Mouse Clone

ASMW – The Auto Defiance

2010-03-10T20:01:12Z

I have been trying to get The Auto Defiance on ASMW FA for a while now. They are in the middle of a revamp of their website currently, so it will have to weight. They are my recommendation for this weeks ASMW.

Have a listen to Ghost Inside Your House. Post a reply about your thoughts. If you enjoy the music, swing over to Amie Street and pick it up.

Brought to you by: #ASMW Uber Tracker

Current Status of Glass Blowing

2010-03-08T21:51:59Z

I have been torching for about 2 months now. I have not really spent a great deal of time at the torch for pro long periods. I think currently my max time is around 2.5 hours at one time. I’m still playing around a great deal. I am really happy when something get complete and I like the results.

I’m getting ready to embark on getting an annealer though. Some of you may wonder what an annealer is. In case you are in that boat: An annealer is a type of kiln that is used to cool the glass properly so that the glass doesn’t stress and crack or break.

As people keep asking me: When are you going to start selling? Are you selling them yet? How much are they?

I keep telling them: When I get an annealer.

So I’m going to work on getting one. I have done a good bit of side work on computers. I’m hoping that it will all pay off. It is still going to take me about 2 months to get it paid off though. That is if life goes the way I would like it to, and in most cases that doesn’t happen.

I’m really looking into getting one from The Glass Hive. What one? The regular guy. I’m also thinking about getting the punty door added to it.

So I’m really hoping that I will have an annealer in about 3 months. Considering the build time on the annealer is about 3 to 4 weeks. From what I have heard about The Glass Hive’s annealers, they are good. They are also American Made, so that is a plus in my book.

This post was brought to you by HOPE. Not the hope that people placed in Obama, but the hope I have to be able to get an annealer.

Is a Health Care bill really needed?

2010-03-01T16:58:26Z

let me start off by saying that I do not have health insurance. I know that Kevin (a frequent commenter) doesn’t like the fact that I don’t have insurance. I make the money to pay the bills that come into the house. While I do not have the money to pay the bills in full every single time my wife or I visit the hospital, we do make the payments.

The government and President Obama, more so, wants to reform health care. The want people to have socialized medicine. The government wants to spend tax payers money more insurance. I feel that I pay enough taxes, and I shouldn’t have an increase in them just so they can have more bloated spending. I’m not even talking about the bribes that went on to get the first one though.

I was talking to a coworker today about it briefly. I wondered why the government wasn’t trying to get to the root cause of high prices in healthcare and health insurance. I mean surely if they can take the time to have a hearing about baseball and enhancement drugs, then surely they should be able to investigate why hospitals charge so much.

So I jumped on CNN really quick to see if there was any news about health care. I don’t look at the news very often, and when I do, I like to look around and see what Fox, CNN and others are saying. I just happened to go to CNN first this time. Here is the video that was on the front page today.

Just from this report alone $1000 for a tooth brush? Really. Is this what I pay for in health insurance? Wait what was that? Insurance companies don’t tend to look at the bills for anything under $100,000.00? We have a 10% unemployment rate in this country, why not put some of those people to work looking over the bills.

I see Job creation here. Hire people to work the bills under $100,000.00. This could save the insurance millions a year. Then you wouldn’t need a rate increase. Hospitals will have to stop inflating the cost of health care and stealing from insurance companies. Insurance companies would also be doing their job.

I’m sure that items under $100,000.00 don’t mean much. I would think that there are more cases under $100,000.00 than there is over. This could save the health care industry millions, and also save consumers millions in the process as well.

I think that the government has it wrong. I think the way to approach health care reform is to get to the root of the problem, COST. You can trim a tree all day and the roots of that tree will still mess up your sidewalk. The government is only trying to fix the effect. We don’t need an effect fix, we need a root fix.

ASMW – Rehab

2010-02-26T13:40:55Z

I am shocked to see Rehab on Amie Street. Why? I just never thought that I would see them there. I have searched several times for them and only today have I found them.

Now they only have one song on there. That is ok, I can dig that. I’m hoping that they will get more on there and I will be able to have that collection on Amie Street as well.

Because they only have one song on Amie Street, there is really only one song to play. The is Rehab and Sittin at the Bar. It is a favorite of mine. So I hope that you enjoy it.

