Jewelry School Part 3

As everyone groggily strolled in the next morning we took to our benches. I looked at my chain repairs from the next day to see if I had applied what I had learned correctly. Everything was fine. Blaine called us over and told us that we were doing so well as a group we were going to begin the three stone ring.

To me this seemed like a daunting task but when laid out its not too difficult. Blaine showed us, in great detail, how to cut a hole through each on the three parts of the top gallery of the ring. Each had four prongs and one was bigger than the other two. He drilled through and flattened each one. Next, using a special clay and some other techniques he made the bottoms of the settings match up. Doing this without the clay, is probably the most frustrating thing ever, or so I have heard. After the settings were attached we soldered them together. Mine came out better than I thought it would but there was more to be done.

The next step was making the ring shank. We cut a simple shank into a different shape and put a throat so that the bottom and top galleries would touch the corresponding parts of the ring. This may sound confusing but I'm sure you've seen what it's supposed to look like. I had a little trouble cutting it straight at first. Once I figured out the proper technique I measured and cut where the throat would be on each side. This was going fine until I broke the piece that would touch the bottom gallery off. This got me a little mad and I had to make it all over again.

Meanwhile, Blaine brought us up for another demo of how to solder the top gallery to the shank. This was a lot easier than anyone thought it could be, as long as you followed the tips and tricks that he showed and had good torch control, which at that point we all did. For some people this took longer to accomplish than others. I did it slowly for fear of messing up again. In the end it looked OK and I was proud of it. I didn't think I had it in me.

That night I relaxed with a quiet dinner and a few of us had some drinks by the pool. It was low key that night and we all drifted off on our own time up to our respective rooms.

Jewelry School Part 2

That first night the class ended at 5:30 and everyone involved was tired due to learning so much. I was especially tired due to all the human interaction that took place. I took a little break in my room and shower before dinner which a few of us went out for. We each had a couple drinks and discussed what had happened that day. Everyone sort of had their own opinion as to Blaine's teaching style but there was a consensus that his tips and tricks were useful. I liked the way they talked, as it let me know I had made the right choice.

The next day we picked up right where we left off. A term that would be continually used was capillary action, like how trees suck up water, just differently as to how solder flowed to joint to pieces. When Blaine showed us how this applied to jewelry we all stopped and shook our heads, not because we didn't think of it, but because it was all so simple. The answers to everything were in plain sight, just a new approach to thinking was needed; and I'm sure that is why the school was named as such. After lunch we learned how to repair a variety of chains that included rope, S link and herringbone. I'd never tried to do this on my own and didn't ever take the time to look at a chain closely, for one reason or another. Blaine asked around the room and sought input from a girl from Toronto, who we called Canada. She told the class her way of doing it and Blaine said that he had a way that would blow everyone's mind. It did. What would have taken Canada an hour took Blaine five minutes. You could tell Canada was impressed by the faces she kept making and her mannerisms; even I was able to distinguish these, it was that obvious. We ran out of time the second day before we could practice on our own.

Dinner again that night was something we went out for. After all we were on a sort of vacation from reality and decided to make the most of it. We loaded up and drove to the shore.

Tonight it would be a pizza/dive bar. There was a nice breeze coming off the ocean and we thought it best to sit outside. Everyone ordered beer, just the thing to take the edge off after a long day. We kept conversation to a minimum about class that day. The meal was a hearty one and there was more than enough to go around. There were sixty wings, three cheesy breads and two pizzas to go around. Between eight people that is a decent amount of food especially when half of them are girls. Even though I myself was tired I had a long time and participated in some of the conversation. After wards the whole gang agreed to walk the boardwalk.

We must have walked that thing for a good hour and a half before we realized we forgot which direction the car was parked. It may have been because we were both food and traditional drunk. Everyone had fun watching the street performers and people watching. I felt something tap me on the shoulder and was surprised that no one was there. Instead a bird had left its mark on me, although it didn't feel like good luck a the time. After all the fun had ended we piled back into the cars and drove home. I think I went to bed at midnight. Needless to say a few people were a little late the next morning.

Jewelry School Part 1

This past week, August 1-5, I took a trip down the New Approach School in Virginia Beach to take a five day course entitled Bench jeweler Comprehensive. This course serves as a way to learn basic bench skills, jewelry repair, troubleshooting, and time saving techniques. I had practiced the craft of jewelry making on my own the last few years but even this was something I needed to do. I narrowed my search down after I had heard good things about the school and wanted to pursue a career in design and repair. Going down for the class turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done.

I flew down to Virginia Beach on the 31st and checked into my hotel. I was eating in the lobby when I saw a group of people who didn't look like they were here for a conference and it didn't seem like they were family either. They looked like they could have been jewelers here for the course so I tried to gauge their conversation. It turns out they were not, but the guy sitting a few booths away from me was and I sat down with him and talked for a little. Jordan ended up being my ride the next morning which was what I needed more than anything else at that time anyways.

