(no subject)
::heard somewhat far off and muffled::
...now where did i put that...
::shuffing::
hmm, havent seen that in a while ::blows off dust:: huh, cool
::getting louder::
trash... trash... junk... why the hell did i hang on to that broken shaver? garbage!
::thunk!::
wait! wait......
::brushes off odd little bits of fodder and junk::
ah-ha!! found it!!!
havent seen this journal in a while! its been a long and .... well, long year since i updated this thing.
first off, my road trip home rocked so much! i would definately do it again, but hopefully i wont have a 17 ft long u-haul truck behind me and a few more days to explore and sight-see. my route took me through colorado, new mexico, oklahoma, texas, oklahoma (again), arkansas, tennessee, kentucky, ohio, west virginia, pennsylania and finally ending at home in new jersey. a word of advice: dont eat at taco bueno and/or dairy queen in arkansas. because somewhere around kentucky i got this nasty stomach bug and those were the two last places i ate at. except for the jack-in-the-box i had in nashville, which was so damn good, i pray it wasnt from there.
anyway, there were two definate things that i wanted to do on my way home. 1 - visit my teacher ron ehlert (pronounced "you-lert") at his home in duck river, tennessee to show him my finished rifle, and 2 - visit my old nieghborhood in springboro, ohio. and thankfully i got to accomplish both! (and btw: in arkansas, there IS a town called cotten plant! if you listen to lewis black, you'd get the referance)
my friend/teacher ron ehlert came to trinidad last summer (summer '06) to teach two classes, one of which i took. he offered "building a flint lock from a kit" which was a two week course, and "building and decorating powder horns", a standard one week class which i took. ron was a major figure in the world of black powder guns and muzzle loaders (pre-1880s-ish firearms) and was a skilled gun maker who has made and sold several guns over his 30+ year career. he has also been to europe several times to meet and shmooze with other gunmakers, and to expand his craft, get more knowledge, guidence, etc and so on. well known and liked within the muzzle loading community, he was also the 2nd vice president of the national muzzle loading rifle association (NMLRA), a division of the NRA which deals only with muzzle loading firearms, both contemperary and traditional (ron being a major traditionalist). after seeing the parts with my rifle, he promptly asked me to sign up and join the orginazation, which i did! anywho, ron caught wind of my major project which was my wheel lock and wanted to see my progress and such. around wednessday afternoon, i want to say, i went over to the classroom where he was teaching and showed him the box-o-parts and the book that was my wheel lock. and he was taken back by my drive and interest for the old stuff. and the main thing was that he wanted to see that thing done about as much as i did, if not more so. so i asked if i could come in the classroom and work in it while he was teaching. and of course he said an enthusiastic yes. over the next week and a half, i swamped the barrel and inletted it into my stock blank, as well as some parts of the mechanism. then i had to put my wheel lock on the back burner for a bit as i took his powder horn class. which was a whole load of fun. after that ron left back home for tennessee, and i continued on with my summer and rest of the year. as you have read in my last entries of what else i did that year, i wont reiterate. as the year went on, i finished my rifle at litterally the 11th hour, i was doing the final touches on it on the morning of the final day of classes. but it got done and i got credit for it, it looks great, and best of all it works!! i wasnt able to fire it there, but i was able to fire it in the spring on a rifle range campout with the troop. which was an awesome experience to hear the "FFFTCRACK!!" echo through the pine barrens, as it probably hasnt been heard in over 400 years.
back with ron! i arrived in his little bum-fuck of a town in the middle of nowhere tennessee. he's 30 minutes from rt 40 (part of the old rt 66), and then another 10-15 minutes from the center of town. there isnt any cell phone coverage in duck river! which was a surprise to me, lol. anyway, i pull into his drive way to his place, and its a lovely little old tin-roof cabin set on a couple of acres, with a small pond (obviously man made, but still very nice) off to the side, and a small shed in the back where he works on his guns. he gave me the grand tour of his place, and showed me his shop in the back, and told me that the building his shop is was an old shed built about 100 years ago, and then moved to its current location behind his house. after the tour was over he turned to me and said very excited to me "now i want to see your wheellock!" lol. i laughed and said alright and got to unlatching the truck and finding the gun. i showed him one gun that i finished that he was working on currently which he complented and then gave back. by then i found my wheellock and put away the other gun. i picked it up, and handed the gun to him and he just looked with amazement at it. he's seen several wheellocks in his travels, and he was just amazed at what i had built. as he was looking at my rifle, i rooted through my boxes some more and dug out my powder horn, which was almost 90% finished when the class ended, but 100% finished when i showed ron then. he handed me the rifle and took my horn to look at it all carved and colored. and again with amazement it looked it over. i think the main thing that blew him away was the fact that i was so young and so interested in such an old craft and trade and ultimately showed such skill in it. i packed everything away in the truck, and ron was telling me that i should get going on making and selling wheellocks and horns, people he knew that he could contact and such, and how to get some things going. i latched the truck up and we went inside and BSed for a few more hours before ron kicked me out. it got dark and the road is narrow and winding, and plus i had a long ways to go still, so he insisted i start heading out. this was about 6-ish, i think.
