I have discovered something

I have discovered a basic fear in the process of writing a book. Oh, there is the obvious, what if no one likes it?  All that work to fail?  That kind of reasoning has never stopped me before, mostly I just do it and learn as I go.  So far I have just written the first short chapter and my problem is I do not know where this is going?   Part of me says to outline it first, develop the story and discover the characters.
Surely the Author needs to know what is happening!  I do not know.  I don't do metal work that way.
I'll give the client a very rough sketch of the project but always tell them that it is only the measurements that are important and I don't guarantee the final product will resemble the sketch at all.  What  is important to me as the metal artist is that the final piece belong.  Comfortable where it ends up and looks as though it belongs there, might have always been there.  I seldom weld on a table and perfer my work to be fixed horizontally, fixed between steel posts in my shop.  Much like a painter I can stand back to examine and see what needs to be done.  Seriously, it talks to me.
     The trick for me will be to keep the passion going, not get hung up in rules or regulations or even the order of things.  Much of this tale I spin will be out of order but it is a first draft, unedited and we can make sense of it later, right?  There will be "real facts" to this story but I will change them to make my life and the telling easier on me.  The girl involved is somewhere in Europe and I don't even have a passport so I will put her closer to home where I can be a bit lazier and my Tom-Tom will be of some use.  Parts of the story will be easy, ideas right out of the newspapers.  I just have to find a connection.
   I really, really want your comments and feedback, ideas and contributions.  It is not the story of an ex-cop or a navy seal guy.  The blog world will have a lot to do with it.  You are my investigators and my resource.  When I discover mysterious things washed up on the beach, maybe you could suggest what it is that I have found and where the story needs to go?
    So I am throwing fear out the window and begining Feb. 1st on my new blog:
mybook-stonepost.blogspot.com/ we will begin. There really is no fear.  What is so cool is if this doesn't work we can just click "delete" and it will all go away!

Don't F&*k with My Friends!

I am a peaceable guy, much rather kiss than fight.  I love a good argument.  I look at everything with a critical eye.  I have a certain suspicion about everything.  I hunt for motives.  I follow the money.  I try to separate fact from fiction and am always trying to remove emotions from an argument.  I never, ever make an argument personal.  An attack against a person always ends a discussion one way or another.
   I love my country and am critical of it at the same time.  It is one of the few countries in the world where people are attempting to break into, not leave its borders.  To imagine the World without the United States
is just imponderable to me.  Oh, we have made mistakes, that is for sure.  Done some things that maybe we shouldn't have and didn't do others that maybe we should have.  We do not conquer countries nor occupy them for long.  We liberate them and leave, hoping a chance for freedom will ignite the flame of liberty.
Some are suspicious of our military budget, huge, I admit but we have the military budget of the entire free world.  In the effort to free Lybia from the clutches of Gadafi the NATO forces lead by France ran out of ammunition after only three days!!!  Much of the world can laugh and be critical only because we are in the room.
   I like this country and don't agree with everything it does.  I like our elections, our free exchange of ideas, even some our our crazy candidates who run for office.  I like the Teabaggers and disagree with most of them.  I like the ultraconservatives and disagree with all of them.  I have friends of every persuasion.  When you are in a bar fight and someone comes to your aid, you never stop for identification.  I separate people from ideas and I support the right to every idea.
   Sometimes in the Blog World and sometimes in the real world, people will confuse their arguments or get on weak ground and do the equivalent of throwing stones.  It is the same as admitting that you have no argument, no real basis, no intellectual proof, no historical suppositions, so you are reduced to attacking the person.  Pretty weak.  I have no respect for that.
   We have lost a friend blogger this week.  Someone attacked her personally.  I have always believed that if you draw a circle limiting my access then I will draw a bigger circle to include you.  But if you pick on my friends, then you are picking on me.  If you want a fight, well then, here I am!

My Happier Stuff is HERE

I'm fixed!

