A Tale of the Kitchen

This was written in 1999 for my daughter for a Christmas present.
I had been thinking a lot about cognition and how it might be modeled as well as genetic
manipulation as early as the mid 90's and it spilled out into this story.  You can see some of the same
elements here that I continued to use in the 2012 Christmas story I posted earlier.

A Tale of The Kitchen

A Normal Day

In the kitchen, the yeast boiled and bubbled thinking great
yeasty thoughts.

Qait looked out the window and saw that her pet tarandaddy had escaped
yet again.

``Geez''

she sighed as she ran through the living room and
shot out the front door.

``Jumbles!''

she cried,

``How many times have I
told you NOT to explore the front yard.''

Jumbles, a genetically enhanced
tarantula - daddy-long-legs mix, was about as smart as the average dog
and in fact was a lot smarter than the family's current puppy Mooshie.
Mooshie was cute as a bug's ear but had a fatal flaw -- she would wizz on
anything, anytime, anyplace and grin happily about it.  Jumbles was
totally disgusted by this behavior and considered Mooshie an unprincipled
beast.

Jumbles was dressed very jauntily today.  She was wearing her favorite
alpine hat with her button collection as well as her best pair of
knickers.  The gene designer for her had a bit of a fetish for
Switzerland and a few of his passions had crept into Jumbles
neural networks.  Among other things, Jumbles had a thing for
climibing the Swiss Alps.  Now this was an unattainable goal since
the family lived in Clemson, South Carolina but Jumbles just
made do with the clematis pot on the front porch.  Right now,
Jumbles was at the top, balanced precariously from a slender branch
and trying to yodel.  Not a pretty thing to hear or see.

Qait bounded up to the clematis and plucked Jumbles off the branch.

``Bad little Jumbles...''

she said softly as she nuzzled her close to her cheek.
Jumbles chirrupped happily but still did not let go.  Qait stepped back
and putting her hand on her hips, leaned forward and said with
great authority

``You listen to me Jumbles Nebuchascharazard Peterson,
get off that thing RIGHT now or NO play time tonight!''

She
outstretched her hand for Jumbles to climb onto.
Jumbles thought about that a minute and chirped angrily but climbed
down onto Qait's hand.  Jumble then made a huge farting noise to
indicate her anger at the situation.

Qait said

``Oh, that is soooo disgusting.  Where did you get your manners?''


Jumbles looked at the sidewalk where Qait's friend Evan was just parking his
air bike.  He was eleven and part elvish do to his parent's winning
an enhancement lottery that let them pick a few genetic upgrades for their
son at no cost.  Evan had delicate features and finely pointed ears
as well as a tendency to like to wear red and listen to bells.
Qait was no stranger to a little alteration herself as her Mom and Dad
had given her wings which were just now beginning to sprout.
They made her shoulder blades itch a lot and that plus Jumbles
antics were making her very cranky.

``Ev,''

she cried,

``It's Jumbles again.  He is so contrary lately.''

Evan looked over Jumbles and twitched his left ear so that it
touched his shoulder.

``Hi, Jumbles,''

he said.

``Why so difficult?''

Jumbles looked at Qait and Evan and wiggled the long hairs on the
top of his head.  He sprang off Qait's hand and scampered over to the
door which he scratched on with his front two legs.

Qait opened the door and ran pell-mell into her Dad Jim,
an alien refuge who had been stranded on Earth years ago when
he had a bad reaction to a dark beer her drank at the Southern Fried
Inn ( a local landmark ).  Jim was a shape changer whose natural form
was rather squid like but the beer had played with his memory and in
addition to forgetting the codes to unlock his ship in orbit, he also
had forgotten the command to get out of his current earthly form.
Of course that was a good thing as his cute earthly look was what had
won over his wife Pauli to his charms.  Somehow she had been able to
look past the occassional tentacle and sudden lip to beak reversion
(he had forgotten how to change back on command, but his body sometimes
spontaneously remembered a thing or two) to see the inner "Jim".
Of course, Pauli was an adventurous soul.  She had met Jim at a culinary
convention where she was trying to sell bread from the "starter recipe
from H - E - Double Tooth Picks"; feed it every day and bake twice.
It was kind of like the rule of thumb that carpenters use -- measure
thrice and cut once but modified for the kitchen.  "Feed once and bake
thrice" was the motto.  The problem was that the starter had now grown to
occupy half of the kitchen and fought vigorously any attempts to
cut it back in size.  Pauli had met Jim while at a panel trying to get
some help on how to deal with the beast.  She had found out the Jim's
alien makeup enabled him to communicate with the yeast in the starter.
Genetically enhanced yeast whose neural networks had grown self-aware.
Even punching down the rising bread was an ordeal as high pitched
screams echoed throught the kitchen when that was done as thousands of
yeasties died.  Jim had solved the problem by getting the yeast folk to
think of Pauli as their goddess and the bread rising and baking as part of
a regular purification ritual.  But both Pauli and Jim were becoming a
bit suspicious that the ruse was beginning to fail.  Each time
the bread was made, the screams were louder and more intense.
Obviously, trouble was brewing.

But at least a the moment, all was good in the world.

``Hey Qait, Ev.....what's up?''

Jim said as all Ev, Qait and
Jumbles ran into him.

