Just a Sprain

This has been sitting on my side table here for a few weeks now. Finally put it in my CD drive and got the images off it.

It's from last year's epic road & boat trip vacation. Just realized that this year's will be a plane, road and boat trip, cool...

Anyway, these are the x-rays from when the boy sprained his foot. As you can see, not much to see, as it's just a sprain!!!

Makin' Tracks

I got home today, and my camera is sitting out on the table. I ask my wife what it's doing out.

She tells me that she was letting the cat lick out a bowl she was holding, and when he finally moved, he left a footprint on her leg!!! She says, "It was so cool!!!" I checked it out, and it was all true. That's one big kitty!!! I told her I'd have to put the picture on my blog!!!

Mechanics of the Horn

Of the many posts I've had in mind, I've had the image for this one on a flash drive for several months. Finally removed it, and fixed it up with the addition of some colors this morning.

In case you can't tell what it is, it's a cutaway detail of my OC, Apple Core's, apple launching horn.

I can picture the scene where he explains how he came to have it, along with his cutie mark. The Cutie Mark Crusaders approach him...

Apple Bloom: Uh, Apple Core???

Apple Core: Oh, hello young fillies. What can I do for you???

Scootaloo: Well, we were wondering...

Sweetie Belle: How did you get your cutie mark?

Apple Bloom: And that horn of yours that shoots apples from it... that just doesn't seem natural!!!

Apple Core: Well, it was some time ago... back when I was a young stallion. Me and a couple of other young stallions would hang out at night outside of the 7-11. To this day I don't know what the attraction in doing that was.

Scootaloo: Yeah???

Apple Core: Anyway, one of the other ponies, Larry the Loser, really short, even for a pony, always wore this seedy leather jacket. He told us about the apple core game.

Apple Bloom: The apple core game???

Apple Core: I'll explain that a bit farther along in the story. Anyway, about that time in my life, I also broke my horn.

Sweetie Belle: Ouch! How did that happen???

Apple Core: Why, I'd mistreated it for years. So Foolish. I used to go around sticking it in everything. Stuck it into watermelons -- just for practice. One day, I stuck it into the dirt -- broke the tip off.

Sweetie Belle: Oh, how awful.

Apple Core: Yeah, that really hurt me. [ Sighs ] but that's okay. I made myself a new one.

Scootaloo: You can make new ones???

Apple Core: With a little inventiveness, you can make just about anything. I came up with the idea for one that would screw onto my horn-stub and launch apples, but I needed some way to trigger it.

Apple Bloom: How did you do that???

Apple Core: (Displays a blueprint drawing of his horn prosthetic) I happened upon a lazy bird, Tweeter. We came to a symbiotic agreement, where I supply him with apples, which he eats down to the core, and in return he would handle the cocking, opening and triggering of my horn!!!

Sweetie Belle: Neat-O!!!

Apple Bloom: But what about the apple core game???

Apple Core: OK, this is how it goes, when you've eaten an apple down to the core, you shout out "Apple core!", then one of your crew tries to be the first pony to reply "Baltimore!", then you answer back, "Who's your friend?", and the pony who said Baltimore first gets to name back one of your other friends... and it goes from there... I'll show you how it goes, OK???

Cutie Mark Crusaders, in unison: OK!!!

Apple Core: Apple core!!!

Apple Bloom: Baltimore!!!

Apple Core: Who's your friend???

Apple Bloom: Scootaloo!!!

Apple Core launches an apple core at Scootaloo, and then flies off laughing, "Not no more!!!".

Sweetie Belle: He's kind of a jerk, huh?

Bizzarro Kitty

My younger boy had a dream over the weekend. He related it to me, and that is the inspiration for this post.

In the dream, we had a second cat, with the exact negative color scheme of the one we have. In case I've not mentioned before, our cat came with the name Leo (his age when we got him coincides with him having been born in August. Since we didn't know the exact date, I dubbed the first to be his birthday, same as Adam Duritz. He is a child of fire, he is a lion, he has desires. Mostly for cat food.), and in the dream, the opposite cat was named Oel. I was amused.

I wondered if I could modify a picture of him to look like dream kitty Oel. Here's the results, not perfect, but not bad!!!

