Year: 2006

Weekend Report. 10/13 – 10/15

Life, Randomness

So it was a pretty non-descript weekend around the sausage (Vienna Sausage = our house). We did venture out after Charlie and I got Killed at softball. I have never seen a softball hit so far in my life. 300 ft fence and the ball was 50 feet over it. Absolutley stunning. So Frenchie, Jesse and I piled in Jesse’s Accord heading to DC for scary movie night at Amanda’s place near Howard University. I wish I could tell you tales of dice games and partying in the street ( it was homecoming weekend) but nothing much was going on in the ‘hood. We got there late, apparently they had just finished watching “Sleepaway Camp” which, according to reviews, was not very good at all. But that was kind of the point of the evening. We talked and BS’ed for a while before decideing to watch the original Halloween. It was fun pointing out all the flaws in slasher movie logic and trying to figure out if Jamie Lee Curtis really was a hermaphrodite.

After the movie the remaining crew played taboo and ate cookies until late in the night. I discovered that I am rather bad at Taboo, but I can eat the hell out of some cookies.

So on to Saturday, Jesse and I had been working on our respective projects all morning so we decide to stay in for the night (like we really needed an excuse) The mysterious Josh made a rare apperence that night too. By 10 we had the whole crew assembled and we did what we always do. Played the Pong. This was a rare night, for I, perennial loser… went undefeated the whole night. AND the stars must have been aligned, cause IT happened. It may not seem like much but in the first game, overtime, I had the ball land on the triangle intersection of three cups. It’s like a triple play in Baseball. Except harder. More like a no-hitter. I still haven’t wittnessed a Perfect Game ( 2 same cup rounds in a row ) but I’ve only seen this happen one other time.

Relax, it was only amazing

And you know the rest of the night was good after that! So good in fact that I didn’t get out of bed until the 3rd quarter of the Redskins game the next day.

Looking ahead at the stuff we have to get done before the Halloween party I think I really have to get working on some stuff. Not to mention that we’re going down to see Brian Regan in Roanoke the day before the party!

It’s gonna be sweet!

Projects progressing niceley

Projects, Stuff and Things

On recovery monday we did some nice work on a few projects that we have around the house. I made major progress on the skull door knocker, finally attaching the knocker piece. Without which it wouldn’t be much of a knocker. It looks sturdy enough to be actually used, but this is the B version of the design. I had to go back to the drawing board after I kept breaking off the knocker. So really all that’s left not is to glue on the skull and paint the thing. I’ll get started on that tonight, since there’s nothing good on TV.

Jesse continued work on the beerpong table 2.0 installing 60 out of 90 blue LEDs ( he would have more but he forgot to order them!)

But the ones that were there looked sweet!

A minor incident happened when he was showing me how bright they were. They started flickering on and off in weird patterns, I heard him say “wow, I wonder why that’s happening?” and then we saw smoke coming from the board. turns out it was just a short circuit and the driver chips are OK. But one LED was reduced to a smoking crater.

check this link for progress pics

Later!

Workdoodle 003-006

Art, Projects

WD WD WD WD
I was going back through the blogs today and besides noticing that I get comment spam for World of Warcraft Goldfarmers I realized that I wanted to start posting the little doodles that I do at work. I’ve started keeping my sketchbook handy so during those 2 minute long deployment processes I can sketch something small. But I think they’re starting to look at me when I brought out the colored pencils.

Later!

Update on the new Admiral Ensign Ackbar

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foot1 foot2 foot3 So it’s been a couple months? Maybe since we gave away the admiral, reports from Chris Brogan have him living well in the 120 gallon tank. Some water quality issues, since he never changed the water before this. (he only had 3 fish in there so it really didn’t matter). But I think he’s going to be fine. So when the little ackbar enlisted he was little more than a head and tail. But he quickly went to work eating every piece of food he could.

It’s like he knows that he has to be the biggest fish in the tank. He went from being the smallest to the biggest in record time, with no signs of stopping. When it’s feeding time he’s like pac man. He is so quick about going from piece to piece it’s really cool. I usually feed him on one side of the tank to make sure that some pieces fall down to the smaller fish on the other side.

Also an update on “scarfish” (the dumbest fish in the tank). a few weeks ago he litterally got stuck in a hole in the boat. I thought he was dead because he was just sitting there diagonally half in the boat. but when I tapped the tank he freaked out, didn’t do him much good, but he was really trying. I tried to push him through, but he was REALLY stuck. I had to reach inside the boat and pull him through the hole. Which had to be painful, if fish feel pain that is, becuase I scrapped off a bunch of scales off his back and his left fin had been worn away from the gravel. So he was in really bad shape. But just like Tony Montana he has clawed his way back to the top… or second to the top. First lieutenant to Ackbar. (or whatever one rank below him would be)

Later!

Pink for October

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PINK FOR OCTOBER
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so the internet got together and decided to turn all our websites pink for the month to support the cause. It was a big meeting, you should have been there! Breast cancer is a serious thing. I personally know/knew a couple people that delt with the disease. Just doing my thing to support them.
Save the boobies
but seriously, breast cancer sucks.
Later!

Uncategorized

THE OPPONENT RIGHT HAND LEFT HAND So I’m pretty sure my little fight with the lamp ended with me cracking my knucklebone. As you can see my hand swelled up pretty big and it hurts to grip things. It’s been getting better, I hope this won’t affect my softballin’ tonight. I also included a picture of the ice cube lamp so you can get a better appreciation for it. This is a serious piece of glass.
On other fronts we’ve been pretty busy at the Vienna Sausage factory with projects. Jesse has been working hard on the electronics for the Pong table, Charlie has decided that he wants to keep stats on the games so he’s making a web application to track them. I’ve been technical advisor on that project because it’s pretty much exactly what I’ve been working on at work… but much much smaller/easier. This weekend I’ll be finishing (hopefully) the boxes for the underside of the table and mounting the cathodes. I would really like to get some of this out of the way so I’m not freaking out right before the Halloween party.
Later!