Freakin' EPIC

I learned to day that the following piece of AWESOME weaponry is now available. What could make this thing more cool? Putting it to use in an all out office war. This is one of the few things we didn't do back when I was working for 'the man', but I wish we had.

Have a look.

Sooooo coooooool

Optimus Prime made from scrap metal....

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.

A game with only one rule...

No Murder.

This is no joke. The small town of Ashbourn in England plays a game called Shrovetide Football. It is not like any game you have ever seen before.

In the small English town of Ashbourne during 2 days a year the people divide to play a sport with the purpose of scoring the “toughest goal”. Sure kicking a ball into the net takes some skill, but even these people would say scoring in a sport such as rugby is only for the weak. Imagine thousands of people, divided by a river, with 2 days to get a ball across town with one simple rule: no murder. That is only the beginning in Royal Shrovetide Football.

Go and check out the details here. There are two videos but they don't seem to work on the site, but you can fine one here and a longer one here.

Dangerocity + Tools

I think that it is necessary to come up with a new scale for measuring projects. I humbly suggest this new scale be called something like "TheTool/Dangerocity Scale" or simply the TDS

You see, it doesn't matter how complex a project is. It's how many tools you use to complete it, how much danger was involved and how badly you hurt yourself doing it. Changing your oil is fairly simple. You only need a new tools and the risks aren't that high. And yet many people still manage to injure themselves or break parts of the car. But you still did it yourself and you deserve credit for it. It was far harder and more dangerous than you had guessed and there should be some way to quantify that.

Yesterdays project seemed simple. In preparation for Spring I wanted to sharpen the blades on my lawn mover. Of course I called up Grimm, because he's done this before.

Or not.

After staring at the mower for a bit and poking it with a stick we decided to jack up the front end rather than figure out how to disconnect the deck.

Tools used: Jack, board, bricks

Once the front of the mower was precariously balanced atop some bricks we crawled under the deck with a grinder to get at the blades.

Tools used: Body grinder, carpet, scraper, extension cord, safety glasses.

We set to work but after the first blade we could see that one of the blades was pretty chewed up from being used as an impromptu mulcher during regular mowing operations. After some more grunting we thought we'd try to take the blades off the deck so we could work on them without constantly being remonded that we were old and fat.

Tools used: Compressor, air wrench, socket.

Indeed one of the blades was gouged pretty bad. One might consider simply getting a new blade but Grimm is well known for his 'frugalocity'.

"Why drive into town and spend money. You've got a welder! Weld a new bead along the edge and then grind it down." This seemed like an almost sane idea at first. We pulled off the blades and set up the welding rig.

Tools used: Stick welder (gloves, mask, hammer, rods), 2 saw horses, slab of marble to weld on

With new material added to the edge of the blade we then ground it to shape and generally cleaned up our previous work. We reinstalled the blades and I decided to grease the fittings.

Tools used: Grease gun, needle nosed pliers to remove old grease tube, paper towels and gunk remover to clean up the grease which went everywhere.

In the end I used a crapload of tools to achieve a pretty simple task. I would give this job a 7 out of 10. It would have been a 8 but neither of us injured ourselves during the proceedings.

Next week I may dig a hole. It will take some work but I'm sure I can jack that TDS up to 9 somehow.

Like clockwork...

Tomorrow we head out on the road for Florida and MEGACON. The house is clean, Cat Nanny, Lindsey and our neighbor are looking after our hyperactive Cats. Van is loaded. Audio books procured.

And then the phone rings...

At this point you'd like I would have learned not to answer the damned thing. But I, like Pavlov's dog, am well trained.

It's my friend Rupp.

He's early. His site shouldn't crap out until I'm at least 500 miles from home. Preferably in another country. Surrounded by headhunters.

