Fine Art: 58 Cents Per Square Foot

We moved into this place over a year ago, and, until this weekend, the walls of the upstairs hallway had remained bare apart from six painted screw heads. I didn't want to move the screws in the wall since I didn't have the correct color touch-up paint.  Besides, they weren't hurting anything, so I left them.

The area was so large it was difficult to find or even envision a solution for it.  A giant piece of art would have been too expensive, and a bunch of random art wouldn't have looked right.  A huge number of photos would have been out of place as well.  Keeping it blank wasn't working since the hallway can be seen from the downstairs entryway.

The wife and I would occasionally hit furniture stores and places like that for something that would look... I dunno... good enough, I guess.  "Perfect" wasn't going to happen. Whether it looked "good" was immaterial.  "Good enough" was all we were shooting for and we didn't see anything we liked.

The walls would probably still be bare if it weren't for a bike helmet. 

It was time for my boy to get a bicycle helmet that didn't advertise a Pixar character so we went to a bike store to get one "like dad's".  After that, we went to an Uno's for lunch next to a craft store.  He knows that craft stores carry cool, cheap wooden things to build and paint, so, after our pizza, we went next door to "just look".

Inside, we passed a huge pile of 18" x 24" canvases and I did a double take at the price.   For about seven dollars, I could get four of them - a perfect number of canvases to de-blank the upstairs hallway.  Sweet... I wondered how cheaply I could do this.  Even if I totally failed, I would be out less than the price of a bottle of wine.

Since I (still) didn't want to remove the screws, I kept them there and placed the bare canvases on the wall like you see here:

I liked the arrangement, so I decided to stick with it.

The first order of business was to build an easel (of sorts) where the under-construction paintings could be worked on at once a) while not needing four separate easels and b) approximating their final layout as much as possible.

After I measured and cut some scrap wood to size the boy helped me build the easel you see here:

The canvases were mounted a little lower than their final configuration was intended to be and the easel was made sturdy enough to make life easier for both of us. I didn't have to kill my back stooping, he didn't need to stand on his toes to reach everything and neither of us had to worry about the contraption getting knocked over. 

But what to paint?  I am not an artist whatsoever and all I was willing to use was the leftover stuff I had in the garage from previous projects. We had bluish-grey (mailbox post), red (toolbox and birdhouse), white (lots of stuff), black (security lights), reddish brown (outdoor metalwork and table), and tan (some walls). Although I guess we could have used my kid's art supplies to enormously expand the palette of available colors I felt that would have been cheating, somehow...

Besides, limiting myself to rags and chip brushes and the various indoor and outdoor house paints taking up shelf space was a more fun challenge with the bonus that, if everything looked crummy in the end, I had the excuse "I was, like, totally limited by the media I had at hand". :)

Here are some pics of the work in progress:

Now that the paintings were done, it was time for frames.  The only wood I had in quantity on hand was my stash of barnwood. I rescued this stuff from a dilapidated corn crib on my father-in-law's land a few years ago.  The wood is between 80 and 100 years old and is kind of tricky to work with.  Rusty nail parts and shotgun lead pepper the boards and the decades turned the soft pine reddish and mineral-rich.  The grooves from the original saw-mill cuts and the insect holes provide a unique surface to every piece.  

The warped pieces needed to be cut into 3" wide sections, planed, then cut again to 2 1/2" to make them frame-worthy. 

I stained them with some leftover stuff from the Planter Box project and sealed them with leftover spar sealant from the D20 project. Here are the finished pieces.

Maybe not Louvre quality, but certainly T.J.Maxx bargain aisle quality, which is plenty good enough for me.  

I had fun doing this and I learned a lot, especially about how tricky it can be to precisely frame a canvas.  The boy was pleased and he asked if we could do a city next.  Great idea.  I think a metropolitan scene would look great in the guest bedroom...

Meh... Sounds Legit.

I wasn't really that concerned when they told me that a top hat and monocle were mandatory... until they told me that was all I would be wearing...

Every Single Thing is Super Exciting!!!

