How come everything has to have a fuckin light on it now?

I wonder if scientists could pinpoint the exact location in your brain that controls whether or not you like corn.

Lately I have been feeling extra demotivated. I am not sure why. I can tell I am demotivated because I have a screw stuck in one of my tires on my truck. It has a relatively slow leak. I noticed it about a week and a half ago. The tire got really low one day so I aired it back up. That was maybe 5 days ago. I will need to air it back up again soon.

I have certificates on these tires from DiscountTire so all I have to do is basically go there and tell them I have the screw and a leak, and they will fix it for free, or just replace the tire for free if some some reason they can't fix the hole. So, why haven't I gone to get it fixed? No idea, other than I am just demotivated.

Things are taking a turn for the worst at work, and it may ultimately end in my needing another job. The company always makes bad decisions, based on the wrong factors, and I think a lot more of that is about to happen. I would like to blame my demotivation on this, but I just found about the upcoming changes a couple of days ago, well before I discovered the screw in my tire.

I suppose it could be that I hate the holidays. I always kinda get... something... right before the holidays. I am not sad, or stressed, or angry, or any real specific kind of emotion that might cause demotivation. I suppose it could just "a case of the blahs".

Now, before you go yelling curse words at me for using such a retarded phrase, you need to realize that "blah" IS in the dictionary. It means "A feeling of boredom, lethargy, or general dissatisfaction." I suppose this describes exactly how I feel. I have a case of those.

When I was little, this time of year always meant Christmas vacation from school, at which point I generally did nothing but sit around, because it was too cold to go outside and play, so maybe in my head I link this time of year to dullness. Who knows, I am sure a shrink would probably have a field day with stuff like that.

Anyhoo, I don't have to worry about it too much, because I know in a couple of weeks that it will pass, and everything in the universe will align again.

SHIT, I forgot to include any curse words in this post. Oops.

No one should ever claim that they read a book if they listened to an audio book version. The two things require different senses. If you listened to a book, and then a song, would you also say you read the song? Have you smelled any good songs lately? Have you felt of any cool music in the last week or so? Have you seen what pizza tastes like? Can you hear the color yellow? Unless you are one of these synesthesia victims, you can't 'read' a book if you only listened to it. I am not knocking audio books by the way. Audio books are perfect for that long drive or airplane ride. And they can be quite entertaining, and in some ways can challenge your brain similar to reading int hat you have to create a picture in your own mind, but nonetheless, IT AINT FUCKIN READING if you are not holding a book and using your eyes.

Along these same lines, would you say you talked to someone if you only emailed them? Technically you cannot, so I will generally specify. I guess the same holds true for all forms of instant messaging. Even though you are experiencing a communication thread, if you are not shaking your vocals chords and moving your mouth around, YOU AINT FUCKIN TALKIN! If you read out loud what you type in the thread, and then what the other persons types as well, you still are not talking to that person, you are just a fucking moron.

Ok, enough of that.

So it is vacation time again. Back to Vegas. Free room, free plane ticket, can't beat that. Only thing on the agenda other than a metric fuck ton of drinking and sports betting is going to see Norm MacDonald at the House of Blues. Other than that, I just plan to get all hopped up on various liquors, and just run around and do whatever.

CARNIE WILSON!

Forgot to post for another whole month. Wow. Just have a couple of quick thoughts for toady.

I saw something today that made me sad. I saw a happy puppy running around willy nilly, doing whatever he felt like doing. At first I thought, wow, how great must it be to be a dog. Then I though wow, that fuckers gunna get run over. He didn't have a collar on, and he was in a pretty upscale neighborhood. The speed limit is pretty low in that area, so I wish him well, but you could tell that he was maybe not schooled in the ways of the world and probably didn't understand that these huge metal things on the non grassy part of the world that kept whizzing by would flatten him. Then I began to think about some poor kid running frantically around the neighborhood looking for his best pal. Then the saddest thought of all, I imagined a lost dog sign posted all over the neighborhood. When you think about it, there is nothing sadder than a lost dog poster.

So I had a VMware training class last week, and had to travel about an hour or so each way to get to the class. At 7:45am anywhere in the entire Dallas Fort Worth metroplex area, there is nothing but bumper to bumper traffic as far as the eye can see in any direction. It is astonishing. And, none of these assholes are particularly good at driving. Most are on the phone, or doing other stupid stuff. Some are angry as fuck, and ready to kill, others are scared to death of the traffic so they are barely moving. Everyone cuts each other off, which usually results in shouting and flipping each other off. It takes an hour and a half to go 30 miles. I bet I literally saw well over a million cars in the 4 day period. Its absurd. And to top it all off, it rained all week, which only magnified the problems 10 fold. I just couldn't imagine doing that each and every day. There was a time at work when I had to go to a different office and had to drive in it for maybe 45 minutes each direction for maybe 9-12 months, so I suppose I can understand how you could adapt to it mentally and physically so you don't go shitballs crazy and kill people, but that kinda thing takes a heavy toll on people eventually. I just think that somehow there has to be a better way to manage traffic. It is almost two fucking thousand ten, someone needs to get off their ass and figure something out.

Finally, the new winter hockey season got underway last night. We were victorious in the debut handing a quality team an 8-4 defeat.

Ok, fall is here. There is a certain chill in the air that is unmistakable. I love it. I think I have posted many times about how Fall is my favorite season. Summer was a blast, and for the first time in several years, I am sad to see it go.

Of course, with Fall comes football. I had a good time in Vegas betting on the games. I lost on college football, but I hate college football anyway, so fuck it. The only reason I bet on it is because I got all caught up in vibe of sportsbetting and wanting to get some action as soon as I got there. I figured USC -7 was a good bet, turns out USC couldn't football their way out of a fucking sack. Fucking fuck college football.

Anyway, I started thinking the other day about sportsbetting, and what it takes to truly be good at it. You could spend 40 hours a week busting your ass handicapping the games and still suck balls. On the flip side, you could spend 30 seconds and be amazing. All you need is a good record. What is a good record? That is the interesting part. You are considered a REALLY fucking good capper, if you can hit 60% consistently. WHA? What's that? What the shit did you just say? Yes, 60% accuracy is all it takes to be considered an amazing capper. What other job or hobby or anything allows for such a low accuracy to be good? If your doctor told you he had a 60% success rate, you would run. If you get 60% accuracy in school, you are a fucking pathetic failure.

I have put this to the test many times over multiple football seasons, and it is very hard to achieve a 60% success rate with any consistency. I have spent countless hours capping games each week over the coarse of an entire season only to land in the 50% accuracy range. I have just shot from the hip and guessed at each game and landed in that same general vicinity. Additionally, I have also picked every game using a coin toss, and once I even tried using pieces of paper with all the teams names on them, and laying two teams in the matchups out on the floor and having my cat pick each game, and guess what... that's right, I landed right around 50%. I have tried only picking a few games each week, and I have tried picking every game, and it just does not seem to matter, it always comes out around 50% over the season. From all this experimentation, I completely understand why hitting 60% or more would be the mark of a special handicapper.