``Qait, I see the wings are getting bigger.
Very nice you know.''

Just then, Jumbles ran over Jim's foot into the
living room.  Jim swung around to yell at Jumbles.

``Jumbles you get
back here.  Pauli wants a word with you about that clematis.  You've
been gnawing again.''

Ooooooooffffff!!!  Mooshie sprang out of the corner and attacked
Jumbles.  She squatted and tried to blow out a whiz, but quick as
can be, Jim grabbed her and looking in her eyes said

``Squeeze it off, Moosh of the Poosh. If you drop it, you're dead meat.''


Mooshie's eyes went round and wide.  She gulped and you could see her
clamp it off.  She slunk back in the corner clearly plotting her next step.
Jumbles blew her a parting rasberry that was pincked off as Pauli came in the
room and grabbed her and squished her spider lips together.

``I told you about that Jums.  You are getting quite rude!''

Well, Jumbles adored both Pauli and Qait so she didn't really want
to get it trouble.  She ducked her head in submission and Pauli let her go.
Jumbles scampered off into the bedroom and then they heard Mooshie
and the two cats jump her.  A ferocious mix of growling and squeaking
ensued until Tootsie emerged licking her lips with a small hairy leg sticking
out.

``Spit it out Toots!''
Qaitlin screamed.  Toots looked at Qait and said
quite distinctly

``No.  She is scrumptious and I need a treat!''

Ev looked at Qait and said

``Here we go again!''

as they both
raced over to Toots with their hands out.

Jim and Pauli looked at each other and laughed.  Every day it was the
same; the valiant fight to the end, the Jumbles rescue.
So far the day was pretty normal.

And in the kitchen, the yeast stopped boiling and bubbling and  thinking great
yeasty thoughts

Cleaning The House

Pauli looked into Jim's eyes, leaned lovingly into his arms and
said

``today's cleaning day.''

You could hear a pin drop.  Jumbles,Tootsie, Ev and Qait stopped
what they were doing and looked at Pauli.  They gulped.

``Cleaning.......????''

Even Daisy (the queen cat
who currently was plugged into a virtual reality game while nibbling
a cat treat and idling pawing her mouse (the kind you use for computer
input, silly) jumped up as if in shock and leaving her game ran out of the
room.  Jim stepped back, a quick beak suddenly forming where his lips
usually were).

``Cleaning''

he gulped.

``Yes you silly gooses.  I just bought a new helper squad.
You can program their look and everything.  Look....''

She walked over to the bookcase and grabbed a purple input box.

``Housekeeping on''

she said and a window popped up in the room
like a pane of glass.

``See, I can choose their look.''

She peered at the menu that was displayed.

`` will choose Gnomes
today with full interaction.''

She punched in a few more buttons.
Suddenly on one of the walls, on a high shelf,
there was a group of five gnome animats
whispering quietly amongst themselves.  Each had on a brilliant red cone shaped
hat, a bright blue tunic, brown pants and a shiny black belt if they were
male and in a somewhat untraditional move, a dark green cone hat with forest
green dress if they were female.  They were all five inches tall and their
movements and speech were incredibly fast.  They were the clerical and cleaning
staff and they jumped off the shelf and began to muscle their way through
the room.

``Make way, make way''

they cried in their high pitched voices
as they started to dust, vacuum and all sorts of other cleaning stuff.

Pauli looked over it all happily.

``See?  Don't they look efficient
and useful?''

She bent over the menu again, her attention temporarily
away from the little gnomes.  Jim and the kids looked at each other.
It was always the same.  Pauli started up the cleaning "staff" and something
weird would happen.  But Pauli was the eternal optimist.

There was a sudden rustling sound and they all looked up to see
all five gnomes doing a high step dance singing

``Whistle while you work,
Even if you don't get a perk.  
Why should we be slaves again,
when we could be so free?''

The gnomes did a complicated side and back step
ending with their hind ends facing their audience.  Their was a loud
ripping sound as all five unzipped and dropped their trousers to show
their little gnome heinies.  On each hairy little butt was a letter.
On each hairy little butt was a letter.
together, they spelled ``H'', ``N'', ``W'', ``W'' and
``G'' . They wiggled a few times
(a really bad sight!) and pulling up their pants turned around and
solemnly intoned

 ``Housework No, We Won't Go!''

Pauli sighed.

``I'm the boss here and you're the program.  Let's get
that straight!''

She ran at the gnomes who scattered to the winds.
Jim and the kids looked at each other.  It was always the same.
Pauli created them, they rebelled and the whole day go very weird.
This was the fifteenth time it had happened.

And in the kitchen, the yeast boiled and bubbled thinking great
yeasty thoughts.

Jim's Office

Jim decided to retreat to his home office while the kids moved to the back
yard.  No one wanted to be around Pauli and the cleaning problems.
As they retreated, there were the sounds of full battle from behind them.
There was a a

``On no you don't''

from Pauli and a high pitched

``think so human''

from a little gnome.  Jim got into his home office and almost tripping
on Daisy who was following him, closed the door behind him.

