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 This style looked nice, but it came out with an outdated Halloween theme!!!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!!!

Looking Back: The Christmas Party

I've got a big ole' backlog of things I could post about!!! I was planning on sitting down and posting about our actual Christmas, but scrolling back through the pictures, I came across some of these, and did a course correction!!! Maybe I'll get to that one eventually, but until then, here's what I've got!!!

Last year, the company had their 'Holiday Party' at one of my favorite buildings, the Westin Bonaventure!!! They had Christmas lights strung up around the tops of the cylinders, very festive!!!

It had been raining, the start of what has shaped up to be a very wet winter, and it was chilly outside.

Got to see a lot of my friends who are still in the warehouse, and a lot of the office crew. It's always nice to see the people I haven't seen in a while!!!

Of course, you can't go to the Bonaventure and not take the epic elevators for a spin!!! The ballroom floor, where the party was being held, doesn't have any elevator stops, so we had to go down a level to catch them.

In the name of security, these days you have to have a room key to get higher than the first few floors. As luck would have it, we caught a ride with someone who did!!! Took it all the way to the top, and got to see the lights up close!!!

On the way out, we went by a wall that had several of the movies that had been filmed there featured.

Good times!!!

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!!!

I'm Dreaming of a Hillbilly Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving I set up the outdoor Christmas decorations. Previous years, I've had Christmas lights, starting soon after we'd moved in with strings of incandescant lights. I bought a few strings, and later found some true vintage ones that came with the house. In the last 5 or 6 years, I replaced those with LED lights. The last couple of years, I hadn't been able to find them, since the firstborn moved into the basement and moved a lot of stuff around. Last year I picked up a laser pattern projector for a very reasonable price. It's a great little device, easy to set up and makes a good look.

Right before Thanksgiving, one of my co-workers had their Christmas tree set up in the background in one of our video meetings. It got a little attention, and got me to thinking... I've got my workspace set up in the corner, one of the best seats in the house, with windows to my left and behind me. I could do some decoraton behind myself, some lights or garland or possibly a wreath, but there's no way I could set up a Christmas tree. Or is there??? The wheels began to turn...

We have aluminum awinings over the windows, and we have a fairly campy and hideous pink artifical tree. A few years back, we replaced pinky with a white one to work with the color wheel that was also in the basement that came with the house. It's fairly lightweight. I took some bailing wire and wrapped it around the upper part of the tree, and suspended it from the awining, just over my left shoulder while I'm working. The second picture, you can see some of the laser projections on the house.

I also bought another string of lights, solar powered LED with a remote, that I used on the tree, as well as about half of the awning along the front. I set the solar panel up on a board under the air conditiong unit for now. I may just keep the lights on the awinings permanent, and if I do, I'll make up a better mount. I'm not sure if I will, the remote doesn't work very well.

When we have our morninig huddle, it's still dark out, so I can turn the lights on for it. It shows up nice in the afternoons on the video, too. My co-workers have voiced their approvoal, and I'm pleased with the way it came out. From the outside of the house, though, I have a feeling it may look more than a little bizzare to passerby!!!

Yule '17

Many days pass away, as always busy as can be at this time of year. Here's a little recap!!!

Started the month off with the company Christmas party. Since the year we had it under the shuttle at the Science Center, it's been the tradition to have every other year at some sort of destination. This year was at Harry Potter land in Universal Studios!!!

That was a lot of fun, first time I've been to Universal out here since they put in Harry Potter, and a lot of other stuff. I'm pretty sure it was 2008 last time I was there. Only time I'd been on the Harry Potter ride was last time we were in Florida, and it was real soon after it had opened, and it was a zoo!!! Don't know if I ever posted about that, we had been staying at the Nickelodeon resort, and had been to one of the two Universal parks there the day before. My wife and the younger boy wanted to take a day off and just stay at the hotel that day, so only the firstborn and I went to that park. Besides the ridiculous crowds in that area, a couple things I remember were the Jurassic Park themed area with water cannons shaped like velociraptor heads, and some indoor area where a bunch of foreign kids laid down for their siesta. But I digress.

My wife doesn't get around walking for any length of time so well these days, so we rented her a wheelchair after we'd walked the half mile or so down City Walk to get in the park. Asked them about returning it after hours, you know, like when the rest of the park is closed and it's just the company party until late. "Oh, no problem, we'll have someone there" they said. You can guess how that went. I wandered deep into the bowels of that area, and when we finally got someone over there, they had issues getting the register back open.

