Loyalty

What does a writer owe his or her readers?

Anything?

Other than words, I mean.

If you’re a novelist, do you owe your readers anything other than words on paper? The readers buy your books, which hopefully puts money in your pocket – but is it anything beyond a simple business arrangement? They pay, you write. Period. Do you owe them access too?  In the old days, back before the Internet directly connected writers and readers, fans might write authors a letter, and the novelist might correspond – Alice Sheldon was famous for her correspondence with fans - as James Tiptree Jr, she didn’t feel she owed them her real identity. She wrote thousands of letters to other writers, to fans, to people she hated and admired. Some authors are famously reclusive, never responding to fans either in person or via letter.  I think that’s OK. I don’t think they owe the reader anything beyond that.

What about columnists and newspaper reporters?

Sure, they’ve always connected to their readers via easily ignored letters to the editor. Writing for magazines and news media seems much less personal than writing novels and short stories – though upon occasion I find myself connecting to a columnist, say like Leonard Pitts, a columnist for the Miami Herald that I particularly enjoy, or Dr. Jerry Pournelle who used to write a column in the now defunct Byte Magazine (he’s also a novelist and blogger and owner of Chaos Manor, quite possibly the worst formatted site in the history of the Internet. I love Pournelle’s writing, but his site makes my brain hurt).  Do these folks owe their loyal readers anything other than the weekly column and the occasional response to angry letters?

I don’t think they do, owe their readers anything beyond words.

Traditional media isolates the writer and separates him or her from the reader to a great extent. Most people understand that – and in Science Fiction, Horror, and Mystery genres that’s where the conventions came from, at least to some extent, a desire for a closer and more personal connection between fans and creators. And if a writer chooses to attend one of those conventions, well, he or she had better be at least somewhat accessible to the fans. But outside of that venue? Not so much.

But what about blogging?

Blogging is a different form of writing. It’s much more intimate. By design, it directly connects reader and writer on a personal and informal level – at least for the most common form of content and comment enabled blogging.  Do bloggers owe their readers something beyond mere words? Do bloggers owe their readers friendship, or at least what passes for friendship on the web – i.e. the emerging virtual relationships that are taking root in this rapidly evolving world wide community we call the Internet? Do bloggers owe their readers loyalty? After all, readers show up day in and day out, they read the good posts and the bad posts and the posts where you were hysterically funny and the posts where you were just too damned tired to do anything other than put up a picture of your stupid cat. Again. They offer advice and wish your family happy birthday and Merry Christmas, they send you email correcting your spelling and pointing out the stupid little errors you make in a sincere effort to help you look a little less stupid. They try to pick you up when you’re feeling blue and they knock you down a peg when you’re a little too full of yourself. They connect to other readers on your site and sometimes, if you’re very lucky, they form a community.

Do you owe them anything? Do you owe them loyalty, the ones who come back and stick with you through the good times and the bad?

I guess what I’m asking here is this: when do readers become more than just words on a screen? Ever?

Do you owe long time readers your loyalty? Or do you throw them over like a shallow high school cheerleader ditching her friends for a new boy when new readers come along?

Do you, the blogger, the writer, owe your readers anything? Beyond the words?

I think you do.

Unlike traditional media, I think the maturing and yet still evolving medium of blogging is a collaborative effort between writer and readers. No money exchanges hands. Rarely, if ever, does a blogger make a living from blogging. There’s no payoff to blogging. The only reason to do it at all, unless you’re nothing but a narcissistic bastard, is that interaction with the readers. Their comments become part of the article you wrote, sometimes – again, if you’re very lucky - their comments become the most interesting part of the post altogether and take you and your readers in directions you never imagined when you hacked out the piece in the first place.

If you do it right, you, the blogger, become little more than a catalyst for something much larger than yourself.

As most of you know, this hasn’t been the best of weeks for me, online. 

And it got me thinking about loyalty and what a blogger owes his long time and faithful readers.

I think he owes them loyalty in kind.

For those of you who come back here time and again, for those of you who read Stonekettle Station on my good days and on my bad days, and for all of you who offered your support and advice and sympathy and friendship this last week, thank you.

Thank you.

Birdhouses

I’ve got a large number of requests for turned birdhouses. Really, it blows my mind - in a good way.

The number of requests for turned birdhouses has not yet, however, exceeded the number of requests that I drop dead due to my genderfailing.  If only I had a dollar… what? Oh, yeah, sorry, never mind. But someday I am going to figure out how to profit from the Die Sexist Pig Die! meme. I swear. Even if I have to wear a Leia Biki… What? Oh, right, sorry again.

Anyway, the birdhouses.

Yes.

There will be many.

Soon.

Later this week.

Be patient, it’ll be worth it.

Flu Shots

We had to into town for a couple things today.

We decided to swing by the clinic and see if we could get flu shots for my son and myself (my wife got hers at work last week).  I can get them free through the military or VA, but I’m never in the neighborhood and never have enough time to stand in line.  I’d rather just pay the $25 and get it done.

And with the pig flu scare, most places are actually out of the regular vaccine (and the swine flu vaccine is rare and non-existent so we haven’t even tried to get that), and the few times I’ve stopped by the base clinic or the VA, they’ve been out.

So, we dropped into the Palmer clinic today.

Sure, said the receptionist, we’ve got the shot.

We’ll take two, says we.

The son and I went in the back and rolled up our sleeves and the shot guy asked if we wanted the H1N1 vaccine too. Buwah? I thought we were out of that here in the Valley? Nope, they just got in 20 doses.  Hot damn, we’ll take it – and I had the guy go tell my wife in the waiting room. She joined us a minute later.

The son and I got the shot for the seasonal crud, and all three of us got the Flu-Mist version of the hiney swiney flu vaccine.