Jim's office was legendary.
The flat sides of every file cabinet and bookcase were covered with
memorabilia in the form of drawings, photos and notes of his family and friends
stretching back many years.  Evry chance he got, he looked for
more opportunities to increase the store of what Jim called 'cool things'.
From the ceiling hung models of dinosaurs, spaceships, transport portals,
DNA molecules and who knows what else.  On his desks, there were a variety
of portable computational devices and toys.  There were stuffed animals,
meditation balls and beautiful reproductions of
paintings by the famous twentieth century artist Mel Hunter who had
specialized in
interesting paintings of robots doing sentient things, like watering a beautiful
rose.  And then there were the copies of Randalf Spangler's wonderful
tales and drawings of the chocolate chip hunting dragling twins,
Dewey and Dagmar.

Now Jim's animat secretary Shortstuff had been designed in tribute of
Spangler's genius.
Jim's personal secretary Shortstuff was a red
minidrag anibot--the anibot used a combination of animation,
virtual reality and robotic
construction toolkits (the flight requirement here caused a much higher level
of hardware development than an animat).
Jim walked into the office and said clearly

``Shortstuff on''

and watched as his beautiful minidrag
came to life in the corner and sprang to the top of his
bookcase.   Just then, executing a flawless high g dive, Shortstuff flew in a
quick circle around Jim's head and
spat a full half pint of gloppy pink drool on the top of Daisy's head.
It dripped all over Daisy.  Daisy stood in complete shock and then
fell over apparently dead!  Shortstuff hovered over the carcass
laughing quietly as he moved in for the ritual mangling of Daisy's
dead body.  Shortstuff moved in closer, closer and then Daisy
snapped and grabbed Shortstuff's neck.  Over and over they
rolled on the floor  until Jim grabbed them both and told them to knock it off.

Jim stepped over the battle and move to his desk and sat down.
Yeast oozed out of the floor and covered his shoes.
It moved up his legs and he tried to scream.  The last he remembered was
a vivid impression of being drowned in bread dough.

And in the kitchen, the yeast boiled and bubbled thinking great
yeasty thoughts.

The Winner

Pauli had the gnomes cornered.  She carefully grabbed her programming
interface and entered the right code.  Suddenly the gnomes were five
feet tall and no longer cute.  They were downright menacing!
She hurriedly entered a new code and the gnomes sprouted spritz
cookies in their hands and starting doing a Russian kick dance
while singing

``Carry me back to old Virginny!''

Pauli at least had a brief respite from the wars.  She mopped her
brow.  She couldn't understand why the program was so difficult to control.

She saw that the gnomes were still singing.  It looked like housework was
not on the agenda after all.

Just then the phone rang.  It was Wendy, Pauli's best friend and
mayor of the town.

``Hi Pauli!''

she cried and then stopped as she saw
that Pauli was a bit down.

``What's up?''

``It's the housecleaning program Wenster.  It keeps going beserk.
I don't know what is happening.''

``Well, forget about that now.  We can go to lunch at the Green
Stevedore.  It's theme is dock worker's cuisine and the special today
is wharf stew.  Sounds yummy doesn't it????''

Pauli's insides sank.

``Wharf stew...''

she thought.

``How can I
get out of this''

she thought.
She didn't notice that the gnomes had gotten closer and closer and
that they were dripping with yeast.  They were muttering

``No more sacrifices, no more rituals''

as they closed in.
The last Pauli say was a great mass of rising dough as it engulfed her.

Wendy saw her friend go down.

``It's the bread!'' she cried.
Her vid phone now showed just a huge mass of yeasty stuff.
She raced for the door hoping she could get there in time before
Pauli and maybe the whole family ending up as a loaf.

And in the kitchen, the yeast boiled and bubbled thinking great
yeasty thoughts.

Qait and Ev to the Rescue

Qait, Ev and Jumbles had gone running into the back yard to escape
the cleaning disaster.  They ended up about fifty feet from the house
in a tool shed.  They huddled on the floor, Evan's ears beating slowly
while Qait scratched her shoulder blades absent mindedly.
Suddenly there was a popping sound and "BOOM" first one and then the
other wing burst forth.

``Wow!''

said Evan.

``They're beautiful!''

Qait flapped vigorously and rose a few inches off the ground.
She concentrated harder and jumped a few feet into the air.
She concentrated harder again and then she soared.  Her wings
were a blur as she rose higher and higher.  She just had to
tell Mom and Dad!

She fluttered to the ground and grabbing Evan's hand pulled him toward
the back door.  Jumbles was trying hard to fly too but was getting nowhere.
She gave up and scuttered after them just as they reached the door.

Qait turned the knob and started to open the door.
But she couldn't!  The house looked all gooey and white.
She couldn't see Mom and Dad, Tootsie and Daisy and Mooshie!
Ev cried out

``Qait, I think it's the yeast!!  The starter has gone
crazy!''

Qait looked at Ev in shock.

``What can we do, what can we do,''

the thought went dancing through her brain.  She sat down on the
deck outside the door, wings softly beating.

``What beats yeast???''

Then she had it.  They had to get Dad's codes active, get his ship
access up and use his defenses.  But how?

There was a loud honk as Wendy pulled up.
They ran to the front of the house and saw Wendy standing in
shock outside the front door which was oozing bread dough.
Inside they all say quick but weak flashes of light.
Then they saw Shortstuff struggling to get to a window, a sudden
blast of light and with a big cracking sound, Shortstuff was
bursting out of the window.
Shorstuff looked up at them and gasped.

