Halloween Memories

Every year around this time I think about the time, many years ago, when I helped raise money for the Tex-Annes (my sister's drill team) by working in a haunted house at Six Flags Fright Fest.  One time I was the nanny for Rosemary's baby.  I had to sit in a rocking chair and make it look like I was a robot and then jump out and scare people.  I was wearing this really creepy mask along with the old school dress they had me in.

One guy came through with his little girl, who was maybe six years old, and she was screaming and crying and saying "She's gonna jump out at me!" over and over again so I stayed perfectly still and did not jump out because I have been that little girl before.  I understood what she was going through and didn't want to scare her even more than she already was.  I did want to smack her dad for taking her into the haunted house in the first place, though.

  The best moment, was when this group of guys who were in their late 20s or so came into the room and started messing with me, flipping me off.  One even stuck his finger in the hole in my mask (if I had any idea how clean his finger was I would have bitten it).  They were cussing at me as well.  They started to walk away and I jumped out at them.  They all screamed like little girls and then started apologizing for the stuff they did and said.  I laughed so hard because I scared the crap out of guys who were literally twice my age at the time.

Another time I was the demon that was possessing this woman (who was a mannequin).  That mask was tighter on my face than the nanny mask so it was harder to breathe and I really hated being in there.  I had to leave after about twenty minutes.

Here's something you have to understand about that whole experience.  I hate haunted house.  I don't like being scared.  I don't understand the purpose of intentionally scaring yourself.  I have been forced into haunted house by my siblings and by a girl's club field trip and I hated every single minute of both of them.  I spent the entire way through one of them with my head ducked down and my fingers in my ears and trying to get out as quickly as possible without looking at anything.  So you can imagine that working in a haunted house was not the most fun thing in the world for me.  Especially since I had to go through the haunted house to get to my station.  But I did it because it was a way to raise money for one of my sister's various and sundry trips.  And it ended up not being the worst experience I've ever had.  It was kind of fun getting to be "behind the scenes" at Six Flags for a little while.  I got to go into the costume department and things like that.

I have a lot of other Halloween memories but that one is the one that sticks with me the most.  

The Staff of Awesomeness

That is the Staff of Awesomeness.  I'm open to suggestions for other names.  It's approximately six feet tall. (I haven't measured it since it was completed).  I made this to go with a costume that all started with two bracelets that I got on clearance.  

I started with two 3/4" dowel rods and one 1/4" dowel rod.  The two dowel rods were actually four feet each and I cut one in half. 

The next step was to paint it gold.  I used hammered gold because it has kind of an antique look that goes with the bracelets.  After the paint dried, my dad drilled holes into one end of each dowel and then I used a small piece of the 1/4" dowel as a dowel pin to support it so it would wobble less.  (Sorry no pics or video of that)

I then had some more painting to do because there were some spots I missed the first time.  

After that paint dried, I used this stuff called Fiber Fix.  It's basically the same stuff they used on my cast when I broke my hand last year.  It's easy to use and hardens quickly and it's VERY secure.  So that staff is put together and will not wobble.  I decided to leave it black to give the staff a little character, and that is a natural place for me to put my hand. 

Next I did the orb for the top.  I used a clear plastic Christmas ornament and some glass paint.  

I poured a whole hell of a lot of paint into the ball and then shook it around to get that kind of smokey look.  It actually turned out a lot better than I thought it would.  And it took forever for the paint to dry because there was so much paint. 

I'm still not completely sure that the paint was dry when I got around to attaching it to the dowels.  I had to do a little sanding but I did slide the dowel into the ornament and then taped it in place with gold duct tape. 

I then cut the 1/4" dowel into six pieces approximately 5" in length.  I put glue on one end and attached that to the ornament and then I taped the dowel in place on the staff part.  (No pics of the step by step process of that because my dad helped and he was in his underwear at the time.) 

Once the glue dried, I used some more of the gold duct tape to reinforce the dowels and hold them in place.  I then coated the duct tape in glue.  

I then wrapped the whole thing with twine to cover up the duct tape to give it a really cool look.  

