Fund in the Clown Cave

Monday Night Knitting was all about making our room pretty. Here I am on stilts working on the banner with out name painted on the wall.

We have the white background painted on the wall for the White Shield Logo for the Brigade. Walt and I were talking about what to do with it.

His suggestion is to cut the main peices of the logo out of plywood to give it depth. It is a really good idea and we are going to do it.

The technical bit of this I sill leave up to him because he is better at all of this than I am .

The next thing that we have to look into is getting our stuff organized. Our equipment is in fairly good shape. Out office area it a bit messy. We currently do not have the furniture to get this dealt with at the moment.

Well we will see how all of this going. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Practice and Such

We had a good practice today. We went through a whole bunch of balloon and got a great deal of juggling done. My wife and Sergeant Arasen got all of the new Cadets up on their paper work.

Just for yucks here is an out take from the videos we take.



You can see the progress we are making on our decorating. We also have the first picture of two new Cadets.

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

I had to Kill Prince Rue

The thing I am doing most on the book these days is trying to close up the plot hole and making sure that everything is set up for the rest of the series.

To that end there was one nagging problem, Prince Rue. Prince Rue is a royal that was saved in the first book of the third series. This series actually begins after the first book in the third series for Mason and the crew of the Tojo Maru. Most of the rest of the character in the book this is the beginning of their part in the over all story arch of all the series.

It really does not make much sense to talk about it out of context. Still, in order for the first series to work out the focus has to be only the interaction between Mason, Yuin and their relationship with General Damon Booth {He is a future ficticous General of The Savlation Army}. If Prince Rue is there is make everything much to messy. In reality the story between these three character is not the main story in the first series. So I killed him today.

It was the easist way to deal with the issue that arise from him being aorund. Of course being sci fi you can always bring dead people bcak wehn you need them with some phoney balony story.

On the up side I did find the Jpop song Dr. my Nani Amuro. It is a song that Mason is listening to int he first book somewhere. At one point I wanted her to use the name from the Dr in the song as an assumed identity. The song is about a Dr. that is fixing the future by sending a super warrior into the past. It is not really like my story. Still there are people going into the past trying to fix the future. And really how many song are about that sort of thing.

As far as I can tell there are only three. And of the three I have found it is the only one with a mefale time lord type character. As far as I can tell the super warrior's main power is turning evil into clowers. So it is not a direct corelation. Still, it is closer than anyone else.

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

New Internet Discovery

For those that do not know I am a big Jpop and Kpop fan. This is the popular music of Japan. It started out several years ago with Morning Musume. I am not sure what it is about it. I don't understand the lyrics and have to find translation on line if I want to know what they are saying. Still, the tunes are upbeat and chipper.

I have been able to find some places to get a couple tunes here and there. Still my beloved launchcast station does not have Jpop. Well I came across www.jpopasia.com.

This site had every song that I could imagine. It can set up play lists and has other interesting stuff I do not understand. That is the way that I can tell if a site is well put together. The more a site has stuff I don't understand the cooler the site must be. The fact that i don't understand something means everything thinks it is cool

Trying to stay on the subject this is a really nice site. In addition fi you want to go with the premium service it is only five bucks. That is nice when it does not cost an arm and a leg. I suppose that the music is hosted by sites like youtubes and just linker there. Still, they have everything.

What few sites Ihave found thus far are fan site for an individual band. This has not served me well because my taste is all over the place on the Jpop front.

In Pittsburgh there are several store that sell Jpop CD. the only problem is not reading Japaneese I cannot decide what to buy. This makes like difficult. I suppose I do not know the names of the bands and such.

Still a couple month listening to music on this site and I should be able to fix my ignorance in this area.

On other front I am still working on the book of course. I have no idea how many pages this thing is going to be. I do think I am going to loose my mind writting this book. Still,, once this book is done the rest of the books in the series will be easier.

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

Iornside

This is great episode of Iornside with Ricardo Mantoban and Alan Alda dad who's name I forget.

