Lewis's Life

Cash Flow Craziness

2008-10-12T19:04:00.002-04:00

I had a really big summer. I took two long trips and sent Marz off to college. The little house by the shop got renovated and I did some major cleaning and reorganizing in the shop. None of those projects helped pay the rent and I put a major dent in my reserves. The invoice I sent out at the end of September was already allocated to pay my end of the month bills.

So you can imagine my surprise and horror when, eight days after mailing it out, I got the invoice back from the post office. Not the check I was waiting on but the invoice! The thing that the client had to see before any checks could be written. It took about a minute to fix the problem; I called the client and got the correct address and sent out the new invoice. This left me on the eighth of the month with neither of my two mortgages paid. (OMG why do I still have two freaking mortgages?) My resources at this point consist of two cans of beans, a jar of change and half a tank of gas. I am definitely not going to Memphis for Repair Days. Again. Damnit!

I used the change to buy a loaf of bread and a pb&j. I hunkered down to spend the weekend in the shop trying to dig myself out of this hole.

On Friday two little walk-up repair jobs earned 40 bucks and another twenty came in on Saturday. Saturday is also when the check came in the mail, Yay! On Sunday I knocked out a little job that had been floating around the shop. It's now Sunday night and I have over a hundred dollars in my wallet and a tidy stack of checks to deposit on Tuesday (Monday is Columbus Day. Sigh)

Someday my head will just explode.

Progress at last!

2008-07-30T23:03:00.001-04:00

Finally moving forward on the railing. I got lots of drilling and tapping done today. All of the pickets for the flat section of railing and one of the staircases. Tomorrow afternoon I will twist one third of the pickets (about 30 total and only 1/2 inch square), followed by a little wire brushing and these parts will be ready to paint. I can squeeze the painting in between art car events this weekend and then the dry time on the paint will not be holding up any work. I like it when things come together.

I need to double check my measurements on the second staircase. I usually measure a couple of different ways to ensure accuracy and I am missing one measurement. Then it will just be a quick day to have those pieces ready for paint as well.

This groovy little fixture worked out the first time. It holds the pickets at the correct angle for drilling and is adjustable for different staircases. It is definitely a keeper. I also like anything with lots of screws. Screws make things look official.

Must stop thinking so much.

2008-07-28T22:22:00.001-04:00

I have to twist about 30 half inch bars. I was thinking about how to do it in the lathe without overheating anything important but the whole time I had this nagging feeling that I owned some thing lathe-like that would be far superior. This morning as I was getting started on the tooling I remembered that there was a pipe-threader tucked away in the storage room. Perfect! It has more torque, slower speeds, and a big through hole so I can put a piece of pipe in as a heat shield.

I spent the several hours digging it out and cleaning it up. It is a nice old machine but I would not be surprised to hear it hadn't been used in 25 years. I cut a couple of pieces of pipe for my fixture and it works fine. There is a box of dies with it that includes machine threads as well as pipe dies, so I am set for anything up to 2-1/2 inches.

I spent another couple of hours making a really cool clamping fixture to hold one end of the half inch square bar. I was almost done with the socket to go into the machine itself when I saw the problem. These machines are set up so that any length of pipe can be fed in from the back but pipe threading rarely requires more than a couple of inches of movement. The longest twist that I am gonna be able to make with that machine will be 6" long.

If I had started twisting this morning I probably would have been finished already.

The good news is that I own a nice pipe threader. Maybe in the future I will mount it to another table so that I can use it as a twisting machine. Someday when I get some of this time stuff I have been hearing about.

Ummm, make lemonade perhaps?

2008-07-17T18:46:00.001-04:00

The steel rack in my shop sucks. It has sucked ever since I moved into my new place. The original design was attached to the wall in my first shop and never really intended to be free standing. I had meant to reinforce it for several years but dropped that plan because I was gonna reorganize everything after I bought the shop. So I continued on with my crappy rack until today.

