Chicken Boy!!!

Haha, I was looking on Google Maps at a place near my home, and happened on Chicken Boy again!!!



Not as good a shot as the one I got, but it's always good to see him!!! Every time we drive by him, we shout out his name!!!

Great Expectations

Lyrics | Great Expectations lyrics

Apropos of nothing, just really like the song...

Momentous Update II

A month or so ago our longtime animal companion went missing. We all wondered what happened to her. She had been getting girthy around the sides, actually looking quite a bit like she had kittens in there. After her disappearance I wondered if she'd hatched 'em, or if she might have had some sort of blockage. A week or so later I found her remains, in surprisingly advanced decomposition.

My younger boy wanted to get another cat from the pound, but he's also often expressed interest in getting a dog. I liked the idea, and was going to look into putting up a fence around our yard to accommodate a dog.

However, when I got home Monday, there was a surprise!!! Someone at my wife's work had a teenage cat, and just had a baby and didn't want to have the two together (guess they were afraid of the cat sucking the baby's breath out...), so they'd brought him to work. My wife took that action!!!



He's the first tom cat we've ever had, and he's quite a character!!! As you can see, he's mostly black, but he's got a white milk mustache!!! White whiskers & eyebrows, too. Nice, long tail on him, usually straight up with the tip flopping over to the side. He's characteristically curious, and still has the playfulness of a kitten. He's plenty sociable, and enjoys curling up in the bathroom sink, or even taking a drink from it, if you'll turn it on for him.



He's got a nice, noisy purr, which he always seems to do when we're getting up in the morning. Everyone really likes him, and he seems to be fitting in quite nicely!!!

Bonus Weekend 3

Over the weekend Runescape had another Bonus Experience weekend. Of course, it was on a weekend that I was quite busy working on Janice!!!



I did manage to log more than six and a half hours, though, and it was profitable. The big one I trained was construction, one of the most expensive skills to train. I led up to the weekend by cutting willow logs and having them made into planks. As soon as the weekend started, I used them up for three levels advancement!!!



I also worked on my slayer assignment, which I leveled on, and just as I was getting ready to leave the area, finished off my last fire giant to complete that assignment!!!

I ran several loads of rune essence to the nature altar until I leveled my runecrafting, and also got a pair of the strange rocks for the Shattered Heart distraction & diversion for that skill.

Finished off the weekend by doing some hunter training, leveling that skill and obtaining the strange rocks for that skill also. As of this evening, all I'm missing for the complete set is one more for cooking.

CupDate: The Truth is Out There

And the truth is this: It's been a long, long time since I've had a chance to do any cup artwork!!! Work has been busy, but last week it seemed like there were a lot less lines per person, even though we were still doing a lot of business. Anyway, I finally had a chance to do some!!!



If you know at all, you will recognize this as a rendition of the poster Fox Mulder had (in his office or room??? Can't remember which) in the X-Files. Even people who aren't familiar with the show like the artwork.

Funny thing, when I googled "I want to believe" to see if I was getting the look right from memory, I clicked on the "shopping" link, to see what it'd have. I expected it to have the DVD of the second X-Files movie, which was called "X-Files: I want to Believe" in the first several slots, but instead most of it was for the actual poster!!! If I ever get the basement cleared out and make up a man cave down there, I'm totally getting that poster, as well as hanging up my wife's "Tombstone" poster.



A funny observation that I noticed when I was first penning this, and several others have noticed since: The saucer looks an awful lot like a sombrero!!! I joke to people who comment to that effect that after I drew the sombrero-saucer, I had to decide if I was going this way, or drawing the Tapitio man!!!



I spent entirely too much time photoshopping the saucer onto his head. Not so effective, actually. I notice that the actual sombrero I took out, the edges look a lot like tire treads!!!

Bonus Birthday

Today and one week ago today we've been celebrating my younger boys' birthday. Last weekend we had a party at my parents' house, with all the cousins, because they are going out of town afterwards.