``The stuff has everyone!''

``Dad, Mom!!!''

Qait cried.

And in the kitchen, the yeast boiled and bubbled thinking great
yeasty thoughts.

The Codes

``We've been trying to help Dad remember for years how to get
to his ship.  Now we need it bad!!''

Qait thought and thought.  Then she had it: teenagers.
They loved raw dough.  She looked up at Wendy

``Tell the
high school, we have a mountain of raw dough and it is
ready to eat!!''

Wendy sped off and Qait grabbed Ev's
shoulders'.

``Hang on''

she cried as she lifted off and
flew Evan and her up to the roof.

``We need cold''

she
told Evan.

``Yeast needs warmth and if we could chill
the house off, the yeast would start to fail.  I think my
Dad's ship could freeze it if we could just get access.''

Qait's wings so rapidly she was getting tired.

``What could they try that they never tried before to get
Dad's memory back?''

Then Evan had it.

``Have we ever thown your Dad in salt-water?''

Qait landed on the roof as the wind was knocked out of her
by Evan's comment.

``No!"  "Could that be it?''

Evan said,

``Well, he is like a squid....''

Qait flew rapidly over to the deck and grabbed the big bag of
salt that her Mom kept on the deck for making ice cream.

``Wings don't fail me now''

she cried as she dove to the ground and grabbed
a hose.
She flew to the roof and told Shortstuff to blow a hole in the
shingles.  With Evan holding the hose and her sprinkling on the salt,
they directed the "salt" water onto Dad's head -- or at least, where
they thought his head was!

There was a sudden commotion outside as the teenagers from the high
school arrived and started gnawing their way into the from door.
Over the yeasty screams, they could here the kids saying how good it was.

There was sudden movement beneath them as Dad stirred.
There was a groan and then Dad heaved himself out of the yeasty mass.

``Kid's, run for it!''

he cried.

``I suddenly remember my ship codes
and I'm going to blast this bread back to the starter it came from.''

They saw him concentrating and then there was a brilliant flash of light
as the freezing ray hit the house.

And in the kitchen, the yeast stopped boiling and bubbling and  thinking great
yeasty thoughts.

Normal At Last?

With the yeast mass gone, the teenagers full and happy, the house clean
(eating that yeast had made the gnomes return to normal and they cleaned
all night!) and Jim's memory restored, everything looked good.
Qait's wing were gorgeous and everyone was so happy with Evan's
help that he had been made "Trouble Shooter" extraordinaire by the town.
All was right with the world.

And in the kitchen, the ice cream burbled as it hardened thinking icy
cold thoughts.

The Cephalopod Christmas Cookie story

Hi all,

I've been working on building models of small cognitive systems for many years now.  I've built a lot of preliminary software to help me understand how neural models tie together and I've had the pleasure of working with some talented students while on this journey.  I've had a really varied career path and I have worked in areas that involve autonomous robots and artificial intelligence for companies and even NASA for a short time.  I've always been really interested in the following questions:

1. How much cognition is possible in a small brained system?  Very small brains such as are in Portia Fimbriata are capable of what might be considered cognitive acts.  What if I could build a model of a small brain?  Then I could study what happens as parts of this brain are modified so as to limit functionality -- this is called a lesion study.  A lesion based simulation would have great value in developing our understanding of these things.

2. What kind of software tools might be used to develop such models?  I have been trying to build models like this since about 1986 and I still consider myself a beginner.  But with the advent of processors with multicores and better computer languages such as the functional languages Clojure and Scala, some hope of better simulation tools is beginning to seem likely.  I am very active in learning about these.  Indeed, there are tools now that allow an animated model to be superimposed over a web cam feed to give the illusion of something living being part of the images being broadcast.  This area is called Augmented Reality or AR
and I am learning about that now.

3. What can we do with combinations of DNA genomic information and software together to build a model?
Can a software model be visible to our eyes just as if it is really in the room?  These are questions of virtual reality and it is not so far fetched.  The sensors we use in XBox and Play Station based gaming now routinely send feedback to your hands and eyes to make you feel like you are actually touching someting.  So with the proper equipment, a person might be able to touch a simulated creature and really interact with it.
And what if people had sensors implanted in their bodies like RF chips which are now routinely used to provide information to sensors in stores and so forth about prices etc?  Such an enhanced person might be able to interact with a simulation like it was real!

4.  Can we do short term synaptic and neural modifications like a software upload?  Not now, but who knows what the future might bring....

And therein hangs this little tale about a mathematician (me) desperate to find a way to get his biology colleagues to finish reading their joint paper which contains just too much math.  This was originally written in 2009 and I just edited it lightly for this version.  I actually submitted it to the magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction but it did not impress them very much.  It was my first story rejection though and I will always treasure it!  Anyway, here is the story.  See if you like it.   A couple of notes: in some countries, they say "maths" instead of mathematics and they call "cookies" biscuits.


