Thunder of Wade

I worked on the headboard yesterday when I got home and got all the pieces put together. Things went pretty smoothly, though I’ve got one screw that my drill kept slipping in that I’ll never be able to get out. Otherwise, it went just as I had hoped and I was able to attach it to my bedframe yesterday without any problems. I’ll still need to take it down and do some sanding and staining, but it was a very productive afternoon. I think the project costs on this one are about $38 so far. The stain won’t be too much more, so all in all it’s been very cost effective compared to buying one in a store.

So, is there a footboard in my future? Not likely. The attachment point for the foot of the bed is a hook-like shape and that would take some construction beyond my ability. Plus, I tend to flail around quite a bit when I sleep and smacking into a foot board wouldn’t be fun.

I had a dream last night that I was pregnant on the beach and went into labor – which apparently was a snap. I was instructed to cut the cord myself – which seemed a little much to ask of me after that ordel – but I did it anyway. Not a lot of detail in this dream, but even this little bit was weird enough to note – though it’s not the first time I’ve dreamed about being pregnant.

Tonight’s projects involve a trip to the comic store (it is wednesday after all), a trip to home depot for paint and stain, and maybe the grocery store if I have time. I want to try and do a little more stained glass before I return the soldering gun.

Well, that’s it for now, time to get back to work…

A quick stop at Home depot for wood screws and I was ready to begin my headboard project in earnst. Though, as it turns out, I didn’t get to that part. Took me a while to get everything set up in the front of my apartment and just as I was ready to fire up the circular saw and cut my lumber, my neighbors cames out and started talking two doors down from me. I went back in and started my laundry, then watered my plant, but they were still there. So, I just picked up the circular saw and turned to them until I got their attention. I apolgised for the noise in advance and they said it wouldn’t bother. 10 seconds later they had all gone back into their apartment. Hey, I warned them. The sawing when pretty smoothly, but I thought that the sound of one power tool in the evening would be more than enough, so I packed that project up and started on the soldering project while I still had light.

In between there, I called my mom since I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her yesterday. She was happy to hear from me, but couldn’t talk as they were getting ready for a wedding at the shelter where she has been volunteering. So, I told her I’d call her later and I went back to my soldering.

The new soldering iron I got worked great! I think I might actually be able to produce something worthwhile – though I had a little trouble with the outer edges. Still, not bad for my second attempt. I worked on that until it got too dark to see, then I went inside to have dinner while everything cooled off enough to put away.

Mom called me back after dinner and said that the wedding went really well – and all the “gear” (dresses, cake, tuxes, etc) had been donated. So, she was helping get stuff returned – and apparently trying to chase down the flower girls who were having too much fun.

She’s doing well, but she’s tired and ready to come home. I gues the scheduleing has been weird – alternatly shorthanded and then overflow. She sounded like she’s in good spirits and in her element – helping people and organizing things. 🙂

After talking to mom, I fired up the playstation and made some progress on castlevania: Lament of Innocence. For a vampire hunting game, there really aren’t many vampires so far. I would have also liked to see more selection in the weapons – but the whip will just have to do for now.

Well, I think it’s going to be a busy day for me – better get to it…

Did a little traveling this weekend – went with a friend down to columbus so that he could buy a car from his brother at the dealership where he works. The dealership is about 20 minutes away from where my family lives, so after picking up the car we headed further south and visited my dad and my sister for the afternoon. Spent most of the time out on Dad’s deck and enjoyed the weather and the conversations. Had to head back on Saturday since everyone had plans for Sunday, but it was still a good, if rather short, visit.

On Sunday, I headed to Home Depot to get the lumber for my headboard that I want to build. Had a little trouble with the in-store traffic. Loaded up the car (good thing I have a fold-down back seat) and headed home. I started to get a headache and some distored vision, so I took some Aleave and tried to sleep for a while. Got up, had some dinner and did a little reading before I went to bed. Didn’t get anything done on the headboard, but I think thing should go smoothly this afternoon when I get home from work.

Also, a big thank you to my friend who loaned me a higher powered soldering gun. I’m going to give that a try this evening as well and if it helps, I may get one of my own.

Well, that’s it for me – time to get back to work…

Picked up a new game recently called Psychonauts for the Playstation 2. The main character is a kid named Raz who’s at a Psychic Summer camp to learn psychic powers and earn merit badges. The game play is pretty good – though alternately too easy and too difficult. The best parts are the levels when he has to go into someone’s mind. He has to track down luggage (emotional baggage) and figments of imagination, do battle with mental censors, and explore terrain ranging from Lungfishoplois to a surreal Milkman conspiracy.

Raz learns levitation, pyrokinesis, and a psi-blast – and he uses little clumps of anger for ammo.

All in all, a fun and slightly addictive game. And strangely enough, it hasn’t resulted in any really weird dreams.

It’s been a busy week and the weekend should be fairly busy too. Lots of driving to do. I think, if I’ve got time on Sunday, that I’m going to get some lumber and do a little building. I’ve been thinking about making a headboard for my bed and I’m running out of good weather to work on it outside.

Got a meeting coming up in a few, so I’d best get back to work…

I had a dream last night that I was back in college – though my first class was held in an elementry school. It was an art class and the first project the teacher showed us was a bit of origami. Which would be excellent, since I’ve had a lot of practice in that, and as luck would furhter have it – I knew how make the model the teacher was demonstrating. Materials were passed out and disaster struck. For some reason, everyone else got normal squares of copy paper – and I got a lopsided rectangle with rough edges. And it wasn’t paper, it was a weird mix of velum and a plastic foil. So, it was difficult to make a crease since it tended to unfold and it tore really easily. When everyone else was done with their perfect (and very simple) models – mine was still a hideous work in progress. Everyone was stareing at me when I woke up.

In other news…Mom has been checking in and is doing fine helping at a shelter in Florida. She’s working long shifts, but she’s okay.

Work has been busy this week – so I guess I’d better get back to it….

I’ve been listening to Aimee Mann’s newest album – “The Forgotten Arm”. Really great stuff, but there’s one song on there called “little bombs” that kinda messes me up a bit. This part really gets me…

Life just kind of empties out
Less a deluge than a drought
Less a giant mushroom cloud
Than an unexploded shell
Inside a cell
Of the Lennox Hotel

Her album is a story about two lovers…so, of course tragedy. I haven’t caught everything about the story yet, even after repeated listenings, but that little section just about reduces me to tears. The whole song paints a very vivid and precise picture of this person’s reality and how it falls apart around them. You can almost see them standing there, being destroyed.

In other news…Mom has been asked to volunteer to help out with relief efforts in the south. We’re not sure if she’s headed to Florida, or Louisiana – it’s scary either way. I’m glad she’s able to help, but, well, you know…

Also, classes start this week so I’m hiding out in my office – and I brought my lunch today. It’s usually a good plan for at least the first week of school. Parking is an issue and the student union is a mess at lunch time. I’m not sure I packed enough this morning – might have to make a snack machine run later.

Well, that’s it for now. Back to work…

I set up shop on the back porch for my first stained glass project last night. With instructions at the ready, I started out…

1. Scoring the glass. Easy as pie – I didn’t try the more complicated inside curves, but the straight lines were literally a snap.

2. Adding copper foil to the edges. Not bad – I had a little trouble with the first piece, but it wasn’t too tough once I got the hang of it.

3. Adding flux. Doesn’t really count – any idiot could do that and this idiot was up to the challange.

4. Soldering. We’ll start with the success part of this – the pieces of glass that I had prepped did stay together. However… ugly. Very ugly.

I think my problem was that the soldering iron cooled down faster than I expected. I’d be going along for a couple of seconds and it was suddenly stop being helpful. I guess I was expecting it to stay hotter for longer than that. Apparently, I thought I was purchsing a powerful tool and bought Barbie’s First Soldering Iron ™.

So, it’s pretty ugly and I was frustrated toward the end of the evening. Ironically, it took a while for the iron to cool down to where I could put it away – especially since I couldn’t get the stuff to stay hot for very long.

Anyway, that was my first trial run.

Last night I dreamed that a trans-dimensional shape-shifting cosmically powered alien landed in my parking space. It was the size of a gerbil. At least to start – then it started some pretty impressive shape shifting and ended up the size of a truck – though got back around to at least looking like a gerbil again. It went on and on about how it was there to study and test us – if we were worthy of keeping around after the invasion. I felt a little stressed that my actions might effect the fate of humanity, but I hung in there and made sure it had plenty of treats. I woke up before I learned what it concluded.

That’s it for now – back to work…

I was feeling peckish yesterday when I got home from work, so I decided to take myself for a walk. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making stained glass – the real kind with solder and extream heat – so my planned destination was Home Deport, about 2 or 3 miles from my apartment.

The walk there was mostly unevently, though I did practice my “folding in the air” origami technique and built a couple of models while I was walking. I think I overextended myself as my hands got a little shaky, but I made it to HD with no trouble. I found the soldering iron, the solder, and the flux all in one section and did the self checkout. Borders is right across the parking lot, but I wasn’t sure what to do with my current purchases. So, the solder and flux went into my pockets and the iron got tucked into the back of my pants.

I was looking for The Ring Two at borders, but they didn’t have it yet. So, I got a magazine and a book on how to actually make stained glass (who would have guessed? I bought instructions.) and then trucked over to Wendy’s for dinner. I got it to go, but figured the sandwich would be tough to eat on the fly – or on the walk, as the case may be. So, I stopped again at home depot and ate my dinner on the grass behind the sample buildings. It was peaceful.

The walk home was fine – though I wasn’t able to fold as easily since I had the bag of stuff with me. And it mostly worked – I was tired and less cranky when I got home, though I’m still about 15% more cranky than usual.

Got me thinking a little about my internal walls – and I do have more than my share of them. I’ve got some ideas about my internal bricklayer, but I think I’ll hold off on that topic for today. Too much to do here at work today to spend more time in the blog.

Later…

On the drive to visit my family last weekend, I got stuck in traffic in a construction zone – behind an RV. So, no only was I not moving very fast, I also couldn’t even see why we were stopped. Fortunatly, I had plenty of new music and a stack of Origami paper, so I was content to wait it out – since I really didn’t have any other options. While I was singing along with the music, I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw a woman in the car behind me – looking more bored than I’ve ever seen one human being look.

So, I quickly folded a crane and waited until we advanced a few feet, then came to a complete stop. Putting my car in park, I got out and headed back to her vechicle. She rolled down her window and I handed her the crane – telling her that I made it for her. She thanked me and I showed her how to make the wings flap. She told me I was clever – which I knew and which is usually my downfall. And I gave her a wave as I headed back to my car. The rest of the traffic jam portion of my trip I occasionally glanced back to see that she was in a much better mood.

Over the weekend, I had a dream that my gas-permable broke in my eye. Which is pretty bad, but the worst was that a sliver of the contact cut my eyeball and I started to bleed. I remember looking down and seeing the blood that had dripped out of my eye fall and hit the table. I think I was looking for some tweezers to pull the sliver out when I woke up.

The first thing I did when I woke up was gently rub my eyes to make sure they were okay – and I didn’t put my contacts in for several hours after that.

Which makes me wonder. I have nightmares all the time and people usually blame them on all the weird books, movies, and video games that I enjoy. But, the contact thing wasn’t related to anything like that. Are my dreams weird because of the weird stuff in books and games – or are my dreams weird because I’m weird and those elements just end up there?

Food for thought, I guess.

Well, back to work…

So, two days in a row – while driving – I had people on foot look toward my car. See me. Make freaking eye contact with me.

And still walk right out in front of my moving car.

One guy was at an intersection talking on his cell phone – he crossed against the light. The other guy just crossed in the middle of the street.

And what really gets me is that they didn’t even give the illusion of hurrying. Hello? What’s up with that? If you’re going to be so dense as to delibertly step out in front of a moving car, shouldn’t you at least hustle a little bit? I mean, come on people!

So, I had to slow down to avoid hitting them. Which annoyed me. Again.

In other news, I watched myself get a headache last night. Ummm…yeah, better explain that one. The cluster headaches that I get will occationally have a visual element to them, a distortion that looks like the transporter effect from Star Trek the Orginal Series. Not the Next Generation, mind you, but the old style. Like hunderds of little points of light all clustered together that form in my perferial vision of one eye and then expand. It got worse for a little bit as it expanded, then it retreated. As my vision returned to normal, the headache started to kick in. Which actually worked out well as I had time to finish my dinner, take some Aleeve, and lay down with a cool cloth on my head before it really got bad. I went to bed early and slept pretty well – but my head still hurts a bit this morning. Aftereffects, I guess.

I had a dream last night that my great-grandmother was still alive and we all went to visit her in her hobbit house. My uncle (who’s over 6 foot tall) and I had some trouble with the doors, but it was a nice visit. It should be noted that she had all her applicances lined up on one wall. Fridge, stove, freezer, washer, dryer – it looked like Sears. And she also called me Randy – though I totally let the name thing slide as at this point she would have been 104 years old.

Well, that’s it for me. Got two back-to-back training sessions to conduct today so I’d better get ready. Later…