I saw this one outside of a local Bojangles.  I can almost hear the conversation with the sign maker... "Yes, we are sure we want the exclamation point there!!!  Stop asking and just do it!!!  Nice fall weather we are having!!!!  Oh, before I forget can you validate my parking?!?!?!?"

For the love of all that is holy, enjoy this tea!!!  I can't hear you savoring!!!  GARNISH IT, GARNISH IT, NOW!!!

Ahh, that's better... a simple art set.  Wait...  What's that sticker on the lower left say?

AHHHHHH!!!   Is it the gum eraser?!  Tell me it's not the gum eraser!!!  It is, isn't it?!  ISN'T IT?!?! Oh God oh God oh God... Wait!!! Where are the exclamation points?!?!  Did the ice guy and the tea guy use them all up or something?!  AHHHHH!!!!  

Siri-ously Judgmental

I had no idea that "the majesty of the heavens" was a hot-button issue for you, Siri.  I... I'm sorry...

Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat...

I was looking at the sidebar and I realized I have been letting a lot of things slip. For example, I haven't updated the Most Recent Project Section or the Current To Do list in a while, and those things have changed a lot over the months. The Currently Reading section also hasn't been updated, but that's because I can only get through one to three pages of it at a time. More on that in another post... 

Let's summarize one small project for now.  The next write-up will describe a larger one I should finish up this week. 

One morning a couple of weeks ago, the five-year-old was helping me clean the garage when he asked if we could build something together. I said "sure" and asked him what he had in mind.  He though for a bit and said "Maybe we could build a sailboat."

"Sounds good to me.  Do you have any plans or instructions we could use?"

"No... but we could think about it and just make some."

I smiled and handed him the Boogie Board I keep in the garage. "Ok. Draw what you think you want, and I will help you turn it into a plan we can follow."

As he worked, I asked leading questions that helped him arrive at answers I wanted him to have. For example, I asked him where he would play with it, in the tub or on the carpet. His answer ("On the carpet so the paint doesn't come off", btw) was irrelevant.  I didn't care where he was going to play with it - I just didn't want him thinking it was going to be so big he could ride the thing. Also, many of the "questions" limited the number of moving parts to zero and minimized the number of overall cuts so the project could be done in a couple hours. 

After some faux debates on the number, size, and location of the sails and whether or not there would be people on it the design was pretty much done. I wrote the dimensions in the right places and had him choose the wood stock we would need for the main parts.  

Since nearly all the steps involved using a power tool of some kind, he couldn't really "help" too much making the individual pieces. I let him use the cordless drill and the small hand sander sometimes, but the table saw, band saw, and drill press are off limits.  Even if he were tall enough to turn them on (well, he is for the table saw, of course) I keep the dangerous stuff unplugged... I even make sure we are both wearing safety glasses while we work. Call me paranoid. 

Anyhow, since I didn't want him to get bored waiting for parts to be fabricated so he could assemble everything I told him that he could be the "boss" and I could be the "builder" and he would have to tell me what to do. He liked that idea a lot, going as far as talking in the most outrageously fake voice I have ever heard. I'm not too sure how to describe it. It kind of sounded like a woman was mocking Bane's (from Dark Knight Rises) voice through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. No idea why. Through the build, he referred to me variously as "Mr. Helper", "Mr. Builder", and just plain ol' "worker" at the end. 

Meh... I've been called worse. 

To make the game a little more fun I intentionally made "mistakes" like cutting the sails to the wrong size, or saying things like "I finished making all the people, Mr. Boss" when I had one left to make.  He would say "No, Mr. Builder,one sail should be bigger than the other" or "No, worker, you still need to make one more person." After each of his corrections he would always say "You are still doing a good job, though. I am not trying to hurt your feelings. "

He's a magnanimous supervisor that way, what with all the open-faced compliment sandwiches and whatnot...

But, like all project managers since the invention of fire, he feature-creeped in a design change well beyond the very-last-minute point of the project.  After I had rounded the hull on the bench sander he came up to me and said "I drew some holes on the boat. Not like holes like a shark bit the boat or something. These are holes the people could look out of". He showed me his drawing. 