I fire off some emails to determine what's up with his website. Then another client calls. He's been dragging his feet for MONTHS on a project and now he has an overwhelming urge to get the thing done TODAY. I spend several hours on the phone with the client, more in a chat session with support people, another hour on hold before talking to a real human. All culminating with the certain knowledge that the pinhead at my clients bank ignored all the instruction we gave him months ago.

A developer call me back. We've been talking about trying to find out what makes my friend Rupps site crash. We settle on doing a pretty serious upgrade. Settle on a price.

Call Bank, bark at moron.
Call Rupp, get approval for project.
Call Developer, green light upgrades.

Clicky-clicky on computer. Set up everything.

And now, I leave. Tadaa!

I'm sure that nothing at all will go wrong.

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.

Take 2...

So two and a half days of reinstalls and XP still isn't working right. IE 7, windows update and other things just aren't working. The deal breaker is when I can't get any anti virus or Quicken to load.

I make some calls. I talk to some people who assure me that indeed I have to push the Big Red Button. They told me to do this originally but I though I could do this half-assed. Several friends admit that they do a re-install twice a year. I back up 72 GIGs of info onto a portable hard drive. I scan it with an online virus scan. I triple check for info I need to have. And then, I wipe the drive.

While the system formats I take a shower. It's a spiritual as well as physical cleansing. I have lost almost an entire week because of my mistake. And there is NO guarantee that my work, pictures, music or anything will still work when I restore it.

When it's done I start the reload. This time it goes much faster and workes much better. I get a LOT of hard drive space back. I download 82 security updates to XP. I restore my documents and so far (knock on wood) it all looks good. One of the most annoying things is trying to remember user names and passwords from various sites.

It is done. This system is clean.

Epic Fail

All it took was one second to click on the wrong file. And then... it was a slow decent into FAIL. Despite antivirus I contacted a host of evils and was forced in the end to reinstall Windows XP. On the plus side, my internet connection and other parts of the system are running nice and fast again. On the down side, it's been two solid days of reinstalls and patching. Joy.

Outlook is back but my account settings are AWOL.

Unrelated but good news, my friend Grimm seems to have found a buyer for his house. It looks like he'll get a good price tool.

Also unrelated but important is the arrival of a new addition to the family. Feel;ing that Little One could use some company we went to the local vet and picked up a young cat who had yet to be named. I'll post pics soon and maybe even solicit name suggestions.

Awesome Disclaimer...

Really, you need to read it for yourself.

Hot priest on priest action...

No, not THAT kind. It seems that there's a new Ultimate Fighting Organization forming right in the Holy Land. Several different Christian faiths share responsibility for maintaining the Church where Jesus was supposedly born. When some Greek Orthadox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceiling after the X-mas day mass, the Armenians claimed the ladders encroached on their part of the church.

The result? Holy land Iron Cage match.

To let you know how stupid this conflict was 20 Palestinian police came in to stop the fight.

The Palestinians were the calm voice of reason. Awesome.

Go read the article, there are even pics! So, whose side do you think Jesus would fight on?

Oh how the mighty have fallen...

What would Lord Vader say?

Walk it off son...

First, I want to state for the record that my version of the following events is the true one. The other person you may here this story from will say that it either A) Didn't happen B) Was a freak and completely unexpected accident or C) That I somehow put him up to it. These are all LIES.

My friend and sometimes co-conspirator Grimm returned to Ohio to get the very last of his stuff and finish some work on the house he is selling. As this work involved chainsaws I volunteered. Dangerous tools? I'm in! And to be truthful, there is nothing more manly than cutting up trees with a chainsaw. I have a small Craftsman chainsaw that never got to see much action down on the Gulf Coast after Katrina so I enjoy and chance to fire it up.

Things started out well. We hacked up a fallen willow tree. Well, I hacked while Grimm fought with a dull blade and a lot of thorn bushes. We eventually finished the willow and moved on to the main event. An upright but dead oak on the edge of his pond. It was a real eye sore and distracted from the nice view. So down it had to go. Alas, getting to it involved fighting our way through 20 feet of solid thorn bushes. These evil fuckers are the most spiteful plants on Earth and will actively attack you.

