boot bench

I've been working on a boot bench since March. At least that's when I printed these plans.
http://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/do-it-yourself/2007/09/boot-bench

I bought the wood in August or September, then did some cutting in October and then the bench got shelved for the previous 2 posts, among other things.

I modified the plans a bit. They tell you to buy a 36" stair tread and then cut off 1/3rd of it. Seems a bit silly to me, so I left it at 36". They also suggested using pine for the sides and base. I didn't like that idea so I went with red oak (because Home Depot offered red oak or pine stair treads) for the top and sides and pine for the base. I left the base pine because I thought it would be cool to use some leftover tile from our master bathroom project and use that instead. I figure that if we are going to put wet, snowy and dirty boots and shoes, why not make it something that a little more durable.


I got the tile idea from an art show we went to in Worthington over the summer. This guy did some awesome mosaics with mirrors and stands so I thought I could apply the mosaic idea here.


The above is where the mosaic will go.

The next step is to install filler plugs over all of the holes.

And I'm not going to paint it either. Red oak is expensive and to put paint on it would be a shame.

away in a manger

We put up our Christmas decorations Thanksgiving weekend. Amanda put up the nativity and said, "Gee, I wish we had a manger".

So last weekend I built this:


I used some leftover plywood for the base and sides and leftover masonite for the back and roof. I routered the base so the wisemen wouldn't cut their feet on the sharp edge.

garage storage solution

We needed to add some storage space to our garage to accomadate camping gear, kid stuff, strollers, tools and so on. I found an article that had some good suggestions and liked the angle bracket idea.
http://www.rd.com/easy-garage-storage-solutions/article17442.html

The angle brackets were the most expensive part. That was probably 85% of the total cost of the project. The hardest part was finding the studs in the walls. 16" on center, right? Sure.

The good news is we can still park both of our cars in the garage....for now.




Yup, that's the helicopter hung upside down in front of my parking spot.

Helicopter!!

The helicopter was finished in time for Xander's birthday and it was a hit! Here it is on it's maiden voyage. I did add a couple of handles on each side to facilitate easier access after this picture was taken and our neighbor painted a bumble bee on it and painted "The Stinger". I'll put more pictures up later with that.

THANKS MANDY FOR THE BUMBLEBEE IDEA FOR THE PAINT THEME!

As you can see in the picture below it is complete with a ceiling fan for the top propeller and 2 smaller fans for rear propellers. You have twice the turning power with 2 rear props. There is also a CB antenna for calling in backup (not needed with the flying ace pictured below).



Inside the cab we have fan switches up above and a telephone in the rear. The dash has the original steering wheels (I don't know what you call a steering wheel in a helicopter), original fuel and oil gauges, a video tracking device and another button.




A plexiglass windshield keeps the bugs out when you are traveling through hyperspace. It ain't like dustin' crops, boy!

more helicopter

This was last weekend when I started assembling the new helicopter by using the old one as a template. I borrowed my neighbors jigsaw to make all of the circular cuts and it was a lifesaver.



Our neighbors were throwing out a ceiling fan so it became the propeller.



The landing gear.


Another neighbor built a fence last year out of lattice. I used some of his broken leftover pieces for the rear tail.



I still need the rear propeller. I'm paying a coworker to fashion something for me. Hopefully he'll have that to me this week.



I started painting this weekend and put 2 coats on and realized that the plywood was going to suck all the paint up and I needed primer. So then I ran out and bought some primer and primed it. I need to put another coat on there then I'll go back to painting. It should look like a giant bumblebee when I'm done.

coffeetable

I fixed up a coffetable for Sergey. He built it last summer and the top wasn't sanded down enough so when it was stained it looked terrible. So I sanded it all down.


Xander helped too.



And put 3 or 4 coats on the top surface, 2 or 3 on everything else. It turned out pretty good.

helicopter updates

While completing the helicopter tear down I found the turbo's under the seat.

Whew! I thought they were lost! They were also there with a mighty huge mouse house. Full of dirt and poop and stink. Those boards will need replacing.


