Weldergeek's Thingamablog

1939 Ensemble

2010-12-21T11:07:00.000-08:00

It's saturday night, my GPS isn't working but I am off to see a show! After some roundabout trekking through Portland suburbia I found The Know, a small club on Alberta st. Playing was a two person group called 1939 Ensemble consisting of Jose Medeles (of The Breeders and AKA the guy I bought my drum set from ;) ) and David Coniglio.

Here is a collection of clips from their show. It was pretty awesome. They also played with Old Light but I didn't stay long enough to see them play. Stupid getting up early for work and its negative effects on how late I can stay up any other time. :P

Canada EH!?

2010-10-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

So... I can be random sometimes...
About a month ago on a Friday morning I saw a Facebook post that Todd Sucherman (who is one of my favorite drummers) was doing a clinic in Langley, BC on Saturday evening. Sooo.. Of course I want to go. Only problem was (besides being less than a day away to pack/plan) it was about 6 hours away.

I didn't have any time I could take from work so Saturday morning me, my mom and my sister (the poor people I suckered into going with me) left for Canada.
I had never been there so I had a ton of fun navigating (especially since I found out data roaming rates were $16 /MB so I couldn't use my Google Maps on my phone O_o). I had fortunately printed off backup "hardcopy" maps of the places we were going.

The drum clinic was in Langley but everyone else was more interested in visiting Vancouver. So we stayed in a hotel in downtown Vancouver. I found a cheesy tourist's map that was my new best friend for navigating the strange land of Vancouver, BC.

The clinic in Langley was awesome! Todd put on a great show and I wish it would have lasted all night. I even got to have him sign a drum head for me and I got a picture with him *fan girl flail* ...

HEY! I allowed to fan girl flail once and a while :P
*shifty eyes*

After the clinic was over it was back to Vancouver for a short night of sleep. In the morning we did some shopping around Vancouver and headed back home.

Overall, we spent more time driving and traveling than we actually spent in Canada but it was worth it *grin*.

A Little Nerd Pride

2010-08-03T21:11:00.001-07:00

So I was having a particularly bad evening. I HATE to drive and I volunteer to pick someone up from the airport without thinking that it would involve lots of panic attack inducing traffic and people. Anyways.. that much aside, On the way back I noticed my seatbelt latch was not working properly and was preventing me from latching the belt. Pissed off and ready to be done with the whole ordeal of driving amongst people, I saved fixing it until I got home.

A little tiny piece of plastic (non-important bit o' plastic) had busted off and fell inside interfering with the latch mechanism. Being too late in the evening to have it looked at by someone who actually knows anything about cars I decided to fix it myself.

What I ended up with was nothing short of brain surgery. My assortment of get-things-out tools on the left I spent a good 40 minutes carefully fishing the tiny piece o' @#$!@ out of the tiny slit in the top of the latch enclosure. I didn't want to take it apart unless it was absolutely necessary.

All of that nerdy effort and the result was this:

Not much to look at but saved me a lot of headache and made me feel a little better that the night wasn't a total bust. Huzzah! Nerd Pride...

EMP (round 2) and Music School stuff from May 2010

2010-07-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am a little late posting this stuff but back in May I went up to Seattle to visit Randi. We had a ton of fun. We hung out for a while after hours at a Seattle music school she teaches at. I fail at every other instrument on the planet but they had an old beat up Chinese drumset in the corner that has seen one to many 4 year-olds beating on it and hasn't seen a drum key in ages (although it needed more than tuning and we didn't have anything to work on it with lol). The kick drum sounded a bit like GWAAUUUNNNGGGG when you hit it so I ended up sticking my sweatshirt in front of it. Helped a little.. We spent a lot of time just goofing around. She played piano and guitar and I screwed around on the drums. Here is a short clip. I make some silly faces heh. lol.

We also made another trip to the Seattle Experience Music Project. It was a monday morning which was nice because we got to spend a lot of time playing in their music rooms without waiting in lines. I love the DW drum kit they have.

This trip was a lot of fun. We did a lot of goofing off, shopping, playing music, and just hanging out. Don't get to do all those things at once very often.

Rube Goldberg Drum Recording Setup

2010-06-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

So I thought it would be kind of neat to be able to record my playing of the drums without the need to have someone actually film or to have to actually record the sound out of the amp with the other room noises. I didn't want to have to obtain any new equipment but I didn't realize how many steps it would require to make it work.

So this is what I roughly ended up with.

The camera being used is a 'bullet' camera that I had from my Zero-G trip a couple years ago. It is velcro-strapped to a mic boom that I had from a Rockband game video spoof that I made a month or so ago. The feed from the camera goes to my mini-dv camera for recording and as a make-shift video monitor along with the remote camera's battery pack and the LANC for triggering the camera. The camera on the boom has a microphone but the only thing I use it for is to help sync the video when I edit later.

The audio comes directly from the Roland TD-6. I am taking both the line out as well as the MIDI into Garageband on the Macbook. I ended up just using the line out audio but having the MIDI data is useful. The music I was playing along with came through an iPod going through the mix-in on the TD-6 which made its way through with the rest of the audio signals to the laptop.

Putting everything together requires just about as many steps..

Exporting the audio out of Garageband to be usable in my video editing software requires converting the .m4a to something else (I used mp3 this time). The video is more complicated. My camera does not support USB/Firewire/etc. output so I had to go a more 'analog' route. Going from the camera to the computer I used a USB tv-tuner and a collection of various adapters and splitters to manually capture the data off the dv tape.

I put the video and Garageband audio into Final Cut Express and sync'ed it up as well as I could. (the version that is compressed via Blogger is slightly worse on the sync than my copy it looks like.) This is what I ended up with. Nothing fancy. But a change from my other videos, there is no drum track other than me. Still have a lot to learn and I kinda forgot where the end of the song was but anyways.. enough of my babbling.. here's the video. The song is a Tommy Igoe practice track.

Randi spinning poi at the EMP

2010-06-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

Random short clip of Randi spinning poi whilst we wait outside the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

Faith and the Muse with Soriah

2010-05-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

Cool concert, I was there!

(In fact I took the show pics in the link).
http://musicartery.com/showreviews/FATM.php
Go forth and read about it.

^ Soriah (in the pic) is awesomeness.

Massive update of updateyness

2010-04-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

Soo I have been kinda slacking off on putting stuff in this thing lately..
A couple weeks ago as part of a work thing I had the opportunity to participate in the regional FIRST robotics competition. I was a volunteer in their "machine shop" area tending to the needs of the ~61 participating highschool robotics teams. It was pretty straight forward.

Something broken: fix it.
Something that doesn't work right: figure it out.

For the most part it was pretty fast paced. Every kind of job from cutting off pieces of wood, plastic, aluminum to figuring out how to make shaft A fit into bearing B with very limited equipment. Fab work, machining, and a very small amount of welding. Our "shop" was basically a few tables with some fab equipment and a motorcycle trailer with a Grizzly mill/drill and a lathe along with a MIG/TIG welder.

It was pretty cool seeing all this happen. People running around everywhere, lots of enthusiasm for the science and technology end of things and just an all around fun (and tiring) time. Wish they had this program when I was in school.

I am working on a video of my footage from this event. I *plan* to get it done soon. But we'll see.