as i was leaving, he said to me "you let me know when you start making horns; you're my competition!" i laughed and said i'll be sure to let you know. we wished each other good luck and happy holidays, and i headed out on the road again. i sent ron an email in january just seeing what he's up to and such, but he never got back to me. turns out later i found out after reading muzzle blasts, the NMLRA magazine, that ron had unfortunately passed away at the end of january. they had a nice memorial to him in the magazine and saying how much he would be missed and all that. and its so sad about him dieing, he was the man in the organization and contacts within it. but oh well, life goes on, you know? but its sad, it was almost 60, still a young guy. so much life to live yet. he will be missed.
back on the road, i go up though tennessee, and by now im feeling something not so great happening in my gut. i wont go into details to save you all the suffering, but it was getting uncomfortable. i get through to ohio to my old nieghborhood, and im feeling all kinds of crappy. i dont even know why i even looked for my old friends, but i did. for whatever reason i did. i went to my old street and noticed how built up the area had gotten since i had been there last (about 14-15 years ago). i go up to my old friend's house and ring the bell, still the same bell, same house, and same everything else. trees were a bit bigger, though, lol. and this person who (i hate to say this, lol) looked like a 13-14 year old boy answered the door. i asked him, is this the nelson residence? he said yes. so i started thinking 'did they have a son after we left here?' i got a yes, but by this point i figured he was actually a she, and my old friend kristen, lol. so i start playing a bit, and asking "are you kristen?" she got a surprised and odd look in her eyes and responded "noone has called me that in years, i usually go by kris" by this time she was thinking who can this person be. i turn to my old house and tell her i used to live right over there, and now she's getting dumbfounded and thinking "this cant be him, can it?" i finally have enough of toying with her and say its andrew! lol. her eyes widen and she is just so surprised, lol. she invited me in and we sat at the kitchen table and caught up a bit. turns out she's going to kent state in cleveland, soccer player for them, nursing major, origin of her shortened name (team had 4 or 5 kristens on it, she went by kris and it stuck). all this time, my stomach is gurgling and churning and causing me some nasty discomfort. im sitting there and then i feel it; its coming up in a bit. i excuse myself and throw up everything i had in the past day. made it all in, btw! lol. i tell her never to eat at taco bueno, and i felt better after doing that. needless to say, im mortified after doing that, and leave within 10 minutes of doing that. i go get some pepto, and some gatorade at the local supermarket, and then go find a motel and crash there. i get in there around 5-ish, get in my pjs, take some pepto, some gatorade, call mom tell her whats going on (mommy! i dont feel good!! was my actually converstaion, lol) and then pass out at 6. only to get up every hour to 90 minutes to go. each time taking another pepto and swig of gatorade. during later in the night, i had a really odd dream that i was getting the fuck kicked out of me by a street gang while i was working on my wheellock! lol. quite an odd dream, if i say so. then around 3 or 4, i get up and i feel it coming up again. i dont make it to the toilet, but i latch onto the sink with superhuman strength and power puke into it, lol. ya know the kind when all your muscles tence up. and after i was done (all water, btw, very little clean-up) all i could think of was a bill cosby stand-up rutine of the same topic which said "...and you wouldnt be surprised if your shoes came up!" which would have been impressive since i wasnt wearing any, lol. after that i flopped on the bed and slept soundly until 9-ish in the morning.
i left still feeling a little queesy and such, but i made the rest of the trip just fine. feeling great again around mid-pennsylvania. and then i got home, unpacked, got the truck back to the depot and came home to relax and show off my new toys to everyone.
i'd finish this with a wrap-up of the past year, but its late and im sleepy.
maybe tomorrow i'll finish, but maybe not. most likely later on this week i will.
auf wiedersehen!
