Month: June 2009

Bike Trail Home?

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Now before I get nasty comments on this I would just like to say that at age 17 I was homeless for 10 months, 1.5 months after my 17th birthday all the way until about 1.5 months before my 18th birthday so I know what it’s like being homeless.  That being said here you go…

So I’m riding on the bike path last week and I stop at the Manor St. rest stop which has about 4 cement benches, 1 of them has like a bus stop roof so if it’s raining you can sit in there out of the rain.  2 of them have no cover and those 3 are all in like a half circle (see my bike cam video at the end).  Then the 4th bench is separate from that little half circle, more like across the “street” hehe.

Anyway, so I’m riding the bike path last week (as I said lol) and I go to the stop and it’s dark because the sun hasn’t come up and I see this darkness over by one of the benches.  So I don’t go around the half circle and sit in the middle like I normally would, instead I just pull in on the other side and sit on the bench at the end.  I look over and see a face staring at me.  It’s a homeless guy in a sleeping bag next to the bench but on the ground.  I sat there for my 10-15 minute break and then leave.

Next day he’s not there and then the next time I go there he isn’t there but the sun has already come up and it was the day after Michael Jackson had passed away.  So I go sit down on the bench and as I’m taking off my helmet I can see in my helmet mirror this guy all of a sudden standing like 15 feet away from me, staring at me.  This kinda freaks me out because he wasn’t there when I stopped and when I sat down, almost as if he teleported there lol.

He slowly creeps towards me and is now in front of me and I know that he’s the guy sleeping in the sleeping bag over by the bench and I’m not quite sure I trust him.  He has this scar on his neck from having his throat slashed.  I’m not sure what that was all about but I’m going to give him the benefit of a doubt.  He comes up to me and starts talking about Michael Jackson and I sat there talking to him about all the recent deaths and about how MJ is getting all the attention while Caradine, McMahon and Fawcett get no attention.

So anyway, after about 10-15 minutes I’m ready to go so I said well breaks over and start getting my gear back on, camelbak, gloves, skull cap, helmet, earbud’s and I look in my helmet mirror and he’s back where he was when I first spotted him.  Standing 15 feet away from me, arms folded, staring at me.

The last 2 days (yesterday and today) I could see him in his sleeping bag, I’m leaving really early and so I get there before the sun even has a chance to come up.  But I’ve decided I’m not going to take any chances.  Instead of stopping there and sitting down I’m just gonna go through that tunnel and go about maybe 1/4 of a mile away and rest there.  I’m having to rest standing up now which kinda bites but that’s fine, I’d rather have to stand then worry about having my throat slashed.

Now, as I said above about being homeless, I know what it’s like and not everyone should be judged based on their scars and I don’t want to judge “the content of his character” as Martin Luther King Jr. would say but at the same time I really don’t know this guy and I’m not taking any chances.

Wood Burning Shading

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

A friend of mine bought me a Creative Versa-Tool wood burner but I never bought a book for it because the Michael’s in town has a very small wood burning section.  So I was looking around and asked someone about it.  I asked if I am wasting my time with this cool tool or should I save up for the expensive big boy tool and this person told me that I can just get a lamp dimmer and use that.  Well, I just so happen to have one of those.  I tried it and it works great.

The only issue that I have with this light dimmer is that it doesn’t really have a dial, it has buttons instead.  Like “Bright” and “Dim” so I had to plug in a lamp into it and press the dim button while counting lol.  It does 0 dim to 15 bright so when I use the wood burner with it I have to just count lol.  I think it would be a good idea to buy a piece of wood and trace like a checkerboard and number it 1-15 and just do shading in each of those boxes so I will get a better idea of what each shade looks like so in the future I will know the exact shade I need lol.  Good idea eh?

If someone has a Creative Versa-Tool wood burner, I would love to hear your comments if you have some good suggestions on how to do things.

Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson

On By Michel McDonaldIn CelebritiesLeave a comment

Yesterday morning on my bike ride I was listening to the radio instead of mp3’s and they said that Ed McMahon died from cancer.  That was sad but I knew he was dying so I hope he is at peace.  My condolences go out to his family.

