Still Around

I'm still around, I've switched to Chrome for my main browser so I have a nifty plug-in for Blogger. So as I find some neat sites I'm going to try to post them, that way I have at least some randomness flowing here.

Dude Craft: Metropolis II

Via Dudecraft - Metropolis II, an awesome Hot Wheels/die-cast car track, automated with several lanes and hundreds of cars. The Hot Wheels kid in me loves this and would have gone nuts for this kind of awesomeness.

Rocking through summer!

Can't believe that August is almost halfway done! And it really has been pleasant in PDX this year, only a couple 90+ days. In fact we haven't used the AC at all the last few days, normally at least have to run it a few hours in the bedroom to cool/dehumidify it but it's been dropping in the 40s at night. This weekend that'll change with some upper 90 weather but we're on the back side of mean heating days. Not mean as in junkyard dog, mean as in average. August 10th is normally the hottest day of the year, topped out mid-70s yesterday. That is one reason I love, love, love living in the Pacific Northwest!

I am still making Robot-A-Day, over two months in to the project and I still have a lot of ideas, just need the time to do some more intricate ones. Even managed to keep doing one a day while I went to Florida to visit my mom although that meant more drawing than building. But the spirit of it was to stay creative however I needed to.

I need to pull out some more linked 'stuff' for here as I find it, just to keep it interesting for my 3 readers.

Where It's At

So I am still around but I have a new project I've been working on. Robot-A-Day, a 365 day project inspired by Skull A Day.

Each day I make a new robot, be it drawn, made from old junk and computer parts or any other method. Main rule for me is I create it the day I post it, no making a bunch one day then posting all week, it's all about stimulating my creativity and getting some time discipline going.

Summer is approaching the Pacific Northwest, finally had some above 80 degree days. Come July I'll go right into the fire though, gonna head to Florida to visit my mom where it's already been near 100 and with high humidity. Should be a hot time.

Lazy blogger is lazy!

Cripes, not only has social media destroyed my old standby Livejournal it's also destroyed my blogging at all.

The rest of my time in DC was great, loved being able to see the museums and crazy protesters as well as catch up with some good friends. In fact it led to a reunion of some of my shipmates from the Coast Guard out here in Oregon after not seeing most of these guys for 15-16 years.

So I am back in Oregon, while it was an interesting experience I did miss not having my partner around even though she did get a weekend to come out and visit me. And the cat disapproved of my absence.

I have a new domain that I need to get set up RustedSkull.com. It will mostly have my art projects on it, may either embed my blog here or from my Livejournal.

Facebook is nearing extinction in my eyes, I know that if I was concerned about 100% privacy I should kill my account. Sad thing is it wasn't like that when I signed up there in 2006, privacy was pretty strong but membership was super low. As time has gone on things continue to be tweaked for the worse.

Maybe I should have titled this 'manic blogger is manic'. I'm all over the map, but that's what a lack of caffeine in my bloodstream does.

Snowmageddon!

Still going strong here, I am now in Washington DC for work, I'll be here until at least April. Benefit of that? Getting to be part of DC's snowiest winter EVAH! I worked 1 day in the last 8, half day last Friday, half day this Friday. In between was over 30" of snow between two storms. Ca-Ray-Zee!
This is in my neighborhood by Capitol Hill after the first storm, it put about 24" of snow. Then that second storm punched in to dump almost a foot more. The two storms were different types of snow - the first was wet and heavy, the second was drier and drifted all over and created true blizzard conditions with 40mph gusts of wind. I was happy that I'm in an apartment and not a hotel during this, I did get a little cabin fever but nothing like if I'd been in a cookie cutter room of a hotel.

The town is digging out now but the piles will be around for weeks unless there is a real warm up. They've run out of places to store the snow so huge piles are building up on corners and in vacant lots. Officially DC has had 60" or so this winter, but that's at National airport where it gets less snow than other areas, so some parts had much more snow. Fortunately no roof collapses in my neighborhood but there are impressive icicles.