This last weekend was a ton of fun. I visited my friend Randi up in Seattle. During our travels we ended up at the Experience Music Project / Sci-Fi museum. Two things for me to nerd out about. Music and Star Trek.. The sci-fi end of it was pretty cool but I ended up doing most of my nerding at the EMP end of things. Upstairs they had soundproof studios where you could play instruments for 10 minutes at a time (as to not hold up lines forever) and I tried my hand at some real drums. I love my electronic drums to pieces but there is something just downright cool about a real acoustic kit. My friend Randi (who I did my best not to blow her eardrums out with the drum noise) has the nifty talent of being able to play just about any musical instrument she picks up and we spent 10 minutes goofing around. She flip flopped between guitar and bass and I did my best not to mess her up too bad and played the drums. It was pretty awesome. She worked around my in-experience and for a short period of time we sounded not half bad. I wish I had been able to record our goofing around. I have a short clip of me fiddling around with the drums Randi took for me. We knew we didn't have a whole lot of time so my playing around on the video is very uhh.. rushed.. I would love to try again sometime when I am better on the drums. Also the sound quality isn't the best because it was recorded with my point and shoot camera and it has a crappy mic in it.

If you have never been the the EMP I *highly* recommend it. It is a blast no matter how much (or little) musical ability you have. I have more to post but that's it for now!

Practice, practice, practice...

2010-02-24T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a little less than a month since I decided to try the insanity that is learning the drums. It is a ton of fun. I'm not real good and I usually look pretty dorky but whatever, at least I seem to be improving. With the continued help of my friend Dave I have been learning some of the basics and practicing them daily. One of my biggest challenges seems to be getting my left leg to not effect what my other limbs are doing. Things go much smoother before I try adding all 4 limbs together. :)

BTW: Ask the dog what she thinks of all this...

I thought I was my worst critic... :D

Roland Drums

2010-02-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

I got my new drum stuff today *happy dance*
*runs off to play*

Real drums!

2010-01-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ok.. so.. it was only a matter of time right?! Rockband addiction -> drum addiction?
Sounds good to me.

So I have decided to give drumming a shot. With the aid of my friend Dave and his ultra shinny drums (sorry.. drooling...) he has been attempting to teach me the basics of drumming. I have only had about a single days worth of real training on these crazy things so I have a loooooong way to go but here is a video of my first shot at it. I am looking away because I would mess up every time I looked at the camera. (although I did manage to mess up plenty of times when I didn't have an excuse ) :)

edit: I know the video has issues playing... Appearently it is a known issue and Blogger is "working on the problem" so when the link isn't being stupid I will take this note down. It works sometimes.

UPDATE: As of 2/24 the videos seem to be working again. Give it a shot.

I have no musical background whatsoever besides about a month and a half of playing drums on Guitar Hero so there is a lot for me to learn. I am pretty good at blindingly following directions on a tv screen with little colored dots floating by but have never tried just playing along with something. Plus, my left foot has always just been allowed to be lazy while my right foot does all the work in GH, now there is this funny thing called a hi-hat pedal for my foot to deal with. Just some of the fun things of starting to learn something new.

I am having a lot of fun though so I am looking forward to learning more and improving as time goes on.

New Trick

2010-01-28T20:52:00.001-08:00

Teaching the dog all my bad habits...

If she starts forgetting her chores and leaving things around the house we're in trouble.

oh.. wait..

nevermind. (btw.. 50th post! woo!)

How to fix a Guitar Hero Drum Controller

2010-01-27T19:46:00.000-08:00

So, much to my surprise the problem was as expected. A bad wire. Last night I noticed I was missing a ton of red notes (I don't suck *THAT* bad :P) and thought it would either be one of two things: a loose/broken wire or a broken transducer.

I pulled the thing off the stand and disconnected the cymbal pads, Wiimote, and anything else that would come off. Fortunately, the screws that hold this thing together are simple Phillips head and besides there being a zillion of them there was nothing else holding the case together (don't forget the screws under the little adhesive no-skid pads on the feet )(the feet you would use if you wanted to play it on a table instead of a stand). The pic above shows the rather sparse interior of the drum controller.

This is where I found the answer to my questions... As soon as I started inspecting the wiring to the red pad the wire just fell apart. Easy enough to fix. Kind of a pain to get to. To remove the pad from the rest of the assembly, take the 4 screws holding the red (or whatever color pad your trying to fix) housing onto the frame out. Now you have the pad free (or dangling by the wire if it is still attached at all) but now you have to get the silicon pad off the hard plastic case. There are three "one way" grommets (I guess you could call them) holding the two pieces together. I used a small screwdriver to gently shove the edges of the wedge shaped plug/grommet/thingies through the hard plastic holes. Patience is important here. After you have the pad free it is a pretty simple setup. Two wires. From the factory there is some goop covering the solder contacts and the wires to try and keep them secure. I used a pair of pliers to pull up (do it gently!) the old wire from the goop. I then de-soldered the little remaining wire-stub.

All you need to do now is solder some new wire to the sensor. take note of the original wire positions to maintain polarity (I didn't check to see if polarity was an issue but I try to put things back the way I found them). I made my wire pigtail fairly long compared to the old one. It gave me more room to work with when putting it back together. Fish the new wire pigtail back through the hole in the red pad case and then back through the hole in the drum stand. Then solder the new wires to the ones left inside the case (alternatively, you could replace the whole length of wire and put the connector on the other end and plug it back into the board but that is kind of overkill.)

I waited to push the rubber grommets in the drum pad back in until after I tested it to make sure my fix worked. (I didn't want to have to pry them out again). I carefully flipped the whole thing over (notice in the pic the pad still isn't attached to the red hard plastic case), I plugged the cymbals and wiimote back in, and did a quick functional test to make sure everything is working.

Once I was happy with the results I unplugged everything again and flipped it back over and started putting the pad and case back together. I used a little bit of heat shrink tubing to pretty up my splices. It goes together the same way it comes apart so I won't discuss that process.

Fix seems to work great! No more missed notes due to bad wires. (Just missed notes due to bad playing ;) )

They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To..

2010-01-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

Soo.. *cough* I broke one of my Guitar Hero drums... I do admit that I am fairly hard on them but come on! It is supposed to handle the abuse of kids/adults (and me) of all ages and I have only had them about 2 months (ok.. 2 months of me abusing them = probably a year of normal use).

Too late tonight but I will be doing some surgery on them sometime when I get off work tomorrow. I am hoping it is just a loose wire. It is the red (snare) pad though which seems to get the most abuse. I am not sure where to find spare parts for it if I broke it. O_o

*hoping for loose wire...*

new drum pedal sensor mount

2010-01-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

This is my latest setup for the Guitar Hero drum kit mod. I made an aluminum bracket to hold a small drum practice pad with the transducer mounted behind it. I added some foam to reduce vibration. It just clamps to the kick pedal and seems to work pretty well. (need to do something about that rusty chain sometime *eh*).

Guitar Hero drum pedal mod

2010-01-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

So lets see here.... One plastic Guitar Hero drum pedal + one used real drum pedal + screwdriver and a lack of remorse for voiding warranties = FUN!

People who know me have noticed my obsession as of late with Guitar Hero / Rockband... (probably ended up that way due to my lack of *real* musical talent). Drums being my favorite mode of annoying people, I got to be rather annoyed with the stock pedal that came with the drum set. It isn't too bad but it isn't very responsive when you get really complicated stuff thrown at you. Plus, I can't seem to leave stuff alone. I have to find some excuse to take things apart and "fix" them.. *cough*..

