Cajun Carl's Stringworks and Gumbo Emporium

I, recently, had a visit from my middle brother, the mysterious and legendary Jeff LaFong. I haven't seen or heard from him in five years or so. The 60s shaped his personality and he never quite left. When the Beatles and the Beach Boys were new and exciting, he picked up a guitar and never put it down. He is now a pretty good bluesman with a bent towards the slide guitar. During the course of his visit, he asked me if I knew anything about cigarbox guitars (CGB). I told him that I did not. I can set the stations on my car stereo, if I have the manual in my hands. That is the extent of my musical talent. He said that they were what the old bluesmen used years ago, during the depression or if they, like me, were Po' Boys and couldn't afford a mail order $4.95 geetar from the catalog. He wondered if I would be able to build one for him. I am a, fairly competent, woodworker. I did a bit of, on line, research and was fascinated by the whole culture, the ingenuity and the raw, beautiful sounds that guys are getting out of these primitive, homemade instruments. http://www.cigarboxnation.com/ I went to the local seegar emporium and bought a couple of boxes and went home. I had a stash of maple that I salvaged from some discarded church pews plus my buckets and boxes of scrap wood. The neck is maple with a walnut fretboard laminated on, the tuning pegs are dowels with walnut knobs. I reamed the holes for the pegs with a taper reamer and tapered the pegs to match, much like violin pegs. Most of the CBG builders buy the tuners, but I decided to do it as close to the way a guy would have done it in the 30s. There are no frets, yet. I noticed that some of the guys play them fretless, so I'm going to send it to Jeff as is. It is really a prototype and I need his input. I don't even know how to string it up, so I'm taking it to a friend to see if it will play. One variation in the nostalgic theme is, this CGB is electric. In keeping with the lo buck idea, the cost of electrifying it was about 6 bucks. The pickup is a piezo buzzer from Radio Shack and a 1/4" standard jack. Some genius (there are others, but only one Boy Genius™) discovered that if you take one of these buzzers and apply 12 volts to it, oddly enough, it will buzz. But, if you cause the unit to vibrate, it sends a small electrical charge back through the wire. Voila! Down and dirty pickup. So, anyway, I screwed and glued the whole mess together, sprayed a few coats of lacquer on it and there ye be, one CGB. Unit #1. Again, eagle eyes may note that it only has three strings. The three string CGB seems to be a favorite and the most traditional. What do I know. I couldn't play it if it had one string. Actually, there are one string CGBs. They're called diddleybows. It may go to the dumpster or it may sell on ebay in 50 years for 500K. Who knows. It was a fun build, took all of, maybe, 4 hours and the total cost was well under 10 bucks.

Epilog. November 2. Brother Jeff called to inform me that the guitar is wall art. The neck is too long as well as a few other problems. The good news is that everything else is good. Not being a musician, I didn't know the distance from the "nut" (the little gizmo that the strings pass over as they leave the tuners) to the bridge is critical in order to tune the instrument. I have an old guitar so, this time, I'll use it as a template. I wonder if Stradivarius got it right the first time?

Better Living Through Chemestry and Miscellaneous Ramblings

This morning I took the first of my last round of chemo. Two weeks and I'm done. I'll be pretty good for about a week and then the side effects will kick in. It won't be fun, but I've been there before so I know what to expect. I'm OK with it. It is the price that I must pay to completely regain my health. I just have to keep smiling.

Last night our lovely granddaughter, Alexandria, graduated from high school. It's hard to imagine that our little 2 pound 13 ounce preemie is a woman now. She has been living with us for the past four years so that she could attend a top rated school rather than the sketchy schools near her home. It was a wise decision. She did well, better than I did, by far. I, as you all agree, am a Boy Genius™, but it came from genetics and self education rather than school room experience. She will be moving back home now. We will miss her, but she's a short drive away.

Two weeks ago, twenty people showed up at my door with rakes, hoes, weed whackers and other implements of destruction and cleared my property. Two ladies helped with the chores as well as providing a big ol' pile of grub for the crew. These were all members of my church. This is what Christianity is all about. It isn't the nonsense that you see on TBN, with all of it's magic tricks, annointed dish cloths and pleas for as much of your money as possible from slick hucksters and cotton candy haired, walking cosmetics counters, living in multi million dollar, Newport Beach, mansions. It is about Christ-like servitude. Help people, reach out your hand when someone is hurting, bring them a sandwich and a cool drink. It's easy.

I think, either today or tomorrow, I will take the bike out for a short hop around town before I get sick again. It's a bit windy today, so maybe tomorrow. I've turned into such a fair weather rider. I guess it's from all those years when all I had was a bike. I hate riding in the rain or the cold. Could also be the decline in testosterone levels brought on by advancing old age. Crap!

Chemo and Weeds

Here I am, just beginning my second two week regimen of chemo. It sucked pretty good the first two weeks. Lots of pain in my hands and feet and one day (actually, about 3 hours) of feeling as sick as I've ever been in my life. It passed and I feel pretty good today. I expect to be back on the couch by this weekend, however. I had time to do a few, necessary, chores around the house. I reassembled my tractor which had been apart due to a blown head gasket. Put the end loader on today with, what was probably, my last surge of strength. I have 2 1/2 acres of weeds to clear, per fire department regulations, and I need my tractor. I have a gang of friends coming over in a week to do the hillside work. I can't stand or walk the slopes, nor can I handle the weed whacker with my bum feet and paws. Five or six weeks from now, I expect to be back at the top of my game. Granted, it's a bush league game, but it's good enough for me.