So what am I doing out here anyway? It's a temporary detail as a project manager for the headquarters IT support desk, I'm the liaison between the contract support and the regular staff, basically the point of contact for special requests or when something doesn't go right (or does go right, occasionally). It's an interesting break from my regular work and lets me see a bit of the DC life.

I haven't had much time to enjoy DC that much yet though, by the time I get home from work I am pretty wiped and most museums are closed, and the weekends have been busy as well - went to Florida one weekend to visit my mom, out to Delaware with an old friend from the Coast Guard (and got a snow storm then) and then these storms. I will be pushing to go out today and see some sights. Speaking of which, I should finish my coffee and see what I can go do today.

P.S. - The last two episodes of Leverage are airing, the first has already and the second part is on Wednesday. Look for the tall dockworker, that will likely be me in the background!

Social media making me less social?

So I obviously have not been updating this. I mostly just use Twitter, but really I have had social media overload. Facebook, Livejournal, Twitter, Blogger, my Mac/.Me site - I get vapor lock and don't update much of anything when that happens.

Things have been going well, my mom is doing fine - still tough to get used to not having your partner of over 40 years around. I'll be visiting her in January though.

More updates soon, just have to start saving links to the odd sites I come across and post them here - my online bookmarks I guess!

Back at it

Been about a month since my last post. We did dad's memorial, it went well. The Marines were there to perform the flag presentation to my mom and the American Legion did a 21-gun salute and another Marine performed Taps at that time as well. I recorded it and may put it up at some point, but not right now.

Here is the memorial powerpoint my brother did for pops:

Couple Dad pics from Khe Sanh

On patrol near Khe Sanh, likely a Bru Montagnard village. He customized a .45 holster to be a lefty since they didn't have lefty versions.


Dad enjoying some c-rations at Khe Sanh, 1967.

Thank you dad, you helped make me who I am

Been a tough odd week. On Thursday September 17th my dad passed away from a sudden heart attack. I'm down in Florida now with my mother, older brother and his family. We've been going through dad's things, lots of treasures and quite a few surprises, even for mom.

My brother has been scanning pictures in for dad's memorial. We've gone through his workshop and got rid of all the hazmat stuff that he wouldn't get rid of. Also found his 'stash' of smokes that he wasn't supposed to have :D

Dad was a good guy, saw a lot of interesting things in his 67 years and dodged death and calamity many times. He was a USMC veteran, served 1959-1969 and in Vietnam in '67 and '68. He served at Cam Lo and Khe Sanh combat base. He was at Khe Sanh during the siege and battle in 1968, medvaced out shortly after the offensive started.

He made it through a major heart attack at 38 and kept on trucking. Stroke in 2001 and several other surgeries over the years but time finally caught up with him. Above all he showed me to always stick to your guns and to your word. Integrity was important with pops.

I'll have to write more later either here or in private, but he was a strong influence in my life and showed me a lot. I'll miss you pop, Semper Fi.

I'MMA LET YOU FINISH

In case you missed the MTV Video Awards, Kanye West pulled a tantrum out his butt again.
This site has some fun and welcomes one of the fastest growing memes to hit the internet since Rick Rolling. Just a clicky the picture.

3 day weekends. I like them very much.

Had two three day weekends in a row. Labor day weekend and this weekend I took Monday off.

I had a lifelong friend in the Portland area for a Habitat for Humanity workshop and she was able to visit with us briefly. She had to fly back on Sunday for an early Monday doctor appointment so the visit was basically Saturday evening and Sunday morning, but it was fun. Her family used to live down the street from us and they moved when I was about 4 but they remained friends ever since. I visited with them this past May when I was in California for a work trip, I hadn't seen them since at least 1992 so it was great then. And great to visit some more this weekend.

She does want to come back up for another visit to see the sights of Portland. We stopped at the International Rose Test Garden on the way to the airport. It is maintained by the City of Portland parks and rec department and is really a neat bunch of gardens. Great views into town as well since it's up in the hills.