Anyways, this isn't a new idea (in fact I saw someone else do this on the internet and pretty much went "cool.. I could do that..") I found a used in-expensive pedal at a cool music shop Portland today and took a screwdriver to my old pedal and swiped the transducer out of it. That is pretty much it. To determine how well it was going to work I grabbed a couple things I had lying around plus some electrical tape and zip ties (yeah I know, real professional) and stuck the transducer up to something I could hit. I played a few songs with it and with the exception of being rather loud and thumpy due to how I have it mounted it works really well. I plan on coming up with a more elegant (and quieter) mounting for it. Probably as soon as I get tired of hearing it in its current setup.

The dog is rather confused by it *shurg*. That would be her "WTF?" look.

Flu FAIL

2009-11-27T16:06:00.000-08:00

Soo okay.. no picture to go along with this post (you will thank me). My first bit of time off work in a long time as well as my first Thanksgiving at my new house has gone well. Today is the first day in the last 4 days that I have been able to get out of the house. I have been *SICK* (a lot of good that flu shot did me). I will spare everyone the details but I was just short of going insane from cabin fever (and probably regular fever too).

My sweet (ahem) little puppy has really been a ton of help making sure that I don't ever get too comfortable. Despite that I was too sick to go into work Rags stills needs to be let out at 3 am to pee (I am pretty much used to this little fact of life now). She is also used to having at least one good sized walk during the day at some point. It has been nearly a week since I have been well enough to get off the couch much less go for a high energy walk. So she has been trying to entertain herself (un-successfully IMHO) for the last few days. We sound wonderful together. I hack and cough, she whimpers because I am not playing enough. So to compensate for not being able to take her for a walk, I have been letting her spend more time out in the backyard where I assumed (wrongly) that she would stay out of trouble back there and let me have some time to myself. She learned the fine puppy art of hole digging. Yep. A nice mud-drool covered puppy greeted my less than optimum spirits at the backdoor earlier today and after a short (about 5 second) investigation I discovered the source of the mud as being a grave she was digging for her tennis ball. A bath and related mud cleanup chores ensued and now a very grumpy flu-ridden Kristen are hoping that the bored puppy shenanigans are over for the time being.

ARGWTFBBQ?!

Awwwww

2009-11-13T16:55:00.001-08:00

Here's a cute update:

As you can see she is adorable. That bone didn't last more than an hour from when that picture was taken. She definitely didn't need any training on how to work through that bone. I have given her something more difficult (a Kong bone) that is posing more of a challenge.

She hasn't eaten any more of my things though which is the important bit.

Who can resist the cuteness?!

Rags

2009-11-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

So I got a new friend today. I came to the conclusion that my life was not complicated enough or expensive enough so I adopted a dog. I love doggies and have been wanting my own for quite some time. I had been searching the shelters and humane society web sites and visiting them for a couple weeks and today I met Rags. The one year old Shar Pei was just to cute and too lovable to leave and I had to have her. In typical Oregon fashion it was raining like crazy outside and surprisingly crowded inside. The under-staffed Oregon Humane Society people were very helpful but things went very slowly. A few hours after arriving though I had my new best friend and we were on our way home.

She slept most of the way home and was a perfect angel while we were around her. She doesn't jump up on people, seems to be pretty well house trained and was otherwise a big cutie.

I needed a lot of pet supplies (not knowing before then what sort of dog I was going to adopt I didn't buy anything before hand) and a trip to the pet store was in order. The problem was, what to do with Rags? The people at the humane society suggested not taking her with me until she had a few days to adjust to her new home and people and she was so sleepy I decided she would be ok for a short while so I could buy things like food, toys, and a kennel (emphasis on that last on there).

Upon pulling back into the driveway I noticed she had not been sleeping the whole time I was gone. She undoublty did not approve of my leaving and decided to let me know by eating my window blinds tearing up my door frame and leaving a big pile of poo in the kitchen.

Needless to say, I regretted the decision to leave her alone with free reign of the house and put together her new kennel. She isn't fond of it but she tolerates it well when I have to leave now. I gave her some food and toys and planned my attack on replacing the now somewhat sad blinds. A trip to Lowes was in order! I kenneled the dog much to her disappointment and then proceeded to lock myself out of the house. Yep. As if my day wasn't complete enough I locked myself out.

Fortunately, I had given someone a spare key and they were able to get it to me to get back into my house (after spending $$ at Lowes on new blinds) and I was able to spend a nice relaxing evening with my new friend, a cordless drill, and new window blinds. She is now currently back to being adorable and a couch potato.

Awwwww aren't they cute?

Mysterium 2009

2009-08-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

3 years ago around this time I made my first venture to Mysterium. A gathering of fellow nerds that meets annually to bring Myst fans together into one real (as opposed to virtual) place. Taking place in various locations around the United States (and often in other countries) the only two Mysteria I have attended have been in the same place, Spokane, WA. About 6.5 hours by car away from my current location Spokane is home to the creators of the Myst series, Cyan Worlds. While I am sure the Mysteria in other locations are a ton of fun aswell, the Spokane meetings have the added bonus of a chance to see Cyan headquarters and also generally (for probably the same reason) have the largest number of people show up.

Leaving for Spokane on Friday morning I looked at my hotel reservation one last time. I noticed in small print down in the corner that I had accidentally selected a smoking room when I booked the hotel. Argg. Not a good start to the day. Deciding that I would just wait and see what it was like when I got there would turn out to be a (another) mistake.

Upon arriving in Spokane I obtained my room keys and inquired about the possibility of changing rooms if the smoking room was too nasty I found out that they were booked up and no more rooms were available. I guess whatever room I got was going to have to work. After an elevator ride that lasted waaaay too long to make it to the 4th floor the doors opened and I stepped into the rather old, dark, and musty hotel hall way. By now I am thinking 'okay... if the *hallway* smells bad, what does this room smell like?' I plodded to the room with my bags and proceeded to open the door of my soon to be home for 2 nights and just about gagged. I am not a smoker and I normally am indifferent to the smell of most smoke. This room went far beyond that. I am guessing this hotel was built 30-40 ish years ago and it has old, stale, tar-ish tobacco product smell that must date back to the 70's to prove it.

Turning the air up to full power (probably just moving around more stale junk stuck to the innards of the A/C unit) and opening the window to attempt to get some oxygen into the nicotine rich atmosphere I also noticed that the windows do not have screens in them and as a safety precaution the window had a stop on it to prevent it from opening more than about 4 inches. Foo.

Well no time for this crap, I have stuff to do and people to see! Shortly after quickly arranging my things (aka throwing my duffel bag onto the floor and stashing my laptop) I headed out. This would be the re-occurring theme for the weekend. I didn't spend much time in that room. I went up to the 5th floor where the Mysterium goings on were happening to see if my friends were present and to try to get my badge/ shirt/ other convention related goodies. The registration table was closed temporarily when I went by but no matter. I got my things later that evening. I saw my friends just briefly and then headed out to meet with a good friend of mine who moved to Spokane a few years back.

I had a great time seeing Spokane with him. I hope I get to see him again sometime soon. It was fun to talk and see him again as well as getting a scenic tour of Spokane. (the picture on the left is a beautiful view of Spokane as viewed from the south hills) He dropped me back off at the hotel a while later on his motorcycle (which incidentally was the first time I had ridden on one, weeee) but before he left I asked him if he had a set of hex keys in his collection of tools on his bike. He did! Perfect. Now to take care of my window problem muahahhaaha.

