It doesn’t matter some weeks are just going to suck...

I've spent all this week sick with a head cold. Getting sick here is part of life with so many people coming and going. It means i lost a week in the gym and fencing. I'll try to go to the gym every day this coming week and see what happens.

The bizarre was not so good this week ether, an outfit i promised someone had been sold, So I'll have to wait to see if i can get another when they restock. The prices are still going up with more and more US personal coming to base. You can't even get the $2 carton of cigarettes any more. I picked up some moves, three for $5 Chinese ripped copies. Due to miss labelling and bad copies only one of the three was watchable.

While there I let myself be swindled by shinnies. I brook two golden rules of market shopping; never purchased a gem stone at the bizarre, and always haggle. I've become a veteran of the market and built up a network of merchants and so become lazy. I am use to starting with the whisper in my ear price. The Gem are a totally new thing, so new merchants to deal with. The plan was just look around but one just caught my eye. Turns out its a lab grown sapphire, but it's pretty and didn't cost too much. It will still serve its purpose.

This new interest in gem and the new purpose started with a few shops on the boardwalk opening up, one of them is selling quite nice gem stones at not bad prices. The idea got into my head that it be nice if some of the household regalia had real ruby and sapphires, household colours. Before any one thinks I'm some kind of big spender these stones are very low grade, too low to be sold in North America.

So looked at my pictures form the British museum to see what cuts of stone are period. I can find round and oval faceted cuts but they are the exceptions and only 15th century and later. The dominate seem to be full sphere and cabochon. I can get cabochon that are star and sphere are totally out, no one cuts stones that way anymore.

On the upside i found an article about a DIY kit for a 3D printer. For those who don't know these are printers able to make plastic objects. The Kits about $1200 US, which may sound allot but a off the shelf unit is usually around 30 to 40 thousand. ( http://www.makerbot.com/ ) Another thing to same some money up for.