Today I spent the morning buying new parts and using my new (craigslist) table saw to make the back, top, and bottom pieces. I had to borrow my neighbors jigsaw to make the round cuts for the sides. I tried using the router for the windows in the back wall and they turned out terrible and I had to recut the back wall. A jigsaw was my only option. The sides don't match perfectly, but neither did the originals.


Tomorrow I plan on assembling the cabin and maybe build the skids.

Oh, and the only thing I was able to keep was the pvc. Plastic lasts forever, plywood doesn't. I thought I might be able to keep the steps, but I realized that even those are rotted out.

And thanks Mandy for the paint theme idea! I'll go with the bumblebee colors. I'm going to try and commission the neighbor lady to paint a tough looking bumblebee on the sides.

the story of a boy and his helicopter

When I was a mere boy, my grandpa built me a helicopter. It was made out of pvc pipes, plywood, 2x4s and had a cb. It didn't fly, but it was really cool. So now, years gone by, the helicopter was passed to my cousins and now it has been passed to Xander and Josie. Being that it is made of plywood and is more than 25 years old it needs some rework.

Here is a picture before I started the rework. That's the plexiglass window in the cockpit. The rod across the front is a support.


Here is an interesting fact about my grandpa, he only bought green and yellow paint. I swear. And my uncle kept with that same theme when he repainted it for my cousins, but just a different shade.

Here is a picture of the propeller, it's going to be replaced. Can't fly rescue missions with a bum whirlybird.




After Xander got up from his nap he helped me take the rear rudder and the roof off.



The rear rudder is broken in the middle and needs to be replaced. The part where it is broken is where the rear roof fastened to the rear tail.


Here are the cockpit controls. No wonder it never flew, no fuel or oil. I'll have to add some more switches and buttons. Another 10 or so just might send Xander into toddler ecstasy. That boy loves switches.



I got all the parts with it except for the turbo pipes. Those were just 5" diameter pvc pipes mounted on the rear roof.

Any suggestions on color?

gross

I was helping my brother in law move last night and boy do I have stories for you!

I was holding one end of a loveseat, we turned it upside down to set it in the back of the truck and as we did a fingernail clipping fell out onto my arm. How disgusting is that?

In his defense this is a hand-me-down couch and who has done what on it. Still, someone chewed on their fingernail and either spit/dropped/threw/lost it in the loveseat.

The fingernail was in addition to all the crumbs other clods of dirt that fell out of it when we turned it over. The fingernail just happened to land on my arm and not bounce off.

Vick

Did Michael Vick commit a crime?
Yes.

Did Micheal Vick go to jail for the crime he committed?
Yes.

Does Micheal Vick deserve to be figuratively nailed to a cross for the rest of his life for the crime he paid for with jail time?
No. Leave him alone.

clarification

Ikkin: A bunch means 2 diaper boxes full of cds. Which when I went downstairs and counted turned out to be 233. This includes full length albums, singles and burned stuff. Plus around 40 in our two vehicles and another 10 or so lullabys and disney things and kid stuff.

Sergey: Yes, I still have the 40 GB one from you and the 80 GB. I'm not sure the 80 GB will work with my computer since it is a SATA and I don't have a sata hard drive. Plus, I'm a goober because I looked on my hard drive and I've got over a 100 GB of space left. I'll probably go to half price books tonight.

Asa: Thanks, I'll give CD-ex a look.

So if I have around 280 cd's with an average of 12 songs per cd that gives me around 3360 tracks. So I guess I don't have as much music as I thought. I probably have 15 versions of evenflow. I can't ever get enough of that!

Thanks guys!

looking for ideas

I've got a bunch of cds that I don't listen to anymore but I don't want to throw out. I'd like to rip them to my pc but it's only 160 GB hard drive and I'm afraid it won't be enough room.

I'm looking to either buy a 2nd computer with a huge internal or external hard drive to rip all the music or find some boombox or home stereo with a hard drive and a cd drive to rip all my cds.

Any ideas or suggestions?