In the NFL this season, going into week 3, My record is 6-4, which is exactly 60%. How long can I keep it at 60%, only time will tell.

Yeah, so I have not posted in a while. So what. I been busy. The summer is winding down. So, did I have the best summer ever? Did my summer kick ass? Depends on how you look at it.

When I was younger, like a small child, summer meant staying outside "playing" until 9 or 10 o'clock. Why wouldn't I? No repercussions, no consequence. So what if you don't wake up until 11:30 the next day. So I would stay outside and do whatever, and then go inside after dark and play games, and do stuff kids do, sometimes until the wee hours. It was magical and fantastic.

Then when I was a little older in my teenage years, alcohol and poon became top priority. So summers then consisted of those priorities, and not much else. Fortunately for the teenage American male, there are plenty of opportunities for both, so I spent the summer doing that kinda stuff. It was magical and fantastic.

So that brings me to adulthood. Adulthood is much different. If you stay out till the wee hours playing or having alcohol and poon, you get fired from your job eventually, and then not only can you not afford a nice house or fun toys and shit, but you also no longer have money for alcohol or poon! So you have to achieve some sort of balance. What is the cure? WEEKENDS!

So I made a strong effort to do something every weekend this entire summer, short of a couple that I needed for R&R, especially during the Great Cilantro Salmonella Adventure of 2009. I don't recall if I posted about that or not, but it was pretty good times. I particularly enjoyed the sonogram. Anyway, I went to see live music, and comedians, I drank a fuck ton of liquor, I spent shitloads of time with my friends, and of course, it was magical and fantastic.

So now its almost fall. I am not sure when fall officially starts, but who fucking cares, I think I have posted before how fall is my favorite season as an adult. So why not just transition right on into that bad boy by keeping up the tradition of striving to have fun on the weekends. So, what better way to make that transition then a trip to Las Vegas!!! NFL starts this weekend, and I plan to make a fortune betting on the games, and experiencing general drunken chaos. I cannot say for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be.... magical and fantastic!!

Back on Tuesday, later bitches!!!!

Quick note to self for posterity: I saw Paul McCartney the other night at the new Cowboys Stadium. Paul was sounding quite good. A stark contrast to his last road show a few years back, when he sounded a bit frail. He is back to form. Is he the most popular musician ever? Maybe. Is he the most successful songwriter and musician ever? Without a doubt. Is he the most important musician ever? He might be, if such a category even exists. It was a good show.

Ok, so, I wanna slap the fucking shit out of people that use fake fucking curse words. If you say, for example, "Susan stole my frozen banana guacamole, and that's really effed up, so I am going to cut her effing toes off", everyone knows what you mean to say. Additionally, your intent is the same if you say 'effed' or 'fucked'. So who are you try to kid here? What are you doing? Plus, who gives a royal fuck turd if you said fuck or not. I can see no point whatsoever in ditching what you want to say for some pussy ass version of the exact same fucking thought.

I know what you might be thinking. "I don't want my kid running around saying fuck all the time, so I say 'ef' instead." So let me get this straight, does this mean you do want your child saying 'ef'? You want little Tommy to be on the playground and whip out a "Jeff got mad because I cut in front of him in the effing line for the slide, so he effing pushed me down in the sand."? It would seem like you would not want your child to say anything even remotely close to that, so that logic is right out. No one is using these fake curse words to protect their children.

So perhaps you are dumbing yourself down due to the mixed adult company you are in. I don't think I can buy this either. Do you go to a big meeting with clients or co-workers and say "The mother effing server is GD piece of S, so I can't get to my stupid effing calendar from my effing GD S-sucking A-effing blackberry!"? Of course not! And, if you do, everyone will think the exact same thoughts about you as if you said the real words. So you just aint doin that, so that too, is right out.

So what's left? you are hanging out with your friends and having a few beers and you say "GD, that C Nancy has some sweet effing Ts, I'd like to stick my D into her P, and then J all over her effing A." I doubt you are saying this in front of your buddies. In fact, if you said something as simple as "Don effing stole it", your friends are probably going to kick you in the balls for being a real dick shit.

Your intention is to use foul language. So do us all a favor and use it already! I mean, what are you, some kind of A-hole?

Twat.

Why does everyone have to be such a dick on the internet?

If you go look at practically any forum on the internet, or any article that has a comments section, there seems to be a 90%+ chance that within the first 5-10 replies, there will be someone being a "fucking dickhole". Why is that? Also, the degree of dicklyness varies from flat out blatant dickhood to the more subtle passive aggressive cockmaster.

Scenario 1:Q: I've installed a beta version of windows, and I cannot get my network settings to stick after a reboot, any ideas?A: You're a fucking idiot. Its a fucking beta, and you suck, what the fuck do you expect you dumb piece of shit?

Scenario 2:Q: I've installed a beta version of windows, and I cannot get my network settings to stick after a reboot, any ideas?A: What build do you have? I think that is a documented issue, why don't you just use Windows 95? You probably stole the beta version anyway.

Neither scenario is helpful in any way shape or form. In fact, in real life, if I came across the cockwad from scenario 1, I would probably be forced to thrash him royally. He has the internet equivalent of road rage, and should probably be put to sleep.

The theory? little big man syndrome, internet toughguy... call it whatever you want, but clearly these people just feel safe hiding in their houses and whatnot behind a LCD screen. I doubt very seriously that any of these dickweeds would be saying anything even remotely close to that if they were face to face with the person.

And really what is the point of being such a taint pudfucker? I guess that is the only way they can feel important or superior. I hate to bring up the old adage of 'if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything', but come on, really, what's going on here? Why would you go out of your way, and expend energy and effort, and waste your time for the sole purpose of being a rod. The internet has brought out the absolute worst in people, and is continuing to denigrate our society.

In case you are wondering, there is no precise situation that brought this up. I generally do not participate in forums, other than reading. Every once in a while, if I see a need, I will publish a how-to document, or some sort of photo documentation of something, to help people out. That generally will keep you safe from these chodes, because you are not asking for anything, and people generally appreciate the information. My issue stems from trying to locate anecdotal evidence of stuff, or see what sort of solutions other people have come up with for various problems. I believe that just about any problem you encounter these days, someone else has already run into, figured something out, and posted it somewhere. With all these fucksticks being mean for no reason, it is clogging up the works, and making me have to dig a lot deeper to find what I am looking for.

The moral of the story is that you should carry the same attitude and demeanor on the intercloud that you would as if you were face to face with people. If you cannot muster that type of effort, please just go ahead suicide at your earliest convenience.

A couple of things to ponder...

