Interior Design

Welcome to the day after Christmas post!!! What a Christmas it was!!! I don't think I've posted about it here, but around the time we were swapping engines, my mom ended up having to go into the hospital. From around the time my father died, she had been having quite a bit of pain in her hip. Turned out to be pseudogout, and she had surgery for it. While she was in a rehab place, her implanted defibulator went off, and after that they didn't want her going home unless there was someone else there. I asked my first born if he thought he could handle it, and he's been living with her ever since!!! She says he takes very good care of her, and he's always cooking something fancy up. Anyway, we'd had Thanksgiving at her house, and that was overwhelming for her, so she wanted to come to our house for Christmas. My sister and her son also came, as well as my wife's uncle. Said uncle and I were out on the back patio when my mom and firstborn showed up, and we were heading down to give her a hand up to the house, as the street is sloped, and then there's the stairs. While we were on the way down, she got out of the car, and promptly fell over!!! Got her up, cleaned off the pine needles and detrius, and got her an ice pack. Apparently, she's doing much better today. Later on in the afternoon, the cat attacked my nephew and sister!!! My first born ended up getting a long scratch down the length of his arm while breaking up the attack, then, appalled at the state of the cabinet under the sink while my wife searched for gauze, re-organized that!!!

But back to Christmas and the topic at hand for this post. The younger had been mentioning that he'd like to get a New California Republic flag from the Fallout game series. I picked up on that, and had one thing to get for him for Christmas. We hung it in his room that very day.

And, while on the topic of hanging things up, at the same time I went ahead and hung up this tapestry he'd come across back before his last birthday, which we got for him back then. I knew I had a box of screw in hooks, but I couldn't locate where they'd gotten off to!!! Bought another box, and a week or two later, I came across some loops with clips on 'em, which I thought would work out good for hanging it. That was a long time coming!!! I'd actually written it down on a list of things to do after I got off work, along with painting the front steps that I recently had replaced, just a couple of weeks ago.

I was trying to get a picture with them in it, but they were showing up as white when I tried. Last year for Christmas we'd gotten him an LED rope light that you can adjust the color by remote with. Orange is his favorite color, so that's the color he almost always has it on. Originally, we'd stuck it to the celieng with the enclosed adhesive squares, but that lasted less than a week. That's where the first box of hooks came in, screwed several in, and have the rope swagged around the room with them. It makes the tapestry look pretty nice!!!

One of his friends had visited, and noting that his room is the only one with the wood paneled walls, that it's like a man cave!!! Got manny in there, too!!!

Ain't My First Dodecahedron

They did the design contest at my work that they have had the last couple years again. I had an idea to make a water dish for the cat with a pump that would activate a water stream when the cat would approach. I picked up a drill motor driven pump (because the actual full on pumps are pretty spendy) with the idea of using an old drill with a bad chuck I have. A couple weeks before, I finally got to trying putting things together, and found out it doesn't have the juice to get the water flowing with that one. OK, time for plan B...

As is well documented here, I've made a couple dodecahedrons. Making them is fairly easy, relatively speaking. Since we're kind of working on making the basement into a nerd cave, and all the light fixtures have bare bulbs, I had the idea to make up an acrylic dodecahedron. It took some doing, but the results are pretty cool!!! I'm thinking of trying a light sand blast to see if I can give it a frosted effect, as well as adding the numbers to the faces to give it a real D-12 look.

So, how did the competition stack up this year??? Considerably less so than last year!!! There was one other entrant!!!

They made up a board with the company name made of various things we sell.

My company doesn't like us saying stuff about 'em, positive of negative, on social media sites, so I don't make mention of them, and thusly I don't have a full shot of the other project, just a few of the characters.

With only two entrants, I figured my odds were better than last year. I was a lock for first or second place, I thought!!! A minor minus, they're doing a bit of construction (you can compare last year's shots with this year and see the carnage in the background) so the break room they held it in doesn't get much traffic these days from our department.

The next week they congratulated me, I got first place!!! I went to see the HR girl who was running it for my prize. She had a bag of hair products, some $10 gift cards, a pair of passes to Knotts Berry Farm (which, unposted as of yet, we've been to twice this year!!!) and this: A signed Dodgers jersey!!! She didn't know who'd signed it, but I figured it was pretty cool, and possibly worth some money (not that I'm planning on selling it). Also, I could make up a display frame for it and put it up in the basement to possibly counteract some of the geek!!!

Just one thing left to do, figure out who's signature that is!!!

It's Getting Manny Down Here

My older boy has a group of friends who get together usually monthly or so for a sleepover. Around ten of them. Don't know how much sleeping goes on, they snack & game & watch DVDs & such. He wanted to host next weekend, but I heard how many and nixed that.

He persisted, if he could get the basement somewhat cleared out, could they hold it down there??? Well, two birds with one stone, get some clearing out done and have an area capable of holding 'em all!!! So, he had a few of the guys come over & I bought 'em a giant pizza. Probably can't tell so well, but the first picture is the pizza box pretty much taking up my trunk from wall to wall!!!

The back story on the basement pretty much is that if you have an empty space, you end up storing all kinds of things, things too good to just toss. In other words, of dubious value. I'd always kind of had the idea of cleaning it up and setting it up as the man cave down there.

On the other hand, a lot of the stuff end up damaged or totally obsolete, and aren't much worth anything anymore. Case in point, that sweet super 8 camera down there. Can you even get film for that anymore??? If so, have you got a projector??? Or you could just record & edit it with compact flash memory!!!

I liked the guys who were cleaning out!!! They had an appreciation & love for much of the vintage stuff down there!!! They found my long missing Super Mario Brothers 3 cartridge, then took an hour break to play it on the NES I'd pulled out & hooked up a few months back.

Personally, I wouldn't call it anywhere near useable yet, but it's a start. We've got many cool decorations set up now!!!!

My old Ferrari wall art....

My old lava lamp...

The TV case I'd had the old tube TV mounted in, with a vintage 70's knob tuner TV on top of it, and a old CRT monitor in it...

And a couple of old computer cases on a high shelf...

Not really so useable, but there's a cool built in desk, made back in the 60's probably, but like it was made to set up a desktop computer on!!!

And, finally, a thermoformed plastic head!!! Looks a bit like a mannequin, doesn't it??? Told you it was getting manny down there!!!