Stranger than Fiction

Finally back to the vacation posts, here's the previously alluded to Science Fiction Museum. No, it wasn't really stranger than fiction, but it was pretty cool!!!

And there I am, also looking pretty cool. Ahem.

The boy, in the red glow, was being scanned for motion capture technology, the kind of which they use in many of the SciFi movies these days. This particular one was for the exhibit from Avatar, where they motion capture you, and make a rough video clip with you replaced by an avatar!!! Pretty cool, you can see the video here, watch the boy almost stagger off his feet at the end. Oh, and instead of just touching the plant, he gives it a karate chop!!!

They had a lot of other cool stuff from that movie, too. Models, costumes, and an interactive computer display.

James Kirk's captain's chair, surrounded by tribbles.

The cane and amulet of Yoda.

Not pictured but appreciated was the gun from the Men in Black series.

The skeleton of a face-sucker stage of alien.

There were many displays of groundbreaking Science Fiction books and authors. The Watchmen is featured here.

Concept sketches from many movies were on display. Pictured is the costume concept for Neo from The Matrix.

Unfortunately, we only hit about 2/3 of the museum before it closed. at the end we were watching video trailers and commentary from several classic horror movies. Too much to see!!!

It Was THAT Kind of Weekend...

The Halloween Post

We interrupt our vacation pictures series to bring you the Halloween post!!!

So, a couple weeks back, my firstborn was telling me about one of the characters from Homestuck. "He's got candy corn horns..." Enough said!!! I'm going as Karkat Vantas!!! He's also got a sideways "69" on his shirt (the symbol for cancer) and types in all gray caps (I CONSIDERED DOING THIS POST IN ALL CAPS & CHANGING MY COLOR, BUT THOUGHT I WOULD QUICKLY TIRE OF THAT.) I used a couple of yellow cake decorating tips for the horns, with Chevy orange for the middle color. I was going to paint the tips white, but at the same time was still looking for a headband to put 'em on, as well as trying to figure out how to mount them. First plausible one I found was antennas, so I clipped them off and held the rig together with wire nuts on the ends, painted white. Will Karkat play at work??? No one knew who I was supposed to be (or what Homestuck was, for that matter), but everyone recognized 'em as candy corns and loved 'em!!!

In keeping with the theme, I made horrorterror dogs for dinner, from the Eat Mesa cookbook. Interesting and makes for quite a visual.

The firstborn had been talking about going as Indiana Jones, which surprised me a bit that Indy would still play today. Didn't get it together, so he wore a wig he'd picked up, and took my sledge hammer and was Thor. I was asking him if he was going to do anything else with his clothing. He answered while I was taking a drink of water... "No, it's casual Thors-day." I about died choking on my water!!!

The younger had the idea for his costume since early summer. He got a white hoodie, and wanted a red cape added to one arm. His brother asks him, "Are you going to be cosplaying as Enzo from Assassin's Creed??? Yes, that was what he had in mind!!! I took a closer look at the design, and sacrificed a threadbare, falling apart leather jacket and an old belt to make the shoulder guard, with the cape attached. Over the weekend, we stopped by the 99 cent store for some wrist blades (of course, they weren't wrist blades when we bought them, some modification was necessary) and as a bonus they had some wrist gauntlets. I think his came out the best!!! He's the cosplay kid!!!

Pretty geeky this year, too!!!

Are You Experienced?

So, what do you do to follow up your Space Needle visit??? Right next door is the Experience Music Project!!!

It's got a cool design to the building, reminds me more than a little of the Disney Concert Hall back home.

There's a crazy sculpture primarily made of guitars, but also with keyboards, banjos, and all manner of other instruments.

I think it has six of them that have motor driven spring pluckers on 'em, making their own music. It was pretty cool. Probably the most photogenic thing there!!!

I don't think it was a permanent thing, but they had an AC-Dc exhibit. There was a photo op in front of their logo, with guitar and Angus Young jacket props.

They've got Hendrix and Nirvana exhibits. I stayed at the former considerably longer than the latter. There was much very cool audio history, as well as displays of several of the remains of his sacrificed guitars.

There's a hands-on music lab thingy that'll teach you to play, and sound mixing and vocal effects labs.

I really like the way the last picture came out!!! It was tricky, as they prohibit flash photography!!!

In the same building there was also a Science Fiction museum. Next post!!!

Seattle Part One: The Space Needle

As I go through my pictures & experiences, I've decided the best way to go about it is to have 3 or more posts about our time in Seattle. Here comes the first, we'll see if I manage much more!!!

Seattle. The weather was nothing like you may have been led to believe. In fact, most days I took a light jacket and never even wore it!!!

