Bailiff's Hollow

McMillan's Ride

2012-01-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a little 4/4 reel on the six-string banjo, composed in honor of my grandfather, Edwin McMillan. And, yes, that's the McMillan (hunting) tartan.

Heartshot

2012-01-26T08:14:00.000-08:00

About 25 years ago, I wrote a short story called "Heartshot", a piece about a guy who hunted unicorns to feed his drug habit. I'd been stuck in traffic behind a Volvo station wagon that had both a "Baby on Board" sign and one of those suction cup unicorns on the rear window, and this was the inspiration to write a rather nasty and graphic bit. Excessive cuteness should be punished, don't you think?

It was a pretty good story, if I do say so myself. I sent it to Pulphouse and they promptly bought it. But before it could be published, Pulphouse folded. No problem; I sent it to Charlie Ryan at Aboriginal and Charlie bought it, too. Once again, the magazine went out of business before the story could be printed. DNA Publications bought it next, and since I haven't heard from them since they said they were going to print the story in 2006, I think it's safe to assume they're defunct, too. A real magazine killer, this one. I decided to quit sending it around, figuring there weren't too many science fiction magazines left; I didn't want to help kill any more of them.

Now a fellow I know, a talented film-maker with the skills (and hardware) to do the job is working on a short film version of "Heartshort". The screenplay is finished, and filming should begin soon. The film guy came up with the above logo, which will be printed on t-shirts, too. More about this when they're available. In the meantime, I'm hoping that changing to the medium of film will break the curse. I'll let you know what happens.

The Bunny Revealed

2012-01-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

The mysterious bunny, it turns out, is nothing but a toothpick holder. It's a pretty clever one, though; being made in Italy I suppose it holds metric toothpicks as well as the US-style ones you see here. I don't know about British Whitworth toothpicks, though.

Karin from Ohio got it right, so as soon as I can find a suitable box for mailing the bunny will be on its way to her.

Another Winter Haiku

2012-01-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

Winter has finally arrived, so it's time for another winter haiku. This one is for my friend Nancy, who lives in a warmer climate and must surely miss the frozen fields of Indiana. Sure she does...

Winter's icy blade

Reaps the frozen autumn ghost

Of harvest bounty

CD Release Concert

2012-01-09T07:50:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal: a release party for both Linda Hicks' and Joe Peters' CD "A Thousand Ways" and Joe's "Over the Edge". And in addition to Linda and Joe, there will be many other top-notch musicians playing: Michael Lewis, Mike Kelsey and Allison Edberg, just to name a few. The concert is February 4th at 7:30PM at University Church (320 North Street) in West Lafayette, IN. Admission is free.

To find out more about Linda and Joe and to hear some of their music you can go here or here.

I had done a glass and bronze piece called "A Thousand Ways" with the CD cover in mind, and we decided to hold a raffle for this piece (with mat and frame it's about 23" wide by 22" high) with proceeds from the raffle going to Cultures in Harmony. An interesting organization; check it out and I think you'll agree it's a good cause. Raffle tickets will be available at the concert; $5 for one ticket, $10 for three. The piece would sell in a local gallery for around $300, so you've got a chance at a bargain on a pretty good piece of glass, if I do say so myself. If you can't make it to the concert and would still like to buy some raffle tickets, I expect we can work something out. Leave me an e-mail address or telephone number on the "comments" section of this blog, and I'll get in touch with you. If you live far away and happen to win, shipping a piece like this is no problem: I've been doing this for years. But I hope you can come to the concert: it's going to be a good one, I can promise you that.

5000 Miles

2012-01-07T06:19:00.000-08:00

About two years ago I started riding a Schwinn Airdyne. I wasn't in shape at all, so I started slowly and gradually increased my time and speed until I was riding 10 miles a day in around 50 minutes. A note here: I don't know how accurate the Airdyne's readings on miles per hour and speed are, but I think the time is quite accurate. In any event, I've been either riding the 10 miles a day or 5 miles a day with an hour-long gym workout (about a dozen machines plus a little over a half mile walking on and indoor track) for the last year. I alternate 10-mile days with gym plus 5 mile days and do so 5 days a week. I've done the 10 miles in a little under 48 minutes, but I feel better after a ride if I take 51 or 52 minutes to reach the distance.

There are many things we don't have around Bailiff's Hollow, but we do have a rather splendid high school gym, open to residents of the county at no charge. They've got an indoor track (a real plus in the Indiana winter), all sorts of free weights and machines, and it's only fifteen minutes from my house. If the gym is closed due to weather or a holiday, I just ride a little longer on the Airdyne that day. And since I don't mind getting up early, I usually arrive when the gym opens at 5:30AM. Not too many people are there that early, but I can always count on seeing Mrs. Day, the mother of a high school friend of mine, walking on the indoor track. Mrs. Day doesn't go too fast; she's 90 after all. I'm impressed, and I'd be happy to be able to do what she does when I'm that age.

The only real problem with the gym is the PA system. Seems they can get only one radio station, a horrible outfit that plays "golden oldies" (I shudder to think that I listened to crap like that as a kid) along with those shouted commercials that repeat the telephone number four times in a row. And of course there's only one volume: way too loud. I suppose I could get an I-Pod, but I sort of like to hear what's going on around me...you never can tell, you know. A little paranoid, I admit, but not as paranoid as the guy who put a rear-view mirror on his stationary bike.

So far, I'm holding up fairly well. I went from following the Mayo Clinic advice on weights/machines until I reached what was probably more than I needed to do with 68-year-old joints. Now I use far less weight but a lot more repetitions. Like my friend Steve Perry, I figure I'm as strong as I need to be; endurance is more important to me at this point. And at 5000* miles the Airdyne is doing pretty well, too. I just tightened and lubed the chains yesterday and other than some rust on the chain guard everything looks good. Hey, some of us get pretty sweaty riding these things: they should have used stainless steel or powder coating in a couple of places. I plan to replace a few screws with stainless and maybe sandblast and re-coat the chain guard with a more sweat-resistant finish. And no, I don't have any plans to add a magazine holder or a TV set. If you can read while riding an Airdyne, you're not getting a workout. And watching TV? Why spoil the experience?

*over 6000 miles with Pam's mileage

The Mysterious Bunny

2011-12-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Songwriters' Association annual white elephant exchange, and I scored this rather odd blue bunny. He (or she; it's difficult to know with blue plastic bunnies) is about six inches high and is made of heavy plastic. Even stranger, the bunny is not made in China! On the bottom it says "Alessi", "Italy" and "Stefano Giovannoni 1988". Cool! Who knew they actually made plastic stuff in Italy? And for all I know, Mr. Giovannoni may be the lead designer for Ferrari. Or maybe he's just a guy who designs blue bunnies for anyone who needs one.

But what is the bunny for? As you can see from the photo, the bunny stands in a small container that fits into a larger container. Neither of these containers have any holes, and while the fit is good, it really isn't tight. As it turns out, I actually know what the bunny is for, but if you can figure it out and let me know, you might win a valuable prize. Or possibly a blue Italian plastic bunny.

Cookie Day

2011-12-19T07:08:00.001-08:00

A Thousand Ways

2011-12-16T07:23:00.000-08:00

My friends Linda Hicks and Joe Peters just released a new CD, and even though I did the graphics and sing one verse on one track (sort of like Sting on the Chieftains' "Long Black Veil" CD), it's mighty good. I'd buy the CD just for Linda's cover of "The Water is Wide": it's absolutely the best version of this I've ever heard. In any event, you can check it out for yourself; go here to listen to some tracks and I think you'll want a copy for yourself and a few for friends, too.

The CD release party will be February 4th, and I'll put up the details on this later.

6-string Banjo

2011-12-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

You can be an online spammer, sell crack cocaine to nuns

Be a telemarketer, mail the Taliban some guns

You can drive your SUV through schools, be selfish, mean and gross

Be a whiny bozo and become a talk-show host

Or you can play the banjo, you can make it wail and moan

Better practice on your solos, you'll spend lots of time alone

"Or You Can Play the Banjo" by Michael Longcor

My Deering 6-string banjo is great fun: twenty-two frets and about thirty pounds of bronze tone ring supply enough power and volume to take on anything up to a bagpipe. Of course, you don't have to be overpowering; I even stuff a folded towel behind the head when I'm feeling sorry for dulcimer players. And speaking of dulcimers, Jean Ritchie's 89th birthday is this week, I believe. In honor of this, I put together a little medley with her "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore" and the traditional tunes "What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor" and "The Diamond". You can listen to it here; it's the "BmMedley" file. I actually had the capo on the third fret, though.

Sunsets

2011-11-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

I took the top photo in Vietnam in 1969, using a Pentax 35mm SLR. The lower photo was taken a couple of weeks ago with a Cannon 14.1 megapixel electronic camera, a camera so small it fits in a shirt pocket. So what conclusion might be drawn here? Maybe I'm no better at photography than I was in 1969? Or maybe I just like colorful sunsets? Perhaps you can come to your own conclusions.

World Fantasy Award

2011-11-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

I got a package in the mail the other day; not a common event and since it had a name and return address I'd never heard of, I anxiously ripped it open to see if it contained anthrax, a letter bomb or perhaps the Hope diamond.

Out fell the above pin and a note saying "Here is your 2011 World Fantasy Award Nominee pin." Well, that was very nice, but since I hadn't written any fantasy I was pretty sure that this wasn't meant for me. And sure enough, a check of the appropriate website revealed that there's another guy with my name who was indeed nominated for the award. As soon as the people in charge of the Award (given by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) give me an address, I'll send the pin along to the right person.

In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out exactly what the pin is. It seems to have a touch of Easter Island, the business world and (what else?) zombies. Ah, I've got it: a zombiefied Wall Street hedge fund manager. Now that's scary!

A Fuelish Design

2011-11-18T07:18:00.000-08:00

Back in those ancient times when airplanes had props and recip engines, everything in the Air Force inventory ran on 115/145 aviation gasoline. When you were checking out your aircraft before flight, part of the check was to insure you had the right sort of fuel. It wasn't unknown for someone who wasn't paying attention to fill you up with jet fuel by mistake. And a recip engine won't run long on jet fuel; usually just about long enough to get airborne and thereby lead to a more spectacular crash.

I was flying the O-1 Bird Dog in those days, a small high-wing aircraft used for observation and forward air control. It was easy to check the fuel: there were push-in valves on the underside of each wing that allowed you to drain out a bit of fuel, and since the cockpit windows folded out and latched to the undersides of the wings, you'd take a short piece of plastic hose (all Bird Dog guys had one of these in a flight suit pocket) and squirt a bit of fuel on the window to see if it was what it was supposed to be and not too full of dirt, rust, dead bugs, etc. As it turns out, 115/145 has a slight purple tint; this was done to distinguish it from other octanes that you might find at civilian fields and other fields that had more than one octane aviation fuel.

Evidently, somebody in charge of this sort of thing thought the squirt-the-fuel-sample-on-the-window-with-a-hose technique wasn't in keeping with the modern, jet-propelled USAF (not that guys who flew Bird Dogs cared a fig for the modern Air Force) and came up with the fuel sample cup seen in the photo. I think these came from Cessna, and I don't know what they cost. With the Pentagon involved, you can be sure they cost plenty. We got a good laugh out of these things; they were two ounces, the perfect size for a shot glass but that rod in the middle would stick up your nose. And of course they were made of a pale purple plastic so you couldn't tell if you had the correct 115/145 octane or not. What a clever design!

Mulberry Library

2011-11-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

My friend Kim VanArsdell at Artistry in Design in Crawfordsville, Indiana designed these leaded stained glass panels. Lot's of 'em, so I got to do some of the fabrication including making all the circular "rondell" pieces. Rather than blown glass, these are done in a kiln. This gave Kim the effect she wanted, but saved a whole lot of money.

Mulberry has a great library; a modern building but it's got that Prairie School feel with high ceilings and quarter-sawn oak furniture. There are eight more panels to go, so I suppose I'll get to build some of these, too. And the best thing about this project? I don't have to get up on a ladder or scaffold to install the glass: someone else is responsible for this, thank goodness.

Fall in Bailiff's Hollow

2011-10-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

As you can see, it's Fall in Bailiff's Hollow. Despite the dry summer and the unusually warm weather, the colors are exceptional this year and, unlike some Octobers, the weather is nice enough for us to be outside enjoying the season. My "temple gong", made from an old propane tank and a few steel odds and ends, and certainly the only one in the Hollow if not in the entire province of Western Hoosierstan, looks rather nice in this setting I think.

If you look carefully at the center photo, you'll see the barred owl who was hanging around our deck this morning, probably hoping to get a nice breakfast chipmunk or two. One of my favorite writers, the late Manley Waded Wellman, wrote many stories about the mountains of the Eastern US and the people and critters (both real and unlikely) who inhabited them. One of Wellman's descriptions of a place far off the beaten path was "A place where owls hoot in the daytime and they keep 'possums for yard dogs." Barred owls certainly hoot around here in the daytime and my late friend, the Reverend Grover Williams, had a pet 'possum named Ellie. So Bailiff's Hollow surely qualifies as being in the boonies even if it isn't in West Virginia, Virginia or the Carolinas.

