Complementary Colors

While watching an advertisement on television, I was rather dazzled by the colors—especially the combination of bright yellow and blue clothing worn by the actors. “I see what you did to me there,” I said to the television. “You are throwing complementary colors at me.”

Smart stuff, that.

Way back in the day, I attended a series of art classes at Montana State University. A lot of interesting things came from those classes. I met some lovely people, sketched live (fully unclothed) models, and studied color theory, including the use of complementary colors.

The first thing to recognize is that complementary colors are not necessarily being nice to each other. English being what it is, we are dealing with homophones here. First, we have “compliment” (with an i): a polite expression of praise or admiration. Our “complement” (with an e) refers to something that completes or enhances something else. In our particular case, we are talking about colors from the exact opposite sides of the color wheel. These are pairs of colors which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they offer the strongest contrast between the two colors.

Blue and yellow particularly grab my attention. My attraction to colors like these is one of the reasons I am generally not allowed to pick out my own clothing for important occasions. I’ve posted some complementary color examples below.

Complementary Colors (Source: Wikipedia)

—Mitchell Hegman

Street Smart

 Sometimes, it’s just as simple as the streetwise addict said: “If you wake up alive, it’s a good thing.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Wed to Gravity, but Holding On

As someone with a metal roof, I can attest that ice and melting snow can do some squirrely stuff. This applies especially to snow melting on a metal roof. If you install cleats on the roof, the snow will melt off while holding in place. Without cleats, the snow will at some point wed with gravity and slide off the roof. This may happen all at once, or it may be a gradual process.

The latter proposition is where the squirrely stuff comes to bear. Under certain weather conditions—for example, the last several days—the snow and ice will slide off the metal but remain overhanging. For the last three days, the snow and ice have been trying, but mostly failing, to shed from my roof. Instead of falling to the ground, the snow has developed some impressive curls.

I’m sharing two photographs I captured yesterday.

Ice Curl at the Back of My House

Ice Curls at the Front of My House

—Mitchell Hegman

When the Fire Goes Black

After regularly using my new woodstove, I’ve come to understand all of its quirks and features. One behavior the stove exhibits still unnerves me, even though it signals the stove is operating at peak efficiency. I call this stage of operation “going black.”

At this stage, the fire has been burning for a while and consists of a mix of red-hot coals and partially charred wood. The stove temperature has climbed above 600°F. Once these conditions are met, I push in the damper to direct gases and smoke through the catalytic converter, initiating a secondary burn—often visible as blue flames. Afterward, I reduce the air intake to its minimum setting.

That’s when the stove goes black.

The flames seem to retreat into the partially burned wood, leaving only red embers glowing beneath the chunks of blackened wood. The first few times this happened, I worried I had snuffed out the fire, but that wasn’t the case. The wood continues burning without flames, steadily crumbling into ash. Remarkably, the stove can sustain this state of burning for several hours, producing no visible smoke outside and sometimes reaching temperatures between 700°F and 900°F.

I’ve posted three photographs of my stove after it has gone black.

The Stove Gone Black

Red Coals and The Converter Glowing Red

The Temperature Reading of the Stove in Black Burning Mode 

—Mitchell Hegman

Miter Saw Parts

Yesterday, while cutting pieces of wood trim with my miter saw, the blade caught a small chunk that must have slipped into the space below the plastic kerf plate. The saw emitted a loud WANG and bucked slightly.

Not good.

When I inspected the saw, I immediately noticed considerable damage to the plastic kerf plate. I've had the saw for years, but I was hopeful I could find a new plate somewhere on the vast stretches of the internet. For my first attempt, I popped onto Amazon and input the model number of my saw. A dropdown menu immediately appeared, and “Miter Saw Parts” was one of the items listed. When I clicked on it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my saw's kerf plate was the very first item for sale.

In just a couple of clicks, a new plate was on its way to me. Apparently, busting up your saw's kerf plate is a common occurrence.

As a final note: “kerf” is a pretty cool word, and I’d like to find a poem where I can use it.

Broken Kerf Plate

Search Results

—Mitchell Hegman

Electrical Work by Phone

Yesterday, I spent a fair bit of time talking a friend through an electrical problem. This is not uncommon, and honestly, I don’t mind helping if I’m able to do so. I have been helping people with wiring over the phone ever since I started in the trades some 47 years ago. The advent of smartphones has made this much easier. Sharing photographs and information from the internet is especially useful.

After I finished (successfully) helping my friend, I got to thinking about the most interesting “phone wiring” project I’ve ever helped with. A friend of mine had called me because a replacement light he’d hung in his kitchen was not working. Partway through our phone conversation, I heard his wife yelling in the background.

“Did she just say you’re on your ladder and naked? Are you naked?”

Without hesitation, my friend answered, “Yeah.”

“Why are you working on this stuff while naked?”

“No particular reason.”

For some reason, an image of him naked but wearing safety glasses rushed to the front of my brain. I quickly tried to trot a puppy dog through my head to clear that image. “Well,” I eventually responded, “we don’t do a lot of naked electrical work. It may not be the best idea.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Obituaries

With something approaching regularity, I read the local obituaries. I take no pleasure in it. This practice is akin to stepping outside to evaluate an approaching hailstorm—you know you’re going to be impacted, either now or sometime later.

Many years ago, while attending Montana State University, I pushed my way into a creative writing class taught by the internationally known novelist and poet Richard Brautigan. I was not technically qualified for the class, but I pestered the Dean of English so persistently that he and Brautigan eventually gave in and allowed me to attend.

Brautigan insisted on one rather strange exercise as part of the course: he wanted us to read the obituaries in the Billings Gazette. He admired the clear and concise style of the obituaries. And, of course, he was not wrong about that. Obituaries are succinct, deeply touching, and often beautiful in a way no other writing can be.

I see obituaries in a far different light today. I am too near them. I regularly find the summaries of my friends and acquaintances there. And, of course, that storm is ultimately set to envelop me.

—Mitchell Hegman