Gold at the Dollar Store, Halloween Party Pt 3

And then there were 4.  I figured I’d just close out the Halloween Party Series with a final post of decorations on the cheap.  I didn’t want to keep in you suspense from the last post.  Believe that?  I didn’t think so.  Actually, I am relying on images that were preloaded on our Smugmug site due to some web access limitations we are fighting through at the moment.  Since all the decoration pictures were uploaded at once, I can simply reference those rather than fighting any new image uploads.  Hopefully concentrating on this post will help take my mind off the Cardinals’ second blown game of the series.

As mentioned previously, we originally went to the Dollar Store to find specific materials for our Halloween Party Haunted Trail (link here).  The pumpkins mentioned in that previous post were a bonus find.  What I was really looking for was some round looking objects that were made of glass or plastic that was roughly 6 inches in diameter.  That was pretty much the entire description we were heading in with.  Oh, and it needed to deflect or reflect light in some manner.  “Should you choose to accept this mission …”  After the euphoria of the foam pumpkin find had fallen off we started down each of the aisles trying to find something that fit the bill.  This resulted in 20 minutes of “Nopes” until halfway down the glass and candle aisle.  Right there on the top shelf was the perfect item.

It is actually pretty heavy glass similar to what you would put on a ceiling fan light except it has a flattened bottom. I have no idea what the real purpose is, but this was going to be a nice add to my Halloween decorations … if it worked out as planned. Since this was an unproven idea, we went with 4 of them – each for a very respectable $1.00. Going this route made the decision on which of the two ways to go on the design. If they were plastic, I was going to cut out shapes and put a candle in them to help light the path. Glass as the base resulted in the second option to simply paint the globes. A quick stop at Home Depot was needed to get some paint. After a lengthy discussion with the paint clerk, it was decided that the Rustoleum Multi-Purpose Orange Gloss would work best on the glass. There isn’t enough time to go into details on my checkout experience, but it is worth mentioning I had to go through nearly the same process to buy spray paint as you do Psuedophedrine.

Hit the jump to see how this and an another Halloween decoration turned out

Continue reading Gold at the Dollar Store, Halloween Party Pt 3

Decorations on the Cheap, Halloween Party Pt 2

Still in the midst of my whirlwind ride to the quota, I give you the next post in the 2011 Halloween Party series.  This post (and the next in the series to kill the suspense) pertains to my quest to improve what I affectionately call the Haunted Trail.  It started last year when a number of people wanted to see the nearly finished state of Serenity (link here).  After talking about all the work it took to design and, a lot of my party guests were hoping to walk down to it.  At the time this posed a slight problem since there was no power that far away from the house and even though there was a maintained trail to it, navigating in the dark was even difficult for myself (I am still apologizing for the group of people I managed to get lost in a ravine that year).  Long story short, I purchased some solar lights to help navigate the path and decided to put up one of the new PVC ghouls and a sound activated witch to entertain the hikers.  That turned out pretty well, so one thing led to another and plans were put in motion to improve it for this year.

The first task was to find ways to decorate the path without the use of power.  The path is fairly long as well so decorations needed to be cost efficient.  For about a week a number of brainstorming sessions were held generating a number of ideas… some good… some awful and some too ambitious – I should probably mention that there was another requirement in the mix – it had to be something I could do within a week.  It is quite obvious that somewhere in my past life I wronged Father Time.  Against all odds there was one good idea that appeared to fit the bill.  All that was left was to find the materials at a reasonable price.  With fingers crossed, Linda and I went to a local Dollar Store to see if there was anything there that could be used for the new decoration.  While scouting around the store, we stumbled on some mini foam pumpkins a little smaller than a Nerf football.  Carving is in my blood, they appear to be hollow and they are only ONE DOLLAR a piece.  Linda must have seen the wheels turning and rolled her eyes while 10 of these babies quickly made their way into the cart.  I’ll save the details for the original decoration idea for later.

