Clown Sewing Never Ends

This is a picture from the upper incline station. We were coming home from the COIA Meeting on monday. Here you can see Sergeants Thurman and Wilson with the Ap. Bags. Soon to be Junior Clown Brimage has an Apprentice Bag. It is also called an Ap Bag for short. The Appretice bag has fewer pockets. The other Brimage in a yellow shirt still has one of our first generation Aprentice Bags. Some of people found it to be to small. Still they served us for a year or so.

Someone sent me a message on one of te other posts asking me why I call the kids Aprentice and Sergeant. Those are teir clown ranks in the Brigade. Also t is a securit thing. If someone come up to them in the street and does not know their first name then they know something is wrong. Althouh i feel srry for ayone that tries to take any of these girls. Tey are alwas togather and ca proably take any adult that tried to mess with them.

Sergeant Thurman's Ap Bag

She is really happier about her new bag than she looks. My bad photography made all the pictures with her smiling blurry. This is the best one with her holding the bag.

As stated earlier this bag has a better Ledgerdmain pockets and a more tailored club pouch. The shoulder strap is also attached lower on the baton pocket so that it fits shorter people better.

The first design of this bag hung well bellow the knees of the younger members of the Brigade. This design wears a little better and people under five feet tall.

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

More Sewing

Several Hours this evening have been dedicated to working on Ap Bags. A bag for a Senior Clown is a complicated ing. You have to have a place for everything from clubs to ball and deck of cards and scarves. This to put it mildly translates in a pain in the neck for sewing.

The current version of this overly complex thing is a actually simplified from the type that I have carried for many years. It has one single club pouch and has be streamline with more internal pockets rather than a bunch of external ones that are indivdually swen on by hand. This has ade sewing most of it a great deal simpler. The one place where the complicated still hangs on is the shoulder strap. This thing has to be padded and comfy. Tis is also the place where the juggling rings and most magical aparatus are stored. this includes on strap for the rings and two pouced that stick out like much all the pockets used to stick out in the bag. ecause the shoulder strap is so bulky there three things have to be sewn on by hand. This are also the last hing that get's sewn on the completed bag other than some insignia.

Well tis is the stage that Sergeant thurman's bag is at. So se will be al to try it out at the practice tuesday evening. Fun Fun.

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

More Sewing and the Flu or Something

Besides the sweing there is not much going on around here. My wife and have been under the weather for the ast few days. It is very odd. She appears to get sick and then she gives me what ever she has. Se likes to share like that. Unless there is ice cream involved. There is no sharing with ice cream involved.

I am running low on number 10 snaps. If it were not for the snaps I should be able to finish two Ap Bags. So I suppose I a going to go out into the muggy weather to find some snaps.

Well on the up side I am feeling a little better from the flu like alergy what ever thing that has been dogging me for the last week.

Perhapse I will have some pictures of young people wth their new Ap Bags soon.

There is not much going on other wise. Oliver says hello. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Some Sewing

First off is Sergeant Thurmans new Apparatus bag. As se learned new stuff to juggle se need a new bag. She is also on the verge of becoming a standard clown. This in itself is a wonderful thing.

We have decided that each of the new Ap Bag will have a personalised type symbol on th Juggling Baton pouch. Sergeant thurman has opted for a heart shaped peace sign.

I was also working on an ap bag for Sergeant Wilson. She is also doing quite well at juggling. The symbol that she wated was a wee bit more complicated. Still it was fun to make a kitty cat applique. At 1:30 this morning i ran out of black thread so her bag is still in peices. Sadly there is ot a 24 hour sewing store on the South Side of Pittsburgh. I personally think that tere should be. Still that is just my opinion.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice

Middle of the Night

Edit number five hundred is underway. I am just posting to state that I have the comma.

If I had my way I would removed it from the English language.

Just thought you should all know

New Chapters

I am still working on Ballington booth's Legacy. Just when I thought it was getting close to to done i decided to add a bunch of new stuff to it to make stuff that happens later make more sense.

Today I have been working on several new chapters that have to do with the Yukawa Family. the father is in the earlier series so I figure I need him some more in this one to add some continuity. Also it give him some time to interact with his son.

One thing that this has been keeping me away from is knitting. I have had very little time to knit between this and everything else that is happening. I am thinking of doing a sweater or perhapse some socks.