Yes, Fall is great and it's just too bad that it always seems to be followed by Winter. And too bad that we don't have a sailboat waiting for us in the British Virgin Islands when the grey skies, cold temperatures and snow/sleet/ice, etc. arrive.

Screen Saver

2011-09-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

"Screen Saver" is a piece I wrote not long ago. It's like a computer screen saver; sort of simple and repeating. You can listen to it here. If anyone is interested in the music, I'll be glad to write it down, but I bet you can figure it out from the chords: Am,
G, Dm, C and E.

Schrodinger's Cat Redux

2011-09-12T07:20:00.001-07:00

I had the words to this on an earlier blog, but just got around to recording the tune today. You can listen to it here; it's even being played in the key I wrote it in (for a change).

La Llorona

2011-08-17T09:16:00.001-07:00

Here's a tune I learned from my hammered dulcimer-playing friend Mary Lawson. It's an old (300 years or so from what I've heard) tune from Mexico; the title translates as "The Weeper". You can look up the legend of La Llorona if you're interested, and you can hear my version of it (in the key of Bm) by clicking here.

Sock Monkey vs. Cell Phone

2011-08-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to answer the age-old question of which is more beneficial to human society, the sock monkey or the cell phone, we have developed, through exhaustive research, interviews with myriad individuals from all around the world and an extensive review of the scientific literature, a series of considerations that we believe will provide the practical information that will allow each person to make this all-important moral, philosophical and technical determination.

1. A person listening to a cell phone during a concert, play or other performance is seen as a self-important boor. A person listening to a sock monkey in the same situations is seen as merely eccentric or, at the worst, a harmless whacko. Advantage: Sock monkey.
2. A sock monkey is fairly cheap (or free if you make it yourself) and requires no continuing investment or upkeep except for a good wash now and then. A cell phone and its monthly bills are expensive, and you can't put it in the wash, either. Advantage: Sock monkey.
3. You can talk to a sock monkey, but it won't talk back to you. And a sock monkey will never misunderstand what you tell it. A cell phone will not only talk back, it will frequently do so in an unintelligible manner and will also make sure what you say is unintelligible as well. Advantage: Sock monkey.
4. Due to the innate perversity of inanimate objects, a cell phone's batteries will always go dead at the most inconvenient time. A sock monkey has no batteries. Advantage: Sock monkey.
5. If you use a cell phone to text while driving, walking or performing any other task that requires a modicum of attention and coordination, it's likely you will kill or injure yourself or another person. You can't text with a sock monkey. Advantage: Sock monkey.
6. All terrorists use cell phones, but no terrorists use (or even have, so far as we can determine) sock monkeys. Advantage: Sock monkey.
7. If you're feeling sad, a sock monkey might help you feel better. And the reason you feel sad in the first place is probably because of what you heard on a cell phone. Advantage: Sock monkey.
8. The FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, Homeland Security and hordes of other government agencies listen to supposedly private cell phone conversations every day. They might listen to sock monkeys, too, but they can't hear anything. Advantage: Sock monkey.
9. With cell phones, you have to listen to not only your own idiotic, abrasive and unpleasant ring tone, but the idiotic, abrasive and unpleasant ring tones of others. A sock monkey has no ring tone. Advantage: Sock monkey.
10. You can imagine the devil carrying a cellphone, but you can't imagine the devil carrying a sock monkey. Advantage: Sock monkey.

Any questions?

Home Recording

2011-08-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

I recently got a Marshall Electronics USB cardioid condenser mic, the MXL USB 006 model. "Cardioid", by the way, means that the mic is designed to pick up sounds coming toward its front rather than the back or sides. The model I got comes with a tripod stand, windscreen, an adapter to fit a standard mic stand and ten feet of USB cable. The tripod stand is ok for desktop use, but you'll want to use a regular mic stand for instrumental recording. If you go to the MXL website, you can also get a free download of some basic, but useful, recording software.

I use Audacity, a freeware recording program that allows you to change the native .wav format of the mic to MP3. Reaper, a studio-grade recording program is not free, but is well worth the price if you want to do any sound editing. And for posting sound files to the web, you'll probably want to use MP3 format: MP3 files are much smaller that .wavs.

I'm very pleased with my mic's performance; you can check it out here if you'd like. Just click on "Greener Pastures". I'm still working on the lyrics for this one, but the melody is finished.

Walking the Wilderness

2011-08-08T07:11:00.001-07:00

My friend Michael Longcor has a new CD; good stuff, too. It would be worth buying for "Flying Monkey" ("When I grow up I want to be a flying monkey...") and "Sailing After Blackbeard" (does a pirate song make a CD arrrr-rated?) alone, but there's a bunch of other good tunes as well. Michael's CD release party will be August 9th, 7:00PM at the Wells Center in Lafayette, Indiana. You can find out more about Michael and his music (this is his 14th CD, I believe) here. And you can buy/download the CD or individual songs here.

I did the graphics layout for this one, but it was an easy job thanks to the great photos taken by Ann Nordmeyer, Michael's wife. And come by the CD release party if you can: good music and good snacks; you can't beat that.

Athens of Indiana

2011-07-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

You might think that naming your gallery and studios after Athens would be an invitation to the gods to chuck a few thunderbolts your way even if, unlike the Athens in Greece, everyone in town isn't broke or on strike. But the good people in Crawfordsville, Indiana don't give a hoot for a bunch of horny ol' Greek gods and their stinkin' thunderbolts, and when they turned an unused downtown retail space into a gallery and artists' studios "Athens of Indiana" was the name.

And it's a nice space, too. When the director asked me if I'd like to do a one-man show there, I was more than happy to do so. I'll be hanging the show on the first of August; it will open on August 3rd and the opening reception is on August 5th. Come on by if you can; Crawfordsville is a nice town, and even if you don't like my stuff there are plenty of other works in the gallery. For that matter, it's worth a trip to Crawfordsville just to see the old jail, the only operating (but not occupied, alas) rotary jail in the world. Very odd, and very interesting, too. Crawfordsville was the home town of General Lew Wallace, the author of Ben Hur. His home is still there, and I believe you can get a tour through it.

More Phone Fun

2011-06-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

The day after the tractor and mower damage was repaired, the brilliant lads at Warren County's Highway Department cut the telephone lines while working on our road. Evidently, these guys are so special that, unlike other individuals or companies, they don't have to check with anyone before they dig. I had arrived home shortly after they cut the wire that leads to my neighbor's telephone, and I pointed out to them that the phone lines are buried on both sides of the road. At this point, my phone was still working. But not for long...

Yep, you guessed it: they dug on the opposite side of the road until they cut my line, too. Sadly, the taxpayers rather than the fools responsible for the damage get to pick up the bill from the telephone company and now, about a day later, I've still got no phone. And there's no sign of the AT&T repair guy that the highway crew claimed to have notified.

Phones of Our Forefathers

2011-06-23T07:21:00.001-07:00

Our telephone went out the other day; not an uncommon situation. It was out for about a day and a half, as it seems a farmer with a large tractor-mounted mower had chopped one of the local lines to shreds. About $6000 worth of damage, according to the guy doing the repairs. And the guy who did the damage didn't bother to report it to the telephone company; someone else saw what happened and did the reporting.

"Why don't you just run a DSL line to my place and put it on the guy with the mower's account?", I said jokingly. "Yeah, I'd like to do that", the repair guy says, "I looked it up, and this line's been in the ground since 1948."

1948? This goes a long way toward explaining why I can't get a better internet connection than around 24 kbps. Shoot, I thought our lines were at least 1960s vintage! This wouldn't be so bad if I were paying 1948 (or even 1968) prices for my "service", but of course the good old telephone company is charging 2011 prices for the use of their outmoded and worn out old junk. AT&T owns the wires, so it doesn't matter what telephone company I have: it's all the same hardware. And this isn't going to change, either. The Department of Agriculture spent around two billion dollars on rural broadband, and connected exactly zero people to a broadband system. As long as AT&T doesn't upgrade their hardware, the law allows them to do exactly what they please in regard to pricing, telephone companies not being regulated at all here in Western Hoosierstan. We have no cell phone coverage or wireless broadband coverage, and from the people I've talked to the satellite "broadband" systems are more of a scam than an actual service.

And that's why I'm uploading this from our local library, fifteen our so miles from where I live. Ain't modern communications wonderful? Yeah, they are; too bad I can't use them.

Spiders and Whistles

2011-06-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

Chuck, the whistle player with Bailiff's Hollow, tells me than now and then you can get a spider in your penny whistle. Not good! But hey, this is America! If there's a need (or if a need can be created) somebody's going to come up with a product to fill this need. And at Corvos Agricultural Research, we figure that driving spiders out of penny whistles just means the spiders are going to move to other, more expensive instruments such as clarinets, oboes and the like. Yes, the future is looking bright for Arach-Nots.

SAMI

2011-05-31T07:17:00.001-07:00

A couple of years ago, I joined SAMI, the Songwriters' Association of Mid-north Indiana. Yeah, that's quite a jawbreaker and, even though I'm from Indiana, I had never heard the term "mid-north" before. I like to think of this area as the tribal region of western Hoosierstan. Works for me, anyway.

But despite the somewhat unhandy name, SAMI is great fun. All sorts of people are members; beginning songwriters, young people and professionals who actually (more or less) make a living writing and playing music. SAMI members seem to be quite tolerant and supporting; there's a truly hot jazz guitar guy who even keeps a smile on his face when he listens to me play, and that's saying a lot. It doesn't seem to matter how skilled your are, SAMI people are helpful and friendly. And along with this attitude, you get to hear some mighty good stuff at meetings: a good deal all around.

Every year, SAMI gives awards to young songwriters and holds a concert to showcase the winners' work. And every year, I've been amazed at just how good some of these young musicians are; yeah, I even buy their CDs even though I'm an old guy. It's just good to know that young songwriters aren't all trying to copy the stuff you hear on commercial radio: there are some good, original people out there, and some of them are a whole lot younger than you might think.

End Time Whackos

2011-05-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

What with the rapture and all, it looks like a lot of other, less impressive, end-time whackos are being ignored. Firstly, I got a call from an old military buddy, a former Navy SEAL who told me he recently read that Disney has applied to register "SEAL Team 6" as one of their trademarks. While nothing that corporate America does, particularly if it deals with tasteless greed is surprising, I still have to wonder if even the Disney lawyers want to take on the SEALS. Maybe Mickey Mouse is tougher than I thought.

And then I was happy to hear that our local library in Williamsport had received some direction from the State of Indiana regarding the library's "no weapons" policy. It seems this is not in accordance with Indiana's laws, and the library will have to allow armed patrons. All to the good, I'd say: you never know when a Judith Krantz book will try to force you to check it out, and it will be mighty handy to whip out a .500 Smith & Wesson and blow the offending novel into confetti. I can't help but note that the Indiana government does not allow armed citizens to enter government buildings, where it seems to me there are far more potential good targets than in libraries, but what do I know?

As Porky says, I guess that's all, folks. It's been fun, and don't forget to turn your water heaters down to the "Armageddon" setting.

Glassworks

2011-04-12T05:27:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be around Danville, Illinois, come by the Alley Gallery and check out the glass. I'm the curator for this show, so I managed to sneak a few of my own pieces in; the good stuff is by Kim VanArsdell, Richard Taylor, Michael Zachay, Kathleen Kitch, Sharon Owens and Karen Cast. There's blown glass, kiln-formed pieces, stained glass, castings and even some glass jewelery. And if you can make the opening reception, that would be even better.

The Parting Tide

2011-03-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

The Parting Tide

I never thought to leave this land,
So long worked by my fathers' hands.
But poverty I shan't abide,
So it's fare thee well on the parting tide.
Good-bye to the glen, the croft and the farm;
Farewell to the hearth fire safe and warm.
Who will go and who will abide?
The call of the sea and the parting tide.

Bridge:

All away, haul away;
One last sunrise over the bay.

It's down to the quay and the boats are away;
The anchor's weighed at the break of day.
And it's hoist all sail for the rolling foam
That calls me away from my island home.
These hands that once did guide the plow
Must labor at the capstan now.
And up aloft in the yards so free
Is one last sight of home for me.

(Bridge)

I grieve to leave them all behind;
hearts so dear in a better time.
But wind and sea are not denied,
And I'm away on the parting tide.
Good-bye to the glen, the croft and the farm;
Farewell to the hearth fire safe and warm.
Who will go and who will abide?
The call of the sea and the parting tide.
The call of the sea and the parting tide.

Mike Byers & Mary Lawson, copyright 2007

This is the "leaving Scotland in 1840" piece I wrote a few years ago (my friend Mary wrote the music for the bridge). I was pleased that Sharon McKnight and her group, The Vagaband, liked it well enough to put it on their CD, and you can listen to them here. In addition to the usual Vagaband members (that's John Howland on the Scottish smallpipes), Allison Edberg is playing the violin.