I think I might be leaning towards getting a cheap refurbed computer at microcenter for around 100 bucks, a 500 GB hard drive for another 100 bucks and going with that....

an update

A picture update of what we've been up to lately.

Xander's black eye. It was a little darker than this but now it's starting to fade a bit. Those ornery swingsets.



Our new kitchen sink and faucet. From 6.5" to 8" deep! Whooo hooo! Thanks to Amanda's dad for the help.



We had some whip cream in our fridge. Amanda's biggest concern was the expiration date on the whip cream, not the fact that I was giving our son whip cream directly from the aerosol can. I was hoping his fingers would be strong enough to operate the nozzle and I was going to let him make a big old mess in the backyard. Alas, we'll have to try again next year when his hand strength improves.



Fun at my 30th birthday party with sidewalk chalk! Yes, I wore that shirt to work on my birthday. No, there is no dimmer or off switch on that shirt. Yes, I'm going to keep on wearing it because I am awesome.

30 is here

I'm 30.

Amanda made me a spice cake and it's good. Nope, not sharing.

...almost there...

I'm almost 30. I had some thoughts on this when I was out in California a couple of weeks ago. I wrote them down in my journal and wanted to share them here; however, my journal is ALL THE WAY UPSTAIRS. So it's from memory.

Basically, I'm doing my best to quite that big whining voice in my head that says "oh crap I'm getting old". The way I see it, I'm in my prime. I'm on the peak. I'm on the crest of the wave. I'm going to ride this puppy for all it's worth. I've never surfed before, but the way I see it is I'm in the tunnel on my board. The wave is rising up behind me on my right, curved over my head and crashing into a mound of foam behind me on my left.

Whhhoooosh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CXiWfcsNco

Let me ride.

this continues to make me laugh

I love this picture.

back home

Finally, finally, finally back home. I'm so effing sick of traveling for work. These last 2 weeks I was in California and it was a real pain in the rear. There's two real things that ate at me the whole time I was gone 1) homesickness and 2) working around the house.

Item 1 is a lot of things. I've been out of town now for nearly 8 weeks this year and we aren't in the 2nd week of MAY yet! That's cool though, it pays the bills and my job is nice, but I like my wife a lot (Love, actually). I enjoy coming home to our house and chatting about my day.

Tack on top of that Xander is starting to be really, really cool. Apparently while I was gone on this last trip his vocabulary is suddenly turned a corner and is taking off. While I was away he threw a temper tantrum because there was a commercial during wheel of fortune (aaah, my son). Aaaand, I've gotten him to like eating chips and salsa. Right before I left we were having some chips and salsa and I was dipping the chip in the salsa for him (it was hot, so I just dipped it in there) and he loved it and demanded more. So while I was gone Amanda was feeding him tortilla chips and she would hand him a chip and then he would hand it back and say "baaaa!" (please). How awesome is that??!!

So the 2nd thing I missed out on is working around the house. I have 2 weekends to kill in Silicon valley and it really grates on my nerves that my honey-do list is just collecting dust. And really, why do I even call it a honey-do list? Amanda puts 1 thing on there for every 10 I put on there myself. I think I call it that so she can feel free to add projects on there, so it can be "our" list. But it's not. It's mine, it's all mine. I drive my wife nuts working around the house: wash the car, change the oil, weed the garden, weed the flower beds, plant this bush, paint that, put up this shelf, paint this room, put up a fan. AND I LOVE EVERY SECOND OF IT!

"Why don't you just relax?" she says. Because it's too damn much fun!

So there I am wandering around state parks of California (Mt. Diablo and Henry Coe --very nice by the way, had a great time) and I'm missing good, sunny, fun in the yard weekends here in Ohio. But I'm home now...lookout!

virtual stock exchange

I joined a virtual stock exchange league with some of my co-workers. I'm blown away by the results. We all started off with 100k and could make any trades we wanted. I bought some stocks based on what I have purchased in real life, others based on what some wisecracking online trader advised and the rest on just a hunch.

