Crazy Bikes Revisited

Way back when I made the Tribute post, I made mention of a couple of my creations. The other day I was at my parents house, and took a couple of pictures of the pictures mentioned therein.

First up was the chopper bike I'd made by welding in six foot fence posts. The original thought was to use the forks on my 20" BMX bike, possibly with a smaller wheel on the front end. It was highly unstable, and impossible to drive. Since I had come upon this 16" kids bike, complete with training wheels, and the head tube was the correct size, on the forks went to it. The training wheels made it so it could be stood up, at least, although it was tilted way back!!!

The second shot is the April Fool's trick where my sidehack ended up on the diving board of the pool.

Dang, I was a dorky looking kid!!!

4th of July Hijinks I

Back all the way on 4th of July this year, we did as we often do for that particular holiday (one of our favorites, Summertime, outdoor dining, swimming, and fireworks!!!) and went to my parents' house. We partook in three of the four above listed activities, and then my parents took my sister and my nephew to a local fireworks show. He'd never been, and word is that he enjoyed it. On our way, we stopped by a local fireworks stand and picked up $40 worth of the so-called safe and sane fireworks, so because of that, and the fact that I was working overtime the next day, we stayed there until a little after dark. Just before they headed out, my younger and I helped my dad out by re-hanging one of the side shed doors, which required the use of his ladder. After they left... the mischief ensued!!! The boy and I climbed up, and I jumped off a couple times, and after getting his nerve up, the boy tried a couple times. Yeah, I know, parent of the year!!!

I know at least my mom would have been troubled by this, so hopefully she doesn't come across this!!!

Don't think I've made mention here, but one of my recent pleasures has been morning radio with The Woody Show on Alt 98.7.

One of the segments they do daily is Redneck News, which the boy enjoys the intro for, and does the "Whooo Hooo!!!" along with. Well, for the roof jumping once he got going, he wanted me to come up with intros for, and he'd do the "Whooo Hooo!!!" on the way down. If memory serves, he was wanting me to do 'em earlier in the day as he was jumping from the diving board. Oh yeah, when we were on vacation, at our last hotel in Galveston, he learned to do a flip into the pool, so that's cool and a really useful life skill to have!!!

Of course, later on that evening we lit off the fireworks, and I've got video of the stupidity that ensued on that also, so if I ever get that posted, you'll have part II!!!

And, as always, we drove home through the badlands of the 710 freeway, which is always like driving through a tunnel of fireworks on the 4th of July!!!

Rite of Passage

Between childhood, boyhood, adolescence & manhood (maturity)

there should be sharp lines drawn w/

Tests, deaths, feats, rites

stories, songs, & judgments

From "Wilderness"

Jim Morrison

Here's something of a rite of passage!!! I did it as a teen, as did my friends, and now both of my sons have, too. When you go to the junkyard, you are supposed to be at least 16 years old to get in. We've all now violated this rule. I suppose that if you are going to violate an age ordinance, this is about as benign as you can get!!!

I don't know if I've ever explained how Scruffy got her name, but the driver's side rear quarter was slightly cracked when we got it, but not enough to worry about. A year or so later, I managed to take out a pillar in a parking garage with the two doors (and rear view mirror) on that same side, as well as further fracturing the quarter panel. Made a junkyard run & picked up all three of these around a year and a half back on one of the junkyard half price days. Not long after, some idiot changed lanes into the front fender, also on that side, while my wife was driving, and she has failed at getting any of the insurance information, so on yet another sale day, I picked up one of those. There's always plenty of Saturns, but there is a difference between the 1996-1999 bodies and the 2000-2002, even though they are very nearly the same. I'd gone through and found the best looking one, and just as I started pulling it, checked the style. Early. Whew, glad I checked that!!! Back around again, and found a late model in good shape. Last weekend, I pulled all the parts out to clean, sand and primer them, and discovered the doors and quarter panel were all early style!!! This also worked out, as last weekend for the Fourth of July weekend, the junkyard was doing a sale weekend again. I notice they have gone from half off days to 40% off days. So began the rite of passage!!! It's something he's been wanting to do, so before we visited my parent's house on the 4th, we went. Instead of getting all new door and the somewhat rare wagon quarter panel, I just got an early model fender to go with what I have. Once I've got it all together, if you are Saturn nerd enough to tell the years apart, you won't be able to tell what you're looking at if you notice the difference between the sides!!!

One of the things that always seem to happen is the removal of several emblems. Hehe, sexus!!!

He liked the aesthetic of the place, thinking it looks a bit post-apocalyptic and commented that it smelled like the paintball arena. I'm glad he enjoyed the trip!!!

Aztec Falls Revisited

Finally getting some more pics from Aztec Falls up. Once again, I've got a ton more I could do, but for now you get this.

You start off at a place called Splinter's Cabin. There's not much of a cabin there, but just a bit down the trail from there is a pretty cool bridge.

I'm not a fan of graffiti out in nature, but I actually kinda liked the addition to these rocks!!!

As you make your way down, the upstream part has a wide, shallower area. I call it the kiddie pool.

A nice little jump off point. It's about as deep as it is tall, so be sure to bend your knees on the way down!!!

Farther down is the big jump off points. I used the boy's height and checked the high jump against it in Paint Shop Pro. Looks like I was real close with my estimation of 35 to 40 feet up. You can see there's something of a pillar to the left side, which could be climbed to pick up that much more height, but it's a little tricky.

I like the splash down shot that looks like the shape of a body.

On the far side, near the base of the 20 foot jump, there's even a natural rock ramp to climb out on!!! You can see that in the bottom left of the last shot. I'm sure we'll be back next time!!!

I've got the idea to share how I stretched my birthday out to a week, perhaps that'll be next...

Upskirt Beatdown

One of the girls I work with related this true story that had recently happened in her family. I loved it, as did most everyone I've shared it with, and thought it was one of the best I've heard in a while. I will do my best to relate it here:

She has several kids. One of them it a first grade girl. One day, she is wearing a skirt to school. A boy classmate gets it in his head to take a peek up her skirt to see if she's got on shorts or panties, and proceeds to do so. She took exception to this, and to express her displeasure with the situation, gives the boy a black eye!!!

Naturally, this does not go unnoticed by the powers that be at the school, and the parents all get called in. The school has decided not to exact any types of punishments against either of the kids. The boy's mother was quite upset, and the girl's mother tells her that her boy got off easy, her girl knows how to aim for balls!!! Anyway, no punishments by the school, but (to my co-worker) "You should have a talk with your daughter about more appropriate ways to deal with this."

She takes her daughter out for ice cream, and tells her, "Good job, you did just fine."

ÃÝË's Been Working on the Railroad

Now, this was cool!!!

There was a blurb in the paper about an open house going on at a model railroad club.





I've always loved trains, and, even without my input my youngest has pretty much loved trains from infancy.



They have their own building with a layout over 5,000 square feet, and a great amount of detail. If you look closely, in the first picture you can see there's a guy bungee jumping from the bridge span. I didn't even see that until I looked at the picture tonight!!!





It also happened to be pretty close to my home, so that was a plus, too!!!

The Fall of Fort 7

It was a peaceful morning, a little foggy, but no figures broke the fog. All of a sudden, a big shadow came through the fog carrying the monthly rations and 20 troops. Fort 7's security gate opened, when all of a sudden, a mortar round broke the scilence and collapsed the trenches! A nearby Sargent yelled out, "Mortars!" as 5 more rounds hit the fort. Two tanks broke the fog and opened fired with the 50-mm machine guns mounted to kill oncoming troops. Fifty battle-ready troops advanced on the tanks while others mounted the fort's defence cannons and machine guns. Troops came from the fog carrying rocket launchers and C-4. Then, just as the first tank exploded, he fort's automatic sentry turrets activated and cut down the the fog-trooper's front lines and the fort brought out the 2 antitank vehicles they had stored in the gradges. All of a sudden, the fog cleared and 3 Osprey helocopters came through the air, heading for the fort. the anti-air guns opened fire just as the troop carrying a HAVOC nuke came into the fort, planted the nuke, and ran for the motorcycle stashed by the shed. The enemy troops retreated and the fort roared in victory. Little did they know that a HAVOC nuke was planted in the barracks.

The preceding short story was written by the oldest for a quick short story assignment at school. The instructor said it was even better than their own. I thought it was pretty good, too. I left the misspellings in, to present it in "as written" form. He's been asking me to post a link to his site on here for a while to get traffic going that way. Please click over. I think he has delusions about the popularity of my blog :Þ

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

Friday was a momentous day. They youngest lost his first tooth!!! He was wiggling it and it came right out!!! It hadn't been loose for that long, either.

Donut or No Donut

As you travel through life,
Sister or brother,
Whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye on the donut,
And not upon the hole!!!


Here's something that I came across, a blast from the past.

First let me preface the story with a bit of background. While my wife was making the rounds today, the Maverick started running rough. As she was picking the boys up from school, it got bad to where it wouldn't even idle. Any number of things that could be, but the two that came to mind were either a loose or broken vacuum line or an ignition system problem. She got a ride home and left the car there. After I got home from work, I went to the basement to gather my tools, as well as a spare coil and ignition module I had knocking around down there. While searching for the ignition parts, I came across a small box. I opened it and found three things: A #4 birthday candle, a clamshell with a couple of used screws in it, and this piece of paper.

When my older boy was a year or so younger that the younger one is now (or around 4, if you will) when we'd take him places and trying to get him to behave, we would bribe him with a trip to the donut shop if he'd behave. These are scans of the two sides of a paper I drew for him once when we were doing this. In case you're wondering about the specks on the donut, those are sprinkles. Used to be his first choice for type of donut to get. He called the sprinkles "Frostos".

Ah, memories!!!

And He Said To Me....

"What??? I was cold!!!"

My oldest boy's reply when I gave him the look for wearing a suit coat with his pajamas.