Category: Projects

They Sense Your Fear Haunted Trail 2016 Pt 1 – The Build

Just sitting here yelling at my TV thanks to an Indian’s let down so far – someone wake up that damn goat!!  To help myself cool down, figured I would pop out another post.  For the record, you are in bonus time this month – life is so much easier when all I have to do is write the post as opposed to having to process all the pictures, get them linked into the post and then start adding witty banter for the enjoyment of my loyal readers.  Thanks to doing all the hard work while on vacation, I can simply jump in and get right too it.  As I have mentioned previously, we held our annual Haunted Trail at the beginning of this month.  Keeping with tradition, thought I would help give you a perspective of what it takes to actually put that together – This is what my basement looked like two weeks before the event.
Haunted Trail 2016 - The Build

Basically a total mess thanks to having to deal with finishing up all the trim work while trying to get a head start on the Halloween props.  This year I was able to start a little earlier than usual thanks to an accelerated running schedule  (my two half marathon races were earlier in September and my third one was a couple of weeks after the party date). This allowed me to get the crap load of boxes and tubs out of storage way early.  I was also able to get my partner in haunt to come over and my brother Ron was even able to come down and help build out all the new sensor triggers we deployed this year.  Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of Ron from that day, but he did send me a bunch of pictures he took to help chronicle the work (big thanks).

Here Paul and I are putting together all the Posey frames and getting them costumed up.
Haunted Trail 2016 - The Build

Hit the jump to get a feel for all the work that goes in for one night of haunting fun.

Continue reading They Sense Your Fear Haunted Trail 2016 Pt 1 – The Build

A Bridge Not Far Enough

Greetings everyone!  I am finally back from a quick trip out to North Carolina.  Linda wanted to fill up on new waterfall pictures and I was hoping to get some new bird pictures.  That, and to support a state that understands the stick figure with a skirt is the girls bathroom and the skinny stick figure, well that is for the boys.  It was touch and go there for a bit since the news outlets were hyping up the hurricane potential to get everyone worked up.  This gave them the excuse to pull all their pretty hurricane rotation maps out of the mothballs they’ve been stored in for the past 10 years.  Storm passed, it drop some rain and toppled some picnic tables, but the Smokies looked untouched.  I was able to get a few posts out on the road, but most of the time was spent prepping a bunch of future posts. As of now, I have close to 4 months of blog fodder patiently waiting to be dumped like another batch of crooked Hillary emails.  I was able to get a good run in today, so figured it was a good time take a break and get a short post out of the way… and by short I mean 20 feet.
2016 Lot Bridge

That happens to be the distance of the latest bridge building effort on the lot.  It seems like every year around October I am busting out the hammers and drills in order to fix an existing bridge or make a brand new one.  This year it was a replacement bridge thanks to the destructive tendencies of my run-off stream.  When I bought the property over 10 years ago, we had a one foot trench that water coming off our hills would collect in and slowly make their way to the larger stream on the property that Serenity crosses (link here),  By last year, that little trench had widened to about 6 feet.  That prompted an 8 foot bridge project last year at this time – note, this usually becomes a problem around Haunted Trail time since I need to get the ATV down there with the decorations.  I remember putting that thing together in the dead of night by the car lights.  With the stream now at 8 feet, last year’s bridge was unsafe to cross. Crap, another bridge build and I already had enough to do to get ready for the party.  Luckily, I already had the 6x6x10’s above so that saved me some time.  As you can see, I had to put those end to end.  I used a post coupler to join them and then put planks across the joint to stiffen it up.  Those planks were shot with 16 penny nails – going nowhere!

2016 Lot Bridge

Hit the jump to read more about the build

Continue reading A Bridge Not Far Enough

Posies Be a Bulking – Pt 2

Today we are back with the second part of the 2016 Posey upgrade project.  If you will recall, in the last post we went over the major upgrades to the appearance of the body and the new classy shoes.  There were a few more enhancements that I wanted to highlight and thus part two.  These additional enhancements were primarily a result of trying to put everything together.  Due to the early timing of the Halloween party this year, I wasn’t able to put the full product out although the second mold (the one that didn’t cure right) ended up being used for a great prop.  After the party, I was able to spend some more time and try to put the finishing touches on this year’s model.

2016 Posey Upgrade

It didn’t take long for the first problem to come to light.  When I went to attach the appendages it turned out that my initial idea to put the couplers at the ends of the molds .. well, let’s just say I didn’t think that one through enough.  I had planned to use the same coupler structure from my previous Poser version – to do that with the arms meant it would either stick out another 4+ inches or cause me to cut all the way back to the center post and then dig into the foam chest to give room to turn the couplers. This had to be fixed.

Since I had purchased other molds, I decided to work with the male adult mold this time.   Like last time, I still wanted a 1″ PVC frame (that size works best with the fence post ends).  In an effort to address the appendage problem, I went with an idea that I tried on a previous Posey version – basically took a coupler and chop sawed a kerf cut half way through the end.  Those cut couplers were put on the spine couplers for both the arms and the legs – since the neck can spin in the coupler on its own, I didn’t cut the neck coupler.  Note, in the first attempt, these couplers were attached end to end to the spine couplers and then the PVC pipes were extend out through the mold to keep it in place.  The other change was putting the leg posts horizontal rather than vertical.  I do not have close ups of that version, however, I do have ones from the next iteration.  Rather than take the extra space for the couplers, I decided to put the cuts in the actual spine couplers instead.  You can see that in the shot below.

2016 Posey Upgrade

Hit the jump to see the new features in detail

Continue reading Posies Be a Bulking – Pt 2

Posies Be A Bulking – Pt 1

I swear this last month has lasted at least three months!  Since middle of September, I’ve ran three half marathons, held our annual Halloween party, finished like 8 posts, made it through a crap load of work on my real job and now trying to get some badly needed rest which consists of me hiking up and down mountains.  Since November seems like it is never going to get here, decided to break out some of the Halloween posts early this year.  Let’s start on the decorations front.  Remember those Posies from last year (link here).  Well, this year they are getting an upgrade.

2016 Posey Upgrade
Although these have not been put together yet, you can definitely tell they’ve been put on a weight training regimen… and they kind of got gendered.  Focus in on the one on the far right.  It took a bit to get the process all figured out and that one is the result of finally getting everything right.  The other two I’ll talk about as a memory points for me and as a cautionary tale for those of you interested in trying this out for yourself.  Starting at the beginning, the key element in the new Posey configuration is this.
2016 Posey Upgrade
Hit the jump to get details on the latest of the Posey improvement projects.

Continue reading Posies Be A Bulking – Pt 1

Project Day

Now for something completely different!  It has been about two months since I’ve brought you a project post (that being the 2015 Halloween pumpkin post (link here).  With some extra time on my hands I felt it was time to get some items taken off of my to-do list.  Some recent, some old, some very old.  There are actually  multiple projects summed up in this post.  As an incentive, I’ve had them placed so they are the first thing that I see when I walk into my den.  You would think that would provide enough incentive to get them out of the way … but it didn’t thanks to having too many things on my plate (one of which is Project Auuuurrrnooollddd which completed another phase right before Christmas).

Adhering to a LIFO queue process, the first item on the project list was a recent Christmas gift received from Linda.  This was a set of 2 wind up puzzles called Scorpion Rising.
Project Day

Essentially this consisted of a 3D model that you built on top of a standard wind up coil.  Once assembled you could turn the crank and watch your creation walk.  I figured I could whip these two out in about 15 minutes … until I opened the package and saw what I was dealing with.  There was a trifold hard foam based card that had a series of laser cut outs barely distinguishable by the naked eye.   First action was to go find my reading glasses – the instructions were hard enough to read with their tiny font, but seeing where the cutouts were on the card was basically impossible without them.  The worst thing is there were tiny interior cutouts on the pieces that required me to find a tiny screwdriver set to proper punch them out.

