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My family and I are moving to a new place in a couple of weeks! It's exciting and stressful and too much work all at once but what can be done. The new place is awesome, we'll have a backyard for the kids, with a tree house and a slide, and the folks we are renting from seem great.

Keeping orders going out the door, however, is going to be a bit of a logistics challenge, for obvious reasons. I mean, I don't even know when we're going to get internet at the new house yet. I've got a good plan for moving everything over to the new house, but even so, depending on when you make your order it may take a couple extra days to ship it. Also, I'm usually pretty good about packing up new kits when supplies run low, but I already boxed up and packed all of my spare kit parts, so what is in the store is in the store and I won't have a chance to bundle up new kits for a few weeks. If you want a Stella Amp kit, you'd better get one before I run out! (Or I might not run out, but don't say I didn't warn you.) I'll also be a little slower on the uptake when it comes to answering forum posts and support emails.

Alright, I gotta get packing.

I gotta hand it to Fender, these new amplifier designs are amazing:

I wouldn't mind building one of those for myself.

Just posted a tutorial on how to mount the pots and the LED for a cigar box Stella amp build. Let me know what you think!

Today Newt Gingrich was on the front page of the newspaper, and the front page of the business section had a picture of a man walking through airport security while still wearing his coat and shoes.

HELP SOMEONE HAS KIDNAPPED ME AND SENT ME BACK IN TIME TO THE 90s!

On the other hand, wait a minute! It's time to buy Apple stock at 7 bucks a share!

(Here's the Semisonic lyric I was thinking of when I wrote the title: "Closing time - time for you to go back to the places you will be from.")

I just put up a quick page on how to mount a speaker to a cigar box if you are making a cigar box amplifier. All you need is a drill, a couple of bits, a screwdriver, and pliers.

As you can see, you drill the holes in the box to make the speaker grille you want to have. Then mount the speaker to the box with machine screws and nuts.

(If you don't have any machine screws and nuts around the house, believe it or not Home Depot has half a wall of machine screws and nuts in little baggies, you just get the size you need. I got 1 inch screws so I knew there wouldn't be any problem with the length. These screws are 6-36 screws, if you are using a different diameter of screw then you would use a different diameter of drill bit for the screw holes.)

My web host recently moved my website over to a new server, and there were some issues with The Move. Sadly I didn't notice these issues until a week after it happened, which basically ruined any chance of turning this into a smooth recovery. In fact, I didn't even know A Move was taking place because I didn't check the e-mail account my host sent the notification to. My bad.

So Hello! This website is coming to you from exactly one week in the past!*

In all seriousness, I have all of the content that I added over the past week available to me, and I will be adding that back in as time allows. And if you have placed an order in the past week I have either already sent it or I will send it tomorrow.

I have, as far as I know, fixed all of the issues related to The Move. But if you come across anything weird or something you think should be fixed, or a missing page, or what have you, PLEASE let me know, right here in the comments. (If you do not see a link for posting comments, click on the title of this post and it should show up.)

Thanks!

[*] I can't wait to see who wins the big game on Saturday, the Bruins or the Canucks! (My money is on the Bruins.)

For Christmas I had a number of people on my list, and I had no idea what to get them. After a bit of thinking I decided to get Sugru for everyone!

Mainly, I wanted a couple packs of sugru for myself but wasn't sure I could go through the entire 12 pack in 6 months. Sugru does have an expiration date and I didn't want to waste it.

But wait, what is sugru? Sugru is an adhesive, moldable, permanent silicone putty. What does that mean?

Think of things that would be better in your life with a little silicone putty. Your paring knife is wicked sharp but the handle is just a little too small? Build a new custom handle! You like your eyeglasses but they don't have the little pads that keep them from slipping down your nose? Add new pads! Got a crack in your lens cap? Fix it!

I got one 12 pack of sugru from Adafruit, and on Christmas at the party I opened it up and let everyone take the colors they wanted. I had never used any before but I jumped right in and cracked open an orange pack. I used that to repair a frayed iphone cable and used the other half of the pack to insulate my mom's house key (she keeps freezing her fingers on it when she goes to unlock the door.)

Everyone loved the sugru and instantly thought of a ton of things to do with it.

For my next pack, I'm going to repair a broken doll and fix the broken clip on my pedometer. I haven't done it yet though. Turns out the instructions point out that if you are susceptible to allergies, or if you have sensitive skin, you probably want to wear gloves while handling sugru before it cures. I am neither susceptible to allergies, nor do I have sensitive skin. But a year or so ago I developed a sensitivity to traditional photographic chemicals and I had to switch to non-traditional photo chemicals. And about a half hour after handling the sugru I noticed that familiar prickling skin feeling that I got when using film developer.

So I'm relegated to using gloves. That's okay I guess but I don't have any gloves on hand, so it'll have to wait until I can get to the store.

If you are interested, check out all of the cool things that people are using sugru for!

I have a plan for a full sized telecaster (actually several telecasters, but let's start with this one first). Alas, the wood that I bought for it badly warped before I had a chance to even cut out a body outline, so I scrapped it. I had that wood sitting around for a couple of months and then it went from perfectly straight to super cupped and twisted in less than a week.

As far as the plankocaster goes, I'm still chipping away at it. I made the first mistake! I was levering wood out of the neck pickup cavity only to discover that I was really denting the surface of the guitar with the lever action. So instead of a nice straight 90 degree cut into the wood, it's much more rounded.

I've started planning and gathering materials for a concert sized cigar box ukulele. I know I have the right cigar box around here but I have to dig it out of my pile. Not sure exactly where it is. And I can see the neck wood, it's in the far corner of the room. I'm going to have to move quite a few things to even lay a hand on it, let alone move it.

Great classic motown groove:

Great lyrics, great voice, great build up:

This is smooth, you wouldn't expect smooth from a ukulele and acoustic bass:

But when I'm up visiting my mom for Thanksgiving, I can turn it up to 11: