Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Looking Back II: Jury Duty

Back in November I had my annual jury duty summons.

I had rescheduled from when I'd originally gotten my summons. That had fallen on the weeks that I had for vacation. I wasn't paying close attention, and almost missed the week it was. Turned out to be the week of Veteran's day, so of course the courts weren't open on Monday. On my first call in day, I was told not to come in. Same for the next two, and I figured that I'd end up skating since it was a short week. No dice, I had to go in on Friday.

For a change, it was at a different courthouse than I usually get assigned to. I usually look forward to jury duty because there's much photogenic in downtown. Not so at this one!!! The one main thing nearby was this giant chair. I know I've seen it before, but I'm not sure if I've gotten a shot of it before.

There's the courthouse in the background of the third shot...

There was still a bit of good architecture around the area for the photographing...

I'm pretty sure that just a block up from there is where I caught a shot of Fred Flintstone, but it was almost to the time we were told to be back by. I think I spent more time looking for the post with that picture than anything else for this post so far...

From a distance, the Ritz Carlton where we'd had a work Christmas party a few years back.

One nice thing, the parking was on site. Two levels down, there's a pigeon!!! What are you doing down here???

...And a shot on the wing!!!

One of my favorite shots, the train in the rear view!!!

The rest of the shots are from the drive home. Another nice thing, the weather was pretty good for taking pictures!!!

Love the downtown architecture!!!

First time, I didn't get called for a jury. Usually I end up on a panel, then getting kicked off because the prosecutor doesn't like me!!!

Pink wedding gown, anyone???

Hey, there's a cat on the roof over there!!!

Finally, a decent shot of the dragon gateway going into Chinatown!!!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Looking Back

As seems to be the case of late, I've had many adventures that are blogworthy, yet I lack time to document them. Here's an attempt to catch up a little.

This was my wife & my anniversary weekend trip. We did a long weekend last year, and now it seems to have become a tradition. This year we traveled up the coast a bit to Carpinteria.

We arrived before our check in time, so we continued North to Solvang. It's been years since we've been there, and it was pretty nice.

We liked the haircut on the bottom edges of these trees.

Aebleskivers is why we came!!! Of course, I forgot to take a picture until I was down to the last one.

Hans Christian Anderson park. I had no idea what he looked like.

Carpinteria is amazingly charming!!! This is the picturesque beach, and there is a picturesque downtown area. I'm thinking this is a cost effective alternative to going to Catalina!!!

Many many seagulls on the beach. Of course, this all occurred during the off season, so during Summer it would likely not be quite as awesome.

Nice scenery!!!

Monday, December 16, 2013

Out of this World Party!!!

As usual, this time of year gets busy busy!!! Last Thursday was gravy announcement day, and while the amount is less than last year, I'm going to end up with a tad more on account of the raise I got this year, so that's cool. Next Thursday is goodie day, and then actual gravy day. Monday will be extended family Christmas observed day, and then of course Christmas.

The subject of this post, though, is the company Christmas party!!!

Something totally different this year, they somehow managed to book the California Science Center, and the main event was in the Space Shuttle's hangar!!!

They've changed it up since last time we visited (when there was no shuttle there!!!) and now as you enter, you go through a clear tube in a huge aquarium!!!

First shot of the Shuttle shows what it would look like if hippies got hold of it and painted it up like an old VW microbus!!!

Endeavour, it's been a long time since I've seen you in the flesh!!!

It is a bit smaller place than we usually have, and seating was insufficient, but it was still pretty awesome!!! Instead of food being served, they had buffet type stations set up all around the place. I saw three with sea bass before I found anything different, "chicken like lasagna", and then beef short ribs. I partook of them all.

Later, they rolled out desert stations. Coolest thing, they had these CO2 frozen puffs. They instruct you to eat 'em within 20 seconds, and exhale as you do so. As you do, the CO2 makes it's smoke come out of your mouth. I happened to have my mouth closed on one, and breathed it out from my nostrils. I was a dragon!!!

Took me a bit before I realized, they had plaques around the wall in chronological order of all the missions. I had to find the one for STS-118, the one we saw launch!!!

Last shot is how one of the thrusters looks with a disco light behind it!!!

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Tommy Can You Taste Me

A couple weeks back we went for lunch at Tommy Burger. Never disapoints!!!

Since I've almost always have my 'Pod with me anymore, my younger asked me for it, to take some pictures before we start eating. He knows what goes!!! Thumbs up for me... kinda looks like I'm holding the Coke bottle on my shirt!!! My burger: always extra pickles, tomatoes & chili!!!

Looks like my wife can hardly wait to get going... Extra onions & chili for her, usually on a cheeseburger.

