Scribling Stuff Here There and on the Internet

Still trying to get back into the swing of blogging. When I started this thing I was adding a post everyday. Now I am luck if I do it once a week.

It might have something to do with the amount of writing that I am doing on other fronts. I am still slugging away at the science fiction series. I am very please with how that is going. Chopping up the first round of stories into short stories has been an interesting thing. It will not work for the later stoies. They ar simply too complicated. Still it is an interesting thing.

Of course I am still slowly chipping away at the clown ubertext. i do think that I am going to die with that unfinished. I suppose that is why I am training new clowns. i will need a new master to take my place when i shuffle off this mortal coil.

The Clown brigade has decided to put together an entirely new show. This show will be based on the parable of the rich man. This is fun scripture that has all kinds of stuff that clowns can do with it. I am frankly surprised that we had not used it yet.

One of the more interesting things with this show if that we are going to write some of the music that is going into the show. The truely rough part is trying to write church music on an accordion. I think that there is a special place in Hell for people that perform the kind of music we are doing on the accordion.

Also two of the younger clowns are writing bits for the show. One of the young ladies that is writing stuff for the show is dangerously close to getting a writing proficiency. I think that will put her within one proficiency of getting the Standard Clown Rank. It will be like the old times. Someone that is not even a teenager earning such a lofty clown rank. Good Times

be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Random Music Stuff - Well sort of

For those in the Army they know of the great musical tradition that we have. Well that music tradition is alive and not so well at the Steel Valley Corps. One of the thing sthat we have been working on is some kind of band for the Clown Brigade. What we have come up with is accordions. This is an old video clip that we have have not used. So here it is.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Pipe Tone Organ - Ballington Booth

I forgot my camera at the Corps so there will be no pictures in this post. This is especially sad because I have been taking pictures recently.

The book continues to dominate my time. I think I have found a solution to one of the problem that has been nagging me about the entire thing. The book has a fair amount of time traveling in it. Because of the way the series is there are multiple overlapping story arcs that take place over centuries. These arcs intersect the main story at various places. Some of them last the entire series while other only a couple books or one book.

It is a bit like watching Hill Street Blues. The only difference is there are no cops lot of aliens, time travelers and some of the story lines take place out of sequence or backwards. Well, really it is not much like Hill Street Blues. When I am working on the book I often watch shows on the Hulu. And I went through all of Hill Street Blues again. That was a really cool show.

Anyway, the over lapping story problem that I was talking about. I have figured that each book has a single even that all of the other arcs are trying to effect one way or another. At first I was putting down the dates and times as part of the chapter title. This did nothing to show the relationship of what has happening. So I will label the chapter that contains the main event as such I will then list all of the other chapters as before or after that single event.

So I chapter would have the chapter title and then how many days or years before the main event they take place. And when it get closer to the main even they will be listed in hours or minutes. I am not sure if I should call this the main event. I really need to come up with a good name for the Ground Zero event of each book.

On the up side the book kind of makes seance when you read it cover to cover. That is if you can understand my misspellings and such. In another couple weeks I might even be able to let someone read it without being horribly embarrassed by my errors.

On a random bit of something I have been watching some of the anime shows on the Hulu. Some of these are twisted. There is one with a fourteen year old vampire that wants to enslave an adult through the whole blood sucking thing. This guy is impervious to her charms and so she is in love with him and they are fated to be together. I may have missed something, still, that makes my plot look strait forward. Not to metion the whole underage thing. Maybee I missing something and she is really three hundred and just is traped in a 14 year olds body. I don't know if that makes it any better. Perhapse one of my readers can explain it to me. I suppose vampire things have never been my thing

We found a piano looking thing long forgotten in a storage space of our corps. Much like the accordions that we are trying to make a band out of. It turn out that it is something called a pipe tone organ. It does not actually have pipes. It has metal reads just like an accordion. The ruberised cotton that make up the bellow is shot. So I am replacing it with vynal. It is not going terrible well. still I think i can get it working. If that pan out we will have a period instrument that will go along with out stage show. We will see if our music sergeant can strangle a tune out of it when I get it in one peice. The mechanics of the instrument appear intact. This is since it was built around the turn of the last century.

It looks as if it was well used when it was in service. So I have had vission of bonnet clad Salvationist standing on a corner in Homesetead trying to save souls sing about Christ and preaching a little fire and brim stone. Well it look as if we will be able to revive that just a bit. We don't have bonnets. Ummmmm....... and we will be clowns who are soilders pretending to be soilders who are clowns. Hmmmmmm....... I suppose we will at least have the Jesus stuff and the instrument. I really should try and time up some sort of normal hobby.

Wait I have the knitting. By the by I also have some pictures of recent knitting on the camera. And my knitting is clown stuff. And my knitting group had an average age of 11. So apparently I can take the most conventional thing on the planet and turn it into something weird.

On the up side we did gat a computer for the clown room. So if we can get on line there might be live bloggin from our knitting group. That could be cool.