I’ve never had the Flu-Mist inhaler vaccine before. People have told me that it tastes horrible. They must have have gotten the rotten egg and gasoline variant, the stuff I had today tasted vaguely fruity and was gone in a second with no aftertaste. Easiest inoculation ever.

So, I’m now flu-proof. Woot!

Which, of course, means I’ll probably get strep throat or pink eye or something…

 

How about you people? Do you get the flu shot every year? Have you gotten yours this year? What about the swine flu inoculation? Do you think it ought to be mandatory?

Attention Screechy Monkeys

You can stop sending me hate mail now.

I apologized once, I'm not going to do it again.

You're wasting your precious time, time you could be spending sucking up to famous science fiction authors and rubbing up against each other in self-righteous anger. Please, go there, do that, and leave me the hell alone. I'm not reading your silly nonsense, I don't give a flying fuck about your opinion of me, and it is very unlikely that your uber feminist frothy man-hating bullshit will change my outlook on life in any way whatsoever - an outlook, by the way, that is not what you think it is. You've made a value judgement about me based solely on my gender and you continue to do so - this makes you hypocrites and bigots of the highest caliber.

Maybe you ought to take a long look in the mirror before you take a poke at me.


_______________________________________

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. I'm not going to link to the issue or give the site in question any more traffic or attention. Suffice it to say that I'm getting a large amount of hate mail from a bunch of perpetually offended man hating feminists with an all consuming case of penis envy.

In case you haven't noticed it, I'm taking a break from the Internet for a couple of days. This entire incident has pissed me off and left me feeling depressed and angry for reasons I'd rather not go into at the moment. I need a break. I'm taking one.

Changes

Over on GiantMidgets, Eric is talking about GoogleWave.

Wave is supposed to change the world, change how people interact, change how communications and work get done.

I doubt it will change much of anything.

But the hoopla over GoogleWave got me thinking about something I noticed earlier today at the gas station – and that’s this: more often than not, it’s the little things, not the big things that change our lives.

Rarely does big shiny technology have much impact on how we live our lives. 

No, it’s almost always the little technology, the almost unnoticed technology, that alters the very fabric of how we live. It’s subtle, it creeps in on little cat feet and before you know it, the way you live is different – and you don’t even notice.

Computers and the Internet and cell phones are an obvious example. So are portable music players with an entire radio station’s library of songs onboard and no moving parts.

But debit cards are a far more subtle and pervasive example of what I’m talking about.

I needed to get some things from the store this morning and I decided to take the Jeep instead of my truck.  We just had a lot of work done to the Jeep and I wanted to see how it drove. The snow is coming, it’ll be falling within the next two weeks, and that means my wife will have to put the convertible away and drive the Jeep and I wanted to make sure it was ready.  It was, and in fact we probably should have had this work done a while back, it drives like it did when it was new – which was about eighteen years ago now. On the way home I pulled into the gas station, I figured I’d fill up the tank so it would be ready when my wife needed it, because I’m a really cool husband like that.

Here’s the thing, I don’t have any idea how much gas I put in.

Twenty something dollars? Fifteen? Seventeen dollars and forty three cents? I dunno.

I don’t put gas in the Jeep much anymore, I don’t know how much it takes without paying attention. I didn’t get a receipt. I never do. And it doesn’t matter. It’ll show up on my electronic bank statement – and in fact it already has. My wife can download it into Quicken, along with the week’s transactions. I don’t care what the exact amount is.

That wasn’t true before debit cards.

Remember?

You’d watch the pump like a hawk, eyes tracking those little numbers as they whirled past the glass, slowing down, slowing down, and then squeezing the handle just so in order to get an even number. Exactly ten dollars, exactly twenty. So you could hand the guy in the glass both or behind the counter the exact right sized bill.  Or if you were writing a check, it made it a hell of a lot easier to balance the register if you got gas in exact multiples of ten.  You didn’t do this with anything else, just gas.

Nobody does that any more (hell, who writes checks? For gas, I mean?)

Well, mostly nobody.

Watch the next time you’re getting gas.  You can tell who still pays the old fashioned way, just by watching how they pump their gas.

It’s more than that. Ten years ago you had to make sure to fill up within a certain time frame, or know where the 24-hour gas stations were. You had to plan around it. Now? Most of the places I fill up aren’t even manned.  It’s just an automated gas kiosk in the corner of some parking lot.  It’s always open. Why wouldn’t it be? I don’t need to plan around filling up my tank.

You can tell which generation somebody was born in by who they ask for information.  Old people ask somebody else. Young people ask the Internet.  It never occurs to the older generation to Google it, it never occurs to the younger generation not to. Woman accuse men of never stopping to ask for directions, with MapQuest on my GPS enabled Internet phone, I don’t need to.

I don’t think the Internet itself changed people’s lives as profoundly as we expected, but search engines did.

Personally, I use Google to find the 24 hour gas stations.

What little things do you notice?

Happy Annie Veri Sorry

My wife and I met in Pensacola when I was stationed there as an Instructor at the Naval Technical Training Center.

At the time I was the king of really, really lousy relationships. Really.

Think I’m kidding?

