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.

Train Wreck Edition - Clowns and Jpop

Great fun has been had this week at the Vacation Bible School. Of course teaching all of the Children about Jesus was the main event this week. Still, on a personal level there is what some might think a smaller story. Never the less it is a terribly important day for two of the Apprentice Clowns of the brigade. Apprentice Kisielnicki and Prioleau had their first shows in make up today.

Here they are on a balloon detail in out parking lot. In the Brigade Kisielnicki is ranked third in ballon and Prioleau is ranked 4th. That is fairly impressive considering they have not even been in the Brigade a year yet.



Here is Apprentice Prioleau just after getting her makeup on. She still needs a nose but she is well on her way to having her face.

We are working on the second edition of Army Clowns. We have a lot more stuff this time around. It should be a better episode all around. The last of the stuff that is going to be filmed or taped or what every you do with a digital camera will be done this sunday.

Yeah there was no good reason for this. On the Punk Rock Knit Girls group in The Ravelry I mentioned something about the Cotton Candy Helmet and how to make one. Anyway sitting around after the Vacation Bible School Party we were filming some stuff for the next episode of Clown Army. And well this is what we like to call D roll. In television the stuff that rarely makes it on the air is B Roll. Since no one watches this stuff we figure it is C Roll. And this thing because it is so out there it should probably be D Roll.

I have been thinking that I need to learn Japanese. Long time viewer will know my musical tastes are strange to say the least. To be fair they are all over the map.

Oh and before I go on about Japaneese music I found this in the You Tube.

Ah that was wonderful and it is proof there are geekyeer people out there than me. Ah back to the Jpop. Morning Musume has had out some new songs. Here are a few with some random comments from me.

They always have really spiffy unforms and costumes. These silver jobs should be the next Salvation Army Uniform. I have better write the General right away.

They look a bit angry in this one. Maybe they are unhappy about the silly yellow outfits. It I had a nickel every time I was convinced to dance around with yellow feathers in my hair. I suppose they weren’t always yellow.

This one is the newer generation of the Morning Mussume with their pets. I suppose it was bring you dog to work day or something. You see if I spoke Japanese I would understand the dog thing.

And here they are with castanets. I can’t play the castanets. I am not even sure I can spell it. I can spell cowbell and bag pipe. To bad there is not Chris Walken Joke to be make here.

I haven’t the slightest clue what is happening here. This is definitely one of the songs where I need to find the version with subtitles. It is a catchy tune. Still, they have a star ship and creepy microphones. And try and find the space borne Buddha. And they stole a Miranda Class star ship from Star Trek. Wow that makes me the biggest nerd ever.

If Marki Mark can act then Morning Musume can rap. It is a bit scarry. This fighting style is also being taught to all Japanese girls living near foreign military installations. Sorry too soon, it have been a few years.

700 Post Train Wreck Message

Ahh the 700 installment of the mind bendingly silly and pointless Zeeppo's Knitting Blog. Actually I believe it is the seven hundred and first.

As is the tradition with important mile stone in the Knitting Blog I have added a video thing as well as actually pictures of my knitting project of the moment.

The video is a public service message about one of the most dangerous scourges of our time. Enjoy

Featured in the warning is the forgotten long Scarf of the Steel City Clown Brigade, my personal Kettle Standing Scarf. I was knitting that scarf when I met my wife at 9/11. Ah if that scarf could talk it would need years of therapy. Anyway Jasmine is a trained Professional and you should not try that at home. Even a short long scarf is a dangerous thing and must be handled with extrema care.

We are playing around with making video shorts of routines and stuff we are doing. I will put them up as we go unless there are a lot of complaints from my viewers. And even if there are complaints I will probably still do it. That is one of the blessing of having a short attention span.

Well onto actual real knitting stuff. This is me wearing the beginning of the first Uniform Sweater for the Steel City Clown Brigade. It is made from Red Heart {Of Course}. The Burgundy is a traditional Salvation Army color for sweaters. Burgundy or red is also frequently used for Special Service Brigades which is what my troop is according to the rule book.

The stripe of color is of course the perennial clown favorite Mexicana. The multi color yarn is not just just pretty. It symbolises humor in it's entirety. Green for it's regenerative effects. Orange for it's fire of humor and it's ability to change the world. Also in the color way is all the rank colors. Yellow for Apprentice Clown, blue for Junior Clown, Red For Standard Clown and Purple for Master Clown.

The sweater will have sleeves and shoulder loops. The Loops with be standard Salvation Army Shoulder Loops with clown rank rick rack added.

I am also wearing the rest of our practice uniform. A tee shirt in your rank color, khaki pants and black shoes. For more formal events we will wear a standard Army Uniform under the sweater. Still, for going to and from shows and practice this is very good.

So all I have to do now is make one for everyone in the Brigade. This is definitely a machines knitting project. I know some knitter scoff at the machines. Still, you would have to be insane to do all of these by hand.

This is a behind view of the sweater is any one is interested. I am going to add the ribbing bellow. And there will be a collar of purple for my rank color added on the opening of the cardigan where the buttons will be.

All in clown knitting news Bobby has almost completed the Knitting Proficiency. All he has to do is learn to knit socks, make an original silly hat and do a sweater. He is already working on each of these.

Even though it is Bobby doing it there is a great deal of personal satisfaction. He is almost finished with The standard clowning Proficiency and will be a Jr. Clown soon.

everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Clown Practice with Balloons, Tigers

This is another train wreck of a blog entry. As I put this thing together I have too many things to say and an unlimited amount of space to say nothing in.

I once heard it said blessed is the man that has nothing to say and does not have to be asked to say it. I may understand what that means but I do not practice it.

