Is This Offensive?

I just want to know if this cartoon is offensive or not. Please vote and let me know. I am doing an assessment of the pc climate.

What does a Chinese artist do when his butt itches?

MOGmobile: It's Time To Start Conceiving

I am more than fortunate, I'm fivetunate. What a gig! I am fired up and ready to get into the MOGmobile. I enlisted the help of Twin Barrels Burning superstars, Eric Black, Derrick Benson and David Lewin to brainstorm with me the other evening. And what a storm it was. We came up with a whopper.

whop·per (hwŏp'ər, wŏp'-) n. Slang

1. Something exceptionally big or remarkable

   2.A gross untruth.

I need MOG to give me the thumbs up before I show anything here but

lemme tell you this: The safety is off!

I can show you this: (hint hint, can you guess what the MOGmobile is going to look like?)

felt soup

Have you ever felt, like... a bowl of soup? My daughter felted a bowl of soup the other day. Actually, I think she had further plans but was struck very suddenly with apendicitis and we had to whisk her off to the hospital! She is fine, everything is fine, just a scary 24 hrs or so. This was what she was working on before she felt sick. I didn't know what to do with it so I put it in the fridge. Baby chopsticks and all. It looks kind of yummy and healthy to me. I would eat soup that looked like that. I have eaten soup that looks worse.

Portland Slide

Here are some images of a slide in a park here in Portland. I love this thing. Everything that is wrong is what I love about it. The textures created by the years of use and lousy maintenance make this thing a masterpiece. How many kids have been bonked and bruised? How many dads have had to climb up and rescue their over ambitious kid, stuck at the top? I know at least one and he is me.

Someone poured some green house paint down the slide and the thick worn texture of the frozen stream caught my attention. It reminded me of carved acanthus leaves and whatnot found on 18th Century antiques. Not just the shape but the distress and the patina.

I don't really like the patina on this chair leg, I think it is bunk. Not the greatest example.

This looks nicer to me

So I started looking closely at this slide and was amazed to find such a rich agglomeration of textures and color. The layers of degradation competing with mildly effective coats of paint and moss and dirt and stickers give the structure a life story that I can't help but consider. That could be my problem but this kind of stuff keeps me from ever getting bored.

Scary music by Action Daddy

It is an aesthetic that I love. Back at Carlton House Restoration, we spent hundreds of hours applying hundreds of years of history to furniture pieces that had been "inappropriately" handled. As a matter of fact, in the early 80's there was a movement to make old furniture look as if it had just come out of the shop. So they would dip and strip all the life out of these things to make them look brand new. Then when that craze ended, we would get them and beat them up again to make them look like they were old, again. This costs thousands of dollars to do well. Crazy.

Here is an antique joke that my old boss and good friend Kenny made up and tried to tell a couple of movers as they brought in some important piece of furniture:

"Hey, how do you restore an American antique?"

Two Ways To Prepare Crow

I'll tell ya, it's a hustle out there in the design fields. I have been very busy chasing a few leads on some really fun work which means I have been writing proposals like a goon.

I tend to start a proposal by opening a previous one and looking there to see if there is anything I can salvage and use in the new one. I think I am going to alter this method after what happened yesterday. I had been working and reworking a proposal for a company called MOG. It is an amazing music sharing website. (You should definitely check it out. I am rocking out to it right now as a matter of fact.) They want me to design and fabricate an insane marketing mobile. They are going to have a couple of ladies drive it around the country to campuses and festivals to get the word out about MOG.com. We are talking about a mix between a Burning Man art car and the Oscar Mayer Weiner car. Sounds good right? Here are a couple of graphics they gave to me for inspiration and a car that I find inspirational.


This is MOG's fuzzy friend. The psychodelic earphone on top is MOG's "dot head ear vomit" graphic.



This is a car from a series of fat art cars by Austrian artist Erwin Wurm

I was also working on an RFP (request for proposal) for some mobile task carts for the new Fort Vancouver Regional Library. Can you see where this is headed? I was pressed for time as I had just been informed about the opportunity and the due date for submissions was yesterday at 4:00. So I ran into the library leading with my little packet that contained 4 hard copies and one cd with a .pdf of the proposal on it. It was 3:45 when I finally wiped the sweat off my face.

I left with a nagging feeling that I might have dotted my 't's and crossed my eyes. Something felt thing wrong. That is why I didn't look, much like when I have a gaping wound. Things are only as bad as you think they are.

