August & Everything

Happy August!!! As is usual, I observed the traditional birthday of myself!!!

For something different, this year I had to get my driver's license renewed. If you're aware, you know that this is a major pain in California, as they had postponed implementing the Real ID act for several years, then when they started doing it, they screwed it up in typical fashion, so DMV offices have been swamped. I'd attempted to make an appointment to get it renewed before it expired. Of course, the only appointments available were for a month after it expired. Anyway, a few weeks before, on my day off, I headed over to attempt a walk-in renewal. I got there about 15 minutes before they opened, and by my estimation there were about 30 people already in line. I joined in, and by the time they opened, there were probably another 30 people. They were giving out your number as you filed in, and pre-screening where you were going. As I'd judged, I was #30!!! Did a bit of filling out on some kiosks they have there, generated a file number, then waited until they called my number. Showed my papers, paid my money, and was out in under an hour and a half, so it was nowhere near the horror story that everyone had been saying. Got my Real ID a week or so ago, nicely before mine expired. I like my look in the new one better!!!

Out driving the other day, and I was behind a car with my birth month and year on the plate!!! Now you know, if you didn't already.

What did I get for my birthday? My wife got me a nice manicure kit, and I bought myself a Firefly comic and the 40th anniversary CD from the Stray Cats. I'm planning on buying the components to repair the air conditioning in Scruffy, and thinking of getting another set of Ion rims to put on 3.

The Ketchup Random Post

It's been a while, I have several things I've been wanting to post some about, so the time has come to catch up!!!

Speaking of ketchup, found this last time I was at the dollar store. Spicy, it's interesting but not great. Last time I found a ketchup there, it was a grilled onion flavored, and that was pretty great. Of course, none of that there anymore. But I digress.

Had a week off in July. Back when my work had the Spring ticket drawing, my name was pretty low on the list, so there weren't a lot of good ones left. Then I realized that I had that week off, and thus far nothing planned, so I took a Monday evening game, for a change an Angels game!!! They were playing the Houston Astros, so there was a Texas connection. It was pretty good, the area we were in had food service to your seat, so that was nice, and getting in and out is better. Had some pastrami fries!!! There's the moon rising over the lights.

It's a bit of a haul to the area, and rather than heading back and forth, I booked us a couple nights at an Orange County hotel. Had the thought that we could get in touch with my niece and drop into the Great Wolf Lodge again to get wet for an afternoon, but instead we dropped in to Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Turns out the Chick-Fil-A will set you up with a chicken sandwich if you had been to an Angels game the next day!!! Afterwards, we headed to a very picturesque beach in Crystal Cove State Park. The next day we stopped in at Boomers down there, and that was our little vacation.

The younger boy graduated from high school. He's planning on going to trade school for electrician training. He never expressed much interest in it before, but I'm sure he'll be able to pick it up pretty well, and it's a good paying profession.

He'd found an aloha shirt at the St. Vincent thrift store a while back. He wanted to get some louver glasses to go with it, and not long ago, on a 20% off day at Big Lots, we went to one that happened to be by a Party City. Went in to take a look, and they have 'em there, so we set him up with them.

Apparently, the impetus for both of those was another Homestuck adjacent troll, Murrit Turkin!!!

Finished off the week by sanding down and spray painting the rest of the right side of Scruffy. Got a couple of runs, sanded them out, sprayed it some more... Always looks far too shiny when it's fresh sprayed. I was getting antsy to get the other side done. All that remains is the rear hatch and bumper, but I've been working on the front bumper, too, eliminating the holes for the front plate mount. Not a great picture, but I did a bit of a long shot to get 2 of my 3 classics in the shot.

While I was doing so, I had the lower rocker off (it's a molded black plastic part, easier to remove than to mask) and it nicely revealed the upper part of my new exhaust tip!!! Also, the only way besides removing it that you'll see the 512 Labs inscription on the top side. I've only driven it a couple days in the last few weeks, as we've been having a heat wave, and I still haven't fixed the air conditioning on it. My birthday is coming up, maybe I'll buy the parts for myself.

I participated in The Oinkster's Burger Week again this year. The shirt is a take off on the Chili Peppers, and I don't think that anyone has picked up on that it isn't just that every time I've worn it. If anyone has, they haven't said anything.

Back before the end of the school year, they were taking the senior class to Speed Zone in City of Industry. I had been working in the area when they built the place, back in the late 90's, and have driven by it several times. It sounded like a good time, but I'd never made it over there!!! Anyway, it was on my day off, so I was able to get in on it.

There's a go-kart track, a slick track, and dragsters!!! There's an arcade and mini golf, too. The day pass was $56, but a season pass was $51!!! What would you do??? Yeah, that's what we did. We've been back twice.

