Stacks O' Money

Oof.

I can tell it is going to be one of those weeks, and it's only Tuesday (nearly Wednesday). Sunday was a bummer because of the whole Packers losing thing, but other than that very minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things, I spent another hour or so at the laundromat because I had to go ahead and spill olive oil on my favorite jeans making dinner the previous night. 
If any of you have been following my facebook statuses, you probably saw my gem of an update about the mentally unstable racist with whooping cough. 
Yep, the guy would just wander around and talk to no one in particular about the "f***ing minorities" until he had another coughing fit ending with a very pronounced WHOOOOOOP. Once he regained his breath, he would then go outside and smoke a cigarette. All kinds of interesting going on at the local Maytag...

My Mondays in school remind me of why I am glad I graduated college. I have to sit through 3 hours of lecture, granted it is about guitars, but still, 3 hours of just sitting there and listening and taking notes and NOT being able to play with tools...it's rough. Makes me pine for the days of Gemin classes. This lecture is making me seriously reconsider the idea of a guitar that I wanted to build in my head. I'm learning about which woods would be best suited for "more aggressive players" as opposed to "lighter players" and various other things like that. My instructor told me to go to a guitar shop and play around with different models/wood combinations so that I can get a better idea of what I am looking for. The coolest homework ever.
Probably the greatest benefit of these morning lectures is that I am done with classes at Noon. Oh wait, I still have my absolute joke of a First Aid class for two hours at 5:30pm. For real, why do we need to stretch this out for 8 weeks when you could easily cover all of the information in a couple of hours? 

Today (when I actually get to work on stuff), I removed my scarf joint from my bench. It looks pretty good, but I forgot to snap a picture, so I will be sure to grab one tomorrow. It was also the moment of truth for my mahogany block that I was so worried about over the weekend. To no surprise, I was told that it was wrong, but it was fairly correctable. I had to do a bit more leveling on the part that tore out (close to 2 hours, actually...I kept chasing a high spot around), but on the part where I went too deep, I was told that I could belt sand it down to the correct depth, so long as I didn't mess up the "perfectly" flattened chiseled part...all was not totally lost! 
In power tools, I worked on sanding down a piece of wood to make into a nut/saddle holder. Nothing much more to say on that except for it takes a lot of time and creates a lot of dust...

I also received my next tool list for the rest of the year...it's a horror show of super-specialized items.

$1400...Ouch. There goes all of my Financial Aid (and then some).

That was a fun phone call to the parents.
"Are you positive this is what you want to do?"
"Will you be able to make a living doing this?"
"YOU NEED TO GET A JOB (starting yesterday)!"

Thanks, I know. 

If anyone wants to donate to the "Help Steve Reach His Dream Foundation" please do not hesitate to contact me...

At least I have my weekend in the Cities with Zach to look forward to...MAN-DATE!