I have a couple of big jobs that are supposed to get me through the summer and help pay for Burning Man. In the ordinary course of my life this amount of work would be finished about mid-September but I gots stuff to do! Today they brought the steel for these jobs. The packing list says that this was 657.344 pounds of steel. Apparently that extra third of a pound was just too much for the rack.

The driver and I unloaded it all by hand and stacked it on rack. I had just signed the slip and turned around when it happened. The far end of the rack started to bend and steel started sliding off of it. I took one step back to be out of the danger zone and watched it happen. I believe I may have said "**** me running" but I am not sure. The very last thing to finish sliding down was the huge bundle of 1/2" square we had just put on the rack. It piled against my leg. I pulled my leg out and turned to the driver...

"I guess I know what I'll be doing today."

After I took stock of the situation I called Marz (my son) and explained the situation. He came over and pitched in and we got it all moved around to the old steel rack in the back in a couple of hours. He is not working right now but he has spent the last year on his own. (He took a year off before starting college.) It actually was a very pleasant afternoon. Hot and sweaty but we chatted about music and kept up a decent patter while working. The working experience has really been good for Marz. It felt like working with another adult instead of the battle that work has been in the past.

He offered to come back and help for the rest of the summer and he invited me over to smoke some hookah. Yes, I am paying him to work but that has never been sufficient incentive to get him to the shop before. It certainly helps that I am feeling a lot better about things and that I called and asked for help. (I don't think that I have really done that with Marz before.) I also noticed that he was interested in getting stuff done and looking at the best way to do the job. He was really engaged in the work in a way I have not seen before.

So I finally got rid of the crappy steel rack and I am closer with my son. Not bad for day's work.

2008-05-19T18:05:00.001-04:00

So I slid out of the truck Thursday morning about 6:30 when it got too bright to sleep. I had packed a big dop kit with my toiletries and a couple of towels, so I grabbed that and headed into the bathroom. I got my teeth brushed and my face washed and I felt pretty good. On the way out I saw a little sign half buried in the flower-bed "State of Alabama - Free Wifi". I got comfy on the bench with my laptop and started checking my email. Getting on the internet is like staring up in the air. Other people see you doing it and they join you. An older fella on a motorcycle pulled up and headed into the bathroom with his kit. I noticed he had his tent and everything strapped to his bike and I felt like I was travelling really heavy. I think that all of his luggage would have fit in one of my tubs. We sat on the benches out front and did some figuring on the weather. I found it pretty funny that a guy with a bunch of Vietnam Vet patches on his vest uses a site called "The Weather Underground".

So I got on the road about eight when my battery was almost dead and just pushed on through to my planned lunch stop. During the day I noticed that the reception to my truck on the road got better the closer I got to the gulf. I guess people who actually know boats are more excited about a ship/truck than other folks.

Lunch happened about two pm at my secret lunch spot. I had found this place when Marz and I were going to Houston in 2005 and it seemed like the real deal. When we were going across Louisiana the first time and I was looking for a lunch spot I kept seeing signs for cajun food that were attached to signs for casinos. To me that says food for tourists; I am an elitist snob, so I want the cajun food that they cook for cajun people. Then I saw a little hand-painted song that said "Real Cajun Food -- The Boiling Point of Sulphur". So I got off the highway in about 20 miles at Sulphur, Louisiana.

Well, There were no advance signs on the highway anymore and they have painted over the inside mural. I still got a nice picture of my truck inside of the outside mural. But the phrase "We process your Deer, Boar or other exotic animal" were no longer anywhere to be seen. I still got a big plate with two pounds of crawfish and some delicious little appetizer things. Looking around at the other diners, it occured to me that I can get a plate of crawfish anywhere now and that next time I should ask the waitress to recommend something that I can't get at home. (She was dead on about the appetizers, they were toasty little sandwiches with a crab,shrimp, and cheese filling that was all melty and delicious.)

I arrived in Houston late afternoon and went directly to the home of my gracious hosts for the weekend. Steve and Lainie have the flying spaghetti monster car, so it was quite fitting that the pirate ship visit its creator. I had a comfy room of my own and off street parking right in the heart of Houston. On my way out of town I finally asked what neighborhood we were in. Montrose is pretty happpening and convenient to all of the events.