But I just heard that Michael Jackson died!  What?!  OMG I can’t believe it.  That was so unexpected.  Wasn’t he just going to make his 10th come back?  Well, same goes for him as with Ed, he is at peace now and he doesn’t have to worry about his looks anymore or his pedophile charges anymore.

Ok if that wasn’t enough then I heard about Farah Fawcett.  Ok now they’ve gone too far.  Farah is dead too?  That is so sad.  Ok I also knew about her cancer and I thought she was doing good.  My condolences go out to her family.

They say it always happens in threes right?  Well, I hope that Blanket and MJ’s other kids go to a good home, like maybe their mother who they should’ve been with the whole time.

As I said, my condolences go out to the family of all the recently deceased.

WordPress Update

On By Michel McDonaldIn BlogLeave a comment

If anyone tried visiting my blog today they may have noticed that it wasn’t accessible.  I was trying yet again to update my WordPress blog to the next version which is supposed to be better.  I really don’t care about the new features, what I care about is getting that stupid notice at the top of the screen off.  Also one of my plugins is telling me that it won’t work until I update WP to 2.8.

One of the things that I was told to do before updating is to deactivate all my plugins before attempting to update and for some strange reason that keeps slipping my mind.  I don’t know why but I’ve deactivated EVERYTHING so that I may proceed.  If it doesn’t work again then screw it, I will just deal with my plugins not working and with that warning at the top of my control panel.

UPDATE: Ok, I finally got it all working again and the upgrade is installed.  Here is what happened.  I am a hard headed idiot who cannot follow directions that’s what happened.

The first time I tried doing the upgrade I read the full instructions and at the very beginning it said clear as day “deactivate all your plugins first” so what do I do?  I don’t deactivate all my plugins, I just proceed with the upgrade.  Then I had to delete it all and reupload my backup then I tried upgrading again WITHOUT deactivating my plugins then again it didn’t work so I had to delete it all and reupload my backups.

So today I did the same exact thing lol.  Finally after I made the above post I did it again lol.  Then after I reuploaded everything AGAIN I decided to deactivate all my plugins and did the upgrade and it worked.  However, as I was reactivating plugins things started going south again so I was luckily able to click back and deactivate them.  So I went and reactivated them one at a time while looking at the blog site in another tab, I kept hitting the refresh button to make sure it was all working.  There were a few plugins that I lost that were not compatible with WordPress 2.8 but I don’t mind.

Those plugins are:

  1. Global Translator which I can find another one that will work for those who read my blog but do not speak english.
  2. Custom Smilies… what?  I can’t smile in my posts anymore?  Well I’m gonna have to find some new ones then aren’t I?
  3. Flickr – This actually didn’t cause any issues but I just never use it so I got rid of it.
  4. WordPress Greet Box – This is something that would greet my visitors from any website they came from like for example if you came here from Google it would say hi google person or whatever it would say lol.  Yeah, I don’t need that.

So that’s it.  I’m going to try to get number 1 and 2 back soon.

Spoke Wrench

On By Michel McDonaldIn BikeLeave a comment

I just came back from Snider’s Cyclry, I had to get a spoke wrench for my bike.  I was going to wait until I got my check then have them “true” the wheel but I wasn’t sure how expensive it would be.  The guy at Snider’s told me it would only cost $17 but probably more depending on how bad it was and it’s pretty bad lol.

He asked if I’ve ever “trued” a bike before and I said no but I’ve been doing a lot of research on how to do it with watching YouTube videos and reading tutorials and stuff because I’ve read if you don’t do it right you can screw it up and you’ll have to buy a new wheel.  He said yeah and he showed me how to do it which was nice.

He said that a truing stand would cost like $75 or so which I don’t have that kind of money but he told me that you can put the wheel in your front fork where the front wheel goes and put a zip tie on the fork about where the top of the wheel is as a guide so when you are moving the wheel near that zip tie you will be able to see if it needs to go in which direction.

I’m not quite sure I remember everything he told me but I’m going to do my best.  I just want to save the $17 or so so I can buy my seat next in 2 weeks.