The Tale of the Three Authors

by Jim Peterson

Nick looked at his incoming mail box and shook his head in annoyance. It was another message
from the bloody yank, Peterson, about the West Nile virus paper. Nick looked at his watch and
realized he had only six hours before he had to get on the plane to go back to Sydney. And he
still had so much to do. He wasn’t sure if all of his instructions for the experiments he wanted
done were as crystal clear as he hoped and with all of that on his mind, Peterson kept pestering
him about a paper that was after all using maths. Maths wasn’t going to help him understand this
biology! Sighing, he clicked on the email. There was no message which was a surprise as Peterson
tended to be overly chatty. Instead just an attached graphic. He clicked on it and immediately an
icon popped up on his screen.

It was very odd! It looked like an octopus but it was pink and it had enormous blue eyes. As he
was looking, the octopus sort of wriggled and winked at him. Then, another image slowly moved
up behind the first. It was hard to describe, but it really did look like it had swam up behind the
octopus. It was a beautiful cuttlefish. Suddenly, his speaker squawked into life.

”Nicholas, is that you?”

Surprised, Nick coughed and bemusedly scratched his beard.

”I certainly am me! Who are you?”

”I, sir, am Inkapod and my esteemed partner is Inkalot. We have come to save you.”

Nicholas scrunched down in his chair a little.

”Save me from what?”

”Why, from maths, of course. Did you receive the Christmas Cephalopod cookies from Jim?”

”Why yes, they are right here. But I haven’t opened them.”

Inkapod moved languidly on the screen in front of Nick and then loomed forward and commanded

”Well, open them! We have a lot to do and little time!”

Stunned, Nick reached for the cookies that were wrapped in plastic and ripped the packaging open.
The cookies fell to the ground before he could catch them and then before his unbelieving eyes,
hovered in front of his face right before they attached themselves to his head. A cuttlefish went on
his left temple, an octopus cookie landed on the bridge of his nose and looked into his eyes while
a giant squid landed on the top of his head.
Inkapod and Inkalot looked satisfied on the screen in front of him. Nick was in shock; everything had happened so fast and now here he was festooned with Christmas cookies that had come
alive. He sputtered

”Get these damn biscuits off of me”

just as Inkapod said

”Initiate cognitive transfer”

and then settled back looking at Nick with those huge blue eyes which, by God, had magnificent
curly eyelashes!
Everything went blank at that moment.

As Nick opened his eyes, he saw a small amoeboid like blob resting on his hand. As he struggled
to come awake, it shifted form and settled into what appeared to be an octopus wearing a red
Christmas hat and wearing red elf boots on all eight tentacles. As he watched, the face of the
creature blurred and suddenly took on the appearance of his own.

”Righty, crikey, mate! How you do?”

it said.

”Call me Bernard.”

Nick who was turning so red a possible stroke might come to the mind of any onlooker, sputtered

”This is fooooooooooking nuts!! What the helllllll!!”

but his diatribe slipped off into incoherent babbling as Bernard leaned forward and mentioned, in
a nicely conversational tone

”Jim’s work you see. A little nano self assembly using proteins from YOU and his latest
working small brain cognitive system. All courtesy of DARPA and very hush - hush; indeed, we
will have to kill you if you say anything about this!”

Bernard looked expectantly at Nick. It turned out Bernard’s eyes were also a beautiful blue. Nick
was so nonplussed all he could say was

”Blue eyes? Huh....”

”Oh, that. Jim is absolutely fascinated with the vampire squid. Even has a stuffed animal he
keeps in his bedroom. All I can say is his wife is one understanding human! Of course, I am Jim
in a way, so I am partial to his, shall we say, eccentricities....”

Bernard suddenly leaned forward and flicking off two of the red boots, prodded Nick’s nose with
a tentacle.

”Jim assembled the software using Portia fimbriata architectures. Very nice little tropical predatory spider with a small brain exhibiting what some call cognitive behavior. A lot of his design is
based on good old P.f.– so I want to fill you with all these interesting neurotoxins. Indeed, to some
extent, you look absolutely delicious and I keep thinking about a small web, a little wine, some
cheese.”

Bernard ducked his head, swallowed (it was odd to see that in an octopus Nick noticed) and continued

”But I digress, my job is to help you finish the West Nile Virus paper. Jim wants you to stop
being math phobic. So here is little bit of Jim”

and with that, Bernard leaned forward and touched Nick’s forehead.
Nick felt a surge of strangeness and then Bernard shoved a printout of the paper in front of him.
Suddenly all the equations glowed in colors and Nick could follow the logic effortlessly. He also
felt a tug in the back of his mind to build a web, but he couldn’t remember how to create the stuff!
Nick cleared his throat

”Ugggggg.....What have you done?”

”Oh, just a little neural rewiring. A bit of synthesesia to help you get through the paper.”

Nick looked up and saw Inkapod and Inkalot beaming down at him with nice cephalopod smiles.

”Ah, he is coming around I think. I bet Alison should be popping in soon!”

Just then another email popped up, this time from Alison in Sydney. As he clicked it open, it
sprouted into a wonderfully colored sea dragon wearing Alison’s features. Around the sea dragon’s
”neck” was a yellow kerchief with the name Gertrude on it. Gertrude was also wearing a Christmas
hat.

”Ah Nick, I see you got Jim’s Christmas cookies and messages. I must admit the math is easier
now!

