Test Tube Hijinks and Other Natter

Test Tube Hijinks

Our initial order of test tubes arrived Friday night. A big box. A rather big box. Big enough that when I summoned Robin to help unpack it (and get his portion of the order), he failed to ID it as the test tube order.

Here's what was in the box that we ordered - 50 assorted color test tubes, rack, 25 clear test tubes in the same size, 25 smaller clear tubes, stoppers, and a couple other odds & ends. Not shown is Robin's batch of 25 assorted color test tubes:

This . . . not so much. 

The pick sheet called for 5 bags of 5 tubes in assorted colors. What we have here is 5 rather large bags. Comparing them to the batch of 50 colored test tubes, and keeping in mind the numbers available for order, we estimate that each bag contains 250 test tubes. So instead of 25 we got 1250. Oops.

I called the company, they should be sending me a return shipping label. I was mildly surprised that they said to take the 25 tubes we wanted out of one of the bags, but OK.

Shopping

Saturday morning Robin and I checked the gemsbock horns, and decided that both sets could be made into bows. One set isn't doesn't have nice smooth curves and needs some trimming on the bases, but these will be display-only bows, so the wonky curves shouldn't be a problem. We also have a piece of wood, I'm guessing cherry, that Ron had started shaping for a grip. 

We went to Owl Hardwood Lumber in Des Plaines and got a piece of walnut for the second grip. We also picked up some basswood for blocks for test tube holders, and a somewhat snaggly piece of aromatic cedar to put in with yarn. It was about the size I wanted, and I don't care how it looks or knots, I just want it for the smell, so I'll take the ugly piece.

While we were there Robin was seduced by pen blanks (ie: cutoffs) in various exotic hardwoods. He got a hadful to make monoliths out of - terrain for miniatures games. Not sure if he's going to try to sell them, or keep them all for himself.

He's also going to make some fancy pegs for me, to hold pouches shut with. The piece of walnut we got needs to be cut down in width, and it sounds like Ron may also shorten it, so that'll be some more wood for him to play with, once he warms up on pine or basswood.  Not sure if he's going to use the dremel lathe, or the full (-ish) sized lathe on the Shopsmith.

More Robin Endeavors 

On the way home from Owl we stopped at Games Plus (and Mosaic Yarn Studio, oops), and I suggested to Robin that we should get him some business cards made and put them up on the bulletin board at Games Plus to try to get him more business painting miniatures for hire. One of the Games Plus owners encouraged him, and said they often have people looking for mercenary painters.

Robin and Ron have been meaning to get pictures of some of Robin's better miniatures, so I pushed a little, and they did that Saturday afternoon, while I was a lazy slug. 

Sunday, while Ron and Robin patched the hole in the wall that resulted from the sacrifice to the plumbing gods, I started a business card for Robin. Here's a low-ish resolution JPEG, saved for him to use as a signature in the Games Plus DakkaDakka forum. 

We got several pages of the cards printed at FedEx, Robin cut them today, and has/is taking them to put up at Games Plus. Ron's edited the image used, so I need to update the card, will probably also make a back side, and in the long run we'll get them printed as business cards. But now he's got some to get started with.

Sunday afternoon/evening Ron helped him go through Saturday's photos, created a gallery, I proofread the captions, and we added an "Other Services" section to the Otter Necessities website menu bar. We put a link to his gallery under it, as well as a link to my bare-bones page-layout service page. Here's a direct link to Robin's gallery.  Yes, this is a shameless plug. Finding a regular job is not going well for him, and he's gotten to be a pretty good painter. The dwarf on the card, for instance, is only about an inch tall. "Li'l Death" is only a half-inch tall. 

Urg, Blech, Sinuses

Sunday afternoon I intended to start on a pouch we got an order for at ACen.  Unfortunately, I ran out of my (OTC) antihistimines a while back, and hadn't bothered getting more, because I hadn't seemed to be missing them. Except that in the last day something has, apparently, started blooming or outgassing or something. I stopped at a CVS on the way to work, almost panicked because the pharmacy didn't open until 8:30, and the (expletive) drug dealers using the good stuff to make whatever mean you have to get the good stuff, even OTC, from the pharmacy after swearing and signing that you just want the drugs to deal with your allergies, dammit. Yes, I am a little cranky. But I did find some Claritin, yay. 

On the other hand, I'm not sure how well its working. I may stop again this evening and get something else to try tomorrow (the Claritin is 24-hour). I suspect I won't be starting the pouch tonight, either, between the usual Monday effect and the sinus ick I feel trying to start.