The Happy Easter Post

Going a little random here, as I am wont to do!!!

To start off with, a couple of whiteboard artworks!!! The first is by my firstborn, the ancient enigma!!!

The second is my own creation. The text is from the examine of the mysterious statues in Runescape, "it's eyes stare off into the distance..."

I liked the mysterious statues better before the graphical update.

Not a lot new in the old cup art department, but I did do up this design for my 512 on my current one. I liked the way it came out. I was aiming for a bit of a Southwest look, but it missed by a bit, I think. Still like it.

The next shot is related to the boy's Birthday post. With his birthday money he bought himself a skateboard that he'd really wanted. He used it quite a bit at first, but has tapered off a lot. Seems like the wheel bearings are shot on it already, I'll see about some replacements if he promises to practice on it some more.

Finally onto the Easter festivities, here's a couple of shots of the egg hunt!!! In a move reminiscent of one seven years ago, I hid one in plain sight. It took quite a bit of hot and cold before he found it.

You can see the enlightenment on his face as he spots it!!! One of those classic perfect timing shots!!!

Good times!!!

In other not so good times news, poor Janices' transmission seems to be on it's last legs. I'm no expert, but I think it's lost the high gear band or bands, as the case may be. Naturally, right after I replace the battery again!!! Once again, I'm no expert, but I'm thinking around $1500 to have the trans done, and it's just not worth it to me. I'd totally get another one (being as I've got a good running engine in her, lifetime starter albeit not that great at staying working, and lifetime motor mounts albeit in need of being replaced already, and good tires and fresh rear axle shafts and good brakes and a new radio... all things I'd at least consider swapping over) AND there's a guy selling the rarer and more coveted 2-door coupe version in great condition (with the exception of a blown engine) with a fresh rebuilt trans for $1000... I really didn't want to get into another project like that!!! ANyway, my wife drives her more than I do (somehow that became her car) and since diesel fuel has been consistently higher than gasoline for the past few years... she's up for something else. She'd like a small, fuel efficient 4-door with decent hauling room, and even seems to more inclined towards a wagon of some kind. Ideally, I think (and she likes the idea, too) a low miles Saturn SW wagon of around the vintage of Baby would be awesome. We are quite pleased with the reliability, performance and mileage of our current Saturn, and I've got a couple of lifetime parts on her already. Alternatively, I've always liked the Subaru Legacy wagons and have heard good of their reliability. VW Passat, Escort (or better yet Mercury Tracer), or perhaps even Focus or Accord wagons might be acceptable, if we were to find nice condition, fairly low mile, and well optioned models in our price range. So far I've attempted to get in touch with four. One kept bouncing my E-mails back and undeliverable, another I left a message and never heard back, another was actually a stone's throw from our home and I cruised by and saw the guy getting out of it. Rolled down the window and asked if he wanted to sell it, and he said he'd changed his mind!!! The fourth was already sold. Sigh, car shopping.

Car in the Canyon

My firstborn bought himself a slightly used Ipod touch recently. This is a good thing, because now he's got a device with him at most times with which he can get photo or video of things of interest. This is just such a case in point!!!

It's a little surprising that we don't see more of this sort of thing, considering where we live. Somehow someone managed to get their car down in the canyon!!! Apparently there was no broken guard rail anywhere nearby, so how exactly it ended up in there is still a bit of a mystery. As they were passing by, there were already two police cars there, and a third came up as they were further down. Looked like there was no one who had been in it, so I was thinking it might have been stolen and ditched there. Perhaps this weekend I'll investigate further.

Ice Cream Overload

More from the boy's birthday!!! He wanted to go to Farrell's to celebrate there.

Last time we went, the older boy had the Mount St. Helen's, which he finished for the award ribbon and announcement. This time he tried the Pig's Trough, basically a double banana split (I had two ribbons from finishing them back when I was around his age...) and the following Rage Comic is pretty much how things went!!! Reminds one a bit of the gallon of milk challenge!!!

