I’ve located the Doctor of Manliness!! Sort Of

 For more than a decade there have been rumblings of his untimely death. He was last seen, blown wildly off course in his homemade hot air balloon somewhere over the Bering Strait. His body nor the balloon was ever found. Until now that is. In an old run down boathouse up on the shores of Moosehead Lake in Maine. A hot air balloon…HIS hot air balloon was found! When I got the call I couldn’t believe it. I had to see it with my own eyes. I made the 6 hour drive up there and met with the new owner of the boathouse. Sure enough there was no mistaking it. It was the SS Mrs Beasley! I’d recognize it anywhere, after all I helped him build it. Had he survived? How did his balloon get to Maine? So many questions began running thru my mind. One question immediately popped up front and center. Am I, at 62 years of age, fit enough to tackle a quest as large as this? Am I ready for the hunt of a lifetime? Can I track down The D.O.M.? 

Stay tuned…

New Camera: Eastar Medium Format

I just got this Eastar medium format camera in the mail from E-Bay yesterday, it came with two rolls of very expired film and a light meter(whatever that is).  I've been wanting to graduate from 35mm to medium format 120mm for a while now so this is my first step. This morning I took my first picture with it. With lots of sighs, eye rolls, and moans I made my family pose for a picture. I don't expect much out of this first batch of photos due to my complete lack of knowledge and the thirteen year old film. Who cares though, this is fun! I also scored a Konica 35mm camera from an estate sale a couple of weeks ago, so I have that going for me too. I consider it an upgrade from my dusty old Canon AE-1. Digital is for idiots.

Newest Copper Dragon

My latest dragon is taking a long time to complete. I started it last year and at this rate it may be another year before I finish it. I only work on it for one or two hours every other weekend. I have so much going on, so many other interests. Real trouble with focus. I love the way it's coming out and how heavy it's getting. Lots of painstaking work creating the scales that will cover the back. I plan on putting in some wings real soon. Once I get the scales up to where the front shoulders are I'll add the framework for the wings. 

New Dragon

Here's a Quint inspired photo of my newest project. This one is the biggest yet. It's most likely going to take all winter. My work is slow due to issues with my scatter brainery. #dragonsmith

Copper Dragon Sculpture: Finished!

Well, I finally finished her. I love the way it came out. Really cool coloring. I've started on a new and even bigger dragon. I need to get my hands on some larger sheets of copper. Not cheap!

The Birth of Maybellene

I didn't even know she was a girl!  Over the past few days I've been trying to come up with a name for my creation. I was thinking it had to be something Nordic and manly like the name of one of those Icelandic strongmen. How wrong was my line of thought. The name was chosen for me by the Gods. I was out in my workshop listening to music and just spending some quality alone with the dragon. I was excited because I could already feel it's spirit. Just as the thought of what to name this mythical creature popped into my head Chuck Berry's Maybellene started cranking out of my radio. So, to my surprise and delight, she is a girl and her name is Maybellene.

Copper Dragon Sculpture

Copper Dragon

I started this dragon about a year ago. It started as a request from a customer out of my ETSY store. I kind of got side tracked with other projects and lost interest in it. Then about a month ago the guy e-mailed me and asked how the dragon sculpture was coming along and that he was still interested in it. So I've been working on since then. I'm loving the way it's coming out. Heavy, huge and sharp! All good things.

Road Trip

In one month I will embark on my third road trip down to Disney World. It's a 23 hour drive. The last time we drove straight through without stopping. That's our goal this time as well. My wife does most of the driving. Mostly because my driving, along with my breathing and most other things, annoys her. I do a fair amount of the driving, in fact my favorite part of these trips is the drive down. I love to travel by car. I love the hunt for the next cup of coffee. I love even a bad cup of coffee while out on the road. The pinnacle of the trip down,for me, is the North Carolina rest area vending machine coffee. I'm not kidding, I just love the primitive ness of it. The whole trip will be ruined if I find a Starbucks built in its place. I love a crappy cup of boiling hot coffee on a shitty scorching boring stretch of highway. On camping trips my go to coffee is instant. No stupid commie presses for me. I will do the old school percolator though. I can't really explain it. It's kind of what I imagine Charles Bronson drinking on the set of Once Upon A Time In The West.

Rest in Peace Roddy Piper

I'm shocked and saddened to find out today of the tragic death of one of my all time favorite wrestlers. Roddy Piper has died at 61. He played an equal roll along with Hulk Hogan to launch the WWE into the billion dollar industry that it is today. It was their relationship in the ring that made wrestling explode into the mainstream. Wrestlemania was born out of everyone's hatred for Piper and love of The Hulkster. What sucks is for all those millions upon millions of dollars that he made for Vince McMahon, during his last few years, Mr Piper was probably working his ass off just to pay the bills and put food on the table. Very sad. Rest in Peace brother. You will be missed.

