Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

I've had a few cars in my life. None fancy or fast, and few cool. My current car, my Honda Civic, is pretty cool, but aside from that they're mostly whatever i could afford at the time to get me by.

One car that i had that held a lot of memories was my first car, a '77 AMC Gremlin. Blue with a black swoop on each side. (Pic is stockart, not my actual car.)

My mother gave it to me after high school. it was a bit of a beater, no radio, so i had a battery operated tape deck. Gas gauge didnt work, so i had a stick and every so often i would open the tank and drop this stick down and check the level. A friend of mine was trying to dig the light out of his LA Gear shoes (remember those?) and broke my key off, so no key. Long as i didnt lock the steering wheel, i was good.
It had a split-back bench seat at first, and that was okay, but not the most comfortable. So when my brother was junking his little Toyota truck, i jumped at the chance to swap my seats out for buckets. The problem was that the passenger seat wouldnt line up with the bolt pattern, so had no support. I fixed that by turning it around to face backwards, and actually liked it better. I could see the person sitting next to me so much better, and she could make samaches and change tapes. It was great for the road trip we took to McCall.
Alas, it is gone now. While i was away in boot camp my mother sent it off to be recycled.
To my first car that got me around, I salute you.

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How to build your own space ship.

This is prolly the shortest hobby i ever had.

It went something like this:

*Me reading this website*

*Sage glancing over at my screen*

Sage says, "Oh, geez."

*End hobby*

I've been sick the last week. stuffy head, miserable nose, wants to run and be stuffed at the same time. I spent the week playing Oblivion (in preparation for Fallout 3's release tomorrow night!!) and feeling awful. Sage was wonderful and took good care of me on my worst day, Tuesday. Then Thursday she started feeling sick, and yesterday and today both were her Tuesday.

When it rains it pours.

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Improbable... but true?

Sage, my beautiful wife, and I were talking last night about stories which were true, yet improbable. I dont remember why, we just were. So i told her to tell me one.

Sage: You know, the one about the people.

Soul: About the people. What else?

Sage: And... brown.

Soul: Brown and people? No no no. You have to tell me a story.

Sage: I don't know any stories.

Soul: It doesnt matter if you -know- them.. you just make them up. Like, you remember that guy we were talking to at that party that told us about his friend? He was driving on the highway, and all a sudden this truck came out of no where and hit him head on. Well, the guy wasn't wearing his seat belt and he went half way thru the windshield and his head came off. And it was sitting on the hood of the car and his mouth and jaw were moving like he was trying to talk, but he couldnt say anything cuz his friggin head was on the hood of the car. See? Improbable, but possibly true.

Sage: Was it a brown car?

Soul: ... Yes. Yes it was.

Sage: See? Brown... and people. It fits.

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More on Chainmaille

In an effort to further my chainmaille-ing ability, and to save on costs, i purchased 10lbs of stainless steel in the 18swg on a spool. This brought me to my new project: Creating the tools i need to coil the steel.

I had the idea in my head from the beginning, and it only took small tweaks to make it work. First, i grabbed two pieces of scrap wood and cut them to approximately the same size. these i nailed/glued to another piece of scrap my approximate coil length. i drilled holes in the wood (yes, after it was connected, not while they were on the table, silly me) and then slid the coil rod thru the holes, marked where it hit on the other piece of wood, and tapped an indent, not all the way thru, for the coil rod to rest.

I'll get to the pics in a minute.

My first attempt was using the handle of a shovel across two chairs with the spool set on the handle. This proved not the best idea. The shovel moved, the spool moved, the wire didnt stay right, and i made a stainless steel rose, a pic of which i will post at a later date.

The second attempt was after another tool. i found a closet hanger dowel that fit the spool perfectly, grabbed a few more scraps, some screws/glue later, i made me a hanger for the spool. here is the whole setup and the coils i completed:















Yes, the green chair in the background is one of the chairs i was balancing the spool across with a shovel. Not recommended.

The coil rod is still a little long, and i'll be cutting that off when i get a hack saw. that will make it easier to mount the drill on. it just about hangs off the table now.

The next step is a coil cutter. I need an arbor and saw for my drill, plus a mount to hold the drill stable while i drop the coils thru a block of wood and have them neatly cut. Its pretty cool.

Here's a couple pics of my coils, the first two i've done.