Wild Geese

2011-03-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Wild Geese

You've gone for a soldier and off to the war,
To fight in a far foreign land.
And it's not for the love of a country or king;

They've paid you to march in the van.
There won't be flags waving; no bands or parades.
No speeches, or shouting or cheers.
Just pack up your gear and get on the plane;
Leaving without any tears.

Chorus:

And the wild geese are flying; they're off and away,
Taking their chance on the wind.
Some may return next year in the fall,
But most you will not see again.

They tell you the cause is a just one, of course;
The story is always the same.
And they think that you ought to believe in their gods,
Pretending it's more than a game.
But the rich men who payed you won't be in the fight;
Won't be on the line at your side.
They'll cheer for your victory and then walk away,
Forgetting all those who have died.

(Chorus)

You can die for a country, or die for a cause;
You can lay down your life for a friend.
Or die for the money they pay you to fight;
The dying's the same in the end.
And where have the heroes and cowards all gone?
Nobody remembers their names,
Or the places, the battles where each of them fell;
It's all just a part of the game.

(Chorus x2)

Words and music by Mike Byers, copyright 2010

I sat down to write a song about the Irish mercenaries of the 1700s, often known as the "Wild Geese", but about a verse into the song I realized I was thinking about something a little more contemporary and, to be entirely honest, somewhat autobiographical. A little cynical and bitter? Yeah, it is. But it's honest, too.

I was pleased when my friends Linda Hicks and Joe Peters decided this one was one they wanted for their forthcoming CD, "A Thousand Ways". They let me sing the third verse, and I can tell you that Linda and Joe make me sound a whole lot better than I really am. You can listen to it here; just click on "Wild Geese" when the page opens. That's Joe Peters on guitar and lead/harmony vocals, Linda Hicks on harmony vocals and me on lead vocals for the last verse. I'll let you know when the CD comes out.

Stay Tuned

2011-03-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago at a music get-together in Ohio, I picked up a new tuner to replace the old first-generation electronic tuner I'd been using for years. My old tuner had been amazing when it was new, and a whole lot easier than using a pitch pipe, tuning fork or tone bar. But its switches were getting worn out, and it was too easy to leave it on by accident and run down the 9-volt battery.

My new tuner, an Intellitouch PT10, has this nifty LCD screen that goes from red to green when you're on pitch (the flash from my camera washed out the color in the photo), and it gives you a little mark that tells you when you're on pitch, sharp or flat too. You can even make A something other that 440Hz if you want. And the tuner turns itself off after two minutes of inactivity, has a range of seven octaves and can be used in noisy situations without a problem. There's a little padded clip that holds it to the guitar headstock. But its most amazing feature is that it's actually made in the USA! How about that? I didn't know we were actually allowed to make stuff in this country anymore.

Heavy Metal

2011-03-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

No, I haven't taken up playing heavy metal, but I've been playing with it. After riding ten miles every morning on a Schwinn Airdyne (it takes me 49-50 minutes to do this) every week day for the last eight months or so, I felt I needed some other sort of exercise to go along with the stationary bike. And as it turned out, the local high school's activity center, with exercise rooms, a nice indoor track, weights and machines is only about 15 minutes away. Best of all, use is free for residents of the county, and the center opens at 5:30AM: a good deal for those of us who like to work out in the morning.

The machines are...interesting. And like the photo above, they're sort of mysterious until you figure 'em out. I'd never used these before, and there seems to be a machine to work every muscle you've got, including some I didn't know I had. And while there's no trainer around to give you advice, the machines are fairly easy to comprehend. Starting slowly seems to be the key, as it is in most activities. The Mayo Clinic has some on-line advice about weight lifting, etc. and following this has been working just fine for me so far.

Funny thing, though: when I get home from 45 or 50 minutes of working the machines and taking a few laps on the track, I feel as if I haven't quite done enough, so I've taken to riding five miles on the Airdyne. I alternate the gym/short ride on the Airdyne with 10-mile Airdyne rides, and I think this is going to work pretty well. Might have to see if I can find a yoga class, though.

Winter Haiku

2011-02-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

Swift hawk is hunting
Warm and quiet in your den

Talons seize a branch

2011 Sow's Ear Challenge

2011-02-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's time to think about the Sow's Ear Challenge at Sleepy Creek Vineyards' gallery. As always, the Challenge is to make something "artistic" out of materials that are usually considered to be junk, and this year the material is metal cans. The entries aren't due until March 27th (the show will run from April 2nd to June 5th), but I got ahead of things thanks to the bad weather that's been keeping me from getting the glass I need to do some actual paying work.

I call my project "Selections From the Museum of Dubious Products". Yes, even corporate America can't sell everything it invents and some things, notably items such as moose poop pie, slugs 'n' slime and room odorizer don't seem to have that old consumer appeal. Not to mention Mrs. Glopp's Chopped, Mixed Stuff. And I'm hoping the good folks at Sleepy Creek will forgive me for the Sneaky Creep Illinois Soybean Wine.

It's Cookie Time Again

2010-12-13T06:55:00.000-08:00

Once again, the usual suspects got together to make strange (if not downright bizarre) cookies. And as you can see from the first picture, a cookie that it's creator claims is a cow, somebody might have been hitting the Merlot a little hard.

Next, we have the zombie gingerbread boy. It seems to have been a good year for zombies in entertainment, so I don't see why they shouldn't appear in cookies, too. And this one even has all his parts (so far, anyway).

Illinois' former governor Rod Blagojevich isn't in jail yet, but we can hope. They've got one former governor in jail already, so it would be neat to get Rod, too. One more and they'd have a hat trick!

The fish...well, it's hard to tune a fish, but we do the best we can. And I think there's enough sugar on the table here to make all of us even crazier for the next few days. It's a good thing we only do this once a year.

Another Sign of the Times

2010-12-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

I suppose it would be, wouldn't it? Unless you're in a boat or maybe a submarine. This gem of useful information is near Greencastle, Indiana in case you're wondering. And I'm wondering if the sign is under water when the road is flooded. That would make it even better.

Too Much Stuff

2010-11-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

One person's trash, it is said, is another person's treasure. But it seems that even treasure has an upper limit (although I'm not sure that trash does). In any case, it looks as if the limits for both trash and treasure might have been exceeded here. On the positive side, you have to admit that this yard is always decorated for any season or holiday. The owner used to have his own trash pick-up business, so maybe that explains the situation.

A Keen Sense for the Obvious

2010-11-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

I don't know what you're driving, bubba, but yielding to locomotives has always seemed like a good idea to me. And if you need a sign to tell you this, I suspect that you shouldn't be allowed on the road at all. Even as a passenger.

The Martini Rule

2010-11-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed that over the past few years, the countries we claim as allies seem to be far worse than countries we've had as enemies in the past? For example, consider that Italy was an enemy of ours in World War II while Pakistan is supposedly an ally today. If I were the cynical type, I'd be tempted to say that today we have a perfect example of the old saying, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" And even a moderately cynical person might begin to suspect that the notion of continuing to pour blood and treasure down the corrupt and bottomless rat holes that constitute some of our "friends" these days might not be the wisest course. Why, you might even come to the conclusion that our professional political classes, those oh-so-educated, wealthy and intellectually elite people who seem to run things are about as sharp as the average mashed potato sandwich when it comes to figuring out what countries we want as allies.

About three years ago, I was asked if I wanted a rather well-paying job in Afghanistan. And while I hope I'm a little smarter (or at least more difficult to fool) than I was in the 1960s, I have to admit that it was quite an ego boost to know that someone who ran a mercenary (excuse me, that's "private security contractor") outfit thought I could, after all these years, still do the job. But fortunately for me, ego aside, I do have certain rules, the first one being The Martini Rule. It's quite simple: never go to a country where you can't get a martini. And by extension, I'd say it's a good rule to never ally yourself with a country where you can't get a martini.

Granted, every country where you can get a martini isn't a good place to visit or a country that would make a good ally, it's just that the ones where you can't get a martini are no good whatsoever. Oh, yes... and by martini, I mean gin or vodka; chocolate or fruit-flavored martinis don't count. But either an olive or a twist of lemon in the gin or vodka will do. And if our State Department would follow this rule, we'd be better off, don't you think?

Zombie Basketball

2010-10-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

While looking for some light reading at the library last week, I couldn't help but notice the large number of books about zombies on the "new books" shelf. I generally go out of my way to avoid fiction about lawyers, Nazis and vampires (although a book about Nazi vampire lawyers might be ok) and now it seems I'll have to add zombies to the list. Don't get me wrong; this is 2010 and zombies should have the same rights as any other rotting, undead flesh eaters, but I admit I have trouble identifying with or caring about a protagonist who leaves a trail of body parts across the story. Hopelessly non-PC, I know.

Still, there might be something I could do with zombies; it is after all coming up on basketball season here in Indiana. This piece is set to a more-or-less calypso tune (if some miracle should ever bring me a broadband connection I'll include the music) and should probably be played by a steel band, assuming you could find one that would play something like this.

Zombie Basketball

In the islands they got zombies;
They got 'em wall-to-wall.
And they come up north to Hoosierland
To play zombie basketball.

Oh, zombies they love basketball,
But I think that you can see
When parts of the players are fallin' off
They don't play like you and me.

Who's that staggerin' down the floor?
Must be a zombie guard.
Whenever one of his legs comes loose,
Makes dribblin' mighty hard.

I saw a zombie center;
Played great for a guy who's dead.
Sometimes he'd get so excited that
He'd slam-dunk his own head.

The zombies don't score many points;
You wouldn't think they would.
When your arms are layin' on the floor
Your shots are not so good.

The referee is a zombie, too
Just as you might suppose.
When he blows his whistle for a foul
He blows off his own nose.

There are even zombie cheerleaders;
They give you quite a fright.
One of them looks just like the girl
I saw you with last night!

We love to watch those zombies play;
We cheer them on each fall.
The best game in Indiana
Is zombie basketball.

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

2010-09-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Avast, ye scurvy lubbers! It be National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrgh! The (pirated, of course) illustration is by Howard Pyle.

Conspiracy

2010-09-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love conspiracy theories? Logic, rational thought, actual and verifiable knowledge; these go right out the window when it comes to conspiracy theories. This one, of course, is entirely true. Just like everything else you find on the internet, kiddies. Uhoh, I think I hear the sound of rotor blades...

Walldogs in Danville

2010-08-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Walldogs are in Danville, Illinois, finishing up 15 pieces of wall art in the downtown area. These vary from around 10x10 feet to a three-story painting of hot air balloons on the side of a parking garage. Neat stuff, eh? To find out more about the Walldogs, go here for the whole story.

The Edge of Disaster

2010-07-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Joe Peters has a new CD out; Pam and I made the release concert last Saturday and had a great time. Not only is Joe's music good (the CD has 15 original songs), but he has some great musicians with him on this one: Michael Kelsey on guitar, Linda Hicks and Amanda Fletcher on vocals and Allison Edberg on violin and viola, just to mention a few. The title comes from a song called Painting on the Edge of Disaster which relates to the watercolors of Rena Brouwer, an artist who does indeed work on the edge of disaster. At the concert, Rena did a watercolor, projected on a large screen, to the inspired (and inspiring) jazz/rock playing of Michael Kelsey. Amazing stuff, and somehow Rena always makes it come out just right.

You can go here to purchase the CD and to listen to individual tracks. So what are you waiting for? This is good stuff!

It's Llama Time Again!

2010-06-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

For me, the high point of the Warren County 4H fair is always the llama show, particularly the part where both the kids and the llamas are in costume. Getting a llama to wear a costume, not to mention getting the llama to do this while walking around in a show ring surrounded by flash camera-wielding strangers, is not such an easy task.

This year was one of the better years for costumes; I believe the dragon and the princess were the winners, but I liked the firefighter and dalmatian, the turkey and pilgrim and the two- and four-legged geishas. Oh, and the court jesters; they were good, too.

Too bad they didn't have a llama show when I was a kid in 4H. An angus steer might be tasty, but not nearly as much fun as a llama, I don't suppose.

Becoming Bionic Redux

2010-06-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

In addition to my pacemaker, the clever folks at Medtronic also make the CareLink Monitor, a device that allows you to send data from the pacemaker directly to your doctor. In my case, this saves me a round trip of about 100 miles: definitely a good deal. The monitor consists of a modem (1), an antenna (2) and a connection to a telephone line (3). The modem is powered by four AA batteries. Just to be safe, I added an aluminum foil beanie (4) to keep any CIA or space alien mind control rays out of my brain. You can't be too careful these days, and I plan to upgrade the aluminum foil beanie to one made of copper wire in the near future. It's important to keep up with modern technology, isn't it?

Depending upon how the doctor programs the pacemaker, all sorts of info can be recorded, including the status of the pacemaker leads and battery. Using the monitor is simple: you connect the modem to a telephone line, turn it on and hold the antenna over your pacemaker until the status lights indicated all the recorded data has been read. The monitor then dials a pre-programmed number and sends the data. When all the data has been transmitted, a "sending complete" light comes on and you can turn the monitor off. It just takes a few minutes, even with the crummy old telephone lines we have in Bailiff's Hollow.

