Tommy Can You Taste Me

A couple weeks back we went for lunch at Tommy Burger. Never disapoints!!!

Since I've almost always have my 'Pod with me anymore, my younger asked me for it, to take some pictures before we start eating. He knows what goes!!! Thumbs up for me... kinda looks like I'm holding the Coke bottle on my shirt!!! My burger: always extra pickles, tomatoes & chili!!!

Looks like my wife can hardly wait to get going... Extra onions & chili for her, usually on a cheeseburger.

The younger, always such a ham!!! I'd say it's been about a year that he discovered that he actually likes chili fries (depending on the place, of course. Not all chili fries are created equal) He usually wasn't one for burgers, either, but he liked Tommy's just fine!!! Nothing but burger & chili for him!!! Of course, chili cheese fries, too. Two altogether, one with onions, one with none, both with extra chili. Set 'em in the middle & everyone picks.

The older boy, he's perfecting his surly disinterested teen look quite well, isn't he??? I could probably do a post on just pictures of that!!! He noted that the younger and I were both red shirts, and said he'd have to find a yellow shirt to wear that day!!! He got a burger pretty much like mine, and a chili dog with extra chili. The chili dogs have very little integrity, but are quite tasty!!!

Black Choppers

Over the weekend the older and I were heading home, when I saw this:

I didn't get a shot off right away, but these guys were flying LOW!!! When I was stopped at a light, I got a good look at the underbelly of one, and proclaimed, "That's military!!!"

Don't know if they were Guardsmen or Reservists or preparing for the Commander in Chief's fund raiser boondoggle today, but they flew away, then were back in the area by the time we made it home, and I was able to get out my real camera.

It took me entirely too long, but I thought I'd done a post about the black choppers before...

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!!!

Home Improvement

Wanna Go Steampunk?

Here's something they did at my work a couple weeks back. They had an artwork design contest using industrial supplies sourced from the company. They had done it last year, also, and I'd been thinking I could make something very cool to enter, but never came up with an idea. This year I came up with this idea. My son could really use a desk lamp, and he's appreciator of the Steampunk aesthetic.

My original idea was to use primarily copper and brass fittings, but it turns out, even with the employee pricing, those are some expensive materials!!! Therefore, I made it out of mostly black cast iron and aluminum fittings. It still added up, but only to around less than half of what it could have been.

I had a lot of ideas that changed over time with the project, and once it was as it at the end of the initial construction, I wasn't pleased with the results, so it was already being redesigned in my head as I entered it in the competition. At the beginning concept, I was thinking of having a valve at the base, and the light shade an oblong copper float with one side cut out. A bit later I was thinking the slick thing to do would have been to mount a rotary switch near the base and use a valve wheel on it to turn it on and off. Where the power cord comes in I covered it with mesh sleeving to make it look like that's where the gas or steam or whatever is supposed to run it comes in (which, now that I think about it, it does!!!)

I finished the modifications today, which consisted of replacing the pipe lengths with shorter pieces, especially for the back end where the cord enters. The major issues were that the back pipe was way too long (I'd been thinking running it long like that with the adapter and the brass fitting back there thinking that would help lower the center of gravity and counter balance the light shade's weight) and bumped into everything, and the height made it a bit ungainly. Nice thing about the construction, it's pretty easy to change things around, just unscrew the area you want to change!!!

I'm pretty pleased with it now, but just one more thing I've got in mind. I've ordered an LED spotlight to give it the harsh glare that seems like it would be fitting with this design!!! Also, an incandescent bulb would probably be a bad idea with no venting on the shade. I entitled it "Steampunk Sparklamp". I got a lot of positive comments from my co-workers. A funny question I got asked a couple times was if it works!!! The other thing I got asked about was the gauge. Of course, the gauge was for nothing but aesthetics, but I told everyone that asked that if the gauge shows over twenty pounds, you'd better run!!! I had been thinking of perhaps offering it for sale online for around the retail cost of the supplies (or with the reserve set there, if on an auction site) and see if there's any takers. I'm good with it if there aren't, but if there are I could make another fairly easily, and possibly change things around a bit.

Of course, in the course of construction, I come up with other ideas how I could it all again... only different!!! I was thinking adding in an hour meter would be an interesting touch, but for a really functional touch would be to have it USB powered... and add in a USB hub, probably concealed behind an ornamental brass hatch, maybe sourced from a pocket watch!!!

Last year the entrants were a bit weak, in my opinion. The two I remember were a duct tape wallet, and a layer cake made of buckets. I came in thinking I'd be a lock for best in show, but the other entrants this year were way better!!!

The first shot, the metal flowers, took best in show. Behind it is a chess set made of nuts, bolts, and washers. Even the board is made of square washers!!!

The next shot??? What is it??? The flowers weren't there when I put mine in, and that was the one where I thought to myself that I wasn't going to win the top spot. It wasn't going when I got there, but later in the week it was running. It was entitled "Brass Teardrop", and has a gear motor driving an offset under the first layer. This has a series of strings going to the concentric rings and brass ball in the middle, and as it rotates, the rings and sphere bob up and down in a wave type motion. Fairly epic, but just about the least practical of all the entrants, IMHO.

