Catching you up.

I honestly don't know what happened. Winter blues? S. A. D.? But I just haven't felt like putting anything up. I haven't taken many pictures and yet life has been full and it just seemed like it wasn't anything worth sharing, anything you'd like to read so . . . I apologize and will do better. Until I got your text, I didn't realize that you read this or missed it so again, I am sorry.

As I look at my planner, a concession to age, I can fill in most days, and I even took a few cell phone pictures to send your mother or sister that might fill in some of the gap. I don't know.

January ended with several trips to Lay's, well two anyway on the 28th and 29th. My original thinking on how to make the guitar that your uncle gave me more playable turned out to be the wrong way to go but with Dan's help, the neck got resized and reshaped and playing it will be much easier. A lot of the old skills apply, like using pore filler once the sanding and shaping were done on the neck. The top was/is another story as it will forever bear the scars of the previous attempts by owners before Dan and I. It's sad but true that bad things happen to good guitars and in many cases, they can be fixed and a good finish will hide the repairs. It will be close on this one.

I played chauffeur for your mother and Bernie, toted their bags, helped Bernie spend money at the Apple Store and got lunch and excellent company out of it.

We saw Akron host Ohio U. and the Bobcats were not very good that night. Akron wasn't much better but they were when they had to be and the Bobcats went down. :-(

I have managed to snowboard and if I go this afternoon, my pass will have paid for itself. Your mother has been going with me and then she gets taken either to breakfast or lunch. She reads a book by the fire while I carve the slopes. Mr. McCammon even broke out his skis and went one time with me.

When I look at the calendar it is full. Your mother's more so than mine but we are busy. Bernie has sponsored her as a prospective member for The University of Akron Women's Group, and she has Hospice, and crafts, and all of her friends and Bernie dinners and the like. As I said, it just sometimes seems repetitive; no beaches in The Philippines or anything exotic.

Cat in a bag.

One of the morning visits to Boston Mills.

The tape marks where the neck will be trimmed.

Shaping the neck.

Molly, the mother of the three new cats at Lay's.

The shy kitten.

Using a heat lamp to soften the glue holding the bridge in place.

I found a lot of holes and plugged them all.

Last Tuesday with Steve; our own private ski resort.

Test fitting the new bridge. Go back a few posts and see how HUGE the old one was.

My label.

In the booth. The top has to stop absorbing lacquer before I can color it.

Here's a picture of the target result. I will put a similar sunburst, or in this case tobacco burst on the guitar once it stops absorbing lacquer.