Last week is one that I wouldn’t mind forgetting. It certainly wasn’t the worst week in the world, it was just one that felt like it would never come to an end.
I began learning how to etch metal last Saturday, for the ledouche flasks, and managed to get hit in my right eye with some sulfuric acid. The solution I was using had an extremely low concentration in it, so I was fine, but my eye was sore for most of the week. I had goggles on, but they weren’t the kind that form a seal against your face. I seriously hate wearing those, but now realize that I’m just going to have to. I’m not letting something like that happen again.
Sure, the title of this post doesn’t make a ton of sense just yet. Keep reading.
Getting hit in the face with acid was just the beginning of things. I managed to irritate my skin so badly while cleaning out my eyes that I ended up looking like that dude from the Epic Beard Man video that’s floating around right now. Seriously, I looked like shit. I was supposed to head in to the city to meet up with an old friend from Boston for a bit on Sunday and then possibly look at plates (gotta have nice plates to photograph marshmallows and other treats on!) and grab a bite to eat with a coworker, but there was no way I was making it in considering my condition at the time.
In the end, I’m really happy with how the test etchings came out, and now know what I need to do to get a perfect ledouche logo etched in to the flasks. It’s really about making sure you use the correct electrolyte solution, depending on the metal you are working with, and using the right amount. Too little and you won’t leave a mark, too much and you’ll just make a mess of things. The two photos below show the sort of effects created by different electrolytes, and unfortunately the overuse of them. The next pics I post will be good, I promise.
The top etching , in the above photo, was made with an electrolyte meant for stainless steel (which the flasks are made of). The etching just below it was made with an general-use electrolyte, and it actually seems to work better in this particular case.
I etched the logo on to the back of the test flask to see how using a little less of the stainless steel electrolyte would work, and how easily I’d get the etching machine to work with the curvature of the flask, and I think it’ll work out great. In the end, there will be nothing but the words, “fucking classy” in small type at the bottom of the back of the flask, and nothing else. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.
I was still in sad shape on Monday, so I stayed in and worked on some items for Latina.com. Not exactly how I’d like to spend a day off from work, but it could always have been worse. There will be a new Job Search feature on the website, up hopefully this week, and I also managed to get the site’s Recipe Finder back up and running, thanks to the help of a colleague. I also did a bunch of other stuff related to advertising and managed to scratch a few items off of my .com to-do list.
The New York area got some snow on Tuesday, which was on top of the 10 inches or so that we already had, and I couldn’t resist taking some photos of the Sunnyside yard that the LIRR trains pass through before heading in to the tunnels to Manhattan.
Snow and rain fell for the majority of the day and even though it really didn’t look too bad out, it was a cold wintry mess outside.
I completely wiped out and busted my ass on Madison near 55th street on some ice while walking to the subway Tuesday afternoon. All of the snow and ice that came down during the day hadn’t been cleared away just yet, and a lot of the storefronts have marble sidewalks in the area, making it much more slippery than you’d expect. The worst part? A woman walking next to me started cracking up and then had the balls to stand next to me on the E train all the way down to Penn station. The entire left side of my body was wet from hitting the ground, and I made sure that her entire right side was just as wet by the time I got off of the train. Bitch.
By Wednesday, I was bruised and felt like shit and my right eye felt like someone stuck a hot piece of metal in to it, but I did manage to make it through the rest of the week.
I don’t even remember Thursday. Seriously.
By Friday, I was completely exhausted. Some friends and I had been planning on going to BonChon on 5th avenue for about 2 weeks, and I wasn’t not going to meet up with them. By early afternoon, my disorder started acting up, and I was a complete mess. I still don’t quite know what caused it to get to me, but it must have been something at lunch or just the lack of sleep and some other things that were going at work.
Ok. First of all, the place isn’t even technically a BonChon location anymore. It turns out that there was some issue over the sauces being used or something, so it’s called Mad for Chicken now. The place was packed, more so than I’ve seen before, so we all decided to go to KumGangSan on 32nd street.
KumGanSan is a great place, but they shuffle their customers around like cattle from time to time. We needed a table for 8 and instead of making us wait a bit, they moved 6 people who were seated at a table elsewhere and seated almost immediately. Maybe it’s just me, but if I were one of those people that got pushed over to another table mid-meal, I wouldn’t be coming back again.
We spent a few hours having dinner and chatting, which was great, but I was too tired to really enjoy myself. I honestly think that the last remaining bit of energy I had was spent when the topic of ex-girlfriends came up. Here’s why…
A friend of mine (who will remain nameless, for now) dated a woman who used to work for me. I was never happy about this, but I didn’t have to deal with her on a daily basis by the time I found out, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. It did however keep me from inviting him out with friend for a while, just because it would be a bit uncomfortable if she came along. They eventually broke up, but not without what is probably the funniest crazy ex-girlfriend story ever. My friend came home from work one day and noticed that several of his belongings were missing. His bed was gone. The entire fucking bed. Some silverware was gone – a couple of forks, a table spoon, a few knives; not enough of any of the individual pieces to form a full set. A DVD player and some other small items were gone too. Oh, and he was completely cleaned out of toilet paper. Yes, she took the toilet paper.
I may have dated a woman who turned out to be a white supremacist, a woman who has an IMDB page for her work in the adult industry, and a woman who once requested blood and urine samples (those are just a few from my rogues gallery,) but I’ve never dated a woman who stole my furniture or toilet paper! Toilet paper? Come on, that’s just plain wrong!
Anyway, I was completely spent after chatting about how screwed up some women can be and we all decided it was time to head out not too long afterward.
My buddy Luis took a pic of Elgin and I, and the first thing that came to mind was “hip-hop album”, so be sure to look for Fox & Gin’s debut album, High Potential For Failure, to drop soon. No, not really.
Just seeing this photo makes me feel tired. Luckily, Luis drove in to Midtown so he offered to give me a ride home. We headed for his car and I pretty much vegged out until we got to the island. We haven’t gotten the chance to hang out since October, so it was good to have an hour or so to just catch up on things.
Some douche in a completely over-pimped Civic tried racing Luis while we were on the L.I.E, but he completely ignored the guy. I have a feeling it’s because he thought I was going to puke all over the inside of his car or something. Excellent choice, Luis. I got home, slept pretty much all day Saturday and resigned to the fact that I wasn’t getting anything done this weekend. Speaking of douches, the etching incident with the ledouche flasks has slowed me down a bit, but I’ll get back to work on them around the middle of this week.
