The Piercing Post

Happy New Year's Eve!!! Already 2010 in some parts of the country, I guess. Here's a post that's been kicking around for a while now that I'm finally getting to posting, after a bit of polishing and embellishing!!!



The story behind my piercing goes something like this. My brother in law and I were at a swap meet one time, and one of the booths had ear rings and were offering free piercing with purchase. I had sometimes considered getting a nipple pierced, and so at this particular booth, I asked the young lady if I bought a hoop if she'd put it through my nipple. She was somewhat taken aback, but finally replied that yes, I suppose I could... I was a bit short on cash, and furthermore not yet fully commited to the hole. My B-I-L was greatly amused by the whole prospect and said he'd pay for it if I were going to do it. I declined at that point, but the idea continued to take hold, sweetened by the fact that I had someone to finance the cause. Years passed, and my brother in law died, but the idea did not. It actually got to a point where I could sense the absence of a ring through my left nipple (at the conception of the idea, I had neither side chosen, but knew that I only wanted one side). I think it was around seven years or so later, while working at the hell hole that had bought my previous employer, near Christmas. We used to get bonuses in the thousands of dollars. That year I got a whopping $50. I decided to buy myself something I'd been wanting for a while with it, and went to a tattoo and piercing studio not terribly far from my home after work and got it, unbeknownst to my wife and family. They were largely shocked and apalled. A word to the wise, do not get a nipple piercing while driving yourself in a larger car with no power steering!!!

A funny postscript to this tale (besides the trauma that it caused one of my work friends): On our last full day in Hawaii, the older boy and I went over to the tower in the ocean that people would jump off into the water. I think for the most part of the time we were there, we were the only mainlanders there, and the rest were locals. One of the girls there was a classic South Pacific islander, quite big with a great extroverted personality to go with it. While waiting our turn to climb up once, she asks me, "Did it hurt???" I reply, "It stung when they did it, and that whole side of my chest was sore for a day or two after... especially cranking the wheel on a car with no power steering!!!" She replies, "No, I mean when somebody yanks on it, did it hurt???" I had to think for a moment before I replied that that's never really been an issue!!!

The Man

As alluded to in the previous post, The Man, he do take his chunk!!! Here's the artwork I did to that effect, and I think I got the proportions just about right!!! I was less than pleased with the way the picture came out, making me once again think about a digital SLR camera.



It's really evident when you get a larger amount than usual, and it's a higher bracket. Seemed like it was nearing an even half that he was taking. I recently did the math. On my typical check, it ends up being just about a 1:5 ratio, or about 17%. A livable amount, even better if we weren't in a fiscally mismanaged state and country. The profit sharing check came out having around a 1:1.27 ratio, or around 44%!!! I'd be really disturbed by this, if I didn't end up getting most of it back!!!

The Yule Blog

Merry Yule to all!!! It's been a while since I've posted. This may get a tad random.



Here's some cup artwork I did some weeks ago. I was trying to get in the spirit.

I do believe that this month has been busier than the October I had!!!



Don't you love the word, "Yule"???

A couple of weekends ago was the Moon Eyes Christmas Party car show. My dad had entered, as it's cheaper to enter a car than to buy admission passes and parking!!! It rained quite a bit that weekend, but the show was "rain or shine", so we headed up anyway. It didn't rain much at all while we were actually there. The cars that showed up were cool.

That same evening was the company Christmas party. Same place as the last two years. They had been going to cancel, but since everyone else was doing the same, they made us a deal. The amazing desert bar wasn't there this year, and the decorations were a bit scaled back, too, but it was still good. We stayed at the same place we'd stayed two years ago, which I contend is as good a place, at half the price!!!



Goodie day at work was last Wednesday. I made my mom's easy to make and delicious corn bread concoction. There was none left, so it was well received. I ate too much!!! Had to start before work, because some of the choice items are usually gone by the time the first shift goes to their morning break. One of the more interesting things were bacon wrapped peaches. I saw the bacon, and knew it would be good. Ate too much that day, wasn't hungry until the next evening!!!

We did a T-shirt exchange that day, too. Whomever had my name hooked me up!!! Two shirts, and both of them are agreed to be some of the funniest seen. The new supervisor, a big ole guy, got a shirt that says, "USC mom".

Happy belated Festivus to all!!!

The cool TV set I'd set up for the boys' room, a vintage wooden case with a modern Toshiba inside,
went on the fritz. Lost it's vertical deflection (probably just the control circuit for it, and probably just a cold solder joint at that) and shoots it's electron beam in a straight line across the middle. Fail. Double fail, because much of the costly Christmas presents are Xbox games, and with no TV to play them on... I ended up buying them a nice 32" LCD HDTV for them. The prices are fairly reasonable anymore. Happy early Christmas!!!