They've been giving me the middle shift at work more these days. Don't know if I'd mentioned, but they eliminated the late late shift, and moved the late to 10:25 AM. Middle shift is two hours earlier. I like the way it works out, I never have to get up early on Mondays. Of course, the drive is worse. ANyway, that's the prelude to the next part of my updates!!!

I had been hearing for a while that Alt 98.7 and The Woody Show were doing a night at Medieval Times. Ravey and Menace were going to be there, and they had a promo code to get a good discount. It's been years since I've been there, but it starts 15 minutes before I get out of work. The day before, they ask if I can work middle shift the next day. Hey, I could make it!!! And, so I did!!! Made it there and visited the Alt 98.7 tent. They had one Woody Show pin left, which they gave me, so cool. They put us in Ravey's section, and our knight gave the first rose to her. We were able to meet up with them after the show. I've met Ravey before, but this is my first time meeting Menace. He's taller than I thought.

And I got one shot of Menace in his natural state, playing on his phone!!!

An Exhausting Undertaking

Here's a project I've been working on for quite a while!!!

Back in the beginning of May is when I started in on it. The idea has been in my head for longer than that, but here's the culmination.

I've been displeased with the terrible job that was done attempting to duplicate the original 512 Labs tailpipe for Scruffy. As I've been working on this, I've discovered that the system had been doing quite a bit of making contact with the tunnel. Additionally, I wanted to attempt to pick up a bit more ground clearance and improve the look of the outlet.

I started off by getting some 1 3/8" tubing and steel flat stock. I used some chipboard to fabricate a template, then used a sawzall to split the tube and cut out the flat stock.

I also got some of the old system parts and tubing, and came up with a much better output pipe, which tucks up into the tunnel much more cleanly. After getting the tip into shape, I ground the welds down quite a bit.

You can see, the end result is quite a bit cleaner on the pipe shape. What doesn't show as well in the pictures is the end section, where it does a dip down, then back up, which nicely clears the end of the tunnel area and goes under the emergency brake cable. I'm not sure if that dip makes the clearance situation no better than it was.

Laying the one pipe over the other shows it to be much cleaner.

A shot of the tip in place, prior to the addition of some black high-temp paint, the same as the original.

Here's a marked improvement over the one it's replacing, a pair of rubberized mounts on either end of the tip, for a solid but not too solid mount!!!

Took quite a while for several reasons. I was using my dad's MIG welder, and first it ran out of shield gas. Had a spool of flux core wire, and I switched to it. Took me a while to dial in the settings, but it came out pretty good. Then, at the tail end of the project, the wire kept getting jammed, and it turns out the wire feed cable was screwed up. I had a friend finish off the final welds.

And, if you hadn't noticed in the earlier shots, I've seen to it that this one has a legitimate 512 Labs inscription!!!

The Legacy Continued

My wife dug this up a couple of weeks ago. It had been rolled up for some time, and upon finding it, she mounted it to a wall. Like my father before me, my older son after me is something of an artist himself. This was from around five years ago, his senior year, when he'd taken an art class and actually got some formal training!!! I know he came up with several quite good pieces (and a few... questionable ones... I remember he'd made a piñata of a minion somewhere in there) but this is the only one I can remember. His talents really came alive with the training he received in the class!!!

Anyway, the inspiration for this drawing is "The Treachery of Images", which shows a painting of a pipe, with the subscription "This is not a Pipe" in French beneath it. Ironically, it happens to be displayed at the LACMA, which we had visited for extra credit for the very same art class!!!

Finishing Touches

Here's a few follow-ups to previous posts, some things that have been finished off...

First up is one of my dad's paintings. The flying saucer is completed with shading and the windows. In addition, the shack is now sporting one of the passengers, the fabled Purple People Eater!!!

It's a bit on the small side, but appears to be canonical, with the one eye, and a horn in his head suited to blowing out rock and roll music!!!

Next up is my latest work board artwork, now featuring the lyrics I'd said I would likely add eventually. The only notable part is how I fancied up the ampersand, complete with a light reflection that corresponds to the ones on the chess piece.

And finally, I got the transition on Scruffy's roof striped to blend better!!!

The Return of the Monkey Boy

It's been a long while...

Don't believe I've made mention, but now my younger son also has a lady friend.

She's got a sister, who apparently is fiend for loquats!!! Know who's got loquats??? We do!!!

The sister has come up with a nickname for my son, starting with the "loq" from the loquat tree...

Later on, we were visiting my parents', their tree is great for climbing, also.

A Happy Homestuck Day

I took this picture a couple weeks back, with the intention of posting it here.

It's the first time in a while we've made up a shirt. My younger son wanted to make this shirt up, another Homestuck addition. The character is Jake English.

Found out just a couple days ago that today is Homestuck day, the day the first debut of Homestuck. Ten years, it's been, and I've been aware of it for seven of them!!!

Crazy Bikes Revisited

Way back when I made the Tribute post, I made mention of a couple of my creations. The other day I was at my parents house, and took a couple of pictures of the pictures mentioned therein.

