Thanksgiving and Egg Nog

Nothing big to report this week. I have been writing papers and doing the thanksgiving thing. I cleaned my house from top to bottom and hosted my family here at my place. To say that my wife is a good cook is an understatement. Thanksgiving was amazing, everyone felt bloated even family members who normally do not eat much. The only pic I took was of the turkey, it turned out so good looking it could have been in a magazine. I wish I had a nice camera, I blame the loss of what it looked like to these pics on my phone camera. Suffice it to say this was the best looking turkey I have ever seen in person. Looked better than the ones in magazines when they cheat and spray paint them to look like that. All that and it was YUMMY! Everyone asked my wife how she got it so brown and tasty.

My contribution was basting said turkey, doing the dishes, baking my cookies the night before, and making my egg nog a couple days before. My cookies are simple but VERY good. Simply make a chocolate chip cookie batter without chocolate chips and bake in mini muffin tins. Then when you pull out of oven smash in the small reeses peanut butter cups immediately. I made these with my step mom one Christmas when I was probably ten to thirteen and remembered the recipe. My egg nog is currently on the eighth version. I started with the Martha Stewart recipe and have been changing it one ingredient at a time for years. I saved five Jack Daniels bottles which I de-labeled and wash to put it into when I make it. The original recipe makes way too much so I halved it. I usually get to make it twice a year so each time I tweak it a bit. If I ever get it perfect I will share the recipe here, for now it is not good enough for that. I think I will make another batch before Christmas and one actually for Christmas, maybe it will be time at that point.

Other than that I have been working on those papers I talked about, registered for classes next semester, and buying Christmas presents. My shopping is about 98% finished. Just stocking stuffers left. I always do my shopping on cyber Monday, mostly on Amazon. It is just so much easier to get everything in one place and without driving about dealing with people. I have a couple new projects I have started, so more updates to come.

Vader boots part two and Stool.

Well this week was busy as usual. I have a ten page, four page, and five page paper due in three different classes and a big math test on Monday. That has been frying my brain all week, today I visited the Denver Art museum for the four page paper. Lets see, I began to field day my house, since we are having thanksgiving here. I started planning for that as well. After getting my Vader boots I am a bit disappointed. The spit shine isn't very good, in fact I don't think they used polish at all, just some chemical. It will work, but ill have to re-do it at some point. I added the pics to the other post.

I managed to finish building a stool for my grandma so she can get into bed easier and fixing my fence. Here is the pile of extra wood that I grabbed the stool from:

You can also see parts of my halo costume on the shelf below, they were made by Thorlossi not me, I still need to finish them. Next I then guesstimated the length and cut the top two pieces. Good guess because it came out to 30 and 1/2 inches exactly. I then used the extra material to make the feet and braced them with a 2X4. I used a pocket screw set to construct it. I learned a couple of years ago that the best way to make furniture is a pocket screw setup, not only does it hide the screws, but the pocket and angle makes for a very strong connection. Plus it adds a professional look. I then routered the edges and stained it black.

Once dry I beat the top with different implements I found in my garage to give it a weathered look. Then sanded it smooth using 220 grit. Sanding most of the black stain off shows the grains of the wood and really highlights the weathering we did earlier.

I then stained one leg with dark walnut and the other with a red stain. I liked the walnut but decided to leave the red on that one leg. So I stained the rest with the walnut and let it dry. Then gave it five coats of clear varnish. I found out last year that I prefer to use spar varnish. This is more expensive since it is meant to be used for maritime items. I don't really understand why they sell anything else, If I am putting a clear protectant onto one of my pieces I want the most protection available. I can't believe it took me this long to discover it. I used it on my dog run fence when I fixed that earlier this year in an attempt to find something that would actually work, since the stuff I used before flaked off over the years. If this also does not last the next thing I will try is a two part resin mixture type application.

