The Reverend Fred Lane as a puppet!

As I was thinking over who I know that would appreciate a puppet of themselves and is also visually iconic, I came up with none other than The Reverend Fred Lane. The Venn diagram of people I know and who can be unmistakably rendered in puppet form is admittedly small, but I digress.

The Reverend Fred Lane as described by Wikipedia:

Tim R. Reed, known by the stage name Reverend Fred Lane, is an American, Tuscaloosa, Alabama-born singer, songwriter, and visual artist, who released two relatively obscure yet critically appreciated albums in the 1970s on Say Day Bew Records, later re-released in the 1980s on the Shimmy Disc label. These albums explored various traditional genres of American music such as jazz, country, and big-band swing, but infused with improvisational experimentations and Dadaist free-associative lyrics.

I first met Tim at the showing of the documentary of him titled Icepick To The Moon. David had clued me in to The Reverend Fred Lane many years prior and we were both thrilled to see the film and meet Tim in person! It was shown at the University of Florida. If you haven't seen it, here's a link to the trailer for it. It was super to see the documentary on Tim Reed and then have the opportunity to meet him and his lovely wife. The following year, we visited them both at their artists booth at the  Florida CraftArt festival in St. Petersburg, FL. He and his wife Jeanie are traveling artisans. He works in wood (mobile sculptures) and his wife Jeanie works in fiber and ceramic arts (mixed media).

I reached out to Jeannie and asked if having a puppet of his stage persona would appeal to Tim. She said yes (!) and I quickly began working on replicating The Reverend Fred Lane (TRFL) based on photographic evidence in the way-way back machine called the Internet.

The puppet pattern is the Small Fry pattern created by Adam Kreutinger. The fleece is from PuppetPelts.com (leftover from the fleece I used to make Kraftwerk). Once I had the puppet form created, I began working on creating The Reverend Fred Lane's stage props and costume accessories. I used a duplicate resin cast of a nose I sculpted for another puppet, flocked it with UHU glue and fibers cut from the fleece I'd used to make TRFL's puppet.

I documented the process behind making all TRFL's accessories and costuming in this Flickr photo album.

I ordered the smallest "straw" fedora and children's sunglasses that I could find on AliExpress. The sunglasses turned out to be just perfect. I knew the hat was going to be too big, but I hoped boiling it would make the synthetic fibers shrink up. I had no luck in shrinking the hat, so I cut up the hat according to a tiny fedora hat pattern and made a TRFL sized hat from a hat.

<insert hat photo here>

My pal Joel is a whiz with 3D printers, so I sent him a link to sunglasses on Thingiverse and said, can you make these sunglasses but have them be 2 1/2 inches wide? He said yes he could, so he sent me 5 print out in case I needed backups. As it turned out, my measurements ended up being much too small for TRFL's face. I was shooting for 'comically small' sunglasses but ended up with TEENY TINY sunglasses. Not a problem, I turned the teeny tiny sunglasses into a pair of earrings (!!) for Jeannie.

I used my Cricut to cut a sheet of ABS plastic into sunglasses, salvaged a pair of eyeglass hinges from a broken pair of sunglasses, and created the 'comically small' sunglasses for TRFL. It required much sanding and grinding with a Dremel because my Cricut is a Cricut Air, not a Cricut Maker. The Cricut Air is not powerful enough to cut all the way through the ABS plastic, I had to do the work to free the semi-cut parts from the surrounding plastic and grind them down to the 'engraved' lines the Cricut made in the ABS sheet.

To get the right look for TRFL's band-aids, I made three prototypes. I used ink-jet printable heat transfer material to get two sets of band-aids on a sheet of white fabric. One prototype used Mod Podge gloss to glue a layer of thin clear vinyl to the band-aid image to make it shiny, the second prototype used layering of the Mod Podge gloss to create several layers of Mod Podge to create a shiny band-aid surface. The third prototype used a beige vinyl fabric and permanent fabric markers to make the band-aid perforations and gauze pad center. The beige vinyl band-aids looked the best against TRFL's head! I used Fabri-TAC glue to adhere heavy-duty Velcro hook squares to each end of the band-aid; leaving the gauze section in the middle of the band-aid free from Velcro. This allowed me to criss-cross the band-aids on TRFL's face as is his stage wear.

