iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 22h

"Did I leave the top to my Thermos at the rockyard. Feels like I left it on the saw." Oh. Thank you, camera. That helps.

A screencap of a camera feed. In it, a Thermos top is sitting on a blue industrial control panel.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 22h

Proof of concept for the new flushout system for Big Blue: What shoots several streams of water in a fan and moves that fan in a user-defined arc? Yeah. A lawn sprinkler. Still more of a manual process than I want (second iteration: irrigation line) but beats holding the hose the whole time.

A lawn sprinkler repurposed as a granite slurry flushout on a diamond wire saw.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

2026/10/16: Views from the rockyard

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

The newest addition to the rockyard uniform is a dairyman's apron. If it works to keep cow manure and milk splatter off of a worker, it probably works for granite slurry from the saw too. Fortunately, I go nowhere near the saw-wheels or wires while they're moving, so this isn't hazardous.

A body shot of someone wearing, from innermost to outermost, a long-sleeved flannel shirt, a dairyman's apron, and a heavy-duty cold weather jacket.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

Grabbed these so that I can shield the rest of the house from when I grind down the basement slab.

A one-pound package of 1½" common nails.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

Paying for pallets? Why? Other local businesses are trying to get rid of them, and I'm more than happy to help.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Welp, dust shield the first is up if not well-sealed. Just to be safe, I'll be putting two more behind it and using a fan at a window in the basement to create a negative pressure balance so the dust doesn't try to get past.

A plastic dust shield which is not yet properly secured anywhere but the top.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

I need this sort of tool to know where I should slice the granite to make stuff like, well, what's in the picture. I don't do installations, but I think selling flats is something Specialty Granite Supply should do, and part of that is not pushing granite with cracks in it on to our customers.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

This is what it looks like on the rock. This tool is fascinating: - If I hose it, it stays. - If I rub it, it stays. - If I hose it and rub it, it goes. Grateful to another local parent who uses it to mark wet logs for pointing me to it.

A 1⅚" granite flat marked with an ox pencil.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Oh. Good. My Ox Pencil came in. It and I are going to be good friends.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Not exactly hyped about turning my coding station at the rockyard into an entertainment center BUT, well, she's worth it.

A four-year old sitting on a couch with her back to the camera watching an AMV in the rockyard office, which features unfinished rows of power tools, a concrete slab and unfinished walls, and an improvised programmer's setup complete with fiber optic straight to the laptop. An antique schooldesk is holding a keyboard and a trackball.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

The thing about that locust tree's branches that the storm a couple weeks back tossed aground? They still burn.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Are you joking? Chanterelles? At the playground where my kid plays after school? Neat.

Some mushrooms, probably chanterelles, at the local playground.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

This curb has been annoying me for an age. A half hour with a sledge fixed most of it. I'll smooth out the rest with an angle grinder and then figure out how I'm going to backfill it so that the dirt underneath the asphalt remains stable.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The rockyard shop's bathroom faucet has not worked, probably since this WAS a rockyard. Jammed sediment filter in the faucet. Took ten minutes to correct.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The previous waterline needed the hose to be placed in the cut. That adds 5-10 minutes of fiddling per cut that I could spend coding instead. This is a POC of a new system. The final version will also have: - a wider arc of spray - proper fittings - fully-positional arm rather than copper tube.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

New setup for coding wiile watching the saw in the rockyard. I've configured four workspaces, and the visual feed to the saw is visible on the laptop inbuilt monitor from all four.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Elk in the field below my house. Please interpret the above as.thr alt-text as well.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Accidentally made this 8¾" by 9" triangle piece today. Going to slice it in half again and make a paired set of bookends out of it.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Decided to reposition the fountain rocks today. Hides a bit of the pallet pile eyesore from the road.

Before image of a bunch of fountain rocks

The fountain rocks were moved so that they partially block a couple stacks of pallets.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

2026/09/11: Before and After of The Tile Pile.

An excavator and a pile of roofing tiles.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

2026/09/10: Before and After of The Tile Pile

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

2026/09/09: Before and After of The Tile Pile

The excavator next to a pile of roofing tiles.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

2026/09/08: Before and After of The Tile Pile

An excavator next to a pile of roofing tiles.