Oh yea, they did the profit sharing checks on Monday. I say "only" in the most perceptible way when I say that this year was only 100%. A lot of the people weren't very pleased with it, but I'll certainly take it quite gladly!!! How many are without jobs, and how many more have taken pay cuts or are working more hours for the same pay??? I actually got a bit of a raise this year, and a 100% profit sharing!!! Sure helps out with having to buy a TV!!!

Oh yeah, the man, once again, do take his chunk. I did a cup to that effect that I'll post at some later date.

Sitting around, drinking the Yule Nog... Life is good!!!

I had asked my wife if she wanted a new flat panel TV for in the front room. She's perfectly happy with the one we've got out here already. I agree. One of my biggest issues with the new TV's is that the aspect ratio is off, and much of what gets transmitted ends up looking distorted wide. Why can't they make them with the 4:3 ratio the way God intended???



I had one personal day left. I took it Tuesday, and took the family to Magic Mountain for what will probably be the last time this year. I was right about it being a good day to go, it was fairly empty. A surprise was the line for Colossus was the longest I've seen it. The Superman ride was about as short a line as I've ever seen, too!!! They have an illuminated "2009" hanging from the sky tower. I assume they'll have a "2010" coming on in a week or so. I told everyone to layer up when we were getting ready. Got there and wished I'd put on one more layer!!! It was chilly. Right before we left, we bought some Cold Stone ice cream. I have no idea why that seemed like it would be a good idea.

The last picture I took at my youngest nephew's birthday celebration. He's now 2. I found a Sesame Street remote control for him that makes all kinda noises and voices. I knew he'd like it. I did when I saw it. If it can captivate me for a while, it'll do for a 2-year old. From their apartment I saw these two kids climbing onto the roof of a business to play and took this shot. Totally ghetto!!!

Skills

Here's something I'd been thinking of doing for a while that I'm finally going to do!!! Here's a shot of my current skill levels in Runescape...



I suppose I'll just go across each row and tell what they are all for. First up is my attack level, 73. This is one of the four five stats that affect your overall combat level, of which mine is currently 95. Next is my hitpoints, another component of the combat level. The next one is mining, my highest stat!!! It's high level is indirectly related to the one below it, which I will get to in three!!!

Row two starts out with my highest combat stat, strength. Next is the first members skill, agility. As it gets to higher levels, you are able to use various short cuts. I don't tend to train this skill as much anymore. Next is the one related to my mining level, smithing. In my opinion, this is one of the best money making skills. However, in order to do it, you need raw materials, which you can either buy or mine. I tend to mine mine.

Row three starts with another combat stat, defense. This is followed by another members skill, herblore. Many useful potions can be made with this skill. I don't train it extensively, but I do dabble a bit, as well as growing and cleaning some of my own herbs with the farming skill. Cleaning the herbs gets some experience in this stat. Next is fishing. As a free player, I worked this skill up to the level required to fish swordfish, one of the highest level free play food items, and the highest healing one-bite foods for non members, at 14 hitpoints. I've leveled it up some since I became a member, in order to fish the karambwan, which heal 18 hitpoints in one bite.

The next row starts out with a skill I didn't use a lot as a non-member, ranging. This involves using a bow and arrows, or crossbow and bolts to attack. It also encompasses throwing knives, spears, and the epic dwarf multi cannon!!! I would not have such a high level if it wasn't for that multi cannon!!! Next is another members skill, thieving. Level 39, another skill I don't train a whole lot. It doesn't seem like a respectable way to make money. I think I needed the level up to a certain point to do a quest. The last for this row is the very useful cooking skill. If you want to heal your damage, eating good food is the way to do it, and the higher level you have in this, the better food you can cook. I spend a lot of my time making tuna potatoes, which heal 22 hitpoints in one bite.

Row five starts off with prayer. This is a handy skill you can use to protect from various attacks, or to temporarily increase stats, or even to heal more quickly or inflict damage on opponents, or to preserve an extra item if you die. The main way to raise this stat is by burying bones of the monsters you (or others) kill. It can take a while to raise, but if you're in the habit of burying the bones of your kills, it comes along. It always amazes me how many people can't be bothered to bury their bones!!! Following this is the crafting skill. Much like the smithing skill, you can make useful items to sell for a decent amount of money. Making and enchanting jewelery items is my primary use, although I will also make pottery items and glassware if I need it. Firemaking ends this row. Pretty self explanatory, and it doesn't seem like you need that much of a high level, but in order to light higher level logs, you need higher level firemaking. Also necessary for some quests.