"we reserve the right to..." What the fuck? You see this disclaimer on all kinds of stuff. A lot of times it is in regards to changing the rules of a contest, or changing interest rates, or what not. There used to be signs everywhere that said "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." Wow, so just saying that you reserve a right gives you the right to that right? I think not. That is the equivalent of a company calling "shotgun". It is retarded. Why stop at refusing service, or changing terms, why not reserve the right to kick someone in the face, or to cancel all customers after taking all their money because you fucking feel like it. Let me tell you something mother fucker, reserving rights means nothing. I doubt that kind of shit would ever hold up in a court these days just because it is in writing or you have a stupid sign.

"stinks to high heaven" really? where the hell does this come from? I know what it means obviously, but where would that kind of phrase originate from. A quick intercloud research effort produced no results. Only assumptions. assholes.

...

I can cook food better than a restaurant. No doubt about it. Everything I cook is way better than a restaurant. Period. Why is that? I have sort of reached the conclusion that public restaurants have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Everything has to be in a specific range of blandness so that no one dislikes it. But that lack of flavor is exactly what makes me not like it. Another reason could be that since they have to produce food en masse, they save money by buying in bulk, which limits their ingredient provider variety. Who knows.

I never really thought about this too much until I pretty much eliminated restaurants from my repertoire. Now, on the rare occasion that I visit a restaurant these days, I am surprised by the low quality of the food. Don't get me wrong here, I can still enjoy a restaurant and really like the food because it is tasty and delicious, but I can still produce a higher quality and better tasting version of just about anything, and for a very small fraction of the price. Screw you restaurant.

Two words that I find interesting this week are: "Sidekick and "stand-up". Think about those a little bit, and what they might mean.

So, what do you really need in order to be happy? Well, more to the point, what do you require to have a fun time. I don't need much in either case. I was sitting around thinking about a fall/winter vacation, and it occurred to me that in an interesting locale, I can literally just sit on the side of the road with my best gal and watch stuff happen and have a perfectly good time. This, in part, is why I enjoy going to Las Vegas so much. There are so many interesting people walking around that provide a good source of mind stimulation. There's also lots of cars and lights and general bustle, so I hardly ever feel bored, even when I am doing nothing. Also, in Las Vegas, public intoxication is legal. So I can grab some whiskey or a bunch of beers, and just go sit on a bench on the strip, and watch the world go by for hours on end. This is also relatively inexpensive.

I recently went to Bossier City on a mini vacation. I kinda figured it would be like a smaller shittier version of Las Vegas, and while it is in many respects, it does lack a few elements. I had a great time there, but I realized that I was not necessarily having a good time because I was in Bossier City, I was having a good time because I was hanging out with my best gal and my friends. To some extent, I had a better time sitting doing nothing than I did in the glitter of the casino. Now, granted, I did not go exploring the city as much as I perhaps should have, but there did not seem to be a place to just sorta hang around and do nothing, other than in our hotel rooms, especially at night. There was plenty of debaucherous drinking, gambling, and chain smoking, and it was a hoot, but it generally took place sitting at a gambling table or in front of a line slot machines, which meant that it was costing money to perform the same activities that could be performed in the street in Las Vegas for free. Also, for some reason, there was no place to just go buy a beer there, which is very strange. The cocktail waitresses would give you free beers or mixed drinks, but if they didn't come around at a decent interval, you were just fucked. This is easy enough to rectify, because it is easy to bring your own, but at the time, we didn't know this was a necessity.

Ok, so when I began this post, it was going to be a philosophical analysis of what it really means to be happy, and the apparent dichotomy between having fun and being somewhere foreign, but I think now I like it better as a real quick assessment of my first run at Bossier City. I had an excellent time, but I am not 100% certain that the backdrop of Bossier had anything to do with it. Maybe it did, but I think it will require more research. I will likely return to Bossier City between now and whatever fall/winter vacation I make plans for, to see if i can figure it out. This time I'll bring some liquor and some burritos.

The whole thing reminds me of a fitting song from the Cheech and Chong movie "Things Are Tough All Over"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNoF7nJb6X4

Me and my old lady,
we like we like like like like
to get outside.

Sometimes people space us out,
so we just make like a bakery truck
and haul buns out of there.

Sometimes we are so much in love,
that we go on a picnic
and don't even take any beer.

We just like to cruise around,
and try to find the main drag in town.
Then after we go try to find,
a 7 eleven and try to get some beef jerky.

Me and my old lady,
we like we like like like
to get outside.

Sometimes people space us out,
so we just make like a bakery truck
and haul buns out of there.

I think so far I have spent only 1 weekend sitting at home doing nothing so far this summer, and that is primarily because I am on call at work, so I am doing well on my goal of making it a really kick ass season.

Twat magnets!

Three weeks since I've posted, and the last of the pie was gone days ago. I should write a letter to Olive Picklefeather.

Ok, A few quick thoughts here.

I have noticed lately that seeing dead animals makes me sad. fuckin possum crossing the street to go grab something to eat, BAM, fucking car kills him. That sucks. I was driving down the road the other day and I saw a what I think was a pigeon hanging out in the street getting a drink of some water from a puddle. It was a two lane street and I was in the other lane. The bird just kept on doing its thing, and pretty much just ignored this huge hunk of steel going by at 45 miles an hour. My truck weighs around 5,000 pounds, and the bird weighs maybe what 3 pounds? So say 1500 times the size of the bird, and I was probably 4 feet from it. I may be wrong, after all I'm no physicist, but proportionally, that seems to be the equivalent of a huge hunk of metal weighing 150 tons flying by a human at ~65,000 miles an hour. That would blow my mind up. How can this bird get accustomed to something like that? Then you have some animals like that poor possum that couldn't quite figure it out, and got flat. Anyhoo, there is no point here, but I feel sorry for these poor small animals. They aren't doing anything wrong, and I am sure they were happy right up to the point of impact. Weird.

So, completely unrelated, I started thinking about Bernie Madoff. He got 150 years in prison for ripping people off. He will die there, without question. His life is over, and I suspect he will die soon. Then I started thinking... would you rather be stuck in a really bad extremely dangerous prison full of the worst criminals in the world for short period of time, say 2 years, or a "good" easy white collar prison that is a glorified resort for a long period of time, like say 15 years. In the bad prison, you might get killed, you will have to fight, you will get ass raped, etc..., but in the good prison, 15 years of your life will be gone. I don't have an answer. I might opt to take my chances in the bad one.

Next up on the random thought list... You go to a casino and watch a roulette table, and you notice on the board that red has hit 150 times in a row. So, do you wager on red again, because it is on a streak, or do you bet on black because it is long overdue? I myself bet black. Does this make sense? FUCK NO. If red hit 1,543,455,642,910,502,384,256,780,324,536,574,434 times in a row, the next spin still has exactly an 18 in 38 chance of hitting black or red. It is 38 and not 36 because of the green 0 and 00. So I suppose ultimately it does not matter. Taking the stupid mental blocks and superstition out of gambling is the key to success. If you play long enough in ANY casino game, eventually you will have exactly 0 dollars. So I guess the thought process should be to determine how much money you want to gamble with before you go, and just have fun, and drink shitloads of free cocktails and beer.