The younger, always such a ham!!! I'd say it's been about a year that he discovered that he actually likes chili fries (depending on the place, of course. Not all chili fries are created equal) He usually wasn't one for burgers, either, but he liked Tommy's just fine!!! Nothing but burger & chili for him!!! Of course, chili cheese fries, too. Two altogether, one with onions, one with none, both with extra chili. Set 'em in the middle & everyone picks.

The older boy, he's perfecting his surly disinterested teen look quite well, isn't he??? I could probably do a post on just pictures of that!!! He noted that the younger and I were both red shirts, and said he'd have to find a yellow shirt to wear that day!!! He got a burger pretty much like mine, and a chili dog with extra chili. The chili dogs have very little integrity, but are quite tasty!!!

Monday, November 25, 2013

Black Choppers

Over the weekend the older and I were heading home, when I saw this:

I didn't get a shot off right away, but these guys were flying LOW!!! When I was stopped at a light, I got a good look at the underbelly of one, and proclaimed, "That's military!!!"

Don't know if they were Guardsmen or Reservists or preparing for the Commander in Chief's fund raiser boondoggle today, but they flew away, then were back in the area by the time we made it home, and I was able to get out my real camera.

It took me entirely too long, but I thought I'd done a post about the black choppers before...

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Best Halloween Ever???

As usual, I've got a backlog of posts I could do, but I'll start with this one, this year's Halloween post!!!

Start off with the pumpkins. I attempted to do the Red John smiley. It kinda came out. My wife did a pretty good cat face, I think it was the best of the three. The younger did a Derpy-O-Lantern. The older, we got him a pumpkin, but he never got around to carving it up. If it hasn't started rotting from the inside, I may cut it open and harvest the seeds. I was thinking just today of cutting it in half through the middle, and that gave me an idea for next year: try and find a large, round one, cut it most the way in half with a round part on the front, paint it up like a pokeball. Find another, smaller one and carve it up as your favorite pokemon and have it inside the larger one!!! There, I typed it out so I may remember next year!!!

He had pretty ambitious plans for his costume. Vriska, another of the trolls from Homestuck. It features some rather tricky looking horns, and one rather elaborate robot arm. He got the arm together pretty good, but never got the horns made up. It also has the hair, which we found him a pretty good wig for. He made up a stencil for the shirt and did it with spray paint.

The weekend before Halloween his DJ club was spinning the platters for a school dance, where several in attendance were dressed up. His ladyfriend was dressed up as a spider witch, which he said went well with his costume, the spider bitch!!!

Halloween night, he went out with several of his friends instead of going with us. He said one of his group hugged Slenderman. He and another girl were playing catch up with with the rest of the group when a bush jumped out and says, "What's the rush???" The girl shrieks. He stands there a few seconds, then points at the guy (in a ghillie suit) and announces, "You're a BUSH!!!" From there, there was speculation as to whether he was Senior or W Bush, to which bushman responded he was neither. You could tell he enjoyed his evening.

Of course, it was a work day for me. I reprised my costume from last year, Karkat. This year, for a change, I had a picture of him pulled up on my 'pod to show people how he looks, and they all agreed it was me. Of course, we've got a LOT on new people at work these days, so a lot of 'em hadn't seen last year, so I had that going for me. Unlike last year, however, a bunch of people dressed up, so that was cool. One of my favorites was the girl who came in with a full bee outfit on!!! The cafeteria even got all decorated up with lights and everything!!!

It was full dark when I got home, and the younger was antsy to get going. He had another very geeky costume idea he wanted to do, Ruby Rose from the RWBY series (so, if you're keeping count, both my boys cross-dressed for Halloween...)

We found him a red hoodie this year, and added on a cape, and I made up a rather dissapointing gun scythe.

I'm used to my wife not doing much at all, but this year she surprised me by having cat gear on when I got home, so she got in on the act for a change. We headed out arount the neighborhood.

Usually there's not too many kids around the area trick or treating because it's mostly all steep, but there were more than I've ever seen this year!!! It's a good one to do, because even though several places don't participate, the ones who do are usually pretty generous!!! Saw a parent done up in full on old school Joker from Batman. One house we were coming up on had probably a dozen kids coming the other way. One guy, probably around 12 or 13, came up to me and asks if I'm Karkat. I fived him for knowing that, and told him of my older going as Vriska. Yeah, by degrees, the neighborhood is getting geekier!!!

A bit further down, we come to a house with a lit jack-o-lantern outside and lights on, but it's down a series of steps. Obviously, they're participating, so we head down and knock and say the magic pass phrase. No one seems to be home, though, and as we're turning to go, here comes a little kid in a storm trooper outfit, minus the helmet. He's saying something about he needs his silver bowl, and we're wondering what that's about. Naturally, I had to use the line on him, "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper???" Shortly after, his mother and little brother start down the steps. Turns out they live there, and had set out a rather large silver bowl full of candy, and someone abscounded with their bowl!!!