More flowers, this time constructed from the pages of a first aid pamphlet, dyed with layout fluid. Final shot is a few concrete planters, placed on top of woven rope mats!!!

I already revealed the best in show winner, and the brass teardrop took the most intricate. My creation took most serviceable. I don't remember the other categories, but all but one of us won, and the other one got judges special mention. I completely agree with all the verdicts!!!

Wanna Go, Punk?

Haha!!! I happened on this a few days back. Not that funny the first time you watch it, but play it over and over, and it gets funnier and funnier!!!

Recovery

Here's a project I did the other day. As you can see in the first shot, kitty cat's claw post is ALL tore up!!! He's vicious with those claws!!!

I've seen the claw posts wrapped with rope, and that seemed like a pretty good way to go. Figured all I'd have to do is get some nice, fibrous rope, unbolt the post from the base, pry the top cap off, secure the rope under the top cap, wrap to the base, and bolt it back on with the rope under the post!!! Easy, huh???

Started in, and the first complication arose: The wood block for the top splintered into pieces, first one edge as it was being knocked loose, then in the middle as I attempted to hammer the top back into place with the rope under it, to where it was unusable. I pulled out some long finishing nails instead, hammered them partway in, then bent them over to secure the rope end. Not pretty, but functional. Wrapped away, and ended with another. While trying to secure the end under the post by bolting it down, and the hole stripped out!!! Used half a dozen 3" drywall screws and fixed that up... kind of. it's leaning back about 5°!!!

And the final results??? The wrap started out real good, but came up short on the bottom end. Apparently you need more than 50' of rope to pull this off. Now remains to be seen how durable it is!!!

Another project I undertook recently was re-purposing the 80's era stereo cabinet in our front room. One of the things I got for Christmas last year was a 46" LED TV for our front room. There's only one place it fits well in our front room, and that's diagonal in the corner. I bought a mount kit and had the idea of running a 2x4 across the corner and hanging it from that, but haven't done that. I just stuck it on top of the wood and glass stereo cabinet. The tuner/amplifier in the stereo hasn't worked in a couple years (and I link to a post where it ended up working afterwards!!! I'm thinking it was a year or several months later that it really quit, so maybe only a year or so). The tape player gave up the ghost years ago. I think the turntable was fine, but I never really used that anyway. My vintage 18-disc player was the only thing going that I might have used, but without an amp, it wasn't seeing any action either. So, finally, I took all that out, and set up the DVD/VHS player on the top where the turntable goes, used the next shelf for DVDs, put the old VHS 2 drawer cabinet on the bottom, with a row of VHS tapes on top of it, and a digital clock off to the side. Not shown is the sound bar on the floor to the front. New TV's have really bad audio!!! We've got a 17" flat screen TV in the bedroom, and it's got better sound than the new TV!!! In retrospect, I could have kept my 18 disc player onboard and ran it through the sound bar, but these days most our music gets played on pocket sized devices!!! Anyway, I'm more pleased with the way this came out than the claw post!!!

Semi Quick Instant Post

So back on my birthday, I'd taken the day off. Went to the beach, then the eye doctor, then the older boys' new school orientation night. Here's me new glasses.

Picked them up yesterday. I like the look, but so far I'm not crazy about the glasses themselves. They give me a headache and a neckache. They say give them a couple weeks, you'll get used to them. I think they need a bit of re design.

Yesterday the younger & I were out washing the car in the late afternoon. Here's a shot of when the sun was on it's way down. Looked pretty sweet!!!

A few months back, my laptop's power jack was acting up again. I got a replacement metal jack and swapped it for the plastic one I'd replaced before. Had to open the hole a bit, and trim some of the plastic on the case, but it looks solid!!!

After I did that, discovered the power cord had some issues, too, and I replaced that. Now all is good.

Arroyo Seco

Today, on our Labor Day day off, we went for a picnic at one of the parks along the Arroyo Seco.

Arroyo Seco translates to "dry stream", which it almost never is, but usually there's not much along this portion. Whenever we're by there, the younger boy wants to go for a hike along the stream.

A couple of posts back, I'd made mention of my latest technology purchase, but never said what it actually was!!! Ipod Touch 4th generation, same as my older picked up, but I got mine as a refurb rather than used with a corner of the screen cracked already. I've been kind of keeping an eye out for a decent but tiny camera at a reasonable price. Most weren't much cheaper than this, and only would take pictures!!! Found out afterwards that the generation 5 has a WAY better camera, and experience a tad of buyers' remorse. My younger boy has been saving for one of his own, and I've agreed to sell him mine at a nice discount when I get myself a gen 5, probably around gravy time. Did I mention that my wife got me a nice case for it for my birthday???

