In any case, Toyota's going to have some massive legal bills.

In other news, I'm utterly shocked that a Prius can reach 94 MPH, even with the accelerator welded to the floor.

I do intend, however, to follow Michelle's advice.

My race is American.

* Other than the "how many people live at this address" question, of course.

I'm not a big fish in the pond. I'm not even a medium-sized fish. I'm not even sure I'm a multi-cellular organism.

But I like it here. I'm not going anywhere.

Some "greatest hits" and personal favorites:

A promise.

In 2007, the beginning of a long, long journey.

A historic yet topical rant.

John Kerry and his long lost brother?

A film review.

Hallucination.

Fame.

A dirty word.

One reason to watch the Winter Olympics.

Naked chicks with guns.

There's no knowing what the future holds... but I hope it's more ranting and less neurological stuff.

Oh, wait, no... since it was the government sending the form letter, it didn't really cost anything to mail it... right? Right?

I was only slightly more disturbed by the fact that the letter was printed in six languages.

The first thing one does, though, is to ensure that everything that is supposed to be included in a kit is, in fact, included. In this case, the kit contains sheets of laser cut parts, bundles of strip materials, sailcloth, fittings, accessories, sheets of plans and the manual.

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The first step in construction was to assemble the keel and the stem pieces, which are laminated together from pieces of 3/32" basswood, left and right sides, each of which is marked with lines for the rabbet. I wondered why they didn't just cut the parts from a single piece of 3/16" basswood, until it occurred to me that it would be virtually impossible for their manufacturing process to accurately align the rabbet markings on both sides of a single piece of wood — and accuracy is critical.

Did I mention the accuracy of the laser cutting? Holy smokes. The halves of the keel and stem pieces aligned absolutely perfectly.

I used just a few touches of wood glue to tack the parts together, then clamped them. Most of the gluing was then done with cyanoacrylate wicked between the parts; the idea was to avoid the warping that often accompanies the use of water-based glues with wood.

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Once the glue had cured, I then assembled the stem pieces to the keel, and added the one-piece sternpost.

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The parts all securely fastened to each other, I then followed the manual's recommendation, and cut the rabbet, into which the hull planking will later fit, on both sides of the assembly. A brand-new (and exceptionally sharp) X-Acto blade helped to make quick work of the task.

Well, OK, not quick quick — I took my time to get it as right as possible.

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Earlier, while the keel assembly had been curing, I cut out and cleaned up the parts that go together to make the framing jig, then cut some strip basswood to make the sheer line reference tabs, which were glued onto the molds, located by conveniently pre-marked (there's that laser again) lines.

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Finally at this stage, I assembled and glued the molds to the center "false" keel one at a time, being sure that each was square to the keel. I went a bit beyond the kit instructions and reinforced the joint between each with a block of basswood, and then, per the manual, braced the edges of the molds fore and aft with short lengths of basswood; I used 3/16" wood out of my own stock rather than the 1/8" supplied with the kit. Each piece was sawn to approximate length, then sanded to length, to fit between the molds without nudging them out of alignment; friction held them all in place until I used a dab of CA glue to fix them permanently.

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Next up: fairing the molds, and making the frames.

It looks like this project won't take anywhere near as long as I took building the Black Prince; the skills I develop during this build are going to be different, but useful.

A bit of background, from the kit manufacturer's website:

As captain** of the HMS Bounty, William Bligh demonstrated an obsession with paltry matters. Too hastily provoked, he antagonized officers and crew with frequent and uncontrolled outbursts. With tempers already flaring and resentment simmering, a trivial matter of coconuts stolen from the ship's store provoked a true mutiny. On April 28, 1789, Fletcher Christian and his sympathizers took over the ship, casting Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters adrift in the Bounty's 23' launch.

