A volunteer organization supporting Palm OS enthusiasts in the Nashville metro area since 1999.
The Story Of The Palm Pumpkin
by Michael T. Ashby
(NPUG #1)
10/30/99
Every year, the Great Pumpkin comes to visit all the children on Halloween night. To help keep him organized on this auspicious night, he uses his trusty Palm V Connected Organizer…
Eh, kinda silly.
Today, Great Pumpkin, Inc. announced that they too are jumping on the Palm bandwagon, following in the footsteps of Handspring and TRG, by developing a new Palm compatible device - the Palm Pumpkin.
O.K., so much for the funny intro, I think the smell of pumpkin has gone to my head.
A few nights ago, I was carving a pumpkin. My wife and I had purchased one of those Pumpkin Masters® Pumpkin Carving Kits. You may have seen them in the grocery stores, it’s the one with the small saws and patterns? Anyway, I was carving the “Meowna Lisa” pattern and the thought hit me, “Wouldn’t it be cool, if I could carve a Palm into a pumpkin?”
The next day, I was working in Photoshop on a project and remembering my idea from the night before, I decided to see if I could draw a pattern for it. About an hour later, I had a rough sketch that I thought might work. It was somewhat crude and definitely NOT ready for primetime, but I figured I’d give it a shot and see what it would look like.
Last night, I began the process. Using the directions from the Pumpkin Carving Kit, I did the following:
- First I cut the lid, carving it at an angle so it didn’t fall into the pumpkin.
- Then I did the dreaded cleaning and scraping. I thinned out the front of the pumpkin (where the pattern would go) to a little less than 1 inch because this pattern was pretty delicate and I didn’t want it to be too thick and heavy for the design
- Next, I taped the pattern to the front of the pumpkin and then transferred the image by poking holes along the edge of the pattern with the Poker tool.
- Once the image was transferred, I then used the various saws to carve out the image. It’s a lot like connect-the-dots and, much to my surprise, it actually worked! I started from the inside and worked my way to the outside - starting from the Palm logo to the outside lines of the Palm V.
- Once all the carving was complete, I lit it up and took some pictures.
Now that it’s complete, my wife has labeled me an Uber Geek. Of course, I had to laugh, because it IS rather silly. I mean, how many people look at a pumpkin and say, “Hmmm, I think a Palm V would look killer!” I’m sure that it will scare all the kids tomorrow night, “Eeeek, it’s a haunted Palm Connected Organizer!”
So, I guess you could say that my Palm enthusiasm is terminal, but at least I have plenty of friends that I can share it with. Happy Halloween everyone!
Michael T. Ashby
NPUG Director
More Pictures
Select any of the thumbnails below to see a larger image:
