Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Dec 15, 2020 22:51:32 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]Judy scooted back from the digging, sitting up with her legs pointing towards the coast. Michael continued digging, but was very much taken with observing Left Ear's work. When she asked him for his opinion on the digging, he naturally deferred to the expert. "What do you think, Grandma?" he asked. "Well, we want to dig pretty deep to hit the water table, and when we dig, it's always easier to make sure the top of whatever it is we're digging is wide enough," Judy began to answer, educating her grandson in engineering principles. She then stood up, pushing against Max's shoulder to support herself, and walked over. "Let's make the trench as wide as my foot. Dig down until you find water, and out all the way to the sea," the trained engineer issued her judgement, marking an indentation with her left foot just down from where Left Ear and Michael were digging. Michael, remembering some past lessons from his Grandma, then had an idea. "Let's use an assembly line," he suggested. "Left Ear can dig, because you're really good at it, Grandma can put the sand into buckets, and I'll make towers.""And Grandpa?" Max asked, as Judy got to work packing sand from Left Ear's pile into buckets. "You can get us water," Michael assigned without hesitation. "And lens-cleaning wipes. I can see Michael's glasses are getting dirty," Judy added. Max headed to get bottles of water from the cooler, and lens-cleaning wipes from Judy's purse. "Do your people dig burrows?" Michael asked Left Ear curiously, still impressed by her abilities. Anna continued to chronicle the work with pictures.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Dec 17, 2020 16:57:28 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] Left Ear listened to Judy's instructions with narrowed eyes as she pictured what the woman was describing. It was going to require her to get down close enough to the water that she was going to get wet, but Michael's enthusiasm was infectious and she was actually having fun. It was also going to take forever to get all the sand out of her fur, but the Sivaoan laid flat as she began to dig deeper into the trench. When water started to well up in the bottom, she called, Found it! and moved down to start the next section. It went a little faster since she knew how deep she was going this time. Left Ear paused when Michael asked his question, brushing her hands to clear some of the sand from between the pads. Some do, I believe, if they live in terrains that allow for it. It's also a technique we can use for emergency shelter if we don't have usefuls or access to branches to throw up a tent. The part of Sivao I lived on is forested, so the need wasn't really there. And my people prefer forested areas anyway. We're more likely to sleep in a tree than in the ground if we can help it. Safer from most predators on Sivao.She leaned back over the trench and returned to digging, sneezing explosively at one point as she had a clumsy moment and accidentally drove her nose right into the sand.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Dec 18, 2020 0:53:14 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]As Left Ear dug, Judy had to work at a relaxed but consistent pace to keep up. She kept the sand-filled buckets coming for Michael, and also got quite a bit of sand on herself, including the sunglasses, which made Max's timely arrival with wipes all the more welcome. "You're a life-saver," she said to him, appreciatively, as he cleaned her lenses. "Anything for you," he answered, before moving in for a kiss. As she took a picture of the pair, Anna thought it was just the right mixture of sweet and cringeworthy to go in the anniversary album. Satisfied for now, she went to put the camera away. Michael listened to Left Ear, while pushing the sand out of the buckets to form towers. He was quite efficient at it. "Humans are exactly the opposite. It's less safe for us to be in a tree," he observed. "Except for structures we build. We built a tree house in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard on Earth, after Grandma's first heart attack, and that was safe."Judy had devoted some of her recovery time to making plans for a tree house, which Lawrence, Gerald, and Max had then built, for the grandchildren to enjoy under supervision. Michael had realized the connection to the heart attack only recently, having learned of the existence of these events after heart attack #2. Max moved on to cleaning Michael's glasses, as he (and Judy) listened in on the conversation.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Dec 20, 2020 19:34:23 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] I can understand that, Left Ear replied to the six-year-old. Humans aren't really built for quick tree-climbing. She paused in her digging to teasingly wiggle her extended claws at Michael. Chunks of sand dropped from between her pads as she did so. A tree house sounds interesting. I'd like to see one. I wonder if it's anything like the structures they built in our quarters for us to climb on. Then she proceeded to explain since she doubted that Michael would have any idea about how Starfleet had set up the suite for the Sivaoans. When we came to Front Ear, they tried to make our quarters as close to nature as they could. So there are lots of live plants in pots, real and fake vines everywhere, and large structures in the center of the living space with platforms and hammocks for us to climb on. Most older Sivaoans don't climb much, except to get away from predators, but many my age and younger still climb and sleep in trees for fun. It's also important for us to have surfaces to sharpen our claws on.