"Oh, you mean portholes. You got it. Is three on a side good enough?"  He said "yes" and I got to work trying to mount a now-curved piece of wood on the drill press in a way that was stable enough where I wouldn't be risking slicing my fingers to ribbons with a walking 1/2 inch spade bit.  I got through it ok, but I asked him not to add anything else.  He agreed. 

The final pieces were cut and sanded and he put everything together with wood glue.  It was dry enough to play with after dinner that day and he has had many adventures with it since it was made. He hasn't painted it yet and I am not too sure that's gonna happen. Like his father, see, he has far too many other squirrels to chase.  But, if he does I will post the final product then.

He said next he wants to build a rocket with "a kitchen and everything".

"Uhhh... Ok. You got it,” I said.  “You're the boss."

Feeling Minnesota (Part II)

(Continued from Part I)

We took a mercifully uneventful train ride to the station closest to the hotel (Did you know that Minneapolis has a red light district?  Cuz I didn't.).  We then took a (Free!? Why, sign me up hyuk, hyuk!) bus to within half a block of our goal and managed to check in without umm...  "checking out", I guess.

Later, we took a pedicab to a restaurant a few blocks away from the hotel; it was a first for all of us (the pedicab... not the restaurant).  As we passed the corner of Nicolette Mall and 7th street we noticed a statue.  At our distance, we couldn't really tell what it was supposed to depict.  It was of an extraordinarily jubilant lady triumphantly lofting... something... in her right hand. Whatever the "something" was, it was just an amorphous blob from our point of view, and I was positive that the plaque below the artwork must have said "WHO WANTS MEATLOAF?!" or "HEY, EVERYONE, I POOPED TODAY!". 

We found out later it was just the Mary Tyler Moore statue and the plaque says "Who can turn the world on with her smile?"  She was holding her tam in mid-toss. It was not a meatloaf.  Or poo.

At the Mall of America we rented a wheelchair to help the wife get around.  I think she thought it was great being wheeled everywhere... to a point.  She didn't think it was as funny as I did when I pointed the chair at a blank wall or featureless column and walked off with the boy.  She did not laugh when I put my cap on the floor in front of her and threw change into it.  She (and, based on the looks I got, all the other people in the LEGO store) didn't think it was amusing whatsoever when I asked her in a loud, slow, deliberate voice normally reserved for speaking to hard-of-hearing nonagenarians "HONEY, DO YOU NEED A SNACK?!  NO?   DO YOU NEED TO GO POOP? ARE YOU SURE?!  YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME!"

Oh, stop.  She's fine.  When we did get to a store she was interested in checking out she got up and did her thing.  Meanwhile,I rocketed the boy around the mall in the chair at as fast as I could go, making sure I was straddling the triple-point of safety, fun, and utter embarrassment of my spouse. 

While she attended her conference my son and I explored the city.  We did this mainly by "penny-hiking" the skyway. We only explored about half of the eleven miles of elevated walkway connecting nearly 70 city blocks but we did find a couple of neat things.  

The first was a really awesome sweets shop where we were able to get sponge candy.  The second was running into the most mellow security guard in the world when we decided to take our lunch in a restricted area near an indoor waterfall.  We had no idea the place was off limits, but he let us finish our sandwiches before making sure we left the secure area we stumbled into. He said we were "exactly the type of intruders he prefers dealing with".

Cool guy.

Not too much more to say about the trip.  I guess I could complain about the hotel staff and the cabbies, or talk about the six-year-old girl we saw in Target throwing the most epic temper-tantrum I have ever seen outside of a cartoon but... meh, you know?  

Let me finish how I started, instead.

In a single day, the boy got to fly in a jet for the first time, sit in the pilot's seat when we landed... where he pretended to machine gun Gate 82 (a legitimate "target of opportunity", I suppose), ride a moving walkway, take a train, a bus, a pedicab, and zoom around a mall in a wheelchair.  

What could match that, right? 

Well, it turns out, when you are five, the answer is "pretty much everything" because everything is still bright and shiny and new.  It's not a matter of being plied with a never-ending parade of expensive toys or gizmos or whatever.  It's all about the "new".

