I’ve had a strange variety of songs stuck in my head this week.  Since I have no other clever blog topics today that I feel like writing about, I will enumerate these songs so they might get lodged in your head instead of mine. “Life By The Drop” by Stevie Ray Vaughan (learning how to […]

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Tonight, the duty fell to me to teach class since Sensei Tarrant and Brian are both out on vacation.  The class started as just Paul and I, but shortly after three other Shodans arrived.  I decided to structure the class very simply: I would take them through our Shodan exam one set of combinations at […]

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Spit coating is the initial step to putting on a French Polish finish.  I started the process on my Dad’s ukulele today, after doing a test sample just to get the feel for how shellac goes on to an instrument.  For this process, I just used some folded over cheesecloth and a little elbow grease […]

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Here I am, sitting at the gate in Denver waiting to find out if I get one of the overflow seats on this flight to Peoria. This frustrates me, since I booked my flight two weeks ago. All the same, my ticket says confirmed and the lady at the baggageclaim told me that I have […]

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Here you see the materials required for a french polish (not pictured: extra-fine pumice, which will be purchased soon.)  First off, I love how all of the materials appear as if they were purchased sometime in the late 1950’s.  I imagine Sarah Dukes is loving the aesthetics of it all… Anyway, back to the point.  […]

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OK everyone, it’s time to have a frank discussion: you are driving me crazy.  Lately several of you have taken up the habit of Facebook status update spam, wherein you select any number of obvious causes and write up or repost a schlocky call to arms (usually in all caps, indicating yelling like a braying […]

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Dad’s ukulele is ready for finishing!  All I had to do today was unclamp the fretboard and do some final sanding on the neck.  The masking tape on the bridge covers the area where the bridge will be attached, and this is done after the finishing is complete.  I just got done ordering around $100 […]

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It’s the Fourth of July again!  Mine started off with a decadent session of sleeping in, followed by some reheated pizza for lunch.  After some tummy time with Eve, I headed out to the workshop to get two of my projects further underway.  As you can see from the first photo, I got the fretboard […]

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Tonight was D&D night, our first one in two months.  We opted to play in the living room tonight, which was a welcome change of pace.  We didn’t get a ton of gaming done, but we did have a really good Easter-style potluck… ham, au-gratin potatoes with our normal D&D fare for dessert.  It was […]

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I think this week was the longest stretch that I haven’t been blogging for awhile, not quite sure what happened there… going to chalk this one up to the joys of fatherhood. On Wednesday, I crushed my big toe.  I was walking through the basement and bumped the wooden high chair, which is down there […]

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