Art Car Tour 2008 - Leaving is hard

2008-05-16T17:54:00.002-04:00

LEAVING FOR THE TOUR

Some people like to say that they work better under pressure. I think that is an excuse used by those of us who work only under pressure. It is a habit that needs breaking. I have cancelled a lot of plans in the past because I used them as deadlines and I had to put off the start of this trip as well. I had planned to be at the Baton Rouge Art Car Parade on Derby weekend but I left a little too much work until the end. Part of my new plan for 'taking care of business' was to call them as soon as I knew that there was a problem and 'fess up. Amazingly, if you call people in advance and tell them you screwed up they often thank you for keeping them informed.

I put in some crazy time in the shop and got my work finished and delivered Tuesday (the 6th) and I spent the evening finishing my rack and mounting the figure-head. Wednesday morning I gathered up all my clothes and toiletries at the house and headed into the shop. There I packed a couple of toolboxes and gathered up my mast, sails, lights, and other accoutrements. I actually managed to pack everything into plastic tubs that made an even ten inch layer over the bed of the truck. This made it possible for me to put my air mattress back there without the need to unpack anything. (Urban camping in future installments)

On my way to the shop I saw a rental truck that had hit a railroad overpass and sheared the entire top of the box. There was a huge accordioned piece of metal in the middle of the street. It was pretty cool.

I left for Houston at 5:11 pm Wednesday night. It was a pretty sure thing that I was not going to arrive in time for the Welcome party at eight that night. I did make it as far as Alabama, where I slept very securely at the Welcome Center.

That is my little truck beneath a big rocket. The air mattress worked great.

Grandpa Milton comes though again!

2007-08-28T22:04:00.001-04:00

I was working on a table in the shop today and I thought "Gee, some face-frame clamps would come in really handy about now. Too bad I don't have any. Hey wait a sec."

There they were in the wood working locker, on the bottom shelf of the locker, under the picture frame clamps, behind all the other stuff in the locker, two face frame clamps!

They worked perfectly to hold the frame for the top on the legs so that I could level everything. It is awfully nice to use a tool with history to it. Even though these still had a label on them and looked as if they had not been used the fact of their having been passed down to me gives them history. I squirted them with anti-spatter to keeps the weld blobs off and then scorched a little of the shininess off.

We call that developing the patina. An honest patina of wear is the best kind.

Trip to Memphis

2007-03-26T21:44:00.000-04:00

Ok, the Golden Behind set sail on it's spring art car cruise yesterday, so I suppose I should post this blog I started about my trip in March.

I just spent the weekend at my alma mater, the National Ornamental Metal Museum, for their annual blacksmithing conference. It was really good to see everyone and be reminded that I am a part of a larger community of smiths.

There were some good demos. It is always fun to see some striking and to see people with new ideas. It helps to break me out of my stagnation.

Seen above is Jeffrey Funk making a piece that I later bought at the auction. There is a shallow dish with forge welded decoration that they are making in the above photo and then the dish is attached to a forged rock. Yes, a forged rock.

As you can see the dish was forced into the hot rock. It was an igneous rock that had formed from cooling lava and apparently it did not mind being reheated. (I think he said it was manzanite. [sp?] I believe this to have been the first public demonstration of rock forging and possibly the first piece sold.

The Golden Behind on tour

2007-03-12T20:06:00.000-04:00

The Golden Behind (my pick-up/pirate truck, named after Sir Francis Drake's ship) will be on tour at several art car events this summer.

Baton Rouge, LA on 7 April, 2007
Eureka Springs, AR 4-6 May 2007
Houston, TX 10-13 May 2007

of course Louisville will have its art car weekend in August. We like to wait for good weather.

On the table above you can see my latest scrounging finds. I have a bunch of gauges and knobs that are going to be made into my steam control pane. Lots of new lights, including a headlight upgrade and some groovy side-view mirrors. On the right there is a builder's level that will make a really cool telescope looking thing. Unfortunately the optics in the level are not right and you can't actually see anything through it. That's why I got it cheap.

