Metal detecting tally for 2008

In 2008, I found 343 coins, plus a few Hot Wheels cars and a few other relics, old and new, of little interest to anyone else.

I don't think that's too bad, considering the most of my hunting was done on lunch breaks and I had little time to spend anyplace "old" (I don't have any silver and I only found one wheat penny; that will all change this year, I'm sure.)

I have some good places to hit when the weather warms up and I have a few hours.

Linoleum block print: Ohio River Scene

Here's the 6 x 9" linocut I've been working on. I don't think it's too bad for being the first one I've done since Reagan was in the White House. I'm pretty satisfied that the cutting on it is done, although there might be a few tiny areas I could fine-tune. What I really need to work on is my ability to put ink on the block. My brayer is a little too hard for the job, I think. There is also a strong possibility I just need more practice to get rid of the white spots where ink is supposed to be (see the far lower right for what I'm talking about.)

For those of you unfamiliar with the process, or who just don't remember it from your elementary school art class, linocut printing involves taking a sheet of linoleum that has been mounted on a wood backing. One cuts into the surface; the areas that are cut away remain white. Printing ink is then applied with a roller to the raised areas. A sheet of paper is then pressed onto the lino and mashed down really well to pick up the ink.

I want to work on a multi-color print next.

3-year-old comedy

I was just reading The Order of the Stick (at http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0623.html) when Jill walked through the room. She slowed down, looked at the monitor, and got a big grin on her face. "Charlie Brown!" she exclaimed with delight. "Not quite," I told her, although I guess I can see the resemblance.

On a somewhat related note, Jill was sitting on the potty yesterday when Kim walked in, and I overheard their conversation, which went something like this:

Said Jill, "I made a mess, but I cleaned it up."

"You did? What kind of mess?"

"When I pulled down my panties, some poopies flipped out, but I wiped it up."

"Uh, OK. Can you tell me where it was?"

"On that carpet."

"Where on the carpet?"

"Riiiigghhhtt where your foot is."

Map: U.S. states vs. other countries in GDP

A little bit fun...

 

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/06/10/131-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-gdps/

 

Last night I had a tense dream that the city was taken over by the walking dead and I was hiding in subterranean tunnels and sewers.

 

My sensitive metal detector

Last night I retrieved a cardboard box from the garage
and started dismantling my metal detector to ship it back to the manufacturer.
After I had it broken down, I got a damp cloth and wiped dust and grit from the
shaft and inspected the parts. Then I thought for a moment…I hadn't ever taken
it apart this far since I first received it a year ago. I decided to experiment
a little more.

So I held the unattached detector coil in my hand,
and plugged into the batter/circuit box the long cord that is normally wrapped
around the detector shaft. I turned it on and waved it around. It seemed to
function fine. I was basically just holding the battery pack in one hand and the
coil in the other.

I cleaned the shaft a little more and put it all
back together. It worked fine.

Just now I came back from lunch, which I spent
detecting over at the park near my office. I had no trouble with the detector,
and found about 95 cents in coins as well as a little metal car.

My theory: There was some debris caught inside the
shaft/handle of the metal detector that was rattling around and throwing things
off.

I think it's fixed, but I'll be keeping a close eye
on it.

linocut printing progress

Last night I pulled a print from the linoleum block I'm carving. It was just a test. I have a lot of cutting yet to do on the linoleum before I have a finished image, but I wanted to see how the cuts and gauges I've done so far carry over into a print. I'll post a picture of it later, probably along with the finished version. For now I'll just say I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out. I think that by the time I work on my second piece I'll have a pretty good sense of how to handle it, and I'm even more excited about starting on a multi-color print.

 

metal detecting

My detector is beeping erratically and annoyingly, even when pointed at the sky. It is going back to the manufacturer. Yay, warranty!

 

art/baking/garden

Last night I started cutting on my first linoleum block print since high school art class. I really don't have any good idea how it will turn out. A little natural finesse and intuition are qualities I feel I possess when it comes to exploring new media; I think I often get a pretty good sense of how to manipulate the physical objects to get things to look pretty good. There are, however, some basics here that are unknowns to me. How deeply do I have to cut to get a good printable relief? Is my ink any good? For multi-color reduction prints, which will be my next project, will getting accurate registration be a job that's just too frustrating for me to want to fool with?

--

Yesterday I made some apple bread from scratch. It turned out really good, and even better with cinnamon butter on it. The recipe called for a cup of grated apple, but I grated a whole apple and ended up with about 2 cups, all of which I threw in. I liked the results much better than the orange mini muffins I made on Saturday.

