"If you can't be pretty, you might as well cause trouble" – Florence King
Dec 4th, 2012 by Meetzorp
Before.
Progress continues over at my mother-in-law’s house. Pretty soon we’ll be able to begin on re-configuring it.
I’ll try to find my grid paper and draw out the original configuration of the house, how it was before I began demolition, and how it will be when it is done. But for now, feel free to marvel at the godawful mess I have wrought.
Dec 3rd, 2012 by Meetzorp
I’ve been just rotten with the follow-through on this blog. Seriously. Couple of days ago I promised to rant about meditation, and there was something else I planned to write about and forgot to. Anyway, since I’ve got a lot of writing ahead of me, and my ideas have been a little thin on the ground, I reckoned it wouldn’t be a bad idea to fill in a few gaps as I’ve left them.
The biggie as I see it at the moment, was the No Gas Nationals, which I’d provided a photo-laden lead-up to and then never came back to write up. So, heeeeeeere goes.
The day broke soggy and overcast and proceeded to unleash occasional bouts of torrential rain.
Our bodies may have been soaked, but our spirits weren’t dampened:
The variety of machinery present was staggering. There were racers in the trike style:
A couple were based off old go-kart chassis:
Others were clearly old bicycles modified for a low-slung seating position:
Or in the case of Tylorrrrr, it was a new cargo bike hastily defiled for the special occasion:
Also represented were:
A wheelbarrow and some bits of an old riding lawn mower.
Parts of an old rototiller, wheelchair, kiddie bike, and tractor seat.
The Radio Flyer every kid dreamed of.
A fantastic contraption based around an old crib frame.
Renner’s famous coffin car.
My Monstrosity.
And this:
Some fantastic loon from Lawrence had constructed this out of the remains of an accordianmobile art-car project.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dantonpix/536566175/
So the tiny children’s bike up front really and actually was the steering. And the car’s stock brakes were still intact and functioning, so it stopped quite nicely actually.
To get it back up the hill, the owner just hitched it to a pickup, and it towed tidily.
You might wonder how it went:
Surprisingly well, actually.
As you can see, the prizes were handcrafted from the finest quality old bike parts and random gizmos. They were FANTASTIC. Especially the People’s Choice Award, a lovely shrine built out out a couple of old bike wheels, hundreds of silk flowers, and a light-up B.V.M.
You cannot tell me that this is not a work of freakin’ glory.
Joel wore his infamous Speedo, motorcycle crash helmet and knee pads.
Safety third, you know.
Joel, Tylor, and Speedy placed first, second, and third respectively, and Richard quite rightfully claimed the People’s Choice award.
Capital “K” classy.
And if you want more, there are more videos and photos on the Flickr set I made for the occasion.
I’m totally looking forward to this foolishness again next year!
Dec 2nd, 2012 by Meetzorp
I might as well make it as enjoyable as possible.
This is my basic operating philosophy for most of the things that I do. For example, I am obligated by the mores of society to wear clothing, so I do my best to have as much fun with fashion and style as possible. The same thing applies with food. I have to eat anyway, so I like to cook well, to experiment with replicating recipes for things I’ve tried elsewhere and liked, etc.
I think this is a pretty common approach actually. Why else would we have scented soap? You can get just as clean with saponified sludge made of lye from wood-ash cooked up with rendered suet.
Likewise the whole notion of options. We could all have one-speed bicycles, painted flat black, with fenders, medium-wide tires, and a squeaky-sprung leather seat. But perhaps I don’t like the leather seat; you want slim racing tires, and the fellow across town thinks fenders are for weenies. Or cars. We didn’t have to progress from the Tin Lizzie – the old Model T fulfilled the requirements of reasonable reliability, ease of maintenance, and accessible purchase price. It came in a size to fit almost every family. But people wanted comfort, style, and fun, and even Ford had to concede that people didn’t want just utility; they wanted enjoyment, too.
Because I can be inclined to be a bit of a pessimist, I try to keep in mind the enjoyable things that I get to do every day, the pleasures I look forward to as occasional treats, and big events that will be big fun. It helps me keep perspective and not dwell on the stuff that sucks.
