Double Flee A

Today in watch school I made a screw bluer. It is a hunk of brass connected to a steel rod connected to a wooden handle. The brass has a bunch of little holes in it of various sizes that I put polished screws in and then heated till they were blue. What once was so-so is now intentional-looking. It makes a big difference that the screws are blue, especially because that's how this watch originally had them when it was made at the Illinois watch company in 1904. Somebody, maybe several people, hacked the crap out of it before it got to me so it's taking lots of work on all the parts, bushings have to be taken out and polished, etc. Tomorrow I'll put the screws in and fix Noel's watch, a Skagen quartz job with the hands falling off.

We ordered cases for our school watches from a company called Fricker. I like telling people where my case is coming from because I like saying "Fricker."

A friend of mine had three ferrets and one died a couple of days ago. He called some people and left them a message and told them that if they wanted to come hang out that would be fine, but he was kind of in a bad mood because one of his ferrets died. They arrived with a bottle of whiskey their roommate had given them to give to him and were deeply consoling to him. So consoling in fact that it struck him as a little odd. As he was out burying the ferret they were in the kitchen talking quietly to each other, and when he got back in they had figured it out. When he left the message it sounded like he had said "one of my parents died". They had a good laugh and called the roommate, who after he had finished laughing told him to keep the bottle because it had been worth it.

posted by dale @ 9:39 PM