A Game of Chicken

By on Sep 15, 2022

As a kid I was somewhat fearless. Some would say dumb, but really I just wasn’t afraid of injury. I was really into skateboarding and BMX/Freestyle biking and while I’ve lost about every inch of skin on my body, I’ve never broken a bone or needed any kind of surgery. I guess I was just dumb. My lack of fear served me well when frequently moving from town to town. I developed a knack for quickly building a reputation. For whatever reason, chicken was a common way to test new arrivals in the 80’s, and I was always up to the challenge. I would never swerve or slow down. I’ve been hurt, hurt others, damaged bikes, both mine and theirs, but I never swerved.     One time in Jacksonville, Florida there was a big kid with a big beach cruiser bike. He decided to call me out one day, ready to make a fool of me. He waited until all the neighbor kids were...

A Little Something More.

By on Sep 12, 2022

  A little something about me, as if this whole website wasn’t, I’m really not a sports fan. My favorite part of football season is the empty grocery store while games are on. I do enjoy going to games because of the spectacle but I couldn’t care less about stats or records. I have no interest in any sport, except maybe skateboarding but that isn’t really a sport. I find sports on TV to be grating. I think that putting on a football game during Thanksgiving is the equivalent of taking a big steamy dump in the middle of the living room. It’s obnoxious, irritating and unescapable. That being said, guess who is now a volleyball coach… I made a new t-shirt. Based on the drawing that I also turned into a gif a couple weeks ago.     Pretty happy with how it turned out. I’m still having a bit of a problem wearing my own shirts. I really...

A Little Something…

By on Aug 17, 2022

 

Summer has arrived and a new Gundam is in process.

By on Jun 20, 2022

  Summer has arrived. First week was a blast! I am a subtle shade of pink and my showers are excruciating. You never really know how burnt you are until that hot water comes raining down. The kids started Summer School but we are still going hard. I’m trying to pack in as many good times as possible and the kids are going to be begging to go back to school once it’s over.     I have also stepped up the Gundam building too. All the Gundams I’ve built so far have been HG or High Grade. Well I decided to step up to the next tier RG or Real Grade. These are alot like HG but they have an internal structure that makes them more posable and structurally sound. More pieces too.     The instruction booklet is not just a folded up single piece of paper. This one is a small booklet that is half folded with staples. Pretty fancy. I started work on it this...

Look outside, I know that you’ll recognize it’s summertime

By on Jun 13, 2022

  Holy cow, am I looking forward to summer. The kids have their last day of school coming up and I am ready for it. Now that my kids are getting a little older we are able to do things that we couldn’t before. The last few weeks have been pretty stressful planning everything out and getting everything in line but things are now in place and summer is almost here.     I’m making this a beach summer. Wisconsin has amazing parks and we are going to go to at least 8 of them over the summer. Some have swimming. Some have hiking. They are all different and I can’t wait. My work is going to let me shift my hours some so I can get out early and spend the day catching the rays.     Next will be the brats, bbq, potato salad and baked beans. Not to mention beer gardens should be popping up any minute now. Yeah, it’s just around the corner and I...

Oh boy… here we go again.

By on May 25, 2022

  Sorry. This is going to be one of those posts. I’ve been having a little issue lately. It is one of the reasons I have been taking time away from social media. I don’t really think social media is a net good but that’s not what I’m going to write about. Instead it’s something that I’ve seen happening with one person in particular. You don’t know this person and he will remain anonymous for reasons that will become clear.     The person is someone from my past. I guess you could say he was a mentor. He probably wouldn’t label himself as that and until the last few days I wouldn’t have labeled him as that either, but after alot of thought I realized that was exactly what he was to me. He was a cool older guy that I used to play music with. I knew him at a time when I was trying to figure out who I was. He was open and...

I want a simple build… maybe not that simple.

By on May 24, 2022

  This might have been more my fault than anything else but that only made it that much more of a disappointment. I was browsing the aisles of an oversized brick and mortar bookstore when I came along a shelf of Gundam models. I was pleasantly surprised and I decided to get a little one. I figured it would probably be pretty simple, maybe a half-hour build, so I picked it up as a little treat. We went on a trip for the weekend and I was really looking forward to putting it together when I got home.     Here it is, in all it’s super-deformed glory. It looks pretty cool and alot different than my other ones. The problem was the only things I had to put together was the head, some kind of antenna that’s on its back and the gun in its hand. It literally took 45 seconds to complete. It is still cool looking but…     I decided to take a couple days...

Pot of Baked Beans?

By on May 19, 2022

I’ve decided to take on baked beans. Baked beans are one of those things that I kind of like but never very much. It falls into the same category as barbecue sauce. A few years ago I decided to take on barbecue sauce and finally make one that I enjoyed. I fine tuned and tweaked that recipe for an entire year before I finally got it right. Now it’s time for baked beans.     I technically started last summer but I didn’t make much progress. After working on them for a few months I decided to pause for a while and just focus on making good Mexican black beans and refried beans that I could add to our weekly meal planning. Now every time we have Mexican, which is at least once a week, I am able to whip up some good black beans as a side. It’s a nice addition that really rounds out the meal and I’ve become pretty proficient.     Using what...