With the window block no longer a problem (and falling out of the window now something to be avoided) I locked up my room and allowed it to air out and went to do Myst things. My friends a'moaca', Ashtar, Jane, and Gwyn were already back up on the 5th floor when I re-appeared. It had been a long time since I had seen them in person (along with meeting Gwyn and Jane in RL for the first time).

There were lots of fun planned events taking place in Mysterium but my favorite activity of all is just getting to hang out with my friends. Sitting at a table I pulled out my laptop and joined a'moaca' in enjoying the hotel's wifi. You can see how well it worked by the following picture:
Yeah... so.. okay, the wifi wasn't the most reliable thing on the planet.

Dinner followed, Ashtar, a'm, Jane, Gwyn, PigBristles , and myself went to a restaurant in downtown Spokane and on the way back to the hotel me, Jane, and a'm stopped by this awesome game store which contained just about every type of puzzle, board game, and table top card game known to man. I somehow managed not to buy anything and we made our way back to the hotel.

Later that evening came a good ole' fashioned URU neighborhood dance party. Well except my avatar dances better than I do so I just watched. ;) The Bevin "hood" contained most everything the URU hood has. Cones, Eddie (the beachball), lantern lights, fire marbles, and a fountain (which unlike the URU one is not for jumping in/on). Joined by GreyDragon and many others it was great fun to watch and listen too. People attemped the URU avatar dance animations, and cones were shuffled. The fun continued into the night until we were booted out of the room at around 11pm.

Saturday morning the 5 of us (Ashtar, Gwyn, a'm, Jane, and myself) went to check out Old European a resturant rumored to have yummy breakfasty things. It was true and I left much fuller than when I arrived.

On a side trip, I found a grocery store near by where I picked up a $3 set of hex keys to fix the window block I removed so I wouldn't leave the hotel without putting the block back. I am thinking the mini set of allen wrenches will just become a permenant part of my laptop bag supplies lol.

The Cyan trip follwed. Cyan has always been really wonderful to their fans. They opened up their facilities and fed us. We got a tour of the buildings, A Q & A session with Rand Miller (Atrus to Myst fans) and some of the DRC members from URU. Cyan also brought out shirts, soundtracks, books, posters, etc. for us to buy (I am guilty of spending more than a little on Myst related goodies over the two Mysteria I have attended). We had a big hot dog lunch, and Kierra made a lovely cake showing a relto book from URU, the Myst book, a KI from URU, and a Riven dagger. She really did an awesome job.
After lunch and the Q&A session things started to wind down. We hung out and just had fun being at Cyan with everyone. There are tons of things to just look at around Cyan. Concept art, Myst series related 'artifacts' used in the production of the game. Even just the buildings themselves and the area surrounding them are interesting. Shown in the picture on the left are some of the Cyan employees and a couple interns (I think) standing out in front of the building.

After Cyan and heading back to the hotel, The 5 of us went out to dinner and headed back for another night of Myst/ URU related goodness back at the hotel. This was my last night of Mysterium. The next morning I would be heading back home. Me and my friends staying up late into the evening working on Marten's (evil hehe) video puzzle and doing other computer-ey things. A great evening.

Sunday morning was a strange one. After getting my things all squared away for the pending trip back home and saying some good byes to people who were also leaving I found out that a strange illness seemed to be sweeping the group. of the 50-60 people attending Mysterium 15-20 were sick with something that sounded like food poisoning but was insisted that is was some sort of flu. (It had earned names like Fluru on the forums) whatever it was (is) it sounded like no fun at all. There was a planned trip to Silverwood amusement park for the remaining attendees but people were for the most part too sick to go. Some people as of right now are still at the hotel sick. I think just about everyone will be out by tomorrow (Tuesday) though. I (so far, knock on wood) have been one of the lucky ones not to have come down with this strange sudden illness but Ashtar for one wasn't so lucky. I hope everyone is over it soon.

Shortly after hearing the news it was time for me to leave anyways. I checked out (making sure to put the window block back in it's rightful place) and started heading back home. I had a ton of fun at Mysterium. I got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in a long while and I hope I can see them again soon. I will definitely be more careful of reading all my options on selecting rooms next time! The drive home seemed to take forever but I made it back. Just in time to get ready for work on Monday.

Go Fly a Kite!

2009-07-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

Playing with my new toy. A HQ Speed 2.5 parafoil kite. Tons o' fun! Now only if the wind would cooperate...

Trek in the Park

2009-07-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Combining two things I don't normally talk about in the same sentence, Star Trek and the outdoors, Trek in the Park is a live-action play featuring the original series crew in a re-enactment of the classic "Amok Time". Held at Woodlawn Park amphitheater in Portland this event drew quite a crowd. With live music and sound effects and a bit of imagination this performance was definitely one of a kind. A ton of fun even for a former hard core trekkie such as myself, I definitely won't miss it next year. Trek in the Park is still going on with aditional performances on the 25th and 26th at 5pm admission is free and is definitly not a show to miss.

Nerding at the Beach

2009-06-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

SeaPac is a yearly convention of pacific northwest amateur radio operators (ham radio) That has been going on since 1982. I have been going on and off since 2000. It is a fun event for hams to get together and buy stuff, sell stuff, and just do all sorts of radio-ey stuff. There are lots of vendors selling radios, antennas, mics, keys, meters, electronic test equipment, books, and generally anything remotly related to the ham radio hobby. I also got the chance to see people from the Clark County Amatuer Radio Club (where I am a member) that I haven't seen in a long time, and had the chance to lose drawings for lots of cool prizes. When I wasn't busy geeking out over the large amount of radio goodies I was shopping around Seaside at the many small shops in walking distance. I even had time to wonder over to the beach. Oregon beaches are pretty but they aren't like beaches in California or Hawaii. They are usually like this (at least whenever I have been). cold, overcast, and drizzling rain. The water is too cold to swim in so to me they are more like beaches best admired from inside a shop or hotel looking through a window. Pretty but the weather isn't the greatest. I had a ton of fun at SeaPac and hopefully I can attend again next year. I will always hope for warmer brighter weather at the beach though.

B-17 Liberty Belle

2009-04-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week one of my co-workers handed me an article from the Oregonian It showed a picture much like the one on the left (only better and without me in it) and I instantly knew I had to do this.

Durring WW2 12,732 B-17 aircraft were made, today there are only 14 left that can still fly and one of those was going to be in Hillsboro this weekend. Being the airplane nut that I am, I couldn't let the opportunity to fly in one of these beautiful aircraft pass me by.

The 74' long B-17 Liberty Belle was a ton of fun to fly in. We spent approximately half an hour in the air which was plenty of time to tour the aircraft and enjoy the view of the area from the gunner positions and the cockpit.

The Liberty Belle is a restored B-17 maintained by the Liberty Foundation and has a very interesting history (http://www.libertyfoundation.org/index.html) Sold for scrap, bought by Pratt and Whitney, and partially destroyed in a tornado before being wonderfully restored this plane has had quite the post war history.

poor persons cnc

2009-01-18T18:28:00.000-08:00

Well I started working on the controller for the mini cnc mill. Still have a lot of work to do. The DB-25 connector need to be put back and all its little wires re-soldered, everything tied down, and everything needs to be thoroughly checked out before I try it under power but it is starting to look like something. :)

poor person's CNC

2009-01-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I have another project now. Something I have been wanting to tinker around with for some time. A co-worker gave me a mini 3 axis CNC mill made out of common hardware store parts. Kinda cool but with a few small problems.

