Wooden Creations

It's not uncommon for me to think about writing a blog post, and then decide against it.  There are even times when I write a post, and never publish it.  (I think I have 4 of those in my post history.)  Sometimes it's because the thing I would write about happened so long ago.  Sometimes it's because my sister already blogged about it, and my brothers posted pictures of it, and so half the people who read my blog already heard about that event.  Sometimes it's because I don't think I'm cool enough to just spout off my own thoughts and have anyone find it worthwhile.  I mean, do you really want to hear my frustrations with the thesis template my university came up with?  Anyway.

Today, as I contemplated what would be worth posting, I decided to pick some pictures from the past year and share them.

This is a really long (300 feet) covered bridge.

It uses a double burr arch for the support system, and if you look at the far end, you can see the second arch.  There are also a lot of triangles used in the design.  It makes me think of my building projects on the Science Olympiad team back in junior high and high school.

This is a wooden snake that we found for sale at a reenactment.  

Each of the slits you see on the sides allows the snake to slither.  But, the slits aren't all in the same direction, so part of the snake's tail moves up and down, while another part moves from side to side.  It was a fascinating design, and if you held the tail and just moved your hand a little, you could see some very realistic slithering.

This snake was my own creation.  David thinks it looks like the Dawn Treader.

I got these blocks for my birthday, and they are awesome.  It's interesting to see how much creativity can come from working with a bunch of identical blocks (especially if I look at pictures of all the things my nephew has built!).  It was fun to build the snake when so little of its body is on the ground.  I felt pretty good about being able to make it stand.  (Disclaimer: the head toppled 30 minutes after this picture was taken.)  There are some other ideas, with bridges, that I'll have to try.