HEY EVERYONE. We're in the midst of moving t.net to the new host and it'll take a bit of work to get everything up and running again. I'm hoping just a couple of days of downtime. Please keep checking in!
So, my birthday was last week. I turned 39, so now I'm in the stretch for 40. It was a really good birthday. I got a sweet hammock for the backyard and Soapie and I have already broken it in. Unfortunately for Peaches, I'm probably going to be taking a lot more naps now outside. Hammocks are awesome.
The New Thing I'm doing now is that my friend and I are starting to undertake producing a weekly podcast about a couple of nerds with motorcycles. We've got three episodes in the can and will start releasing once we get to five. I set up a quick placeholder site at http://www.wheelnerds.com. It's just a Wordpress-powered thing. First time I've tried using it, and it's pretty cool. Slomly sings its praises regularly and since they offer free-hosting for the small fries like me, I figured Wheelnerds would be a good place to try it out. Now I'm thinking I should replace the 13-year-old code driving this clunker with it
Once we start releasing the podcasts, I'll throw some links up here.
Also, I'm into playing Words for Friends on the Iphone. It's free and they offer a Droid version and it works cross-platform. If you want to play Scrabble with someone who sucks badly at it, search out Testcase on Words for Friends!
You know how life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you're gonna get and sometimes, it's a yucky piece?
Yeah.
Fuck that.
On See's candy website, you can custom-build a box of chocolate. No weird coconut-and-marshmellow slimeprise! Who even eats that? Peaches and I made a 1 lb box for ourselves as a way to celebrate our seven year anniversary... which was yesterday. EVERY PIECE ABSOLUTE DELICIOUSNESS. Soapie got to eat a good part of it, too. She pronounced it 'good.'
Seven years of marriage. I'm still sad she relates our story in terms of me being her high-school stalker.
Lost my cell phone the other night. Somewhere between my car in the Walmart parking lot and Walmart. I know this because I had just HUNG up with Peaches. It was only while driving home from the Walmart that I became aware of the lack of cellphone. Yeah... disappeared into the ether. I checked with customer service that night and the next day... Called it over and over from another phone.
Gone.
So, now I got an iphone. You may want to message me your number. Ish, I'm talking to you.
No word yet from our families in Japan. Most of Peaches family is inland so they're ok. I have family in Tokyo, but Tokyo's seems to only have some mild earthquake damage, so I'm pretty sure everyone's OK there. Watching the video of where the tsunami hit though, WOW...
Mead is an awesome drink. It's made from honey. And tastes great. It's my new favorite alcohol. I believe now that the Vikings were, in fact, simply misunderstood. They were traveling to world looking to buy honey and/or bees from people. It's not their fault that people overreacted to large, hairy axe-toting men making bzzing noises while gesturing frantically.
We're getting single digit cold and LOWER here in Utah. The winds are blasting down out of the canyon a la Day After Tomorrow and sending the windchill plunging into negative teens. I think I saw a Huey freeze and crash outside. The man stumbled out and then froze in place. Soapie went to go hang ornaments and tinsel off him and she has everyone refer to him as Mr Frosty.
I got a week or so to go before I'm back in San Diego for a visit
I was going through my photo/video library last night and found a bunch of video clips I'd shot back in May when we'd gone out to San Diego. We met up with Ish and his kids at the park and they were all playing. In one clip, OMC is helping Soapie up a playset ladder. She's weighing maybe 20 lbs and he's clearly puffing his cheeks out exerting himself.
At the time, I noticed and thought it was just age catching up to him.
I realize now that I was seeing the effects of cancer on him. He'd felt it then, too, I'm sure and probably blown it off for age or something else. He's stubborn like that. It'd be another month or so before he'd cough up some blood and go to the doctor and receive an initial diagnosis of possible tuberculosis.
I can't really say what it's like to watch that clip now.
I got some woodworking in last night. I'm working on finishing up my side table project so that I can start in earnest on OMC's flag case. Ran into a slight problem as my dead Buell motorcycle is asploded in parts all across where I would usually push the table saw out to work. So, I ended up using the band saw for the most part to rough trim the parts down to size and then finished up with a hand plane and some sanding.
That new low angle jack plane I got Veritas for Xmas... WOW. That thing is like butter on wood. The shavings I can cut up from that thing straight out of the box are nothing short of amazing. None of the other planers I have can match it. It was something else to basically shave up strips of paper from the wood.
Now I'm just about ready to turn to the router table. I need to clean up the workshop and organize. Next month, I'm going out to OMC and bringing his tools back with me...
As crappy as I am at getting projects done, I'm going to try and tackle building a case for the flag from OMC's funeral.
Wow. It's really weird to type that.
Anyhoo, I'm kicking ideas around in my head. I'll be building it from poplar. His casket was poplar and I thought it'd be the right wood to use for the flag as well. Flag's pretty big. We refolded it after letting it dry out (it was pouring rain at the service) and it measures about 14" x 16" x 22". I'm going to refold it and remeasure before I build because it doesn't look quite right.
So far, there's two designs I've seen that I like:
and
My mom likes the idea of including his picture. And I'm going to order his bars to include in the case. A whole shadowbox design like the second might be too big for the mantle. I may try doing something lighter in appearance but still having the space for the pictures and medals...
I dunno. Just part of the work I guess.
(9/22/2003)
Hi, this is Testcase. I'm not in right now. I'm out:
9/26 - Progress report: So, the board is pretty *much* up and running. I'm waiting
on Sparty to check on an issue with server-side includes, which is pretty crucial for the
operation of the board. The version of the board that is running is not quite the bright and
shiny code that *was* running, for example, it doesn't have the Whos Online Now bit. I'll
recode that. Also, the replies don't work until the includes work again. BUT, you *can*
see the board now. I'm uploading the user db that was saved at the time (back in December or
something)... try to see if you can get on, or logon. You can post new posts, but replies
won't work... The Board Is Here
9/24 - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO OLDMANCASE AND MOM!
9/23 - Loaded an old version of the site's engine and created the data structure.
Next up, rebuilding the site page templates and loading graphics.
9/22 - I got a job! Woot! And no, it's not selling bodily fluids or giving handjobs.
I hope to be back up real soon. Looks like I'm gonna hafta recreate
the site from the ground up again as Bubba was using the backup tapes
to make his own line of G-strings and thongs. Keep checking back here and
I'll have it going again real soon. Promise.