Music Awesomeness

The new U2 song is great. I suppose it is a short at America's war mongering. We probably deserve it.



I also just discovered there is a music act out there named Rihanna. I supposed everyone else figured this out a couple years ago. Well I am slow.



I also figured out that Miley Cyrus is the Daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus. I was so happy to hear this. For a while I was thinking that she was dating a really creepy older guy. I suppose it is alright if it is her father.

Writting on the Walls

Today at Monday knitting we did a bit more decorating. Here is a picture of me writing on the walls. We are going to write the clown brigade name on the wall along with a large version of the brigade logo.

We are going to paint the banner on the wall. We picked up some letter from a craft store. We will paint them and glue them to the wall.

The Clown Cave had become an interesting thing at our Corps. The space was neglected for so many years. When my wife and I joined the corps the space was full of junk. The walls needed painted and it did not have any type of lighting in the main room. The storage room is still in need of spackling and painting. The storage room was once the kitchen of the Quarters at the Corps. Since them the counters and equipment have been removed.

Over the last couple years the junk has been removed. The Brigade painted the walls and I put in some lighting. Now we have a television and stero in the space. We are going to install an air conditioner and the ugliest space in the Corps is now one of the most desirable.

I suppose there is a parable in there somewhere. There was a bit of knitting done. JC Thurman is working on chemo caps. She is just about finished with her first one. Sergeant Wilson almost has her riffle shuffle down. It is really hard for someone with small hands to do magic. Still she is doing it.

Walt and I have been looking into building some stage effect. This should be a nice addition to the show. I will let you know what we pick when we do.

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

Still Typing

I am still typing stuff in the book. It is amazing that I keep finding plot holes that need. At this rate I should be finished some time right before I drop dead.

We are also looking to do some some more decorating in the clown cave. we would like to get it ready for our seminar in may. We have letter to put our name on the wall that should be fun. I will put up some pictures when i have them.

In brigade news we made Apprentice Wilson a Sergeant on the Brigaede Council. We also made JC Stewart and assistance ballon sergeant. That is interesting and impressive if you are into clowning. And if you are not well that is the third subject of this entry.

The Young Salvos website continued to do well. They are improving the layout and items that they have on the site. They have several things that I have no idea what they do. That means that they are popular and hip. I find that the less I understand something the more popular it is. That explains Hillary Duff and Larry the cable guy.

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

Chemo Cap - Pink

This may not be extremely original. Still, it is pink and it is what I have been working on. The kids in the knitting group are on their first scarves. Some have learned to purl and increase and decrease. So after their first scarves they will need another project. This one is probably a good candidate for a second project.

Anyway it is pink made of an acrylic yarn. It is a baby soft yarn and will make a nice summer chemo cap. It is being made on number 8 US circular needles.


Being that none of us need a chemo cap we do not have any of them laying around. So I needed to make one as an example.

Well there you go your basic Chemo cap. 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.

Knitting at the Cult Meeting & Another Clown Hat

Fun was had at the Friday Night Knitting Group at The Boarders in The South Hills. There was a of course knitting and some crochet. My wife and I have also decided to start taking a couple young people from the Clown Brigade every week.
This week we took Sergeant Prioleau and Sergeant Thurman. So The Brigade's ruling council was there except for two members. Perhaps, we should not have us all concentrated at one place in public at one time. Much in the same way you do not see the Vice President and the President at one time. Above is Sergeant Prioleau reading a book.

Sergeant Thurman is here working on a Chemo Cap.
This is a Clown Hat that I am working on. It is made of Red Heart Hokey Pokey. This hat feature two ruffle at the base of the hat.
Here is Sereant Thurman modeling the hat. The hat will have pom poms between the two ruffles. We will get to the pom poms at the next Brigade Knitting Practice on Monday



Well than you all for checking in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Leatherman

Last Monday at our knitting group we were looking at some material other than yarn. Walt picked up a peice of leather to make seat for his motocycle. It is red and pretty.