Once home, it was time to see if these pumpkins were actually carve-able.  If not, there was still value as a simple hanging decoration that could be placed randomly around the path.  There wasn’t time to mess around with the formal pattern making so went old school on it.  A few derivatives of triangles for the eyes, another altered one for the nose and a classic tooth mouth was all investment needed for the first trial.  A quick trip down to the basement for a an experiment with the Dremel brought a huge grin to my face.  Sure enough, the pumpkin was indeed hollow.  It was definitely cheaper than the ones used for the official pumpkin collection in that they were thicker skinned and had porous foam.  It also had a white interior where the more expensive ones were tinted orange.  Carving wasn’t as smooth as the cutter had to go a lot deeper to make it through and the foam gaps kept pulling the blade off of the intended path.  The first pumpkin ended up taking about 30 minutes trying to get comfortable with the speed required by the Dremel and the amount of force needed to push it around the pattern.  The good news is this was doable and if I got through 3-5 a night it would be done in plenty of time.  Here is how one of them came out:

Hit the jump to read more about this fun and inexpensive decoration

Continue reading Decorations on the Cheap, Halloween Party Pt 2

Before and After – A Marketing Disaster

As an admission, I am officially behind schedule on the blog but we need to delegate blame to a guilt trip a certain person placed on me.  Apparently queuing up a few posts is second on the evil meter only to kicking an elderly woman down the stairs because she is impeding your timeline to rob a convenience store.  Being haunted by the stigma this would bring to my parents, I was forced to immediately stop using the post buffer to compensate for busy times of the month.  Of course, now I am left foregoing all charity work and our annual prairie dog mission of peace to free up enough time to bring you this month’s quota.  When those dogs take up arms and start ravaging our countryside that person is going to have some apologizing to do!

I’m to close to completing my 4th year of blogging to blow my quota now, so it’s time to get to it.  Today’s post comes to us courtesy (and by that, I mean lack of courtesy) of Bridgestone.

As a little level setting, Linda and I finally gave up dealing with all the annoying problems we were having with our Dodge Durango.  The car was actually fun to drive when it was actually working but it was plagued with electrical problems.  This was similar to problems we had with our Grand Cherokees.  During our hunt for a new car we were ignored by a dealership while trying to buy an Explorer (shocking at the time because they were in the middle of the economy crisis and cash for junkers was in full swing).  After a few other failed dealerships we broke down and checked again at Dodge – guess what, they decided to get out of the large SUV business with what appeared to be a failed attempt with the Aspen.  Frustrated, we stopped into Toyota, had a wonderful experience and promptly came home with a brand new SUV (built in San Antonio so hold the complaints).  This vehicle has been mechanically free of errors since we bought it with the exception of the special deer magnet (link here).  BMW could learn a few things from this automaker (link here).

Now is good time for the BEFORE shot:

hit the jump to read “The rest of the story”.

Continue reading Before and After – A Marketing Disaster

Confront Thy Fears – Halloween Party Pt 1

I see my absence from posting hasn’t shocked anyone into calling out a search party.  Alas, all is well, but life is a little hectic at the moment.  We had Teacup Agility Nationals this month, new international assignments at work and of course in the midst of all this is our annual Halloween Party.  If you recall from a previous post (link here), Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and both Linda and I enjoy decorating up the place and having some of our friends over for a few libations while enjoying a bonfire.  This year we expanded our haunted trail, but more on that in the future for today is all about orange colored foam and implements of destruction.

So first off, a quick quiz.

  • What is my favorite Halloween activity?
  • What is my most feared and despised occupation … hint, some would call it a phobia?

Queue annoying Jeopardy music.   Please put your pens down, it is time to reveal the answer.

