Oh What A Beautiful Morning In Ahwatukee Arizona

The past few mornings have been amazing here in my neighborhood. I've been taking long walks and appreciating the beauty around the area in which I live! The temps have been nice enough that I've been able to get 3-4 miles in before deciding it's too hot, I've had enough...

The moon was up and the sky was so blue!

So many varieties of cactus and pretty, colorful flowers to look at along my walking route.

I have to admit I'm not crazy about the desert. I spent 36 years of my life on the Central Coast of California! I love the ocean! However, I'm learning to appreciate the desert for it's beautiful and unique scenery! On my walk it occurred to me that I no cactus in my yard at all! None. I do however, have one small token cactus reminder in my home lol...

Hmmmm If I Could Invite Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson To Dinner

The things you think about in your personal dreams and desires... If I could get Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies to come to dinner at my house now that, would be an amazing feat. What would I serve? What special meal would I make? What fancy fun dessert would I bake/make to top off my meal... Coffee or tea? Fun to think about... unrealistic I know. That's what is fun about personal desires, they don't have to be tangible and realistic! Daydreaming is a way to escape the crap in which we find ourselves in from time to time. The life of un- fulfillment and sadness that permeates our spirit until we find a different way of existing... if one is even possible to ascertain. Certainly less destructive to think of fun, silly and unrealistic things. Better than drowning your sorrows. I've never been a drinker. Music has always been my escape!

Playing my keyboard always lifts me up and out of a funk even if it's just for a bit. A reprieve from the stress and sadness that reality brings. We all have sorrows and joys. Don't forget to have silly desires and dreams whatever they are! They are a true nod to ones authentic self! The inner spirit of your self, will laugh and smile bringing great relief and joy! Acknowledge the silly things you secretly wish for and feel the peace that getting intimate with your inner self is!

Lol I know neither has any interest to know me but I so desire to meet them! Not just for a photo opportunity but to have a conversation! A real conversation. Not an interview... just being, present in the moment. My admiration runs so deep for the music they have generated between them. The many wonderful songs they have contributed to music history! Life's so short and I just want to thank them in person for the musical joy I've experienced with listening and covering their masterpieces!

An unrealistic, bucket list dream to make dinner and break bread with these musical icons that I adore ❤️. The music puts me in a different place and I can tune out emotional pain and sadness! It's therapeutic and so peaceful.

As a child savant-ish lol, I would attempt to cover their songs that would come to me. Bits and pieces that I would string together into my own interpretation. Here are some links to their originals and then my interpretations of those songs.

Rick Davies- Downstream

Downstream ◀️ click here.

My interpretation of Downstream-

My Cover Of Downstream ◀️ click here⬆️

Roger Hodgson- Fool's Overture

Fool's Overture ◀️click here

My Interpretation / Cover

My Cover Of Fool's Overture ◀️ click here ⬆️

Rick Davies- Lover Boy

Lover Boy ◀️ click here

My cover of Lover Boy- My Cover Of Lover Boy ◀️ click here

Roger Hodgson- Hide In Your Shell- Hide In Your Shell ◀️ click here

My Interpretation (Cover)

Hide In Your Shell ◀️click here

Well these a just of few of each artists songs that I cover. My appreciation if nothing else runs deep for these songs and these creators. My standing invitation for dinner is ever present for these musical geniuses! Dinner at my house! Just let me know when! Love you both...

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Email: tynajoy4@gmail.com

SoundCloud Track Blunder And Plenty Of Thunder

This is what happens in practice when you haven't played a song in a while. Sometimes the lyrics vanish from your thought process and mess up your track lol. Just when I thought I was getting a decent track to post. Poof, and the lyrics were gone from my mind... Practice, practice! ⬇️

Praying For Time Practice

⬆️Click

Layering Fool's Overture Cover Track ◀️ Click

SoundCloud Track- New Upload! ◀️ click

And Finally,

Critic's Choice- Everyone's a critic, including this Cat Noir "Edward"!

⬇️ click!

critic's choice

It's still hot, humid all with a chance at monsoon thunder storms. The clouds have been beautiful with a lot of silver linings...

Grappling With The Things You Can't Change

In his prime...

Dad would be 90 years old tomorrow! Had he lived to see this, i would have hosted a big party to honor him. Since he isn't here I will instead light a candle and spend some time missing him...  He passed away in Feb. of this year. On this the eve of his  90th birthday,  I want to share his interesting life. Here he is pictured above with his invention, . He invented this polystyrene insulation in the 70's. 

It took a while for him to try to prove and get the right interested party to pick it up and invest in this. In the early 1980's Owens Corning picked it up and is still running with this. For those of you who haven't seen this, it is used for insulation purposes. I have no idea how much product is produced internationally and here in the states per year but it's a whole lot of product!

You would think having invented such a useful and popular product my father would be rich beyond 

his wildest dreams... He should have been! Talk about being scourned, he truly was and by the 

industry he helped to create!  When he first got to the selling and proving of this  process, it is

unfortunate that he had the worst attorney around. Why this crooked / lousy attorney allowed  Dad 

to enter into the contract he had, I have 

no idea! At the time Mom and Dad had exausted their money and energy into designing, inventing

and producing the first pilot plant. Mom slid down hills on her rump to grab test pieces of extruded

material to run density tests. My older sister did her fair share of measuring product density. My Mom always the cheerleader on days that seemed impossible, frought with gliches and frustration for Dad. I'll never forget Mom fashioning a clip for an extruder belt out of a hair pin from her hair. It did the trick and they were tickled pink...

Owens Corning "Pink"

Arthur L. Phipps patents...

