Nov 19 2007
Niko Bites
Niko, our wild beastie of a cat, finds happiness in the strangest of places:
Nov 17 2007
A whole bunch of flower pictures
My ongoing obsession with taking pictures of flowers seems to have persisted.
To view the images, click on the ‘more’ link:
Nov 14 2007
Letterbox
by Sander Roscoe Wolff
Letterbox flag laughing “Hardi-ho-hee”
Envelope singing “At Last I Am Free”
Stamp sticky licker picks paper-cut blood
And turns from a trickle to river to flood
Argyle paperweight dancing a jig
Chokes on a prune that thinks its a fig
Fork and knife napkin unfold for the cat
Pawsing to spit at the big purple hat
Wine bottle corker despairing the screw
“Turn not that implement thrust into you!”
Merlot and Sherry prove fickle and fight
Shocked, then poor Red turns suddenly white
Impudent light bulb refuses to glow
Sleepwalking peach tree refuses to grow
Seedlings sleep sweetly in flowery beds
Visions of flatware spin off with their heads
Flatware and seedlings, peach tree and light
Wine goes not softly toward this good night
Hats, cats and napkins… well, you do the math
Letterbox flag always gets the last laugh
Oct 23 2007
Creating a bass – Step one: buy wood
Ever since, or perhaps even before, I completed the guitar project I’d dreamed of creating a custom bass. Encouraged by the results of the Sandblaster, I decided to undertake a 2nd instrument-building project: A bass.
I originally hoped to create an instrument using similar African Mahogany but, much to my dismay, large pieces of highly figured African Mahogany are becoming harder and harder to find. Old growth trees are now almost entirely gone, sadly.
Anyway, I began to expand my search to include other woods, and even several woods in combination. ( I just had this idea that one solid piece is somehow better… I don’t know if that’s true, though.) Anyway, I have a Taylor acoustic guitar with Sapele sides and back. Sapele is similar to African Mahogany, but it is heavier, darker, and more expensive. Also, like most popular woods, large highly figured pieces are hard to find. So, after many weeks of patience, John of West Penn Hardwoods selected some pieces that, ultimately, will end up as the body of my next bass.
There are three ‘sections’: The top, which is made of book-matched sapele, the middle, which is made of flame maple (soft), and
The book-matched top:
Oct 12 2007
Niko Nekko: Hellspawn
Niko was beating up on our other kitty, Violet, so I went out to the living room to play with him. He wasn’t playing:
Oct 11 2007
Pinhole Photos
Today I was in an experimental mood so I went out and purchased a generic body cap for my Pentax K100-D DSLR, took it home, drilled a hole into it, taped a piece of foil over the hole, added a very small pinhole, and took a few pinhole photos. I don’t know if you’ve ever experimented with pinhole photography, but I love it. I ran out of natural light today, but managed to get one:
Oct 11 2007
My Sister Kelly Hardgrave
My father remarried shortly after I graduated from High School and, before long, he and his new wife, Mary, and her two children, Kelly and Tom, were off to Washington State. My plans to move in with some friends fell through and, with no place to live, I decided to join them in the Great White North. The year I spent there was one of the best, most challenging, and certainly the most transformative of my life. What made it really great was being an older brother (for once) to two great kids.
I was quite the shutter bug, and I was always with my trusty Pentax K-1000. Here are a few images of Kelly from that time:
When Kelly graduated from College the parents had a shin-dig at the house. I believe this was from that time. She and I were abandoned by our respective parents, and this was going to end up on a milk carton or something:
Oct 03 2007
Hofner Galaxie Guitar
This instrument was given to me by a friend who got it from another friend who found it collecting dust in her house. According to trusted sources, it is a Hofner Galaxie. There are a number of different models in that line, however, so more specific info would be most welcome.