A couple of days after sending the data, I get a letter from my doctor telling me everything is ok. Or at least that's how it's worked so far. The pacemaker can store quite a bit of data ( I sure hoping it's not running Windows Vista as its operating system), and I imagine that my doctor would let me know right away he saw any problems. But I plan on giving him a call if I ever get a note that says "Your toaster oven is broken."

Multitasking

2010-06-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Long before cell phones and text messages added to the hazards of driving, I had what might well have been the ultimate multi-tasking job: flying forward air control. The forward air control (FAC) business consisted of flying around in a small, single-engine aircraft, looking for the enemy on the ground, and directing fighters, bombers and/or artillery in destroying said enemy.

What made this particularly interesting was the communications set-up. Most of the time, you had three radios going: FM for the troops on the ground and their artillery batteries, VHF for your headquarters and outfits like airborne command posts and UHF for fighters and bombers.

So while you're flying your own airplane (often using binoculars to look for the bad guys), you're also switching between three radios to keep the whole operation coordinated. Oh, and once you find the target, you need to mark it with a smoke rocket so the fighters and bombers know where to shoot or drop their bombs. If you happened to be directing artillery (or naval gunfire, for that matter), you had to correct their aim, too. Now and then the troops on the ground had some input, and sometimes needed a little reassurance from the FAC that things were going as planned. Even if they weren't. And of course the fighters or bombers needed to know all sorts of things: the target elevation, the local altimeter setting, the weather, what sort of target it is, the ground fire situation, etc., etc., etc.

Since it makes the fighter and bomber pilots understandably nervous if artillery rounds are impacting on the same target they're hitting, you needed to take care of this little detail, too. Not too bad, really, except when the enemy doesn't cooperate and starts shooting at you. It didn't take the North Vietnamese long to figure out that shooting down that little gray airplane made the big brown and green ones go away, so it was a good plan to fly with your windows open and listen for ground fire. Often times, it was easier to hear than to see. If someone (other than the FAC himself, of course) got shot down, it was also the FAC's job to coordinate the rescue: just another item to make sure you weren't loafing on the job.

Toward the end of the war, some (undoubtedly a ground-pounder) clever fellow came up with a gadget like a large circular slide rule; a code wheel that you were supposed to use to insure your radio transmissions were secure, any more sophisticated method of encoding radio transmissions being a mere gleam in a developer's eye in those days. As you might guess, this code wheel widget wasn't the handiest thing in the world, give all the other stuff a FAC needed to do.

The strangest thing was that I got to really like being a FAC. Granted, I was pretty good at it, and was able to develop the sort of calm, laconic approach that seemed to instill confidence (probably unwarranted) in both troops on the ground and nervous F4 pilots-who-used-to-be-cargo-copilots-and-didn't-want-to-fly-fighters-anyway. FACs, as everyone knew, were just a whole lot cooler than anyone else, not to mention that we all wore half-kilo gold bracelets and carried big knives and Browning Hi-Power pistols. And we didn't bother to wear parachutes; it would have been a waste, flying that close to the ground. Too cool for words (or maybe brains) anyway.

Forty-some years later, could I still do the job? Yeah, probably; maybe not quite as well, but I could handle it as long as the weather was good and I had plenty of airspace to maneuver in. But I still wouldn't talk on a cell phone or text while driving, even if cell phones worked around here. A couple of A1 Skyraiders with 500-pound bombs and napalm would be nice for the next traffic jam, though.

The Pool Room and the Tester

2010-03-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

A tale of technology-driven social change

A long time ago, back in the 1950s, small Indiana towns such as Marshfield had a whole lot more going for them than they do today. Marshfield had a church, a gas station, a post office, a fellow who could fix just about anything for $5 and a three-room school that covered first through sixth grade. All of the boys who went to the Marshfield school carried pocket knives, and would be clapped in Gitmo as mini terrorists today, just in case you were wondering about this. And Marshfield had Else Kaiser's pool room, too.

Else's place had been a hotel in the late 1850s; it was one of three hotels and a half-dozen saloons that catered to railroad workers and other people who were on what was the western frontier at the time. Not too far from my place, between Bailiff's Hollow and Marshfield, is a cemetery with a load of Irish names on the tombstones, and I'm betting these folks had a drink or two in Marshfield back in the day.

But by the time I came along, Else Kaiser's was just the pool room, and the building had certainly seen better days. Just imagine a small wooden hotel built in the 1850s and not painted since it was built. Inside, you'd find a pool table, a few card tables with chairs, a cooler for your nickle Cokes and Ne-His, and a glass case where Else kept staples like peanuts and candy. It was an Indiana thing at the time to drink a bit of your Coke and then pour a bag of peanuts into the remainder, thus providing all the Hoosier daily nutrition requirements. You could find entertainment as well: Else liked to whistle (so long as the tune was "The Happy Whistler"), and did so with alarming frequency. I also heard that he played the fiddle, but my Dad said "Sort of" when it came to Else's fiddling. And on every morning during wheat, soy bean and corn harvesting seasons, Else's pool room would be full of farmers, all playing pool, euchre and pinochle and swilling down their peanut-laced Cokes, thus ensuring plenty of business for the local dentist.

But wait! How could hard-working farmers be hanging out in a pool room during harvest? Isn't there something terribly wrong with this picture? And herein (finally) lies the tale...

In order to store grain without it spoiling, the grain should have a maximum percentage of moisture. Back in the Else Kaiser days, the only way to determine this percentage was to cut a sample of grain, put it in an old coffee can, and take it to the grain elevator for testing. The elevator (handily located across the road from Else's pool room) had a large machine with analog dials and a black crackle finish that, after a few minutes of mysterious ruminating, would give you the moisture percentage. If this was a little high, and you didn't want to pay the elevator to dry your grain, you could figure that in a few hours, when the sun got up a little higher, it would be dry enough to harvest. In the meantime, it was off to Else Kaiser's for a game of pool, etc.

Most small farming towns had places like Else's; many of them even issued their own "money" in the form of tokens (usually 5 or 10 cents) that could be used at the pool room. There was probably some Federal law against this, but back then nobody seemed to care. And Else, being an ambitious sort of fellow, had even filed shallow grooves in his pool table slates. These grooves led toward the pockets and, as you might guess, tended to make the games go faster. At a dime a game, this feature helped insure Else's solvency. We discovered the grooves when someone bought the table after Else's closed, and once again stood in awe of the spirit of American Business. No wonder we beat the snot out of the Germans and the Japanese!

And then along came the inexpensive, hand-held moisture tester. No more great, big machine at the grain elevator, just a little battery-powered gadget that you could carry right on your combine to get a moisture read-out. And pretty soon, there were no customers in the pool rooms, and no more Else Kaiser's in Marshfield. They consolidated the grade schools, too, and tore down the old Marshfield school. The old hotel burned several years ago; it's a vacant lot today, and Marshfield no longer has a store or a post office. It's gotten harder over the years to find someone who knows how to play euchre, but as a trade-off more people seem to have more of their teeth than they did when I was a kid. And Marshfield, as you can see, still has great prairie sunsets.

'Tis the Season

2010-03-03T06:48:00.000-08:00

It's not as if we have blizzards and sub-zero weather all the time, but if you're not depressed by the relentless gray days of the Indiana winter, there's definitely something wrong with you. As a friend of mine put it so well after visiting Indianapolis in February, "Now I know how a dog views the world: in shades of gray." So true, so true.

Oh, and did I mention that the county roads turn into quagmires at the first hint of a thaw? There's nothing much the County Highway guys can do about this; they add some gravel where they can, but trying to grade a water-soaked gravel road just makes things worse. A couple of years ago, a guy who lives not too far from me called the County Highway Department to see where our road was on the list of roads to be paved. The guys are still laughing; sorry, there is no list and no money for paving, either. Warren County may be one of the counties with lower individual income than most in the state, but more of our tax dollars leave than ever return. The governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, says the highly-populated areas of the State subsidize the rural areas with tax money, but that's not what the figures show. Mitch, like many politicians, twists figures for his own purposes. Which is a nice way of saying he's a liar. I expect our road might be paved sometime in the next century, though. I'm an optimist.

One hopeful note: I hear the County Highway guys have been seeing a lot of dead skunks on the roads. This is figured to be a sure (but smelly) sign spring is on the way. I'm ready for it, skunks and all.

Computer Error

2010-02-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, the computer on my Schwinn Airdyne started acting up: the LCD wouldn't display some of the digits. And as luck would have it, the store where I bought the Airdyne no longer carried them. But a call to Schwinn's parent company, Nautilus, easily solved the problem. The customer service woman at Nautilus had a new computer out to me in a couple of days; I hooked it up and everything worked just fine. Except for one tiny problem...

It seems that it wasn't just the display that was acting up on my old computer, it was also incorrectly reporting speed and distance. And due to a physical law known as the Innate Perversity of Inanimate Objects, the blasted thing had of course been telling me I'd been going faster and farther than I actually had been. So perhaps I'm not quite ready for the Tour de France yet. Oh, well. I'll get where I want to be eventually, but it's going to take a little longer than I had thought.

It's nice to know that the Schwinn/Nautilus people stand behind their product. I don't expect any sort of machine to be perfect; design and quality control problems happen with anything humans invent and build, and in the real world of engineering and production they can't be escaped. In my view, it's what you do to solve your problems that counts. And that's why I figure Toyota, Honda (and Schwinn) will do just fine in the long run.

Tour de Loft

2010-01-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

What to do for exercise when you don't want to be outside in the freezing rain, below zero temperatures or knee-deep mud? An exercise bike is just the thing, so we got a Schwinn Airdyne. The fellow who sold it to us noted that his company had supplied several of the same model to Purdue University's athletic department, and had never had one that needed repair. After looking at the Airdyne, this is no big surprise: it's heavy-duty construction all the way. Unlike some other exercise bikes I've seen, the "handlebars" on this one turn the wheel, too so you can work your arms, legs or both. And it's got a nifty computer that keeps track of all sorts of stuff; mph, watts, calories burned, distance traveled, etc., etc.

Ours is parked upstairs in the loft, right outside my office. Right now, I'm riding about ten miles a day, working myself up to a goal of twenty miles a day. Since the Airdyne uses air resistance (drag) to resist motion, the resistance increases as your speed increases. As I remember, this is a square function, but don't quote me on that. I've been doing most of my riding at around thirteen mph; got it up to a little over 22 mph but that's as fast as I've been able to go so far.

I've been riding several times a day for about a month. Initially, I figured it might get sort of boring, but so far this hasn't been the case. I suppose I could rig a TV so I could watch it, but this doesn't have much appeal for me. A computer program that would allow you to run over certain people in virtual space would be pretty cool, though; something along the lines of "Grand Theft Auto" but with a bike. You'd get more points for politicians...

Carrie Newcomer Concert

2010-01-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you live in the midwest, chances are you need something to relieve the effects of the wet, cold and monochromatic winter. And a Carrie Newcomer concert is just the thing! If you're reading this blog and haven't heard Carrie, you're going to like her music, you can trust me on this. But don't take my word for it: go here and check her out.

To make it even better, profits from the concert go to support the Shirley Martin Scholarship, a scholarship that's given to young songwriters each year by the Songwriters' Association of Mid-north Indiana. You can find out more about this scholarship here

And if you can't make it to any of the places that have concert tickets, let me know and I'll be glad to send the tickets to you. If you're a songwriter yourself, the workshop is well worthwhile, as Carrie Newcomer is certainly one of the best songwriters around. Don't wait to sign up; spaces for this are limited.

White Elephant

2009-12-15T03:58:00.000-08:00

Some lucky person from the Songwriters' Association of Mid-north Indiana will take this beauty home tonight. It's our annual white elephant gift exchange and I found this hidden away in a compartment of my old roll top desk. It's from Fort Walton Beach, Florida circa 1973 and was given to me when I transferred from Hurlburt Field to Langley AFB.

Aside from being the very Tiffany of tacky and the Cartier of crap, this dandy little item was made back the heyday of American industry, back when we didn't need any foreign country to make our junk for us, and could handle the job ourselves, thank you very much.

And just in case you're wondering, the term "white elephant" comes from the old kingdom of Siam. White (they're not really white, but sort of a lighter grey) elephants were the property of the king, who would sometimes reward a subject with the gift of a white elephant. Of course, taking care of the critter wasn't easy; not only did you have to feed and water your royal gift, can you imagine cleaning an elephant litter box? Not fun, and not inexpensive, either. Hence the term "white elephant". Oh, yes...when the King of Siam heard that Abraham Lincoln didn't have any elephants to use in the Civil War, he offered to send a few Lincoln's way. Lincoln wisely declined the offer; a good thing, as otherwise I'm sure we'd still have an Elephant Corps complete with various procurement agencies, an Elephant Fodder Control Board and a half dozen or so Congressional committees to insure the US stayed up-to-date on the military use of elephants.

