Get Tin Here Adventure

Guess What...!

10:29 PM By fishfade

It has been a frantic week, my friends. My tired feet are wearing tired shoes, if you know what I'm saying...

I should be getting into the bed that is calling my name (if you listen closely, you can hear its lilting siren song) but I have to put down in text the internal monologue that is swirling around in the somewhat askew pathways of my mind (using the term loosely, of course):

I sold a flashlight, I sold a flashlight!

And to that wonderful initial patron of my humble shop, I send a very warm and heartfelt "Thanks!". I hope the recycled tin lamp is to your liking. I will be mailing it out on Tuesday, post my Rev. King Day celebration.

On a side, I found a new podcast that has really tweaked my interest. Blast the Right is a very thought provoking commentary. As with anything I listen to in this vein, I cannot align myself universally, but I really appreciate the world-view challenging stances that push me to think out of my own box. The Matthew 25 argument piece may be presented as ammunition, but the overarching idea holds huge merit away from the idea that is just a way to win an argument. More info on his web site.

...what's that...excuse me a moment...

I can't continue tonight. Unlike my childhood friend Odysseus, I've no beeswax to block out the compelling strains, and besides, five am comes very quickly.

I am content in my first sale. Time for bed.

A Word From Talent

9:14 PM By fishfade

When I checked my shop today, I found that I had two new folks who "heart" me. Reehaw (part 2)! And then I checked out their shops, and sites, and YouTube videos. It is so freakin' cool. First, you have to go to Special Electric. I am definitely going to have to purchase one of these beauties when payday rolls around. IT COMES WITH A SCHEMATIC AND PARTS LIST! I can't wait to make one myself... I'm already wondering how much of a charge a 9v battery would put out for the old iPod...

Next, there was Middle Creek Merchants. I may not be a huge fan of the jewelery thing, but their robots are pretty darn cool. Yes, that is solder envy you here in my text. I know what I will be asking the birthday faeries for... You can check out the videos of these cool little creations at their web site, and I'm sure you'll be as enthralled as I was.

Oh, and for those of you who have been victim of those ransomeware trojans...

I was asked to fill in running the video recording and PowerPoint/multimedia stuff at church this morning as the regular guy was gone on vacation. I got there an hour early, because I was worried about screwing it up during the service and having all of those worshipping church-goers mad at me, and had the PowerPoint presentation set and the SongShow Plus list populated and ready when "bing!" guess what decided to infect the Lord's PC?

You guessed it - one of those programs.

Now, I've been a victim of these folks before, and it was a pain in this pirate's booty, but it was just me. These unsavories have taken it a step further, intentionally or not: They're messing with Him. I would not want to be in their digital shoes. Or literal ones, for that matter.

Outcome: No magic words to the worship songs on the bigscreen, and PowerPoint presentation in safe mode for the message. And I get to cleanse the computer of this iniquity sometime during the week when I have a chance. Share in the suffering, if you will.

I put a new torch in the shop, and people are still looking, but that is all I have to report, i.e. still no sales. One of these days...

Bike Light, FIrst and Second Attempt

9:22 PM By fishfade

I made my first prototype for my bike light the other night. It didn't work out exactly how I had hoped, for use with a bike, but it was still a good torch. I gave it to my professor.

I made a second one today, and I'm much happier with it. My soldering is getting so much better, which I am sure is a relief to all none of you reading this. I expect I will be getting a bunch of "congratulations on becoming a novice solderer" ecards, and perhaps a digital gift certif or two to " Solderers-R-Us". Solderderity brothers and sisters!

When I say I "made" the bike light, I am actually referring just to the tin light itself, not the bracket for attaching it to the bike. That is the next step of the process. I think that the best thing to do here would be to pick up a cheap reflector bracket at the local bike shop and either drill out the tin to attach it, or to use it as an excuse to go up north to visit brother Mark and his lovely welding set-up again. The second option is much more appealing at this juncture, despite the two hour car ride it necessitates.

As to my activities of the past few days, they have been many. The school had a "Drop Everything and Read" Friday, which is a wonderful way to promote reading schoolwide. My students had a couple of assessments that were unavoidable, but that only took up about 45 minutes of the day. We all wore sweats to school, and the students were allowed to bring a pillow and blanket. They came in, built forts out of the desks and tables in the classroom, and read silently for about the first hour of school with the books they brought. AND THEY LOVED IT! Funny what a title will do, eh?!

We also did a reader's theater about "Lightening Larry" (thank you, Aaron Shepard) and they were totally into it, western twang and all.

I picked up The Lightening Thief, by Rick Riordan, as I was told that my love of mythology would make this a great pick for me. I'm still with it so far (chapter five-ish), and though it was not an immeadiate connection, it is growing on me. We'll see how Mr. Riordan finishes this first installment of the series.

That's it for now...Oh...Etsy....

Still no sales, but who really cares, right?!

I'm gonna' go make a freakin' flashlight now.

Back to School

7:16 PM By fishfade

What do you get when you add 13 fourth graders to one classroom, multiply by 2 weeks of break, and divide by six different disciplines? A surprisingly fun and easy day, apparently.

I am so blessed to have such a great group of kids, great group of peers, and amazing administration. Life is good.