What is really killing me is that after 71 of the 90 days of the game is that I'm in 1st place with 136k. My nearest opponent is at 113k. I'm happy I'm doing well and want to do the same in real life, but I'm really afraid this is just a fluke. I really don't know what to make of this.

Want to baffle yourself? Sign up for a league of your own....
http://www.virtualstockexchange.com/Game/Homepage.aspx

have you ever wanted...

...to just tell people where to go? But I can't. At least not yet. I haven't lost it yet.

The other day someone did their best at ripping me a new one (which, by the way, I did NOT have coming to me and was in no way my fault). I think the best part was that I just stood there at looked at the person and said "thanks" at the end of it. I think THAT may have been better than any witty retort. Considering the fact that as they were walking away they called me an "A$$HOLE!", like a pouting teenager.

Oh--before I forget, I am supposed to blog about how amazing Amanda's fingernails and toenails will be after her manicure and pedicure tomorrow. Her feet will look so fabulous in her shoes.

It's incredible the wonderful things you can think of to blog about your wife when she has you in a headlock and you are losing your supply of oxygen to your brain. It somehow allows me to focus on all of her wonderful qualities, which are in fact, overwhelmingly abundant. I could go on, but I'm blacking o u t a lit tle here ..

catching up...

hey, it's been a while....here is what I've been up to....

Spent nearly 3 weeks in England for work. This time I actually got to do 2 weekends worth of sight-seeing. Went to London and saw: St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, The Thames, The London Eye, London Bridge, Tower Bridge and Abbey Road. I actually got pictures of my coworker and myself crossing Abbey road, almost just like The Beatles (That's what my current Facebook picture is). The next weekend I went to Stonehenge, a car museum and The Isle of Wight. I'll put up some pictures, but they are on my work computer.

Oh yea, when I was there I did some work too, which went over well with the customer and everybody was happy.

Now that I'm back and I get into my truck I keep reaching for the clutch that isn't there, because my rental car had a manual transmission.

I've also been enjoying working in my flower beds with my little helper. I've got to remember not to leave tools lying about because he tends to pick up things he shouldn't and walk around with them. Not that it's a bad thing, but he was walking around with garden claw and falling down; I'm just glad we didn't have to run to the emergency room.

Looking forward to a nice Easter weekend visiting with family. Happy Easter to you!

F L E X !!!!

I went to the Arnold Classic again this year and saw the usual band of narcissistic freaks that I see there year to year. For whatever reason, I just wasn't excited to go. It was more of a 'well, I've gone in years past and feel I should want to do this'. Eeeh. It was just as much fun to hang out with the guys and people watch.


Ever see the P90X infomercial? I got the dvd's from my bro-in-law and am going to try it. I had Amanda take a before picture but I'm too chicken to post it. I'll let you know how it goes.

backlog

I spent the past 2 weeks in California for work. I created some posts while I was there but waited until I was home to post them.

Amanda was able to fly out for Valentines Day weekend and we had a great time.

X's Aunt T is the best Aunt ever because she stayed and watched him while we were out gallivanting the California coastline.

dirty knick knacks

So Amanda and I were walking along the tourist traps at Fisherman's Wharf. All of a sudden she starts laughing and I ask her what's so funny. She points out that in the glass display case we just passed there are small porcelain figurines the size of a kiwi that are of a man and a woman in various sexual positions. This is awesome! There must be 50 of them there all laid (hee hee) out for people to see and buy! Cool!

So I think, hey, why don't I take a picture of this! So of course I do, at Amanda's disapproval. I would have seen the eye rolling or heard the sighing if I'd have been paying attention to anything except the x-rated knick knacks in front of me. It's not like I wanted to buy one!

I get my picture and we keep on walking. We are back in the parking garage waiting and waiting and waiting to leave so I thought hey, let's review today's pictures. So we flip through them and we get to the pornographic knick knacks and Amanda's telling me I have to delete it.

C: What? What are you talking about? No way?

A: Oh yea? Well what if Xander sees it on the computer. (sidenote - at home we have our pc's screensaver set to the top level folder where all our pictures are --so eventually it would pop up--pun intended)

C: So. He's not going to know any better.