As luck would have it, I found a paper-craft globe online and it was already sized proportionately to TRFL's puppet size.

I used this photo of Mattel's Tommy-Burst Detective Set to replicate the toy Tommy Gun TRFL is seen sporting in photographic history.

PEX tubing made the frame of TRFL's tricycle possible. Silver and red spray paint made it complete. Tiny pedals made out of FIMO gave TRFL something to perch his tiny feet upon.

His hair was cut from a scrap of faux fur, sewed into place and then a suitable haircut was given. After his first hair cut, I fashioned a wispy mustache and goatee which could then be 'waxed' into a twist.

For his final million-dollar grin as seen on the cover of "From the One That Cut You" I sculpted his grin out of a section of PVC pipe with various Dremel bits and grinder tips. A base coat of paint was applied to his teeth and the final paint layer added pink to his gums and a bit of grey shading between his teeth to make the depth of them pop visually.

I had a ton of fun making all of TRFL's accouterments and I am happy to hear that Tim is as pleased with himself as I am!

Adam Kreutinger's Small Fry Puppet Clothing Patterns

I have been making Small Fry puppets from Adam Kreutinger's pattern and modifying doll clothing patterns to fit the measurements of the Small Fry. The Small Fry doesn't have a "neck" that is smaller than its shoulders, and as such, 18-inch doll clothing patterns require modifying to fit the Small Fry's proportions.

This post is about the formal suit jackets and dress shirts I made for the Small Fry. The suit jacket pattern has three different collar styles and two different fit styles in it. One is more of a Pea Coat fit, bigger in the overall sizing and with a wider lapel. The other fit is more true to the Small Fry measurements and I have included a 1950's style Peak lapel and a smaller Mod notched lapel style.

The dress shirt has two different collar styles - a traditional straight collar and one with a bit longer collar points as seen in the polka-dotted dress shirt photo. The sleeves are intentionally about a half-inch long for the Small Fry arms, adjust your pattern as you desire for sleeve length.

The patterns all include a 1/4 inch seam allowance. When a 1/8 inch sewing edge is called for, it is indicated in the pattern instructions.

If you download and use these patterns and instructions, I'd love to see what you've made with them!

I will be editing and uploading the dress pants and boxer shorts I made for the Small Fry puppet soon.

• Small Fry Suit Jacket Pattern
• Small Fry Suit Jacket Pattern Instructions
• Small Fry Dress Shirt Pattern
• Small Fry Dress Shirt Pattern Instructions

Things I've Made That I Haven't Told You About Yet

I'm going to assume you're curious about the things I've made, otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this post!

Scrolling back through the photos on my phone, I'll make my list chronological.

Lenny 4 part spray paint stencil (4/19)

Lenny was a magical feline who was FLV+ and lived a brief life of adventures, sunsets and I commemorated his portrait in a multi-part spray paint stencil. I used Sara Sandoval's excellent how-to video on YouTube.

Kraftwerk Skydancer 5/19 - this has already been documented and discussed. 

🤖

Ecstatic Dance Sunshade (6/19)

My friend Laryssa was the organizer for the Tampa Bay Ecstatic Dance gatherings and she said "What if I had an Ecstatic Dance sunshade for my car? Then I could put fliers in my dash advertising the next dance date, price, and location - every place I parked." I thought this was a genius idea so I bought a cheap silver foil sunshade from the Dollar Tree, used an old white sheet, my Beam projector, and permanent fabric paint to recreate the Ecstatic Dance artwork Laryssa used on her event flyers.

Mighty Boosh Halloween costumes (6/19)

I got obsessed on Halloween early in 2019 and made David and I costumes so we could be Howard Moon and Old Gregg. We went to the Tokyo Motor Show instead. These costumes will be revisited at another Halloween...

Buster Keaton shirt (6/19)

David is a big fan of Buster Keaton, so I found a high res photo online, bumped up the contrast, and turned it into basically a stencil. I used the Beam projector to shine the picture on the shirt, traced it, and filled it in with permanent fabric paint in navy blue on a really nice vintage ringer tee we scored at the Salvation Army.

