Slacking Off Again

As has become my habit of late I have been slacking off on the old blog. I am not really convinced that anyone is actually reading this. Still even if they are not I must do my part to pollute cyber space.

Recently I have been trying to resurrect some part of my fire juggling act. Frankly I have had no need of it for the last five years. There is a group of folks that do various forms of fire performing in Frick Park Thursday Evening after dark. The last couple weeks i have been hopping on the bus right after choir practice and going over there.

I did notice that someone was taking pictures with a camera. this is video from one of my attempts with a fire stick that I just built. It is incredibly heavy and i am not in love with it yet. Still it is a thing and I have been giving it a shot.

Clowen Happening

Well there is not a lot going on here at the old Clown Cave. We are getting ready for some events which is always nice. We have a parade and a visit to a hospital that we have not visited before. That is always an interesting thing for me. I am not sure why I enjoy visiting a new hospital so much. Maybe they are like trophies for Humor Therapy.

I was doing the math and I figured that I have visited 97 Hospitals, Nursing Homes or rehab institutions as a clown. This new one will be the VA in Aspiwal which is just outside Pittsburgh to the north if you are keeping track. It is a nice hospital that is much larger than I thought it was. On Monday after the parade we are taking more than half the Brigade out to go and visit the folks there. Actually I think I will be the most clowns that we have had in face in a long while. We have mostly been doing small institution where we only need two or three clowns to cover the place.

Also on the up side of this show is that it will be the first show for two of the members of the brigade. this is an important first step for any clown. Also a Parade is a great first show for an inexperienced clown. You just walk around and wave at people. Also it gives you a good feel for having a large crowd watch. It is also one of the few kind of shows where you can interact with the public in a completely controlled way. People do not chase you around or demands balloons. So it is a nice low stress thing.

I have continued to work on the instructional booklettes for the clown brigade. I know that it needs done. Still it is a slow and painful thing. There is so much work that needs to be done. And it is going to take years to do. And being at the start of that endeavor is a daunting thing. Well it is something that needs done.

I am thinking of taking a few hours over the weekend and going on another musical safari on the Jpopasia site. Basically I start with one song and after I have listened to it I go to one of the recommended songs at the bottom of the page. A year or two ago I would spend hours a week going from one song to another. Well it is something t do.

Well just checking in You all have a good evening. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Some more Randomness

I have been watching a bunch of movies this weekend. I started off with Run Silent Run Deep a Cary Grant Movie. I then watched most of the Die Hard Movies. I really happen to like the new one where they are running all over the place to trying to stop a cyber terrorist. It is high implausible still it is entertaining to watch a bunch of stuff blow up. I think I am going to finish up by watching some of the Yamato Movies. They are on the internet so it should not be that hard to find them.

On other front I am still working on my singing. My Choir Director has told me that I have to work on my Phalsetto voice. I have been singing X Japan songs to practice this. My biggest problem is that I have a hard time changing back and fourth. It seams to be easier to go up rather than down. And apparently if you want to be half way decent at singing you have to be able to go up and down. Well it is a process. So the fat that I am incredibly bad at it right now might actually be a good thing.

The kittens are a week old and still squirming about. A couple of them are just starting to open their eyes. They mother is very protective of them and does not like letting us play with them. It is a wee bit annoying because they are incredibly cute at this stage in life. My other cat Maya is not liking the kitten very much. She is a runt and has been the baby in the house for the better part of the last year. Also Maya is my cat and the mama cat is my wife’s cat. So there is a strange bit of tension there.

I am still working on the basic booklets. I am expecting that will take the better part of six months to get them all into some kind of shape. On the up side of that I am ahead of most of the clowns in the Brigade on making these learning materials. So if I get these done that will give the more seniors clowns in the Brigade something to work on for a while. The nice thing about some of the more advanced proficiencies is that there is a lot off stuff that has been written on magic. So I am not reinventing the wheel here. I am just putting a few things together.

