Flushing More $$$

A few weeks ago, we had another clog in the plumbing. As I have previously stated, old construction sometimes has these issues.

The main area it tends to clog seems to be the upstairs toilet, where it goes from horizontal to the vertical drain pipe. When we had first moved in, I had un clogged it by going up on the roof, and using a long pipe down the roof vent. Later, I made up a weight with spikes around the outside with an eyebolt on it, that I would attach to a rope and drop down the vent.

I broke out the weight and used it, for the first time in a long time, and cleared it out. Over the weekend before last, it happened again. I returned to the roof, and tried again. I could tell the clog was moving down, but it didn't seem to break through like it has on previous occasions. Sure enough, the water had gone down in the toilet, so I tried flushing it, and it started backing up into the tub!!!

I called the number of a drain cleaning company I'd gotten a card from when they were out clearing my neighbors' drain, but they said they would have to come the next day. I called the same company who had done the outside line back in 2013, and they were out in an hour. They ran their camera into the pipe, and declared it was not only clogged, but had a break in the line down under the basement. Well, you know, a man will pay a good amount to have his fancy indoor plumbing!!!

In the first and fourth picture, you can see a 2" PVC pipe with a rubber adapter to the 4" steel pipe. That was one of the first plumbing jobs I'd done not long after we had moved in. That's the drain from the washing machine, which was broken by the first guy who'd came out last time. When we moved in, it was dropped into the 4" pipe, with a bunch of rags stuffed around it, and it was one of the first things that would back up. I added the rubber adapter. I always kind of wondered what happend under the concrete, it's right next to the pipe from upstairs. Once it was dug up, I got to see what happens. This is in the water heater room, and the other shot is in the walk in closet or pantry on the other side of the wall, just behind the downstairs bathroom.

Anyway, they shunted the washer drain right into the main pipe, with a clean out added in, replaced most of the pipe, and did a trenchless coating on the remaining stretch between the inside and the outside. These guys aren't cheap, but they are about the only home service repair people that I haven't had any complaints about, so I'm OK with it!!!

And, once the concrete was replaced, I was able to put the mark and date on it!!!

Changing Gears

It's been almost 14 years I've been at my job, and for the most part I've been doing pretty much the same thing. The work is fairly straightforward, but is pretty physical. Four or five years back, I finally got on the weekend shift, which is nice in that there's less people around, so it's easier in that regard, less drive time traffic, and there's a little bit of a bump in pay for it. A few times I've been asked by supervisors if there is another department or position I'd like to be in, but nothing has ever materialized. I even had tested for some electronic correspondence customer service at one point.

A month or so back, (we are an essential service, so there's been no stop at my work, although almost all of the sales and support staff are working from home) there was a meeting time blocked out on my daily schedule. Hmmm... I meet with one of the heads above my department, who I've never had any interaction with, and she tells me that they have combed the employee bios, and saw that I had been formally trained in Surfcam, as well as having self-taught AutoCad, BobCad, and Solidworks. For a while, I did a ton of work in Solidworks, because it renders very realistic looking designs, and once you've created them, you can make a pretty good drawing of the part fairly easily. Turns out, Solidworks skill is just the sort of thing they're looking for!!!

They set me up with a couple of the technologies they use, and gave me a half day or so to mess around in Solidworks, to get a feel for it again. A couple days later, they gave me a couple test parts to design and generate drawings for. Apparently, I did well enough for them to offer me a position on the team coming up with the files. The down side is I'd be off weekends, the up side is I'll be working from home!!! I'll be saving money on gas, and saving an hour to an hour and a half of commute time a day, so I'm good with it, as well as being able to use some long dormant skills. Last week they gave me the equipment to bring home, and a day to set it up. The project is supposed to go for around 9 months to a year.

This has been my first week, learning how the process will go. There's a lot of new stuff, which I don't think will be too tough, but I've been on Central Time for the learning, so I don't care for the hours, but that will get better. First time I've ever had a dual monitor set up. I used my old desk I had my home desktop set up on (which I mostly only use for the printer connected) and cleared out a spot in the corner, by the windows. Using the suddenly very popular Zoom any time but early on, I'm terribly back lit, but apparently it's not a big deal. Since I'm much more sedentary, I've been walking a couple miles every afternoon.

Oh, and the design there is something I did in the practice day. It's a rough representation of one of those Saturn Ion rims.

The Ketchup Random Post

It's been a while, I have several things I've been wanting to post some about, so the time has come to catch up!!!

Speaking of ketchup, found this last time I was at the dollar store. Spicy, it's interesting but not great. Last time I found a ketchup there, it was a grilled onion flavored, and that was pretty great. Of course, none of that there anymore. But I digress.

Had a week off in July. Back when my work had the Spring ticket drawing, my name was pretty low on the list, so there weren't a lot of good ones left. Then I realized that I had that week off, and thus far nothing planned, so I took a Monday evening game, for a change an Angels game!!! They were playing the Houston Astros, so there was a Texas connection. It was pretty good, the area we were in had food service to your seat, so that was nice, and getting in and out is better. Had some pastrami fries!!! There's the moon rising over the lights.

It's a bit of a haul to the area, and rather than heading back and forth, I booked us a couple nights at an Orange County hotel. Had the thought that we could get in touch with my niece and drop into the Great Wolf Lodge again to get wet for an afternoon, but instead we dropped in to Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Turns out the Chick-Fil-A will set you up with a chicken sandwich if you had been to an Angels game the next day!!! Afterwards, we headed to a very picturesque beach in Crystal Cove State Park. The next day we stopped in at Boomers down there, and that was our little vacation.

The younger boy graduated from high school. He's planning on going to trade school for electrician training. He never expressed much interest in it before, but I'm sure he'll be able to pick it up pretty well, and it's a good paying profession.

He'd found an aloha shirt at the St. Vincent thrift store a while back. He wanted to get some louver glasses to go with it, and not long ago, on a 20% off day at Big Lots, we went to one that happened to be by a Party City. Went in to take a look, and they have 'em there, so we set him up with them.

Apparently, the impetus for both of those was another Homestuck adjacent troll, Murrit Turkin!!!

Finished off the week by sanding down and spray painting the rest of the right side of Scruffy. Got a couple of runs, sanded them out, sprayed it some more... Always looks far too shiny when it's fresh sprayed. I was getting antsy to get the other side done. All that remains is the rear hatch and bumper, but I've been working on the front bumper, too, eliminating the holes for the front plate mount. Not a great picture, but I did a bit of a long shot to get 2 of my 3 classics in the shot.

While I was doing so, I had the lower rocker off (it's a molded black plastic part, easier to remove than to mask) and it nicely revealed the upper part of my new exhaust tip!!! Also, the only way besides removing it that you'll see the 512 Labs inscription on the top side. I've only driven it a couple days in the last few weeks, as we've been having a heat wave, and I still haven't fixed the air conditioning on it. My birthday is coming up, maybe I'll buy the parts for myself.

I participated in The Oinkster's Burger Week again this year. The shirt is a take off on the Chili Peppers, and I don't think that anyone has picked up on that it isn't just that every time I've worn it. If anyone has, they haven't said anything.

Back before the end of the school year, they were taking the senior class to Speed Zone in City of Industry. I had been working in the area when they built the place, back in the late 90's, and have driven by it several times. It sounded like a good time, but I'd never made it over there!!! Anyway, it was on my day off, so I was able to get in on it.

There's a go-kart track, a slick track, and dragsters!!! There's an arcade and mini golf, too. The day pass was $56, but a season pass was $51!!! What would you do??? Yeah, that's what we did. We've been back twice.

They've been giving me the middle shift at work more these days. Don't know if I'd mentioned, but they eliminated the late late shift, and moved the late to 10:25 AM. Middle shift is two hours earlier. I like the way it works out, I never have to get up early on Mondays. Of course, the drive is worse. ANyway, that's the prelude to the next part of my updates!!!

I had been hearing for a while that Alt 98.7 and The Woody Show were doing a night at Medieval Times. Ravey and Menace were going to be there, and they had a promo code to get a good discount. It's been years since I've been there, but it starts 15 minutes before I get out of work. The day before, they ask if I can work middle shift the next day. Hey, I could make it!!! And, so I did!!! Made it there and visited the Alt 98.7 tent. They had one Woody Show pin left, which they gave me, so cool. They put us in Ravey's section, and our knight gave the first rose to her. We were able to meet up with them after the show. I've met Ravey before, but this is my first time meeting Menace. He's taller than I thought.

And I got one shot of Menace in his natural state, playing on his phone!!!

A Happy Homestuck Day

I took this picture a couple weeks back, with the intention of posting it here.

It's the first time in a while we've made up a shirt. My younger son wanted to make this shirt up, another Homestuck addition. The character is Jake English.

Found out just a couple days ago that today is Homestuck day, the day the first debut of Homestuck. Ten years, it's been, and I've been aware of it for seven of them!!!