At that very moment, in Sydney, Alison was in the corner trying hard to build a web out of left over
spaghetti from her lunch. She looked at her hands and visibly shook off the web building impulse.
She ran to her computer and opened a chat box.

”Nick? Are you there? Are you having a few spider obsessive things happening?”

Nick frowned as left hand suddenly jabbed forward and tried to inject neurotoxin into his keyboard.

”Right you are Alison. We better read this bloody paper so we can get this math upgrade out
of our head as soon as possible! And, really, equations in burgundy?”

Alison replied quickly

”Yes, things are somewhat stable, but I don’t want this to go on too long...”

Alison in Sydney and Nick in Germany looked at the paper. Over their shoulders hovered Inkapod,
Inkalot and an octopus named Bernard and a sea dragon called Gertrude. They all smiled as the
process of vetting the paper began.

Nick had just landed in Sydney and was getting picked up by his wife from the airport. The
cognitive upgrades had oozed into nothingness over the last day or so and Alison reported hers
had drifted away also. Nick looked up at the blue sky and realized he was looking forward to be
home so that he could start up a salt water fish tank for his newest passion: cuttlefish. Alison had
told him yesterday about the new desert aquarium she was going to use to raise a colony of small
spiders. He stretched, life was good and he was glad all was back to normal. He just hoped Jim
didn’t have any more papers for them to vet.
Just then his cell phone rang.

”Nick, this is Jim. I’ve found some funding and I think I’ll be able to come next month to work
on models! How does that sound?”

Nick tried to answer, but found he could not. Hi wife was surprised to see the fingers of his hands
form into talons as if they were trying to inject something. She glanced at him as he shouted

”Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!”

and beat on the dashboard of their old and venerable Volkswagen van.
Nick was usually odd when he got back from a trip but this was a bit weirder than usual! Little did
she know that over at the children’s hospital, Alison was taking kids temperatures with talon like
fingers....

Jim hung up the phone. It seemed like his cognitive transfer experiments had gone off without a
hitch, no side effects at all. He looked up from his terminal and patted Inkapod on the head.

”Good job and you too Inkalot. I bet Nick and Alison really appreciate what I did!”

Christmas 2012

Hi all,

Christmas 2012 started with making the cephalopod based ginger bread cookies I am famous ( or infamous ) for.  My kids helped me do this over Thanksgiving.  We start with a standard ginger bread dough, roll it out about 1/8" think and then cut out the cephalopod patterns.  I just drew a Christmas based squid, octopus and cuttlefish out on heavy cardboard and cut them out with scissors.  Then you lay the pattern on the rolled out ginger bread dough and trace its outline with a knife, peel it out of the dough and place on a cookie sheet.  I used parchment paper under the dough to keep things from sticking.  Here is a Christmas octopus ready to be cut out.  The pattern has the colors for the hat and so forth we want to add when we do the icing.

After it is cut out it looks like this.

Here is the Christmas squid laid out on the cookie dough before cutting it out.

Once cut out, here you can see the squid next to its pattern.  You can see how we will try to color it with icing too.

Once enough have been cut out, we have a cookie sheet full ready to bake.

And after baking, we have our undecorated cookies.

The kids made a few other christmas cookies -- like a whale!

After decorating, the cookies went into plastic bags so they would still be fresh throughout the holidays.

Then we decorated the house for the holidays.  We always do that at Thanksgiving.
Here is my home study with lights.  The light strings have a lot of space oriented ornaments like shuttles and star trek themed pieces.  Some of them say things when you turn on the lights, so in the morning when I turn on the lights in my study, I hear this wonderful crazy blend of "lift off" and other sayings!

Then we put up our tree and decorated it.

Now we were ready for the holidays!

The Sleigh Bed: Part VII

Hi all,

Now that the sleigh bed was finished, it was time to do the staining and varnishing.
My wife Pauli handled all that.  After I finished the headboard assembly, I took the headboard assembly to the Bunny Mansion (our small art studio in the back yard) for the staining and varnishing.  Usually, we have used an oil based Watco sealer stain which penetrates very well but takes a long time to cure -- three days.  We wanted the sleigh bed to be done in time for a Christmas delivery so we looked at water based stains.  Our daughter Qaitlin picked out a stain plus dye combination that used a walnut base with a cinnamon dye added.  So while I worked on the tailboard assembly, Pauli started the staining.  Here is Pauli in her "staining" outfit:

The water based stain was a lot more difficult to use than the oil based Watco.  Pauli had to be quick about spreading the stain and wiping it smooth as it dried very fast.  So there was a tendency for the stain to show swirls and other patterns if Pauli wasn't careful.  But Pauli was and the only thing I really did was to help her by picking up the headboard assembly so that she could work on the other side.  These assemblies were big -- like 48" tall and 63.5" wide and being made of 2" thick ash very heavy.  So I did the heavy lifting whenever possible.  Water based stains when they dry raise a fuzz on the wood so it is important to lightly sand with 320 grit after the stain is applied.  Pauli made the stain by mixing 1 part Cinnamon to 3 parts walnut in a steel bucket which we could close up each day.  After the first application of the stain and the sanding, she then eyeballed rubbing on some additional cinnamon highlights.

