Ah well,
today is the International day of Translators.
They seem to have international days for all sorts of things now. But
this is a good one for me, because I had my book translated into Chinese and
have just heard today, after months of translating and negotiating, that my
book will finally be bi-lingually published in China.
Its been a long road, and
in my opinion the writing of the book is not the worst part, it is the constant
hassle trying to get it out there. Persistence is the name of the game I reckon.
I was sent a
fabulous link for a set of pictures
about Africa. There are some terrific
pictures there. You might enjoy them too.
One of the
pictures is of an elephant family. This reminded me of a picture I have. You
might not really call it a picture, it is made from wood using a technique
called intarsia. If you have never seen this
kind of work, check out the link here.
I have an
uncle. Well most of us have uncles, but my one is a really clever guy. He was a
builder in his working days, now at 80 years of age he spends his spare time in
his workshop making everything imaginable from wood. He has all the machinery
to make the most intricate stuff from wood. He has made all sort of machines,
boats, trains etc, from tiny bits of wood all put together like a jigsaw. He
has even made a tractor with these kinds of tracks that tanks run on. I can’t
remember how many pieces are in the tracks, I think maybe he said about 600
pieces.
I tried to
upload a picture of the tracks but it didn’t want to cooperate, but you know
the kinds of caterpillar tracks that tanks and big machinery moves on.
Wikipedia says......Caterpillar
tracks work on the same principle as a conveyer belt. The tank engine rotates
one or more steel sprockets, which move a track made up of hundreds of metal
links. The tank's wheels ride along the moving track, just like the wheels in a
car run along the road. Earlier tracked vehicles weren't practical in battle
because their steam engines were too cumbersome and unreliable. The internal
combustion engine made tracked military vehicles feasible.
Tracked
vehicles can move easily over rough terrain because the track makes contact with
a wide area of the ground. A car grips the ground with only the bottom portion
of four tires, but a tank grips it with dozens of feet of track. Additionally,
the track has heavy tread that digs into muddy surfaces, and it never goes flat
like a tire.
Anyway back
to my elephant. My uncle belongs to a woodworking club in his city, and has won practically every championship at the local woodworking shows for years. He has also done lots of
animals using this intarsia work and when we visited him a couple of months
ago, he gave me this elephant. Pretty good eh?