Did you answer correctly? I will also accept decorating and scaring neighbor kids for the first answer, but ANY answer other than #$@#$%^&$ clowns is completely unacceptable. So it was time again to add another pumpkin to the collection. This one officially brings the collection to 18. As with the last 5 or 6, I wanted to make my own pattern. Half the fun is trolling Google Images trying to find the perfectly lit photo or image to transform into a scary nightlight. This year turned out to be a little frustrating. After trying all my favorite keyword searches like ghoul, demon, vampire etc. I kept coming up empty on good specimens to transform. This step takes a tremendous amount of time and I didn’t have time to waste on an image that wasn’t going to produce a nice silhouette for a pumpkin. There were one or two that might have worked, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Time to take a step back and go at it from a different angle. A self assessment was needed to figure out what would make this year’s carving memorable. An inner dialog  was initiated with one common question. What creeps me out? If there was something out there that scared me, made me uneasy and gave me the heebie jeebies, what would it be?  A certain president jumped to mind, but quickly dismissed it since American voters have wised up to socialism so what else was there? … and then a light bulb went off. There is really only one obvious answer. It was time to confront my phobia head on… take it by the big nose and beat it into submission. To say I was unprepared for what was ahead would be an understatement. A few key taps in the Google search field S C A R Y  C L O W N produced a collection of images so hideous, so vile and so demonic that I broke out in a sweat and nearly screamed. However, I was committed to this task and no mime loose in the department store lipstick aisle was going to deter me. Slowly I navigated through the thumbnails which were not surprising 85% pictures of Pennywise but there was not an image that had enough contrast required to produce a good stencil. Still sweating from staring at all those clowns, I was forced to switch to my secret backup. Here is a tip to keep between the LifeIntrigued family shhhhh tattoo stencils make great pumpkin stencils starting points shhhhhhh. Turns out our crafts have some similarities and one of the reasons I enjoy watching tattoo artists and their reality shows. A quick jump to TattooDonkey.com and within seconds I had the base image. Disclaimer. The image selected can be found by entering Scary Clown in the search field. I have no intention of providing anyone else the stencil above and all rights remain with the original creator. Now I have already blogged about how the transformation from image to stencil goes (link here), so I will not bore you with those details again.

Hit the jump to see some additional comments and pictures of the final product.

Continue reading Confront Thy Fears – Halloween Party Pt 1

Goodbye Old Friend

This post comes to you with a saddened heart. It has taken me three months to tackle this particular topic due to the emptiness that has resulted from an event back in July. I should probably give some background first. Do you remember when we took a trip to Indiana (link here)?  There is always a drawback to taking a vacation because all your day to day activities start piling up to greet you upon your return. Well, this is exactly what happened to me. During our week of fun in the sun our grass decided to go on steroids making the yard look more like prairie grass than lawn. I had the Bix7 race that weekend so this particular chore had to wait a few extra days. Eventually I took the new green machine out and starting cutting swatches through the jungle. Things were going great until THIS!

Hit the jump to read more about the fate of Termi!

Continue reading Goodbye Old Friend

The 500 for Number 300

Hey everyone, this is a milestone post today!  Hard to believe, but this here post is the magical number 300 in the history of this little project.  It seems like it yesterday I was sitting down to write my first post on a individual having troubles entering a bank (link here).  The rest of the posts since there have included similarly quirky topics but I did branch out some into projects, recollections and of course our photo outings.  All in all, pretty happy with the effort so far and looking forward to another 500 – umm at 6 a month, 72 a year.. holy crap, that’s almost 7 years.  Tell you what, I’ll stick on the current plan and just see where it takes me.

… and ironically (yeah, it was a little contrived) this post happens to be about the number 500.  To be clear about that, I’m talking about the Smith & Wesson 500 Magnum (link here) also known as the “Most Powerful Production Revolver in the World Today”.  This stainless steel beauty is a joy to behold and an ultimate thrill to have the privilege to fire.  A friend of mine from work (Brad R.) invited a bunch of us over a few months back to use his pistol and rifle range.  Ever fly a corporate jet and then try and go back to flying coach on a commercial airlines?  Well, let me tell you, it is exactly the same as having friends over to shoot at your makeshift range and then having the chance to experience the Cadillac of shooting ranges.  Brad’s setup included plate steel silhouettes that drop on contact, plate steel targets for speed shooting and a SWAT setup for practicing firing handguns on the move.  If that wasn’t enough he has a full rifle range to let the big dogs play.  Obviously I’ll need to step up my game.  After shooting our handguns a few hours we made our way up to the long range.  That is when Brad pulled out the 500 and was gracious enough to let us all take some shots.  Here I am checking out the feel.