An excavator next to a slightly smaller pile of roofing tiles.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

2026/09/07: Before and After of The Tile Pile.

An excavator and a slightly smaller pile of roofing tiles.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

2026/09/04: Before and After of The Tile Pile.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

2026/09/03: Before and After of The Tile Pile.

The same excavator and a slightly smaller pile of roofing tiles.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

2026/09/02: Before and After of The Tile Pile.

An excavator and a pile of roofing tile.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

2026/09/01: Before and After of The Tile Pile. There are nails in it, and but for that fact it would make great roadbed, so each day, I am loading an excavator bucket full of material BY HAND, taking the nails out when I find them.

An excavator and a slightly smaller pile of roofing tile.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Some of Dad's benches, some of mine. Hopefully the quality-level went sideways or up, not down, but, well, he knew what he was about.

Four granite benches and a granite table.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

My family's cattle herd very much knows when apples are being offered.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Thanks to @laurenblakeart.bsky.social for being the second set of hands getting this granite table set up for display.

A three-inch granite slab on a tall pedestal, meant as a table.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Enhhh, you win some, you lose some. Next one should work for the order I'm trying to send out before EOW.

A six foot long granite step which unfortunately has a big crack which popped apart during the saw cut.

Another angle of the same with the crack more prominent.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I finished rearranging what I call The Upper Deck of the rockyard today, that is, the part near the road. The idea is to keep the stuff that looks like a stockpile away from what folks drive right past, and put the more visually pleasing stuff there instead.

A picture of a granite birdbath, two flat address stones, and a perfectly-cut rectangular prism.

To the left of the original picture, three stone benches arranged in what I hope is an aesthetically pleasing manner.

The rest of "The Upper Deck". Two sitting stones and a bunch of space for more cool stuff.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I assembled it. His craft was so spot on. What a great piece. I aspire to this every time I make stone furniture. Exemplar. Not For Sale.

An assembled backless stone bench made of blue granite, about four feet across and twenty inches tall.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Well, the quarryman's hammers work really well for taking a lip off of the edge of a rock. Don't worry, old man, I'll handle it for you.

The same three inch thick blue granite slab with a pair of quarryman's hammers resting atop it.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I had set aside the last benchtop Dad ever made, the benchtop that he used to show me how to round a corner with a pair of quarryman's hammers. Apparently he never dealt with the lip the saw leaves.

A blue granite slab with a raised lip on one side.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Set all the bubblers that have already been drilled upright this morning. I like it.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I just really like the composition of this shot from the rockyard today.

A bunch of granite columns that will eventually be fountain rocks in front of an excavator.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Quick question: Is it good when sunset looks more like moonset?

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I did slice one new boulder today, but mainly it was taking a three-stacked pallet of imperfect slabs, turning what could be salvaged into smaller pieces, and scrapping what couldn't. All in all a good day despite no progress on the main order to go out start of September.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Well, these are starting to stack up, which is interesting mainly because they weren't built with vertical scaling in mind.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Order going out Friday. Dad used to set an outgoing order on its side like fish in a boat bottom but a month ago, Mom and I decised that stock should stand in the 'yard as it would be seen in a feature. Well, for excavator practice, I put today's order grouped upright and yeah, that looks awesome.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

2026-08-03: View from the drill stand

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Made the first of the new garden siding product line today: - one natural face - cut back - cut sides 90° to back - 6" from back to front edge at each side Also gonna make it available in a 9" deep kind.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Today's work was taking all of the out-of-place pallets and putting them into the stock area. Now everything north of the saw is pretty much in shape (Pics 1 & 2). South of the saw has some stuff that needs to go on the saw for further processing, so that's next.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Today's work was getting all of the stray rocks on the main slab up off the ground so that I can have a clean slate tomorrow.

View of the rockyard main slab, wonderfully clear of stray rocks.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Today was still warmer than is ideal, so I cleaned up the right hand side of the back of the saw before I retreated into the cool to code. Finished DevBlog tonight. It releases on Monday even if it posts to the website earlier than that.

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Gregory Blake @agregoryblake.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Yesterday (the 22nd), I managed to find our other TV. It will be repurposed as a HUD for rockyard matters, first showing a livefeed of the saw, but then also a task board and so on.

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