I think I also need to spend some time cleaning my desk. I had organized a couple weeks ago and it is full of junk again. Actually it would be easy if it was full of junk. I could just throw away the stuff that I did not need. It is full of all the stuff that I need to do these various projects. After the cleaning I am going to take a picture of my desk. There is a thread in the Forum of Jpopasia about what your desk top looks like. I think they are talking about something on the computer. I think It would be sarcastic and funny to go analog on them with a picture of my actual desk top.

Well everyone have fun out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Lydia and her Kittens

This is Lydia and her five kittens. I had to turn up the flash so that you could see them all. Without the flash it looks like a really angry Russian hat.

Random Stuff

This evening we are having a Master Class here at Clown HQ. This is when we work on advanced skills such as walking on Stilts, unicycling or really hard balloons. Tonight we are going to working on Balloons and possibly the script for our next stage show. These are always fun and I enjoy them. Since it has not started yet i do not have pictures of the class. Maybe i will edit this thing and put them in latter.

On the Musical front i am stiff having my adventures with my church choir. I found a nice on line radio station that has been helping me out. http://www.live365.com/index.live It is mostly contemporary gospel music like our choir is doing.

This is a picture of my cat Maya. She is a adorable and always trying to type on the keyboard when am typing. She is not doing it right now. Still she usually does.

Also on the up side. the last installment of Monroe is on the internet. It is a British Medical Drama that i have been watching. That is one of the best things about the internet is that youcan watch television from other countries with out having to go there. I am not sure that i would go to another nation just to watch television. Still it is nice to know that i do not have to.

And of course the best British show is coming back Dr. Who. I cannot tell you how much i have enjoyed the restarted Doctor. I loved Sylvester McCoy and Tom Baker. i was always sad to see them go. But now the new series actually has money to do stuff. The writing is still good. Only now you do not have to imagine what the monster was supposed to look like. it is rather nice.

Well I have probably rambled on enough or now. If you love the Doctor Post.

Hmmmmmm

I would just like to tell everyone outside the United States that only the news Media thinks Donald Trump has a chance.

More Who

I cannot express how excited I am that the Doctor will be back on the tele soon. So here is a we bit of the Doctor Who Goodness.

The New Show

Once again it is time to work on the script for the Clown brigades next show. We are working tirelessly to bring the script together so that we can start rehearsing.

This year we have vowed that we will use on sixty percent recycled jokes. We have also vowed that we will make up at least three new jokes for this show.

Pictured to the left is our Brigades newest member Dave Jefferson taking a shot at making sense of the script that I have written. There was much groaning and he only broken down in tears once at how bad it is. Never the less any progress is good progress. Oliver the computer Squirrel even helped with a couple jokes. For those keeping track Oliver is the Squirrel that lives in my Tandy Color Computer Three. He runs on a little wheel that powers the computer instead of electricity because i could not find a new power supply to replace the old one when it burned out.


By the way bellow is some random Bagpipe rock and roll awesomeness

New Yamato Movie

This is the title song from the new Space Battleship Yamato Movie. I am still looking for a subtitle version of the movie. Sadly there is probably some goffy issue with the people that made thade the American version of the Animated series.

Movie Time

This made me very happy to find this little gem on line. This is an updated version of one of the Battle Ship yamato movies. It is really great. Sadly the goof ball that own the rights to this series in America will not dub this movie. And frankly if they did they would probably ruin it anyway

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

Rambling on

I am still working on several knitting projects. I have a run of the mill long scarf that is being made in red heart varigated. I am not sure what it is going to be used for. Still you can never have enough long scarves sitting around. I also have a purple baby blanket that is in the making. The folks that are getting it do not kow they are getting it. On the other hand they are neither of the people that read this blog so they will not know. I will throw up a picture of it when it is finished. It is about half way done now. So there is still some work to go.

I am also hoping that the first 2011 Apparatus Bags will be done some time this week. The up side with them is that a smaller version of them has been tested with the younger members of our group. And since it has survived with them the larger version will be sound. I am hoping that this is the bag that we can all get in the next year or so. It would really be great if we all had the same bag.