Well, I’m off to go try to “true” my back wheel in the front fork hehe.  Wish me luck.  And as always I will edit this post when I’m finished with a YAY I did it or oh crap I screwed it up and now I can’t ride my bike until I can get a new wheel lol.

Edit: I am happy to say that it worked out.  I didn’t totally 100% true my back wheel but it doesn’t wobble anymore.  I tried doing what he said by putting the back wheel on the front fork but it’s not the right size because of the freewheel (the thing that the chain goes on) made it too big.  So what I did was I put the zip tie on the fork for the front wheel and did a little practice test on the front wheel.  That worked out perfectly because the front wheel needed to be trued a little too.  So then I put another zip tie on the back wheel and I trued that as best as I could and then went out on a test ride and perfection.  Well, 95% perfection lol.  I didn’t want to mess with it too much and end up screwing it up.  But it was much easier than I thought because of that zip tie.

ZipIt Wireless

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I LikeLeave a comment

zipit-wireless

I’m at YouTube watching another installment of Fred the episode where he is swimming lol.  Anyway at the end of the video he is texting on this device called the ZipIt Wireless.  There was a link at the end of the video which goes right to ROFL w/Fred but you can click ZipIt Home and it takes you to the websites homepage (or just click here).

I like this device.  It’s only $50 for the device and of course you have to pay a monthly fee of $9.99 a month or $109.89 for a full year and you get 1 month for free.  Go ahead, get your calculators… I’ll wait.

Ok now that you have verified that you get 1 month free you’ll want to know what it is.  This is a device that you can buy either for yourself or for your kids.  It has unlimited texting and IMing to any cell phone or any device.  Basically you can chat on AOL/AIM, Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger or cell phones.  There are no other fees.

But it’s not just a messenger, you can view your photos on there and listen to mp3’s that are on a miniSD card which is very nice.  It also streams radio stations too.

Personally, I don’t have enough friends that I chat with online to require needing to carry this with me everywhere I go.  If I had a job that I went to everyday that I couldn’t chat with on my work computer, or if I didn’t work in front of a computer then maybe but I don’t.

I am a huge fan of IMing with friends/family and I think the amount of money the cell phone companies rip you off for is terrible and $10 a month is great for kids because it gets them off the family computer and it helps out with the cell phone bill in this economy.

But this thing has parental controls too so you can feel safe knowing your kids aren’t talking to creeps from Dateline NBC.  You can make it so they can only talk to certain people and you can also set a time limit so you know they aren’t wasting their life IMing everyone around the universe all freakin day and night.  Obviously you don’t want them going to school with it so when they get home you can set it for maybe 2 or 3 hours or so AFTER they do their homework of course lol.  Sorry kids, I know you are calling me names right now.  Stay in school and just say NO to drugs, cigarettes and alcohol!

So, it would be smart to buy one of these if not for your kid then for yourself.  Don’t drive and text PLEASE!

Land of the Lost Movie

On By Michel McDonaldIn MoviesLeave a comment

We went to see Land of the Lost today at the movies.  Yeah I know it’s been out for awhile but I can’t just go to every movie premiere.  What do you think I’m made of money?

Ok so I loved it because I watched the show when I was a kid on Kroft Super Stars in the 70’s.  I was rather disappointed that they did change a few things but I think they did it to add some spice to it.  Although I did find it rather disturbing that Rick Marshall was kissing Holly because in the original 70’s show Holly was his daughter.

I did love the woman who played Holly, she was in Pushing Daisies so I already knew I was going to like the movie because she was in it.

Chaka was hilarious getting to second base with Holly lol.  And him getting high with the guys and almost making out with Rick Marshall was hilarious.

As we were leaving the theater all I heard from people behind me was “boy that was the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen” and “oh my god that was so stupid”.  Sorry, I don’t know what to say but I liked it lol.  I have a sense of humor and some people just don’t and they probably weren’t that into the show in the 70’s so they just didn’t get it.

I mean, come on, the acting in this movie was 20 times better than the original series so you gotta give the movie some credit.  Not to mention the fact that they used real dinosaurs, I mean come on, you know that the T-rex is a prima donna.

