The Worst Patient: Mr. Tough Guy

To completely understand this post, it may help to not only read one, but two of my previous posts.

This was written four months ago when I broke my hand.

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/04/i-joined-fight-club.html

The following post I wrote eight years ago.  In it, I talk about how even at a young age I would not cry in front of a woman despite feeling pain.

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/02/measure-of-man.html

Now, onto the beginning of my new blog post.

I am the worst patient.  Not because I complain.  No, it's because I do the opposite.  You see, I broke my hand four months ago.  Normally it would be healed by now, but because I carry a genetic disease, (Dupuytren's Contracture Syndrome) I needed to go to physio-therapy to straighten the muscles and soft tissue in my hand.
Here's the Wiki page on Dupuytren's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupuytren%27s_contracture

So I've been going to physio-therapy once a week to straighten out the muscles and tissue in my hand.  The therapist I am seeing (I'll call her PT so as not to print her real name) is gorgeous.  She's so nice, has huge blonde curls, and a tiny nose ring.  I won't post a picture of her, but imagine something like this.

This leads to the guy problem of never admitting you're in pain in front of a woman.  Our conversation goes something like this:

(PT bends my pinky back.  It hurts pretty good since it doesn't want to bend that way.)

PT:  I'm not hurting you am I?

Adrian:  Nah, I'm doing great!

PT:  Because it looked like you winced with pain.

Adrian:  No, I just thought I had to sneeze.

PT:  Because it's not supposed to hurt.  If it hurts it's not going to help you.

Adrian:  It's a little bit uncomfortable, but I wouldn't describe it as pain.

PT:  Well, let's not have it be uncomfortable either.

Adrian:  Tis but a flesh wound!

PT:  What?

Adrian:  You've never seen, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

PT:  No, what is that?

Adrian, Well, pull up a chair and let me tell you all about it.


Seriously, I haven't acted this dorky around a beautiful woman since... middle school?  Yeah, this is totally a middle school crush.

Before anyone gets mad and thinks I'm bothering this poor gal, please note.  I have not said anything wrong, sexist, impolite, or uncomfortable.  I have not hit on her, or asked her out.  She is taken, and I respect that.  Like I said, it's just a bit of a crush.  (Cue the 80's middle school crush music!)

This situation reminds me of the movie "Spartacus" (The 1960 film.)  There's a scene in it where Spartacus has been wounded by a blow from a sword, and he is slowly bleeding out.  One of the veteran fighters tells him he has to seal the wound.  

That being done by inserting a sword in the burning coals of a fire until it glows red with unforgiving heat.  Then applying the sword to the wound to cauterize it.  Of course, to do it properly the veteran fighter had to hold it on the wound for five continuous seconds.

I have been burnt by hot metal before.  It's a pain like no one can prepare you for.  But the veteran has a plan for Spartacus to hold still for that long.  Instead of having four gladiators hold Spartacus down, he has one woman do it.  

This, of course, brings up the question, "How could one woman do what four gladiators could not?"  It's because a man won't cry, or yell in pain in front of a woman.  As I wrote in the blog from many years ago, I wouldn't cry in front of a female technician/nurse when I was eight years old.  Now-a-days as an adult, I won't admit pain in front of yet another female technician.  

So I realize I am going to have to be a little more honest with PT.  I am going to have to let her know that sometimes she bends my pinky back a little too far.  Sometimes my hand is a bit more tired than I let on.  But I won't tell her about my crush.  That I will keep secret.  (Except for posting it on the internet like a dork.)

All 80's Kids Dreaded... The Rappin' PSA

To this day I am still unnerved by it.  It was one of those things you knew were coming up in the commercial break, but could do nothing about.  The mute button hadn't been invented yet, you know.  That's right, it was the 80's Public Service Announcement.

And like a lot of commercials in the 80's they had a lot to say, but only 30 seconds to say it.  So they decided to "get with the times" and start rapping, err, rappin', about it.  I always dreaded when those PSA's would come on.  I know they were trying to be, "hip," but they were just embarrassing themselves.