Grillin' Merkin

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I should blog more!!! I've got so much I'm behind on.

Anyway, I've done a LOT of wrenching on me cars this week!!! Enough for a month, I'd say, but I may do yet more...

They tried something new at work (well, non-work related, they're ALWAYS trying something new...), a Bring your Toy to work day. Bring your classic or hobby car or bike or boat or whatever to work and show it off. They cordoned off a prime area of the parking lot (right near the newly remodeled cafeteria) for us to park 'em in. I was planning on bringing the Falcon since I first heard of it, and I did. The week before, when I was washing her off, I pulled out the grille I'd salvaged when I junked my '65 Comet, and thought to myself, "I could make this work".

I enclosed a couple of shots from the first Car Show they did on the work picnic day a couple years back for reference, how it looked with no grille (but with the recently installed square lights). I had to hacksaw off the ends of the grille, and it was tricky getting it in, and it's not a perfect fit, but it's plausible, and better than nothing. I'd already been thinking of using the Mercury logo in the center when I fabbed up a grille.

I already had the horn bar from the Comet from when I first got the car. I told a few people since I now had a Mercury grille in her, I should tell people to call it a Merkin!!! (For the LOLs. I don't think enough people know what a merkin is for them to get it.)

So, I'd noticed the back left tire was low before driving it in that morning. Pumped it up, then it was low on the way back, too. Pumped it up again for the drive back. I'd also filled the tank by my work, too. Coming around an interchange, I punched it a little to pass a slow minivan, and she got loose in the rear, and I ended up sliding both ways, for an adrenaline shot!!! The tire was low again. Time for new tires.

The next night, the starter in Baby went out. Had to have her towed home, and my wife pulled the Falcon-Merkin out of the driveway to make room. The tire was totally flat and definitely damaged once she got that done. Bought a new starter (lines were down and they couldn't use credit or ATM cards or checks, so they gave me 10% off!!! Win!!!) and did that, as well as replacing two of the motor mounts (lower one with a polyurethane mount kit). Made a nice difference. I'd been planning on doing an oil change on Janice, and since I had all the jacks & stands out already, went ahead and did that too. Next, I changed the flat on the Falcon-Merkin.

Since I've in the past posted pictures of bad motor mounts before, here's a couple more!!!

Though The Truth May Vary

A little more than a month back I was listening to the radio while driving into work, as is my custom. As is also my custom, I was hitting the buttons whenever a station would play commercials or be talking about something of no interest to me. I switch to a station just as some upbeat, poppy sounding tune comes on. It sounded a bit familiar, like some song I liked but I couldn't place it. Then the lyrics start in. At that point I realize I'm not familiar with the song, but I'm at once hooked. I hit the button that changes the display to the artist, then to the song title. "Little Talks", by Of Monsters and Men. I like that feature on that function on that radio. If I could find that radio again, I'd buy another. (Completely related sidenote, I bought my wife a radio for her car for Mother's day, made by the same manufacturer, Dual. It has no mechanical drives, but does have the audio input jack, USB port, and an SD card. Pretty cool!!!)

Later that day I looked up the lyrics. They don't seem exactly right. More on that later. Also looked up the video and watched it a few times. It doesn't really seem to go with the lyrics, but it's an epic video nonetheless.

In the next few days, I was thinking about the line from the chorus, "Though the truth may vary, This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore". What does it mean??? Hmm, well, they are from Iceland... and the video had quite a bit of imagery from the area, ice and snow and meteors and volcanoes. I got the image of a Viking funeral ship, so I drew one on the side of my cup!!! I think it came out as some of my best cup artwork, and my co-workers all seemed impressed, too. My firstborn said, "Nice shading!!!"

In the next few days, I added that particular line to the bottom.

I would ask co-workers if they'd heard of Of Monsters & Men or the song when they would inquire. Only one had. He displayed his pony tail and said, "It's the hair!!!" He said it was one of his son's favorites.
If you've not heard the song, it's something of a duet for the first couple of verses. I have transcribed what I think are the correct lyrics here, although there seem to be a couple of versions that sound a bit different. Here's what I came up with:

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I don't like walking around this old and empty house

So hold my hand, I'll walk with you my dear

The stairs creak I should sleep, it's keeping me awake

It's the house telling you to close your eyes

Some days I can't even trust myself

It's killing me to see you this way

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

Hey! Hey! Hey!