We finally cleared a path and prepared for cutting but Grimm insisted that a large side branch had to be cut off it first. He went off to sharpen his chain and I got the ladder. I leaned the ladder against the tree and scurried up to examine the branch and felt a strange sense of Deja Vu. I had taken down a branch like this when I first moved to Bag End and I knew that its shape and size would make it do what mine had done, namely try to kill the person on the ladder. I had been lucky. The branch I cut back then missed the ladder beneath me but only by inches. I came down and related my story of evil branches and then clearly and without ANY ambiguity told him that I believed this branch would try to take him out.

This of course, did not deter Grimm, who laughs in an unsettling way in the face of danger and common sense advice. He climbed up, began to cut and just as predicted, the partially cut branch swung back around and came right at the ladder. I will admit to flinching out of the way. I may have uttered an expletive. Then I saw that Grimm and the ladder had been knocked completely off the tree with some force. In fact the impact had swung the ladder around and Grimm hung onto it like a tick. I grabbed at the side of the ladder but only managed to have it smash my forearm and shin and knock me back. It hung upright for a moment, completely unsupported before slowly falling back towards the ice covered pond. Grimm I think realized that he had to lower his altitude or risk full submersion. He dropped down from the top of the ladder. Luckily a large mass of thorn bushes lessened his impact with the ground.

There were a few moment of "Holy Shit!" before he got up and got his bearings. The chainsaw had left his hands and was fully in the pond. He fished it out and I helped him back onto dry land. He came out remarkably well for such an amazing stunt. His hands were chewed up a bit and a few bumps and bruises. It could have been far worse.

I waiting a good 30 seconds before issuing my first "I f-ing TOLD you this would happen!", which he apparently didn't hear. I have repeated this statement several times but like a White House press secretary he denies it ever happened.

After we finished we headed back to Bag End. Grimm managed to redeem himself by changing the U-joint to his van in the shop. A task that involved hammers, a propane torch and a lot of hitting. After all my ribbing he was kind enough to help me with some new parts I bought for the Shopsmith.

My only regret about the day was that I didn't have a video camera at that crucial moment.

For my first trick...

With the addition of a table saw last year and now the Shopsmith, space has gotten a little tight in the shop. I am hoping to get some retractable casters for the shopsmith so I can roll it out of the way. But that still leaves all the accessories, each of which takes up room and are currently stored in a 'lean it against something else and hope I don't break it' kind of way.

The answer? Build a table. Now I know this thing ain't purty. It's made from the crappiest scrap wood I could find lying around, but it does the job. The table has sets of holes where each of the tools posts slide in keeping them off the ground and easy to get to. It's held together with deck screws, the star pattern kind rather than philips heads and I must say that it was like discovering fire. They are 286% better than using philips, which now seem like crude bits of bone.


I also changed the power switch on the shopsmith. Shopsmith actually has a bunch of cool videos on their site showing you how to do just these kinds of things. Yes I know that swapping out a toggle switch isn't exactly sequencing the human genome but it does involve putting your hand directly into the motor housing, a place hands aren't supposed to go. I managed to scape up my bear size paws pretty good in the process, adding to my sense of accomplishment. After all, it's not a successful shop project unless there's blood involved.

Busy little ants

I have alluded to several projects that I have been working on over the past few weeks. Well here are a few pics. The big one was fixing, or rather building a roof at our Ohio Ren Fair booth. When we got the place, we knew its was little better than a tar paper shack. There's no polite way to say it. It was not built well. This was made worse by adding an extension off one side. At some point the previous owner must have planned to build a roof over the back quarter of the building but this project never happened. There were only a few bare rafters which we have thrown tarps over to keep the worst of the leaking at bay. Our booth is so ghetto that no rennie will work on it. That says something. So I made a call to someone who knows no fear. His name is Cowboy and with his abundant help we managed to build two complete roofs in two days. I wish I had more pics but we were pretty damn busy.


