Pipestone Revisited....

In all the mess that is leftover from College, scattered around the house, I found a stack of cds. In this stack is a disc labeled pipestone. I inserted said disc into lappy and found all the gis data from my mapping project Senior year. Stoked, I present the findings here:

Smuggling Grapes....

I dont like baseball, period. Last night I decided to take some time off working on the klein to watch some world series action. Boy, was I wrong about the action. None. Never is, never was. So we came home and I worked on the bike some more.

Switched the handlebars back with a chop chop and applied the brakes and shifters where I could. It apparent that Im in need of some parts, ie, levers and shifters. but for the now the bullhorns will have to work....

12 Pair of Wheels....

So over the last week, I had high hopes of getting some work done. Those dreams were crushed (thankfully) when I got this phone call. Damon was in town. He and friends rode their bike for 3+ weeks and were in Taos, where a friend was taken out by a flying dead dog that was hit by a car. After a little hospital time and some brewskies, I picked em up.Some beer in bottles and kegs were drained. Some shisha smoked. Grand tales of the phenomenal were told. The Klein was rebuilt, if not frankensteined and doors modified and replaced on the flunder. Hangovers were free of charge.

Change....

The original cast, reunited. The message is different but I think youll get the point. Remember the originals form 8ish years ago? I laughed really hard on this one!!

Overload....

The first wood run with the pickup proved that the 'flunder was up to the task, if only just once. It rode on the axle the whole way home. Either way its still fun to lower the tire pressure and do some high speed laps on the mesa.
Before we left to cut I was checking the tranny fluid and was warming it up in gear when this happened. Funny.

If you havent seen the beautiful dogs lately, see them here. A MUST SEE

Debauchery in Red....

If the 'Flunder could drink, it would be a rambling idiot. Great farses would be told and many a crowd gathered.

The 'Flunder took its maiden voyage to the mesa today. Lots of high speed turns. Lobey guttural engine noises. Some bad ones too. Some major miss-shifts. Lots of small trees flattened. Lots of puddles' moisture redistributed to the undercarriage. One giant front end bottom-out. A little bit of air time on the rollers. No doors. All mud is game.

Some new developements include the doors being halved, making a 2x4 armrest on it, and bolting it on. Ideas, bc Im way open for ideas at this stage. Remember that cost is an important thing to keep low. Wheels and tires are cool bc theyre swappable to the 4runner. Ideas?

Debaticles....

After watching the final debates I learned a thing a two about the american public. Most are ridiculous. I think Im gonna vote for "that one over there".

On the same page is this....absolutely hilarious. And it has some amount of truth to it or it wouldnt be funny.

And THIS, which is to say that I learned a lot about some of the political platforms of the candidates and took the quiz, which told me Im correct about how I feel and who Im voting for.

Toasting It....

The hard drive is a burning. I set stuff to render and come back hours later only to find its not done yet. But its ok I found a way to pass the time. Digging. I dug a trench from the driveway to the back yard where there will soon be my own custom drainage pond. If I could only find some bentonite. funny thing is I started emptying the water barrels and watching the water flow only to find it not only doesnt go to the end but disappears into the nothingness. Nothingness is a synonym for gopher hole. 150 gallons sucked up by gophers. Made me made so I started excavating the tunnel and found that it goes the distance of the house plus more into the neighbors lot. Ugh.
Illustrator and Arcmap. A match made in heaven. My first combo print that turned out to be so high res that I completely lost my schist. Note my unorthodox hillshading from the SE.

Reedumacation....

Well I have been wanting to learn some cool things lately, and with the mapping things kinda oozing under the door I figured I better relearn Illustrator. I found this rad 30 day tutorial to learn the basics. Since I tried some other mini tutorials and only got to the 4th word before hanging it up and going to bed, I figured this is a great place to start. And it is.

The other day I was eating breakfast at the airport and found myself surrounded by beer and tequila paraphernalia. I was admiring the beer labels and how they differ. Then it hit me, I should make a Geographics Intl label to throw on my maps as a source label. I drew it out and now am learning tracing and everything else. Pretty stoked I am.
Not stoked about the headache I have had for the last week, lingering. Better go play in the rain or something.

Mania of Tiles....

Progression feels like a removing a limb with a spoon.

Tile Mania....

One of those projects that I have always wanted to do is mosaic tile something. Right now is the first and probably the last time I will do this. Not that its difficult, you just need to be in the right mind frame to do such tedious work on purpose. Morning should be a great time, but with the addition of coffee youre too shaky to stick a tile to the side of a barn. Midday, maybe but playing outside seems a better option. Afternoon, works well but the eyes are already tired so end up feeling crosseyed. Evening, should be nice but end up staring at corner for half an hour without moving, so the progression is slow.

I started out the top with a simple guilloche pattern. When the tiles arrived I realized I ordered too few, so I started getting creative with what I had versus ordering more. the top is going to have this flowing frosting effect oozing over a wall of cobalt blue, which is my favorite tile color to date.

