Yo... Damn.

07.13.2009

I've been looking forward to the new GI Joe movie, and I'll admit that I was really looking forward more to the toys than to the movie. Yes, I'm 40, but I don't act it. Having fulfilled my dream of having a Stormtrooper Army, I now want a Cobra Legion to either join forces with the Empire, or battle the Empire for galactic domination. The old Cobra Troops were always a little cartoony, so I was hoping that the movie Cobras would be a little more... cool? This weekend Jerry and I happened to find ourselves in the a Toys R Us and I looked to see if the new Joe toys were out. The first batch is out, but it's not living up to my expectations.

Here's a look at what the Cobra troops from the movie look like:

It seems they're going for a true reptilian feel for the Cobra troops. Not what I was hoping for. The closest for what I envisioned are Destro's MARS Troopers:

Unfortunately, outside of an eBay auction from China, these are only available in 3-packs at $25+ each. They're not really cool enough to warrant that price tag from me.

In my dissapointment, I saw some picks of figures from different series. The Cobra Trooper from the Resolute series caught my eye:

This is more along the lines of what I was hoping for! All I ever saw from Resolute were some boxed sets of 5 figures along with a Cobra Commander and Cobra Paratrooper. Actually, I may have picked up the Cobra Commander. Although the trooper keeps the blue color scheme of old, it looks less cartoony than the deep blue of the original figures. Maybe this is the route to take for my Cobra Legion?

I can man my legion online in one fell swoop if I really want to go that route. How many Cobra Troopers would balance out 75 Stormtroopers?

Permalink action figures/toys

The Jim Puckett Pre-Memorial Wall

07.05.2009

Last year, Jim (or really, Jim's better half, but I'm writing this so I can make little changes along the way) took it upon himself to apply a little texture painting to an accent wall in his Arizona home. I thought it looked cool, and I thought about it more than a heterosexual man should. I came to think that one day I too would have a suede textured accent wall in my Alabama home one day.

Enter Mike the handy man and all the work I was getting done while I was on vacation in Jamaica. I've already mentioned the Super Walk-In Closet which was, in part, to cover up the disaster of me trying to learn how to paint. After 10 years, the master bedroom was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint, so while Mike was installing laminate flooring I was going to get him to paint the room. At the last minute, I sprung Jim's suede paint idea.

"I got an idea" I told Mike. "If we make this wall kind of an accent wall with the suede paint, and then I can mount a TV up here on the wall. It'll look cool!" Mike agreed. I told him that since this was a last-minute addition (I was leaving the next morning for my trip), that if he couldn't get the texture painting done it would be ok.

A week later I came home and found I had a cool accent wall! This lead me to browse the Memorial Day sales to find a TV to mount on the wall, thus giving me an excuse to get rid of the 27", 200lb behemoth that I moved here from Mom's 10 years ago. I found a TV (a 40" 1080p Toshiba). Next I started getting cables and wall plates.

Mike had put an electrical outlet and cable outlet about eye level where the TV would be mounted. This would keep cables from being seen - one of those cool factors I was wanting. I could have a DVD player in a small entertainment center below the TV, and using the old cable outlet I could run the necessary wires in the wall. The TV and DVD player would only be (maybe) 5 feet apart, but this way there would be no visible cables. Plus, this would keep the wall from being too covered up.

Planning a little bit ahead, I scoured the interweb for wall plates with the appropriate connectors. My current, albeit old, DVD player has RGB component outputs, so I looked for the digital component video and audio, along with co-ax for the cable TV, and HDMI for the Blu-Ray that I know I'll be getting before the end of the year. I looked for 2 weeks and found out nobody makes that combination.

The most connections I could find on any wall plate was 6. I needed one with component video (3 connections) and audio (2 connections), co-ax (1 connection), and HDMI (1 connection). I had 1 too many. Crap. I decided to leave off the co-ax. I could have gotten a 2nd wall plate and cut another hole in the wall, but I didn't want to mar the wall more than I had to. After I thought about it for a bit, I decided I could poke a hole in a wall plate and run the co-ax through myself. I may not know how to paint, but years of model making taught me how to bore a hole in a piece of plastic.

