Chains & Gravity

bikeclockround and round she goes, where she stops… well… this clock won’t stop until gravity does. hubert van hecke made a frameless clock out of bicycle parts for his son-in-law’s bike shop. “i had the idea for this particular type of clock with no frame and gears held by chains and gravity, many years ago,” said hecke. you can watch it keep time for 21 seconds here. more info can be found in the 2018 april/may issue of make magazine.

Evolution: Lamp!

putemalltogetherthis is a radar lamp that jim huber gave me a few days ago. he found it while cleaning out part of his house and said, “dave you’re the the first person i thought of.” jim gave me his old coleman stove when jenny & i started tent camping. the radar lamp didn’t come with a battery, i drove to a hardware store in mission to get that. the original one probably ran out of juice around the time JFK was elected.

Geocaching With An Android

geomap if you have a smart phone and a good geocaching app, there is way less prep time to go out and find treasures in your neighborhood. it took five minutes to find a tree with four trunks that resembled a fallen giraffe skydiver yesterday. when i opened the c:geo app on my android, i was only 453 feet away from it at south lake park. the map above shows all the geocaches within easy driving distance & i can pull it up on my phone anytime.

What Chloé Saw

chloeandthemagmonday morning chloé showed me the cover of KC Studio. it’s one of the local magazines that covers kansas city’s art scene. the march/april issue features a rocket grants project: alter, which on the surface looks like a party that never stops. according to the article, “calling it a party is a way to trick people into looking at art.”

Tic Tac Tow

tictactowa couple of days ago the good folks at the johnson county makerspace posted a creation made with laser engraved corian tiles. it popped up on instagram about the same time i got my first make magazine in the mail! jenny got me a subscription for christmas. now i know how my make my own  running shoes from old tires!

Patience Of A Fisherman

fishingwithjohnandtomwaitsthere’s really nothing new to write about. i’m just trying to be productive while waiting for something to happen, like a call from the library saying “you’ve got the job!” or a buyer for the jeep. if i could reel in either one of those fish it would be a good day. in the meantime i’m gonna work on church music, third friday music, & beep related stuff. maybe if i act like i don’t care, the fish will bite.

Russian Roulette Jelly Beans

01backandfacelast sunday warren brought andrew over for another guitar lesson. afterward we ate pizza & salad. for dessert andrew said “let’s eat bean boozled jelly beans!” apparently these jelly beans have good and bad flavors in identical colors, and you don’t know what’s what until you start chewing. for example a yellow jelly bean can taste like buttered popcorn or a rotten egg. i bit into that one (popcorn) after spitting out a white one that tasted like spoiled milk. andrew got 3 bad ones before he chewed on a strawberry banana smoothie flavor. it was either gonna taste like that or dead fish according to the back cover of the box. warren got 3 good ones before he bit into the barf bean.

What Jenny Saw

jennyandthestatuejenny & i saw this statue in a ritzy part of kansas city saturday night. i said “hey honey if you stand over there and make a shocked expression, i’ll take a picture.” here is the fruits of our weird labor.

Fast & Loose

paulandjohnsongwriting can be treacherous… like playing with a cat that might draw blood if you tease him enough. sometimes the words and music to a song are like the contents of a shaken soda can– they just spew out, and you hope you can catch some of it before it fizzles away. here is something that chris mull & i caught friday afternoon:

You don’t need four wheels if you’ve got two feet
On Santa Fe or 80th Street
There’s art on the walls, songs in the air
If you want something cool, you can find it right here

We’re all lucky… to be local
on third Fridays in Old OP

If it’s warm we’re outside, when it’s cold we go in
we did it last year and we’ll do it again
Penny paints trees, Kitch carves them up
the veggies go beep and sometimes it gets rough

but we’re lucky… to be local
on third Fridays in Old OP

We go from strangers to friends in this part of town
we drink the same coffee, we walk the same ground
I’ll look out for you you can look out for me
when I’m walking to work down the same street

When the traffic lets up it’s time to go home
we put stuff away and turn off the phone
but in a month we’ll be back with something new
I can’t help but smile when I think about it too

We’re all lucky… to be local
on third Fridays in Old OP

When Reggie Draws

the following illustrations were drawn by my nephew, reggie herman. his original description on instagram said “Here’s a sort of weird comic I’ve been working on during my lunch breaks this week.” i think it’s an inspired piece of work, and i’m proud to be his uncle.12345