I think the first cake I made for that event ranks as one of the best I've done!!! He wanted me to do the look of the Halo Reach logo, only replacing the words with "Nine Years".



It came out quite nice, I think, with the exception of the "E" on nine kinda looks a bit like an "O". Nino years???



For this weekend, we invited several of his friends from the neighborhood. Of course, I didn't want to do the same cake, so he said he wanted Super Sonic.



I think this one came out pretty nicely, too!!!

Defying Gravity

A few of the MANY action shots I took today, all the ones I found with their feet off the ground!!!















*With the exception of the one where I caught a ball in flight!!!

A Day in the Park

The weather here has been just phenomenal of late!!! I was thinking the other day that it would be a shame to spend the day inside or just doing things that needed doing like shopping and the like.



I looked up on Google maps to see if I could find a neat looking park to head out and have a little picnic at. I found a real nice one along the foothills, but upon arriving found out that reservations are required. No cost involved or anything, just a required reservation. Perhaps another day we'll return.



We drove down from there and located this large park with plenty of room.



Bonus, just the night before I received the replacement for the camera I'd bought for myself for Christmas. This one cost $13 more that the last kit I'd bought, but it has a 300mm zoom lens instead of the 200mm the previous came with. Brought it along to try it out. So far, the flash still works!!!



I can set it to run mode and whip off a series of pictures in rapid succession. With a couple of under 30 second videos set to the lowest setting and a bunch of those pictures you can quickly fill up a gig of memory!!!

Local Mounties made an appearance.



I found a set of velcro discs & ball set before we left. Makes playing catch considerably easier. We played for about ten minutes before the boys decided playing Tron Legacy with the discs would be more fun!!!



And, in case you wondered, this is how the moon looked today!!!

The Code Companion Cube

Bar codes. They're incredibly resilient. They can be torn in two, or faded to where you can hardly see them, or all dirty, and they are still scannible!!! One of the occasional duties that I end up doing at work is retiring (or as everyone calls it, killing) labels on the containers that get used up. The actual retiring is pretty easy, the time consuming part is peeling the label off afterward.



One of the guys started making his labels into a ball, kept working on it every time it was his turn. Got near to the size of a bowling ball. Said he was going to urethane it and drill it with finger holes when it got to the right size. I said he should get a chain and shackle it to his leg and go around dragging it behind him, see how long that lasts!!! Anyway, many others of us did the same, although none of us got to such a grand scale. I just did one day's worth that came out about the size of a tennis ball. Brought it home and called my younger boy. When he looked my way, I pegged him with it and shouted, "Bar code ball!!!" Well, he fell in love with it!!! He'd get upset when his brother would take it, took it to school, ect. The week before Sammy and I went to the hockey game, I made a puck of labels. I did a few days worth of labels, the last day being a couple days before Christmas, and when one of my friends was admiring it, I replied "Yeah, at least now my kid will have something to play with on Christmas morning!!!" I did it, too, wrapped it up in a box and gave it to my younger boy. My wife was manning my old point and shoot camera while I was shooting video with my SLR, and she got this picture a split second after he'd tossed it in the air and caught it.




So, a few weeks ago I'm killing labels again, and starting another ball. It was kind of lumpy, with a couple flat spots. One of the guys sees it and says, "Everyone does a ball, you ought to make a cube!!!" Challenge accepted. Could this be done??? The flat spots were already close to 90° , so I started on from there. I filled low spots as best I could, and would fold them along the middle and stick it to 2 sides. The corners were pretty soft to begin with, but eventually it came together. Not a perfect cube, but everyone who saw it was quite impressed. The last day I was working on it, this Wednesday, I took some blank labels and colored them red and cut them into hearts on my last break. When I wrapped up for the evening, I applied them to the sides for my own bar code companion cube!!!

It's now on display in the boys' room...

Trash Creek

My oldest walks the neighbor's dog. He enjoys the time with the dog, and he gets a little bit of money out of the deal.



