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!!!

Dystopian Dance

So here it is, two posts in a row of cup art!!! Like there have been no other events in my life... This was inspired by a line from The Gaslight Anthem's "We Came to Dance"

We are the last of the jukebox Romeos

We are romantics by the light of the fourway

We came to sing out a chorus, reinvent the good times

And bring it all back home again

Honey, we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes

Do the jump back, jack, stop and slide to the right

Never break their hearts, never make them cry, come on

Strike up the band, play a song that everybody knows

If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul

I'm not the one who hates bein' alone, so come on

And in this unstable arena

Of what's left or become of my America

I'm askin' this dance so come take my hand, come on

And in this unstable arena

Of what's left or become of my America

I'm askin' this dance so come take my hand, come on

Honey, we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes

Do the jump back, jack, stop and slide to the right

Never break their hearts, never make them cry, come on

Strike up the band, play a song that everybody knows

If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul

I'm not the one who hates bein' alone, so come on

And if they end it all

By the end of tonight

If the big bomb drops down

Over this quiet Edison sky

We'll blow one last kiss

To all the beautiful nights like this

Under this central Jersey sky

Honey, we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes

Do the jump back, jack, stop and slide to the right

Never break their hearts, never make them cry, come on

Strike up the band, play a song that everybody knows

If I'm not your kind, then don't tell a soul

I'm not the one who hates bein' alone, so come on

Cause you ain't never had a night on the town

Like I can show you such a night on the town

And you ain't never had a song you could sing

Well it's a deep dark night and I hear you, I've been there

And these are the songs that we sing

Oh, these are the songs that we sing

You've never seen a two-step

Like when you've seen it from your mama's house

Where the kids flash like lightning

To the very best dancers around

We learned from the very best dancers around

We learned from the very best dancers in town

Come take my hand, cause mama, we came to dance.

I'd always pictured a scene like this from the line quoted on the cup. A tree and shrubbery lined horizon, spanned by high tension wires (which, as pictured, encircle the cup), with that big bomb dropping down behind it. Of course, I enjoy the song. Along with this line, it also has the line, "And in this unstable arena, Of what's left or become of my America" gives this song a distinctly dystopian vibe.

Everyone at work likes it. Before I'd added the text, one of the guys I was working with recognized the mushroom cloud. I was glad for that, that it wasn't mistaken for a big red tree!!!

Around the side, I added in the river from another Gaslight Anthem tune, "Meet Me By the River's Edge", to offset the dystopia.

Collabrative Cup

If you've been following this blog for any time, you may be aware that I always put a "512" on my cup. This tradition started back a few years, when they got a little bitchy about people leaving their cups at the printers at my work, and said that if you've got a cup, you have to put your name on it. I just used my number, and no one messed with it!!! Almost always up near the top rim in green pen. I vary the style I do it in, but often in a circle.

As you can see, this time I put it in a triangle. Didn't come out especially great.

I usually keep the same cup for a week or two, and occasionally will do some artwork on it. A few days in, the fun started when a co-worker added in three possible ways to state the number. Which one is correct???

A few days later, another helpful co-worker added in the Spanish translation for our amigos from South of the Border. Looks like he doesn't have a great grasp of the language, but points for the effort.

For the final touch (at least thus far, and likely this will be all, the cup is looking pretty beat up) yet another co-worker added in the topper, three more!!! First, she put in Roman Numerals (although one could argue for DXII, though I've done V over XII before). I made mention that I was considering asking one of our Asian co-workers to add in, if they could, the Asianic characters. She responded that she could do Japanese, she'd lived there for a year!!! And she did!!! By the way, who knew that my keyboard has the Japanese characters for one and two (- and =)??? Finally, she added in what I think is German!!!

I've Seen Fire & I've Seen Rain

So tonight I was unloading the pics from my camera with the idea of putting together a post of the younger's birthday celebration from last weekend. Those plans have gone awry for now.

Instead, you get this!!! A pair of shots from the night before the event, and a few more from today. The night before, I had been doing a bit of painting in the bathroom, and as I headed outside to wash up the brushes, I saw the chopper I'd been hearing for a while but hadn't even really registered. Looking around (namely at where he was training his spotlight) I located the flashy lights of several fire trucks and the glow of the fire.