Cookie Time!

2009-12-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's time for strange cookies. And I couldn't help but notice that certain traditions have been established over the years of this generally chaotic event. We always seem to have a goofy moose (and this year's is particularly goofy, I think), some sort of odd fish as represented this year by the dreaded Blue Vampire Trout, a mysterious message based on a cookie that's supposed to say "HO HO HO" and a topical cookie of some sort. This year the topical item is poor Tiger in his jockey shorts (remember, this has nothing at all to do with good taste or political correctness).

Separated At Birth?

2009-11-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

Did you ever notice how closely Sarah Palin resembles an older version of Moaning Myrtle, the ghostly character from the Harry Potter movies? Separated at birth, I think. Or would that be separated at death? In any event, we can tell them apart because one is entirely without substance, a phantom conjured by imagination and the tricks of a special effects department. The other is a fictional British ghost.

Recording

2009-11-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

Predicting trends and fashions in popular music is even more difficult than predicting the stock market. In fact, I'd guess that there are only about two constants in popular music: 1) The older generation will always think the younger generation's music sucks (they will also think the kids dress weird, but that's another story) and 2) No matter what changes are made in recording technology, the music industry will always see the newest technology as the end of their profits and, by extension, the end of the industry. This, for the most part, started with the reel-to-reel tape recorder, as earlier formats such as wax cylinders and 78-, 45- and 33 1/3-rpm records couldn't be copied without more equipment than most people had.

The reel-to-reel tape recorder changed all of this, and if you were inclined to believe the music industry, this device was going to do them in. Somehow, the industry managed to hang on through the evolution of the cassette recorder and even the dreaded, tape-eating eight track, making more profits every year, only to find themselves faced with something even worse: digital audio tape. Now, back in the day, CDs were no big deal. Nobody had the gear to copy a CD at home, but with digital audio tape it was quite possible to copy a CD to tape and maintain good quality, too. Remember, this was back when even popular music had a melody and the quality of the recording was reasonably important to most people. The music industry was so upset by this awful DAT stuff and it's potential for (once again) ending their profits that they managed to work things out so there were two incompatible standards for DAT: one strictly for studio use and one for home use. I've used the studio standard at a radio station; it was fine but nothing remarkable and it was soon eclipsed by PC CD burners and the like. I might have seen one or two home DAT rigs in stores, but I wouldn't swear to this. How many of you have ever seen a DAT recorder/player?

The advent of PC CD burners was, of course, the final blow to the recording industry when this was coupled with a fast internet that allowed music file sharing and devices such as MP3 players that allow a huge quantity of music to be stored in and accessed from very small and inexpensive devices. And today; well, you might think the recording industry is just about on its last legs, but oddly enough that doesn't seem to be the case. And here's something else to think about: right now, you as a listener have access to more types of music than ever before. And if you happen to be a musician, it's never been easier to record and distribute your music. You don't need a studio as such, you don't need an agent and you don't need a contract with a large company to put your stuff out where the whole world can hear it (you still need to spend some money on good microphones, though).

I'm not a big fan of the MP3 format myself, and even being half deaf I can still tell the difference between an MP3 and a .wav file. Particularly when the MP3 file is being played through speakers the size of peas. Keep the technology coming: the recording industry, like every other industry, will simply have to take its chances and see if they can keep selling the kids that awful crap they all listen to these days while they're hanging around wearing those weird pants. Sorry, sorry. I wasn't going to say that...

Becoming Bionic

2009-11-19T09:27:00.001-08:00

For the best part of 66 years, I've been pretty good at dodging the docs and staying out of hospitals. But in the end, chaos and entropy always win and I'm now the proud owner of a pacemaker. This isn't a technology I've kept up with over the years, and I can tell you I was mighty pleased to discover that modern pacemakers are no longer the size of a 1956 Buick hubcap and are no longer powered by house current or nuclear batteries.

The rig I've got is a Medtronics Versa dual-chamber rate responsive pacemaker. It's a small (roughly the diameter of a fifty-cent piece and about as thick as two fifty-cent pieces) titanium widget with a built-in lithium ion battery and a couple of leads that run to my heart. What makes this a particularly nifty design is that it doesn't just sit there and keep my heart beating a 60 pulses a minute, but will set the pacing, depending upon requirements, to between 60 and 130 pulses per minute. The sampling rate, for those who like technical details, is 120 milliseconds. This means I could take on a whole dojo full of martial artists and still have plenty of blood flow to my brain. Actually, having enough blood flow to my brain will insure I won't try anything this stupid so you can relax, Steve. And you can even check the function remotely, using a small bit of comm gear that's connected to a telephone.

It took about an hour and a half to implant the device and fish the leads (the doc did this via an x-ray camera rather than using a fish tape); it was done under a local and just enough happy juice to make sure I didn't much care what was happening. I seem to recall discussing how to defuse a 750-pound variable time-delay fuse bomb with the doctor and his pit crew, but I suppose they've heard most everything. And who knows; they may need to know this someday. Sure hope I got the details right.

When you add in the cell phone charger, broadband WiFi antenna, USB port and the small keyboard that will handily fit in your shirt pocket, you have to admit that this is a pretty amazing device. You didn't really believe all of that, did you? No, I still can't get a broadband signal, and you can't really use a pacemaker for IM. Which is probably a good thing, if you think about it. I don't want any messages from Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin or space aliens. Oh, wait...Sarah Palin is a space alien.

Blind Whitebread Perry

2009-11-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

My friend Steve Perry, aka Blind Whitebread Perry, took me up on putting Dial-up Blues to music, and came up with something much cooler than what I'd been doing with the piece. You can check out his recording here, and I think you'll agree with me that Blind Whitebread Perry is indeed da man.

Listen to the music, then check out Steve's blog. And then you can go out and buy some of his books. Good stuff; I've been enjoying them for more years than either of us care to contemplate. A science fiction writing martial artist who plays guitar: what's not to like?

Dial-up Blues

2009-10-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Dai Peters travels around the world, going to places that most people would be afraid to visit, and in various ways helping people to find better lives. She's one of my heroes; the sort of person who makes you feel better about the human race in general. I like to think of her as an "anti-Cheney". And while she has a number of talents, she has one that's particularly useful to someone who travels to the more remote places of the world: wherever she goes; Pakistan, Laos, Vietnam, Kenya or wherever it might happen to be, she always finds a high-speed internet connection, a connection that's a couple of orders of magnitude faster than my crummy dial-up here in rural Indiana. So this one's for you, Dai.

Got up this mornin', got on the internet;
Had my eggs, two cups of coffee
An' the page ain't loaded yet.
I got the blues;
I got them low-speed dial-up blues.

Called my ISP an' said, "There's trouble on my line."
'Cause I'm still gettin' e-mail
From nineteen eighty-nine.
Lord, it's so slow;
I got them low-speed dial-up blues.

Had me a good woman; she was mighty sweet,
But my baby was on Twitter
An' I was too slow to tweet.
I got the blues;
I got them low-speed dial-up blues.

Since my baby left me, life's just a livin' hell;
She went steppin' out with Willie
'Cause he got DSL.
An' I'm so slow;
I got them low-speed dial-up blues.

Can't watch no YouTube, can't make no call on Skype;
Can't get no satisfaction
No matter what I try.
I got the blues;
I got them low-speed dial-up blues.

I got them low-down, slow-down
Got no ever-lovin' bandwidth dial-up blues.

I put this to a regular old 12-bar blues progression in the key of A, but feel free to make up your own music if you're so inclined. Just make sure I get a check after you record it and it goes goes gold.

Zombies in Hoosierland

2009-09-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Sure, we've got zombies in Indiana. Like most travelers passing through the state, they're on their way to somewhere else. But unlike regular humans, zombies don't check out Mapquest and never seem to have GPS, either. And now we've got these hordes of lost zombies, lurching around the cornfields along with the alligators and armadillos that have been taking advantage of global warming to move north.

When the weather gets cold, I suppose the zombies will be competing with the 'gators and armadillos for a limited food supply, and since the traditional zombie chow is human brains, they may find the pickings a bit slim here in the Hoosier state, cold weather or not. If you know what I mean. Well, maybe they'll eat the 'gators and armadillos, but I'm not counting on this. 'Gators and armadillos may not be the fastest creatures on four legs, but they're surely faster than even a relatively speedy zombie. After all, the zombie record time in the 100 meter dash is around three minutes as I recall. A pretty ecological question, isn't it? It should be an interesting winter, particularly if the zombies should find a source of snowshoes. Or learn how to drive ATVs.

I

Cats & Gravity

2009-09-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

Scared

2009-09-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend at the Salt Fork River Art Festival, I came across an artist who, in addition to her own work, had some kids' art on display. Here's Morgan's (four years old) depiction of "scared". This sure works for me, and looks to be about as scared as a person (or anything else) can get. I expect Morgan has a great future in art or graphics design if she happens to be inclined this way.

Playing For Change

2009-09-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

If you didn't catch Playing for Change: Peace Through Music on your PBS station, I strongly urge you to go here and order either the DVD of the PBS show or the DVD/CD combination shown above. The basic concept is brilliant: record and film a musician and then take the recording around the world so other musicians can join the jam session. Mark Johnson and his crew made this work beautifully, and the resulting whole seems far greater than the sum of its parts. Not that the parts aren't great by themselves, but having a talented singer from the US joined by a bass player from South Africa, a youth choir from Northern Ireland and a slide guitar player from Italy is hard to beat.

Even if you saw this on PBS, check out the website for more information on Playing for Change's foundation, various wearable and listenable goodies and the latest recordings. Trust me, you're gonna like this.

Salt Fork River Art Festival

2009-09-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't done an outdoor art show for several years; my stuff has been getting larger and the hassle of transportation, setting up displays and the like made selling from galleries a much better choice for me. But in the case of the Salt Fork River Art Festival, I decided to make an exception.

The festival is run by my friends at Sleepy Creek Vineyards, a particularly nice place to spend a couple of days outdoors, next to their pond and grape arbors. There are going to be 35 artists at the show (well, 34 plus me) and the Vineyard is also partnering with the Prairie Rivers Network with a show in the Vineyard's gallery; 10% of the commissions from this show will go to the Prairie Rivers Network.

For this show, I'm not bringing any large pieces (several are already on display in both the gallery and the Vineyard's gift shop), but I will have a large quantity of smaller items: necklaces, earrings, pins, wine bottle stoppers, glass nail files and the like. And my photographer buddy, David Nolan, will have some of his new works on display at my booth, too.

So if you're looking for something to do on September 26th or 27th, come on out to Sleepy Creek Vineyards and check out the Festival. There will be food available, and you can even have a glass of wine.

Just In Time For Hunting Season

2009-09-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

Early this spring, the Fish & Game folks released some new animals in Bailiff's Hollow, creatures intended to deal with the serious deer over-population problem. This has worked out very well, as we rarely see any deer around here now, and none of them are being hit on the roads. Come to think of it, we haven't seen any deer, mushroom or turkey hunters either, although we are finding quite a few abandoned cars and pickups on our road for some reason.

We wanted to make sure the new animals were safe (they're a little difficult to see at night) so we got the Highway Department to put up a sign where they cross the road. Their bodily fluids (as they say on those TV crime shows) are mighty tough on paint and metal, and we wouldn't want to see our visitors' cars get damaged. But since nothing seems to eat these new animals, it might be time to think about an open season on them. Maybe Sara Palin and Dick Cheney would like to come for the first hunt! Sure, I know they're not the sort of hunters who eat what they shoot, but that doesn't matter. In Bailiff's Hollow, what you shoot eats you.

The Cockroach Jamboree

2009-08-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

I got out of bed the other night
Just to get me a drink of water;
Heard a lotta noise underneath the sink
From where I hadn't oughter.

Opened up the door 'an I looked inside;
Good grief! An' what did I see?
'Bout forty-'leven million bugs was there
At the cockroach jamboree.

They was laughin' an' a-shoutin' an' whoopin' it up;
Dancin' an' a-carryin' on.
Said, "We gonna have us a high old time
When the human race is gone.

So keep on burnin' that oil an' coal
An' dump a little garbage, too;
Gonna be a whole lot more of us
An' a whole lot less of you."

Chorus:

We don't need no great big SUV
Nor a digital TV set;
If there's somethin' that a cockroach don't wanna eat,
We sure ain't found it yet.

Been around three hundred million years;
For the most part we done swell.
All we gotta do is teach or kids
"Stay outta them roach motels."

One little feller capered up to me
An' he did a little buck 'n' wing.
"You say we're just a bunch of pesky bugs
But you don't know a thing.

All them tanks 'n' planes 'n' bombs 'n' guns
That you use to raise such as fuss;
All of that stuff ain't worth a dime;
It don't mean a thing to us.

You can drop them atom bombs all day
An' we don't give a tinker's dam.
All that radiation stuff's gonna do to us
Is give us a real nice tan.

