After having saved money for years I now have a graphics suite installed on a computer at home – Photoshop, The Gimp, Illustrator, and Corel Painter along with a Wacom Tablet.
What I want to do is to develop some skills… and more importantly, a vision. Right now, though, I’m playing around and learning my way around the pixels. Here’s a couple simple ones I did last night… both bicycle related.
Cruiser in the French Quarter
If you are curious… for the original source of this – look here.
Folder
As always, I slept later than I wanted to and had to hurry a bit. I loaded my bike into the Matrix and drove to Forney, Texas for a bike ride.
Across the Metroplex cities and neighborhoods are establishing “Bike Friendly” groups. Where I live is Bike Friendly Richardson… one of the most progressive and active groups is Bike Friendly Oak Cliff… I’ve done a ride with Bike Friendly Cedars – and so on. These groups serve as advocates for the cycling communities within their areas – plus organize rides and other events.
Today was the inaugural rode for a relatively new group, Bike Friendly Forney. We met up at a nice little local Catfish/Cajun/Creole joint – Doe Bellies – and rode out around a local route.
Summer is here and the temperature is hovering up around the century mark. That’s not really too bad for a bike ride – you do create your own breeze.
Back at the restaurant, I had an excellent Shrimp Po-Boy. I hate to think how many miles of bike riding it takes to burn off the calories in a Po-Boy – but still….
The start of the Bike Friendly Forney Ride
Bikes waiting for Catfish.
I drove back home and installed my riding lights on my Technium (my commuter bike has a broken chain and I haven’t bothered to work on it yet). I had another bike ride to do in the evening.
Candy was going to a concert, so we grabbed a quick beer at Haystack Burgers – one of the rapidly growing number of establishments that serve a good selection of local craft brews (I had an El Chingon IPA from Four Corners). I stashed a folding chair in my car and parked it behind a Buddhist Temple – then rode a couple miles north to a taco joint where another local group would be meeting for the ride back south to a free showing of Dazed and Confused.
There is a well-known Austin-based chain of movie theaters, Alamo Drafthouse, that is building a new theater in Richardson at Beltline and 75. It’s pretty much finished and will open in August. To stir up excitement they are showing some free movies on a giant inflatable screen in the parking lot. The Alamo has a truck that contains some powerful ancient projectors they can wheel around for these events.
Back at the taco spot, I was an hour early and settled in to write a bit. Folks with bikes started to show up and after a while, right before I was going to walk over there by myself, they invited me over. We chatted it up a bit and then rode the short, interesting route back down to Beltline.
I stopped at my car and strapped the folding chair across my chest, bandoleer-fashion. It was spectacularly uncomfortable and stupid-looking, but it worked. I am going to have to figure out a better way to carry a folding chair on a bike.
Crowd in the parking lot of the Alamo Drafthouse, waiting for Dazed and Confused
Classic colorful street bombers at the movie.
There was a huge crowd for the movie. I had thought of getting something to eat and maybe another beer, but the lines were too intimidating, so I sat down, settled in, and watched the film. I had never actually seen all of Dazed and Confused all the way through – though of course I had heard of it. If you aren’t familiar with it, Dazed and Confused is a little comedy set in a small Texas town on the last day of high school in 1976 that has become an iconic touchstone for a generation.
I’m familiar with the times (I graduated in ’74) – though my high school experiences were much, much different than those in the film. What’s cool about the movie is the number of show-biz careers that started out in this little film – Linklater, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Milla Jovovich, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, Parker Posey, Matthew McConaughey… and more. Even Renée Zellweger was an uncredited extra – “Girl in Blue Pickup”. I’m afraid Dazed and Confused doesn’t hold together very well as a complete work of art – there’s no plot at all – but it has a lot of classic, fun set pieces, killer soundtrack, and has its time and place nailed exactly.
Renée Zellweger as an extra in Dazed and Confused.
And, of course, the classic Matthew McConaughey line – “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”
“Yes they do.” “Yes they do.”
I’ve now had this WordPress blog up for two years. I jumped in after a friend of mine, Peggy, started hers.