Brought to you by: #ASMW Uber Tracker

Learning to fail

2010-02-23T13:41:42Z

I’m getting very good at failing when it comes to blowing glass. I spent last night tossing 2 pipes that failed in bad glass bin. Not much I can do with them yet. I’m sure that I will be digging back though that bin at a later date trying to make something out of the scrap glass.

Failing is not that big of a deal. I understand that not everything can go right all of the time. I’m also only 2 months into this hobby and I still have a long way to go. I read stories about people that have been working with glass for a few years still having pieces that fail. It is a weld that breaks, or colors that crack in the kiln. There are many things that just don’t work out for people, and other times they do.

I worked on a piece last night for about an hour. I wanted to fume it up and put dots all the way around it. So I got the fume on the glass, then went and put about 50 or more dots of clear on it. The result was that I blew to hard on a section and it killed the whole piece. That is what I get for trying to rush things.

I wanted the dots melted in so bad that I just figured that a bigger bubble would do the trick. Stretch out the glass so that I could condense it back down. I was right in the idea, I was wrong in how large the bubble in the glass got. So this resulted in a failed piece.

The next piece that I was working on cracked. I figured that I would draw some lines and melt them in. The problem here come in when the glass that you are putting lines on is not hot enough, long enough, while you are applying the lines. This will result will cause the glass to crack. Cracked glass is no longer air tight. In my attempt to fix the crack, I tore a large hole in the glass. Thus creating my second and final failed piece for the night.

I have good days and bad days when it comes to glass. There are times when it all just seems to flow right and others when things just fail. The more time I spend with it though, the less I seem to fail. The following image is something that I made that took about 45 minutes. People seem to like it. It is also one that is going in my collection. I will just keep it on the shelf to look at when I have bad days like yesterday.

The Prince of Pot – Going to Jail?

2010-02-19T16:54:30Z

Marc Emery has been fight the injustice of being jailed for smoking pot for a very long time. He has been angry at the way that governments have been run and what they have been doing to people over the years. Marc Emery is a lot calmer today.

Marc Emery is currently facing an extradition trial. He is about 100% positive that Canada will extradite him to the US for selling pot seeds. Why the US? He sold seeds to people in the US over the internet and though the mail. The US DEA wants him in jail for life.

According to the videos below, the money that Mark Emery has made off of selling the seeds has gone to help fight the injustice of jailing pot smokers. The money has been donated to political parties and other organizations. Marc Emery doesn’t have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts around the world, he gave it all back.

If Marc Emery sees jail time, it will more than likely be his last home. The US DEA will not let him back out. He has been fighting the US for a long time. I’m sure that if he was ever released, he would start back up against the US DEA and other political organizations that jail people for being themselves.

Marc Emery doesn’t believe that it is just a fight for the right to get high. He feels that it is an injustice to be jailed for smoking pot as well as other drugs. He doesn’t see why the US would rather jail someone than to get them help.

My question is: Does the US DEA and other political systems with in the US really feel that it is better to jail someone for their personal beliefs than it is to get them help?

More money has been spent on jailing drug offenders from the time of Nixon as president. Before Nixon, money was spent trying to help people over come addictions and face life.

Not everyone that smokes pot, or takes other illegal drugs, does so because they have had a bad childhood or something else. Some people smoke it because they just want to. They enjoy the relaxation that they get from it.

In my personal opinion, the US is a drug crazed nation. I don’t know how other countries handle designer drugs. Here in the US, we advertise the hell out of them. The FDA will put a stamp of approval on drugs that cause anal bleeding. Some of the drugs have been known to kill people. Yet these drugs are put on TV with happy people living vibrant lives and tell people to go ask your doctor if this drug is right for you. It might as well say:

Go ask your doctor if he will give you the drug along with the other drugs that you are taking.

It is ok to take these drugs because the FDA has stamped their ok on them.

and the: Go ahead and take these, everyone else with your issue is doing it. You don’t need help, you just need a drug.

Marc Emery fought for everyone else that wouldn’t fight. He has stood, and is still standing against giants. The US DEA wish that they could just have his head. The Canadian government is just going to turn him over to the US DEA for the slaughter.

You know, just watch the videos. If you don’t feel that what he has been doing was to help free people. Then there really is no hope for you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to smoke pot. You should stand up for those that do. Who knows, when you want someone to stand with you on an issue of injustice, there might not be anyone left to stand with you.