Now that I decided on wall plates it was time to get some cable. Locally cables cost way too much, so I opted for the Amazon solution. 12ft HDMI cable at Best Buy? $80+ if they have it. On Amazon: $4. Soon I had all the cables I needed shipped discreetly to my house.

When I bought the TV I also bought a universal mounting kit for the proper size TV. I had all the parts sitting at home for a couple of weeks before I hunkered down and mounted the TV. Looking at the directions, this looked to be a 1-man job that would take about 20 minutes.

The first thing I had to do was rip out the existing wall boxes. They didn't have enough of an opening to run the cables I needed. The first one was easy to take out since it was on Mike had put in earlier. The other one was put in when the house was built and had what looked to be 8" nails holding it in the stud. I needed tools! A quick trip to Lowe's later and I had some proper prying utensils along with the right replacement wall boxes.

Once the wall boxes were replaced it was time to run cable in the wall. Although this really was the easiest part, I learned one of the problems of buying things on the interweb. It's easy to get caught up buying bargains and not realize what you really need. Case in point: I needed cable to run roughly 6 feet. Since it was so cheap, I ended up getting:

• HDMI Cable: 12 ft
• RGB Video Cable: 25 Ft (I noticed 9ft at Lowes is $20. I think I paid $12 on Amazon).
• RCA Audio Cable: 50 ft (it was only $4!)

It took some cramming, but I got all of that cable shoved in the wall.

Next I took out the mounting kit and read through the instructions one more time. I needed to find the studs behind the wall, mark the right height, level things, and drill 6 holes. I held up the mount and saw that eye-level seemed to be about the right height, just underneath the new electrical and cable outlets. I got out my stud finder/laser level. I'm not sure why, but only 2 studs were in range of the width for the mount. Hmmm, that's odd. Anyway, I marked where the holes should go with the 2 studs I found and got out my drill.

My drill can drill through drywall. Once it hits wood it doesn't penetrate worth crap.

I've had that drill, a cordless drill, for at least 5 years. I might have used it once. I had charged the battery for a couple of hours, but a combination of the battery and the drill just not having enough torque was going to keep me from finishing this project tonight. This calls for a trip to Wal-Mart and the corded drill aisle!

20 minutes later, I've got a drill plugged into the wall and I'm making holes!

I'm drilling holes in the wall and tightening bolts into the studs when I notice just how close the mount is to the bottom of the wall plates. I had gotten a surge protector to mount behind the TV, and I wasn't sure how much room it needed. I plugged the surge protector in, and quickly found it needed another ½ inch. Dammit.

I unscrewed the bolts and marked spots about an inch lower. On drilling the 2nd hole, I managed to catch the side of the stud and felt the drill sheer off a little. To not want to mess up the wall, I was now looking at 5 extra holes! I stepped back, took a couple of breaths, and went back to work. Eventually I got the mount up and attached the TV. The mount on the TV is adjustable as fat as viewing angle, but the brackets are so far in I'll never be able to get to them to adjust it (one of the wonders of "universal").

2½ hours later, my 20 minute job was finished. It's not quite as nice as I had hoped, but if you don't look too close you'll never know. That suede paint sure is nice though.

Permalink renovation/remodelling

Still missing Mom...

07.01.2009

Today at lunch I ran some errands. Errand #1 was running by Movie Stop to trade in 4 seasons of MASH that I no longer needed since racking up on a one-day sale at Amazon for the complete series. I lucked out and got double what I thought they would pay, and with that managed to to get 2 movies that I was putting off for the "I'll wait until they're $10" time frame (so I get to watch the latest John Cena movie as soon as I want! Yippee?).

Errand #2 was a trip to Bed Bath & Forever in search of a glass shelf for the master bathroom. I had tried Lowed & Home Depot, but their shelves were 24" and I really needed less than 22" for the wall I had in mind. Searching Amazon I found some that looked nice and were the right size, but they cost anywhere form $55 to $160. I was just looking for a cheap $20 shelf! The Bed Bath Etc website showed some 24" shelves, but I was betting they carried some different sizes in the store.

