Welcome to the mid-September edition of the newsletter! I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

I may have to be fairly brief here, because me and the missus are heading off to San Francisco today to catch an opera matinee at the SF Opera. We are seeing a new work entitled "Dream of the Red Chamber." It is based on a best-selling novel in China, and when I was working at the Chinese Christian studio, it caused quite a stir when I announced over lunch one day that I had tickets to go see this opera. They got quite excited about it. We are going with my old friend from college and his wife, who is Chinese. They have not attended many operas to date, so it will be interesting to see what they think of seeing one of the more modern pieces.

I have a 3D printer now! I turned the final screw on the kit on Tuesday, so it took me just about one week to build it (not constant--mainly in the course of three main build sessions. I'd say ten hours total.) I have calibrated it, and it is printing beautifully. It has some slight alignment issues, but not bad enough to keep me from printing. One of these days I will up-end it and get in there with some calipers and really tune the chassis to make it perfectly square.

Most of what I have been printing so far has been photography-oriented. I am giving a presentation to the photo club this upcoming Wednesday--on the topic of Light Painting. So I've been designing a little pen/flashlight that has interchangeable tips for LEDs, multi-colored LEDs, lasers, or whatever else I come up with. With these things being interchangeable, I can whip out multiple light sources during an exposure. (Should make for a handy little flashlight or laser pointer, too!)

It is great fun to working in additive manufacturing again! One of the first things I built was a bayonet mount to match my Canon EF mount on my camera. I did it, and it works great! Now I can print mating adapters that will allow me to mount just about any kind of lens or optical elements to my DSLR, including macro. The Action Camera swap meet is coming up in October, so I look forward to seeing what kinds of cheap old lenses I can pick up. Last time I went there, I got an old Olympus 135mm telephoto lens for $5. With the right mounting adapter, I can mate anything to my Canon.

Speaking of picking up cool things for five dollars, I went to a church vintage sale yesterday morning. It's kind of like a big swap meet or flea market, with about thirty tables--all within walking distance of our house. For all my life I have lusted after candlestick telephones. They are so quintessentially 1920s Americana. And yesterday I found one, and got it for only five dollars! Now it's not from the 20s, but rather a 1970s replica. But still--that makes it almost fifty years old. And the kicker is--it works! And it has a rotary dial. I cannot tell you how strange that feels to dial it and hear the sounds, feel the spring--I really miss rotary dials! Of course, I now I need to figure out what I am going to do with it--since I gave up my land line last year.

Well, it is almost time to go, so I'll catch y'all later!