Year 21, Week 12, Day two (week 1106)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-02-21 Friday
58 degrees very early morning. 76 was the high. While I was not out in it very much, the sky was partly cloudy most of the day and breezy. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
I had a day off for Good Friday and made use of it. I never left the house until the afternoon, and then did a quick run where I found out when my destination was closed, and learned when it would open tomorrow.
I spent the day on my computer working on documents, stories, emails, projects, and such. I get a lot of crochet and knitting E-mails on one of my accounts. On that account, it was telling me it was getting full. I zapped a lot of the E-mails that had blankets, hats, scarves. I left all the E-mails of crochet figures I need to look at. Gnomes, butterflies, eggs, dragons, etc.
Sometime in the next decade or so, I intend to try a bunch of those figures. I just don’t have the time nor the room to stuff them properly. I learned that when stuffing figures, you need to lay out all the materials, and it is really nice to leave them out for the next project. At this second, I really don’t have a place to set it.
I have several GEO TRACKERS which were the big thing before people used cell phones to tell them the route. Nowadays, the phone will even tell you what the traffic is like on your route. I got like seven of these, four of which work. One pair I got from a couple who said they stopped using them when they started using their phone. My favorite is the newest version I have of them. I think it was the last one I picked up. I have 4 in the truck in various places. That started as an experiment to find the best place to put them. I just left them there.
I have my most advanced tracker stuck to the top of the window in the upper corner. The holder was one of those flexible shaft style and it is really flexed. Periodically, the suction cup gives way and getting everything at the proper angle can be a challenge.
I have a tracker in the bottom corner of the window next to the dash. That has turned out to be a fairly good place but it is almost too far to read the stuff on it like what streets are coming up.
I have a tracker stuck with velcro to the dash. With that one, because the wire comes out the back on all of these, it cannot go to an optimal location without changing the mounting method. Another thing I learned is that if they say “30 pound velcro,” the glue always has 20 pound stick. Taking it off the velcro is more trouble than it was worth. It happens that the steering wheel is always in the way of viewing that one so it does not get used hardly at all.
The fourth one was held in place near my knee by some drum sticks I kept in the truck. The center seat back lays down and has cup holders and storage chambers on the back. The drum sticks are sticking into the space between the seat and back, using the headrest to hold them up. I had placed the fourth tracker there to see if it would be better.
My conclusion, there are lighting situations where you cannot see anything on the screens of any of them. That is a fairly rare situation. The one stuck to the dash tends to be the best then, but not much better. The one in the upper corner of the window generally is the easiest to see. If it is in the wrong position, which could be as little as an inch over, it blocks your view when driving, but in the right position, it is great. Part of the problem of getting it to the right angle after the suction cup gives way, is there is a number of things that make it difficult to turn the right way, and there is some slack in the mount so when you think you get it right, it will relax and move a little.
For my trip today, I was not sure how to get to where it was. I tried to put in the address. The way the tracker worked was I put in the house address, 1000, and then the street name, coconut. It then came up with three possible address groups. I punched the wrong one and ended up by down mid county near my brother’s house. Once there, I then put in the right address after carefully reading the three choices. I found out when I got to the right destination, that it was not too far from mom’s house. When I left, I went to visit her in a more direct way and found that the road changes names twice before it got to where I normally travel.
When I went to the wrong address, I had a really nice drive through some neighborhoods I had not been to in a very long time. A couple times, my memory of where something was, turned out to be slightly different from what I remembered..
I have an appointment tomorrow. I will see what happens after that.
Year 21, Week 12, Day two (week 1106)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-03-21 Saturday
66 degrees early morning. 74 as the high. Mostly overcast with some blue showing once in a while. It was supposed to be solid clouds but the overcast was broken and the state did not have the people available to fix it since this was a holiday weekend. Strong steady winds with gusts that moved papers even with something light on top. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
My morning was shot going to an appointment. After I left later in the day, I went yard sailing on only part of my route and I stopped at two yard sales along the way.
One couple had mostly toys. Next to the power pole there was some stuff that I knew was there to be thrown out. I spotted a nice wire basket. I grabbed it. They wanted me to just take it. I felt it was worth something so I made them at least take a dollar.
At the second yard sale, the woman had a lot of art stuff. She has Parkinson disease now. I got 10 of the 9 inch diameter embroidery hoops. I got a bunch of felt markers, a Crayola paint kit with like 18 colors, and a few other things. The Crayola watercolor paints are a good quality and comes with a great paint brush.
