Project Two is weird. Each of us built a wooden stanchion and painted it white. Now we must design an organization of all 98 of these stanchions and install it on the back lawn of the architecture school. 
Building the six-foot high stanchion was miserable. I can’t conduct even the most mundane woodshop tasks without putting a spin of gentle, lopsided incompetence on them. Cutting wood? My hands are quivery and my cuts are crooked. Drilling? My screws overlap. Spray painting? It blows back at my face. Carrying my post downstairs? I get stuck in the corner like that poor construction worker in those derivative story problems.
Just a hint of impracticality, though, and I'm bound to be successful. Long-hand math without a calculator? Of course. Shooting down ideas? I'm a pro. Spending hours on a drawing that could be done on AutoCAD in minutes? I'm one of the best in my class. So naturally I volunteered to take the bulk of my group's drafting work. Now that everyone depends on me, I must be Disciplined. No recreational web browsing! We'll see how long this lasts.
I do feel bad about being assertively negative during pin-up today. The most popular schemes seemed to be a grid with a pathway carved through and a spiral. I annoyed everyone by pointing out that the first would be nearly impossible with less than one hundred stanchions, then aggravated the situation by asking what the center of each spiral meant. "You can't just have this thing, like spinning around nothing. That point has to have, like, significance." (must evict "like" from vocabulary house.) Then again, I suggested it be the center of the triangular site's nine-point circle and got blank stares, so it's not as if my ideas are any less crap. Updates to come.
PS. Do respond; I love comments. Except the kind that ask if my school exists. Those are disturbing.
4 Comments
ahhh, the power of the center.
Daniel, very amusing read, but I confess my ignorance: the "triangular site's nine-point circle"? One of those blank stares is me looking at my computer right now.
Exactly what size are these stanchions, 6' by 4x4?
I'm sorry, I should have given those dimensions. It's a two-by-two cut to six feet with a base of four sixteen-inch one-by-fours. Those four pieces are screwed into the bottom in a sort of radial pinwheelish way.
he he, the blank stares were justified. sorry, daniel.
good luck in woodshop. the biggest key is the same as in learning to drive or fly a plane:
just don't be afraid! There's nothing to be afraid of. If you want pep, well, I've successful worked with wood for years, built all kinds of shit, and I've never once cut myself or harmed myself in anyway. All you have to do is take your time and not be afraid.
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