Greatest Nativity Play EVAR!

No really. It's painful AND it's funny.

Sweet find...

A week ago or so I visited the local Army/Navy surplus store in Oberlin. I'm looking for bits and bobs for a Steampunk costume and military surplus is sometimes a great resource. I found a cool looking map case for about $12 and a small canvas pouch for $2 that used to be used to carry hand grenades. As I was checking out I felt my Souk Sense tingle. My souk sense is like Peter Parkers Spidey sense but more practical. I don't need to know if Doc Oc is behind me, but I do need to know when something cool is nearby and for sale. That thing was a flintlock pistol sitting on a hook on the wall behind the register.

I casually asked the salesman about it and he said it wasn't real (well Duh) and some guy had traded it in or something. I asked to see it and tried to keep my composure as I checked it over. It wasn't real, but it was a very good reproduction. Made in Spain. Better than the mass produced items available at any ren fair. I had owned a nicer version a few years ago that I picked up in a trade and regrettably sold it at a Pirate event to make sure we broke even. I got $300 for it. This one wasn't near as nice but it was close. Real flint holder, solid barel, mechanism in good shape. I asked if he'd sell it.

"How much you offering?" he asked.

Tough call that, but as he knew nothing of its worth and I had nothing to loose I said "20 bucks".

"Sold" Sweet.

This picture was taken before I did any work on it. I completely disassembled it, sanded the barrel, cleaned up the firing mechanism, ground down the trigger to a smooth finish, polished the brass and treated the wood. Aside from a missing screw (which I replaced) and a cracked ramrod (invisible) it's in top form and looks great.

Achingly Beautiful

In addition to my love of paper ephemera, I have a deep love of old books and journals. So, of course any place that stockpiles them, any place that lavishly displays thousands of tomes in soaring cathedral like locals is enough to send my salivary glands into overdive. I present to you a wonderful collection of libraries I will some day have sex in around the world. Wait...what? Forget the sex part. I meant visit, libraries i will visit someday.

Courtesy of Curious Expeditions

Knees...getting...weak...

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a certain...weakness... for props and specifically paper ephemera. Maps, documents, old foreign money, deeds. Now some clever monkeys have created some awesome looking props and documents from Firefly.


There are blueprints that look just gorgeous. And the best? A set of official ships papers that are too cool to be believed. We never saw these in the show, just the leather case they were carried in, but these guys have done some awesome work in creating what should have been seen. Alas, they are $120 which is more than I can spend right now. They also look to be creating some other great looking props. If you are a Battlestar Galactica fan (and who in their right mind isn't) you might like to check out their tongue in cheek "How to spot a Cylon poster" for only $20.

Horay for Democracy!

Do they love us yet? No? Maybe we need to beat them harder.


Honestly. Is that what we've have become? Is this the America you are proud of? I want my country safe. But this is not making America safe, its destroying it.

Oh how the mighty have fallen...

What would Lord Vader say?

FAIL

That's the only way to descibe this show. I'd like to blame poor managment or low attendance. But I can't. The event is well run and well attended. The sad truth is that anime fans don't have a lot of money. At least not enough for our product.

Its been a learning experience, to be sure. I used to think that trekkers wore a lot of body shape innapropriate stuff. I was wrong. But there a great deal of creativity in how they attempt to mimic their favorite manga. And anime seems to truly embrace a wider social and racial cross section. That being said there are a lot of guys dressed as chicks. If you're thinking of attending an event, just be ready for a sausage fest in schoolgirl outfits.

Althouth we had nothing to celebrate I insisted we take a cab to times square. It would be a shame not to see such a NY landmark. It's quite a feast for the eyes. Almost seizure inducing. We grabbed a couple of tasty slices and watched the Hari Krishnas dance. (I swear to the gods a guy dressed like Batman was dancing and singing right along with them. Keen).

For a panniced moment I thought my phone was lifted but it turns out I only forgot it at the convention center. I doubt tomorrow will be better but hope springs eternal. If anything I now know that Anime shows are not for us.

Meanwhile...

We're in New York City at the Anime Expo. I had thought the show was in January for some reason and was flip flopping on whether I wanted to attend. When I checked the website I learned that it was essentially 2 days away. On a lark I contacted the dealers coordinator and due to a last minute cancellation we had a space if we wanted it. 24 hours later we were packed and on the road. This show is a big unknown. Table space ain't cheap and there's another (cheap) corset company here.

