Category: Holiday

Prepping for the 4th

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been spending the weekend getting some minor projects around the house completed along with buying the groceries for our little July 4th party. There will only be eight of us for the day, but it should be a lot of fun. Along with food, we’ll likely play some board games, possibly watch a movie and play some video games. I’d guess there’ll be a lot of sitting around and talking too.

More DeLorean parts came in as well. I received Issues 156, 157, and 158 (which is the final issue). And there was also a surprise in the box: a movie poster for the documentary OUTATIME: Saving the DeLorean Time Machine.

Items Added to the Library

  • Movies:
  • Comics:
    • Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent Vol. 1 #4
    • The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 #27 (Legacy Vol. 1 #921)
    • The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 #28 (Legacy Vol. 1 #922)
    • The Avengers Vol. 9 (Legacy Vol. 1 #768)
    • Doctor Strange Vol. 6 #4 (Legacy Vol. 1 #430)
    • Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures Vol. 1 #4
    • Fantastic Four Vol. 7 #8 (Legacy: Vol. 1 #701)
    • Scarlet Witch Vol. 1 Annual 1
    • Silver Surfer: Ghost Light Vol. 1 #5
    • Star Wars Vol. 3 #35
    • Superman Vol. 5 #5
    • Superman: Lost Vol. 1 #4
    • Thor Vol. 6 #35 (Legacy Vol. 1 #761)
    • Warlock: Rebirth Vol. 1 #3

Happy Holidays

Posted on by Chewbode

I think it’s starting to sound cliche to say that I’ve been very busy in my day job lately, which is why I have been posting regularly. But, I’m gonna say it anyway. Over the past couple of months I’ve been able to re-build how my department works. As a result, projects are getting completed quicker and the team is getting happier as they see see their efforts bear fruit. I think we’re on a great track for 2021.

I’ve been experimenting with creating a schedule for my free time. I have so many interests and things I need to complete that, if I don’t organize and strucutre, the time will get wasted. For me, the approach to this will be identifying the things I need to do (projects), scheduling them, and then fitting in things I want to do around that. I’ll post more on this as I get closer to figuring it all out.

I currently have a backlog of 28 issues (7 months) of the DeLorean model subscription. This stems from an offer I received from Eaglemoss where, if I bought six months at once, I’d get a 25% discount. Since I was going to be getting these months anyway, it made complete sense to save a little money and do this. Well, the downside is making the time to actually assemble the car now (see previous paragraph). Once that big box showed up and I opened it and inventoried the issues, I knew I had a task ahead of me. And since then another month arrived! I need to prioritize this, for sure.

The podcast Unsubscribe button has been utilized heavily today. This was the natural progression of the unsubscribing I did from YouTube channels back in July. I cleaned house of everything that I don’t really need to be listening to. Currently, this is what I’ve decided I want to hear (in no particular order):

That’s it? Yep, that’s it. I felt like there was way too much time being spent on listneing to podcasts. With both a 45-55 minute drive into the office and a 45-55 minute drive home, you’d be right in thinking that I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts. And I do. But, with all of the re-organizing I’ve been doing in Q4 of 2020, I’ve realized that I’m spending too much time consuming and not enough time making or creating. Part of creating and problem solving is having time to think and get your thoughts in order. Even after trimming down my list to these four, I still have a little over five hours of podcasts to listen to weekly, on average, which will fill about three days of commuting. Now I can spend the rest of my commute thinking.

To round out the news, I was able to (FINALLY!) get around to properly calibrating my 3D printer yesterday. I’ve had several small projects I want to bang out, but parts weren’t fitting properly. Now they are. So, I’m going to be firing that up now.

Added to the video library since last post:

Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays, my friends!

Fireworks and Firewalls

Posted on by Chewbode

July 4thHappy Fourth of July, all! Cari and I have spent Saturday running errands, and yesterday was a lazy, movie day. Today is shaping up to be a mixture of the two. I think we’re going to go check out the fireworks tonight after I make a huge batch of nachos. Mmm…

Why no posts for a while? A little history: There were a bunch of WatchGuard Firebox X700s sitting around, unused for years at my old job. I got a hold of one and upgraded the RAM and CPU, put quieter fans in it, and loaded pfSense on it. It ran great.