It was pretty easy to see the main concept based on the motor mechanics.  Once wound, there were two pins offset and on different sides from each other which clearly indicated they drove the feet.  Knowing that element helped visualize how the additional pieces should go on.  Getting them actually put together was the hard part.  This puzzle was probably intended for smaller fingers.  It was also apparent no one who manufactured this puzzle ever reviewed the directions due to a major flaw – an ISO view doesn’t help you much if you are putting black pieces on black pieces.  Imagine your high school aptitude tests that show a silhouette of two objects and asked to align two objects to make that basic shape – damn hard.  Here is a quick shot of the directions and the provided puzzle pieces.

Project Day

The other annoying thing is they continued the steps on the back of the sheet but did not replicate the cutout alignment on the card.  This forced me to keep turning the paper over and over again while contemplating what the hell they wanted me to do next.  It didn’t help they opted to position the various steps based on maximizing the paper – translated – the instructions were not in order on the page, well at least not in your standard US left, down, right layout approach.  It was a struggle but the scorpion finally came together (see the first image).  With a pat on the back, the little crank was wound and the Scorpion unleashed on the world… for exactly 4 seconds.  That was the duration of the coil.  The little dude walked for a total of 4 seconds.  Granted it looked cool for that 4 seconds but this dude just took 1.5 hours of my project day.  Based on those results the other scorpion was put away for another rainy day.

Next up was a gift the Makuta’s got me – pretty sure last Xmas or possibly my birthday – can’t remember but as far as a perfect gift for a project loving birder like me .. this was it!

Project Day

Hit the jump to see how this project turns out as well as a third project!

Continue reading Project Day

Project Hot Knife 2015

It is time to officially close out the 2015 Halloween season.  As a last tribute to my favorite holiday I bring you this year’s pumpkin carving.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving 2015

Unlike most years, this one didn’t utilize half cuts due to two key reasons.  The first reason is basically time.  I’ve been revving on high for a while now to get through the party and now back to finishing up Project Auurrrnnoooollld.  I am so close now I can taste it – only two real tasks to go and I can finally bring you the fruits of that multi-year labor.  The other limitation was a poor crop of images to select from.  If you’ve seen my other pumpkin posts you know that I mine every source  I can find looking for a high contrast images to use as a basis for my carvings.  My favorite web resources are Tattoo sites and, of course, Google Images – this year … not much turned up.  Luckily this popped up while looking at a Pinterest board for Halloween props.

Finally something to work with – before I go any further, the rights for this image remain with the owner (unfortunately not sure who that actually is).  Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming.  This image has the perfect combination of creepiness and … CONTRAST which is essential for a good transfer to a pumpkin.  For a quick test you can simply bring it up in your favorite graphics program and reduce the color count to 3 or 4.

Hit the jump to see how this turned out in pumpkin form!

Continue reading Project Hot Knife 2015

Ichabod’s Delight

I am very diligent about keeping my career isolated from the meanderings here at LifeIntrigued.  That will never change and besides this endeavor exists as a small break from that busy world.  With that stated, I will say today was one of the toughest days I’ve have ever had in that other world – one I will likely not forget.  But enough of that, let’s get to something far more entertaining – pumpkins, kerosene and toilet paper.  How  can you go wrong with that combination.. hint.. You Can’t!!
Halloween Trail 2015 - The Flaming Pumpkin

Unlike most of the posts on this blog, this particular one has very little direct influence by me.  I didn’t carve the pumpkin, I didn’t prep the pumpkin, I didn’t light the pumpkin and I didn’t even take the pictures you are going to see on this post.  Nope!  For those keeping score, I did do all the photo processing and banged out the words you are reading so at least there was some form of contribution.  A couple of weeks ago, the DoeRybarNerFler Haunted Trail was once again on display.  The details of this year’s epic endeavor will be coming at you soon – that annual post requires a lot of picture processing I have not been able to get to in these recent hectic weeks. A new feature for this year’s trail was The Flaming Pumpkin.  It was considered last year but fear of lighting up the woods scared me away.  This year a 10 page risk assessment was created, firefighters were brought in to assess the threat and a crew of highly trained forest fire jumpers were hired to stand watch over it.  My friend Paul was really the brains behind this fiery decoration based on a video he had seen on YouTube last year.  I must say, that video was amazing but still skeptical it worked as advertised – guess what – it works EXACTLY as advertised and man it is cool.