From the way that you been treatin' the earth
An' the crazy things you do
Reckon we're just a bunch of low-life bugs
That's a whole lot smarter 'n' you."

(Chorus)

"Oh, we are the champion travelin' bugs;
'Round the world we can't be beat,
'Cause seventeen thousand an' twenty-three of us
Can sit in one airline seat.

We gonna take over the whole dang world
An' Washington, DC, too;
We can even run around without no brains
Like them folks in Congress do.

Now, we like it where it's kinda damp
(keep meltin' that artic ice)
An' we don't want the weather to get too cold
So the global warmin's nice.

But there's one more thing you could do for us
If you'd be so polite:
Would the last human bein' alive on earth
Please turn out the lights?"

(Chorus)

I wrote this last winter for the Earth Day meeting of the Songwriters' Association in Lafayette, Indiana. Sort of a generic shit-kicking C&W tune will work; feel free to make up your own.

From Looney Logo Land

2009-08-19T05:09:00.000-07:00

WILL, run by the University of Illinois, is one of the better PBS stations I've encountered. And that's a good deal, because it's the only PBS station we can get. At least we can get it some of the time, and some PBS is better than no PBS at all. But not too long ago, the folks at WILL came up with a new logo for the station. There was an explanation of what this is supposed to be in their monthly magazine, but I'll have to admit I did not understand this explanation at all. The only thing I can tell for sure is that it has nothing to do with the letters "WILL" or the University of Illinois. Nor, as far as I can tell, does it have anything to do with broadcasting.

As nearly as I can figure, this emblem shows a guy in a druid's robe who is trying to operate an ATM machine. Unfortunately, things are not going well as it seems his head has fallen off. That's only my take, you understand; I'd be interested in what you think this might be. And I sure hope WILL didn't pay too much money to have this designed...

Hoosier 'Gator

2009-07-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't expect to find an alligator in northern Indiana, but according to the Chesterton Tribune, an alligator is exactly what Zach Ramsey and Casey Sonaty shot near Rensselaer along the Iroquois River. After failing to get the critter with a bow and arrow and a fishing spear, the intrepid lads went home and got a twelve gauge shotgun. That did the job. According to the newspaper article, the 'gator was about six feet long and weighed around 150 pounds. From the photo, that doesn't look like a 150-pound 'gator to me, but what do I know about 'gators? For all I know they could be pretty dense; say twice as dense as a 'possum. I do know they taste like chicken which, come to think of it, is sort of like the way 'possum tastes. And you can make a better-looking belt out of 'gator hide than you can from 'possum hide: that 'possum tail looks pretty funny hanging down the back of your pants.

That's the extent of my 'gator lore, but the Conservation Officer in Jasper County allowed as how he figured the unfortunate 'gator must have been raised by someone and then turned loose when it got too big. This sounds reasonable enough, until you begin to think about some of the more bizarre possibilities due to climate change. A 'gator might not survive a typical Indiana winter,unless the climate starts to get warmer, that is. I hear we've already got armadillos in southern Indiana, so maybe 'gators aren't too far-fetched at all. A few 'gators in the ponds and streams around here would sure make deer, turkey and mushroom hunting more interesting, and where you've got 'gators it only seems reasonable to assume Cajun food and music will soon follow. Sounds good to me.

The Portable Internet

2009-06-04T11:44:00.000-07:00

It took me the better part of an hour to upload this to my blog, what with dropped connections, timeouts and all the hassle that goes with a very slow (around 22kbps) dial-up. And as time goes by and websites become larger and more sophisticated with their use of Flash, Shockwave and the like, there's less and less of the internet I can actually use.

You might think there would be a way to get a better connection, but without building a 100+ foot tower there isn't much I can do. Our telephone lines are 1960s vintage, and there's no plan to replace them. The telephone company can charge 2009 prices for the use of this outmoded junk and there's not a thing I can do about it. Lots of telephone companies, all right, but one company owns the wires and connections and, the way the Congress has rigged things, you can keep your monopoly ownership of the wires so long as you don't upgrade them.

Satellite sounded good when I first heard about it, but a little study revealed that it's not such a good deal: it's about four times the cost of wireless broadband with about 1/4 the speed, allows fairly low download volume per month, has slow upload speeds and horrible customer service. Oh, yeah...and the satellite companies also want you to sign a one year to eighteen month contract and provide them with a credit card number and your SSAN even if you don't want to pay with a credit card. For this, they give you no performance warranty whatsoever.

I also had hopes for broadband over the electric lines, but my local REMC, the outfit that owns the power lines, isn't interested in this at all.

So what do I do when I need software downloads to patch or update programs? I take my trusty jump drive to the library, download what I need to the drive and bring it home for installation on my computer. But I've lately been hearing that the state government here in Indiana would like to do away with libraries in towns of under 10,000 people; towns just like the two that have libraries here in Warren County. And if this happens, then it will be the end of my internet "connection", unless I want to keep an account with an ISP just for e-mail. Since I've already got a slower connection than what you might find in Laos, Botswanna, Haiti, Vietnam or the mountains of Pakistan, I suppose it would be fitting if rural Indiana went entirely third world and got rid of libraries, too. Maybe electricity isn't needed in small towns, either...

Blind Spots

2009-05-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

I'm driving a Toyota FJ Cruiser these days; a fun machine and one that will haul a fair amount of stuff as well as make it up and down our road, a road that might as well be "off road" when the weather is bad. And it will clear the large rocks, ever-present even in good weather, that took out the oil pan and a frame member on my old Chrysler van. Not to mention the ball joints and rack and pinion gears. Why, this thing will even turn the packs of feral dogs into sail hounds without any problems whatsoever. But as you can see from the photo, the FJ Cruiser doesn't have the best visibility to the rear.

I was looking for a technological solution to this; maybe one of those panoramic mirrors or the add-on wide angle mirrors for the right and left mirrors. But while looking around on the internet I discovered that the real problem was the way my mirrors were adjusted: I'd been doing this incorrectly for the last fifty-some years and didn't really need new hardware, just better adjustment of the mirrors I have. Here's how you do it:

1. Strap in, and adjust your seat the way you want it.
2. Adjust the rear view mirror (the one on the windshield) so you're looking at the center of the back window.
3. Lean your head to the left, so it almost touches the window, and adjust the left mirror so you can just barely see the left rear quarter panel.
4. Lean your head to the right about as much as you can, and adjust the right mirror so you can just barely see the right rear quarter panel.

Yep, that's right: with your head in the normal position for driving, you can't see either the right or left rear quarter panels of your car in the mirrors. This may feel a little strange to begin with, because chances are you've been driving with the mirrors adjusted so you can see these rear quarter panels. Try the new adjustments for a while, and I think you'll find blind spots considerably reduced, if not entirely eliminated. Shortly after making the new adjustments, I was passed by a guy on a motorcycle and noticed that almost exactly at the same instant he vanished from the center rear view mirror he appeared in the left mirror. And that's what you want: no blind spots at all. To check this out, have someone walk around behind your car while you're parked, and note when they disappear from one mirror and appear in another. Or you could find someone you don't like and get them to walk around while you're backing up and see how much easier it is to hit them with the mirrors adjusted correctly.

About the only down side to this is when parallel parking. In this case, it's often good to see your rear quarter panels. But the FJ's outside mirrors have electric adjustments, so readjusting them is no big deal. And it's always a good idea to be looking around when you're driving, constantly checking the mirrors and looking for someone trying to sneak up on you. Driving on the highway is a lot like flying around unarmed in a combat zone where the enemy has air superiority, only more dangerous.

Files

2009-04-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

Since the art world has been very slow lately, I needed to find something new and interesting to keep me out of trouble, and my friend Kitty at Beachglass Hawaii told me about these nifty glass fingernail files. These are made in the Czech Republic ( the Czechs know more than a little bit about glass) and are made from tempered glass that looks to be about 2.5mm thick. The glass has been etched to about 250 grit, so it works great as a file. And it doesn't wear out; you can just clean it with water.

I added the decorative handles using various pieces of iridized and dichroic glass; these pieces are, as we like to say in the glass business, "chemically bonded" to the files. That's "glue" to most people, and the stuff I've been using is plenty strong: probably stronger than the glass itself. I've been experimenting with various styles, and the ones shown above are just a few of the possibilities. And each file comes with a black, suede-like sheath.

I've been pleasantly surprised at how popular these are, and initial sales have been very good. You can get these at 4th Street Gallery in Covington, Indiana, Susie Gibbs' Gallery in Lafayette, Indiana or at Sleepy Creek Vineyards, south of Oakwood, Illinois. If you can't make it to any of these places, contact me and I'll send you as many files as you'd like.

A Corporate Mystery

2009-04-14T04:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I just happened to look on the back of my bill from the mighty ExxonMobil corporation and there it was: a neat rectangle centered on a blank piece of paper containing the words as shown above. How strange, I thought, they've blatently printed on the very spot where they've ever-so-politely asked me not to print. What can this mean?

I considered calling ExxonMobil to further investigate the mystery, but upon reflection decided that this would not work at all. I think you can imagine what might result from my inquiry (assuming that I could find a real human being, much less one that had any knowledge of the question and was inclined to answer it) with which to converse. And let's face it: I don't really want to draw the attention, much less the ire, of an outfit like ExxonMobil that has hordes of lawyers and other evil lackeys, minions and henchmen that are just waiting for someone like me to offend their corporate dignity. No, you don't mess with American corporations, and I understand that Wal-Mart has recently offered to buy Guantanamo from the Federal Government and turn it into a re-education camp for consumers who do not buy enough cheap plastic crap. ExxonMobil has even more money than Wal-Mart, so I think you can understand why I don't want to fool with them.

But I still have to wonder what would happen if I printed something in the forbidden space. Maybe next month I'll print your name, address and telephone number there. All in the spirit of scientific inquiry, of course.

Open and Shut Again

2009-04-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

If you happen to have some cash left over from the billions in bail-out money that you got from the dear old taxpaying suckers, from the huge executive bonus you were awarded for running your corporation into the ground or even just a few million that you got as a "golden parachute" when they fired you for being an incompetent jackass, maybe you'd like to spend some of these ill-gotten gains on a piece or two that David Nolan and I made.

No? Well, that's ok. We don't really expect any crooked bankers, Wall Street pigs or corporate robbers to show up, but we'd be happy to see people like you at our show. And if you can make the opening reception we'll even supply the wine and snacks, which is about as good a deal as you're likely to find these days. If you'd like to know more about the Alley Gallery, you can check it out here or here.

The piece shown in the photo is called "Well of Time", and features our friend Amy. Yes, she has hair in real life, and no, we'd didn't actually put her down a well. She's far too clever to go for something like that.

The Mercenary

2009-02-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

It seems as if every time we've tried to go somewhere for the last month or so ice, snow and generally awful weather have kept us at home. But one nice thing about this is that I'm ahead on my project for the annual Sow's Ear Challenge at the gallery at Sleepy Creek Vineyards. Last year's challenge was to use scrap electronics, and this year's is used cardboard, a material that Pam has in large quantities at the recycling center.

I had sketched this idea several years ago, figuring to make it out of welded quarter-inch steel plate. But this would be a lot of steel (about $3000 worth) and the end result would have been far too heavy for one person to move. On the other hand, cardboard is free and with a little paint, a few decking screws, an old piece of foam insulation for the base and a handy hot glue gun, I've now got a critter about seventy-five inches tall that can easily be picked up with one hand.

It's called "The Mercenary"; think of it as a reminder of the last administration in Washington, a gang of villains the likes of which I surely hope we never see again. And may this nasty fellow visit their dreams. Frequently.

The show at Sleepy Creek runs from April 4th to May 31st, and there's an opening reception scheduled for April 3rd. If you're in the Oakwood, Illinois area, drop by if you get a chance. And do a search for "cardboard sculpture" on the net: there's some truly amazing stuff out there.

One Reindeer Short

2008-12-23T07:06:00.000-08:00

Uhoh, it looks like Santa should have equipped his team with flack jackets for flying over Alaska. Here's hoping that eight reindeer, with a little help from GPS, will be able to complete the mission on Christmas eve. I wonder if they'll do a "missing man" fly-by for poor ol' Rudy? And if I were Santa, I'd want a few A-10s for an escort. There's nothing like 30mm cannon fire to keep those gunner's heads down.

Which brings up a couple of questions: why don't people get hit with reindeer poop on Christmas eve? Does Santa have liability insurance for this? Maybe the FAA and NTSB should investigate.

Cookie Time Again!

2008-12-09T04:50:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's time to make strange cookies. And as you can see, this is a fun (if somewhat messy) process that calls for plastic on the table and the use of surgical gloves. I don't know what they put in black frosting, but even lacquer thinner won't take it off your hands. My guess is that it's made in China out of various toxic materials, just like those little silver balls they sell for decorating cakes and cookies but are actually marked in very small print as "not for consumption." But on to the cookies...