Last night I sent a copy of a few proposals I have done to my pal Christopher in Baltimore. He wanted to see what one looked like.

Quick but significant sidebar: Christopher and I are old buddies. He is an artist/ballroom dancer/chimney sweep/firefighter/tattooless tattooist. We have always had a lot of fun communicating. We actually thought that our sarcastic banter about the artist/designer struggle might warrant a blog of its own. So we have an indulgent blog together: panspeter.blogspot.com. I don't think it is ready for people to see yet so no matter what! Don't look at it! You will be sorry if you do. You might be better off trying to stuff as many grapes in your mouth as you can.

So I sent Ruppert a few proposals including the MOGmobile one and the library mobile task cart one. In the morning I woke to an email he sent me that goes as follows:

I think you may have blended the two projects in your library proposal.
You mention " the most rad, eyepopping, funky ass, vehicle anybody has ever seen" along with "a low maintenance, highly functional, public use, mobile task station" in one sentence.
I'm trying to picture the expression on Miss Crabapple's face as she tries to visualize this in the children's section.

While I was pillaging the carcass of the MOGmobile proposal I somehow managed to leave the first half of a sentence from the aforementioned and tied it in with the new proposal. The actual sentence was a brutal run-on that was so perfectly out of context it was ridiculous. What are you gunna do, right?

I managed to worm my way back to the library and replace all four cover letters and the cd with new and improved ones. Nobody saw. Phew!

So just now, as I was recounting this blunder the land line rang and the lcd read "Aquent". I have been researching different phone options as my contract is about up, so I have been up to my eyeballs in wireless plans and such. So when I saw Aquent my first thought was that it was a telemarketer. I never answer those calls but for some reason I did today. The poor guy on the line was actually representing a creative talent agency and he had gig for me. I treated him with respect but I was very blunt. He asked if there was a better time for him to call and I said I would prefer it if he would never call again and said goodbye. As soon as I put the phone down I felt that feeling again. I quickly googled Aquent and the fog arose. AAHHHHGGG!!! I had to call right back and explain myself. What a day.

MT Tabor Onions

I'm going public with my famous Mt Tabor Onions. I would have broken it out before Thanksgiving but the systems were not yet in place to accommodate the seismic reaction that is bound to follow the unveiling. Now that everything is set, I can tell you.

I have been honing my onion process for a few years now. My mother used to make them with heroic effort out of her tiny kitchen on w 12th st. She hosted countless Thanksgiving feasts in our wee apartment that would have made Standish proudish. Watching the amazing food pour out of our closet kitchen was like watching 20 clowns climb out of a Mini.

They are basically baked whole onions and they are hard to screw up. They don't take up a lot of oven space, they are inexpensive, you can make them the day before, it is almost impossible to overcook them, and they weather the turmoils of leftoverism with tasty grace. Plus, it's fun to throw a whole onion on someone's plate.

Get enough small to mid sized yellow onions to sardine fit into a square or rectangular Pyrex or some such dish.

Chop the tops and the bottoms off making two planes parallel to the horizon. Peal the outer skin off. Then, with a paring knife, slice out a little trough, creating a peak in the center. Throw the conical onion off-cut into the stuffing or something.

Drip a puddle of balsamic and drop a pad of butter into the trough of each onion. Put a 1/4"-1/2" chicken broth in the pan and liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Throw it in the oven at 325 or 350 for about 3 hours and serve them up. One each.

I drool.

Save Moron Car Insurance

Am I the only one who thinks that Geico's tag line is offensive? Probably. I have honed my ability to find the "that's what she said" (or the "said the actress to the Bishop") type of humor everywhere. It has become a distraction. I can hardly hear a sentence without somehow making some joke of it in my head by linking words or formulating absurd metaphors. Fortunately, with this skill, I have also developed a self imposed censorship firewall that usually works to stifle the most offensive inclinations before I blurt them out.

My point is that when Geico says "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance." I am left with the idea that they are calling their product insurance for morons. The copy editors at The Martin Agency must have seen that, right? It has bugged me for years, what can I say?

proretrovino

Things are tapering off at the winery. What with the sticky grapes, the long hours and the earwigs gnawing at my brains, I have only been able to imagine blog entries. Ones rich and fruity. Somewhere between my inspiration and my fingertips there has been some interference and I have to blame it on blissful exhaustion.