When I walked in the store I was immediately side-tracked by a clearance shelf (no, not a glass shelf). On it were some Febreze Closet Renewables which Gina had told me about. They were on sale for $2 for a pack of 12 sheets. Booyah! I picked up 2 packs and went about my way in the store.

I got to the bathroom section and perused the glass shelves. They had a variety of sizes: 24", 22", 19.75". That 19-one looked about right. They came in a variety of finishes. One of those finishes happened to be the brushed satin that would match the faucet in the target bathroom. Booyah! And it was only $20.

I was having a lucky day running these errands, so I thought I would chance one more leg. BB&Forever has a comforter/sheet set that I've had my eye on for damn near 2 years, waiting for it to go on sale. As I headed to the back corner of the store I saw a yellow CLEARANCE sign where the comforter set I always looked at lived. I got closer and saw that not only were the sets 35% off, they still had a king size. Booyah! I'm glad I stuffed a couple of 20% off coupons in my pocket before coming in!

As I grabbed the bag of bed goodies and turned to head toward the registers, it hit me. Out of the blue, all at once. Yeah, this is poor sentence and paragraph structure, but it doesn't matter - Mom should have been there with me. I remember looking at the comforter set with her and asking what she thought about it since it had a pattern, and I'm never too sure about patterns. She told me the design looked like something I would pick, and I told her I was going to wait until it went on sale. Everything in that store eventually goes on sale, you just have to be patient. Plus, you could use those 20% off coupons even on sale items.

Mom would always bring me the Bed Bath & Beyond coupons she got in the mail. I somehow managed to sign up my address under 2 different names and would get double coupons. Once we saved up a handful of coupons me and Mom would head out to the Beyond and pick up something: cleaning stuff, kitchen gadgets, whatever. I was never the best at cleaning so that's when she would help pick out things that make it easier for the I-don't-care cleaner to do a better job.

I stood there surrounded by sheets for a minute as I remembered all of that. I've been in that store 4 times since Mom died, and everytime I get caught off guard and start thinking about her. I don't mind missing her and thinking about her, it's how it keeps catching me off guard that throws me off.

I composed myself (yes, I was a little teary eyed back there amongst the sheets) and went to check out. By looking at my receipt I managed noticed that I managed to save $130 between clearance prices and coupons. I told Mom that it just took some patience to save some money in there. I just wish she had been there to hand in the coupons.

Permalink mom rambling

New Damn Mower!

06.28.2009

After all the hassle with the lawn mower over the past week, I went and got myself a new mower.

Troy-Bilt 20-HP Automatic 46" Cut Lawn Tractor

The reviews that I've seen for the Troy-bilt mowers with the Kohler engines are horrible. To be honest, I don't really care right now. The inaugural mowing went ok. There area couple of new things to get used to with this mower. I have to admit that I really like the cup holder and the padded seat.

I also got off the mower, shutting it off, 3 times. It started right back up afterwords. That was nice.

Now the challenge will be to remember to change the oil as recommended after the first 5 hours of operation. That should be in about 2 weeks.

Permalink random

My Damn Mower

06.24.2009

In April, when the yard was first in need of mowing, I thought about trying to sell my mower and buying a replacement. I've had the mower for at least 8 years. Except for a problem with the gas tank leaking I really haven't had any major problems with it. At the end of the last mowing season I had a feeling that he mower was just getting old - 8 years for a $1000 mower from Wal-Mart felt like a good run. The first "I've really got to get out and mow this grass" came too quick and I decided to try and get one more year out of the mower.

Even though I don't have major problems with the mower, I do have minor ones that pop up. These week, all of the minor ones popped up. Sunday I decided to mow. After 10 minutes, minor problem #1 popped up.

