Fine Tuning (Ode To A Dead Camera)

I did a stupid thing. I was using my camera on Sunday and the lens got stuck in the out position. So I did what any man worth his salt would do. I smacked it. Well the lens went back in. You can probably guess the rest.

Every time Cheryl mentions buying electronics she nearly always advises to get the warranty. A little voice in my head always say 'that's a really good idea'. Now if I can just find that little card.

Here's the last of the picture out of that little cam, at least for a while.


This is the lamp Jay's been making. Just off the form and on the light box. He's got another row acrossed the bottom on, kind of rounding it under. He's putting on the hardware now and picked up a cool bronze base for it. My favorite part is when he puts the patina on the solder and it ages.

Here's Bess (with the horns) and Belle. Both pregnant but not yet showing. Those would be their normal figures. Such ladies. Bless.

Painting ceramics with the kids.

The Christmas Carousel downtown

Seattle Center

I'd walked out the back door, acrossed the feild and down around the front of the house. I was trying not to set off the motion sensor for the light in the drive way. Bear followed me and then walked right into it.

Obligatory

Pet

Photos

Goodnight.

Right Now

Right now I’m sitting in my office overhearing Jay in his office talking to one of his guys. The guy is kinda hanging by a thread and Jay’s been coaching him for sometime now, with only marginal progress. It gives me mixed emotions. I’m proud of Jay for how he handles his guys and what good of a leader he is. I’m glad that it’s not me that has to have these tough conversations with the employees. I feel sorry for the dude he’s talking to. He’s another one of our 20+ year olds that wasn’t really well equipped for the job market when he came out of school. He has the typical bravado of a man his age. I think the ladies might call him a ‘player’. He’s a good kid at heart but just seems to be under the impression that he can get a head in life while only putting out minimal effort.

We had our bi-weekly office meeting yesterday and while we’re not feeling the pinch of the economy yet, were positioning ourselves for what may come. This guy is making himself low man on the totem pole.

I hope he’s able to grasp what he’s being told and can turn it around. I remember being that age and the feeling that nothing bad could really happen to you. Like nothing could really hurt you, that only happens to 'other' people. I guess it’s with age that you get more concerned about things like, what if ?

Then I have one of my guys who’s been working his butt off for the last two years to get his life back together after a mistakes he made and had to pay for. He’s done a remarkable job of paying off his debt to society and pulling himself up by the boot straps. I only worry because he’s living hand to mouth and we can’t guarantee 40 hours of work a week. I hope their all smarter then I’m giving then credit for. I hope they see how uncertain things are right now and are planning accordingly. But I kind of know what the answer to that question is.

Lord, I’m glad I’m not their age anymore and have some security.

Forgive the crappy post of unclear thoughts sewn together in an illogical sequence.

Pass the Clairol

We had a very nice and quiet Thanksgiving. It was a smaller crowd then we normally have with my sister & BIL in Florida. My niece was there as she’s living with my Mom to complete her final year in high school in Washington. Really pretty simple all around.

Lolli & Jay made a second turkey dinner on Friday so we have tons of leftovers to eat this week. Friday for me, was a perfect lazy day watching old movies on TV and puttering around the house. Jay managed to fit in getting the lights up on the outside while helping with dinner. I was a slug. TMC had a marathon of Betty Davis & Joan Crawford films. What holiday would be complete with out watching Mildred Pierce?

On Sunday my friend Lorrie and I took her son out to lunch and a walk to look at the holiday Christmas decorations. We ate at a sports bar near the Seattle Center. Son had never been shopping downtown for Christmas so this was supposed to be a treat. Unfortunately it seems the retailers have really scaled back on the amount of decorations. There was also a noticeable lack of customers with out any lines at the registers. We walked around Seattle Center’s Center house and looked at the model train Christmas Village (cool) and watched the Japanese dancers (huh?) Next was the gingerbread houses annually displayed at the Sheraton Hotel, this years theme was ‘Superhero’s’, Superman, Batman and the like, which didn’t make for very Christmas-y ginger bread houses. Maybe they were trying to be multi-cultural – I’m not sure but it was strange.

I spent Sunday evening in the bathroom doing some manscaping. Now don’t get me wrong, if you’ve read me for a while you know I’m not a Metrosexual. Hell, most of my clothes are in drab shades of blue, gray or black. If I want to get wild with color there’s always green. I’m considered dressed up if I have nice gray wooly socks on with my sandals. I sat down to read the Sunday paper and noticed the hair on my chest was tickling my chin when I looked down. Now I’m not what you would normally call a hairy man but I do tend to grow quite a bit on my chest. It has at times been referred to as a pelt. So I took myself into the bathroom and whipped out the old beard trimmer and started to trim up my neck. Once I started there it just made sense to thin out the pelt a bit. After trimming off a good inch and a half I stopped and took a look. It seems that the hair on the top of my chest has gone gray. And by gray I mean snow white. So now I look like I have dark hair in a semi circular pattern from nipple to nipple looking like a large smile. The hair above it is white and doesn’t really show up.

The indignities of age.

I think I’ll dye it punk-rocker neon blue and see how long it takes Jay to notice.