The next row starts with another very useful skill, magic. This is the skill that requires the rune stones from which the game derives it's name. You can do various attacks (often from a safe distance), teleport to another location (very useful, as the realm of Runescape is rather large), enchanting jewelery made in the crafting skill, and even working alchemy spells on various items. The superheat item is particularly useful in smithing higher metals, as these will require several coals to one ore, and with only 28 available spots in your inventory it would take many more trips to the mines. Next is another members skill, fletching. With this skill, you can make arrows, bows, crossbows, and many other ranged weapons. It seems to be a fairly easy skill to train, too. Next is the wood cutting skill. I recently got this skill to level 60 while training my fletching skill, and from this point it easily rose to 70. At 60, you can chop yew trees, and one inventory of yews will yield 4900 experience, and sell for a pretty penny, too!!! This skill is convenient to train while you're doing something in another window.

The next row starts out with another useful skill, runecrafting. This skill is a good way to manufacture the rune stones necessary to train your magic. Following this is a member skill, slayer. A pretty good concept, where you are assigned a number of a certain type of monster, so not only does it train you slayer skill, but also your other combat skills. The next skill is another member skill, farming. In this skill, you can grow various crops for food and herblore, as well as various trees. A fairly easy skill to train, as you can do the planting then pay a gardener to watch over your crops, usually with another crop you've grown!!! Sweet corn is one of my primary crops to grow, for use in the tuna potato.

The final row is all member skills. It starts off with the fairly interesting skill of construction. You can make your own player owned house with this skill, but it seems to be a skill that is primarily a skill that you buy your way up in. None of the tasks are especially difficult, but most of them cost a good amount of coin. I did some construction, but have gotten a fairly bored with it. Next is an amusing skill, in the way I've attained the level I'm at. Hunter, which involves catching animals. The funny thing about this, I've never actively pursued this skill. In the farming skill, you can teleport to Winkin's farm to participate in Vinesweeper, a variation of Microsoft's minesweeper game. I'm quite good at this, and the rewards are points that can be traded for the necessary seeds for farming. During this game, there are rabbits that can thwart your efforts, but you can counter them by feeding them strange roots that you dig up. This is the ONLY way I've ever gotten any hunter experience!!! The final, and my lowest statistic is the summoning skill. With it you can summon a spirit animal to assist you, in combat or as a beast of burden. While it could be useful, I just haven't trained it much.



Just today I was admonished by a non player character to raise that stat up some!!! Guess I'd better do that!!!

Magnets and Cups

Here's something I haven't done it quite a while, a couple of the magnet letter creations that have been come up with!!!



My younger boy arranged the letters for Halo, and I added in the latest version, ODST as well as the #3.



"Grab yer torches & pitchforks!!!"

And a couple of cups I did in the last weeks. The space ship is powered by a pulse detonation engine with a Tesla turbine. Should be good for around Mach 26 or so.



The last cup has the logo for mystery 512. Do you see it???



Now, what have I been up to this weekend??? Showed a lot of love for Baby. Took her to get her tires rotated first thing Saturday. Had a blood donation appointment after that, and they had some great oatmeal raisin cookies and trail mix there. Took the family for ice cream after that. Got home and installed a set of platinum spark plugs I'd bought quite a while back for Baby, then took some rubbing compound to her headlights, which have had that hazy look that plastic headlights get since I got her. I hadn't tried this yet, because it seemed like it would take a lot of repeated applications before it would have noticeable results. Surprise, they cleared right up with just one pass of rubbing compound!!! I was very pleased by this!!! I also did some fine tuning on the hood popper springs on Janice. I'd trimmed the springs down a bit, because they were too strong & would sometimes spring the hood while driving, but they were too short to keep the bumpers pointed in the right direction. I put some bronze bushings on the bottom ends of the shafts, and it worked out pretty well.

Today I took the family for lunch at Pinks, the world famous hot dog stand. I had attempted this a couple months back, but had the street as La Cienega instead of La Brea *facepalm* Today we found the place, and there's a huge line. The parking lot is fairly tiny, so I drove a couple blocks away and parked on a side street. One hour parking. Turns out one hour is exactly how long it took us to make it through the line!!! Good dogs!!! I had the Millennium Dog, which claimed to be a 12" jalapeno Polish dog. It arrived looking much longer than that, and rather obscene!!! Tasty!!!

