Winter Wrap Up Random

So as usual, there's been a lot that goes on!!! Figured I'd go random and encapsulate a bit of it!!!

I'd mentioned that I bought a new set of tires for Kutcher, and took 'em to get aligned. I had the whole motor mounts fiasco with that, and still had the rest of the front end to rebuild. I bought all the stuff, and managed to get it done in two days, one for each side, with nearly no damage to myself!!! It was before our anniversary getaway, I saw and took this picture of a bruise I'd given myself while we were on that trip.

I was making good progress, and would have continued onto the other side, but this time of year the sunlight fades far too early. Plus side, the weather was good for it!!! Don't think I've ever mentioned, but I bought myself a cool little LED work light years ago. It has a built in battery, and came with a wall and 12-volt chargers. I broke it out when it started getting dark, but I think it was the first time I've tried to use the 12-volt charger, and it isn't working. Not long after we got Sidney, he hopped up on the counter and ate through the wall charger cord. I had bought some sleeving to re wire it with an armor coat. I laid it on the floor to take a picture of the light and the repair, and Sid had to come along and posed with his victim!!!

Here's one of my favorite new shirts that I've recently bought from a thrift store, the Polaroid of Shrek and Donkey after they've just listened to the “Welcome to Duloc” animatronics!!!

The final segment of Scruffy's dashboard lights finally decided to get with the program!!! Looks good!!!

Sidney is as people cat as ever, even though he never become the shoulder cat I'd hoped. Younger will pick him up and baby carry him, he's been doing it since we got him, and he... tolerates it. He's not really much of a lap cat, either, except when I'm in the bathroom!!! He's also a big fan of sink drinks. He does leave his mended leg sticking out straight when he's lounging, though, I hope it doesn't bother him. Got this shot of him sitting with it sticking funny, and a cat yawn!!!

I've picked up a few more books to read. I was in the midst of one when I bought The Left Hand of Darkness, and my wife thought it looked interesting, so she had started in on it. I don't remember exactly when it was, but I always watch Jeopardy, and one of the contestants was a science fiction book fan, and said that it was her favorite, so that was the impetus to get it. I have yet to start in on it, because when I finished the one I was reading, my wife had it. She's since declared it “too weird”, so it's next, but in the meantime I'd picked up Wuthering Heights, since it's one of those classics that's spoken of often. I read it, and was able to track it without any difficulty, but it seemed like a bit of a slog reading through it. I see there's a movie of it coming out soon. I don't think I'll be going to see it. Atlas Shrugged, I'm reading right now, and within the first few pages, I knew I'd like it!!! It is just so well written!!! I'll probably be reading more Rand in the future!!!

I'd mentioned looking into getting a Kangol hat, just because it was mentioned in a Counting Crows song, so of course they keep coming up in my suggestions. I went back and looked again, and once again didn't see any I'd be willing to pay the asking price for, but there was one that had “Make an offer” as an option, so I did, and now I've got a Kangol hat!!! It was a reasonable price to me, but still may be one of the most expensive hats I own!!! So far, I've worn it once.

We made a follow up trip to the junkyard!!! Primarily, it was to get the $10 core for the hood, but they also had the correct year Saturn SL2 there, and I was able to get the bumper bracket. Not mentioned on that post, surrogate had it parked at his work, and something fell over and cracked the passenger side fender, so we were finally able to get a replacement fender as well. I put the bracket on, but the fender still needs sanded down and painted, then installed. I think the window for the core on it will expire soon, if it hasn't already. Anyway, a couple of cars over was a Cadillac, with a full set of center caps. I didn't know if they would fit, but I grabbed them anyway. Unfortunately, when I was trying to get them off, one of the faces came loose. I used double stick tape on the back of it and got it back in place, but it's since parted ways. They extend a bit wide, but at least I had a full matching set for a while!!!

I bought this shirt at the same time I got the Shrek and Donkey one. They were both tagged with the color that was on sale for $1.99 that day, and I liked the design on this one. I tried to use the Google Lens to translate it (since I didn't want to have something I didn't know what it was, or if it was somehow offensive) and it came up with something like “Let summer bloom”, which sounded good to me, but I found out later it's a Bad Bunny album title, more something along the lines of “A summer without you”. Cool artwork.

For Halloween the younger wanted to go as a character from Team Fortress, the Scout. I think there had been talk among his friends to go as various characters, but that didn't happen. We went to the thrift store to try and find some headphones, and located some black and white shoes and the red shirt. I hacked off the one side, and fabricated a boom mic with some wire and a cork.