My younger & I headed over a ways closer, then up the hill to try and get a better look. A bit hard to tell exactly where it was at in the dark, and we didn't get that close. Sadly, one of my neighbors, a World War II veteran, died in the fire.

The weather changed this week, and we were told by the local media hype that we would all be swept away by buckets of the hard rain that was gonna fall. The first wave swept through on Wednesday night while we all slept, and it was bright & clear the next morning, which of course made my commute take roughly twice as long. Almost no rain that day, and Friday morning there was a light drizzle coming down as I left the house. It picked up once I was to work, but then was dry enough that people were eating lunch and taking breaks outside. Saved it up for the afternoon and today.

This afternoon it was actually coming down pretty good for a bit, as well as having some nice long rolls of thunder. I had my camera ready at this point, and took a few shots of it coming down good, making the canyon and gutters into raging streams. Near the end of the time I was shooting, it was letting up and the sun was glinting off the waters.

Pictured in a couple of the shots are some block retaining walls. The last shot has the latest one I had put up, just a couple weeks back, or more to the point, just in time. Upon having returned from our weekend in Carpinteria, we discovered that a few of the cement slabs had slid forward and a good amount of dirt had come out from between them. The slabs were looking quite precarious, and I took several out and dug some out from behind them until I could get the guy out to put a wall. Naturally, I got busy and it took a while before I dug up his number. He did a great job again, only as you can see, it tends to pool water behind it. I dug out a drainage channel when the rain had let up a bit.

All these great picture opportunities, and I get to title a post with a James Taylor reference!!!

You Can't Take The Sky From Me

Another "Looking Back" post I could do at any time would be from Christmas last year. This won't be that, but in passing I'll mention that I did get a new Ipod touch 5th generation, case for the same, and the DVD set of Firefly. If you're not familiar with Firefly... I dare say you haven't spent near enough time on the interwebs. I've heard of it for years, but other than knowing that it was a short lived sci-fi series that was supposedly THE BEST SHOW EVAR and having seen some pictures of Serenity, (and knowing that it spawned the big screen release "Serenity") knew not much about it. Had my wife wrap it up, and write the tag "To: Daddy & the rest of the House Nerds". Going in cold, I have to say, it truly lives up to the hype!!! I've been taking my time, and am only up to the 6th episode because I'm trying to make it last. I have since picked up "Serenity", too, so I've got that to look forward to. Don't get me wrong, I really like my new Ipod, but I LOVE Firefly!!!

So, if you follow this blog, you know I often put something on my water cup, then use the same cup for a week or so. The last one I did, I put the second part of the line from the episode "Safe" that goes, "Today we were kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever!!!" Most everyone who saw it was greatly amused.

At the end of last week, I put this design on my cup, from the pilot episode. This has also gotten positive reviews. A few weeks back I came across the pair of toy dinosaurs pictured that have built in voice boxes that recite this dialogue. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!!!"

In other amusements, I took the most famous Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff comic and modified it a bit & put in on a T-shirt. I took the last two frames off, took a square from the left bottom and repeated it in a stripe on the bottom, and put the last line of text under it, as well as modifying the text in the first two panels to be more work friendly (AND work related!!!) It's a pretty lame comic, but most everyone who reads it laughs like crazy!!! My older boy got a white shirt with red sleeves that he plans to add Dave Strider's broken record logo to. If you're keeping count, that will make six Homestuck themed shirts in our house!!!

Life Hack ... MY PANTS!!!

You may have seen around the interwebs various "life hacks", little tips for making this or that easier or more organized or cheaper. I happen to enjoy checking them out, although I don't seem to implement many of them. The one I can recall having done that worked very well was getting a couple of large carabiners, then hooking several plastic shopping bags on each one to make a lot fewer trips from the car when coming home from the store. Worked great (except when you'd forget to take them back to the car), then the nanny state of L.A. outlawed plastic bags.

Anyway, here's my little contribution:

I had a pair of pants (Calvin Klein, no less!!!) that are still in good shape, except the fly had broken. It would not latch in the full upright position, and would usually be at half mast, no matter how many times you'd zip 'em up.

My solution: I put a key ring through the tongue of the zipper, then once I zip it up, loop the ring over the button before buttoning!!!

