Ownership and Fabrication

Two stories today. 

Ownership

The first story starts 14 years ago in the Summer of 2001 when I was hired as one of the two interns for my company. At the time, that meant there was a president, a vice president, and two interns. Right now, 6-ish people work there full time. Today we finished up some lawyer work, did lots of signing, and I became a 20% owner (along with another fellow that's been around for a while).

And that's it for that story. It's the sort of thing that feels like an important milestone to share.

Fabrication

Back in 2014's September, Greg received a birthday present airplane that you can take apart and re-assemble using toy power tools. It's brilliant! (Hi Matt, Beth, Addie, Kegan, Rowan!)

The only weakness of this awesome toy is that is has multiple parts. Power drill, wings, wheels, drivers, bolts... Bolts. About 8 of them.

Foreground: one bolt.

Not long ago, one of the bolts went missing.

Fortunately we live in the future. A future where machines not much larger than a big crock pot can turn plastic string into actual stuff.

A friend of mine (hi Melendra!) happens to have one of these on her desk in a subterranean fortress beneath our public library. The internet happens to have the CAD files describing exactly the kind of bolt I want to replace. And today, those two came together in a way that made my little guy think I'm awesome. (Ask me how excited he is about my change in S corp ownership status.)

It works!

We made a new bolt. The new bolt fits in the plane. The new bolt is red. It doesn't get much better than that.

Everybody needs to contact their local library and ask them to add makerbot machines to their list of services because these are super cool.