In no particular order, I’d been involved with a self-destructive alcoholic, an self-destructive obsessive compulsive, a self-destructive hypochondriac, a pathological liar, and a faithless bitch who managed to get herself pregnant while engaged to me all the while loudly claiming that she was still a virgin (just for the record the father wasn’t me, it was half the Marine barracks, a couple of Seabees, and a Tijuana horse act). Those were the highlights. I wasn’t any better at the casual date – in fact my so-calling ‘dating’ life was an ongoing comedy of errors that resembled a Ben Stiller movie, i.e. not funny and more than a little mean, just for meanness sake. My dating life could be best summed up by that sound the Titanic made as it slowly and inexorably ground down the side of the iceberg, ripping open its guts in a scree of tearing metal, freezing water, and impending doom. Hell, I once went out with a girl who, during dinner, mentioned that she had to be home by 8:00PM so she could get ready for her real date - see that guy couldn’t pay for dinner but he was really hot, so this way she got a good dinner with me, and got to go clubbing with a really hot guy later. And she was the kind of girl who couldn’t figure out why I might be insulted when she dropped that little gem of gold digging logic in the middle of the main course. As I recall, she ended up taking a taxi home.

Remember that Zevon song? Lawyers, Guns, and Money? Like that, only without the joy.

By the time I met the woman who would become my wife, I had basically sworn off relationships of any kind, forever. No dating. No nothing. Kiss my ass.

Bitter? You have no idea.

But I had a friend, a woman I worked with as a volunteer on the weekends at the USO, who just would not leave me alone. She swore she knew a girl who was perfect for me. She pestered me for weeks about it. She kept on about it every single time I saw her, like one of those little yappy dogs. Yap yap yap. It was driving me insane.

A blind date? With my track record? Sure, what could possibly go wrong?

Tell me about her, I said. Well, replied my friend, she’s really nice! Nice? Uh no thanks. Idi Amin in drag, no doubt. Nice girls are the absolute worst.

But my friend just wouldn’t leave me the hell alone and finally I gave in and agreed to call the girl. I fully expected it to be a disaster of about 9.98 on the shitty-date-O-meter. She’d be crazy (because, as you know, all woman are psycho), she’d have hygiene issues and terminal BO, or talk to invisible friends, or bring along her husband who was out on parole, or be a Soviet spy, or some goddamned thing.

The only reason I agreed to the date was so I could get it over with and so I could say, “See? I told you so, now shut up. No really, shut up or I will hit you in the head with a shovel and feed your body to the alligators. Shut up.”

Things didn’t work out exactly as I expected.

It was literally love at first sight. I kid you not. She was the most amazing woman I’d ever met.

And she liked me.

As of today, we’ve been married 18 years.

I’m taking the day off. See you tomorrow.

Bitter Irony

I was at the base Exchange on Elmendorf Air Force Base today.

I stopped by after work to pick up a few things.

I followed a guy into the parking lot. He was driving a newer model foreign made SUV. I’d seen this particular vehicle around base before. In fact I’d followed it through the gate last Tuesday morning. Something about the vehicle made it stand out and when I followed it through the gate and I asked the guard whether the person driving it was military or a civilian. She looked confused, then confessed that she had no idea despite the fact that she had examined the driver’s ID and, supposedly, glanced at the driver not more the fifteen seconds before and despite that fact that it is her job to notice such things, guarding as she is one of America’s military bases – just another reason why, in my military opinion, we should have Marines at the gate and not half assed, don’t give a shit, ten-sandwich eating out of shape rent-a-cops, but then nobody asked me.

Why did I ask about this vehicle? What caught my eye and made it stand out? Why would I care if the driver was military or a civilian?

It was the bumper stickers.

One said “It’s an Obamanation!”

Now you could take that a number of ways. I’ve seen the term “Obamanation” used by both pro-Obama and vehemently anti-Obama people.

However, the other bumper sticker cleared up any ambiguity. It said simply: “Fuck Obama.”

The reason I wondered if the driver was military or civilian was that if the driver was military, he was in gross violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice – specifically Article 88, Contempt Towards Officials.

If he was military, I fully intended to give his First Shirt a call and have him straightened out. He’s welcome to think what he likes, he’s not allowed to express such sentiments regarding the Commander In Chief. Period. Don’t like it? Don’t join the military. Don’t swear the oath. When you hold up your right hand you agree to abide by the law, rules, and regulations of the military, which includes certain limitations on your freedoms. Either your word is good or it’s not. And if it’s not, you are accountable. Period.

If he was a civilian, well that’s a whole other ball of wax – and not much I could do about it.

Tuesday I didn’t have time to run him down and find out.

But today I ran into him in the parking lot of the base exchange.

I parked next to him.

He was a civilian.

Some type of contractor, a construction type, I gathered from his apparel. Probably one of the yahoos constructing the new F-22 hangers, if I had to guess.

He caught me looking at the bumper stickers.

“You really think that’s appropriate on a military base?” I asked.

“How so? I have a right to say what I think!”

“Not saying you don’t. But do you think that’s appropriate given that he’s is the Commander In Chief?”

“He’s not the CINC, he’s nothing but a usurper (he pronounced it “err-serper”). It’s a damned disgrace, what he’s doing to this country,” he said angrily.

Ah, a birther I guessed (but kept to myself, really didn’t feel like dealing with the fanatical crazies today).

As I started to walk away he said, “The sooner the military tosses him out the better. We need to take back America.”

The sooner the military tosses him out…?

Oh Christ on a crutch, not only a birther, but a revolutionary.

“Don’t hold your breath,” I told him.

He snorted in agreement – I don’t think he caught that my sarcasm was directed at him, and not the supposed dithering forces of righteous revolution.

Somebody has been watching way too much Glenn Beck.

And like Beck, they are neither capable of critical thought, nor understanding America’s military.

Beck, of course, in addition to his own acidic vomitus, was regurgitating columnist John Perry who penned a rightwing extremist screed in Newsmax calling for a resolution to the “Obama Problem.”

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a "family intervention," with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

I’d give you a link to the original story, but the post has been taken down. Apparently calling for revolution and military juntas in the US are just a little far beyond the pale for even a rightwing blowhole like NewsMax. A PDF copy of the original post, however, is available here.