Looking Back III: 13 Shots from LACMA

Back in last October, my firstborn had the option for some extra credit in his art class for visiting one of a few local museums. We opted for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In case you ever wondered, outside is where several of these cool art deco street lights go to die. If you look close, you can see where it looks like there is either a wedding wrap up or photo shoot going on.

Paid our admission, then went to head in. There's an escalator going all the way to the top of a four or five story building, and go to head in. Closed. Went down a level, and it's only open to a private party. Not making much of a first impression.

Finally back to the ground level, and there's an area we can actually get into!!! First thing is a long, twisty... wall. OK. Next thing was a wall with plastic panels, red, green and white, with florescent light tubes behind 'em. Once again, OK.

Third thing we came to, paydirt!!! Finally something awesome!!! Chris Burden's "Metropolis II".

So, that's something I took the most pictures of. Large format, with a ton of tiny details. Very nicely done!!!

Obligatory selfie in some of the mirrored detail...

And an overhead shot, including the boy. Since it was nearly Halloween, he was wearing a good deal of his Vriska costume. That was part of the assignment, get a picture of yourself with one of your favorite exhibits. In case you haven't figured it out, it's got a couple of conveyor ramps up, four wide, for Hot Wheels type cars, then they split into separate tracks and gravity race down, as well as having some train tracks running through. There's an area inside where the operator can squeeze in and run the thing. Wasn't going when we got there. I asked the docent if I could get in and play with it. She said no, but they do run it a couple times a day, which we'd already missed. There's a few videos of it going on the Youtubes.

Attempted to go to the building across from it, and it was closed to the public, too. A bit farther down also yielded nothing we could get in on. The opposite direction had an exhibit of South Pacific-Polynesian artworks.

The ones pictured here seem to use a lot of actual human skulls, the first shot looking like someone fashioned them into whimsical key chains!!!

Up a level from there, they had a nice exhibit on German Bauhaus art. I think I enjoyed this part of the museum most.

One more shot of the student with some art. Another part of the assignment was to talk to someone who works there about their favorite pieces, and why. He did, but they were closing up and we didn't get to go check out what the girl said were some of her favorites.

On the way out, around the side, there was this odd one, several yellow tubes suspended from an overhead frame. Interesting, but it struck me as probably being pretty grubby, with everyone walking through it.

So, how did he do on the assignment??? He is already doing quite well in the class, so he didn't really need it that bad, which is a good thing, because he was supposed to turn in the receipt for admission as another part of it. Guess I missed that part, because I tossed it out.

Parents can be so irresponsible.

Gatsby

Tonight was the firstborn's Winter Formal at his school. The theme was "A Night at Gatsby", 20's attire encouraged.

He told me this, and I told him, "I've got a 3-piece you're going to want to use!!!" 3-piece works for most occasions, and fit the bill nicely.

His lady looked amazing. To hear her tell it, it took the better part of the day.

Oh, and she was quite impressed with how he looked. I told them that they both clean up pretty nice. (Truth be told, she always looks good)

The second picture is the only one I actually took, in the alley. The rest are pics of pics from what I assume to be a photo booth.

Of course, I had to ask him how it went. Naturally, the only acceptable answer would be, "Great!!!"

Getting my Saturns in a Row

For a change, at the end of last year, I had a few days besides the holidays off. I took the Friday before Christmas as my last personal day (the day after goody day, I wasn't going to miss that!!!), then I had scheduled my last two vacation days for the Monday and Tuesday between the weekend and Christmas day off. The kids are out of school, and the extended family always has interesting time conflicts or constraints for getting together for Christmas, so I figured with all those days off we should be able to get something going. In addition to family time and relaxation (read: playing more Runescape) I'd planned on getting some stuff done around the house. Those were my plans.

Of course, something always comes up, doesn't it??? On the Wednesday before all this I was driving into work, and on the transition ramp, and the transmission shifted down much firmer than usual. Strange. When I got off the freeway, it was acting like it was low on fluid, not wanting to connect and accelerate on the launches. Just a little further, just far enough to get to work, please!!! All the while visions of shot transmissions dancing in my head. On the very last stretch, the charge light starts flickering. Stranger still. When I got parked, I left her running and popped the hood. The A/C compressor and the power steering pump were spinning fine, but the alternator wasn't turning. Sounds right, but what's really going on here??? Shut it down, and checked the alternator. It turns fine, but I shouldn't be able to do that with the belt on there. No belt tension. Belt tensioner goes, belt has no tension and stops turning the higher draining devices. Not enough juice, and a computer controlled tranny acts up, at least I hope that's what it is!!!