On the leather front this is known as a full hide. That means that it is the better part of a cow hide. picture to the left is Walt with his new acquisition.

Currently his bike has pleather seats that have seen better days.

He just had the bike painted and this leather is a nice match for it.

It had bee a long time since I actually appolstered something. The neat this about this project is that it is a collection of relatively small pillows. So it is a great deal easier than doing a couch.

This is the piece of leather stretched out on a table. I will keep you posted. Be safe out there.

The Marley and other stuff

For those that just started following the blog we are still working on The Marley. the Marley will be a vitually indestructable one hundred foot long scarf. The only draw back as that we will have to turn hundred of skeins of yarn into icord.

Pictured is Apprentice Wilson who is making icord on an icord machine. As you can tell this is the most exciting thing that she has to do today. As I think about it this is the second or third picture that I have put up of her standing on a chair. Maybe I should not encourage children to stange on furniture. It is a very old chair. Still, it is not terribly respectful.

Well what can you do. It is the only way to make it. Apprentice Wilson has turned several skeins of yarn into icod thus far, She say that it the most entertaining thing about knitting.

On other knitting front my wife and I took Apprentie Wilson to her first knitting group outside the Clown Briagde. We took her to the cult meeting in the South Hills. By the way the Cult is a knittin cult ot a religous one. Altough there are somethat would say that knitting is in some ways ti's own religion. Come to think of it if the Knitting cult was a church I would probably join it. I have seen picture of Jesus' mother knitting. It only makes sence if you think about it. Or perhapse it only makes sence in my head.

The Book continued to plug along. For a good long while I have been debating where there first book should end and the second book beging. I have moved around the chapters I have a nd tweeked the story line. I am fairly sure I have figured out how thing should go.

On the up side that means that I have a good sence of where thing should be going with the book. For the last couple months I have had no clue what should go where and how everything should fall into place.

The editing is the killer thing. I am not a person who is any good at finding errors in a text. It is just narly difficult work. I figure if I work at for six hours a day it will take me a month to put the manuscript into something reletively readable. So we will see how that goes.

Well just wanted to check in Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Personal Clown Scarf &Kittens

Sergeant Kisielnicki is adding some trim to his triple clown scarf. I should probably tell him he needs to come up with a name for his pattern. He made up the design for the scarf himself. So he gets to name it. This is exciting stuff if you are a clown that knits

This is two of the kittens. A couple of the folks from the Corps wanted to see pictures of the kittens. Here are a couple pictures.

This one is mostly black and I think the cutest of the kitties

These are a couple of the kitties hiding behind their mother.

Here they are with their mom.

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

Busy Writing

I have been working on the book with every spare moment for the last couple weeks.
At this point I am reading the book over and over looking for plot holes and things that need filled in. Every time I read through the book I find a dozen new thing that need tweeked and delt with. On the last read through i figured that i should write four more chapters and I changed the ending.

In the original idea of the book the last chapter was te first chapter. Most of the event shtat were supposed to take place in this book have been put off the the third or second book in the series.

I did get a chance to go to the Cult Knitting group in the South Hills this week end. My wife and I have not been there since before Christmas. It was fun as always to see what people were working on.

We took Apprentice Wilson with us. She said she a good time.

There is also a new social networking site called youngsalvos.com . It is not an official Army site. Still, it is good to see something like it begining. It should have happened a long time ago.

More Clown Practice

pictured here are three of our brave clown reading through a script for an upcoming skit. All of the kid here are Brimages.

This was fun and we will see how it goes together.

On other fronts we had a session of monday knitting. tis Monday we went trough the Brigade's Yarn Stash. This was not as much fun as knitting, still, it was something that needed to be done.

On the book front the book continues to hover around 400 pages. I am going to go from here and work on the book some more as i do in all my spave time.

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

Knitting Stuff - The Marley

The Monday Night Knitting group continued to meet in Homestead. Walt continues to work on his knitting Proficiency. He is almost done with that. It awesome to give out a knitting proficiency. 

