Autumn Random

A lot of things happen, here's some from my recent photos. I've got more.

When we were at the park most recently, after the remnants of a storm had blown through, there was a rainbow!!! It appeared a little subdued, like the one I'd seen in Catalina.

A couple of months ago, surrogate got a car of his own!!! Honda Accord V6, older, but not a lot of miles. It's got a sunroof, which he's usually got open. Also, it has a wire coming out to a little square adhered to the roof. The guy he bought it from didn't know what it was, and none of us could figure it out, either, but it looks legit so it's staying there!!!

Hadn't realized it's been 5 years since I made up the easy to recover claw post!!! It had been getting pretty ragged, and I'd been thinking of re covering it, but had lost track of where I'd put the remaining sisal rope!!! Finally located it, and recovered it. Seems like every time it's recovered, it needs to be investigated before it can be used!!! Shortly after this picture, Sid clawed at it, then climbed up and sat on top of it, as he does!!!

Saw a Von Dutch bag at a store a while ago. I'd seen them have the winged eyeball logo before, but this one had a flaming eyeball!!! I think a copyright infringement lawsuit is in order!!!

I'd made mention that I was thinking of doing a redesign on the phone holder in Kutcher to move it a bit further back, and I did. Just a new threaded hole is all it took!!!

Got advance warning today that they're calling a red flag day tomorrow, so I was able to move the cars around before it started. Once again, I don't think conditions will meet their definition, but no one cares. The deep cycle battery in the Falcon was completely dead, which made for a pain getting it moved. Swapped in the one I'd pulled from Kutcher that I've had on a trickle charger. The one in Zonker had gone dead a while ago (I'd forgotten to unplug the charger, and it has a blue LED light that I'm pretty sure killed it), but I'd gotten it going and hadn't had an issue since then. Put a booster on it (which had done nothing for the Falcon, it was dead dead... also, the terminals were both loose, which I don't remember being the case, so strange) and it first set off the stupid horn alarm, then fired right up.

Had to smog Kutcher again. Took it to the place that did Zonker last time, and as far as I could tell there was nothing that would cause it to not pass, and there were no codes in the computer. After a bit, the guy comes in and tells me it failed. It didn't actually fail, but they spotted the O2 sensor spacer I'd put on last time, and apparently using one of those to get it to read correctly isn't legal, so they'd failed it on visual inspection. They didn't charge me, or even enter the information into they system, so once again, they've got my enduring business!!! Took it home and removed the spacer, took it back and it passed without issue. Afterwards, the check engine light started coming back on. Sigh. I think I'll make a catalytic converter anti theft shield so that spacer can't be seen before I take it in again!!!

On the other side of the canyon, there's been a vacant lot between a couple of houses that's been that way since we've been living here. Back in the early 70's, there had been a mudslide over that way that destroyed several houses, I'm not sure if this lot had one or not, but it did look like there had once been a house there. Several months ago, they brought in a backhoe, and were moving dirt around the lot for quite a while. A month and a half or so ago, they poured a foundation, and have been building a new place on it, and it's gone up quick!!! I've seen several places around here being built, and it seems like a lot of them drag on for more than a year.

Younger finally got his learner's permit, and has been doing some driving, I think he's pretty much got it down. Anyway, He was driving and I was passenger, and I got a look, they're actually building two houses, the one pictured here, and another facing the next street over. The one pictured looks like there's a detached garage with either an upstairs deck, or an auxiliary dwelling unit included.

Since I'd recently mentioned Colby Jack (renamed Simba), I thought I'd post a pic of him!!! He's got some quirks. Like every cat.

We were having lunch recently, and someone dressed as The Grinch with a head on a stick scepter rode by on a bike!!! Deliciously random!!!

For my birthday and my sister's birthday, we got together with my mom, and all went to the John's Incredible Pizza that's near where she lives. Here's younger (in his Counting Crows shirt, I think I was wearing my Gaslight Anthem one that day) on the spinny ride. I didn't want to go on it, because I'd eaten a lot of pizza!!!

We were at the Goodwill a bit ago, and they were already getting ready for Halloween. They had a lot of costume ideas set up on the end caps, Pee Wee Herman and the Brawny guy are the two I remember. They had costumes on one rack, and younger put on a hot dog costume and witches' hat, grabbed a machete', and was going around saying, “I'm the Wicked Weenie!!!” It was pretty funny, but there was another hot dog costume and witches' hat there as well...

