Here’s the design I came up with by doodling:

I then took a picture of the sketch, imported it into TurboCAD, and created the following result after a bunch of experimenting:

Steve hooked me up with a large format printer from work, so we went over there and I printed several copies of the design full-size:

Then I cut one of them out, taped it to some 1/2″ MDF, and traced the lines with an Exacto knife. I rough-cut the MDF with a band saw, then used a spindle sander to smooth the template to the exact shape of the inscribed knife marks:

I followed the same procedure to create templates for the neck pocket, the pickup cavities, the fretboard and the headstock:

So far so good. The wood should arrive on Monday, at which point I’ll have more to do. In the meantime, here are a couple shots of my super-slick basement shop:

I stayed in Worcester Friday night, and picked my Mom up at IMS in nearby Barre, where she was doing a meditation retreat.

It started raining on the ride home, and the high winds and torrential rain didn’t let up until late the next evening, when Steve went out to pick up a friend’s daughter at the Steiner School. A few minutes later he was back empty-handed, and explained that he had met someone who told him the road was blocked by a fallen tree, and by the flooded Green River in the other direction. He grabbed his chainsaw, and he and I set out, all pumped up for some manly road clearing. Unfortunately, someone with a snow plow had already pushed the tree out of the way, so we made it to the school without incident. Disappointed, we collected the girls and headed home, only to find that in the meantime another tree had fallen across the road. Hurray! We got to work, and with the help of another motorist, we had the road cleared in short order.






The next I set out to check out the flooded river. It had already subsided substantially, and the road to the school was now passable.






Here you can see the water line from the night before:

Mom and I took a walk. Here’s the result of our handiwork from the previous night:






Later we went to Bartholomew’s Cobble (in before the ticks!).

We had one really gorgeous day, and Mom, Ben and I walked to the brook.

Other random pictures of the neighborhood:

The water did plenty of damage to roads and driveways. Case in point:

One day Mom and I did a little bushwhacking through the woods, and had to cross a stream using a fallen log. Mom took off her shoes and crawled, and despite a minor freakout at the end, managed to make it.

Progress on the barn workout studio conversion project continues. Ben and Gio finished up the sheet rocking, so all that remains is spackling, painting and installing the floor.

Other news. My new camera died after a few days of use from an apparently common problem, but Newegg was great at getting me a new one pronto. Here are some photos from a few weeks ago from my neighborhood:































In more other news, I’m sick. Not too surprising what with the running myself ragged for the show, but it really sucks since we’re right in the middle of a bunch of exams.

In other news, the med school prom was last night! Hard to believe it’s been a year since the last one. Due to various technical difficulties (malfunctioning autofocus, an unfortunate wine spill, the fact that I forgot my brand-new camera) I dropped the ball bigtime in the photo department, but here are a few representative examples. Behold the future doctors of America and tremble in fear:









It all ended very abruptly at 1:00 AM, and a few of us were still revved up and feeling hungry, so we went to the Boulevard Diner. It was packed, and we had to wait about 10 minutes for some bar stools.









Other highlights of the evening included nearly running over a classmate’s head after he slipped on ice. All in all a fine time. I finally got to bed at about 4:00 AM.



Note: still working out the kinks on my new host (image borders, etc.).