These pictures don't really do it justice. In person it is super shiny and the wood grain is so deep that one almost gets vertigo thinking you are going to fall in. The weathering makes it look like a antique not like I just built it.

Vader Boots

First thing I want to give credit to the folks over at the 405th Halo costuming community. I forgot to do so when mentioning my Halo armor. If it was not for that place I could not have done anything with the Halo helmet. They have all the files, and information on how to use them. From scaling, to printing, to using pepakura, all the way to finishing. The forums there are a wealth of knowledge on how to make props.

That being said, I accomplished adding all the slats to the fence and constructing the stool. They are both in need of paint jobs next. Desk is clean (I forgot it was made of wood). I got new tires on my truck. I replaced them with what I already had, some Firestone Destination AT's. They eat the snow like it isn't even there, and my truck rides like it was new again, amazing difference. I had two big tests, got a C in math and a B in economics. Not too bad but I can do better. I engraved my PS90 but more on that later. I also finished another T-shirt design. It is the two most annoying floating "helpers" ever created who finally got together in a dating site. It can be purchased HERE:

I mentioned my Vader boots earlier, and thought I might expand on that topic. I had made some wooden internal lifts that would fit in the boot and raise my height about 3 inches. Problem was they were very painful. I used foam on the sides to make them wider without compromising the fit into the boot, and bought an insole to put over them. Then I put a small pad widget that my wife had in my sock. That helped, but they were still painful after about ten minutes.

So in revisiting the issue I thought of many things. One was to cut up a cheap boot and use that instead of my lifts. I scrapped that one and tried stuffing my slippers in the boots. That worked but was too cramped inside there with my foot and all. At least it was comfortable. So I needed something similar but without the top part. Enter a pair of my wife's flip flops. If I removed the strap it covered the bottom of my foot. And viola, problem solved. With all that in the boot and a thick pair of socks I can walk around for hours and only have slightly sore feet.

The boots themselves are actually Nazi marching boots. Not that I would normally own these but it is screen accurate to what Vader wore in the movies. After searching and searching for ones that had the nails in the soles and the horseshoe in the heel I found a place that sold them and acquired them. With all the metal in the bottom they make me sound more machine than man while walking about in the costume. Right now they are at a local shoe repair place that is giving them a spit shine. Not that as a Marine I couldn't do that myself, but for $12 it was worth my time to let a professional take care of it in probably 5% of the time it would take me. I pick them up tomorrow, so I will edit this post and add the picture of the boots below here at that time.*

*(could have sworn I took a picture of the boots before I left to drop them off, but it went AWOL)

Escaping dog

Well nothing interesting this week, I just finished a bunch of stuff last week which means I am just starting a bunch of new stuff this week. I started cleaning off my desk (big job), and building a stool for my grandma to get into bed easier. I also started to fix up my fence, I am replacing nine slats. Since I finished my manican the next Vader related project is to finish the boots. More on that later.

I started and finished fixing the screens on the windows of my house, it doesn't sound like much but they have been ripped since 2008. My Husky decided that being up on the second story wasn't going to stop him from going out the window. He chewed up the screens on two of my windows, then jumped out onto the roof. Since the screen snapped shut he was then trapped on a very very steep roof up a story. When I got home from work I panicked since he was not in the house and I saw the windows. I was driving around the neighborhood fearing the worst. Turns out he was in the backyard. My neighbor was nice enough to get his ladder and get my dog down, then stick him in the yard.

Fast forward three years to 2011, I wake up in the morning and the dog is missing again... This time he broke through the fence in the backyard. Who knows when this happened but I called in to work and drove around looking for him for eleven hours. Then a lady finally called me and told me she had my dog, and she had him since early in the morning when he walked into their house. She also told me she was thinking about keeping him despite the collar with my info on it. But she saw the reward I posted on my door and wanted it. I did pay her, and being a gentleman I didn't punch her face in, probably cause I was just so relived to get my dog back.

The joys of owning and loving a husky.