Happy Thanksgiving

When I think of what I have to be thankful for the first thing that comes to mind is my partner Jay. He's big and strong and loving and faithful. He's always sensitive to my moods, good or bad. I never doubt that I come first in his heart and even though he doesn't need to, he tells me he loves me everyday. He's taught me a lot about loving someone unconditionally. He makes me feel special.

He's the Swiss Army knife of partners. Carpenter, Boo-Boo kisser, Electrician, Remover of dead things, Plumber, Glass artist, Baker, Automotive mechanic, Goat herder, Chicken wrangler.

He's warm, caring, noble and true. He's a loving Son, Brother, Uncle, Cousin and Friend.

He makes me a better man.

He is my hero.


I'm thankful for all the friends who populate my life and make my world a better place.

I'm thankful for you.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Brad

When Babies Shoot Bullets

There was a shooting at the local mall on Saturday afternoon. A group of kids got into a confrontation and somebody pulled out a gun and shot one kid to death. On Sunday they moved the fight a little closer to us and another young man died in a parking lot behind a restaurant in the business district just up the road. Farther north in Rainer Valley they shot up a gas station and hit a 15 year old in the thigh and a 18 year old in the arm. No one died in the last one. The police say both incidents on Sunday were in retaliation for the first shooting at the mall.

What a waste. I'm guessing here, but I'd be willing to wager that it all started with words. Someone said something to someone who couldn't manage their anger. What a waste.

I remember being that age. I remember how my feelings were so intense I thought I might go crazy. How passion ruled my mind before logic. How everything seemed so big and so important.
But I didn't carry a gun.

The cops say it's gang related and I'm sure it is, but I'll bet you when the parents are interviewed they won't recognize their own child as a gang member. They'll say that they were good kids and they'll be telling the truth.

These kids are the same age as a lot of my friends children. Just a few years older then the kids who live down the street, the sweet kids who like to come up and see the goats and chickens. Kids that should be graduating in June. Kids that might have applied for a job with us in a few years.

Now their dead kids.

They're dead because it's as easy for a kid to get a gun in this country as it is to get a pack of cigarettes.

Holiday Ramp Up

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We're having a ceramics painting party and many friends and assorted kids will be over to spend the day. We'll cover the kitchen in old newspaper and let them all go at it. Jay will have the kiln firing all next week and we can watch the wheel on the electric meter spin.

My buddy Norm and his wife are coming. I think Norm and I'll watch them play for a while then sneak off to go check out Second Use Building Materials. It's a store near us that recycles old building parts and pieces for resale. Many a good treasure I've found there. They have lots of weird, odd ball stuff to, this is where I found my 1890's pump organ sitting on a pallet covered with tarps and just to cheap to let it get away.

I figure by the time we get done with that and lunch we can safely head back to the house and all the Jr. painters will have exhausted themselves. It does start to make me feel a bit Christmas-y and ready to go get tree's after thanksgiving. It's an annual event for Jay and I to take Mom to pick out trees, take hers back to her house, get the lights on, then get ours home and lit on the same day. Jay does all the stringing of lights as he made the mistake of developing that skill years ago. My part comes after, decorating the thing. We normally get a big noble so it can take a couple of days.

My sister was up from Florida this week and we had about an hour to sit and chat and catch up. She brought up gift giving this year and I was happy to hear that she's 'over it' too. It's silly for a bunch of adults who have everything they need to be buying gifts for each other. So we agreed with Mom that from now on gifts will be for the kids only. Of course we all know we're going to cheat, at least I am, but the gifts will be small and just fun silly stuff.

Jay on the other hand is not off the hook. I've already worked out commitments on new furniture so that doesn't count as a Christmas present. He is in the process of making me a new Tiffany style lamp shade (I'll post pics as soon as it's off the form and tacked together) but that still doesn't get him off the hook. I'm thinking electronics.

So what do you want for Christmas ?

Welcome to Kuboto Farm

Well this has all been a pain in the butt. I'd forgot how much tweeking it took to set up a new blog. I'll be playing around with it for a bit I'm sure. This whole things seems so silly and juvenile I just want to make the break and move on. So I'll just say this and let it drop. Someone from my real life and work started reading the old blog. Not that big of a deal in itself but it was making it harder and harder to write with out constantly editing myself.

Kuboto Garden is a park down at the bottom of our hill. I've written about it before and posted some pics. It was a Japanese nursery before world war 2 and was made as a display garden originally to showcase their products. The garden was abandoned when the Japanese were moved to concentration camps for the duration of the war. It later became a city park.

I just went to look up a fact on the park and now realize I've misspelled it. Well that's kind of kind of fitting for this whole debacle. Maybe the misspelling well help keep this blog a bit lower under the radar.

Anyway...
A few weeks ago we added Mr. Deeds to the goatie corral and he soon got busy impregnating Bess & Belle. When Jay registered the new herd with the state he had to come up with a name. We have always called this place Bear's farm but Jay didn't like that name so we co-opted the part of the parks name and added farm. And now I've misspelled it so none of it makes any sense.

See the kind of day I've had?

Whatever, it's done. I like the name even if it isn't exactly right.

I've been struggling with posts lately so hopefully this will be the start of something new and better. Thank you so much for wanting to follow along.