Surrogate went as a bank robber from another video game franchise, and another friend of theirs re purposed the goat skull mask from a couple of years ago.

On the same shopping trip that I got the aforementioned sale shirts, I also saw an aloha shirt with gray tone background. I took a closer look, and the print is of different colored monorails!!! Sold!!!

7-11 has been featuring Mountain Dew Pitch Black on tap. I quite like it!!! It's been a regular go to for me for a while now. Don't believe I've ever mentioned, we've been to Applebee's a few times, and they have a Dark Berry Bash flavor there that I also really like. Interestingly, the Pitch Black flavor is actually a fairly light blue color!!!

We went to Subways for the first time in quite a while recently. When it was topping time, I told the sandwich artist to give me as many olives as he was allowed to, and he came through with flying colors!!! I had to take a picture, then I whispered to surrogate, “This is going in the spank bank!!!” I usually don't tip at fast food places, but for all those olives (he did my wife's up proper, as well) I stuck some in the tip jar!!!

I was out in the yard recently, and Candy Pain drove by in what I assume was the same Toyota she had before. The fuzz has been removed, and it's been painted red, with a Coca Cola swoop on the the side and her name. It was there and gone before I could even think of taking a picture, and the only ones I've been able to find have the old look.

We had Thanksgiving at my mom's retirement home. She reserved a private room, and we had our own server. It wasn't that late, maybe noon or so, but you know, old people apparently eat early. They had traditional Thanksgiving fare, but when the server gave us the menus, he apologized and said they'd already run out of turkey. He was taking our order, and my mom asks for turkey. Once again, he apologizes and says they're out of turkey. My mom replies, "Oh. Well, I'll have the turkey!!!" I don't think her hearing is very good. Afterwards, we headed out to the patio and played a couple of card games, then played a Jeopardy card game my wife had given me for Christmas a couple of years ago that we hadn't played yet. I took the first game in a runaway, then played Alex for the next round, and the younger took that game, also in a runaway!!! Makes a dad proud. I'd also brought a game the older had down in the basement, Cards Against Humanity. We'd played it before with surrogate, and maybe Wolf of Cheese Ball (or maybe both, it was a while ago) but my wife and mom had never played it. We had a blast!!!

We have a friend who is a single mother (of 5!!! and recently adopted an infant from someone who couldn't properly care for him!!!) who was having some car issues. She said her brakes needed work, and when she had a tire replaced recently, the guy told her the bushings on one of the front control arms were shot. I offered to do the brakes and replace the control arms (figured both sides would probably be in similar condition), and did it a couple weeks ago. I had some difficulty, but nothing like the motor mounts fiasco. Got another nice bruise, this time on my arm, so I get a chance to show off my tattoo!!!

I had gone out to get some burgers back in October, and stopped in at the Arco AM/PM for some beverages, and it had burned!!! It didn't take the whole place out (amazingly) but it charred the underside of one awning and melted the sign!!! They had the point of origin pump boxed up with plywood, and have yet to do anything with it. I told the girl at the counter I was glad I wasn't around when it happened!!! I have a history with fires at Arcos...

When I was doing Kutcher's front end, I had the windows down and the radio playing, which is what I usually do while I'm working on a car. When I finished up, the battery was low enough that it wouldn't crank. I boosted it, and didn't have an issue from that point on. A few weeks later, surrogate and the younger had borrowed it, and had left the lights on while they got some lunch, and once again, the battery was too low to crank. They jumped it, and had no more issues, but I was wondering about the battery's condition. I stopped in at an Auto Zone and had them check it, and they said it indeed was beginning to fail. It was a 3 year warranty battery, and I asked when I'd bought it. They said it was three years back in July or August, so it was out of warranty. It was still working, so I let it go while I shopped around to see if I could locate a Die Hard battery. It doesn't appear that you can get them anymore, but I found that Wal Mart has a AGM battery with a 4 year warranty for $20 less than the 3 year Auto Zone battery!!! Sold!!! I had it shipped, and it has a $12 core that I still need to cash in on.

And finally, the second shirt I picked up on our anniversary. It's a Detroit Muscle shirt, and it has a lot written on it, and the profile of what looks like a 30's sedan delivery rod. It's roomy on me, and has a faint smell of oil to it which doesn't go away no matter how many times I wash it. Which I kind of like.

Instant Art

I've once again picked up a few shirts, and have been taking pictures to share them here.

This is one of them, a Christmas shirt from King's Hawaiian. This was the shot of the front, it has a Christmas tree with the King's Hawaiian logo on the top. Could be a Christmas sugar cookie.

