ATM Rotten Weekend

[Anthony Stillman <atmer@flash.net>]

Remember that seventies bumper sticker "S--- Happens"  It started Thursday
night, my insomnia and OCD got the better of me.  Friday morning,
afternoon, evening, I still hadn't slept.  Instead of heading down to
Chabot and the mirror making workshop as I usually do, I went with friends,
one in from the East coast, over to THE city (San Francisco), where we
walked from restaurant to restaurant, not eating and being told it would be
an hour.  This after looking for parking for nearly as long.  Eventually we
ate at a taqueria, it was awful, and headed home. Dinner conversation
mostly orbited my East coast friend's pending divorce.  Driving back across
the bridge I felt like I'd gone back in time, same sickning feeling, same
knot in the stomach.  I distracted myself by thinking about the weekend.

Another listy, Richard Ozer, earlier in the week had asked me, and others,
to help out with a public demo of telescope making techniques at the
pre-opening of the new Chabot Science Center on Saturday and Sunday.  When
I got home I started putting together everything I thought I might need.
Specifically I went looking for my refractor project.  Two weeks ago, with
the crown finished and one surface of the flint polished out I put the
project on hold.  The fact is I was having trouble measuring the finished
radii to the necessary precision and I thought taking a break might be a
good idea.  Last week at Chabot I worked a background project, I keep a
couple of these for just such occasions.  Well I looked and looked and
looked.  The crown, the flint and one of the test plates, they were all in
the same new different small box, were not to be found.  By this time I was
pretty tired and as I had to teach in the morning, I went to bed.

After school, background project in hand I headed up, and up, and up to the
new Chabot Science Center.  I got to ask, who in their right mind puts an
observatory on the top the highest hill around?  Hot and tired, I spent the
next several hours grinding glass (for a few minutes anyway) and explaining
that this was a mirror, not a lens, again and again, as did several others
from the shop.  Actually, it was fun to inform and incidently, there were
more kids there than adults.  Saturday evening I tore the house apart, but
still did not find the missing box of refractor glass.  I surmised I must
have left it at the old workshop and called Paul Zurakowski, the heart and
soul of the workshop, to see if there was some way to check the next day.
Paul said he'd make sure to bring his keys to the new Chabot on Sunday, and
so I let it go.  Well OK, I didn't actually let it go, but modern
pharmaceuticals still put me to sleep.

I'd been asked to bring a polishing project on Sunday, so I gathered up my
16 inch Walters' blank and its 12 inch figuring lap Saturday night and took
it with me the next day.  Having already dug an overly deep hole in the
center, I spent the hours working the edge and then washed it for test.  To
my dismay it now has hundards of scratches, more even than I'll tolerate.
I did wash everything prior to starting work, but I also left it unattended
to the steady stream of non-ATMs a couple of times.  Oh well, now I have an
excuse to take it back to fine grind and undo the overcorrection.

Following that I shot down to the old workshop with Paul's keys in hand to
look for the doublet box, a red Group 70 tee shirt stuffed in it for
padding.  I searched and searched, but saddly, no box.  I haven't given up
finding it, on the other hand the glass for a four and a quarter awaits.
When I returned to the new science center I started cleaning up.  While I
was in the back room Richard brought in the remains of his daughter's 6
inch blank.  It seems some young unattended non-ATM had used his invitation
only visit to the new science center to pound the blank sidewise against
its tool.  The only real question is, where were Betty and Barney?

I've got a generated 6 inch blank that I've offered to swap for the damaged
one.  Richard's nine year old daughter had already been taken home, so I
only had to look at his face.  Kind of reminded me of my East coast
friend's over dinner.  I'm not sure if there is any lesson to be learned
here.  Its hard to believe that this, or anything for that matter, could
make me more retentive and cautious.  It is a beautiful new science center.

Anthony