Over to the left is Jasmine she is working on a balloon dog. She has been at the balloons for a couple weeks and is really moving along at it. Now that I look at these pictures we really need to tidy up the book shelves at my church.

In our defence we had just finished with youth programs. Our Cub Scouts are really hard on the Corps Library. They always hit the Harlequin Romance section like you would not believe. I suppose I should digress at this point.

Moving along. It is the playing around with the camera section of the blog. So for fun I went back to making little videos. I have also noted in the video that my Corps also has very high ceilings. I think that in all of the places that I have worshiped we have higher ceiling that the average church. Of course the traditional church type setting has a really cavernous sanctuary. My corps does not have that. We win in the average ceiling height category. Our heating bill must be really outrageous.

Fun was had at practice this evening. We worked on balloons and a bit of juggling. For some reason more than half of my clowns do not want to appear on this blog. Luckily Jasmine does not mind. Perhaps they have taste or do not want to be associated with something that is so poorly edited and maintained. Oh well what can you do?

I have noted that blogger is not putting the spaces between my paragraphs if I add pictures. I have not clue how to fix that. I suppose there is that html br thing.

Work on various writing projects continues. Someday I think it would be nice to have some sort of attention span.

I have not mentioned this. Still, we have the Tiger stripe Opal Sock Yarn. I am told that this is really a popular color. So there is the tiger display.

Yes I stole the line from Tony the Tiger. I elongated a different word. He is a cartoon what is he going to do?

Anyway if you are into the Opal sock yarn come by the shop and buy some. I wonder is this constitutes a commercial in my blog.

I don't know. And I suppose I don't really care. I thought the tiger was cute. Although from this picture he does look a bit mean. Perhaps he is grumpy about the Opal people infringing on his trademark stripes. Well they should have thought about copy writing them when they had the chance. And tigers have hucked everything from gasoline to frosted flakes. The tiger the media whore of the animal kingdom.

Hmmmmm that went to a strange place. Well tigers are great, so put a tiger in your tank. Actually don't put I tiger in your tank. I don't want to read about one of my misguided readers placing a tiger a tank. Tigers do not like that. Also if one of my readers went to jail that would reduce my readership by fifty percent.

What else can I weigh in on that no one really cares about. Well certainly no one cares about my opinion on the Presidential Election. I have had half a dozen people ask me who I am voting for. Number one the Pennsylvania Primary is mostly irrelevant. The candidate is almost always picked before they get here.

At this point I do not have a candidate to support. Number one I have not really paid attention to it. The pundits say that everything is blood bath. Yet when I watch the debates it looks like a love fest. So if you work for one of the candidates I am sure you are waiting to find out where Zeeppo's Knitting Blog is going. I will be putting up a post office box where bribes can be sent. I will give each of the campaignes three weeks to send in their bribes. I will keep you posted.

Well I figure I have wasted enough of your time. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

600th Post Train Wreck

Welcome to my six hundreth entry. Being that my blog can generously be reffered to as a train wreck and added pictures of famous historic and current train wrecks. A great deal has been happening so I will get right to it.

First off on the hand report. I will be wearing the splint for at least another month. I am getting better at doing things with my left hand as a consequence. I have been writting with my left hand and typing with it as well. It has been stange having the one hand. Still, it has been interesting.

On the one handed knitting front I have been working on a new way to knit. I am allowed to use the pointer finger and thumb on my right hand. This is useless for most things. For knitting this is enough to crawl along at a paintfully slow rate. I have had some success with a sort of tecnique by holding my right needle against my waist. I am able to get up to a rate that is close to what I could do before. Using my 14 inch Boye needles it is much like the Shetland Knitting Style using a knitting belt.

In the circus many of our people used a knitting belt when making long sweaters and other project that required a lot of knitting. I did it a coule times and have a clip on version of that knitting belt device somewhere. I only have a few very long double point needles. I am going to head to the hardware store today to see if there is someway that I can make a clip on device that would work like the knitting belt with the Boye Needles.

If I find something I can rig I will bring it to Hive Knitting and shoot a video of it. I know it is super cool and will probably shake the very foundations of the knitting world. Well, it might not, still it will be a neat thing if it works.

I did sign up for Raverly a month ago and there are over ten thousand people ahead of me.

On the book front great progress has been made as well. Because my typing has slowed to a crawl I have written out the book long hand for the last month. With the additional time on my hands I have written almost all of the book. I am currently working on the end of the book and the set up for the first chapter of the second book in the series.

I know I rambled on about this a couple days ago. This has been a strange thing for me. I have been playing around with this book for the better part of eight years. It was a sort of hobby that I pulled out to amuse myself when I had the free time. I am currently sitting here with my I have half a dozen note books full of text that needs to be typed in. It is the closest that I have come to finishing a fiction book. I only hope someone will want to read it after it has been edited.

The Fiber Festival is also moving along. Press releases should be going out this week and most of what can be done at this point has already been done. With the pamphlets going out this week all that can be done is to wait and see if people sign up. We still need a couple more volunteers if anyone is interest email me.

Soon it will be off to Hive Knitting and the Hardware store. I would like to see some more people at Hive Knitting. Last summer through early fall were lean times for the groups as well. There has been a couple of the regular folks that have dropped away and I wondering if it has anything to do with the heavily male presence at the group.

Last week there was only one woman at the group. It is not that I mind hosting the "Male Knitting Group". I am wondering if there is some sort of connection between the female knitters that does not translate to the male knitters. I suppose that there must be.

In the end it is probably not that important. Still, these are the things that run around in my head when I am typing this blog.

I did have another email about someone that wanted to kow if the group was meeting and if they could attend. I find that about one in five of these email invites has a person attend the group. I have had a couple in the last couple weeks. We will see if anyone shows up.

Well it is off to the hardware store to see what I can find. Everyone be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.