Well this may not be exciting to you all. Still I am happy about it. Be safe out thee and keep your atick on the ice.

Hmmmmmm

For the third time in the last half hour I have walked to a different floor in my house to get a book. When i get there I have retreiveed something other than the book.

I knew you all would be intererested in this so I had to share.

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

True Grit

I just watched True Grit Today. It has Jeff Bridges instead of John Wayne. I am going to have to rent the John Wayne version to remeber all of the details of that movie. This one struck me as fairly different. It was darker and more violent. i suppose more violence was only to be exspected.

John Wayne's Cogburn was also lovable on some level. Maybe it is just bcause John Wayne never really played a bad guy. Even when he played the anti hero it was still like he was the hero.

Jeff Bridges played the anti hero in this one. There were times that you began to wonder if he was worse than the criminals he was chasing. I do not preffer a remake to the original very often. This may be one of those rare occassions though.

Juggling Clubs

I am getting truely annoyed with the Juggling clubs of Pittsburgh. For some reason by the time they advertise where and when they will they break up. Someone just emailed me about a club that pactices in Oakland. I went to the place and time they were supposed to meet and there was no one there. When I Yahoo. juggling Pittsburgh half he links are back to this blog or the Brigade's blog. I find it hard to beleive that there is not a single group of people that are juggling in Pittsburgh.

I did read about something in the Post Gazette in Sewikly. I read about that the week end that it happened. I emailed the person who was supposedly running that and they never got back to me. There is also some kind of club that appears to be an after school activity in the middle school. So even if I wanted to trek out there strangers would probably not be welcome. It is little wonder that i cannot get some of the clown that i know to think that juggling is important. The juggling world does not appear to think that it is important.

On other front i have sent another email to the Internation Jugglers' Association. They usually do not reply to me. Well this will be the thid person that I have contacted. Well we will see how that goes.

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

2011 Type Apparatus Bag

Last year we redesigned the Apparatus bag that we use in the Brigade. We did some rather nice things reorganising the club pouches into one pouch. We also added room for holding Holsters and the like. All and all it was a great improvement over the bags that we had been using.

The other thing that we redid was the Apprentice bag. The first generation of them was too small for our purposed. Also we started letting the apprentices use juggling sticks. So was had to put a juggling stick pouch on the new bags. because the bags were smaller we made the stick pouch part of the bag. In the past it had been a seperate pouch that was attached later.

Making these all parts of the bag has worked out very well. So i am going to give it a shot on the apparatus bag. At this point we have five folks that should be or are juggling clubs. So this means we have to get a bunch of these bags.

I know this all sounds like jibberish. Still rambling about things in the wee hours of the morning is an important part of the process. Eventually i will throw up some pictures. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

New Tron

I just saw the new Tron movie. It waseverything that everyone said that it was supposed to be. There was not very much Tron in it though. Well you can't have everything. Anyway i will not go into details incase one of my two readers has not watched this movie yet. Never the less it is worth the money to go and see it.

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

I have not felt Chatty

I have not fel very chatty recently. I have been knitting this and that. From the last entry you can see one of the long scarves that I am working on. It is the same basic thirty foot pattern that I have made a bunch of scarves. I have also gone back and checked in at Ravelry from time to time.

Frankly there has been a lot of the samestuff that I have been doing for the last couple months. We will have having Christmas parties this week so there will be pictures from that. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

New Knitting Group

Knitting has returned to the Clown Brigade and I could not be happier. I have always loved the knitting groups that clowns have. There is no one slamming Red Heart you do not have to explain why your scarf is thirty feet long. Everything is cool just as it is.

By the way there are a couple of the projects that we were working on pictures to the right. The two top projects are long scarves that have just been started. The purple thing bellow is a baby blanket that is half way done.

These pictures were taken from our second meeting. Thus far we have Sergeants Kisielnicki, Thurman and Wilson Attending. there is myself and our newest member Mr. Jefferson {currently Junior Clown}.

We are meeting at the Chic Fil A in the Waterfront. Our group appear to need to have food at our meeting or shortly there after. This group was meeting at a book store. The food in the cafe was over priced and the staff that was once welcoming is not so much anymore.

