Thursday, October 6, 2011
Today I finished making the molds I started yesterday and they turned out perfectly. I haven’t had time to cast much, just a single proof-of-mold (and these are all signed and numbered runs of 12), but I’m happy to say that everything turned out perfectly — getting a vacuum chamber was a perfect investment — so I now have six new designs of zombie rings, a new skull ring, and I’ve also put the Nibbler (of Futurama fame) ring into production as well. Here’s a teaser, but you’ve already seen the sculptures so it’s no surprise for regular readers:
I can’t believe it’s only a couple days before we leave for the Cayman Islands. I’m very excited. It’s been a long time — a very long time — since Caitlin and I have taken a vacation like this together, just us, so on that level it’s a very special treat for both of us. I’m also hugely looking forward to snorkeling and the submarine ride. As much as I can feel myself ticking toward “the end”, I am really looking forward to the next few months and I hope I live long enough to do everything that’s planned. And I’m looking forward to the food on this trip — on our Cozumel trip (which Nefarious is coming on as well) we’re at an inclusive resort, but for this trip we’ll be eating in the community. That said, the muscles of my face have just started being affected and a couple times now it’s been surprisingly painful to eat because of what a difficult process chewing becomes…
Shane spent a few hours this afternoon tattooing me and I couldn’t resist taking a peek under the bandage to show you the work that was done on the robot. Next will be the partially ruined buildings, ground troops, and UFOs — with any luck fitting a session somewhere into November. Hopefully this is healed enough by the time we hit the beaches in the Cayman Islands. I’m sure it will be. The last few times I’ve been tattooed I haven’t gotten a scab or even much peeling. I don’t know if that’s a remarkable recommendation for Shane or if it has to do with the changes in my body. I don’t know if I like or dislike that it doesn’t really hurt much to get tattooed. I shouldn’t say that it doesn’t hurt, because it hurts plenty in a way, but it is so much less than the pain from walking or sculpting that it’s almost not worth noticing. In a way that’s nice and in a way it is horrifying because it gives an objective reference point (rather than the overused and reality-disconnected “rate your pain on a scale of 1 through 10, 1 being the least…”) that contextualizes with real world reference points exactly how unpleasant things are.
Other than that, I have some new ring designs that I want to get the molds started for (or finished) tomrrow, and I have some shipping to do (I’ve been staying on top of shipping jewelry, getting it out within the day in general), then I’ll go and cast my election vote early, I have to get a doctor’s letter for traveling with my medication, and… Let’s see… Other than that I’m very excitedly waiting for my 3D Printer/Router to come in the mail. I was one of the early crowd-funders on the Sumpod project so I’m quite eager now that it’s finally been shipped — it’s sort of like a much prettier RepRap. It can do dual head plastic printing (as in two color) and also has mounting for a Dremel so you can use it as a simple 3D milling machine. I’m looking forward to not just being able to create plastic objects, but also carve down wax for jewelry making.
It’s been fun selling some rings via Etsy — surprising to me as well which rings sold first by the way — and getting to see them in traditional ring gift boxes (that’s how all the jewelry ships — in a nice box suitable for gifting or long-term storage, not just a cardboard box). I have a decent number of new designs on the way as well. The stuff below are clay and in various stages of designs. The skull ring (bottom center), which is sort of a “low bulk” version of the Brainiac design has just been started and I haven’t had a chance to do anything but rough out some teeth and squeeze out the general shape. The zombies (seven new ones, two half-face and five full-face) are much complete and I’ll probably mold them in the next couple of days, and the Nibbler (FUTURAMA, middle right) ring is pretty much good to cast.
On Monday I had an appointment with a neuromuscular and myopathy expert — in a way a follow-up because it was the same doctor that first figured out my diagnosis, which was good because it meant he didn’t have to re-familiarize himself with a rare disease (and he’s a nice guy that seems compassionate). He did order some bloodwork looking for some long-shot protein abnormalities which could give us a few unexpected treatment options, but unsurprisingly, he’s seconding the opinion that we are out of treatment options. I don’t really like the idea that it’s all downhill from here without repreive. Feels like a difficult thing to be optimistic about. Carving the stuff above has been a slow process because my hands hurt when I work on them (assuming they’re strong enough in the first place). Hopefully there’s something positive on the medical horizon that I’m not seeing yet.
But I do have positive stuff on the non-medical horizon. I’m trying to fill as much of my calender with excitement as I can. It goes a long way to helping convince my doctor that I’m not about to pull the plug on my life-support machines (and maybe convince me too) — I’m always paranoid of the consequences of speaking candidly, because I have a profound dislike of being licked up, even “for my own good”. Anyway…
That picture of a shipwreck was taken from a submarine at 100ft depth. It’s one of the many fun things (and something I’ve never done before) that Caitlin and I might be doing next week in the Cayman Islands. I haven’t been there in years — which reminds me, I’m finally getting tattooed again tomorrow (reminds me because last time I was in the Carribbean, so was my tattoo artist Shane who joined us) — and I can’t wait. I read that it’s one of the best place in the world for snorkeling (which I love doing and is one of the last physical activities that I can still enjoy) so I’m really eager to go. We leave in just under a week!!! Woo woo! And then after that I’m going to go visit Nefarious again, and then all of us are going to Cozumel in November… Christmas vacation isn’t planned yet but it might be another visit to Costa Rica. Anyway, there is still a lot of nice stuff on the horizon, and I do hope we get to enjoy it.