The lighter is for size reference. yes, its short, but right after that the coil got away from me and i had to figure out how to better hold it. it wound back on itself.

This second one is significantly longer. There are some expanded places where the spool got away from me again, but i managed to get it under control, and it won't make that big of a difference when i cut them. they'll just have to be bent back a little more.












All in all, i'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out and am looking forward to getting my cutter set up. I made this one to handle 3/16" and 1/4" inner diameter coils.

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Larry LaPrise

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote 'The Hokie Pokey' died peaceful ly at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.

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WoW - First dungeon instance

I found out the hard way that I am not that good a team member, and a really sucky team leader. Heading to the deadmines in westfall, being level 28 Paladin, I was sure that we could do some damage. I started looking for a team and picked up a 15th level warrior, 17th level priest, 16th level rogue. Within 2 minutes the warrior was dead. *sigh* we waited around until he got back, within another minute he was dead again.

I'm not sure if it was an unexperienced healer or just overall party chaos. being a pali and having some healing abililty, i expected to be able to backup. but when the rounds start coming down range, tunnel vision sets in and all i can see is the enemy. The cries of my quickly dying team fall on deaf ears as i drop blow after blow on miners so low in level i wont get any experience worth a damn. Two elites go down, the passage is clear, and i realize i'm standing by myself. the entire party is dead.

well, that was enough for the warrior. He never came back. Okay, Rogue, Priest, and me. we're ready to kick some butt and take some names. Well, the ogre did a number on us and it took another try before he fell. but that is when we lost the priest. sad, but she gave it her best.

The rogue and i tried several more times, killing elite goblins one by one, but the mechanical beast the gobo was riding was just too much for us and we parted ways; a little more experienced, a little wiser, a little richer, but not much.

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Tyke

Tyke was an interesting character. Some people feared him, although I never saw a reason why. He was wiccan, a good guitar player, a decent teacher, friendly enough, was in prison for killing a guy with a crossbow. Yeah. Crossbow. How often do you hear that?

He taught me to play guitar, but i had to be careful not to let my thumb creep over the neck of the guitar. he'd try to bite it off. One day he came to me with a can of spam and said that he heard that cleaning your guitar with Spam would make it shine and help the wood to last.

No. It just makes your guitar greasy and smell like Spam.

Tyke had a scar in the shape of an H on his forehead, left side. One day I asked him where he got the scar. He said:

"When I was born there was a lump on my head right here. The doctors cut it open and inside was a plastic bubble with a note. It said: I owe you one brain, love God."

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Leather

Yesterday I played with the leather.

I went to Tandy leather here in town and picked up a slab of 12oz leather and some scraps. all told, about 45$. I took it home and started sizing.

For my first project i wanted a pauldron and arm bracers. One of the scraps i picked up was just perfect for the pauldron with just a little trimming. I boiled it in 200F water, pressed it between a couple cereal bowels while it was still stretchy, and molded it over my shoulder.

The leather didnt darken that much, but it did get rubbery and stretchy like the article said, so i figured i was about right on. I plan on melting the wax over it anyway to add additional hardening. I won't be using slashing weapons in my combat, so wax is fine, and it should darken it. I'm going to try it on a smaller scrap first, see what color the wax turns it. I want a nice dark brown/burgundy color. if that doesnt work i'll have to pick up some dye.

Anyway, the pauldron came out nice, fits my shoulder, and will work well with some padding under. I'm going to have to add a lame or two to extend it down my arm. Prolly attach it with rivets or heavy thread, not sure on finishing stuff yet.

Next i het up some more water and did the left bracer. I wrapped a small dish towel around my arm and had my wife strap down the bracer with an ace bandage. it left a slight texturing that i wasn't all too worried about. The bracer started really hot (remember 200F) but cooled quickly and i could feel it shrink slightly and get tighter on my arm as it went. I waited about 20 minutes until it was sufficiently cool and held its shape, then did the other in the same way, playing some SW:Republic Commando to kill the time.


























My wife doesnt care for the smell of leather (sacrilege!) so i put them on the back porch to dry. in a couple days they'll be sufficiently dry and ready for punching for the laces and buckles. I'm not sure what tooling i want to do, be it a design around the edge or across the top or a mixture of the two, but i'll be thinking about it and working on some designs before i wax it. It was so easy i'm surprised i wasn't doing this stuff before.