...now where did i put that...
::shuffing::
hmm, havent seen that in a while ::blows off dust:: huh, cool
::getting louder::
trash... trash... junk... why the hell did i hang on to that broken shaver? garbage!
::thunk!::
wait! wait......
::brushes off odd little bits of fodder and junk::
ah-ha!! found it!!!
havent seen this journal in a while! its been a long and .... well, long year since i updated this thing.
first off, my road trip home rocked so much! i would definately do it again, but hopefully i wont have a 17 ft long u-haul truck behind me and a few more days to explore and sight-see. my route took me through colorado, new mexico, oklahoma, texas, oklahoma (again), arkansas, tennessee, kentucky, ohio, west virginia, pennsylania and finally ending at home in new jersey. a word of advice: dont eat at taco bueno and/or dairy queen in arkansas. because somewhere around kentucky i got this nasty stomach bug and those were the two last places i ate at. except for the jack-in-the-box i had in nashville, which was so damn good, i pray it wasnt from there.
anyway, there were two definate things that i wanted to do on my way home. 1 - visit my teacher ron ehlert (pronounced "you-lert") at his home in duck river, tennessee to show him my finished rifle, and 2 - visit my old nieghborhood in springboro, ohio. and thankfully i got to accomplish both! (and btw: in arkansas, there IS a town called cotten plant! if you listen to lewis black, you'd get the referance)
my friend/teacher ron ehlert came to trinidad last summer (summer '06) to teach two classes, one of which i took. he offered "building a flint lock from a kit" which was a two week course, and "building and decorating powder horns", a standard one week class which i took. ron was a major figure in the world of black powder guns and muzzle loaders (pre-1880s-ish firearms) and was a skilled gun maker who has made and sold several guns over his 30+ year career. he has also been to europe several times to meet and shmooze with other gunmakers, and to expand his craft, get more knowledge, guidence, etc and so on. well known and liked within the muzzle loading community, he was also the 2nd vice president of the national muzzle loading rifle association (NMLRA), a division of the NRA which deals only with muzzle loading firearms, both contemperary and traditional (ron being a major traditionalist). after seeing the parts with my rifle, he promptly asked me to sign up and join the orginazation, which i did! anywho, ron caught wind of my major project which was my wheel lock and wanted to see my progress and such. around wednessday afternoon, i want to say, i went over to the classroom where he was teaching and showed him the box-o-parts and the book that was my wheel lock. and he was taken back by my drive and interest for the old stuff. and the main thing was that he wanted to see that thing done about as much as i did, if not more so. so i asked if i could come in the classroom and work in it while he was teaching. and of course he said an enthusiastic yes. over the next week and a half, i swamped the barrel and inletted it into my stock blank, as well as some parts of the mechanism. then i had to put my wheel lock on the back burner for a bit as i took his powder horn class. which was a whole load of fun. after that ron left back home for tennessee, and i continued on with my summer and rest of the year. as you have read in my last entries of what else i did that year, i wont reiterate. as the year went on, i finished my rifle at litterally the 11th hour, i was doing the final touches on it on the morning of the final day of classes. but it got done and i got credit for it, it looks great, and best of all it works!! i wasnt able to fire it there, but i was able to fire it in the spring on a rifle range campout with the troop. which was an awesome experience to hear the "FFFTCRACK!!" echo through the pine barrens, as it probably hasnt been heard in over 400 years.
back with ron! i arrived in his little bum-fuck of a town in the middle of nowhere tennessee. he's 30 minutes from rt 40 (part of the old rt 66), and then another 10-15 minutes from the center of town. there isnt any cell phone coverage in duck river! which was a surprise to me, lol. anyway, i pull into his drive way to his place, and its a lovely little old tin-roof cabin set on a couple of acres, with a small pond (obviously man made, but still very nice) off to the side, and a small shed in the back where he works on his guns. he gave me the grand tour of his place, and showed me his shop in the back, and told me that the building his shop is was an old shed built about 100 years ago, and then moved to its current location behind his house. after the tour was over he turned to me and said very excited to me "now i want to see your wheellock!" lol. i laughed and said alright and got to unlatching the truck and finding the gun. i showed him one gun that i finished that he was working on currently which he complented and then gave back. by then i found my wheellock and put away the other gun. i picked it up, and handed the gun to him and he just looked with amazement at it. he's seen several wheellocks in his travels, and he was just amazed at what i had built. as he was looking at my rifle, i rooted through my boxes some more and dug out my powder horn, which was almost 90% finished when the class ended, but 100% finished when i showed ron then. he handed me the rifle and took my horn to look at it all carved and colored. and again with amazement it looked it over. i think the main thing that blew him away was the fact that i was so young and so interested in such an old craft and trade and ultimately showed such skill in it. i packed everything away in the truck, and ron was telling me that i should get going on making and selling wheellocks and horns, people he knew that he could contact and such, and how to get some things going. i latched the truck up and we went inside and BSed for a few more hours before ron kicked me out. it got dark and the road is narrow and winding, and plus i had a long ways to go still, so he insisted i start heading out. this was about 6-ish, i think.