The Chic Fil A appears to be one of the Favorite Restaurants of the Brigade. Of course they are the top of my list for fast food. So it all works out nicely. Frankly I was surprised that they are letting us meet there. When Kisielnicki suggested meeting there I thought there was no way. As it turned out it has been the friendliest place that we have had Clown knitting at since we started having a group.

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

Smart President

I am incredibly happy to have a President that is not ashamed of being smart. In a recent episode of Mythbuster the President gave the guys a challenge to resurect a Greek Death Ray. The simple fact that the President would admit to liking a science based show is a great step up in my book.

The old Joe Six Pack folk would have you think that reading a books makes you part of an intellectual cultural elite. It scares the hell out of me when a leader says that being too smart is a bad thing for the President. Mr. Obama's recent stiches aside it scares me when the leader of my nation cannot say simple words.

When the Legacy of this President is recalled the economic problems we are currently facing will be a foot note. In addition they will probably be blames on Bush anyway. What people will remeber is how he deals with internation relations and universal healthcare.

I recently had a conversation with someone about President Nixon. All we talked about was hishistoric trip to China and the creation of the EPA and Earth Day. I don't even Watergate got a mention during the conversation.

Well I know I don't normally go on about Polotics. Still, this something special to me and I though it needed mentioned.

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

We had a rather good scout meeting this evening. We did not have very many kids. Still we had more than enough adults. I don't recall starting a Pack when we had enough adults. So this thing should come along nicely. We only need to have some meeting and the kids will show up. Build it and they will come and that sort of thing.

I am also happy about the new knitting group. I have to knit something for the COAI Christmas thing. Knitting with some of the Brigad mebers will be good inspiration for that.

I have also been working on updating the definitions section of this blog. I never did finish it. I figure that if i put in a couple definitions a day i will have it finished in a year or two.

Well just checking in be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Purple Baby Blanket

I am working on a Purple baby blanket. It is one of those situation where i do not know if it is boy or girl. So purple is the color for such times. I feels like i have made a bunch of baby blankets recently. They are alright not much a challenge though. I would make sweater but they do not last very long. If you make a blanket big enough you can use it much longer with a baby.

Since we are going to have a knitting group this week I will take some pictures. For some reason I rarely take pictures of my knitting unless i am at a knitting group. I am not sure why that is. i am sure it has something to do with being social.

It has been months since I have gone to a knitting group. There was one point in time when i would got to three or four a week. I suppose I have been busy with the Brigade. Well it will be nice to do some knitting in a group. Walkt has gotten rather good over the last year. he has made a sweater and if currently working on a stocking cap.

On the up side it is going to be a good week for knitting.

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

Kesha Likes my Beard - Chicken Knitting

There is a song by someone named Kesha that has been playingon the radio for some time. Anyway this artist is one of those folks that sometimes talks during their songs. When ever i am alone listening to music and someon starts talking a start talking back to them. Well this song has several of these places. So for the entire song i am saying sarcastic and snarky things to the person to the woman singing the song. At the end of the songs she saysthat she likes my beard. So i spend this time being mean to someon and tey compliment my beard.

i kids in our church grabbed my beard today. they said this it was springy. She wanted to know if i put hair gel in my beard to make it srpingy. I do not put anything in my beard. She also wanted to know why white people have beard that do not match their hair. I told her that i didnot know. i came home and did a picture seach of people with beard. And she is right black folks beard match their hair. And frequently that is not the case with white folks.

Well that is just another one of those things that i have not thought of before. So there you go.

Also the brigade is starting a new knitting group this week. We are going to knit at the Chik fil ay. I have no idea how to spell it. It is the place the sells chicken in the water front. If i were really paying attention i could google it or something. Anyway there should be four or five of us knitting at the water front Chicky place this wednesday at 5:30. there will be knitting fun for all. More importntly we can get a platter of chicken strips for 2o bucks. Any with our groupp food appears to be the most important thing.