A bit later on, we came to a house that's the most done up we've seen. We walk up, and they invite us in, ask if we want any water bottles or some of the crock pot of chili they've got made up!!! I'm there. They were having a little Halloween party, and it was pretty excellent!!! The chili was pretty decent, too!!! We were probably there for close to half an hour!!! Just a few houses further, and there's ANOTHER Halloween party going on, and they invite us to have some hot dogs or help ourselves to their libations!!! We didn't, it was getting late late, and I had work the next day. I'm thinking of taking the day off next year. Truly one of the best Halloweens I've seen in our neighborhood!!!

Saturday, October 05, 2013

Wanna Go Steampunk?

Here's something they did at my work a couple weeks back. They had an artwork design contest using industrial supplies sourced from the company. They had done it last year, also, and I'd been thinking I could make something very cool to enter, but never came up with an idea. This year I came up with this idea. My son could really use a desk lamp, and he's appreciator of the Steampunk aesthetic.

My original idea was to use primarily copper and brass fittings, but it turns out, even with the employee pricing, those are some expensive materials!!! Therefore, I made it out of mostly black cast iron and aluminum fittings. It still added up, but only to around less than half of what it could have been.

I had a lot of ideas that changed over time with the project, and once it was as it at the end of the initial construction, I wasn't pleased with the results, so it was already being redesigned in my head as I entered it in the competition. At the beginning concept, I was thinking of having a valve at the base, and the light shade an oblong copper float with one side cut out. A bit later I was thinking the slick thing to do would have been to mount a rotary switch near the base and use a valve wheel on it to turn it on and off. Where the power cord comes in I covered it with mesh sleeving to make it look like that's where the gas or steam or whatever is supposed to run it comes in (which, now that I think about it, it does!!!)

I finished the modifications today, which consisted of replacing the pipe lengths with shorter pieces, especially for the back end where the cord enters. The major issues were that the back pipe was way too long (I'd been thinking running it long like that with the adapter and the brass fitting back there thinking that would help lower the center of gravity and counter balance the light shade's weight) and bumped into everything, and the height made it a bit ungainly. Nice thing about the construction, it's pretty easy to change things around, just unscrew the area you want to change!!!

I'm pretty pleased with it now, but just one more thing I've got in mind. I've ordered an LED spotlight to give it the harsh glare that seems like it would be fitting with this design!!! Also, an incandescent bulb would probably be a bad idea with no venting on the shade. I entitled it "Steampunk Sparklamp". I got a lot of positive comments from my co-workers. A funny question I got asked a couple times was if it works!!! The other thing I got asked about was the gauge. Of course, the gauge was for nothing but aesthetics, but I told everyone that asked that if the gauge shows over twenty pounds, you'd better run!!! I had been thinking of perhaps offering it for sale online for around the retail cost of the supplies (or with the reserve set there, if on an auction site) and see if there's any takers. I'm good with it if there aren't, but if there are I could make another fairly easily, and possibly change things around a bit.

Of course, in the course of construction, I come up with other ideas how I could it all again... only different!!! I was thinking adding in an hour meter would be an interesting touch, but for a really functional touch would be to have it USB powered... and add in a USB hub, probably concealed behind an ornamental brass hatch, maybe sourced from a pocket watch!!!

Last year the entrants were a bit weak, in my opinion. The two I remember were a duct tape wallet, and a layer cake made of buckets. I came in thinking I'd be a lock for best in show, but the other entrants this year were way better!!!

The first shot, the metal flowers, took best in show. Behind it is a chess set made of nuts, bolts, and washers. Even the board is made of square washers!!!

The next shot??? What is it??? The flowers weren't there when I put mine in, and that was the one where I thought to myself that I wasn't going to win the top spot. It wasn't going when I got there, but later in the week it was running. It was entitled "Brass Teardrop", and has a gear motor driving an offset under the first layer. This has a series of strings going to the concentric rings and brass ball in the middle, and as it rotates, the rings and sphere bob up and down in a wave type motion. Fairly epic, but just about the least practical of all the entrants, IMHO.

More flowers, this time constructed from the pages of a first aid pamphlet, dyed with layout fluid. Final shot is a few concrete planters, placed on top of woven rope mats!!!

I already revealed the best in show winner, and the brass teardrop took the most intricate. My creation took most serviceable. I don't remember the other categories, but all but one of us won, and the other one got judges special mention. I completely agree with all the verdicts!!!