The porthole is going in the side of the topper, it will probably make camping in there a little more comfortable. It is big and brass. I like it.

New Gates

2007-02-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

I installed these gates a couple of weeks ago. They are for the courtyard of a restaurant and wine store. (610 Magnolia for those of you in Louisville. I think Aviva is my only reader.)

The gate is pretty simple. The pattern comes from the leftovers of a computer controlled plasma cutter. Someone needed a lot of L-brackets and had them cut out of a plate. I came along and took the leftovers and put them in a frame. Pow! Instant Gate! There is more visual interest that filling with straight bars and it was also less work.

Cool. I have to touch up the paint when the weather warms up.

Waiting

2007-02-08T10:36:00.000-05:00

When will my new digital camera get here?

I am feeling very motivated to write about what's going on here in the shop. I have some interesting projects, but I really want to post pictures. Fed-Ex tracking still shows my packages in Carrolton, Texas six days ago. I know it's ground shipping but my one reader really wants to know what's happening.

I just finished forging some big pry bars for the water company. They will be used for moving those big plates that cover the holes in the street. They are one of the biggest forgings I have done on my own and I did some monster upsetting that I am quite pleased with. I am drawing up some new candle holders for the same church that we installed some work in last December. (I also want to get in there and take more pictures.) I am working up some prices and a schedule for the next couple of months and it looks like it is going to be a good year.

I have interesting projects coming and I plan to attend more art car events, so I need a camera to spam my wonderfulness all over the internet.

Fed Ex is also holding my Roomba somewhere in shipping Limbo. This means I am going to have to vacuum the house myself.

Another 15 Minutes of fame

2007-02-07T11:43:00.000-05:00

I was interviewed for the "Job Journal" in the Louisville Courier-Journal on Monday, 5 Feb. 2007. The Job Journal is an advertising supplement to the Business Section, so the article is not available online. So we have my crappy scans. Just click on the images to see them large enough to read.

I deleted the OCR software over the weekend because I have not used it in the last five years. Wham! Murphy's Law!

It is a fine article, Thanks Michael Jones.

Inexplicable

2007-01-31T13:33:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to drag out my lunch hour I have been working my way through the '50 Greatest Cartoons' at CityRag and this one is completely mystifying. I know that all Betty Boop cartoons follow a logic that went extinct about 60 years ago but this is extra weird.
YouTube link to cartoon

It is orchestrated by Cab Calloway and even features a young Mr. Calloway and his orchestra in the beginning. Later he is represented as an animated ghostly walrus.

The wikipedia entry on Betty is kind of interesting. I think that tomorrow I will click on the link for Rotoscope. Right now I need to go back to work.

Which Science Fiction writer are you?

2007-01-28T13:40:00.000-05:00

Hmmm,

I am not sure that these internet quizzes are actually good for anything. But they sure make me feel good about myself.

I am:

Ursula K. LeGuin

Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Because Ursula K. LeGuin kicks butt!

Latest big cool job

2007-01-04T18:28:00.000-05:00

OK. I am going to try to start this new year out right. Here are some pictures of a recent job.

Right before Christmas my friend, John McCarthy, and I installed a body of work at the church he attends: Sacred Heart, in Jeffersonville, IN right across the river. John is the primary designer on this job, he is a ceramic artist and we have done some smaller proects in the past combining metal structure with ceramics. This job involved much larger and more complex ironwork than we have done in the past. I was able to use this and a couple of other jobs this fall as a reason to buy a plasma cutter. It is a nice new tool and should open up some new avenues of work for me. This a small font for holy water. There are three of them near the main door and at the entrance to a small chapel.

This is a stand and a processional cross. The light colored cross is a small processional that fits into the larger metal cross. The metal cross is ten feet tall, about four feet wide, and decorated with ceramic rays in the sunburst.

Below is John's sculpture "Holy Women" which is near the door.

OK , here goes nothing for the third time.