--

I actually mowed on Saturday. It was mostly to run all the gas out of the mower, but I also wanted to chop up and obliterate the leaves that I'd missed while raking. Some of the grass was actually long, but it was brown and horizontal so it didn't look too much like it needed to be cut. It did look better once I had mowed it, though.

I also dug up more gladiolus bulbs. That's pretty much all of them now. I don't know for sure where I'll plant them in the spring, but I have lots of them- and I'm willing to share. Many of them are new baby corms ("cormels") that might not flower for another year or two. I hope they will be safe in the garage during the winter.

CNN’s stupid T-shirts

A while back I noticed that CNN was marketing T-shirts featuring its daily (and hourly) headlines.  It's not a bad concept, really. It seems to me like a way to make money, and they do it in an innocuous manner, although it does make their brand of journalism a bit cheaper. What does bother me, though, is their selection of headlines for the shirts. They bypass the good ones and only use the lame and boring ones.  Here is one from today that you can get on a shirt:

 

Gonna Procrastinate? It'll cost ya!

 

And here are the ones that they skipped, all of which are much more interesting or provocative:

 

Woman, 88, yanks nude intruder's testicles

 

Death, mutilation of al Qaeda suspect a mystery

 

Israeli PM: No point in discussing truce

 

One of the coolest photos ever

This was taken by the girls' Aunt Pam at her apartment. I think it was during September's prolonged power outage. It has multiple layers of fun and visual interest.

Walnut ink drawing

This drawing is 6 x 9 inches. I think I like the other drawing better because of interesting shadows and the asymmetry, but this one is much better than I at first thought it would be: the simplicity of the symmetry and the dark punctuation of the window shutters come off pretty well in this small format.

 

Walnut ink drawing

This is 12 x 7 inches on paper, using my homemade walnut ink with a brush and dip pen. I'm quite happy with it, even though there is a very obvious problem with it that drives me bonkers. Oh well. I still like it overall.

 

birthday race

For those who have not yet heard the story, I had this conversation yesterday – Jill's birthday:

 

Jill: "How many days until Christmas?"

Me: "Uh, four. Four days until Christmas."

Jill: "Four days until Jesus' birthday!"  And then, in a sing-song taunt: "...I beat Jesus."

 

 

"I'll just check with the boys down at the crime lab, they've got four more detectives working on the case."

I can't imagine this happening in this country; definitely not in this city.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081222/od_afp/finlandcrimeoffbeat

I thought it was interesting, especially in relation to the movie scene from which the above subject line quote was drawn.

I think I just ate some Christmas candy, although it might have been some sort of little decorative guest soap.

Speaking of blurred borders, at what point does a muffin become a cupcake? Because yesterday building management gave everyone a nice breakfast in the lobby, and I grabbed what I thought was a muffin. After a couple of bites I decided it was probably an un-iced cupcake. How does one distinguish?

Sandhill cranes

After reading my Dad's comment on a post below, and doing a little internet research, I've decided that he is probably right--I think the birds I saw high above me at Otter Creek were sandhill cranes.

Otter Creek excursion, part the last

On the way home I stopped at the Garnettsville Cemetery, close to the park. Garnettsville was a town that existed on the area that would later become the border between Otter Creek Park and Fort Knox; it disappeared when Fort Knox was created. The cemetery is still there and open for business next to the highway, and this part of the cemetery in my photos had the weather-worn graves of some of the area’s first white residents.

I drove through, reading a few head stones, and found it both fascinating and touching. There were the graves of soldiers who died in the Civil War; babies who’d lived just a few days; farmers and mill workers who were born when Andrew Jackson was president; and married couples, men and women who’d outlived their spouses by decades before being buried next to them. Old headstones were worn and toppled, with thick old trees growing from the graves they marked. New headstones, looking shiny and modern, spread out across the other end of the yard.

- - - - - - -

I saw myself on the six o’clock news that evening, on both WHAS and WLKY. I was in the crowd. You would have had to look quickly and closely to see me.

Otter Creek excursion, Pt. 5

I drove down to the boat ramp and walked out to the spot from which I had painted three of my best paintings, all the same view. The water was clearer than I’d ever seen it, giving me a good view of submerged rocks near shore. I enjoyed the scenery for a few minutes, and then walked back to my car. The WHAS news vehicle was parked near mine, and the cameraman was taking footage of the river. I remarked to him how pretty the area was, and he asked me how to get down to the boat ramp.