Bucket List

Lately I find myself saying "I'm going to put that on my bucket list". The trouble is I don't have a list. So this is my attempt to get back into working on this blog and write my bucket list. I may come back and revise this list from time to time. We will see....

MY BUCKET LIST:

Motorcycle across the United States 

Bench press 300 pounds 

Presidential Range traverse in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

Own a 1977 Black Trans Am

Travel with my family out west in an RV

Climb the Grand Teton

Become a student of Kendo

Make my own bourbon

Take up smoking a pipe

That's it for now.  I know I'm forgetting some, but this is just off the top of my head.

Dead AC Compressor

winter is good

my friends the trees
all twisted and weighted down
like me
thoughts of death and the dying
I love the bleakness and cold
a pair of ravens seem amused and come to check on me
their voice raises my spirit even further
hands frozen
enjoying the cold burning my finger tips
only small moments like this
can I call my own
how amazing
I get to draw this cold into my lungs
only for an instant though

Bourbon and Archery

arrows missing their mark
a mellow glow
a smile greets the setting sun
glancing shot off the lawn mower
feigned anger, I loose another
it's not about accuracy
this is my time
the recurve and me
an arrow shatters another glass jar
making me laugh
sitting in the darkness now
in the grass
bow on my lap
the Makers hits its Mark
and the moon smiles

Surviving The Flames!

Some of the survivors of my first firing. I dug a couple more out of the ashes after I took this picture.

THE SACRED PIPES

I thought adding a photo of the GREAT ERNEST BORGNINE was a classy move on my part.

The Kiln

 This was my first attempt at making clay pipes. Actually it's my first attempt making clay anything, also this is my first kiln ( I have some experience with polymer clay). I thought about buying an electric kiln (for about a second) but that just didn't seem right. Too sterile for me. No real heart and soul. Real flames lapping and licking at my creations, that's what I wanted. What I needed! It all started this past winter when I was kicking around the idea of making a wooden pipe to smoke some tobacco. Someone ( Sir Robert Williams) suggested making a clay pipe. That sparked a frenzy of pipe making. I had (have) no idea how to make a pipe . I didn't even know what kind of clay to use. I bought some clay at a local craft store and made 30 of them.  I set them on the shelf and waited for spring and the snow in my backyard to melt. Once the snow melted I bought some cement blocks and a few bags of sand from Home Depot and built myself a kiln. I had no plans other than building a square box to hold heat and fire. I used patio blocks and sheet metal to close up the top, once the fire died down.  I buried the pipes in wood shavings and some scraps of wood left over from all the oak and maple battle hammers I made over the winter. I started the fire around 10 am on Saturday. At 9pm that night it was still putting off heat, so I left them in overnight to cool off gradually.  Sunday morning I eagerly open up the kiln and dug out my treasures. To my surprise they all turned black. I assume this is due to massive overheating! Who cares. Anyway, about half of them didn't make it. But half did, and I love them! They are my children. I can't wait for my next firing!

Just another day with Prudence.

You don't just dive right in when your cleaning up dog shit all over your backseat. Especially when your two dogs are still back there and one of them is an English Bulldog still covered with shit. I thought Prudence had outgrown this peculiar quirk in her personality because she hadn't done it in a while. I was driving along, calm and serene, on this beautiful morning when that familiar smell engulfed me. Immediately I started screaming incoherently at her. I actually gave myself a headache from all my yelling. Sushi, my Japanese Chin was petrified at this. I think she believed that somehow this was her fault. Prudence was looking for birds out the window with one shit stained paw resting on the back of my seat, totally oblivious to my screams. There was shit everywhere. Eventually I got a hold of myself, put some music on and tried to relax. I picked up some baby wipes at the market and pulled into the hardware store to try and clean this mess up. At first I was delicately trying to clean all the shitty footprints being careful not to get any on me, but it was all over the carpet and the seats. It was even in the door compartments. There was a even shitty paw print on my Highwaymen CD!  It was embedded in the bulldog's feet as well. Eventually I gave up trying to keep the shit off of me and just started to scrub everything. Sushi is drooling and trembling in fear in the corner while Prudence is like "Whatcha doin Daddy". No longer angry, I just scrubbed her feet and gave her a pat on the head. I shot Sushi a dirty look. Just because.

Winter's Artistry

Wind and Snow created something amazing on my skylight last night!

Gearing Up For War!

My family is becoming concerned with my growing battle hammer collection. I have no answer for them.  I'm compelled to make things that don't make sense. Sensible is boring..and paralyzing. I'm still working on making bows. Also, since seeing the new Hobbit movie I want to make that giant crossbow that shoots steel spears. I can't find a picture of it though and I forget the name. I'll have to skim through the book to see what it's called. Anyway, the top hammer and the small one in the middle are my latest ones, the way they came out pleases me. No matter what anyone thinks I'm going to keep moving along this path to see where it takes me.