2006-09-25T18:52:00.000-04:00

Whee! I am 2/3 punk rock just like my hero Henry Rollins. That is one smart quiz.

I am 66% Punk Rock.

The intelligent punk. Tuff and Smart. I may be able to maintain a train of thought long enough... What the fuck was I talking about?

Take the
Punk Rock Test
@ FualiDotCom

New Job

2006-01-25T21:47:00.000-05:00

This is the new job that I have at the shop. I quoted a high enough price, but apparently I was not slow enough and I got the job. It is a 24" diameter gear from the water company that is part of an assembly that opens a three foot water main. All of the teeth rusted during the last 60 years underground and when they went to close the valve all of the rust busted off and they discovered that there were not actually any teeth left.

It got busted when they were taking it of the shaft. More fun for me.

I will heat the whole thing up to about 600 degrees farenheit and put a lot of weld metal down where the teeth should be. Then I will grind the teeth approximately to shape. I was able to heat and weld the small pinion gear today in the gas forge and weld it up. I reheated it again afterwards and it is cooling in the gas forge even as I type.

I have lots of help too;-)

My New Shoes

2006-01-12T22:40:00.000-05:00

I do little repair work pretty regularly. Not because the money is great but because it is neighborly and just basically the right thing to do.

So I was installing a security door around the corner and there was this great pair of splash-guards on the porch. They still have warning stickers on them!! When I asked about them the only answer I got was "I was gonna use them for something."

I think he gave them to me so I would quit asking WHAT that something was.

Now what am I gonna do with 'em?

I guess I'm back

2006-01-09T20:20:00.000-05:00

OK, My duties as family man and father are forcing my return to blogging.

Marz had a great start to his new year. He was in the newspaper and his band Petchblende had its first gig. They were an opening band at Old Louisville Coffeehouse; Marz did most of the organizing for the show and is one heck of a networker.

Comedy of errors

2005-11-19T12:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry folks. I haven't been posting because I broke the computer. Then too fix it I broke it some more. And some more.

The insides of those 40-pin ide connectors are really cool. I hope you never get to see them.

back online soon.

Lewis

Halloween '05

2005-11-06T19:24:00.000-05:00

We had our swingin' Halloween party on the 29th (Sat.) It had a redundant Tim Burton theme (Halloween practically is a Tim Burton theme) and we dressed accordingly.

I was Edward Scissorhands, Marz was Sally (from Nightmare Before Xmas) and Joetta was a Bride in black (or a spanish widow, she looked exactly like a Spanish widow.)

I don't have a picture of Joetta because I couldn't take pictures with my scissor hands. I also could not drive, drink, pee, open doors or smoke. So I was a ton of fun to be around. Really, I was fun.

Before and after

2005-10-24T18:18:00.000-04:00

OK, some of you may remember that my shop has a dirt floor. Last Saturday as I had gone back and forth to the vise near the forge a few times and I noticed some thing funny in the floor (funny-weird, otherwise I would have taken a before picture.) I knew that the shape was familiar but I couldn't place it. I thought that it was part of the power hammer foundation, but couldn't figure out what the heck it would be.

So, naturally, I poked it with a piece of steel until I figured it out (kicking it had gotten nowhere.)

This is what I found.

That is a really big hammer. It's at least three pounds and it was entirely buried in the floor. All in all it's in pretty decent shape, a little rust on the under side and the handle is split. Weird. I'll show it to Fred if he comes in tomorrow.

--Note to self, learn to use the GIMP to fake better before pictures.

Autumn Equinox

2005-09-26T22:48:00.000-04:00

Yay!!

It was only 90 degrees here for the equinox. Nice and cool.

These are some weird fungi growing in our front yard. They are an inch across the bulb thingy and appear to have recently spurted their deadly spores out of those little holes in the tips. They look like acorns when they come up. It will soon be all Attack of the Mushroom People here.

Look out!