as i was leaving, he said to me "you let me know when you start making horns; you're my competition!" i laughed and said i'll be sure to let you know. we wished each other good luck and happy holidays, and i headed out on the road again. i sent ron an email in january just seeing what he's up to and such, but he never got back to me. turns out later i found out after reading muzzle blasts, the NMLRA magazine, that ron had unfortunately passed away at the end of january. they had a nice memorial to him in the magazine and saying how much he would be missed and all that. and its so sad about him dieing, he was the man in the organization and contacts within it. but oh well, life goes on, you know? but its sad, it was almost 60, still a young guy. so much life to live yet. he will be missed.
back on the road, i go up though tennessee, and by now im feeling something not so great happening in my gut. i wont go into details to save you all the suffering, but it was getting uncomfortable. i get through to ohio to my old nieghborhood, and im feeling all kinds of crappy. i dont even know why i even looked for my old friends, but i did. for whatever reason i did. i went to my old street and noticed how built up the area had gotten since i had been there last (about 14-15 years ago). i go up to my old friend's house and ring the bell, still the same bell, same house, and same everything else. trees were a bit bigger, though, lol. and this person who (i hate to say this, lol) looked like a 13-14 year old boy answered the door. i asked him, is this the nelson residence? he said yes. so i started thinking 'did they have a son after we left here?' i got a yes, but by this point i figured he was actually a she, and my old friend kristen, lol. so i start playing a bit, and asking "are you kristen?" she got a surprised and odd look in her eyes and responded "noone has called me that in years, i usually go by kris" by this time she was thinking who can this person be. i turn to my old house and tell her i used to live right over there, and now she's getting dumbfounded and thinking "this cant be him, can it?" i finally have enough of toying with her and say its andrew! lol. her eyes widen and she is just so surprised, lol. she invited me in and we sat at the kitchen table and caught up a bit. turns out she's going to kent state in cleveland, soccer player for them, nursing major, origin of her shortened name (team had 4 or 5 kristens on it, she went by kris and it stuck). all this time, my stomach is gurgling and churning and causing me some nasty discomfort. im sitting there and then i feel it; its coming up in a bit. i excuse myself and throw up everything i had in the past day. made it all in, btw! lol. i tell her never to eat at taco bueno, and i felt better after doing that. needless to say, im mortified after doing that, and leave within 10 minutes of doing that. i go get some pepto, and some gatorade at the local supermarket, and then go find a motel and crash there. i get in there around 5-ish, get in my pjs, take some pepto, some gatorade, call mom tell her whats going on (mommy! i dont feel good!! was my actually converstaion, lol) and then pass out at 6. only to get up every hour to 90 minutes to go. each time taking another pepto and swig of gatorade. during later in the night, i had a really odd dream that i was getting the fuck kicked out of me by a street gang while i was working on my wheellock! lol. quite an odd dream, if i say so. then around 3 or 4, i get up and i feel it coming up again. i dont make it to the toilet, but i latch onto the sink with superhuman strength and power puke into it, lol. ya know the kind when all your muscles tence up. and after i was done (all water, btw, very little clean-up) all i could think of was a bill cosby stand-up rutine of the same topic which said "...and you wouldnt be surprised if your shoes came up!" which would have been impressive since i wasnt wearing any, lol. after that i flopped on the bed and slept soundly until 9-ish in the morning.
i left still feeling a little queesy and such, but i made the rest of the trip just fine. feeling great again around mid-pennsylvania. and then i got home, unpacked, got the truck back to the depot and came home to relax and show off my new toys to everyone.
i'd finish this with a wrap-up of the past year, but its late and im sleepy.
maybe tomorrow i'll finish, but maybe not. most likely later on this week i will.
auf wiedersehen!