Well I am just checking in. I have to get back to editing stuff and adding and cutting and all the other goofyness involved with what I am doing.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice

Thisiis a Random MoMu Video

There are days

Long time readers will know that i have been working on a book for some time. The book is part of several story arcs that will be dealt with in several books. I( am sure that professional writers accomplish this with complex tables and plot outlines. Me I am writing six books at once. At least I think it is six books. heck by the time I am done it might be nine or ten.

Anyway if I have an important plot element i write the chapter for this plot element through several books so that I am sure that it works out. There is some kind of device that i using in the Chapter title that I hope will make all of this work out. We will see how it goes.

Well I was working on the chapters for the schisim in the church for the third or fourth book. It made me realize that this was a more important plot element than I have been giving it credit for. So that mean that I has to work it's way into the first book. the first book that was already jammed packed with all kind of stuff. So that mean there are going to be several more chapters to the first book.

Well we will see how it goes. Just checking. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Nigerian Prince

We have all heard about the Nigerian Prince that is randomly email people looking for help to get money moved from one place to another. Well apparently these scammer are so popular that they have a song a music video. It is a catchy little tune.



Be safe out there and don't give anyone money from the Internet.

next Mystery Science Theater 3000

I wonder what the next show that will make fun of B Movies will be. I vaguely remember mad movies. For some reason this is something that I really want to watch these days. I even watched something called BOO! It was apparently some guys on the internet that made fun of movies. They made fun of the Original Godzilla movie which I like on multiple levels. It was not that good. Still it was something that I enjoyed.


Watch BOO! "Godzilla" in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

By the Way this is BOO! making noises during one of my favorite Movies.

GrEEEEN

Musica

Powers Boothe

I just looked him up on the internet. Well i already looked him up on the internet when i was wondering about the spelling his name. I was looking up his family and his parents do not have a final e on the end of their names.

Yep this is what I do in the middle of night while the rest of your are sleeping. The insane mussing of someone that should probably sleep more than they do.

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

Three in the Mornig Again

I wonder where Powers Boothe got his name from. I am not sure where that came from. I am working on the book which has several character named Booth. It made me wonder why Powers Boothe has an e on the end of his name. I think the first thing I saw him in was the movie where he portrayed Jim Jones.

Well I am not sure why that is important. Although his is the only person i know with a final e on the name Boothe. Maybe there are other people with their name spelled like that. i could simply be misspelling their names. Maybe it an actor thing. there could have been another guy name Powers Booth and he had to have a different name to join the Screen Actors Guild.

Well onto some other randomness. i wonder why there are people saying rude things about Justin Beiber on the Youtube. It is not as if he sings about mass murder or abusing small animals. Well I suppose I just do not get it.



Be safe out there and keep your stick ont he ice.

Some Musical Awesomeness

This is a guy named Bad News Brown. I am guessing that he is out of Cleveland because of the Indians hat.

Three Thirty

It is three thirty in the morning and I am in my Temple of Solitude. Which of course is an over dramatic way to refer to my basement office where many offenses have been launched against he English Language. And here is the latest one.

Oliver has been working overtime on this the sixth edit of the first Book in The Salvation NAvy series. Well after two years of working on it I finally do not hate it with every fiber of my being. I am not sure why I cannot get this thing to a place that I life. Several of the other stories are somewhere that I like them. For some reason I cannot get this one n a good place. The sad thing is that the series should probably start with this one. So I have to get it right.

Well wish me luck on the sixth edit. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Kilt Stuff

For those that have been keeping track. We are still looking at some of the tradition of the Clown Brigade. There is always some kind of uniformity amoung a clown troop. Some just have patches others like us have some kind of uniform.

This is Sergeant Kisielnicki stabbing Sergeant Arasin with a sword. there is a story that goes with it but it is silly. Anyway both are wearing some version of our uniform and Kisielnicki is in a kilt which is something thtta we have been doing for more formal occassions.

They are also sitting on the front Stair well at Second Baptist Church where we have been meeting for church over the last year. By the way the folk there have been incredibly tolerant of us considering stuff like this happens on a regular basis.

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

Godzilla

To Sergeant Arasin this is the link for Godzilla Final Wars. If you are into Godzilla this is a must. It has one of the best Godzilla suits and the most random plot any of the movies. Cracle will not let me imbed it so here if the link enjoy.

http://www.crackle.com/c/Godzilla_Final_Wars/Godzilla_Final_Wars/2448577/

Theme Song Evangeline Booth

The young daughter of the Both family also has a song that jumped out at me.