More pics

2005-09-13T23:42:00.000-04:00

I added some more pictures to my Flickr stream yesterday. Just click the groovy link on the left or go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fciron/

Busy, busy, busy

2005-09-12T23:04:00.000-04:00

Hey,

I am a little late with this because I am simultaneously busy as hell, outraged and sad.

The disastrous response to the flooding in the Gulf Coast area has me really pissed off. We all know the usual left wing, I-hate-Bush-complaints already so I will try to add another spin to my gripe. Where is the Homeland Security?

What have they been doing with all of the money that has been diverted from other programs for the last four years? Aren't we supposed to have a plan for a city made uninhabitable by a chemical, biological, dirty bomb or old fashioned levee breaking attack? What have they been doing with OUR MONEY other than making air travel a (bigger) pain in the neck?

There is certainly no evidence of where our money went in Louisiana or Mississippi. Maybe it was at Trent Lott's house. I am also worried about the rebuilding process. The no-bid contracting has begun and everything will be run by business people and the chamber of commerce, the same people who were hurt most by the storm are likely to be victimized again in the reconstruction.

Now for something completely differnt. Busy as hell.

This is a goovy copper hood that I made and installed a couple weeks ago. I also made some nice bronze handrails, I think these from the front porch are the nicest.

Finally mentioned in a review!!!

2005-09-01T08:01:00.000-04:00

I have participated in a bunch of group shows and several of them have been reviewed in the paper and finally in this one they mentioned ME! Me, me, me! I am going to quote the first two paragraphs of the article because they are the best and I am not sure how long the link will stay good.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050828/SCENE05/508280336&SearchID=73219028782238

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Review
Bernheim 'Beasts' leave you wanting more

By Diane Heilenman
dheilenman@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

"Bernheim Arboretum south of Louisville has done an exemplary job of blending engaging art with the necessary thematic background of nature. However, the current "Backyard Beasts" exhibit disappoints. It is a bit shy of enough art to satisfactorily fill the space of the gallery in the former visitors center, now a backup to the new visitors center that is worth a trip to see all by itself.

"Beasts" has its high points, which include the dramatic, oversized mantis-like creature of iron, "Bad Boy" by Lewis Meyer of Louisville; the brilliantly hued, optically charged paintings of larger-than-life beetles and bugs by Marty Killmire of Louisville; and the papier-mâché "Bat" by William Polk of Louisville."

Yay, High Point!

Hurricane Katrina

2005-08-30T20:43:00.000-04:00

In Louisville it just rained. That's all.

The basement at Joetta's studio is kinda wet, but that happens every time it gets humid. I have found some of the causes; I just need more time. Please send me all your spare time. Thanks.

We needed the rain here and MSD has been doing a great job of keeping it all under control and en route to the Ohio river. So don't worry.

On a less boring note, we heard back from the vet and the thing on Mocha's tongue is a melanoma and they need to operate more and want to do some radiation therapy. We would have to go to Cinnci for vetrinary radiation so my Dad might be seeing a lot of us. We'll make some decisions after the surgery.

Van Lear

2005-08-29T10:18:00.000-04:00

We took a trip to eastern Kentucky last weekend. Marz has become quite enamored of a young lady he met at Nerd Camp this summer. He bugged the heck out of us until we agreed to go for a visit.

Samantha's family lives right by a state park, so it is very scenic. Joetta and I went for a walk in another nearby park and saw some wild turkeys. Some of you (Is anyone reading this other than Aviva?)may recognize Van Lear as Loretta Lynn's home town. Joetta and I went up to Butcher Hollow and took a little tour of the Homeplace. It is a sort of local industry. It is certainly a pretty spot but it is also certainly a darn small house and not near anything. The house is full of old family pictures and signed pictures from celebrity visitors. A lot of the family pictures look just like Joetta's family pictures, which could be a cultural/class thing or it could just be a black and white and blurry thing.

In a blatant attempt to increase readership here is a picture of Marz and Sam. No teasing Marz about this, Sam is a nice girl and we think they're cute.