Well just checking in. Besafe safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

My Cat

My new cat is far too attached to me. As I get older I have found that i am developing an alergy to pet dander and dust. Mya {the cat} like to sit on my face when i am sleeping. As you might imagine this is not very good for the sleepping. It is also not good for the cat when i suddenly wake up and catapult her across the room from my action of jumping up suddenly. Of course she lands on her feet jumps back on the bed and curls up in my lap.

She also follow me around everywhere. Taking a shower this morning she jumped in thetub. We also found out that she is not a water cat. instead of running away she just tried to stay out of th water stream. I also found out that i am uncomfortable having a cat watch me shower.

WEll that is probably too much information. So i am glad you tunes in today. You might regret it. Anyway be safe out tehre and keep your stick on the ice.

My Cat is a Pig

I have a midget cat named Mya. She is the cutuest little thing. Today i had a couple slider from White Caste. i love them they are really great. Anyway I had my litle bugers sitting on a plat. I get up to get a soda and when i get back one of them is missing.

At first i thought i ate one of them. Then over in the corner I see Mya eating the burger. She ate the entire thing bun and all. i never had a cat that eat bread. The little piggy ate the whole thing. She didn't leave a crumb.

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

Pack 60

It look like the number of Second Baptist's Caub Scout Pack is going to be 60. Well it make me happy. that was the number of my Boy Scout Troop when I was a kid.

The thing that I find exciting about this is the start of a complete scouting program. For some reason the last couple place that I have done scouts has only wanted girl or boys ans not both. I personally found this very odd.

So it will be interesting to see how this goes.

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

Can't Post - - - Even Though I am Posting

There is something every day that keep[s me from getting to this blog and psoting something. For the last couple days I have been working on the Clown Cave. For those that are just joinging us the Clown Cave is the room in my house that serves as an office for the Steel City Clown Brigade. This space works as a meeting room, sewing room and office. Up and till now is has just been a place where a couple of us get together for this and that. Now that there are four Standard Clowns in the Brigade it is also going to have to be the place where we have our master classes.

I personally think it is very exciting that we are going to be doing some of the more advanced things that we have not been able to get to yet. Several of the folks are juggling like they have not been able to before. Others are honing more specific skills like knitting and the like. We are even going to have to get back to haveing a knitting group on a regular basis.

So I have had to took a good long lok at a room that has become cluttered with all sorts of things. We have all the items that we need for shows that have been piled up as well as sewing items. I have mounted a couple bolts of fabric we use all the time on the wall. I have use brrom hanger to hang up clubs and torches. I just finished stickin up some hooks that are strong enough to hang an Apparatus Bag from.

This may not sound likje much. Still organising the shelves and rearranging things to get this point was quite a chore.

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

Today

Today was a good day.

two Something funnies and a Jpop

In an effort to do regular stuff again this is two funny videos anda jpop.

The first is from the good people at fail blog



This is a random Brittish Funny Guy



And here is you Jpop for this installment.



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

This and That

I have continued to work on this and that. I have been messing around with the script for the next clown show. I think I should have a completed version for our tuesday meeting. We will see what the folk think of that.

I have also be revising our membership information sheet. The one that we have been using for a while is a wee bit lacking. Also I was able to throw the photographic release thing in with the information sheet. It saved us a sheet of paper per person. I know that sound terribly exciting.

I am also reconsidering the net program that we once did. It was a nice little thing when we did it. The Brigade is once again fairly stable. Maybe it is time to resurect that. I will throw it out there at this weeks meeting and see where it goes.

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

Two Somethings Funny and a Jpop

A long time ago who this blog was new I did some reagular things on it. I had some cartoon and other regular features. Frankly the cartoons I ran out of and I am generally disorganised.

Well here is new feature. Two funny video and a Jpop Video. Yes they have nothing to do with each other. Still that is the way that my mind works. And as always thank you to the good people of Youtube.



By the way I am told this is her actually singing.



There is nothing better than the lighter side of bigotry.



