There are several industrial-looking spinning wheels by Babe, with cheaper PVC frames. One has a treadle. They are still $200-240 each. But they are basically the stripped down version of an artsy wooden wheel.

Looking online, I found several projects that created spinning wheels using bike tires. These spun onto a long piece of metal, called a spindle, instead of the flyer and bobbin that are common on the modern wheels. Here’s how to build a spinning wheel from a bike tire from Rosemaryknits.blogspot.com (Thanks!). There is a link at the bottom for her second generation model, and what changes she made, and why. Rosemary seemed to really futz around with it until it worked. (I may try this one.) This second plan for a bicycle spinning wheel has a PVC pipe frame. A book called Foxfire2 from the 1960′s talks about how to make a spinning wheel, and you can read it online. (Although I had a little trouble with the reader software.)

Here are FREE spinning wheel woodworking plans from Craftsmanspace.com. It’s the real deal – they include a treadle (foot peddle), bobbin and flyer assembly. They look great – I just don’t think I have the woodworking tools beyond a drill and hammer. Measurements are in metric and inches. This might be doable if one omits the fancy lathe work on the frame.

I also found several paid plans for homemade wooden spinning wheels from Wollery.com, Craft Designs.com.uk, and elsewhere:

Pretty great homemade wheel plans from a blog “ReluctantOrdinand”. This wheel is made from plywood mainly.
Schneider’s No Lathe spinning wheel plans for Saxony wheel ($9 US)
Schneiders Lathe spinning wheel plans for castle type spinning wheel ($9 US)
CraftDesigns.co.uk – $26-28 US for several different styles, including castle and Saxony, and Old English. The advantage here is that the man will sell you the metal parts for $92 US if you need them. (click on “plan prices”)
Woodworking plans for a Saxony Wheel ($14 US)

Here are several drawings of differnt types of spinning wheels through history. This is handy in seeing the older spindle type (without flyer and bobbin). I have been thinking about these, and how to make something using a bicycle tire.

There are also some crazy plans out there for electric spinning wheels. DreamingRobots.com makes a kit for an electric spinning wheel. It comes either assembled for $240 or disassembled for $130. It kind of makes sense, although something in me rebels, longing for the non-electic low tech art. I think its the treadling with the feet that makes it soothing.

Another electric spinning wheel from Hansen Crafts.com includes different choices of woods. The advantage here is portability. However, the prices are as high as a traditional spinning wheel ($600!). I am looking for a lower cost solution, not the same $400 and up for a traditional spinning wheel.

Well, there you have it. I think I’m going to try the bicycle wheel route for now from Rosemaryknits.blogspot.com, and try to incorporate a bobbin and flyer onto it somehow, or try the plans from ReluctantOrdinand. Wish me luck!

Imagine it – living a life two, four times, or more, longer than people currently do, in healthy, active life.

The Methuselah Foundation strives to eliminate and reverse aging, and in the meantime, stop all the diseases old old age that strike down our cultural richness. From their website:

The Methuselah Foundation is a non-profit medical charity dedicated to extending healthy human life through proven programs supported by people like you. The Foundation supports a variety of strategies that will accelerate progress toward a comprehensive cure for age-related disease, disability, and suffering. The ultimate goal of the Foundation is nothing less than to enable humans to live longer, better, and wiser, by defeating age-related disease and suffering.

One of the companies associated with the Mprize talks about “printing” organs for a person using their own cells. The organ would not be rejected as foreign. Another person is quoted as saying that aging is not longer considered inevitable or necessary.

Imagine the possibilities for your lifetime if we can achieve this. It’s an amazing idea, that I had to share with you.

However, there was a new episode on August 8th: airline passengers were stuck in a plane that had just landed for six hours. The plane had landed early in Rochester instead of Minneapolis, to avoid severe thunderstorms. The airport in Rochester, NY, was closed, and was only being used by Mesaba Airlines at the time (a division of Delta). Messaba employees wouldn’t open the terminal to the passengers stuck on the plane at 12:30am on August 8th.

The airport was closed and Mesaba Airlines employees — the only airline employees at the airport at the time — refused to open the terminal for the stranded passengers.(Yahoo News article)

(What was required? Did they just need someone to open the door, or put out the gangplank?!)

A Yahoo News article about passengers being stranded on the tarmac quoted the President of Mesaba Airlines, John Spanjers, as saying he “continues to feel it operated in good faith.” Really? It was OK to keep people who had already completed their trip on a plane on the tarmac? Why do we put up with this? Mesaba, a division of Northwest that was acquired by Delta last year, needs to revise its thinking of passengers rights. Would you want to be treated like that? And how about the ExpressJet employees, who operated the flight for Continental Airlines, who had to deal with all those irate people? Was Mesaba being fair to them?

There is a need to keep passengers safe, which I acknowledge. We don’t want people walking all over the tarmac. But there has to be a point where common sense dictates – I believe the ExpressJet captain should have called the airport authority or the police, and forced Messaba employees to open the terminal to weary passengers. At least they could have gotten a meal, shower, and slept in a hotel for some time.

The Department of Transportation fined Messaba $75,000 and Continental was fined as well, though less (the article doesn’t specify).

Congress is considering a law establishing a 3 hour limit for passengers being held on the tarmac, which the airline industry opposes. But there has to be a limit! At the 3 hour mark, the airline has forfeited it’s contract with passengers who paid money for the trip service. If they can’t complete the trip, they should let passengers complete their travel on other airlines, and help them book them. That’s my opinion.

We are a full service game store, carrying hundreds of games in a wide selection of family board games, card games and hobby games.  We have a large selection of open games available for play in the cafe for free.

Our theme is best described as “Haunted Victorian.” Our goal is “spooky fun.” Younger children are welcome at the cafe.

The business hopes to reintroduce great games to families and people who haven’t played in a while, as well as offering a wide selection for the long-time boardgame players. In a nod to the spooky theme, many games will have a spooky or horror theme, including the co-operative board game “Dracula,” and dark humor style card game “Gloom.” They stock many games related to HP Lovecraft’s Cthulu and Arkham Horror, and a very large selection of dice. (Who knew dice could be so pretty?)

The best customer draw has been boardgame “Meetups” (from Meetup.com) and women playing Majong in the cafe. Many people have stopped in to see what is going on during the Majong playing, saying that they meant to stop by so much sooner.

One would think the cafe would be full of teens and 20 year olds, and although they do have customers of all ages (including kids from the dance studio next door), many of their game players are couples coming on date nights to the cafe.

One unexpected result of the name – early on a few customers came in looking for “hunted game,” as in deer meat. Apparently the search engines didn’t catch the “a” in “haunted.” Oops!

They are located at 3307 South College Ave, in Fort Collins. Between Foothill & Horsetooth, in the Red Lobster plaza, on the west side of College Ave.
They are on Facebook and Twitter.

The show is shot at a French castle called Chateau de Perrefords, that was probably built long after the real castle period. Why do I say that? There are lots of windows, white smooth stone, and large rooms. Of course, some CG work may have expanded it further.

In the interest of balance, I have to let a few grumbles surface: this show is not based on any of the Arthurian legends. You might as well throw out any misconceptions you have there; Arthur is a pompous jerk, Gwenivere is a plain serving lady to Morganna (magical nemesis to Merlin in the lore), and Merlin arrives in Camelot a young man of seventeen. In some Arthurian lore Merlin was old when he met Arthur, and got younger year by year. They’ve taken the main Arthurian characters and reworked them into a soap opera of love triangles. Morganna likes Arthur (when he isn’t being a jerk), Gwenivere likes Merlin, but will be wed to Arthur, we know, eventually. Somehow her family will come into money, and she will be raised from a simple blacksmith’s daughter.

I highly recommend this TV show to anyone looking for a pleasant way to pass an hour: no bad language, no sex, just a little magic, adventure and fun.

We eat food for vitamins and energy. Food = energy for your body to run. Fruits and vegetables start to lose their vitamins after they are picked, much as flowers wilt without water. Eating them closer to when they are picked will get you more food value (benefit) for each carrot, apple, or celery. I think this may be one reason why the French are healthier in spite of their increased smoking and drinking: they shop and prepare their food daily from local farmers.

When food is picked early, before its ripe, and shipped long distances, it doesn’t have the full flavor either. If you’ve tasted farm-stand strawberries and apricots, you’ll know it’s the truth. Sometimes the fruit isn’t even close to ripe (green bananas, anyone?). I can’t believe a hard apricot that ripens at home has the same vitamin A as a tree-ripened, soft, melt-in-your-mouth fruit. If you want more energy, looking at better quality food is a start.

Farmers would benefit from selling locally, too:

Shipping costs money for gas. Who really wants to send corn and watermelons “on tour”?
Farmers are competing nationwide with other farmers for business.
There is spoilage from shipping the produce.
Produce has to be picked early sometimes.

Farms in northern Colorado and other states offer weekly subscriptions: customers pay around $20 a week to get a bagful of whatever is ripe that week. You choose the size of the bag you want. Plans like these subsidize farmers and their families directly because they have pre-sold part of their crop. They know how much money is already going to come in during future months. And families benefit from the fresher product, with more vitamins. Subscription plans may also be known as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

Farmers’ Markets have been great so far with their fresh snap peas and more. Now my family is gong to try a farm subscription like this. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m curious whether we will like what we get and how it tastes, or end up with vegetables that I don’t often buy, nor know how to cook. I’ll let you know.

It’s a perfect idea to have every household and business in sun-soaked, deserty California hooked up to the energy grid, producing power from their own rooves for their own and other families’ needs. One household can produce more than their own needs in the summer months. Just imagine your electrical meter running backwards!

The bill funds nationwide projects with money from polluters. I had to weigh on California because I have lived there, and know how much sun is heating up houses, when it could be put to better use.

First, there needs to be a way that people can have continuity with their doctors. Right now every time someone changes jobs, they change helath plans. The plan change sometimes forces a change in doctors as well, to stay in the network. No one I know has the same doctor for ten or twenty years, which is important to get the big picture about someone’s health.

I was wondering how much it would be to see doctors directly, without the health insurance as an intermediary. Would the prices be lower?

And last, there are two ways to reduce people’s health care costs through prevention:

1) We should stop all spraying of pesticides on food crops in this country. They are known carcinagens, and the cancer rate is extremely high. (Look at the ladies from the 1970′s Saturday Night Live show. All three of the top women have died of cancer!) Pesticides may also be killing off the good bacteria in our digestive system that help us process food into usable energy and vitamins.

2) We need to encourage local consumption of farmers’ crops. Currently we are trucking produce all over the country. This causes higher costs for farmers, and reduces vitamin content for the end eater of that produce. This is because fruits and vegetables start to lose their vitamins once picked, much as flowers wilt without water.

Thank you for listening.

(This letter was sent via e-mail to the White House today.)