Sid usually doesn't get out into the front room, but occasionally he'll get out there, and we usually let him hang out for a while. He was out there, and saw that one of the shelves on the newly painted bookcase was still vacant, and decided that we'd left it that way for him!!!

There was a partial lunar eclipse at the end of August, and I headed out to go on a walk and check it out while it was going on. I tried taking some pictures with my phone's camera, but on most of the preset settings it was totally blown out. Messing with the advanced settings, I could get pictures that showed the actual shadow, but none of them were that great. I was over by the canyon, and there were more people there than I've ever seen!!! I went around Sea View, and as I was coming out, a bit of cloud cover was developing, and it allowed me to get a fairly decent picture.

A week or so ago I was searching for an EP that Brian Fallon had released a while ago, and found out he'd just come out with another disc as Brian Fallon and the Painkillers. In another venn diagram moment, one of the songs on it features Brandon Flowers, from another of my favorites, The Killers!!! Of course, I picked it up, and I've got a few favorites off it already.

This is one of the houses across the bay from Horny Corner. I like the turret.

The Obligatory Halloween Post

I've got another post to instant blog at some point, but in interest of keeping things timely, I'll do this first, the Halloween post!!!

Since I had nothing in mind in particular this year, I was going to reprise my Karkat costume again for this year... if I could find my candy corns headband!!! It's been several years since I had them out, and figured once again I'd have many new people at work to admire it. Don't think I ever posted a picture of it here, but after the first two years I ran that one, I found a white headband and a white glove and went as High Five Ghost from The Regular Show. That costume, while well received by my co-workers, was very top heavy and wanted to fall forward or backward all day. Anyway, the Friday before we were at the 99 Cent store and they had these eyeball antennas, and I was sold!!! As you can see, I also had one of my favorite shirts, the eyeball surfing through a ring of fire to go with it. One of my co-workers said, "Great costume, I almost didn't recognize you!!!"

The younger had the plan to go as Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale, a fairly easy costume in the clothing area, a lot trickier in the make-up department. I didn't get a day or even a half day off this year, so I had none of that, but lady friend stepped up and did an AMAZING job!!! I figured the older and her would go out to WeHo or somewhere like that for Halloween, (which sounds like a nightmare to me, but like something they'd do) but they didn't do anything. A few weeks before they'd gone to the Universal Studios event and taken the R.I.P. tour, so they got in on some anyway.

Of course, it was late by the time I got home, so the younger already had gone around the block behind us, and had a decent bag going.

I'd noticed that the street at the base of our hill is relatively flat and has a lot of houses on the way home, so we went down there to try our luck there. It wasn't that good, a lot of houses with no lights on, but we did get to go by one house we knew had a couple dogs that bark at everyone. We walk by, and the smaller one comes out barking, and he turns his scary face towards it, and it backs way off, that was hilarious. On the way back we took a video of it, but it's kind of dark.

One of the houses we went to told of a street I'd never heard of they'd taken their kid to that was hopping and pretty flat. We drove over, and it was pretty late by then, but we still did better there!!!

cUpDate

Since I was asked, Here's a little update on my cup. I haven't had any trouble with 'em at all since I began inscribing them with "512". They've changed procedure in the last week, and I haven't had much chance to do artwork on the cups this week. Last Friday I was able to do quite a bit of artwork. The flaming eyeball is loosely based on my tattoo. On the reverse is a picture of Neil Fox, our company's compliance manager. I have NO idea what Neil really looks like, having never met or been introduced to him. Quite often, though, the orders I'm filling have Neil Fox's statement that the products sent are compliant to the drawings and descriptions in the catalogue, along with the image of his signature. I was inspired to draw him doing his job, giving it the thumbs up!!!



Another perk, our company has a set of seats at the Greek Theatre, and when new shows are announced, they'll often have drawings for tickets. There were three recently announced, and I put my name in the drawing for Phil Lesh and Friends. Mind you, the name didn't ring a bell, but he was the bassist from the Grateful Dead. Well, I won 'em!!! That's this Sunday night. I wonder if my mom wants to go for Mother's Day. BUSY BUSY BUSY month of May!!! Saturday we're having my oldests Birthday observed, that night (I just found out) is my nephew's bachelor party, Sunday is Mother's Day, Sunday night is the Phil Lesh and Friends concert. Monday is 5-12 day (which I'm considering taking off), next weekend is the company outing cruise, and my nephew's wedding. I think there's more than that, but I can't remember it all!!!