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Finally got some sun today! Had to go out and shoot the leaves again. Gotta take advantage of the sun in fall. I know this subject is getting a lot of coverage from me, but in another week or so there won’t be any leaves on the trees, and then all I can show is mud and rain. Bah!
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Actually, really it’s looking toward my side yard, but yanno, there’s no song with that lyric. I’m working with what I got at the moment.
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I finally got back to work on some rolling ball sculpture. I think I meant to do this two whole months ago. Progress is slow, but it is progressing. These are some of the parts for the marble lift assembly. I think I screwed something up, but I’ll fix it. You’ll never know!
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Was up at my folks’ place on Saturday, and the locals have a tradition of driving their old and interesting vehicles down onto the town square around dinner time. We all piled into dad’s ’27 Ford and putted over there to join in the fun. As we were walking around, this older gentleman pulled up and proceeded to park a full-size vintage Brockway semi tractor parallel as if he were driving nothing bigger than a Honda, air brakes and all! It ruled. I had to shoot this thing. I’ve never seen a restored semi tractor, and this one was awesome. My favorite shot was just this grille emblem. I wish they still put as much panache into emblems as they did back during the golden years of the automobile.
Tools of the trade.
Had to work the second job tonight. Here’s a bit of the equipment that I work with in the evenings. This is a 1950s-era Astatic microphone, pretty common stuff for harmonica players to use. It’s sitting on top of a similar-era Gretsch amplifier. I’m really tired, so that’s all you get. I’m off to bed! Maybe later I’ll tell you about the treasure trove of free books I was bequeathed with during the set break.
I just realized that no one’s asking, but I figured I’d put this up anyway. I’m not dead or even sick. I’ve not given up on anything. I’ve been taking photos every single day that I’ve not blogged. I’ve just been hella busy and not had time to put up any photos. In some cases I’ve not even been near a computer. The first time I was able to sit down and download everything going back to Thursday night was on Sunday night. Do you know how long it takes to download 919 pictures off of a Nikon using iPhoto and the sync chord? One hour and eight minutes. At the end of it, there wasn’t time to do anything else. Now I know why people have card readers. I also know why people buy spare batteries for their cameras, and why they have more than one memory card for same. Live and learn. This photo club is giving me experiences I’ve never had before.
So, tonight I hope to bring you some interesting pics from the past five days. I also hope to get the Chevelle running for its scheduled shoot Thursday night for the zombie movie “8 Wheels of Death.” I’m a little busy!
Ain't that bad. It'll buff out!
There’s a car down the street that I heard about years ago. It “lives” in the garage at the house on the northwest corner of my block. Until two weeks I’d never even seen it, but when I drove by the garage door was up, and a weathered old Mustang’s nose was poking out into the fading daylight.
Tonight on my way home I went by and for some reason, for the first time in who knows how many years it’s been ensconced in that automotive cocoon, the horse was out and sitting against the curb across the street. It’s seen better days, but this guy keeps hanging on to it. I think this is the same car I saw back behind a different rental in the neighborhood way back around 1986 or ’87. If so, it’s been like this for twenty years. Maybe in another twenty he’ll step up and use baling wire instead of rope?
After many weeks of deliberation and second-guessing and fearing for the worst, Tuesday night I finally set about putting the finishing touches on the rolling ball sculpture for which my friend Tina made the base. Getting some help on a base was a new twist on my sculpture building, short though its history may be. By the time Tina was finished I was so pleased with the results I was just certain that I was going to do something to horribly wreck the end result.
I didn’t like the most obvious method to me, which was to tie it down with wire through holes drilled in the base. Tina, of course, was totally fine with that, but I wasn’t. Being a fix-it/mechanic/backyard engineer, I had half a dozen concepts in my head for better ways to do it, ways that seemed classier, ways that would look better, and ways that might function better. These ways, these many awesomely-conceived and clever ways, generally involved materials that weren’t readily available (tiny U-bolts anyone?), methods that were time-consuming (fashioning custom brass feet interlocking with routed cutouts and countersunk brass screws), or stupid expense (back to those custom tiny U-bolts again).
I decided once and for all to use the wire and just accept the fact that, at this point, it was my best option both in terms of ability and expediency (after I mulled it over and fretted about it for four or six weeks…or, um, eight weeks, of course).
Tuesday night I picked up the drill. It was scary. I was going to drill a hole in this carefully executed bit of wooden artwork that Tina had created for me. Visions of a slip of the hand and the drill bit skittering across its surface, gashing the tongue-oiled brilliance of the piece went through my head. Yeah, that was what was going to happen, I was sure of it. Definitely. No other possible way out of it. Oh, well, there was one other: I was going to drill crooked holes with terrible burrs at the edges and the result would be so distracting as to make the piece as a whole just look like a hack-job.
Okay, maybe there was one other possible outcome: it would be fine, but I wasn’t betting on that one, at least not the noisiest part of my brain.
However, I listen to that quiet part of my brain more these days, the part that says, “Yeah, you know, there IS a possibility that things could go wrong, but, dude, you’ve drilled HOW many holes in your life? I mean, really, give yourself a little credit. You’re going to make reference in the divots before you start, and you’re one of the most ridiculously careful people on earth. You’ve stacked the odds in your favor that you can succeed at this. Just take a deep breath, and do the work. The results will be what they’re supposed to be, and that’s okay.”
So, having made my reference marks and double-checked everything four times (that’s eight checks total, right?) I fired up the trusty Skil cordless and went to work. Once the holes were drilled I went to work underneath with my fabulous rotary tool and routed out room for the twists of wire that would hold everything down tight. I should have take a picture of this part, but I completely forgot about it for once. I guess that’s a sign of how driven I was to finish the thing.
I feel very fortunate in that there really were no major snags. The wire ended up being pretty decent as a fastening concept, and I only had to cut and redo one attempt. I soldered everything on the underside so that it will hopefully never come loose. Then I put on a sheet of adhesive cork that Tina provided so that the base won’t scratch anything.
Here it is, and it’s fantastic!
Overall shot.
I don't have video, but here's a shot of it in action.
Detail shot of Tina's work and the mount for one of the feet.
I’m glad to have finally completed this one, and I thank Tina for making it really stand out. The other day I saw a notice online for a local art show that is having an open call for art work, and I think I may send a photo in of this one and see what happens with that. It may be that I can use this as an opportunity to meet some other folks who enjoy this kind of art.
Man, I’ve now finished up two creative efforts within the space of a week. Last Sunday was the novel, and then Thursday night I finished up this sculpture. I sure am glad I took some time out for myself to work on my projects. I’m feeling a little better about things now.
On a related note, weeks ago I was talking with a friend of mine about my sculpture work, and she said, “You know, my ex-husband used to do work with metal stuff, and I have a whole roll of copper sheet sitting around that I was going to throw away. Do you want it?”
I had a bit of a coughing fit for a moment, and then I accepted. See, metals have shot up in price (along with all kinds of other stuff) in the past couple of years. I had just been thinking about buying some copper sheet and trying it out with my sculptures, but I was a little concerned about the expense.
For a few weeks there were a bunch of missed connections meeting up with my friend again, but on Saturday a group of us were out for lunch, and she said, “Hey, guess what? I made sure to put the copper in the right car today. I have it for you!”
She hadn’t told me much about it except that it was “a roll of copper sheet.” When we got it out of the trunk, this is what I found I’d been bequeathed:
You may notice that this copper looks rather yellow. I did too. I said, “It looks to me like this may be brass.” She said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that.” I happily told her it was no problem, that brass would solder up to copper just as easily as the identical metal, and, in fact, I’d already started doing as much with my spare harmonica reed plates. I was totally jazzed and thanked her.
Later that night I went to take it downstairs. It was heavy. I mean, she really had given me a bunch of material. I got curious and laid it on the bathroom scale. Twelve pounds! That’s a lot of brass! I don’t know how many feet there are of it, but let’s just say I’m not going to be running out of it any time soon. It’s heavy gauge stuff too, so I’ll be able to fashion plenty of supporting objects out of it. It’s really good stuff!
I used to think that things like this just happened to people who were “lucky,” but these days it seems to me that if I put out the message of what I’m interested in, what I enjoy, what I’m working on, then things like this happen in turn. I’ve been operating under that idea for a little while now, and it’s been interesting what sorts of things have shown up in my life because of it. I see no point in changing tactics. Now, I wonder what would happen if I went around saying, “I want to write for a living” to everyone I ran into? Hmmm…
Stay creative!
Scene: Tom sitting at desk at work. (Yes, I do go to work.)
*ring! ring!*
“Thanks for calling Service-Oriented Finance Establishment. This is Tom. How can I help you?”
“Yeah, Tom, I need to do a price check.”