When I first got this computer I was fifty times its age, now, ten years later I am only six times older than it is.
Time flies, huh?  With this math soon we will be the same age!  It was a junker when I got it, way past middle school, old and slow.  It was good in its day but the average cell phone has more memory now, faster, better, more.
   It was "top of the line" when I bought it for my daughter when she went away to college and cost a pretty penny, lots of them in fact, about $2,000.  Four years ago when she went to Law School she needed a laptop and found one for $750 that was way better, faster, more!  Fewer pretty pennies too.  This one, the one that I am using wasn't worth anything, not a plug nickle!  So it is in my shop, dirty, yes, filthy covered in steel dust.
   It can still do more than I can do with it.  I have discovered though that the damn thing needs a periodic
cleaning.  Every discovery I encounter, every google search, each website I visit places "cookies" in my computer.  They know who I am and what I did last summer!  They know everything about me, too much it seems. I had 25,000 cookies all at once and they were fighting each other for supreme cookiness (spellcheck says "cockiness" but what does one call the supreme cookie?)  They don't share, or they do, I don't know.
But they were fighting and that is what didn't allow me to comment on any blogs!
   Barbra Joan, my computer advisor, life skills teacher, guru, Gypsy Friend, solved my problem for me with her expert diagnosis:  clean the cache!  Like I'm supposed to know what that means! Somehow I did it and all's well that ends well.  I am back in business, watch out I will be commenting like a mad man now!

Something is Broken!

For the last several days I have not been allowed to comment on anyone's Blog!  That is just so no like me.  I like a fight, I like to compliment, nudge and encourage. I want to participate; I want to play too!
"Blogger" tells me I have to "sign in" and I dutifully do, several times, carefully monitoring each keystroke for errors, assuming the problem is mine.  I am thinking "I did it!" and go on to write a nice, sometimes lengthy,
non-sensical comment like I sometimes do.  I post as my "google account" and even get to type in the secret word I sometimes admit I have trouble seeing and it is always coming up an "anonymous", won't post and tells me to sign in.  I did this six times yesterday, one after the other and nothing worked.
   I think this began when I came across a blog from China.  Purportedly written by a fifteen year old girl with a sense of humor, as if China even had school girls!  I am sure it must be written by a committee, gone through all kinds of channels and censorship's before any kind of approval.  I am surprised she is not in some sort of reeducation camp by now.  It is interesting how we get images of other cultures in our heads. Hard to imagine Italians without Pizza or gondolas, Americans who are not fat, Germans without beer, or a single Chinese school girl, one little girl from the Billions in Corporate China!
   Interesting how it is the Internet and Blogging where she will discover herself and in doing so we will discover her, and separate her from Chinese food and masses of people, rickshaws and misguided images.
   If I failed to comment on your blogs recently it is because I am incompetent,  can't get past the "sign-in"
and I hope this will just all go away and resolve itself.  In the meantime I will listen silently, screaming inside because I really wanted to say something!
You can find my work HERE.http://www.picturetrail.com/slate

Feigning Interest...

I sometimes wonder is anyone really gives a rip about what I do, my art, my politics, my garden, what I am thinking.  I have told many people about my Blog, my websites, how to find me.  This information is on my business cards.  I sometimes wonder what an old friend might think of me now?  I sometimes wonder what my brothers might think?  I wonder if a past customer would be interested in a current project?  I have relatives I never see and wonder about them sometimes too.
   In a way the Blog World is a little like "Facebook" but more in depth, a little less quick, more of an effort because you can't just "like" it or "unlike" at a click of the mouse.  Blogging encourages commentary and reflection, criticism and praise, involvement.  Blogging is "quiet fishing" and a reason I sometimes don't write too many personal e-mails to the people who know me.  It is a journal of what I am up to, what I am thinking about, my trials, tribulations, successes, failures, the weather, my garden and what gets me going in the morning.
   I can say stuff in my Blog I would never say in person.  That would be just too much about 'me', a "look at what I can do" kind of conversation, an invitation to feigned interest.  In blogging I can just throw it all out there and you are free to catch whatever may hold your interest, comment or not, digest or ignore.  I have no way of knowing if 'this friend' or 'that friend', someone lost in my life or a newly discovered person reads this or not.  I can count the "hits" and I know what Country you are from but that is about it
   My goal is to say something, show you something, be critical enough to irritate you, positive enough to inspire you and make you wonder enough to leave a comment.
   It is interesting how a little thing, something in passing, can stop you from the road you are on and set you to another path.  I remember distinctly, over twenty years ago, I was working on a remodelling project for a friend of mine when he showed me a brochure about a "Concrete Artist" living and working in Portland, Oregon.  The impression I was left with wasn't so much about how great his art was but that he made a living from it.  That was his job.  He was an artist and made a living at it.  What an incredible idea!  I have worked in that direction for over twenty years!
More of what I do is HERE.

