Dotted install

This is the dot pattern that I had a picture of yesterday. If you stand back, it is a "wood grain" but made with dots. It's 22' long x 46" high and the dots are a little smaller than 3/8". It looks really cool and I wish we would do a little more of stuff like this.

Dot matrix

Like minded fellow

This guy and I share a lot in common. Awesome hair, superb singing voices, and an excellent taste in sweaters. Oh and wanting Taylor Swift for Christmas. That would be sweet. And the song is kind of funny. "I'd rather get a subpoena then kick it with Angelina." Classic.

Christmas eve breakfast

Or what's left (I'll finish it though). I'll get the clean plate award.

Second best Christmas show

Yeah, the Woodland Critter Christmas.

After . . .

Before . . .

It's that time of year

Cut it out

Getting ready

This week (or at least tonight) in the garage is dedicated to getting the snowblower ready. Very exciting. It's like watching oil drain.

Good use of money

These guys wail. And the video is sweet too.

And bam! New couch.

Hmm . . .

Cracked

Oops. The beard cracked it.

Getting the mail

Spaghetti tacos

This is the kind of food you get at Bucks. OK, actually it was Morgan's idea. I feel like an Italian Mexican.

FJing at Bucks

Zee bars, zee bars

- "Why did you buy that gun, Tommy?"

- "For protection."

- "Protection from who? Zee Germans?"

Kustom

That's right, Kustom with a k. Probably won't see anybody else with something like this. And for good reason really. All that work for an '81 Honda. It's something to do.

Choppering

I picked up a new front end for the Honda on Friday. Since then I've been cleaning it up. And sometimes you just have to cut stuff up. Cut parts, not wrists.

Painting at someone's new house

MW3

Picked up Modern Warfare 3 yesterday. It's alright. We've (as in Susie and I both (yeah, Susie plays too)) only played multiplayer so I can't really comment on the single player. And really if you're buying Modern Warfare, you kind of know what you're getting. Kind of like Madden. But with guns.

Spring cleaning (fall edition)

Due to some recent acquisitions, I had to do a little rearranging/cleaning in the garage. I still need to get rid of a few things to help fund the new parts and pieces for the ol' Honda. I have so much room for activities now.

Fixing a leaky tire

So the right rear tire was leaking air like a son of a gun this week. After about an hour of wraslin' the wheel off, I found the leak. No, the sharp, pointy thing in the picture was not the culprit. There was a nail in there. I didn't have anything to mark the hole so I just put that in there.

The pool is open

Susie and I hauled the pool table in. We have a little rearranging to do but it should work. Stay tuned for the pool party announcement.

Droppin' Bombs

So I happened upon this picture on the interwebs today. Could you imagine being on the ground and seeing all these bombs headed at you. I'd probably crap my pants. Although by the time you saw them, it would probably be to late anyway. In case you were wondering, the plane is a B-2 Spirit Bomber. There are only 20 of these in use and in the 19 years of service, only one has crashed. And apparently there have been more than 75,000 flying hours without incident. Planes are cool, especially when they are stealth and carry a metric shit ton of bombs.

Carved pumpkins

Clean slate

Just got done cleaning off the ol' workbench in preparation for a new project. What that is exactly, I'm not sure. There will be something though. It might even be the old Honda 400.

As I was doing my usual Saturday morning internetting, I came upon these pictures again. They're from Life magazine way back in 1965. That's before you (excluding some readers of the blog, like my Mom (she's going to be 50 this year, whoa)) and me were born. And the reason I stumbled on these pictures (available at http://images.google.com/search?q=hells+angels&q=source%3Alife&biw=1382&bih=979&tbm=isch#q=hells+angels+source:life&hl=en&safe=off&tbm=isch&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=1&biw=1440&bih=785 ) is that the photographer, Bill Ray, has a book out with these images and the story of how he got them. The book is Hells Angels of San Berdoo '65 Inside The Mother Charter ( http://www.blurb.com/books/2431067 ). There are some interesting pictures, like the one below.

It just seems like it would be interesting to hear (and see) the conversation they are having. Or how about this one.

"You gotta go!" Or something like that. The guy with the mustache standing in back by the building does not look to happy. But some of the coolest pictures are the riding shots. Like the one at the top and this one.

If those don't make you want to ride a motorcycle, well, maybe you're just not American. Or they scare you. They scare me.

+ = open

Clever headline, right? Anywhose, Google+ is now open to anyone and everyone. So you should join because Susie is on it, Timmy is on it, Scott is on it, and I'm on it. I just realized that's probably half the people that look at the blog. So if your name is not Susie, Timmy, or Scott P. you should join. It's an exciting new world.

Hey, I did that sign

Not trying to toot my own horn, but toot toot. So last night KARE 11 had a story about saving money by going to the library. They just happened to pick the Roseville Library. It just so happens that I (and my company) did the signs for that library last fall. If you haven't been there, I highly suggest it. It's pretty cool (say that in a Miley Cyrus type of voice). And really the video doesn't really show all the cool things in that library. So go look smart and read a book (and check out the cool signs).

New tool cabinet

Sears had a big labor day sale. So after some plotting and planning, this is what I ended up with. And yeah, the top section does say Kobalt. I wasn't able to find a top section at Sears that had the three draws on the top row. OK, they did have something similar but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. So I ended up paying full price for that but the bottom and middle section ended up somewhere in the 30%-40% off. Not too shabby.

