August 2010
Monthly Archive
Categories:
comics,
exercise,
Random
Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 by cce
This morning in the gym, when I looked up during my toe touches, there was a fat gray squirrel staring at me from the ledge over the door to the aerobics room. He might have been snickering.
New Trainer Guy continues to earn points. Varied and challenging workouts that happen to also be fun? Yes, please! Let’s keep doing them!
Pennsic exploded in the living room… and it’s still there. Laundry is on-going.
I’m not a big romantic, but the optimism and perseverance shown by the Chilean miner who proposed while trapped underground is really touching.
Today’s Penny Arcade is irreverent and made me laugh so hard I nearly choked.
It’s a Great Big Sea kind of day.
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 by cce
Categories:
glass work,
Hobbies
Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 by cce
Molten glass is the most awesome thing to play with!
I might have made an extra trip to the hardware store today, but I got the torch setup and running! For the record, plastic banquet tables are not ideal for clamping a torch to. You need a deep enough clamp to get away from the beveled edge so that it is really secure. As an added precaution, I added a piece of scrap wood and that seemed to stabilize the setup nicely.
Safety tip for next time: put on bug spray. I got eaten alive in my last 20 minutes outside.
It’s a hot day today, in the 90s down here. Funny how sitting in front of a hot torch melting glass at high temperatures makes that 95 degrees feel more comfortable… The breeze was on and off again but started to pick up more enthusiastically in the last hour I was playing which proved an exciting challenge. It’s hard to keep the glass in the flame if the wind keeps moving the flame.
My goal today was to play in order to get a feel for the tools and materials. I made 21 beads! Some are pretty, some are challenged, some are strange, and some illustrate some mistakes. I started out working far too close to the torch in the blue part of the flame. Several of the first beads got colors that were oxidized and muddy or darker than intended.
Having a plan before turning on the torch was good. Being patient while waiting for glass to come to temperature or for beads to cool was harder.
I think I had pretty good luck with the bead release we made at a Pennsic class. I only had to scrap 2-3 beads because I cracked the bead release. (Bead release is the mud you apply to the mandrel so you can actually get your bead off when it has cooled.) None of them cracked in the fiber blanket while cooling. I forgot about microwaving the fiber blanket to give it a warmer start, but I did wrap it in 2 layers of aluminum foil to keep more heat in so the beads would cool more slowly. I also kept the sizes pretty small so cracking was less likely. I did put one bead into the blanket far too hot and ended up with a textured finish rather than a flame-polished finish. Interesting at least!
I pulled a couple stringers, played with encasing, did some dots and stripes, and generally amused myself for 3 hours. From the condensation on the canister, I think I used most of my first bottle of gas.
I’m still learning – I don’t always get the shape I’m going for. Sometimes the glass gets away from me and strange things happen. Maybe those strange things will get prettier as I get better at this. ;) Darn… I guess I’ll just have to practice more.
beads, glass, lampwork
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Friday, August 27, 2010 by cce
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 by cce
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Monday, August 23, 2010 by cce
This was the sight after we moved the chair out of my office so that the ceiling could be repaired. Tasha was so excited about ALLLLL the sparkle balls that she wasn’t quite sure what to do! Which to attack? Which to carry off? Which to just roll on and use for kitty chiro?
We’re actually running low on sparkle balls at the moment. I’m either going to have to move the couch or buy more. Somehow, I think I’ll be buying more…
More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat
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cats, comics, monster cat, silly, tennyson
Categories:
SCA,
Travel
Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 by cce
I took remarkably few photos this year, but I relaxed a great deal. The rather small, full set of photos is on flickr.
A few snips in no particular order:
I love my camp.
This was the Pennsic of “I Forgot”. Certain tarps didn’t get packed and Lisa and Julianna SAVED PENNSIC by getting us extra tarps from Home Depot!
The yurt went up quickly this year, probably because we lost the instructions.
We cooked in camp the first week. A casual, group effort! It was fun, relaxed and yummy. (Despite this, the food court food still got boring by the end of the second week.) Veggies on sticks were a huge hit along with grilled meat, especially spicy sausages.
Julianna and Autumn make kick-butt pork loin.
Artisans Row is the best new thing at Pennsic since pre-registration. I’m not sure if I’m using hyperbole or not!
Autumn and I went to the glass bead day and got very hooked on working with hot glass. Ivy, Siana and I went to the wire weaving day and were equally hooked. The Fiber day was good but more demo than hands-on (at least when we stopped by), but there was an impressive table full of dyeing experiments to paw over. I went back one more day and had a lovely, informative discussion with a man doing some serious card weaving work. To everyone who made Artisans’ Row happen, thank you so much! I hope it happens every year!
I did take classes this year too. I need to write a thank-you note to the teacher of the archeological evidence of norse clothing class. Not only was her lecture and Q&A excellent, the hand-outs are well-organized and composed (rather than just photocopies of other articles) and the bibliography is 2 pages! I took a couple of glass classes too, thanks to Autumn’s encouragement and morning support, including “make your own bead release”. I should be up and running with my torch by the end of next week. Can’t wait!
Merrick had an apprenticing ceremony one fine evening. It was beautifully spoken and he was presented with his new, shiny, green belt as the sun started to set. I’m very honored to have been invited and glad I didn’t miss it!
I did not make it up to the list fields or battlefields for the first time in ages. This means I missed the Fop cleaning dispatching someone in 17 seconds flat during Rapier Champions, but I’ve seen the video like a dozen times now. It was a good year for relaxing!
I love my camp. It was a really enjoyable year for us as a camp too.
There was heat. There was rain. The threshold for the yurt’s light-weight canvas roof is 2.5 inches of rain, at which point it starts to drip lightly on the uphill side. This wouldn’t be a problem if our bed weren’t on the uphill side. I’d be even less bitter about it if the drips didn’t fall predominantly on my side of the bed this year. (Among the tarps forgotten was the nylon tarp we usually throw over the uphill side of the roof when it rains profusely.) Ah well.
I love viking garb. I love linen.
Cardiac hill is easier but not easy after several months of working out.
There were projects that didn’t get done and some that did. There’s a list of projects and things to not forget next year conveniently located in the notebook I always plan with.
Readjusting to the real world and work has been … challenging. My old trainer dumped me just before Pennsic so I’m adjusting to a new trainer this week as well as trying to get back in the exercise and work groove. So far? He’s kicking my butt. Hard.
Next year, I’ll take more photos!
Laundry is on-going. Hopefully it’ll be done in time for Pennsic next year. ;)
artisans row, beads, glass, lampwork, pennsic, sca, vacation
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 by cce
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 by cce
Categories:
Cats,
comics,
Monster Cat
Posted on Monday, August 16, 2010 by cce
This is a scene from before we left on a 2 week vacation. You’d think we’d been gone for YEARS based on the neediness of the cats upon our return!
More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat
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basket, cats, comics, monster cat, silly, tennyson
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