Ok, so it is officially summer now. How did I start it off? With a crawfish boil. It was awesome. Crawfish is some of the best food you can jam into your mouth hole. So far so good.

So... after I wrote my post several weeks ago about how everyone should strive to have a really kick ass summer (http://a0001718.blogspot.com/2009/05/yeah-yeah-i-know.html), I got a new front tire installed on my motorcycle. Great. The next day, I decide to cruise around the block and see how well it handles. I got 3/4 of the way around the block and BAM! Fucking laid it down. I was literally 100 yards from my house. What a perfect way to get prepared for the best summer ever.

I am OK. My knees were banged up, my elbows were banged up, my hands were banged up. I was wearing a helmet, but not my gloves or boots, so my shoes also suffered. Had I not been wearing my helmet, I could easily be the dead. I have no idea how it happened or how fast I was going. I was cornering and I suspect I simply turned too sharp, and the front tire slid out. The new tire has a different shape than my old one.

So how do I deal with it? Do I take stock in what's important, contemplate my own human mortality, and make major life decisions based on my death defying experience? Fuck naw. That wastes time and could be mentally crippling. I think a better approach is... figure out what the hell I did wrong, and then... don't do that again. Sounds good on paper right? I wonder why people have such a hard time with stuff like that? I have no idea, so I am going to try the 'get back on the horse' kinda mentality this time.

If you spent all your time worrying about what happened last time, and have fear based on the event, then you will not be able to move forward properly, and that's no good.

Anyway, so it is summer, and it is time to do stuff. This weekend is my town's 4th of July celebration thing, so I will enjoy that. I can see the fireworks and hear the music from the convenience of my front yard. Smashmouth is playing this year, so it should be minimally neato. Next week is 4th of July, so that is going to be fantastical. Then the week after that, I am going to Bossier City to stay at the Horseshoe and do some gambling, and then that weekend is another Dollar Day at the horse track, which I will be attending with my bros. Dollar hot dogs and dollar beers, woot!

The summer is shaping up nicely, and its only been 4 days!

This might get long, but... who really gives a damn.

Today was the day of my jury duty. Most people dread this, and I used to, but I have since changed my mind. The last time I got a jury notice was right around two years ago. I noticed that when I got that one I really didn't mind, so I am not exactly sure at what point in time I found it acceptable. The other one from two years ago was the first one I ever got, so its probably safe to assume that its one of those things where the anticipation of the thing is worse than the thing itself. Although, last time, I did not want to get selected for a jury, and thankfully I didn't. This time I DID want to get selected, because watching a trial would be neato, and sending some perp to prison, or even death, would be an interesting human experiment. When you go to jury duty though, you have no idea what you sort of case you could get. Triple murder, speeding, rape or maybe even a civil trial where no crime has been committed.

Anyway, so I go to the courthouse and enter the central jury room. It holds roughly 500 people from my estimation, and it was mostly full, probably 400-450 people there. I estimated by counting how many chairs were in a row, then counting the amount of rows, I am not just shooting from the hip. I arrived at 8:00am, and around 8:30 or so, they tell the room that a judge will come talk to everyone, and then they would start pulling juries for the day. At about 9, a judge comes in and welcomes everyone and gives a quick rundown of how stuff works. She also mentioned they had 6 trials today, so there would be a lot of jurors needed. About 9:30 or so, the other lady comes back and reads the names of people in the first pool, 48 people, my name wasn't called. Around 10, she comes back for another batch, 60 people this time, and I get called, yay!

We make our way to the third floor for more waiting outside the courtroom. Around 10:30, all 60 people make their way into the court room for the voire dire process. This narrows the 60 down to the 12 needed for the trial. During this process, the perp is sitting there in a chair with his attorney, and the prosecution is there as well. This case was a state district court case for a state jail felony DWI with a child under 15 years of age in the car. In Texas, a DWI is a misdemeanor, but if you have a child with you, its a state jail felony, which is very serious. Minimum 180 days in jail, and up to 2 years, along with a fine of up to $10,000.00. Heavy shit, trust me, you don't want any. The perp in this was a Mexican American who did not speak English, so the court provided a translator. This poor chump looked remorseful, and scared shitless. Yet, on the other hand, his case was at the voire dire stage, so he clearly he decided a plea bargain was not for him, so maybe he had some compelling evidence to prove his innocence.

The judge spent a few minutes going over the procedures of how a trial works, and then the prosecutors, who worked for the State of Texas, began explaining what a DWI is and what is needed to return a guilty verdict. As they were talking I noticed that the courthouse was really quite a fantastical feat of architecture. The building is brand new, having been built within the last year. I detected a faint pickle odor for some reason, but other than that is really was a beautiful courtroom, paid for by my tax dollars, and I don't mind saying, that I feel I did a really fucking good job on it. Way to go!

After the prosecution talked about the specifics of what a guilty verdict entails, they spent a few minutes asking personal questions that might exempt people from such a case. Out of the 60 potential jurors, there were maybe 10 or 15 that had issues that would certainly exempt them. Perhaps they themselves had been nailed with a DWI, or even worse, had been the victim of someone else's DWI. At some point in the procedure, they also mentioned that maybe 20 people on the far left side of the courtroom, were essentially a backup pool, and would most likely not be selected.

So out of the 60 total, 20 were backups, and another 15 would easily be discounted due to built in bias. So taking that 35 out, this brought my chances to basically 12 out of 25 or about 48%. Pretty good. Then I thought about something, and took a quick look around me. Out of all the people in the room, I was probably one of maybe 3 or 4 people in there that did not have children. Since the case involved a child, it would make sense to me that the defense would want me, because I would maybe not be as sympathetic to that aspect of the trial as someone who did have children. On the other hand, the prosecution might want me, and for practically the exact same reason! Since I don't have children, I would not be lenient on the perp, because someone with children might go for probation versus jail time at sentencing based on what might happen to the child if the perp went to prison.

At that point, I was convinced that I would in fact, make the jury. After the prosecution was done, the state appointed defense attorney spent a few minutes explaining why it is so hard to defend these cases, blah blah blah. His thing was sorta like the prosecution, except essentially taking the other side. The only thing he did that I thought was a little crafty, was to compare the prosecution team, who admittedly were younger folks, to American Idol contestants. He was using this reference in my opinion, to make the potential jurors think that they were simply too young and 'good looking' to know what they were doing. It was an interesting tactic, but one that would likely work on some of the older people in the room. The other thing he brought up that was strange was when he started in on the "Intoxilyzer 5000", which the police use to check your blood alcohol level at the scene. He went on and on about how it was a machine, and it was not infallible, and then proceed to talk about atomic energy, and nuclear reactors, and in particular, the Chernobyl incident in 1986. His point was that machines can make mistakes, and destroy people lives forever, so we should maybe not rely on machines so much. It was a weird thing to do, but I understand why he did it. This entire voire dire process took about an hour and a half.

