2005-07-15 - 11:45 a.m.
I have been banished to the road...once again. For the next 6 weeks I will be away from home for 5 of them. This comes at a bad time for me...for friends. In fact I have 2 good friends getting married this weekend, and I just can't go. I feel terrible about this...It is not that I don't want to. It is that I can't. Sigh...
This past weekend was the Potomac Celtic festival. It was HOT. It was miserably hot. And what little time I got to spend there I was standing in front of a forge. Yeah...that made it even hotter. Sigh...It was good to get back to the hammer and anvil though. I had forgotten how much I liked doing that sort of thing. Problem is...along with forgetting how much fun it is...I also forgot how to smith. Ok that is not true...but the 1 project that I had lined up failed. Granted...it was VERY ambitious. It required taking a 2.5 inch chunk of high carbon steel and folding in half...and then forge welding it together. I was trying to reproduce a hammer head. Sigh...I spent lots of time on that weld...and got most of it to stick...and stick nicely...but most is not good enough for a hammer. I should have upset the material instead. Oh well...live and learn. Yet another thing to get tossed into the bucket. I also had the oppertunity to do alot of striking...something that I am reminded of every time I close my hand. The poor thing is SO bruised. But ya know...I would do it all over again.
Riding has slowed down...and unless I can find myself a place to ride here in B-more or the surrounding area...I am going to be forced to have 5 VERY light weeks of riding. Bah! Not happy about that. I need to be active out here. The sheer nature of travel is that you eat crap. I need to burn it off. Enh...
So...the garden is looking FANTASTIC! The Girl has even agreed that she has never seen her tomatoes so large by this time of year. Oh...and she has even begun to come around to the idea of flowers in the garden.
Oh...I just realized that I got derailed here...why did Bear not get to smith for 2 full days you ask? Well My fathers sisters Husband died this last Friday. So I had family matters to attend to. It was exhausting. For more reasons than just the one. My Pop came into town. And as part of his being in town...he got to see where I live...meet my Girl...and generally interact with him for 2 days. Something I have not done since I said bye to him at the SF airport a year and a half ago. Just a little bit of stress there...
Well I guess that that is it for fragmented thoughts today...I can seem to managed a straight train of thought. Too much stupid stuff going on at the office...
More later...
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