Of course, I’ve done this before… As best as I can tell, back in the 1990s I was somewhere around the thirteenth blogger on the internet – though this was years before the term “blog” was coined. We called them “online journals” or a “digital diary.” I started writing web pages using notepad and posting them in the five megabytes or so that America Online used to give you. I outgrew that and bought a URL and some web space (from what turned out to be the world’s worst online service provider). For well over a decade I wrote something every day. I had to quit when my kids reached high school and too many people I knew in “real life” started reading the thing. Actually, I didn’t quit – I simply went to paper.
Now, this time around… it’s completely different. I don’t write as much in it (my writing addiction is mostly served by fiction now) and do too much photography. But it is what it is.
Two Years
773 posts
2,667 comments
Days missed – none.
At any rate…
A few weeks ago, Candy and I went up to Denton for the Arts and Jazz festival. The last time we went, a couple years ago, it was way too crowded and we had a tough time parking… so this time, we decided to go earlier and to ride the Denton County Transit Authority A-Train up to Denton. This was a great idea – the train ride was fun and the festival was cool – we headed back before the crowds really began to build.
Denton is a cool city. To a big extent, it is a college town, almost like Austin-lite. I enjoyed the pedestrian and bike-friendly areas around the town square and decided I wanted to go back there with my bicycle.
Looking at Google Maps, I noticed the telltale green line that represented a hike-bike trail that ran from Lake Dallas through Corinth up to Denton – a little more than eight miles. It paralleled the A-Train tracks and I was able to get a good look at it from the train windows. It’s called the Denton Katy Trail – and it looked like a nice bike ride.
So, one Sunday that promised nice weather (and light winds) I decided to pack my camera, drive to Lake Dallas with my road bike and head up the trail to Denton. There, I would wander around a bit, take some photos, and then ride back down.
The start of the Denton Katy trail off of Swisher Road, in Lake Dallas.
The trail was nice – really nice. There is a great feeling of booking along fresh, smooth, level concrete. Not very many people using it – a few walkers from the suburban neighborhoods… I only saw one or two other bicycles. Still, it was fun and an enjoyable ride. Until…
The trail ended.
The sudden end of the Denton Katy Trail
Along the south side of Denton is a loop expressway, the 288 and the trail stopped there. They are building a big new pedestrian bridge over the expressway, and it looks finished… but isn’t.
Now, I know that the bridge is expensive and is being built with the best of intentions. That highway is a barrier – though not an insurmountable one. They do have several intersections with lights – you can cross easily if you wait for a green. Once the bridge is finished, bicyclists and walkers can bypass the highway, walking up and over.
The pedestrian/bicycle bridge over 288 in Denton. It will be nice when it is finished.
And that’s the problem. In separating the bike/pedestrians from the city, you make the trail into a recreational opportunity and take away the integration of human-powered transportation with the life of the city.
Presented with the closed trail, I considered turning around and heading back, but I wanted to get to downtown Denton. I walked my bike through a bit of thick woods lined with empty wine bottles and found myself in back of a huge Big-Box store of some kind. That area all along 288 is a massive expanse of auto-oriented shopping hell, with every chain store imaginable. No sidewalks, no way through, acres and acres of tarmac covered with clouds of exhaust fumes. Not a fun place to fight through on a bicycle.
This is what I am talking about. They can spend millions on a bridge to bypass the life below, but can’t finish the sidewalks. Areas like this are openly hostile to people without cars.
The ironic thing is that there were other people trying to walk through there. You would never see them from a car – but they are there… homeless people, young teenagers, poor students – the shadow population, carless by choice or by situation.
Again, I salute the money and effort put into the trail and that impressive bridge, but fear that the people behind this effort don’t understand the idea of making a city where you don’t have to have a car. I don’t think they can even imagine such a thing.
I was able to work my way through the maze of parking lots and fight past the thick streams of tinted-window SUVs and pickups to finally make my way into the old-fashioned heart of Denton… the area around the square and the roads leading out to the universities. There the cars, walkers, and bikes live together, moving a little more slowly, but getting where they need in plenty of time. It’s funny, the part of the city with the most modern, hip lifestyle… the part that everyone is spending millions of dollars trying to emulate… is the oldest, most “outdated” style of a city square surrounded by narrow streets with limited parking.
That’s the part I like.
I wanted to get in a (relative… for me) long bike ride today. I took my commuter bike and loaded it up with my Kindle, my camera, notebooks and pens, plus some extra water. My idea was to ride a bit, rest and read and then ride some more. I put together a route that wound through Garland, back across town to the Pearl Cup coffeehouse, then back home.
