I forgot to post a note and pics of some stuff I am glad I ran across in the garbage dumpster the other day. A couple of my wolf mugs, only ones I can find now,
and a drawing by my aunt Jean (I think; might've been my uncle Joe; I can't remember right now) from a couple years after I was born. Then there was a print of a painting that I've had as long as I can remember, I think at one point my mom had told me it's from almost when I was a baby? Not sure anymore. Both used to have plastic-like frames, someone said maybe bakelite, but no part of the frames was found, just the artwork. But I had these displayed on the top of the shelves in my old bedroom; it doesn't make sense why they would have been in the trash (but then, neither does any of the other stuff I found in there).
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Anyway, there's also a drawing of a wolf that Kirin of OHBB did and sent me I think it was last year. I had not gotten around to framing it, which is the only reason it wasn't destroyed, as I would have had it on the wall in my burned up bedroom if it had been framed. (also probably the other ones above would, too, because I probably would have put them all up at once, along with some other stuff, some of which I've found and some I haven't).
Since I haven't gotten Thud's guitar yet, and I *really* wanted to play something that doesnt' sound like a little kid's toy (the Yamaha) and makes a sound I can hear music in, then today I went to Guitar Center and picked up the pins, nut blank and saddle, and strings for my sister's old guitar body.
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unfortunatley i didn't notice that the one tuning key's gear is broken until after i got home, but maybe i can make it work anyway. Or maybe they sell just one gear. I don't want to replace evyerhign just for that.
It was more than I wanted to spend but each thing was cheap enough; if I had time to search thru the stuff at my house I am sure I have things there I could have made eveyrthing but the strings from--I just don't have that time right now, as it would take days, and then making them would have taken more days, probably a couple of weeks, since my hands often hurt too much to do more than a little of that kind of fine work each day. A couple of hours of it and they hurt right into the next day.
Since the only saddle they had was too skinny and not deep enough for the slot in this guitar, I took a twig found in Bill's yard (from a pine tree overhanging it from the neighbor's) and whittled and filed it to make a spacer underneath the saddle so it's depth would be enough to keep the strings off the sounding board and frets, and then a couple of spacers to keep it from wiggling around thickness-wise. I may not have the height correct yet, but I glued it in anyway because i'm impatient.
I couldn't really hold the little nut blank well enough to file it, and my vise is somewhere in the stuff at my house, so I decided to just glue it on the neck/fret border slot and clamp it down, and then I'll file it in-situ.
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Thankfully I found a website
http://gicl.cs.drexel.edu/people/sevy/luthierie/guitarmaking_guide/final_assembly/final_assembly.html
that has quite a bit of info about building a guitar, and it tells and shows me enough to be able to do this, as it is somethign I've never had to do before (just restring and retune, mostly).
The glue (gorilla glue, cuz Bill already had it, and it will expand to fill any gaps I left when shaping stuff) is still setting now, and should be completely ready by tomorrow morning or so. Which is fine, cuz my hands have pretty well had it for today with just makign the little wood spacers on the saddle.
Sometime between breakfast and going out for the guitar parts, after workign on Bill's computer for a problem that turned out to be basically a bad cable connection or two, I decided it was time to finally tackle prying the other two harddisks out of the gobbet of goo that was my computer. I salvaged the main harddisks out of it the first day or two here, I think, but lots of stuff including the primary full-resolution versions of all the things cleared off of the camera cards each time I used them, only exists on the small 80gb drive that was still stuck in the computer case.
I took a bunch of pics of the computer as it was when I started today, and then of the removal of the drives, and then after wiping them down to get the ash and dirt and stuff off. I have a feeling that the dust buildup on them may have insulated them from some of the heat of the fire, preventing them from being rendered unusable.
As I was heading over to the computer case (left outside becuase of the smoke smell) after putting my tools and stuff back on the trike, I realized I'd left my helmet on the trike yesterday when I got home after the debacle with Tannon, and stuck it on Phideaux so she could protect it from me leaving it outside again. Too valuable to do that with. Then I forgot I'd done that and turned aorund to see it like in the pic attached somewhere below, and laughed, so I took a pic. Bill had also seen it like this and laughed; I heard him while I was prying the harddisks out of the comptuer case.
Bill gave me an old external Western Digital drive to use for it's case to try to read these with, and I opened it up
and plugge din the 80gb I most wanted to rescue, and afte rit powered itself up and down a couple of times, it stayed running, and then was detected by Bigmoose's laptop via USB just fine. I was able to copy off a whole lot of stuff like those original images, etc., onto an external laptop drive Bigmoose had also sent me to use for backup. There's also a bunch of stuff on teh drive that's duplicated elsewhere or that I don't care about, so I didn't copy that over, as the drive appears to still work ok so if I decide I want it later I can probably get it off.
I found the original videos of Nana's puppies, including the first ones after they were born (I didn't manage to actually video the births themselves, just their first sucklings after coming out, for a few of them), an incredibly cute one of Hachi as a teeny armful-sized fluffy puppy responding to her name in that super-excited way she always had, her trying to eat the sprinkler water,
[youtube]wJXGgu9ryrA[/youtube]
her trying to rescue her toys from the aftermath of the hailstorm, etc, and even one of Bonnie, Loki, and Fred from before I got Nana. Haven't gone thru all of what was saved yet so there are probably lots more memories in there. I cried a lot, but it was mostly happy crying.
I found a converter online and put a few of the vids on my phone; the audio is corrupted on some but not others in the phone versions; need to figure that out and then convert all the others to keep on there, in case others I meet ever want to see them. (or in case I suddenly have to "inflict" them on people.
)
Very glad I was able to save all that stuff. I would have been even sadder if it had been lost (but I had been assuming it was lost already, and so was super happy that it wasn't).
I've been napping unintentionally here and there, too, but I am a lot less tired than I was yesterday, and though I still am not sleeping even as well as I did before all this happened (whcih wasn't great) I am doing better. I hope to get more sleep tonight than last, and perhaps during this week off i will get enough to make a big difference in how I feel before I go back to normal work at my home store next Sunday.
At least I am also feeling a sense of accomplishment: today I have helped fix Bill's computer, yesterday I helped him finish part of his trailer project, last night I fixed the speaker on the little Yamaha keyboard and played a bit of "music" with it, and today I have half-finished making the guitar usable again. And about a week ago I installed the tube, tire, and liner on the motor wheel from Kingfish (whcih though it still needs torque arms/etc made before I can use it was still an accomplishment). Oh, also, yesterday I got the laptop from Bigmoose setup and customized enough to be able to use it (though it still has a long way to go to make it like I really need it to be, that's going to take months or longer).
I haven't actualy accomplished anything I set out to do (outside of work at the remodels) in so long, the past month basically, that it feels like a huge triumph.
I need to try to do more of those "little things" that are still big enough to feel completeness about.
:| 