What a week already

2005-08-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

Long story short. Last week the dog (Mocha) had bad fleas and had to take some medicine. Over the weekend I discovered weird growth on her tongue. Monday I call the vet, they say bring her in NOW. Then they say we're gonna keep her overnight until the pre-op tests clear and cut that thing off tomorrow. We got her back Tuesday night and are awaiting the biopsy results. I just have to give her four pills twice a day and make sure she doesn't lick or chew on the wound.

Then when I finish the post-operative antibiotics I am supposed to finish the flea antibiotics. Suffice to say the Mocha no longer even makes a token protest when I come at her with a handful of pills.

I guess that's why she loves the Mommy best.

Business is frustrating today. It seems like there is always some extra little complication in everything I do. I am missing three inches of steel in a weird size, things keep being metric, and battery in the clock died again.

Goings on

2005-08-17T17:59:00.000-04:00

Marz started school on Tuesday (yes, the 16th of August) so we won't be visiting any one this month. He has worked at the shop with me over the summer and will be coming by after school a couple of days a week. It is awfully handy to have an extra set of hands around.

Today he helped me with a little set of window bars. He is putting the finishing touches on in the picture. I get a lot of little repairs and walk in traffic from being in an established shop. those are good jobs for Marz to learn on.

I am going to post some pictures of the shop on flickr for those of you who haven't seen it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fciron

Misery Loves Company

2005-08-09T21:42:00.000-04:00

OK, I am spilling my guts online so I am a real blogger now. I am paying the price for a weekend of art car glory.

I have spent the whole day entering my bank statements into Quicken so I can use them for my taxes. I got an extension so they're due on Monday. I promised them to my accountant yesterday.

Anyway, I am doing my last minute typing away and the phone rings. It's my Dad. He starts apologizing right away for screwing up.

Screwing up what?

He is doing HIS taxes and he found one of my 1099s. He's all worried that he messed up my taxes because I didn't have this interest report for my schedule B.

New Holiday -- Meyer tax season 15 August.

My Crew

2005-08-07T23:53:00.000-04:00

My Crew
Originally uploaded by fciron.

I sent my First Mate out to shang-h, I mean recruit, a new crew and he came back with this scurvy looking wench. She signed the articles and we terrorized shipping on Bardstown Rd.

PS -- She's the only one with a real sword so don't all start jumping to conclusions.

KY Art Car Weekend -- Yay!!

2005-08-07T23:36:00.000-04:00

Hey, Every One,

I have just about recovered from our fun weekend. We played host to about nine people and 6 art vehicles for the event. There was some trouble in the housing department so we threw Joetta's studio into the gap.

I guess if there were guest staying there it must be finished.

I put a new mast on the truck. (I ran the old one into a low branch after the Pride parade.) It is still sloop rigged but I hope to be square rigged for our next voyage. I am also working on some lights to accentuate the rigging and have plans for a working rudder.

There is a new set of photos on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fciron/sets/711322/

Gonna try to post weekly so start commenting and we can use this for arguments instead of e-mail.

Glenn, I got twenty-five mpg in the truck when I drove it to Houston TX. The sticker on the window said 23 mpg on the highway back in 1993. I believe that the scales on the hood encourage laminar flow and improve the streamlining.

2005-06-05T12:48:00.002-04:00

Passover 2005 -- This is out of order. Marz at the end of successful afikomen negotiations.

2005-06-05T12:48:00.001-04:00

Passover 2005 -- Marz beginning afikomen negotiations. "One Hundred Billion dollars or you will be at this Seder table FOREVER!!"

2005-06-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

Passover 2005

2005-06-05T12:47:00.001-04:00

Passover 2005

2005-06-05T12:47:00.000-04:00

Passover 2005 -- That's my mom with the camera, so you will be seeing lots of pictures here.

2005-06-05T12:46:00.000-04:00

Passover 2005

First Post!!

2005-06-05T12:36:00.000-04:00

Lazy Sunday here in Louisville. It is in the eighties and muggy outside, so I am trying to get some family pictures up for everyone, although I should probably be in the shop working.

OK, first thing I need to do is get things in the right order. I will work on that for next week.