An Awesome Sandwich

That's what today wound-up being after a shaky start-- two tasty slices of awesome filled with satisfying awesomeness.

The shaky start involved gaining two more pounds for no apparent reason. It's like my butt fat has only now caught on I've been slowly trying to kill it over the last year and is making a last desperate bid for survival. Clearly it doesn't know who it's dealing with. It will not win. I jumped right out of bed into my running shoes. Take that ass fat!

So this was the sight that greeted my at 8 a.m. -- not bad huh?

That's the access road for the mountain bike trail I run. It's 7 1/2 miles of twisting hilly awesomeness -- see? I only run about 4 or 5 of it.

Some sections are more hair-raising that others...

This is one of my favorite sections. The whole thing is built on what used to be the town dump, so for a scrap metal hound like me it's basically a dream come true. This part they just went with the whole junk theme, even using some kind of metal machinery in the trail itself, embedding it into the ground.

This of course peaked my interest and sure enough, not very far off the trail-- jackpot!
I'll be back with gloves and help hauling away some of this "score", possibly under cover of night.

I know some of you are like, "running-- ugh!", but once you get to a level of fitness where you can do it, it really is a high, and check out the trail! It's a good incentive.

With a trail this nice so close to home, full of weird rusted out crap for me to scavenge,
my ass fat doesn't have a prayer.

That brings me to the tasty filling. Work (welding in the driveway) went way better today.

Yesterday, it was windy, and cold, and dried leaves kept blowing into my work area and catching on fire which really pisses me off-- and the wind kept messing with my welds. This incurs my wrath and there was much muttering of profanity under my breath because the neighbors were home. Also, Dan informed me I may as well stop deluding myself, my soon to be shop won't be finished in time to do me any good at all as far as preparing for this next show (Nov 8th) goes.

I've been feeling apprehensive about the economy and how it will affect sales. Art isn't exactly food. Usually I feel wealthy people stay wealthy and aren't really affected by the economic ups and downs, but right now it's kind of a different deal. So I've been trying to think of inexpensive items. I thought these cute birds would be a "crank out" item. It took me all day to make 8 because of all the damned SLAG. Booo.

Since I don't actually live in a third world country (yet), this item isn't practical for me to pursue any further

Today I was like-- "Screw it." I needed to just look around and see what grabbed me and go with it. What would make sense would be coming up with another quickie, cheap item to sell, but not everything makes sense. Just look at Dan Auerbach's total, devastating, fictional crush on me-- sometimes you just have to go with your gut even if it makes no sense at all.

On that note-- Check out this awesome steel. I'm told they're engine mounts. (whateve's)
Look at that great color, and the rust! Be still my heart!

The engine mounts will turn into something for sure, but in the meantime this--

Became this--

Which will turn into some variation of this-- (stained glass added in)

So what completed the awesome sandwich? -- It turned out to be a gorgeous day. I hope everyone capitalized on it because it was probably the last almost 70 degree day we're gonna' have for months. Trusty Pam is back in town, and me, her, and Dan went on a final kayak run on the upper Mississippi tonight. It was an unexpected gift to say the least, oh yeah, and, "Take that-- two times-- ass fat -- In your face!"