Well it is time to get back to Brigadier Mason and Fleet Lord Jefferson. Be saf eout there and keep your stick on the ice.

Woo Hoo

Happy day someone put something my on line kettle. I was begining to think the think did not work., Or that I had done something wrong. Just looking at the bit of red at the bottom of the screen thing makes my heart all warm and fuzzy.

I am not sure what the etiquette is in a situation like this. I am not sure the person would want thanked publicly. If my gizmo took an email I will send a reply that way. Anyway the goal is 120 and this person gave ten.

Speaking of Kettle standing I was doing some real Kettle Standing in addition to cyber kettleing. Sergeant Thurman and I we standing Kettle in the Food Court of Century Three Mall.

A Great time was had by all. Our Capitana was playing the horn. Not being a horn type musical person I did not know what kind it was. Needless to say her horn playing is better than my accoridon.

Well be safe out there I have to get some sleep for more kettle in the morning.

Hats and Tunes

Still working on hats and the accordion. To make things supper scary i am on my fourth clown hat this month. And The accordion band now has three accordions a drummer and piano player. It is just like a real band only evil, really evil.We are going to offer to play amazing grace during church.

The Salvation Army is having it's family camp at the end of August. At least I think it is. I can't remeber. We should take our instruments. That would be so cool. Well it would be from a certain point of view. And considering that I have a unique point of view that makes it cool.

The book is moving along quickly. I am happy with it's progress.

Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

It has been a really busy week or so. All I have been doing in my free time is making vidcasts and typing the books.

Here is a random peice of accordion stuff

Do I know who Jimmy Shand is? Oh do I.

I love Jimmy Shand. And how many people have some one write a song anoud them. This is especially rare in the music world. And it does not count if you wrote it about yourself. That just makes you a burk. Does Fifty Cent have a song about him, No. Madona, Prince, Sting, Lawrence Welk, No No No and No.

Amadeus Mozart, Bach and Jimmy Shand do.



By the besides the Pennsylvania Polka this is my Favorite Polk ala Jimmy Himself



And Just to be out there.



Just a bit of Trivia Jimmy has more pieces of Music to his name than the Beatles and Elvis put together. Few people other than Robert Burns himself have done more to save traditional Scottish Music than Jimmy.

If could play the button accordion I would buy a Shand Morino. This is the same accordion that Jimmy played. Jimmy didn't like the accordions of his time and had one built to his specification. Hohner still makes it today.

Jimmy passed away a few years ago. Still he left us legacy of music that few can equal.

Don't Leave You Accordion in a Hot Car - Trainwreck Edition

Did you know that the insides of an accordion are usually held together with Bee's Wax. By the way the only way to be an ubber nerd is to play the Accordion. So of course I have taken this instrument up.

If your Accodion is making a rateling sound and many of the keys do not make a sound this is a problem. It means that the metal reeds on the inside have fallen off the inside of the Accodion. I of course know this because I took apart out broken accordion. The wind chest gizmo thing on the button side with the metal reeds that had fallen off.

And YouTube was to the rescue again. This is a clip from a discovery chanel show. I forget the name of the show but they show you how stuff is made.

With this clip, a sodering iron and a quick trip to the hardware store I was able to get the keyboard sideof this device working again. The case is warped in servaral places making it leak air in several places. This apparently is bad for the operation of one of these things.

This is the prettiest of the accodions we have amassed. It has more notes than the Hohner that I use and has a softer sweeter sound. Since most of the reeds have fallen off the button side it will take me a while to get it working again. I also need to find some straps to wear this instrument since it did not come with them.

In my regular You Tube Hunting I found Wolfgang Thobae. He has several of the Hallmarks of a good accordion player. First he does not look at the Keys. Second he is able to play both sets of keys on his instrument. Third he can read sheet music and play at the same time. And fourth he does not have the notes written on the keys of his accordion.

As an added bonus he is playing a larger and new Hohner accodion like the one that I use. This give me hope for my eventual upgrade when I know what I am doing.

Moon River


Scarborough Fair


Good By Yellow Brick Road


Knights in White Satin


House of the Rising Sun


Just for I have to mention the most famous American Accodion Players. Of course this is Weird Al Yankovik.





If you have watcvhed all these videos you have won the wated time aware for the week.Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Practice Practice Practice.

It was another exciting evening of practice at The Steel Valley Corps in Homestead. You can't see it in all of the pictures but this is juggling practice. Since I am taking the pictures there are none of me juggling. I should probably take the video thing of people juggling. It would be more interesting than the pictures. Amazing that we are going into out third year and have no video of us juggling.

This is my wife juggling. You can't see the balls because they are over her head.
This is Sergeant K and he is blurry because I am a bad photographer.
Sergeant Chasko is doing very well at this. Cadet Harris was also doing very week at juggling. She has only been juggling for a week or so and she is up to three balls. This is impressive in the juggling world.

