spokesNspin

Today for Friday Foto Fiesta I am going to do a shameless plug for my son Tommy.  Tommy is my second son and third fourth child.  I am not sure how old he is. Remember I have six.  But he is in his early twenties and has a birthday in September.

Tommy is a self taught artist and naturalist.  From the time he could walk he was exploring the bugs and floral and fauna of where ever he was allowed to venture.

He taught himself to sculpt with fimo clay and at a very young age was sculpting things like tree frogs so realistic you expected them to hop any minute.  Much to the chagrin of his sisters and mother he taught himself taxidermy and collected road kill to work on. 

Once he found  a dead bird in the yard.  It had been dead for months and was basically a skeleton with feathers.  He cleaned it up.  He then went to the Internet to figure out how all the parts went back together.  He painstakingly mounted the bird skeleton.

In high school he took up pottery.  Check out his recent work:

You can click on the picture and see more photos of his work.  He does all of this himself.  He has a wheel and throws the pots.  He does the painting and all of it.

So heeeeere’s the pitch!  What do you think of his work?  Would you buy it?  How would you suggest he go about pursuing this as a possible career? 

He wants to be a starving artist.

In addition to the Southwestern Native American motif he has also done some very attractive three dimensional art work on pitchers and other pottery.

Saturday was another one of those beautiful fall days.  I took a 50 mile bike ride that started on the W&OD and then took a loop through Waterford and back to Purcellville.  There was the Waterford fair which was busy but interesting looking.  I think I need to go back when I have time to check it out.

Maybe the highlight and thing that made my heart throb, if you discount the many hills, was this:

Sweet!

I love old tractors.  I am not sure if this is an old Johnny pop or not.   I am not much of an expert but I remember them.

I think our neighbor Bill S. had one.  Bill and his wife Hattie were part of the oldest generation in my farm community.  They, along with my grandparents and an assortment of great uncles/aunts and their peers occupied the back bench at church.  The women all wore pill box hats and white gloves. 

Other than my grandparents, most of these old people seemed rather scary to a little boy.

Bill had the reputation as a tight wad.  Maybe it would be better to say frugal.  My Dad told me that for entertainment on Saturday night Bill and Hattie would drive to town.  They would each get a nickel ice cream cone and sit in their car and watch the people walk by.  Bill played an important role in my life. 

My father started college at 16.  He dropped out after the first quarter to earn money.  He came out to the Winder area, (formerly known as Poverty Flats) and went to work for Bill.

I remember how Dad pointed out an old scales shack that was on Bill’s place. That was where I think my dad bunked while working there.  A scales shack was a small building that would be erected beside a set of scales where a person would stand and operate the scales when weighing trucks loaded with hay , grain and other farm products. So you can see it wouldn’t be very big. It had room for maybe two men to stand.  It was while working for Bill that Dad met my Mother. The rest is history and Dad never made it back to college. Anyway Bill had a Johnny Popper.

Why was it called a Johnny Popper?  These old John Deere tractors had a two cylinder engine.  The piston would fire and then essentially coast another 540 degrees.  I am not an engineer and don’t understand it all but this design gave the tractors a unique sound.  I tried to find a clip but couldn’t.  So let me try to explain.  Play along with me now.

Imagine you are making a tractor noise.  Let’s say “putt”.  Isn’t this fun?  Now say “putt” four times.  Putt, putt, putt ,putt.  Now put emphasis on the first putt and then kind of coast for the second three.  Do this out loud and you will get it.   PUTT!, putt , putt putt, PUTT!, putt, putt putt, PUTT!, putt , putt, putt, PUTT!, putt, putt putt. That was essentially the cycle for the Johnny pop.

As you can see,  I have been fascinated by tractors and mimicking tractor noises for a long time.

Next time you are on a bike ride and the hill seems steep or the way is long or you are just bored and want to irritate your companions, just start pretending you are a Johnny Pop.

PUTT! putt, putt, putt, PUTT!, putt, putt, putt…

A few weeks ago I wrote about income distribution and how people with money just don’t get it when it comes to what is middle class and how little some people in the country have in the way of wherewithal. 

Here are two recent examples.

First is an article about how our next vice president will be “like the rest of us” when it comes to money.  Yes Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be the poorest vice presidents in recent history.  They are paupers compared to the likes of Dick Cheney.  Tim Middleton goes on to write:

In a political world usually divided between the rich and superrich, the Palins and Bidens are decidedly middle class. And their investments are on the same scale as yours and mine.

Forget it Tim. Yes their income is low compared to their political associates but they are still in the upper five percent of households when it comes to income. Hardly middle class in my opinion. The last paragraph reads:

But it’s refreshing to come across a pair of politicians who truly do understand our situation, because they share it. And it’s too bad one of them could be the only such person in Washington come next January.

Who  is Tim referring to when he writes about “our situation”?

Second example is how Sarah Palin in the debate tried to say how she is like the rest of America and middle class.

Wrong!

Again as I pointed out before there is not a definition for middle class and the Palin family is in the top five percent(or darn close) for household income. 

Unless saying “you betcha” makes you middle class.  Actually her style might be better classified as low class.

I haven’t had a chance to watch the VP debates yet. I have them recorded. But I did watch just a few minutes.

I heard Palin say she was happy to be on a team of mavericks. A team of mavericks? Hmmmm

Isn’t that sort of a contradiction in terms?

Like many cyclists and other endurance athletes I like to track the numbers. I track the miles I ride my bike. I track the type of ride i.e. recovery, interval, hills, time trial etc. I track my food, the calories, fat, protein, carbs and sugars. I track my weight, body fat etc.

Do you think this sounds obsessive? I haven’t even started.

I keep track of my x-training. Each pilates class, each bodyflow class, each run and each weight lifting workout.

I recently started tracking my car mileage. My financial documents look like they came from a major accounting firm. I have cash flow charts, I show debt ratios, net worth, disposable income. And all of these are displayed over time with charts and graphs. I adjust them to be shown in current and constant dollars.  My check book is generally balanced to the penny.

If your checkbook is not balanced, let me at it.  I would love to take it on.

You might think that I am crazy but I like numbers.  It’s like a collection. Some people collect baseball cards. I collect data.

I even work as a statistician.

I like looking at numbers. I like looking at trends. I like to see relationships. I like searching the Internet for reliable numbers that either support or disprove common misconceptions. I even like completing my tax return.

A big tax refund is not that exciting for me. I like to see that I have estimated things close enough that I come out even at the end of the year. Not only do I look at the past numbers but I try to project the future numbers and I set goals.

So as they say on NPR….”Let’s do the numbers”

September 2008 Bike vs Car:

Bike: 528 miles 19 trips

Car: 976 miles, 11 trips

How is that for a turn around?  I had a major car trip this month and most of the car miles came from that.