When Doves Cry 2: REQUIEM

Sorry about not posting yesterday like I said I would, folks. Yesterday was one of those days where everything was fighting me and I was getting pretty upset with both myself and whatever happened to be around me, inanimate object or otherwise. Add to that the side effects of this Google+ commercial:

Yeah, I got a big ol' case of the home-sicks from this guy...

Clearly, I wasn't up to posting after all of that, but thanks to the wonders of Skype, I was able to turn the day around.

Enough with the mushy, emotional stuff. What else did I need to tell you from last time? Oh, I am again an uncle...to a dog. 

Prepare yourselves for the unrelenting onslaught of cute:

Yep, my sister got a french bulldog named "Gatsby". Gatsby and I had a Skype date. We're totally buds and that is awesome.
Unfortunately, Gatsby is going to be back home for a visit this weekend and I am not, because I still have class until late on Fridays, and it wouldn't necessarily be worth it to come home for that short of time because of travel.

Class today was really productive. Look at my giant pile of completed projects waiting to be graded:

Kind of a funny story about that guitar rest in the upper-right corner there:
I was getting that graded by my instructor and he wanted to take half of a point off because my curve was a little bit off.
I countered that with the argument that my instructions were to "use a roll of masking tape to lay out the shape of the curve". A roll of masking tape is an incredibly imprecise method of tracing out the required curve.
Is there one "Master" roll of tape that I should have used?
Does using a "used" roll of tape differ from a "new" roll (short answer is yes).
My instructor tried to counter by telling me that I could mash the roll of tape to fit the reference points on the curve; to which I argued that it would then pinch the curve and not match up without making the curve narrower at the bottom.
Fed up, my instructor gave me the full point.
At this point, I could have left it, but reeling in my little victory, I told the instructor that I debated in college and there was no way he was going to win that argument.
Luckily, he responded with a laugh.

Thank you speech communication degree...(never thought I'd say that).

Now I am working on getting my scarf joint all shaped out. Its fairly time consuming and requires a ton of elbow grease to hand-rasp the rough shape into place before you do all of your finer shaping and sanding. I'm in a bit of a crunch though because I only have the next two class days to finish both this and my bench hook dovetail project (which I am a bit further along on/nearly done with). I'm really hoping I can get everything done in time; even though with a partial credit grade I am certainly going to pass the class at this point. That thought alone is enough for me to feel better about finally making that $1400 tool purchase whose various online orders are starting to arrive. It's a bit like Christmas except you bought all of your own presents and you will continually use all of the things you get. I'd show you a photo of what I've gotten so far, but I don't think you'd be interested in 7 rolls of sandpaper.

Beard watch week 3.5