Rats and No Health Inspectors

Today we celebrated my youngest boy's fifth birthday. He wanted to have it at Chuck E. Cheese's. I was less than enthusiastic about that, but it's not about me.

It turned out to be a lot of fun, as you can see by the smile on his face. I even got a chance to play a classic space invaders game, qix (does anyone else remember qix???) and an Elvis pinball machine.

It was a little chaotic, but not as bad as I had mentally prepared myself for. Happy birthday, boy!!!

Drive Time

I took this picture on the drive home the other night. I thought it came out rather good. It was taken in the back of a tanker truck. As you can see, I need to replace one of my headlights. Good thing I got a new bulb for the driving light when I was at the junkyard!!! Replace a driving light bulb, and one of the headlights go out, how do you like that???

Second Life Revisited

The scene: Sitting on the edge of a jacuzzi in an ocean view house

Aye: Mmmmm, Lilly, you've got me drooling...

Lilly: Quit it, you nasty man!!!

Aye: Actually, its that cheese platter hat you're wearing. You know me and cheese!!!

No Snow??? No Problem!!!

A while back my oldest began sledding down the canyon across the street. He gave it a rest for several months, but recently began doing it again. Over the last weekend I was able to get over there and take some video!!! Good thing he had his helmet on!!!

He took a little of me riding it out, too, but it came out a little bit long. If I ever figure out how to edit it down some, I may post it, too.

Love Is In The Air

How nice for Ron!!! Wonder if that's Referring to Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy???

The Gunslinger

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed"

I'm not fanatical about many things, but I have a few. Stephen King stories happen to be one of them. I've been to opening nights of movies adapted from his stories, and eventually I get to reading most everything he (or his dark half Richard Bachman) writes. Last Friday I saw an article about a series of graphic novels (read: comic books) based on his Dark Tower series. Appropriately enough, several comic book stores are having special midnight release events. Cool. I'm not sure of the quantity to be printed, but I was not going to miss out!!! Probably they will print millions. The Dark Tower series are some of my favorites, and of those "Wizard and Glass" is my number one. The comic that came out as issue one (of seven, same as the books, strangely enough) is entitled "The Gunslinger Born", and focuses on his early years as chronicled in the first book. Wizard and Glass also covers his youth, so I think I will enjoy the whole series. The comics seem to promise more than was in the books, so I'm looking forward to that.

I set out for the local store in Pasadena at around 11:40, not knowing what exactly to expect. I arrived around 5 minutes until midnight. There were probably around fifty people there already, and probably 10 or more showed up while I was waiting. One of the guy from the store was handing out a sketch book showing some of the artwork in black and white, as well as the coloring process. Cool. A few minutes after midnight they opened up and started letting customers in. As we filed in, a worker was handing out raffle style tickets. Apparently one of the two artists, Richard Isanove, was in attendance signing the comics. Cool. The staff informed us that they had a few copies of variant cover editions that they were going to raffle off. I had no idea what that meant, probably means something to comic book aficionados. My number ended in 521. Near to being a lucky number. It was after 12:30 before they got to doing the raffle. I had to stay, I figured my odds were pretty good with that few people there. I think they had something like 10 of the first variant, and I got not even close to my number. The second variant they only had three of. Second number, 521!!! Whoo hoo!!! (I actually said that) I got that one signed, too, and headed on home. I must be crazy staying out that late on a work night. Why do they do cool stuff like that and concerts during the week???

I got home after 1, and was too buzzed to sleep. Read the whole thing before I attempted to go to bed. Very cool, not exactly by the book, but very faithful to it. I had pictured Gabrielle as a blond, though. I can hardly wait until the next one comes out!!!

Like It Or Not!!!

No choice. I would have chose "no" if I had my way, but I didn't. Now I will likely have to type 18 characters instead of six to log in, as well as a use of the shift key. Thanks for nothing.

The Personal Side of the Junkyard

One of the things I never gave a lot of thought to that my dad brought to my attention was the things left in some of these cars. Kind of sad, people have a significant portion of their lives in these cars, then something happens and its off to the junkyard for them.



