mini, microscope, pull-up bar

[opabinia]

Hey, I almost forgot that I recently parked a young woman's Mini. She had traveled here from vastly spacious Connecticut, where she had never, ever parallel-parked. magg1es and I stood watching as she rolled forward, back, forward, back... for a good three or four minutes. I finally tapped on her window, somewhat sheepishly, and asked if she would like some help. I gave her my umbrella as collateral. Magg1es reassured her that I'm actually a pretty nice guy.

I can't believe how freaking tiny those things are, front-to-back. It really hits you when you sit in there and look over your shoulder. Apart from the awkward circumstances (Connecticut Girl was beet red with embarrassment), the good deed went flawlessly and unpunished.

*****

This morning I ran into _asenath_ on the bus, while headed for the Garlick lab at Tufts. Scoped for Hyaluronic Acid all morning. Finished early, had me some tofu spring rolls, bought some china (in Chinatown! har) and headed home, where a minor project needed improvement:

I realized on Sunday morning that I had actually hung the bar so that a single strand of the rope was supporting everything at one point. Should've been fine, given the rope's strength, and the angle at which the particular section was stressed, but I wanted to feel more secure with that steel pipe overhead.


Thanks for the help, rojagato.

3/16" braided steel cable, four aluminum ferrules, one swaging tool*, assorted cuss words, and one trip to the hardware store for a bolt cutter.** (I learned you can cut braided steel using a regular wire cutter, a little lateral thinking, and a great deal of time, but it sucks.) Operating the hand-held swaging tool at chest level is a workout in itself.



*

This is my swaging tool, as wielded by water_childe in the summer of 2004.

** I asked the girl at the hardware store if the bolt cutters could easily get through braided steel. She suggested I try it out. "Good idea," I said. "A road test!"

We took the cutter to the cable spool, where I loaded the tag end of some 3/16ths stuff, applied pressure... applied more pressure... and showered us both with hundreds of tiny strands of steel when the blades met. "It works!"

Comments

[damiel.livejournal.com]

That's a nice dungeon you're building there.

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

Not speaking of Minis, I saw a really bizarre vehicle on the road. It was not a Smart Car. I think it had 3 wheels. It was much like one of those post WWII European micro cars (one was made by Messerschmidt and IIRC used the M jet canopy) but it looked modern. Very "extruded-looking," and much narrower up top than at the bottom. I don't think it would hold 2 people.

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

Hey, how was that Hyaluronic acid stained? Chemically (alcian blue?) or by IHC?

"showered us both with hundreds of tiny strands of steel when the blades met."

Aaagh! My eye!

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

I didn't perform the staining, but the HA was labeled bright red, so it must've been IHC.

[water-childe.livejournal.com]

Hee. In this context I look like some sort of weirdo Demo model for
a hardware store. I think hardware stores would be even more fun if there were cute men and women in slinky outfits showing you how they worked. :)
Heck they wouldn't even need to be slinky outfits. Just cute and demoing tools.