Whatever.
So I haven’t updated in forever. No excuses really, I just haven’t felt like it.
Things are going well overall. The business has shifted recently from primarily graphics, to primarily computer work. Which is fine. It all pays decent and work is work. 
I’ve recently completed a logo package and a website for a professional society in Scottsdale, and I’m hoping to have screen shots and samples up on the business website soon. I’ve also done some other small custom projects here and there, but several of them are still not public, so I cant really add them to the site. I did recently redesign the business website template. I just need to get in there and do some more updating. One of these days.
I ended up working at a couple of Haunted Houses on and off throughout Octo
ber, which was a good time. We rigged up lights inside the ambulance and installed a body bag on the stretcher and then freaked people out pretty effectively all month long. The main Haunted House we worked with was a charity deal, and the bulk of the proceeds went to various charities around town, so it was for a good cause, and they were a great group of people to work with. We plan on being back next year to help out as well. If you are interested in Haunted stuff in October and you are local, you should really check them out in 2011. The Slaughterhouse.
November was its usual blur. Took the Ambulance to Good-guys in Scottsdale an
d had a good time. (Although there were some quirks this year that I think they really need to work out.) The People and the cars were great though. We really had a good time up there. Spent some time hanging out with Amber and Mike in the GM performance Division display in the vendor area. And they were kind enough to let us park the ambulance at their display on Sunday which was pretty cool.
From there we dropped right into Thanksgiving and the entire herd of family. Smoked the birds again this year, and tried a couple of new things in the process. We did a dry rub on one Turkey, which came out fantastic. And there were some new sides tried this year as well. Honey Glazed Carrots = Excellent! In the middle of Good-guys and Thanksgiving, we both decided to do NaNoWriMo again. And while it was an effort do to some outside things, we both managed to make the 50K target to win this year.
And that brings us to December 1. I’m thinking about decorating the ambulance for the holidays this year, but I’m not sure what I’d do with it if I did. I’m not very active with the club that does the holiday parade of lights anymore. While I’m sure they’d be happy to have me there, I Haven’t been active for a while, and it just doesn’t seem right to just show up for the fun stuff and then bail again. That’s one of the reasons I’ve stepped back from the club. I ended up being one of the only people in the club that did anything. Everyone else showed up for the fun stuff and then bailed right after. Beyond that, its the same stuff on a different day. Lots of things going this month. And then a new year.
I’d say that I’ll try to update more, but I probably wont. So I’ll see you when I see you, and if you need me, hit the contact button or just call or E-mail.
Have a good holiday!
Inconsiderate people.
Just a brief rant this morning.
I was up and about early this morning and I decided to run down and check the Business Mailbox early before it got busy since I haven’t checked it in a few days. So I head out, hop in the car and as I’m backing out of the garage my gas light comes on. Its early still, so I figure I’ll hit the gas station and fill up the car before it gets too busy there as well. So I head off on my merry way. As I’m standing at the pump at the gas station filling the car, I notice a truck come roaring in off the main street. It pulls to a stop at the pump next to me and the passenger door flies open. I figured it was someone that needed coffee or the restroom or something.
Restructuring
Its the start of another new year, and its the time of the year where everyone makes all manner of resolutions that they will have forgotten by the first of February. I’ve never been fond of resolutions as they always end too lofty and vague to actually keep going. Not to mention that my needs and goals tend to shift throughout the year anyways. Rather than making resolutions for things I’d “like” to do this year, I decided to sit down and restructure some things and actually make some changes right now. I look at this as an evolutionary process. This will probably change as the year progresses, so I’ll make every effort to update this as things change. For now, this is how I’ve structured things.
Outside my window.
Just another reason I like living with a little space around the house.
My latest work project
“Or how little I like working with reflective material.”
Usually I don’t post too terribly much about work related things here, but this has been consuming a good chunk of my time, and its turning out pretty nice if I do say so myself. This is my latest client project. We are creating a “replica” AZ Department of Public Safety Car for a collector overseas. All of the logos and striping are completely custom to avoid issues with the “real” cars. (Which are still in service) Although all of the graphics are similar enough to confuse everyone that has seen the car in person. Almost every part of the car has something on it. From small striping above the windows and on A-pillars and bumper ends, to the gigantic stripes and logos, roof lettering, trunk panels, and a million little parts here and there. It should look pretty good when it goes home though. And after dark, it lights up like a Christmas tree. I am looking forward to sending this on its way and getting back to some basic projects with regular material that is easier to work with. Its been an interesting project though.