Photos had done one of their “pop out” effects, and I'd been planning on using that when I posted about it.

I enjoy King's Hawaiian, and have always liked the Bing Crosby classic, Mele Kalikimaka, and it has a Hawaiian themed snow globe with a plate that says Mele Kalikimaka on the base. That's probably got a lot to do with what sold me on the shirt!!!

Today, photos offered to do a remix of a photo. This was a new one to me, I'll take a look. It's got several styles to re imagine the picture. The one that looked best to me was the drawing style, so I gave it a try. Came out pretty good!!!

That came out pretty good, I'll try another!!! This style looked nice, but it came out with an outdated Halloween theme!!! Not bad, but I feel like all it kept was my face!!!

Next I tried a 16-bit style one, it also came out pretty good!!! I noticed that it actually kept the Christmas tree, but flipped it to the other side and swapped the King's logo for a star!!!

This one was the last I tried, I feel like it kept my face pretty close, but semi cartooned the rest of me!!! And what's with the arm tattoos???

OK, that was fun!!! Let me see what else it can do... Not long ago, Sid was balled up on the perch, and I went to take a picture. Of course, he doesn't cooperate, but I got a decent picture of him peeking over the edge. Let's see...

Tried the illustration kind of look, and even not seeing his lower part it got the markings location right, but the color was off.

Since I liked the style it had done for me, I tried it as a drawing on lined paper, and once again, it came out pretty good, even though he lost his original pose for all of the generations.

Finally, I had it do it as a claymation kind of look!!! The colors are still off, but I still like the result!!!

Good times!!!

Happy Get Day II

Happy 2nd Get Day to Sidney!!!

I caught him waking up while he was up on the perch. The perch has become his regular afternoon napping spot, often with the toe beans hanging over the edge!!!

Pictures was kind enough to make a collage of the day we got him!!! Every picture from the post when we got him was included in the collage!!!

Back when I had my broken foot, I wasn't taking showers at first, so I had moved a chair into the bathroom to sponge bath myself. Of course, Sid was sure it was meant to be a new napping spot for himself.

He's still very much a people cat, and very friendly and playful. He's not much of a lap cat, though, with one exception. Whenever I'm sitting in the bathroom, he gets up on my lap!!! Always starts out snuggly and lovey, with lots of purrs and licks. But almost always, the licks progress to nibbles and bites, and grabbing on with his fore paws!!! He's considerate with his grabbing on, though, it's always with his claws retracted, and he's always purring while he play fights. Bites are one of his love languages!!!

ReDecorating

I had made mention of a couple of items recently. One was that I would likely be replacing my printer in the near future. The other was the lack of content I've had recently.

Well, I took care of both of them today!!! I was going to try and scan a form the other day, and I couldn't get my printer to get past the “Print Head Not Installed” portion. I messed with it for a few minutes, then called it, and ordered a new one!!!

I stuck with Canon, since I've been happy with the one I had, present experience excluded. Got a Canon Pixima G6020, another all in one with print, scan, and copy functions. Since it's a much newer model, it's also wirelessly connected, and since ink has been a major expense with my previous printer, this one is an ink tank model with big reservoirs. Oh yea, I can also scan and print from my phone now, as well.

As a side note, I had long ago mentioned the artwork on my file cabinet upon which my desktop computer tower and printer have always sat. Never had an actual picture here, only a link to a page on a long gone Geocities site. When we were living in Long Beach, my wife had saved up and bought a set of chairs and a love seat that were black with blue and maroon pattern shapes all over them, and when I got a 2-drawer file cabinet, I painted it black, and hand painted similar blue and maroon pattern shapes to match. The chairs and love seat are long gone, but the file cabinet remains, so I've included it in the picture here!!!

A little over 12 years ago, I had painted the bathroom in a black and white theme. My dad made up the custom painted toilet seat that has been the base for many of the pictures posted on this blog, and when I'd painted it up, I picked up three black 5”x7” picture frames, with the idea that I could rotate in various black and white pictures. (The only picture that actually shows much of the black and white was the third on this post) The first three, I printed out pictures of Mochi sleeping on the top of the cat tree, Leo relaxing in the sink, and a vertical picture of both their paws. I'd added the picture frame effect in Paint Shop Pro, and had them printed at WalMart. Well, those pictures have stayed there since that day, until today!!!

After setting up my new printer and printing the test page and a test picture, I printed out these pictures to replace the old ones. The first two are from out Texas trip from a few years ago, both taken in Galveston. The first was looking out from the window of the Best Western (second picture from the end of this post). The next was on the beach on the Gulf of America (the final picture on this post). When I saw both of these pictures, I knew they'd work great for the theme I was using in there!!!