All the pictures here are from my Ipod. The only edit I preformed on them was to use the clarify function in Paint Shop Pro. First shot is by where we entered, he declared it to be dead hobo swag.

Second shot is looking upstream. If I'd had my Pentax with me, you would probably be able to make out the antennas of Mount Wilson!!! That was the shot I was going for. Picture #3 is straddling the stream, and #4 is one of the inlet pipes, probably from the local street drains. I know I've got a shot from a while ago of the stencil they have near storm drains that have the "empties to the ocean" legend on them!!!

The last shot, I'm guessing, was one of the unfortunate victims of the freeway running alongside the Arroyo.

Shaved Pussy

As mentioned in my previous post, our cat had some medical issues. Apparently, tom cats have a rather Hank Hill-esque narrow urethra, and are susceptible to it getting clogged up. We've never had a tom cat before, so this was news to us. Another first, this is really the first time I've ever been in a position to be able to do anything for a gravely ill animal other than having it put down. As also previously stated, 2013 is still an expensive year. Well, he is a beloved member of the family, so I did what must be done. He'd better not make a habit of it.

So there's the shot of his shaved forearm (forepaw???). When we first brought him home, he had a blue bandage around it. My older got a picture of that, it's probably on his tumblr somewhere. On the estimates from the veterinarians they listed Elizabethan collars, AKA the Cone of Shame. For spending more on the kitty than I spent on my wife's latest car, I was looking forward to posting embarrassing photos of that here, but if he ever got one, it was off by the time he was sent home. Likely would not have fit inside the cat carrier with it on. So all I get is a shot of him with the bald spot where the IV was. They said he was rather uncooperative. If you've already got a swollen full bladder and they're trying to catheter your achey urethra, see how cooperative you are!!!

The second shot here is just a cute pose. He was playing one of his favorite games with me when I took the shot, Big Cat in a Cage!!! Bonus, when we got him back, his claws had been nicely trimmed, making the game more enjoyable for the hooman involved.

I have to get some amusement out of this situation. If I don't get it from getting to see him in that cone of shame or from the increased traffic from this posts' title, I'll close with a little joke at his expense:

A cat walks through the double doors of an old west saloon. His front leg is bandaged from the wrist down. He declares, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw!!!"

Island Inland

As usual, I've got a backlog of posts I'd like to do. Yesterday was my birthday, and much happened. The week before our kitty had to go in for emergency surgery, and they saved his kitty bacon. Once again, 2013 is turning out to be rather expensive. He's got a bald patch on his front leg where they had an IV that he kept trying to pull out. Muscle relaxers for a cat, you wouldn't think they'd even make such a thing, huh???

Took the Falcon on a beach cruise, and we went up to the mountains for another vacation. My mom fell in a brier patch. Bought myself another cool little technology device, a month before my birthday, but I'll call it my birthday present to myself. Putting Little Black Submarines on me blog drove up traffic. Hope someone else enjoyed my artwork.

But for now, here's part two from our first vacation, the part where we went on the Inland tour!!!

Last time we were over there, I saw one of the buses they use for the inland tour, 1953 Flxable buses. Actually going out of the Avalon city limits would be a nice change, and going on such an awesome looking vintage bus was a plus!!!

I had to get a few shots of the bus. They ride as good as they look!!!

And a cool shot in a parabolic mirror going around one of the hairpin turns, only marred by a little piece of duct tape!!!

A shot I didn't manage to get on last year's trip, a bald eagle!!! Too bad it was in an animal sanctuary, but it made for a good shot.

And buffalo. Originally brought over for the filming of the movie "The Vanishing American" by Zane Gray (who himself lived on the island for a while, heard an amusing story that I again may relate...), and when the movie was done filming, William Wrigley Jr. opted to purchase them. They about overran the island, and now are kept on birth control. One of the offerings by many of the restaurants on the island is buffalo burgers. I had always assumed it was locally raised buffalo, but it is all imported from the mainland, where the USDA can keep an eye on the proceedings!!!

Back side of the island. Kinda makes you want to camp out there for a while, huh???

Another shot of the bus, and my sweet 512 shirt!!!

The famed Airport in the Sky!!! Since my nephew has his pilot's licenses, I always think it'd be cool to have him fly us over there. It is notoriously tricky, as the strip is high in the middle, so coming in, it tends to look too short.

The bus driver told us about the cookies. He was right about the cookies. I've heard about the "$100 burger" at the Airport in the Sky. I could have gotten in on that, but opted for the cookie and a Monster. The $100 burger is when a pilot will fly over and get lunch there.

Outside there was a pretty cool tile mosaic map of Catalina. I jumped up on it and was taking pictures when one of the Air Traffic Controllers stepped out onto the balcony of the tower and told me to get down from there. Of course, after that I saw the sign saying not to get up on it!!!

My wife's sunglasses broke the first day, and she'd looked at one of the shops along Crescent Street in Avalon. They were over $50 there, and these at the airport were only $14, so bargain priced!!!

It was a pretty long voyage, but it was a great experience!!! Even little babies approve!!!