One saving grace was that, as we were walking up, we'd noticed there was an open table on the patio area by the sidewalk. That saved us much waiting time (it's always very busy) and made for a nice clear spot for the ejection. Prior to the main event, he'd stood up, did a little bit in his mouth then swallowed it down. He said, "hmmm, that didn't taste bad at all..." to himself.

I KNEW I should have brought my camera!!!

I made this on Cheezeburger's site. Vote it up here!!! Also, maybe it's a bit larger & more easily read there!!!

Brony Birthday

Another year older!!! Where does the time go??? Last weekend was the observation of the younger's birth!!!

For his cake, he wanted his OC pony, CounterDash. A take off of Rainbow Dash. With the hat, his brother called it Scumbag Rainbow Dash. I did an image search, and all of them came up with Scumbag Steve hats.

On a mildly tangential topic, my wife was solicited for a donation to D.A.R.E., who used to be anti drug and gang, but they told her that their new hot topics are anti bullying and cyber bullying. She was a little puzzled by the cyber bullying thing, thought you could just ignore or disconnect from any potential bullies. My older overhears, and says he's gotta show us his favorite site, Ask Cyberbully Fluttershy. I was amused.

So, in addition to the traditions of cake, presents, and pinata, the boy wanted to get several cans and have an epic silly string war!!!

And that pinata??? We went shopping, and the one he selected had nut crackers on it!!! "So we can crack 'em in the nuts!!!"

It didn't last long. Two hits. Him hitting the pinata.

The pinata hitting the ground.

The older boy, going all Gordon Freeman on it...

Happy birthday, boy!!!

My Crappy Valentine

So, last weekend it was half price day at the junkyard again. My dad and I went. Didn't get everything on our lists, but got a few things anyway. On the way out, though, I noticed the drain gurgling in the kitchen, an ominous sound. As I was in the basement, I saw no water backing up at this point, but when I got back there was raw sewage aplenty.

It's an old house, 1924 construction. At least every year the main line of the sewer needs snaked out. About 60 feet back there's usually some roots growing in. In the last year I'd say it's been at least three times. I figured it was time again, but did note that it is getting more and more frequent.

My normal guy, an independent one man act who has always done well, turns out to no longer be doing weekends. Another plumber, a major chain I've used before, can't make it until the next day. I go online and find someone who can make it. A place that'll root out your drain for $79 looks promising, and can make it in a few hours. He gets here, says he can't guarantee it'll work, proceeds to break the drain from the washing machine and gets a little bit of roots out to where it drains down, then charges almost double the advertised price. Got there quick, but completely off my list now.

Two days later, I go down to repair the washing machine drain, and find it's backed up again. My normal guy doesn't even call back, the major chain comes out and won't do it because the access is in the basement. Driving home that evening I see the back of a van, I can't even see the name but it has "drains our specialty" on the back, and I get the number. They come right out the next day, snake the drain thrice to no avail, and end up sending their camera down to discover a root around 4 inches around going for about seven feet!!! Well, there you go.

So, anyway, there it is. If you want your fancy indoor plumbing, your 89 year old sewer line has gotta go, and since it's on a nice incline, it ain't gonna be cheap!!! Between half the payment on my property tax and the new sewer line, there goes exactly all of my gravy from last year!!! Guess we're not going on a fancy big vacation this year. All permits and inspections are included, though. Getting another clean out, this one on the outside of the house, put in, too. On the plus side, it's guaranteed for 25 years, so figuring $150 or so per rooter visit... I'm still money behind. Oh well.

Funny thing, I remember some years back, I was playing Runescape, mining with my rune pickax. I was getting set to head out somewhere, and was going to log out as soon as I got the one more coal. I messed up, though, the head came flying off my pickax, and my mind said that was the last coal, and I'd logged out just as I realized what happened. Quickly went back to the log in page, but by the time it was loaded and I got logged in, it was gone. I was more broke up about that than about how much I'm having to pay to get a new sewer line put in. My stomach actually hurt over my pixel pickax!!!