For the third, I kept with the theme of having a cat picture. I used Sid's X-ray showing the repair!!! Hey, it cost me a lot of money!!!

Sid's Tube

Cat toys are always hit and miss. You may see something you think your cat will love, and they all but ignore it. You can have some trash you're throwing away, and they'll pull it out and have the time of their lives!!! But sometimes, you'll get something they'll love!!!

Some time ago, my wife ordered a collapsible fabric tube, about cat-sized diameter by around 2 feet long. He loves his tube!!! Every time someone would come into the room, he'd race over to it and stick his front into it!!!

So when she located this one, it was a no-brainier. It's the same idea, spring loaded rings around cat-sized, but it's about 8 feet long with a S-bend to it. It also has a couple of windows cut out of the sides.

Predictably, he loves this one, too!!! Once again, whenever anyone comes into the room, he heads for his tube, and sticks his front end in.

I'll put my foot into the other end, and move it around a little. He'll do the cat butt wiggle, then launch himself into the tube like a spring loaded Tigger!!! Sometimes he'll collapse the tube to around half it's length!!!

He'll also reach out the side windows and bat and claw at you. It's great to see our boy having fun!!! I don't think I'd mentioned, but before he broke his leg, it seemed like he was growing out of his kittenhood, but after he got out of the cage, I feel like he had the mindset that he's going to play like a kitten every day!!!

Buffalo Milkin' It

Welcome to what could be the final post about last years' Catalina vacation. I was actually just a few days ago looking at rental properties there again, possibly for this year's vacation. I looked at several that include a golf cart, but so far I'm leaning towards trying to get the same place again!!! I had been thinking of making a couple of posts, one with the other travelers fashion, and one with some of the animal life we saw, but there really wasn't a lot of the latter (at least, that was still living!!!)

I've made mention of all these, first up is my wife's coat of many colors. Nice design. After I took the picture, I realized she had layered it with a hoodie that I got her a year or two ago over there as well, also at Yoshi's.

Next up is surrogate son's Stinky's Fish Tacos shirt. Had to take a picture of the front, where it has the Catalina Island branding.

And, the back side, where it has all the LOLs!!!

And the jacket I got for the younger. I like the colors (even though it doesn't really show great in the picture, it's actually a dark green on the sleeves and top), and on this one the branding on the front features the iconic buffalo outline.

And on to the animals, limited as they are. If this was our crow friend from years previous, he's not as friendly as he was the first time!!! Leo's Drugstore is on the corner down from the place we've stayed most times until recently, and they almost always get some of our money!!! The reason I took the shot with the whole name in it is since my mom's car was out of service, another friend of ours named Leo gave us a ride to the landing.

Took the guys on the semi submarine, and got to see a lot of fish as usual.

And the classic seagull on a post!!!

13 Random for '25

I've got a couple of other things I could post, but I'm going to go a bit random instead. It's been a while.

I've had a couple of trips to the orthopedic surgeon since my 5th metatarsal fracture, the second one just yesterday. I took pictures of my X-rays both times. The break is similar to the first web located one I'd used for that post... only worse. They'd put me in the room with the X-ray displayed before I saw the doctor, and I was thinking for sure I'd be in for surgery from the look and the giant gap in the bone. The doctor came in, looks at it and tells me, “In about 95% of these breaks, I don't recommend surgery...” then he paused, and I was almost certain he was going to say I'd hit the lottery with mine, but he's willing to let it ride as is. He gave me a legit boot, and I kept from using it for the 3 weeks or so in between.

The second trip, to me, the X-rays looked exactly the same, but the doctor said it's growing bone back, see how it's got white there now??? Umm, it's bone, it's always been white!!! He gave me the go ahead to start using it some to walk on, and I've been using a cane. It feels like it's making it ache a little, but it isn't bad. I've heard you're supposed to use it a bit as it heals anyway.

This was kind of funny, in Pokemon GO, when you do a raid it displays various achievement cards I guess you'd call them. A week or so after I broke my foot, I got the card for the longest distance walked the previous day!!!

Since my wife was still recovering from her back surgery in early December, for the first time since I've been working there, I didn't take her to the company Christmas party. I took the younger son instead. It was at the Aquarium of the Pacific again, and I saw on the itinerary that there was going to be a sea otter show, so we showed up for that.

On the way in, they routed us around the side into the back, where they've got the shark pools. This ray was huge!!! The water magnification makes it hard to judge, but I'd say 10 feet across!!! They also had some fish swimming around in the same tank that had a horn protruding from their heads. I asked the girl who was giving the talk about the various displays about them: “The fish with the horns in here, baby narwhals, right???” She said they were. Can't tell if serious or trolling.