One: it doesn't work. Ok.. it DID work at one point in history but never very well I am told.

Two: It needs a lot of electrical work. A fair amount of the soldering work needs to be redone and some of the wiring fixed.

Three: I need software. This will probably be the least of my problems but it is also another obstacle.

So, there are obstacles to overcome but hey, that is why I got the thing. I like messing around with this sort of thing and I think it will be a fun project. I am still thinking about getting another 'real' CNC mill at some point but for now I have a new toy :)

This is the "ACK!" (well that is what I am calling it now because that was the noise that came out of my mouth when I saw it the first time) pile of wiring that I get to fix up. almost everything is there but I have a shopping list of supplies I need to obtain from the local electrical supply shop before I can tackle it.

Basically the 'hardware' side of the mill consists of hardware store aluminum rails with all-thread lead screws (20 TPI it looks like) and 3 DC stepper motors for X,Y, and Z axis. The spindle uses any sort of Dremel-like rotary tool. The electronic side of things is a controller box (shown in less than box-ey form above) and connected by parallel port to a computer. I just got it today so I haven't had time to study the design thoroughly but I am sure I will become well acquainted with it soon.

Vegas Revolution

2008-12-30T12:17:00.000-08:00

Whilst I was out bouncing around the walls of a hollowed out 727 last September we had one extra surprise for our trip. The Travel Channel was out filming for their new series recently aired "Vegas Revolution". It is a series about all the things you can do in Vegas besides gamble. Trust me, you can find just about anything there. The episode they were filming for that day was aptly named "Adrenalin" and featured fun things like indoor skydiving, race car driving, the Stratosphere, and us, Zero G. I remember signing a waiver (as did everyone else) so they could show us on tv, and they followed us around a great deal on our trip.

After Zero G ended I totally forgot about the Travel Channel episode until I was walking down the factory where I work and someone stopped me and said they had seen me on tv.

Travel Channel, Vegas Revolution: Adrenalin. Go watch. :)

OMG Snow (part 2)

2008-12-20T18:14:00.000-08:00

Weeeeee!

Well *someone* is having fun in the snow :)

RAWR evil snowflakes! *chomp*

OMG Snow!!11!

2008-12-14T14:22:00.000-08:00

uh huh... So apparently this is blizzard season now. Everyone is freaking out because of the *gasp* ~.130" of snow and currently above freezing temps. Better keep your eyes glued to the news! Don't want to miss any of this here storm coverage. Yep. It be winter time.

Would be kinda nice to get some real snow though.

*update: weell we got some (points up to next post) weeeee*

It's Over!

2008-11-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

57 Days of strike and back to work on Monday. Yay!

btw this is what I was working on last at the college (probably won't get much further now).
Oh well, it will still be waiting for me next time I get free time.

Is it Over?

2008-10-28T00:50:00.001-07:00

After 52 days on strike an agreement was reached between the union and the Boeing. Making this what could be the third longest strike in Boeing history (according to linked article) It could still be a week or two before I go back to work but it looks like things are wrapping up.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/385222_boeingstrike28.html

*hurries to get all the side projects I have started finished up* hehe

Hypotrochoidal fun

2008-10-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

Just for fun I decided to make a simplified spirograph on the wire. The gears are 32 DP and have tooth ranges from 16 to 80 teeth. I have one or two more gears I am going to make for it but it is basically done. The gears run with the ring gear creating hypotrochoidal curves (or epitrochoidal if two externals are used). The tiny gear has one large hole because I wasn't sure what size to make them and I decided later to make the remaining holes smaller so the pen holds the gear better.

I may do something with the edges of the ring gear piece at some point also.

3/4 of a gear

2008-10-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well I just got back from the shop. I got the first gear (20 tooth, 10 DP) burned out today. (There it is shown on the comparator) Going to make the second identical gear tomarrow. Then they need to have the bores done and the faces ground. Looks more like a gear anyways

Half a Gear

2008-10-09T22:43:00.001-07:00

Well there is it. My one of my favorite machines at the college machine shop. Also the machine I made 'snoopy' on. It is a 5 axis Charmilles wire EDM. Electrical Discharge Machining has its advantages over other forms of machining because of its ability to cut just about anything that conducts electricity and of just about any shape and size that will physically fit in the machine. I thought of using this machine as a way to make gears for my evil bidding (aka all those weird gear related projects I like to do but never have the right equipment) a couple years ago and have done a couple (square gears, etc.) but haven't had a lot of time to just poke at it and see just how good of a gear you can make on this machine. I would like to determine what sort of gear quality I can get by EDM. So, I designed a simple planetary gear train to get things rolling.

I will be curious to see just how well the EDM does with the elemental parts of the gear teeth. Correct profile, lead, PD size, even things like finish. How well they run with each other which will depend on things like correct tooth spacing, runout, as well as everything listed above. I might not be able to check all these things but I will do what I can. I am almost more curious about the quality of the gears than anything else in this project.

I ran a test part through the wire and size held within about .0003. Not too bad. I can see it getting a lot worse though with something that has a lot of geometry (like the gears). One of the biggest things is the finish. Surface finish from this EDM isn't the greatest but We'll see what we end up with.

Tons of fun :)

Update: 11-5-08

I have cut a few gears on the EDM and they actually ended up really good! Nice profile, a tiny bit of lead error (taper), and decent dual flank composite variation results. Better than expected! yay!

Not a Gear

2008-10-07T23:05:00.000-07:00

Here's something for *SOMEONE* who thinks my gear project was a boring idea :P

I made you a Snoopy :)

He's about 2.5" tall and made out of aluminum. I needed a practice job to get the hang of setting up the wire EDM so I burned out this little guy. I didn't draw it (it was a pre-loaded job) but it made me remember how to run the machine somewhat so it did it's job.

As for the gears; I got the files mostly done tonight. The first one should be ready to go tomorrow. I need to make the blank which shouldn't take too long but you never know. Finding the proper material in a college shop isn't always easy.

Back to School

2008-10-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

well sorta..

It is day 31 of the Boeing strike and in a fit of boredom I went down to the local college machine shop and signed up for a special projects class so I can use their equipment. I will be going down in the mornings (and maybe evenings) to run their wire EDM to make GEARS! wee! mmmm.. Gears..

*cough* anyways.. so I am going to be making a planetary gear train that I designed (last night) just for the fun of it. I don't really have any other way to make the internal gear with any machine over there except wire EDM so I am just going to do the whole thing (minus the housing, etc.) on it. This will also be an experiment to determine what sort of quality you can get out of an EDM for gears. I am thinking profile is going to be the most iffy.. but maybe lead, runout, spacing errors too O_o We'll see..

I'll post pics :)

I figure now that I have signed up for something fun they will resolve the strike and I will be having to go back to work. That's how my luck goes.