There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back

Well tell her that I miss our little talks

Soon it will be over, and buried with our past

We used to play outside when you were young

And full of life and full of love

Some days I feel like I'm wrong when I am right

Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

Hey!

Don't listen to a word I say

Hey!

The screams all sound the same

Hey!

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is a ghost of you

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart

There's nothing we can do

Just let me go, we'll meet again soon

Now wait, wait, wait for me

Please hang around

I see you when I fall asleep

Hey!

Don't listen to a word I say

Hey!

The screams all sound the same

Hey!

Because though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

Don't listen to a word I say

Hey!

The screams all sound the same

Hey!

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry

Our bodies safe to shore

Final note: A couple weeks back, the toilet started leaking from the tank junction. It's an old, OLD toilet, and one of the sides where it has the mounting holes to hold the tank on (three of 'em on this particular model) the porcelain is broken away. I tried a new tank gasket, but it didn't work, so I just bought a whole new rig. It was only $84 with tax, which works out to $1 a pound!!! Of course, it's a ultra low water usage unit, and I was skeptical about it's ability, but thus far I've been quite pleased by it!!! That's it as the backdrop.

Belated Birthday

It's been a while, I've got at least three, maybe four posts in me. Time to do at least one!!!

Back on the 12th, we held the first celebration of my firstborn's 16th birthday!!! Much like last year, My Little Pony was featured, more than was even there last year. The cake I was charged with decorating was Princess Chrysalis. A lot of dark frosting, and all the Swiss cheese holes made this more challenging than most.

We got him a new pocketknife, the latest Assassins' Creed game, and a USB connected drawing pad. I don't have any samples to post from that yet.

His grandparents gave him a shine bright Fluttershy My Little Pony, as well as some cash to buy either a handmade custom pony or a Brony shirt. He has done neither yet.

Of course, since it was celebrated on the 12th, I had to wear my 512 shirt.

One of the cards he received had a "Happy Birthday" teeth grille, which I 'shopped into his face for the effect!!! Not great, you really have to enlarge it to be able to see it.

Get Stacked!!!

So, for today's post, I was going to post some more pictures from the Youth Expo we went to a couple weeks back, when I discovered the folder from the last time we visited Stacked.

One of my two favorite places I've recently discovered. You can see from the outside, it has multi colored glass walls, giving the interior an orangish hue.

Their gimmick is that you order via an Ipad, choosing what toppings, buns and cheese you'd like on you burger, pizza, hot dog and even ice cream sandwich!!!

Of course, doing so, you come up with an amazing, epic burger!!!

This was only the second time we've gone there, it's not exactly cheap, especially if you put a lot of extras on your burger or pizza, or must have an ice cream sandwich at the end. Of course, all these things are what make the place so awesome!!! To help in the cost area, you can go during happy hour, from 3 to 6 I believe, when everything is discounted.

And, it's not really that close to our house. This particular visit my parents wanted to get together somewhere, so there we went!!! It was their first visit. They both got pulled pork sandwiches, which I always see and think would be tasty, but never get because you can do so much with the burgers.

Every time I go to a build your own burger place, I almost always get bleu cheese and sauteed onions. MMMMMMMM!!! I wants some NOW!!!

The other place which is on my top two these days is Slater's 50/50 burger. Same idea, design your own, only via a notepad checklist. Their gimmick??? Burger patties made of 50% sirloin, 50% ground bacon!!! Enough said... My firstborn ordered a hugely optioned burger, then when it came and it was too tall for his mouth, he sat there holding it muttering "How do???" over and over. I must return, next time with my camera. last time we went there, it was a two hour wait, and worth every minute!!!

Where's My $43.2 Million???

Inspired by a previously posted Roy Lichtenstein painting, I did this likeness and tribute on my cup. Most everyone who sees it at my work loves it!!! I then get to share how it's based on a painting that sold for more than 43 million dollars!!! If you didn't know, that's the area of my work that I'm employed in, the bin structure.

