. Time will tell.

Edit to add link. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cosmetic+mica+powder

Third, and hopefully final epoxy pour complete. A total of 5 oz (150ml) of epoxy resin was used, which is less than most of my pours. I realized that I could fill the majority of the crack with sawdust, because it will be the interior of the bowl, which will get turned away. Didn’t pack it as tightly as I might’ve, or I probably could’ve cut it to 3oz.

Anyway, a couple days to cure, and I’ll be able to hollow the bowl and get a better idea of what I’ll have. #WoodTurning #epoxy

Got a session out in the shop this evening. Rough-hollowed the bowl so that I can finish turn it maybe next week. It gets the weekend for the epoxy to cure and the wood to finish drying, and possible crack some more. I also might decide to touch up some of the chip-out in the epoxy where it wasn’t cured enough, but I’ll decide that tomorrow, as any patches will be small enough to cure very quickly. I think it’ll end up being a right handsome bowl when complete, though. #woodTurning

This morning, I spent another hour and change finish-turning the outside of the bowl, then going back and filling the tiny cracks from the juniper drying with purple cosmetic mica and CA glue. This combination ends up being harder than the juniper wood (I might’ve said this was chokecherry earlier; I was confused), so when I sand off the excess, I’m still left with a tiny ridge. Not really visible as such, but it’s interesting to touch, and more kintsugi than wabi-sabi. (1/2)

I put a test-coat of oil on so I could see how things are progressing. A little hand-sanding, and the outside will be done, except for turning off the tenon on the bottom and smoothing the bottom of the bowl. Not sure if that will happen on the lathe (with a jam chuck, most likely) or by hand in the bench. A lot will depend on how thin I turn the walls tomorrow or Friday. More details in the alt-text. #woodTurning #crackRepair (2/2)

This evening, some more shop time. I finished hollowing the bowl, and sanded the inside, but there’s still quite a bit of hand-sanding to be done, since I patched the cracks from the inside as well. But I made a custom shaped scraper and cleaned up the excess glue and fill before I called it a night, plus cut off the tenon on the bottom of the bowl, and began cleaning that up. It’s looking pretty good so far. My big worry is I’ll break it at this point, but I’m hoping that’s a healthy worry.

@skinnylatte Yeah. I grew up in the country. It was a half-kilometer to our nearest neighbors, who had no children my age.

@skinnylatte And that’s where we differ. A lot. Almost all of NYC is too people-y for me. But hey, enjoy!