Nov 30th, 2012 by Meetzorp
Not necessarily referring to “Permission to say ‘cock'” but permission to suck, as referenced in the article linked…here. I just get an inordinate amount of amusement from strong invective, especially as uttered by Top Gear’s own Captain Slow.
So, the other day I was kind of freaking out because I signed up for another of those ridiculous blogging challenges to post something every day, which, as anyone who ever looked at my archives would surmise, is not my strong suit. In fact, months and weeks can go by and I can ignore this website quite avidly. In fact, when I realized that Holidailies doesn’t even start until 12-1, I complacently went back to neglecting my blog. In even more fact, I toyed with not even posting this entry until tomorrow, so as to have something to talk about on Day 1, but another fact is that I’d probably forget what I was going to say by then. I guess I’ll call this Day Zero.
As the Mythbusters sometimes say, “failure is always an option.”
Hell, I’ve pretty much forgotten what I was going to say already. I swear I’m getting more idiotic every day. Is there such a thing as Adult-Onset A.D.D? I think somebody else is controlling my brainmeats and quite badly, I might add. Also-also, because I use the word “brainmeats” frequently and Spell Check doesn’t like it, I’ve added it to the custom dictionary.
I suppose I should return to the point I started to make a few hundred words ago. Accepting personal suckitude.
A few years ago a co-worker and I had a conversation about participating in mediocrity. She is a perfectionist; I am an ex-perfectionist. She was talking about being frustrated by a yoga class she was taking because she was not yet very good, and her competitive spirit was thoroughly vexed. I allowed as how I used to be that way, but mountain biking broke me of the will to succeed.
I am a terrible mountain biker. Seriously wretched. I wreck all the time, I am slow as hell, and you can rely upon me to take the wrong turn after I get separated from the group I started out with. Minor contusions and dented pride nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoy mountain biking, shitty at it though I am. I accept that I’ll probably always be crap because I don’t go very often, I’m blind in one eye, and I’m not that committed to improving. I guess just the general enjoyable experience that is riding offroad through the woods is reward unto itself. Sure, some people race, some people win, and some people are Danny McAskill. Those people are pretty awesome and I admire their skills and dedication. But that doesn’t mean that I feel any pressure to try to emulate them. I’d just as soon occasionally fall off the back of my bicycle on a steep descent, clip my bars on a branch and tank headfirst into a tree, or spend more time taking pictures of fungus than riding my bike and have fun in my own way. Via mountain biking, I learned that it’s very possible to have a good damn time while being no good at all.
Up tomorrow – more inspiration from the above-linked article questioning the whole meditation thing.
My dumb-ass decided to do Holidailies this year. Because I obviously love life, like a Chicken Lady.
Goodness knows what I’m going to be telling all y’all, but for starters, I have been wreaking massive amounts of property damage on behalf of my beloved Mother-In-Law.
That’s all I have for now, but tune in tomorrow for the riveting tale of refurbishing an old Danish woodstove.
Oct 26th, 2012 by Meetzorp
See that big cardboard barrel on the left-hand side of the photo? It’s about the size of a 50 gallon drum. It is packed solid, level-filled with plastic shopping bags – or was when this photo was taken. Mrs. Crenshaw apparently never willingly allowed a grocery bag to leave her residence.
It’s now emptied by about 1/3, as I needed the bags in order to create this:
It is my Monstrosity.
I made it for Halloween, but since I don’t know if we’re actually going out, I may just take it down to some random First Friday and sidle up to people and make strange noises until they are suitably creeped out:
This Monstrosity highlights why I am not an Artist. I make shit, but I lack the little twist of genius required to convince others that I’m not just screwing around for my own entertainment (which, of course, I am). If I were properly an Artist, I’d have some sort of mission statement for this get-up, possibly explaining that I was making a point about the de-personalization American consumerism inflicts upon its participants, and perhaps a poignant remark about the crucial need for environmental responsibility and recycling.
I, being the flippant jerk that I am, just have this:
Oct 7th, 2012 by Meetzorp
Some vehicles were built for beauty: the Jade Idol, for example.
Others were built for speed. The legendary and record-setting Bluebird was a byword for speed.