So after both teams did their thing, it was back into the hallway for another 30 minutes of sitting doing nothing. They call everyone back in, and read off 12 names, I was number 9! SCORE! I am on a fucking jury. YAY!!!! the 48 that didn't get picked are all excused and chosen ones are taken back to the deliberation room for instructions. Nothing too exciting here. You are assigned a jury badge for access to the secured areas of the building and given a sheet of instructions. By this time it was about 12:45pm, so we broke for lunch. We were expected back at 2p for the trial to begin. So I go to lunch, two chicken sandwiches... I'll need brain fuel for the trial. Large Diet Coke. Good to go.

At 2p at the dot, the 12th juror is finally back from lunch. About 10 minutes later, the judge walks into the deliberation room and explains that after the perp heard the judge explain the punishment range for the crime, and seeing the faces of the 12 jurors, he just went on ahead and plead guilty to the charges! What the fuck? Did this asshole just rob me of my trial? That bastard!! Well, indeed he did.

The judge explained that most cases of this nature are settled with a plea well before the trial date, and that for some reason, this poor sap just basically didn't believe what the attorneys were telling him about the punishment for a state jail felony. I believe that the guy thought for some reason that his case was maybe just a misdemeanor DWI and didn't realize the severity of it until the words came from the judge's mouth. As it turned out, the guy apparently was drunk, because the judge said he drove into a fucking ditch! The judge did not know how old the child was, only that is was under 15 years of age.

So I did get to be on a jury, but once again, I have yet to witness a court proceeding from the jury box. On a lighter note, I read approximately half of Stephen King's book entitled Blaze. It is pretty good so far.

Now, I cannot wait for my next jury summons. If there was some way to get on a priority list or something, I would. If history holds true, I should get another one in about two more years. Now I am one of those weirdos that would love to get jury duty. What's wrong with me?

I guess my point is don't knock it until you try it, fucker.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Summertime approaches!

The average American life expectancy is approximately 77 years. This mean you will have 77 summers. You probably cannot comprehend and therefore enjoy a summer prior to age 5. Once you start school, summers mean more, and I don't recall feeling that way before entering school at age 5. Summers also do not harbor as many possibilities once you are elderly, so let's say age 64, because at 65 you are just old. You might still like the summertime when you are older, but you probably like all the other seasons as well, and let's face it, when you are 64, you are less likely to take advantage of what a summer has to offer. So between being a small child and an elderly person, that is 18 summers that are wasted. So that leaves 59 good summers to cash in on. Now, you will have to apply the math to your own situation, but I am now 35 years old. This will be my 35th summer. So, out of the 59 good ones, I have already used up 30 of them! That means I only have somewhere in the neighborhood of 29 summers left. TWENTY FUCKING NINE! 29 dollars isn't all that much money, 29 minutes isn't very long, and 29 summers is not a whole lot.

I enjoyed David Lee Roth when he was with Van Halen, and some of his solo work, and I always found his enthusiasm motivational. The man has moxie and mojo. For a brief stint, he took over the morning radio slot when Howard Stern went to satellite radio. His show was not all that great because the execs at CBS made him suck, but I did find one thing particularly fascinating. Whenever David Lee Roth would refers to years passing by, he always referred to them as "summers". He would not say he spent 10 years with Van Halen in the 70s and 80s, he would say he spent 10 summers with those guys. At the time, I kinda brushed it off as just a little strange, but suddenly, I think I understand what he means. Summers are important, and few, and it would seem that a lot of classic memories are created during the summer. You don't sit around with your best buds and think back fondly about the time you all sat around the fireplace, because there was 2 feet of snow outside... you reminisce about the time you drank 40 beers on the river and got a wicked sun burn, and some jack ass caught his shoes on fire, or bit into a freshly dead catfish.

So what am I trying to say? I want everyone to maximize their summer potential. Take stock of your life, and realize that you may not have all that many summers left, so make this one count. You should strive to make this summer the best summer ever. Attempt to make all future summers pale in comparison to this one. Set the bar high. I am not saying you need to 'get the band back together' a la mid life crisis movie and go on a cross country road trip in a convertible, nor am I saying you should embark on a Seinfeldian "Summer of George" type of deal either. I am simply saying that should an opportunity arise, capitalize on it, and in between those opportunities, create your own adventure, and for fuck's sake, leave your house and go somewhere. When the summer is over, and it starts getting to be fall again, you should be able look back and say "Wow, what a fucking summer!"

So go get a pencil and start jotting down all the ways you are not going to suck and waste this summer. If you don't have a pencil, or think you don't have time to relax and enjoy the summer, go kill yourself.

Wow, fuckin forgot to pay attention for like 3 weeks or so.

So, how many shirts you got? Think about how many shirts are in your closet right now. OK, so, how many shirts do you really need? If I had to guess sight unseen, I would wager that I have probably 75 shirts in my closet, and even that might be on the conservative side. How many do I need? Considerably less.

I believe in wearing the same shit over and over again. I have a certain set of shirts that I consider to be my "work uniform", and I rotate the order week to week. What would be the point of having a fuck ton of clothes? If you pay attention, you would probably notice repeats in other people's shirts as well. Everyone has a finite amount of shirts, so its inevitable.

I suppose outside of work, I am a little more diverse. I can always wear my "work shirts" to something other than work, and on occasion, I do so. But more to my liking, is my standard set of t-shirts. I wear these while lounging around the house, or going to play hockey or whatever. I have about 30 Metallica shirts, so those are always in heavy rotation, and I suppose that has become sort of a trademark of mine. People mention the fact that I "always wear a Metallica shirt". Then, I have a few other t-shirts for occasions where Metallica is not necessarily applicable. They are a kooky variety of things. I have one shirt that has a picture of a football, but says "Baseball" under it. I have an All Valley Karate Champion ship '84 Cobra Kai shirt, which is awesome, I have a couple of Harley Davidson shirts, etc.. It is an eclectic mix.

This does not really mean anything, and I am not going anywhere specific, it is just something I started thinking about the other day and it intrigued me. Think about your shirt count, your rotation, and perhaps take note of other people's rotation at work. Good times.

Oh, also, I got a jury summons. Its all electronical now. You fill out the questionnaire on line, then after 5pm on the business day prior to your summons date, you go to their website and enter your "e-juror" code, and it tells you if you have to show up to the court house the next day or not. I always dreaded the old jury summons thing, but last time I got one, I said fuck it, let's have some fun with it, it will be an interesting look into the court system, so I went, prepared to be sequestered for months in some sort of highly sensational murder type deal, and instead, I got nothing. I sat in a room full of people for 2 or 3 hours, and behind the scenes, the DA was trying to get some poor sap to take a deal. The perp finally signed the paperwork, and we were all released. Fail. So, hopefully this time I will get to be on a jury. That would be keen.