Here's a few pictures from the project. I like the first one, I call it "troll in a hole", and I'm thinking of using it for my new profile picture!!! The third picture is where they tunneled the new pipe where the old one was. I don't know how they did it, it's gotta be close to twenty feet!!! Fourth shot is the hole nearest to the house, it had two pipes coming out, then one down to the street. I have no idea how that works, it only seems like one goes. Last shot is water draining down the new pipes.

The Final Piece

Here's the next one we did, another 500 piece puzzle!!!

As you can see, unlike the last one, we managed to get all the pieces in this time!!! It was pretty tricky, too, all those clouds and white water were tough.

A couple of quick random pictures I came across while preparing this, the primary ingredients for my chili (less one bottle of beer, preferably dark and flavorful), arranged in a nice pyramid. The crowning glory of which is a couple of bulbs worth of garlic cloves!!!

Next is a few slices of pizza, artistically arranged. Half of them are pastrami pizza with dill pickle chunks and a mustard base. When they said pastrami pizza, I was picturing more like The Hat, where it would be stacked layers high. Oh well, it was pretty good anyway.

Lastly is this week's whiteboard art, a couple of guys watching the shapes in the clouds. Nice, huh??? Not so much, it was inspired by a segment from Robot Chicken, hopefully the embed works & remains!!!

499 Pieces

Here's something else from Christmas: A 500 piece jigsaw puzzle!!!

It's a peacock, very colorful and looked like it would be challenging. It was, but I sometimes enjoy a jigsaw puzzle.

As is oftentimes the case, however, got down to the end and there was one piece missing!!! There's your 499 piece jigsaw puzzle!!!

I circled where it's missing, because it's easy to miss if you don't know where it's at.

In other news, I picked up up a magnetic whiteboard. Figured I could have the boys come up with artwork to post on the 'fridge on a temporary basis. This is the first submission, done by the older boy.

We all know that feeling.

Next Stop: The Moon!!!

A while back, I did a little doodle of a spacecraft, something of a lander module.

Came out semi decent. Did a scan of it and 'shopped it into a lunar surface shot I found. Semi plausible.

Shortly after doing the drawing, though, it occurred to me that, when inverted, it looked quite a bit like an angry robot face!!!

Of course, I had to then 'shop it onto my bad robot cup drawing from a while ago!!!

Christmas Shirts

One of the things I did up for both my boys for Christmas were several shirts.

Since the older boy is quite about the Homestuck these days, I made him up a couple with that theme. He uses the "§" §ection sign in his online dealings, so I incorporated that in two of the three shirts I made up for him.

The first one pictured here has the Homestuck logo with the word "SBURB" beneath it, only of course I changed out the "S" to "§". Interestingly, the logo somehow mirrored, so true Homestuck fans will notice it's hinky.

The next one is John Egbert's "Ghostbuster" shirt. He's already got the glasses. If you look close, you can see him on his monitor. Now he's the Cosplay kid, too!!!

For the younger, he wanted a Minecraft Creeper hoodie, but those are expensive!!! I made him up a shirt, and he loves it!!! Unfortunately, the iron on transfers I used, it said to wash it after applying to make it relax and not be so stiff. Well, it made the unprinted area really show up on this particular one. Might be because it's a cheap T-shirt, none of the others had that problem. Trust me, it looked a lot better before it was laundered. Oh yea, there's the much searched for Diamond Sword again!!!

I didn't get a shot of the actual shirt, but here's the design I did up for the older boy, Fluttershy, with the word "Shy", once again modified. I put it on a yellow shirt, and it kind of bled through a little.

For the younger, he wanted DJ Pon3 and her bass cannon. Again, the color of the shirt affected the transfer some, but it works OK.

Lastly, one of his friends gave him the Yoda shirt.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!!! Since I'm not doing a lot, and my internets are going really slow, thought I'd put together the next post of vacation pictures!!!