But we had to get out, get away. Get busy. I've been in a slump and doing a show forces you into action. It forces you to deal with problems and solve them. So we're in New York, waiting for a shuttle bus to get us to the event site (we're actually in Jersey). Its late. The dealers are starting to get twitchy. We open in a little over an hour. Driving over is not an option. This city and its drivers make every attempt to remove you from the gene pool. Plus the cost to park are like a hot poker up the but. Unpleasant to say the least.

A pretty shitty day...

We lost our cat Ray yesterday. He was struck by a car. Rossana had been worried about him because he wasn't at the door for breakfast. But I told he was fine. He sometimes comes late.

But I was wrong.

I recovered him and placed him in a cardboard box. I didn't want Rossana to have to do that, but I had to hand him over to her for burial because I had an emergency with a client. She buried him near the barn and hauled a large stone over to top it. She buried him with some food and a toy mouse and she placed a small statue of the Egyptian god Bastet next to the grave.

Ray could be a pain in the ass sometimes. For the longest time he didn't know how to purr or play. He could shred your hand without even realizing what he was doing. He didn't get along with Little One and attacked her several times. But in the end he was a good cat. He found his purr and learned to play. And he was totally affectionate. A total lap whore.

I am trying not to think about it because this stuff just wrecks me. Rossana is really torn up.

The day was topped off with a clients web site being attacked by hackers and knocked offline for 8 hours or so. It was a mad dash to recover the site, change all the passwords, find out what information had been compromised, and emailing the findings to the client.

Halfway through the day I took Rossana out. We worked collecting some fieldstone we'd been offered by our friend Grimm. It was cold/wet work but it kept our minds off Ray. By the time we were done and grabbed a meal the temperature had plummeted. Icy rain started to fall. We drove home with a van overloaded with loose stone on the most slippery roads I have driven in quite a while. We nearly slid right off the road several times. It rained today, but it was much warmer. My stomach started to unknot a little.

All and all a pretty shitty couple of days.

Walk it off son...

First, I want to state for the record that my version of the following events is the true one. The other person you may here this story from will say that it either A) Didn't happen B) Was a freak and completely unexpected accident or C) That I somehow put him up to it. These are all LIES.

My friend and sometimes co-conspirator Grimm returned to Ohio to get the very last of his stuff and finish some work on the house he is selling. As this work involved chainsaws I volunteered. Dangerous tools? I'm in! And to be truthful, there is nothing more manly than cutting up trees with a chainsaw. I have a small Craftsman chainsaw that never got to see much action down on the Gulf Coast after Katrina so I enjoy and chance to fire it up.

Things started out well. We hacked up a fallen willow tree. Well, I hacked while Grimm fought with a dull blade and a lot of thorn bushes. We eventually finished the willow and moved on to the main event. An upright but dead oak on the edge of his pond. It was a real eye sore and distracted from the nice view. So down it had to go. Alas, getting to it involved fighting our way through 20 feet of solid thorn bushes. These evil fuckers are the most spiteful plants on Earth and will actively attack you.

We finally cleared a path and prepared for cutting but Grimm insisted that a large side branch had to be cut off it first. He went off to sharpen his chain and I got the ladder. I leaned the ladder against the tree and scurried up to examine the branch and felt a strange sense of Deja Vu. I had taken down a branch like this when I first moved to Bag End and I knew that its shape and size would make it do what mine had done, namely try to kill the person on the ladder. I had been lucky. The branch I cut back then missed the ladder beneath me but only by inches. I came down and related my story of evil branches and then clearly and without ANY ambiguity told him that I believed this branch would try to take him out.

This of course, did not deter Grimm, who laughs in an unsettling way in the face of danger and common sense advice. He climbed up, began to cut and just as predicted, the partially cut branch swung back around and came right at the ladder. I will admit to flinching out of the way. I may have uttered an expletive. Then I saw that Grimm and the ladder had been knocked completely off the tree with some force. In fact the impact had swung the ladder around and Grimm hung onto it like a tick. I grabbed at the side of the ladder but only managed to have it smash my forearm and shin and knock me back. It hung upright for a moment, completely unsupported before slowly falling back towards the ice covered pond. Grimm I think realized that he had to lower his altitude or risk full submersion. He dropped down from the top of the ladder. Luckily a large mass of thorn bushes lessened his impact with the ground.

There were a few moment of "Holy Shit!" before he got up and got his bearings. The chainsaw had left his hands and was fully in the pond. He fished it out and I helped him back onto dry land. He came out remarkably well for such an amazing stunt. His hands were chewed up a bit and a few bumps and bruises. It could have been far worse.