And to round out this new thing. is Mini. She is new jpopper and I beleive this is her first song. At least it is the first song of her's I have sceen

TV is Bad really.......

Today I have discovered there is a TV show about people from New Jersey. I am sure there are good people in New Jersey. I am in Pennsylvania so I do not like to think there is a state full of morons next to mine. It is bad enough Ohio cannot hold an election. Now I know there are people who are trying to fry themselves with sun tanning lotion. Now I am judgin this entire series from a single heavily bleeped clip from a half naked person called Snookie. I think she is female. Even if she is not he is attempting to be female I would think.

Also I discovered the the Housewives of Orange County are in New Jersey. I think I was hoping it was another Orange County.

Well I do not know. I do know I will not watch either. I hope that if enough people do not watch them then someone will write a scripted show to replace them with. Maybe they could hire Paulie Shore as an illiterate librarian. Well it would be scripted at least.

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

The Golden Rule Show

I am realy starting to like the interplay between the younger memebers of the Brigade in this new script. I especially like how Sergeatn thurman's part is shaping up. More than half of her part is the original narrator's part. Still as the Sergeant Major she is the one that must see that everything is going the way that it should. And of course in a clown church that is not the way things go. So there is an exaserbated quality to her part.

Sergeant thurman has a real talent for chaos. Some people might think that is a bad thing to say about someone. In her case she can work in this medium like and old master. It is a really interesting thing to watch. I think this is going to be a great part for her. It is just the sort of thing that a grotesque white face clown would be into.

This is going to be a great little show for us.

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

Still tinkering

I am still tinkering with the script for the Golden Rule Show.

In the original version of the show the piano player was also the annoucer. To divide up the work more fairly i am making the Sergeant Major the announcer in this show. I am thinking that Sergeatn Thurman will play the part of the Sergeant Major. He clown persona is very commanding so i think it will be a good fit for her.

Sergeant Wilson and the Brimage that is not in the puppet stage will play the parts of the clowns that are fighting with each other. We did get away with a fair amount of violence in the first go round for this show. I might throw in a couple extra things in that area. This particular group is fairly good at the physical violence. So I would like to give them something to do.

I am only going to give it anout half hour. I have to be up early for church.
Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Christmas Presents

I have started knitting some thing to give away to some of the folks that I know this Christmas. So on the up side there should at least be some knitting stuff to show on the knitting blog soon. I have been spending so much time on my juggling and rewrites.

The odd thing that has been bothering me the most if my hand writting. My handwritting has never been that good. And since the hand surgery a couple years ago it has been even worse. i have taken to practicing my penmanship in note book to try and improve it. Frankly I have not noticed any improvemnt.

It is odd that my typing and knitting have return to their usual good form and the penmanship has not. Well perhapse making a half dozen scarves will work it out.

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

The Golden Rule Show Revisted

It is two in the morning and i am looking over some red composition book and a four year old scrip[t for a clown show. The two have nothing to do with each other. The composition books are from a very old story that I have not touched for seven years until recently. The script is the first stage show that the Steel City Clown Brigade did. In fact it was being written before the Clown Brigade even had the name that it does now.

A couple of churches have asked if we would be willing to do a show for them in the future. For the last year we have been more involved in skills building than doing stage shows. We have been in a few variety type shows and have made a good showing for ourselves at them all. We have even done a couple revivals which was a new experience for us. All and all it has been a great crowing experience for us. Now it appear that it is time for us to get back to what we were doing when we founded the Brigade a few years ago. We need to do a stage show.

Six months ago we had a grand plan. We wanted to deep six the conservative music that we have been using and switch to Gospel Music. Since Walt and I have joined the choir at Second Baptist I do admit we have become enamored with it. Frankly i have always loved to listen to Mahalia Jackson. The bottom line is that we do not know enough yet. And it is also a small miracle that I was able to spell her name correctly. I am terrible with names.

We also wanted a show that would be a showcase for our new skills. This grand new show is something that I think we could do if we put our minds to it eventually. Sadly I think it would take us too much time to put it together. It might be another year of us messing around with it. During that time we will not be out there evangelising.