LifeIntrigued Disclaimer: NEVER DO THIS – NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.  This is extremely dangerous and you WILL get hurt if you try it.  Are you thinking this might be good to try – WELL STOP THINKING IT NOW – I mean it – don’t make me come over there.

Okay, with the lawyers satisfied, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

There isn’t much too it – you carve a medium to large size real pumpkin – let me stress that again a REAL – DO NOT TRY THIS ON A FOAM PUMPKIN.  As a note, feel free to spend as much time on you carving as you want to, but do not get to attached to it – at the end of the night that pumpkin will be ready for the trash.  Carve the pumpkin in traditional fashion, you have to have a bottom in the pumpkin capable of holding liquid so don’t bother with any of those fancy pants methods that core out from the bottom.  Take it to a safe place free of flammable items and establish a safe zone with at least 4 large rolls of bright yellow caution tape.  Fill the bottom up with what appears to be about an inch or two of kerosene.  Take a full roll of toilet paper (your choice on the ply) and place it hole vertical in the center of the bottom.  Let it soak up some of the kerosene and then tell everyone to get like 40 feet or more away.  Find a large stick and then duct tape another long stick to that followed by another duct taped stick with a match on the end.  Anything less than 8 ft will jeopardize your eyebrows.

Once those steps are followed exactly, you can light the toilet paper – stand back and enjoy a flaming paradise for about the next 2 hrs.

So there you go, not much to it right?  Truth be told, I could watch fire for hours.  Something about the flames are mesmerizing to me and drives my imagination to new levels.  Much like clouds, the abstract and random shapes produced by the flames drive the mind to associate to physical representations.  Hoping this isn’t just me that has this experience – if so, please let me know so I can schedule an appointment and get checked out.  In the meantime, I thought I’d post some of Linda’s fine work and give you insights into what physical forms it takes in my strange  (straight from my 7th grade teacher – honest, ask my brother) mind.

Let’s start with my favorite one – for each I’ll let you view it and then I’ll give my perspective afterwards – interested in hearing how far off, close etc. we are in the comments

Halloween Trail 2015 - The Flaming Pumpkin

So this one to me looks like a ghostly figure at the top of the flames in a hood.  It is facing to the left and the hood and cloak are formed by the whiter parts of the flame.  The flame has two eyes and a nose set into the hood.  It has the left arm straight out towards you and the right one is hanging down closer to the side.  I’m probably going to have this one printed I like it so much.

Next up!

Halloween Trail 2015 - The Flaming Pumpkin

Once again I see a ghastly figure rising up out of the flames.  The head is dropped down a bit into the body with the main column with two arms raised up in a scare posture.  It also kind of looks like a small head in the upper right part of the flame with the hair outlined in white and the eyes and skull face in the darker orange.  Keeping with that theme, there is actually a pumpkin then in the air above it turned to the right – you can see one eye and a smiling mouth – contrasting nicely with the grumpy cat carving on the pumpkin itself.

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this year’s scary Haunted Trail addition

Continue reading Ichabod’s Delight

Another UB Competition in the Books

It’s times like these I truly appreciate it when I get ambitious early in the month and crank out most of the quota before … well … today.  Par for course, I’ve been busy this month with some projects, training and even birding with my brother.  The good news is Project Auuurrnooold is coming along nicely.  The drop ceiling is going in much easier now that I’ve had one room to learn on.  Without a doubt, a third hand is clearly the next evolution stop.  To cap off this month we have the sweep in non-birding posts.  Thanks to Ron getting sidetracked on insects I have a little extra time before upping the bird list.  Besides, you want to hear about this year’s UB contest results don’tcha!?!

Sure you do.  Linda’s year of being the UB had come to a close.  From an assessment perspective she definitely gets kudos for driving me to birding locations both intra and inter state and even managed to get me some cool +1’s to add to the Bird List.  She did such a good job that I’ll even overlook a little incident in the Georgia Swamps.  There will be more on that trip in the future but as a teaser – Linda ..err, the 2014/2015 UB abandoned me out in the field.  Rather than stay with me and keep an eye on an alligator that was sizing me up for lunch, she ran.  She literally left me there as Gate Bait.  The UB guidelines are still being painstakingly reviewed, but I am pretty sure that might qualify as a violation resulting in defaulting another year of UB!