Yet others, like the Pierson Brothers’ iconic ’34 Ford dry-lakes racer, managed to marry both beauty and speed.
Then again, there are some that manage to bring you neither:
I’ve dubbed it the Kübelwagen, a lame joke that will make sense only to those who speak German or who know about obscure old Volkswagen crap. The original Kübelwagen was Germany’s WWII answer to the American Jeep, an all-terrain toughie that could withstand climate and geological extremes. The name translates to “bucket-car” and refers to the four-person bucket-seat passenger arrangement.
Although in the case of my own Kübel, the bucket seat really is a bucket.
Found in one of the many trashheaps I frequent, the seat on my mighty machine started out as a 3.5 gallon bucket of “Donut Glaze” Don’t those ingredients make you want a big, ol’ greasy, sticky Krispy Kreme? Mmmm-mmm, monoglycerides!
But back to the Kübel. I reckon years and years of Volkswagen ownership has primed me for piloting a vehicle such as I have constructed:
The frame is composed entirely of scrap lumber. The rear end was one chunk unto itself. I screwed it to the center beam, then sat down on it and measured it to the length of my legs, minus a bit, so I could have my knees bent to control the front end steering with my feet. I laboriously sawed off the unnecessary length of the beam, then pried the surplus beam back into two individual pieces of 2X4, one of which was utilized for the front end, and the other of which was sawed into four smaller blocks to build up the rear-end of the Kübel and give me a better mounting platform for the bucket-seat, itself. Motivation comes from four cast-off rollerskate trucks, remnants of a pair of skates I received for Christmas when I was 12 and rather promptly outgrew.
Prudently, you might ask why in the hell I have wrought this monstrosity, and I’m more than happy to answer. This is my entry into the No Gas Nationals, a gravity racing expo taking place next weekend, thanks in no small part to Kansas City’s own Fast Eddie Villanueva.
This ain’t my first rodeo with gravity and unfeasible machinery. Those who shudder to remember, remember and shudder when they think of the Time Out Seat:
Here, in fact, is Joel about to take a pass on the Naughty Chair.
Unrepentant.
Prior to that, we took turns caroming down a hill on a children’s bike with an adult twist – 14 beers were zip-tied to the frame, fork, and bars for ballast and refreshment…and because the rules of the day stated that your vehicle must have brakes and a beer-holder.
The previous two gravity races I’ve attended were Frank Tuesday events.
I am very much looking forward to next weekend’s outing, to seeing how my abomination performs. I have a feeling that it will be not unlike a zombie invasion: a slow, inexorable, inevitable trundle to horror and disaster.
I’ll be back next week to tell you all about it, and share photos of what will undoubtedly be a great many better-executed, less unstable, and much-faster vehicles. And a LOT of grins, I’m sure.
Aug 14th, 2012 by Meetzorp
The past couple of days, they’ve been doing some major sewer work on the intersection right out in front of the office and today, apparently the work crew had an oopsie or two.
Mid-morning, we got an e-mail stating that effective immediately, the water was shut off to the building. Porta-Potties were on order, and until then we were warned not to use the toilets. At noon, the bulk of my co-workers went down the street to get lunch and use the restrooms at a nearby restaurant. While they were out, the big boss came into the Secretarial Cave and first asked, “where is everybody,” and then informed me to let them know the building would be closing for the day at 1:45, that the whole building’s power was going to have to be shut off while repairs were made. Apparently, when the work crew cut the water main, it caused a leak in the basement of our building, and it damaged some of the electrical equipment.
So, the upshot of it was that I had the afternoon free to spend in any manner I saw fit. What I did was take a nap, take a two hour bike ride, spend another hour playing in the garden (planting the tiger lilies that Mom gave me, and general maintenance), and I intend to wind up the rest of the evening baking cookies, to celebrate the fact that it’s not blazing-ass hot, and also in a blatant attempt to make a good early-days impression on my new co-workers. 
Aug 7th, 2012 by Meetzorp
After a couple of false starts and a bit of stress, we finally made it up to visit my folks in the Panhandle and had the chance to go tubing down the Niobrara, since it’s still up for irrigation. For those of you who haven’t experienced the delights of going tubing, basically, all you need is a not-too-deep river that’s running fast and an old truck inner tube that doesn’t leak too much. If you’ve got both, plus a pair of raunchy old sneakers that you don’t mind submerging in river water for a couple of hours, you are golden. You tie a bit of twine around your tube, to make it easy to hang on to whenever you have to get out to climb over a fence, you sit your butt down in the tube (or if you are a total klutz like me, you lay on your stomach on your tube since every time you try to sit down on it, you tip the goddamn thing over) and let the river do the work.
It is gloriously relaxing, and you get to see every color of dragonfly, little birds dive-bombing deerflies out of the air, hundreds of blooming sunflowers, and a panorama of crispy prairie grasses, low-growing willows, and leathery-leaved cottonwoods as you drift along.
It’s a brief, seasonal treat, floating the river. Typically, they let the dam out for irrigation around Independence Day and the flow starts to taper off to where you’re dragging bottom by the time of the Sturgis Rally. (Or for those of you who don’t mark your time by holidays and local festivals, you can float the river in July). Due to poor vacation timing, we haven’t been out during river-floating season in ages. I think the last time I got to float the river was probably a good 8 or 9 years ago.
Besides floating the river, we managed a lot of visiting with my folks, and I got to meet up with the fellow who’s going to be bringing my old Volkswagen back from the brink. Joel squeezed in a pretty good gravel survey of southern Dawes County, and my mom hooked me up with more houseplants.
These little guys are relatives of Jade plants and blossom frequently. The one in the little square white pot will bloom red/pink, and the one in the terra-cotta should bloom yellow.
Mom also started a Citronella plant for me about a year ago. The last time I was out visiting (late August of last year) I forgot to take it back with me. Testament to Mom’s amazing green thumb, the plant is about triple the size it was last year. Quoth Mom, “are you sure you want that stinky thing?” I assured her that I think Citronella smells delightful and of course I would be tickled several shades to claim it. It smells delightful, and I am using it as a centerpiece on our picnic table for the time being, and will bring it inside before winter, of course. This citronella is actually in the geranium family. I’m planning on getting some different geraniums within this next year, and plan to make a bit of a feature of them on the porch next summer.
While I was playing in the dirt getting the little succulents potted, I figured it was about time to re-pot some of my other plants that had outgrown their homes.
Back row:Â my small asparagus fern, Nancy’s asparagus fern.
Front row, left to right:Â Jade tree, new succulent (yellow) new succulent (pink), Wandering Jew, Nancy’s new spider plant, my new spider plant.
I have a hugeaceous spider plant on my front porch, and it had made a zillion little spiders, so this morning, I filled a couple of pots with wet dirt, and went out front and snipped off every little spider and stuck it in the dirt. This way, the big, old spider plant up front can fluff up a bit, without all the little spiders sapping its energy, and there will be two, new pots of fresh, young, vital spiders. Nancy didn’t have any spider plants, so I thought I’d do up a small one for her. She has a big Madagascar Dragon Tree, and it often looks pretty cute to have a spider plant or two down in the bottom of the Dragon Tree pot to keep it company.
If you didn’t guess it, the theme of my houseplants is “easy keepers.” I tend to have a lot of succulents and a lot of plants that will tolerate my care schedule, which is “water on Saturday, do not disturb unduly, re-pot when necessary.”
I’ve had these two Madagascar Dragon Trees since I lived in my second Kansas City apartment (circa 2002-3). The picture above dates back to February 2008, when I’d broken them out of their 5″ pots and combined them into this bigger tub.
Here they are today. They’re famously easy to grow, and I have always enjoyed their Dr. Seuss looks.
Their longtime neighbor is a “Swiss Cheese Plant,” which in the intervening years since this picture was taken, has been expanding to occupy all available space.