A: Well, if he were to see us *cough* *ahem* he wouldn't know any better either, but we wouldn't do that in front of him now would we?

C: No.

A: No, because he would think it's happy hugging time and jump on in!

God, I'm laughing as I type this! She killed me with that one. So I guess I'll delete the picture.

stuff I noticed about myself in California

Traveling to California these past 2 weeks has hammered home a point with me as a person. I don't dress cool anymore. Not that I was ever on the cutting edge of fashion, but I thought that I had some semblance of a cool, grungy, hippie look. I was in Boston a couple of months ago for work and walked around Harvard Square and had similar thoughts. However, I stalled this train of thought with the idea it was just an east coast phenomenon. My latest trip to the west coast has confirmed my fears that I'm just a working stiff that tucks in a collared shirt everyday.

Just a few random thoughts that I have that tell me I'm completely out of it...
1. Tell me, when in the hell did tight jeans become the in thing for guys too?
2. I hate uggs.
3. Why is it that the bigger your sunglasses, the cooler you are? Why don't you just walk around with a tinted windshield on your nose? Just wear it as a necklace and have a strap at the top and wear it like a headband.
4. How many people fit in Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine? You must be able to pack them in like sardines because they all went back to 1955 and forgot to unroll their pants from the flooding.
5. What is this emo crap? Is this the goth replacement?

Is anybody else out there in the same boat?

stuff I noticed while in California for 2 weeks.

Do you know what California has an abundance of? Toyota Prius's and graffitti. They are everywhere. Stop at any traffic light in silicon valley and you'll spot one or the other. Or both.

wife swap

Do you ever watch wife swap? A couple of weeks ago Hugs and I caught parts of an episode where the hosting husband was a complete jerk, http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/husbands-behaving-badly--120. I couldn't get over what an ass this guy was.

One characteristic that makes a person good, is when they can get along and understand people across the classes.

you know what's funny???

You want to know what's funny? Two grown men acting like 3 year olds. It went like this, Brat 1 is moving equipment around in the lab getting it arranged just so. What Brat 1 doesn't realize is that he's not the only one who uses this equipment or this lab space. I considered it quite a futile effort...but that's just me.

Brat 2 comes in and says "don't bury that simulator back in there, we need to use it with these *crummy* testers."

"It's not made for those testers, it was designed to work with these *cool* testers."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is. It was designed to work with the *cool* testers" (--sidenote --he is so full of crap)

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

Brat 2 finally realizes this is going nowhere and says "well the simulator needs to be out where everyone can access it" and walks away.

Brat 1 not wanting to be out done, tries to get the last word in by says "well, it's not supposed to be!". He then carries on to me about how he's right and Brat 2 is wrong after Brat 2 has walked away. Like I care.

At this point I give a mental sigh of relief, thinking, aaaah --the awkward moment is over. I can stop admiring the white tile with flecks of gray.

Aaah, and here's the best part: within 1 minute both of them were on their cellphones calling Daddy to tattle on the other one. Well, Brat 1 was, I couldn't hear Brat 2, but if I were a betting man.....

So to enlighten you readers out there....first, I did not play the roll of brat 1 or brat 2 above. Second, this childish behavoir was carried out by engineers. So for those of you out there who know an engineer and think that they are so smart, and know so much and you look to them for their divine engineering wisdom. Phah, I say!

Know this, we do not have people skills nor do we know how to interact with others in a constructive way. If we did, we'd all be driving speeders like George Jetson. We are flawed with ugly traits like, pompusness, an inability to work well with others, arrogence, pretentiousness..... just like everybody else. Don't get me wrong, we do some pretty cool stuff too like make ipods and ataris, but we are just as average as the next guy.

No good segue for this one....I just finished reading 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Excellent book. I highly recommend it. I wasn't at all grossed out, although my tolerance might be out of calibration.

recent books

Have you ever read the first book in a series and thought, wow, this is pretty sweet...then you pick up the next one and it sucks? Well, that happened to me. I read Dune, by Frank Herbert and according to the cover of the book, it is one of the all time greatest sci-fi novels ever written. So I think, okay, I'll give it a whirl.