Arriving at the school at 8am, which was a suite in a large building, I walked inside with some of the others who were also there to sharpen their bench skills. We were each instructed to find a bench and I took one next to Jordan because we were familiar with one another already. Our instructor, Blaine Lewis, explained the class a little and we began with a sawing exercise. I had done OK at sawing but up to that point I had done all right at everything I tried anyways. Blaine showed us a new way of holding the saw frame and how to make what we were doing more effective. This worked better than my technique, to say the least. We then tried something I had not even considered and failed usually failed at; turning the saw blade mid stroke to cut at either an angle or a curved line. I was wondering how this was possible to do without breaking the blade but was happy to find I could do it. This was not the first time I was to be surprised that week.

Next came filing the piece so that it was even. Everyone needed a little work so a demo on how to do it was shown. Blaine is truly a master and watching him 'take care of business' so to speak was astounding to watch. He manipulated the file so that the piece, which looked like a cutout of the Sphinx, cleaned up quickly. The class followed and things began to take shape.

After lunch we learned about how the torches worked. It was fairly easy to do because I had used on before, just not one that had oxygen. It was also smaller than my torch I usually used but I couldn't melt a lot metal with it. This was far easier than even I had hoped. What you did was to light the flame, propane, then open the oxygen valve to refine and add heat to the flame. Flame size and control are key when repairing jewelry. Although flame is 3,700F you have to be careful as to its size and how you move it to achieve the desired effect.

After getting the flame to the right size we took the ring we had already taken a piece out of, thanks to our saw blades, and soldered it shut. This was relatively easy and a beginner could do it just by following the tips presents. Sizing a ring up was where a little more technique came into play. We measured a piece out from another ring shank and cut it to size. Then we put the piece into the ring we were sizing up so that it was even. This may sound dull as heck but there were a few tricks, that I will not tell here, that made this easy to do. Sometimes people had trouble soldering their ring without the insert falling out; Blaine had a trick for that. Any problem you could possibly encounter that man had a solution for. Time flew by and with breaks, lunch and trying out new things the first eight hour day flew by. There was plenty more knowledge to come though.

Still Single After All These Years

I've had opportunities over the years to change my social situation concerning women. For one reason or another I chose not to. It was a combination of fear, anxiety, self doubt and the desire to remain the person I am that has kept me from doing so.

A note on how I look physically. I'm a good looking man, I think, people tell me and some of the looks I get convey this, but I don't really see this in myself. It is a confidence issue for me and women are attracted to confidence, or so I hear. They say that everyone has sex in college, especially if you are on the baseball team. I must have missed that memo

The fear and anxiety are one in the same, really, but only at the initial phase. I can't just go up and talk to a woman. Putting my neck out that far is uncomfortable for me as it is for many men I'm sure. Unlike most, though, I get the feeling of the primitive 'fight or flight response' in this situation. I always seem to run. I feel that my life is in danger at this time. I wrote about a time when this girl clearly wanted me in one of the chapters of my book. After analyzing it, it's not a long incident at all; I came to this conclusion fairly quickly. The funny thing is that when I look back, both right after it happened and now I feel like I should have just gotten it over with. Even now I feel remorse for not acting if I find myself in even a hint of the situation. I don't have a time machine.

That first situation should have been a layup. I was in high school and was the ace of the varsity pitching staff. People knew who I was (well not really). I found the girl attractive; too, it wasn't like I would have denied any of those advances if given the chance to exploit them. I simply thought too much, like I always do, about the impending situation and had to run off before I let it happen. It's sad really. I've had other chances but nothing THAT obvious to date.

Self doubt goes both toward me and towards the one I'd like to pursue. I don't feel I could either live up to her expectations or if she could be able to deal with all the stuff going on in my head. Would she run when I finally was able to explain it to her? Would I even be able to tell her or hope she figures it out? Then again I don't know if I try first.

There also remains the fact that I have seen many friends in relationships over the years. I watch everything that they have gone through, good and bad, and it seems to be a roller coaster of emotions. I see all the headaches and I don't want to get involved in that sort of crap. I tend to stay even keel, at least outwardly, and I don't know how someone else could understand that. I can keep a straight face when someone cries in front of me, even if I have caused the pain. It's not bragging, its a fact. How are they going to react to that? Part of me wants to stay alone for fear of all my routines getting messed up. I like all the freedoms I have and I don't have enough money to slightly entertain or be part of everyday occasions such as going out to dinner on a regular basis. That is not the type of thing I spend my money on. I'd have to get a job to support that, which would add even more stress. I will become a goldsmith in the coming months, after I get back from the school I'm going to for it, but until then the song will remain the same. The whole last paragraph was something that came up in an AS group I was a part of in college, so in those thoughts I am not alone.

Relationships have their ups and downs but I don't feel ready for one yet. I'll continue not looking for one and just seeing what happens. From what I've learned not looking for something is the best way to find it.

Questions or comments? Let me know.

Foodie Contest

I'll keep this post short.

Whenever I eat some sort of snack food whether it be chips or anything in bulk I try to make it interesting for myself, sort of. Usually it happens with chips or cheezits, something that us supposed to have a uniform shape. I take one out and then each on thereafter is compared to it. Each one the has either an imperfection or is merely a piece is eaten first. I set aside around 5-10, depending on the snack food of choice, for a final round of judging. I scrutinize each one closely. For cheezits its the amount of brown color they have, any small holes present or imperfect corners. A flaw in any one of those categories results in them being eaten. In the end, though, there can be only one winner. After the winner is decided I examine it for a few seconds, in all its glory, and then it too is eaten just as those before it. Before you ask let it be known that I don't judge people like this, as its pretty hard to stare at them for the amount of required time without them noticing.

Is this whole thing pointless? Probably, but it keeps even the most mundane times interesting for me. That and it may slow me down as I tend to inhale food when I eat.

I often wonder to myself what my own personal cheezit hall of fame would look like. I guess I'd have to start taking pictures or something, but who has time for that?

Odd Dreams When I Sleep

We all have dreams when we go to bed but for the most part do we really remember them? They would certainly have to stand out in order for us not to forget them. My dreams feel like they are a little out of the ordinary and I seem to recall a decent amount of them, both past and present. So let me sit on the long leather couch and reminisce.

I'd have to say that I have at least one dream a week in which I either can jump really well or fly. As you can imagine these are my favorite. The jumping involves me pulling off a Mario like set of leaps where on the third or second one sends me airborne. The first time I had this type of dream was at a very young age where an insurance or real estate salesman chased me through a series of blended and cartoon like landscapes. He would try to grab me and hang on as I tried to fly away and we would eventually end up back where we started and the dream would end. I know what you're probably thinking but hold on, its gets better.

Sometimes I have the flying dream in places that I know, such as my old high school, but different in a way. There is always some sort of modified thing or something askew about the scenery, something that my imagination must have added. People in the dream aren't really impressed in my ability to fly either. Sometimes I'm drifting around the halls of my school just above the heads of everyone else as I have a conversation. Instead of walking down the stairs I fly down and around the stairwell. Other than that, the school is the same. Flying is also something I can do without having to think about it, it just happens, almost like I already know I can do it before the dream starts.

I talked to my dad and he said that you can't dream of a place you have never seen. He may have been full of it because there are a lot of places I know I have not seen or that they even exist. Landscapes or architecture are not feasible in the shapes I see them in. Either they are too organic or too advanced to be built by anyone. I think that my brain can do sort of what it does when I see a someones face; compares it to all the other faces its ever seen and then determines who else it looks like, but instead scenery is put out. That is the only thing I can think of. Often times the scenery is the same and I have reoccurring dreams but with the ability to change my actions if I need to.

Recently I have been just sitting around when all of the sudden one of the dreams I had as a child or young adult shoots into my head and I remember everything. This is completely random and I cannot explain why it happens. If I let my mind go blank certain things can be recalled for some reason. Each times this happens, and it has done so around 30 times in the last couple months I recall a past dream. The ages I had the specific dream are also very random. Ever time this happens I suddenly feel nostalgic.

I will probably have to add more to this post in the future but for now this will have to do.

Questions or comments? Please let me know.

I Almost Cried Today 6/5/11

I had just gotten back from brunch with my sister (marvelous by the way at Highland Kitchen in Sommerville, really worth the drive) and I went upstairs to take a post feast nap. I wasn't asleep for very long when I came into a dream of my sister and I walking our old dog Chelsea, a spirited golden retriever through the streets of some unknown area. It kept changing from nearly urban to rural as well as a mix of the two; it was a very odd journey. Chelsea has been gone since 2006 when my dad put her down. She looked the same as she did the last time I saw her. She loved going on walks.

Towards the end of the dream I began to get a little teary as we were dropping her off at the place we were looking for. I think it was supposed to be a vet office but it was called Middlesex Community College, which is sort of near where I live. Anyway, I began to cry more as we sent her, unaccompanied, to the back room. No one was leading her and she just knew what to do on her own. I began to cry harder at this. Suddenly, I then woke up with a similar feeling of when I first became emotional within the dream. I felt that I could have cried but did not do so. The feeling disappeared within about a minute and I was back to normal.

I do not know what triggered this dream and it was the only one I have had of Chelsea in the last few years since we put her down. It did, however, bring back some of the feelings that we all had for her towards the end of her life. The whole thing brought back the feeling of letting go.