Remember those G.I. Joe PSA's?  I must have seen every episode 200 times.  I knew every PSA by heart.  At least they didn't rap in those.

D.A.R.E. was always trying out things.  The best being the famous, "Your brain on drugs."  But for me, the snake man was just the best at being over the top.

Yes, this really aired.

Thank you D.A.R.E.

One of the worst... best?  Best of the worst?  Anyway, there was this one PSA called, "The Suicide Rap."  Of course, it should have more correctly been called, "The Anti-Suicide Rap."  I have looked for it, but can't find it.  I only saw it the one time, but it stuck in my mind.

I thought, "Oh no.  This is going to be bad."  And it was.  I didn't know what social anxiety was back then, but this gave it to me in bundles.

The lyrics were, (To the best of my recollection)

Your Mother, your Father,
Your Brother, Sister too.
Your teacher, preacher, councilor,
It don't matter who!

They were trying to say that you should talk to someone if you felt suicidal. The lyrics above were the chorus to it.  Why do I remember it after so many years?  Because the song was mostly chorus.  They really could have done a better job.  You know, write a few more lyrics?

Here's some of the great/terrible rappin' PSA's.

Never underestimate a deadline and a Casio keyboard.

Someone else had the same idea as me.  See, I'm not the only one who hated 80's PSA's.

Well at least I didn't have to worry about 80's PSA's once it flipped to 1990.  No, I then had to worry about 90's PSA's.  That, of course, deserves it's own blog post.

Get Cha' Pull,... This Floyd Rose Right Off Of This Guitar

To understand this post a little better, here's the original post I wrote when I bought this guitar:

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2017/08/get-cha-pull-new-guitar-day-dixie-rebel.html

I like my Dean Dixie Rebel.  It's surprisingly lightweight, it has an awesome neck profile, and the pickups are awesome.  There is something that I really hate about it.  I don't like using the word, "hate," but I really hate the Floyd Rose tremolo that came on it.  I just can not keep the guitar in tune.

The Floyd Rose that comes standard on it is a "Licensed Floyd Rose" instead of a real one.  It also doesn't have a manufacturer's name on it, so that tells you how generic it is.  The one neat thing about the hardware on the Dixie Rebel is that, it comes in Black Chrome.  You don't see that very often.  

So I start searching the web about a replacement Floyd Rose.  I remember members of the Dean Guitars Forum saying how they really liked the Gotoh tremolos.  After searching Reverb.com I was lucky enough to stumble across a Gotoh Floyd Rose in "Cosmo Black."  I'm guessing "Black Chrome" is trademarked so they couldn't call it that.  But it was the same color.

I took a chance and ordered it, and this is what I received.

It's a perfect color match.  The kit came with posts, springs, and all the little parts.  Luckily, the Gotoh tremolo was a drop in replacement on the Dixie Rebel.  I didn't need to change out any of the other parts.  

There was one problem though.

The Dixie Rebel is a thin bodied guitar so the Floyd Rose stuck out the back too far.  I checked the Gotoh website, and found out they offer this Floyd Rose with smaller block.

https://g-gotoh.com/international/product/ge1996t.html

So I'm kind of stuck with this for now.

Let me think about this for a bit.  I may get back to you in …. Part 2!!!!  But for the time being the guitar is pretty cool.  It stays in tune much better, and I can do all sorts of Dimebag squealies.  

Kids... The Great Overactors Of Our Time: An Easter Story

Back during the Easter holidays I was invited to a Easter/Spring Equinox/Ostara party.  It was like any other holiday celebration.  Everyone was invited.  There was lots of food.  And of course, there was an egg hunt for the kids.

 

Now I don't have kids so I haven't had to deal with any in a while.  But the kids there mostly, well, acted like kids.  It was just kind of the usual.  That is, until I spoke with one seven year old in particular.