Oh and I seem to be cursed with transformer problems lately — the USB/charging cable for my tablet blew up on my way home from visiting Virginia (a big burn marrk on the tablet side of the cable, but luckily only the cable and transformer seemed destroyed with the tablet surviving). I got it replaced after checking at the tenth possible store… A while back I lost the batterly charger for my Canon Rebel SLR, which even though it’s very old at this point still takes far better pictures than most modern mini cameras, so I went to Future Shop where they offered to sell me a generic for $80. I declined after looking on Amazon and seeing that I could buy a charger and an extra battery for under $10. I checked Henry’s (a bigger camera shop here in town) and they wanted $80 (and no free battery), so I did the online order, which came today. Fifteen minutes later I heard a loud pop and smelled burning plastic. Argh. It’s dead. The battery still works, but I have no way of charging it. It was so cheap that it’s not worth the expense of mailing it back, but still, I don’t like getting ripped off, so I hope I can just convince them to replace it.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Well, there’s still plenty of clean-up to do but the store guts are in place. If you want something special, if you want something changed, if you want a discount that you think I promised you, well, please go ahead and write me. Thanks for being patient. As you surely see, I’ve so far only added 64 items so there is still a lot to go in a variety of categories. I’ve only posted some jewelry, so there are still candles and soaps and more to add. Hope you like it.
Now to enjoy my birthday with Caitlin.
Oh, and I watched a great zombie movie yesterday, which is sadly less common than I’d like. It’s called “The Dead” (2010) and it’s perhaps the first African zombie movie I’ve seen, filmed in Ghana and Burkina Faso (post-production is done in the UK). The slow greyish zombies have a sort of voodoo African feel (and some icky-great effects of one zombie stumbling along on a gorily broken leg), but are still very much the slow stumbling Romero type. When the outbreak first happens, there are some nighttime scenes that are brilliantly shot, really capturing the chaos and confusion of the outbreak as everyone runs and tries to escape, but can’t even figure out which way is the least dangerous to run. Most of the movie is themes of confusion and hopelessness, and it has a nice slow depressing desolate vibe that puts it in the same class as films like The Road. Anyway, I was surprised at how much I liked it and wanted to tell zombie fans to keep their eyes open for it.
PS. If you’re wondering why I did end up going with Etsy, it just seemed the easiest to deal with and the most likely to be able to drive traffic to me. Ultimately I just played it safe I guess.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
I just got back from a nice visit with my daughter. I was a little nervous because it was my first time crossing the US border in half a decade, and I was traveling with lots of liquid and both opiate and cannabinoid based controlled medications. Thankfully it was a complete non-issue and the entire travel and TSA process was as irritation free as possible. I did get scanned with one of those nudie-x-ray machines but it was the dumbed down version where the operators only see computer interpreted images (a generic humanoid with boxes drawn at “points-of-interest”, with no actual images from the scanner shown) so when I asked to see what the scanner could see they had nothing to show me.
Tomorrow being both my birthday and the promised release day for my online store, I have been and continue to be madly chugging along on getting everything posted. I was waiting for a battery charger to come in the mail for my nice-lensed SLR camera but to no avail, so I rushed through all the pictures today on my normal point-and-shoot. They leave something to be desired but there can not be any more delays. I don’t really know why I’m bothering with this… I just don’t see surviving long enough with a body that can keep making jewelry for long so pessimistically I worry that I’m putting a lot of effort into something that’s just going to become impossible soon. But it keeps me occupied with something fulfilling, and I think that is important even without the rewards that a business can bring.
Anyway, I wanted to take a brief break and post two of my newest designs. These will be in the shop tomorrow, but I’ve only had time to cast one copy of each so far — the Futurama Dr. Zoidberg skull ring is being done in a series of twelve (in a variety of mens sizes), and the Harry Potter glasses ring is being done in a series of just nine. The latter are all in size 7-3/4 since unfortunately there’s not much room to play in that design but if there was a demand I suppose I could make more (or just upload the design to a service bureau like Shapeways perhaps — if someone wants to knock off the design an post it to Thingiverse public domain — as PD as one can get with a character trademark — be my guest). The Dr. Zoidberg inspired skull ring is in a polished-like-crazy pewter that has been copper plated, and the glasses are done with a lightly blackened antique patina.
I’m very happy with how both of these turned out. I have a Nibbler ring on the go as well, and I’m also working on re-sculpting the series of Robocop jewelry, and of course I have a bunch of my own (as in 100% my not-inspired-by-fandom creation) on the go as well, including three more zombie rings to flush out that series.
