I’m going to be at Dragonfly Forge for all of next week, along with Mike P.; we’re taking Michael Bell’s longsword-forging class on making katana blades. [df]

I’ll be trying to do writeups and postings about the class as it goes on, and that’s pretty much it. So if you’re completely uninterested in sharp things and hot metal you may want to just ignore this blog until May 28, when I will resume my normal helpless complaining about popular culture, government, and the police-state. There is a chance that I will be able to pull off a book review but it’s going to depend on my workload, which I assume will be high. Keep your expectations low! (as Ray Wylie Hubbard says: that is the key to happiness)

My flight departs at 6:00am from Dulles airport on the 19, and I’ve already boxed and shipped my more awkward safety-gear out to the hotel, so I won’t have to deal with getting it onto an airplane without homeland security getting upset. For my return, I’ve already shipped out a 38″ PVC pipe with end-caps (fiberglass taped on) and a piece of plywood that fits tightly down the center. In the event that I wind up with a sword-blade worth keeping, I’ll just fiberglass tape it to the plywood, ram the plywood and some newspaper into the tube, and drop it at UPS. I even have a return label already printed out; this is a miracle of efficiency for me.

The hot metal shed is, unfortunately, not progressing fast and I won’t be around to help kick that project forward, which is somewhat distressing to me. But, we must do the things we can and ignore the things we cannot help. I won’t be gone long but perhaps I’ll come home and it’ll be complete and waiting for me to move the machinery in. Optimism! Yeah, right.