 

This is Apprentice Brimage working on the Marley. The Marley is a long scarf project that got put on the back burner for building our set and training a whole bunch of new clowns. On the up side of having a bunch of new clowns we should be able to work on the Marley some.

  

Sergeant Thurman is working on the Marley over the edge of our stair case. It is nice being somewhere that has a staircase. It makes this kind of odd knitting maneuver easier.  

Also on the clowning front we had some promotions in the last week. Apprentices Thurman and Stewart are now Junior Clowns. We also have a new Cadet, Cadet Gable. She is thrilled, really she is. 

Also promoted was Walt. This is the first time that we have trained a Standard Clown from the ground up in the Brigade. As a matter of fact my wife is a Standard Clown. She has been clowning for years and already knew a bunch of stuff when she joined.  This is special time for someone like me. It is not every day that some gets to these loft heights in clowning. It makes me proud to be a part of his training. He is keeping the old ways going. 

Well I have to go the cat is having kittens. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

A Prayer Request

The Husband of one of our church people died this week. She is need of prayer.

Hmmmmmmmmm

How does one go from this to this. By the Way someone should have told Rick James what his hair really looked like. Still, next to flock of Sea gulls that is not that bad.

Still Experimenting

Taking a break from the book I am posting to the old blog. BBL continues to grow as I try and explain the plot elements. Also there is the rest of the series to consider. If people are going to time travel then the events in the series have to make sense. Fortunately they do not have to be sequential.

The only problem with a story that does not happen in order is keeping the readers up with the story. Thus far the solution has been by working on the most important chapter in the story. In theory the bad guys are traveling through time to keep a specific event from happening. Thus at the top of every chapter it will say how long until the even or since the event happened.

The only problem is that I am not sure of the specific times between each event. It is the only way that I can figure to do it to make the book easy to read. So I have spent the last couple days switching chapters back and fourth and trying to figure out at what time and date the events happened.

On another front I have figured out how to get a tag cloud to link in with the blog’s tags. I also took a but of time to put tags on twenty or so tagless entries. If I do 20 entries a week I might have tags on all the old entries by sometime next year.

I did see these rotating flying cloud things. I may play around with one of those. I will have to dust off the experimental blog and see if I can get one of those working. Maybe I should have Oliver look at it.

Well back to the book. Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Hmmmmmmm.....

As mentioned before I receive a bunch of these things. Walt sent me this one and it was the first time I saw it. So here it is. Just an expert note, clown usually use a car that is slightly bigger than the clown.

Playing with the Blog

Once again I have put some time into putting the Blog back together. I have not had time to really put this thing back together after I ungraded to the new blogger format. Yes that was a year ago and I should have dealt with it by now. Still, how fancy does this thing need to be to go through irrelevant stuff like this.

The most useful thing that I have fixed up is the time and place for the Monday Knitting group. As mentioned before the Monday knitting group is meeting in Homestead. Half the folks that attended were the clown brigade members.

Well as the story goes the young folks wanted to work in the knitting thing as well. Well now that we have the meeting time and place settled we are going to invide everyone.

So if you ever wanted to go to a knitting group with clowns this is your chance. Also if you have a kids that is knitting this is not a half bad place to take them. So join us in the Clown Cave if you have the Time.

There is of course the new mast. I have wanted something like that. I just had to take the time to put it together.

There is also the label cloud. I have not been able to get it just right. The kind that work of the labels in blogger do not work with the three column format. So this is the next best thing. I am not happy with it and will continue to tweak it. If anyone out there had a good self contained cloud widget that would be nice.

Well just want to check in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Junior Clown Thurman

Another fun day was had a Brigade Practice. Since it was snowing we had reletively light attendance. Even so we had enough people to have a Board of Review for Sergeant Thurman. Sergeant Thurman is an Apprentice clown that has been working very hard on her Jr. Clown Rank.

