I Know, Again

Took the girls to Moon Marble. Again.



During the demo I videoed part of, Bruce made the comment that the marble wasn't turning out quite like planned, but he thought it was turning out well. I asked, how often does it turn out as planned?




'Never,' he said. Then he went on, 'I don't know, you watch a lot, do I say that a lot?'



I'm not sure. But it struck me that this ceaseless and harsh winter has a lot to do with why we've been frequent fliers to the Moon.



Cycling, model rocket launches, hiking on trails, kite flying, generic trips to the park, these have all been off the menu for what seems like a year.







We don't hit Moon Marble nearly as often as Mo asks for it, often first thing on a Saturday morning. If we did, it'd be nearly a weekly affair. She really seems to enjoy watching Bruce (and the other artists) do the demos, and she loves the bins of novelty items, the rubber chickens, etc.



As usual, it left me wanting to try my hand at making marbles. You can get a starter set for $130 that I don't have to spend on a hobby, but that doesn't include a kiln for annealing or the gas. And if you get serious, you end up needing a more sophisticated twin fuel torch (oxygen & propane for a hotter flame), and those are, in Bruce's words, 'not cheap.'



Thing is, I know what hobbies are like. I've kept bees, I make beer, there's the rocketry thing. I said to a fellow brewer that our hobby would eat every dollar I ever cared to throw at it, and he said, 'No, it'd eat a lot more than that.'

Bruce Making a Marble from Chixulub on Vimeo.

That $130 starter kit would probably cost me a grand by the time I got to where my marbles came out consistently round. And I need another expensive hobby like Tiger Woods needs more girlfriends.