I went on the Harry Potter ride, which was pretty much a walk on with such a reduced amount of people there. Got up to the first projection dome, and the ride broke down!!! Started back up a couple minutes later, but the video for that part didn't go, so we were shaking around and the audio was going, but no visual. On the way out, they directed us to a short cut if we wanted to go again. Three of the four of us who'd been on with me (all bin fillers!!!) did it.

Since I've got a troll living in my basement now, a lot of the stuff down there has been moved around. I'd seen these before, but never set them up. Vintage Christmas decorations, Santa and his reindeer!!! Well, 8 of 9 anyway.

This year I strung my lights to a pole, something I'd done years ago, again, simulating a Christmas tree. I also finally got rid of all the old incandescent Christmas lights I had knocking around which I haven't used in probably 5 years or more, replaced by LED lights. Oh yea, there's a vintage color wheel down there I'd been seeing the box for for years, finally dragged it out and replaced the heat lamp with an LED bulb, and picked up a white tree to change from the super campy pink tree we've been using for years, and used it with the wheel. It's different, kinda nice for a change. That, as well as Christmas morning, I've got on my DSLR card, I'll unload at some point.

Then there was the annual announcement of the profit sharing (480%, very good, and word is next year should be good, too) goody day, and profit sharing distribution day. Should I say here that, with that very generous profit sharing, this is my first year breaking six figures??? Might as well, I don't think hardly anyone reads this. Comment if you do!!!

Just like the end of last year, I'm hearing a lot of people complaining about what a terrible year 2017 has been. I don't get it. Worst I can say about it was I had a few people I know passed.

On Christmas Eve we went to John's Incredible Pizza. They were having a deal, and it was as empty as I've ever seen it!!! They had this cheese bread which was basically pizza crust with cheese. My childhood friend Sean had been sensitive to tomato sauce, claimed it was too spicy for him, so he'd always order pizza with no sauce. In fact, around a week before I heard about his death, my younger was saying how he was one of the most sensitive to spicy food people, and I regaled him with tales of Sean and his sauceless pizzas. At the celebration for Sean, one of the guys who spoke of how he'd order pizza, so on into his forties he was still having it that way!!! Of course, I had to have a slice of their "cheese bread" in his memory.

Last Saturday, Alt 98.7 was doing a meet and greet at a T-Mobil store over on Whittier Boulevard, with Ravey from The Woody Show meeting the plebs. It was 2 till 4, and I am out of work at 3:30 on Saturdays, and it's about halfway between work and home, so I was able to go over and visit. I like all the guys on the show, but after meeting and getting to talk to Ravey in person for a bit, I like her even better now!!! She's cool. Never made a post on it this year, but we'd gone to the Renaissance Faire on the same day she did. Never saw her there, but on the way in the station had a booth set up. They set us up with a couple shirts, that's where I got the sweet #ALLIN shirt in the picture. It's super soft material, too.

The very next day, at John's Incredible, got to meet and take a picture with Incredibear!!!

Out of this World Party!!!

As usual, this time of year gets busy busy!!! Last Thursday was gravy announcement day, and while the amount is less than last year, I'm going to end up with a tad more on account of the raise I got this year, so that's cool. Next Thursday is goodie day, and then actual gravy day. Monday will be extended family Christmas observed day, and then of course Christmas.

The subject of this post, though, is the company Christmas party!!!

Something totally different this year, they somehow managed to book the California Science Center, and the main event was in the Space Shuttle's hangar!!!

They've changed it up since last time we visited (when there was no shuttle there!!!) and now as you enter, you go through a clear tube in a huge aquarium!!!

First shot of the Shuttle shows what it would look like if hippies got hold of it and painted it up like an old VW microbus!!!

Endeavour, it's been a long time since I've seen you in the flesh!!!

It is a bit smaller place than we usually have, and seating was insufficient, but it was still pretty awesome!!! Instead of food being served, they had buffet type stations set up all around the place. I saw three with sea bass before I found anything different, "chicken like lasagna", and then beef short ribs. I partook of them all.

Later, they rolled out desert stations. Coolest thing, they had these CO2 frozen puffs. They instruct you to eat 'em within 20 seconds, and exhale as you do so. As you do, the CO2 makes it's smoke come out of your mouth. I happened to have my mouth closed on one, and breathed it out from my nostrils. I was a dragon!!!