Theme Songs Yamato Yukawa - JS YAMATO

As a random excise I have been thinking about what type of music best represents a character that I am working on. This is Japanese song that I think fits the Chracter Yamato Yukawa very well.

Randomness Part 5,692

My various adventures in this and that continue.

We had a fairly good practice yesterday. Our juggler are still moving along. Much Sergeant Thurman's chagrin she was teaching people to juggle. For someone that pretends to be so grumpy much of the time she is fairly good at giving people instruction. So that is promising as always.

The drawing cartooon thing is coming along a great deal better than I thought it would. Frankly I though I would be incredibly bad at it. So it is nice that something nice is happening in that way. I will stick up some more pictures when I scan them in.

I have been having a very hard time With Katherine Mason. I suppose she is the character that I have worked on the most. Perhapse I have such an image of her in my mind that I cannot place it on paper in a way that satisfies me. Well I will have to keep at it.

This was also the last sign language class in this section. Well I was just checking in. I think I need to hit the hay.

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

Commodore Yamato Yukawa

I have really noticed that coloring these things with pencils is not the way to go. Granted I am using a childcare's set of colored pencils. they are not professional style ones. I did break down and a couple of good pens to do the black lines with. Still I am doing stuff with childcare's implements. Even so it does reflect where I am in this process.

Well anyway this is Commodore Yamto Yukawa. She is of course Japanese and not exactly Humans. She is the Android Avatar for the battle ship Yamato. Being that she is self awware she has been adopted by Dr. Yukawa.

She is fun character because she chooses to stay in a child like body. There are several reasons for this including the fact that you don't think she is threat until she wants you to think that she is a threat. She is a character that I have been playing around with for years. I am not sure how many of the short stories about her and plot outlines are actually going to part of who she is in these stories. Of all the character she is the one that has the least set about her. I know what is going to happen to everyone else. Her I am not sure yet.

She an Evangeline have a very special relationship in this series. Because the Yamato chooses to stay at this age physically she has more in common with Evangeline. Her past times are solitary and in some ways a bit juvenile. She likes to draw and prefers to read. She also like her father has to come to term with her abilities that are far more than the average Humans.

Well just checking in. Have a good morning everyone. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Evangeline Booth

This is the first picture that I have attempted. It is Evangeline Booth who is one of the main characters. As it goes I am not entirely sure what it should look like. Well i suppose I know what Evangeline should look like.

Well it is the first attempt at a picture from the Pennsylvania Faction

If any one has suggestions I am open to them

A Strange Adventure

One of thing that I have always been convinced that i cannot do is draw. I never had much luck in art classes so I just figured that it was not one of my talents.

For some strange reason I got it in my head that I should have the first set of short stories turned into some kind of Anime. They have a bizzar enemy and the entire thing is stuck in a world caused by a horrible temporal shift. So it is the kind of thing that would make a great cartoon type thing if you are into it.

Actually the idea came from a couple of the Elves. I will get back to the Elves later.

It was also a series that I have thought was a bit silly. So I never did anything with it. It was just the back story to the more important Salvation Navy and Ignored Calling arc of stories.

Anyway, the elves are a group of people who have read part or heard of the various plot lines. Some of the Elves are people that I know in the real world. Other elves are people that I know on line and i have never met in real life. In the last year or so there have been several people from Japan who have been commenting on the various things that I have been rambling about. A couple of these elves have read chunks of Ballington Booth's Legacy. They noted that the Character Major General James Booth had time traveled before but there is no mention of details in the story. There was someone with a rather bigoted view of the world. Booth commented that he had faught and defeated people like them before.

The Japanese Elves asked who Booth had faught. I replied in an email to an Elf that he had faught the NAzis when an alien race helped them win the second world war. Since the entire plot was preposterous I never really did much with it other than write the short stories in high school and throw them in a drawer. This particular elf continued to ask questions and I sent them the only chucnk of the story that was typed into an electronic media. they thought it was wonderful and would make a terrific anime type comic thing.