Yesterday she passed the board of review with 34 out of fourty question correct. If you are into our system of clowning that is respectable. So congrat to Sergeant Thurman. She get a blue shirt and she does not have to wear the funny sun glasses anymore. Unless she wants to. Rank had it's privilages even in the clowning world.


Once again here is a song on the internet radio. This is a song by Nelly Futado. I can remeber the name.



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

Still No Knitting

The only problem with working on the book so much is that there are no good pictures with it. Being that I type with two hands I rarely have the extra hand to take pictures of myself while writing. I suppose I could take pictures while I am writing the rough draft int he note books. Still, that would be incredibly boring. No one wants to see pictures of me sitting at a computer. And if you would then there is a pill out there for you.

On other writing Fronts The Writing Committee of the Clown Brigade is going swimmingly. We have started looking at other sections that need to be written. A great deal of what we have been doing has been going on my memory of what we did in other places. This as you can imagine, is not the greatest way to go about things. One of our goals is to create a body of work that another group of people can take and create a Clown Brigade.

We figure that we will need at least ten of the Proficiencies written out before this can happen. After that there are around forty or so that will have to be written out. So this is an incredibly complex task. We figure that it will take a several years to do this.

Walt and I have been the core of the Writing Committe for the better part of the last years. More recently my wife has been working on the spiritual Prf.

The Brigade just started working on the Prayer Prf. This is neat one that Carol wrote. The first level of this one is a great little primmer for starting off some one in prayer. With in the Brigade we find that the things we talk about most of discipleship. This is an interesting subject with the kids.

In many ways the kids are further along in this than the adults in the Corps.

Well along opn other random stuff I saw this reletively new Dido vid on the yahoo music type thing.



I knew an old timer that always said leave them with a song in your heart. He was also a firm beleived that you keep crackers in your pocket to keep the pigeons happy. So you can take or leave his advice. Still, he was popular with the pigeons.

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

Balloon Madness & The Radioactive Weasle

 

Sunday was yet another practice. And this practice we spent most of our time working on Balloon Animals.  This is Apprentice Brimage well one of them. This is a picture from our Balloon text books. Actually it is one of the pictures that we are not using. I told her to look like she was happy to be making the balloons for the handbook. She like most clowns and seven years olds can be a smart alec at times. Saracasim is one of the corner stones of our training programs.

 

 This is a bear on a heart sitting on my messy desk. I took the pictures from the practice so most of them are blurry. I should have let one of the young people take the pictures. You would be able to tell what they are. I am not sure who made this one. It was either me or Sergeant Thurman.

  

 This is Apprentice Wilson and Balloon Sergeant Arasin. Wilson is the one standing on the chair. They are showing off our new bulliten board. We decided to do all the board in the Brigade colors. The board behind them is the one we use for stats. It had the chart with all the earn Proficciencies, monthly stats and lists of the Prociencies requirements and such. It is exciting stuff if you are in the Brigade. Actually it is not that exciting even if you are in the Brigade.

  

 This is a Radio Active Weasel. This is an inside joke within the Brigade. When one is making a balloon animal and it goes terribly wrong we call it a radioactice weasel. For some reason when a ballloon goes wrong it often looks like a weasel that has been in a nuclear accident. This one was maded by Sergeant Thurman.

 

 I have made quite a few of these in my time.

Murdering Fake People & New Soldiers

I have never really wanted to do away with someone. Ever since I have been writing these books I have had the urge to wipe out entire civilizations. There is nothing more annoying that trying to get people that you created to try and something. It is like herding kittens.

The book is over three hundred pages and continues to grow. This craziness will have to stop at some point or I will have a one thousand page book. Well I figure I am going to keep writing and pick a place to end it.

On other fronts there are a couple pictures that I have not posted through sheer forgetfulness.

This is Walt and a couple other folks that have been enrolled as soldiers at our Corps. This is our divisional commander and officers. Yes we all dress alike. This is the fun part of being in an army.

This is a picture of the Children that were enrolled as Jr. Soldiers at the corps. This class of Soldier and Jr. Soldier is twice the size of the congregation when Carol and I first joined the Church. So this is very encouraging.

