Day 17: Beautiful Sunset.

This morning was a bit rough. First, George Cat came into the room not-so-bright-and-early. And he was none too quiet about me needing to get up and pay him some attention. But I miss my boys so much that I really don't mind him coming in to see me.

I got about of a third of the way to Dwain's today, and I realized that I left the door unlocked. So I had to ride back. That added an extra three miles to a four mile bike ride. Man my legs are going to be strong! Did I tell you that it is uphill both ways. It is. Really. In some places.

We had breakfast and we talked. I cannot always share with you what we talk about because who has the time for that, really? It is 11:51pm now, and I'm still at the beginning of the day. But rest assured we exchanged ideas on life and love, and we always get to military, since we both served. Today, though, I got a real treat when we exchanged stories about our school days and typing. Dwain told me about how he got into typing class, and I told him how I got out of it.

I went to Tampa Bay Area Vocational Technical High School, and somehow I got put into a business class where we were supposed to learn to type and do business stuff, which I cared nothing about. So I learned to type and got bored. I skipped class and would go to the library every day to read. I read through everything that Tolkien wrote, even his most dense works, which our school had. One day someone asked me why I was in the library so much. I said I didn't want to go to class. That didn't go over well because skipping classes is just frowned upon. But they weren't sure how to punish me because I was going to the library. So they made me take a typing test because I told them I learned how to type fast, and the business teacher clepped me out of the class; I got to work in the library the rest of the lear.

Dwain, unlike me, was a trouble maker who caused his science teacher some grief. First he dissected

her daughter's cat. He didn't murder it and he did bury it, but he cut her up. The teacher found out when Dwain brought to school organs and a fetus in jars. She asked him where'd he get the cat. She lived near him. Ouch. Then he told me about an experiment that he carried out in class with her permission; it went bad and fire was involved. The final straw, though, was when Dwain openly questioned her. And as right as he was, he was still making her look bad. So she kicked him out, and he chose to take a typing class.


We really were meant to be together.

Dwain's birthday is Val and my wedding date. Weird.

Today was the day to finish the Grand that Dwain has been working on. That meant putting in the tuners, nut, and saddle, and making the intonation right. Plus, if there were any last minute tweaks they'd be done then.


The tuners went in okay, and Dwain got the nut in. There are so many small things to do to make the machine play right, and the smallest change can cause big results.

This became really clear when Dwain was getting the saddle settled and making sure the intonation is right. This process starts by setting the action. Once the height is determined then the saddle can be set for intonation. This means that their could be an angle on the saddle, which is eventually set into a cut grove on the fretboard. There are several specific steps to each adjustment, until the groove is finally cut with a Dremel on a router-type setup.

Then Dwain uses his iPod and a jack hooked up to the instrument, and he can get within cents of the note the string is tuned to. He does this at the open string, an octave higher, and then an octave higher still. The adjustments come in scraping the saddle or cutting the slots in the saddle. This is tedious work, but he got the intonation right on in each position, and he got within 1 cent! Amazing.

The day revolved around getting the Grand finished. But when we had to wait for something I went to work on making book-matched sets (Did I tell you I'm doing black walnut now?) and my scrapers. I'm almost done with both tasks, which is good because Dwain is almost done with the Grand. And then we start on my machine, I think.

I hope Dwain doesn't see that I took time between glueing the edges to snap this image, but I wanted you to see an important part of book matching, which is adding the hide glue.


At some point we had a watermelon break with real watermelon. And Dwain got me some garlic, so I had a clove of that, too.

And then it was six o'clock, and I was starving! We had to run some errands, but Dwain drove me home, which was great because I was out of gas. Then we went to a Chinese restaurant, and I had kung poa chicken, extra spicy!

Then we went to an ice cream place, and I asked for the kiddie three swirls of butter pecan. And it was still too much ice cream for me.

We talked about how I chose Bear Meadow and Dwain under whom to apprentice, and I said that it was the beauty of the instruments that drew me in. I never really did a search for apprenticeships or luthiers, I just found Bear Meadows and then I found out there was an apprenticeship.

What I didn't tell all y'all, though, is that this apprenticeship was about a year in the making. We had to get everything set just right between Val, Dwain, and me. And it was no easy decision to come to because the cost of living in two different cities and paying a fee is a huge sacrifice for Val and me. But we also see it as a huge investment, and it is surely a way for me to make art and make a living. What I'm learning will work its way into all of my art making, for sure. Plus we made a good budget--until we found out the dollar amounts of our last checks were wrong. Thank you Shorecrest bean counters, way to screw us up really bad. But I'm not mad. Really.

Then Dwain said that he wanted to get gas at his special place, and we did. Then he said we are only minutes from the lake. And I said what lake. And he said Lake Ontario. And I said crap, really? And he said yup. And we went there in time for the sunset.

I expected FL beaches, but I should have known better. We did see a flock of deer on the way, which was cool. They are everywhere up here. Dwain said some folks don't care for them much.

And we saw a sock in the water.