Emily wishes me to make a post

For Emily!

What is up?

ALIENS!

Like this:

Humanity loves it's alien invasion stories. I am thinking of writing one myself.

A fond farewell to a very dear tent.

My tent, it is sad to say, must go. At least, the sides are going. SO, this is it's last few days as a tent.

In case I forget, or one of you who reads this hasn't heard this story, this is a brief history of why I sleep in a tent, and how it came to be here:

When I was 18, I had my own room inside my parents house. I was the only child that had their own room, and it was great. It even had a secret passage to my sisters room. But I wanted/needed to start phasing out of the house, so I was going to get/make a tiny house. You know, the ones on the trailer, with a loft for a bed and a super small living space? Well, Dad said, "You should try out something a little cheaper before buying a tiny house." So, I bought a tent for $350 and built a wooden platform for it, with posts in the ground.

I built the bed too, with help from Zack again. Custom day bed from recycled wood...

It was the first time I built any kind of building thing, and I did it almost all on my own (Dad used the skill saw for me, cutting the flooring and the tops of the posts, and my brother helped with the two-person bits. Zack rocks.) So, besides being "my own" it is rather a special part of my growing up, that I am sadly/nostalgically improving upon. One last sentimental thought: I will always love the smell of tarred canvas, which is what my clothes and bed have smelled like for two years now.

BUT, it is by no means perfect. The floor plan is hexagonal, and (while trying not to go into too many specifics) I can tell you that every part of the building shows my.... neophyte skills. The posts are not square to the walls, the stud framing is hilarious, and the flooring is uneven. That said, the basic frame is in good enough shape to keep for a while, even though the canvas is wearing out. So, I am taking off the canvas and putting board and batten siding and a roof on the thing.

I have many talents, but photography and housekeeping are not on the list.

I am so excited to work on this: one of my favorite things to do is build. 

For my own satisfaction, here is the basic idea of what I am doing:

The hexagonal floor plan is based off the tent's shape, and I am keeping that shape. The tent is designed to have eight posts, one at each corner and one in the middle of each of the "door" sides, which face eachother. Basically, and extruded hexagon with a pointed roof, with two of the roof facets being divided in half and peaked. Like this:

So, what I currently have is a post at each corner and a stud-wall kind of structure on the peaked sides. Then there is a truss going from two posts and a couple supports from the peaked ridge to support the roof.

What I am doing is putting boards on the sides that don't have a peak, and then roofing the whole thing. :-)

Really quick...

Becca told me to post 7 lines from the 7th page of something I wrote.

I never have a long enough attention span to write 7 pages, apparently, so here is a random (and only approximately) 7 lines:

He meditatively gulped from his tankard, then choked. “Well, your first blessing will be that your wine will always be better than this. In fact, lets make it interesting; you will have the finest spiced wine, so fine that it will be something entirely on its own. Yes, that seems like a good blessing. You should call it something good. Come up with a good name, will you? I will think of two more blessings.” They sat meditating for a while, until Tobligundaremusartolimew XVII stated, “I have the name. The drink should be called after someone, and since Tobligundaremusartolimew XVII is a little too mu-” “TOBLI-WHAT? Well I know what your second blessing will be…” “-too much, I will call it Throob.”