The video is a morning punchdown of some Pinot Noir in a 3000 gallon oak fermenter. It is about 10 feet tall. The grape cap is a couple/three feet thick on the top, so there is a good 6 feet of juice below. My job here is to break up the cap and mix it up with my feet. If you think it is gross, you are right. My feet should be featured in a JRR Tolkien book.

I have jumped on the opportunity to make some wine myself. I have a deal with Garnier Vinyard in Mosier, OR. They gave me a ton of Merlot grapes and I am going to give them some wine! They had a surplus of grapes. What are you going to do when you grow more grapes than you can sell? I am hoping to make some drinkable vino. No, I want to put Merlot back on the map. I am proretrovino. I yeasted it two days ago and she is starting to take off. I will keep you posted.

Wall Of Fruit

It feels like all Hell is about to be released in the form of 1500 tons of grapes. I have started working at the winery for the '09 harvest and the weather is freaking everybody out. This is my second harvest at Rex Hill. It is so much fun I can hardly tell you. So many freakin' grapes, you wouldn't believe it. There is drama, there is danger, there are huge decisions to be made on the spot, there are millions of bees and billions of earwigs. What could be better? I am in awe of wine.

One of the most intriguing things I came away with last year is how saturated wine is with the winemaker's signature. I mean, these guys shoot from the hip. When you have twenty ferments going on at once, the winery is run like an ICU. Each tank needing specific love and each one getting it.

The hours are pretty brutal. It is total immersion and it is finite so I am happily making a wine widow of my poor wife and vinorphans of my kids. The harvest will wind up around Thanksgiving. I will try to take some pictures but I am serious about these sticky grapes. They keep us so busy and gooey that I rarely have the chance to take any pics.

I will scan my hands every week and post them to monitor their purplification.

You Can't Get Arrested For Felting.

Felting is not just for the becoddlement of my indulgent monkey feet. Here is my daughter with her felt puppet she made with her mom last week. I feel we will continue to felt. The word itself makes me want to write a Dr Seuss style story.

"If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good."
-- Dr. Seuss

9/11

Who was the first person you called when the towers fell?  I called Isaac Mizrahi.  How crazy is that?  I rode my bike to the studio extra early that morning because I was designing a table for Isaac and he was sending a film crew to my studio to shoot some process footage for his show.   I wanted to make sure that all my best crap was hanging on the walls and the place looked immaculate but functional.  This was going to be my big break and obviously it was overwhelmingly important.  I wanted to look cool, so I put on my favorite t shirt, a sleeveless black rock t for the band "Twin Barrels Burning" printed in yellow.  Black and yellow...stings like a bee. 

Next thing you know, my pal Julius who worked for some French furniture fruitcakes next door to me told me to head up to the roof because a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers.  The studio was in long Island City, Queens.  From the roof we had a clear view down the East River.  That explains this weird picture.  That is also where the soapbox derby team name came from.  Any ways, after the second tower was hit but before either of them fell, I went downstairs and called Isaac and asked if we were still on!?!  I mean, the whole thing was so shocking and surreal I just wondered if I was going to be on camera in an hour or not.  

No.  The shoot was postponed.  Thank god, I wasn't really ready yet.  No, I wasn't behind 911.

Seriously, I have met so many people who experienced 9/11 from so many different places and there is a similar characteristic or look in one's eye when they reflect back on that horrible, horrible day.  Whether they were in the bloodbath at the foot of the towers or if they were on the west coast learning about the events from 3000 miles away, everybody tapped into a new, deep, communal pool of sadness and disbelief.  What a day.

I always think of 911 when I see firefighters.  You should have heard the sirens coming from all over the planet, funneling down the avenues and across the bridges to lower  Manhattan.  From the roof of the studio it was terribly eerie hearing the screaming sirens while the skies were completely quiet as all air traffic was grounded.  You don't realize how many friggin' planes and choppers are always flying overhead until they stop.  

I don't really have a point I just want to spew.  9/11/09 

Felting Sounds Like Something You Should Be Arrested For

So of course when my wife said that we should start felting, I was all for it. It turns out that felting is not what I thought. It is actually a very intriguing ancient textile.

They say that felt is the oldest textile. Monkey man wrap fleece under foot with leather. Monkey man make felt.