He told me about this area he sometimes takes the dog walking, a place he has dubbed Trash Creek. I thought it was the area he described to me, but I'd never inspected it that closely. He told me of this one area that has a bunch of tires.



Before I sent my new camera back, I had him take me on a tour.



Turns out it was right where I'd thought it was.



And the tires??? I had pictured them just resting in the bottom, but as you can see, someone fashioned them into an effective retaining wall!!!



It was a good hike, and I got to get a few decent pictures as well!!!

Bad Scene at Eaton Canyon

Over the weekend we went for a hike up Eaton Canyon again. I realized as I was preparing for this post (and looking at the previous Eaton Canyon post) it's been almost four years since we were up there!!!



The weather has been excellent, and it looked like everyone else had the same idea!!! The place was PACKED!!! My dad had suggested bringing a change of shoes & socks, as it had been quite wet leading up to this. He'd anticipated the stream being swollen and that we'd end up getting our feet wet.



We probably could have avoided soaking our feet, but it was so crowded that it would take a while crossing on rocks & such, as you'd have to wait for people coming the other way. The stream was a bit fuller, but not that bad.



Of course, the water was freezing. I kept saying, "It's as if they made it from melting snow!!!" My younger boy would complain when he'd get his feet wet. His brother helped him across several times by carrying him on his back. We made it up to the falls and were resting, taking pictures, enjoying the view. The falls, I'd say are 30 to 40 feet, with the canyon walls rising 45 to 55 feet on either side, a classic box canyon.



Now for the bad scene: After we'd been there a few minutes, there's the noise of rocks coming loose and bouncing off the walls. Shortly after that, we hear screaming and crying. Looking over, there's a young teenage girl out cold. Quickly a crowd is gathered around her. I check to see if my phone gets any reception, but no. Fortunately, someone else has better reception that me and calls 9-11. We left pretty quick after that, as did a few other hikers with small kids. Guess no one wants their little kids to have to deal seeing a dead person, or whatever.



It was rather chaotic there, and we're not exactly sure what happened yet. The official story that the local paper had on their site was what we'd thought had happened: She (and other hikers) had climbed up over the falls, and she ended up falling down, and in the process knocking a few rocks loose that ended up raining down on her. We did see people up there, and it seems like an exceeding bad idea. The other stories we'd heard were that she had been down below, and someone above inadvertently loosened some rocks, which fell of her, or they were tossing rocks down from above. The latter two scenarios seem plausible, as I would have expected to hear some yelling if she'd fallen. Of course, one rap on the head right at the beginning of a fall and you'd be silent the rest of the way.

Anyway, there was just a little bit of blood. The paper's site said she was in serious condition. We got to see the rescue helicopter nice and low on the way out, and saw a couple police and half a dozen firemen, as well as a couple of park rangers heading in as we were on our way out. I looked up the hospital's phone number today and was considering calling and seeing if I could find out any more information, and even toying with the idea of paying a visit. Hope she's OK!!!

Random Recap & The Christmas that Everything Broke

Happy new year to all!!! It's been a while, huh??? Soooo much has happened, who knows if I'll cover it all???



Christmas was good, but a lot of things broke (as you may have surmised from the title) right around then. The week before we were having our famous rain storms, and the top of the pepper tree by the property line and driveway blew off. This was actually something of a win, as we've been gradually working on cutting this tree down for a while, and the top portion is the hardest to get to, and when it fell it was away from the cars & the neighbors' house!!!



There's a shot of my younger boy in one of his Christmas presents, a shirt from Woot! It's got to be one of his favorites, he's worn it almost every day since!!! The colors have grown on me. Boss shirt, boss!!! (He says, "I know.")



We had goody day a few weeks back at work. As usual, it was good, and there were plenty of leftovers. I ended up taking home two 12-packs of soda and the remains of a cheese ball, among other things. I've been nomming on that cheese ball ever since!!!