Somehow I managed to lose some pictures I took for this post. I had to rebuild my computer recently due to a failing hard drive, so the files may have been lost in some of those bad clusters. Anyway, I still have a few so I'll make due with those. Plus, no one reads this shit anyway, so who cares.

I have recently added a Ruger 10/22 to my gun collection. I figure its great for target shooting/plinking because the ammunition is very cheap. It could also be used for eliminating varmints or hunting small game. I was able to obtain a used model for a great price from a hookup through a friend. The gun was used, but in good condition. The scope was a little outdated and in not so great condition, but this was irrelevant, considering I was unaware a scope was part of the deal to begin with. I wanted to upgrade gun for a couple of reasons. For one, I wanted to increase its usability. Also, I figure if you are going to have one small rifle, you may as well make it look pretty kick ass. As luck would have it, most of the accoutrements for this weapon are all relatively inexpensive. Here is a quick list of the rnhancements I have made.



First things first, I replaced the standard wood stock, with a synthetic Dragunov style stock. This made the weapon lighter, it made it look awesome, and in my opinion, made handling the weapon much easier. The next addition I made was to add a nice shoulder strap. If you ever had to carry the weapon around for any length of time, this would be critical. Next up, I added a muzzle brake. Now, I know this is 100% complete useless on such a small caliber weapon, but it only cost a few bucks, and like I said, I was going for looks to some extent. Go ahead, try to deny that the gun looks wicked with it installed. You can't!

The next items installed were in the guts of the gun: an automatic bolt release and an extended mag release. Since these parts go inside the gun, this was also a good opportunity to completely disassemble the unit, clean it, and gain an understanding of how it all functions. I believe this should be done to every gun you own. Having to break the gun down out in the field, during battle, or perhaps in the dark, or whatever scenario, could be a nightmare if it is the first time you have ever seen inside the damn thing. Here is a look at the guts of the gun once it was broken down.

The auto bolt release essentially just slides into place where the old one was. This allows the bolt to release by simply sliding back the cocking lever, rather than having to operate the seemingly impossible to reach tiny lever in the bottom of the mechanism near the magazine release. The extended mag release to my chagrin ended up being the exact same size as the one that was already in the gun, so apparently someone had previously made that upgrade. Again, only a few bucks so no big deal, and I am sure a fellow gun owner might could use it, otherwise, it makes a great paperweight.

The next thing that would have hindered perfermance was the fact that the scope covered the iron sights on the gun, so if for some reason you were unable to use the scope, you would be shit out of luck without removing the scope, which could require tools you may not have in the field. The solution? See thru sight rings. These rings hold the scope up above the barrel so that you can use the iron sights as a backup to the scope, or instead of the scope if necessary. Additionally, the scope mounted in the rings is well above the gun so that means you can also use the scope as a handle if necessary. dual purpose, yay!

While we are on the subject of scopes, of course, I had to replace the scope. I made an attempt to use a compact style scope, but failed when the scope would not fit properly in the rings when mounted on the gun due to its smaller footprint. I returned the scope and instead went with a standard 3-9, with a 50mm objective. It is a low end scope, but hey, this is a low end gun, I am not trophy hunting or fighting a war, or trying to snipe some fucker at 1000 yards in a 40 mph cross wind in the snow at midnight.

So there you have it. My ghetto rad Ruger mega blaster 2000. fear me.

I should probably apologize in advance, but this post is going to be fairly picture intensive. If you don't like that, kill yourself.

"Beer, it's your best friend, you drink a lot."

I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow. I like brewing beer just as much as drinking it. I can brew a product that is superior to commercial brews in every way, and at a cheaper price. Since I started brewing years ago, I have always bottled my beer. This can be a little meticulous. Also, bottling is unforgiving in the fact that it can be inconsistent, and if you over or under carbonate, its done, you can't really do anything to correct it. So what's the workaround? Kegging! Whoa, hold on there Johnny, kegging sounds all hard and time consuming, plus, I don't know how. Alright, calm down asshole, kegging is quick and easy, and beats the shit out of bottling. Let's take a look. First of all you need some kegs. Cornelius kegs, like the kind used for fountain drinks.





Next, you need a place to put the kegs and deliver the beer. Solution: Kegerator! Huh? You don't have one? OK, fine, let's throw one together. First things first, you need a cheap small refrigerator. I went with a small Danby from Walmart. 4.4 cubic feet, just enough room to hold all the pieces.



Take all the racks out of the fridge, then remove the molded door drink holder insert thingy.

If you don't take that piece out, then everything won't fit and allow the door to shut. So you need to cover the exposed foam on the door now, so find something gnarly to put there. A lot of people use dry erase board, or cardboard, or whatever will fit. I happened to have a piece of plexiglass leftover from a previous project, so I decided to use that, and stick something cool behind it.

OK, so now how do you get the beer out of the kegs? You need a tap, a CO2 tank, and a regulator.

Wait, how are we gunna mount that tap tower on top of the fridge? Drill a hole.



I put aluminum tape around the hole for good measure, to make sure moisture didn't collect and cause problems.

I crafted a custom support brace to mount inside the fridge under the tap to add stability. I made it out of an old plastic cutting board. It is not perfect, but it is functional.



So, now stick the tank with the regulator attached inside the unit.



The next step I will not go into details on because it could be a month long conversation, so I will sum it up in two words: brew beer. Then put the beer in the kegs, and put the kegs in the fridge. Attach the gas lines from the regulator(s) to 'in' port on the kegs, and the beer lines to the 'out' ports. Set the regulator to the desired pressure. Allow the beer to sit at pressure for a while then drink it. If there is too much carbonation, back off on the pressure. If its under, turn it up.

So, there you have it. I have a fully functional kegerator, and you don't, so I am better than you. It was quick and easy, and it is so much better than bottling. My first dual 5 gallon batches were excellent. The only bummer was that I tore through all 10 gallons in 3 weekends by myself. I brewed up another 10 gallons this past weekend though, so no worries.

Do you like shrimp? How about jalapenos? Cream cheese? Rice? of course you do. So, would you be surprised that you can make some wicked sushi using those ingredients? When a lot of people hear sushi, they think about eating a chunk of shitty raw fish. Well, for those not in the know, the "sushi" in sushi describes the style of rice used, and nothing else. What does this mean? Well, if you take sushi rice, and stick a fucking pizza in it, it is sushi. So get that stupid raw fish shit out of your head, you can make sushi out of anything. Also, its really easy, check it out.

First things first, you need some sushi rice. How do you make that happen? Well, get some calrose rice from any grocery store and prepare it according to the directions. Next, to transform it into sticky rice for sushi you add a mixture of rice wine vinegar, sugar, and kosher salt in a 2:2:1 ratio. 2 parts RWG, 2 parts sugar, and 1 part kosher salt. Heat this solution in a microwave for a few seconds and stir it to make sure the solids dissolve, then dump it on the rice, and stir it around to coat all the grains. Then let it sit until it is room temperature. This could take nearly an hour if you don't want to sit in fan it like Japanese peeps might do.