Once that was done I put painters tape around the top part and painted the twine with the same hammered gold as the rest of the staff.  

This is a close up of the top of the completed staff.  It only took me a few hours total over a couple of nights.  Once I have everything done, I'll post a picture of the entire costume.  I think it will be epic.  And I did mean that, I'm totally open for suggestions of other possible names.  

Building the Moment Box

This is the step by step process that I used to build The Moment Box.  You know, the Moment from Doctor Who.  I am building the box and my friend James is going to do all the decorating.  We are both part of DFW Cosplay Gallifrey and he cosplays the War Doctor.  We also have Ashley who cosplays the Interface so this will make a nice addition.  

I've got video of the first several steps as far as the sawing and measuring goes.  It's 19 minutes long or there about but it's kind of funny.  I also have the final lacquering process at the tail end of the video.  I don't have any video of the staining but here are the pictures as promised.  

I said in the video that I needed four 16 inch pieces and eight 12 inch pieces.  That was incorrect.  I actually needed four 15 inch pieces.  That was an easy fix, though.  

I almost ended up getting more stain on my hands than on the frame pieces.  It was an interesting process.  I had to use a paper towel to rub the stain on in order to get the right shade of the stain, but I did it.  

With the side panels, I actually went ahead and used the brush to apply the stain so that I could get the right shade.  Rubbing it on with a rag made it too light.  But the brush applied it at just the right shade so that was easy.  

I made the top and bottom panels first because that was the easiest to do.  I just had to place the panel down and then attach the frame pieces to it with wood glue.  The whole box is being put together with wood glue.  It's very strong wood glue that I use for all of my projects.  

I did two of the side panels like this.  Attached the frame pieces to the side.  That left me with the other two frame pieces to put in place.  

Here you can see the three support pieces that I put inside the box for weight support.  I have them attached to the bottom panel.  Then I attached one of the side panels with the two frame pieces.  

The next step was to attach one of the side panels that didn't have any frame pieces attached to it.  

And then there was the second side panel with no frame pieces attached.  And as I said, all of this was being attached with wood glue.  

And then there was the final side panel piece with the frame pieces attached.  It was very interesting getting everything lined up.  I will admit that I got wood glue all over my hands but it comes off skin very easily even though it attaches to wood like white on rice.  

And there you have the completed box.  The final step was spraying the clear lacquer onto the box.  I managed to do it on all of the sides except for the bottom.  That will have to wait until the lacquer dries.  

That is the moment box before all of the various gears and other decorations are added to it.  Just waiting for everything to dry so I can finish it up and then hand it off to James for the finale touches.  Woot.  

Dollar Shave Club

Today I am going to talk about something most people don't talk about.  Shaving.  My legs to be exact.  I know that most people don't like talking about that but it happens.  And this is not a paid advertisement.  I really wish I was getting paid for this.

One of the reasons I don't shave my legs that often is because of the cost of the replacement blades.  In order to get a good shave every other day I would have to replace the blades once a week.  In order to do that with my current razor, it would cost me about $16 a month because of the cost of the replacement blades.  That's $4 per blade.  Yes, it is a 5 blade razor, but still.

I decided, out of the blue, to try the Dollar Shave Club.  For $6 a month I get a 4 blade razor and I get 4 replacement blades each month.  That's a new blade every week for less than half the cost of my current blade.  And the best part?  This four blade razor actually gives me a better shave than a brand new razor with my 5 blade.  I am very glad that I tried this out and I recommend it to anyone.  While the advertising for the club is mainly geared toward men, they do have a razor that is designed for both men and women.

Dollar Shave Club.  Go for it.  You won't regret it.

The Auto ABCs

Because I'm bored.  I posted a list similar to this on livejournal a long time ago and here I am doing it again.  The Auto ABCs  There is either a car make or model for every letter of the alphabet.  Here you go.


Audi
Buick
Chevrolet
Dodge
Equinox (Chevy) 
Ford
Golf (VW)
Honda
Isuzu
Jeep
Kia
Lexus
Mitsubishi
Nissan
Optima (Kia)
Plymouth
Quest (Nissan)
Rio (Kia)
Suzuki 
Toyota
Uplander (Chevy) 
Volkswagon
Wagoneer (Jeep)
Xsara (Citreon)
Yugo
Zephyr (Lincoln)

Yes, this is exactly how bored I have been lately.  There you go.