The work Christmas party could have been amazing. Instead it was pretty decent. A lot of things could have been a lot better, though. I'm interested to see if they keep the same venue next year.



The sink in the kitchen had been draining slow. I took it apart to clean out the trap & use the hydraulic drain cleaner on the pipe. Turned out the galvanized pipe was all corroded out on the bottom threads. Only about 12 years or so that lasted, I remember replacing it before. Replaced it with some incredibly beefy schedule 80 stainless steel pipe, think it'll outlast the rest of the house!!! Of course, I had to put it back together in the meantime. The garbage disposal stopped working in the interim, sounded like something was jammed in it. This breakdown magically fixed itself, but on the night of the 23rd, while the older was doing dishes, it all came apart, flooding the kitchen with 2 sinks worth or dirty dish water. Before this project was done, I had to replace the P trap, too. Once I got it back together, it had a line of pin holes down one side.



There's a shot of my nephew with a blade from my younger's Lego set. Ever see the Veggie Tales' "The Toy that Saved Christmas"??? My nephew goes by the nickname Louie, so here's your Buzz Saw Louie!!! The only toy featuring an actual working buzz saw built into his right arm!!!

Had a power surge on Christmas morning that took out the stereo amplifier that we run the sound on the T.V. through. I was resigned to buying a new LCD T.V. the next morning. We went out and saw Tron, then I messed with it and another like it I had in the basement when we got home. Couldn't find anything wrong, but when I put it back together, it worked!!! Another problem that magically fixed itself!!!



A couple of shots of pumpkins here... One is my youngests' of Sonic. Of course, I did all the carving and a lot of the gutting. First time I've ever followed a design, and first one I've ever done with the shaving off of the top layer. My pumpkin, I was inspired the day we carved 'em. I was going to the boys' room to get them, and I saw the shells the older had brought back from Florida, along with a couple of blue marbles from inside spray paint cans. I like the way the flash made them glow!!! Somewhere in my video camera are some clips of the annual pumpkin smashing...



Speaking of video, see the shot of me with my new camera??? A real nice Pentax I bought for myself. It'll shoot a video HD enough to choke your laptops' meager video capabilities!!! It also features in body image stabilization to help keep the price of lenses down. I'm quite pleased with it... except... after about half a dozen shots, the built in flash stopped working!!! At least it's still under warranty...

One of these pictures is of my dad with our Christmas present to him, a gas tank that I'd had in my panel truck. Hope it works better for him than it did for me!!!



There's a shot of the cake I did for my nephew's birthday. If you don't know, that's Wubbsy. My sis started with him, then changed to Sponge Bob. I've done too many Sponge Bobs, so I stayed with Wubbsy, only with Bob's pants on him. Why??? That's why his tail is in the form of a question mark!!!

I know another thing or two broke around then, but I can't remember what....

New year's resolution: I resolve to blog more!!!

Freeloadin'

What a day it has been!!! Prepare for the run on sentence of the description of my day. Last week the kitchen sink developed a bad leak to where it was running all the time, so when I got up this morning I shut the water off & pulled the stem inserts out of it (might as well replace the whole thing it's been years & they could use it) so I went to the hardware store & got one for each side as well as new seats & I saw on the opposite wall they had a valve replacement for the toilet so I picked that up too since ours sometimes doesn't seal & runs just a little & while we were out dropped off 3 bags of outgrown clothes & shoes at Goodwill & bought some milk & then got home & Janice was losing coolant so I was going to look at that too since I couldn't very well add water until I put the sink back together so I did that first it works better than it has in years & the older boy was going to take the trash & recycling down while I was working on that because the ants are after it (the heat drives 'em indoors & it's been really hot the last week or so) & the security screen wasn't opening & he was blaming his brother for locking the door but I knew that didn't happen like that & I eventually stopped working on the sink & went around & pulled off the strike part of the frame & the catch isn't working at all so I yanked that & looked for the other one that came with the two pack of doorknobs that I bought and had to dig through a bunch of boxes and I found half a dozen hard drives & was thinking about hooking them up just to see what's on 'em & it turns out the door has just a bit of friction with the frame so it works pretty good without the catch but anyway then I looked at Janis' heater control valve where it's leaking & it has a pretty good sized crack which probably has something to do with it so it's loose right now I put some gorilla glue on it and a big C clamp around it for the night and while I had the glue out I put the side rubber trim that was coming loose back on & the around the window weatherstrip on Baby that came loose last night with the same glue I had been kinda planning on going to the junkyard's half price sale today but there isn't one up in Sun Valley like I was thinking there was but the one up there is having their half price day next weekend so now I'm thinking that & then I watered the plants while I was out there too & then finally I replaced the toilet valve so I've been a regular ol' handyman today even though I was in bed pretty much all morning!!!


