A shaggy dog story

I love shaggy dog stories. By definition 'shaggy dog stories play upon the audience's preconceptions of joke-telling. The audience listens to the lengthy story with certain expectations, which are met in some entirely unexpected manner.'

My SIGN INVITATIONAL entry is a visual shaggy dog story without a doubt. This story began many years ago when I built the first version of this machine. It was a hand cranked IDEAMATIC. The story goes that when I was stuck for an idea I simply went to the machine, turned the handle and out popped a creative inspiration. That's how I managed to always be so creative through the years. This latest version is the most advanced IDEAMATIC yet. It's steam powered of course. Once fired up and with a full head of steam I can simply type in what I'm looking for, pull the leaver to activate the machine and out pops the inspiration. It's never let me down yet. At the ISA show I am confident the IDEAMATIC will print out the best idea ever seen... along with the punch line to my shaggy dog story of course.

Latest version of Hazelnut Inn

In-between all of the other things going on in our busy lives, work continues on the Hazelnut Inn project. The building plans and engineering are now largely complete. The realities of engineering, building codes and plenty more thinking has meant some adjustments to the design along the way. We've made some styling changes and size adjustments as well. The front explorer's suite now has more of a Moroccan feel and the castle leans a little more to French influences. Our goal is to get the last of the drawings done in the next day or two and then submit them to the city for the development permit prior to Christmas. It's exciting!

Marvellous machine progress

I started my Sign Invitational entry piece just after we got back from last year's event down in Las Vegas. Back then I just knew how this year was going to happen and I knew I had no time to waste. The year happened at a much more frantic pace than I imagined with many trips to Trinidad, Salt Lake, Orlando, Atlantic City and more. We've been busy in the shop as well and much time has been spent at my design board dreaming up new projects. The truth is that for much of the last nine months the piece has been tucked into a corner of the shop gathering dust. Phoebe needing to work on her school project was just the motivation for me to dust off the piece and begin work once more. In the last two days I've made great progress. The bottom end is largely complete, save for paint. Much of the detail is completed in the middle section and I mounted the 'human interface device' this afternoon. An old, inoperable antique typewriter donated it's parts for the 'HID'. I know everyone is eager to ask it's purpose... but that's still highly classified... for now. Stay tuned... :)