I floated the idea of illustrating the sory with a couple folk who do the drawing kind of thing and they thought it was neat but were too busy to do it themselves. The Elf then suggested that i attempt to do it referring the the picture of ships that I have drawn that occasionally appear on this blog type thing that i ramble through from time to time. I told them I couldn't and they suggested that i give it a shot. So i bought a book and followed the directions.

In a strange sort of thing it was not entirely bad. I am not sure if this is something that I can practice and do or not. So I suppose I am going to give this foolishness a shot. Perhpse I might even finish something for a change.

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.

Juggling Progress

Two of our Jr Clowns and an Apprentice are working on rings and scarves. With out my asking them they have begun team juggling. This is great. We have been having issued with juggling. Frankly I can understand why someone would hate juggling. I was not very good at it while I was learning. And even though i can do it now I am still not that good at it. I suppose I am better than some still, there are a slew of people that are better than me.

Anyway today i am heading out to pick up a new batch of juggling equipment. It does a heart good to see progress in such things.

Out ad in the paper started yesterday looking for new clowns. This add will also help us figure out where our advertising dollars should best be spent for a Clown for Hire type business.

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

Radio 1

I has been a kind of Radio 1 day.It is odd because yesterday was definitely a radio 6 day.

Anyway I have been working on this and that today nothing terribly focused. Anyway I have been listening to the punk show on Radio 1. it is the sort of music that you cannot get on the radio around this.

Yester was waiting for the new Who to appear on the web. So of course the was the Craig Charles Funk Show on BBC 6. Perhpase I have a Brittish reader or two that will relate to some of this.

Anyway I am really behind on my knitting. i did not even finish my winter knitting for this year and Easter has come and gone. I suppose that doing a bunch of sewing has killed by knitting. Still you cannot take the machine on the bus so that has been some knitting getting done just not much.

Well I am just checkin in for some random sillyness. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

There are Days

There are days when i know that I am a huge nerd. This happens to be one of those days.

Today was the premire of the fifth Dr. Who of the reincarnation with Matt Smith as the Doctor. Like everyone with a new Dr. you wonder if he is going to be good. I remeber when Colin Baker back the Dr. i was not impressed. Sylvester McCoy was better but he was no Tom Baker.

No matter how you cut it was a great episode. I will not go into detail because it has not aired in the states. Still great on multiple levels. I will say that he did not work with the Tardis and he did everything with out his normal tech. It was wonderful.

Also I found a store in the Strip that sells the economy size Pocky. There are ni9ne packets for four dollars. That is awesome on multiple levels. The Brigade is going to be seriously happy with my new find. There is Pocky for everyone just in time for Easter. And frankly i was willing to blow 20 bucks to get Pocky for everyone. Nice to know that I do not have to.

Gozilla

I have been scouring the internet looking for information on the new Godzilla Movie. All I have found thus far is several refferences to something the Legendary Pictures is going to do. There are no detail just that they have aquired the right from Toho. Which of course the last American version was terrible. I suppose the effect were alright but I personally did not like the monster nor was it very well written.

Well I suppose I still like the whole idea of a man in a suit terrorssing a tiny little Tokyo. There are a couple youtube video of something that they claim is a new trailer for the next Godzilla movie. The moster is different but still not the igona looking thing that Mathew Broderick has to fight. If I am not mistaken the monster is gray instead of it greenish. Still it lookes much like Godzilla should look.

The only thing I am worried about is anAmerican company making a bad Godzilla movie with the real monster. That might really hurt their comeback. Still the Zilla monster did get Toho to make a new batch. So maybe American failure will be Japanese success.

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

Musical Stuff

Long time readers of this blog will know that I do not have much of an attention span. I tend to bounce around from subject to subject. That sad thing is that this tends to be how things go in my life

The things that I have been rattling around with for the last couple month is music. Everything from Jpop to bagpise music are on my MP3 player. Recently I have been adding gospel music to the mix. I have my player plugged into the computer and on the random setting these are the songs that it has played

Flower of Scotland on the bagpipes
Battlefield by Norman Hutchins
Wo Wa by Namie Amuro
Barney Miller Theme Song
Spring by Vivaldi
Go Down Moses by George Shaw
Llevame by Soroya
Bloody Sunday by U2
All About the Girls by MiChi
Kiko by Los Lobos

I am not sure what this has to do with anything. I knew and old man that said that one could judge someone by the kind of music that they listen. I do wonder what kind of opinion one would draw from this kind of musical selections.

