Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Nerdery

Tappity Tappity is hosting the blog-o-cubes first Nerdery Week, encouraging everyone to let their nerd-flags fly by displaying their own haven of personal oddness. And so I present... my workshop/studio.

First the workshop.

Notice the extreme clutter. I organize is about once every quarter and I'm overdue. Note the electronics soldering project for my son (I need to fix a few bad solder joints that I made on 35 mini LEDs... ow, my eyes!), the lava lamp that needs a new socket of a specific size that is not carried in major home improvement stores, the Newcastle rag, the painting by my Beloved, the rack-o-mini clamps (you can never have too many clamps, sez Norm Abrahms), and the Delta band saw that is forever going out of alignment.


Up in a window well I have a few "manly" beverage containers on display, plus a few clay things created by my children. The ones with skeletons on them were chock full of food coloring, with the intent that it would change the color of your digestive output. Didn't work. Missing from this photo is the cat. This window is at ground level and many times I've been working away only to be started by a loud meow (single pane of glass... on the list to fix).

Nerdy reading indeed... Fangoria magazines! These are some back issues from the 80s that I bought to read and later found were collectively worth over $100. So my passive fun has turned into an investment and white-glove treatment.


Moving on... to your right would be the furnace and about eight square feet of ducts and air filters and stuff. On your right is a cabinet full of music gear and product/warranty manuals. Overhead is the severed head of a pinata and one of my grandfathers hats. Of special note is the aardvark doll my Beloved got me for my birthday the first year we knew each other. Searched all over the internet, she did. It was instant love. The Monopoly game.... over a year ago I lost my sanity and played Monopoly with my kids. They were 11, 8, 8, and 6. All of us are A.D.D. After I was released with medication I put the game up for a while. I'm considering taking it down again because, well, all my hair has grown back and I just love forced shock therapy.


You are now entering Aardvark Lounge, my studio. On the floor is the three foot tall Dr. Seuss hat I made in college - clamps to your head with coat hangers... almost completely pain free! My beloved bass is in it's protective case on the wall. I'm a sucker for glow in the dark stuff so that string is actually glowing stuff... keen-o-riffic! See if you can find the following: trombone, hippo guitar pick holder, folding chair I recently took from my wife's trunk for comfortable sitting (hope you don't mind, honey... I'll get it back to you in the spring), four-man raft, black light, spring santa, day-glo plaster cast of my foot.

The heart of the studio. Windows 98 PC, 1989 Roland Rompler, Yamaha consumer level keyboard as a controller, $80 strat copy painted NEON GREEN, cheapo Washburn acoustic guitar, blemished baritone ukulele with aftermarket pickup, plastic lobster that glows with the flick of a switch, homemade gear rack with the cheapest knock-off gear money can buy, a hint of pink insulation I've wrapped around the duct work so my sound doesn't carry farther than it already does.

Slightly to the right is my wall-o-CDs, a set of shelves I installed in am unused doorway. I also built in a secret compartment for my guns and Bibles. I think every house should have a secret compartment or two. Anyway, some DVDs and about 1/3 of my music collection - the good stuff in alphabetical order by band and then chronological order.



To the left are milk crates full of chord charts, to the right is a bookcase full of books of all stripes. The lovely guitar is a anniversary/Valentines/birthday gift from my Beloved... again a knock-off but an outstanding value. Also my gorgeous SWR Workingman's amp sits patiently for the day when once again it can crank up with a band. Also pictured is a Casio RZ-1 drum machine (put to pasture last year after I got a late 80s Roland drum machine), TWO homemade fuzz boxes, one of four chimes from an old doorbell, and a monster waterheater that has lately been heating suspiciously. I hope it's all in my mind.

One of the nice things about my studio is that I can hide out there whenever I need a break. Plus, with the furnace and water heater sharing my space I know that it will never be turned into a playroom or a bedroom or a chicken hatchery or nuthin. It's MINE! MINE I TELL YOU!

Sorry, Tappity, I don't have an army of figurines. Not that I haven't wanted to buy some McFarlane figures, it's just never happened.

7 comments:

Big Doofus (Roger) said...

I know this man. This is all real. My favorite picture is the second one down which shows two sewage pipes shooting out the window. If you continued to follow them, you'd see that they end up in the neighbors back yard.

Uvulapie said...

But the best part is that the sewer pipes are flowing INTO my house.

Melynda said...

chicken hatchery? you just wait.

God said...

Dang! That is one sprawling Nerdery! Seriously. One could never claim boredom in a nerdery of that magnitude. It's like a laboratory of fun and music...also, pipes.

Well documented, good sir!

Uvulapie said...

If there's one thing my space is not lacking it's pipes. I've got pipes that exhaust the water heater, pipes for water coming into the house, pipes for water heading to all parts of the house, pipes for air intake for the furnace, pipes for air exhaust from the furnace, pipes for air going to the furnace, pipes for air going out of the furnace, pipes for... um, well, that's about it. No crack pipes. No tobacco pipes. No pipe cleaners. No piping hot cherry pies. No piped in Muzak. No Rowdy Rodney Piper stepping on my sternum.

Cate Gardner said...

WOW - it's just so huge and full of things...

Uvulapie said...

It's my vast cavern of stuff!