Hiyaaa!

01.06.2005

Today was my first day of karate class in the past 25 years (at least). I noticed a couple of things in the first 10 minutes of class:

• I'm old
• I'm horrendously out of shape
• I can do a jumping jack and breathe at the same time.
• All of my joints pop
• I can't sit with my legs together

Now, with all of that said, I actually enjoyed the class. It was some good excercise for me (I really think just breathing is good excercise for me sometimes). I seemed to remember some of my form from when I took karate those 25 years ago. So, I think I'm going to stick with it, at least long enough for me to get some of those fancy pajamas.

Permalink

Ma!

01.05.2005

Today is the day my mom turns 58. The last numbered birthday I remember for her was when she turned 47. I guess I won't actually keep track of the next one until she hits 69.

So Happy Birthday Mom!

Geez, but 58 is gettin' old....

Permalink mom

Toiling In The Garage Mine

01.04.2005

In an effort to continue making this a productive year, I spent 2 hours cleaning the garage after work trying to get it closer to parking availability. The key part has been trying to figure out what to do with all the trash/old crap that I've been uncovering. I've been replacing old pvc-type shelving with some more durable Rubbermaid type storage cabinets. This way I can get organized while hiding all the clutter behind Rubbermaid doors!

The high point of the night was taking the garbage out to the road, today being garbage day. Living out in the boonies, we're not limited in the amount of garbage we can put out, and this was the time for me to take advantage of that. First out was the garbage cans - 3 of them - filled with various amounts of trash from the garage and what accumulates inside the house during the week. Next, the 4 empty boxes that had housed the now snapped together Rubbermaid cabinets beckoned to be used. Each of these could hold about the same volume as one of the garbage cans (they took up the same amount of room in the back of the truck). Going through the garage I managed to get rid of even more crap, filling up 3 of the 4 boxes rather quickly. The last box, having suffered a little crushing damage from trying to serve as a makeshift table during the cabinet construction, was regulated to holding now empty boxes of cool stuff past: Roomba box, chair massager box, some other box...

Two garbage trips to the road and I could start to see some real progress in the garage. The east wall was the home of organization. Cabinets, tool box, crap mounted on the wall. The west wall was starting to show some progress (being the source of 2 boxes full of garbage, at least). I've been taking apart old Wal Mart quality bookcases, thinking I may use the parts for some future project. The remains of a good 15 bookcases are leaning against the south wall, and I'm starting to wonder what I'm really going to do with that much fiberboard as opposed to just trashing it all. That's the hard part of all this cleaning - trying to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of.

Permalink random renovation/remodelling

Holidays..... OVER!

01.03.2005

The '04 Holiday Season is now officially over. Most of the time I'm glad once X-mas/New Years have come to pass. This year though, I'm kind of sad to see them go. Last year turned out to be a really good year for me. There wasn't any one particular thing or event I can point to and say "that was a great year", but just reminiscing back the year as a whole was a good one. The only thing that I would change (if I could) would be for Gerry to still be here and healthy.

This brings me to look at the new year with anticipation. I didn't waste my X-mas vacation and got much on my chore list done. As with any good chore list, I didn't get enough of it done, so some things still await me in the short term:

• Finish cleaning out the garage - this will take me longer than it seems it should because I've got way more garbage in the garage than I thought, and I'm going to have to wait for the garbage truck to catch up with me. This will all lead to....
• Parking in the garage!
• Finally put up the 3 light fixtures I bought back in April.

Once those are finished up, the pressing things on the list can be marked off. Everything else on the list is either a dive back into the independent web business or something fun to do:

• Make my MAME machine - Jerry got me a book for X-mas on how to build your own arcade machine. This is one of those things that's just a given that I would eventually do, and the book seems to have the step by step instructions on how to do it. This is more of a slow, take your time and do it right project than a whip it together over a weekend project, so I'm looking forward to getting started at a leisurely pace.
• Make my wrestling game. I can't start of using the Torque game engine to make my game right off the bat, I've got to learn how it works. So the first step will be to go through the book I've got for the tutorials and make a FPS game along the way. Being realistic, I might be able to actually start the wrestling part of the game by the end of the year. If I'm lucky.

The other minutia of what I want to do to kick of the year the right way is way to boring to put here, typical of New Years Resolutions made by many. But I think '05 is gonna rock. I even remembered to put '05 as the year on the checks for the 4 bills I just readied for mailing!

Permalink rambling random

X-mas '79

12.20.2004

Christmas is always one of those times to wax nostalgic about the good old days. Although I've never quite grown up (I still enjoy a good trip to Toys R Us), I still have some Christmas memories that still give me a good smile when I think back. Christmas of '79 was one of my favorite Christmases. Christmasi?

Once Christmas break started from school I would be excited and ready for Christmas day. Traditionally Santa would bring me 3 cool presents as I slept fitfully due to my excitement on Christmas Eve. How 1 10 year old kid could have so much adrenaline over a couple of new toys I'll never know. I remember trying and trying to go to sleep, but never quite making it. I think I started to try to sleep at 9:00 that night, but I remember still being awake, and frustrated, at 1:00. But I finally did make it to sleep, and at 4:00 in the morning I crept into the living room to see if Santa had made it (I had even left out milk and cookies, and even a life insurance policy from a company a friend and I at school had started - I was even a dork at 10!).

I looked under the tree, dark, without my glasses, and thought I saw toys. TOYS! The life's blood of a 10-year-old! I scampered back into my room and put on my glasses. Another scamper back to the tree and I dived into my Christmas booty. The first thing I saw was a Star Wars Imperial Troop Transport. This was one of the things on my list! There were slots to carry 6 Star Wars figures, plus 2 drivers. Or a driver and a co-pilot. Or a driver and a co-driver. The thing could carry 8 figures any way you looked at it. Plus, it had little noise making buttons on the top that would make laser sounds, or R2-D2 beeps and whistles. Unfortunately, beeps and whistles might wake mom and dad at 4:00 in the morning, so I limited myself to pushing it around silently.

I then managed to push the transport into the next Star Wars toy: an Imperial Tie Fighter! Yes, I always seemed to like the bad guy toys more. The Tie Fighter had pop-off wings that could simulate the fighter being shot. I had nothing to really shoot the wings off, so I had to rely on the imaginary laser cannons embedded in the couch to take care of the Tie.

The next thing I saw - I had no idea what it was. The box said "GIRDER & PANEL ACTION BUILDING SET INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT". It was like Legos, but different. Little blue girders would snap together, and you had plastic outer walls (with either windows, or bricks, or some signs) laminated on so that you made a complete building. After mom and dad woke up (I think around 6:00), mom showed me how to put the things together. Looking back, this turned out to be one of my favorite toys. Plus, I kind of like how mom had to show me how to put it together. It turned out to be one of those jewels that I didn't know I wanted until I got it.

I had gotten my 3 Christmas day toys and was happy. I thought that was it, and was playing along. Then dad told me that maybe I needed to look behind the tree. What did he mean, "look behind the tree"? I had 3 presents. I had been getting 3 presents as long as I could remember. Why would I look behind the tree? Well, behind the tree was a 3-speed bike. This made it 4 presents! Wait, that's just wrong, that screws up tradition. But, a toy is a toy, so we pulled out the bike and I tried to figure out what to do with 3 speeds on a bike on a quick trip outside - because it was cold and I needed to get back inside and build buildings, transport troops, and fight Ties.

Permalink action figures/toys random