Sourdough Alligator
Monday, August 30th, 2010 | Culture, People | 2 Comments
From a short trip to San Francisco… this picture is entirely for Brian Gregg.
sourdough alligator
Pad Printing
Saturday, August 21st, 2010 | Current | No Comments
I am now a pad printer. true story.
Twix…?
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 | Culture, Snow | No Comments
So now that Toko & Swix are owned by the same company, maybe they should try a rebranding strategy…
Toko + Swix = Twix
Gelly Buddies!
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 | Current | No Comments
Skadi Nordic is always looking for a better way to do things. It’s a trait too deeply ingrained in my psyche to overcome, no matter what the project. While we love the current BootBuddy material, and the precise control over our colors we have with it, we’re constantly exploring other options.
Sometimes we have really good ideas.
And sometimes our ideas are not-so-stellar.
BootBuddy Gellies Prototype
BootBuddy Gelly -- still functional, lacking the aesthetics.
Chocolate BootBuddy Poll
Monday, August 16th, 2010 | Culture, Current | No Comments
White Chocolate BootBuddy by Skadi Nordic
Milk Chocolate BootBuddy by Skadi Nordic
Dark Chocolate BootBuddy by Skadi Nordic
I don’t know what I’ve been thinking this whole time. Why would we make BootBuddies out of plastic when they could be made out of chocolate? Don’t worry, I plan to rectify this situation by the time the weather gets cool enough to safely ship chocolate products.
CNC Chocolate Addendum
Sunday, August 15th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
RE: previous post.
Those BootDock molds are looking awfully clean in my photos. Once they’re polished I bet they really ARE super clean. And talking about molding things makes me think about candy molds… or chocolate molds, like the little chocolate seashells and starfish in a Godiva box. I’m just saying– there’s really no reason you couldn’t inject melted chocolate into one of these molds is there? Chocolate BootDock anyone? Or chocolate BootBuddies, fully functional AND edible?
Sounds like this year’s Christmas presents.
CNC Machining
Saturday, August 14th, 2010 | Current | 1 Comment
My education in a lot of new fields this summer has been vast and fast. One of the sweetest parts of being in manufacturing is the toys! er, I mean tools.
Skadi Nordic is currently in production with the BootDock. The parts probably won’t make sense to you, because you haven’t had the opportunity to see the BootDock in action, but this is what was happening today in our machine shop…
The BootDock will be produced from a (relatively) simple two-part mold. Press the two mold halves together, forming a BootDock shaped cavity, inject molten plastic, wait for a brief cooling cycle, pull the two halves of the mold apart and out pops a finished piece. This is the male side of the BootDock mold being cut by a CNC machine. It looks blurry in this photo because it’s water cooled and that’s the water washing away the heat and the metal shavings.
One of the challenges I have had to face on an emotional level as I have gotten deeper into this venture is learning to let go of infinity! In my previous world, arcs could join at an angle approaching zero and edges could be infinitely sharp. In fact, the concept of a single point was a real thing and a line had zero width. I’ve since had to accept the constraints of the Real World, but what I’ve lost in abstract beauty I’ve gained in functional, physical beauty!
The female half of the BootDock mold, ready to go to the polisher.
Once the aluminum block is finished at the CNC station it goes to the polisher. The polisher is the difference between a matte finish and a glossy finish!
Skadi Nordic BootDock mold
By early next week the BootDock mold will be polished and plugged into the injection molding machine, several test iterations of the BootDock will be run and will be examined to insure that the mold indeed came out exactly how the engineers designed it. If any changes need to be made it’s back to the CNC machine (or just the polisher, depending on the extent of the adjustment).
Progress at Skadi Nordic is truckin’ away every day and, to me, the most exciting part of the process is what goes on behind the scenes to develop an idea into a product.
Chocolate Thermometer
Friday, August 13th, 2010 | Culture, People, Uncategorized | No Comments
My mother gave me a bar of chocolate earlier this week. (Chocolove Ginger crystallized in dark chocolate, 65% cocoa content, for those of you who think THAT is the most important piece of information in this blurb.)
