Halloween: A New Era

Happy upcoming Thanksgiving!!! Before it gets even farther along, figured to to the belated Halloween post!!!

The new era alluded to in the title refers to this being the first year where the older was not in the vicinity, so it was just the younger.

First up is a shot of the Jack-O-Lantern. For a change, they didn't have the carving contest at work this year. Just the one this year, as it seems time always gets tight this time of year. Based on Papyrus from Undertale. The youngest drew it out and I carved it. considering the challenging design, I think it came out quite well. Didn't do it that far in advance, either, so it was in excellent shape for the traditional early November mayhem. You can catch this year's here.

Next up is a construction shot of the most complex portion of the costumes this year, a pair of glasses. Involved was some Plexiglas from the dodecahedron project (worse for time, the protective paper had bonded fairly well onto it!!!), frames from some old sunglasses, much epoxy, and some even older than the Plexiglas window tint film. The black piece was a cardboard mock-up repurposed to hold the bows apart while it was being epoxied.

A couple of new shirts were in order. I did mine with the same technology the the older had previously used for his Vriska costume, a cardboard template and spray paint. The youngers' was made up with an iron on print, on an orange sleeved shirt. I never saw an image of this shirt with the orange sleeves, but hey, artistic license!!!

My costume was yet another Homestuck character, Lil Cal. Also involved was a gold tooth cap I'd had for more than ten years ago. My wife was a huge help locating it. Where is a good place to store such a thing??? An old ball cap and gold chain completed the look. To finish it off, I shaved off my mustache and beard and drew on the cheek spots and jaw opening. I wore it into work, and I think I was the only one in my department this year that dressed up.

The boy had his costume based on Dirk Strider, who of course, is closely linked with Lil Cal, so that is where the inspiration for my costume came from!!! Glasses, shirt, and an old wood sword fresh painted silver on the blade comprise his costume. I'm of the opinion that wanting to have the glasses and an orange shirt were primary motivators to his choice of costume!!!

More of the Jack-O-Lantern, this time on the cat tree. I don't think awesome cat much cares for his heiarchal position at the top of the tree being usurped.

Something cool, I have so many vacation days now, that I happened to see they had a half day available on Halloween, which of course I took. Nice, as they have moved the start and end time of my shift 15 minutes later, and it had already been a late get home time. We trick or treated around the neighborhood, the streets behind our house, then over to what had looked to be a promising area.

One place had this sign up on their gate... I feel vandalism coming on!!!

There!!! Fixed your sign for you, mister!!! No treat, here's your trick!!! Haha!!!

When we had headed over two weekends before, we'd spotted what looked like a walkway at the end of the dead end street we'd walked up. We had walked down it to another cul-de-sac in the valley below. This was the previously alluded to promising area. There were several houses with Halloween decorations, and while we were there we witnessed a mother and child having a Nerf gun war. It was pretty far on in the evening by the time we made it over there, though, and it wasn't as good as it had looked, though there was one guy we caught pulling into his garage who dug out a three year old bag of tootsie rolls and dumped a good quantity into our sacks.

Finally, now that there is one in the neighborhood, no Halloween night would have been complete without a visit to a haunted house...

"And they say the old man's body was NEVER FOUND..."