Nick is home and he rode with me east into Garland, then as we cut our way back he turned off and took the Owens Trail home. I was feeling a little off and decided I was getting overheated. It’s the first day over 90 – which soon won’t be very hot, but I haven’t acclimated to it yet – plus it’s very humid. So I hung out in a shade structure next to the athletic fields – drank some water and read a short story. Within a few minutes I felt a lot better.
I enjoyed talking sports with some guys that showed up with a truck full of coolers and grills that were setting up for an all-African soccer tournament later in the day. I took off, dropped down into the Spring Creek Natural Area and then under the highway to the Canyon Creek neighborhood.
The Pearl Cup has finally put a sign up and built a bike rack in front. Their mocha coffee had some nice latte art and plenty of caffeine and sugar. It was cool inside and I settled in with my Kindle to rest a bit.
A couple nights ago I finished a novel that I had found recommended in an article about the best books of this century – The True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey. It was a very well written, interesting book… and I’m glad I read it, but it didn’t speak to me in any personal way. Now that it is finished, I’m working on a huge collection of Joyce Carol Oates stories I carry on my Kindle – eleven new ones and more than two dozen classic stories from a forty year period. It’s called High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006.
Her writing resonates with me. As I read her harrowing, dark short fiction, my mind fills with ideas that I will have to write out. I fill pages in my Moleskine with short story ideas. Her writing shares with me the desire to explore the too-thin membrane between our illusion-filled world and the horrific void beyond.
So I drank my coffee drink and a dozen glasses of iced water, read some stories, and wrote some pages. Then I took off, riding back to the thick creekbottom woods of the Spring Creek Natural Area, did a lap of the loop trail, and plopped down on a favorite bench to crank through another story.
It happened to be a well-known story that I was familiar with – had read a couple times before. It was “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” (read it here for yourself). I hesitate to call it one of my favorite short stories… though I have to call it that – because there is no other word that fits. It is simply too disturbing to embrace fully. But it is a work of genius.
Though nothing explicitly bad happens in the tale – there is no doubt that the world has ended for poor Connie. So much in the story is ambiguous and subtly horrific. I was reading slowly, carefully, and paying complete attention to the words splashed across the Eink display. In the corner of my eye I saw a jogger going by… then he stopped and I heard a loud “Oh!”
I looked up.
“Don’t you see it?”
“What?”
“There, right there.”
I looked carefully where he was pointing, on the concrete trail right in front of where he was standing. There it was, a snake. A big snake.
I stood up and we looked at it carefully (from a safe distance).
“I think it’s a bullsnake,” I said.
“Here, I’ll Wikipedia it,” the jogger said, pulling out his iPhone. “It looks like the right pattern.”
I have seen bullsnakes before. In seventh grade we had one in biology class. I have no real fear of snakes that I have seen (as opposed to snakes I haven’t seen, which scare me) so I would rush my work and play with the snake. One day I wasn’t paying close enough attention and the thing managed to slip through my collar at the back of my neck, slithering under my shirt and winding around my chest. A friend of mind jumped behind me and managed to grab the tip of its tail – then pull the thing out.
Another day, I moved my hand into its aquarium cage too fast and the bull snake reared back and struck at me. It was harmless, but it scared me – I was a lot more careful after that.
Today, the jogger and I watched the snake crawl through the clearing and across the trail. If I moved too close it would rear like it was going to strike and I’d jump back. It was slender but at least six feet long – reaching pretty much across the concrete trail. The jogger finally decided to move on.
I sat down and started reading again, keeping one eye on the snake as it slowly moved toward the thick woods. A family came across the bridge and saw the snake. The father, riding an expensive, fully suspended mountain bike stopped, and then went after his small son – who was on a little bike with training wheels and went straight for the snake. He had no fear.
The mother followed along behind, walking a small dog. She veered way off the path, walking the dog through the thick knee-high scrub and weeds to stay far away from the snake. So she was afraid of the snake she saw, and then exposed herself to the snakes (that are undoubtedly there) that she couldn’t see.
Finally the snake reached the woods and disappeared in an instant. I finished the story – somehow the presence of the snake added to the darkness and terrible foreboding of the story. The snakes are there, whether you know it or not – sometimes they come out… and remind you of what is waiting, hidden, behind the membrane of illusion.