Years ago, the mowing deck bottomed out in a dip in the yard (since filled in by handyman Mike) and snapped off pin that holds one side of the mower deck onto the frame. Instead of trying to find a replacement pin, I stuck the bar from the deck back on the post on the frame, then slid a hose clamp onto the post and tightened it up. This would work until the deck bottomed out harder than normal sometime later and the hose clamp would go shooting off. Whenever I get the mower tuned up, they generally replace the hose clamp with the proper pin, but eventually the whole breaking-replacement sequence would start over and I would end up with another hose clamp. Sunday I got a little too close to something (I think it was a root near the front of the garage) as the mower deck shuffled from left to right, then I heard the distinct sound of the left side of the mower deck riding on the driveway.

Enter Problem #2. Putting on a hose clamp to fix the mower deck problem is easy. I've done it a dozen times so I know the steps, I have hose clamps at the ready, and I know how to twist my arms around the rear tire to where my arms will actually fit. Problem #2 is that whenever the mower turns off, the engine gets flooded and it won't restart for at least an hour and a half. The mower can be running for 5 minutes or 2 hours, it doesn't matter. Maybe it's not really flooded, maybe it's overheated or got oil up the wrong tube, but it smells like too much gas in the air when I try to restart it. So after fixing the mower deck, I've got to wait 90 minutes to continue to mow. Thanks to starting late on Sunday to try and avoid some heat, it'll be too dark to finish mowing in that time window.

We now move on to Monday (day 2 of mowing). 5:00, at least 2&amp12; hours before it gets dark - plenty of time to finish what is usually a 2 hour job if I get detailed and mow and weed-eat every nook and cranny. The mower cranks up, the mower deck isn't dragging the ground. I start circling the yard, the grass gets shorter on each pass. After about 20 minutes, the blades stop spinning.

The grass discharge gets clogged when the grass is thick, or wet. Most of my ways of fixing this are a combination of:

• going backwards for about 50 ft
• turning off the blades and going full speed for a lap around the yard (I think the rough terrain jiggles things loose)
• run over part of a branch (a nice solid chunk of wood can break things up!)
• using the deck height lever while on the drive way, slam the deck up and down (as one would coax ketchup out of a bottle).
  • I know that's not a good way to do things, but when you're pissed off and frustrated you'll do anything

Monday none of those solutions were working. Whenever the blades were engaged, the blades were so locked up that the rubber on the belts would start to smoke as they tried to spin the blades. Something was messed up down their, so I pulled into the garage, turned the mower off (getting us back to Problem #2 eventually), and propped one side of the mower up to where I could poke under it. I got a screwdriver and started chipping away at grass that had dried onto the bottom fo teh mower deck over the years, but none of this should really be interfering with the blade movement. While feeling around, I came across a chunk of grass that had gotten wedged between one of the blades and the mowed deck.

A chunk of grass. How does a chunk of grass get caught by a blade? This wasn't wispy grass though. If this were hail, it would be golf ball sized and held together by a clump of dirt. This chunk was stuck good, too. I'm not a wimpy pansy man like Jerry, but I had to pry and grunt pretty hard to get the chunk out. But I got it out. Once again it was going to be too late to mow once the "waiting for the mower to restart" window opened back up.

Tuesday afternoon (day 3 of mowing) I thought would be the day I finished. My normal problems had all been accounted for. I was starting a little before 5:00, heat be damned! In the previous 2 days I had managed to mow possibly &amp14; of the yard. As I went around the yard mowing it bit by bit, I was keeping an eye on the height of the mower deck, making sure grass was flying out of the discharger, and trying not to go tto fast (because that's when things break). I had gotten almost &amp34; of the yard mowed when I heard the blades stop. I looked down and saw one of the belts that drive the blades sitting, snapped, on the mower deck.

Damn.

It.

To hell in a handbasket full of molten hot shrapnel that I want to shove into somebody's eyes.

So now I've given up and am taking the hint. It's time to replace the mower. Everything that's wrong with the mower is fixable, I don't deny that. But, in all honesty, the mower has pissed me off. I don't deal well with mechanical things that piss me off. I don't fix them, I replace them. I'm about to make someone at Lowes, Home Depot, or Sears happy.

Permalink rambling