New York Hiatus

Finish first year of grad school - check.
Propose to girlfriend - check.
find a productive way to spend the summer between grad semesters??

Check.

As many of you already know, I will not be in New York this summer. At Shelley's urging I went searching for opportunities to improve me knowledge in the areas of my graduate studies during the summer break, and through one very helpful university contact, and my practically patent-pending system of dumb luck, I landed a whopper.

Based on my prior experience in radio operations/management, and my current academic/social interest in the region of Central Asia, I was approved for an internship with Radio Attazyk, the Kyrgyz branch of "Radio Free Europe," now re-branded as Radio Liberty. For those not familiar with RFE/RL, it is an international news/journalism organization with certain functional similarities with the BBC or NPR. Like the BBC, it has a strongly international focus for its news content, but like NPR it is actually a confederation of independent news organizations which share resources and content. It is also, it must be admitted, funded by the US Congress as a carryover from its days as a propaganda machine pumping in "free press" via radio to Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.

Since the collapse of the USSR, the main office has moved from DC to Prague, and the mission has shifted to more generally support freedom, democracy, etc. around the world. Continued US funding of course requires at least a critical eye, though not necessarily skepticism. In addition to radio news, they also support vibrant web coverage from all the countries in which they are involved, and I would encourage you to flip through the articles and judge for yourself. www.rferl.org

As for myself, I'm nominally going as a radio intern, though it seems more likely at this point that I'll be conducting training in radio copy writing (essentially, high-level english training), and also be assisting with a youth (15-20s) radio program. I will find out more when I get there.

That's the long version, now here's the relevant detail:

the (lame) Texpatriot is setup to be a blog about my life, but specifically my life as a Texan Expatriot living in New York. Moving to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, transcends most of what I would usually write in this blog. I will no longer be a Texan - or even a New Yorker - I will now be living as an 'American' representative, dissolving the fun nuances this blog is built to discuss.

Luckily... I happen to have another blog, which predates this one and addresses exactly the issues at hand: what do I experience when traveling outside my comfort zone and beyond the territorial borders of my own prior experience. I started this last summer when I spent almost 3 months touring around Europe, first alone and then later accompanied by my girlfriend. It was a tremendous experience, and I had a lot of time to think deep and write about it on the blog.

I have my doubts about this summer resulting in such ephemeral contemplations, but it's a close enough fit that I'll be documenting my Kyrgyz adventure on this alternate (previous) blog chain. You can follow along at http://weberonthelamb.blogspot.com

The name doesn't make much sense, being both a euphemism for "legal fugitive" and a (not very) comical allusion to a (formerly) recurring segment on the Colbert Report. Since the creation of that blog, Colbert dropped the bit, and I realized that I wasn't fleeing anything, but rather searching for things.

Nonetheless, the blog (and its mis-nomer) took on a life of its own. It became personified, and I've come to think, in a very weird way, about 'the lamb' as my companion in my travels. It is an honest, occasionally brutally honest, confidant as well as a catalyst to push me further beyond my comfort zone when the opportunity arises. In a sense, it has become my 'journeyman's conscience,' reminding me of my purpose to explore and the friends and family who await an update.

Having said all of this, the primary purpose of this post is only to inform you that, in all likelihood, I will not be reposting to this blog until I return from this particular engagement. When I get back to NYC in August/September, and my regular life and TX:NY comparisons again become relevant, the (lame) Texpatriot will return.

Until then, I would love to have you follow along in my digital footprints at Weber on the Lamb, and I wish you the very best wherever your summer may take you.

Weber
:: (lame) Texpatriot

How to be a Badass

Finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with is a pretty wonderful feeling, conveying that sentiment to the person by presenting them with a symbol of your lifelong commitment is even better.  But if you really want to graduate to the level of 'badass', you've got to take it one step further.

Common options include grandiose proposal circumstances (Jumbotrons, sky writing, name etched into their souffle', etc.), ridiculous diamond sizes, and celebrity guest appearances (yes, Snoop, I'll marry him!).

As with so many choices, this lame texpatriot opted for d) None of the Above.

Besides, how could I hope to choose the right ring for Shelley without letting her know that I was looking?  We've been dating almost 7 years, so certain key features were set: no yellow gold, nothing impractical, no pink stones.  But that's all I had to go on.  What the hell else HAD we been talking about for all those years?

I could have just proposed, and then let her pick out a ring she loved... But I think part of proposing is 'doing the best you can' and then being accepted, whatever you've got, for all your good & bad choices.  In other words, if you really love the guy, and he has bad taste in jewelry or anything else, that's something you'll have to accept if you plan to be with him forever.

So letting Shel choose the ring was out.  Equally, me choosing a ring from a catalogue of several hundred generic rings didn't really sound too intimate either.  What ring says, "Shelley"?  Option 143b or option 338c?  Again, I deferred to option d).

Luckily, this time I actually had an option d): NewYorkweddingring.com

This is a small business run by a goldsmith named Sam Abbey in downtown manhattan, just a block or two from the World Trade Center site.

It's a simple setup: 1 room live-in apt, tons of specialized jeweler's tools, a few precious metals, and a computer.  After a few planning meetings to discuss design elements, materials, and to purchase a diamond together, you show up early in the morning, and 

over the course of an oh-so-brief 16 hour day, the two of us made Shelley's wedding ring.

That's right.  

I made Shel's engagement ring.  

From scratch.  Like a biscuit.  

Because she deserves it, and I was being bonafide badass.

Here's how:

Take the band material (a solid platinum cylinder) and cut it down to the appropriate length.

Flatten to the desired width.

File the ends.

Annealing with blow torch - basically, super-heat until it glows orange (pretty!); this makes it more pliable.

Bend into a ring, then shape & bend more and more until 2 ends touch.

place on a cone to set size/shape; hammer until ring is a circle.

Annealing again, this time to "lock" the ring shape.

File more.

Torch-Solder (actually, brazing)the 2 ends together (now a complete ring).

Practice engraving on a silver dud piece.

Engrave decorative elements onto platinum band.

Cut an "x" into the top of the ring for the setting to fit into.

File the X smooth.

Drop in the Setting.

Torch-Solder (again, braze) the setting in place.

File / sand / polish the interior.

Super-polish the exterior, especially the setting.

File down interior of setting (to "catch" diamond).

test diamond fitting, remove, re-file setting, test, re-file, etc etc etc.

Once diamond is snug-fit into setting, gently bend-over top of setting arms.

Submerse the ring in quick-hardening plastic.

Put ring+plastic in a vice, let cool/harden.

Use hammer firmly bend/lock setting arms down on top of diamond.

file/sand/polish setting arms, reduce size as desired.

remove plastic in boiling water.

polish polish polish polish polish polish polish.

POLISH.

P-O-L-I-S-H.

Buff it.

Box it.

Badass.

You can find more photos here (if you're still interested after all that!)

The proposal, pre-proposal plans, post-proposal happiness; all of these are good and perhaps even more impotant than all the sillyness outlined above.

You can find Shelley's perspective of the actual proposal on her blog

Everyone's fiance is special - if they weren't, no one would bother with all the work of proposing. So when I say that Shelley is special to me, that she's one of a kind, this should be no surprise given the time we've been together, me proposing, etc.

But we now have a lifetime together, and it's a life we're going to have to make together.  And I got it off to a good start by making the symbol of that commitment with the same two hands that (sporadically) type this blog.

I haven't rebuilt her a car.  I haven't constructed her dream house.  I don't have any idea how to go about sewing her wedding dress.

But I did make her engagement ring, and that's at least a good start... 

at being a badass.

Weber

::(lame) Texpatriot