5 Elements Forge Hammer-in

My friend Geoff hosted the 2nd hammer-in in what may be a series. He continued working on a blade that he started last time as part of his press-testing. This time it was surface grinding and heat treating. Photos are at http://alchemyforge.net/5EF-H2-jan2010.html The finished knife will be donated to the Northwest Knife Collectors as a raffle item at their next fundrraiser, and I think they decided to do a sort of rifleman's knife with a forged S-guard... but I wasn't privy to the entire conversation, so we'll see how this progresses.

He also had engraver Tom Sterling in attendance with a hands-on demo. I wasn't able to participate in that, but it looked like fun. Geoff's Mrs made some killer chili, cinnamon rolls and cornbread, and the lunch table conversation was interesting and stayed on-topic (i.e. it didn't stray into the political) which was nice.

First Grad School app is on the wing...

I'm actually a week late with this.  Last Monday I sent my first grad school application to the College of William and Mary, via certified mail. It really feels like it was weeks ago.  I almost forgot to send my transcripts but got those ordered and they should be there by now.  I know I won't hear until April (at least) but I'm already nervous... that's great.  My application to Washington State University is next and I think I'll be removing those blog entries (saving them for another time) just in case some intrepid application reviewer decides to look for me in the interwebtubes.   In related news, I'm almost done with this semester- one assignment and a final, then I'm done.  Next semester has me working on my internship, one philosophy class (a capstone, and I'm hopeful it's not as "busy for the sake of being busy" as the capstone I dropped this semester was) and a 1-credit seminar about food choices (based on the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma").  I'll go through commencement in May and finish my degree over the summer with more internship... maybe a "real" class if there's something that I just can't resist.   So, I'm going to have to spend some time in the shop over the next month to get some projects out. That should be fun, although it was 23 degrees this morning. I better make sure that heater works.

Thoughts on banner ads...

This http://blog.pelland.com/?tag=banner-ads got me thinking.  You guys really were doing a good job.  According to that article, the average click through rate is about 0.2%.  One of my blogs had about 500% click through a couple of times and each had about 100% click through- so I can see why AdSense thought something was fishy.   The article also confirmed my gut reaction- people don't really like banner ads.  According to the article, 94% of people dislike banners, just 1% less than the number of people who hate pop-up ads.  Wow.    So even if AdSense reactivates my account, I probably won't reactivate the ads.  I have a hard enough time keeping any semblance of respectabiltiy, I don't need to shoot myself in the foot on top of it.

Ads...

I've had a few emails this morning asking me what happened to my ads. My AdSense account has been disabled, but Google won't say why (it's a "trade secret").  I did submit a help request last week asking why I wasn't getting page impressions but I was seeing ad clicks- no response (surprise). I appealed the disabling of the account and we'll just have to see what happens.  I guess you folks were just -too- curious about the advertisers.   I may have to reinstate the paypal buttons.

Almost out there...

I'm almost done with this semester- then next semester will be one class, a seminar and an internship, then an internship over the summer and I'm done with my distance degree. After this, I'm hoping to be accepted to graduate school where I can study blacksmithing in either the colonial or fur trade era.
In the mean time, I'm thinking about working on projects from Sonn's book or carving knives out of smaller, thin stock. Those would be quick, and useful tools are always satisfying. Mostly just bored, not really tired and wanting to blog about something.