Business, Illness, and other random stuff.
Been away from the blog for while working on other projects here and there. so I figured I’d just recap the last few weeks for anyone that cared.
Thrashed for several days in a row to get the Ambulance put back together and managed to get it done just in time for the Super Chevy Show at the beginning of April here locally. Had a blast out at the drag strip for 2 days. Spent most of Saturday wandering around and watching the various racing going on. (a 1/4 mile run that is done on 2 wheels at over 130mph is INSANE BTW. The guy the drives the wheel-stander does not make enough money doing that sort of thing.) Sadly it was windy and fairly cold most of the day. Still enjoyed myself though. Little bit of drama near the end of the day when one of the jet powered dragster drivers crashed near the end of the track. Found out later that he was “OK” and after some surgery and therapy they expect him to drive again. Pretty amazing when you consider he was moving at more than 230mph when he crashed.  Ended up coming home Saturday night slightly congested from the wind and the dust.
Finished!
After some additional engineering… and some more welding.. and a little more painting.. And a little muttering under my breath. The trellis is up and complete. Its freestanding, and actually pretty stable, and ready for the rose to be trimmed back and trained up the front panels. It took significantly longer than I had hoped, but it turned out really nice considering it was my first real welding project. (I kinda went into this with the theory that if you Aim low, you can avoid disappointment.) You can see in the photos that the roses have sort of exploded. Which is why we needed the trellis to begin with. The roses are too big to just let grow wild. They need some structure or we risk losing a good chunk of the end of the porch. Hopefully this will provide a decent base for them to grow on. And it turned out pretty cool looking as well.
On to the photos:
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- Front view of the finished trellis
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- rear view of the finished trellis
Something different.
My musical tastes tend to run to the eclectic. Anything from Devo and PSB to Glenn Miller and Yello. Of late though, I’ve been wandering about the musical shores of other continents. I’ve been through French Pop, some harder Euro Trance, and ended up most recently with Electronic Tango. Which I will admit tends to sound a little odd at first read. Think of some of the Tango inspired Yello tracks with a slightly more traditional flair and you are close. All in all, quite a nice musical diversion. From what I can gather, these folks are on the cutting edge of the movement. Quite catchy, it sticks in your head and you find yourself humming along with it.
Gotan Project – Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)
In search of: Welder for the garage.
This is a little late, but it figures into some things that I’m going to be doing here on the site, so I’m going to go ahead and pop back in time a little and delve into my welder and how it came to be.
I had been wanting to add a welder to the tool collection in the garage for a while. I had projects piling up that I was not working on because they needed welding here and there and I couldn’t do it myself. It was easier to just put them off and not work on them.  It ended up being much easier to do something else than coordinate with someone else to come weld the various projects up for me. Last year I figured I might want to go ahead and seriously look into getting a welder so I could tackle some of those projects on my own. I figured I was expanding the capabilities of the garage, as well as expanding my skills. Maybe welding was a logical next step.
So I started looking around for info. When I started doing research around the web in early 2007 to try to figure out which welding machine I wanted to add to the tools in the garage, I was confronted with a massive amount of information. Some relevant, some not. And as I expected, everyone had their own opinions on brands and models and most of those folks are pretty strong in their opinions. Those pages got tossed right away, I can form my own opinions. And brand isn’t really critical to me as long as the tool will do the job I wanted it to do. I tried to then sort through all of the rest of the info out there to distill it down to facts that were useful to me, rather than deal with all the marketing hype and opinions. Now during all of that looking I noticed ONE constant thing. It seems that all of the guys on the welding boards and the car boards all had the same basic bias. Small 110V welders stink. Period. End of discussion. Don’t even bother. To hear these people tell it, anything that plugs into a normal house plug is totally worthless and a waste of space and money. This I just couldn’t understand as that market segment reaches from a $79.00 unit at Harbor Freight, to big name machines that are almost $1000. If they sucked so bad, and they didn’t really work, why did everyone (Including the major players) waste their time making them? I’ve worked with professional companies that had high end gear that just did not make anything for the entry level. I wondered why that the big boys would waste their time with a product that wasn’t apparently worth the effort. With that in the back of my mind, I figured I needed to define what I was going to use the machine for. Figuring that may help me narrow down the options a little.