Monday, February 28, 2011

CupDate: The Truth is Out There

And the truth is this: It's been a long, long time since I've had a chance to do any cup artwork!!! Work has been busy, but last week it seemed like there were a lot less lines per person, even though we were still doing a lot of business. Anyway, I finally had a chance to do some!!!



If you know at all, you will recognize this as a rendition of the poster Fox Mulder had (in his office or room??? Can't remember which) in the X-Files. Even people who aren't familiar with the show like the artwork.

Funny thing, when I googled "I want to believe" to see if I was getting the look right from memory, I clicked on the "shopping" link, to see what it'd have. I expected it to have the DVD of the second X-Files movie, which was called "X-Files: I want to Believe" in the first several slots, but instead most of it was for the actual poster!!! If I ever get the basement cleared out and make up a man cave down there, I'm totally getting that poster, as well as hanging up my wife's "Tombstone" poster.



A funny observation that I noticed when I was first penning this, and several others have noticed since: The saucer looks an awful lot like a sombrero!!! I joke to people who comment to that effect that after I drew the sombrero-saucer, I had to decide if I was going this way, or drawing the Tapitio man!!!



I spent entirely too much time photoshopping the saucer onto his head. Not so effective, actually. I notice that the actual sombrero I took out, the edges look a lot like tire treads!!!

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Bonus Birthday

Today and one week ago today we've been celebrating my younger boys' birthday. Last weekend we had a party at my parents' house, with all the cousins, because they are going out of town afterwards.



I think the first cake I made for that event ranks as one of the best I've done!!! He wanted me to do the look of the Halo Reach logo, only replacing the words with "Nine Years".



It came out quite nice, I think, with the exception of the "E" on nine kinda looks a bit like an "O". Nino years???



For this weekend, we invited several of his friends from the neighborhood. Of course, I didn't want to do the same cake, so he said he wanted Super Sonic.



I think this one came out pretty nicely, too!!!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Defying Gravity

A few of the MANY action shots I took today, all the ones I found with their feet off the ground!!!















*With the exception of the one where I caught a ball in flight!!!

A Day in the Park



The weather here has been just phenomenal of late!!! I was thinking the other day that it would be a shame to spend the day inside or just doing things that needed doing like shopping and the like.



I looked up on Google maps to see if I could find a neat looking park to head out and have a little picnic at. I found a real nice one along the foothills, but upon arriving found out that reservations are required. No cost involved or anything, just a required reservation. Perhaps another day we'll return.



We drove down from there and located this large park with plenty of room.



Bonus, just the night before I received the replacement for the camera I'd bought for myself for Christmas. This one cost $13 more that the last kit I'd bought, but it has a 300mm zoom lens instead of the 200mm the previous came with. Brought it along to try it out. So far, the flash still works!!!



I can set it to run mode and whip off a series of pictures in rapid succession. With a couple of under 30 second videos set to the lowest setting and a bunch of those pictures you can quickly fill up a gig of memory!!!

Local Mounties made an appearance.



I found a set of velcro discs & ball set before we left. Makes playing catch considerably easier. We played for about ten minutes before the boys decided playing Tron Legacy with the discs would be more fun!!!



And, in case you wondered, this is how the moon looked today!!!

Friday, February 04, 2011

The Code Companion Cube

Bar codes. They're incredibly resilient. They can be torn in two, or faded to where you can hardly see them, or all dirty, and they are still scannible!!! One of the occasional duties that I end up doing at work is retiring (or as everyone calls it, killing) labels on the containers that get used up. The actual retiring is pretty easy, the time consuming part is peeling the label off afterward.



One of the guys started making his labels into a ball, kept working on it every time it was his turn. Got near to the size of a bowling ball. Said he was going to urethane it and drill it with finger holes when it got to the right size. I said he should get a chain and shackle it to his leg and go around dragging it behind him, see how long that lasts!!! Anyway, many others of us did the same, although none of us got to such a grand scale. I just did one day's worth that came out about the size of a tennis ball. Brought it home and called my younger boy. When he looked my way, I pegged him with it and shouted, "Bar code ball!!!" Well, he fell in love with it!!! He'd get upset when his brother would take it, took it to school, ect. The week before Sammy and I went to the hockey game, I made a puck of labels. I did a few days worth of labels, the last day being a couple days before Christmas, and when one of my friends was admiring it, I replied "Yeah, at least now my kid will have something to play with on Christmas morning!!!" I did it, too, wrapped it up in a box and gave it to my younger boy. My wife was manning my old point and shoot camera while I was shooting video with my SLR, and she got this picture a split second after he'd tossed it in the air and caught it.




So, a few weeks ago I'm killing labels again, and starting another ball. It was kind of lumpy, with a couple flat spots. One of the guys sees it and says, "Everyone does a ball, you ought to make a cube!!!" Challenge accepted. Could this be done??? The flat spots were already close to 90° , so I started on from there. I filled low spots as best I could, and would fold them along the middle and stick it to 2 sides. The corners were pretty soft to begin with, but eventually it came together. Not a perfect cube, but everyone who saw it was quite impressed. The last day I was working on it, this Wednesday, I took some blank labels and colored them red and cut them into hearts on my last break. When I wrapped up for the evening, I applied them to the sides for my own bar code companion cube!!!

It's now on display in the boys' room...