For example, while we were sitting in the airport waiting for the wife to finish giving her lecture and join us there to make our flight home he was happily reading a book and I was watching the clock,  bored.  I tore an old sticker off of our luggage, absentmindedly folded it into an origami swan, and dropped it into the book he was looking at.  He smiled really big, closed the book,  and played with that thing for fifteen minutes.  

Fifteen.  Solid.  Minutes. 

So, it would seem that, "wonderful" is not an analog relative measure... to a five-year-old, at least. It's totally digital.  Something either elicits wonder or it does not.  A plane trip and a moving walkway.  An endless hike through unknown tunnels above busy streets.  A pedicab jaunt and a stupid paper bird.   They all have equal value because of the "new".

Good to know. It looks like Christmas just got a whole lot less expensive... :)

Feeling Minnesota (Part I)

When absolutely everything is wonderful, is anything wonderful?

Some time last year at dinner, I asked the then-four-year old how school was that day.  He said (like all kids say) "Fine".  "Do anything cool today?" I asked.   "Umm... not really".  "Ok" I said, and started to change the subject to something else.  Before I could get my next thought out there he says "A farmer lady came in and she brought a piglet.  We got to pet it." 

"What?  Well, that sounds pretty cool.  What did it feel like?" I asked, intrigued.

"Soft.  You know... like a pig."

I said "Oh." 

That is, on the outside, I said "Oh." 

On the inside, I said  "Uh... No.  No, actually, I don't.  I have no idea whatsoever what a pig feels like. See, there champ, you would be shocked to find out exactly how few piglet-carrying farmer ladies have ever visited me at the office.  Unlike you, a typical week for me does not involve nearly as many magic shows as it does, say,  blisteringly mind-numbing paperwork marathons.  Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge,  no one I work with has ever, EVER, had his father, the volunteer fireman, come in with his fire truck and let everyone have a go playing with the sirens and hosing down the parking lot!

"And let me tell you about the guy you insist could 'really do real magic I'm serious'.  He can't.  You know why?  It's not real!  Look, if this guy could actually create a real bunny from a drawing of one, he would probably not waste his time wowing a bunch of four-and-five-year olds on a slow Tuesday morning.  He would probably spend most of his time laying waste to the countryside, enslaving the populous, and vaporizing those who dare question his power in a burst of crimson flame - I know I would.  Cripes, even if his magical powers were only limited to rabbit-creation, apart from making him, like, the lamest Anti-Christ ever, the dude would still probably at least have his own talk show or something.

"Friday is not 'Ice Cream Day' at work.  No one ever gave me a "Good Job" sticker for turning out the lights when I left the room.  I did not learn a new song about an acorn today.  Instead I spent six hours listening the loud talker three cubes down bellow through a mouth crammed full of triple-decker cheeseburger about having surgery to remove a growth from the bottom of his foot next week as part of his continuing battle with Type Twelve diabetes, but I suppose that's just as good, right?

"And while we're at it, let's talk about Santa and the Easter Bunny, I... "  

Huh?  Minnesota what?  Oh. Ohohohoh... gotcha.  The title of the post.  Guess I got a little off track, there...

Last week we flew to Minneapolis.  It was his first flight and he was totally amped.  We gave him the window seat (of course) and he was vibrating with excitement as we rocketed down the runway and zoomed into the sky.  The excitement turned to mild interest and then to mere acceptance.  By the time we had cleared the cloud cover and leveled out, he started asking how long the flight was.

"Just another hour.  Isn't this cool?" I asked.  "Yeah.  I thought we would, you know, zoom straight up and..." (at this point he made a bunch of violent swooping motions with his hands that would not be physically possible in an aircraft outside of the event horizon of a Class 5 tornado).  "No," I explained, "passenger jet pilots aren't allowed to do barrel rolls or attempt loop-the-loops."  

"It's the rules,"  I finished lamely.

"Oh," he said.

Backing up a bit, the wife had hurt her foot and it was very painful for her to be on.  The walks through the airport concourses, were, for her, an ordeal, but at least the moving walkways helped.  I'll get back to the foot in a bit.

He has been on loads of escalators before, but never a moving sidewalk.  So he did exactly what you or I would do... if we were the only people in the whole wide world, that is.  He jumped.  He danced and spun around.  He ran the wrong way as fast as he could for as long as he could, then, after the coast was clear in front he turned around and went full-on Barry Allen, laughing as he rocketed past the slow-poke suckers strolling next to the sidewalk. 

