By (Note: I recently referred to inventing a few items when I was commenting on Bride of Mukor's site. This is a re-post of an entry that refers to one of those items.)
"She just looks down and finds them."
Alex, our son, was telling me how one of his little girls was adept at finding bugs and cicada skins.
"She's a lot closer to the ground than you are," I observed.
"It's not that. She is really good at spotting things. Michaela {her older sister} and I can be staring for minutes at a Where's Waldo type puzzle and Carrie will point him out as she walks by. It drives us crazy."
He didn't need to tell me that last bit about crazy. He used to do the same thing to me when he was a college student. I'd be working in my shop on a fixture or jig for some new project, like my obelisk clocks, or rock lamps, and Alex the engineer-in-training would ask, in passing, "Wouldn't it be better if you blah, blah, blahhed it, instead?"
[One of my rock lamps. It took a lot of experimenting to develop the correct processes for making these things.]
Then he'd continue on his way, leaving me to stare in puzzlement at his receding self. Then I'd look at my handiwork. Then I'd stare into space. He'd be right, of course, and you'd think I'd be grateful. I was grateful eventually, but that wouldn't be the first reaction.
He was also logical when he was a tyke. I think he was about seven when we both noticed a screw sticking into the side of our car's tire. I got a pair of pliers to pull it out.
"Don't do that," he advised.
I did it. The tire hissed viciously.
"Come on!" I shouted.
We drove to the corner service station on the rapidly flattening tire. We made it, and got the tire patched.
Alex showed remarkable grace. He is a gentle soul, and I don't think it ever occurred to him that he could have ribbed me.
So, as Art Linkletter used to state, "Kids say the darndest things!"
And often, he might have added, they say the right things.
I LOVE your lamp. I could see it being used in spas or natural living hotels. Very crafty. How did you do that without the rock splitting or splintering?
Yeah, I am always tempted to show my frustration when one of my children interrupt my train of thought with an observation of their own, and a few times I act on that frustration. But the times I take a deep breath and let them have a say, they usually say something about the world around them from their viewpoint... and I learn something surprising. Like, our dog military crawls to make it under our coffee table. I had never noticed before :).
I drilled the rock using a hollow diamond drill. The drill looks like a tube with a rough end, which would be the diamonds. Water runs through the drill during the operation. The water cools the drill and flushes the rock dust away.
The whole procedure requires a drill press with long spindle travel, some garden hose, a sump pump, special water swivel, a tie-down jig in a container, and a resevoir.
It took me a little while to get it figured out.
Then there is the part about the lamp shaft and the lamp base, both of which I made.