Here's what we had to work with. Three rafters, uneven floor, useless rolled roofing material. The one good thing is that the booth is made from rough sawn Red Oak.


Action shot. The extra fun part was that the stairs leading up to this roof are completely rotted and totally unsafe. But there was no time to work on them. We just kept praying we wouldn't drop straight through and break a leg.



By midnight Friday we had gotten this far. You can't see it here, but we built another complete roof near the front of the booth. A week later I finished the flashing, used a crapload of silicone, closing off the open area and finally put something on the back wall which was exposed studs. I'm pretty confident that this will stop the leaking.

The other project has been helping my friend Grimm fix up his house so that he can sell it. His wife is already in North Carolina at her new job. So he's basically on his own for most of this HUGE project. I am amazed at how much he's gotten done but it's the last 10% that can just drag on. I'm proud to say that I helped rebuild a deck, install a drywall ceiling & texture it as well as move a lot of heavy materials. Oh yeah, and I helped burn a lot of things that made me feel fairly guilty. I mean my hippie gene was just disgusted with myself. At some point a whole lawnmower was consigned to the flames.

It's close to completion now. Some painting, trimwork and a lot of yard work. I'm glad to lend a hand but it's a bittersweet project. Once it's done the house goes on the market and Grimm will be free to join his sweetie permanently. I'll miss him and his wife. They're a great couple. I've learned a LOT from Grimm on all manner of subjects and his IS my closest neighbor.

So, anyone looking for a place in the country? It's got land, a pond, a barn and has had a LOT of high quality renovation done on it. I'm talking an amazing marble tile bathroom, radiant floor heating, new carpet, kitchen, the works. Sure it's in Amish country, but you can shoot off guns out there and no one will mind. Interested? Drop me a line.

Ta Da!!!!!!

The party went pretty damn well. Good weather, maybe too good. A bit warm for all. Many huddled under the new roof chowing down on the amazing amount of food that was available. We got a lot of compliments about the new roof and stucco.

As always, there wasn't enough time to sit and talk with anyone at any length. And there were a lot of people. I got to try a friends new bow, very nice. Alas, I didn't have a string for the crossbow I got on ebay. Frisbee hack had a few new twists this year, and once again, no one cut their own head off. I had hoped to have fighting radio controlled Pirate ships but only one was ready. Maybe next year.

The record for longest distance travelled to attend was 1160 miles by Ms Aleta who narrowly beat out my long time friend Jim Taber who came 1158 miles. I need to find some friends in the UK. That was this can be "An International Party".

The fireworks.... well, what can be said. We got a lot of them. Maybe too many. This was supplemented by my friend Travis. As always, safety was the watchword. (Stop snickering) Last years theme was "The Polish Space program" this year? "Here, hold my beer".

So loud and so large was the display, that we actually had a neighbor complain about it. Luckily I have 'people' to handle such annoying persons. He threatened to call the police . We calmly informed him that it was only 9:30 at night and that we had a licenced, trained pyrotechnition on hand and that the show would be over soon. Some of those statements were actually true.

What was really cool was the clean up crews that picked up the trash and helped clean up the fireworks debris.Very cool. It made Sunday's clean up much easier. People were also very generous with donations to help defray the cost of the fireworks. Thanks guys.

If anyone has any pics (As I once again too none) please email them to me. I'll throw up a gallery for them.

If you missed the party, it sucks to be you. You missed a great shindig. If you didn't get an invite, I apologize. I try to exclude no one. Send me your email and snail mail address for next year.

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?

Dangerocity Part II

With only a few days to go before heading out on the road I managed to get a day set aside for Ballista work with Grimm. Those of you awaiting pictures of us firing flaming projectiles at unsuspecting targets will have to wait.