Something else that worries me is that I think the younger clowns of our group are ready to be out there performing. They loved doing the mustard seed show. Unfortunately it we very prop heavy and we did not get our props back. the Golden rule show was much simpler and had almost no props. We need to drag it out and dust it off. It never really had it's time. We only performed it three times before we moved onto a bigger and better show.

I must admit that i very conflicted about this decision. I want to make the right decisions. This show was first done with all adult with the exception of one show were JC Stewart.

Among the changes that will have to me will be the fact that there will only be two older people in the cast. The Sergeant Major part will be played by Sergeant Thurman. The physical comedy of the Corps' soldiers will be done by Sergeant Wilson and the JCs Brimage. When this show was first done they were all probably too young to get in front of group and speak. Now they are going to carry the entire show just a couple years later. It is odd but I do not have the slightest reservation about them carrying the show. In fact I don't have a single doubt that we will be able to pull this show together in short order.

It is odd how we sometimes end up just where we started with an entirely new perspective.

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

The Lost Empires

The last couple months i have been kicking around a short story that i never really finished a few years ago. As mentioned before there is an arch of stories that are all intertwined. the first of these stories deals with the first time travelers to the distant past.

In this distant past is a benevolent empire that learns that many of it's citizen become enslaved in the future. One of the species that makes up this empire become enslaved and are the subjects of various genetic experiments. Among the time travelers is one of these beings that has been experimented on. This all happens when he is a child. He is latter adopted by a Japanese Family, hence the name Hero Yukawa.

Hero eventually does well for himself and takes over the family business empire. Which is one of the things that puts him in the position to get involved with these time travelers in the first place. I have been having a very hard time trying to figure out what the long term damage of such a childhood would be. I know that there are people that have experience unspeakable things as children and go onto do great things.

Hero was created as a soldier and is rather good at killing people. to deal with this he has refused to fight directly. He used his superior intellect to design weapons and eventually defeat those that had once enslaved him.

Still through all of this he never knew where he came from. This adventure when his is much older. He had some idea that his people originated in this mythical Empire. Even so it has been gone so long that there are bearly ruins of it in his time. I do not think I am doing a very good job with him. He should be a very complex character and he is not coming off that way in this story. I have written about him when he was young. It was so much easier when his anguish was fresh. I know that he has never come to terms with his personal demons. He never marries and his only progeny is adopted.

I just don't know where he is supposed to be.

Well thank you for letting me ramble. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Various Randomness

Working on several project at once at the moment. The one that has been consuming a great deal of time is juggling batons. The rub with these things is that it appears that the size of the stick in some way helps or hinders the person that is using it. And our group has people of several different sizes making it hard to pick the right size for each person.

To add to the complication of this we have come up with several styles for the heads. This mean that the size had to be right and then the ends of the thing also have to be right. Juggling balls are a lot simpler. they come in three sizes and you just pick one. Juggling clubs primarily come in one size so you are just stuck with what ever you have.

Today I was making a stick for one of the shorter members of our group. So it a shorted stick with a smaller diameter. the heads on this stick are also smaller. I am a bit worried that we might not have any idea what we are doing. the companies that make these thing make them all at around two feet in length. If you are under four feet tall you spen all of you time hitting yourselvf in the head. This of course turns off most people.

In the end I suppose what we are making is better than what we can buy. The down side is that we are experiimenting on inexperince jugglers. Thus it is hard to tell if it is the skill or the stick.

Well I will let you all know how it is going.

The four armed stick is coming along very slowly. I have had more sucess with rolling trick rather than flipping tricks. The thing that it the most difficult is that my control stick always are in the way. I am simply going to have to be better at this before I know if it is a lost cause or not. As soon as i stop hitting myself in the head I might take some video. If I think about it i will post it.

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

The Anti Christ

frequent reader of this blog, both of them. Will know that occasionally a strange experiment started with an odd idea from one of our clowns. this weeks strange idea came from Walt.

there is a juggling implement called a juggling baton, flower stick or devil stick. As best I can figure most of what our Brigade uses falls into the category of flower sticks if you ignore the fact that it is nor made from recycled materials. It is not that we hate the planet. We simply have not found a good source for recycled materials at this time. It is a shame but that is what it is.

