June goals update

Chado-related goals: make shiro-an. Carve a bamboo futaoki (lid rest), at least a fushi-nashi (nodeless) one, which should be utterly simple. Practice carving chashaku, which is not. Try repairing my broken Tamba-yaki idojawan.

The shiro-an is still a work in progress, but as with books, I don't let not yet having finished one thing stop me from starting another. I'm working on a soramame (broad bean) chakin-shibori to serve at the chaji I'm holding next month to thank the teachers at Washin-an. It looks straightforward. Thanks to forwarding service tenso, I've got some wagashi-making tools on their way that will allow me to make molded kanten- and kuzu-based sweets, as well as a few forms of higashi. If I can find a steamer that will fit my 8" square mold, I could make minazuki, but it's not clear that I'll be able to do that in the remaining time (until the end of June) that minazuki will remain seasonally appropriate.

I did carve a couple of nodeless bamboo futaoki for use with my yari-no-saya kensui. I'm discovering that the mysterious abura-nuki process—which I haven't done before, not having seen or been taught it—is probably important to achieving the glossy, sealed-looking finish I'm used to seeing on bamboo utensils but which is lacking in the ones I've made. So I'll have to learn that step before making anything else out of bamboo.

HacDC-related: be a diligent treasurer. Help Alberto run an Arduino class. Hold an LED cuff-making workshop.

The treasurer gig is going well so far. It helps that the previous treasurer set up a bunch of spreadsheet pages and processes that I on my own would have been at a loss to establish but that I can use with no problem. The Arduino class will be happening starting next month and running into August, and though I haven't been involved with the curriculum, I could be useful as a student-wrangler and photographer.

Photography-related: learn how to do long-exposure photography, so I can do things like light painting by skipping a stone with an LED attached. Figure out how to do time-lapse photography. Try HDR.

Still learning. I've been going through my camera's manual. Exposure bracketing on the camera is simple to do, but my initial naive try at using Luminance (a.k.a. qtpfsgui) resulted in nothing like any of the photos I imported as raw source images. So, more learning to do there. If any of you have used that software before, I'd like to pick your brain. The manual is, shall we say, sparse.

Related to nothing else: see wisteria in bloom (maybe at the National Arboretum?). Go to—and participate meaningfully in—Burning Man. Get rid of excess clothes. Learn Android programming. Finish carving my Greenland-style kayak paddle. Consider incorporating gender-neutral pronouns into my writing somehow.

Wisteria: check. Burning Man: I've found a probable camp and made plans to meet up with some of them, having waited six weeks to get onto their mailing list. Still better than French Quarter/Asiatown's record so far.