A day in the life of weird

A few days actually; Sunday afternoon and Tuesday. I finally got the ingredients I needed to make 1 quart of automotive paint for the roof and hood of my truck. It's a lot more expensive than house paint, and I didn't have the money. I was holding out for metallic, the last time I painted that section, I used an Ivory color. I figured metallic would bring me up into the later part of the 20th century, at least paint wise. I had a pint of a really bright brass colored metallic; but that's not enough, and the bright color would distract from the gold leaf letters on the doors. I had this theory that gold metallic is really silver metallic with translucent gold pigments in the binder part of the paint. If you've ever stirred a can of gold metallic that has settled, you'll pull up a bunch of silver particles on your stir stick. I found some slightly blue grey metallic. I countered the blue with a little orange, then added safety yellow. The blue and orange make a brown, which is an acceptable  way  to turn the yellow to gold. There were two different kinds of paint, a little anyway, by the time I was done it was a strange chemical brew. I applied it rather heavy, and the finish is nice. It dried right, is glossy, and thick. I was aiming for a lighter gold, a replacement for the ivory; but one that wasn't intense in the yellow department. I got that, and more. It's almost like that flip-flop paint that was popular a few years back. It drastically changes color. When the sun is directly on it, it's almost ivory. But get in the shade, it's tan like Autumn leaves. This morning I looked on it from above, and it was a definite green tinge. the law of unintended car color.

 I took the masking paper off, and drove it onto the lawn to try and get a picture before sunset. I looked at the sky, and there was a weird bright spot to the right of the sun, almost like a second sun. I got a few pictures, they do a pretty good job of showing the weird thing. In the picture, the sun is behind the tree. The bright spot is probably the edge of a cloud bending light in an unusual way. There is probably a scientific explanation, but that doesn't make it less noteworthy. At least not to me; I'm 54, and don't remember seeing this before. In the second picture, I've blocked the sun with my hand. Notice the radiating lines of the contrails. I've taken other pictures of weird stuff in the sky over the last few years, I've just been negligent in posting them.

  This morning I went to see friends about painting their barn roof. I took my daughter along to visit their daughter. As we got to the end of the road, the old familiar road sign took on a whole new meaning. (Mr. Maxwell House?) The black dual headed arrow on yellow background; man, what a graphic expression of binary. I shared my discovery with my daughter, and took the opportunity to explain the tertium quid fallacy. Also, what R.C. Sproul calls "The Impossible Tertium Quid". That's where somebody wants a third option that does not exist. I used the example of Lot in the Bible; he could stay and die, or go and live. He hemmed and hawwed, wanting a third option where there wasn't one.

 Later in the day, I'm driving to that same intersection, and remember that I want a picture of the sign. I'm reaching over to the passenger seat, getting my camera out of the bag, so it can be all ready. This kind of efficiency, well, it's in the Mission Impossible zone. Not that there's  so much traffic out at this country intersection to demand quick action; it's just that a guy has to be familiar with that stuff. You never know man. I'm a bit old for the Navy Seals, but hey man, gotta stay in practice. Women readers, don't try to understand, it's a guy thing. Several car lengths from the intersection, I pull to the right, so the truck behind me can go around. I didn't realize it, but behind him is...Mr. Sheriff. He pulls alongside my truck and asks if everything was OK. Not being a good time for "Well, er, um...you see officer..." I went animated while explaining this morning's conversation with my daughter. Not too jovial, but enough to convey that this was just a fun thing...I ended with a raised voice:" LOOK BUDDY, YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES HERE, THIS OR THAT, NO OTHER CHOICE SEE??" He laughed, and the last thing he said was "You be surprised how many people DO GO STRAIGHT over the edge."

  That was on my way to hopefully sell and paint some window lettering for a car dealership. When I got there, what the guy was actually asking for was wall lettering along with the windows. I spent awhile measuring and making a scale pencil sketch. He liked it, but needed approval from his manager at the lot down the street. The manager arrives, and I'm thinking that at least it will be yay or nay, binary, you know. But no-o-o-o, this guy too needs approval from a superior. Tertium Quid go away? Maybe they'll call tomorrow. It's Tuesday afternoon, and I'm still doing sales. When I said in the previous post that things are great, I meant the inquiries. Had one come in over the weekend, replied to it Monday morning; still no reply. Probably gone. Had one Monday afternoon, pretty cool logo on pine boards job; that's in Limbo, waiting spouse approval. Half my readers probably think I should just lower my bids, but trust me, there's a threshold. The time and gas I would spend going back and forth to these jobs would leave me with ten bucks an hour, if that. I can do that closer to home. Really, with all the sales time, and other non billable chores, I charge forty per, just to hopefully make eighteen. That's when there's work at all.

  I'm not whining, just letting people know what to expect when they go out on their own. See also the picture of the green crane. I was asked about lettering a nickname on the boom of it. The shop worker handling the project was joking around and thought it would be cool looking with a CCP with hammer and sickle painted on it. Maybe Soviet stuff is having a style trend right now. He wondered what the supervisor would think, the supervisor is conservative, so maybe that was the direction of the joke. I kindly asked him if he realized that the USSR ended about 1990, that the country is now the Russian Federation? I said Russian letters would still look cool on it. I WASN'T ABOUT TO let on that I could write out the name in Russian/Cyrillic on the spot. Or that I was listening to Russian language tapes on the way over. He might revert back to the USSR mentality, call me a communist; at which point I would have to bring out more questions: What city is the largest in Europe? Moscow. Which city has more millionaires and billionaires? Moscow. How soon does he think they want to revert to the state owning the means of production? You gotta be ready for these situations; it's a guy thing I guess.