Next, you need a plate full of some kinda shit to put in the sushi. This could be literally anything... chicken, bear meat, tears from a witch, captain crunch cereal, a phone book, your dead grandmother's ashes, anything! I like shrimp, jalapeno, and cream cheese so I will use that. Also, I will use crab meat, cucumber, and avocados, to make classic California rolls.



K, so you got your rice and all yer shit together, now you really only need some nori, or seaweed sheets. These sheets do not have much flavor in my opinion, and are primarily used to hold everything together easily, almost like edible string or paper or something. I also use a sushi mat, what is nothing more than small bamboo sticks tied together. This is not required, and you could probably use damn near anything instead, or nothing, it just makes it a little easier to roll.

So, you lay down the nori shit, shiny side down, and spread some rice on it. A thin layer of rice only, or your rolls will be huge. maybe 1/4" or less in thickness on the rice layer will suffice. Next, pile some of your crap on there, and just roll it up.

On the California rolls, you want the rice on the outside instead of the nori. So to do that, lay down the nori, add your rice to it, then turn it over. I wrap my sushi mat with plastic wrap to it doesn't stick too much. Then pile you stuff on as normal and roll.

Next, take a really sharp knife and wet the blade, and cut the roll in half, then cut each half into thirds. Toss all the pieces on a plate, and if you want, get you some soy sauce, wasabi, and ginger to complete the experience.

So, sushi doesn't have to be confusing, scary, or difficult to make. Its quick and easy and can be made out of anything. Maybe you could make a great big huge one and stick your sister in it!

The finished product!!

...and yes, I fucking already know that some of the rolls on the plate appear to have fallen apart. I was balls deep into the beer when I made these. Plus, you don't have to eat it I do, so take your opinions and wipe your dick with em.

Ok, so I went to Austin this past weekend to see Metallica. They are one of my favorite bands. They were playing a tiny venue that only holds about 2000 people, rather than the 30,000-50,0000 at a normal show. They were doing this to promote their new Guitar Hero: Metallica game. I entered a drawing for the passes to the show thru the Metallica fan club. Joining the fan club is the only way to get good pre-sale tickets to their shows and to enter drawings for meet and greet passes, and for special events like this Guitar Hero release party. Anyway, so I entered the drawing and won. woot!

I have several friends that live in Austin so I would also have a free place to stay. We went down a day early to hang out, and had a good time. This was also the weekend of the the South By Southwest festival, so the entire town was swamped with people. We grabbed some fish tacos at Wahoo's, and then went next door to Dirty Bill's to pick up our free credentials for the show. It was a lot easier than I anticipated. I told them my name, and they handed me the laminates.



It didn't take very long so we decided to hit Opal Devine's across the street and have a few beers. The Metallica show was not until later in the evening, so we then went to "Type by Typewriter". This is a precursor to the "Fuck by Fuck Yall v2.0" festival. These are events put on by locals in response to the SXSW festival invading their town. Free admission, free beer, free entertainment. The opposite of SXSW. Basically its a small outdoor music festival in some dudes back yard. He has a big stage set up and gets lots of bands from all over the world to play short sets all day. He even has a goat named Yogi. It was a blast. I was exposed to music I typically do not encounter. There was a band there called "Asukusa Jinta" from Japan that describes themselves as a hardcore marching brass band, and they were fucking awesome! If you get a chance check them out at http://www.myspace.com/asakusajinta. They are mega rad.

So after hanging out at TXTW/FXFY for a while we went back to my friends house to call a cab to take us over to the Metallica show. I wanted to take a cab so that I could drink mass quantities of beer and not have to operate a motor vehicle. The cab place said the cab would be there "within 30 minutes". This would be perfect whereas we were supposed to be there at 6:15pm, and it was 5:20pm. 5:50pm rolls around.. no cab. 6:00pm rolls around.. no cab. 6:10pm rolls around.. no cab! What the fuck? So, I call up the cab place and tell them its been nearly an hour, and their response is simply that they "are still trying to get a cab" out to me. Being late freaks me out. It always has. Being late to me is inexcusable, you should never be late to anything you disrespectful bastard! now, the stupid cab company, who does not give a shit about anything, has put me in this scenario. Fuck it.

I hop in my truck and head to downtown. I find a little parking lot for 10 bucks maybe 6 blocks from Stubb's Bar-B-Q, which is where the show was taking place. There is one empty slot and my fuckin truck is way too big to fit into it. The lady tells me that there is another lot up the street, so I go to it instead. Now I am maybe 7 or 8 blocks away. So we hoof it at full speed to get the the damn thing. They have various lines to get into the thing, and we get in the 'guests of Metallica' line since we have the proper credentials. The line goes down the street, around the corner, and down another street. Wow. We get in line and it immediately starts moving. woot! About 5 minutes later, we were inside ready to rock. All the stress from the cab company and their bullshit for nothing. If we had gotten there early, we would have just stood in line.

Stubb's is an outdoor venue and there are no chairs. I know Metallica is not going on until around 10:00pm, and its 6:30pm. Damn, this is going to be a long night. So, this DJ dude called "Bassnectar" plays for a while, then the Silversun Pickups jammed a set. Then Metallica took the stage and rocked the house. They were tight and heavy. It was bizarre to see them in such a small setting. No fancy lights, no magic stage, no pyrotechnics, no room to perform theatrics, just 4 dudes playing their instruments. Quite a departure from the almost mythical entity they appear to be at a huge tour show. I saw them as just some band displaying their wares.


This picture is blurry but I thought it was funny to see all the cameras people were holding.










I was maybe 25-30 feet from the stage. I chose this spot because there was a tree to lean against, which I figured would be a good idea since I had to stand there so long. I could have walked right up to the stage and leaned against it I suppose, but I wanted to be able to see everything. I don't know if you have ever been to a metal show, but it can get pretty intense. Lots of sweaty stinky bastards standing shoulder to shoulder, and belly to back, literally standing room only, all tossing beer around, and screaming lyrics at the top of their lungs, and headbanging, with no regard for anyone or anything around them. You get shoved around, you get trampled on, you get spit on, you get beer poured all over you, you almost get into a fight every 10 minutes. It is sheer hell, yet it is fucking amazingly awesome. There was a big bloody dirty nasty mosh pit a few feet away, and you fear if it grows larger, you might have to drop a few mofos. It was extraordinarily intense. The entire event was killer and I loved it. Seeing a show like that is very retro for me. I stood up in one spot a little over 6 hours that night. I am older and more refined, so it was a complete 180 from what I am used to.... air conditioning, chairs, etc. It reminded me that I am now old. Would I do it again? Sure, in a heartbeat. Would I do it again tomorrow? probably not.

But, at least I am not a pussy.

Phase IV - this will probably be pretty lengthy, but I'd like to get closure on this project in this last post on the subject.