Daylight Fading

Here's one from a while back. The song "Daylight Fading" by (surprise!!!) Counting Crows is the inspiration. Always liked this song, and it's apropos at this time of year, no??? Along the bottom are the opening lines:

Waiting for the moon to come & light me up inside,
I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alright

(although I discover by searching the lyrics that it ends with "alive" instead of alright)



Waiting for the moon to come and light me up inside
And I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alive
Well I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you
It's getting cold in California
I guess I'll be leaving soon

Daylight fading
Come and waste another year
All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear
Moonlight creeping around the corners of our lawn
When we see the early signs that daylight's fading
We leave just before it's gone

She said "everybody loves you,"
she says, "everybody cares"
But all the things I keep inside myself
they vanish in the air
If you tell me that you'll wait for me
I'll say I won't be here
I want to say good-bye to you
Good-bye to all my friends
Good-bye to everyone I know

Daylight fading
Come and waste another year
All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear
Moonlight creeping around the corners of our lawn
When we see the early signs that daylight's fading
We leave just before it's gone

Anyway, the fun part of this cup comes from co-workers reactions!!! My chum sees & reads it and says, "Sounds like he's talking about drugs!!! Light me up inside... The telephone, that's the connection... and the alright, that's when he's OD'ing!!!" I LOL, and tell him the next line (the hidden sub context to this cup, LOL!!!) and he LOLs and changes his opinion.

Another girl sees is and takes another, completely different take. She asks me, "Is that a song about someone with cancer??? Light them up inside = radiation therapy, and the telephone to tell me I'm alright, the doctor to call him back and tell him if they got all the cancer out!!!" Well, I'd never thought of it that way!!! I tell her I think the song is more about inter personal relationships, then tell her the next line. She LOLs and agrees that this IS more about something else. The more I thought about it, the more that makes sense, though!!! "Well, I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you" = it's prostrate cancer!!! "I guess I'll be leaving soon" & the whole second verse go with it being a terminal cancer. All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear has to do with his fear of dying.

I'd never thought of it that way. I always just really liked this tune. Funny thing, I've heard this song more on stores' PA systems as background music than any other Counting Crows song. Love that they play a song with the line, "Well, I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you" over the speakers at the grocery store!!!

The Lost Crash Video

Because it has been quite a while since I've updated, not for lack of content but from getting my money's worth out of my Runescape subscription, I decided to re-try posting the race video. It seems to have worked!!!



This is the crash that triggered the red flag. I saw somebody getting loose coming out of turn 4, and got the video cam fired up (not pointed up, but fired up...) and caught this!!! I'm sure there's better video of it out there, but cool that I caught this one. Dig that a crash gets a fist-pump from one of the fans!!! Perhaps later I'll edit the post-Halloween videos for here...

A Weekend of Win

It started on Friday. Actually, now that I think about it, you could go all the way back to Thursday. I was asked if I would like to work the early shift on Friday, and I accepted (Incidentally, they asked me for today and next Friday, too, and now have added in tomorrow). I had decided that I'd grab a couple of bar code stickers (the same kind I used to make my Bad Robot cup with... I wonder if anyone picked up on the link I had in that post to the audio of that) and shave my head down on Thursday night. I'd stick one of them to the back of my head and see who all gets it!!!



A lot of people did. A lot of people wanted to scan my head. One of my favorites was one of the older fillers, probably at least in his 50's came down to my floor for the first time in the afternoon and saw my shorn scalp.He asks if I've got a bar code on the back of my head, so I turn around and showed him. He thought that was awesome, then asked, "Didn't they make a movie based on that video game???"



That evening they had a festival at school. It was pretty cool. They had lots of contests to win candy. I dominated the older boy in a bubble gum blowing contest and candy apple eating contest. He didn't want to leave without winning something. The younger boy beat his friends several times at basketball hoop shooting.

Late that night, I looked around to see what was on, and "Hit Man" was playing!!! I tuned in.



The next morning we got up and carved pumpkins. We'd had them for a week, and it was high time to do it. My younger boy wanted Mickey Mouse. The older was going to do the two faces of comedy and drama, but ended up doing four faces around the pumpkin. I did a cat in front of a full moon, made up of a series of holes. Something different.



We went down to my parents' house to do the trick or treating. It's better there, because it's flat, and more densely housed. We got there early, and stopped for Wild Berry yogurt, my favorite latest vice. Following that, we stopped by Taco Bell for Black Jack tacos, they were doing a promo after 6 on Halloween for free ones. We'd been to Taco Bell last weekend, and wanted to try these but ordered plenty before we got to that. This gave us an opportunity to try 'em!!! Really not that impressive, but the price was right, and the color scheme was perfect for Halloween!!!