I thought pictures from the Sawyer glacier would be appropriate. This was the first destination on the cruise, up Tracy Arm. There was one whole day of steaming up the Canada coast and a night of heading up the Alaska coast. When I looked out the porthole of our cabin that morning, I saw icebergs!!!

We never left the ship, but were just positioned off the glacier all day.

I kept looking at the left side all day, see how it looks like it's all an overhanging ice cave???

There went a little, but I was sure there was more in it.

They said that some days they come up here and it doesn't calve off but one or two icebergs. As was typical of our trip, however, it was excellent, and it was calving ALL DAY LONG!!!

I took so many pictures there, and the bulk of them came out quite good!!! There's the wave from just a bit to the right of where I was watching.

If you notice the dark specks on the ice floes, those are seals. Gives you a bit of an idea of the scale. There's a huge hunk of the blue of the glacier iceberg.

There it's going!!!

And to all a good night!!!

More Rage

I made this up some time ago, once again based on a true life adventure!!!

In case you didn't know, Mexican candy is notorious for having high levels of lead...

Passing the Torch Random

Once again, I've got a lot I've been meaning to blog, and it's time to get some of it out!!!

First up is some cup art I did back on December 7th. I was going to subscript it with "We will never forget", but it didn't come out too recognizable. It's supposed to be the Arizona memorial, in honor of Pearl Harbor day.

There was another birthday, where as usual I was contracted to make a cake. Actually, it was a double birthday celebration, so I was requested to do two or something... I forced my older boy to do the second cake, ergo the title of this post!!!

My niece is a fan of Justin Bieber, and that was my only direction for a cake. I utilized the Rage Comic "Now Kiss" guy, and made the dolls her and Justin, then added their names (+ each other) to the bottom, along with a heart. She LOL'ed.

I'm sure he's been featured here before, but the other requested cake was for SpongeBob. I've done at least two other SpongeBob cakes, and even Wubbsy with Bob's pants on, and I'm about Bobbed out. My older boy is quite the aspiring artist, so I told him, "It'll be a new medium for you to work in!!!" He wasn't especially enthused to be doing so, but he came up with this slightly Picasso themed cake. the smaller eye is actually 3D about an inch tall!!!

That same evening was my company's Christmas party. There we are dressed up for it. This year, instead of having a photographer on the way in, taking a formal picture then selling it to you on the way out, they had a photo booth. The pictures were free, and they had a lot of costumes and props to use, too. I wore a sparkly hat and my wife wore a black & white feather boa and a necklace that read "HO HO HO" in large letters.

I worked the Friday after Thanksgiving, at time and a half, plus getting paid for the vacation day. I'm doing the same for tomorrow, Christmas eve. They fed us breakfast and lunch last time, and I'm assuming they will tomorrow, too. If not, I'll be going hungry.

I saw the Counting Crows at the Wiltern back at the end of November. It was a pretty good show.

Personal space and general admission shows are pretty much mutually exclusive.

Opening act one was Tender Mercies, who come to find out, Counting Crows has been doing several of their songs for years as covers. I have many as bootlegs, and one (maybe two???) are featured on their latest album. Instant fan!!! The second opening act, Mean Creek, well, they were loud. They feature a cute girl guitarist, who constantly jumped up and down the whole set. She made a comment that she loves when the crowds are rowdy, and we were the rowdiest. Pretty much the opposite was the case, I LOL'ed.

I liked the artwork for the Wiltern show. Wish they'd had it on a shirt. I never much care for the concert shirts from Counting Crows. Strange.

Goody day at work was kinda bad this year. We're back to three lunch breaks, and by the time I got my break, they were out of a lot of stuff, including drinks. Oh well, I've been told next year will be better. This year WAS better for gravy day. If I'm not mistaken, it was only 5% under what I've been told was the record amount. Also 10% under what I was told by a "reliable source" to be this year's amount. I'm good with it.