Again, this is an easy-to-grow-and-maintain plant. Mom gave me the start of this from hers. Her Monstera blossomed once about 20 years ago. It pitched up this enormous, phallic looking bud which opened out into something akin to a perverse, outsized jack-in-the-pulpit parody. Then, the branch that had sprouted the flower lost all of its leaves, grew some enormous air-roots, and looked like hell. Mom cut off that branch, stuck the roots in a pot of dirt, and let me have it as an experiment. For a good three years, I had a bare branch sticking out of a pot of dirt. This bare branch had one little green nubbin on its side. Then, one day, without any notice, the nubbin turned into a spike, which unfurled into a leaf. Soon after, more leaves emerged, and here we are, 10 years later, and I have a big, dang plant doing its best to outgrow the best window in the house.
I’m particularly partial to my Monstera because I consider it an heirloom. Mom got her Monstera at the grocery store, in the floral section, on a whim, some years before I was born. When she got it, it was a very small plant, and she expected it to turn into one of those heart-leaf vining philodendrons. My Mom still has her unexpected Monstera, which has at various points in time, taken up significant real-estate in her living room. It has grown to ceiling height and been pruned down countless times. If you’re into dramatic-looking, easy-care houseplants, and aren’t too concerned about the plant getting HUGE, then a Monstera is a pretty good choice.
You can see it in the background of this photo from Christmas 1986 (I think). At that point, it lived in a 5-gallon-bucket and spread across half of a big, plate-glass picture window.
Between the Monstera and the Dragon trees, they getting so thick that you can hardly see my absolutely darling Jade Tree, which also got repotted today.
My friend Kim gave me this plant about three years ago, and it was just about the size of the small starter on the right-hand side. Since then, it has gotten rather large, and shot out two starters from the roots. It had gotten so top-heavy it couldn’t stay in its little 4.5″ terra-cotta flowerpot anymore. Since it was doing so well, I thought it should have an extra-pretty pot this time around, and also something with a broader base, since it is inclined to height and top-heaviness. I really like this little pot, and think it suits the character of the tree quite well. I really wanted one like this, but in red or orange, but couldn’t find anything in the right size and shape in either color. But I do think the blue is actually very pretty.
Anyway, I got to play in the dirt a bit today. Come fall, it will be a bit of a squeeze to get everything accommodated with sufficient light, but I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.
Aug 1st, 2012 by Meetzorp
The first time I saw the movie poster for 13 Going On 30, I thought, “ohmigod, I love that dress!!”
I went and saw that movie at a double feature of it and Mean Girls. Talk about tennybopper fashionable chick-flick heaven. My only disappointment was that the fabulous polka-dotted dress from the movie poster never put in an appearance on-screen.
Anyway, what I have created today is what you could call an homage to the polka-dot dress from the movie:
I used another of my favorite patterns, Simplicity 3775, with the cape sleeve from Simplicity 4076. This is the same combination which yielded the leopard print dress with the Ultrasuede collar.
The principal differences are:
I first used the cummerbund waistband on the all-wool jersey dress I made this past winter:
I’d initially been reluctant to use the cummerbund waistband, as I was afraid that it would add unnecessary and unbecoming bulk, but after seeing the results Slapdash Sewist had, I thought, “yes, that’s the ticket.” I pay attention to her pattern reviews and results, as she and I share fairly similar figure features and therefore I find her remarks on fitting issues pertinent and helpful in my own sewing adventures.
Instead of adding bulk, the ruched waistband actually creates a more curvaceous look.
This is one of those incredibly versatile patterns. You can use several waistline and sleeve variations, or, as Slapdash and I have done, integrate sleeves from other patterns, create contrast effects at the neck and waist, etc. Much like the New Look 6674 which I sewed yesterday, this is one of those patterns which for me, has basically proven infallible. It is absolutely one of my favorites, so much so that I have copied it in Tyvek as I intend to use it many times more than the tissue original would probably stand for.
My dotty new dress is by no means an exact replica of the movie dress, but it is definitely inspired by, and I like to think that it captures a similar note of sweet-and-sassy femininity.
I am about to try out a new-to-me pattern, Vogue V8685, View D (with minor sleeve modifications to get around that cap-sleeve problem that I have. The more I look at that pattern, the more I think that it could be a much closer silhouette match to the 13-Going-On-30 dress, and I may have another go at replicating/imitating that dress again sometime with 8685, if it turns out well.