Good News/Bad News

I had my follow up appointment with my oncologist yesterday and was told that, at the time I went into surgery, I was cancer free. The chemo/radiation had completely wiped it out. Surgery was still necessary, of course, so that the tissues could be examined by pathology. So, that is the good news. The bad news is that the doctor want's me to go through another round of chemo as a precautionary measure. I told myself at the beginning of this journey that I would do exactly as the experts recommend. It was a good decision and I'm going to stick with it. So, for two weeks, then a week off and then another two weeks, I'll be poisoning myself again. My previous regimen was for 5 weeks straight at a higher dosage, so I don't thing it's going to be too bad at all. The 5 week deal was a real booger. Plenty of pain and sickness, but some of it was the fault of the radiation. I beat cancer, so a little more discomfort is just another hiccup in my life. When I was diagnosed, nobody told me that I had the fun variety of cancer, only that if I had to get this disease, colorectal is one of the better ones to get. In all, it hasn't been as bad as I would have expected. Top notch medical personnel, lots of support from family and friends and the grace and mercy of God towards a, pretty, wretched sinner. I couldn't lose.

Semi Colon

For all of you that have been following my adventures of late, here is an update. On Monday, the 15th, I went in to the West Los Angeles VA hospital where I underwent a low anterior bowel resection. For the layman, they took out about 8 inches of my colon. The sugery and, subsequent, recovery went well. There was little pain or discomfort. I was sent home on the following Monday, cleared to do just about anything except lifting anything over 10 pounds. I had some rather severe gas pains on that evening and on the following evening as well. By Wednesday, they had subsided. The worst part about the entire deal was waiting for the pathology results. I went back to see the doctor today and was told that all the tissues came back clean and clear of any malignancy. Woo Hoo!! I now join an exclusive club of "survivors". I wonder what the ribbon color is for colorectal cancer? Brown? How about a scratch and sniff? Maybe the world isn't ready for that just yet. I'll shelve it, for now.
A big thanks to all who wrote, prayed, cared or even feigned interest in my plight. It was a real blessing to both of us and we are, eternally, grateful. While this was no fun at all, it was still a good experience. To see so many people come together, on my behalf, made it more than tolerable. Time to get on with the rest of my life. It's lookin' pretty good.

My Most Amazing Post.

I lay around on my dead ass watching, all together, too much T.V. It came to my attention the other day while watching some, pre-digested, dreck on the tube that the word "amazing" has become the most popular word in the English language. Everything is amazing. Celebs roll their eyes in rapture while describing their latest boy/girl friend de jour as being just the most amazing person. I was watching an ad for something or another and the voice over said, "My baby started walking today. It was amazing". What's so frikken amazing about that, you nitwit?!?! If the kid had sprouted wings and started flying around the room, that might have qualified, but guess what? All kids start to walk at some point unless there are physical problems. Amazing! My dog is just so amazing, I have the most amazing job, the cheeseburger that I had for lunch was so amazing. I'm amazed at the, obvious, fact that people are lemmings. They see or hear someone of great value and intelligence like Paris Hilton or K-Fat or some other celeb, Jersey Shore, douche say or do something that's....... well, AMAZING, and they feel the need to emulate them so they can be elevated to a higher plane of existence. Who will be the first to name their kid, "Amazing"? Hmmm, "Amazing LaFong". Has kind of a nice ring to it

Barkeep, Gimme Another Belt

I received the belt from Grainger Monday and, sure enough, I miss measured and it was too short, So, back I go and sheepishly admit to the clerk that there is something wrong with my tape measure. Boy Geniuses™ don't make, simple, measuring errors. I return to The Fongderosa with the new belt clutched in my sweaty fist and we have a winnah. I fire up the bike. Parenthetically, I have to give props to my Odyssey battery. I haven't ridden the bike or charged the battery in, at least, 2 months and it fired immediately and without hesitation. I allowed the bike to sit, running, until it came up to operating temperature. No leaks, no apparent problems. It was a cool day and it sat at 180 for 15-20 minutes with no air flow over the radiator. The fan never kicked on. A good run on a hot day will come later. I have surgery in two weeks and there will be a protracted period of recovery. By the time I'm back on my feet, warmer temps will be here and I can give it a baptism by fire. There is no reason to believe it will not work perfectly. I didn't keep a pile of receipts, so I'm not entirely sure of the cost. The pump was about 40 bucks, the belt was 12, I bought a handful of copper fittings and a boatload of charcoal briquettes for my furnace. I probably spent more on those than anything because of the numerous casting failures.
I can now cross Jabsco off of my list of people that I will no longer have to concern myself with. I'm sure they're great folks, but it's not an item that you can just swing by Wally World or Pep Boys and pick one up. This pump has a lifetime guarantee and I suspect that I will never have to replace it.
Now, there is that noisy, sometimes troublesome electric fuel pump. Too bad there is no room for a mechanical pump....................or is there????