100 Posts!

I think really 100 posts have come and gone. According to my records this is #188 but so many of you are under the impression that this is to be 100 so I'll pretend it is.  I thought of doing a review but quite frankly I have written posts that I do not care to revisit although I have written others that I have read several times.
That just means I do not understand them yet and I am trying to find what I missed.
   I never edit these blogs and only on occasion do I ever bother to spell check them. I spew the words out as if making peanut butter sandwiches, "chumming," as Andrea has accused me of, trying to find an idea worthy of exploration, often in search of my own opinion.
   I took this right back to the third grade, my first kiss, my first girlfriend and it was there that I realized that I am not telling you everything!  It is the luxury of Internet Blogging, selective memories and choosing how to tell a story.
   It is a strip club in a way and I have slowly revealed myself to you.  You know about my family, my daughters, my garden, my welding, my art, my cancer.  Battles fought and won.  I've told you how I met my wife, the very same English Princess who has been by my side for well over forty years!
    You know I am a political creature.  I couldn't keep that out at all.  You know I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and shouldn't be that way at all.  You know I have the Best Health Insurance possible and my bout with cancer was 99% covered through the policy I have been paying for, one way or another, for years.  You know that despite this I am in favor of National Health Care.  I think we should protect our own.
   I have taken you into my world of art, heavy metal! and even my attempts at color on canvass!  I have joked with you, yes, prodded a bit, encouraged I hope.  Shining a light on someone else is one of my favorite things to do.
   The most amazing thing is I have met friends here, good friends, intimate friends, close and caring.  I have discovered that when we take our hats off, drop our defenses, let go our pretenses, we are so very similar.
Most of us want the same things, get discouraged at the same obstacles, overcome the same kinds of challenges, find relief in laughter on this long dark road we are on.  We like dancing in the moonlight, at least when we think no one is watching!
   I have followers from countries that I never knew existed and have difficulty in pronouncing.  In one day I can visit other blogs, travel about the world and realize that we are the same.  If we could have tea together this would be a far more peaceful planet.  Blogging is like having a "pen-pal" and allowing other's into the conversation.  Sometimes we laugh together and sometimes we have a great after dinner conversation!
   We learn a lot about each other and in discovering more about you I discover more about myself.  Yes, I have had that feeling, that emotion, that triumph, that failure and got up again.  In your descriptions I learn more of my own.
   100 posts or 188?  I know I have repeated myself, shown the same art twice, the same stolen kiss over and over, caught the same fish again and again but maybe there is a different way to explain the same story?
Like a novel with each chapter told from a different narrative we change a little bit each day.  As we go down this road we gather new evidence, maybe see with clearer eyes and look upon the past from a different perspective. 
   I enjoy blogging but it is far more difficult than when I began.  I was like popcorn then, couldn't keep me in the kettle!  Now I am like a pot on simmer, not lukewarm, that is not me at all, but on the back burner, contemplating.  I still "chum", thanks Andrea for that oh so true analogy about myself.  Sometimes I spew and bubble over and I admit I am after a reaction.  I want to know what you think!
Visit me HERE!