The story is set 10,000 years in the future, so there is intergalaxy travel, force fields to protect those inside and deciet around every corner. It's about a royal family, the Atreides, who are going to take over control of another planet, Arrakis whose sole planetary output is a spice that allows the person who eats it to have a prescience and see into the future. The spice is the most valuable commodity in the entire known galaxy. The current royal family in control of Arrakis, the Harkonnens are the archenemy of the Atreides. So we've established our good and bad guys.

Now our good and bad guys are both trying to stay on the good side of the emperor and remain an important contributor to the galactic economy. The spice that is a product of the planet Arrakis is imperative to the guys in charge of the interplanetary transportation, the Guildsmen, to safely navigate from one galaxy to the next. Without it the trade between planets would cease to exist and chaos would ensue.

The story unfolds with our good guys ending up on the short end of the stick and how they fight back and overthrow the bad guys. I enjoyed how the main character matured and grew into his role. I also liked how the author switched between different points of view on the fly between characters within a scene, allowing the reader to understand each characters perspective as the story played out.

However, I'm certainly not on board with the rest of the readers who think that it is a masterpiece and most likely the best sci-fi book of our time. It was an interesting story, but it just didn't pop for me.

So I pick up the next one in the series thinking I'll get a glimpse into the story arc that the author has created (there are 6 books by the original author, then a bunch more by his son) and follow the adventure. Turns out that I can't take it any more. I realize now one of the aspects of the author that really annoyed me was his failure to get to the meat of the story and send our cast of characters on their adventure. It wasn't so bad in Dune, but in Dune Messiah the author seems be taking his sweet ass time establishing the adventure.

Combine that with the fact that I found a used bookstore and bought 10 used books for 5 dollars, my patience and desire to stick to the story and carry on with the adventure bottomed out. I moved on to The Silence of the Lambs. Much more interesting. I've seen the movie, so I know what's going to happen, but as always, the book is better.

My Gang

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

facebook

I just found out that my mom is on facebook. That almost ruins it for me....and the wife agrees.

If you found out your mom was on facebook, how would you feel?
A. ruin it for you
B. yea - another friend to keep up with
C. indifference

I keep flip flopping between A and C.

Dune

I finished reading Dune by Frank Herbert this past week. You wouldn't like it, it's science fiction. But there was a movie based on the book made back in the 80's with Sting and the soundtrack is by Toto, so you know that's going to be awesome!

I can't stay off of facebook or wikipedia long enough to put down something to make this post interesting!!!

college textbooks

I just posted a couple of semesters worth of college textbooks that Amanda and I have been hauling around these 8 and 6 years, respectively, since undergrad, online to try and sell them. Some of them I still have the pricetags still on them, $75, $85, $65, ridiculously inflated prices. It is woefully disgusting how much money they cost us, and how useless they are to me now.

It makes me wish I wasn't so damn anal retentive when I was in school. I was one of those college kids who blindly went into the bookstore and bought what was recommended for the course. In hindsight that wasn't too bright.

Another good idea would have been to see if the professor even used the stinking $70 dollar textbook for the class! I made that mistake a couple of times.

It would have been smart to sell some of them back at the end of the semester. There were some I could have, some I knew I should keep and others that were in between. What would have been smart was if I sold them back when I graduated, by that time I had a good idea of what I found useful and useless. And which fields I wanted to get a job in --meaning which books I could unload back to the bookstore.

Flipping through some of them actually brought back sharp memories of aggravation, frustration, success and horrid disgust. Infinitesimal analysis *shudder*.

my kindhearted wife

Yesterday, Amanda, Xander and I were driving and I asked her what the speed limit was as we coincidentally passed some roadkill.

"Fast enough to kill a cat" she replied.

"Ha".

Then she says "...but slow enough to give it hope."

That kept all of us laughing for the next mile. That's something funny about our kid too, if we laugh he just starts laughing.