13 Shots: Sea and Land

Back from this year's vacation!!! We went to Hawaii again, this time for a few days on Oahu and a few on the Big Island. I took a lot of good pictures, so here's a sampling.

First up is from the first morning. Waikiki beach, just outside of the hotel we were staying at there. It literally had steps out directly onto the beach!!!

Next up is a couple of shots from Kailua beach on the West side of the island. I'd heard it was picked as one of the world's most beautiful beaches, so I decided to make that a stop. It truly was.

Fine, powdery sand, warm water, and surrounded by towering ironwood trees. Only thing, since it was Hawaii, it was raining on and off while we were there. A lot of it was just a little drizzle, blowing in sideways from the onshore breeze.

The next couple of shots are from Diamond Head. All the times I've been to Oahu, I've never been there before. It's a nice hike, with a great view!!!

I would have liked to have stayed somewhere not in Honolulu, but in typical fashion I booked late, and most everything else was not available. You can see, it's a lot like any other metropolitan area.

On over to the Big Island!!! This was on the evening we arrived there. On the way from the airport to our lodging, there was a scenic overlook point, and we pulled in just before the sun was setting!!!

The Big Island has a lot of areas of the black lava rock. We pulled off on the way to visit Volcanoes Park.

That was just as we were getting to the East side of the island.

The next day, we had headed up to the Northern area of the island, in search of a barbecue place, that turned out to be a guy who sets up his trailer there on Thursday nights. Sad trombone. Anyway, on the way back, we pulled off on one of the side roads marked coastal access. Not really beachy, but it was cool nonetheless.

Looked like you could possibly launch a boat there, or could have at some point anyway. In the second picture, you can see some yellow in the water, those were yellow tang.

Finally, we went to a beach just north of our lodging. It is called 49 Black Sand Beach, and the name is why we headed there. It was a really nice beach, but the sand wasn't all that black. It was more like pepper, some black, a lot of light to white grains. In the first shot, you can see Maui across the channel from it!!!

There is a lot of broken up lava stones in the water, and off to the sides. Given enough time, the sand will be more black.

Hopefully, there will be more from our adventures to follow!!!

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!!!