Speaking of my dad, there he is!!! Even if I have nothing in particular I need, its always nice to go and spend some time with my dad.

I'm pretty sure this is either a 2.6 or 2.8 liter narrow angle V-6 engine from a Ford or Mercury. My brother in law used to have a clean Mercury Capri with the 2.8, he put a lot of money into that car, and it was nice. There was one of those there I tried to get a pic of, but my battery was on its last legs.

The sea of cars. My dad happened onto one of the guys who had been in his auto body class. He was searching for a deck lid for a 3rd generation Camaro. Didn't find one to his liking. I think I've got one of those in the basement, I'll have to look.

I ran into this guy!!! He used to work where I used to work, several years ago. We always got along well, he always put a smile on my face. We stood there and talked for probably close to half an hour.

This was cool, an old Mercedes (I'm talking 30's or 40's old!!!) with a wooden dash board.

I like the shade of red on this wig. Wasn't going to bring it home, though.

This was just creepy looking.

Look!!! It's the Goodyear blimp!!! Just a little after this it was nicely lined up with a palm tree in the foreground, but once again, my treacherous battery.

Bullets holes. That can happen around some of the local areas.

This was a little footstool covered with tiger print fabric. I thought the colors went well in the back of this car. Not so good with this camera though.

The Junkyard

Half price day at the junkyard again!!! I woke up that morning early with the idea in my head to take my little video camera with me and take a few pictures with it.

Along with open shoes and persons under 18, cameras are one of the things expressly forbidden on the sign when you enter. That is why the idea to take my little video camera came to me, it can easily be concealed in a pocket. The pictures aren't as good as the ones from my normal camera, but they are completely passable.

Many interesting observations I made there. I liked the way that this guy had modified his "Geo" to say "George". Wonder if that was his name, or if is what he named his car??? I had a few things on my list, and I got.... well, one of the things on my list. Unable to pass smog, and an otherwise perfectly fine Jaguar goes to the scrap heap. Interesting observation: for some reason, all the Jags I saw there were in the Chevy section. While the Chevy small block engine swap is a popular conversion (and widely regarded as a good way to make a Jag reliable, but likely also a way that it would not pass smog) and I've seen several with this done there, not a one of these had this swap done.

Some of the cars there seem to have little physical reason to be there, while some are fairly obvious!!!
This guy seems to have hit the wall!!! Ouch!!!

There was a fair representation of Geo Storms there this time. One model I've seen before but never inspected up close is this "Sport Back" model. I had always thought that this was just a wagon-shaped hatch in place of the normal rear window, but it has a completely different roof line and back windows. Interesting.

This Buick seems to have turned turtle and slid for some distance. Crazy.

Another of my observations: Lots of BMW's there, almost none of them with accident damage. I had to look long and hard to find this one. What does that tell you??? To me, it tells me that the mechanics or electrical systems just aren't that good, and when they go, they aren't cheap to fix.

This, other than having a very bad ending, was almost a carbon copy of my Storm!!! I never even checked to see if it had an auto or manual transmission, but it is the rather rare GSI model. Not a whole lot that I wanted from it, but I did get the light bulb from one of the driving lights (one of the several things not on my list that I ended up getting). Since one of mine is burnt out, I never run them because it would look dorky.

The other things that I got from the junkyard not on my list: A pair of reading lights from out of the back of a New Yorker. A pair of nice sunglasses. I took the logo off the first Geo I saw ("George") for my younger boy. The hood ornament from a Buick for the older boy. I found on the ground a small Caddy crest with wings, and trim that says "Couped". I will find someone who has been feeling "cooped up" and give it to them, LOL. In one of the trunks was a nice pullover jacket, predominantly black with pink and blue accents that says "Ski 10" on the back. I knew my wife would like the colors, so I grabbed it. Also, a light windbreaker jacket with Blues Clues on it, perfect size for the younger. Both of these will get a thorough de-lousing before they are put in service. There is more to show and tell, but blogger always seems to limit my pictures, so that will follow.

Blue Moon

Blue Moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own