The younger's costume was a big hit!!! A lot of comments along the lines of "That's a GREAT costume!!!" Validation for all the work I'd put into it!!! Only after a block or two or trick or treating, he was worn out, though, so back to the grandparents' house.

I made up a couple of "Looks Likes" that I've got posted here. If you like, go here and here and vote on 'em!!!



The older boy and I continued for a few more blocks. Without his brother along, he got some comments on his ninja costume, which is actually pretty cool.

I was wearing a bar code the whole time. My wife didn't have any costume in mind, but I had gotten the idea from watching "Hit Man" the night before, and took an eyebrow pencil and drew in the tattoo on her face that the girl in the movie had.



The next day we threw the jack-O-lanterns into the street, as is our custom!!! Perhaps there will be video of that in the future.

I noticed yesterday that there was a pumpkin up the hill from our house on the curb. This morning I saw it was just down from the driveway. Perhaps it's looking to get thrown down, too...

Ready For Random???

Ready or not, here it comes!!! I've gone through a few of my old pictures and found a few that need shared. A couple from our Hawaii vacation, and a few from way back on the 4th of July!!! Maybe one or two others thrown in, too.



One of the guys I work with sometimes buys a tortilla from the cafeteria to go with his lunch. He's Asian. They charge him $.75 for a tortilla. One of the other guys, who is Mexican, they only charge $.25 for a tortilla. I would totally bust them if they tried that on me!!!



I don't think I made mention, but when we last went to Magic Mountain, they had the Sky Tower open!!! The first time it's been open since we've been going. A low key ride, but it has a great view.

Had a bit of a spooky day a couple weeks back. When I got my schedule, it had me listed as at a meeting for an hour in the morning, and ended the day with me as an extra. And, it was on a Thursday, the day that is their traditional day to let people go. Turned out OK though.



They've made a bunch of shift changes at work. Most have not affected me. They started by eliminating the middle, 8:30 shift, and moved the 7:30 shift lunch break later to 12:45, and the afternoon break to later, too. Most of the middle shift people went to the late shift, but a few went to the early shift. The reasoning is that more of our work is coming in late in the day, what with the interwebs, and we've been much busier in the evenings. Starting this week, they moved the early shift from 7:30 to 8:00. This has made for the first change that's affected me, they've moved afternoon break time from 4:00 to 4:30.



I notice diesel fuel has jumped in price. On Monday I topped Janice off, and where diesel had been running $.25 to $.30 less a gallon than gasoline, it was only six cents less this time. I decided that at that price difference I'd be better off driving Baby. Filled her up this morning, and now diesel is four cents more than gasoline!!! I suspect market manipulation.


Remember the story of Ronald the ray gun??? They didn't work out, for some reason. Haven't had those for seven or eight months now. Now they've got a set of all new ones, that have a screen on the back side and do a lot more. So far, they don't work, either.



I was watching live when Letterman cracked his joke about A-Rod knocking up Sarah Palin's daughter. I got it, and LOL'ed right off. I liked Sarah Palin OK during the campaign, but, come on!!! Take a joke!!!

Two hours and 45 minutes between lunch and break makes it so I have to piss badly by the time I get to break. Provided I don't have to sneak away early to do so.



My wife messed up her knee a couple weeks back. It had rained, and she needed to sweep the water out where the roof had leaked at her work. Right after that, she needed to go into the walk in freezer, in her still moist shoes. One of her shoes froze to the floor, and she yanked on it to try and pop it loose. Unfortunately it was her knee, not her shoe that popped.



At the very south end of the bins at work, there's a large piece of equipment. Behind a glass panel, it has a digital display that almost always reads "512". A few feet past this is a large water standpipe, marked with "P.T. 42". Both pretty cool.


One of my co-workers was trial testing one of the new ray guns. A stock keeper saw it and said, "What's that, a Wii controller???" Made me LOL. The least popular Wii game, Wii bin filling!!!



They asked me to come in for the 8:00 shift today. The sunrise on the way in almost made it worth it having gotten up earlier than I like to. Strangely enough, right as I was getting into work, there was a thick fog bank over the whole area.



That's a nice thing about having the selection of cars I have. If one type of fuel gets more expensive, I can just drive the other one!!!

I see no reason that oil should be over $70 per barrel, much less the $80 that it now is. We've got low demand, surplus supplies, and refineries are running well short of capacity. In the 50's is where it should be.



I suspect that they wanted to eliminate the 7:30 shift, but that because that is the most popular shift, they eliminate the 8:30, then move the 7:30 later and later!!!