I think this is a bullsnake.
Bullsnake
Painted on a wooden fence in Denton, Texas
This one had been defaced by someone that used white paint to add crude breasts. I photoshopped that out.
You are welcome.
This one had only been started. I posed my bicycle where the one in the image will be. It looks cool, I hope the artist finishes it.
May is National Bicycling Month, next week is Bike-to-Work week… and Friday, May 17th is National Bike to Work Day.
Local groups are sponsoring “Energizer Stations” – I’ll visit the one at Arapaho Center Station on my way in on Friday.
How Government Wrecked the Gas Can
I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice.
Dallas-area hike-and-bike trails poised to get major financial boost
What is nice is that these are almost all “connector trails” – designed to allow bicycling trails to be used as transportation corridors, rather than something to stroll along with your kids on Sunday afternoon.
The group’s Regional Transportation Council will vote Thursday on a plan to use more than $13 million to benefit nearly a dozen biking and pedestrian projects in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The efforts are intended to provide transportation alternatives to motor vehicles, especially by connecting the projects to existing paths.
“They can’t be purely focused on recreation,” said Karla Weaver, a program manager at the Council of Governments. “We wanted to help to get some more concrete stuff in for active users.”
No surprise here, interruptions make you stupid. I find The Pomodoro Technique to be very useful to focus concentration for a short time, get important and difficult tasks completed, generate ideas, and help me ignore interruptions while still keeping up with things.
An Idea Pomodoro – timer, pen, composition book.
Bike rider on the DART train.
Bicycling in the City and Living to Tell a Skittish Class
Ride with the flow of traffic, the teacher said, or be prepared to “spend the rest of your day in the hospital and the rest of your year filling out insurance paperwork.”
And always live up to these buzzwords, even when fellow travelers do not: predictable, visible, assertive, alert and courteous.
The crowd at Ciclovia Dallas on the Houston Street Viaduct with the Dallas downtown skyline
Home by Hovercraft in Deep Ellum
Interview with Home By Hovercraft
Hummus Is Conquering America
Tobacco Farmers Open Fields to Chickpeas; A Bumper Crop
Life in the City Is Essentially One Giant Math Problem
Bars Are the Secret to Thriving Downtowns: The Best #Cityreads of the Week
Local officials who want a more lively town center and a development team seeking to restore a landmark hotel were hoping to put a new watering hole on Main Street. Then they ran smack into New Jersey’s strict, Prohibition-era alcohol laws, which restrict the number of liquor licenses per town. Flemington had just three—two belonging to establishments in strip malls and one for a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall.
Having a decent bar, it turns out, is helpful to reviving small downtowns, development experts say. So, in February, the developers came up with a novel but expensive solution, buying the Italian restaurant that owned a license and eventually transferring it to the downtown hotel. The price: about $1 million for the permit alone.
A long time ago, when I was a young, avid bicyclist I had a salesman call on me. He shared my love of the human-powered two-wheel machines. We’d grab a bite and talk bikes. I remember him telling me, “My wife is really upset at the number of bikes I have. I’ve got my road racing bike, my triathalon racing bike, my around-the-neighborhood-beater bike, my mountain bike, my touring bike, my cargo bike that I take to the grocery store, a tandem, and a fun pavement bike. Eight bicycles are too many for one person, but I can’t think of any of them that I can live without. I want an ultralight road bike, but she says I have to get rid of two before I can buy one more. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I said that I knew exactly how he felt.
Right now, I can’t live with fewer than two bikes. I have my old road bike, my vintage Technium – I call it my “fun” bike. For a machine that’s almost thirty years old it’s light and nimble enough, fairly narrow tires, and I keep it as “clean” as I can and still carry what I need. It’s good when I want to crank out the miles.
But I wanted another bike, a “commuter” bike. That bike is the opposite – a bike with all sorts of shit hanging on and off it. Wide gearing, wide tires, fenders, front and rear racks, two water bottles, room for locks and tools, lights, and upright handlebars. In other words, a bike that can go anywhere and carry anything.