(Tom becomes intrigued, plays along.) “Okay.”
“I need to know what your cheapest forty gallon water heater is.”
“Well, sir, we are a Service-Oriented Finance Establishment, so I don’t have any information on that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have called the wrong number. Thanks.”
“No problem. Bye.”
This is only mildly amusing taken by itself. It slides into intruiging when you consider the fact that we get these sorts of calls quite often. I don’t mean “quite often” as in at least once a week. I mean we probably get six or eight of these a week. Many times they only say “Oh, sorry, I got the wrong number,” or they hang up on me (love that one, by the way, thanks). However, the scant number of times that the caller has identified the nature of the call leads me to wonder just what in the hell people are using for a phone directory.
Last week I got a call for a doctor’s office. After I identified myself the woman said, “Okay, my name’s Idont Listen, and I need to speak to Doctor Wallace. I’m not feeling good.”
A few weeks ago I got about a DVD. After I identified myself a second time the caller said, “Oh, this isn’t Walmart?”
We used to get calls for transmissions and engines. That one was actually kind of frequent, so I was able to figure it out. After I got the supposed number they were dialing, I looked it up and found out that our 800 number was one digit different from a transmission and engine company that sold stuff on eBay. People were simply hitting one digit instead of another. Before I figured that one out it was confusing, especially when the first or second time I answered one of those, a guy asked about an engine for sale. For a split second I wondered how he knew what was in my garage. Then I wanted to say, “Well, I’ve got this old Ford 351 that I’m thinking of getting rid of. It’s a Cleveland block. You need it?”
I have this feeling there’s a web site out there somewhere that directs anyone looking for any phone number for any business anywhere in the U.S. to dial our 800 number. Next time you look up a number on the web and call a business, don’t be surprised if I answer the phone.
This will be my second attempt at a post. I can’t seem to get much written lately. I can’t seem to get much of anything creative done lately, actually. When Awesome Reader Olivia asked about why I hadn’t blogged, I told her what was going on and why, and she said, “Why don’t you blog about that?” Since the situation is really annoying, and it’s been bothering me, I’m giving up on appearing competent and writing about “How This is Just not Working Out Right Now.”
I’ve created almost nothing in the last nineteen days. In November I did almost nothing except work on my novel for NaNoWriMo. I scheduled one hour during that month to work on one of my sculptures. Other than that, it was all writing.
When NaNo came to a close I took a deserved mini-break, but did write a couple thousand words during the first week of December. I think I sat down one Saturday and hammered some out, or maybe it was that Sunday at the coffee shop with the girl reading Wroblewski. Anyway, I wrote then, but that’s all I’ve done on the novel since November ended.
Not long after NaNo ended something funny happened to my right hand. I’m not at all sure what I did or how I did it, but I strained something in my hand, and now I can’t do anything too strenuous with it. I can still pick up stuff, type, eat – all that good stuff – but I can’t grip very well. It hurts to do that. Feels like a muscle strain. I can’t practice guitar, and that’s been bugging the hell out of me. I can’t really do any sculpture work, because I’m right handed and that pursuit is all about the firm grasping of tools and wire, so there’s been no sculpture for at least two weeks.
I think the guitar and the sculpture stuff has backed me into a corner on the writing as well. It’s just one big pile of suck, and I’m not doing so well at getting out of it. And for those wonder, no, I haven’t gone to the doctor. Are you mad? That might help! Actually, it seemed like such a small thing when it happened that I just figured I’d leave it alone and not stress it for a while and it would go away. I’ve actually had this happen before in the past and it has gone away. This seems to be lingering, however, and I’m not sure if part of it is just the fact that these days I’m doing a lot more that requires hand-work, or that maybe I’m just better at taking care of myself these days and I’m not apt to just ignore it and do whatever I want anyway.
I’m debating the doctor visit. I don’t like doctors. Actually, that’s not true. I don’t mind doctors at all, it’s the taking time off from work and spending half a day sitting around in an office only to be told, “Yeah, there’s not much we can do about it. You’ll just have to avoid using it as much as possible.” that really bugs the crap out of me. This seems to happen to me most of the time when I go to the doctor.
Perhaps there will be some writing done this weekend. I really am missing the guitar and sculpture work, however. I had a thought before Christmas to make some ornaments for family from copper wire, and I can’t even really do that. Not fun.
At least there’s a blog post up. I’ve not been 100% taken out of the game.