I got drafted... or... Taking a shot!

It's been a busy couple of weeks in our little corner of the universe. And, both parts of the title are accurate within the last week!

Last week I got drafted to help out with a young men's activity. I helped out because our young men's leadership is down to... um... ONE GUY. We took the boys out shooting and had a really good time at it. One of our boys (all of 12 and not exactly buff) was a bit apprehensive (it was his first time holding a gun). By the end of the day he'd actually fired the biggest rifle we had out there (a .45-70).

As for myself I have confirmed that I have mixed feelings about certain Russian made semi-autos. Aaannd, being me, it just wouldn't be a trip out into the wild without bringing something home...

Yes, it's junk (or it looks like junk), but that seriously thick glass (left can) will get used in some upcoming projects. The right can holds some casings I recovered. Yes, I know that steel cases and rim fires can't be reloaded effectively, but... brass melts and steel can be recycled... Just for reference the casing in the glass can is a 7.62x39 that I put in there for scale...

I'm not going to talk about what I'm planning on doing with any of that stuff at this time because there's more immediate coolness.

Moving on with our theme of taking a shot...
I finished a project this week, my chainmail messenger bag. That one will be featured in an upcoming post too. Getting it finished cleared the way for a brand new project using mailing techniques I haven't played with before...

As you can see it took me a couple of shots to get the ring sizes right (the one on the right...), but I'm on my way to making new cool stuff so it was worth it.

Writing is still going on of course, but I'm not going to talk too much about that...
Instead I'd like to announce the best interruption to my writing schedule in a long time!
Lisa will be doing the official proposal meeting for her dissertation on Sept 16th!
After the meeting the real fun begins...
She'll be collecting a bunch of data; analyzing it with some big scary equations and software; and then writing up a big old honking paper that she then has to defend in front of her committee.

It's a pretty major step and I'm proud of her.

I'm really not going to say much about my writing at this point, but...

I will say...

If you'd like to find out how to get your hands on this, and other bits of shiny, stay tuned for future posts! That's right! I may be drafting you...

That's it for this one. I'll probably have Lisa write one in two...
Until then...

This just seems to be the right way to end this one... (thanks and credit to Peter Gabriel)

Plinking at progress...

Lisa reports she's feeling confident about trying to set a date for her dissertation proposal. That means, at least for the moment, most of her committee can agree about what she means on the stuff for her study (I understood most of it... oh... a year ago?). Of course once she actually has a proposal date she gets to gear up for people asking interesting questions about what she wants to study...

Over on my side of the office I've made my first foray into the world of gun smithing. Nothing really exciting I put a new grip on my snubby.

Truly one of those cases of 'if you read the instructions and think things will go OK'.

I've even succeeded in getting Lisa to do a little shooting

If I recall this one was taken while she was amazing a friend of mine by taking out her target on the first shot.

Speaking of that trip... some of my folks heard me talking about hitting the bottle...

In my world that might not mean what you think it means... But, I did find a really fun way to make the broken glass for my 'beach glass' projects! Incidentally the silvery bit is where my round hit the back side of the bottle. I'm finding there's a whole interesting sub set of ballistics here... Lisa took out her bottle on the first shot with a .38 special. Mine (above) hit the bottle in a different spot and only shattered one side of the bottle. My buddy with a .40 cal decapitated the bottle with the first shot and needed a second to shatter it... interesting... I think I need more bottles...

Here's some of the glass after the next stage of processing...

What am I going to do with it? I'm not entirely sure yet but that's the fun part!

 Warning!!! Talky wordy stuff ahead! (Gah! You'd think he'd stop talking about writing at some point!!!)

The book I was going to do related to the glass stuff has fluctuated, but is currently back on (which means I'm up to three books actively in some stage of the works, with a back list to be worked on (yikes!)).

I've started research for a new (non craft related) non-fiction. I'm not sure which is scarier: the fact that I've committed myself to read 2000 pages worth of research material, or the fact that I know exactly how many hours that will take me...

The third item on the schedule is the novel Johnson Farm which is in a read and edit mode at the moment. The first feedback is good and I am quickly moving on to the most critical segment of this part, actual young adult readers (dum, dum, DUUUM!!).

I'm also moving on to the marketing side for Johnson Farm. This will include the usual electronic commentary and advertising, and a Kickstarter Campaign  to fund the initial launch. To answer a question before it's asked I want to release the first one under my own label because I would really like it to be a Forever Mountain book. There are plans in the works to move things over to a larger publisher after a couple of critical goals (including the writing of the second book). So, hopefully I'll be doing a book signing at a Deseret book near you at some point in the near future (Maybe Seagull for you LA people...)

And yes I did mention writing the second book... That's this years NANOWRIMO project, and I'll get around to talking about it later...

More to say, but I'll save some of that for the next one... Hopefully  Lisa's got some good news for us next week, and I'll see you in two. (In the mean time anyone who keeps reading will be sent back into that interesting place I call the inside of my head... Thanks to Information Society for posting the video and as for the rest of you...   don't say I didn't warn you...)

One step at a time...

Ok... so... some of what we have here today was supposed to be ready for last week's post. But, life happened and the first bit of it is ready for today.

Lisa is pressing on with her dissertation and seems to have finally gotten a committee together and has even started educating them on what the heck she's doing. If she hasn't mentioned it already she's also recently been awarded a fairly prestigious internship for one of her conferences this year. That means she's going to be working hard, and that we will be there for longer than we first planned. Buuttt the hotel gets paid for, the registration fee gets paid for, and she gets a stipend for food and travel and such. It also means that she's becoming more of an insider for another (and larger this time!) organization that she really wants to be active with. (What do I say? Well... Vegas Baby!!! (Actually it may not be that exciting really... writing stuff...)).

On my side of the house Johnson Farm is one step closer to being published on schedule. For those keeping score that will be my second book of the year and the first novel of a series. The second novel of the series is currently planned as this years NANOWRIMO project (with books three and four to come...). I'll be talking more about this in upcoming posts...

For today's post... I'm also started on next years first book, another craft book. This one will teach about how to make and use your own 'beach' glass. It's planned as an intermediate level craft book (a step up from the last one). I am also releasing some videos related to this book (and a couple more for the last one (and at least one for the novel...). As of tonight I actually have the first of those videos out the door!



Yes, it's simple. But it's also another one on the resume (and hopefully the first item out for my third book!). I actually have had a couple people ready to jump ship to my team just from filming this one...

Three more videos are planned at this time (with the material for one of them on my desk already). So tune in in the near future and hopefully I can show you why 'hitting the bottle' might not mean what you think it means!

In the other side of life Lisa is still the ward music coordinator and keeping those singers singing and players playing.

As for myself I'm still ward clerk. Once again I have two assistants who are doing fairly well and once again there are thoughts of "when I get them trained up I can move on to something else". Of course last time I thought that they reorganized the stake and I lost all my trainees to another ward!

And, once again I am working on cleaning up the ward list. This requires calling, emailing, or otherwise contacting people who want to know who I am before they will tell me anything...

And once again one of my favorite bands has provide timely theme music for the project...



So, thank you to INSOC for the timely video! (Yes I do actually play this one while I'm working on ward list stuff!!!)

That's it for this one. See you in two...