Called up my dad, told him my tale of woe, and he agrees to help me out, getting baby towed to his place and swapping his truck with me. So, on my first day off, I end up going down to their house and putting a new tensioner and drive belt on me car, as well as doing an oil change while I've got it up on jack stands. A little battery charge, and it runs like it had never had a problem. Success!!!

All's good, right??? The next couple of days were spent getting the final presents bought and wrapped, and food for the extended family get together, which was going to happen on Monday. Monday rolls around, and we load up the wife's car (name really hasn't stuck, but I call her the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, and ode to National Lampoon's Vacation) and head on down. There's some traffic, and as soon as it eases up, I get to accelerating, and lo and behold, it feels like the transmission isn't hooking up, like it was low on fluid. Deja vu all over again!!! I pull off the freeway and find a car parts store. Checking the transmission this time reveals that yes, the transmission is actually low on fluid!!! I guess all the fluid slicking down the underside of the car should have given me a clue. Bought a couple quarts and filled her up, and headed back homeward with my fingers crossed. Made it about a mile back, and it was slipping again, so I pulled off and called triple A for a tow back home.

Here's where things get interesting. The tow truck shows up fairly quick, but refuses to tow the car back to our house!!! On account of our house is on a hill. Never mind that, just about every year for the last 18 that we've lived here I've ended up having some car or another towed home!!! I called triple A back, and they say they'll get in touch with dispatch and call me back. They don't. I call them again, probably 45 minutes or so later, and they say the same thing again. Same results. Sometime in there, my dad was picking up my nephew a bit over from there, and he swings by to pick up the rest of the family and the presents and the ham. Long story short, it was FIVE HOURS AAA STRANDED ME IN THE GHETTO before I was able to get towed, and the ONLY reason I was able to get towed was I told them to tow it to my parent's house. I think it was four times I called when triple A that they said they would call me back that they didn't, and finally I got in touch with one of the head people there. Not impressed, AAA. What good is it having an emergency roadside assistance plan if they won't tow you home??? I suspect that, since it was in one of those crooked 3rd world fiefdoms along the 710 freeway that the tow company there has a lock on all the business in the area and no one else is allowed to tow cars there. SO, that's how I blew day 2 of all my last vacation days of the year.

Final day off I spent driving down to my parents house (thanks, AAA, there's another hour and a half of my life wasted, could have been doing this in my own driveway) and cleaning all that fluid off the best I could. I suspected one of the cooler lines to the transmission, or the filter, or one of the shaft seals. I was right about that, it was leaking around the filter, which on these Saturns is a spin on, much like an oil filter. Got a fresh one and much fluid, and she was back on the road!!! A little troubling is some of the noises it makes on acceleration, kinda a "nnninnng nnninnng niiinnnng" as it goes, but it feels and drives the same as it always has. Fingers crossed again.

Long story short, of all the days I had off, Christmas was the only one I was able to do much relaxing on!!!

The Bat Cave

Here's the thing we did on the first day of 2014. We went up to the Bat Cave!!!

Bronson caves is what they're actually known as, and they've been featured in several sci-fi and western movies, as well as countless TV shows and a Jim Morrison photo shoot. We went there years ago, probably around ten or so now. Thought I'd done a post on it before, but I couldn't find it.

It's a really short hike up there, and there were a TON of like minded people there today!!!

It's a nice scenic area, great for taking some pictures!!! Both my wife and younger boy brought along their Christmas presents, and were snapping pictures with them.

The cave itself... actually a tunnel, or series of tunnels. There's four portals.

Since you haven't gotten much of a workout hiking up there, there's plenty of little side trails going off to the sides!!!

Also right in the area is the Hollywood sign.

Just a ways up from Camp Hollywoodland!!!

Up by the end is another trailhead, that leads up to a much better view of the sign.

Interesting artwork!!!

And a naturally occurring half pipe!!!

And there's the boy and mom, taking selfies!!!