Escucha y Repita

When I was younger and learning spanish, I remember having to listen to a record of some disembodied spanish speaker (whom I always imagined was wearing bell bottoms and a turtle neck and maybe some clunky jewelry) and she would always preface whatever she was saying with: "Escucha y repita," which means listen and repeat. She nailed the intonation and rolled those r's so that escucha y rrrrepita is like a mantra of mine.

Anyhow I say all this because my taiko journey has been just that. My latest project is making some shime stands, and although I've made a stand once before, I wanted to make the tripod-ish version of the stand. So one night I borrowed a stand and made my own diagram and measurements of this:

And then went to Home Despot and got a bunch of lumber and screws and other hardware, and then flipped through this book that Janet gave me:
. . . and after a little trial and error and a bunch of just jumping in with a handsaw, some clamps, and my trusty drill gun, I came up with this: 

I bought those T-shaped metal braces but I don't think I need them. What do you think? I think it's sturdy enough as it is. I used a lot of glue and nice long screws. The other shime stand at RCW doesn't have the braces and I think it's holding up well. Plus that's nice birch hardwood.

I'm thinking of tung oiling that baby. I just need to make the crossbar thingie that connects the bottom sides together, and then it's done! One down, 2 more to go!