Red Flag Day

Another busy weekend!!! Saturday I took the family to Magic Mountain again. Last time I went was just the older boy and I. We rode Colossus several times that day, wait time versus good drops, it's probably the best coaster there. We also rode Scream several times, another short wait to maximum inversions coaster. X2 and Tatsu are better coasters, but the wait is always fairly long. Also rode the new Terminator Salvation coaster that time. It has some of the best queue theming in the whole park, but I was less than impressed with the ride itself. But I digress, when the older and I had been there that time, I told him how they used to have one of the tracks on Colossus running backwards. Well, they've brought that back for their Halloween festivities!!! We rode it. Meh. I had the funny thought that I should have brought my camera, taken a picture of the back of the headrest ahead of me, and passed it off as my on-ride photo. Anyway, that was a fun time. Bought my older boy his Johnny Rocket's milkshake in collector cup, and when night was falling and they fired up the fog machines, he was filling up the cup with the fog. Looked like a Wizard's Mind Bomb!!!



Sunday I had tickets through my work for the Pepsi 500!!! I had invited Sammy, and he was excited about it, but he's been having back problems and being there all day he was worried about it bothering it. Hard to take just one of the boys, the other would want to come too. However, one of my other friends from work had won the other pair, and he has two boys, too. Since that was how I got my boys both there last year, I thought it a good payback to pass my other ticket off to him so he could take both of his sons.



Last time I was there, they were announcing after the race the shuttle to the Metro Link station. The exiting of the parking lots there is hellish, and I thought that sounded like it might be a better way to go. I'd never had experience with the Metro Link system before, so I researched it a bit beforehand. Turns out they have a station right around the back side of the track, which they only operate on race days. Sounds good to me!!! Trying to get a schedule for the local Metro Rail to Union Station to Metro Link Fontana proved to be near impossible. Metro has some of the worst planning software on their site!!! I decided that since the race starts at noon, I'd head out at ten and hopefully be there close to on time.



Made it to Union Station in short order, and got my pass for the Metro Link train. However, it would be 11:35 before it departs. Oh well, guess I'd miss some of the beginning of the race, no big deal. Boarded the train, and it is very nice. Rode there in comfort, and had a chance to read more of the Sunday paper than I usually do. The train nears Fontana, and at the race track, it slows down... then proceeds right on past!!! No explanation. The next station is about four miles later, and I exit there. It's a bus depot center there. I look at the route maps, and decide on one that heads near. The driver of that bus explains to me and a few other race fans that the track station is "locked down", but didn't say how or why. He also told us how to get to the track from the closest stop, as well as the stop to return. Close to a mile is all we'd have to walk. Each way. I was not amused. I do not believe that I will take the train out there again. I did, however, stop at Jack in the Box for lunch and payed probably about 1/3 of what I'd have paid at the track.



Got to the track not quite halfway through the race. They were under yellow flag when I got there, and re started not long after. Fairly uneventful for several laps after that, which is fairly typical of California Speedway. This is a wide, long track, and thus the races tend to be a real snore a lot of the time. Jimmy Johnson was leading the race for most of this time, almost a whole 1/3 track away from the #2 car. Then, another yellow is called for debris on the track. After that, I don't think they came out of yellow without an event!!!



Coming out of that yellow, a couple of cars got together just after the green, sending Hamlin's #11 down the grass on the front stretch. Would have been fine, except he caught the concrete pit barrier right at the end, messing up his front sheet metal. He came back several laps later with the whole front stripped off, but it wasn't working for him.



I got a lot of pictures of the incidents, and some video of a couple of the crashes. I tried to upload the shorter clip, but Blogger is being stupid about that tonight. Six laps from the finish, once again coming off a yellow, there was a sizable crash taking out four cars and calling the only red flag I've ever seen at this track. 22 minutes they spent cleaning up from that.



Jimmy Johnson managed to take the checkered flag. I was fortunate to have made it for the better half of the race!!! Worth walking almost two miles for??? Almost...

Bad Robot!!!

I did this a week or so ago. It's been in the vault since then. I had a brief portion of my day spent throwing totes, and in that area they have sticker labels with bar codes for different segments of the conveyor. I used two to fabricate a 5-12 bar code. Across the bottom of the labels it has a series of 9's. I later added in a robot, his voice box malfunctioning to the nines and his binary shot!!! A couple of children passing their judgement on him complete the picture!!!

My Eventful Weekend

As I've tweeted, October is shaping up to be a fairly eventful month!!! Starting last Friday, when I had a pair of tickets to Loggins & Messina at the Greek Theater. It was the only show that sounded like anything I was interested in on the list, and I managed to be the lucky one. A funny story about this season's drawing, a lot of people had put in for Lakers tickets, but ended up getting Clippers tickets!!! No one was signing up for them, so they're giving 'em away!!! Well, I guess they're giving 'em away no matter what, but now they're giving them away to people who didn't really want them.