Beck and Perry weren’t the only ones calling for a military led revolution, Jim Quinn from The War Room with Quinn & Rose on Clear Channel called on troops to “run for your life, get out, this guy [Obama} is going to get you killed.” He went on to say, " Discussing health care reform, you have got to say no to this, and if they push this through, you need to riot in the streets. You need to riot in the streets. Our country was built on revolution and it's about time we took it back.”

Michael Savage of the Savage Nation keeps talking about revolution, “We're going to have a revolution in this country.” Savage is particularly concerned about how “the white male” is being discriminated against in America. (I shit you not, it’s a common theme with Savage, how Da Man is keeping Whitey down. Retch).

Hell, even kicked in the head one too many times Chuck Norris jumped up on the revolutionary bandwagon, “How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution? We the people have the authority according to America's Declaration of Independence." (Chuck is not real clear on the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and which one forms the basis of law in this country and which one is little more than an interesting historical document. He also doesn’t seem to grasp that a majority of we the people elected the current President.)

Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, Quinn, my friend in the parking lot – all of them have watched one too many of Chuck’s movies, I suspect, where countries are overthrown, the girl bedded, and democracy triumphant in a flurry of mano e mano fisticuffs in just under 90 minutes.

But see, reality isn’t a Chuck Norris movie. And the military is nothing like Hollywood.

We swear our oath to the Constitution of the United States and to obey the orders of the President. Quinn, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Savage have no idea what that means. But Norris served in the military, the Air Force to be precise – hell, that’s where he learned to fight. He was the Air Force’s Veteran of the Year in 2001. He really ought to know better.

Monday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates summed up the American military’s role very, very precisely. He said, (I’m paraphrasing here) our job is to give the President the very best advice we can. But once the decision is made, our job is to carry out his orders. Period.

And that’s it exactly.

Our job is to advise the President to the best of our abilities, experience, knowledge, and training in military matters. But once the President gives the order, whether we agree with it or not, our job is to march forward smartly. Period.

Anyone who has taken the oath should damned well know that.

It’s ironic that these super patriots, these men who think they are the only true Americans – Limbaugh, Beck, Quinn, Savage, Norris, and their followers – would advocate a military coup in this country in order to overthrow the duly elected, democratically elected, majority elected President. It’s ironic that these so-called patriots would turn the United States into nothing more than some third world shithole where monthly revolutions and military juntas are a way of life – all while beating the drum of American patriotism. It’s ironic that they would wave the American flag and a copy of the Constitution while advocating deposing a president they call a communist and a Marxist and a dictator in order to bypass the Constitutionally designated electoral process and install their own leader – exactly the same way the dictator Saddam Hussein came to power, exactly the way the Communist Joseph Stalin came to power, exactly the same way the Marxist Fidel Castro came to power.

It’s ironic that these men who wave the Constitution as a rallying cry seem not to have actually read it – otherwise they’d be familiar with the constitutional process for removing a president from office. (Hint: It doesn’t involve a military coup). Or maybe they have, and realize that they have no grounds for their claim, leaving only revolution to get their way and impose their will on the American people – that’s not irony, that’s hypocrisy, but I digress. Again.

And it’s ironic that they would call upon us military folks to uphold our oath to the Constitution, when they clearly have so little respect for it themselves, and even less respect for honor, moral courage, and duty.

And it’s just plain pitifully ironic that the Grand Old Party of the Republic has been reduced to this.

Question

How will I die? Your Result: You will die while saving someone's life. The most noble of all deaths. Your rewards will be great in the next life. You are most definitely a humanitarian. If not currently, you will be. To give one's life is a precious moment that will be remembered by friends and family for many decades.
You will die in a car accident.
You will die while having sex.
You will die in your sleep.
You will die in a nuclear holocaust.
You will be murdered.
You will die of boredom.
You will die from a terminal illness.
How will I die? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

What's the deal with "you will die in a nuclear holocaust?" If that's true for even one person, shouldn't that be true for pretty much all of us?

Nuclear holocaust, not exactly a personal disaster. Just sayin'

Latest from the Shop: Birdhouses

Update: The mystery wood (birdhouse #4) is solved.

Update: All the birdhouses are sold.  More will be available shortly.

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I meant to post this two days ago.

Between the Microsoft Malfunction and the fact that I was so dog tired last night, I didn’t get around to it until today. You understand.

 

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As I mentioned previously, birdhouses are a fun project on the lathe.

They’re fairly easy, depending on how fancy you make them. They are a good way to practice turning skills, both basic and advanced skew work (the skew being the hardest of the lathe techniques to master, at least in my not so humble opinion), spindle turning, and face turning. And they are a good way to introduce kids to the lathe.

 

I start with the wood, of course.

You can use whatever you’ve got laying around. That’s a large 4” thick slab of American walnut, some Brazilian rosewood, tigerwood, babinga, bloodwood, and some mahogany.  None of it looks like much, but it cleans up real nice. Trust me.

I cut the wood into 4”x4” pieces, six to eight inches long. Drill a 1” hole with a Forstner bit in the middle of one side (this will become the opening, the door, in the front of the birdhouse) on the drill press – it’s a whole lot easier to hold the blank steady on the press when it’s still a rectangle. Then I spindle mount the blank on the lathe between a spur drive (a spike with a ring of teeth around it, that allows the motor to turn the blank) and a live center (a pivot inside a bearing that supports the non-drive end of the turning) - and rough turn it to a cylinder.  I cut a dovetail on what will be the bottom end so that I can securely mount it in a heavy duty dovetail chuck (that shiny silver jobber in the picture, sort of like the Terminator’s oven mitt).