European style bikes like that are now available with great accessories such as internal-geared hubs and generators for lights. I can’t afford that, however, so I began to rebuild something in my garage – my old 90’s-era Yokota Yosemite mountain bike (I bought it [used, probably hot] in a pawn shop around 1994 for sixty dollars). I scoured the Internet for bargains and sales, and picked cheap, used stuff up at swap meets and came up with the parts I needed.
The last time I wrote about it – I had stripped the paint off the old, mostly white bike (the paint was hopelessly scratched and torn up). So now I’ve rattle-canned the thing a dark green (Charleston Green – almost black) and put it back together. The paint job is embarrassingly bad – but it won’t rust.
Some of the gear I have on it:
That looks like a lot – but I only spent a couple hundred dollars or so. A lot cheaper than a new bike.
I’ve been experimenting with mounting crap on the front and rear racks. I bought a used bag at a swap meet that works on either one – it holds my camera well. For a while, I’ve had some panniers and a cooler that I can carry cold water in – that helps get me through the summer. I have this nice little plastic box I bought at Staples and mount on the front with nylon wingnuts – it looks awful (it’s this bright translucent blue – I’ll go by there and get a grey one soon) but is handy to throw in last minute stuff – phone, lock, whatever.
Finally, I’ve been experimenting with ways to mount writing materials (pens, moleskine, and/or my Alphasmart keyboard) to carry for bicycle writing marathons. I’ve found a couple of compact bags that hang from the rear rack with two small carabiner clips. Works great (If I carry a full laptop I prefer to wear a backpack – for a little more cushioning and safety).
This gives it a junked-up appearance. I don’t care. This is my go-anywhere and do-anything bike. It’s not for looks.
My commuter bike
Obviously.
So now I have my commuter bike. It’s a lot more work than the road bike (the wide tires, weight, and the upright position) but it gets me where I need to. Anything less than fifteen miles or so aren’t a real problem – and it can go anywhere in any weather (as long as I can hold up – it can).
Before:
My commuter bicycle – I’m now taking it apart for a rebuild.
During:
A lot of tubes, a lot of paint to scrape off.
And After:
You can see the bag (I think it used to hold a portable DVD player) hanging on the rear rack. Perfect for a Moleskine and some pens.
Stylish bike rider, French Quarter, New Orleans
Here’s What Americans Don’t Get About Cycling — And Why It’s A Problem
Bike rider in front of the Winspear Opera House. If you are wondering, the photo is cropped and upside down.
Paul Thomas Anderson directing a film of one of Thomas Pynchon novels. This is truly the best of all possible worlds.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice to Begin Shooting this Month.
Now I’m waiting for an HBO series made from Gravity’s Rainbow.
It may be more of a coincidence than anything else, but I live in one of these and spend time every year in seven of the twelve, including the top five.
Dallas Skyline from the Soda Bar on the roof of the NYLO Southside hotel.
Quick Hits:
Two hot books to watch for
Spice Things Up in the Kitchen with Homemade Taco Seasoning
Do These 9 Things in Your Kitchen to Lose Weight
The Great Gatsby and 7 other hideous movie tie-in book covers
In Germany, a U.S. beer invasion
Forget the Unemployment Rate: The Alarming Stat Is the Number of ‘Missing Workers’
The old order is dying. We are living in the age of Farage
US Headed For The Coldest Spring On Record
When I first saw this, I thought, “Oh, this has to be fake.” As time goes by (and a couple of hours is an eternity in internet-time) it looks like it might be real. At any rate, it’s one hell of a strange photo, real or not.
Rays reporter Kelly Nash takes an impressively dangerous Fenway Park self-portrait
The reason the saying “No pain, no gain” is so common is because it’s true: If you never feel discomfort when you exercise, you’re not getting all the benefits. What separates great athletes from mediocre ones isn’t only talent and training – it’s also how well they can handle discomfort.
I was tired, turned on the TV, and saw a little of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner – and was appalled. The phrase that kept wafting through my mind was, “let them eat cake.” The next day I found this article, which echoed my thought.
The Narcissism Of The White House Correspondents’ Dinner Hurting The Media’s Already Tarnished Brand
“The breaking point for me was Lindsay Lohan,” Tom Brokaw recently said. While this statement could apply to so many circumstances, he was specifically referring to the annual gala event known as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “[W]hat we’re doing with that dinner, as it has been constituted for the past several years, is saying, ‘We’re Versailles. The rest of you eat cake,’” Brokaw added in a striking rebuke of what the night (which has evolved into a whole weekend of festivities) has become. There will come a day soon when members of the press will ask themselves why they did not listen to Brokaw. The political media has a credibility problem, and the WHCD is not helping.