Geeks in Spaaaaaaace

2008-09-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

So I finally got my trip with Zero G. Sunday morning I took a cab to the training building just a couple miles from the hotel we were staying at. I arrived way too early but hung around in the lobby until others started showing up. I got checked in, met some of the crew including my team captain. They divide the group up into 3 sections denoted by the color of the bracelet and socks they give you. Silver, blue, and gold are the three teams. As you can see from the pic, I am in the silver team. This just makes it easier for the team leaders to keep track of people. Since there were only 16 of us instead of the usual 35 we had a lot more room and the colors didn't play too huge a roll. They got me a flightsuit and I started getting my hat camera wiring ready to go and got the ok from them to bring it with me. I designed my system for wearing it so that it wouldn't be like rocket science taking it on and off which turned out to be a very good thing. The one downside is I started noticing the adhesive on the velcro holding the camera to my hat was starting to wear out.

As more people started showing up they had a nice zero gravity friendly breakfast lined up. We ate a light meal and talked amongst ourselves and with Buzz Aldrin until it was time for the pre-flight videos and safety briefing. They played us a video describing the trip we were about to go on, some fun things to do in zero g, and all the required safety information and features of the modified 727 named G Force One.

Following the videos and other information, we were again encouraged to have a light snack and then to security screening. Like any other commercial flight you have to go through TSA screening before you can get on the plane. They operate a little differently though. We flew out of McCarran airport like a normal commercial airplane out of Vegas but we didn't go through the terminal. Instead an official screened us with metal detectors and sent us to wait in a bus to go directly to the plane on the tarmac. We rode in through a secure gate at one of the private jet companies at McCarran and drove out to the 727.

We got off the bus and gathered for some group photos and began lining up with boarding passes in hand to enter the plane. Unlike boarding your normal jets, we climbed up a staircase in the very rear of the plane. The 727 has no windows (except in the emergency exits), no bathroom (wouldn't want to have to use one on a parabolic flight anyways!), and few seats. It is basically a big, flying, hollow tube. It is a good looking plane though and doesn't show it's age. They keep it in pretty good shape.

I took my seat in the middle (won't catch me doing that on a normal airline either :) window seat or else! but no windows, so I guess my rule didn't apply ;) ) of the front-most row and got belted in. As we waited for what seemed like hours waiting in line with all the other airplanes trying to leave LAS we got the usual spiel about the emergency exits, oxygen and how to use it (as a side note, oxygen is located below you on this plane due to the fact that there are no overhead compartments), in the event of a water landing, etc. etc...

After an undetermined amount of time we finally got off the ground and headed into our allocated airspace somewhere out in the middle of the Nevada desert. Their airspace allows them freedom from ~24,000 ft to ~35,000 ft and so the parabolas are within that window. We did 15 parabolas. 1 martian (1/3 normal gravity), 2 lunar (1/6 normal gravity), and 12 zero g. During the periods when we are not in reduced gravity environment the g's range typically around 1.8 which means you feel nearly twice as heavy as you normally would. The reduced gravity portions last ~30 seconds each.

It was all great fun! I am sure I look really goofy but I don't care. It is hard to control yourself and I pretty much stopped caring and just had fun and wherever I went is where I was. On the second zero g parabola we chased skittles around, on a later one we played around with water and on the last one I did some flips (although I did a few on other parabolas by the looks of it too lol). Fly like superman or worm your way around the fuselage there isn't much you can't do. On one I managed to get myself to one of the little windows in the door and attempted to get a good shot of the outside with mixed results and on one of the lunar parabolas I did a mid-air somersault with help of my team leader. Buzz Aldrin roamed between the different groups and we all had fun floating around with him. We had two small breaks of straight and level flight to give everyone a little break. Most people did pretty good. I saw a few people get sick and have to sit out some or the rest of the trip but I was fine and so was most everyone else. I didn't take any chances though, I took motion sickness medication before we left.

The whole trip lasted just under 2 hours with a combined total of ~8 minutes of weightlessness. We posed for some last minute group photos and got back to our seats for landing. We de-planed and got our pictures taken with Buzz and two of the very nice people of Zero G at the rear of the plane and got back on the bus back to the training facility.

When we got back there were sandwiches and champagne waiting for us and we had a little event where they handed us certificates and shook hands with Buzz Aldrin. Shortly thereafter I got a ride back to the Luxor from one of the flyers and a few hours later was dinner.

Dinner as mentioned in the previous post was at the Fluer De Lys at Mandalay Bay. Right next to the Luxor I just walked over. There I had a wonderful evening with the group and crew of our flight. Buzz stayed for a while but had to catch a plane and I stayed talking with everyone until about 9:15. I had a lot of fun and it was well worth the hassle I went through. The people at Zero-G made everything right and I would gladly fly again. Thanks.

Vegas: Round 2

2008-09-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

We got into Vegas on Saturday 9/13. Just enough time to wander around before going to bed. We stayed at the other end of the strip this time at the Luxor. Not near as nice as the Bellagio but *shrug* it was a place to sleep. We toured the hotels and casinos in the immediate area, Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, and New York, New York.

I am a sucker for rides and I had to try out the roller coaster at New York, New York. I have to say for such a small roller coaster it is very well done. It doesn't jerk you around like a cheap ride at a county fair.

We grabbed some dinner and headed for downtown Vegas. We stopped to check out the light show at the Fremont and Golden Nugget and listened to the street musicians for a while and wandered around the Golden Nugget for a while and headed back.

Sunday was zero g day. I won't go into detail here because in the next post (above) covers it but, it was awesome. I took a cab to their training facility about 2 miles away from the hotel (which brought the cab fare to ~$20 lol) and proceeded to spend most of the day there and on the plane.

Following the flight and re gravitation party back on the ground I had a few hours to kill before dinner. One of the flyers who was staying at the same hotel as me let me ride back to the hotel with her which was very nice as I didn't have to get in another taxi.

First thing I did when I got back to the hotel was go wander about some more. Dinner was at 6:30 and I had a few hours to go. I was getting pretty sleepy at that point and went back to the room to take a short nap before getting ready and wandering my way down to dinner at Fluer De Lyes at Mandalay Bay. Dinner was put on by Zero-G and I had a very nice evening with the flyers and crew of our flight plus Buzz Aldrin. I said goodbye around 9:15 and headed back to the Luxor.

Monday morning and it was time to go. I packed up my bags and headed back to the airport. LAS is always crowded and going through security there is never very much fun. Fortunatly my big mass of wiring from my hat camera didn't cause me any trouble with security.

Our flight was delayed about a half hour because of traffic on the ground but otherwise an uneventfull flight. Southwest has open seating which makes getting a good seat kind of a pain if your at the back of the line but I got a window at the very last row.

When we got to southern Oregon I shot this pic of Crater Lake and one of the couple wildfires still burning down there. The smoke was so thick it continued all the way through southern Washington.

T-minus 3 days and counting

2008-09-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Well it is the end of day 5 of the Boeing strike and less than 3 days till my schedualed Zero-G flight (again). My flight to Vegas is mid-day saturday and my zero-g flight is sunday and my return trip is monday. woohoo! 3 flights in 3 days! I am currently watching my e-mail and phone like a hawk to make sure I don't miss any important (read: bad news) messages from Zero G (better not be any!) and they had better get it right this time!!

I'll post pics as soon as I can :)

Wish me luck!

Math count

2008-09-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well I have either lost it or something.. My apprenticeship math book has been driving me nuts so I am going to just get it over with. I don't know how long the strike will last but I am going to get as close to *done* with this thing as I can. I am already burnt out on it so what's a little more insanity eh? ;)

Current chapter: 24 of 105
Last updated: 9/8

What's even nicer about this pic? The book only has ODD numbered answers!