Please warm up already

2010-02-18T13:36:54Z

It has been cold for far to long. If global warming is happening, you will no convince me of that this year. The cold has just been hindering me from getting stuff done.

I like being outside. I like it even more so when I get to spend some time on the torch melting glass. I have tried to build it in to my daily routine. This way I do not get side tracked with video games and I can learn. Everyone keeps telling me that the best teacher is torch time. Well I’m not getting enough of it.

A few things have been hindering the process as of late. I have surprise party that I am going to tonight. The wife told me that I could just blow glass when I get home from that. I will more than likely not make it back in any good amount of time to get the torch fired up. It is about an hour away from the house. So even getting home at 10pm will not leave me that much time. I might force myself out into the cold that late no matter what.

Last night work needed to be done. I had some setup work for a client, which I’m very happy to get that done. I never mind taking the time out of what ever I’m doing for paying clients. Currently I only have 1. After finishing up that work it was time for a conference call. I was going to get ready to brave the cold for an hour or two when I got the call. The call was about an hour long, maybe a little more. By the time it was over it was close to 10:30. So no glass melting last night.

It might not seem like that big of a deal for most of you: 10pm 10:30pm. I’m sure that those are great times to get started on something. In fact they are wonderful times for me to work, if I didn’t have to get up before the sun rise. I personally would rather work from 10am to 10pm than work from 7am to 7pm. I know it is only 3 hours difference, but I’m just really not a morning person.

It also takes me a little while to get going. I have to decide what I’m going to do, see where I need to get started, and get started. All in all it takes me about 30 minutes to get ramped up. I would say that the more that I do it, the faster I will get at getting going. My mind will automatically get set on the task that needs to be done, and I will just get it done. This will make me also less bitchy about not getting time to do what I want to do.

I’m going to stop bitching now. I need to get some work done today. Attempt to make some people feel that they got just what they wanted from me. I also need to do a bit of reading and searching for some digital media that I can put on me phone about blowing glass.

ASMW – Valhalla Hill

2010-02-17T14:32:29Z

I was just looking for something to post up today for ASMW when I came across Valhalla Hill. I would think that most people know what Valhalla is, so I’m not going into much detail. If you don’t know, you really should look it up.

Valhalla Hill’s song Take It Slow reminds me of Atlanta Rhythm Section. ARS is a bad that I do not listen to a lot, but I was turned on to them quite a few years ago. So I really dig the sound, just not something I’m going to listen to all of the time; good sound none the less.

So have a listen and let me know what you think.

Brought to you by: #ASMW Uber Tracker

Atlanta Snow

2010-02-15T17:08:47Z

This past week I was sick, at least on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I finally got back to work on Thursday and Friday. Friday it snowed. I thought that the snow was wonderful. People in Atlanta freak out when any type of “Winter weather” happens.

I got off from work and went to 42 degrees to hang out with a friend until traffic got better and I-85 was no longer a parking lot. Traffic didn’t really clear up until after dark and it was still bad according to Google Maps. So I stayed the night with my friend and set out the next morning. I gave him a ride to work and though that I would record part of the trip back to 42 Degrees.

The snow was wonderful and covered everything in Decatur, Ga. I took my G1 and placed it in my visor and hit the record button. I hope that you enjoy seeing Decatur, Ga with snow. We went slow because most of the roads were covered in slush.

ASMW – Outlaw Nation

2010-02-02T16:41:03Z

How about some Reggae for this Wednesday. I have been looking for music to help me get in a rhythm when blowing glass. So I came across Outlaw Nation today. I enjoy some good beats that are steady.

So I do not want to keep talking about music and everything. You want to listen to some music. After all, why would you even bother reading this post.

Brought to you by: #ASMW Uber Tracker

Mouse Clone

ASMW – The Auto Defiance

Related Posts:

Current Status of Glass Blowing

Related Posts:

Is a Health Care bill really needed?

Related Posts:

ASMW – Rehab

Related Posts:

Learning to fail

Related Posts:

The Prince of Pot – Going to Jail?

Related Posts:

Please warm up already

Related Posts:

ASMW – Valhalla Hill

Related Posts:

Atlanta Snow

Related Posts:

ASMW – Outlaw Nation

Related Posts: