Where have the 00's gone?

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." - William Shakespeare

Oh such empty words of dispare and defeat upon the furrowed face of Macbeth during his most troubling of times. He saw an end with little meaning or recourse, devoid of hope and direction. But we shall endeavor where he failed. Rebirth brings new life. A new year washes away the burdens of the past. Let us celebrate this awakening and revel knee keep in the fountain of innocence. Sound and fury, with a primal yalp! I believe Walt Whitman said it best, "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life! And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Exactly!

With that said, Happy New Year battlesnakes.... start sucking the marrow!

Gotta support my gadget habit somehow.

After a slight hiatus from the working world, e-unit is back in the saddle... or ergonomic office chair as it were. Here's an interesting statistic, general street crime rates fell 20% during the time of my non-employed status. Coincidence? I can't substantiate those numbers nor can speak on any correlation you may or may not draw from them but I can say this... I'm still out there suckas, just not between the hours of 8 an 5. Petty theft, that's a'beatin.

So I'm workin for Commonwealth Technology now. I pretty much get to design and build stuff like all day long. Big stretch huh? And they've got some pretty nice tools here. It's a little different mindset from working on projects with only an exacto knife and a hammer at home. Hmmm, maybe the stuff I make at CTI may actually work. I'm not holding my breath though.

Speaking of hobbies, I have a couple projects nearing completion so they'll be posted here in the next couple of weeks. I've got my sister's etched bar sign almost done and the communication code for the e-unit arcade display is nearly bug free. Will this thing ever be done?

Plexiglas, the other clear synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate.

I wouldn't consider myself a controlling, type "A" personality, but I do push plexi around quite a bit. I've cooked it, bent it, drilled through it, sanded it, polished it, cut it, cracked it, and scowled in its general direction quite a few times. And I'm not done yet. I have the technology, means, time, and minimal artistic ability to etch me some plexi so that's what I'm gonna do.

My sister has a shelving unit with a few select spirits adorning it so I thought I'd etch her a nice sign so no one confuses it as anything less than a full fledged drink barn.

After a few internet searches, I determined a good plan of attack for the project. First thing I did was throw together some fontage and a couple clipart images. When I was pleased with the design, I flipped it and printed it. Oddly enough, that turned out the be the hardest part of the project. The etching was a breeze. It wasn't so much me as it was the Dremel tool. It's good. The trick is to hold the rotary tool firmly enough so as to avoid marking outside of the lines but gentle enough to allow for finer details. Not so easy when you're working at 5000 rpm's. There is more work to be done though. To make the etching really pop, I'm gonna light the thing up with some RGB LED's. 12,000 mcd's is a little overkill don't you think. Yeah me too... 12K it is then. I already have the color code drivers written for my fav PIC micro so all I have to do is solder up some components and make a cool frame. Don't know how the frame should look just yet but I'm sure I'll think of something. Updates to follow.

Cheeseburgers!

The bomb and I made our usual grocery run before entering Shenandoah where we decided upon a supper of burgers for what could be the last camping trip of the season.

"Sir, I can't help but notice this particular meat is prominently displayed within your viewable cooler unit. It isn't the leanest I've seen, but it might service our needs quite well. Your expression suggests that you agree with our decision. What's that? You say that we won't be able to surpass your sirloin selection no matter where we go. Bravado indeed. So it is in your opinion that you are the only person capable of besting the ground chuck that lay before us. Ha, that may be true but I am willing to bet that I could find one person willing an attempt at beating your meat... er...maybe not. We'll take two ready made patties to go. H, let's get outta here"

"It's so choice... if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up"

2003 Lexus RX300, 32 large on the O, nice scratch on the tag, nav on the dash, wood on the wheel... I couldn't say no.

I don't know what to call this thing. I like saying truck but it's more a car than anything else. Same car wheelbase, same car HP, same car feel; but then there's the always on AWD and SUVish interior space. Speaking of interior...

Love that spruce! Car, tuck, whatever... it's my new ride. Prior to purchase time, I really couldn't have envisioned myself in a sport ute but this machine is a great mix of comfort, utility, fun, efficiency, price and style. To put it another way, it's what I wanted but didn't think I was going to find. Sumo!

K, let's find some balance here with some of the minor drawbacks. The nav unit is slightly out of date and the update is a little pricey. Don't get me started with that. And when did I start complaining about havin a GPS in the vehicle? Moving on. Is an auxiliary audio input so hard? You're a Japanese car maker for gosh darn sake.... guys, you're better than that. I'm on the case though. My factory wire harnesses are in the mail and should be here soon. All I have to do is hack the head unit comms, spoof the satellite radio as a second cd player and I'm golden. Plug and play is the only way to go, no tape player adapter for this cat. 220 ponies from V6 aint bad. It's a little sluggish up steep hills but at least it doesn't guzzle the petrol like its older brothers. And I can still dart around downtown DC with the best of them. Alright, back to the good. When I first sat in this car I felt like I'd been driving it for years. Thanks Lexus. The Battlesnake has your back too.

Master of Disguise

Here's some advice for all those little battlesnakes in training out there. You come across a human sized fluorescent green pipe sticking out of the ground with a huge man-eating plant sticking out of it... Don't jump on in when the plant disappears out of sight unless you really need the coins. Those plants don't stay hidden for long. There aint an ointment for that.

So we had a pretty successful 80's party a couple of weeks ago. Check out the link for some pictures. Going as Mario was pretty easy to bring together. A little fake stash here and a little iron-on transfer there and whalah. I wish I had enough energy to take a picture of the post party aftermath. I'm not sure anyone would want to see that. And I won't tell ya where I found the mustache the next morning. Well, behind the keg... Not really that weird but how'd it get there? Geekpad had their party the same night. I love the combo party, but I think this'll be the last time it happens here at club 1139.

There was some talk of a noise violation fine from the neighborhood homeowners ASSociation so I wrote an email to preemptively contest it. It's been a couple of weeks and no fine. Maybe a well thought out argument and kind words in search of a mutually beneficial resolution can go a long way. Who knew?

If anyone wants to go as Mario for All Hollow's Eve, let me know. Beside some scratchy facial hair, the getup is pretty comfortable.

Jetta-ta

I'd really hate to see the ol girl go but alas my lease is due in about a month (October '06) and the time has come to move on.

This was a good car though. Two benders, a freak Texas hail storm, countless speedbumps, DC traffic, Two cross country road trips... And this tank of a mid-sized sedan kept askin for more. It had a good mix of turbo induced power and 4 cylinder efficiency that made me appreciate this car's engineering at every turn. That kind of thing seems to be lost on the majority of Alphas out there. I suppose it's to be expected with a ride that could fit inside most SUV's of today but fightin the man is sort of a hobby of mine so it never really bothered me.

Unfortunately, the new VW's just don't have the styling or reliability of their older siblings. I believe I will go elsewhere to satisfy my new transportation needs. Any suggestions out there? I have a few options in mind but have yet to acquire the proper research needed to make an informed decision. I've heard good things about the Lexus preowned program but I'm not sure if buying right now is in the cards for me. I likey the lease, especially since you get a brand spankin new car with all the bells and whistles every few years. People will disagree with that choice citing the "rental" feeling and lack of investment value but I've crunched the numbers and any minimally added value of keeping a vehicle past the break even point isn't worth the upside of going new for me. The ideal situation would be to finally start my Lamborghini 25th Anniversary Countach kit project but I think that will have to wait for now. It will be mine... Oh yes, it will be mine.