I waiting a good 30 seconds before issuing my first "I f-ing TOLD you this would happen!", which he apparently didn't hear. I have repeated this statement several times but like a White House press secretary he denies it ever happened.

After we finished we headed back to Bag End. Grimm managed to redeem himself by changing the U-joint to his van in the shop. A task that involved hammers, a propane torch and a lot of hitting. After all my ribbing he was kind enough to help me with some new parts I bought for the Shopsmith.

My only regret about the day was that I didn't have a video camera at that crucial moment.

War is a swell racket..

I know we don't need any more cynicism in this world. The past 5 years are enough to make anyone a bit disillusioned . But I just found this great quote about war. The amazing thing is the source. A Major General in the Marines. It's an older quote, and yet it is even more meaningful today than ever.



"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

For my first trick...

With the addition of a table saw last year and now the Shopsmith, space has gotten a little tight in the shop. I am hoping to get some retractable casters for the shopsmith so I can roll it out of the way. But that still leaves all the accessories, each of which takes up room and are currently stored in a 'lean it against something else and hope I don't break it' kind of way.

The answer? Build a table. Now I know this thing ain't purty. It's made from the crappiest scrap wood I could find lying around, but it does the job. The table has sets of holes where each of the tools posts slide in keeping them off the ground and easy to get to. It's held together with deck screws, the star pattern kind rather than philips heads and I must say that it was like discovering fire. They are 286% better than using philips, which now seem like crude bits of bone.


I also changed the power switch on the shopsmith. Shopsmith actually has a bunch of cool videos on their site showing you how to do just these kinds of things. Yes I know that swapping out a toggle switch isn't exactly sequencing the human genome but it does involve putting your hand directly into the motor housing, a place hands aren't supposed to go. I managed to scape up my bear size paws pretty good in the process, adding to my sense of accomplishment. After all, it's not a successful shop project unless there's blood involved.

The most amazing thing you've ever seen...

People throw that term around a lot. But i think I can safely say that the following link will take you to a story about a place so amazing, made in secret by people with such passion, that you will agree with my statement that it is the most amazing thing ever. I don't know if it's possible to visit this place, but I am damn well going to try.


I give you, The Temples of Damanhur

Who are we?

I found this short film to be the most poignant thing I have watched in quite a while. If only we would embrace its simple truths, things would be a lot less messed up on this little blue planet.

Tool Pron...

Most women and many of those I call "tool impotent" may wish to click away to another site. This posting is about the sexy little number I brought home the other day, and man, can she deliver.

It all started a few weeks ago when I was browsing the toolmonger blog. They have a regular feature called "hot or not" where they ask if a specific tool is worth getting or lives up to its hype. The subject of this hot or not was the Shopsmith Mark V. This is a multi-function tool that first appeared in the 1050's and it's still in production today with almost no changes in funtion or design. The basic model is a table saw, a lathe, a horizontal borer, a drill press and disk sander. BUT, you can add ALL manner of accessories making it a true all in one tool. There was a great deal of debate on whether this was a tool worth investing in, since a new one (base model) is about $2500 and accessories can range from $2-400 bucks each.

Since I don't have a large barrel of money sitting around it seemed a moot point to consider its "hotness". But then I started checking ebay and craigslist. Sure enough, you can find used ones for a LOT less money. Often, they have accessories included. I found mine on ebay. It was bought at an estate sale and the owner was looking to make a quick buck on turnaround. I got it for $600! But wait, it gets more tasty. Included with the base unit was a Jig saw, a band saw (and blades), a joiner, router bits and a sander. Holy crap! All that stuff new would around $4500!!

My friend Ed drove with me out to Pittsburgh to get it and haul it home, a task that took the better part of a day (thanks Ed). I've spent the past 2 days cleaning, aligning and testing it out. So far everything works. The genius of the design is that it's A) Built like a tank and B) It has only one motor and IT is built like a tank. The power switch is a little flaky and the motors variable speed control feels a little off. Luckily parts and service are still available for it to this day. My unit was likely built between 1968 and 1978 and almost any new part or accessory I get today will work on it and there are a LOT of parts for sale on ebay.

I don't have the manual or the woodworking books that came with the unit originally, I may get these from the company. It was also missing the sanding disk, but that's it. Even without the manuals the design is so good that you can figure most things out yourself. I am beyond geeked about this thing. What should I build fist?