Son One Graduates Luthiery School

Roberto Venn Class of Spring, 2009

Son One graduated from Roberto Venn School of Luthiery on Friday, June 26th.

A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments. The word luthier comes from the French word luth which means "lute". (Wikipedia)

Son One's Electric Guitar:

From the RV curriculum guide:

The Guitar Making and Repair Course consists of practical and theoretical training in acoustic and electric guitar construction and repair.

Students design their own headstocks, bridges, rosettes, and inlay patterns.

The finest air-dried woods are used - mahogany, rosewood, ebony, maple, walnut, spruce, cedar, redwood, koa and other woods. We use no pre-made wood parts. In addition to guitar construction, sessions are given in: milling and wood selection, guitar design, tool use and maintenance, scale and template derivation, guitar repair, finishing (lacquer, oil, stain, sunburst, and re-finishing), guitar electronics, pickup design and construction, tremolo installation, care and preservation of stringed instruments, and related subjects."

Acoustic Guitar

If you'd like to see more of the guitars made by the Spring 09 Class, please follow this LINK

Son One will be returning home soon and starting up his own luthiery business. If you need a guitar made or repaired, drop me a line, and I'll pass it on. Once he gets set up, I'll link to his business in my sidebar. Of course, I get to help with all the graphics, signs, business cards, etc. No, there won't be any Corgis on them, but there will probably be a black cat. Stay tuned . . . so to speak.

.

Once More, Into The Woods

I listened to Corgi complaints about their lack of 'fun' exercise, and took them for a hike. When we got out of the car, Merlin was so excited he galloped in circles around me, little stub tail going a hundred miles an hour, while Max gave him the 'Look'.

Bro, show some dignity. There might be girl dogs around.

Max's stern glare didn't phase Merlin, Mer is a pretty much Live In The Moment dog. So off we went, into the woods and down the path.

















It was just warm enough out to make walking under trees a relief. Birds followed and scolded us for a mile, squirrels let the dogs get close, then would bound up a tree, just out of reach. There was plenty of things for busy Corgis to do and sniff.























Of course Max thought he'd be sly and sit to wait for a squirrel. I didn't have the heart to tell him he didn't quite 'blend'.


















And here's a time when they blended too well. There are two Corgis in that picture, somewhere. Behind the tree, I hope.






















By the time we got to the big field after the woods, I didn't have to worry about Corgis blending as much as finding them! After lots of rain, the fields were Corgi-back high, or higher with green grass.

















Max, porpoising through the tall grass. The guys didn't seem inclined to get too far from me, once we were in the field. Then again, I was the tallest thing around, so maybe I was their navigational beacon.
















There were lots of pretty cloud formations to look at - at least for me. The Corgis were more interested in ground level oddities, like antelope droppings and ground squirrel holes.
















We stayed out so long, I watched my interesting cloud formations develop into a threat on the horizon. The good thing about Wyoming, you can watch a storm come in from miles away.























Between the heat and the long walk, Corgi tongues were down to their knees. After a refueling stop at the trunk of the car (water, one each, dog bowls, two each, treats all around) we headed home. Max was tired enough to plop down in the front seat and relax, Merlin, my perpetual motion machine, had to stick his head out the window and let the wind send slobber trailing behind us.


















Max, tired.



















Merlin, not so tired.

Of course, today, they were ready to do it all over again . . .
.

Wednesday Poetry Prompt

Wednesday Poetry Prompt: 049
from Poetic Asides

"What would you do if you happened to win $1,000,000 today (tax-free, no less)? Would you run out and buy a house? A car? Pay off debt? Throw the biggest party ever? I'm sure we'd all react differently, soooo...

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem related to getting a million dollars. You can focus on what you'd do with the money. Or you can focus on an object you'd buy with the money. Or you can focus on a related action. You could even write about the negative things that could happen if you were suddenly rich (think John Steinbeck's The Pearl)."



Scratch Off Ticket From The Convenience Store
by Constance Brewer

A million dollars isn’t what it used to be.
I can’t buy enough land to live far away
from everyone, not where I want to be—
the cost of the middle of nowhere has gone
up.

There will always be bills to pay, kids
to raise, temptations to ponder—a million
decisions that persist, day in day out,
whether or not money enters the equation.

I think I’ll take my payoff in crisp dollar
bills, go to county fairs, spend my time
tossing ping-pong balls at goldfish bowls,
flinging darts at limp balloons, giving away
my stuffed animal prizes. Every Wednesday
I’ll hand out tickets to ride the Ferris wheel.




.










.

PlaceHolders

Busy.
Here's some pics of the awesome twosome (plus one) to keep you occupied until I return.

No, I insist.

You're welcome.

Max: I think, therefore, is it supper time yet?



Merlin, who is still waiting to grow into his headgear, executes a long down, radar ears swiveled for the stealthy sound of a treat leaving a pocket...


Anubis: I ignore in your general direction. Wake me when it's time to eat.


.

Post Conference Fatigue

Ted Kooser Reads His Poetry

(Not from the Wyoming Writers Conference, but the reading was similar to what we heard.)

Like MacArthur, I have returned, finally. You can stick a fork in me, I'm done for a while. I've had a fun filled week of case manager training for work in Casper – came home, petted the Corgis, turned around, and went off to a weekend writer's conference in – you guessed it. Casper. Same hotel, different colleagues.

The Wyoming Writers, Inc. 35th Annual Conference. The lineup included poet Ted Kooser as featured presenter, editor Chuck Sambuchino, Agent Meredith Kaffel, author Amanda Cabot, and author Tina Welling as well as stints of annual Wyoming Writers, Inc. tidying - like electing new officers and revisiting the bylaws.

I attended Ted Kooser's workshops, one on Revision, and one on Fine Tuning Metaphors. He had some interesting things to say, I'm not sure I agree with everything put forth, although it is always inspiring to hear others talk about their method of work. I took what I could use, and filed the rest to think on later. It was nice to hear Kooser read from his own work, not just poems, but an essay. There is a good summary of the last session on Metaphor by Mike Shay over on the Wyoming Arts Council Blog. I found the video on YouTube of Kooser reading his work. He told the same opening story at the Conference – I hadn't thought of him looking like that until he told the story. I was thinking gnome.

The other workshops were informative and interesting, full of the type of tidbits every writer needs. It was a good mix of agent, editor, authors and poet to choose from, helpful when you write in different areas. All the presenters were wonderful – personable, approachable, and they seemed genuinely delighted to be in Wyoming (even if they would have to get up at Oh Dark Thirty to catch their flight home). There were probably a little over one hundred people in attendance, which is the big advantage to our conference, as opposed to the World Science Fiction conference, where you are one of 4000 people.

I read three poems at Open Mike on Saturday night. Pneuma, Everything I Need (which needs a new title) and Zero Gravity. It's hard to decide which poems to read; some lend themselves more readily to 'performance', others to the visual on the page. Since our assignment was, 'You get three minutes to read', I went with relatively short poems. I liked listening to everyone, such a diversity of subject matter and reading style. I need to work on the performance end of my poems, but hey, for an introvert reading after a long day of extroverting, I think I did okay.

Now to recover, and contemplate a trip to hike in the mountains, I need the peace and quiet for a change. Of course, I'll have to wait until the snow melts again – yes, you heard me, we had snow – I'm not that into wading through snow and slush for my mountain meditation, even if my hiking boots do claim to be waterproof.


.