Strike!

2008-09-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. My first strike at Boeing. With an overwhelming majority Boeing's best and final offer was rejected. It was actually rejected 48 hours ago but the government stepped in and called for a federal mediator and a 48 hour 'hold'. So we worked the last two days and now that time is up. There has been no other offers so at 12:01 we'll walk. My picket duty isn't until Sunday but it will be interesting. I hope to use the time off to catch up on my apprenticeship math (which I have ridiculously too much of) and I hope we end up with a good contract :)

Lets see where this goes...

I'm waaaaiting....

2008-09-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well it is less than 2 weeks until my scheduled ultra spiffy zero g flight. I have not received my final schedule yet and am starting to get annoyed. Mostly concerned but a bit annoyed. Not like they have ever given me any reason to doubt them *dripping sarcasm* but I would just like to know that everything is still good (lest my wrath be unleashed). This is the *last* chance for them to make this work for me and I *really* want to go so it would be really nice to have some good news.

*crossing fingers* I think I will just call them tomorrow (again) if I don't hear anything.

Update: I called them at work today (9/3) and had a new itinerary sent to me. Apparently it got lost on its way to my inbox(s) :/ but, that's good! I have an official schedual! (again) *keeping fingers crossed*

Kumoricon '08

2008-09-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! it's that time of year again. I had been putting off Kumoricon thinking that I didn't feel like going but of course I changed my mind at the last moment. It was held at the Double Tree by Lloyd Center again and I still can't help but laugh everytime someone who has never seen this stuff before stares as they walk, ride, or drive by. Being that I waited until the last minute I missed Pre-reg so I got to spend 5 hours in line. Weee! It wasn't so bad though, I waited with some good people and there were sandwiches involved.

Surviving the registration process I proceded to do what I do every 'con, buy stuff and take pictures. I don't do much of either anymore as I already have a zillion megabytes of con photos eating up HD space on my computer but hey, it beats sitting around the house. I liked the vender room selection this year. I don't really follow a specific anime but I like some and I enjoy Japanease culture so I am not really looking for the limited edition action figure from *insert anime here* but I did like the hand made and small shop items like the EMOblock plushies and some handmade katamari phone charms. I also ran into a really neat Kimono booth run by KimonoMomo
http://www.kimonomomo.com/ .
I had a Kimono that I had bought cheap at Sakuracon a year or two ago but haven't worn much because I was missing some pieces. The lady there was really nice and helpful and set me up with the remaining pieces (plus some extras lol) and showed me how to put it all on without it falling off or needing 4 hands to do it. The Obi is the hardest part (the 'belt' ). It is about 10 feet long and depending on how fancy you want to get, is a pain to tie. I make a simple bow on the back but it is still kinda tricky. She also showed me how to store the kimono (not on hangers!) so that they would last. Some of my kimono stuff (like the Haori in the picture) is pre- WW2 so I don't want it to get in any worse shape. None of my kimono stuff is very fancy but for a con like this it is fun to wear.

Overall, I had fun. I think next time I will definity be pre-registering though so I don't have to repeat the 5 hour in line bit though.

*grrr bad formatting *twitch*.... oh well. I don't feel like fixing it.*

Vegas: Round 1

2008-08-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

Friday:

After the call that I won't be flying on zero-g this weekend I was pretty disappointed but still wanting to go to Vegas and have a good time. We arrived about 1 pm and made our way via shuttle to the Bellagio. Having never been to Vegas before I figured a few things: it would be hot, it would be crowded, and it would be expensive. I was more or less right on all three. The crowd was surprisingly small though. Maybe it's the economy but we didn't have too many problems with lines. Surprising since we went on the worst days of the week. Friday-Sunday.

The first stop was the Star Trek experiance at the Hilton. Ate lunch at Quark's Bar which despite not looking exactly like one on tv was pretty fun. Blue Beer!

The museum was pretty cool but a bit small. It seems though that I am a few years late in visiting here. Unfortunately, the whole Star Trek Experience will be closing this fall. A real bummer. Even though everything is closing up shop and there isn't as much to look at, it was still quite a bit of fun. The museum contains a lot of neat stuff from the movies including the toaster Mac that Scotty 'talked to' in Star Trek 4 ("Hello, Computer..") and the hover boots that Spock wore to chase after Kirk when he fell off El Capitan in Star Trek 5. I got my pic taken on the bridge of the Enterprise D from Star Trek TNG (I'll scan it and post it later). Right before leaving I also had a chance to meet Beverly Washburn. She played Lt. Arlene Galway in Star Trek TOS as well as roles in Old Yeller, Dragnet, and Superman. She was really nice to talk to and since it wasn't horribly crowded it was even better.

Following the Hilton we took another cab and headed to the Stratosphere. I was disappointed to find out that they no longer had the rollercoaster up there and didn't really feel like riding any of the other rides so I basically went up and took pictures and watched people freak out. It was a nice view complete with thunder and lightning from a quickly passing storm. Seems a bit unsafe standing on the tallest thing in Las Vegas during an electrical storm but hey, i'm still alive. The storm was short lived and we didn't even get wet but we saw a few bolts of lightning out in the distance. I didn't do much more than look around up there. When we got back down to the ground level I played a few hands of blackjack and actually didn't do too bad. I made a few bucks and called it good. It was the only thing I played that I actually won. Of course though, I didn't play much of anything else.

Back to the Bellagio afterward to find dinner. We managed to survive the cab ride (other thing I learned: cabbies are crazy O_O) and hung around until it got dark. It only made it to something of the order of 103 degrees but my feet were starting to get a bit sore from all the walking. It also seems like it is easier to get alcohol than water in Vegas so I was somewhat thirsty. The Bellagio has a huge water fountain in front where they play music to the water fountian spraying up into the air. It was starting to gather quite a crowd so I wasn't in the best of spots but it was fun to watch never the less.

Saturday:

Woke up way to early in the morning (ok, so it was like 10:30 am.. whatever.) and we continued our journey to somewhere. We started at the Bellagio and headed towards Bally's and Ceaser's Palace. Little did I know that Ceaser's Palace is like a black hole of casino and shopping. I have seen it from the ground, seen it from the air, but nothing seems to compare to the physically impossible large-ness of inside. It goes on forever! (and ever, and ever...) It took us probably 4 hours to meander through the shops and slot machines that go on through eternity. This isn't the best shot of the forum shops as they are called but it was the best of the several attempts I made. The ceiling is painted like sky and the lighting is weird which apparently confuses the living daylights out of the little Canon camera I was carrying.

Somehow we made it out of Ceaser's Palace and we headed towards the Paris. It's half scale Eifel Tower was too much for me to resist so up I went. Yep. Total tourist. It was actually pretty cool. It wasn't over crowded (albit, a bit overpriced) and since it was something on the order of 450 feet in the air was nice and breezy compared to the hot air down on the strip. There is a cage that emcompases the whole observation deck which made taking pictures a bit interesting but every so often there would be a hole big enough that I could stick the camera out and take an unobstructed picture. The pic of one of the swiming pools
at Bally's gives a good indication of how high we were. (btw: I know the page formatting is getting a bit weird with all the pics, click on the pic to enlarge.) Pretty much the rest of the day was more of the same. Looked around, took lots of pictures, walked past a lot of fancy clothing stores that I had no interest in, etc. It was fun though.