Monday was errand day, trading out a borked cable box and selling some books back to Powells books. Then a dentist appointment to finally finish up my never-ending root canal. This last appointment was to fix the hole in my crown so it was short and Novocaine-less.

Who's that in the background?

Spent this past Sunday/Monday doing some work as a background extra for the TV show Leverage. I got to be a Boston dockworker despite being in Portland. Through TV magic Portland locales are transformed into Boston. It was a long tiring day but a lot of fun.

Sunday I was up at 3:30am to make it to the set by 5am. By 6am we were getting our wardrobe checked out and props. I had some old blue coveralls with me and my steel toe boots so that was my outfit. They provided an orange safety vest and hard hat, voila, a dockworker! A lot of what we were doing was being the miscellaneous people you see in the background of a shot looking like we're busy doing shipyard/dock stuff. Some guys were carrying pipes around, others driving carts or carrying lunch boxes. Some were on bikes. I got to stare at a power meter a few times.

Other extras got to be FBI agents, Boston PD, Port Authority PD, Thugs, Gun Buyers. Neat seeing a shot come together. Helicopter, police and FBI cars racing around the docks. We did a lot of the same walkthroughs for different angles. The main actors probably had it worse though as they had to keep doing the lines for all the different angles and shots while being on a ship in 80+ weather with that heat just reflecting off the deck. And when we wrapped up at 8:30pm they kept going until almost 11pm.

Yesterday there were a few shots and then mostly just waiting in the holding area in case they needed some more background. Later call time so I didn't have to be there as early, plus they fed us a really good lunch before sending us home. The actors were all really cool people, the directors and assistants and other crew were all awesome. I don't think I could do a job like that full time like they do, it's pretty demanding, but it was neat to get behind the scenes of a TV production to see how it is done. I've been an extra on one film that hasn't been released yet, but I didn't get any camera time, it was also neat but the routine was different for it.

Extra work isn't glamorous but it is fun, you meet some neat people and you just might see yourself on TV for a brief moment.

No soliciting includes Jesus

Nothing like having a pair of LDS whiteshirts show up at your door to make the blood boil. If the policy of the apartment complex is NO SOLICITING, guess what? Your push of religion is soliciting.

Answered the door and a couple mormons are there and the tall guy (taller than me, that's different, I'm 6'5") says "Can I sing you a song about Jesus?" and I say "No, not interested"

"Why"

"Because I'm an apostate"

"Huh?"

"An atheist"

And on it goes until he says "I'm sorry for you"

That. Pushed. My. Button.

Sorry for me? Because you're running around with your Santa Jesus? Your imaginary friend? Give me a break. I don't go door to door pushing Christopher Hitchens or Stephen Hawking or Darwin on people, why can't you leave me be? Oh, some book says "Go forth and spread my gospel" Well guess what? Not everyone wants to be 'Saved' or an LDSer. Some of us lost Jesus years ago and are quite happy in the here and now. Live in the present to make for a better future.

Be good, do good, help others. That's what I try to live by. Pretty straight to the point.

What? A godless heathen with MORALS???

Oh SNAP!

Root Canal 1, Me 0

Recovering from an infection brought about by a root canal. I have had two done before on upper teeth and never had a problem. Third time's the charm! Lower root canal was cleared out and the endodontist put some stuff in there to kill off the rest of the roots but the roots had other ideas. Two days later my jaw was swollen up and I was in supreme pain land. Went back and had it prodded and drained (immediate relief) and got a scrip for antibiotics and vicodin.

Took about 3 days for it to really start clearing up and after 5 days I was able to eat food that wasn't in liquid or boiled pasta form. Lost 5 pounds during this time but I don't recommend this method for weight loss. One more day of antibiotics and I'm done with that until next month when I have the follow up/finisher appointment, not sure if he'll put me back on antibiotics as a precaution.

The drag with the antibiotics is having to get my butt up at midnight to take a dose, have to do them every 6 hours. So I am looking forward to Thursday night and hopefully a full night of sleep. Which of course means my neighbors will take that as their cue to throw a mega-bass-rave party.