One pound, eight ounces of steampunk

October is steampunk month at my once (and future, I hope...I'd love to work with them again!) publisher Tor.com, which is tres cool, even though I'm not the sort of person who dresses up, even for Halloween, and I like my technology solid state wherever possible. But I just returned from my parents' house with this beauty:

nonno's levelMy grandfather was a carpenter by profession and my dad was one by avocation, and thanks to the latter's desire to shed as much weight as possible while packing things for a move that's happening sooner than we all expected, this level is now in my toolbox. Actually, it's not. There's a reason modern versions are made of aluminum, but the wrought iron, brass, and steel cleaned up beautifully. It still works, and not only as decoration, so we can now monitor the status of our mantel with style. Once and future style.

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