I got to try something in Paint Shop Pro, stitching in the radius from another shot to get the whole quote bubble in. It looks funky and not right, but at least you can read the whole text!!!

About the title of this post: For you, the valued blog reader, I'll let it go for half of the price of the original, along with a signed certificate of authenticity!!!

He Said, I Heard...

Over the weekend they were having a Youth Expo at the OC Fairgrounds. My younger & I met up with my parents, niece & nephew there. I've got a lot of pictures I'll probably share, but for now, just a short little true story.

We're walking along, and my boy sees this...

He says, "Look at the giant chess!!!"

I heard and was looking around for the "Giant chest"!!!

A Little Artwork...

Here's a little sketch I did up. Don't know what the inspiration for it was, but it came out OK, if not a little lippy and big headed!!!

My firstborn did the second one here, just a little potato face!!!

UniDuck

Bought a pack of Orbit gum a couple weeks ago. Melon remix, I believe, was the flavor. Pretty tasty.

The thing that I found to be blogworthy about this occurrence was the artwork on the package. The target duck appears to have a unicorn horn coming out of its forhead!!! Everyone I've pointed this out to has been duly impressed. I think it's actually just the end of the spiral behind it, but an actual UniDuck is much cooler!!!

Bonus XP Weekend

Last Thursday afternoon the supervisor who does the scheduling comes up to me and asks if I want a middle shift for Friday. "Yea, sure, thanks", I'm usually up for getting out of work an hour 15 minutes earlier than normal, even when it means having to get up earlier, and usually worse traffic too. Then she says, "And you've got Monday off..." Huh??? I do??? Apparently I'd selected it when they were doing the vacation selection at the end of last year, and I was just throwing on random Mondays. Cool.

Saturday and Sunday weren't much different than normal weekend days, although it was wet and rainy most of the first half of the day, and it was pretty cold the rest of the weekend.

I have been doing a little work on the walls in the kitchen, trying to get 'em evened out for fresh paint. Did a bit of sanding on them.

This morning it was bright and sunny, but still chilly. Got the family together and we went up to Mount Baldy!!! It was an awesome day for it!!! Much better than the last two times. The drive out didn't take long at all, and it wasn't crowded.

There was a good amount of snow, around 6 inches most everywhere, and a good 4 inches or so of that was fresh powder. We got to do a bit of sledding, rolled up some snow balls into snowman size balls. A great way to spend the last day of Winter!!!

One of my co-workers had a half day of Friday for his birthday. His wife and him were going to Souplantation. I haven't been there probably more than 20 years, and that got me thinking. On the way home we stopped there.

If you've been following my Twitter feed, you've seen what else I did this weekend. Runescape was having their bonus experience weekend. I did just over 8 hours, racking up about 950,000 experience points. Started off with herblore, which I leveled 3 times, in the first half hour when the bonus factor was 2.7x. Next I did construction for 2 levels. Got 2 levels of agility, and one each in thieving, crafting, fletching, and prayer. Not leveled but heavily trained was smithing, which I did a lot of right after the herblore and construction. Did around 3/4 of the way to the next level, not bad since I'm at 86.

Oh yeah, the first picture is a snow apple core my boy made me!!!

AppleCup

I've always got things I should blog about, but I often delay and then they go away. I have a post (with no images as of yet, probably I'd just web source 'em) about a couple of really good burger places I've recently come across. Just last weekend was my boy's birthday celebration, it came together pretty well, and that one I do have a few good pictures of (but I missed the one I wished I got).

Anyway, here's one that I've had for a while that I've been meaning to do. Not long after I came up with my OC I did his cutie mark on my cup, leading to the rather lengthy explanation. Even people who didn't get the back story liked the art. My older boy did a link to that particular post on his tumblr, so a lot of the bronies got a chance to check it. One of his circle was complaining about everyone making up alicorns, and my boy asked him, "Even my dad's trollicorn???" and the guy responds, "No, that one's awesome!!!"

I've got some of Applecore's back story worked out in my head, and I can picture a comic of him telling his story to the cutie mark crusaders...