Anyway, the concert was pretty good. I do like that venue, but I detest the parking there. I know he had a string of hits in the early 80's, but besides "Footloose" I couldn't think of another. Turned out not to matter, he didn't do ANY of those, "Footloose" included!!! Of the whole set, I only knew four songs, and two of those were covers. He opened the show by covering a Lynn Anderson tune that my wife used to go around singing all the time, which I think got him in her good graces. A rockin' good time, even though I wasn't as familiar with all the works. Oh, and the weather is feeling like autumn in Cali, and it was a nice, crisp night to be out under the stars.

Saturday Sammy and his brother were celebrating their birthdays at his parents house. As always, the food is amazing there. Got to meet his wife's brother and his high school friend, and two of his cousins, who are true delights. Boccie and Karaoke for all who would partake. My older boy sang a few, and Sammy told me he admired his taste in music. Sammy's brother told me it's an unfortunate time for him to be singing, in a Peter Brady kinda way. True and true.

Starting today I've been on call for jury duty. I had fun two years back when I went to serve, and thought it worked out pretty good. They've added in WiFi connectivity in the jury pool room, so I'd manage to keep well occupied the whole time. Unfortunately, I haven't been required to come in yet, so I've been having to go to work instead. I'll bet they call me in on Thursday, the day I've got an appointment for my flu shot at work.

But the part I really wanted to share about happened on Sunday. I'd taken the family out for some fast food lunch, and on the way back pulled into the grocery store to pick up a few things. I ask my wife if she's coming in or waiting, and her and my younger boy both elect to wait in the car. The older and I shop, and on the way out, here comes my wife and younger, walking towards me rather briskly. "Thank goodness you're here!!!", she tells me. I figure she urgently needs to use the restroom, so I'm taking the boy's hand, and I ask her if that's the case. "No!!!", she replies, "Some guy selling bootleg DVD's just molested me!!!" Huh??? This changes things, I'm getting a good head of pissed off going... She quickly tells me a bit of what'd happened, "There he is!!!", she says. It's on.





He sees me coming, with my wife, and he starts in trying to sell me some of his wares. Oh yea, this is going to go well for you, beotch. I roll up on him, asking WTF and who knows what all else (apparently quite loudly) cock back and take one swing, which he sees coming and gets his head moved sufficiently to the side to where it glances off, but I caught him square on the next shots. Next thing I've got him pushed over backwards on the trunk of Janice with my arm on his neck. Interestingly, he's lost the ability to speak English at this point. I pull back a little at this point, as I'm attracting witnesses. Don't know why that should have bothered me, I should have.... well, a lot of things I should have done differently, but I'll get to that later. Suffice it to say, I was concerned that the crowd was going to turn on me as the aggressor, and I was attempting to control that situation. I'm trying to explain to the crowd what'd happened, and get someone to call the law (not that I'd have been perfectly content to deal with him myself...)

The guy isn't really struggling much, so I finally pull out my own phone to call 911. I tell the dispatcher what's happened and where I'm at, and they transfer me to the actual police. At this point, scumbag starts wiggling while I'm trying to restrain him left-handed. I've got a grip on his shirt, and he manages to shuck it off and takes off running, leaving his bag of contraband DVD's. No one tries to stop him. They do, however, come up and start grabbing up all his DVD's. Anyway, he lost his shirt, I busted his sunglasses, he lost his stash of discs, and a tallboy of beer. Not the outcome I would have liked, but a small victory. And, I did get in a couple of good shots.

Five minutes or so later, three of the store employees and the manager come out to see if everything is OK. Um, no, not really, but a little late now!!! The manager asks if there's anything they can do, and I opine that a little more vigilance prior to would be a nice thing. He says they have a security guard, but he doesn't get there until 4:00. Makes sense, usually more problems when it starts getting later. I'm thinking a call to corporate asking what they're going to do to make this right may be in order. Half an hour later the police finally show up and take an incident report. That will probably be the last of this. Unless, of course, I see that guy again.

Now, what would I have done different??? Don't know why, but I think I have an ingrained "fight clean" ethic within me. First shot, I should have bagged him in the nuts. Hard. Repeatedly. That will take all the fight and a lot of the flight out of most anyone. Plenty of time to bust up his face after you incapacitate 'em. I'd love to have done some of that. Second thing, don't leave him upright. ON THE GROUND, AND STOP YOUR RESISTING!!! Third thing, hand off my phone to my wife or son to make the call, I've got other things to deal with. Next thing, if he tries to take off, go after 'em!!!