But, the Ethernet interfaces were all 100MBps, and as I programmed the device more and more for the new house, I realized that moving data from one network segment to another was painfully slow with those interfaces and I began hunting for a new system with gigabit Ethernet. I found what I wanted, but needed to order from China. So, on Saturday, June 11, I did just that and then immediately went to some Forums where people had been talking about this appliance and posted that I had ordered one too, and would update everyone on my experience.

That night, sometime after 4:22am on Sunday, my Firebox died. Of course. Almost three weeks later, I finally got the new firewall in, programmed it, put it in place and began using it.

So, with bringing this website in-house a couple of months ago, the entire site was inaccessible until the last few days. Hence, no posts. Hopefully this new firewall is going to last a long time. So far, I love it.

Well, time to go jump in the pool for a bit.

Content

Posted on by Chewbode

I had an amazing time at Alex and Nel’s yesterday. I got to their place around 4:00pm. I had brought some items to make cocktails and immediately dove into bar-tending. First up was shots of Brain Hemorrhage, which consists of peach schnapps, Bailey’s, and Grenadine. Then I poured some Dra-Kahlua Martinis which had Cointreau, Congnac, Kahlua, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Really good. Lastly, I threw together Melon liqueur, Bailey’s, and vodka martinis. We never finished them as they were pretty strong and we were all full from dinner.

We took the kids out Trick Or Treating. Brandon dressed up as Darth Vader and Ryan went as the older Anakin Skywalker. I took several photos and videos, but one in particular I decided to spruce-up:

IMG_0152

After a couple of hours out and about, we headed back and the kids had some candy and went to bed and us adults hung out for a little bit and talked some more.

The time flew by way too fast, but I sorely needed that respite.

Sick and Weak Week

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been battling a cold for the past week. It hit me the night before Thanksgiving, and got progressively worst through Monday night. Even though I took the day off from work Monday, Tuesday I felt well enough to head back into the office. Unfortunately, the aching, soar throat and congestion caught back up with me today.

So, in general, Thanksgiving went off well. I went and picked my mom, sister and brother-in-law up and they stayed up at our place for the entire day. I dropped them back off later that night. We had the usual turkey, stuffing, pashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole and rutabagas. There was delicious pumpkin and apple pies for dessert.

On Black Friday, I took the day off, partly because I needed a break from work, partly because I was sick (I still did work from home most of the day). I ventured out to GameStop and decided to buy Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Wow. What a great game. At some point I’ll update the DA up here with that game and Mario Party 8 (the other game I recently bought for the Wii). I ended up playing a lot of the game Friday, but was just too darned sick to play since. I’m definitely hooked, tho.

Jeff’s book is finished. As a matter of fact, it’s already been printed and I have a copy of it. If you’re interested in getting a copy for a loved one (or even a pure enemy), you can buy it at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble’s website. It’s a lot of fun!

The Suncoast Studios site is under renovation. Over the next couple of days, you’ll see it offline. When it comes back up, it’ll be prepped and ready for Jeff’s book.

In other SCS news, the Tangible logo is nearly done. I have some Photoshop work to do tomorrow night and then I’ll just burn the files to DVDs and get them off to Brendan. Next up after that is the work for Eman, and finally Millard. I need to organize all the projects on my plate and make sure I understand the priorities…

Sick Thought of the Day: Tissue of (thorat) mucous.

Week 1, 2007

Posted on by Chewbode

The first week of 2007 has slipped into history and what do I have to show for it? The year is already 2.64% past us! I don’t have much to show. Yet.

After the aftermath of New Years, where Glen and Amy stayed over night and we had some drinks, food, and Glen and I played Star Wars Galaxies all night; I began the road to new employment. I applied for a couple positions in Tampa. One company e-mailed me back on the 2nd and asked if I’d be up for a phone interview on Friday, the 5th. Of course I said yes. I interviewed with them on Friday and they wanted me to come in for a face-to-face interview on Monday (yesterday). So, I got a haircut and shaved and went in Monday and met with the head-honchos for two hours. They will make the decision today on whether or not I get the job. I’ll know this afternoon. I think there were one or two other people in the running as well. I guess their IT Manager is leaving the company on the 16th, so they need to fill the position immediately. If I get it, I start tomorrow.