Wait, one sec…. what’s that?  You say it was CGI?  What?  But I thought…

Oh eh hem… was this mic on that whole time?  Um what I meant to say was the CGI graphics in this movie was amazing.  They must’ve gotten the same people who did Jurassic Park and Walking with Dinosaurs to do the CGI.

Well anyway, I thought it was good so poopoo on anyone who doesn’t like it.

Merlin on NBC

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

Tonight Merlin was on NBC.  There were 2 1 hour episodes and considering magic is one of my most favorite things to watch on TV I just had to watch it.  I was a little bit disappointed that the King banned magic or face death but I guess it will make it even more interesting to watch.

As I said there were 2 1 hour episodes.  I completely forgot it was going to be on so I almost missed it.  I IM’d a friend of mine who I know wanted to see it so I reminded her and she didn’t even know it was 2 hours either so she had to go into the program on her VCR to add the extra hour.  She records it then watches it the next day.  I on the other hand have to watch shows on their premiere night so I can turn around and come here and post my comments.

I liked it.  There, I said it.  Keep in mind that my kind of show is more of a modern day show with cars and computers and the use of telephones instead of horses, abacus and shouting at each other but it was good.

The actor who played Merlin looks very young like he’s 17 or 18 years old, he’s very skinny but he plays the role great.  I loved how at the beginning he didn’t have to say anything to cast spells, it just happened.  That was pretty cool.

Now next week he will be exposed and face death but you can’t believe he will because they just started the show, why would they throw the towel in after 3 episodes?  Now when I say exposed, I mean the King finds out he is a wizard, not that he dropped his towel in front of someone lol.  Come on people, get your mind out of the gutter.  Oh wait, that was my mind.

Anyway, hope everyone else enjoyed/enjoys Merlin Sunday’s on NBC.  Ding ding ding.

My Spirit Board

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

I’ve been wanting to make a spirit board for a very long time.  I don’t want to buy one because I want it to be personal, something that I made.  Perhaps when I die I might be attached to it some how lol.

I just haven’t had the money to go out and buy all the stuff for it.  A friend of mine, Alyce, bought me the wood burning kit which I am totally grateful to her for because it’s a $30 kit and even though I can afford to buy that I just would’ve never been able to because there is always something that is going to take precedence over a hobby.

All I need now is to buy the piece of wood to burn the letters and numbers.  I’ve mainly been waiting all this time because I wanted to practice wood burning to make sure I’m good at it before I even try to attempt it for fear of screwing it up.

So when Alyce first sent me the wood burning kit we went to Wal-Mart looking for cheap wood to burn on and I found these little pieces of wood in the craft/hobby section for .99¢ but the wood is so difficult to burn on so I just figured that since it’s so cheap I will do my best to try but no guarantees on it.  Well one of the pieces I ended up using to cut the Planchette with yesterday and I burned the Charmed triquatra on it.

my-planchette

It’s not perfect by any means but it’s mine.  Of course I’m going to stain it a little and put lacquer on it to keep it clean.  Then I’ve got to put the bottom pieces on it to make it slide easily on the board.  Here is what the board is going to look like:

55125012

I like this wood, I like that it has the bark on it and I think it’s about $20 or $30 at Michael’s.  I don’t remember.  Of course I want a very big piece.  I think the piece that is probably the better size because it is paper size is about $15 or $20.  I want it to be bigger than paper to give the planchette a lot of room to work with.  Also I don’t want the letters/numbers to take up the whole board because eventually I’m going to add a pattern around the whole thing to give it character.

Ok I know what people are going to say about spirit boards.  They are dangerous and they open up a portal that you cannot close blah blah blah exorcist yadda yadda yadda.  Whatever.  I don’t believe in all that.  Personally I don’t think this is going to work with just 1 person anyway and I can’t ask Darrin because he doesn’t believe in the spirit world.  He is taught as a born again that the only spirit he is supposed to acknowledge is the “holy spirit” despite the fact that he has had an encounter with a ghost cat in my bedroom.  He knows they exist but he’s not allowed to acknowledge that because of his religious beliefs.