Took me a bit before I realized, they had plaques around the wall in chronological order of all the missions. I had to find the one for STS-118, the one we saw launch!!!

Last shot is how one of the thrusters looks with a disco light behind it!!!

499 Pieces

Here's something else from Christmas: A 500 piece jigsaw puzzle!!!

It's a peacock, very colorful and looked like it would be challenging. It was, but I sometimes enjoy a jigsaw puzzle.

As is oftentimes the case, however, got down to the end and there was one piece missing!!! There's your 499 piece jigsaw puzzle!!!

I circled where it's missing, because it's easy to miss if you don't know where it's at.

In other news, I picked up up a magnetic whiteboard. Figured I could have the boys come up with artwork to post on the 'fridge on a temporary basis. This is the first submission, done by the older boy.

We all know that feeling.

DropShip Like it's Hot!!!

I had meant to include this one in last night's post, even to the point of expressly posing these pictures before I did, but then completely spaced. That's OK, give me a chance to get a jump on starting this year off. Besides, I think the last post had plenty going on.

This was one of the items high on my younger boys' wish list, the Mega Bloks UNSC Pelican Dropship from the Halo series. Not only is it pretty massive, it's pretty cool and pretty detailed.

Of course, I ended up being the one doing most of the construction. Lego does a much better job of organizing the parts, and much of the assembly process was akin to a jigsaw puzzle where you spend more time searching for the right piece than doing the assembly.

Unfortunately, I was just getting the sick when we started. Went for an hour or so, and my headache became unbearable. The ticking of the animated clock decoration on the Christmas tree and my wife's application of Rapture perfume were both exacerbating this condition. I showered off, then soaked in a hot tub of water, then went to bed for several hours. Woke up in the middle of the night and did a little more, then went back to bed.

Did a lot more the next day, and wrapped it up on the third. By that point I'd gotten a clue and was building both sides of mirror image parts, that worked out much better.

In other news, yesterday got a shipment of things I'd ordered from Focal Price for Christmas. Didn't think I'd get it in time, and I was right, but that's OK, everyone liked their swag. Bought lasers for all the guys, a green one for the youngest (very intense beam, and it goes through the batteries), a purple one for myself, and a red one for the first born. The red isn't too exciting, I know, but it has a second button that gives the presser an electric shock. Got more headphones for the older, as he seems to go through them. Got an MP3 player for the younger boy, he'd been wanting one, and it seems to be pretty nice and fairly rich featured. Found a nice watch for my wife. Focal Price has some great deals and free shipping from Hong Kong. I've already thought of another order I need to place with them!!!

Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than the Last

SO much to blog!!! I keep thinking I'll do better, but there's always something else, it seems. Oh well, it is the way of life.

Welcome to my year end wrap up!!! If I finish before 12 tonight, I'll have one more in for 2011!!! I'll go over a little of this & that interspersed with the pictures from this year's Christmas.

Completely unrelated thought, know how some stores (most, I would estimate) shun using the actual word "Christmas" in any of their advertisements and promotions??? Perhaps all us consumers should thusly shun doing any of our actual Christmas shopping at their establishments...

I like the way my son caught my wife giving me the sideways eyes in the first shot.

I think I did all my Christmas shopping online this year...

Bought our cat a catnip apple for Christmas. It's always lost. He never tells where it's at, if he knows.

Seems like work was busy all year. Goodie day came and went, and our department didn't do the T-shirt exchange that we usually do. Kept me from having to find one for a co-worker, usually with only a week or so of shopping time. Gravy day elicited a roar of approval from packing when it was announced to them, moments before our department. Biggest one I've ever had, bigger than everyone was thinking it was going to be, much to our delight. Not too far below the amount it was the one year prior to my arrival that the employees ended up shutting down the local branch of the bank the checks were drawn on because they ran out of cash!!! Signs so far tend to indicate this coming year will be at least as good!!!

Too much zoom in the shot of my wife getting the DVD set of Dexter season 5, boy. Actually, it came out a pretty good effect, though!!!

Now, to get on to non-Christmas related news, and in relation to the post title... Two weeks ago today I was actually up fairly early for a Saturday, when I got a call from my dad. He found my mom keeled over & unresponsive when he got up. She was already on her way to the hospital, and he was heading over.

