Wootz!

I'm very excited to be finished with this semester. 8 days before the next round starts... I tidied the shop tonight and I'm hoping to spend some time out there pounding on metal.

My final project for technical writing was a research paper about the traditional smelting of wootz. That can be found over at brainbottle.net and I'll post the link at Don Fogg's knife forums.

GenderAnalyzer.com

Apparently, I'm a mangina. According to GenderAnalyzer.com this blog is "very gender neutral" but is probably written by a woman. God. Damnit. So I guess I'm gonna have to butch it up around here. Ironically I started this thing by saying I wouldn't try to be offensive and in the process have pussified to the extent that I have had a virtual sex change.

I guess it doesn't really matter... I mean, the three people aside from myself who read this thing haven't complained about my gender neutrality or lack thereof. I don't think I'm going to start discussing anatomy or technique to make myself feel better about the results of one probably fatally flawed website... I'm off to finish my Civil War exam, eat a steak, drink some beers, smoke my pipe and then find some sports on TV after "Dollhouse"... I assure you that was for your edification and had nothing to do with genderanalyzer... really. I swear.

Edit to add: that increased my manliness by 6%. Booyah!

School AND smithing related

How can you beat that? My Civil War term paper, essay exam and English papers are all due on Sunday. Two of them are in the "needs polishing" stage so they're just about ready to go. I haven't even thought about the exam paper yet.

But the good news that's smithing related. When I get done with these, I'll have time to get back to my wootz paper. I posted the survey to Don Fogg's forum last night and had an email with some awesome crucible pics in my inbox this morning. I'm not sure if I'll go the journal publishing or completion paper route, maybe both? I don't know who I'd send the paper to, but I'll have to figure that out in the next month before the paper is due. I think I'm babbling but it's late and I should have been in bed a half hour ago. 5:30 comes awfully early.

Tired

It's just after midnight and I spent about 10 minutes checking in at Don Fogg's site. Man, there's lots of absolutely amazing stuff going on over there. It made me miss working in the shop.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not forgetting the recent lessons: the economy sucks and smithing items are Luxury goods (yes, with a capital "L" because there's really no other way to look at it). I'm basically stuck where I am, career wise, unless I either get a miracle or a degree and I have some control over the degree. And, if I'm honest with myself, I really didn't spend as much time in the shop as I thought I might. It's been cold, I got an XBOX for Christmas (early, even) there was all the family stuff to do, the homework and exams for classes, the hunting trips, etc. I didn't make the mental shift to thinking of shop time like a "job." That said, if I had my druthers, I would be in a place where I could work at night because I really feel more creative and inspired to do metal work.

But, this is the path I chose and then abandoned only to be brought back to it. I must follow it or it will eat me from the inside. Only 17 months to go and then I get pressured to apply to grad school ;)

Etsy...

Yahoo! had an article Friday about making money without really working. They suggested some fairly obvious items, collect spare change was one. They recommended two kinds of sales, though. The first was the sale of books and media through half.com, which isn't a bad idea as the wife and I have been talking about revamping the library/computer room/sewing room/cat bathroom.

The other idea was to sell stuff you're already making through Etsy.com. I think it's a fairly clever play on "etc." The issue is that they're pansies and have a "no weapons" policy. I tell you what, if they want to make some real money, handmade knives, tools and firearms is the way to go. I didn't look very hard (except to find their sales rules which I sort of knew in advance would be based on an Ebay/Paypal wussified system) but a lot of people seem to be very proud of their knitting.