Street Cred

A few weeks ago was the younger boys' birthday. He had some friends over and we had pizza, cake and ice cream. He and his friends played around and goofed off. There was even a recreation of the Trololo Sing Along (because that's what you do on your 14th birthday)

As you can see, the cake was styled with the Rooster Teeth logo. This ties in to what he'd decided he wanted for his birthday, a Rooster Teeth skateboard deck!!!

Of course, had to get wheels & trucks to complete the rig. Came out pretty good!!! Unfortunately, it didn't come with hardware to hold the trucks on, so I got them from my work the next day. Stainless fasteners, and some gray grippy tape, too.

He's been getting some practice on it since then, and is getting proficient on it. It's a much better board than the last one he had.

So, last week we'd gone out for some dinner. He brought his board along, because he knew the place we were going to has a parking lot that's usually mostly empty on the one side. After we eat, he's out there skating around.

Around the time we were getting ready to head out, he sees a break in the curbs around the parking area, around a foot wide by three or so long, like for a water drain channel. "Hey, should I try skating through there???" Yeah, sure, go for it!!! He goes... and somehow loses it, and it takes off towards the quite busy main street on the other side!!! Car in the right lane sees it coming and stops. The car in the left lane doesn't. It's rolled all the way to the middle island, and I'm thinking maybe it'll lay sideways along the edge, but no... the next car over rolls over it. Dang!!! He manages to retrieve it, and has had enough skating for the day. I was thinking he was going to have an expensive wall hanging after that, but it fared pretty decent. A couple of splinters coming up, and another area with around an inch long crack. I glued it back where it had been. It also has a tire track across the end now.

Now there's some serious street cred!!!

Best Halloween Ever???

As usual, I've got a backlog of posts I could do, but I'll start with this one, this year's Halloween post!!!

Start off with the pumpkins. I attempted to do the Red John smiley. It kinda came out. My wife did a pretty good cat face, I think it was the best of the three. The younger did a Derpy-O-Lantern. The older, we got him a pumpkin, but he never got around to carving it up. If it hasn't started rotting from the inside, I may cut it open and harvest the seeds. I was thinking just today of cutting it in half through the middle, and that gave me an idea for next year: try and find a large, round one, cut it most the way in half with a round part on the front, paint it up like a pokeball. Find another, smaller one and carve it up as your favorite pokemon and have it inside the larger one!!! There, I typed it out so I may remember next year!!!

He had pretty ambitious plans for his costume. Vriska, another of the trolls from Homestuck. It features some rather tricky looking horns, and one rather elaborate robot arm. He got the arm together pretty good, but never got the horns made up. It also has the hair, which we found him a pretty good wig for. He made up a stencil for the shirt and did it with spray paint.

The weekend before Halloween his DJ club was spinning the platters for a school dance, where several in attendance were dressed up. His ladyfriend was dressed up as a spider witch, which he said went well with his costume, the spider bitch!!!

Halloween night, he went out with several of his friends instead of going with us. He said one of his group hugged Slenderman. He and another girl were playing catch up with with the rest of the group when a bush jumped out and says, "What's the rush???" The girl shrieks. He stands there a few seconds, then points at the guy (in a ghillie suit) and announces, "You're a BUSH!!!" From there, there was speculation as to whether he was Senior or W Bush, to which bushman responded he was neither. You could tell he enjoyed his evening.

Of course, it was a work day for me. I reprised my costume from last year, Karkat. This year, for a change, I had a picture of him pulled up on my 'pod to show people how he looks, and they all agreed it was me. Of course, we've got a LOT on new people at work these days, so a lot of 'em hadn't seen last year, so I had that going for me. Unlike last year, however, a bunch of people dressed up, so that was cool. One of my favorites was the girl who came in with a full bee outfit on!!! The cafeteria even got all decorated up with lights and everything!!!

It was full dark when I got home, and the younger was antsy to get going. He had another very geeky costume idea he wanted to do, Ruby Rose from the RWBY series (so, if you're keeping count, both my boys cross-dressed for Halloween...)

We found him a red hoodie this year, and added on a cape, and I made up a rather dissapointing gun scythe.

I'm used to my wife not doing much at all, but this year she surprised me by having cat gear on when I got home, so she got in on the act for a change. We headed out arount the neighborhood.

Usually there's not too many kids around the area trick or treating because it's mostly all steep, but there were more than I've ever seen this year!!! It's a good one to do, because even though several places don't participate, the ones who do are usually pretty generous!!! Saw a parent done up in full on old school Joker from Batman. One house we were coming up on had probably a dozen kids coming the other way. One guy, probably around 12 or 13, came up to me and asks if I'm Karkat. I fived him for knowing that, and told him of my older going as Vriska. Yeah, by degrees, the neighborhood is getting geekier!!!

A bit further down, we come to a house with a lit jack-o-lantern outside and lights on, but it's down a series of steps. Obviously, they're participating, so we head down and knock and say the magic pass phrase. No one seems to be home, though, and as we're turning to go, here comes a little kid in a storm trooper outfit, minus the helmet. He's saying something about he needs his silver bowl, and we're wondering what that's about. Naturally, I had to use the line on him, "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper???" Shortly after, his mother and little brother start down the steps. Turns out they live there, and had set out a rather large silver bowl full of candy, and someone abscounded with their bowl!!!

A bit later on, we came to a house that's the most done up we've seen. We walk up, and they invite us in, ask if we want any water bottles or some of the crock pot of chili they've got made up!!! I'm there. They were having a little Halloween party, and it was pretty excellent!!! The chili was pretty decent, too!!! We were probably there for close to half an hour!!! Just a few houses further, and there's ANOTHER Halloween party going on, and they invite us to have some hot dogs or help ourselves to their libations!!! We didn't, it was getting late late, and I had work the next day. I'm thinking of taking the day off next year. Truly one of the best Halloweens I've seen in our neighborhood!!!