I need more leather.

My dad told me he'd give me his deer hides if i will learn how to dehair and tan myself. i've googled a little on tanning leather, and found some interesting articles. its pretty gross stuff (leather is often tanned/prepared with brain/urine/poop) but i'm willing to give it a try.

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Chainmaille & Leather.. Kinky?

Kinky.. pshh. no way. I'm not into that sort of thing.

But what I am into is creating armor. Yes, new burst of creativity. Wanna hear how it went down? Very interesting:

I was surfing the vids on YouTube and watching things of interest like making green screens, fireball effects with adobe Aftereffects, rotoscoping lightsabers, ... you know, basic geek stuff.. and i stumbled upon making lockpicks out of hacksaw blades. So i started searching for "how to" stuff, and next i hit chainmaille. looked relatively easy, so i stareted, as i often do, researching on google.

Two weeks later:

Well, you might be asking.. what about the leather?

That is a little different story, but along the same line. My friends Lone and Tony (I refuse to call him Goku) were sitting around late one afternoon and thought it would be fun to get some armor and make padded weapons and beat the hell out of each other. We thought tires would make great armor, ala Demolition Man. But the more i thought about it, used tires sounded dirty and difficult to cut.

So i started thinking of alternatives. Plate armor.. hell yeah. I need to be a blacksmith. Well, that was a little out of my reach, but i did talk my dad into teaching me about welding, so we'll see how that goes first.

Hmm.. no plate. what else would be hard enough to take a solid hit but be cheap enough to afford? And then Google, being the Internet God that it is, delivered the answer.

Hard Leather Armor.

My friends and readers, this is the holy grail of armor for the poor. Pieces can be purchased for a few dollars, shaped around bottles or similar -free- objects by wetting, then when they're dry, dip them in wax. Once they are cool, attach buckles/velcro, them to clothing, and you have inexpensive solid armor that will take a hit and keep your bones from breaking.

Now for the weapons. Muahaha!

For testing purposes, we started with some 1/2" pvc wrapped in foam insullation sheet bought at home depot for about 4$, then duct tape and electrical tape to keep the foam on. This is fine for just playing, but the pvc will shatter with a solid hit.

Now we're looking into Ash or hard Maple as the core, still wrapped in foam and duct tape. That will handle the swords.

Mace. Everyone wants to swing a mace at your friend's head.. hell yeah. Softballs are the size of mace heads. a broom handle and a hole drilled in the softball, then attach and cover in foam padding.

Lone wants a warhammer.. that one might be more difficult. He said sledge hammer, i said piss off. I'm all for mock combat.. i'm not for going to the hospital.

More updates will come when i buy the leather tomorrow and start on some bracers and chest plates.

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Star Wars... Geek or Enthusiast?

I have fallen in love with star wars again. It started innocently enough. I asked my wife for a book from the library and she brought me Young Jedi Knights, the tales of Han Solo & Leia Organa's children learning Jedi training from Luke Skywalker. The book was targeted for 14 year olds, and very childish in the writing. No book over 22 chapters, all around 200 pages..

Anyway.. As childish as it was, it reminded me how much I enjoy Star Wars. I finished the book on Saturday. Sunday, the wife and I watched episodes IV, V, and VI. Monday, I, Tuesday, II. Only one left. I also broke out the Star Wars Saga RPG and continued work on my adventure for my wife, and joined SciFi book club to pick up the next series dealing with the children.

I am drooling over the new Force Unleashed game coming out this summer. Watching trailers and video diaries.

Now.. does that make me a geek or just an enthusiast?

Well, I still don't dress up and go to conventions.

Enthusiast.

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Church story

one time a friend of mine was talking to someone else about the church and i was standing in line to go to the chowhall behind him.
he turns to me and says, "You should know this. What is the greatest thing to come about since the resurection?"
i thought for a moment, and said, "The thermos."
he was floored, "The Thermos??!!"
"Sure," i said, "It keeps my soup hot in the winter, my lemonade cold in the summer. What can be better than that?"
He was spitting all over himself, "I'm trying to be serious here!"
"oh," i replied, "In that case it was the restoration of the gospel to Joseph Smith."
he was mad at me for a week

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Credit

Ok, so i just needed to rant on the rediculousness of a commercial i heard this morning.