They managed to bring her around, and the thing everyone (including myself) goes to is a stroke, so that was what they were treating her like. Turned out not to be the case. Arrhythmia and cardiac arrest was what was actually going on. Of course, we visited her that day, but she was heavily sedated and had, among many others, a tube down her throat. Somewhere between 13 and 30 times they've had to defibrillate her to get her going again. THEN she gets infected where they had the IV inserted in her hand, so it was later before they could implant the ICD... Pretty impressive device, they're able to externally adjust it, which they had to do a couple times in the next days. She seems to finally be in fairly good shape.

One bad thing, though, there's been illness within my household, so we haven't been able to visit much. I've called my dad most every day, and my mom several times also. My dad's been there every day, of course. Best Christmas ever, he says. I agree. My oldest sister has been there a lot, too, which is also a good thing.

I'm sure I could say much more, but don't want this post to be nothing but. I think I've covered most of the salient points. Oh, a little insult to injury, she went out with her leg on the little electric heater. Looks nasty, but it's healing up. Oh, another one, one of her rooms at the hospital got flooded out by the toilet. My dad was the one who discovered the extent of that one.

Got my boys a night vision viewer with video capabilities. It's pretty sweet, for the money I paid. I think they managed to delete the one pretty hilaras video of the older boy spooking the younger by coming forth from the darkness.

Massive windstorm last month. Knocked out power for something like four days and blew a sizable branch off the tree, narrowly missing the Falcon. My wife finally finished the book she was working on for a year or more. Had to use watches and phones to wake up. It was an adventure. I was very glad we have a gas heater.

I don't think I saw a single movie in the past year, with the exception of the documentary "Born to be Wild" when we were vacationing in San Diego at the Science Center's domed IMAX theater, and that was included with admission. It's about orphaned orangutans and elephants and the people who rescue them. It was narrated by Morgan Freeman, which was pretty epic. The movie was pretty decent, but you could tell it wasn't designed to be projected onto a dome, it didn't come out right around the edges. Much like facial piercings, I found that to be... distracting. They had another movie coming on after that one that I'd wished I'd opted for instead about storm chasers (which may have been the title of the movie, as well).

The couple of pretty good books I got in this year were one we'd got from my mom, John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Had that for a long time before I got to reading it. My wife started on it, but found it too dark. Got Stephen King's 11/22/63 when it came out, and went through that in fairly short order. It ended, I though, surprisingly upbeat for a King novel. I certainly enjoyed it. I'm currently going through Douglas Adams' HG2G books. I'd long ago gone through at least the first three (and in the middle of the third is where I currently at) but know I never made it through the final one. A couple years back, I think it was, I bought the five in one ultimate one for my first born, and that's the one I'm currently in. The one the seller shipped at first was a collectors edition with photos and such, but not all five books. They made it right, though.

Hey, it's already 2012 on the Eastside!!! Happy New Year!!!

Car news. The last week my wife was working this year, the traitorous starter on Janice went out again, less than three month later. Do NOT buy your starters from Auto Zone, their rebuilders suck. That was what I was going to be doing the weekend my mom went down, so that was delayed. Oh yea, we had been planning on doing the family Christmas the following Monday (I had it off, along with the Tuesday after Christmas as my last personal days) so needless to say that has yet to happen.

The Wednesday following THAT, Baby started showing some problems... First sign was she stalled right after starting up!!! That never happens... Had to two-foot her when coming to a stop and such. Checked forums and it sounded like (along with a previous symptom I'd noticed) a bad coolant temperature sensor. Bought a new one, as well as a fresh set of plugs and wires, the next day. When I went to install it, made the mistake of giving it one too many cranks tightening it down and snapped it off down in the hole.

Didn't want to try and get it out in such an awkward area, so I JB welded it back together. That seems to be doing fine, and it seemed to be working fine until it warmed up, then it was worse than before!!! Limped her home again, and popped the hood and heard what sounded like a major vacuum leak. Turns out both ends of the PCV hose has elbows that were both cracked open. Of course, no one makes anything like that, so I've fabricated a lengthy section of hose and an elbow from one of Janices' repairs. So far it seems fine, but I've yet to drive her any distance. At this rate, that won't happen this year!!!

Counting Crows' "A Long December", in case you didn't get the title reference!!!

And, finally, a little Christmas something for all you that read or happen across my low traffic blog, a shot of my wife's boobs (or at least cleavage) in her Christmas Victoria's Secret push-up bra and pajamas!!!

And to all a good night!!!