Oh, and wife seems to be doing fine. I know it's one of those incidents where you'll be replaying it over and over for days. I called her up today to see how she was doing, and she tells me she keeps seeing me pounding his face. I think that's a good thing.

Filter Bags

Here's yet another piece of artwork I came up with last week. I happened to be on a printer where one of the many items that could be ordered are filter bags. Filter bags are rings of plastic or metal, with a long fabric sleeve trailing off from there. They are lightweight, but bulky. Customers tend to order a lot of them at a time. They don't qualify as a time fill usually, because the order quantity is usually under 70 pieces and almost never weigh over 40 pounds. Anything more than about 15 of them take more than one tote, and that requires multi tote forms and finding the remote locations. I understand that this doesn't mean much of anything to most everyone reading this, but suffice it to say that an order of these will generally set you back a cycle or two, and no one likes that.



I drew the "no filter bags" logo on the side of my cup. It looked a little indistinct (and a little like a cup itself, or maybe a weird condom), so I added the text for clarification. My fellow fillers on this printer knew what I meant and were amused. Did it work??? Amazingly, it did... at first. Just after completion, a supervisor came up to me with a new float sheet moving me to the third floor printer for a while!!! One of the fillers on that printer saw my cup and said, "Printer #6, huh???" They know. When I came back to that printer after lunch, however, the first cycle I picked up had a hefty order of filter bags. Curse you, filter bags!!!

Totally Looks Like...

One of the Icanhascheezburger affiliate sites is their look alike site. I've used the builder on there to create these!!!



Hopefully all the links stay where they are, and everyone gets to see these.



The Obama one I put one of the images up in a previous post, but I thought these looked better together!!!

If you enjoy these, please go here and here and vote for 'em!!!

High Lonesome

Seems like I've got just enough time at work these days to occasionally get some kind of art onto my cup!!! Usually during lunch time things slow to where I can do this.

I've got a lot in me these days, it's about time for me to go random....



This design, for whatever reason, I got to thinking I'd put the Carl's Jr. old logo on my cup. I'm not exactly sure when, but at some point around 15 years or so back, their star lost it's boots, burger, drink and face!!! When did Carl's Jr. change their logo??? I don't know that I've ever thought about it before yesterday...

ANyway, after I drew it, the boots on it reminded me of the end of Gaslight Anthem's "High Lonesome", which has been in A rotation for a couple of months for me!!!



So the ambulances came
They took your pulse and packed up your things
And the papers read
Some boys forget what the heart it brings
And the pounding in the street
Was your heart in four four time
And the taste of defeat
Was was never too far from your mind

And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis
And in my head there's all these classic cars
And outlaw cowboy bands
I always kinda sorta wish I'm someone else

So gravity came
And stole the temple that the schoolboys praised
And the crowd shuffled in
You're getting drinks for the same boys
Who once bought you everything
And the patter on the bar
Was just this one time
The patter on the bar
Was just this one night
Only to get by

And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis
And in my head there's all these classic cars
And outlaw cowboy bands
I always kinda sorta wish I'm someone else

There were Southern accents
On the radio
As I drove home
And at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
It's a pretty good song
Maybe you know the rest
Maybe you know the rest

And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
Always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis
And in my head there's all these classic cars
And outlaw cowboy bands
I always kinda sorta wish I'm someone else

When our boots they hit the ground
They made a high and lonesome sound
When our boots they hit the ground
They made a high and lonesome sound
When our boots they hit the ground
They made a high and lonesome sound
When our boots they hit the ground
Down from the clouds
They made a high and lonesome sound


See the Counting Crows & Springsteen influences there??? Thumbs up for Aye!!!

Art Imitates Art Cupdate

Here's an interesting case. At my work, there's several works of art about the place. In the downstairs conference room, there's a large, unique photo art. The sales floor has several of a Warhol series of prints. Almost all of them I have appreciation for.



The first picture here is the newest addition. It's a large format, probably at least 7 x 5 feet, oil. I took the picture with my phone, and it really doesn't do it justice. If you can't make it out, it has blocks with trees going up a street, with a wood roller coaster at the end of it. directly above all this, at the top, is a blimp.



The Friday before a three day weekend made for a slow day, and I got to do some artwork. This was all from memory, and I got a lot of the placement and scale wrong, but I got most all of the elements in there.



However, I've got a lot more isometric effect on my coaster, and you'll probably notice the blimp has the 512 logo on the rear fin.