First up was the chopper bike I'd made by welding in six foot fence posts. The original thought was to use the forks on my 20" BMX bike, possibly with a smaller wheel on the front end. It was highly unstable, and impossible to drive. Since I had come upon this 16" kids bike, complete with training wheels, and the head tube was the correct size, on the forks went to it. The training wheels made it so it could be stood up, at least, although it was tilted way back!!!

The second shot is the April Fool's trick where my sidehack ended up on the diving board of the pool.

Dang, I was a dorky looking kid!!!

Shirt-Art Imitates Photo-Art

One of those things I do most every day is check what they've got for sale on Woot. Got my last two phones, a few TV's, and dozens of shirts from there. This week they had another that I had to get.

One of my favorite shots from when we were in Texas was the bat bridge in Austin.

This shirt had a black and white (well, gray. Well, you know, gray is my favorite color) rendering of almost exactly that image, draped with plaid octopus. Another nice tie-in, the contest the shirt was coming from is about the South by Southwest festival, in affiliation with Do512. OK, I'll take one!!! Once again, I've got too many shirts.

Something I'd made mention of on that post, but never expanded on, was the fact that there IS a basement in the Alamo!!! Within the grounds of the Alamo, there's a gift shop. I'm pretty sure it was one of the original buildings. As I was perusing the shirts, a lady next to me asks one of the workers there if they have a shirt in a medium. The worker replies that she'll go look in the stock room, and proceeds to this elevator, that, as you can see, only has a down button!!! I say to the lady, "There IS a basement in the Alamo!!!"

White Cap

It started out simply enough, and then it snowballed.

It's been almost two years since Scruffy took a stick. Back when I made the post, I'd stated that there was no damage to the roof, but I was mistaken. It put a dent around two inches in the roof, which you can see in the first shot. I had a little time, I thought I'd get around to removing it.

A little liquid dent remover and a lot of sanding and primer and it's fairly well gone, and you almost can't see it without knowing where it was.

Since I was sanding on the roof, I continued sanding the un-ridged front portion, getting rid of most of the badly flaking clear coat. I got that area fairly well taken care of. More primer in the areas I'd sanded through to metal.

While I had my sander out, I did a bit of the sanding along the sides and within the area between the first couple of ridges, and did some hand sanding of the ridges.

I'd primered the front and either side, and it ended up looking pretty bad with the center area still raw and flaking, so I took some time and sanded that area, too, as well as the top portion of the rear hatch. I didn't really do a thorough job of sanding along the center ridges, so it's a bit rough along those areas, but if I was going to get any actual paint on it, I had to draw the line somewhere. As it was, I spent a lot longer than I'd planned on it. All I'd set out to do was to fill the dent!!!

Way back in the Tribute post, I'd made mention of 3-toning her, with white on the roof, black on the window over-trims and the metallic green on the lower body. I'd gone so far as to have picked up a half dozen cans of white enamel paint. I had no other plans for it, and decided if I don't like the look, I can always satin black over it. Not to mention, with a white top, it has better properties of heat rejection!!!

In most of the above pictures, you can see I've got the side window trim pulled off. In the top picture, you can see they also had pretty bad clear coat separation, too. Back to the Scruffy gets Stuck post, you can see the broken trim on the driver's side. I'd bought a replacement piece way back, just after that incident, but hadn't installed it yet, because it would have been the odd one out if I didn't go through and paint all four, which leads to another thing I'll get back to later on in this post...

Anyway, while I had those pieces removed to paint the roof, I of course painted them, too. Below that were several pieces of black plastic trim, which were all fairly weathered looking. Before I re-installed them, I took some rubbing compound to them and livened them up some. Took a before and after shot to show myself it actually did some good!!!

That one piece of window trim I'd broken back when I was painting the nose actually came out pretty good!!! I'd been planning on just getting a replacement from the junkyard, but this is good enough. Turned out the front driver's side window trim was from the 2nd generation, and in typical fashion, it has to be just a little changed... has to do with the tabs between the front and the back pieces. Ah well, it added a little more time in the re-assembly, but came out fine.

It has been a very wet beginning to the year. It's something of a challenge threading the needle and getting the paint on while it's dry out. It was drizzling when I was putting the trim back together, and of course I wanted to get some pictures right off!!! It's far from perfect, but from five feet away, it looks good enough, and way better than it did before!!! Then I get a picture with the side that's still metallic green, and I kind of think I'd like to go that route still!!!

As mentioned above, there was one other complication with the window trim. The style line continues onto the rear hatch sheetmetal, With everything the same shade, you don't even notice it, but multi toning it like this, it would look bad if I didn't continue it. This is how it came out. The passenger side is better, but still a little notchy. Fortunately, I have a guy who pinstripes to smooth it out!!!