3rd 4th 5th

I dressed up for the salon this time, don't know why. I guess it's just that I have all these jackets and black slacks and black t-shirts with Seattle Chamber Music Society logos on them and if I put them on all at once, it looks dressy.
Some interesting music, as usual. My favorite was the violin solo featuring eastern, Gypsy sounding music accentuated by the colors of some Chagall slides. Very effective.
Gavin Borcherd also had an interesting piece for cello and violin. Based in part on the sonorities of the hardanger fiddle, a Scandinavian instrument which is basically a violin with four drone strings running under the bridge to give it some uh...extra texture.
Confirmed my spot on the next salon. I'll be presenting a piano reduction of the 2 violin concerto. That oughta be fun.

Fourth of July had the family over. Janet, Mack, Leah, Wally, Ruby, Wyatt, and cousin Gary. Beer, barbecue, chips, hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage, watch all the fireworks lining the shores of the lake.
Made a video of me playing my rakett to post on my Facebook site.
Read a book too...about Roald Dahl's time during WWll in Washington spying for the Brits, hoping to get Us into the war.

Today laid around, glued strakes to the mandora (or whatever it might turn out to be)
Almost done with the hull next is the neck and the sound board. Sound board will be made from the soundboard out of my old $100 piano I had to disassemble to get out of the Queen Anne house when I moved out.

Not really in a crazy mood tonight, feelin' all mellow, can't think of a punchline for all this that turns it all into a absurdist satire on the state of my mental processes.

So, good night to all my loyal readers, the disloyal ones, too.
And goodnight Ms Ophelia, wherever you are.

Never scratch a monkey butt.

"Monkey butt" is the official biker's terminology for the riding rash I've managed to acquire on my 100 mile ride.

If I were to drop trousers, I would look like a baboon from behind.
I've already got the look from front.

Did I tell you I rode A HUNDRED MILES in a day last Tuesday.
Well, I did.
It's almost worth bragging about.
But I am too modest.

Due to this posterior erosion I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been spending my days standing up and my nights trying not to sleep on my back.
I can do the wood cutting and fitting standing up, so work on the mandora proceeds.

I hereby present both sides of the object in question.

The mandora, not the burnt hamburger looking butt.






Mandora mold with latest strip being glued on.

Doing the Ton

"The Ton" was a name for the useless "upper" classes of Victorian and Edwardian times who did nothing but impose their ridiculous fantasies on the sweating hoards (Tu et Moi).
Spent their time going from place to place trying to impress each other in the absurdity competition.
Refer to P.G. Wodehouse's work involving Bertie and Jeeves.
Total airheads.
They have been replaced by the "jet set" and such.
These are the people who just recently screwed you out of your pension funds.
They are oft seen running certain social rackets like...oh Symphony orchestras.

But, that's not what it means to me.

What it means to me is in the phrase "doing the ton at Goodwood" which means lapping the aforementioned race track at 100 miles per hour or more.

Whether it actually ever meant that is irrelevant.

Closely related to the phrase "going whole hog".

What it means here on this post is that yesterday I managed to ride 100 miles up and down and around and in and out by the shining waters of Lake Washington.

My butt is an aching mass of eroded flesh!!!

Left the house at 7 AM and straggled back home at 7.15 PM.

Got in some nice rest stops lying on the grass looking up at the lightly clouded sky through the branches of the trees.

Highlight of the trip was the Sammamish (used to be called "slough") river.
The Sammamish river connects Lake Sammamish and Lake Washington.
There is not a very big difference in the levels of the two lakes, so the water just sort of sits there.
But the big thing is that the powers that be have been restoring it from a dredged out canal to a classic look riverbed with sand bars, gravel banks, fallen trees and all that "out in the wilderness" look that it was born with.
Very nice and Japanese garden look to it.

No more boat races there.

That was in the first 50 miles. The last 50 was just pumping, grunting and breathing heavy.

Anyway, I finally found out what was wrong with the counter. The battery in the
sending unit was going out. It lasted for the first 50 miles so I was able to put together the total from previously measured rides.

None of the bike shops along the way had such batteries.

So there's no splog today. Not that you care about that. I'm just using the site to keep track of the rides.

A Maple day

Finished rakett, mandora mold behind

Well. I didn't work on the cello concerto yesterday. Instead, I slices up some pieces of maple and ran them through the planer to make thin strips for the mandola project.
Mandora is like mandola or mandolin or a whole lot of other stringed instruments.

