Welcome to my new Blog page. I’ve decided to set up a Substack -based blog instead of blogging on my Laurent Flutes website. Its just easier not to have to edit in html or php and I can simply post links to this page, add pictures, etc. Later today I will add an extract from the blog started on my website.
Well here we go.
Current Status - I got into some Heavy Metal: I tend to go a little crazy sometimes and yesterday was a good example. A visit to a friends home workshop in nearby Poulsbo which resulted in me pondering how I am going to move this new chunk of Cast Iron that weighs almost a ton and where to put it. I decided this morning that I might need 2 or 3 of these. These are a type of heavy milling machine that I will modify to cut glass with diamond wheels instead of milling cutters.
Fundraising Reality Check (Updated) : This has all been sorted out. I am accepting donations which will be considered as income - and promising nothing in return at this point. Send me your money!
Its best that I don’t promise anything in return. I am working on a book about my flute making and this is largely written in the form of posts and emails etc. from the last 30 years. I just need to do some mining of my data and this should write itself. If that happens, I hope to send off an Ebook version (PDF) to my donors.
WHAT WAS I THINKING? How am I going to move that heavy mill and more importantly where will I put it? I would have to tear out a wall of my workshop to get this thing inside and then it would simply fall through the floor boards. I can probably find who moves such things from Devin Bodony who has a great CNC workshop nearby. Nancy and I were just talking yesterday about replacing our wood shed with a prefab metal building sold as a 2 car garage. I would use that for my hot shop. However, that will take a slab and building permits. So today on my agenda is to find a small commercial rental or one of the heated storage units to stuff this into nearby. I can keep it at at my friend’s in the meantime until that is sorted.
<UPDATE - a new 1 car garage is being planned that will house this machinery and my hot shop equipment>
Today’s Fun starts with finishing some flutes, and cleaning up the house before Nancy’s sister arrives. Both she and her sister just got their Booster shots and are getting tested when Alice arrives with a home test kit. I will be out of the workshop afternoons as we go see some tourist spots that might include the Tacoma Glass Museum. It will most definitely include a trip to Keyport to the Naval Undersea Warfare Museum. Newly on display is the 2nd version of the Naval Undersea Rescue Vehicle that Nancy and Alices’ Uncle Gus Ebel was involved with. The 2nd one incorporates much of the hardware and technology of the first. This boat was commissioned after the Thresher accident.
I am loving writing on Substack - assuming this works! I have just become the Heather Cox Richardson of the Glass Flute world!
I am at the peak of my Cyclothymic curve. Look up Cyclothymia. Its a type of Bipolar Disorder that is considered its gentler cousin. It gives me hypomanic highs when I take on such things as recreating Laurent’s flutes and purchasing Gorton P3 milling machines. Last night I had to listen to a Wagnerian Opera to get the first 3 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. The first opera of the Ring lasts about 90 minutes. I listened to it twice and sang opera in my sleep. I tend to speak non-stop with about 15 different. threads running through my brain simultaneously (see the last comment about Microchips below). So I will leave just before Alice and Nancy return and head down to Harstine Island to visit Mike Frantz of Frantz Art Glass. His website is where I saw these thick walled Cobalt Glass tubes that will allow me to skip the hot work. I may be bringing some home to play with even. This image is from his website.
We have been Chipped!!! With Nancy’s 3rd dose of Moderna the Bill Gates Microchips have finally been turned on! They are Wonderful! Biden is going full steam ahead on this. The 3rd chip acts like the Eero Router in our home network. Doctor Alden Hackman from UW Medical as well as his side business Bracken Creek Electronics (they work on such microchips and are the largest military contractor in the PPuget Sound Area). Don’t be fooled by the quaint mailbox dressed up as a Resistor!) made some tweeks for both of us while Nancy was sleeping. She has been a little hard of hearing lately. So now, she can hear what is on my mind non-stop 24/7. I have always seen myself as the bad-ass character Le cure played by Dominique Pinon in one of my top ten movies: Diva (1981). He was the nasty assassin wearing an earpiece who complained “I do not like Parking Garages!”. When he falls to his death it turns out that his earpiece has been playing Musette Accordion all the time. With Dr. Hackman’s tweaks I now hear Accordion music all the time. We are both in Heaven!
Heather Cox Richardson, Betsy Brown MD and Your Local Epidemiologist all post wonderful blogs on Substack. I am finding its a perfect place to aim my manic verbiage. I wonder if my friend Betsy and the other two are similarly blessed (or cursed)…
I will post an update after my field trip to the glass shop. Later….