Shooting Videos

Here are the videos from the Shooter's Roundup. And yeah, they aren't in the usual 720p. Even though Timmy asked me about it before we started shooting (guns and video). I didn't realize it was on the wrong setting until I uploaded these to Youtube. Anyways, back to the guns. The first video we have Tim shooting 50 rounds out of the Browning machine gun (the same one that Dave and I shot last year). As usual, Tim gets a standing ovation after he is done shooting (take that whatever way you want). The second vid is me shooting the SAW. I'm a little disappointed in the video because it looks and sounds way cooler in person. And it probably would have been cooler if I shot 50 rounds instead of 25. Then the third vid is me shooting a MP5. Which was pretty sweet. This isn't all of the guns that we shot that day but it is all the video I took. I also shot an Uzi, a 5' long old style muzzleloader type of gun, and a cool .22. I can't remember everything that Jeff and Timmy shot but I know there was a .357 pistol, a bunch of shotguns, and maybe one or two other handguns. Once again, it was a good time had by all. Even though we didn't get to see a pregnant lady shoot two AK-47's. There's always next year.

Shooter's Roundup Arsenal

Last Sunday Timmy and I went to the 'ol shooter's roundup. Jeff even made it out. This is a pic of the "machine gun and assault rifle and other cool guns" section.

Good advice

Nice day

Sooo . . . umm . . . not safe (or cool)

Farmers don't let hipsters drive combines.

Dude . . .

Anyone want to trade an '08 FJ Cruiser and a '91 Sportster for a Fiesta Rally car? Anyone? Anyone? Ken Block?

It runs. . . Video proof

The 'ol sportster has been out and about twice now (the video was taken yesterday) and it is sweet. It runs pretty good and pretty smooth. And you can almost watch the tires wear down. There are tire marks on our driveway just from maneuvering it around, not doing burnouts or anything.

It's out

Deere Power!!!1! Part 2

Here is the picture that our guide, Harold, took of Buck and I. It isn't Buck's tractor behind us but it is the same type. Not pictured, our hard hats and safety vests. Looking back, it seems odd that we were able to take our hard hats and vests off for the picture but not the gloves or safety glasses. Or maybe we could have and we didn't think about. Or Harold just wanted us to look goofy in the picture. The jokes on him though. We would look goofy any way (goofy laugh).

Valleyfair at 1:15 today.

Jammin

Rock out

Eatable mustache

Finished (looks)

This is the finished look. I still have a few things to work out but this is what it looks like.

I see the light

Deere Power!!!1!

A couple weeks ago Buck and I made a trip to Waterloo, IA to see his new John Deere get built. An 8360RT to be specific. It turns out that they don't allow camera's on the tour. So that is the reason for the lack of pictures. So here is a pic I found on the internets.

We were supposed to get a pic emailed to us too but I haven't seen that yet.

How was the tour? Awesome. It started pretty early, 6:45 a.m., and I think we left about 12:30. You know it's going to be good when they give you a hard hat (more of a bump hat, pretty thin plastic), safety glasses, different shoes (even though I was rocking the steel toe boots I still got the special shoes (damn insurance company forcing people to wear specific shoes)), and gloves. And this was a walking tour. We did ride on the cart for maybe 45 minutes but that was just a small part through the welding area and where they make the bigger 4wd tractors. We got to see pretty much everything, except Buck's tractor actually being built. Which was kind of a bummer but not that big of a deal. Our tour guide, Harold, actually found the axles for Buck's tractor in one of the trailers waiting to be unloaded. So it was probably going to be built later that day or the following day. How did Harold know which axles were actually for Buck? Well, good question. All of the major parts have the tractors vin attached to it with a piece of paper. So they know what goes to what tractor. Pretty cool. Some of the other highlights (at least for me) was finding out that they don't paint any black at that factory, they ship it out to another place in Waterloo. Also, they top of the roof is held on with 39 screws but the whole roof assembly is only held in place with 4 bolts. Crazy, right? Buck got to drive a "simulator" tractor. Basically they had an actual seat and controls from a tractor hooked up to a computer and a monitor. Think of an arcade racing game but instead of a car, it's a tractor. How redneck is that (actually that's a million dollar idea right there. They could be outside every Walmart.)? Oh an speaking of the controls, everything is attached to the right side arm rest. And that includes the touchscreen (about a 6" screen) for controlling a bunch of important stuff (I got kind of lost when he was going through that). Even the radio and hvac controls are right there. Very nice. And Buck is getting the leather seat. Oh you fancy, huh? I could keep going on and on but there is other stuff to do. And you're probably bored of reading this. So here is a John Deere lawnmower doing a wheelie. America, fuck yeah.

Getting close

The wiring is all hooked up, the fuel line is hooked up, the throttle is hooked up, and the new "Extreme" battery is hooked up. It will only start and run if the throttle is open though. So I need to figure out what's up with that.

Tonight's fun

Headlight

Got my headlight mounted this morning. And finished mounting my exhaust last night. The goal is to have this ready by next weekend for the bearded lady show on Saturday and the full tilt show on Sunday. We'll see what happens.

I leave him alone for a day and look what happens...

Post by Susie

Loud pipes kill afternoons?

Finished mocking up (biker talk broseph) my pipes today. My original idear (more biker talk) wasn't really working out so I went to plan b. Which worked out pretty good if you ask me. Oh and don't mind that random hunk of metal on the pipes, I just needed something to hold them together for now. I'll finish welding them tomorrow.