Kitchen Chatter

     Most Blogs are not earth shaking and mine isn't either. Followers drop in and drop out, gain or fain an interest, sometimes happily join in on the conversation and other times slink away, thankful to be unnoticed.
Some get literally thousands of "hits" and dozens of comments and I wonder what their trick of attention is?
    I am reminded of my High School Days, the Rally Squad and the Popular Students and wonder whether there is a connection?  I never learned the art of being popular.  I thought I got it right when I joined Facebook and had hundreds who befriended me!  How did they even know me I wondered? Sure, why not!
I would always click "yes" and then actually and really go to the trouble of checking them out on their page and I was always left wondering, why did they pick me?  I left "Facebook" because of the Movie, the advertising and they started to put restrictions on me!  Not ONE of my "friends" has ever written me, wanting an update.  They were "Facebook" friends and not in the real world.
    Blogging is a little different and I really have a handful of friends who will write me personally or leave a personal comment to me for the world to see.  That is pretty amazing and it is a slow gradual process, like strip poker or "truth or dare".  We learn to be comfortable with trust.
   Andrea has me figured out.  I am fishing in a very big pond and sometimes she has caught me "chumming",
throwing bait into the waters to see what I could catch!  I do this not out of any disrespect but because I am not a consistent fisherman, not familiar with these waters and have an arsenal of bait.  Sometimes in disturbing the lake the really big fish will come to the top.  I can fish naked (fly fishing, not with worms!) and that doesn't bother me.  It seems as though I talk about a million subjects, sometimes a scattered shotgun approach to fishing.  None of us are single people.  We are complex human beings.
   In High School I only had two friends.  Half of them are dead (I could tell that story!) and the other guy
just drifted and we went different ways.  I belonged to no clubs, not really athletic, not much of a team player at all.  I had one girlfriend although I never kissed her and she killed herself, there is another story!  Most of my stories I have told so I admit I am now left with chumming with dynamite!  Sometimes that works and other times it fizzles.  I admit that I am after reactions.  Stirring the waters.  Unbalance in an unbalanced world.  In reality I am after what you are after, sure footing on the slippery rocks.
    I am not good at kitchen chatter, just being pleasant and oh so nice.  I wonder what would happen if you took all the names from the comment section and removed them?  Much like a final exam where the papers are numbered to prevent prejudice, would they be interesting?

 One of eight varieties that I grow in my garden

    Gardening season is approaching, so be looking for that as a subject line.  I consider myself an expert on heirloom tomatoes and organic gardening.

Ladies' Club?

I have been told that this blogging world is a ladies' club, that we are interested in "niceties" and tea, luncheons and grandchildren.  I don't believe it is that limited, a place where the women talk in the kitchen and men are drinking their brandy by the fire, talking "serious stuff", concerns of the day, political things and "men talk."
   I don't belong to any "political blogs", only this one and I follow my followers and occasionally reach out and drag another into this discussion.  I don't think of women as the kitchen staff, unread, without an opinion,
and tied to the stove, only allowed to talk of cooking, sewing and children.
   We all enter a conversation from some vantage point.  We can read the very same book but we never leave our experience.  Our point of view filters what we see and this is what makes life interesting.  If we all got the same thing from the same experience, well then life would be pretty dull.  The best conversations are not with people who agree with every thought we have.  Sometimes, in disagreement, we can even discover that our experience was limiting, somehow blocking what everyone else could see clearly!  The idea behind a discussion is to allow another your experience because in this life you only have time to digest your own.
   I choose this blog to express my views because mostly I am an artist and it is this artist's view that I bring to the table.  If we ever me an extraterrestrial, who would you want to represent us? A math genius or scientist?  A politician? Maybe a poet?  How about a mother?  Well, that's my point exactly.  Women have a unique view into this history of mankind and it is not limited to sewing!  In fact, sewing has been a terrific inspiration!  Do you realize that it was women with their sewing, working with cloth, designs on pottery and their own spiritual quest that created Abstract Art?  Yes, it is true.
    I enter the conversation as an artist and a cook.  I think some of the best art in the world is meant to be eaten.  Surrounded by good smells and designs on the pottery.  There is a conversation here that has been largely ignored, given over to the men by the fireplace having their drinks.
    Sometimes conversations become political and it is safer to make bread, wear a burka, remain without an opinion, change the subject, be fearful of the secret police, worry about what people may think, leave that to the husband, or think we are powerless.  Or, even worse, think that is has nothing to do with us!
    I have a point of view.  I am reasonably well read and I am a welder.  I am fairly conservative, really I am!
Except for three years as a school teacher I have been self-employed all my life.  I am a businessman.  Most of my life I have had employees, as many as fifteen people working for me.  Over the years I have been to every single one of their homes, seen their children grow, eaten their food, seen them cry, helped them find laughter, encouraged them in their journeys.  The better they became, the better we worked as a team.
    I have a point of view.  I have two daughters.  In some ways the world is better for them and in some ways it is worse.  They are independent young women and I am so very proud of them.  They are "out of the kitchen", not barefoot and pregnant; they can vote, are free to express their opinion.  Both are world travellers, educated way beyond me and even have "good jobs".  They can have conversations in any room in the house.
    Yes, I could go to a political forum and probably argue my little heart out but that is not really who I am.
I am an artist, a welder, a gardener (Spring is coming and I will be talking about my garden soon!), a businessman, husband, father, friend, and I am comfortable in the kitchen and, on occasion, like to drag you into the fireplace room!
My Other Blog is HERE.

My first real date...

     Here is a topic we could talk about.  Do you remember your very first date?  I do, in bits and pieces anyway.  We met at a play, a series of skits actually, high school kids being serious.  I was in one of the skits
and that is pretty foggy to me except I remember very well the make-up I had to wear.  A huge mass of gelatin something to resemble a scar on my face, oh and a pillow under my coat, I was the "Hunchback of Notre Dame"!  I don't even know what she was doing there, maybe lighting or costumes.  She had long black hair and just a little make-up to highlight her eyes, make her look interesting.  I don't remember if there were tryouts or even if we actually put this play to work in front of an audience.  I would go back there the next day just to see if she were there.
    One night after practicing whatever it was we were doing, it was a hot summer night, I remember that, I asked her if she wanted to go to the University with me, just to walk.  Maybe get some coffee.  "I'll go in costume, we will advertise this play!"  I remember saying that.  It was not far; it wasn't a long walk.  I hobbled beside her, hunched over like I supposed a good hunchback would do.  People, students I am sure, passed us by and gave us plenty of room!  I am sure it was quite a scene:  a hunchback with a huge scar on his face and the most beautiful girl in the world.  Seemed like that to me anyway.
     We came upon a group of students entering a building for some lecture on something and we followed them in.  Sat in the back row, me hunched over and she like my caretaker.  It was a riot and I was playing the fool, drooling and making weird noises.  You could smoke in those days, anywhere, right in a classroom if you wanted.  I remember lighting a cigarette and first puffing a couple times, then putting it out in this mass of jelly on my face!  I know how to impress dates!  It was funny when we left.  Well, funny and I was damned well frightened.  She was walking about ten paces ahead of me and I was chasing after her when four college kids came to her rescue.  They surrounded me and it seemed they would be happy to beat me up!  I told them we were just joking, having fun.  I told them about the skits we were doing.  I was frightened and talking pretty fast, "please tell them you know me" I pleaded!  "I have never seen him before in my life."
That is exactly what she said.
   Our real "first date" wasn't for another week and I remember it well.  My dad had an MG, a little black convertible with red leather upholstery and he let me borrow it.  It was dirty and dusty on the outside and I parked it right on the front lawn, just drove it over the concrete driveway and into the grass.  She came over early that day and we were going to wash it.  I remember writing "Miss 1966" in the dust on the car's side.
That was the year and she was laying across the back of the car like a beauty queen on a parade route. Actually throwing kisses!
     We washed the car and later went to a little pizza place on the campus.  I remember distinctly talking about sex.  I couldn't have said much because I didn't know much about it.  I am sure I lied.  What I do remember is we finished eating and it was a hot summer night and the top was down and we decided to drive through the downtown section before heading home.  Kids do that, want to be seen with a cool girl in a cool car.  So we are downtown and she is sitting next to me, not in her seat with a seat belt on, but on a pillow, right next to me.  We are laughing and being silly and mostly, she is right next to me!
     Somehow and I really don't understand this, the conversation turned to other girls, she thinking I am interested in all girls in a generic sense.  I am denying this of course with all of my heart.  "Oh, yeah," she says, "what about THAT ONE!" pointing to my far left way over on the sidewalk.  Well, like an idiot I turned to look.  No one was there and I crashed into the car ahead of me.  My first date and my first traffic accident and I am trying to kill this girl I so wanted to fall in love with!!!   It was a tiny car and the whole front end of it was smashed.  I didn't even notice that.  She had blood all over her face!  Her head smashed into the rearview mirror!   The car was sort of drivable in a wobbly way and I raced to the hospital, actually going maybe 70mph.  In the city.  I parked the car in the front lawn of the hospital and carried her into the emergency room.  I was shaking!  The doctors took over (three stitches was all but it looked much worse)
and I had to call her dad!  Then I called my dad!  His car was a total wreck.  Her dad took her home. My dad took me home in a taxi and the wrecker took the little black MG to the wrecking yard and that was my first real date!  We are still friends and I hope she gets a laugh out of this.