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Dec 21, 2020 18:41:05 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]"It's a little like the platforms, but with a little house on it," Michael answered, having accompanied his Grandma to inspect those once too. "We used a lot of angles and straight lines.""The concept that we used was... actually, we can access the files from my PADD. Mini-me, can you get my handbag?"Judy thought that, given the differences between human and Sivaoan architectural and engineering customs, a structural drawing was worth 1000 words. "Sure, Mom," Anna agreed, and brought the handbag over, while the older woman brushed sand off her skin. "Thank you, dear."Judy swapped her sunglasses (which had only a distance segment) for the usual bifocals, took out her PADD, and (through a linkup from it, to the runabout, to the station), accessed her files. She came closer to Left Ear and Michael, letting them see the files. "That's the tree house," Michael pointed it out in a 2D photograph, before Judy flicked that aside for a blueprint. "As you can see, we have it on a platform made of a series of planks, sort of suspended on the tree, and we have a ladder and a nice lift system to bring people and things up and down, and then there's the actual structure, which is very much kid-sized."With a height of 1.5m, indicated on the blueprints, the ceiling of the treehouse itself was such that an adult would have to stoop to enter it. The lift, consisting of a large basket and a pulley system, had a design limit of about 30 kg, the brainchild of a concerned grandmother who didn't want her infant grandkids being carried up a ladder. The entrance to the tree house, the edge of the platform where the lift and ladder deposited arrivals, had a proper railing around them. "Michael used to go up in the lift, when he was small enough. The other munchkins still can," Anna recalled. A slightly distracted Max went to move the blankets closer to the build site, although not so close that they'd get dirty. He didn't mind being conscripted to carry things over for Judy, but it seemed more efficient to put things within her reach.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Dec 24, 2020 16:58:17 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] Left Ear tilted her head as she looked at the pictures and diagrams. With their perfect eidetic memories, Sivaoans didn't save visual representations of information, except for data needing to be displayed in charts or graphs. She understood the practice, though, having worked amongst other species for the last several months. That looks like a fun project, she commented. It might be interesting to build something like that on the holodeck. That is possible, isn't it? she asked Judy curiously. Left Ear had visited the holodeck a few times, but wasn't sure about how difficult it was to create or build things within a program.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Dec 24, 2020 21:54:32 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]Max chuckled, himself caught up in the reminiscence. "I'd love to try that. It was an excellent experience... to build something from nothing, essentially," he said. "The one... issue is that nowadays, because I'm not ill, I have to keep up with my day job, so I can't go and draw up designs like this. That was really the reason Max suggested the tree-house to begin with - to entertain me," Judy added, with a humorous inflection. "The initial goal was to mollify Judy's workaholic tendencies, but we all had fun in the end, especially the youngsters," Max clarified further. Michael and Anna both recalled (he from the second heart attack, she from both heart attacks and the hip replacement) just how bored the family matriarch got without something to do.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Dec 27, 2020 2:25:08 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] Left Ear considered Judy's words as she returned to digging the trench. She was close enough to the ocean now that a particularly vigorous wave would have the potential to get her pretty wet. Her arms were already soggy from the water that was rising in the trench, causing more sand to stick to her. But she was enjoying the project and decided she could tolerate the wet. Maybe I could show you how we build some of our structures instead, Left Ear offered. We make tents with usefuls, which is pretty quick and easy, but if we know we're going to stay in one place for a while, we use reeds, leaves and other resources to make more permanent dwellings. You can make all sorts of beautiful designs with different colors and textures and sizes of leaves.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Dec 27, 2020 18:14:12 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]"We could do that," Judy said. She had been interested in Sivaoan architecture for quite some time, and her previous attempts at observing it were foiled by a holodeck malfunction[fn] S1E3, after the time jump.[/fn], so she wouldn't mind another opportunity. "Your designs sound very beautiful," Anna commented. There was a beauty to some human engineered structures, including the tree house, but Anna wasn't fond of the utilitarian neo-brutalism of Starfleet terrestrial architecture. The natural designs described by Left Ear seemed more appealing. "When you plan a structure, do you tend to use more of an intuitive approach, or is there a computational process to it?" Judy then asked, curious to examine comparative engineering practices. Granted, most humans took a more haphazard approach to building small structures (like a tree-house), anyway. Michael was once again hard at work building the castle itself with the sand excavated from the trench. Max, on the other hand, sat back and took one of the guitars out of its case.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Dec 28, 2020 21:41:19 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] The Sivaoan considered the answer to Judy's question for a moment before replying. When her people had first encountered Starfleet, there had been many missteps on both sides as they learned about one another. She wanted to make sure she didn't imply insult to humans or how they did things. You know that my people don't use books, because we have near-perfect eidetic memories? She said this slightly questioningly, then went on. Because of that, all of our professions are learned by apprenticeship. For builders and architects, which can sometimes be the same thing, that means that you learn the styles and methods of your master and that's what you pass on to your own apprentices later. Occasionally, there will be opportunity for working with other builders and learning techniques from them, if they're willing to give them away. Some prefer to not pass on their styles or methods to anyone but a formal apprentice.