I guess I have a low tolerance for narcissism (hypocritical for someone that has a blog – the most narcissistic thing there is), especially in elected officials – which are supposed to be servants of the people.
10 books from the 21st century every man should read
A worthy list. I have read most of these, and the rest were on my to-read. It’s nice to see so many short story collections on here. The Road is not one of my favorite Cormac McCarthy novels. But its only competition in this century is No Country for Old Men – which I would give the nod to, but that is arguable. I’m going to have to look into those Author’s Picks.
Dove’s Fake New ’Real Beauty’ Ads
Very effective and heart-rendering… but it’s fake.
How to Make Taco Bell’s Crunch Wrap Supreme at Home
Nothing sums up the deliciousness of a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme more concisely than the love letter to it on the daily humor website McSweeney’s. All of the Crunchwrap’s beauty is perfectly summarized in that piece: the convenience of not having to choose between a soft or crunchy tortilla, the patches of sour cream randomly placed throughout it, and a creamy, indulgent nacho cheese sauce that is the ying to the meat’s yang. And it’s all wrapped together in a soft tortilla shell that makes it easy to enjoy one-handed without making a mess.
You’ll Be Shocked by How Many of the World’s Top Students Are American
My rebuilt commuter bike,and Reunion Tower. Taken from the abandoned parking garage next to where Reunion Arena used to be. Dallas, Texas
My commuter bicycle with Reunion Tower in the background
I think this video is taken from the exact spot that my bicycle is leaning in the photo.
I want a new bicycle but I simply can’t afford one. So I’m making do.
I’ve been riding my old Technium and it’s doing well. It’s a road bike and a lot of fun. Still, one of my long-term goals is to integrate biking with my daily life and I want a commuting/shopping/bombing around the neighborhood bike. I want a bike that can go anywhere, anytime – and I don’t really care how long it takes to get there.
So I’m rebuilding my old Yokota Yosemite steel mountain bike. I’ve scrounged up a set of fenders, front and back racks, and a cheap lighting system. I found bargains on new shifters, brake levers, and more modern V-brakes to replace the squealing cantilevers.
My old bike. I bought it for sixty bucks at a pawn shop over fifteen years ago.
Looking at the bike, though, I realized the paint was really messed up. It was white, and showed every scratch and scrape… and twenty years of tough riding left a lot of scratches and scrapes.
I decided to paint the thing. If nothing else, this gave me an excuse to remove every little piece and part. One of the few good things about doing your own maintenance is that it teaches you about your bike and gives you a connection – the inanimate, mechanical object of metal, plastic, and rubber – becomes almost a living thing in your mind, and extension of your own body, so to speak.
The only problem is that stripping all the paint off the old steel frame was a ton of work. Paint stripper, flat bladed scrapers, and sandpaper… combined with helpings of time and elbow grease took the thing down to stripped bare steel. I don’t know what kind of paint they used, but it was tough.
I have become enamored of steel framed bikes. Nowadays, of course, it’s all aluminum and/or carbon fiber. Anything to shave off a few more ounces.
But now that I see the gleaming steel that was under that paint – I’ll take the toughness, versatility, and smooth ride of that steel even if I have to push around a couple more pounds.
I never noticed the Yosemite engraved on the seat tube until I removed the old paint.
A lot of tubes, a lot of paint to scrape off.
The bare steel flash rusts almost immediately without any paint protecting it. I’ll have to give it a final sanding right before I prime it.
Now I’m ready. We have this little plastic outbuilding that I need to clean out and convert into a temporary paint booth. I’ll have to slot out the time and I’ll need a final sanding to clean the flash rust off the frame; then it’s primer-color-clear.
I thought about colors – I want something really simple that won’t show dirt. It looks like it’ll be Charleston Green. – which is almost black, but is supposed to show a green tint when the sun hits it right. That’s darker than I was thinking originally (I was looking for a dark British Racing Green) but the more I thought about it, and the more I read about the history of the color, Charleston Green it is.
Bill Chance 