In a remarkable feat of seamanship, Bligh navigated the dangerously overcrowded boat on a 47-day voyage to the Dutch colony of Timor, equipped only with a sextant and a pocket watch. He recorded the distance as 3,618 nautical miles. While struggling to survive, he kept a log and produced highly accurate charts and surveys of the seas and the terrain, such as the Fijian Islands and the northeast coast of Australia.

The Bounty's launch was typical of boats issued to Royal Navy ships of the period. Historically accurate and highly detailed, Model Shipways' HMS Bounty's Launch kit is based on original plans from the Nautical Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. . . .

Bligh, by the way, had an eventful and perhaps even moderately illustrious career after the famous mutiny; he commanded ships-of-the-line at Camperdown and Copenhagen, was governor of New South Wales, and reached the rank of Vice Admiral before his death in 1817, aged 63.

Next up: construction begins.

* More properly, it should be HMAV (His Majesty's Armed Vessel) but since the kit uses HMS (His Majesty's Ship) that's probably how I'll refer to it.

** He was only a Lieutenant, but as commander of the vessel, he was entitled to be called Captain.

I gotta tell ya, without being able to get supplies from a place like Model Expo, this hobby would be far more difficult.

* No I didn't. I flipped a coin.

In the mind of the public, it is still a hole in the ground.

In the mind of the bureaucrat, it is a WELL MAINTAINED and PROPERLY ORGANIZED hole in the ground.

Comment by reader "pilamaye" at Hot Air. Emphasis in the original.

The main point of the linked page: Steven Crowder makes his final appearance in a PJTV video, examining the progress, or lack thereof, in rebuilding the World Trade Center. It's an incredible piece of videography, a true "must see."

You can see in the pictures that there are two colors of rigging, black and "natural." Black line represents rope that would have been slathered in tar, which stiffened them and helped preserve them against wear, tear, and the effects of being exposed to the elements. This was typically done with ropes and cables that were meant to stand in place full time, such ropes earned the term "standing rigging," and included such items as the shrouds and stays.

Ropes that were meant to be frequently worked by the crew needed to be more flexible, and so were left untarred. This included such ropes as the "running rigging" — the lines used to raise and lower the spars, handle the sails, and such — or those which, as in the photo below, put tension on the shrouds by being reeved through the deadeyes.

Do I need to define all these terms? Probably. Just click the links, or ask a question in the comments.

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So anyway... the kit from which I am working comes supplied only with natural line; the builder is expected to either dye some of it black (a disaster waiting to happen) or supply his own black line. I chose the latter course, but while working on the ratlines, used up all I had sooner than expected. In some spots you'll see tan rope that I'll end up touching up with black paint.

This is a pretty simple model, as such things go, but it still took me an entire day to do the foremast ratlines, a total of about 90 individual knots. (At that rate, it would take me a full month to do just the ratlines on something like HMS Victory. Fortunately, speed increases with experience.) The ratlines in the photo above are spaced only ¼" apart; tweezers and magnification are indispensable. The paper clipped behind the work in progress was also essential; it made visibility of the lines much cleared, and the lines drawn on the paper were helpful for keeping the spacing correct.

The usual thing to do when building such a model is to set up all the standing rigging, then do the running rigging, as would be done on an actual ship. For the model builder, this eliminates much of the potential for accidentally snagging or tangling lines that have already been meticulously placed.

It turned out, though, that I only had enough line to just barely finish "rattling down" the foremast shrouds, so while I waited for a shipment to arrive in the mail, I chose to set up some of the running rigging on the foremast, rather than wait to complete all the standing rigging on the mainmast.

There is, as far as I know, no local hobby shop from which to get supplies as needed, so I went to my usual online supplier, Model Expo. Having received a fresh batch of rigging line (20 meters of 0.25mm black poly/cotton) I got back to setting up the mainmast.

(Minor trivia: the masts are not glued into the hull; they are held in place solely by the tension of the shrouds and stays.)

Last night I managed to get the mainmast shrouds tensioned. It looks a mess right now...

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... but I could conceivably be done rigging by the end of the week.