ANA Day the Last: Experiments

[scarlettina]

Spent about two hours at the show yesterday, pre-departure. Spent part of it working the TEC booth, part of it trolling the Budget section of the bourse looking for coins with which to experiment. The idea of experimentation was planted late Saturday when Ray suggested I take some wooden nickels back to my room, soak them in water overnight, and bring them to the booth Sunday morning to see if we could elongate them. I followed his instructions and brought them, wrapped in plastic to preserve their soaked state, to the booth Sunday morning. Well, two of them shredded. One of them rolled. We did, however, have to snip them so they were narrow enough to put through the machine and even then, the results weren't impressive or interesting enough to really preserve. Ray said he'd stretched wooden nickels before, but it just wasn't working very well yesterday morning.

The coins I found to experiment with I chose mostly for aesthetic purposes: an 8-sided Maltese quarter (IMHO, Ray didn't set the machine to enough pressure to roll the thing out as effectively as he might have), a Guernsey four doubles with a flower on it, an Irish coin with the a hen and some Gaelic on the back and, my favorite, a Greek coin with a beautiful phoenix rising from the ashes on it.

I spent 12 hours trying to get home yesterday. The flight from Baltimore to Philly was fine; the flight from Philly to Seattle was delayed two hours, switched gates and vehicles, and then they still had the nerve to charge people for dinner and movies. I'd eaten in the airport. Their big compensation? Free soft drinks...because on August 1, US Airways started charging for soft drinks on flights. Travelers, take note.

I'm going to take a little time to think about my conclusions on the trip and the convention before posting them here, so I expect there to be one more post about ANA before I move on. I'll also be writing a little piece for davidlevine and kateyule's zine Bento, which will include some new material in it, too.

Comments

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

It sounds at least...interesting.

The flight home sounds dreadful. Flying is not a joy, it is definitely a chore. But you're home and can relax with kitties. Welcome back!

[oldmangrumpus.livejournal.com]

an Irish coin with the a hen and some Gaelic on the back

Probably a pre-decimal 1 Penny.

[bedii.livejournal.com]

If you really want an elongated wooden nickel, you could use gaseous ammonia on it--but the only outfits I know of that can handle that sort of work safely wouldn't be interested in a one-time only trial. (If you really care, there's a dynamite article on how to set up on of these systems safely if you've got a really large lot out in the country in a Fine Woodworking collection that I can lend to you.) I have heard of some attempts that marinated items to be bent under household ammonia with better results than just soaking in water, but you can't get the jaw-dropping "tie the board in a square knot" effect you can with gaseous.