Prepping the surface: clean and cover with a glue/water mixture. Draw pattern. Tape off sides so the glue and grout dont inexplicably expand their range.


Prepping the tiles: Soak soak soak. Peel off mesh. Probably the most mentally taxing part of the job.



Gluing em on: dab of glue on surface and stick the tile, line it up, repeat. Run out of tile, soak tile, peel tile, dry tile, wait, stick, repeat.

The Keg Died....

The keg died.

Clay Ducks have No Chance....

Some footage from the explosive weekend (in more ways than one!!)

True Woodsmobile....

With the help of a small collection of junk Ive been saving since college (why?) Ive been transforming the Pathflunder into something marvelous (if youre a redneck).


I have added a utility rack. This way when youre hitting the whoops out on the mesa you know exactly where that sharp axe is (...going). It also looks fairly bad ass. Soon to come might be roof lights and perhaps some mirrors.

Projectos....

With the end of rafting season and the unemployment season just beginning I finally have time to so all those ridiculous projects I have been talking about. My attention span has been flooded. I can no longer talk on the phone and write things down at the same time. As well, with such insane projects I have the major need for motivational music. Diving through the stacks of college era CDs I start throwing in stuff I havent heard for long time or have never listened to, I just own it. Not to anyones surprise a lot of said music is better left on the shelf, but every once in a while I find a real gem. For example, I just popped in Chemical Brothers - Push the Button. Fantastic!! Buffalo Head Tom... not so good. I wish I could find my old copy of Information Society, that stuff rocked, with samples from star trek and such.

Stay tuned... project info ahead!

Website....

I need one. Trying to start a side project to sell my mapping skills. Someone out there can hopefully point me in the right direction. Brian? (Florida or California)


Ive been working on a bunch of river maps. Mainly bc the ones I have seen suck to the largest degree. This needs to be remedied. Maps are cool, so they should look good and not lame.
Other thoughts (open for opinion) include making a series of maps, large scale, and matting them and displaying them around town for sale and such. Its an art display with actual information. I think that is rad.

The image above is a map of the Taos Box, DEM vs Topo. If you have anything you want mapped, printed, designed, let me know. The plotter prints up to 42 inches wide by 100 feet, so it CAN be big.

Ass Full of Pipewrench....

Not Enough Proof....

What Im about to tell you is fact. Though it may not seem so, its true.

A very brisk morning, to the point of considering wearing the bed until things warm up. Two full days of rain and the air temperature seems to cut right through you. Need Fire. I spark up the coffee maker and head outside for some logs. The gate is swollen sticky from the moisture, but reluctantly squeaks open. Two slow steps later I see a little movement from just beyond the trailer. A tail. A giant puffy white/grey tail. This may be the largest bunny I have ever seen, I think to myself. 2 more steps and I find out that my large bunny is indeed a giant bobcat. Bigger than any other I have ever seen. It looks at me and hides behind the pathflunder while I try and snap a camera phone pic. I am dumb. It disappears behind the wood pile never to be seen again. I need a cup of coffee.

Post Event Thoughts:
- that could have been 2 dead dogs
-must've weighed 150lbs
-looks a little different than my friends pixie-bob
-that thing was gone in stealth with a quickness
-need more coffee, that was rad

EDIT: PROOF....

Look, Left of the rear bumper. Grey CAT!!!! Apparently the guys at the bar said it might weigh at max 40 lbs. Could be? Unfortuneatly the pic leads the viewer to believe tha cat is smaller than it actually was, kinda like fishing.

3, 2, 1...Ignite!...

A better video has presented itself.

So I present it to you:

Pathflunder....

So once I actually got started, things just rolled together. Pieces came out, new ones went in. Put the sombitch in gear and go.

As you may have known the bolts were pretty well broken off in the block. Joe had the idea of using a left handed bit to pull those suckers out on their own accord. And of course it worked like dream. Too bad theres no way reach said bolts with american designed mechanical pieces of crap. Ive said enough.

But just look at how nice that pops out. 1, 2.

And heres the new ones, in place and ready to go. I have the bad habit of tightening the bejeebus out of engine bolts, thus stripping them. So for this round on a purely worthless vehicle, I kept my monster pipes on easy and just loved them in there. I bet they fall out.

Note all the grimes and grease on everything. I believe thats going to play a part later....

Weve got some rust. Weve got some chunky burly rust. Weve got some missing parts too.

We also have a complete gasket kit. New. In the box. Minus the parts I lost. I really dont care. At the same time, since I was thinking about actually starting this beast up, I thought itd be nice if I checked the oil. The dipstick was in all ways black. Black, chunky, nasty. I hate to put 5 bucks into this thing, but it looks like Im gonna have to change the oil at some point.

So this is another one of my first videos. Unfortunately I think I had my finger on the mic the whole time (again). So I didnt make another one. There are a couple funny happening in here, especially if youve never seen the beast before. Enjoy!