Hit the jump to read more about this amazing revolver

Continue reading The 500 for Number 300

Operation: Bridge to Vegas

Well, this has been an interesting weekend.  It started out pretty good with a lumber run to Lowe’s, a saw session followed up with a fun night of Rock Band with Billy and Pakage (the R!Vagiants reunion tour – with fans calling out where’s David all night).  Around 3 in morning things turned ugly.  That is when Pakage informed me our well had gone dry – major suckage.  We played a few more songs for the crowd and made our way off the stage.  After verifying the well pump breaker had tripped I set out to find a cause.  The master bath shower faucet had a few drips so I tried taking advantage of the water pressure loss to see if I could change out the springs.  An hour later I gave up lacking some needed tools and worried I’d snap the pipes at 4:30am – not good.  I hit the bed after putting the faucet back together to get some shuteye before the long day of hauling water.  6:30am I was back up, Linda helped me get the tank in the truck and 3.5 hours later I’d hauled 24oo gallons of water….. but that was just the beginning of the days work.. there was Vegas to build!

.. and that brings us to the topic of today’s post.  (Note, my brother has been giving me grief that I pre-write some of my posts ahead of time so felt obligated to write this the same day I completed the project).  Last year I built a foot bridge over a gully on the lot so the people at our Halloween party could go see Serenity (link here).  That bridge was working out great until the Spring flooding came.  One day it was there, the next it had taken a vacation down the stream.  Multiple searches up and down the stream have been fruitless which is odd since there are numerous places where trees had fallen across the stream.  You would think it would have been caught up in those branches.  With the Halloween party approaching once again, it was time to remedy this situation.  Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Serenity’s little brother VEGAS.

hit the jump to read all about the project.

Continue reading Operation: Bridge to Vegas

Thirteen.One on the 10 Year Anniversary of 9/11

Greetings everyone.  It seems out of place to make a post about a personal event on this day of remembrance.  Therefore, let’s take a moment to send our thoughts and prayers to the victims of that fateful day 10 years ago.  I refuse to give the perpetrators the satisfaction of their actions and instead of focusing on the fear and uncertainty of that day (as every local newspaper and program I’ve come across today) I remember it as a day America came together.  There were no petty squabbles between neighbors, no politicians slandering one another in hopes of getting an extra vote and absolutely no uncertainty regarding the love for the best country in the world.  We were bound by a common cause and mad as hell.  To those that experienced a tragic loss I express my deepest sympathy.  To the heroes of that day and those who took up the fight I forever owe my gratitude with special appreciation to Seal Team 6 who demonstrated the inevitable outcome when mess with the Red, White and Blue.

As alluded to, this day also marked a big event on a personal front.  After 3 years of hard work and countless setbacks I had an opportunity to put another check on my Life List.  Some of you may know and some of you may not, but I have had a goal to run a half marathon for some time now.  With the accomplishment of the 15K under the belt (link) the next evolution of the challenge was the daunting half.  It doesn’t seem like much considering it is a just under 4 more miles but that itty bitty distance became my nemesis.  It seemed like every time I set out to prepare, something happened that cut that opportunity short.  The latest battle was with my torn hamstring which cost me all last year.  Thanks to a heavy regiment of therapy my leg problems were mostly brought under control requiring continual training consideration, but finally strong enough to take the pounding.  It was also evident some other things had to change to get in front of the numerous other injuries.  I dropped 16 pounds (as of weigh in before the race) and retooled my body for the requirements of running (translated .. core, core core).  This year’s racing circuit was geared to preparing for the this day – The 4 mile Chase warmup, the 15K Steamboat and the Bix7 all went well so optimism was in the air.  Through all this was a steady diet of short and long runs (practically every other day including training runs on vacation) to get me prepared for the extra 4.  As the days started clicking off I hit my distance marks culminating in the final 12.6 mile training run last Sunday.  I can honestly say the way I felt after that run left me a little skeptical I could pull it off.