I’ve been playing a lot of SWG lately in my downtime. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting creative so I’ve tried to numb my mind with gaming. I have a really cool project I started and want to move forward with it, but just have had no energy to work on it. I’ve found that, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve had trouble hearing my inner-voice. I’ve constantly got music in my head or some sort of technical thing. My brain is still purging IIR out of it, as I’ve been having strange dreams for the last month or so about being there and working, but everyone knows I don’t work there anymore and I’m just working for the “fun of it”. All the people I interacted with on a daily basis are in the dream, albeit in different positions throughout the office. These dreams aren’t disturbing or anything, but when I wake up I feel weird for a few minutes, like how you feel when you have a dream about going to school or work with no pants on or something like that. Maybe it’s my unconscious mind telling me that I need to be working. I dunno. I’m sure when I get a new job, my creativity will filter back in and I’ll stop this mindless existance.

So, yeah, I’ve been playing SWG a lot. I have also been adding new artwork into the Digital Archive. I’ve added a drawing of Cavalier, the original Hypertask Industries logo, and a drawing I did of the X-Men team Excalibur. I’ll continue to add to this, of course, over time. The video games section needs to get fixed as well, as the PC titles are offline (I’ve got about four out of 20 or so titles fixed) and the PS2 and Xbox games still need to be adjusted.

Sick Thought of the Day: Buttercup finger thrust.

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been watching a lot of The Muppet Show courtesy of NetFlix. I decided to take a break from Battlestar Galactica (gasp!). However, the three Muppet discs are going back into the mailbox on Friday and BSG season 2.5 will be on its way to me.

Speaking of great things on the boob-tube, Shauna and I watched a great little independent film the other night called Unknown. The primes of the story is that five guys wake up from being passed out in an abandoned chemical factory with no memory of who they are or why they’re there. As the story progresses, their memories begin to trickle back into their heads and the men begin to piece together what happened and what’s going on.

I cleaned the apartment today and got everything ready for turkey day tomorrow. When Shauna got home from work, we prepped the rutabagas, stuffing, green bean casserole, and make a couple dozen cookies. Tomorrow’s the big day. I’ll post pictures.

It’s been very cool here the last couple of weeks. I think we’ve had the air conditioning off for the entire time. I love it. Each day this past five day or so, I’ve had the windows open and it’s gotten down to 63 to 65 degrees in the apartment with brisk winds blowing the stale air out of the place from time to time. I love winter time in Florida.

Sick Thought of the Day: Mashed potatoes in the butt crack. Cheese optional.

Post X-Mas

Posted on by Chewbode

Well, Christmas is now behind us by a couple of days, and I’m reeling over the fact that I gained four pounds. That’s probably from all the candy, since I only really had about one and a half plates of dinner on Sunday. I’ve been eating a lot of salt the last few days too. Maybe that’s it. I dunno. Maybe I just need to hit the gym and shut up. Ok. I’ll do that.

I’m going to spend some time today cataloging the tapes from the shoot last week and trying some samples out. Millard gave me the raw audio tracks, and I’m going to spend some time syncing things up to see how they sound.

Sick Thought of the Day: Worms in the ear.

The Aftermath

Posted on by Chewbode

Thanksgiving was a belly-busting success. We ate about a third of the food, send anther third home with people, and had about half of the final third left over in the fridge. Mmm, mmm. The whole day yesterday was about deflating mentally, eating tons of leftovers, watching movies, and sleeping. It was great.

However, today I’m gonna be more productive. I’ve got my Mountain Dew and bananas (heh…), and am ready to jump back into script writing. Will is coming down here around Christmas time and he’s agreed to collaborate on a project with me and Millard. I’m also going to be doing a second small script for this, and we’ll see where it goes. I’m not sure if I’d like to do something structured with Will or maybe go more improve. I think I’ll take the structured approach and see where it goes.

Sick Thought of the Day: Cajun Hot Stick*.

*Cajun Hot Stick: /cage-in hot sti-ck/ 1. n. A spicy meat stick. 2. n. The act in which the cock is taken out of her pooper and slathered in the pool of dip spit in the small of her back and then re-inserted.