BUT!!! What I was going to blog about was last night!!! I had something so good... (veiled Counting Crows reference) I had heard a couple weeks back about a movie screening with Counting Crows performing afterwards!!! The movie is called "Freeloaders", and while Adam Duritz isn't in the movie a whole lot (beginning and end, with a phone call in the middle) he is a rather pivotal role in it. He plays himself, and the MacGuffin of the movie is six people living in his house while he's out on tour. He's selling his place, and they've got 30 days to find new places. It's by Broken Lizard, the guys responsible for "Super Troopers" (one of the guys told a very funny story) and "Beerfest". A very funny movie, I wouldn't give it 4 of 4 stars, but probably at least a solid two and a half, if not three. Nigerians & Pirate porn, need I say more??? Made me LOL a lot, I give it a glowing recommendation!!!



It was at the John Ansen Ford Theater, across the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl. I'd never been there before, & I was impressed, it's quite nice, and not real huge. For October 1st, the weather was still great for an evening in an open air theater, even in shorts!!! The time listed for it to start was 7, and what with getting out of work at 5:15 (middle shift) and Friday traffic, I didn't think we'd catch the beginning. Nothing happened until 8, though, so we had time to get snacks & leisurely find our seats. Before anything actually started Adam himself came out and was wandering the audience. I spotted him right off, and was considering going up and saying hi, but it got pretty crowded, and besides I hadn't brought my camera and if anything that is what I would have really liked, to have gotten my picture taken with him.

Broken Lizard came out and did a couple of funny episodes, and then the projector wasn't ready (who would have thought that would be necessary at a movie screening) so the Broken Lizard guys came and told a couple of stories (see above comment about Super Troopers, and one about Willie Nelson, which prompted Adam to tell his Willie Nelson story), then on with the show!!!



The pictures here are ones I found that others there had tweeted, and show it pretty good. Checked the YouTube, and there's a couple videos from the show up, but none of them seem to have caught any of the songs complete!!!

Here's the set list:

1. Catapult
2. Mrs. Potter's Lullaby
3. Mr. Jones (started off singing "So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star" over the intro riff, pretty good, you can catch the tail end of that part on this video)
4. Good Night Elizabeth (middle interlude some song about seeing the lights on Broadway, watch here)
5. Friend of the Devil
6. Angels of the Silences
7. Hard Candy
8. Recovering the Satellites
9. Miami
10. A Long December (with a bit of A Murder of One mixed in)

Not a hugely long show, but no disapointment either!!! One of the two best sounding Counting Crows shows I've ever heard, the other being the Disney Concert Hall show. The energy was up, and Adam was upbeat.

Oh yea, "Freeloaders" ends up with Adam singing Hanginaround, and at the hardware store it was playing over the speakers, pretty cool. Reminded us that last night I had something so good!!!

To top it all off, the cost for the whole evening was less than for a single ticket at all but possibly one of their shows that I've ever been to!!! Live comedy, a movie screening, and a concert all at a bargain price!!! A great evening!!!