Hit the jump to read more about the event .. with pictures!

Continue reading Thirteen.One on the 10 Year Anniversary of 9/11

Mozilla Thinks I’m a Gay Photographer Who Likes to Knit

How about that for a post title?  About now you are probably wondering what could possibly follow a title like that.  Well, let me explain myself or rather let me explain what Mozilla thinks of myself.  I was recently informed by my Firefox browser that an update was available.  Knowing those open source developers tend to get it right, I usually take them up on their patch requests.  After a quick download and a Firefox restart everything was up and running again.  Usually the “What’s New” tab is immediately deleted since it generally contains words to the effect web surfing is safer now or here’s another feature I’ll never use.  This time something caught my attention.  Somewhere towards the bottom of the page there were a few collages displayed with a teaser to Webify Me.  Basically if I answer 20 questions they will generate a personal collage of what the web means to me (or at least that is what I took it as).  What the hell, I had 10 minutes to spare and its cheaper than a shrink.  20 bizarre questions later Mozilla produced my “personal” assessment in terms of graphical icons… and here is the result:

Having looked at it, what are your first impressions?  My attention was immediately drawn to four things.  The rainbow bracelet was very disturbing and that feeling only amplified by the knitting needles.  Apparently they felt obligated to make fun of my nose, but that’s been old news since grade school but they nailed my interest in photography.  The first two observations were still glaring at me.  What the hell did I answer that indicated I was living an alternate lifestyle (obligatory “not that there is anything wrong with that”) and spent my evenings creating stocking hats.  My 10 minutes of spare time just turned into 30 minutes of investigation!  Eventually I figured out you could click on the individual images and get some verbiage on what it stood for.  Let’s just see what this is all about shall we?

Hit the review to read a rather detailed analysis of my Webify Me results

Continue reading Mozilla Thinks I’m a Gay Photographer Who Likes to Knit

Phoadtography: Checking Out Our Neighbors to the East (Part 3 of 2)

Ummm well, a funny thing happened on the way to Lightroom today. I stumbled on the missing set of Phoadtography pictures we took on our Indianapolis trip. I knew there were pictures of a couple of signs that stuck out on the trip, and by stuck out I mean we actually made a conscious effort to snap some pictures when we came back through the town. The mystery was solved when they showed up in a secondary file in our Lightroom catalog. As a result, this series actually grew by one (see Part 1 Link and Part 2 Link). Depending on how things are looking toward the end of the month this particular post may not get included in the quota requirement giving you a bonus (yeah) month. Do not get too excited, my record so far hasn’t exactly been too stellar… but in my best Dumb and Dumber .. “so you’re saying there’s a chance”.

On a personal front, I’m under a week to my big event – after 4 or 5 more miles, the worrying and fretting will begin.

Starting out the third and final (I promise) Indy Phoadtography set, I give you one of the three best sign shots from the trip.

Linda gets credit for spotting this and actually the ones below.  Of course, she kept pointing them out to me when we are under 2 car lengths from them making it nearly impossible to get a good Phoadtography shot.  The final A-Count on the sign shots ended up being 4.  That’s right, it took a whopping 4 attempts to actually get the shot (and as the case above, a crooked shot still).  How embarrassing.  I should send myself back to the minors.  At least the next shot in the sign series is at least straight.. a little degrading to men.. but still straight.

Not sure if the “Primitives” sign was just piling on the insults or it was a coincidence with the outdoor decor.   Someone at this particular Hucks has some serious issues or there is a friendly man vs woman jesting going on.  As we passed the sign from the front (okay, okay, it was the 4th time) I happened to notice the other side also had lettering on it so I snapped it.  My exposure was not set right causing it to be a on the blurry side but you can still make out the jab.

For the record, that is NOT a cop car parked suspiciously behind the sign.  It is just a large white car with a giant flag on it… I wonder if Hucks sells donuts? ack.. nevermind.

Hit the jump to see the rest of the pictures

Continue reading Phoadtography: Checking Out Our Neighbors to the East (Part 3 of 2)