The disembodied voice repeating "Caution: You are approaching the end of the moving walkway..." held absolutely no meaning to anything at all in his world.  It was a teeth-sucking second-and-a-half after he left the sidewalk at well beyond his full running speed, but he stumbled gracefully to a halt, miraculously without a "Wide World of Sports Agony of Defeat" moment.

Luck.  Luck, luck, luck.

(To be continued...)

  

Yet Another Software Review

[Editor’s Note: I was gonna post this last week but I ran out of time before we went out of town.  Here it is.]

For the past couple of months I have been using Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 for the XBox to augment my gym routines.  After five months of Nike+ Kinect Training I figured it was time for a switch to keep it fresh.

So far I have burned a little more than 6500 calories (actually probably 15-20% more than that, but I will come back to that later) and used the software on 37 of the past 69 days.  Over that time I have done 1265 pushups, 1443 crunches, and 2708... um... jump-ropes.  I think I have enough information now to give this software package a decent review.

Out of the gate I just want to be clear that I like this software as much as or more than I liked the Nike+ title, which is to say that I think both are good enough for what they try to accomplish - getting you moving - and I think they both beat walking/running on a treadmill.  Like the other software, though, this title isn't without its faults.  

So, in the spirit of all things Internet, let's complain because it is easy and fun to do so.

Although you are not required to, the docs that come with the disc encourage you to set an "Objective" for yourself.  An Objective is a number of minutes per week for a certain number of weeks that you must hit to meet your goal.  Depending on your self-proclaimed level of activity and the type of goal you are setting (increase endurance, lose weight, etc) the software marks certain exercises with flags.  Performing the flagged exercises tacks minutes toward your Objective.  

First, the plus side to that: There are 80 exercise routines in 23 (free) categories to choose from and it can be a little (read: a lot) tempting to just do the simplest ones over and over to meet your goal without breaking much of a sweat. Therefore the flags force you to push yourself a little, since the simplest exercises typically are not flagged and are not counted toward your objective.  The calories are tallied normally, however, regardless of what you chose.

Next, the bad side to that: 

1. Although it makes sense that less challenging exercises are not counted toward your objective total, it makes no sense whatsoever that more difficult or lengthier routines are not.  For example, I completed the highest difficulty Boot Camp class (18 minutes) and got no time credit for it because it was not flagged like the 11 and 16 minute classes were.  Weak.
2. Some of the flagged classes cannot be performed without a) buying something or b) creating some meaningless Uplay account.
3. You can't see which exercises you are committing to before selecting an objective.  How "challenging" is "Challenge Me"?  Is the easiest set of exercises way too easy? You can't tell without signing up first.  If you decide to change it based on what you see you have failed the objective.

So, due to these three things I have completed 2 of 5 Objectives.  I officially signed up for three and simply scoped out the other two.  The third signed-up-for one was the "Challenge Me" objective that I think I explained they should just rename "Challenge Me... Just Not Too Much, Though" or "The Pointless Online Account Creation Arm-Twister 3000".  Although I have plenty of minutes with the tougher exercises to pass the Objective, I only have 70% of the "official" minutes, so I have decided to just give Objectives a pass and concentrate on calories per day and getting the medals and achievements I can without setting up the Uplay account or buying DLC.  

It's the principle of the thing, ya understand...  Not everyone wants to share every darn thing they do with every other darn person on the globe, you know... Umm... he declares...  on his blog...

Shut up.

Let's get back to whining, shall we?

The trainers are mercifully silent (well, except for the "drill sergeant") and the voice-over personality has a supportive and friendly tone even when she is berating you for not having the correct form.  This is a most welcome change from the non-stop "great-job-Slugger/oh-you-embarassing-clod" bipolar chatter that spews incessantly from the trainers in the Nike+ package.

The drill sergeant trainer in charge of the Boot Camp classes is just about the most laughably over-the-top character I have ever run into, and I have read my share of Clive Cussler books.  How to describe him... Hmmm... Well, picture that, instead of R. Lee Ermey, they cast the Star Wars Kid as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, gave him a few shots of vodka, and told him to "just improvise something totally... idunno... badass, I guess" and you will come close to the awesomeness that this trainer encompasses.

