Cabin paintings

This Christmas, I’d gotten stumped as to what to get a couple people for gifts, and thought I might make a painting or two, but got a bit stumped for ideas. I finally at the last minute panicked and did a couple paintings of the log cabin my parents built back in 1979. I did them both simultaneously, and very quickly, a little too quickly, and they came out very similar, and ok, though not really as well as I would have liked.

They were based on this photo:

Here are the two paintings side by side, just as they were completed:

They’re both 8×10 inches, acrylic on canvas.

And here’s a closer shot of one of them (the shaded area on the bottom is a shadow from the easel — bad photography):

Cyclekart progress, Dec 29, 2009

Not much to report this week, except that I bought the engine, a Honda GX200:

Now I just need to figure out how the hell I am going to get a Comet torque converter, considering Hoffco (Comet’s parent company) has gone under. The torque converters are getting a bit scarce, and going for too much money on ebay, when they do appear, that is.

Also, I was planning to use Comet disc brake and calipers, now I may have to do something else if I can’t find the Comet parts. Maybe the thing to do is get someone’s old go-kart and salvage what I can from it. Hate to do that though, as I know if I do that, I’ll have some defunct go-kart frame hanging around the garage forever.

I feel like I need to have all the parts in hand before proceeding with construction of the rear end so that I can verify the placement and fit of all the parts and avoid doing something stupid.

I also need to figure out how to rig a remote pedal controlled throttle and kill switch for this engine, and perhaps disable the low oil cutoff system (so it doesn’t cut off due to sloshing the oil around in the crank case while going around corners.) Perhaps it’s possible to disable the low oil detector and trigger it instead with a kill switch.

Other things remaining to be done to get to the point of drivability: Need to modify a couple of the Honda wheel hubs to allow mounting on Azusa go-kart hubs (also needing to be acquired, and modified to fit inside the Honda hubs.) Need to fit the big giant sprocket onto the rear axle, figure out how to deal with the “keys” — they seem to be a tough interference fit, not sure what is the best method of getting it put together and aligned without getting things hopelessly jammed. Also, I’m not completely sure what it is that keeps the rear axle from sliding sideways in its bearings. There’s just a lot of stuff that has to go on that rear axle in between the frame rails, and I’m thinking it will likely not be an easy task getting it all together, and I’m kind of dreading it. Best I should get it all done before summer and the heat comes though.

I get retarded comments sometimes

“Jimmy Smith” writes:

Scary reasoner, you have no right to say who is retarded, because my brother has his doctorate in Mathematics and Physics and he finds reason to believe in a God. You for whatever reason associate Christians with Catholics which are way different, because Catholics are pagan . You truly are an intolerant ass. Go attack some little kids who believe in Santa, or something. Someones bound to find your IP Address and Stomp your head into pulp, you pussy ass little bitch. You’re so low and weak that you have to jump on the anti-theist train and talk shit with insults that hit below the belt, because some people dedicate their lives to religions, such as monks, and spiritualist Buddhists, and Rabbi’s who do nothing to anyone. Go fucking whack off to your granny porn, you little bitch, because you cannot say what does and does not exist, because we live in a multiverse and you truly are the retard.

Comments like this make Christianity seem so much less retarded, and peaceful, too, don’t they?

Cyclekart progress, Dec 21, 2009 — front end complete

Well, the front end is almost complete, except the bar across the front of the frame rails isn’t really secure (but it’s pretty much purely cosmetic anyway) and I haven’t put the wheels on. But, other than that, it’s complete.

I made a little video.

Atheists can’t think for themselves!

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Cyclekart video: Chacuaco Breakdown

Found this on youtube:
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I believe this is the Benson’s Miller cyclekart. Looks like that thing really moves out. Too cool. Can’t wait until my kart is drivable.

Hey facebook? Fuck you. Die facebook die.

Facebook sucks.