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!!!

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..."

You Can't Take The Sky From Me

Another "Looking Back" post I could do at any time would be from Christmas last year. This won't be that, but in passing I'll mention that I did get a new Ipod touch 5th generation, case for the same, and the DVD set of Firefly. If you're not familiar with Firefly... I dare say you haven't spent near enough time on the interwebs. I've heard of it for years, but other than knowing that it was a short lived sci-fi series that was supposedly THE BEST SHOW EVAR and having seen some pictures of Serenity, (and knowing that it spawned the big screen release "Serenity") knew not much about it. Had my wife wrap it up, and write the tag "To: Daddy & the rest of the House Nerds". Going in cold, I have to say, it truly lives up to the hype!!! I've been taking my time, and am only up to the 6th episode because I'm trying to make it last. I have since picked up "Serenity", too, so I've got that to look forward to. Don't get me wrong, I really like my new Ipod, but I LOVE Firefly!!!

So, if you follow this blog, you know I often put something on my water cup, then use the same cup for a week or so. The last one I did, I put the second part of the line from the episode "Safe" that goes, "Today we were kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever!!!" Most everyone who saw it was greatly amused.

At the end of last week, I put this design on my cup, from the pilot episode. This has also gotten positive reviews. A few weeks back I came across the pair of toy dinosaurs pictured that have built in voice boxes that recite this dialogue. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!!!"

In other amusements, I took the most famous Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff comic and modified it a bit & put in on a T-shirt. I took the last two frames off, took a square from the left bottom and repeated it in a stripe on the bottom, and put the last line of text under it, as well as modifying the text in the first two panels to be more work friendly (AND work related!!!) It's a pretty lame comic, but most everyone who reads it laughs like crazy!!! My older boy got a white shirt with red sleeves that he plans to add Dave Strider's broken record logo to. If you're keeping count, that will make six Homestuck themed shirts in our house!!!

Looking Back III: 13 Shots from LACMA

Back in last October, my firstborn had the option for some extra credit in his art class for visiting one of a few local museums. We opted for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In case you ever wondered, outside is where several of these cool art deco street lights go to die. If you look close, you can see where it looks like there is either a wedding wrap up or photo shoot going on.

Paid our admission, then went to head in. There's an escalator going all the way to the top of a four or five story building, and go to head in. Closed. Went down a level, and it's only open to a private party. Not making much of a first impression.

Finally back to the ground level, and there's an area we can actually get into!!! First thing is a long, twisty... wall. OK. Next thing was a wall with plastic panels, red, green and white, with florescent light tubes behind 'em. Once again, OK.

Third thing we came to, paydirt!!! Finally something awesome!!! Chris Burden's "Metropolis II".

So, that's something I took the most pictures of. Large format, with a ton of tiny details. Very nicely done!!!

Obligatory selfie in some of the mirrored detail...

And an overhead shot, including the boy. Since it was nearly Halloween, he was wearing a good deal of his Vriska costume. That was part of the assignment, get a picture of yourself with one of your favorite exhibits. In case you haven't figured it out, it's got a couple of conveyor ramps up, four wide, for Hot Wheels type cars, then they split into separate tracks and gravity race down, as well as having some train tracks running through. There's an area inside where the operator can squeeze in and run the thing. Wasn't going when we got there. I asked the docent if I could get in and play with it. She said no, but they do run it a couple times a day, which we'd already missed. There's a few videos of it going on the Youtubes.

Attempted to go to the building across from it, and it was closed to the public, too. A bit farther down also yielded nothing we could get in on. The opposite direction had an exhibit of South Pacific-Polynesian artworks.

The ones pictured here seem to use a lot of actual human skulls, the first shot looking like someone fashioned them into whimsical key chains!!!

Up a level from there, they had a nice exhibit on German Bauhaus art. I think I enjoyed this part of the museum most.

One more shot of the student with some art. Another part of the assignment was to talk to someone who works there about their favorite pieces, and why. He did, but they were closing up and we didn't get to go check out what the girl said were some of her favorites.

On the way out, around the side, there was this odd one, several yellow tubes suspended from an overhead frame. Interesting, but it struck me as probably being pretty grubby, with everyone walking through it.

So, how did he do on the assignment??? He is already doing quite well in the class, so he didn't really need it that bad, which is a good thing, because he was supposed to turn in the receipt for admission as another part of it. Guess I missed that part, because I tossed it out.

Parents can be so irresponsible.