Our fist order of business was actually fixing my welder. While it wasn't exactly broken, the knob that holds the dial controlling how many thousands of volts are used in the welding process was not holding. After dis assembly we found that the hole for the knob was stripped. Grimm pulled out his tap and die set and I got to tap some bolt holes. A first for me.

Wow, I am actually uncomfortable with reading that.

Anyhow, with repairs made we got down to some serious thinking. The design we are using requires two steel plates to be fabricated. Not having actual plates of steel large enough, Grimm prepared to weld a good dozen smaller pieces of steel together to achieve the same thing.


In my opinion this is like making a windshield from several panes of broken glass. Yes, it might work, no I don't want to be there when its in use. Grimm seemed confident in its structural soundness but it would involve a ton of cutting and welding. Instead I searched the internets and found a company that has a water jet. This VERY cool toy will cut 1/4 inch thick plate steel using a jet of high pressure water. Yes, I asked my wife if I could have one, the answer was no. We fired off the specs and decided to work on shortening the axle.

Out comes our old friend the circular saw. Lots of sparks. I made the second cut but did not have the advantage of long sleeves. Lets just say burning arm hair is not a pleasant smell.



With a 1 foot section removed from the middle of the axle we set up the welding rig outside, where it was bitter cold. Grimm did the welding and a fine job it was. When cool, each of us took turns standing on the axle and so far it has held our weight.



Then...more thinking. Grim has two gears for the winding mechanism. These need to be mounted to a shaft, the shaft needs to be held by several bearings and the center of the shaft needs a drum to wind the draw string onto. We also need to add crank handles. This is by far the most complex part of the operation but we worked out the parts we needed and how we would assemble them. Alas, it was getting late and we didn't have all the tools we needed. We called it a day.

Oh yeah, this will end well...

Ok folks, its time for another installment of 'The Danger Show - with Grimm and Steve'. What are these two kooky kids up to today? Well, they've decided to built a ballista. That's right, these brain surgeons are going to use tools, to make a weapon. It's a danger trifecta!

We began with a well written set of directions and blueprints we obtained off the interweb. These plans were promptly ignored by Grimm, who has in typical fashion, completely redesigned the project in his brain.

Things got off to a good start when Grimm informed me that the prod (the bow shaped thing that makes the big arrows go zoom) did not look good enough, and would have to be cut down. Now, because of the spring like nature of this piece of steel, it cannot be subjected to heat. This would ruin the tempter. The solution? Hose down the prod as we use an electric circular saw to cut the prod.

I am not making this up. If you click HERE you will see the larger image, labelled accordingly:

1. The Hose
2. The Saw
3. The electric cord
4. Glasses. Subject to fogging and debris
5. Grimm's mind

I'll upload some video to youtube later. It was fun, if you consider getting soaked to the skin in ice water while risking electrocution fun. But somehow, we managed not to injure ourselves. We only got half the prod done before the cold forced us indoors for fresh socks. We began the body of the weapon, which looks pretty good. To be fair, Grimm did the lions share of the hard work work this first session. I alternated between flinching and trying not to pee myself. To feel productive I've started stripping a pair of Amish wheels Grimm 'obtained' which will be used to move the weapon once its done. I am fairly sure that using Amish wagon wheels as part of a Medieval siege weapons is a fairly straight path to Hell.

Dumbasses vs. Bees

I direct your attention to the following forums post with death defying pictures. Man, who the hell would do something so farking dangerous?

I'm looking at you Grimm.

Adventures in Lawn Care

So here it is at last. The lawnmower. With it I shall tame the wilderness that is my back yard. I shall fear no weed. My chainsaw and my roundup shall comfort me.

This thing has made my life much easier. It does 80 mph. It can, in fact pop wheelies. I will be speaking with Grimm about chrome exhaust pipes and a turbo charger. Its 0-60 speed is a little sluggish. And yes, I am wearing a John Deere hat. It came with the mower and it gives me mad farmer cred down at Cecils trackside diner. Word.