Second shot here, I saw in a parking lot a few weeks back. I LOLLed, Manther was one of the cats we used to have. Full name Samantha, but as that name is too long, it was naturally shortened to Manther. She was mostly black fur, so Manther the panther. That reminds me, the older boy was taking some pictures of our cat the other day, wonder if they are on his tumbler now???

The Frickin' Lions...

As alluded to on an earlier post, here's a shot of the lion casting I had been doing some work on.

Actually, the first shot is one of the beam being shot up into the sky. Not a great shot, but it came out pretty cool, seeming to split the clouds it's shooting into. Nice intense beam, huh???

And, of course, the second shot is how I pictured the lion shooting the beam from it's mouth. Dr. Evil would be proud... "The frickin' lions, with the frickin' lasers shooting out of their frickin' mouths!!!"

Happy Valentine's Day

I've had this picture saved for years, and somehow I always seem to forget to use it on Valentine's day!!! Ferrets to you!!!

Found the first couple of images on I Can Has Cheezburger. The last one, I don't remember exactly where I found, but it's been one of my favorites.

Googling the text at the bottom of it didn't help figure it out, but adding "kinky" to the end of the search did come up with some interesting images!!!

Aurora

Happened across this on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site, and found it too cool not to post!!! I would love to see this with my own eyes!!!

Aurora 2012 from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.

512 to the Shirt!!!

So, I finally did it!!! Years ago I came up with this 512 logo, along with a few other variants. I've seen it put onto beanies and hoodies, as well as having put it on many of my cups at work, but up until now I've never had any of my own gear. That was one of the things I had asked for for Christmas was some fabric paint and a dark green shirt. My wife got some paint (not fabric paint, though) and a nice green polo shirt. I'd picked up some foam from my work (the same kind I made the Minecraft Diamond Sword out of, I should give some detail on how I made that, it seems to be a popular search) and I cut it into a stamp of the logo. Of course, I also exchanged the paint, as well as located a T-shirt. I actually had enough foam left to make a small one, that I was going to use on one side of the polo shirt, and possibly on the upper back of the T-shirt.

That was what I tried to do first, but unfortunately the shirt was rather coarse and absorbent, so it came out very thin. In attempting to add onto it and thicken up the design, I smeared through one of the numbers and proceeded to rinse it off as well as I could. It may still come together. A few days later I put together the T-shirt version seen here. It also soaked up quite a bit of the ink, but I've left it pretty much like that. Perhaps a more porous foam would do a better job??? To keep the paint from soaking through to the back, I had used a piece of cardboard box inside it. I hadn't counted on the flap seam coming across the print, just a bit above the equator, and leaving a distinct stripe. The actual inspiration for this whole idea (I'd had the idea to attempt to do actual silk screen for years) came from one of my co-workers. One of her shirts has a series of multi colored dinosaurs down the front. Having seen it several times, I finally asked her when we were working together if there was any significance to her shirt. She replied that she had the fabric paint and the shirt, and that the dinosaurs just happened to be the stamps she had. Inspiration struck.

The cool part was wearing it to work. I got a lot of responses to it, and everyone knew what it was!!! The semi-weathered appearance of the paint soak was universally regarded as a good look.

When I got my camera out to pose for the picture, I also dug out my Mind Expandy Smurf shirt to get a shot of it for this post. Right on top of it was the tree shirt that I'd gotten as one of the last three random shirts from Woot (along with the robot-skyscraper from Big and the 8-bit Princess Bride shirt for my younger) and thought that it would be good to get a shot of here, too. I don't know what it is about that shirt, but everybody LOVES it!!!

I took a few of the stars and orbs from around the Smurf and added them around my own head for effect.

I notice in the three shots of me, my head goes progressively higher and to the right...

Of course, for the last shot, here's what a cat looks like in a dress shirt and bow tie. I was amazed that he stood still for this!!!

Where Is Everybody???

There was a picture of this Roy Lichtenstein painting in the paper today. I love it!!! I can imagine someone looking at it hanging on a wall and going, "... HEY!!!"

I'd totally get this and display it, but not at the price that it sold for last year, $43.2 million!!!