How does what happened to Dad happen? How do you invent something like this and then live and  

die flat broke? How did attorney Charlie Loverchek from Erie, PA. allow that kind of a deal to be brokered? This was my father's biggest regret and heartbreak! For a long time my Dad lived closeby the first plant built in Tallmadge, Ohio. He was so close that he could step out onto the patio and hear the plant running! 

After things soured between him and UC Industries, this became a torment to his spirit. After they 

retired my father he did a bit of private consulting regarding his expertise on vacuum extrusion. For  

the life of me, it has always bothered me that he never tried or felt it impossible to have a  good  

corporate attorney look for a loophole in that contract! So freakin unfair and  just plain wrong! 

Dad was so intelligent. An amazing IQ. Graduated top of his class from Cornell University with a Master's Degree in Organic Chemistry. Worked as a rocket scientist at AeroJet General. Worked in Plastics at Sinclair Copper for years. In the early 70's he and Mom decided to develop his theory and create this industry. 

His Master's from Cornell University 

He still holds 3 patents, I have them framed ...

The best in his field... 

A pioneer of this huge industry!

Foamular Invented By Arthur L. Phipps

My dear Dad lived with the disappointment of his failed, flawed contract. He talked about it often and I could tell that it was his biggest regret! He should have been a wealthy man! 

Dad was so busy when I was little. Always jetting off somewhere... I always missed him! He did however take time to do fun things with just me ... The zoo on Sundays. He took me to a really pretty stream to watch the salmon swim. He took me to his church of choice, the Unitarian church. We went 

to breakfasts,  just the two of us. When I was 13 he took me and my best friend to Cleveland, Ohio to my first concert to see Chicago and the Beach Boys play! It was about 2 1/2 hours each way from 

Erie, PA. He sat through all of it lol...

I always knew that he loved me even though he was so busy leaving his mark upon this earth! He did 

accomplish his lifelong dreams, he just didn't get the monetary compensation due him! 

To say I miss him is an understatement. I missed him a lot when he was alive too! I couldn't be more proud though of his accomplishments and his true heart and spirit! Omg what a spectacular man he was! 

An old pic of Dad and I at the plant in Tallmadge. Dad got to oversee the building of plants in Sweden, Germany, Korea and Kuwait as well

This was our last picture together...

These  wise words that he said to me  still stay with me. I was upset and frustrated and he exclaimed, "All I know is that you can't get upset about the things you can't change!" 

I don't remember what I  was upset about but I recall this retort! His voice clearly resonates in my head whenever I need to hear this life lesson. I didn't realize at the time nor did he, the full encompassing embodiment of these words that he grappled with on a daily basis. 

I suppose Arthur L. Phipps, the Father Of Foamular, knew a thing or two about " things he couldn't change! "

I love you Dad!

tynajoymetzner

Indelible Ink And Stinky Deals

This is the only copy that I have of a musical that my Mom wrote the year before I was born. She was actually able to put this production together and perform this at the Roseville Civic Theater in California. I hear that this went over well and was a ton of fun to do. I heard about this musical many times when I was growing up. Mom spoke of it often, it must have been her crowning achievement! She was multitalented and I can say, that I never knew a more multi faceted jewel of a person!

Dad wrote this shortly after proving his Vacuum Extrusion Process that is widely known as Owens Corning Pink “Foamular”. This was his life’s work! His invention of a useful polystyrene insulation used in construction and under roads.

My parents were movers and shakers! Brilliant people who together, helped to create a whole new insulation industry…a family project at inception. My father scoped out and rented a hillside in Fairview, PA. He built a pilot plant with extruders and hand designed/crafted dies. My sister and I would carry the extruded test product from the lower building to the upper building for density testing. I watched my mother pull hair pins out of her hair to fashion a clip to use on a conveyor belt that carried extruded bead board to the lower chamber… This took a couple of years to build and fine tune. The extruded bead board had to be a certain denisity and within specific perimeters to be just what Dad needed it to be. Many frustrating, long, arduous days and a painstaking process to perfect but they did! Mom and Dad were the pioneers of vacuum extrusion.

Then came the two year process of proving, pitching and selling the process. My parents had exhausted all of their resources in building and proving this process. Dad had taken a 4 year hiatus from work to build and prove this process. He had been a plastics engineer for many years working for various companies. Zurn industries comes to mind. Sinclair Coppers is another. Anyway, by the time Dad was able to get this process sold, he and my Mom were scraping bottom financially. When NRM, Condec/Conplast picked Dad up, they put together a contract that Dad reluctantly accepted because he felt he couldn’t do better. He didn’t have a good attorney. He wasn’t a big business money man. Dad was a scientist. Needless to say,  Dad and Mom were always dissatisfied with the contract, they knew it was worth so much more! Both of them knew it was far less than what they should have had. They had been desperate and settled for a pittance of what they should/could have had. Within 10 years, NRM sold the process to Owens Corning… Mom and Dad should have been wealthy beyond their wildest dreams…The contract that Dad entered in to was horrible! He died penniless and forever resentful of the contract he had signed… Torturous! So sad! To have spent his life’s work inventing such a widely known product to die a poor man seems un fathomable to me. When I go into Home Depot and see the product he invented on the shelves, I feel proud of my Father! When I see buildings under construction using Foamular, I tear up with pride for my father. For him, these things became a reminder of regret…

Life lesson…#1 be careful of the contracts you sign, you might regret it. #2 get an attorney worth a damn not some hack of a patent attorney from Erie, PA…

Be weary of big companies who just want to roll you and, the Scott Shafflers of this world!!!

*Most important, don’t be desperate for a deal… I have no clue how anyone strikes a good deal. Where is a “Shark Tank”  guy when you need one? Lol…Awwwww!

This is Dad’s clock. I gave it to him when I was 19 and he was jet setting off to foreign countries to design and build polystyrene insulation plants!

A reminder of how time is ticking for all of us!