And just for it's random torture value here is my progress on the accordion. After this you will think I should have taken Juggling video and not the accordion. This is going to be last segment in the Army Clowns video.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Ravelry - Coffee Feinds Heaven

This is Bob. He is the mascot of the Ravelry I think. He is a cute dog. I don't know what he is. Still, he is a cute dog. I am not a big dog person. This one appears to have character though.

My wife's dog Sally is a cute dog with character. She just will not let people take pictures of her. And I don't have a camera anyway so that is the end of that. I must admit the Ravelry thing is addictive. I think I can also put it in the category of things that are going to turn the knitting trend into a full blown knitting as part of the culture thing.

I once mussed that I thought knitting would be something that will go up and down. And that it would need some sort of catalyst to keep it going. I think this way me the beginning of that catalyst. I still think we need something like the knitwiki and a few other things. Still, it very promising.

In that vein I have started three Ravelry groups.


http://www.ravelry.com/groups/mid-atlantic-knitters
Well this if fairly self explanatory. This a group for people that live in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It also happens to be the area that live in.



http://www.ravelry.com/groups/natural-stitches
This is the group for Natural Stitches the most awesomest knitting store ever. Alright I may be bias. This is the shop that work at. Hey it gives me a chance to wear my ties that are not blue. Now if i could only find my Veggie Tales Tie.

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/knitting-for-war
This is the group of people that are interested in my book. There have been some super friendly people sending patterns.


This evening I spent some time at the Museum of Modern Failure. It is a project of some kids From Carnegie Mellon University. I showed off The Judy, The Barry, played the accordion (badly) and told some circus stories. Tommy Amoeba was there and fun was had by all.

By the way this place it across from the South Side Works and has six cent cups of coffee. If you are into coffee than this is the place to visit. It am told it is great coffee. They are some sort of cheap coffee selling it for what ever it really costs. Hopefully this will take out Starbucks or at least know them down a couple pegs. I am not a coffee person if you cannot tell.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Insainly Busy

I was so tired that I had to take a nap on this pile of every color of Cascade 220. Natural Stitches order every single color of Cascade 220. I had to help move all of the yarn into the space. So I was tired.

All of this yarn is now on hooks on the wall. So when I am not helping at the shop i am practicing my accordion clowning or writing the knitting book.

Well I am looking forward to my extra hour of sleep. It will help me catch up.

On other subject I am still looking for pattern for Knitting For War. The Brigade is plugging along and we are working on new routines.

We have settled into a schedule much like a circus. We work on new material routines and props in the winder and perform the rest of the time. It is odd how that centuries old time table emerges. It must mean we are doing things the right way if we are falling into time tested patterns.

Well I have typing and reading to do. be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

The Most Terrifying Thing Ever

Have you ever wondered what the most horrible thing that could ever happen would be. Well the answer to that question is me in a band. And to make matter worse I am playing an accordion in the band. The band has three member Karen on the Piano, myself on the accordion and an eight year old name Jasmine is our front man so to speak.

We were able to play a song this evening that sounded like the song. I must admit that I am the weak member of the band. Granted I have only been at the accordion for a while. Most Corps have a stash of Brass instruments. My Corps has a piano and stash of accordions. I mean we have several accordions not just one lonely one at the bottom of the pile of instruments. Accordions are our entire pile of instruments. I suppose someone could say that is Satan in action against the church. Well a clown looks at that and says God must want us to have an accordion band.

Beyond the horror life is going well. My hand is working well enough that I can play the accordion. Magic and juggling are still away off. Still, progress is good on the hand front.

I did have someone ask is there will be premature baby section in the book. It sounds like a a good idea so I will add it. It anyone has some good patterns that I would be grateful.

Be safe out there and keep your stick off the ice.

On My Way Out the Door

I am still hard at work on playing around with making the perfect messenger bag on the Knitting Machine. Even with lining the bag it still looks as if the best way to do it is to felt the bag.

I have been playing around making swatches and felting them. At Waterfront Knitting today I will finish is the Red Heart Rainbow Variegated bag. It will need to be lined and it is not quite everything I have hoped for. Still, it has been a help in making patterns.

On other fronts not much has changed at the Corps. Things are still moving along there. Our officers will be away for the next couple weeks. When they get back it will be time for Vacation Bible School. The Soldiers are getting the building ready for the event. We are having an aquatic theme so foam rubber fish abound. This is our second VBS and it is better put together than the last one. So progress is being made on that front as well. Still, the first time you do something it never goes well.

On the clown front we have decided to start and accordion band. It may be a slap at Army tradition. Still, none of us can play a brass instrument. About half of us have had piano lessons. We also have a bunch of accordions for some odd reason. One of the clown said that was God working things out for us. I am not sure about that. I am reminded of the Far Side Comic where people going to Heaven get a harp and people going to Hell get an accordion.

It is either going to be funny or incredibly offensive to the accordion playing community. And if you know Pittsburgh they are a terribly powerful lobby that has built and brought down Mayors and Governors alike.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.