projects, motorcycle, game

Although I played a lot of video games this weekend, I still managed to find some time to do a couple of projects.

The first involved building stands for the tiki torches in the backyard. Apparently, they were knocked down while we were gone and the tiki fuel spilled out and killed the grass. As designated "builder of shit", my room-mate tasked me with coming up with a solution. I opted for building a small crossbar wooden base with a vertical piece to wire the tiki torch to it - then putting the whole thing in a plastic flower pot and filling it with gravel. I did this for three of them, but didn't have quite enough gravel. A "small bag" is only a few bucks - but the small is still 50 pounds. I'm guessing I'll need 10 pounds at the most - not sure what I'll do with the rest.

The second project involved afixing boards to inside walls of the garage so that we can hang things there. My room-mate had tried this at some point, but the stud-finder he was using was either not working right or he wasn't using it right. I had a more high-tech tool and with a little patience I found the studs and affixed two large boards - then added in the hooks and hung up some stuff. It was a little tricky to do by myself, but I managed.

I also wanted to put some peg boards on the back wall - but the stud-finder sensor concluded that the entire wall was a screaming grid of lethal voltage. So, I didn't drill anything into that wall. I think I know how to get the sensor to be more reliable, but I didn't really want to mess with it.

While I was working on the garage, enjoying the cool afternoon with the door open, a virtual parade of motorcycles cruised up and down the road. One after another, over and over, all afternoon. It's normally a pretty quiet neighborhood and the sound of the engines was really annoying. I considered putting up a sign out front to try and get them to stop and explain what was going on - or hopefully stop doing it. I mean, if it was some really misguided fundraiser for a sick child, I might understand - but it seemed more like a "look at me, I'm cool" kinda thing. I didn't put up the sign, thinking that if I did anger them, I might be able to hold off a couple of bikers with a sword and some attititude but they clearly had me out-numbered. I've been looking online to see if I can figure out what they were doing, but no luck so far. There's apparently some kind of Angels of Hope ride, but that seems to be for next week and it's further south. I also seem to recall something like this last year around this time. If I can figure it out, I'll see if I can suggest an alternate route. Or invest in some spike strips.

The game that occupied much of my attention was Okami and just when I thought I'd beaten it, the whole thing opened up and the adventure got even bigger. It's really cool and I'm having fun exloring the whole world in the game and kicking some serious butt.

That's it for now - back to work.