I see links coming into my blog from facebook, but, because I’m not a member, I can’t see any context, why they’re linking, what they’re saying , etc. They’re in their little walled garden, linking to outside sites, but not allowing outsiders in, not without registering anyway, and going through the facebook bullshit.

Well, facebook, fuck you.

If I could delete your servers IP addresses and MAC addresses from all the routing tables and amputate the lot of you from the internet, I would. Tit for tat. You don’t let the rest of the internet in, the rest of the internet should amputate your dumb ass right the fuck off. Fuck you.

If you’re on facebook, you should get the fuck off that trainwreck. Facebook aims to destroy the internet. Kill facebook.

I’m adding this to my /etc/hosts file:

127.0.0.1      facebook.com

That’s pretty much what facebook looks like to non-members anyhow, so, same difference.

Jetting through the Grand Canyon, and a little Christmas music

Dec 15, 2009
Here’s a link to a little video I ran across of a pilot flying down low through the Grand Canyon in an Air Force trainer jet in 1959. Joe Satriani on guitar. (From what I understand, that link should be good for a year, after which the license to use the music expires, so after that… probably not.)

And, long as we’re talking about guitar music, here’s a little Christmas music:
Lucky Holiday cornbread stuffing aka “Rocketsledder from the North.” That’s me on rhythm guitar. Skip “Cornbread” Kavanaugh on lead guitar, and Marty “Hockinfinger” Kiel on everything else (synth, drums, etc.) It’s (c) 2005, the abovementioned people, but it is also licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license so feel free to download it and redistribute under those terms.

Red Zinfandel kit tasting

Dec 14, 2009

So, back in April of 2008, I began fermentation of a Winexpert Lodi old-vine Zinfandel kit, and bottled it in October. I should mention that lately, I’ve been kind of down on the home winemaking thing, just because all my wines have shared a similar flaw — a kind of “jolly rancher” flavor that shouldn’t be there. Tonight I opened a bottle of this wine. There is a faint hint of the “jolly rancher,” but, it’s faint, rather than in your face. I feel like that last sentence might need an exclamation point. This wine is actually not too bad. Damned by faint praise and all, but compared to the jolly rancher weird tasting failures I’ve had heretofore, this is big news. Maybe it’s the label I put on the bottle:

Still, the kit wine industry tries to tell you that the premium kits will deliver you 30 bottles of wine of a quality similar to what you’d get from a $10 to $15 bottle of commercial wine. Because you’ve got to age the wine for a year, or preferably two, and because this is very hard for the beginning winemaker to do, seeing how he’s going to be awfully curious how his first wine is turning out, it takes a couple of years to catch on to this “jolly rancher” problem. And when you do catch on, you still don’t know if it’s a problem inherent in the kit wines, or whether it’s something you’re doing wrong, and, if it is something you’re doing wrong, whether it’s something which is feasibly correctable.

My brother once visited a “ferment on premises” store which allows home winemakers to do all the fermenting at the store, and not have winemaking equipement and what not cluttering up their houses. He figured these people ought to know what they were doing, and so he asked them if their wines had any weird tastes compared to commercial wines. They told him “no,” of course. He also managed to get a bottle of wine they’d made, and tasted it, and, unfortunately, it wasn’t too swift, and had the same sorts of problems that I’ve found in my wines, and that my brother’s found in his wines. So here are people running a business fermenting kit wines who should presumably know how to get the best out of them, and they’ve got the same problems that we’ve got.

I’m on the verge of giving up on this whole kit wine thing. I’ve got a couple of kits I bought this fall that I’ll do, but after that, I may be done with it.

In the meantime, this “Zinfidel” is tolerable.

And here’s to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Cheers.

Hey Kirk Cameron, we got your crocoduck right here!

Bizarre band of paleo-crocs unearthed

Crocoduck

Crocoboar

Crocodog

Crocorat

Crocopancake

National Geographic article and video here.

abstract and pdf of paper

(via metafilter)