Our hotel (actually, suite... said so right in the name) was in the middle of downtown, right near the convetion center. First shot is the view from our top floor room. Our last night before departure, we finally got a chance to check out the joint between the two, Cyber Dogs. Vegetarian hot dogs and interwebs access. I really liked the food, one of those where if you didn't know you probably wouldn't even know it was vegetarian. I didn't tell my oldest until the next day. No, I can't say enough about the place!!! The decor was awesome, and the music fit right in with it. That may be one of the following posts in itself.

Of course, we had to visit the Space Needle. Don't know how that'd be on a weekday, but on the weekend it took around an hour to get on the elevator. A pretty cool thing, it was. Shot 2 and 3 are, of course, the space needle, and the boys, looking up at it. Right across the street there's a McDonald's, and it has their logo painted on the top. Easy, effective advertising!!! I think the rest of the shots are all taken from the top of it. 50 year anniversary of the Space Needle!!!

I rented a car for the stay there. I don't think I'd do that again. Every place you go, you've got to pay to park. There's a bit of street parking avalible, but I was never able to get in on any. We even made a stop in at a Target. You'd think they'd do a little something with you there, but NO!!! $10 if you can keep it under an hour!!! Nice, my $14 purchase there ends up costing near twice that!!! I haven't figured it out exactly, but I think I spent about twice as much on parking as I did on the actual rental and gas. In fact, the rental was at the airport, and the departing dock for our cruise were pretty much on opposite ends of town, so we needed to take a cab to and from the dock, and THAT cost less than parking!!! I have learned.

In the same area there's the Experience Music Project. It's got a cool design to the building, reminds me more than a little of the Disney Concert Hall back home. In the same building there was also a Science fiction museum. Those could both be a post to themselves.

The next day we visited Pike Street marketplace and went on the crazy underground tour. There's another post!!!

I liked the World's Fair Space Needle hat. Would have totally gotten one of those!!! Haven't even gotten to all of Alaska!!!

Finally...

Here it is, the first post of share from our vacation this year!!!

This year we took a Disney cruise to Alaska!!! Made for a great vacation.

One downside was that, as always, if I want vacation days all in a string, I've got to get them at the end of the previous year. If anything comes up in between, there's not much you can do about it. The week I got was the one at the end of August and beginning of September. Unfortunately, my wife's job ended up starting in the middle of August, and of course they wouldn't give her the time off. Ended up being a bachelor vacation.

They did have the Friday before that week open, so I took it, too, and we had a few days over the weekend in Seattle, which is where the cruise departed from.

I took SO many pictures, and a good deal of them came out excellent. I was going through to find ones to print out to show co-workers, and I was over 50 before I knew it. No one has time to go through that many, so I had to pare it back.

Every place we pulled into on the cruise, they would announce over the P.A. on the ship that it was the best weather they'd seen all season. Of course, I had no basis for comparison, but it was nice enough to me. While we were in Juneau I saw a dad walking with his kid, just past toddler age, who was wearing nothing but shorts.

I've got a lot more to go on about, but I'll save it for later posts.

Delayed ARRRR-gain!!!

Aye, there be no good reasonin' that I'ma not sharrin' about me vacation yet. Truth be told, aye've the pictures & much text just a-waitin' aboard. Howbeit, we were on a voyage o 7 days, aye we were, yet here it be "talk like a pirate day" again, and aye were constrain'd to be puttin' up a proper pirate-y post!!!

So, here be it!!! One of me souvenirs of me voyage. Right pirate-y Aye do say!!! Every time I be passin' the window, I'da be admirin' it. Avast, when I actually be gettin' in the shop, turns out the scurvy bilge rats be carryin' no stock but in youth sizes!!! Betimes, aye were layin' me eye on the first that I came upon, and it be a youth XL... Perchance it be fittin' on yer old pal Aye!!! Indeed, it 'twere!!!

Keep an even keel, more be a-comin' over the horizion!!!

BeFord & After

I'm way behind on my posts, as usual, but I was just doing this & since I'm already behind figured I'd go ahead and do a quickie. I've got tons of epic vacation pictures & stories to share, but for today, you get this!!!

First weekend back, and my dad was organizing a car show. Naturally, I went and took the Merkin. There was also all you can eat & soda for a mere $5, so it was pretty good. Bonus, Monster had a booth set up there, selling their energy drinks for $1 each!!! I bought one to drink, and a half dozen more to take home because you can't beat that price. Not a lot of cars, but there did happen to be a very clean Falcon, nearly like mine with the 4 doors, but not the Futura model, a year earlier, and it still had the factory inline 6.

So, my youngest says, "You should take a picture of both of them, and do a half and half!!!" Challenge accepted!!!

The results: Not perfect, but completely plausible. The angle wasn't exactly the same, so the hoods didn't line up too well, but the roof line and the bumpers came out real close!!! Not bad!!! And, of course, the bonus that you can see the original style grille (well, original for 64. The grille is the easiest way to distinguish between the 64 and 65.) and headlights side by side with my mod!!!

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.