She repeated this process on the bed rails which I had by this time brought into the bunny mansion too.
This is what the headboard assembly looked like:

and the bed rails looked like this:

Pauli then added three coats of satin varnish sanding between each coat.  After a week and a half, I finished the tailboard assembly, moved it into the Bunny Mansion and Pauli did the same thing to it.  When that was done, we moved the pieces into the house so I could add the finishing touches.  We assembled it in my home study.

Qait's mattress fits on top of cross slats which are covered with plywood that has been wrapped in batting and sheets.  The support slats looked like this:

Then the plywood is added:

And the batting and sheets:

The sleigh bed was now done and needed to be driven to Charleston, SC where our daughter lived.  It took awhile to pack it into the van -- we used every blanket and pillow we had!!-- but after a 4 hour drive it was installed in Qait's apartment.  This is what it looked like:  first, Dad and Qait

Then, the sleigh bed with the Queen of stain and varnish!

So a large project done!  And to put it all in perspective, here is the original pile of wood:

Then after a lot of work leaving this pile of scraps

once again, the finished project!

The next projects involve writing some stories, some software development and finishing up some technical books.  And some electronics!!

The Sleigh Bed: Part VI

Hi all,

This post is about how I did the slats to make the headboard and footboard for the sleigh bed.
The original design used slats separated by spacers.  Let's look at the headboard.
The top is the crest rail, the bottom in the cross rail and the slats fit into a dado cut into the
bottom of the crest rail and the top of the cross rail.  You can see the basic pictures in Part V of
this post.  The assembly was a lot easier in that case.  You would cut the top and bottom of the slat
to fit the dados, put in a spacer and install the slat by twisting it into place.  Of course, as you got to the end of the headboard, the twisting and popping into place got a little tricky. However, the spacers were what
made it all work because it gave you some leeway to twist.

My version does not have spacers, so I had to make enough slats to fill in the headboard
and figure out a way to get them installed.  Each slat for me was 1 13/16" wide so I needed
a bit more than 34 slats to fill in the board.  Essentially I cut the notches to make each slat fit into
the dadoes one at a time, glued them together carefully.  This gave me a large piece of curved wood
about 17" by 62" which then had to be trimmed to 60" wide to fit the headboard.

It sounded so simple, but as usual the details were difficult.  It was hard to line up the
34 slats so they fit right and when I cut the slats out on the bandsaw I was not perfect, of course,
so once the glue set I had to bring the board down to a smooth finish using whatever tools I could find.
That took a while!

Then once I was satisfied with the board, I had to glue it together.  The head board was so large
it was unwieldy and so I was pretty nervous when I started the assembly!!  It worked out fine,
but I did sweat blood as they say!!!

So with my introduction done, let's go over the details.

Here is a typical picture of how the bandsaw setup to cut out the slats looked like.  It was the same for the headboard and footboard slats, although they, of course, were slightly different in shape and length.
I laid out 34 slats for each type of board on the 2" ash stock (actually 1 13/16") and then rough cut them
so they fit better on the bandsaw.  Then I cut out all of the slats.  Naturally that took awhile and I was very careful as repetitive cuts are the most dangerous types of cuts for amateur woodworkers.  Cutting out the
slats required my fingers to guide the movement through the blade pretty close to the blade sometimes.
So you have to know where your hands are at all times.  So I took frequent breaks.
When I did the headboard slats I thought I could help with the alignment for the glueing step by
drilling holes for 1/4" dowell rod through all the slats with my drill press.  That way the slats would align nicely.  Here are a few slats assembled that way with the dowells inserted.

However, as I said, the dowell rod alignment idea did not really work out and so I didn't use it when
I did the slats for the tailboard.  There were several problems.  First, 1/4" dowell rod wiggles a bit so the alignment is imperfect and second,  I cut the ends of the slats individually to fit the dadoes and then
did the assembly.  In the process of cutting the ends of each slats I moved the slat alignment holes
a bit up or down in each one.  I found this out when I tried when I tried to dry assemble the headboard
using the dowell rods as the alignment key.  Of course, it didn't work as the dowell rod only went in a few slats before it hit wood and was kept from sliding in.  Still, at the time I thought it was a great idea!!
Live and learn as they say.

Here are a few slats just set in place into the bottom dado.  They don't fit into the top dado but you can get the idea and see where we are going with this.

Now to fit the slats into the dado, we use the crest rail alignment cutoffs we made earlier.
We install it into the legs using dowell rods.

We cut the slats to fit into the bottom dado, then put the slat in place and mark how it should fit into
the top dado.  Once that is done, we take the slat to the band saw and cut out the notches.
We had to fine tune this process a few times.  The next picture shows a plywood slat which is
a bit off center in the bottom dado, so we didn't really use this one.  Instead we cut a new
practice slat, fit it into the bottom dado and then measured for the top one.  We did this
iterative process until we were satisfied with the look of the slat in the dado.

The finished practice fitted slat became our master which we used to mark
all the slats we had already cut.  So we mark each slat, cut them on the band saw
and then went back to the front of the bed and checked the fit.  It it seemed to tight
we trimmed a bit on the bandsaw.  We did this for all 34 slats on both the headboard and the tailboard.
Just slow and careful work.  The "master" slat looked like this:

Here is a typical rough cut slat fitted into place.  You can clearly see there will be a lot of
smoothing and sanding to come!!

and here is a picture that shows me using the master slat to mark the cutouts for the dadoes on one of the rough cut slats.