Like so: (note for you turners: the live center in the right hand picture is only there temporarily to ensue that I get the blank exactly centered in the chuck before cranking it down tight):

I then core out the middle of the blank using a large Forstner bit mounted in the tailstock:

You can already see in the above pictures that the wood is pretty spectacular. And it should be, it’s Amboyna.  Amboyna comes from the Narra tree, Pterocarpus Indicus, which grows in Southeast Asia – with the most prized trees growing on the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The wood is extremely rare and very, very expensive with some (burled) cuts costing as much as $500/board foot. Wood like that is usually used for master crafted musical instruments. 

This isn’t one of those pieces.

It’s a straight non-burled chunk I got out of a cast-off bin along with some other odd sized pieces.  It was cracked and split, but enough remained to make a decent little project like a birdhouse out of – a really expensive birdhouse. Whatever bird takes up residence in this house is going to be the cock of the walk, just saying.

Anyway.

Next I reverse mount the piece on a friction chuck – which is a fancy way of saying that I push it firmly onto a wooden block mounted in the chuck:

Then I start shaping it with a gouge and skew.  Usually I have no idea what the final shape will look like.

One thing.

It is very, very, very, very, very important to measure the depth of the interior hollow correctly. Mark it on the outside of the turning. Pay attention.

So, you know, you don’t ruin a really expensive and unique piece of wood.

Very important.

Very.

Yeah.

I misjudged by about a millimeter.

Sigh.

 

 

 

Well, it’s an easy fix.

 

Oh, settle down, I’m just kidding.

 

No way I was throwing out that piece of wood. In addition to being unique, spectacular, and – did I mention? – expensive, it was an ever lovin’ bitch to turn. The wood is incredibly dense and hard and difficult.

Contrary, I think is the word I’m looking for here, contrary.

So, I cut off the bottom and glued in a piece of Brazilian rosewood – which I thought was a nice compliment, color wise, and is about the same density. Then I glued the finial back on:

 

Doesn’t look like much, does it?

Just wait.

 

Next I turn the perches.  Those are about the size of a matchstick.

When I mentioned birdhouses in the last post, I got an email from a guy claiming to be an “old school” turner. He chided me for saying I turned the perches on my Delta 46-525. He thought I might be exaggerating. The 525 is a fairly big lathe, designed for industrial shops – Old School suggested that I was really turning those perches on a mini lathe.  Why would I exaggerate about such things? Old School didn’t say, but I took him to mean that I was fibbing in order to impress Saw Dust Groupies, you know, that band of hot chicks who follow middle aged wood turners around hoping to sleep with them and bear their children.  Well, the chicks and the fame and glory.

Yeah.

For the record, I really do turn the little bitty perches on the 525.

 

I never went to the old school, I didn’t know I couldn’t. Sorry.

 

The caps get turned from whatever contrasting wood I have on hand, in this case birch burl, rosewood, and tigerwood.

 

Remember the Amboyna? Here it is with a cap of and perch of Brazilian rosewood, finished in walnut oil:

Pretty, isn’t it? The picture doesn’t do it justice at all. The wood is amazing, I really wish I had more of it.

This one is not for sale. I’m sending it to my Dad. He’s an avid birdwatcher and my folks’ backyard is filled with birdhouses and feeders. I think he’ll like it.

 

This next one is also not for sale. Or rather it’s already been sold, this one is going to Stonekettle Station regular and UCFer, Janiece. It’s South American Bocate, a yellow and black striped wood taken from the Cordia tree. It’s a dense and very fragrant fruitwood. Capped with Brazilian Rosewood and finished in walnut oil.

 

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The following pieces are for sale.  Each one is numbered. There are six of them. First come, first served, note in the comments section which one you want by number. Again first person to comment gets the piece. One each. If they don’t all go, you may have two or more. I’ll let you know when.

I know, I know. Different time zones and such, unfair. Yep. I wish it were different, but life is sometimes cruel in the willy nilly wild and woolly world of wood turned birdhouses.  Besides, I’ll be making more shortly. Please, no pushing, no shoving, no throwing of panties on the stage.

(Snark aside – I will have more available soon, probably next weekend)

Prices are set by the cost of the wood.

Shipping is $10 for all pieces – which is a bargain from Alaska. Shipping will be via USPS, unless you specify otherwise. And otherwise will cost you more.

 

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#1 – White Birch, Cherry and Tigerwood. Tall, very light.

The body is birch, the cap is cherry, with tigerwood inlay.

Price: $30

 

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#2 – Bocote and Birch Burl Cap

Price: $40

 

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#3 – Bocote and Tigerwood Cap

Price: $35

 

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#4 Mystery wood Orange Agate and Spalted Birch Heartwood Cap.

Honestly, I have no idea what the body of this piece is made out of.  I got the wood out of the turning blank bin from a hardwood supplier in Anchorage. It came in with a consignment of odd pieces from South America but nobody had any idea what it was. Neither do I.  My good friend and regular reader, fellow wood turner and expert of exotic hardwoods, Beastly, might know.  If he figures it out, I’ll make an update.

It’s Orange Agate, a wood cut from the jungles of Peru. It is hard as a rock, fragrant and quite beautiful with amazing grain and figure.

(Thanks to Beastly for identifying it).

Price: $40

 

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#5 – White Birch and Rosewood

I really like this one.  I like the contrast between the woods. This is a small house, with a teardrop shaped door. Just because I felt like experimenting with door shapes. In the future I may do ovals and other teardrops.

Price: $25

 

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#6 – Bocote and Rosewood

Price: $35

 

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All the birdhouses are finished in walnut oil – a non-toxic, bird safe natural oil. The houses are decorative, however they are suitable for hanging outdoors and for use by nesting small birds – BUT they will age and weather over time, unless you oil them once a season.  Additionally, NOTE: They cannot be opened for cleaning – I’m working on a design that will allow you to remove the cap for cleaning, but I’m not there yet. If you need to clean these, you’ll have to pull the old nest out in pieces through the opening with a pair of needle nosed pliers. It’s perfectly doable and not really a problem, I just like you to know what you’re buying up front.