How does this apply to a blog about making stuff out of candy tins? Well, let me tell you...

Apparently my lovely better half let some of the folks at school know what I've been up to, and they decided to donate some empty tins. First thing this morning, the school bookkeeper handed me a shoe box full of 'em! Joy! (Sad, I know...)

Then, my partner teacher entered the room, saying that she also wanted her class to get in on the action (the flashlights are a great way to teach about electricity - circuits specifically) and had a box of 60 tins to donate if I would make 28 kits for her kids to construct as a culminating project in May/June. Two for each kid, one to keep and one as a Father's Day present. Reehaw!

I've now got a real reason to find a cost effective, simple to construct way to put these lovelies together. I may need to do a bit of drilling on my own, but c'este la vie (yes, you may have scented a bit of "essence de sarcasmo" there).

Etsy update: Still no sales.

Jenny was kind enough to pass on an encouraging word, which I appreciated immensely, regarding being patient. And I will be, whether I want to be or not. She also has an excellent blog and Etsy Shop, so check them out if you have a chance.

This was a long back-to-school day, and I'm late for dinner, so throw another shrimp on the barbie (read with a poor Australian accent degrading into a southern drawl) and slap my mouth!
Later

Third

2:21 PM By fishfade

Still no buyers. Oh, well.

Church was fun today. I could not have looked more like a geek with my tin torch in tow. Everyone thought it was either great or hilarious (or both). The geeky people loved it. The cool people pretended it was a great joke, and secretly thought it was pretty cool. Some of the "Golden Pillars" gave me a look that said "Why in God's name would you make a flashlight out of an Altoids tin?", but were too polite to say it. They just smiled and nodded. Strangely, I understood it today. I've actually found myself smiling and nodding at some of the things that younger folks have talked to me about, while thinking "Why in God's name would you want to do that?" Ah, the circle of closing-the-door-on-experience continues...

School starts tomorrow, and I am fairly excited. Two weeks of break is excellent, but I'm looking forward to seeing my students. A couple of them caught up to me on Facebook over the break, and I was able to keep in some sort of contact. They are going to get a huge kick out of the flashlights. We finished an electricity and magnetism unit before the break, and I promised that when I figured it out we'd make our own. There are a couple of cool, simple ways to make the lights without having to solder or anything potentially dangerous at Instructables.com. We'll see what they think. Some want to make a survival kit out of the tin. Maybe we'll do both.

I will miss the girls, though. It has been nice to have some time together. They are a fun lot to get into trouble with. And they're cute. And they smell nice. At least, nicer than I do.

As for Etsy, we'll give it a little more time before we start trying to change anything...

Day, The Second

7:46 PM By fishfade

Welp, day one on Etsy is over, and I now have four items for purchase.

Wait, let me revise that - I have four fabulous pieces of tinnovative art that can be yours for a very low cost. Two new flashlights have appeared, and I've lowered prices a bit. I think I still may be a bit above where I should be, but I haven't gotten any feedback, so...

Folks are lookin' , but nobody's buyin'.

Harold, a friend from back home, said that the flashlights reminded him of something that Red would make on the Red Green Show. I had never heard of the Red Green Show, so I was very interested in what crafty, high-brow, creative connection between myself and another Harold had made. If I wasn't such a hick-at-heart, I might have taken it the wrong way. Red's "anti-swerving around me on a broken white line" device may need to be attached to my mobile beast in the future. Sigh.

Check out the site, and you can Youtube some of the sketches. This bit of down home humor is pretty funny. And the suspenders are superb.

Oh, and thanks for the hearts, Kelly and Jenn. I now have two people who "heart" my shop. That's a good thing, for you Etsy uneducated. I think...

Next project: Candy Tin Bike Light
(To appear in the next couple of days, hopefully.)

Getting Started

12:05 AM By fishfade

So...

I've started the whole Etsy thing. Why? Well, it goes a little something like this:

While listening to one of my favorite podcasts from the How Stuff Works website, Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Charles did a bit about Tinnovators. As an avid Altoid consumer, and a gadget freak, I was immediately drawn in. There are so many cool things that people have made using candy tins, from clocks to flashlights, ipod cases to photo albums, even electric guitars and dart guns. I had to get in on the fun. And I have. My first two offerings are a flashlight (the second iteration, as the first was a soldering fiasco) and a mini barbecue grill (thanks to my bro-in-law and his oxy/acetylene welding set-up with jeweler tip). I've got a couple of more flashlights to build, and then I intend to move on to more involved projects!

By the bye, for those of you who haven't checked out the Stuff You Should Know podcast, or any of their ever-appearing sister podcasts, they are a must. Even if the hosts, Josh and Charles, were not exceedingly entertaining (which they are) the subject matter is so interesting it is nearly sinful. Subscribe at once.

Beyond this, the website is a datafreak's dream. I get lost in it for way too much of my free time. Yes, my name is Jeff and I am a HowStuffWorksAholic. Join me, won't you?

But back to me...

So I've put up a couple of items on Etsy. I've no idea if they are priced correctly, whether or not I've got the whole thing set up functionally, or what half the tabs on the side do, but I'm excited to learn.

Let me know what you think.

Good or bad, I'm having fun either way.