Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 4

Bjorn is the only male in the current Grandchild Spectrum, and he's all boy. He loves trucks and machinery and airplanes and rockets.

With one sister and four female cousins, I thought control might be an issue I could address with a gift for him.

Enter Bjorn's Master Control. The deck is about 14 x 16 inches, and none of the controls really does anything--by design. This is all about imagination and making the sounds yourself and he's good at that.

A lot of this flotsam I had in the shop and a trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore filled out the requirements. The obscure, enigmatic labels were scrounged from a large manifold evidently used in the brewing process somehow. They ended up getting close to this mark: Bjorn's dad is the operations manager at a resort water park--lots of valves, buttons and gauges.

Power on, Sir! Let me check the dials before I invert the chromdulating dyschortler!

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 3

Maya, not present on The Day, collects Breyer horse books. And she needed a place to keep them. Just a bookcase, or bookbox, was hardly enough to justify her quests and her passion for this series.

I wouldn't call her a cowgirl, but I thought a little thematic stuff on the case would help make it special. And the top is big enough to rest her cowgirl hat, if she has a mind to get one.

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 2

Lily is a princess, and Walt Disney had nothing to do with it. He just provides context. So the princess gets a Magic Imagination Box.

The container itself is pine. The coffered lid and the feet are figured maple.
Centered on the top is a "gold" coin, set in epoxy resin. Likewise in the bottom is the Special Key, set in quincunx fashion along with four costume jewelry pieces. Sprinkled throughout are some freshwater pearls.

What will be in there...the name of a handsome prince? The cell phone number of a magician who knows where the key goes? Magic stones?

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 1

First a disclaimer: Somehow we got into the dress up box before the Christmas unwrapping with three of the grandchildren. You'll see what I mean in the pictures.

Youngest is Emily, 14 months, who got the little rocker. I decided it wasn't going to be an animal, so I was thinking it would be swoopy like a bobsled, but it ended up being a self portrait, or so I'm told by many who see me much more than I see myself in the mirror. The rocker is a tour of woods often found in the shop: Quartersawn oak, big leaf maple, walnut, mahogany, hard rock maple, fir, birch and alder.

Next in age is Juni, who is a climber, especially since she escaped her spica cast (see an earlier post on this blog). I thought, as a card carrying grandpa, I should just make it easier for her to get up onto high things! The stepstool is all solid stock juniper with a waterborne polyurethane finish. She likes the place to put things--her stuff--which then becomes off limits to her sister Lily.

Continued...

Ginner, Barker Bass #99, gets a Graphtech Ghost System

Ginner (see blog post Friday December 12, 2008), built in memory of my mother, had actually been originally intended to have a Ghost System from GraphTech. Now became the time, so the first task was to bore and counterbore a spot for a fourth pot on the face, likewise a small toggle switch. At the time, I didn't have a fourth pretty knob so I used a stock black one just to be sure everything worked.

The serious electronic work started with excavating a filled-in section under the bridge, which accommodates the leads from the individual pickups. Things really get interesting in the electronics cavity--see the images--but if one takes one's time it all makes sense.

The double battery box is a Barker trademark. Some preamps like 18 volts, most work on 9. If 9 is enough, then the second compartment holds a new battery--as handy as a spare could be. These batteries, according to GraphTech, should last 500 hours, but anecdotally that appears to be a bit optimistic.

So we're into testing at this point, refining perhaps, but all in all it's the same bass with a greater breadth of sonic choices. The dramatic makeovers are the purview of cheap television series. This is real world, hands on, down and dirty, mechanics which, though helpful as a musician's tool, still points you back to your hands.

It's all in the hands.

High Desert Swap Meet 2010 Part 2: The Roadster

Open Wheeled cars are the plunging neckline of the automotive world. Riskier than the alternative, Great looking in the mirror, and the fun really begins when they go out in public.

I love the curves on this car. It was an exquisitely executed dream, created, the sign says, by a man who lived only long enough to see it run. He died, leaving it to his widow, whose neighbor kindly finished the project and brought it along to the High Desert Swap Meet to sell. Whether it did is moot; what is important is the presence it brought.

You could lose yourself in the minute details under the hood; the no-nonsense dashboard, the era-perfect wire wheels.

But it's the curve of the body that's something so right. Organically flowing, each square centimeter knowing where next to be as the hand moves over it.

It started, it ran, it was like a dream that man shared with us all. Is it tragic that he died? Very likely; lives ending leave pain somewhere. But counter that with this indisputable triumph: He did it. He drew some sketches, he made some measurements, and he didn't stop to talk about it, he did it.

I fancy the word "someday" wasn't in his vocabulary.

If you don't share my twitterpation with the topographical undulations of this sensuous beauty, that's ok. But meditate upon the reality of this endeavor and balance that against all the barriers you have identified between you and an accomplishment long held and equally undone.

Let the neckline plunge. Something's gonna happen. Open that door and head out.

Hobo's Meditation by Jimmie Rodgers: Additional Verse

The Singing Brakeman: Jimmie Rodgers. A talented songwriter who died tragically of tuberculosis in the mid thirties. He was 35.

This song has been recorded by Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and the fabled distaff Trio: Ronstadt, Parton and Harris. Folksingers of all stripes have a fondness for it.

The original lyric:

written by Jimmie Rodgers
© 1933 Peer International Corp

Last night as I lay on the boxcar
Just waiting for a train to pass by
What will become of the hobo
Whenever his time comes to die

There's a Master up yonder in heaven
Got a place that we might call our home
Will we have to work for a living
Or can we continue to roam

Will there be any freight trains in heaven
Any boxcars in which we might hide
Will there be any tough cops or brakemen
Will they tell us that we cannot ride

Will the hobo chum with the rich man
Will we always have money to spare
Will they have respect for the hobo
In that land that lies hidden up there

Will there be any freight trains in heaven
Any boxcars in which we might hide
Will there be any tough cops or brakemen
Will they tell us that we cannot ride

Will the hobo chum with the rich man
Will we always have money to spare
Will they have respect for the hobo
In that land that lies hidden up there

The repeat of the last two stanzas lands heavy. Could there be more?

Bill in Alabama (user name) is a prolific poster at www.mudcat.org:

"Our family performed this song with great success for many years, but we felt that it needed another verse; so, with apologies to Jimmie Rodgers, we came up with the following, sung as the final verse:"

In that sweet land that lies over yonder/ Does the warm summer sun always shine/ Will there be fences and watchdogs,/ And are the trains always on time?/
Are there orchards and gardens aplenty/ Where my friends will be waiting for me--/ Does God have a place for the wand'rer/ Where we'll be allowed to roam free?

Beautifully done.

Prior to discovering Bill's touching poetry, I humbly penned this:

When the last train rolls into glory / Will the rails be plated in gold?
When the passengers step to the platform / And all of their stories are told
Will we sit down at the same table / The rich and the poor every one?
Will we all see the Master in glory / In the place that shines bright as the sun.

What was a simple song now claims multiple authors and multiple forms, qualifying (to some yardsticks) as a folk song. Add a few verses of your own and well have an epic, right up there with Beowulf. Light the bonfire and pull up a log to sit on!