2019 Gingerbread Marathon

The Reverend Fred Lane BOLOPHONIC shirt (1/20)

I made my BOLOPHONIC shirt to wear to the historic concert with Fred Lane and His Disheveled Monkeybiters at Saturn in Birmingham, AL. After the show, I made a hoodie for a guy I met at the concert who came up to me and was like "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT SHIRT?!"

Pandemic masks (so many masks!) (4/20)

I know how to sew and had a lot of fabric already on hand when masks weren't something you could find or buy. So I made masks. Lots and lots of masks.

Holliday Bakes lettering for A-frame sign (7/20)

My friend Chriss Holliday had a pop-up bake shop in Seminole Heights (she's now in Tallahassee). She'd gotten the metal and the stand for the sign and I put her signage on the stainless steel sheet metal with vinyl I already had. The Cricut makes so many things possible.

All Y'All Yoga tank tops (8/20)

These were two designs I came up with for All Y'All Yoga tank tops. One is a mashup of the YES YES Y'ALL font for Toronto's long running queer party and the other is a mashup of a Baptiste yoga tank font and the All Y'All font.

Journey Into Power window clings (8/20)

These JIP figures have evolved over the years. Originally I purchased yoga stick figures online, added in the poses from JIP that weren't in the set I purchased. Then EB asked if I could make the figures into window clings. I could - but I took each of the JIP poses into Adobe Fresco and thickened and smoothed the lines of the stick figure so that the Cricut could cut each pose out cleanly.

Kraftwerk puppets - (8/20) documented here.

Disco ball trailer hitch cover (of course) (9/20)

I ordered a couple of bags of tiny mirror squares and used Mod Podge to glue them to a trailer ball hitch cover I'd purchased. Why have a boring trailer hitch cover if you don't have to?

Press Your Luck Leggings (9/20)

I always loved watching PYL when I was home sick from school or during summer break. I used the leggings pattern from Society 6 to make a pair of PYL leggings for me. I was surprised to find that the sizing for the XL leggings had changed A LOT since I made/ordered my Frogger leggings. I had to add an extra 4 inches to the rise because the torso of the leggings was way too dang short.

2020 Gingerbread Marathon

Rocky (from Buffalo '66) Shirt (still a work in progress) (12/20)

This is still a work in progress. The first attempt at making a vector from movie stills didn't cut well on the Cricut. The vector lines were too thin and didn't cut properly. I'll revisit this again because I love Rocky's character in this movie.

Soliloquy For Lileth shirt (10/20)

David ordered a Soliloquy for Lileth shirt off of AliExpress and we were both disappointed that it wasn't a gold foil graphic. It looked more like an army green sort of color so I made three SFL shirts and now David, Sosh and Erin are all proud owners of proper gold foil SFL shirts.

I got vaxxed at the dog track shirt (3/21)

I made this tank top to commemorate my vax status. The decommissioned Dog Track up the street from us was the site of the FEMA vaccination distribution site and I thought it was an odd and somewhat humorous location for a vaccination site.

WWT magnetic logos (makes any button up shirt a corporate edition!) (3/21)

I made myself a WWT magnetic logo to wear on my shirts when on video calls. I picked up a couple of nice button-up shirts from the Salvation Army. I used my Cricut to cut the silhouette of the WWT logo out of hotel keycards, scraped off the top layer of plastic to reveal the white of the card. Then cut vinyl in red and blue. I used a paperclip hot glued to the back of the logo to make the logo magnetic. This makes any dress shirt a fancy work shirt. I received a lot of compliments and questions about where I'd gotten my WWT shirt from other co-workers. I made some extra for friends at work.

Whiskey Barrel Hoop Drum (4/21)

The full write-up is over here.

Braided ribbon barrettes (6/21)

I'd been missing seeing these cute braided barrettes in ladies' hair so I made myself a few. I volunteered to lead a barrette braiding class at the local community center and one lucky little girl went home with 6 brand spanking new fancy braided and beaded barrettes.