My new favorite movie is about ten minutes long and shows this Iranian felt maker doing his thing. It is on the peaceindustry website . My secret dream now is to make a rug in the vein of Claudy Jongstra, a Dutch felt maker. Of course, I want to do it naked with my beautiful wife, in the desert somewhere. Is there anyone out there who would consider watching our kids for a few days? There might be a funky felt coaster in it for ya. Below are some examples of Claudy's work.

So this Monkeyman tuned up the Chuck T's with a felt tuck dalmatian print insert. I put a few layers of wool in each sneaker, spritzed them with some hot soapy water and wore them sockless as I installed my new floor in the bathroom. They turned out great. Comfy, cozy, primitive, rebellious, street, hip, and invisible. Actually, I like the fact that the sneakers look pretty road warrior from the outside but little do people know: My coddled tootsies are basking in extreme bunnycomfort. Steve Martin used to put a slice of bologna in his shoes because it made him feel funny. Maybe I will try that next.... hello? Is this thing on?

Thank You

I speak for the whole Twin Barrels Burning team when I say thank you for the explosive interest in our recent endeavor.  What started as a reason to drink beer on Tuesday evenings blossomed into a veritable movement towards a more barrel vehicle filled planet.  I don't see why it wouldn't happen.  

Our team was stacked.  We had nerdistic levels of expertise and blind devotion focused on the design and fabrication of the silliest car in town.   Our talents comprised a perfect storm of design, craftsmanship and stupidity.  The result was a true collaboration done in a relatively civil manner.  I hardly even cried.  I am welling up with tears now though.  I can't help it.  I loved the process, the flexibility, the open mindedness and of course, the execution of this project.  It was a very rewarding experience. 

I would rather work with those guys than with some of the best people in the world.

And I mean that.   

Clowns are animals too!

One of my best friends from high school, Toms Bugby Royal, lives in Wishram WA.  He is a mosaic artist who also works for the railroad, shuttling railroad workers around in a van from the Wishram depot.  He called me yesterday and told me that the Ringling Bros train just pulled up and was letting all the circus animals out to stretch.  He was telling me that elephants were walking past linked by trunk and tail,  horses and tigers, monkeys etc.  I asked him if they let the clowns out.  No.  Of course not.  The clowns weren't allowed to leave the train.  Not even for a second.  I don't think it is fair but I understand.

I am no stranger to clownery.  Unfortunately the documentation of my foray into the realm of the painted funster reveals but one aspect of the blithen darkness,  shrouded by The Tainted Veil of Jelly Beanerie.  I have been an advocate for clowns' rights since I went to the see Ringling Bros on acid back in the 80's.  

My friends and I even went to demonstrate at midnight on the Manhattan side of the Midtown Tunnel when they were bringing the circus animals over from Queens to Madison Square Garden.  We were standing there with the animal rights activists, but our signs said: "Bigger Cars For Clowns!" and "Clowns Are Animals Too!"  Hopefully with your support we can slowly make things better for this misunderstood group.  

My pal Sam Rodd is sort of a pioneer in clown psychology.  He put together this documentary and graciously bestowed upon me the important task of Being Clown.  I am the guy with the red nose.

Peeper

Presenting one of the biggest tiny tables ever made!  Here is the Peeper set I designed and built for a Waldorf school here in Portland.  If I get an engineering trophy for the slowest car in a derby, I should get something for designing the biggest tiny table.  This thing is McMassive!  It accommodates 16 squirming 4 year olds with room for a teacher.  I am excited to see it get beat up a little so it looks less important.  That shouldn't take too long.

I fabricated this bamboo blockbuster at a guest facility.  The top of my noggin looks like an inverted golf ball from banging it 9000 times on the low duct work in my friend's basement shop but it is all worth it.  Rudolf Steiner would be pleased.
To give you some reference of scale, here is a picture of Kapow Design's oldest intern with Peeper.  

Best Engineering

Our car wreaked of many things, but engineering?  I mean, I don't know a lot about engineering from an engineering standpoint, per se.   Some of the other cars made me think "engineering", our car made me think, "what kind of idiot...?".  WE WERE THE SLOWEST CAR!   I thought the Drunken Pig (pink and white) should have our trophy.  Now that I am thinking about it, I am going to give it to him...  when I am good and dead.  

Look at us!  oh yeah, engineering, baby!  This is the last picture of the twins I will be posting.  I can't help myself.  

Twin Barrels Burning Rolls!