A World of our very own...

     I reread my blogs once in awhile to see what I have said and I reread all the comments to see what you have said.  I check up on you too, wondering who is this person who stopped by to say hello?  I have made lots of friends here from Iceland to Australia, Europe to India, my neighbors in Canada and all over the world.  It is a nice thought to think if I ever travelled again I would have friends there and conversations.
    Some stop by and never say "hello" and I wonder what would I have to do to interest them?  How could I expand this meeting of friends?  I talk about everything here and cancer on my other blog, so I think I have the bases covered.  Life, living, death and taxes, lost loves and new ones, metal art and my newly discovered interest in painting.  I have even tried arguments, joining both sides in a fight, just to discover your view!  I have fought with Art Historians, well, teased them anyway, and posted my favorite recipes.  It is interesting how recipes get more comments than a good fight! 
    I read some blogs about shopping and what someone ate for lunch and these just about put me to sleep. It makes me think what is really important about life?  I read somewhere that if humans were removed from this planet the earth, our planet, would be just fine!  Go about its business in maybe a cleaner fashion?  If the insects and spiders were removed the planet, our ecosystem would collapse!  And we would all die!  Maybe that will be the end?  It seems that we secretly want it.  Only wolverines and humans destroy their own nests.
I like blogs that question.  Blogs that wonder about the sensibility of things. 

     I wonder why cartoonist are the quickest of all artists?  I have seen no really great art, or even much little art addressing "The Great Oil Spill".  Lots of cartoon art on this but I am hunting for that beautiful butterfly drenched in oil, the art we have made of this earth.  In the future art historians will say that this polluting degradation of the planet and maybe our extended continuous wars were the defining moments for artists in the early 21st century.  But I don't see it, except maybe to escape from it all in a digital art madness creating colorful designs and continuous patterns.  Maybe that's it.  The madness of a world gone berserk has reduced us to painting simple flowers.  A wish the world weren't so complex.

It is a Small World

I do admit that I love the Statistics part of this blogging world, especially the World Map.

Countries turn Green when someone from there looks at your blog. It is a greening of the world and people of artistic persuasion can check in with each other. We are not alone by a long shot.

Your art may be different from mine and in fact because of the nature of artists, for sure it is.

We are all trying to make something, express a joy, uncover a tear, find beauty in the common

or wonder at the unusual.

It is easy for America and Canada to turn green I have a lot of friends on this continent but I am acquiring others! Australia turns green and countries in Europe and Nepal, India, Pakistan and Russia! I don't know you by name unless you leave a comment but I know of your visit and that we are kindred spirits, always hunting for a little light in the dark and a friend with whom

to continue this journey.

Thank you all who visit and especially those who stopped long enough to say "I was here".