Brass shims for rain lamp oil reservoir base (6/21)

The plastic bottom of our rain lamp cracked in April of 2019 and we had a mineral oil disaster in the dining room. The bottom of the rain lamp containing 4 quarts of mineral oil gave way (peak plastic failure) and our dining room was suddenly covered in said quantities of mineral oil. I was unsure about how to fix the broken segments. My thought was to cut a ring out of some sort of metal and support the base of the lamp with a metal ring. I didn't want to spend the time to cut out a ring with a dremel, so I put the project on hold.  In September of 2020 I reached out to a local person with a 3D printer and he printed up a couple of different styles of support shims. One of them seemed like it would work, but he only printed one for me. I had a hard time getting ahold of him to get more printed so I got frustrated and used some brass strips I had to replicate the shape of the 3D printed shim. David helped me get the holes drilled in the right spots and now our rain lamp is back up and operational.

Conny Plank puppet (7/21)

With the launch of the Kraftwerk Puppets, it was only natural to make a Conny Plank puppet. No band would be complete without their chief engineer and producer!

All Y'All Skydancer (7/21)

Charlotte is a big fan of sky dancers and we were talking after the All Y'All open house event in July about the possibility of making a sky dancer. I said YES and I already have a pattern. We discussed colors and styles of dress and three weeks later, the studio has its very own custom sky dancer for events!

Elvis Costello puppet (7/21)

Paul Weller puppet (7/21)

I was speaking with my friend Rocky about the Conny Plank puppet I made and he said "IF I had any artistic ability whatsoever there would be Elvis Costello and Paul Weller ones.  They could fight for my heart, like Karate Kid.  Also if I wasn’t lazy.  Also if it wasn’t your brilliant idea." I told him I CAN DO THIS. These are a work in progress and all photos are offline until Rocky shoots an unboxing video (once the puppets are done and in the mail).

The Reverend Fred Lane puppet (7/21)

Thinking over the other persons I know who are visually iconic, very funny and may enjoy having a puppet of themselves (!), I reached out to Jeannie to ask if her husband Tim would get a kick out of having his very own puppet. She said YES HE WOULD, so this is also a work in progress. Photos are being taken of the process, but they too are offline until the big reveal.

This does not include the chronology of Sticker Mule deals unless this assemblage of order thumbnails counts...

Kraftwerk All The Things

Kraftwerking all the things started with the driver's license photo, then our wedding and our version of the We Are The Robots video All these led us to visiting Düsseldorf (several times!!) and meeting Harald Naegeli & Wolfgang Flür (bonus!!). 

Kraftwerk mash-ups

• The Wolfgang Flür Skydancer
• Man Machine gingerbread cookies
• Grace Jones & Kraftwerk = Yoga Life

Now, I introduce to you... Kraftwerk P U P P E T S. 

Here is the Flickr photo album of the creation process!

The Three Gates of Speech

I recently attended the Wireless LAN Professionals Conference in Phoenix and the conference itself was professional and informative on all things Wi-Fi. Many photos were taken, many groups gathered and did various activities. The women attendee count was up substantially since the last time I was at a WLPC (in 2018) and the ladies who wanted to be in the group photo for 2020 gathered on the stage before lunch for a photo.

The morning after the photo was tweeted, a long time member of the wifi community called this photo self-segregation and that it made the statement that we wanted to be treated differently. Well, a twitter shit-storm unfolded. My initial response wasn't pretty but I refrained from tweeting what I was thinking and instead sat on what I wanted to say in response until I'd had a while to think about it.

I kept coming back to a quote I'd read recently in a couple different books about the Three Gates of Speech. The concept is that before you speak, check your words at each of these three gates before you speak out loud.

Is it true?

Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

Twitter allows anyone to "say" anything to anyone (on Twitter), I get that. We are each ultimately responsible for how we comport ourselves in this short life we're living. Just because you can say/do a thing doesn't mean you should. 

It is my opinion that the original commenter on the photo was making up a story of what they were seeing in the picture and trying to use shame to turn a photo of a gathered group of women into something that it was not by using the hashtags of #selfsegregation #treatmedifferently #imspecial.

This all started because another long standing member of the wifi community is a woman and chose not to be in the photo because she doesn't want to be singled out and treated any differently than men in the industry and wants to be celebrated for her accomplishments and not her gender. 

None of the other photos from the WLPC event garnered this level of commentary/opinion sharing and it was my takeaway that this whole thing wouldn't have happened if the original commenter had let his words pass through the Three Gates. I believe that his words would have gotten stuck at the first gate. He was inferring things from the photo that weren't accurate, sharing his opinion on the photo was not necessary and many of the subsequent tweets he replied back with were not kind.