This is behavior of which I highly approve. I put it in the car door pocket on the way home. And when I got home, I took it out. I am not such an idiot as to leave an entire bar of chocolate in the car on a hot summer day, despite previous evidence to the contrary. The crisis in this story is that my mother had requested to try a square when she gave it to me. (Which leads me to believe that the gift wasn’t entirely altruistic. Gifts of chocolate rarely are.) So she sampled, & I sampled, & my little sister mysteriously showed up right at this time and she sampled too. Two squares of chocolate fell out of the admittedly poorly re-wrapped chocolate and remained, unbeknown to me in the car door pocket. For some reason I had a lot of errands that day, and when I noticed the chocolate remaining in my door I got to watch it solidify as I drove and then melt and puddle in proportion to the length of my errand. I really should clean that out. Or I could never ever put anything else in that pocket ever again.
Hey, I never got around to finishing that chocolate bar. And if I can’t read the love poem on the inside of the wrapper until I finish the chocolate. First things first, I must be going.
Shower
Friday, July 30th, 2010 | Snow | No Comments
So I was out for a run and I went up this long dirt driveway to see where it lead. It was not quite as long as I had hoped but it did lead to a sweet little pine-board getaway. The best part of this place was that it had an outdoor shower on the deck. The shower apparatus was attached to a big old pine tree that made up one corner of the shower and there was glass on three sides and open on the fourth. No drain, the water just went through the deck boards and down the mountainside.
I was so tempted to take a shower. I didn’t. But I might go back.
Chip-sealing
Sunday, July 25th, 2010 | Current, Snow | 1 Comment
I got an email today as follows:
“Tired of chip sealed roads?”
lav: yes!
“dust, rock chips, asphalt tar on your car. And now you can’t road bike, roller ski, skateboard, skate, etc for several years until it gets worn smooth. And then they just do it again!!!”
lav: well, I kind of like the asphalt-tar-on-the-car look, but I HATE rollerskiing on chip-sealed roads. so awful.
“There are other choices that can be used!”
lav: i know, but they must be cost-prohibitive otherwise no one would chip-seal, right?
lav: wrong. as i so often am.
“Chelan County has never done a serious review of these more modern sealing practices, and prefer to stick with their “old school” chip seal method as it is what they know well.”
lav: typical
“The County is currently planning to chip seal the White River Road next Wednesday. Please contact Jolene and Keith as soon as possible and ask them to use another method to seal this roadway.”
Jolene.gosselin-campbell@co.chelan.wa.us
keith.goehner@co.chelan.wa.us
lav: yes indeed. so i drafted and emailed a letter as follows.
Dear Jolene (Dear Keith),
I have heard that there are plans to chip seal the White River Road next week. While I appreciate everything the county does to maintain the roads and public lands, I would like to draw your attention to several modern alternatives to chip sealing.
(insert table of seal coat options)
While chip sealing has been a common practice in the past, many other WA counties and western states successfully have switched to more bike friendly methods of road sealing. Using chip seal on the roads, especially roads such as the White River road, which are beautiful & popular roads for rollerskiing and cycling, is not only less pleasant for the outdoor enthusiasts in Chelan County, it is a safety hazard. On a smoothly sealed road, I quite happily rollerski or spin my way along the shoulder. If the road is chip sealed I, and every other cyclist or rollerskier I have ever met, will ski or cycle in the vehicle lane where the car tires make the chip seal much smoother than on the shoulder. This is a much more dangerous place to be as a cyclist or rollerskier but new chip seal can quickly cause your hands (cycling) or feet (rollerskiing) to lose sensation, which also has its dangers.
Another solution would be to recommend cylists & rollerskiers to stay home and watch ESPN instead. But is that the message Chelan County wants to give to it’s residents?
Thank you for taking the time to understand my concerns and I do hope you will be willing to explore the alternatives to chip sealing.
Laura Valaas
—
Feel free to copy and paste my message to Jolene and Keith also (addresses above) even if you’re not local… first one road, then the entire WORLD.
(This Message was brought to you by the friendly folk at Plain Hardware.)