That doesn't really answer your question, though. Left Ear paused again. I think it may really depend on the individual. I know that for specific designs, a builder may want to observe and get to know the one they're building for first, and then they will create a design that suits their personality. In that way, I think the work is more intuitive, but much depends on the resources available and the size of structure to be built. I'm sure some measuring goes into it, but I've never actually taken the time to observe the entire process. Her tail coiled in amusement.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Dec 29, 2020 3:01:01 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]Like Left Ear just a moment before, Judy had to think out her own response, as a matter of cultural sensitivity. Even some humans would be offended by the sort of intellectual snobbery she could sometimes - inadvertently - convey. "That's very different from how we do it. Our approach to designing structures more complex than... well, a sand castle, involves a long, arduous process and a lot of complicated math, to assess the forces on every component of the structure, how they'll affect it, and whether it'll break. I spent years and years in our college system, learning in the abstract, from books, all the theoretical principles and the important formulae," she explained. "This is a little like an apprenticeship, actually," Michael said of the sand-castle construction process, prompted by what his Grandma had said. "We're learning by building it."Max nodded, proud as always of his clever grandson.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Dec 31, 2020 18:55:28 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] That makes sense, Left Ear replied to Judy. And for our permanent structures - we do have some, mostly one per camp - I'm sure there's much more planning needed than for tents. There have been times where a particularly severe storm will require that we strike all of the tents and take shelter in the permanent structure. They're built of stone and made to withstand extremes, though they are not infallible either.Left Ear was just about crouching in the ocean as she dug out the last couple of shallow feet of trench. As the waves ebbed and flowed, they filled the moat faster than the water seeping up from underground. She was sandy and soaked, but the Sivaoan was having fun, even knowing how difficult it was going to be to get all the sand out of her fur. It wasn't a matter of being able to simply comb through it, because adult Sivaoans had a tangled undercoat that helped protect them from injury and kept them warm. It was also useful when young ones used their claws to climb all over their parents and other adults. It is an apprenticeship, Left Ear agreed. And I'm enjoying learning how to make sand castles. Though, I may never get all of the sand out of my fur! She said this in a teasing tone, not wanting Michael to think she regretted helping him.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Jan 1, 2021 17:52:35 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]"Stone structures are the strongest structures of all," Michael pointed out, drawing on knowledge he'd picked up from Judy. "Michael is right. For all our calculations, and the centuries we've spent making synthetic materials, stone structures are the most durable. There are bridges on Earth, built almost 3000 years ago, that people still use to this day," Judy elaborated. "As for the sand problem, I'd lend you my shampoo, but it might turn you blonde."As their hair had dried by now, Judy and Anna's similar blonde hues were visible. However, a close observer would notice the former's white roots, indicating that at her age, she achieved this color (natural in her youth) by coloring. Max, in the background, tuned the guitar.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|
Ozu Saya
Engineering/Ops
[TI19]
Posts: 878 Likes: 29
Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer
Position: CoB/Chief Engineer
Species: Vulcan-Bajoran
|
Post by Ozu Saya on Jan 2, 2021 1:29:25 GMT
[ Left Ear to-Ennien - LZ-2 - Kerelia] Left Ear judged that the trench was completed and just managed to skip clear of a larger wave crashing onto the beach before it drenched her. As it was, her arms and legs were sopping and the rest of her fur was beaded with water. She nodded agreement with the assessment of stone structures, adding, Yes, our permanent buildings stand for many, many years. I once stumbled across one that had been abandoned, oh, at least a few hundred years ago. If we decide that an area can no longer sustain a camp, everything is cleared out and the forest is left to retake its hold. That includes those stone buildings ending up covered in ivy and other plants. Animals will use the interior for shelter, and they are the only sign that there was ever a camp there. Poof!Her tail coiled in amusement as she moved a little way down the beach, far enough, she hoped, that she wouldn't scatter sand and water on the others. The Sivaoan shook, hard, sending grains of sand and water droplets flying. When she was done, her body looked like it had nearly doubled in size, all of her fur standing out on end. Left Ear immediately applied her tongue, beginning with her left arm, licking against the grain of the fur as much as she could reach to warm and dry herself. She wouldn't have normally groomed herself in front of so many people, but Left Ear had become comfortable with these humans. While they might find the behavior a little odd, she knew they wouldn't think less of her for it.
Tag Judith Eastman
|
|
Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
|
Post by Judith Eastman on Jan 2, 2021 18:49:50 GMT
[Cmdr. Judith Eastman(-Williams), Max Williams, Anna Eastman Williams, & Michael Eastman - LZ-2, Kerelia]The humans were far from offended by Left Ear choosing to groom herself. They understood is completely, given that she was full of sand. In fact, Judy, having also gotten a lot of sand on her person, chose to follow suit. She put her glasses in her handbag, dropped it off with Max, and then entered the water a discreet distance away from the Sivaoan to rinse off. "I don't think you should watch Left Ear," Anna whispered to Michael, the two of them still working on expanding the sand castle. Presently, they were building a tall tower in the middle. "Okay," Michael agreed. He thought she looked a little funny, poofy as she was, but he understood that this might be a private thing. Max, meanwhile, channeled the attraction he felt for his wife in this moment into a romantic gesture, playing a song. He was a safe distance from the grooming, construction, and other sandy hazards, protecting the instrument. Judy smiled, picking up on the gesture, as she returned to dry land and toweled off again.
Tag Ozu Saya
|
|