The exercises are way more varied and way more complex than those of the Nike+ title, so it doesn't get as predictable as quickly.  On the flip side of that coin some of the routines this thing makes you do are so fast and complex it must assume you are Baryshnikov on crystal meth or something.   I ain't got rhythm, see.  This is not the fault of the software... or so my lawyer tells me... Pfft. I am so sick and tired of his "that's a pretty frivolous and indefensible claim, Mr. SnowUrchin" attitude. 

Let's wrap this up with some bugs and features I thought were noteworthy:

1. The calories are not counted correctly.  That is, sometimes the on-screen number just freezes.  I initially did not catch this (too busy wheezing, you understand) but I was suspicious that something was up when an 8-minute yoga routine performed at 70% accuracy earned me far more burned calories than the 8-minute Boot Camp routine performed at 83% accuracy.  It appears that occasionally the counter gets stuck and does not resume counting for long stretches.  I am not quite sure what causes this, but it might be tied to performing the previous routine flawlessly or ending a routine with a perfect chain of any length.  Likewise, I am not sure what causes the counter to get unstuck.  Once it was stuck for three straight three-part routines when I did the 38 minute Sports Prep, causing me to "lose" 20% of the recorded burned calories I would have earned.
2. The pause you get between aerobic sets is about 15 seconds.  Compare this to the 30-second breaks you get with the Nike+ software.  During the Boot Camp drills, however, the breaks are more like five seconds.  That said, the 38-minute Football Sports Preparation set is way more intense than the most difficult (18-minute) Boot Camp set.
3. Sometimes tracking fails completely.  This is especially true if there are light level changes in the room while you are working out (the sun has risen, say).  The exercises that are especially susceptible to this effect are the Mountain Climbers and the Plank-to-Push-Ups.  "This exercise is always done on the floor.  That's it, the same way as your coach... Face to the side when doing this exercise" is pretty much all you will hear once it gets into that mode.   Well, all you will hear apart from your wheezy cursing, that is.
4. The dance classes are a great way to do pre-workout stretches (or post workout cool downs) while earning time toward your Objective.  Of course, you can do them anyway if you simply feel like looking like an uncoordinated buffoon.  If you do decide to do the classes, though, do yourself a favor and shut the curtains unless you want to arrive at work to discover you had inadvertently turned yourself into a meme that morning.
5. One thing this package excels at are abdominal workouts - something that is not done too well in the Nike+ package.  I really can't praise this part of the software enough.  On the other hand, the Nike+ software has better pre- and post workout stretching routines.
6. Get yourself some light weights to do the toning exercises.  I use 10 and 15 pound dumbbells since I do my heavier stuff at the gym, and even those weights are too much for me depending on the exercise and how much time I have already done that morning.
7. It is easy to game the system when doing the Run the World routines if you just remember to (or just happen to) slow down a little right before the Challenges start.  If you are jogging at 8 km/hr when you hit one, you might be asked to run at 12 km/hr for 30 seconds for a certain number of points (about 200 or so).  If you arrive at the same Challenge marker while jogging at 12 km/hr, the goal is 15 or 16 km/hr, which is a lot tougher to maintain (or even obtain if the tracking has decided to go all wonky). 

So, over all, a thumbs-up for this title.  The main thing that would make this better is if Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013 came in an XBox flavor, but it looks like it does not.  Since I will not be getting a Wii U anytime soon, I think I will stick with this software for a while. 

Things That Are Flat

Hey... What happened to my site traffic?  It's flatlined!  Maybe it has to do with not writing anything new in months... Man, people are fickle.

Speaking of things that are flat, I replaced my first bike tire in about three decades. Luckily, I wasn't riding at the time - I walked into the garage one day and glanced over at my bike and saw the front tire was completely flat. Not just low - sitting on the garage floor on its rim. This was especially weird because I had just ridden it a couple of days earlier. 

