Geeks at Home

I present to you a collection of geeks, fanboys and nerds dressed in their native attire and in their home settings. This is a series of very cool photos of our kind (or my kind if you are not a nerd and/or fanboy).

There is a strange juxtaposition of seeing a sith lord in a living room with collectible dolls. On the other hand, it shows that a lot of us are just normal people who live in normal places.

I am in no way ashamed of my nerdness. I never have been. Whether it was strolling through the mall in mediaval garb, attending a swanky fundraiser in my trek uniform or going to the moviesdressed as a pirate and/or vampire.

How drab, how dull to live out ones life wearing the uniform our society and culture has stated is 'proper' and 'right'.

I've been hacked.

And to be honest, I am honored that some kid in Saudi Arabia thought enough of my site to deface it. While doing some clean up on the site I went to take a look at some OLD pics I took in Italy a few years back and found this.

I don't know how they got in and it doesn't appear that they have done any other damage. The page is safe to view, I've checked all the HTML. As a precaution I'll be changing some passwords etc.

Pretty Pictures

Safely back in the states. But there's lots to do. We're off to Marcon this weekend but I wanted to throw up a few of the more artsy pictures I took in Germany. have a look-see.

Germany - Artsy Pics

MegaCon and more

I ran into R2 at the Con. He looks good for his age but I thought he might want to try out "The Shatner" model to keep that slight gut in check.


















The very rare double headed Rhino. She's a beauty!





















THIS is what you look like after the ride that "doesn't get you very wet" according to my beloved wife.

















Two lorikeets sharing some nectar at Busch Gardens

When you need a slushie yesterday...

How is this for a cool concept. A faux store with a time travel theme! It appears that money raised form the sale of things like "Barbarian Repellent" and "Robot Cow Milk" goes to support a non-profit tutoring and writing center.


This is the kind of thing that I could SO get behind. We need more coolness like this in the world.

Cake and Anarchy

I was geeked to have about 15 people come out to Dave and Busters to celebrate my Day of Birthening. This place is packed on Saturdays and it was looking like we would be waiting until breakfast to get served. But a few well placed bribes and we got a private room to ourselves.

Some of the games were a blast. The boxing game where you actually punch, well, that was too much like exercise. I mean really. The last thing I should be doing after eating a mess of food and cake is taking wild swings at a virtual opponent.

I did get some nice schwag. Thanks guys. It was good to see you all.


The weather started to turn, even as we drove home. By the time we hit 480 it was almost a white out. The temperature plummeted.

This morning it was 7 degrees with 45 mile an hour winds. You would have to be a fool to go out in weather like that to attend a Scientology protest. So I didn't.

But I do have 'friend' who did go. A guy named Erik. He hauled his fat ass out of bed and hit a WalMart for posterboard and a large sharpie. Then he drove to Parma. He got there a little early so he took the opportunity to make his sign "$cientology is a $cam - www.xenu.net" The other side said "Ask Questions" www.xenu.net.

By the time he stashed his car several blocks away so the COS people couldn't get his license plate number there were people out in front of the unmarked building. More people showed up and spirits were high. There were flyers but this area had zero foot traffic. What it did have was a lot of car traffic. People sounded their horns and gave us thumbs up (or looked on confused). At about noon a few cars pulled into the COS lot. We waved to them and held our signs. They all looked like seniors. I beleieve we outnumbered them 3 to 1. Someone inside kept looking out at us furtively. No direct picture taking.

Chanel 5 showed up, shot some footage and asked some questions. We stamped our feet to keep warm and tried to keep out signs from blowing away. This was a mostly young crowd. But smart and motivated. They knew about Scientology. Most wore masks, not just to keep the COS people from snapping their photos but because it was required to stay alive in the blizzard. If Anonymous can get 20 people out in the dead of winter, what will it be like in the Spring?

Most protest pics I have seen online have sucked, but there is a great collection here by someone who knows how to use a damn camera. Some great shots, like this:



There are a lot of important causes in the world. There are a lot of evil deeds that go unpunished. But today was a start. A small step.

Suddenly, spontaneously, a movement has arisen. It has no leaders. It has no authorities. This movement is self directed by each member's own moral compass, and every individual walks in the same direction because that compass points to what is right.

Achingly Beautiful

In addition to my love of paper ephemera, I have a deep love of old books and journals. So, of course any place that stockpiles them, any place that lavishly displays thousands of tomes in soaring cathedral like locals is enough to send my salivary glands into overdive. I present to you a wonderful collection of libraries I will some day have sex in around the world. Wait...what? Forget the sex part. I meant visit, libraries i will visit someday.

Courtesy of Curious Expeditions

Strange on many levels...

I kid you not. Here is a link to a flickr photo set of the annual Furries vs. Trekkers bowling match.

Wow

This is pretty impressive. Super detailed doll house scale model of Bag End. Sweet. The pictures are pretty big and there are a lot of them, low bandwidth visitors beware. Go check it out!

Chair Day!

The event went off pretty well. There were about 10 of us cutting, ripping, routing, chiseling you name it. We put in a solid day and got 8 chairs cut and test assembled. We couldn't get them finished and stained, we simply ran out of energy and time. With one more work day we can get these done and I know they will look great. The days of ugly Wal-Mart chairs in our camp are numbered.

Here are pics of the event.

Point of no Return

This is me taking an air hammer to my house. This seemed like a good idea at some point. The theory is to round the edges of the doors and windows so that when the stucco is applied we soften everything up a little. Knowing this doesn't make it any easier to take a chisel to a perfectly good brick wall. I mean, I'm past the point of changing my mind here. That ship has sailed.


Then there are the repairs to the roof. When the orginal repairs were done, a huge industrial strength ruber sheet was installed to prevent leaking. Alas, it wasn't installed quite right. When we get too much rain, the water creeps over the edge of the ruber and seeps into the cinderblock leading to small leaks. But small leaks take their toll. Plus the material doesn't drain away from the house enough and the topsoil isn't thick enough by our garage. So we're digging, adding new material, sealing it, covering it and laying new topsoil. Joy. The first job was so close, but just didn't get it right. Everything about this house is a learning experience, sometimes a painful one. The good news is that they're bringing over a kind of mini Bobcat front loader. I'm hoping to get them to level out some of the pits in the yard and clean up by our burn pile. I very much doubt they will let me operate this machine, but a man can dream can't he?

Winter at Bag End

The sky was so clear the other day that I completely forgot what I was supposed to do and went outside to take some pictures of the pristine snow and ice. Image links to the gallery.

Winter 07