The Car Statistics

Yeah this is the sometimes boring part of the trip.  This is how well my lovely little car, dubbed Mickey Smith, has done on this trip.  It was pretty cool.

Total miles driven was 2947.4 miles.

My car has an "average mpg" display and the lifetime average miles per gallon on my car went up from 25.1 mpg before I left town to 27.7 mpg when we got home.  LOTS of time spent on the highway, obviously.

Gas prices in LA weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be.  It didn't get up to $5 a gallon.

Total gallons of gas purchased is 90.125 including the gas I got right before we left town.

Total spent on gas $314.67.

That gives me an average gas mileage of 33 mpg and an average cost per gallon of $3.49.

Over all the trip was pretty cool.

From Arlington to LA. The fun begins

Road tripping out to LA from Arlington because my daughter is attending a boarding school out here and with all of her crap, I just couldn't afford to fly her.  Plus, I love to drive.  I mean, I do it for a living.  A living I wish paid better but still.  Anyway.  So the trip from Arlington to LA has been pretty cool.  We took I40 across and we're going to take I20 back.  It'll be a nice change of pace.  

It took us a whole 8 hours just to get out of the state of Texas.  Now, the halfway point between Arlington and LA along I20 is Deming, NM.  That is a whole 105 miles outside El Paso.  So yeah, Texas is friggin HUGE.  As I said, we took the I40 route to get here so that's a more northern route.  We went through the mountains and there was a lot of really cool scenery.  We stopped in Gallup, NM for the night.  That hotel was okay.  It had a microwave and a fridge and a TV.  It didn't have an air conditioner but the area is relatively cool.  We did have a fan, though.  

I noticed one major difference between the states other than elevation and terrain.  That would be the "don't drink and drive" campaign.  Arizona wins the award for the most hilarious one for sure.  Both Texas and New Mexico use the "Drive sober or get pulled over" campaign.  California uses the "Driving sober saves lives, including yours" route.  Arizona, however, decided that they would go with "Drive hammered and get nailed."  That made me laugh.  It's a great campaign.  I like it.  

On the way to the hotel in LA I noticed that the people here in California drive a lot crazier than the people in Texas and that is saying something, let me tell you. People in Texas are crazy assholes and the people out here in California are about 10 times worse.  I had so many people nearly scrape the side of my car because they were extremely impatient to get around me.  One guy flashed his brights at me because I wasn't going as fast as he would have liked.  He then nearly took off my back bumper to change lanes and nearly took off my front bumper to get in front of me.  

The highlight of this time was when this motorcycle came roaring through traffic, weaving in and out of cars and going about 20 to 25 miles per hour over the speed limit.  So we're going along and a little bit later here comes CHiPs.  It was a patrol car not a motorcycle though.  He's going along and we see the lights up ahead and he's gotten pretty far ahead of us.  I'm sure he was going very fast.  A little bit later we see people slowing down and we slow down and see the CHP officer on the side of the road and who does he have pulled over?  That's right, motorcycle asshole.  My mom, daughter, and I all cheered and I would have clapped if I hadn't been driving.  Stuff like that never happens in Arlington.  At least not that I have seen.  And I have seen motorcyclists doing stupider stuff than this guy did.  

So whoever you are CHP officer that was on I605 S around 930pm PDT I want to say thank you.  And I certainly appreciate you.  

We got to the hotel and checked in and my daughter and I came to check out the room and we had been given a suite.  Four beds, two bathrooms.  A microwave, a fridge.  Two TVs.  It's pretty epic.  And the place has a pool and a jacuzzi.  I am very glad this is where we're spending two nights.  Woot.  

I'll have another post in a few days when we get back to Texas from LA.  As I said, we're taking the I20 route so it's going to be different and could be fun.  

Along the way I have collected stickers for my car.  I just need an Arizona sticker, that I couldn't find at any of the stops we made, and I will have the full set.  Woot!