Anyway the juggling batons that we use are a shaft with a flowery head on each end made from vinyl. They are good looking and have proven durable for the most part.

For what we are doing they have been working great. This is when the strangeness comes in. Walt suggested that we make and x shaped juggling baton. At one time I recall someone duct taping two devil sticks together. And by Devil sticks I mean that poplar bare sticks that Dube makes that do not have soft plushy heads on the end. I have head some jugglers call these pain sticks. At you might imagine the reason for this is because when they hit you they hurt. Well this experiment went horribly wrong for the people involved. As I recall the person tried and tried and only managed to get a black eye.

Well we have been using PVC pipe and the nice soft heads that i have been talking about. So despite all the evidence it looked as if it might be worth a try. We built one of these things. Thus far it has proven unwieldy and I have not been able to make much of it. I honestly do not know if I am ever going to be able to do something useful with it.

to be honest when we want to learn a new trick with the juggling baton we simply look it us on line or read a book. We have found no evidence that such a thing has been created before. So there is no one out there with saged advice. I will throw up some picture and maybe a video if I can do anything but hit myself with it.

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

Clock Ramblings

I was waiting around for the bus and felt compelled to purchase a steno pad. It is not a real one with the wire binding. It is one of those that is glues together with the peice of cardstock on the back.

For some reason I forget the composition book that I was working on. It may be a good thing. These stories need a rest one and w hile. We had a good practice and every went well on that front.

My current aparatus bag is falling apart. It was the prototype for the others that we are currently using. So it is not surprising that has not lasted long. What we thought was tough material does not hold up in the wash as well as we would like. It has been very useful in working out the design for this bag. I counted and there are sixteen minor difference. Nine of these have been patched or repaired on my bag.

In Wilson and Thurman's ap bags all of these thing were done differently. So it looks as if the minor changes were a good thing. In a year or so we will know if they are actually improvements.

On otherfronts our one eyes pirate cat Abby has had seven kittens. there are adorable as kittens should be. Six are black and one is tiger striped. If you are looking for kittens they should be ready in a couple months. Her last batch was very freindly and social. As an added bonus Sally the dog is helping to raise the kittens. So they will be very comfortable around dogs. I have not caught her trying to get them to nurse on her. Still, I am sure this is a coming atraction.

I've had a really lousy time with the allergies the last few weeks. I have just not had a desire to do much of anything.

Near where I live is arather large clock on the side of a building. the building was a brewery at one time. Now I think it is some kind of housing for artists. At&t is curretnly leasing the clock for advertising.

The thing that I am wondering is if people still built large clocks.. I wonder if they are a product of a time when personal time peices were lesss acurate. In an age when your iphone can be corrected to the nuclear clock at Annapolis are these relics of a bygone era? Perhapse they are. I sill find them interesting though. There is a reletively new one on the Jewish Community Center n Squirell Hill. It is part of a modern building complete with Hebrew Characters.

i suppose if it was jus about elling time there would be digital clocks everywhere. Tall buildings would have the time in neon numeral ten feet tall. The fact that many new clocks still have hands must mean tere is something belonging to tradition with these time peices.

I am not sure why anyone would think my thoughts are relevant on this subject. Hack this is a world were people have a website dedicated to cats that look like Hitlar. If that is relevant then perhapse these ramblings are as well.

By the way cats that look like Hitlar are called kitlars. If I think about it I will throw in the link.

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

Facebook

I have broken down and signed up for a facebook acount. It is under the name Zeeppo the-clown.

For a while I have had an account on the myspace. I am only visited by the some insaine clown posse fans who think it is funny to leave me rude messages. I suppose it is only a matter of time before any website become run down and infiltrated by an unsavory element. That is one of the reason that I like the blogger here. If someone leaves a message it never has to appear on my page if I do not want it to.

Well I am just checking in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.