Didn't See That Coming

So, the valentine season has come and gone.  And, I've still got a bunch of Steampunk Valentines on the shelf.   Happily, t hey sell year 'round.  You know, I haven't introduced a new MechaniCard design since the Anti Antikythera , in November of 2015.  I'm sort of floundering in a difficult mind space, these days.  But, I have developed a number of projects that were decidedly and ultimately unfit for market.  It's really hard to make art, with a mind towards producing and selling dozens or hundreds of copies.  The temptation is to be satisfied with just making one thing. Here are some projects I've been working on, but that you won't see for sale... not in the near future, well, not exactly in these forms. Here is an instructional model, showing how the steam valve mechanism works, as found on a steam locomotive; specifically Walscherts' gear.  This mechanism is found on the vast majority of locos, after about 1880.   Video When completed, it

I know I've been remiss in posting, family matters filling up the scant available time I have for such frivolities as this blog.  So, here for your bemusement, confusion and consternation is a bit of verse I composed as a kind of celebration of my dear ol' pappy. Happily, he's still cranking along... perhaps I should say calculating?  How He Got His Middle Name Deep breath and hearken to the still of the night Whilst this horror’s summoned to light A tale rife with bleakest misery will unfold How a moniker befamed an ignominious knave That braved a word with steel of cold I first discovered his charmings amidst Piles of fine amulets Mechanacious hypertrophy, seamed of lead And studded with quixotic Cuneiform plunder Spewing photons from a swelled head Not a full recognite, dared an inquiry non sequitur That did unhinge a great fury An unchecked flight of haphazard sine and cosine Might all have congealed to form that one great notion Now