I was in Japan end of June, start of July. Wonderful trip. I graded for my 4th degree in kendo. No fall colours, or cherry blossoms, but still beautiful scenery. The food was amazing, and most of it unbelievably cheap.
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Even the drinks from the vending machines are less than a quarter what we pay here!
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Had a 
moment today, while in super procrastination mode with way too many things to do and no time in which to do any of them, let alone the fun ones.
I’d been struggling to find time to tidy the “Fenders” and make them super parametric to fit all thicknesses of plate - all I needed to do was shorten the clip, and draw some packing pieces that anyone can modify on their slicer!! I’m not going to be able to test them though so it will be a case of buyer beware - there’s no reason why they shouldn’t work from 6mm up to about 16mm plate thickness - if you are interested I might even have an upload for you later in the week.
I am so glad I bought the Neje Max 80 kit - it’s hard enough reading their minds to work out where the bits go without having to modify a machine that hasn’t been put into service yet!!
It’s all super part time though - in our hemisphere our “holiday” madness really is - summer holidays combine with Christmas and I have no clue when or for how long I can get into the shed. Certainly not enough time to learn to use Lightburn or work out how to run the new machine around - oh that’s right, did I mention my laptop was dead?
UGH!!
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Don’t push yourself, make sure you are relaxed and having fun doing it.
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Thanks for that - yep that’s the most important thing! There just doesn’t seem to be an end to the other stuff though! 
(all of which is self inflicted!)
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Well there’s another job ticked off the list. Next time I go away, would you blokes all mind just not posting for a week or two?
I try to keep it down to 50 open tabs at a time, but seriously the noise from the computer fan is quite irritating.
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lol…it took me a minute to realize that wasn’t a picture of a custom strut plate design…
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Does this count as progress??
If you squint a bit, you’ll see a sheet of mirrored ACM disguised as the interior of the camper. The big question is- can I get the beams cut before Christmas?
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Today is the first of three days we have to recover from a house full of scruffy horde before we join them for another bout of frivolity, once again quite far from home and unfinished projects. Here then is the last update of the year, and perhaps a bit of a summary of where we are at as of midday December 31 2023!
First of all, happy new year and my heartfelt thanks to everyone of you who has assisted, interfered, advised, sent love hearts or simply lurked here during this build saga! We’ve had our share of disruptions behind the scenes, and all I can say is, you can’t underestimate how helpful you’ve been in those times when most of my mind has been occupied elsewhere. Keep up the great work!
As to the machine, I’m hoping to get finished by NEXT Christmas! 
In the meantime it just sits there looking lovely. It does work of course - just needs me to cut those pesky struts and fiddle with the vac attachment.
This may be a shallow promise too - but the fender drawings are almost there as well.
Here’s to lots of happier disruptions over the coming year!
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Happy New Year from Oklahoma!
Those fenders look amazing. I think I might have to add a set once I’m done rebuilding my control board housing and dust shoe.
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Sadly, I think you’ve got time to do that before I finish the “general release” drawing!
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Happy New Year! Gorgeous machine you have there!
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Maybe not, total crash and burn on the control board housing this morning…
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I am definitely going to have to chat to you regarding goi g to japan, i am thinking 2025.
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You’ll love it! Happy to give you info.
It’s quite the experience. 200 flavours of kitkat!
Wherever you’re staying look out for the free walking tours, met some really kind and friendly people
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Since the topic is this derailed…
I had a great time in Japan this summer. One thing I really should have done first though is invest in a good pair of shoes. Walking is a thing. Pretty sure I walked 10k per day inside the paid area of train stations alone in Tokyo.
The trip wasn’t very leisurely though. I went for a grading event for kendo, and to go practice with some high ranking instructors.
There is a lot of excellent food available cheap, and some amazing food for … not cheap. All in all though, I think I ate about double what I eat at home, for close to the same as my usual grocery budget.
Fantastic experience, and I can’t wait to go again.
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I have been on vacations where I realized I made a mistake on my shoes on the first day. The first stop the second day was to buy some good walking shoes (we were in Portland, so it had to be nike). That was $100 well spent to save the trip, and they were good shoes when I got home.
I have a weird thing when I travel though. I like it when I forgot to pack one thing and I have to buy it there. It is a good sign to me that I didn’t over pack. And I prefer functional souvenirs to trinkets. When the shoes were at the end of their life, it wasn’t hard at all to throw them out. I don’t go so far as to intentionally leave something home. I just choose to stop worrying about packing at some point and hope I packed just enough stuff to need one thing.
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I have a similar thought, but in the almost complete absence of bandwidth at the moment, it will have to wait another day or two!
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SOUVENIRS
If we see a souvenir we really like, I often sketch it in a small sketch pad that travels with me. This random example from 2001, had we bought it would have been a dust collector that would have long since served its purpose and moved on, but it lives on in a small collection of sketch books that contain other doodles as well - they are super fun to look through as each page brings a memory of a place, time, smell, or emotion, just like instagram does… no, wait… 
LUGGAGE
We try very hard, but rarely succeed in carrying around 10-12kg of checked luggage. Ten days in Bali was 11kg going and 16kg on return (my wife does sew a bit and fabric is a heavy commodity). We also think we’ll buy anything we leave behind, but the reality is that in decades of serious travel we have never had to buy anything that we can recall.
My camera gear and computer hover around 10kg too which is a bit of a pain, but that’s my bed to lie in!
JAPAN
Japan is a stupidly wonderful and super safe place to visit any time, but is particularly bonkers in Autumn and Cherry blossom time. It’s one of only two countries that we’ve been on a loosely “guided tour”, the other being Russia. On both occasions it was because we had particular things we wanted to see and there was great value in that.
As others have said it’s amazingly economical to eat, super easy to get around and “200 flavours of kitkat” pretty much sums it up! We’ve also been there without a guide, which is the way we prefer to roll, but be prepared to take a lot more time to do what you want to do, and enjoy just breathing a different air.
Oh I almost forgot! We’re back from Bali today!
Hopefully we can sort out way to RMRRF and actually get some play time in between now and April when I might get a “cold weather” photo to add to these seasons!
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