Scurvy Jake's Pirate Blog » General

Well Well Well Look Who’s Back

Scurvy Jake — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:24:03 +0000

Look who is back at the blogging thing.

That's right, it's me!

I haven't had much to say lately, and apparently Twitter and other social media have satisfied my creative outlet needs.

So here's what's new:

I'm studying for the Amateur Extra exam for Ham Radio operation, the highest level you can get.
I just installed a Kenwood TM-V71A radio in my car and love it!
House repairs! I've had great cause to curse the builder of my home lately, as he NEVER sealed any of the windows. No caulk. At all. I've had some leaking lately, and since he failed to use outdoor grade trim some of it is rotting off. There was also never any drip edging to divert water from seeping in to the window and inside. Hell, I'm probably leaking heat out through the windows in the winter! So I have a contractor to make it all right. Then another guy to put real gutters on the house, not plastic ones over the doorways.
I'm still looking for someone to run a new gas line for me. I'd like to have the option to put a gas stove/cooktop in the kitchen at some future date.
I've got steel plates now for my flour mill so I can grind oat groats and corn into meal.

And that's everything, in a nutshell.

TMBG Awareness Day

Scurvy Jake — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:13:36 +0000

Tomorrow, April 26th, is They Might Be Giants Awareness Day. Tell your friends!

Writing Assignment

Scurvy Jake — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:23:19 +0000

This afternoon a challenge was issued to write a story that ends with a line provided ahead of time. The first one was "It was the loveliest shade of pink they'd ever seen." The following is my contribution. Yes, I'm mentally 13 sometimes:

A Trip to Remember

For Heather and Shannon, every summer vacation started out with a road trip to their grandparents' farm outside Terre Haute, Indiana. It was bad enough leaving their friends and California behind, but the long and boring drive pent up in the back seat of a car with a dodgy air conditioner was driving them crazy.

If asked later, neither Heather nor her sister could remember who started the get-the-driver-to-honk game, but they both knew who ended it. As they frantically competed to get a vanload of college students to honk at them by waving their arms and blowing kisses, finally they got what they both wanted.

Mr. and Mrs. Connors noticed the lack of noise from the back seat moments before their attention turned to the green van honking its horn as it slowly passed them. A chubby college student with his pants pulled down was pressing his cheeks up against the window as his buddies cheered him on. Mrs. Connors harrumphed while her husband chuckled and nodded his head. The sound of contagious giggling came from the back seat.

It was the loveliest shade of pink they'd ever seen.

Off to Atlanta

Scurvy Jake — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 01:48:54 +0000

We're off tomorrow at 0-dark-30 to Atlanta to attend InvaderCON. Expect a few weird pictures/posts later.

Finally, Some Justice

Scurvy Jake — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:18:44 +0000

I just saw a car get pulled over for running the light at Kathleen and Ramsey (turning West from the Northbound side). I see this happen at the same intersection nearly every day. The bozos just keep following cars through the intersection despite the red light. Well today justice was served. There was an unmarked police cruiser just ahead of me and three cars back from the light. Just as I was throwing my hands up in disgust he sped after the turkey with his lights on. I only hope he actually got a ticket, because he really deserved it.

A Taste of Sarcasm

Scurvy Jake — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 01:24:42 +0000

If you have ever had to download anything from Cisco you may appreciate this:

More Bruce!

Scurvy Jake — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 03:18:48 +0000

I recently acquired a copy of the entire series of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. on the cheap ($16 + shipping). It aired during the time I was serving in Taiwan (1993-1994) so I never had the chance to see it on the air. Last night I watched the entire first disk and was up to after midnight—that's late for a middle-class working stiff like me. But it was fun. My wife says her favorite character is Pete, but I haven't seen enough to make a decision.

I remember the first time I heard about the show was from Bruce's "autobiography": Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way (insert tongue in cheek here).

What struck me as funny was when he mentioned doing appearances and how he would get lines of little kids dressed in cowboy outfits next to adults made up like monsters from the Evil Dead movies.

I actually met Bruce Campbell and shook his hand in Seattle while he was on the book tour for the previously mentioned book.

As usual, you'll probably hear something more from me on this, but I can't promise when. Hey, I'm still not done watching MST3K!

Missing Snow Brush

Scurvy Jake — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:19:40 +0000

I was looking for my snow brush/window scraper the other day, as we just had our first snow stick, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I searched my car and the garage, but it was gone. When I asked my wife if she'd seen it, she said "You said last year that it was stupid, broken, and then you threw it away and said you'd get a new one next year."

My response was "Yeah that sounds like me, I guess I'll go buy another one."

I still don't remember ranting about it, though.

Looting Portland

Scurvy Jake — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:52:04 +0000

I drove home from Portland today with several hundred pounds of loot. About as much as my car would carry. On our first day there we managed to hit all the big places we wanted to visit: Bob's Red Mill, Powell's City of Books, and IKEA. We stocked up on grains from Bob's, 50 pounds of flour, 25 pound bags of Scottish oatmeal, coconut granola, cream of wheat, and 10 grain cereal. We also picked up a dozen or so of the small 1 pound bags of things like black currants, coconut flour, wheat gluten, potato flour, sea salt, muesli, etc.

From Powell's we bought a couple of shopping bags full of books. We mostly buy used, so it's not as expensive as it sounds. IKEA provided two new DVD shelves (we are running out of room on our existing ones), and a few random parts I can hack together to make a good shower rack to hold shampoo, soap, etc. We also picked up a table for Lorien's uncle.

Aside from that, we bought some dry egg noodles at Costco (they stopped carrying them at our Costco in Cd'A!), some chocolate from Bernard Callebaut Chocolates (very tasty), and a couple of bags of assorted goodies from Trader Joe's. We also found some of our favorite Finnish licorice treats we didn't think we'd see outside of Finland at the World Market store near my mom's (score!) along with a couple of 4-packs of root beer I've never seen before.

All in all, it was a fun trip. I just wish it wasn't such a long drive…

A Quick Update

Scurvy Jake — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:50:23 +0000

Okay, let's see. Build a squirt gun from a sprinkler valve, PVC, and a couple of 9v batteries. That was fun.

I started learning the Dvorak layout. It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I'm using Master Key and am very happy with it. If you need a typing tutor program, check it out. It runs on Windows or on a Mac.

My liver is fine. Probably because I'm a teetotaler.

I'm working on deploying a Cisco 881W wireless router at home to test some VPN and routing ideas from work. When it's up, I'll have the biggest wireless router on the block, and the ability to launch multiple SSIDs and name them things like MakeTheBarkingStop and ShutYourStupidDogsUp. No reason, really.