Poor old mister moose seems to have fallen victim to Alaska's favorite helicopter gunner. Does she really wear Neiman Marcus for moose blasting? With the tag showing, too? I wouldn't be surprised; Caribou Barbie is a law unto herself, or at least she would like to be.

But the second moose was smarter: this one was disguised as a Mondrian painting and consequently avoided the mortification of being turned into sausage and having his head hung on a wall.

Salmon Ella? Sorry about that. You lick too much frosting and things can get out of hand.

Sometimes cookies can get damaged, but the very essence of art is being able to make something out of your mistakes. And in this case, we have the President-elect but without a left wing. Which is more-or-less the case, isn't it?

Local News

2008-11-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

Even if you don't have any fish to wrap or own a messy bird that needs a cage liner, local newspapers can provide a certain journalistic style that simply isn't available from state and national publications. Before our local paper was bought by the newspaper equivalent of Clear Channel and more-or-less lost its local feel, you would now and then come across masterpieces of skilled and stylish reporting such as these examples from the "Incidents" section of the Warren County Sheriff's Department column:

Monday, July 15, 2:25AM: Jordan Cooper, Williamsport, reported that his 1991 Firebird had been egged and wrapped in toilet paper. The officer checked the area and found no one possessing these items.

It occurred to me that since the eggs and toilet paper had already been applied to the Firebird, the officer was unlikely to find them in someone's possession. But maybe I've been reading too many detective novels and have developed an odd sense of cause and effect. Or it could be that there's a shortage of eggs and toilet paper in Williamsport and nobody has any. This last situation would seem to be a case for the FBI, if not Homeland Security.

Wednesday, July 17, 8:20PM: A raccoon was reported laying in the road in rural Williamsport. It was destroyed.

What was the raccoon laying? Bricks? Or maybe the eggs that were used on Mr. Cooper's Firebird? I don't think raccoons lay eggs, but in rural Williamsport I suppose anything is possible. And what exactly was destroyed? The raccoon, the road or rural Williamsport? From a quick survey of the scene, it could have been any or all of these.

Corn Sharks

2008-11-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

Did you ever wonder why that new tractor tire seemed to have teeth marks in it? And wasn't it strange that Ol' Shep vanished so suddenly? Come to think of it, didn't you used to have three kids? If questions like these have been bothering you, there's a good chance that your fields are infested with CORN SHARKS! Yes, the dreaded Indiana Corn Shark (Sharkus Hoosierus Verde), that mean, green eatin' machine, can make any farmer's life mighty tough. Isn't it good to know that Cap'n Quint's Shark-B-Gone is there to protect your family, pets and machinery? Contact your nearest agricultural chemicals dealer today and ask for Cap'n Quint's Shark-B-Gone: it's easy and safe to apply, and just a few pounds per acre will send those pesky Corn Sharks packing. Apply some today and you'll sleep better tonight--and so will Ol' Shep.

Something Scary

2008-11-11T05:29:00.000-08:00

Just in case you were feeling a little too hopeful, here's something scary to contemplate. And if you happen to be a moose, be afraid...be very afraid.

Schrodinger's Cat

2008-10-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Schrodinger's Cat
(Or a Brief History of Physics)

Issac Newton's calculus was elegant and grand
With its Xs, Ys and Zs and all of that.
Then along came Doctor Schrodinger and threw us all a curve
With his never-living, never-dying cat.

The cat is in a box, wherein a poisoned clock
Is all controlled by particle decay.
And if he's live or dead; I sit and shake my head,
'Cause I haven't got it figured to this day.

It seems the cat is not alive, but neither is he dead;
And I think there's something mighty wrong with that.
Poor old Newton's clockwork universe is now a litter box
For Doctor Schrodinger's cat.

To amplify the curse, things got even worse
Thanks to Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty.
He said, "If you know your speed, that's all you know indeed
And you can never know your delta p".

Conversely, driving in your car, if you know just where you are,
Then you can never know how fast you go.
Simply going to the store has become an awful chore
Full of traffic tickets, trouble, strife and woe.

Stephen Hawking made the scene and chaos reigned supreme;
Scholars didn't know just what to do.
With a gang of rowdy quarks, he mugged Einstein in the park
And blew the quantum foam right off his brew.

But the cat is still alive (or maybe he's still dead),
And I think it's time to end his sneaky tricks.
We'll drag him from his box and stuff him in a sack;
Then we'll take him to the vet and get him fixed.

For the cat is not alive, but neither is he dead;
And you know there's something mighty wrong with that.
Poor old Newton's clockwork universe is just a litter box
For Doctor Schrodinger's cat.

Mike Byers
October 2008

Curse Against Book Stealers

2008-10-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

According to my librarian friend Chris, this isn't actually from the Monastery of San Pedro but is from The Old Librarian's Almanack, a brilliant and funny forgery by Edmund Lester Pearson. For details, see "The History of a Hoax: Edmund Lester Pearson, John Cotton Dana and the Old Librarian's Almanack."

Still, it's a pretty good curse and might even be effective. Next time you encounter a book stealer, give it a try.

The Stone of Five Rings

2008-09-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

The stone has eight holes, and five rings must go through each hole, with no more than one ring passing through any hole. At first thought, five into eight like this couldn't possibly work. But once you consider the outside of the stone, grasshopper, all things are possible.

Thanks to Pam for finding the stone (good old Indiana limestone, by the way) and to Miyamoto Musashi for the idea.

Open & Shut

2008-09-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

My friend David Nolan is the guy who convinced me that photography really can be art. I suppose I should have known this, but deep in my secret heart I was always a little dubious until I saw his work. His images make me feel emotions I can't quite explain or describe, and over the years I've acquired a couple of his pieces that I truly like.

Not too long ago, I made a series of containers; everything from carved sign foam to large bronze bushings and talked David into putting his photos in these. Not only was this fun, but I found a use for a lot of odd stuff that had been lying around my studio for ten or fifteen years. And as a result, David and I are doing a show at the Fourth Street Gallery in Covington, Indiana, opening October 25th. We'll have a dozen or so of our joint projects on display, plus a few individual pieces as well.

You're invited to the opening (free wine and cheese!), or come by any time to check out what we've done and the other works on display at Fourth Street Gallery, too. The gallery is very nice indeed, so you'll probably want to bring your checkbook.

Nature's Ink, Inc.

2008-08-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

In hard economic times, a small business needs all the advertising help it can get. And here at Nature's Ink, Inc., we're ready to provide that help using the latest, ecologically-sound "green" technology. We catch the deer, stencil them with your message (using biodegradable soy-based ink that doesn't harm the deer or other wildlife) and return them to the wild where they'll soon be bringing in new business for you. We can even supply salt blocks that can be placed along busy highways and intersections to attract even more Nature's Ink deer: more deer mean more customers, and a road-kill Nature's Ink deer isn't just an eyesore and a snack for crows and buzzards, it's money in your pocket! Call Nature's Ink, Inc. today, and get Mother Nature working for YOU!

No, my friend Dick doesn't really do this, but Dick's Body Shop does top-notch work on just about any kind of vehicles. So if you hit a deer in west central Indiana (something that just about everyone around here does) who ya gonna call?

Llama Time!

2008-06-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's llama time at the Warren County 4-H Fair and along with the more serious displays of llama showmanship and agility we have the llama costume contest, the very best part as far as I'm concerned.

First, there's Paul Bunyan with Babe, the blue ox. Or would a llama pretending to be an ox be best described as a "llox"? Yeah, it probably would. Wicked looking horns in any case. Then we have the Chicago gangster with his flapper girlfriend, Esmeralda. She's pretty good-looking for a Warren County girl and I would have voted for her as Fair Queen; undoubtedly one of the reasons they don't give me a vote in this.

The Tale of the Dustmen

2008-05-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

Whiting, as anyone who works with stained glass knows, is a useful material for cleaning the finished panels. It's chalk dust; calcium carbonate if you will, a mild abrasive that can also be used when mixed with water as a temporary paint and for marking athletic fields. But where does whiting come from? Perhaps the white cliffs of Dover? Pretty close, as for centuries all whiting did in fact come from England, if not directly from Dover.

Before 1823 and the invention of the steam elevator, mining the cliffs of Dover for chalk dust wasn't practical, as working on the steep and crumbly cliffs was a hazardous trade. Nobody wanted to take the risk for extracting merely the small pieces that could be easily ground into fine dust. Bigger pieces of chalk were mined and made into the traditional chalk sticks that were used on blackboards in those days, and that's where the Dustmen came into the picture.

The Dustmen! Generations of English school children were awakened from their afternoon daydreams by the cry "Dustmen coming!" And into the classroom would stride the Dustmen with their black frock coats, green bowler hats and carefully-trimmed badger hair brushes. Oh, they were proud of those brushes! Each Dustman was required to catch his own badger to make his brush, and each brush was made in a style that reflected the Dustman's area of origin: Yorkshire Wides, Oxford Narrows and of course the tricky and difficult to use Hampshire Corkscrew. And since badgers as a rule resent people who try to take their hair, many Dustmen were missing bits of fingers and noses, another distinctive feature of the trade that greatly added to the delight of the children.

The Dustmen would carefully sweep the dust from the blackboard chalk trays into their lambskin bags, solemnly tip their bowler hats to the teacher and be off in a flash, bound for the next school on their route. At the end of each day the whiting was collected, packaged and prepared for shipment around the world.

Sadly, the invention of dustless white boards doomed the Dustman's trade and whiting is now made by World Hypercorp, a multinational company that also makes synthetic meat for fast food restaurants and those sticky labels that prevent you from opening CD and DVD cases. But if you're ever in England, don't miss the chance to visit the Royal Dustman Museum in Frogpie On Toast, Surrey for a glimpse of bygone and glorious days when being a Dustman had nothing to do with garbage and was a greatly-respected trade in the British Empire.

"...a miracle of rare device."

2008-04-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

Every year, my friends at Sleepy Creek Vineyards hold the Sow's Ear Challenge wherein the participants are tasked to make something out normally useless items. Last year's challenge involved old wooden shipping pallets, and this year's will use scrap electronics. Here's a look at my entry, the dreaded Mark 24 Type 3a Trinary Hazard Emission Device.

This evil-looking widget is made from some inert gas cylinders, circuit boards, a computer hard drive and various bits and pieces that I'd been saving for just an occasion like this. The Mark 24 Type 3a is designed to emit three modern hazards: biologicals, radiation and smiley faces that have been co-opted by a certain Large Corporation Known For Selling Mass Quantities Of Cheap Plastic Crap.

I'll probably put a price tag on it, but would consider giving it away to the right person, i.e. someone foolish enough to try carrying it through airport security or someone who could deliver it to the appropriate wicked persons in Washington, D.C. Don't worry; the Mark 24 Type 3a meets or exceeds Federal Standard UD/12336-P/14b. Revision 1299f for Devices That Do Absolutely Nothing While Appearing To Be Powerful And Dangerous. For further information, please contact our customer service department in Pakistan.

Dealing With CDs

2008-03-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

I've tried several schemes for storing CDs and none of them have been entirely satisfactory. We've got a lot of CDs, and it would be nice if they could be stored in a way that made it easy to find the particular disc you're looking for, and in a way that kept them from getting dusty, too.

Here's what I finally came up with: slide-out racks that will store about 140 CDs in a roughly 20 by 20 by 9 inch space. The racks are made from oak and 1/2" copper water pipe, and are mounted on painted plywood bases that are attached to slides. The slides are known as "over-travel" slides, and allow the shelves mounted on them to extend slightly beyond the door opening. They've also got friction catches that keep them closed (as shown in the top photo) when they're retracted.

What makes this system work so well is the piece shown by the red arrow. This piece will easily slide on the copper pipe but will lock in any position to keep the stack of CDs from falling over. I learned about this from an engineer named Elmer Yang, a smart and creative fellow I worked with at Pacific Scientific several years ago. It's called a "canting washer" and works just as well on a CD tray as it does on parts in an aircraft flight control system. If you think of a washer sliding on a rod, the hole in the washer being just a bit larger than the diameter of the rod, you'll note that you can slide the washer so long as you apply an equal force to both sides of it and keep it perpendicular to the rod. But if you press on just one side of the washer, it will tip slightly and will lock on the rod.

This basic design can be adapted to all sorts of things: DVDs, video tapes, audio tapes; even your old 33 1/3 albums. If anyone would like detailed instructions on how to make these racks, I'll be happy to supply them.

Rodin's Pig?

2008-03-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

For the most part, I don't really like to look at pieces I did in the past. Since I hope I've learned something over the years, looking a a piece I did before I learned better isn't something I enjoy that much. But now and then...

As nearly as I can remember, I did this little fellow when I was about six years old and my grandmother had enrolled me in a clay sculpture class at the Danville, Illinois Art League. I do recall that it was supposed to be one of my grandfather's hunting dogs, but as you can see there seems to be a distinct resemblance to a pig, and the proverbial blind pig at that. Why, even my friend Steve's funny-looking dogs don't have snouts like this!

For some odd reason I still like this piece, and fancy that it might resemble a pig as done by Auguste Rodin when he was a six-year-old kid. And although I didn't go on to do quite as well as Rodin did, even a blind pig finds a few acorns.

