Sumter and Charleston, a photo(b)log...

Today we visited Fort Sumter and the city of Charleston.  Sumter was where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, and dispite the beating it took during the course of that war, it is still pretty impressive to see.  Because the fort is on an island in Charleston's bay, we had to take a boat to get there.  The boat left from a park where among other things, the aircraft carrier Yorktown is docked as a museum.  


We took a ferry out to the fort which as it turned out, was actually used as a military installation up to the end of WWII.  A large gun battery was built inside the old fort as part of our defences during the war.



It's the black thing you can see sticking up above the original brick walls of the fort.


We were greeted by a pair of park rangers.  One of them, a guy that looked and sounded like an ex-marine drill seargent, gave us a general safety spiel when we arrived at the gates of the fort.  among other things he told us not to climb on, attempt to move, or put objects or people (namely younger siblings) into the cannons around the fort.  Not because he was worried about what damage could be done to the civil war era guns, but because he was worried about what could happen to us in the unlikely event that one should fall over.  And as he also said, if a person were to be put into one of the guns, there were only two ways to get them out.  Fire the cannon, or pull them by the ears, and since gunpowder needed to be put in before the projectile, that left only one option.  


One of the guns we were told not to touch, or put little siblings into (/sigh ).


Just to give an idea of the size of the cannon.


The inside of the fort.

As we were taken on a tour of the fort, the ranger pointed out several shells still embedded in the walls of the fort dating back to the civil war.  He told us that the old shells might still be live and strongly advised us against banging on them because they could still explode.  




Here you can still see the steel tracks that the gun emplacements would have swung around on.  


One of the guns still at its post.  You can see the top of the ranger's hat peaking over the top of the cannon directly above the vertical pivot.  The ranger was about as tall as me.

After he explained the operation of the cannon and the tasks involved, the ranger led us up to the top of the fort.  

If you look closely you can see a small red band around the center flag staff, that marks the height that the walls of Fort Sumter would have been had the fort been completed and not bombed practicaly to its foundations.  


Staring down the business end of one of the fort's cannon.


Staring down the barrel of the cannon (no children in this one).


Back on the ferry coming around the bow of Yorktown.


A ballistic missile on display at the park.


Once we returned from the fort we visited the city of Charleston.  We had a very tasty lunch at a seafood resturant, and then visited The Battery.  The Battery is a small promontory of land sticking out into the bay where there once was a battery of cannon for the defence of the city during the civil war.  Now however it is prime realistate and there are some gorgeous houses there, we drove around aimlessly for a while just admiring them and I took a bunch of pictures.  










As it turned out, not all the cannon had been removed from The Battery.  Lucky for us, none of them were manned.  ;-)

We also visited The Market, before we headed back to the condo.  It was a fun day, and an informative one.

The Transition Between Times.

Camp is over for another year, and school won't start till the 3rd; so in the intervening time I'm with my family in Myrtle Beach.  We've been having fun, I got to go sailing on a 16 foot Hobie Cat that looked something like this.


It was a lot of fun to sail, but I didn't bring my camera because salt spray + electronics = bad stuff.  After we got back from the sailing we chilled for a bit, had dinner, then went to see a show called Legends in Concert where we saw impersonators (pretty good ones too) of Buddy Holly, Dolly Parton, The Blues Brothers, George Strait, and Elvis Presley.  It was a fun show, the favorites were a tie between Buddy Holly and the Blues Brothers, followed by Elvis.  Tomorrows agenda is unknown as of now but I have been told it will include kite flying at 6:30 am so I had better get some sleep.  

All good things must come to an end.

So there are two days left of camp which is both exciting and sad.  I can say without reservation that this has been my most fun summer working on the Hill ever.  But on Saturday a lot of my camp friends will be leaving and there is a good chance I won't see them again.  Though there are a few people who are local that I'll definitely be hanging out with because they are awsome.  It feels like only a few days ago that I returned to camp for orientation and yet I feel like I've been friends with some of these people for years.  It is still incredible how close you can get to people after knowing them for only 8 weeks, even after doing this for three years it amazes me.  I feel like I want to say more but can't think what to say.  so I'm gonna go do stuff instead.  

More Project pictures

Here are two more of my finished boxes, I've actually photographed 3 additional boxes but the third one can't be posted yet.  I've decided that boxes I make with a special purpose in mind can't be posted till the purpose is completed.  


This box is the third one I made and was also intended to be a raffle prize in last years International Children's Festival.  It was won by my youngest sister who had seen it while I was working on it.  She put in her tickets and got very lucky.  








This was also the second double box I made.  The first (also the first box I made) was shaped like a heart and given as a wedding gift.  I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to brand that one, but it would be nice if I could.  


The second box in this update was also an inspiration project.  I came across an end cut peice of cedar whose ring pattern made me think of a turtle shell, so I made a box that I could put my turtle shell on.  








This box has also been given as a gift, but it has the honor of being the first box I've actually sold.

So there is my project update.  Hopefully I'll be able to post the mystery box soon.  

On an entirely unrelated note, I've got this urge to come up to Troy and be incredibly geeky, I also want to be able to put the D&D tag on another of these posts.  

Promised updates

So I promised pictures of the brand and the projects I've marked with it.  I haven't taken pictures of everything yet but here are some of them.  

The iron itself (lego man looks impressed)



The brand head (lego man says hello)



Part of my test block


And a brand on one of my projects



Now some of my projects, this first one is a nameplate I made for my co-counselor.  She is a Spanish teacher and wanted a sign for her desk. 






You can see my 'work bench' aka desk in the background of the pictures.  


This next one is actually the second box I ever made but I only just finished it recently.  I have had a love-hate relationship with this box ever since I began cutting it, but I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out in the end.  








I made a photo background for these out of a sheet of matt board.


This is the last one for this post and was the result of a burst of inspiration.  Last summer when I was working in the woodshop at camp, I made two boxes to be raffled off at the International Children's Festival, and when I looked at the block of wood I made this from, I noticed the large knott looked just like an eye.  So that is what I made.  








I managed to get it back on loan from the raffle winner so I could brand and photograph it.  

I still have several boxes to brand and photograph, and 3 boxes that need to be finished, so expect future picture updates.  

So Much for Regular Posts...

It's been ages since I've actually posted and, there have been a lot of things going on.  But rather than backtrack and write about the last several months of interesting things, I'll just start with the most recent.  I now have a personal branding iron and it is awsome.  I've been using it to brand all of my wood projects (I've been told by my parents that branding my sisters is not allowed).  I will be posting pictures of the brand, as well as most of the wood projects I've used it on.  Hopefully I'll start keeping up with regular posts again because I actually enjoy blogging about this stuff.