my cigar rolling video was added to the Leaf Only site!

My Utube video on rolling a cigar was added to the commercial site LeafOnly.com which I mentioned several times (favorably I might add!) in the video. Leaf Only is a Connecticut based company offering wholesale and retail tobacco and whole tobacco leaf to the public.

my cigar rolling area and tools

Rolling a BIG cigar

a video of me rolling a cigar

Awesome wearable motorcycle check out the video

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1735797252?bctid=1729330625

my new ride

Bought used but at a great price! Suzuki Burgman 650. I love to 2wheel!!

A terrifying prophesy...it may be inevitable!!

http://www.helium.com/items/1882339-doomsday-how-bp-gulf-disaster-may-have-triggered-a-world-killing-event

"Possible evacuation of Gulf Coast"...WTF

Check this out....
http://www.infowars.com/methane-and-martial-law-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/

Rendered stills from project in REVIT 2009

Here are stills from the project created in REVIT by Autodesk shown in the video below. It is a 3 story house on the water in Dunedin Florida. I exported the sheets into Autocad 2009 for final drawings.

Renderings were generated from within REVIT and not touched up in any other program.

A rendering I did with audio from an album of electronic music I composed in 2004

New old pic has surfaced...

Found in an old book on the civil war: my great great grandfather with fellow officers in front of the command tent. See if you can pick him out!

Slightly misguided...

What is wrong with this picture?? Or should I say what is RIGHT?? This is an actual patent drawing from an actual US patent from the 1870's. The parachute was attached to his head and the shoes had a energy absorbing cushion. It was designed for escapes from high buildings in case of fire or emergency. Not much actual physics involved with this one; and I think a fatality is certain with or without the device in a high escape!

Glass House #2

Another concept utilising a continuous sheathing of commercial storefront glass.

Glass House #1

This concept residence is entirely enclosed in commercial-style storefront glass. Storefront glass comes in a multitude of colors and tinting which can be mixed and matched.

Shipping container house using vertical units

Concept residence using shipping containers in the vertical position. Stairwells are contained in the vertical support units. Super quick on-site construction. The containers can be sheathed to disguise their original purpose.

Concept "Hover-ball" personal vehicle

This is an improvement on a hovercraft which would allow for use on normal roads and if approved for use on highways. It uses inflated ball unattached in sockets as a "connection" to the road. It would be precisely steerable and could literally stop on a dime. Replacing a "tire" would be as simple as lifting the vehicle and rolling the old one out and rolling a new one under the socket. It would use all current technology and talk about a smooth ride!

Concept Dome-Home

This is a concept for a home within a rotating-opening acrylic dome. With present technology the dome would have to be in small sections in a steel frame or casement (6'x12' or so each section). The dome rotates open to allow fresh air and exposure.

Concept Force-Feedback Taillights

Concept to provide a system to relay to following drivers how hard a driver is breaking.

"POD" concept for manned orbital insertion

This is a concept to "rethink" how we get astronauts into orbit. Instead of constructing a vehicle and making it an environmental envelope for the astronauts, we make individual environmental "PODS" for each astronaut and create a lifting system to deliver the "PODS" to an orbital ship or the space station. It is far easier to create a hardened egg-like environment (as opposed to a ship) which meets vehicle lifting capabilities. This concept has greater viable surviveability in case of catastrophic failure than what we have now.

Concept "Tower House"

This is a fun look at designing a house in the style of a fire lookout tower! Big money big structure...big fun!!

Concept "Wave House"

Here is a concept for an unusually-shaped residence enclosed in a shell of storefront glass.

Levee breach stopgap concept

This is an attempt to conceptualise an answer to a catastrophic levee breach due to undercutting,washout or overtopping. We saw Corps of Engineers dropping giant sandbags into the breaches in New Orleans levee after Hurricane Katrina. There is a serious need for multiple solutions to this problem.

Self-sufficient building concept

This is a tower self-sufficiet building concept with angled elevators and helipads.

Concept Pedestal waterfront house

This is a conventionally designed and constructed residence on a pedestal support.

Concept "container" Monopod House

This is a concept residence constructed of shipping containers assembled on top of a billboard monostand with circular stairs.

High building escape device #3

This device allows a person to grab a wrist strap (which inherently is very secure) and be lowered to the ground at a safe speed by a friction reel of cable. The cable would then retract and allow another person to escape to the ground, and so forth till all were safe. There could be mutiple units at the same location if required. This is also a very cost effective system.

High building escape device #2

This is a device to rapidly deploy and extend a personal parachute for escape from a high building in an emergency (fire).As opposed to the small "thrown" drogue chute used by thrill-seekers, this would be automatically deployed at use.

High building escape device #1

This is an idea for a device which, when deployed as an escape measure from a tall building, would slow a persons descent down to a velocity which should allow for survival. This was after reflecting back on the loss of life from 9-11-01 when dozens of people opted to jump from the building rather than burn alive. Those people had zero options (which on reflection is hard to believe). Did we learn nothing from the movie "Towering Inferno"?

This concept involves an inflatable spinning gyro rotor attached to a rigid stand-off assy with a body harness for the person to strap into. The size, material, inflation method would have to be determined by simulation and trial and error. The inflation could be similar to an auto airbag mechanism, and has to be rigged to inflate only after a person has exited a window.

Concept 3 wheel car

This is a concept fpr a three wheeled vehicle. It would have 270 degree visibility and a wrap-around guard assy to allow the vehicle to roll in a collision. The driver is strapped in for safety. The drive system is electric at rear wheel with batteries and regenerative braking system. Very small footprint makes for ease of parking, traffic, etc.

New additions to the Sharpened Pencil!

I will be concentrating on two of my interests in the near future: first my research in "Convert-erial" (converted materials) construction, i.e. taking our society's cast off materials and using them to construct affordable housing, and second: my interest in inventions and solutions to everyday problems. I will be posting my ideas and thoughts including sketches on these subjects. Although the sketches and ideas will be copyrighted I encourage anyone to contact me and suggest a joint venture to develope these ideas, or anyone offering funding to continue my research.
Keep coming back here to the Sharpened Pencil and see what I'm up to!

a sweet phone!

I just got my IPHONE 3G in the mail yesterday and so far so SWEET!! It was offered as refurbished or returned and I only paid 49 bucks plus sign up for 2 yrs with ATT service. It came in original packaging and was perfect. Everything was there and activating was a snap. Just install ITUNES and plug the phone into a usb port on the computer-Thats it!!

It auto-syncs everytime I plug it in. I copied about 500 mp3's from my hard drive into ITUNES and..ZIP... right into my IPHONE! got the 8 gig version in black. I have about 4 gigs free.

Anyone else have an iphone?? reply to blog with your experiences!!