Happy Days are Here Again!

I just found the source of that stupid blue line that has been appearing near the right side of my blog space and got rid of it. I like this template as I have modified it but could not get rid of the line that recently popped up. Yesterday Donna would not let me go to church because she was concerned about the effect that the cold would have on my heart. So I tried several other templates and variations looking for a solution to no avail. I just can't find anything I like better. I did find out why my favicon was not appearing most of the time and fixed that. It seems that the Blogger bunch had been playing with the scripts. That got me to thinking in a new light, and today I saw the light... those folks had slipped in a couple of changes.

While sitting home in the cold I have tried to keep busy doing Letterboxing things. My new printer arrived and I set it up. My Son Jason had convinced me that in the long run a laser printer was cheaper to operate and produced better quality print than an Ink jet unit. That fit in nicely with my desire to have one to make transfer of images for stamp carving easier. We have used an "All in One" printer for years and would not be happy with anything less. I found the least expensive All in One Color Laser Printer possible, and that is our new toy.

I had an image that I wanted to carve for my "Boxing Buddy" mascot. It was pretty complex and I could not get it the way it would actually look on the stamp. I carved it and liked the result except that there were several areas that I wished that I had done differently. Ah! - time to test the new printer. I made a impression from the first stamp, scanned it with the new unit, edited it with Adobe Photoshop, and then printed it out. The color image transferred very nicely making the re-carving a much simpler matter than before. Black and white would have been OK, but The color made it easier to distinguish features. Previously I had to print out the image, then take it to a copy service to get a copy made that would transfer well. While the stamp could still be improved it is acceptable for me with my present skill level. Now I have to make "Bearly First" a small logbook.

This is the original image that I found, the image as I had modified it to serve as a carving pattern, and the actual stamp.

It is time to start on prep for Thanksgiving day. I will put the turkey breast in an apple cider and brine solution overnight, then it will be ready to smoke. Our eldest son whined that he was looking forward to the traditional whole Turkey with stuffing, so now we are doing a bird in the oven and I will smoke a breast. Right now it looks like the big meal will be late Friday night with our entire family. I am really looking forward to that.

The Buckeyes won over the weekend, but Penn had a better season so Penn is off to the Rose Bowl. I wonder which bowl Ohio will end up with. Anyway it was nice to have something going well. I'm not talking about the Browns.

I need to get some lab work done tomorrow or Wednesday to have for my heart doctor next week. I hope that things are a little more under control now.