Around 6:00 pm we made our way to the Rio for the show we had bought tickets to. Penn and Teller. I am not much of a magic fan but these two guys are different. They are *funny* and the magic they do reflects that. Penn is a very tall, very flamboyant person while Teller is very much smaller and quieter but they make the perfect pair. The show was fun and I am very glad I went. After the show I had the oppritunity to breifly meet the two of them whilst they signed autographs and took pictures with the crowd. Yeah, I was one of them too. I had my program and a book signed and got to have a pic taken with each of them.

It was about 11:00 pm when we started our trek back to the Bellagio once again but I wasn't quite done yet so I stopped to take some last minute pictures. I figured I would be too tired on sunday to want to do anything (I was right) so I finally ended up crashing somewhere around 12:30 am.

Sunday:

Sleepwalked my way home.

4th chance?

2008-08-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

Ok. Maybe I am nuts but whatever. I am giving them a 4th and final chance to actually go zero g. I hadn't planned on it and I am still pretty unhappy with them for canceling on me AGAIN but they have made me and offer I can't in my right mind refuse. Next month barring meteor showers, full moon, the FAA, or some other excuse I will be going back to zero g not only for the normal flight but for their Platinum flight. Half the people, twice the room, more stuff, and get this... Buzz Aldrin. Normaly this flight goes for about $9,000 a person. Nearly twice as much as I paid for their normal flight but they have offered me a seat on that flight (no extra charge). So. That means back to Vegas I go next month so more hotel and airfare but if all goes according to plan (you can probably understand my skeptisim) I will be in for a pretty awesome trip.

2008-08-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

skydive photos

2008-08-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

These are from last November but I thought I'd stick them up here. It was fun. It was cold (being November and all). I'd do it again. :)

The pics like this one were taken by a photographer who jumped with us but they are still using film in their cameras. I used a negative scanner to get most of these digitized hence a few artifacts in the images. The guy at Walgreen's who developed my film did a not so good job so I didn't scan the prints.
More pics: http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii153/weldergeek/skydive/?albumview=grid
Use Guest passwd: picsofstuff1

Flugtag Portland 2008

2008-08-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

It's peeeeeople.
According to the Red Bull website I was somewhere in the crowd of ~80,000 people who turned out to watch people jump into the Willamette today. In addition to the flying creations launched into the river, there were the Red Bull skydive team, music DJ'ed by Gustav of 94.7 KNRK, and did I mention more people than you can shake a stick at? I was in the main 'mass' of people at Waterfront Park and in my pictures I didn't much of any shots behind me because it was just too crowded but notice the people in boats, people on the other side of the river, people stacked up on the hawthorne bridge, and just rows and rows of spectators lined up as far out as OMSI. Never really been to anything this crowded.

We got really lucky with parking and getting in and out. We found parking about 6 blocks or so away around 9:30 am which was before the parking attendent showed up (or knew about this event) this was nice because we only had to pay the flat weekend rate of $4. (by the time we left he had jacked up the price to $10 and there was not a parking space to be seen for quite a long ways.) We didn't stay for the whole show. I had to be somewhere else later in the day plus we wanted to avoid traffic. So we left about 45 minutes early. The last craft I saw launch ended up being the winner. A giant tricycle with a hanglider like structure built on top.

The skydivers were pretty cool. They jumped from a helicopter only a few thousand feet up, did a bunch of crazy looking spins and dives and all three landed right on the launch ramp. My favorite one I think was team 'Lego My Red Bull'. They had not only a craft made of what looked from a distance like perfect jumbo sized lego blocks but had awesome lego people costumes to match. For the record though, their craft flew like a brick ;)

It was fun, I would go again but I would not want to get there and leave at the sametime as everyone else. Get there early!
http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii153/weldergeek/flugtag/
use guest password: picsofstuff1

Yay! toys :D

2008-07-24T21:05:00.001-07:00

I got my new 'helmet camera' today. I got it for my upcoming trip on zero-g. I will be playing around the next few days with the wiring harness and position of the 'guts' (the main recording camera, battery pack, wires, etc.) but it looks like it should do what I want it to do :) More to follow later.

Airfare = expensive grumble

2008-07-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

*Rant*
Why is it that a simple $4,000 trip to ride a vomit comet can't cost $4,000?! Hasn't my wallet suffered enough? Apparently buying tickets to Las Vegas less than a month away plus hotel is not cheap O_o . *pout* Plus I am sure I will not get my coveted window seat on the trip to/from Las Vegas now. *double pout* I just hope it goes smoothly and they don't overbook (HA!) I just want to get where I'm going.
*/Rant*

Saturday in McMinnville

2008-07-19T20:12:00.001-07:00

A long fun day involving gliders, airplanes, and lunch. I am sleepy now so instead of writing a bunch of boring things, I will do this in gallery form. yay! Pics are in slideshow at the bottom of the page.

Take that TiVO :P

2008-07-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting for some time the functionality of a DVR without the annoying part of a DVR subscription. When I had pc's I had a tv tuner in one where I could record TV to the hard drive. Well, I run all macs now and have a lot of free HDD space and figured it would be usefull for storing tv shows. Recording tv shouldn't cost money. You could do it with VCR's why not hard drives? Companies like DirectTV and TiVO would love to sell you a lovely self contained recording unit that can record and store your favorite inconviently schedualed TV shows but they seem to think they need to charge you a monthly fee to do it. Screw that noise. Nothing much like rocket science, I went down to the local Best Buy (granted not *the* "best buy" in town but hey, they had what I was looking for) and purchased a TV tuner for my Mac Pro (Pinnacle's USB HD tuner stick).

So far, I have been really impressed with it. It's small, it doesn't take up much or any of my very limited desk space, it comes with this nifty remote that even has a windowed/full screen toggle, and the software seems pretty un-invasive and well laied out. EyeTV is the software that comes stock with the tuner and I can pre-program it with any of the shows and times that I want recorded. So back to DVR's. Mac Pro + TV tuner + wifi/AppleTV = DVR I hope. I am going to get an AppleTV next and see what happens. I can get the files into iTunes and so an appleTV should be able to play them without too much greif. I would much rather deal with a little file shuffling than pay for a DVR subscription. My only choices shouldn't be DVR subscription/ VCR tape/ or paid downloads for something I can watch for free.

Boeing Frontiers Magazine for July

2008-07-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

I made it into the Boeing Frontiers magazine this month :D

page 46.
http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/index.html
(update: this is old now. Link goes to current issue. The issue I was in is now here: http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2008/july/index.html)

Zero-G Aug 16th!

2008-07-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

Well Hopefully after being canceled twice and flip-flopping on the day/location of my zero-g flight on more than one occasion I think I will finally *actually* be going :D
It will be in Las Vegas this time. (I was originally supposed to fly out of San Jose waay back on May 25th but it was canceled due to low sign-up). This time they have enough people and barring a major set back (which would suck but honestly wouldn't surprise me at this point) I'll be going! Woohoo! Vomit Comet, here I come :D

URU Round 3

2008-06-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

In an article by the Spokesman Review, GameTap has given the rights to Myst Online: URU Live back to Cyan.
Spokesman Review

Woohoo! An online URU player since sept. '04 and playing Myst since the early to mid '90's.

I'll be waiting!

Test

2008-06-29T21:10:00.001-07:00

This thing on?
Soo...
More later

This is just a space for my messing around. Don't expect anything interesting.