I'm going to call him Steven.  I don't know why.  He just kind of looked like a Steven to me.  So he's talking to my friend Jeannie who is running the party.  He asks her when the egg hunt will be.  She says soon.

That's when I have to bust in with my Adrian sense of humor.  I say, "Well, we have to make sure the Spring Hare (Easter Bunny) has had a chance to poop all those eggs out.  You don't want to miss a few because you rushed him... er her?"

That's when Steven said something unbelievably  amazing to me.  It wasn't so much what he said but the way he said it.  I have to give him credit, his acting was right up there with William Shatner.

The next part I will write as if this was a novel.

Steven took a pull off his cigarette.  As he breathed out he spoke to me in a low voice.  "No man.  You just don't understand.  I know!  I know it's just a guy in a bunny outfit."  

I was so impressed with Steven that I had no reply.  He was simply amazing.  The sureness in his voice was unmatched.  Even though he was only seven, he knew that the Spring Hare was absolutely a guy in a bunny outfit.  Although he wasn't 100% right this time.  Namely because this time it was a woman.

Everything Will Kill You, And Other Things I Learned From a High School Play

When I was in high school the drama kids would put on plays like every other high school in America.  What I didn't know was the following:

1.  Kids in drama class are total, "Drama Lammas."  Let's just say more than the average student.
2.  Not all high school plays are created equal.
3.  Not all actors are created equal.
4.  Never underestimate the power of United States school system to sell you on complete bullshit.
5.  Seven years after Nancy Regan's, "Just Say No" campaign a lot of us were wondering if we were being told the complete truth.

But let me start at the beginning.  I was a high school sophomore when I attended this particular school play.  I didn't know it at the time, but it was going to be one of those plays they like to put on before homecoming/prom.  In other words, it was going to be a warning about all the terrible things that could happen to you at a party.

And that's where we were.  The play was set at a house party.  There were lots of kids with booze and drugs.  Basically, the night started slow, and then things took a dark turn as the alcohol and drugs started to take their toll.

The one thing I remember most of all, and what lead me to start writing this blog post was this particular character.  He was the flirty Spanish guy.  If you live anywhere in Florida this guy was in your class.  He never talked normally.  Everything was always sexual and flirty.  It got annoying really fast.

This guy was flirting with a girl at the beginning of the play.  But by the end of the play he walked to the edge of the stage.  That's when the lighting showed bars across his body.  Then he said those words I'll never forget...

"But I ended up raping that girl, and now I'm in prison."

I honestly thought, "Wait, what?  I don't understand.  How did he go from flirting to full on raping that girl?"  Which then lead me to thinking (before Ron Burgandy made it famous.)

Yeah, that really did get out of control.  I was fifteen when I saw the play.  I thought to myself, "Now, I've flirted with a few girls.  I never thought about raping them.  I think this is a bit of a stretch."

Now let me take a minute and state the obvious.  No, I'm not sticking up for rapists.  I saying there is a HUGE difference between flirting and raping someone.  If a man is flirting that doesn't mean that the next logical step for him is raping someone.  Again, I think the school system was trying to tell us something that wasn't true.

Here's some of the other highlights from the play.  There was another girl at the party who got hella drunk.  She ended up pregnant.  Okay, well that does happen.  What doesn't usually happen is that she ended up getting frustrated with the baby, and shook him to death.

That's right.  Because this girl drank alcohol, she 1.  Got pregnant.  2.  Killed the baby.  3.  Ended up in hardcore prison.  So the message of this play?  Don't drink or you'll go to prison?

Of course, there was the guy who didn't drink that much, but ended up trying to drive home.  Well, he ended up crashing his car, and died in a DUI accident.  Not to mention the other motorist he killed.  The motorist's family ended up suing the kid's parents, and left them penniless.

Let's see, I believe one of the person's there had an overdose while another went on to become a junkie.