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

Summer Time Shows

When we first started to Clown brigade we never thought that we would be doing birthday parties. Our goal in life was to visit people in hospitals and do church shows. Over the last couple months more and more people ave been asking us to do their kids birthday party. I am not exactly sure why this is.

Perhaps since we have left the Army we have been wearing our own uniform and shirts and it is more apparent that we are clowns. Maybe the community that surrounds Second baptist Church is more supportive of their members than the Army was. What ever the reason the Brigade is talking about doing shows for profit.

The general consensus appears to be that a portion of what ever we make should go into the Brigade to fund our nonprofit work. At this moment it is still in debate. So we will see how it goes.

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

Musical Randomness

I have been watching a lot of Godzilla recently. As of now I have officially watched every Godzilla movie at least three times except for the American one. I saw that American one in the theaters and was not impressed. i mean enough stuff blew up. It was just not the real Godzilla.

Anyway, I still think the good people at TOHO should attack an American City. A man in a Suit going through LA would entertain me to no end. Granted LA is not as entertaining at New York being destroyed.

Anyway the one thing that i have been looking for is a good version of the Gozilla March. i have not been able to find it. there are a couple version on the youtube. Still I have not found the song itself anywhere. i wonder if there is music to it out there. I am not sure why it is important to me.

Actually music has been a preoccupation of mine for some time. Granted there are few people out that that should probably stay away from music more than me. There are just so many horrible things that I have done to music. Frankly my accodion playing is unforgivable. Perhapse if i could find someone to teach me I would be better. Unfortunately there is no one in the city of Pittsburgh that is giving accordion lessons. It is really a shame. So I have been trying to learn that on my own.

The other unspeakable thing that i am doing to music at the moment is singing in the church Choir. Extemporaneous music is something that i am truly not prepared for. Our Choir Director has been very patient with me. Sadly i do not appear to be getting it. I suppose more practive is order.

As usual this has been pointless and has been brought to you by the letter W for Waste of time. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

A while Away

It has been a while. The last couple week we have had internet issues around here. And when the internet was working I used the time to do research for what ever I was working on at that moment.

So with everything working I have more time to spend on the things that do not really accomplish that much. Long time readers of this blog will have to admit that very little is acomplished in these pages.

Well onto other things. There is something rather strange about the stories that I have been working on that I have not dealt with over the last few years. There is some kind of horrible secret that bonds the Booth Family to the Jefferson Family. Evangeline Booth/Jefferson has a strange relationship with her husband where the two of them have been visiting each other over the entirety of their lives.

Well frankly I have never really bothered to come up with what that secret is. It is just something that is always there. It is the five hundred pound elephant in the room. I figured out what would bind them all together.

Granted I am not going to say what it is. I will have to write it in at some point. Still this is something that I have been considering for a very long time. It is also something that gives the character James Booth the perfect exit. I am looking forward to playing around with this.


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

Meatloaf Does Funk

I just heard this meatloaf track from the early seventies. He apparently did Who is the Leader of the People. If is awesome. It was released ten years after he recorded it because he had some kind of argument with mo town records. Meatloaf and mo town records wow those words in the same sentence. I suppose there has always been something just a bit funky about Meatloaf.


Well this is another song that i owe to Craig Charles and his Funk show on BBC 6. It just does not get better than this. If you have not listened to this show is is better than a bucket of cotton candy with a cherry cola. That is good by the way.

I do think my tastes are beging to shift again. Once upon a time I would listen to BBC 2 almost all the time. The BBC 1 started creeping in there. Then there was the jpop thing. Now I am onto BBC 1 and BBC 6 this is crazy stuff folks. I imagine the Brits that read this might understand why that is strange. Still it is a shift none the less.

Something that i have always thought about is a soundtrack for various things. My own personal sound track is messed up to say the least.

With the Brigade now on it's own I have been thinking about what kind of soundtrack they should have. We are going to have to retool the show. I must say my time at second Baptist has given me a new love of Gospel. Even so I am not sure Gospel is quite right for the way that things are with the show. I am thinking about writing a new show. That would leave it open for what ever kind of music we want to do. Still it is something that we really need to think about. With the Army there was a certain type of music. It felt right and it was always there. If anyone has some ideas I am open to them.

Something else that I am wondering about is the soundtrack of the various character in my books. Various Character already have a soundtrack.

