The Benefits of Being an Early Bird:

Some of you may doubt the benefits of early rising.

Being healthy, wealthy and wise sounds pretty good to me, 

But if you require more evidence, 

I present my case.  

 Peony petals, Lavender buds, honey and wonder smeared across the sky. 

 Mist rising from the water, 

reflecting previously mentioned colors.  

The company of other early birds, 

like this pair of Hooded Mergansers. 

Oh yeah.

I'm sure Franklin would agree.    

In other news...

Meet Luke, 

my new ukulele!  

Hmm...  More stringed instruments than people on a 27 foot boat....

Oh well.  

Hope you all are living your dreams and catching the occasional sunrise!  

Travel Guitar LTD., By Cody

Alright everybody its time for my once a year or so contribution to the blog!!! Try and contain yourselves, and don't all comment at once or the internet might explode.

I have been wanting an electric guitar for a while now.  Black Sabbath and Nirvana just don't sound right on a travel sized acoustic.  Its like trying to play classical music with a banjo, it can be done, but nobody thinks its cool.  Now living here on BI I have access to two great shops to work in: Beth's uncle Dave's shop and my boss Dave's shop.  I had everything I needed to make an electric that wouldn't take up too much space in the van/boat.  

Well take a look, I think it turned out pretty cool.

This is what it looked like when we bought it.

I Cut down the head 3+ inches and moved two tuning pegs.  Also doing a way with that health insurance looking logo.

I cut the body down quite a bit making it another 3 inches shorter and several pounds lighter.  I threw away the old pick guard and made a new one out of aluminum.

I moved the amp plug and the two knobs The body is made of maple, so the back and some of the sides are Shellaced and polished.  My boss Dave helped me with the buffing, something I had never done before.

I havn't finished the back cover yet, but it will be aluminum like the pick guard

I bought this super cool little HoneyTone amp.  It runs on a 9v battery, sounds great and gets loud enough to make Beth tell me to turn it down.

Side by Side of our two travel guitars

Modifying this guitar was pretty cool; because its electric you can pretty much do anything to the body and it won't have much affect on the sound.  Unlike an acoustic.   Special thanks to the Dave Allen family for letting me use their shop, and to my boss Dave for helping me buff the finish.

Also, a big thanks to Santa Claus for funding the project!