Below is some video of a trade show booth we designed for one of our clients. It was a cool project. We got to do everything from the design of the cabinetry to the selection of the furniture to the production of the video content to the design of the printed materials.

Mostly, I’m just testing out Vimeo for video publishing but I figured why not leave this here? Can’t hurt can it?

From the 2008 Breakbulk convention in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I’ve been working on my slide playing lately and have been fascinated by all the mystery and folklore associated with slide guitar. The choice of a slide seems to be one of those things that brings out the curiosity, the experimentation, and the tinkerer in all sorts of people.

Get people talking about their slide and you quickly find yourself in arcane discussions of metal vs. glass, copper vs. steel, wine bottles vs. medicine bottles, store bought vs. old craftsman socket wrenches.

All the discussions got me wanting to try out various sizes, shapes, and materials of slides. Only problem is, there doesn’t seem to be any good local outlets for them. It makes sense, I guess. We are talking about a category of good that generally sells for $5 to $20 (generally — they can be MUCH more expensive!), has hundreds of permutations and variations, and very few people will walk in to your store and buy one in any given month. So everyone seems to stock the same few middle-of-the-road options.

Of course, there is always the internet. But given the very personal nature of the quest you can go through a lot of options before finding that right fit. And since — so far — there is no Zappo’s for guitar slides — you order it, you keep it.

So today I dug through our mound of recycling looking for glass bottles that might be converted into slides. New Orleans is no longer picking up glass and K doesn’t want to throw it out so I had a pretty good selection to choose from.

After some internet research — again countless methods for separating wine bottle necks from their bottles — I got ready to try the most promising options. I started using a method of scoring the neck with a glass cutter and then running hot water on the score, shifting to cold water and then tapping the neck to break the score. This method didn’t work for me.

The successful method involved scoring the neck, then rotating the scored neck above a candle flame until sooty all the way around. At that point, you put the bottle under cold water and it pretty much snaps right then. While this method works fast and easy, the results are still what you might expect. The break is simultaneously amazingly crisp and clean and still more jagged than you would like. I don’t know if this can be improved with technique. Or do you just do enough bottles until one breaks perfect?

After the break, I used the dremel tool to ease the edges to make sure there were no sharp points. And voila! My first glass slides.

A great weekend, even if the temperature dropped 30 degrees. K and I managed to get a lot accomplished and still have time to watch Young Frankenstein.

On the large project front, we are taking the next big stab at the back yard which involves busting up the concrete slab where a lean-to shed used to sit. Been a while since we had a reason to pull the sledge hammer out of the attic so we made the most of it.

And for a project of a much smaller scale, I took some time on Saturday to work on a guitar pick. Talking with John Rankin the other night about my tendency to drop my pick during complex rhythm playing, he suggesting several modifications to my right hand technique as well as some mods I could try on my picks themselves. These included gluing sandpaper to the pick, getting some grip tape for the picks (taking me back to my skateboarding days), and drilling holes in the pick to increase its friction.

I opted to try drilling holes in the pick as well as easing the upper and lower edges of the pick just a bit with some sandpaper to assist the pick in crossing the strings. Results so far are promising.

As my neighbor Sara put it, just when you completely give up on the city of New Orleans they go and do something cool.

I couldn’t believe it when they first began striping St. Claude Avenue for bike lanes. I still recall a conversation with the Department of Public Works when they said “We don’t want to put bike lanes on the streets because then if someone gets hit the city will get sued.” Never mind that the absence of action has rarely protected anyone from a frivolous law suit.

So when the paint when down and the lane was official, I decided to take a ride and return my overdue book to the Alvar branch of the library. It was a beautiful day and it turned out I was not the only one taking advantage of the new lanes.

If I’m not mistaken, that is “Greg Schatz”:http://www.schatzymusic.com/ in front of me enjoying the ride down St. Claude.

So congratulations to the city, to the Metro Bike Coalition, to the Regional Planning Commission, and to anyone else who had a hand in making this happen! Great work everyone.

And if anyone wants to attend the Official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, it will be tomorrow at 10:30 am outside the Universal Furniture building (“view google map”:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=universal+furniture+saint+claude+avenue+new+orleans+&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=56.506174,108.105469&ie=UTF8&ll=29.968394,-90.050597&spn=0.030597,0.052786&z=15&iwloc=A ). Below is the official announcement from the “Metro Bike Coalition”:http://www.metrobicyclecoalition.org/ :

St. Claude Bike Lane Ribbon Cutting

Tuesday, May 20 – 10:30 a.m to 11:30 a.m.
You are cordially invited to attend a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to open the first designated bike lane in New Orleans! It will be held outside the Healing Center/Universal Furniture Building, at the corner of St. Roch and St. Claude

We hope that MBC members and friends can attend with their bikes, to show our enthusiasm for bike lanes and to be available to ride the lanes for media coverage. The Regional Planning Commission strongly encourages that bicyclists wear helmets and have back reflectors, so that coverage of the lane openings can also share a safety message with the wider community.

I first became eligible to vote in 1984. That means that there has been a Bush or Clinton in the White House or the Vice-President’s mansion my entire voting life.

And its not like things have been getting better with each passing year: no need to rehash all the grim statistics related to the decimation of the middle class, the wealth transfer to the haves and the have mores, the War on Drugs morphing seamlessly into the War on Terror, etc. etc. etc.

I can’t take it anymore.

It is just a small voice of protest, but I teamed up with my friends at Dirty Coast to produce this shirt. If you like the message, you can purchase them at the Dirty Coast store on Magazine Street next to the Whole Foods. Or, they will be available on-line at dirtycoast.com very soon.

UPDATE: Here is the link to buy them online: http://dirtycoast.com/product_view.php?id=107