Brigadier Mason is mix Speed Metal and British Rock. Even thogh she is one of the good guys you get the feeling that she is capible of unspeakable evil if the situation requires it.

The newer Character Yamato Yukawa is easy she is jpop and jrock. She is a Versailles and Gackt fan with some Morning Musume and Namie Amuro thrown in there. She is adorable but also you get the feeling that she does not understand the necessity for morality.

This has led me to ponder some characters that I had not thought about.

There is Evangeline Jefferson. Now she is a time traveler who is a baseball fan. She is a huge Roberto Clemente Fan. the time that she specialised in was the late 20th century. So she is an eighties pop fan. There is a point in the story when she is listening to Curel Summer from bannanaramma.

There is her father James Booth. I am all over the place on him. I have his character wlell defined. I am just having some trouble where he should be. At the moment I have him listening to Jazz. He is also a time traveler that one used hi abilities to see BB King in a crummy hole in the wall club before he was BB King. So I know there is Jazz.

He is an uncomprimising man that has unblemished character. he and Mason are often going round and round about tactics. He is the jimminy cricket of the book on occasion. So there is that one that end. I would like to fill out his musical background. Also being a Salvation Army Officer he must play and instrument. I have established that he cannot sing. i am not sure what he should play,

The takes me to John Jefferson. I have not a clue on him. He is a black man that was raised in the US Navy by a father that was into mo town. i do have him liking Ray Charles. Still there is something wrong with you if you do not like at leaste three Ray Charles Songs. i am serious if you do not like that many Ray Charles Songs you have a character defect. By the way Mason only like two Ray Charles Songs.

He has lost his faith in the church but not God. I am thinking that he likes funk and maybe some rock and roll. I am not sure about him. In most of the stories I have been working on he is a background character. In the current story he is a young man of nineteen and and older man.

Well if you have any ideas I am up for them. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Scottish People Can Cook

I am not much of a cook. I am certainly not trained in any way. i have never even taken a class at a community center for fun. There is a certain cultural bias that states that Scottish People cannot cook. Well It is a nation that has spend a great deal of it's history on the verge of starvation. that sort of heritage does not lend itself to being wonderful with food.

Something else that i do not get is cooking shows. My wife loves them. I have watched a couple of them if I know they are making something that I might want to make. I have had an interest in Asian food recently. So I have been watch clips from Yang can Cook on the youtube. I think I watched Jeff Smith make shepard's pie before he was pulled off the air. That is about the extent of it.

My wife can watch these shows all day. i cannot get it. It is like she is watching Law & Order.

Anyway i was watching BBC America while typing on the computer. I was not paying very much attention when the show went off. I heard that there was a guy named Gordon Ramsey that was going to tell people how to run a resteraunt. It sounded like Ghingus Kahn was going to give therapeutic advice to Sigmund Freud. So I watch the first few minutes of the show expecting some kind of train wreck. And certainly there was a train wreck.

The thing that i was not exspecting was that I was going to find the show interesting. i mean I have no desire or care about cooking in the way these people appear to. Still there is a fascinating amount of drama and passion that goes into.

i suppose I always had the idea it was some kind of art. Certainly i can tell that a steak is better from a five star resteraunt than from a Waffle house. The things you learn when you are stumbling through.

Be safe out there and keep your stick onthe ice.

There are Days

I sepnt a couple hour working on section 1 of the clown handbook. being that it is the basic clowning section i think i am obsessing over it. it is also the material we will be teaching in the march training session. So I would really like to have it perfect. In going through it today i found a couple picture in the balloon portion of the text that i do not like. I mean for crimeny sake I thought I was done with them. You just want to cry sometimes.

Anyway I hope that Walt and I will have some time to take some pictures on tuesday. It would really be nice to make some progress on this bad boy at some point.

that leads us to some confusion on the juggling section tough. We are debating to some extent what should be the first thing that is juggled. My opinion is that it should always be balls. Sadly I think this opinion may be overshadowing what other people's ideas might be. a couple of the young sergeant have made a case for scarves. When they first suggested it I thought they were wrong. Still the more that i talk to other people there are many out there that like scarves. And to make it even more confusing there are those that say it should be rings.

To experiment with the ring thing I have tried team juggling rings with Sergeant Thurman. even though she had never team juggled before she almost has ring. Number one this completely shakes my faith in starting team juggling with clubs. It also give a strong argument for learning on rings. Yep I suppose this will have to seriously examined.