The items were marked for different prices but she was going to give me a break. She decided on a price of 15 bucks and I made her take 20 as that was what I felt it was really worth. Sometimes I go as cheep as I can negotiating if necessary, but other times I will give more if I really feel it is worth it.
Once I settled out back of Mom’s house, I started painting some birthday cards. For some friends. I like to make three that are similar. One for each of them, and I keep one for myself. I did a very quick sketch of what I wanted the image to be. Satisfied with the first attempt, I painted the background. I used washes of three tones of green, going darker toward the top. That is to give an impression of it being in a forest. I usually work with acrylic paint and I know its nature.
Watercolor works slightly different. How much pigment is in the paint makes a difference also. The crayola water color is about mid range, professional art water color tubes have a lot more pigment, but some off brands are more medium than color.
The big thing with watercolor is that you can make changes, even erasing some of the color if needed. Acrylic paints, are water soluble when wet, but becomes water resistant when dry.
After the background dried, I started building the characters. These are small paintings, on something like half a 9 X 5 card paper. If this was a 8 ½ x 10 or larger paper, One could get more detail and more accurate. I don’t do a whole lot of painting so my accuracy is not the greatest. Little wiggles and bumps show up big.
I got the main figures done, but have a lot of details to add. The cards look halfway decent. I could improve it by mixing colors, but I am avoiding that. Professional colors can come in pure colors, which mix well. A lot of my acrylic paints are mixed colors (red has blue, blue has yellow, yellow has orange, etc, not pure colors) and when added together, create mud.
Tomorrow, I plan on finishing the cards. What else I do, I will have to see.
Year 21, Week 12, Day Three (week 1106)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-04-21 Sunday
66 was the low, My thermometer under the awning said 80 in the shade, but the weather stations said it was 76 or 78. Being just metal, the awning tends to be a little hotter than the weather stations. A good strong steady breeze and no humidity kept it nice and comfortable. It felt cooler than it was. The sky was mostly cloudy with some overcast and plenty of sun, changing hourly. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.
Going to Mom’s house, I always gas up on Sunday. I then drove nearly all my yard sale route. I knew there would be nothing, but felt like driving. It was nice. Very scenic with trees on both sides of the roads and sometimes on the islands in the middle of the road, nice houses. Just pretty.
I stopped by one of the grocery stores and because there were few cars in the parking lot, I knew they were not open. A man walked up to the door to figure out when they opened. I guess he did not know it was Easter. I chose not to stop at any other store and continued on.
Out back of Mom’s I did a little wood turning. I came up with three pathetic flower blanks. They were small and each had some problems. A wood I thought would be good, a spindle for some piece of furniture, turned out to be poor quality wood. My biggest problem is that I am like Godzilla when I am at the lathe. Little movements can have big effects.
If I practiced more, I could get to where I would not have destroyed any of my attempts, but I only work weekends, do a mix of turning, carving and other projects, and cannot stand for long periods of time that some turning projects require. As it is, I do what I can.
I finished the cards. Sometimes using felt markers to add some details. There are problems but it looks pretty good. They could use more but will do. I made three and will keep one. I will decide before I send them off if they need something else.
I turned on a tea pot I had started. It is a branched piece of wood and I had drilled for the spout and the top. I first put the top in the lathe chuck and the tail stock centered on the bottom and made a small tenon for the chuck to hold it straight.
Flipping the piece around and getting it centered, I enlarged the hole in the top greatly, which was not centered anyway. The hole does make a big difference, though. I got down below the bottom of the hole since It needed to be deeper than I drilled, the center knob made it a little interesting at times. I knocked it out of center and could not get it exactly center. Just a slight bit off and it wobbles greatly. Sometimes, if you don’t get it exactly the way it was held, it will never become centered again.
I did not have the guts to go really wide inside because the wood is not round, and could accidentally break open at the thin spots, so it ended up a straight hole all the way down.
I now have to shape the spout and create a lid. I am trying to keep this a natural wood surface. I have some figuring to do. I need to decide whether to keep the spout as it is, which is blocky, or shave it down a lot so the end is centered on the hole. I have to look at it some more.
My brother and I talked about videos he saw. I was going to tell him about a few I saw but could not remember them. I hate that. Many times, I remember the next day. Getting near 30 years of age is hard on a person....<g>
This was not a bad weekend. I did not do all I intended to, which was mostly sleep, but got some things done.
I will have to see what I do next weekend.
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