As I kept watching more and more of the play I just kept thinking:

It was years later when Saturday Night Live had their "Drama Kids" skit that I remembered the play, and all those memories came rushing back to me.  I laughed my ass off at the SNL skit, but I still thought, "Damn drama kids."

Mirror, Mirror

Last year I decided to buy a few subscriptions to home craftsman magazines.  It was while I was looking through one of these magazines that I saw plans for building a old timey mirror.  I thought, "Hey, that doesn't look too hard to build!  I can make two of them for friends!"

So, long story short, I decided to build two mirrors.  One made of mahogany and one of maple.  What I didn't know, is that, I kind of suck at it.  Of course, I didn't know that then.  Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself.  It was my first attempt.

In the end I managed to get the frames somewhat straight.  But that's when the real trouble began.  I suck at finish work.  Remember how I said that I was reading that magazine last year?  Yeah, I started on this project last year, and I'm just now writing about it.  And I'm writing about it now because I just finished it.

I tried a couple of different finishes, and ended up stripping them off.  That took a while.  I gave the oil finish a long time to dry, and it never did.  Like I said, I stripped the finish down, and started anew.

That was when I was given advice by my Dad.  He had learned a new way to apply an oil finish.  Basically he took tung oil and added a citrus solvent from Odie's Oil.  It thins down the oil so it soaks right in.  I have to say the results shocked me.

I am honest, in that, I suck at finish work, but using this stuff was idiot proof.  It gave the wood a smooth oil finish, and I didn't have to wait months for it to dry.  I only wish I had this product decades ago.  But you know, you live, you learn.

Now onto the pictures.  These first photos are of the mahogany frame.

Here's the maple frame.

We'll fast forward past a lot of finish work.  Basically, it's just the frames hanging up and drying.

Next, I ordered the mirror's themselves from Holiga glass here in Lutz.

Next, I put lots of tabs around the back of the frame to hold the mirror safely.

And here's what they looked like once finished.  This is the maple mirror.

This is the mahogany mirror.

I gave the mahogany mirror to a longtime friend/lifesaver Paul.  Honestly, I probably owe him an entire household set made of out mahogany.  Yeah, it's true.

The maple mirror was a gift for my friend Jeannie.  She had a celebration last year.  I told her I was still working on her project, but it would be coming.  I was finally able to give it to her about two weeks ago.  I didn't know it then, but Jeannie loves all sorts of furniture.  So I guess you could call it serendipity that I made the perfect gift for her.  She was ecstatic with it.  

I'm glad the projects are now finished.  That means I never have to build another one again.  I kid, but not really.  It wasn't so much of a project so much as an albatross hanging around my neck.  But I will say this.  I have gotten better at finish work.  Thank you Odie's Oil.

I Made .... Another Table

To properly explain this post, here it's precursor.

I Made A Table!

Every month I try to build a table.  I ended up breaking my hand so my table making schedule has been off.  However, I managed to finish up one of small tables.  That's right.  I finished up table number three.  So what if I haven't finished up table number two?  I suck at counting sometimes.

Let's move on to the table.  First up I found a nice piece of camphor.

I decided that this would be perfect as an oval shape.

I wanted this to be very smooth so I had to fill in a lot of little holes and cracks.

Let's fast forward past a lot of sanding.  After that, it was time to add the legs.  I had a piece of mahogany that was perfect for the legs.

Fast forward a bit, and it's time for the finish.  I added four coats of a special mix of tung oil.  However, it wasn't shiny enough for me.  Since this had some nice flamed wood I really wanted it to shine.  So, long story short, I added seven coats of a special poly mix after the four coats of tung oil.

 After the final coat of poly I buffed out the table.

The funny thing is that I was able to craft the wood parts of this table pretty quickly.  It was all the finish work that took a long time.  However, I am glad I finally had the patience to keep adding the needed layers.  It really took this table to the next level.

Once my hand heals up I'm going to continue work on table number two.  That one is going to be a medium sized natural edge table.  Of course, I'm going to write a blog post about it.  I have a good feeling about that one.