Well If anyone jugglers out there want to weigh in I am listening.

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

Snow

A couple of feet of snow fell on the city of Pittsburgh today. Today was mostly occupied with shoveling snow. The way that my yard is set up caused the snow to drift. So in my yard the snow was nearly waist deep. This was great fun for Sally who had never seen that much snow before.

The fall out from this much snow is that church has been consoled and the buses were not really running today. Also I lost power at my house. Well there is not much more to say about snow.

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

The New Flying Apparatus Bag

The Flying Apparatus bag continues to be the center of aggravation for my Universe. Sgt. Arrasin has an incredibly great idea for the Apparatus bag. Instead of having three seperate club pouches there should be one large single one. This of course required the complete redesign of the bag. It also meant that the handle had to connect with the bag at a place not on the outside edge of the bag.

On the old bag the bit of webbing that held the handle in place was simply sewn into the outside seam of the bag. This made it very strong. In the new design the handle is attached to the side wall of the interior ball pouch. With out going into diagrams in the old design all this part has to do was to keep the balls from getting into the main pocket. In the new design it has to hold half the weight of a rather heavy bag. So to make sure this worked out i doubled up the material on this price. If figured that would be enough. As you might imagine since I am writing about it I was wrong.


One bag has been made thus far to test the design. The new doubled up piece has held together alright. Sadly it is tearing away from the front and back of the bag. On the prototype bag this means that it had to be dramatically reinforced. currently I have attached a two inch ring of material around the outside of the ball pouch and another around the inside of the ball pouch. In the production models a piece of webbing will have to be sewn around this area to have the same effect without the less than elegant repair that i have made.

Well that is all the sewing related rambling that I have for the moment

On the knitting front I have been playing around with cables. Cables are something that I enjoy doing some of the time. If i have to do them for a project I find that i loose interest. I am making a green scarf for one of the church ladies. I will post a pciture when I am finished.

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

Demise of the Music

The Yahoo music people have been bought or taken over by someone else. In doing this they destroyed the personal radio stations that a person could set up. This has saddened my greatly.

For anyone that listened to my radio station they may have noted that I have very strange musical tastes. Actually my musical tastes are all over the place. Everything from bag rock to jpop to classica and American Rock and Roll. Heck I even like Grand Master Flash and Norman de la Joya. I bet you never thought you would see those two names in the same sentence.

And I am with the Israel Symphony in the belief that Wagner has no place in music. I mean good greif the ring operas are seventeen hour or something like that. In addition to that he kills all the characters in the first hour and they have to come back as ghosts to haunt a new batch of character. I think it was symbolic of his audiences that off themselves before the first intermission.

Well anyway I am looking for a place when I can select songs and create a new personal radio station. If anyone know of such a place please let me know. Perhaps that is something that i need to set up. If I had a mission dollars I would set up such a web site for myself. Actually I should probably buy a building for the Church that the Clown Brigade is starting. Well anyway that is another subject.

Anywho to fill the gap at the loss of my radio station I am listening to half a dozen or so other radio stations. Replacing the link to my radio station are the links to the radio stations and shows that i am listening to at the moment. I do apologies a couple of them are a bit on the glitchy side.

One of the Links is to the Charles Graig Radio show on BBC Radio. this is a great little radio show. For the sci fi junkies out there Charles Craig was Dave Lister on Red Dwarf. In his character he is a no talent hack that has no taste in music. On the BBC he has great taste in music. The other great think about his show is that he is ahead of the curve on much of the music that he plays. Some of the music that he plays never even gets a listen in the US. Well it is wonderful stuff.

Speaking of wonderful stuff there is of course BBC 1 the perennial pop music favorite. A I recall they were among the first to have online radio service. As with Charles Craig they are ahead of the curve in the new music area. Of course they also have the inside track on British rock and roll.

I have had less luck finding jpop and jrock radio stations. There was a hardcore jrock radio station that i used to listen to. They are now J1 which claims to be pure jpop music, what ever that is. Well I added them and will be giving them a listen in the next couple weeks. I have the on at the moment and I like what I am hearing thus far. If anyone know of a real jrock station let me know.

Well if anyone knows of a place that i can start a radio station like they used to had on the Yahoo Music let me know. In the mean time I will continued my search for the perfect online radio station for me.