 

As always, I prefer payment via Paypal, but I’ll consider other methods as long as we work it out via email first.

Apparently…

…all I’m going to do tonight is surf the internet for funny videos.

Hey, it was just one of those days, I’m fried.

So, have some Lewis Black. Holy hell, this guy cracks me up.

(NOT SAFE FOR WORK, just sayin')

This guy's routine is like one of my rants, only on video.

I Have Not The Words

Really.

Things That Ought To Be A Hanging Offense

Die, Microsoft Die!

Is there anything more likely to make a blood vessel in my head swell and explode than the message “Program is not responding?”

No there is not.

I swear to all that is holy, it ought to be legal to kill a random stranger from a rooftop with a high powered rifle every damned time you get that message.

Program is not responding.

Thanks.

Thanks for stating the obvious, Microsoft. And really, thanks for nothing.

No shit the program is not responding, you dolts. I can see that it’s not responding. I can see the program has frozen for no apparent reason other than activation of the mysterious Microsoft subroutine Check_For_Unsaved_Work_If_Yes_CRASHMOTHERFUCKERCRASH! The fact that I’m pounding on the keyboard in a bloody-eyed rage tipped me off. The message is really not necessary, unless you are actually trying to induce an aneurism in my head the size of the Hindenburg fireball.

I got it.

The program is not responding. Yeah.

You want to impress me with Windows 7?

Include a phone number I can dial from my non-Windows Based phone that sends high amperage electric shocks directly to Bill Gates’ balls – also at the same time have a message pop up on his screen saying “Your Testicles Are On Fire! – JUST IN CASE YOU WONDERED WHAT THAT FUCKING PAIN WAS, BILL!”

Hey! There’s an idea, what if we made everybody who worked at Microsoft wear the special taser electrode underwear? You know, I’d be a whole lot less likely to come unhinged and embark on a multi-state homicidal rampage if I knew that every time a program ceased responding for no apparent reason whatsoever a random Microsoft employee was getting about ten thousand volts straight in the privates. Zzzzzzt!

Wait.

Don’t do it. Just stop right there. Take your hands off the keyboard. Step away from the comment box.

Because there is one thing that I find more aggravating than Microsoft.

And that would be the inevitable comment recommending that I switch to penguin based operating systems or to that one with the apples.

Really, just don’t. People who offer helpful suggestions that aren’t actually helpful and in reality are just another way of saying “Bawahahahaha! Mine is better than yours. See? I told you so” should be soaked in gasoline, loaded in a large artillery piece and fired flaming into North Korea.

I’m already pissed enough. The entire pictorial of this weekend’s shop work, i.e. the birdhouses, is gone in a cloud of petulant electrons. My urge to commit violence is running about 9.6 at the moment, all I need is a target. Really think about it.

Better for all of us if I take out my ire on that guy who drives too slow in the fast lane – because, next to Bill Gates* and the troop of brain damaged baboons running Microsoft, driving too slow in the fast lane should be number one when it comes to hanging offenses.

Pictures tomorrow.

Maybe.

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*Yes, I know Bill doesn’t actually run MS any more. I don’t care I still want to set his crotch on fire.

It's Always Something

Took the Jeep in to get the winter tires put on and an alignment.

Got a call from the shop.

It's going to need $2000 worth of repairs. U-joints and pitman arms and various and sundry. Yes, it's got damned near 300,000 miles on it.

But still, Arrgh!

It's cheaper than a new vehicle I suppose. But damn, $2000. Ouch!

Ask Stonekettle Station

“When your sending a vibe at a girl what does it mean if you feel like your goin to vomit (sic)”

Well there are a number of answers to this one.

1) it means that you realize that you’re damned near illiterate and it makes you sick to your stomach.

2) it means that the girl you’re sending the vibe at is wearing vibe reflective clothing and your nauseating pervert waves are bouncing straight back at you. Honest to God, man, now you know why all the woman around you vomit continuously in your presence. Turn that shit off. (Dude, I’m totally serious - remember Niven’s Law: Never fire a laser at a mirror).

3) You thought you sent your girl the movie Vibes starring Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper, but belatedly realized that you sent her Vibe starring Sinbad. The sudden mental B-movie image of a Goldblum/Lauper/Sinbad mashup caused your stomach to clench tighter than Roman Polanski’s butt cheeks in a California prison shower and the thought of your girl thinking you wanted to watch a Sinbad movie with her makes your bowels turn to water like Jessica Simpson with a major case of the herbal colon blow.

4) You have swine flu. You're going to die.

Pick the answer that most suits your particular vibe.

Just In Case You Were Wondering

Yes.

I am in the shop, making your damned birdhouses.

I’m not goofing off, I just came in to get a cup of coffee.

You’re welcome.

 

What?

Yes, I’m taking pictures.

Yes, I’ll post them later.

Now, stop whining, I hate that. Go watch Stargate Universe on Hulu or something.

What It Looks Like Out My Back Window

Yeah, that’s snow alright.

2000 feet down Pioneer Peak and coming fast.

Man, I am not ready for winter.

But I admit that I love the view of snow capped mountains at sunset.

The Obligatory Roman Polanski Post

Saw a guy wearing a “Free Polanski!” T-shirt today.

Are people actually defending this scumbag?

Seriously?

You have got to be kidding me.

Let us review, shall we?

He raped a 13 year old girl.

He was a 44 year old sexual predator who planned his crime with deliberation in order to rape a 13 year old child. He drugged her. Then he sodomized her, repeatedly, orally, anally, and then vaginally.

