What a dumb weekend!

That Blond's geometry test describes me all right! I may have to go to "auction-a-holics anonymous. I can see it now...a poorly lit room in a church basement, a circle of chairs, and I stand up and say "Hello, I'm Stag, and I am an auction-a-holic. "Hello Stag" goes the chorus. I tell my story. "I went to the auction, and some golf clubs came up. I figured, what the heck...I could play some golf...I mean, people DO! This is towards the end of the auction, and the auctioneer was getting annoyed, tired, and un-interested. He kept missing my bid. I was waving my paddle frantically, and he is going...."twennydollatwennydolla, no? Hey Ronnie, group some together. So Ronnie groups two more bags of golf clubs together. "Fiftydollarfifty dolla, okay, twennyfive twennyfive twennyfive FIFTEEN!" Now he sees my bid....I don't realize he has pushed three bags of clubs together. Thats dumb...Ronnie ain't normally dumb...I think he has grouped some other stuff, but three bags of clubs! I keep my hand up....somebody decides he wants some for 17, and I go to twenty. The drone of the people talking in the room coupled with the amplified auctioneer going Twennytwo, twennytwo, TwennyFive SOLD! Oh my gawd, I bought three bags of clubs! Brenda tells me to put it with the bag she had bought for me earlier. What, you mean I now own FOUR bags of golf clubs? Well, now I'll just have to go for that pile of balls....got 15 top flights in the sleeves, plus a bucket of used for 17 bucks. Not a bad deal, but I needed golf clubs like a dog needs an overcoat!
Yup....all in all....impulse buying at its worst. Like I needed golf clubs! Yes, I shall have to exercise more self control.
Hello, My name is Stag, and I am a auction-a-holic.

visitors

I have had lots and lots of visitors in my shop. This was in 2004, but I still love the pics. Jeff Greenwood (hidden in back) had brought in his young cousins to see a real honest to gawd amour making shop. We made a maple leaf out of steel for her. Not the world crushing mega vorple battle sword the guy wanted.....grin! (click on images to enlarge)

To donate or not donate...

The Ontario government is introducing a controvercial new legislation to allow doctors to harvest your organs if you have NOT signed indicated otherwise on your driver's licence. Theoretically, you can sign something on your licence now...but I just checked...its laminated...I could not sign anything if I wanted to! So I would have to go down to the license bureau, get a new licence...sign something on the form before it is made into a laminated card if I want to not be butchered like a sheep. So, unless I want to go through the hassle and expense between now and 2008, when I would have to get a new one anyway...it looks as though I will end up in pieces.
Ah well...just have to look on the bright side...
To Remember Me
Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless pain.
Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fibre and nerve in my body, and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells and let them grow so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults.
If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

(but a choice would be nice...)

My ancestors

This is a pic of the family taken I think when they stepped off the boat in Montreal. What a great family! Old grandmams, mustachio'd men. Big cossack coats, demure babushkas. Not a lot of grinning! But then, they were still probably seasick from the passage. as always, click on the image to enlarge.

They called themselves "Ruthenians". Actually they were from Bukovinia...part of what is now the Ukraine. This bunch were from the farming territory south of Lvov (pronounced "Le view" of course!) They tell me that my grandmother is the harried looking woman with the two kids on the far left of the picture. I actually had people visiting here last year who knew all those people, and wrote their names down....and like a fool, I lost the info!

quote..."Many grains of incense on the same altar, one falls first, another later, but difference, there is none."______________Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, book IV

Daring

Good Advise!

The Wizard of Oz (http://othersiderainbow.blogspot.com/) posted a number items under the heading of "free advise". They are quite seriously, excellent advise for anybody who has a credit card, a wallet, and lives in a place where the above may get stolen. Which is...um...all of us....

Things like "instead of signing your credit card, put the words "photo ID required". and to once in a while take everything out of your wallet and photocopy it, both sides, and keep the copy in a safe place.

He also has a cool tune in the background.......

Its only a hockey game....

Its no shame to lose to Russia. They played brilliantly. Like they had a play book on the ice with them. Canada merely played extremely well. They have finished out of the medals. Ah well. It won't make me turn to drink!

Course, this is only Men's Hockey. The ladies brought home the medal for Women's Hockey, and there is no doubt in my mind if THAT team were up against the Russian Men's team, they would have body checked them back to Moscow.

Curling does NOT belong in the Olympics. Sorry. Even though we are doing so well, it STILL doesn't belong.

grumble grumble grumble

Go Team Canada Go!

Well, team Canada in the Olympics will have to get their fingers out...its Russia they have to beat now! After holding on for dear life in a 3-2 win over the Czech Republic in the final game of the preliminary round, Canada faces Russia -- which beat the U.S. 5-4 -- in quarter-final action today at Torino Esposizioni.
Puttin' in the chips and beer for a long afternoon!!!

What am I saying! I gots too much to do to be watching a hockey game! Even such a great game as this one! Today, I have to find out why my sword blanks came back from the heat treaters as "sword like objects". Bad steel? Bad heat treating? And I also have to figure out how to pay for a new set of sword blanks. Brenda is not keen of dropping 3 or 4 grand on a bunch of blanks I can't use!
At the same time, I think I will try and see what the heck is holding up my English Wheel! I made a beginners stupid mistake...I finish paid the job when there was only a week to go! Now that week has stretched to two months! What IS it about sub-contractors? I hope my banker is not as incompetent. Or maybe she is....but is better at covering it up? (Lordy I am getting suspicious these days!)
I seem to be in the unusual position of not haveing any work coming in the door! What a concept! That IS unusual. Now I have no excuse to ignore Brenda's honeydo list.

ice

My place on Friday. Decided to stay home. click on images to enlarge.

Many dead on local highways....2 huge (thirty car) pile ups on the 417. Countless fender benders. It was like the movie "Day after Tomorrow" out there, with a 15 degree drop in under an hour.

Valentine's Day Hearts

In reverse order, here are three hearts for the ladies in my life....or at least, in my blogs.... all unrequited love alas!
The flower for Jennifer.....the um...piercing for Pei Ling, and the sunflower for the one who got me into blogging, Ovonia Red.

Ugly helms

What follows is a stream of consiousness....feel free to click "next blog"....

Here are a couple of the "ugly" helms I made this week. Why are they ugly? Well, the welding is technically excellent (I didn't do it...grin!), the helms are fairly plain, but those big grills out in front just make a nice looking helmet fugly. I don't normally make grill faced helms...guess this is why! However, the customer is always right, and knows what he wants....and ugly takes a back seat to function, visibility, breathing (always handy, that!) and winning the battle. The old saying....Good Fast or Cheap, pick any two. I think I can now add "Pretty" to that list. But you still only get to pick two! This fellow clearly picked "functional and cheap", and will win all his upcoming battles. Ah well, at least if he loses them, he can't blame me for making him a helm he can't fight in!
Compare to the barrel helms in the January archives....I think I prefer the closed in barrel helm to this wide open bar face.
The other helm is a round top grill face. It is the "alpha" version, and so needs some tweaking. However, there are some different things about it....it is basically a good looking helm which has been covered with a face grill. The grill is built upon a cut out plate, which although 12 gauge, is pretty light since most of it is cut away. I had 20 of them plasma-cut to a template I built (rebuilt, and built again until I got it right!) Now I just have to make a LOT of face bars! This should be the new "hot seller". They don't take all that long to make....just requires a lot of waiting time for the stages....usually it takes a couple of weeks to get into the welding shop, but only 2 hours to cut out the plates! Then another two weeks to get the welding done later!
The tops are spun bowls which have had a half inch taken out of them and then welded together. Another 2 weeks...Hey, I think I know why this project is taking all this time!!

New rules for 2006

George Carlin has his new rules for 2006. Ones that particularly caught my eye were these...

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're already doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."

New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards.

New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you're a dope. If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you're a grown man , they're pictures of men.

Please visit
http://www.strangecelebrities.com/content/item/113583.html
for the rest of them. Guaranteed to start your day off right.

(I know....its not about ME....but I am a little tired this morning....I laid awake all night trying to figure out what "existential" means. I don't get called existential very often. I think it is a good thing...

Joke of the day.....I walked into the bar and told the bartender "My wife doesn't understand me". He said "Well, wadda ya mean?"

Another week!

Another week, another helm! These are quite pretty...the visor comes up and overhead, to sit in back. The simple most straightforward SCA helm I make! The gorget has been fire coloured. Yeah...I'm showing off...grin!

Just had an interesting visit from an old friend. He is an amazing person, lots of life experience, very interesting, and psychotic. I mean, REALLY diagnosed truly Manic. Even under the control of his medication, he is a bit challenging to be around. I get the feeling that I am in a cage with a rattlesnake...and if I do or say the wrong thing, I may precipitate an unfortunate event. Not that I am worried for my safety, but rather the safety of our friendship. I think everybody has a friend who does odd things...but it helps to know and respect people who have real problems to realize how minor the idiotic behaviour of your boss or co-worker really IS. As a retailer of swords and knives, I often have to deal with people that have an unfortunate attitude....and I refuse to sell to somebody who I think is more than a little eccentric. Since anybody who buys weapons is de facto eccentric, this tends to be a value judgement.
A lot of my friends don't want to have anything to do with someone with a mental illness. Like, Dude, you CAN'T catch it...its not contagious! Such people fall into the category of "interesting". Lets face it, they are incredibly more interesting than a dozen people I know whose babies are their life... or those whose jobs define their world, or who spend inordinate amounts of time on line. http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Blizzard_Christina/2006/02/08/1430745.html

Ah well...back to work...bashing metal. Trouble with a job like this is that you are by yourself all day. It is good to have yourself as company, but there is a tendancy to think too much.

Bill

Military

No special reason for this....just thought I would share my wallpaper with y'all. Its off the Mars.com web site.
(click on the image to enlarge. Save it the usual way.)

Freezing Rain

What a blah day out there...we have not seen the sun for a couple of weeks! Everything is covered by a half an inch of ice. The car's windshield wipers are frozen into crystal sculpture. Very pretty if you don't have to figure out how to free them without breaking them! Yet, I have to go out today to get my allergy shots...an annoying development which keeps me going into town every few weeks whether I will it or not! It would be nice if I could combine my shots with going in to teach my classes, but honestly, trying to fight off an allergy shot AND teach a class...I don't think I have the steam....grin! These are not benign little pollen allergy shots, but rather life threatening doses of the stuff which has killed me in the past, and it has to be strong enough to almost kill me again. (no Jennifer and Zlanth, I still reflect in a mirror...the miracles of modern paramedical technology are illustrated every time I stand up and walk around!) The stuff knocks me on my heels for a day, and often the whole next day as well. I call it a shot of 'instant stupid", and is better than a half bottle of Bacardi's to shut down the creative bump.

The picture is from last September....I went to Marmora to show off my armouring. This is a pic of the horse stall they set me up in! Very pretty! Good thing the event was outside....those felt tapestries were full of some mustiness which made everybody cough.....a white mold, probably non-toxic. A couple of days hanging in the sun probably fixed it up. S'long as they are kept out of the damp, they are okay. Those tapestries have a long history. They had been in the offices of the Ren Faire, and never made it out to the auction....understandable since they were soaking wet at the time. They had been made for a big company and had been in trade shows all over the world. I felt it was a shame to see them go into the dumpster...they look all right though don't they?

Well, its past time I got some work done.

Full house

This was the scene of mayhem as we attempted to teach a full size class of 25 people to handle swords. (Well, okay, that is an old pic....but indistinguishable from last night!) I love large classes. Trouble is, they make it difficult to give everybody their proper amount of time.

I read somewhere that there is a rule of 10%...that is to say, ten percent of the people use up 90% of the resources in any "system". I found that I spent most of the hour on only 4 or 5 people. Then I found that if I actually dis-engaged myself from that person, that another instructor would quickly latch onto them for much the same reasons that I did. A few poor students get the most attention, the better ones don't get any attention.

There is a lesson here I think...I wonder if it applies to the working world. The less input from the boss, the better you are doing. That was never really MY feelings though...normally as I plugged away through the working world, the boss would watch, and let me weave this elaborate rope with which he would eventually attempt to hang me. Maybe I just had "difficult" bosses...or maybe I was always destined to be gallows bait. Maybe the 10% rule doesn't apply in ALL cases...grin!

Ah well...I was quite pumped last night....lots and lots of people. We filled that room! And good people too! I did an informal survey; about half of them found out about us by word of mouth...a friend had taken the course, most of the rest had seen the posters Jean had plastered all over the College, and a few had actually read the literature the college had put out. The fact that 4 of them had read the literature was encouraging....that info was printed on pulp paper, and was published and distributed for last September! They had hung onto it all this time! Remarkable!

Anyway....today is a full day of armour making....my shoulders are twinging in sympathy already.

(Oh, and Jennifer, I did vote...and the Conservative party got elected. This should be interesting...the first Prime Minister NOT from Quebec in half a century! We have a 4 party system here...the body politic having fragmented over the years. It is also the second minority government...in order for the party in power to pass a Bill, they have to get more than their own party faithfulls on board. This allows elected Members to have influence even if they are not in the "ruling party". It is usually a good system....for awhile. As long as nothing too dangerous happens....)

Let it snow, let it snow let it snow!

(click on images to enlarge....)

The top pic is my back yard today at around noon. The bottom pic is Nate's armour, finally all done. The faulds don't look too bad. They are all laced on, no buckles on the front. He might change that...but this is ready for delivery right now.

Armour.

Got this finished yesterday. Not so bad...I think!

I am working on the faulds....that is the skirt part. This is just the top part. This armour is 1/16th of an inch thick (16 gauge), hammered out on the block, and shaped on the anvil entirly by hand. Then it is sanded with 80 grit, then torched all over to make it a nice "plum" colour. The clear coat lacquer will keep it that way for a few years! This one needs another coat of lacquer...some scratches from the construction exist...but a square of tee shirt cloth soaked in lacquer thinner will soften and blend the scratches in the lac ( a five minute job!).

Teaching Today!

Today is the first day of teaching the Basic Chivalrous Sword Handling course for this year. I have got several calls from people wondering what they should wear.....I wear Tee-shirts and rugby pants....and runners. The Kenjuitsu CAN be learned wearing a gei and a Hakama, but for the basic stuff like this, it is sufficient that you wear comfortable clothing, and to BE comfortable. I have this head cold which means that I won't be getting up close and personal in the takedowns, I just hope my throat will handle the "lecture". My love of talking is going to be severly tested.

Other than that, I discovered that the armour I am making for a nice fellow in Maine is actually too small! Too short in the back, actually. How annoying! Oh well, an extra piece in the back plate always looks good. I'll try and post pictures of it tomorrow.

Happy Ukrainian Christmas!

Its the 12th day of Christmas, and the "real" Christmas, according to most Slavic countries who follow the old calendar. I could have made a whole big old blog about this day, and how we Ukrainians celebrate it, but the wizard over at the Wizard of Oz http://othersiderainbow.blogspot.com/ has done a fine job of doing just that! Its worth the trip over the rainbow to visit....I promise. Tell him I sent ya.

The illustration? Oh just some old book that I just can't read......my folks never saw fit to teach me Cyrillic. Pretty neat armour though huh? Very Narnia like... Interesting, the heels on the boots. Clearly horse people.....
as usual, click on the image to enlarge...if anybody wants more like that, email me, and I'll send 'em to you. I have about 4 or 5 engravings like that one.


Merry Christmas everybody.