Well, I don’t go to church, I don’t believe in organized religion.  I don’t believe that if “God” does exist that he would want us to sink all of our money into a church to worship him/her/it when we can do that at home.  But that’s a debate for another time or never lol.  My point is, I do believe in ghosts and no church is going to tell me that I can’t believe.

Well, in July I’m going to buy the board to make this because I want to.  I’ve already made a commitment to buy some other things like a new seat for my bike which is about $30 – $50.  I’m thinking of just buying the cheap $30 one even though it’s probably hard as a rock but then in August I can buy the sheepskin cover for it.  And I’ve also made a commitment to buy a cigarette kit for Chips cousin for her birthday on July 4th.  It’s the injector for around $5 plus a cartons worth of tubes and a can of tobacco which should only be about $25 total.  So I’m pretty sure that after all that I can still afford to buy this wood to burn on.  Plus I want to buy some other wood burning accessories to go with it all lol.

Of course when I make this I will post the board picture.

Bike Seat Issues

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike1 Comment

Lately I’ve been coming home from my 2 hour bicycle ride numb in an area that would normally make me blush to mention.  I know that it’s my seat that is causing the problem because of the “nose” of the seat (yes, my crotch sits on a nose for 2 hours lol).

I have one of those gel cushions for my seat because the seat (they call them “saddles”) is really hard and I refuse to sit on a seat that hard with my body weight.  I can’t recall how much the gel seat cost me, maybe it was about $10 I’m sure, I bought it from Nashbar and that is how much they charge for them.  I’ve been using that all this time, last year for a couple of months and now this year for a couple of months.

It hasn’t bothered me before but lately I’ve come home from my bike ride and go to use the restroom and notice I can’t feel anything in my appendage (giggle I said appendage).

So I decided that it’s time to find out what’s going on and what to do about it.  Apparently it is a common thing for men who sit on a bicycle for hours and hours.  It can cause temporary impotence (YIKES!) in men and it may also probably lead to serious problems in the future because you are pressing down on your arteries and your colon so you can expect problems.

There is a solution and it is a new type of seat which has no nose, instead your butt takes all of the impact.  Here is a picture:

large_seat_b

This seat is going to cost me $63 plus shipping of course because it’s coming from Canada.  It is called Spongy Wonder and frankly I can’t wait to get it.  It is going to relieve a lot of my issues and I won’t have to keep standing on my peddles during my ride to relieve myself down there all the time.  They have an optional seat cover for an additional $16 which I will not be able to buy right away but perhaps in August I can buy that.  I’m going to have to wait until July to buy this seat because I am flat broke right now but there’s only 2 more weeks until I get more money so I can wait 2 weeks.

Other models I have seen cost around $79 and up and this is just the right price.  The cheaper the better.  Well, cheap in price but hopefully the same good quality you know?  I’m probably going to be bashed for buying outside of the US during our bad economy but I really don’t care because I need something that I can afford and I really need this now because it is becoming a medical issue.  I will be looking at other websites, after all, I do have 2 weeks to decide before I place my order.  If I do find another place that is US-based then I will choose that and of course you know I will be making a post about it lol.

Update: I am looking at the 2 other noseless seats and the one that is $79 is also from a Canadian websiteTesco-Shopping and it looks exactly like the $63 one.  Then there is the Spiderflex which is $110 plus $12 shipping so I definitely will not be buying from them.  I don’t know if they are in Canada or not, they aren’t releasing that information but they ship there and to Europe but in their shipping page they do show a map of the US showing delivery times lol.  I’m pretty sure that these 3 companies are the only ones who are selling these seats but I will keep looking.  I’m willing to pay $63 because it is a small price to pay to prevent colon problems and/or impotence lol.

I found it! Bicycle Seats | Ergo Seats this is perfect.  It’s basically the same as my regular seat but without the nose so it’s basically a half seat.  The positive of this is the price.  It’s the right price for me at $30 – $50 plus $30 for a sheepskin cover (optional).  I’m thinking maybe I can get the seat in July then the sheepskin cover in August.  That is if the seat is really that hard that I need to buy the sheepskin cover.  This is the perfect seat.  Check out the link for pictures.  Oh and by the way, this website is in Washington State!