I might have found my fight club.  Riding 'The Twins" down Mt Tabor was like shoving a whale into a VW and was easily the most terrifying 5 mph I have ever gone.  I laugh so hard when I see a video my friend made of us rolling by.  My body is as tense as a log jam and my head looks like it is in a vise.  I remember knowing where my family and friends were but fearing distraction too much to even move my thumb the 1/2" to acknowledge them with a scream from our siren.  My personal goal was to reach my health insurance deductible but like many other goals I have set, that one eluded me. If you knew my deductible, you would have said it was ambitious.  

We are a six person team and we were in three heats so it worked out that everyone got to take a ride.  We were the slowest car on the track that day but I think our intensity and our struggle vindicated our efforts.  I think I can speak for the whole team when I say that we certainly did not intend to be the slowest but we pulled it off.  In the second heat, Eric and Derrick caused a little drama when they engaged in a 2 mph fender bender with a Water Department Security Jeep that was parked 100 yards in front of the finish line. 

Twins-1 Security Jeep-0.

At the beginning of the third heat we had a troubled start and the Twins were in the gutter 30 feet off the line. We wrestled it back onto the road and aimed downhill again. It slowly began to descend and as it did, the crowd closed in behind and walked down with them cheering and clapping.  It was like a demented Coke commercial, David and Trevor gritting their teeth and having the full 3 mph Twin Barrels Battle while kids are passing them on scooters cheering.  It was very funny.

We ended up winning a trophy for best Engineering!  My friend Julius congratulated us for getting the smartest prize for the dumbest car.  For a while I didn't think we really deserved that particular prize until Derrick reminded me that we put disc brakes on wine barrels with a '57 Ford F100 drop axle for a frame and rode them down a mountain.  I saw several cars there that I thought should have our trophy, though.  I was secretly hoping that we would get crowd favorite but we lost out to a giant Lego car.  I was feeling the love in the pit and from the crowd but I guess the numbers didn't add up in our favor.   We should have gone with a more identifiable brand.

We have plans to do it again next year.  I can't wait.  We will make the Twins faster.  That is all I can say at this point.  Below is the rig as it looked race day.  We installed the siren that is powered by a motorcycle battery.  We also put in some machine guns in the yokes but the yolk was on us when we found out water was all we were allowed to shoot.  This photo was taken by Squid Vicious.

Twin Barrels Are Heating Up

The race is this Saturday.  We are taking the rig to the mountain tomorrow for a test run.  This thing is 10 feet long, probably 400 lbs, and hops like a bull in a rodeo stall.  It is a bone crusher. It will make you a cartoon.  It should have a poet in residence.  It scratches so many itches I can hardly focus.  

Here is how to make one:

First you get three wine barrels.  

Wrap two of them with bicycle tires and staple. 

Countersink and screw the banding to the staves. 

Shove an axle through them.  

On the front barrel you need to build a plates for each side to mount the rotors and the brake assembly

Mount the aforementioned technology

Build yolks

Cut hole in third barrel to accommodate an old truck axle

Bolt third barrel to old truck axle using angle iron

Attach yolks to an old truck axle and third barrel with kingpins

Style and attach gussets where needed 

Build handle bars off of front yoke

Add foot pegs on front yoke for leg steering

Let simmer 

My pal and team mate David Lewin made this image that will be on our race jerseys.  

The ladies love it!

Twin Barrels Burning Team:

Eric Black, Architect

Derrick Benson, Kaizen Leader

David Lewin, Industrial Designer

Sam Tannahill, Winemaker

Trevor McWilliams, Assistant to the Intern

and myself

Let's Redo The Bathroom!

Why? Why did I do it?  Redoing my second floor bathroom might be one of the worst decisions I have ever made.  It is more than a nightmare.  It is an open wound, a festering abscess but worse!  It is viral.  The extent to which the ill effects have infiltrated even the most remote and exclusive aspects of my life is mind boggling.  The venomous tentacles have saturated everything from my pocketbook to my sex life to my newly compromised DNA.  It is unbelievable.

You don't have to tell me, I already know: Getting into an old house is looking for trouble. That is why I was prepared for twice as much as I thought it would be, but a BILLION times more?!? Things have spun out of control.

The clincher is that this whole catastrophe is all because we thought we didn't like the way our old bathroom looked.  I mean, it was nice enough.  It flushed, it soaked, the lights turned on and off.  The tub filled right up or if we were so inclined, we could take a nice shower.  There were even random tiles with animal scenes on them.  Come to think of it, it was one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen.