Graphic Magic

2008-02-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I was in an art show with the artist who did this piece, and I was impressed with both her eye for color and her composition skills. I suppose there are some people who might say that artwork created on the computer doesn't count as "real art", but I don't buy this notion at all: to me, it's what you do with the medium, not the medium itself, that's important. And in the case of Kristen Wolfinbarger's work, it seems to me that something exceptional is going on here.

But you can judge for yourself, and check out her website here. In addition to the digital art, she has some impressive photographs, too. You can order prints through her site, so check it out and buy your sweetie (or yourself) something for Valentine's Day.

A New Gallery

2008-01-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

I've just signed with a new gallery; I delivered the first pieces this morning. Fourth Street Gallery in Covington, Indiana will be open around the middle of February, and things are already looking very good. The gallery is located at 322 Fourth Street, on the east side of the courthouse square in Covington. Covington is on the north side of I-74 in western Indiana, and is one of those small towns that seems to be doing very well these days: it's worth a trip if you happen to be in the area as there are some nifty antique stores and a good place to have lunch, too.

The gallery is owned by Debra Lape and Jim Deschene, and is in an old restored building. Fourteen foot ceilings and hardwood floors, plus plenty of light make it a great space. You can contact Fourth Street Gallery at (765) 299-3235 or (765) 299-4345; I'll put up a link to their website as soon as the site is up and running, and I'll post their official opening date as soon as I have it.

Strange Cookies Redux

2008-01-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

It was that time of year again, so we all got together to make our usual strange cookies. A couple of us were clever enough to wear rubber gloves, as that dye that makes black frosting doesn't wash off; even lacquer thinner doesn't touch the stuff. Makes you wonder what's in it; rather like those little silver balls that say in fine print "for decorative use only".

In any event, first off is another UN weapons inspector; this one is for Kitty in Hawaii who admired the first one so much. This poor chap seems to have encountered a mutagen of some sort; one of the hazards of the business, I suppose.

I'm not sure what to say about a blue moose, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

The cowboy probably escaped from an asylum, and I'm guessing the asylum was in Texas. They have serious problems there with cowboys (both mutated and otherwise) and can't send all of them to Washington, thank goodness. I expect it's a combination of too much oil and too much country music that causes this kind of condition.

Finally, the three-dimensional Santa cookie. Or is it some sort of odd Holiday toad-like creature? It's certainly on the endangered species list whatever it is, and we should all be grateful for this: you don't want to find one of these in your stocking, or in any other article of clothing for that matter.

Tools o' the Trade

2007-12-15T08:36:00.000-08:00

Like any other trade, stained glass has some specific tools: some modern and some downright ancient. I've been doing this a while, so most of my tools are 20+ years old and, as luck would have it, these kinds of tools don't really wear out.

Grozing pliers (top left) are soft iron pliers that are used to nibble (groze) away bits of glass. A glazier from the 800s would recognize these; the steel wheel glass cutter that we use today wasn't invented until the 1700s as I recall, and before this you'd cut glass by marking your shape with a hot iron and then pouring cold cow urine on the mark. The glass would break roughly along the line you'd marked; then you'd use the grozing pliers to nibble off pieces to get the exact shape you wanted, more or less. I've repaired glass from the 1400s that was cut this way, and the work was surprisingly precise. I'll stick with the steel wheel cutter, although the pliers are still useful for removing unwanted bits and the sharp edges that tend to do microsurgery on your fingers.

I don't much use a lead knife (top right) these days, as the lead I use for the most part has a brass core and needs to be cut with a saw. But the lead knife is still handy for trimming pieces of lead, and the version I have has a weighted end for tapping in the horse shoe nails (bottom) that you use to hold everything together before the panel is soldered. Horse shoe nails are just the ticket: the flat sides won't put a dent in the lead the way a round nail would.

A lathkin (center) is used to open the channel in the lead pieces and to push pieces of glass and lead tightly together. Traditionally, these are made of wood but I bought this Nylon one about 20 years ago and, despite numerous dings and solder burns, it's still perfectly serviceable. Maybe I'll think about buying a new one in another 20 years or so.

I didn't include a glass cutter in the photo, since everyone knows what these are. But did you ever wonder what those notches in the glass cutters you can get at the hardware store are for? They're a holdover from the 800s, when you could (supposedly) use a notched tool to break off pieces of glass that you'd "cut" with the hot iron and cow urine method. I suspect they worked just as well in the 800s as they do today, which is to say not at all.

Bombers, Bunnies & Corn Jerkers

2007-12-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Around this part of the world, high school sports are a big deal. In fact, without high school sports our local television news would consist of nothing but automobile accidents and fires and, commercials for soybean and corn pesticides aside, the "news" would only be about five minutes long. But thanks to high school sports reporting, there's no need to address subjects like endless war, crushing national debut or global warming. It is, after all, the heart of Bushland and people here don't need to know about boring stuff like this.

Along with the high school sports, you've got to have mascots. And some of them seem rather strange...

First, we have the Rensselaer, Indiana Bombers with a mascot that appears to be a retro and oddly-disturbing bomb. I first came across this fellow several years ago, when a customer asked me to etch it on a mirror for her son, a recent graduate of Rensselaer High School. She thought it looked sort of like a guy wearing a condom on his head, and since she was from Rensselaer I suppose she would know.

Next up we have the Bunnies from Fisher, Illinois with an aggressive and deranged- looking orange bunny. It can't be easy to be a Bunny in a world full of Vikings, Patriots, Green Devils and the like, and being an orange bunny surely doesn't make this any easier. No wonder the poor critter looks downright psychotic.

And finally, the Hoopeston, Illinois Cornjerkers. As you drive into Hoopeston, there's a large sign that says "Entering Cornjerker Country". What this might mean to people from other areas, not to mention the occasional stray Canadian passing through, I will leave to your imagination. Having grown up on a farm that raised quite a bit of corn, I still have no notion of what corn jerking might be or why anyone would feel compelled to do it. It must be something particular to the Hoopeston area, and I suppose they must derive great enjoyment from it.

Mysterious Folk Wisdom

2007-11-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

Now and again you come across bits of folk wisdom, those pithy and concise sayings that seem to sum up the human condition with just a few well-chosen words. But on the other hand...

For the most part, it's true that young boys are a lot like foundries, and everything they do is either dirty, noisy or dangerous. Or all three. And when my friends and I were involved in one of our dubious endeavors my grandmother would say, "You boys are a caution to snakes!" To this day I have never understood what this means, although my grandmother's intentions were entirely clear. Snakes, at least all of the snakes I've encountered (with the exception of a couple of Thai cobras) are shy and retiring creatures, not given to rowdy behavior or dangerous activities. Why a snake, or even snakes in general should want or need cautionary instruction from twelve-year-olds is a mystery. Perhaps my grandmother was a secret Sufi master; many grandmothers are, I believe.

Joe Potter was the only guy I ever knew who quit Air America to join the US Air Force. A bad idea as it turned out: Joe never did adapt to the Air Force way to doing things, and began his career by showing up in the Squadron Commander's office wearing his Air America hat. Not an auspicious beginning, and although Joe could fly an airplane with the best, the Air Force, oddly enough, doesn't reward this skill as greatly as some might suppose. Joe survived being shot down in Vietnam in 1959, long before most people had any notion that there was even a place called Vietnam, and went on to become the Site Commander at Longtiene during the secret war in Laos. Late one afternoon, one of our guys returned from a mission trailing black smoke from an aircraft that was so full of flack and bullet holes that it would barely fly. The intrepid aviator managed to land the wreckage and even walk away from it, whereupon Joe remarked, "Wet birds don't fly at night."
Almost forty years later, and I'm still scratching my head over that one.

Just a few days ago, I overheard a clerk in the local gas station discussing George Bush and the Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. "You put the Governor and the President in a paper bag," she said, "Shake 'em up and neither one of 'em would fall out." I have no idea what it might mean if either one of them did or didn't fall out, and as much as I'd like to perform the experiment (all in the interests of science, of course) and see what would actually happen I don't suppose I'll ever have the opportunity to do so. Too bad, really...

Theater Doors

2007-10-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Two of my clients recently remodeled their home theater and wanted something special for the double doors. My solution was a glass, bronze and steel sculpture where the bronze rods also serve as door handles. Thanks to my friend Dick McNeely and his TIG (that's tungsten inert gas, by the way) welder, I was able to put the bronze rods together so they would be plenty strong enough for handles, and the glass pieces, after being formed in a kiln, were attached with adhesive; "chemically bonded" as we like to say in the glass business, as this sounds far more sophisticated and high-tech than "glued". The stuff I use was made for granite, marble, Corian and the like, and sticks to glass like a champ.

I used some pieces of sandblasted and clear-coated perforated steel along with the bronze and the glass; these pieces are attached with screws. Each door is 36" wide and the sculpture, divided evenly between the doors, is 30" in diameter. It's hard to beat doing something fun for clients who truly like my work, and projects like this are why I figure I've got one of the best jobs a person could have. And I'd like to do a few more of these, so if you're interested in something like this let me know. This particular piece is inside the house, but the techniques could be used for entry doors, too.

If I Only Had A Brain...

2007-10-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

Scarecrow:

I could wile away the hours
Dumpin' oil spills on the flowers;
Pollutin' all the rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my plots were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain.

I could find a neat solution
To that darned ol' Constitution;
It really is a pain.

Dorothy:

With some thoughts if you got 'em
You could be another Saddam
If you only had a brain.

Scarecrow:

Oh, I could tell you why It's so good to tax the poor;
I could bomb some places that I never bombed before;
Then I'd sit and think and go and bomb some more.

I could nuke 'em, I could flame 'em;
Send Blackwater off to maim 'em;
I could drive 'em all insane.
And there wouldn't be no harm in
A little global warmin'
If I only had a brain.

What's In a Name?

2007-10-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

What's in a name? When it comes to traditional murder ballads, a lot it seems. In almost every murder ballad I've heard, a guy named Willie is the villain, and you can count on that no-account, low-life Willie to do in some poor innocent woman. In "Banks of the Ohio" ("She said oh, Willie don't murder me; I'm not prepared for eternity") it's Willie. In "The Knoxville Girl", the only ballad to feature an attack by certrifugal force ("He seized her by her golden curls; he swung her 'round and 'round") it's Willie. And in "Pretty Polly" ("Oh Willie, cruel Willie how could you use me so?"), once again it's that blasted Willie. Even in "Willie Taylor", where the woman shoots her unfaithful, identity-stealing lover ("Willie Taylor men do call him, but Fitzgerald is his name") and thereby gets promoted to command of a ship, Willie is still up to no good, and the woman is just lucky she happened to have a "brace of pistols" handy.

What conclusions can be drawn from this? Well, maybe you shouldn't name your kid Willie if you don't want him to come to a bad end. And if you're a woman, you might want to seriously think about turning down a date with anyone named Willie, particularly if it involves visiting a river, a cliff or anything that looks like it might be (or might become) a grave. And if you do step out with Willie, keep your pistol handy. You probably won't need a brace of them these days: a single Glock .40 should do nicely.

Poliferatin' Plates

2007-10-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

As nearly as I can figure, Indiana has 75 different license plates. But even with this selection, there still isn't something for everyone and a lot of people are feeling left out. Sure, you can get "In God We Trust", but there's nothing for Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Baal, Odin or any other gods. No goddesses at all, and this looks like sexist discrimination to me. Diversity is supposed to be good, isn't it? You can even get "Support Our Troops" although it's odd, considering Indiana politics, that "Support Blackwater" didn't make the list.

I think Indiana needs something for everyone: true individual plates. The State could simply supply the basic plate with the appropriate numbers, and you could add your personal touch with stick-on letters, logos and even hand-painted designs. I know what you're thinking: some people would be bound to create highly inappropriate plates (I know I sure would). But you'd expect to pay a little more for this creative option and I've yet to see a politician who didn't spend every available penny and then demand more, so I'm thinking they'd put up with it in order to get their grubby paws on the cash. Or maybe they could pass laws detailing permissible designs and create a new branch of government to police the situation and fine offenders, thus extracting even more money from the citizens. Democracy in action!

Masks

2007-09-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Now that we've got secret laws, we're going to need secret police to enforce them. And it's no good kicking down doors at 2:00AM if everybody can recognize you: secret police need masks! But maybe they shouldn't be called "secret police"; "USA Patriot Police" sounds much better, don't you think? Remember, these people are just doing their jobs, and are working to insure your protection and security. Don't you feel safer already?

I did this mask for an upcoming (October 5th to November 11th) show at Sleepy Creek Vineyards called "Metamorphosis: The Art of the Mask". Along with the vineyards, Sleepy Creek has an art gallery and a gift shop with all sorts of unusual items. Some pretty darn good wine, too. You can check them out here and if you happen to be in the area between Champaign and Danville, Illinois drop by for a vineyard tour and see the masks.

By the way, the "serial number" on my mask is in binary...