He admitted this in court. He is not “Roman Polanski, alleged pedophile and child rapist.” He is “Roman Polanski, pedophile, child rapist, and complete fucking scumbag who fled justice when it appeared that he might actually have to pay for his crimes.”

And he’s spent the last 30 years avoiding paying for those crimes.

He’s spent the last 30 years living his life, walking about like he was a normal human being and not the child raping scumbag that he is.

He finally got caught.

And people are actually defending him.

People are actually saying that because he is such a great director his crimes should just be excused.

Excused? We should just excuse rape because this guy makes movies?

At the risk of repeating myself, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Half of Hollywood is up in arms, outraged at Polanski’s arrest. These people have lost their Goddamned minds. Oh, sure, I can understand somebody like Woody Allen – you know, the guy who screwed around on his wife with his step daughter, and then eventually married the girl after being divorced by her irate mother. Then there’s Whoopie Goldberg, who seems to think that there’s a difference between rape, and “rape-rape” – one wonders if she would make such a fine distinction if she was the victim. But the real prize goes to Debra Tate, sister of Polanski’s deceased wife, actress Sharon Tate. Tate said that “the rape was consensual.” Consensual rape? The mind boggles at the shear size of the oxymoron. Tate apparently does understand the concept of statutory rape, but thinks it's OK when Polanski does it. When the Manson Family came to slaughter her pregnant sister, I have to wonder if Debra Tate considered that consensual too?

I don’t give a shit what movies this scumbag has made. I don’t care what prizes he’s won.

Roman Polanski is an admitted rapist and sexual predator.

He belongs in jail with the other child molesters.

Oops

Turns out you’re not getting a post tonight either.

My son and I were out in the shop – and I lost track of time.

My son has recently been expressing interest in learning how to turn.

This tickles me.

Tonight he was learning basic techniques. Such as using a forstner bit in the tailstock chuck to hollow out birdhouse bases.  As I said yesterday, turned birdhouses are a great way to learn to use a wood lathe, they incorporate all the basic techniques of both spindle and face turning.

It is now late and I am very tired.

Good night.

Ask Stonekettle Station

(Swear to God, this is the actual search phrase)

“What is the meaning of a dead burning moose?”

You have offended the Alaskan Mafia.

Be wary of men in parkas and bunny boots and avoid Sarah Palin at all costs. Do not eat canned salmon or bald eagle meat. Watch out for grizzly bears.  Enter the witness protection program immediately or move to some place really hot, like Iraq.

Good luck.

Ask Stonekettle Station

Today’s Google search phrase:

“My cat sheds a ton, pees on the carpet, and claws everything up. Help!”

No problem.

What you want to avoid in this situation is over calibration.  A .22 caliber short should do the trick. If it’s a big cat I’d go as high as a .380. Anything bigger than that is just wasteful.

Hope that answers your question.

Tired Jim Is Hideously Tired

It probably has something to do with the headache I’ve had all damned day.

Even an hour on the lathe after work didn’t help. Much.

 

So here, have a picture of some turned birdhouses instead of an actual post.

The one on the left is zebrawood, with the perch and roof made from Brazilian rosewood.  The one on the right is holly with a spalted birch sombrero roof. 

A lot of turners make these in miniature, usually as Christmas tree decorations. These are full sized, with holes cut for finch sized birds and as they are intended for actual use, they’re finished in simple bee’s wax.

Turned birdhouse are fun and good practice on the lathe.

Speaking of lathes, I’ve been working on the new lathe and sooner or later I’ll get around to doing a pictorial on it.  It’s a massive cast iron machine made by Delta.  It’s 30 years old, but I got it “new” still bolted to its shipping skid and packed in cosmoline (a thick grease used to preserve machinery and weapons).  I’ve spent the last two weeks installing, adjusting, and tuning it.  One of the things I find simply amazing about it is how smooth and precise it is – and quiet. When it’s running I can barely hear it.  And massive as the machine is it allows for some very large turnings, but it also allows me to do some very, very small and precise work – like that rosewood perch on the zebrawood birdhouse. That perch is only about size of a large cribbage peg (speaking of which, I turned some cribbage pegs tonight as well, just because I could).

Anyway, that’s all you’re going to get tonight.

I’m beat, my head hurts, and I’m going to bed.

Good night.

Things That Chap My Ass About Big Box Home Improvement Stores

At least once a week I have to go to either Lowes or Home Depot.

Usually both.

Sometimes more than once.

Sometimes a lot more than once (hey, sometimes I break stuff while fixing other stuff. It happens. So, put a sock in it, Bob Villa.)

This does not make me happy.

I really don’t like those places. They’re supposed to be one stop shopping for home improvement needs, but they’re really not. They never have what I need, and I end up having to go to both stores almost every time in order to get the supplies I have to have for whatever job I’m elbow deep in at the moment. Seriously the damned stores are always located together anyway, where you find one, you find the other – they ought to just build them on opposite sides of the same parking lot. It would sure make my life a lot easier.

What should be a fifteen minute errand always turns into a two hour adventure at Aggravation World.

I always get the helpless helper. You know, the guy in the blue or orange vest who comes rolling up with a big smile and says “Hey, what can I help you find?” Against your better judgment, you tell him because maybe this time it will be different. But no. Hell no. As always it turns out that he has no damned clue as to where the item you need might be or if they even carry it. So he says brightly, “Well, hey, let’s go look for it, follow me!” Sure, just what I need, a snipe hunt with my new best friend. I don’t need help wandering aimlessly up and down random aisles, you idiot, I was doing just fine with that on my own before you showed up.