Fortunately, we do not need to wait around for the results of that review because this year’s contests came out favorable to yours truly.  This year we added a new venue to the competition – the Princeville IL. Fine Art Fair focused on artist in the area.  Each of us submitted entries into that event (my Cardinal and I think Linda entered a couple of her Jubilee pictures).

That event netted me a first place and Linda a got a second, third and a fourth.  A Doerfler sweep and 1 major point for me in the UB Competition.

2015 Photography Competition

Hit the jump to see how the rest of the results came out!

Continue reading Another UB Competition in the Books

Operation Display It, See It, Sell It

Welcome back everyone.  Today happens to be a dog show day and we all know what that means don’t we !?!  Yep, plenty of time just waiting around for the next runs which translates to a perfect time to bust out another post.  Keeping with the non-bird theme let’s go with a show and tell entry.  It has  been awhile since we have had one of these (at least that I can remember) to the point I kinda feel like a slacker – although all free time has been invested in finishing up project Aaaauuuurrrnnnnoooollld.  The topic today is an addition we made to our photography business.  Linda is starting to get a lot of attention with her dog photography and even has a major dog show event coming up in a month or so.  She had asked me for a better way to display our wares.  Of course this was met with procrastination until the day before one of her shows last week.  Guilt stricken I headed down my favorite PVC aisle and planned something out.

PVC Picture Frame Display

Key design points was it could not fall over and had to handle a variety of sizes – particular the large 13x19s down to the more standard 8×10 framed offerings.  As per all my PVC projects a (very) rough concept is sketched out and the rest is designed either in the store or during the build process.  Concerned about the stability element a general collection of 1″ connectors were purchased and 10 5′ sections of pipe – usually I’d buy the larger size but did not want to bother tying them down in the truck.  They were also the same price whether cut or not so advantage anyway.

Hit the jump to read how this frame was put together!

Continue reading Operation Display It, See It, Sell It

Project: Snap Count

Greetings All! Sorry for the long delay in getting another post out – although in my defense I did exceed my quota last month.  I actually got through the January posts fairly early in the month which gave me time to work on a new project, Yeah!  A lot of my projects are a result of stumbling on something on the Internet and deciding that it would be sufficient challenge to put energy towards.  The goal always being to embrace the concept and then extend it to another level.  This project source was a little different – I stol… err embraced an idea from my brother Ron.  So, credit goes to him for motivating to get this endeavor done.

With no further delay, I am proud to announce the start of my Photography Bird Life List.

Bird List

The actual gallery can be located on our Eddiesoft Photography Gallery powered by Smugmug (link here).  The link should take you directly into the root of the gallery.  From a project perspective, this has to be one of the more tedious and time consuming ones I’ve taken on.  It sure sounded simple when Ron brought up the idea.  Simply have a gallery of shots for each of the birds on the life list.  The intent is to focus on the “best shots” of the species from a “Birders” perspective.  Anytime I was able to improve on a shot I would simply swap it out with the better version.  That sounds great unless you have a LOT of bird shots (as you would expect I do if you spend any time on this blog at all).  The issue isn’t so much the overall amount as it is having to choose which of your babies gets the honor of being the featured image on the gallery. The more common the bird the harder the task since there are typically more shots to choose from.  I clarified that this gallery was intended to have a Birder’s approach.  That simply means it would attempt to demonstrate the overall characteristics of the species.  Various angles, settings, genders, seasonal differences etc. would be included when available.  I did try to include what I consider my “best” overall shot which took a long time due to having to gather up all the photos of a particular bird and proceed to whittle away until I was comfortable with the shots to upload.  Note, in some cases this was easier because there I were only one or two shots and trust me, not all of them are ummm.. good.  Over time those crap shots should get weeded out.

Hit the jump to read more about the List

Continue reading Project: Snap Count