It was a debt consolidator commercial, and it opens with the announcer asking questions about being in debt.

"Have too many payments and the collectors are at your door? Are your bills too much to handle? Are you in a credit crunch?" --stuff like that. Then, and this is the madening part, he says, "Well, it's not your fault!"

Are you kidding me? Not their fault? Then he goes on to blame it on job loss, etc. Intro the debt consolidation company, then some testamonials:

"I had 25,000$ in credit card debt and debt consolidators helped me. Thanks!"

"I had 10 credit cards, and they helped me get back on track!"

Woah woah woah.. back the truck up.. 25000$ in credit card debt?? 10 credit cards maxed out??? not your fault?? WTF!! are you out of your mind?? Perhaps instead of excusing all this debt and poor decision making, these people should actually take stock of what they really have and need, and make smart purchasing decisions. Not your fault.. pshh. what a load.

Ok, that was short and enough. done and done.

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Songwriting

My friend Spiral wrote a song for me and my admin partners at Sindome.

Spiral sings, o/~ Soooul is such a slaker...that's all he does..is be a slacker..
o/~Spiral sings, o/~ And then there's Slither.. who idles all day.. he's here for an hour.. then goes away..
o/~Spiral sings, o/~ And then dear Johnny.. he likes to stop by... but he doesn't say hi...
o/~Spiral sings, o/~ And who's this Recoil... we don't know what he does..but we're sure he's important.. and makes what we love..
o/~Spiral sings, o/~ And FireStorm.. he's a really cool guy.. he's here and there.. then says goodbye.. o
/~Spiral sings, o/~ And wacky Chaos.. we know he's around.. you can't see him.. but you randomly fall on void's ground..
o/~Spiral sings, o/~ And silly Wren.. he's hardly ever on.. but when he is.. he's lots of fon..
o/~Spiral giggles.

Cute.

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Race 21

Race 21? you might ask.. is that a new need for speed game? midnight club expansion? ooooh no. not at all. its a card game on my cell phone.

The object: 80 seconds to make as many instances of 21 as possible, 3 rounds.

Sounds silly and simple. My wife and I have had a pretty heated competition with this game over the last six months or so. At first our scores were pretty low. three thousand, four thousand points. then we started figuring out the quirks of the game, and at one point i had her for a week at 8600-ish. she bested it with 9100, i got 9600, and it took her 2 months to beat it. 9670. two days later i hit 9860

As of right now, looking at the scoreboard, 9670 is the #5 score. She threw a fit at my 9860. "I'm never going to beat that score."

a week later she has.

Scoreboard for Race 21:

1: 10,000 Sammy
2: 10,000 Sammy
3: 9,860 Soul
4: 9,710 Sammy
5: 9,670 Sammy

So, i got one. *sigh* and now i have to spend all my free moments that i usually spend reading to try and beat 10,000.. but i dont know if its possible. i can prolly tie it, but i think the game caps out at 10k. that's the only reason i can think of she'd be able to get 2 of them.

I can't find anything about it online. I keep looking, but i'm hoping for a strategy guide.

www.fupa.com/game/Casino-flash-games/race-to-21.html Haven't checked this link, but it might be it. click at your own risk.

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Blood drinker

An amazing true story by a friend of mine of an experience while he was in prison.