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

A New to You Lance Lawson

 

Just for Yucks I have a Lance Lawson for everyone to solve. The first one to Solves it get a mention on the blog. I know it is not much. Still, it isd not much of a challenge.

Lance Lawson for Christmas

I wanted to experiment with posting something and having it appear later. So this is the Christmas Entry for the Blog. So here it is Merry Christmas. Solve it yourself with Lance Lawson.

 

 

Sprucing up Stuff

With work on the books progressing i took a bit of time to try an fix a couple nagging things on the blogs. For some reason I could not get new gadets working on this blog. I do have to put up a link to the yarn man blog. I did find the other half of the first story. So I have both of those gizmos up on that blog. When I get a link it should be easier to find.

I did get a good deal of work done on the Clown Brigade's Blog. The calendar was not working on it and I didn't have a followers gadget up on it. So now all of that has been put right. We still don't have access to the internet in our offices. So that slows us up a bit on working on the blog. On the up side when we are on line everyone in the Brigade can blog.

I have to figure out where I put the camera. I have some pictures from our installation of new Soildiers. I am told Walt looks cute in his new uniform.

Any way I will check back when I have some pictures.

December 23rd Video Post

On another note for things that were not mentioned in the video thing. The majority of the text for Section 3 of the Clown Handbook has been finished. This means that a bit of editing and a couple pictures is all that is needed to finish it off.

Getting on with section 4 through six will be the next goal. Still, those section do not have to be done this minute. Actually they do not have to be done until the summer. So there is much more time to work on them. And now that we know how long it will take to do a whole section we know we have time.

Kettles Again

 

We were out on the Kettle again this week end. One again back to the Century III Mall. Here I am juggling on the kettle. One of the kids figured out how to get the samera to take action pictures. You will note that the picture is clear and crisp. That mean that someone who knows how to take pictures was using the Camera. It was Apprentice Brimage. She is Seven. 

  

Here is Walt. He was making inflatible wildlife. At least that is the politically correct way to refer to balloon animals these day. They got a lawyer and you know the rest of the story. 

Here was the rest of our crew thsi week end. Sergesnt Thurman is in the back. She is doing wicked stuff with scarves these days. She has only been at them a couple weeks and her routines are pretty impressive. In fron are Apprentice Brimage and Apprentice Brimage. They are sisters hence the same last name. Being that I don't like using you people first names on the old blog the five Aprentice Brimigaes that are in the Brigade is going to be confussing as time goes on. Actually now that I think of it one of them is still a Cadet.

This is Apprentice Brigade trying on a coat. We are starting to think about getting a real uniform for the Brigade. So we will need a coat. Being that we are supposed to be on a boat during out shows this may be the way that we go. By the way this is the Apprentice Brimage that knows how to use my camera better than I do.

And the cyber kettle is up to fourty bucks. That is fourty bucks more than I thought i was going to make the Corps on the Cyber Kettle. Cool Beans.

We will be out there this weekend if you still want to catch the dog and pony show. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

 

 The blogger this is acting odd tonight.I am having a hard time getting pictures to wrap around the words. Well all this stuff will hopefully show up on the blog thing. I will have to get Oliver working on it. 

Anyway I have found a new problem no one else on the planet is having. These binders I have been putting the book in keep breaking. I suppose I could be more gentle with them. But I hate the three binder which are strong enough to last a couple months before I break them.

Well so I did what i always do when something is not going my way. I head to the hardware store. So to fix my binder thing I had a couple pieces of plastic cut and get some chain.

 

I tried the metal ring things and I broke them so I moved onto the chain thing. If I had my way I would keep the book in a box and take it out a page at a time as I need it.  This is fairly close to that.

I suppose I could go paperless. It would save tree if I didn;t use all the composition books. And I wouldn't need to wrestle with the printer and such. That would involve me changing the way I do things. I don't have the attention span required to do that.

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