I have always hated staining. I suck at it, and everything I have ever stained looks horrible. The casual observer might not catch all the flaws and inconsistencies, but I know they are there, so in my head, the entire project can be junk due to piss poor staining.

Since I was using really soft wood, I decided to go with a wood conditioner to prepare the wood for staining. For the stain itself, I decided to use Minwax #231, which is described as "Gunstock" color. I have used this color before, and I like it. To seal the project I decided on Minwax "Polycrylic". I have used this before as well and it is easy to work with and water based, for easy clean up.



After purchasing the coatings, I dragged out my Campbell Hausfeld HVLP sprayer system. If you are not familiar with HVLP, it stands for 'high volume low pressure' and it is exactly what you might think. It sprays a high volume of material at low pressures. This way, you don't get much overspray and thus wasted material, and a simple basic turbine provides the air rather than an elaborate/expensive compressed air rig. So I loaded up the wood conditioner in the gun and made a few test sprays on the back of the unit. SHITTY! My gun was old and worn out, and worst of all, caked up with leftover gunk from my past projects. DAMN IT! Long story short, I tried to clean it up and in the process of reassembly, I busted a screw rendering the entire gun useless. After some heavy debate I decided to just use staining sponges and rags to lay on the finish.

The wood conditioner went on using this method with no problems whatsoever. This makes sense though, since it is clear, and you can't really fuck it up. Next came the stain. This is where things started going south. The idea is to apply it with a sponge or a rag, let it sit for a few minutes to soak in, then remove the excess. I soon realized that the unit was so damn big, that A. I would not be able to apply it all before having to wipe off the excess, and B. is was going to be hard, backbreaking work, due to the size of it, and taking into account having to lean in awkward positions to reach all the parts. Ideally, you would want to work on the piece upright, but I decided this would not be feasible because the damn thing was 8 feet high, and having to stand on a ladder while staining seemed like a bad idea. One downside of this is that the stain would 'run' towards the back of the thing rather than towards the ground. But I pushed onward. I eventually got the stain on and I am glad that part was done.

After taking a step back, I started seeing major flaws, but by that time, it was really too late to do anything about them. The first problem was that the glue used for the shelving and such was not properly sanded down where it had ran and/or been wiped off. I knew that the glue was there, and I made an attempt to remove the glue using my orbital sander as well as manually sanding it by hand prior to staining. I guess I didn't do a good enough job. Secondly, the 'plastic wood' hole filler I used to fill in the tiny nail holes on the side trim pieces changed the surface of the wood and cause the stain to be discolored where it was smeared on the surface.

Anyhoo, nothing much can be done about it at this point. So screw it. I just need a place to stash books, and regardless of how it looks, it will still do just that.
So, after learning what a huge pain in the asshole it was to put on the stain, i decided not to take the same chance with the Polycrylic. After another internal debate, I opted to purchase a new HVLP gun to replace my busted one. Campbell Hausfeld has a semi-pro version that is better than the consumer model, yet not as expensive as the pro version. I found one at sears for around 60 bucks. Sweet. A few days pass and the gun is delivered, and I spray on the sealer, and its easy, and awesome. Do yourself a favor if you have the means, don't do stuff by hand if you don't absolutely have to.

Ok, so after letting it dry for a couple of days, it was time to move it in the house. Turns out that the damn thing is so big that the only way to get it in the house was to lug it out the garage door and through the backyard and into the backdoor of the house. Seems like everything I build ends up this way, so no surprise there. Next problem is that it was so bulky/heavy that my gal would be unable to carry it with me. It had been raining for several days so that added another layer of complexity. After a dozen beers or so, I came up with a plan. Since she would be unable to carry it, what if I made it so that she could set it down whenever she wanted, then we could go in small stages. The solution, which I did not bother to photograph, was to put a towel on the top and bottom of the piece, then add a piece of large cardboard on the bottom, and then duct tape it all to the unit. It turned out to be perfect. When it got too heavy or bulky for her, she just sat her end down on the ground, and I balanced my end on my feet. I had on my motorcycle boots with hard toes, so this was not a problem. We made maybe 10 stops along the way to rest, but alas, we got the damn thing in the house.

After trying a couple of different positions in our front room, we picked a spot for the thing to live permanently. Since it was so damn big, I had to attach it to the wall. To make this inconspicuous, I decided to get some small "L" brackets, and attach the brackets to the shelf and to the wall. Fortunately, the position we chose served us well, because there were 3 wall studs behind it to attach the brackets to.

So that was it, it was built, stained, sealed, and installed. Only one last thing to do, fill it with books. We grabbed all the books we could see that were laying around the house, and that looks like this:

The bookshelf is almost full, just from the stuff we had laying around. This does not account for all the books we have in boxes in our spare bedroom, so I may have to start thinking about building another one 8-).

So, there you have it. Now go build your own.

Two quick wacky updates. 1. I ran over my fucking new HVLP gun with my truck somehow and broke it. More on that later. 2. I am off to Austin for the weekend to hang out with friends and hang out with MetallicA at their "super secret" show that I won credentials for in a drawing. more on this later as well, and hopefully some KICK ASS pictures!

Phase III = Profit!

OK, not really, but phase III consisted of attaching the back to the unit. To do this, I simply laid the entire project face down onto some support boards so as not to scratch the front, and then ran a line of gorilla glue around every surface that was facing up. I then laid my sanded 4x8 sheet of 1.4" plywood on top of it, being careful to make sure that the sanded side faced down, which is the front. I then grabbed about 50 things from my garage and set them on top of it to weigh it down to dry over night. The next day, I added a few nails for good measure. So then the project looked like this:



...and here is a closeup of one of the shelves in place.



Now, the next step was to add the trim around the top and bottom. In order to do this, you have to cut some pretty precise angles on baseboard and trim pieces, which can be REALLY shitty if you don't have the correct tools. Unfortunately for me, I did not. Here is my existing mitre box contraption.



As you can see, this is a fucking shitty plastic mitre box attached to a 2x4, then clamped into a small workbench. Since I was having to cut the baseboard at a 45 degree angle across the end, and not across the front, this was amazingly shitty. Having to use the manual piece of retarded crap saw didn't help matters any. I have used this useless abortion of a tool for 6 years. So to rectify it, I bought this:



It was roughly a $100 dollar investment, and I will have it forever, so I figured would pay for itself. Well, it ended up paying for itself in one or two days time, when you take into account frustration, manual labor, and potential loss of materials due to piss poor cuts. I can now throw the old shit into outer space, or feed it to an animal or something. By the way, the new shit will saw right on through thick walled 4" PVC as well, which would have taken LOTS of time and effort to cut with a hacksaw.

So, with my saw in use, I was able to make precise quick work of the trim. A few cuts and a bit of fancy gorilla glue and clamp work later and most of the trim was attached. Here is how that turned out so far:

Enough for today, another update in a couple of days. The hardest and most unforgiving part is coming up, staining and sealing!