What’s the phrase? Let’s build something together? Uh, no. Have you seen some of these people? Yesterday there was a wild eyed guy working in Lowes with hair down to his ass and a equal length beard. Yeah, me and Charlie Manson will be out back building a swing set if you need us.

Lowes has this phenomenally irritating automated paging system. I’m fairly sure this thing was cooked up by the same charming folks who invented the waterboard. Some brainless clod pushes a button and the damned system starts blaring over the loudspeakers “Special assistance needed in the board cutting area! Special assistance needed in the board cutting area! Special assistance needed in the board cutting area!” And the impatient mouth breathing dolt back there in the board cutting area just keeps pushing that goddamned button over and over and over until I’m ready to go back there and jam his head into the saw myself. He’s like a little kid on a road trip, “are we there yet are we there yet are wethereyet?” And when some helplessly helpful employee finally does show up to give him the special assistance, some other gomer starts pushing the button elsewhere in the store, “Special assistance needed in …” Jesus H. Christ, one of these days I’m going to snap and run screaming around the store with a pair of wire cutters lopping off those stinking help buttons and maybe a button pressing index finger or two.

I was in Home Depot on Sunday and they must have had every single forklift in the place moving crap around. The beeping was deafening. It was like Day of the Daleks in there. I kept expecting the stinking things to pick up a plunger in the toilet aisle while blurting “Exterminate! Exterminate!” If they started vaporizing customers I would have been cheering them on.

Whatever I need, they’re out of. If I go in looking for 250 feet of 12/2 U/W copper wiring – every damned body in the Valley suddenly decides to put in patio lighting that needs outdoor two-strand 12 gauge wiring. If I need 8mm recessed hex head screws – so does everybody else. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how unusual or obscure it is, they only had two of them and they just sold ‘em that morning – but, hey, no worries they’ll have more next week. They’ve got a whole huge pile of the size I don’t need, and apparently neither does anybody else. Just in time delivery is a business model that can kiss my ass.

I was standing in the electrical supply section, trying to figure out what I could substitute for the things I needed and they didn’t have. Behind me some halfwit was asking the helpless helper for advice on rewiring his main electrical panel. Now the the guy giving the advice was the same dipshit who didn’t know the difference between 12/2 and 14/3 outdoor wiring, but suddenly he’s an expert on your home electrical system? Yeah, better swing by aisle ten and pick up a couple fire extinguishers. Just saying.

Apparently both Lowes and Home Depot get a volume discount on those big rolling stairway ladder platforms that are blocking every single damned aisle. I swear it’s like the silly sons of bitches are doing it on purpose. I think they’re tracking me with those little radios, “sssssh beepblop, this is Charlie on parking lot patrol, he’s getting out of his truck, looks like he’s got a busted sink fitting in one hand!”

“SSSSrk! Bleepblop! Roger all, Charlie, we copy. Try to stall him with the Helpless Helper routine while we move every fucking ladder in the store into the plumbing aisle!”

“fzzzztp! Beeelbop! Yeah, this is Charlie again, looks like he’s in a hurry, better get a couple of the forklifts too…”

“ssssvippp! Roger. Exterminate! Exterminate!”

What chaps your ass about big box stores?

Today’s Search Phrase Oxymoron

“starship troopers verhoeven brilliant genius”

 

Uh, no.

Stop it, you’re going to break the Google.

Today’s Search Phrase

“Big Butt Hairy Asshole Woman”

 

Dude, stop it. Stop it right now.

Or I swear I will hunt you down and make your name public.

Then I’ll email your mom and tell her what you’re doing.

Just stop it.

Latest From the Shop

Just so you don’t think I was goofing off all day:

I spent the afternoon on the big Delta industrial lathe.

This is a turned lidded box. It’s large and heavy and the colors are just spectacular. It’s made from Alaskan Birch Heartwood and Brazilian Rosewood and finished in Mylands Friction Wax*.

I also turned a number of spindles, some chess pieces, two birch bowls to rough, and a plate.

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For you turners out there, the finial in the picture above was spindle turned using my new Crown Beechum skewchigouge. Seriously, if you do spindle turning, you probably want to check this tool out. It is easily the best damned skew I’ve ever used. I bought the thing on a whim, and after a day with it I can’t visualize spindle turning without it. You want one, trust me on this.

An Important Sunday Question

Homemade Shredded Hash Browned Potatoes.

Do you put ketchup on them or not?

What about cheese?

Gravy?

 

 

Hey, I like to know who I’m dealing with out there.

Suspicion

Three days ago, FBI agents arrested an Afghan immigrant named Najibullah Zazi on suspicion of terrorism.

Specifically, the FBI charged Zazi and three of his friends with plotting to detonate improvised hydrogen peroxide bombs in New York City on the anniversary of 911.

The FBI is being credited with breaking up a significant terrorist operation in both Denver and NYC.

 

It’s a measure of the last ten years that when I first read this I immediately thought, “He’s innocent.”

I immediately thought: here we go again, terrorists, al-Qaida, Pakistan, New York, 911, bomb plot.  Sure. They’ll hold him for six or seven years. Then it’ll turn out that either the intel is so classified we can’t prosecute him, or the FBI doesn’t actually have any proof at all that he’s really anything other than a funny sounding foreign taxi driver. They’ll drop the charges. He’ll sue. Yadda yadda.

 

Now as the case firms up and more information is released it does appear that Zazi is actually who the FBI says he is and that he does appear to be guilty of what they allege he is.

And it appears congratulations are in order for the FBI and that it is nice to see the Federal Bumbling Idiots actually get one right once in a while.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of new trend, shall we? 

Maybe ten years from now when the FBI says they’ve caught a terrorist the first thing I’ll think is, “Good on ya, fellas, way to go.”

God, I hope so.