A Sausage Canjo

This is really cool, a sausage can Banjo-Uke:


Being a vegetarian, I think if I made one, I would use a Christmas cookie tin. Also I would be tempted to try to put a resonator in the back of it instead of lunch, though a uke-lunch-box is pretty cool.

Don Ho sings Peter Gabriel's "Shock The Monkey"

Whoah.

Where Did George Washington Keep His Armies?

In his sleevies.

Ukulele Disaster

About five months ago Mike DaSilva gave Sophia an Islander to use to learn to play the Uke with me. Islanders are antique plastic Ukes from the 50s, that were unusually well made - they are plastic, but not toys. The instrument he sent was in really excellent condition. He is a really great guy, and makes really excellent ukes as well. One day far from now when I have the cash to spend on a hand made Uke, I am definitely buying a DaSilva. Anyhow, we have been playing it, and enjoying it a great deal. It has a fun plinky tone, and plays really nicely. It is nice enough that I take it to work with me sometimes to play in the cube as I sit watching computers running endless scripts.

Today I took it to work in a gig bag, then came home early, set the in the bag against the wall next to the garage door in the kitchen.

Cowboy, our dog, is unusually bright, and also unusually clumsy. Nerd dog.

At one point he wandered along and knocked over the Uke. I heard it, but was struggling to get info about what the kids wanted for dinner, and distractions can draw this out for hours. Since it was in a padded bag I wasn't too worried.

Unfortunately Sophie ran over to the pantry to look for items to eat and stepped on the Uke, which make an unpleasant crack.

I opened up the gig bag, and the Uke had cracked across the head a few millimeters above the nut. It was a pretty straight crack which didn't go near any of the pegs. The crack didn't separate the instrument into two pieces completely (at first), but it was hanging by a thread. Sophie was crying a great deal by this point, since she really loved the instrument, and understood that it was an antique, and not something you can just walk into a store and buy.

So I am seeing if I can get it back together. I glued it with model glue, and it fit cleanly, and then used a heated nail to flatten out the plastic that was sticking up over the crack edge in spots. After I glued it, I though about putting a rod in the neck (it is hollow), but it's too late for that now. Dang. I am thinking that maybe I could put a strip of metal over the crack, glue that down to add more sturdiness, and see if maybe it might hold under the tension so long as I kept it tuned to C and didn't use Nylguts (which seem to have a bit more tension). The crack is high enough that I think it shouldn't interfere with playing, and it is above the nut, so I don't think it shouldn't affect intonation.

Alas, it is awful. Sophie is very upset. I hope it manages to hold together.

Slow mail

The ancient coin that we ordered in the begninning of Dec, and which was shipped Dec. 9 showed up yesterday, Jan 22. Not sure what the story is there, though the envelope had been cut, so maybe the customs people were checking into it.

It is from the reign of Antiochus IV "Epiphanes" (God manifested), who was mostly responsible for the events surrounding Chanukah. He invaded Egypt but had to withdraw because of pressure from Rome. Probably in a bad mood after that, he despoiled the Temple in Jerusalem, put a statue of Zeus there, apparently forced Jews to worship Greek Gods, and prohibited circumcision. This went over poorly in Israel/Judaea. The Jews revolted, Antiochus lost the conflict with Judas Maccabee (Maccabee was a nickname meaning, "the Hammer"). Judas Maccabee then purified the Temple, an event upon which Festival of Chanukah is based. FWIW, Judas Maccabee "hammered" more Jews than Greeks in the revolt, as he took it on himself to slaughter Hellenized Jews as well as Greeks.

Pinewood Derby

The Pinewood Derby was yesterday. It turns out that Sophie's car was the fastest car in all the runs. It shot off the line ahead of the pack, and then flew down the track putting even more space between it and the other cars. It was sort of amazing. Max' car and Sophie's cars were in a lot of the same races. His was pretty fast, but Sophie's kept beating him (and all the others). Unfortunately certain other kids enjoyed pointing out to Max that his sister beat him. Her car won't be in the final tallies since cars that family members run don't count, but unfortunately Max was not pleased with the results. If you took Sophie's car out of the equation it looks like his car did really well, but that is small comfort. Hopefully he will do okay in the design stuff. Luckily, Sophie's car was not included in the design contest.

Max' Car:


Sophie's Car:

I am still a medical oddity

So after I got to the hospital, sat around waiting for aeons to get paperwork done, then got into the horrible hospital suit, got my IV, got blood drawn, got bloodwork done, then got told to wait an extra few hours, I ultimately got dismissed with no surgery, as the doctor had gotten very backlogged. I called and got it rescheduled, so I get to try it again on Feb. 11. I don't really have a good pithy thing to say here.

I am a medical oddity

Here is an image of the stone they are removing tomorrow:



You can see a high res image here.

They doctor mentioned that this was the type of thing they had images of in textbooks. The nurse was surprised that I could walk.

surgery on mon

On Monday I get to go to the hospital to have the doctor remove a bladder stone. The thing is 3.5 cm which is quite large. When I saw the Xray I was very surprised. It looks like I swallowed a quarter. I am trying to get a digital image of it somehow. We still have no idea why the sucker formed.

It is free floating in the bladder, so when it boinks around in there it can cause some pain/bleeding. When I was at Disneyworld I went on a lot of rides that flipped me this way and that, or exerted a lot of Gs. I went on the cool roller coaster simulator where you design your own roller coaster and then get in a maching the flips you around as if you were really riding it. I did it about ten times, and every time we tried to make a really extreme coaster design with lots of loops and corkscrews and so on. After about the fourth day of Disneyworld things were really bad.

New Thasos Trihemiobol

I won a very cool trihemiobol on eBay (a very small silver coin - about 11mm wide). It is from Thasos, an ancient city on an island off the coast of Thrace, and was issued about 411-350 B.C.

It shows a Satyr (anatomically corect) with a wine cup on the obverse, and an amphora (a very large jar used for transporting wine, oil, grain, etc.) on the reverse:


Thasos was known for using Satyrs on many of their coins. In some cases they depicted Satyrs ravishing nymphs. Those ones are a little more expensive.

I hope this one shows up in the mail.

US Geological Survey Images

This site has a collection of public domain images taken by the US Geological Survey from 1872-1991. There are a lot of really amazing images of the great quake of 1906 and many other items of interest to be found.

http://www.gliff.org/usgs/

Found on the ever brilliant BoingBoing, one of whose contributors, Mark F. if a Uke fan who also runs the also excellent Ukulelia.

Mouse Controlled Etch-a-sketch

This is very cool.

New (to me) ancient coin

I got a bronze Carthaginian coin off eBay a few days ago. It looks something like this:



The coin that we ordered from a Canadian dealer last month still hasn't shown up, we are thinking it might have gotten lost in the mail/grabbed by customs/something. Alas, it was such a cool piece - issued by Antiochus IV, the Greek king who (basically) started the Maccabean rebellion in Judaea. I am hoping it might show up one day, but it has been longer than a month since it shipped.