I did learn quite a bit about the personal values of many people in the wifi and infosec community as others weighed in with their opinion via replies, likes and retweets and for that, the whole kerfuffle was instructive.

Just because you have an opinion on a thing, does not mean that your opinion is truth. Just because you have an opinion does not mean it is your duty to share your opinion. Just because you believe your opinion to be the truth does not mean it is a Universal Truth.

I'm so glad that we had a group photo taken in 2020 and I'm glad this photo below was taken in 2018. In 2018 there was no shit-storm about this photo being self segregation or that the people in the photo were asking for special treatment. The two people who were at the epicenter of the WLPC 2020 Twitter shit-storm were at WLPC in 2018, but obviously their opinions were held in check and not shared as a Universal Truth.

To sum it up: Yes, you have opinions. Opinions are not hard truths. They may be true to you because you believe them to be true. This does not mean that you have the right or duty to beat others over the head with your "truth". 

Use the Three Gates to check your words for true, necessary and kind. This world needs more kindness and less opinions wielded as bludgeons.

Technology for Travelers

Navigating a new city can be pretty stressful. After spending 9 days in Tokyo & 4 days in Manchester (by way of Heathrow LHR), I can definitively say that having fast, free wifi can make a world of difference in the experience of navigating public transportation systems.

I was able to navigate with Google Maps all over Tokyo with no problems whatsoever. The PASMO train card kiosk was easily switched to English so we could get PASMO cards. Topping up the card with more Yen throughout the week was also easily done.  Tokyo had fast, free wifi in and/or on every train we were on during our stay there.

Landing at Heathrow and attempting to find the correct kiosk to print the train tickets I purchased online was a runaround of bad directions from several different train line employees. Finally I got the tickets, got directions and went down to the Underground station. What I saw on the platform didn't line up with the directions we'd been given so I tried to connect to Google Maps and compare. No such luck. No cell coverage, and the wifi charged me £5 and then it didn't even work. Eventually we made it to the National Rail train which purported to have onboard wifi. The Speedtest app said it was 1.86 down and 10 up, but it was worthless in my experience of trying to use it.

Now that I've had time to decompress after returning home, I did some digging to find out WHY there was such a huge difference in my experience. Here are some facts about the Tokyo train system: built around 1927 or so, current daily rider numbers hover around 8.6 Million people. Tokyo has had free wifi in/around their trains since 2016. London's Underground was built around 1863 or so and currently moves around 5 Million people a day. Back during the Olympics in 2012, there was some limited (an hour a day) wifi on the platforms, concourses and escalators. Now it is all pay-as-you-go (but it doesn't work even if you pay).

Initially I was worried about my language barrier in Tokyo, but that proved to be no issue at all because I had constant Internet access from my phone and didn't have to ask anyone for directions. Comparatively, getting directions in an English speaking country proved to be much harder because of conflicting information and no Internet connectivity to verify what we'd been told was correct or not.

In short - go to Tokyo. Get on the train, use the wifi and go have an adventure wherever you've chosen for your destination. It'll be a lot easier than you might think. Word to the wise: if you've got luggage of any kind - don't use the Underground. Take a taxi or better yet, fly into Manchester instead of taking the tube/train to get there from Heathrow. Trust me on this.

I took about ten million pictures in Tokyo. Here they are.

What Is A Predictive Survey?

It would seem that somewhere along the line the rumor got started that predictive surveys are magical, mythical things that are conjured out of thin air by the power of an 'easy' button.

If I had a nickel for every time I've had to level set someone's expectations on how long a predictive survey should take, could take or will take; the stack would be pretty high.

I made an informational video explanation on what a predictive survey is and the difference in the length of time to define all of the RF obstacles when the wireless engineer has a CAD file of the floor plan vs. any other image file of the floor plan. The video is eight minutes long and has a disclaimer at the end for all the YouTube people that feel the need to tell me what I left out, or how I didn't explain it right (according to them).

This video is not intended to be an all-encompassing explanation of all of the phases of a predictive survey. The content is solely my opinion. Do not attempt to perform a predictive survey without having attended an Ekahau training class, preferably the Ekahau ECSE Design course. Any and all images used retain the copyright of the original creators.