In the words of Skipphag:
did i ever tell you about dan hernandez
dan woods and i would sit in our cell and play d&d
dan hernandez would wander around, bugging people until they told him to go away.
he was in a cell with this guy, can't remember his name right off, but doesn't matter
anyway, we didn't like troy (that was his name)
dan would come in and watch us, until we stopped and stared at him
troy was lds
dan had no specific beliefs
troy would grind the lds ideals into dan at night. which as you know, does not work
however, dan would come and spew all of this back at dan w. and me.
so, one day, dan w. held up his hand to stop dan h.
and said, "we worship satan"
dan h. says, "no, he's evil"
dan w. says, where do you get that?
dan h. "in this book"
i asked "but who wrote this book? hmmm? god did, thru his people.
and since god wrote it, don't you think that he would try to defame his nemesis?
dan w. picked up and ran with it.
yeah, if you ask god for stuff, it might happen, it might not. it' s all his whim.
dan h. says "no, no, god is good."
i pull out the bible and started looking up different places talking about god's wrath
you know, when taken out of context, god is pretty petulent, and vindictive
anyway, we told dan h. that satan wasn't like that. he wanted people to be happy and do whatever they wanted.
dan h. tells us that he has a dream of eating blood
dan w. pipes in, "well, how do you think that we stay so young looking?"
and this caught me off guard. so i stared at him.
dan h. says "what"
dan w. "yeah, you see, if you worship satan, then you live forever. and stay young by drinking blood. Skipphag there is over 400 years old, he recruited me.
dan h. "then why are you guys in jail"
me "to recruit you"
we've been watching you from a distance for some time, and we wanted to offer you an "in"
he says "really, what do i have to do?'
dan w. "you need to take a spoon, not a fork or knife, but a spoon. and scoop out troy tinneys left eye."
and i pipe in "and eat it."
then you
you'll be able to drink blood and become young again.
anyway, dan h. leaves the room, goes to troy and asks if he can borrow a spoon (troy had some)
troy asks "what's it for, to stir your coffee," and dan says "eh, yeah"
that night, nothing happened
so the next morning, dan and i laid into him, "hey, why didn't you do it. you don't have much time, or we'll have to take back the offer.
that night, dan w and i are playing cards, and we hear this thump-thump, and we thought that the guys in the next tier were trying to communicate with us, so we pounded on the wall.
the thumping became eratic. and it was coming from the other wall
the wall between dan/troys room and ours
so i jumped up, grabbed my cup, and put it against the wall, and my ear to the cup.
from the other side i hear troy screaming at dan "do you give up, i can keep this up all night."
and dan screams back, "no, i eat the blood"
troy is totally confused, he hits the intercom and yells, "this is troy tinny in tier 7 cell 7. my celly attacked me
help, help
the lights come on, and guards rush in.
troys door opens, and they grab troy and slam him into the opposing wall, so we could see him through the window. dan w and i start yelling "rat!"
troy again says, "my celly jumped me"
the guards tell him to shut up
dan comes out of the room, and is bleeding from his right hand, and his left side
troy looks into my window, and he has a crescent shaped bruise between his nose and left eye. a serious bruise, like nothing i've ever seen before or since.
they haul the two of them out, troy to the hole, dan to medical
then they brought dan back
in the morning, we asked him what happened.
he showed us the spoon, and said that it wouldn't work.
it was one of those wide soup spoons
or troy would have been minus an eye
troy then bit dan's hand, and his side
he took a quarter shaped piece of flesh out of dan's side
dan had to get 32 stitches, and a rabies shot
later, in the cell
i told dan w that we were going to hell for this
he said "anybody that listens to a couple of idiots like us, deserves whatever he gets!"
i agree
anyway... when i was working in the law library, dan came in, from the a-block
he saw me, and gave me the sign
you know, the satanist sign
index and pinky out
anywho
i said how ya doin dan
the first thing he did, was lean in close, and whisper, they put me in a cell with troy.
i said, "you know what you have to do"
and the next day, he came in, from the hole
troy came in that day as well.
he had a crescent shaped bruise between his left eye and his nose
the same size as the last time
dan said that he borrowed the spoon from troy again
you'd think that troy would've learned
anyway, when the two got out of the hole, they were put into the same cell. again.
5 times
i told mikey and monty and jarrett about it
they didn't believe me, but thought that it was a cool story
then, on halloween 2001. monty and i were watching tv, and mikey was playing pinocle
the main door opened, and dan hernandez walked in packing a matress
i said "monty, monty.... that's him"
he didn't believe me
i hid on my bed for the next day
i was afraid that since he couldn't succeed with troy, then maybe the master's eye would work
he called me "the master"
anyway, mikey and monty got upset because i wouldn't do anything. dan walked up to monty to ask a question about the tv, and saw me.
he imediately bowed his head and said "master" and made the sign
monty and mike left, and came back later. they were both pale
is that really him?
YES!
monty went up to him and said that he was on "our team", so he should not try to eat monty's eye
dan said that was okay
scared the crap out of me
dan then went to mikey, and asked if he was on our team, cause if he was, then he would live forever. but if not, then fifty or sixty years at most.
maybe less
and he was rubbing his finger and thumb together at this point
i said, "mikey is on our team'
it was awesome

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