There have been fires raging around here, in no small part because of our stupid local and state government. Of course, that means lots of red flag days, which prior to this they've had 3 other times this season. On the day we were coming back from our anniversary trip, those rat bastards called one, ticketed and towed Scruffy and the Falcon before we were able to get home. Cost over $800 for all that, and of course it wasn't even windy in our area. For this one... the first night they were going to be calling it, it actually did get a good wind whipped up. I was sure it was going to break at least one of our trees, but it didn't. Of course, I was in no condition to drive. Our neighbor was going to help moving the cars to where they don't have the parking restrictions, but instead drove one to the next street over, where they have the same restrictions. Then the battery in Scruffy was dead. Long story short, my wife drove the Falcon for the first time in ages, and my younger son, who is as of yet still unlicensed, drove two others.

Anyway, this is a picture of the first morning. I start at 6 AM, and it's usually dark out when I do, and by 7 AM it's light. Didn't even realize until they mentioned on the radio, it was still dark out. I stepped out at around 8 and took this picture. I've had a little cough ever since, and a low level wheeze. It was just the first night of it that we had any wind, but that hasn't stopped them from having a near constant red flag alert. They dropped it for a couple of days, but it's back on. Knee jerk, I think, at this point.

Towards the end of last year, the ceiling fan in the bedroom stopped turning on. First, checked the remote battery, and that didn't work. Next, I pulled the wall switch to see if it was getting juice, and it was (I'd not long before added a timer switch for the bathroom fan, and the wiring backs up to the bedroom). Finally, I dropped the ceiling trim ring, and hard wired past the remote receiver. That did the trick. Tried bypassing to the fan motor while I was at it, and it was fine as well. Found a replacement remote and receiver, and had it mailed, and installed it, and it's all good now. Oh, and now I've got a timer function!!!

For Thanksgiving, we went to our friends' house where they were hosting a get together pot luck. I brought pulled pork and buns and slaw, and it was a big hit. Some other friends that have moved to Arizona were there, and they brought their sphinx cats!!! My wife came (the day after she got out of the hospital, after which she didn't leave the house for quite a while) and was reclined on the couch most of the time. The sphinxes are very cuddly!!!

Look at that, without all the fur, you can actually see the brain wrinkles right through their skulls!!! Also pictured is another recent shirt my wife got me, it says, “It's not easy being my wife's arm candy, but here I am nailing it!!!”

A couple more Catalina vacation notes. Since my wife doesn't get around too well on her own, we always take her wheel chair. It's about the only place we take it all the time!!! Since we were taking surrogate son, fitting it in our car would be near impossible, so we borrowed my mom's car. Brought it to our home, and after climbing the hill, it blew off it's upper radiator hose!!! Now, for some back story, near the beginning of last year, she'd had an incident where she said it was smoking. I don't know if it was the leaky transmission pan, oil pan, or a cooling system issue, but she took it to what I've long considered to be a shady mechanic, Gretchen's Automotive, near her house. They came out with a huge laundry list of things that needed to be done totaling thousands of dollars, “Or, I'll buy it off you for $1,000, I've got a son who needs a car...” and she was going to do it!!! It doesn't have many miles on it, and she recently had the transmission rebuilt. I was pissed!!! One of the things they'd said was it needs new radiator hoses, and before she was able to back out of it (the theft of her car, that is), they'd replaced them and supposedly flushed and refilled the system, and they charged her nearly $300 for just that!!! I told her she'd never authorized the repair, since she'd used her charge card call them up and dispute the charge. She wouldn't. Anyway, there you go, you to Gretchen's Automotive in Long Beach, and they'll screw you and do a crap job of tightening your radiator hose clamp!!! Gretchen's Automotive, where elder financial abuse is the name of the game!!!

This was in the window of the place across from where we were staying in Avalon. A ghost tours place. Creepy.

We gave one of the youngers' friends a plush for her birthday, Alan from Smiling Friends. As we'd hoped, she likes it a lot, and sent a picture with the message, “He will sit next to my Perry!”

Sidney is always messing with the trash can in the bathroom. Usually it's just knocking it over, or messing around with the liner. A few weeks ago, though, he pulled the liner our, and jumped into it!!! He was just laying in there, purring!!!

We got dinner from Panda Express a few weeks ago, and this was my fortune. They gave me the title of a Killers song for my fortune. I feel like I was RickRolled by a cookie!!!