Assignment 6 - Mental Armor (Mark Terra-Salomão)

I was one of the lucky(?) few who learned to use the CNC before this week. I had seen some of the worst atrocities it had committed against plywood. I knew its tricks, by which I mean path-setting, feeds and speeds, cut heights, tool selection, how to turn on the vacuum on the bed, etc., etc. I thought I was prepared.

My strong faith (in being nice to grandmas) inspired me to create a Christmas gift for my grandma that depicted Jesus - in his most famous guise as Rio de Janeiro's Cristo Redentor - flanked by a Portuguese cross. These two icons would fit into a 1/2-inch base that would also have a placement for a votive candle. It would increase the value of my Christmas gift to my grandma, because instead of buying her some kitschy religious thing I could make one! It was supposed to look like this:

It turns out I wasn't as prepared as I thought. First off, my group's plywood was of unexpectedly bad quality. Then, in the heat of the moment I forgot to program some basics - to cut inside the line for the tabs on the base, for example, and to cut out the cross-inside-the-cross before cutting out the cross itself. Well, needless to say it was Jesus that remained at the end of the day. (As always. Are you ready to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?) Thankfully, grandmas generally love and accept any gift, especially one cut out with high technology and shaped like Jesus.

Ultimately, I should have been more thoughtful with the CNCing process this time around. God punished me for my pride. He of course kept his only begotten son more or less intact, minus the back of his head (Zombie Jesus!).

Photo credit: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/114/d/1/zombie_jesus_sez_happy_easter_by_locopuff-d3esdh5.png

The only way I could make up for my sins was to self-flagellate.

I'm talkin' 'bout sanding!

Since both of our projects failed hard, Yasmeen and I combined our projects to create "Jesus Take the Wheel!" If you are not familiar with this wonderful meme you should familiarize yourself: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jesus-take-the-wheel.

That's Danny Gomez barnstorming Jesus. He's probably going to get excommunicated for this.

Bananas in Rio! Not much of a miracle, actually. Daily occurrence, really.