That thing that looks like a gigantic honey dipper is the mold for the mandora.
I've got to steam a bunch of thin slices of wood over the mold and fit them together to make the body of the thing.

So anyway, yesterday M wanted to get up early and drive out the Maple Valley road to Black Diamond to a bakery (CJ's) for a serious ingestion of sugar and coffee.
We each had all we could eat of a cinnamon roll drenched in maple sauce (a soft version of the frosting on a maple bar)
Then we got a little lost finding our way to Southcenter mall and Kenelley Keys where I bought a mouthpiece for the rakett.
That's not the new mouthpiece. If you look closely, you'll see a little chunk broken out of the edge of the one in the rakett.
I dropped it.
Kinda ruins the playability.

That piece of paper it's sitting on is for one of the violin parts to the 2 violin concerto.

Later on, we had maple flavored sausage for dinner. Mapleness tripled.

Later that night I found Keth watching "Airplane" with earphones (it was after midnight) Didn't need to hear it myself, that's just what they would expect me to do.

Later in the week it became now.

If it's Tuesday...

This must be a bike ride.
Same ride as last week, but this time I rode the kilometer up 3rd West.
Sad to say, I pooped out at the base of 57th and walked up Waters all the way.

Splog!!!

33.4 miles
3:27:33 hours
9.6 average speed
35.5 mph top speed
1307 accumulated miles.
72 to 84 degrees.

No more messages today I've got to sand and paint the cello concerto.

Up the Creek

1, The mighty Skagit river























2, Into the mossy woods to the falls.























3, Ladder creek, the stream feeding the mighty Skagit






















4, One of the many waterfalls making up ladder creek.
























I got tagged with a meme, here are the answers.

1, Jaques Tati, I don’t know why.
2, My computer music composition setup.
3, Being harassed by Seattle Symphony security on the streets of my own home town.
4, First Bicycle.
5, Pissing away my $5000.00 savings account opening my own shop instead of buying the Ferrari I could have bought instead.
6, Arrogant, Absurd, Irreverent, Insecure.
7, It’s 2008 already? Umm.. Selling off my collection of odd automobiles. (1951 Bristol Saloon {which I was just dreaming about}, 1960 FIAT 500, 1961 ALFA Romeo Guiletta Spyder).
8, If not Triplets of Belleville, then Casablanca.
9, I intend to be the definitive voice in 21st century orchestral music.
10, Duke Nukem. I realize he is a computer game character, but he’s a cartoon nonetheless.

One stupid thing?….Today already?
Promised my self a 60 mile bike ride which I’m already late for and don’t feel like now that I’m awake.

For the questions, check out Jannie Funster. She's linked under blog party revelers.

WEEK, and a few of my favorite things

After the bike ride on Tuesday,

WEDNESDAY!
showed up. So I dealt with that by going to my favorite Queen Anne coffee shop, my favorite Queen Anne grocery store, my favorite downtown coffee shop, (where "Happy Birthday" was sung by the folks running the place to a friend [I assume it was a friend] who walked in), my favorite downtown branch of my favorite library, my favorite composition teacher at my favorite Community College, one of my favorite movies (Key Largo, which featured Tonto before he was even Jay Silverheels as one of the ill-fated Osceola brothers and some skinny little girl [not bad lookin'])

THURSDAY!
followed like Thursday follows Wednesday.
I somehow mistakenly mentioned to M that the quilt museum in La Conner was having a show which featured some especially fantastic work on their third floor. So we drove there and looked at it.
Was good.
Dropped in on her brother who lives in Bow.
Drove up the Skagit to look at the hillside garden behind the hydroelectric plant and to walk up (climb up) the trail along the waterfalls.
Drove home the same day.
Got pictures, not processed yet.

Tired.

FRIDAY!
followed like Thursday follows Wednesday also. There seems to be some kind of pattern involved.
I got many hours work in on the cello concerto and a couple hours in on the clarinet Rakett (see above picture) that I'm building for Stuart Zobel, a friend from my Soundbridge days.

Watched "Mirrormask" an interesting mix of live, puppet, and computer generated imagery.

And now it's

NOW!
which follows nothing.
And I gots to moe the lon.


The picture is of the Rakett, my Buffet, the mold for the Mandora project, two different kind of masking tape, various tools and an old pair of pajamas.