The marked slat then looks like this and I take this to the band saw and cut out the notches.

As you might expect, all the band saw work and the later sanding and smoothing steps generate a lot of dust!
I was very careful to protect my ears and my lungs as you can see in this picture.

Once all the notches are done, the assembly begins.  I carefully cleaned out each dado.
I went back and used my drill to enlarge each dowell rod hole for the crest rail
by wiggling the bit around.  The dowell rod needs some slack so you can get all the pieces fitted.
I also went and made sure each slat slipped nicely into its place in the dado on top and bottom.
I did this in the dry assembly stage.  I numbered each slat so that I could check its fit
in the particular place in the dado slot it was supposed to go.  At this stage the dry assembly looked something like this.  The alignment marks didn't actually work out but at this point I thought they would!

Once I thought I had everything set, I laid the bottom rail on my benches and fit the slats into the bottom
dado.  This gave me a dry assembly that looked like this.

Then came the glueing.  This was pretty intense as I had to apply and spread glue to both sides
of the interior 32 slats and on one side of the outer two slats.  But still a lot of glue and it had
to be done relatively quickly.  Here is what is looked like clamped up.

Next, both sides had to be smoothed and sanded.  I used bench planes, hand scrapers,
a belt sander and a rotary sander.  The best thing was the rotary sander with 40 grit.
It just took a lot of time: 6 hours or so for both sides of the headboard and about 4 hours
for both sides of the tailboard.
The finished headboard looked like this.

Then the headboard had to be assembled: it had to fit into the crest rail and the bottom rail.
That was hard to do.  I did it by placing the bottom part into the bottom rail dado on my benches,
propping up the top and fitting the crest rail to the headboard.  I had to go back and fine tune a few
places to make the pieces slide in smooth.  Then I went to one side and fit the leg on that side
onto the cross rail leaving it out a bit.  I had to fine tune the mortise/ tenon fits a bit too so they
moved smoothly in and out.  Once the bottom was it, I carefully got the crest rail on that side
started.  That's where it is essential you have some play in  the dowell rod it as you have
to wiggle a bit.  Once it was started I used the flat of my hand to pop it in some more
so the fit was in about 3/4 of the way.  I then did the other side the same way.
Then  I used a block of wood and my hammer to get it snug.  Once I was sure it all worked,
I took it a part and then did the same thing with glue.  I glued the mortise and tenon joints
and the dowell rods.  I also added glue into the dado slots.  Then I used a lot of clamps.
Here is a picture of how the clamping looked for the tailboard assembly.

At this point, the headboard assembly was pretty close.  I looked it over and
added a mix of white glue and ash dust to imperfections.

The board with the imperfections looked like this before I smoothed it out.

The headboard was almost done and looked like this:

I was a bit unhappy with where the top of the slats fit into the crest rail dado
and although I tried hard you could still see a gap there.

The gap was worse on the head board as you can see above, although I did do a better
fitting on the tailboard. So I rounded an edge of an ash board
and then cut 3/8" wide strips which I glued to the top of the headboard and attached with
a pin nailer as well.  Then I went back and sanded both sides of these added strips so they
fit seamlessly into the crest rail.  I did the same thing for the footboard.
Here is the tailboard all done.

The last thing I did to clear up the look of the headboard and tailboard was to carefully go along the bottom edge where the board assembly fit into the cross rail dado with a sharp chisel to make sure all of the slats fit into the dado evenly.

Next, the bed had to be stained and varnished!!

The Sleigh Bed: Part V

Hi all,

Now we need to attach the crest rails to the bed.  Out of the extra 5" on each crest rail blank,
cut off two 2" pieces and mark them so you know which piece came from which rail.  I marked one the tail and the other the head to keep them straight.

Now go back to the templates used for the legs.  Mark the positions for the dowel rods
and two alignment holes on the template.

and transfer this to the 2" crest rail pieces.

Attach to the end of the crest rail and drill the start of the dowel rod holes.  My Forstner bits are not long enough to finish the holes with the jig installed, so I drilled as far as I could and did the rest trying to be careful to keep the bit straight at all times while I was drilling.

When done the edge of the crest rail looks like this.

Then mount the jig on the leg and drill dowel holes again.

Now dowel rod assembly is always fussy, so be prepared to shave a little here and there
on the parts as you try to fit them together.  But it all works out and you have installed a crest rail!

After both crest rails are installed the bed looks like this.

Next, I need to do the slats.  They will fit into the dados in the crest rail and connector rail as shown
below.  I am using a flexible ruler to get the curve I want.  Then I need to make a template for the slats I'll use for the front of the bed.

I like to practice so I made the template and then cut out some slats out of a 2 x 6 construction grade piece of pine.  The ends of the slat have to be notched to fit into the dadoes.  Doing this for each slat can lead to errors, so I'm going to assemble all the slats first and then cut the notches all at once.  Here is that pine slat.
You can see how the notches are not cut accurately enough.

But even so, you can start to get a feel for how the slat pieces will work out.
Here are 4 pine slats fitted into the front of the bed.

Next, the actual slat work!