Why did I do it?  Where were my handlers?

Rather than showing you pictures of the battle zone I have made a montage of bruises, contuses and lacerations I have accumulated.  They tell the story better than I.

Update

Quick update on a few projects:

The Soapbox car has a pulse. 

The Plastiplums are not yielding very exciting results...yet.

Peeper chairs are done.  Kiddie Conference Table on deck.

$44.00 for a pair of Chuck T's, I think Not!

I don't know if you know this but Converse was bought by Nike a couple three years ago.  So my beloved Chuckie T's are now allowed on campus!  (ref: Nike campus in Beaverton, shoe regulation)  

I feel like I have been burning through my Chucks faster than usual.  At first I attributed it to the load I carry on my shoulders.  That would make sense.  I don't swing my arms anymore when I walk and my feet slap when they hit the ground.  Even in grass.  But I can't imagine that accounting for more than a small percentage of the overall deterioration of the sole.  

My point is that I am not going to sit in Nike's backyard and pay $44 and change for kicks that last a month and a half.  Not unless they hire me.

I am going to see how long I can keep this pair going.  I have a little more work to do but here is the breakdown of what has happened over the past few days.  I wore them around today, mowed the lawn, rode up Mt Tabor, they feel good.  Actually they feel friggin' awesome.

I put music to the slideshow and it is by Action Daddy. 

Put It On Casters! Passive Aggressive Furniture Fabrication

Of course architects can design furniture... they design whole friggin' buildings for crying out loud.   But seriously, I love architects.  I pick them out on the street.  As a matter of fact, last year at the ButtJoint I was working with the big door open and this dude walked by.  I asked him if he was an architect and low and behold!  I think it freaked him out.  He probably thought I had met him somewhere but I could actually just tell.  I can pick out bass players too.  

Anyway, I was having a conversation with a couple of architects I know the other day and one says, "I know, take a log and put it on casters!" He snapped his fingers and turned around triumphantly as if all problems were solved and it was that easy.

I was instantly reminded of this log with a few different chair back styles poking out of it at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. 

"That sounds like an architect thing to do." I said.

My friend, an architect, designed the bench at the Hudson.  I never loved it.  I thought it wreaked of what it was: An undeveloped, smartypants whim.  It is like a joke from the movie "Airplane".  With the budget he had... he should have put wheels on it, at least.  I mean, why stop there?  let's put some USB ports in it.  Ohhh, if I ran the Zoo!

Of course, it isn't just architects who do such things.  To my horror and surprise I found this image from something that came out of the Droog studio in Holland.  Same wacky idea but this time they made the chair backs out of metal (maybe gilded).  Holy Irony!  I am guessing an architect who works at Droog did it.  Prove me wrong and I will send you a free t shirt.

So I decided to call my architect friend's bluff and put some casters on a log.  Bring on the awards!  Notify MOMA! Get ID Magazine on the phone! I have to say that it makes moving the log around a whole lot easier and Passive Aggressive Furniture Making is a relatively healthy way to deal with my design demons.   Working it out...

Soapbox Derby Update

If you close your eyes, you can feel the rumble. No, Dave Lombardo didn't move into your basement.  It's not the world coming to an end! 

It is the sound of Twin Barrels Burning.  

The race is 5 weeks away and The Solution is crystalizing.

I am calling it The Solution because it is not a car, it is an answer.  

Beautiful Glossy Plastiplums: As Green't As It Gets.

Like eating all of the food on my plate, I always feel like I should use all of the two part epoxy I mix for a project.  Today, in a panic, I plasticoated a few plums, on a tree, in a client's back yard.  

My Personal Epoxy System (PES) requires me to mix a portion dictated by the epoxy pump designers, so usually I have a little extra.  Worst case scenario is that I get a jolly, cracking out the paintbrush epoxicle from the yogurt container I used to mix the polymeric elixir.  Wet epoxy is as nasty as it is cool, so I a strive to waste not a single, engineered drop.

I coated a few plums and I am very excited to see what will happen. It may have been the most important thing I did all day.  I am flooded with epoxy integrated plant ideas.  No, good ones... really good ones.  Maybe I will cast some clear cubes around some saplings and grow a fauxrest. How green't is that? Send me some epoxy and I'll freakin' do it.