It wouldn't take any air, so there was nothing for it but to see what was up with the tube. On my workbench I found the hole - actually a quarter-inch split in the rubber along the seam. When I bought the bike I had the foresight to buy a patch kit and a new tire. I debated taking the opportunity to learn how to patch the tire but decided to go with replacing the whole thing. Oh, its not like patching a tire is tough to do - I figured it was just as likely another split would happen elsewhere and it was probably best to conserve patches anyway in case of a real emergency.  So the tire is replaced and I earned, like, 4 XP. Easy-peasy. 

And there you have it, folks... The least fascinating paragraphs in human history.  Boy, it's gonna be tough to follow that act.  

Or is it?

Continuing on with flat things, I finally replaced the ancient strings on my acoustic. The last person (well, besides me) who picked it up complained about the flat, muddy sound.  That was a year ago, and I was pretty sure that he was going to be at a party we were hosting earlier last month. I didn't want to hear him mock my guitar again, and, to be fair, it did sound like I was playing an instrument carved from a solid hunk of beeswax so I stepped up and finally did the deed.  

It was my first time doing this solo, and I remembered everything I was taught except for the part about "guitar strings are really sproingy so watch out that you don't pierce your thumb or something".  I only got stung once and I also took advantage of the string swap to give the guitar a really good cleaning. So, another 5 or 6 XP there.

Compelled to read on?  Heh, heh... I thought you might be.

He didn't end up showing up to the party but 30 others did. Rewinding a bit, I knew at least three of the folks there (turned out to be 5) played so the month before the event I knew I would have to practice so I wouldn't embarrass myself too badly. 

It had been a couple of months since I played Rocksmith.  I knew I was very rusty and I had no desire to try and jump right in with Level 9 songs.  That would have just been a waste of time. 

Instead I switched to a different profile and started over. Now, it took me about 8 months of playing about 90 minutes a night to get to Level 8 when I first started playing, never really having had picked up a guitar before. This time around I got to Level 8 in 20 days spending about 45-60 minutes a day.  Sweet.  

Co-op mode was a blast and a good time was had by all.  It was basically like karaoke but instead of drunken strangers filling the air with heartfelt, off-tune caterwauling there were drunken strangers filling the air with heartfelt, off-key, off-tempo, and off-putting noises that sounded like they were being wrung directly from the blackened souls of a thousand hell-bound Furbies.  There was also singing.

Well, that's about it for now... Oh, wait, I forgot one more flat thing.  My wife asked me to build a table for the back porch based on an item she saw in a magazine.  She also had the stipulation that I had to use materials I already had in the garage.  Now that's exactly  the kind of challenge I like.  Here's some pics:

 

The finished product was painted with some leftover outdoor paint I had that was just taking up shelf space.  That's it there at the top of this post.

As usual, more stuff "soon".

New Puzzle Hint

Ask, and ye shall receive... sometimes.

Luckily, this is one of those times.

I woke up this morning to find that someone requested a new hint for the Corkboard puzzle.  No problem, right?  Well... not really.  See, I could have sworn that I posted more than three hints to this thing and I could have sworn I put the puzzle on the Secret Puzzle Page a long time ago.

Unfortunately, all I see are three hints but no hint of a corkboard at all on the Secret Puzzle Page.  Odd.  Maybe it's my imperfect memory combined with an imperfect editing of the site when I took down the Puzzle for Charity that's causing the problem.

Here are the three old hints and one new one.  Usually I put these hints in ROT-13 to avoid spoiling the fun for those who aren't quite yet ready for one, but, since I posted the first three in plaintext, they will remain that way.  Copy and paste the fourth hint here to decode it, or just do the ROT-13 heavy lifting yourself:

• Hint #1 (Posted 2146 021210): The tacks are there for a reason.
• Hint #2 (Posted 2136 062410): The words and designs on the corks don't mean anything
• Hint #3 (Posted 2130 081610): The first letter is “W”.
• Hint #4 (Posted 2031 090313): Gurer ner 21 yrggref va gur fbyhgvba

Oh, if it turns out I am missing something and I did post more than three hints in the past, let me know and I will update the hint list.

Meanwhile, don't forget to check out the other unsolved puzzles at the Secret Puzzle Page (link in the sidebar).  Good Luck!