Shangri-La .... or so it would seem

Grrrrrandalf

I went and watched Troy and thought it was very well done. You certainly get the feeling of legendary heroes doing battle in the Trojan war. Right before the movie started, Lefty pointed out a guy's t-shirt in front of me. It said "Grrrrandalf" on it and had a bear dressed up like Lord of the Rings Gandalf. I was sitting right behind him and couldn't stop laughing. We predicted that he ran a comic book shop since he seemed just like Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons. I wish I could find a picture of Grrrandalf for you to see.

Change?

Had some severe thunderstorms again yesterday. It seems to rain every single day here and there is usually some lightning. I ventured out in the storm last night and went to Taco Bell. (Yeah, I know) I ordered a mexican pizza combo and paid the guy at the window. He gave me my food and asked if I wanted any hot sauce. Then he told me to have a good day. Well, he didn't give me my change so I informed him that he owed me two dollars. There wasn't an apology or explanation so I keep thinking that he was going to pocket it later. It may have been a simple mistake and no harm intended, but I suspect that he was stealing. Something about the social interaction at the window. No harm done, but I will probably watch pretty closely if I see him at the window again.

Homemade Taser Glove

For anyone that is interested, all you need is a glove, wire, battery holder and a disposable camera. The disposable camera has a capacitor that can store up to 600 volts of power.

This was shown on Tech TV and looks pretty easy to make.

"Dark Tip: Reach Out and Zap Someone
written by Joey the Intern on Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Turn your crappy camera into a zestful zapper.
Shocker GloveWhen you live in fear-driven times such as these, having grown up with MacGyver as a role model has its advantages. Kevin and I thought it would be cool to MacGyver our own shocking device in glove form, using simply what we had lying around the house. What was lying around the house was a simple one-time-use camera.

That crappy camera is perfect for this

These disposable cameras (about $5 dollars a pop) have a capacitor that can store up to 600 volts of stopping power. When the capacitor discharges those volts, it delivers an amperage comparable to stun guns. Perfect for our shocking device.

What you need

* A glove
* Some wire
* A battery holder
* A one-time-use camera, in our case, the Fujifilm QuickSnap camera

Make that zapper

1. Open the packaging.
2. Remove the cardboard casing.
3. Pry open the camera to reveal the circuit board inside.
4. Your camera should now look something like the picture below.

5. Note which direction the battery is oriented in the case.
6. Remove the battery to avoid accidentally shocking yourself.
7. Push in the tab highlighted in section B to remove the circuit board from the casing.
* You can throw away the plastic casing along with that flash that's still attached to the board. This glove is for stunning people, not for flashbulb rave parties.
8. Open the battery case and use pliers to remove those plastic dividers. You're making room for the circuit board you just removed from the camera casing.
9. Connect the switch inside the battery case to the two surface contacts in section C. When this switch is turned on, it will activate the charging mechanism.
10. Take about 6 inches of wire, strip it, and solder it onto the two contacts in section A. These will be the shocking electrodes; anything they touch will receive about 600 volts of pain.
11. Throw all of this into the battery case along with a single AA battery, tape the shocking electrodes to the outside of the glove, flip the switch, and let the fireworks (or a lawsuit) begin.

A cautionary tale

This is what my arm looked like the morning after I was shocked by our clever device. The two little red marks in the circle are burns I got. Being on the receiving end of that glove was not a day at the park.

I don't recommend doing this to friends, nor do I recommend doing it to enemies -- unless you can hold the zapper to their necks for at least five seconds. The brief encounter my arm had with it wasn't enough to knock me out, but it did make me weak in the knees. Either way, don't try this at home, kiddies.

Car Problem

Well, today, I left my car at Jackie's. It has been making a vibration noise the past few weeks. It sounds really horrible at places like a drive-through or apartment complex. You can hear it echo back at you and seems like your transmission will fall out or worse. Well, it never did have any impact on the driving performance of the car, so I ignored it for quite a while. After asking my dad what it could be, he thought it might be the bolts holding the transmission to the engine or the CV joints (half-shaft). I've had one half-shaft replaced on this car already and wasn't looking forward to having another. So I made an appointment and left my car with them all day. After I got back home, I gave them a call and was surprised to hear it was already fixed. It was nothing more than a heat shield on the catalytic convertor. Cost me a total of $20. (This is why I like going to Jackie's. They don't invent problems.) Heh, score one for the good guys.

Digital Camera Hard Drive

Digital cameras seem to be at an all time high now. Almost everyone I know has one and with these small flash memory cards, you can store hundreds of pictures on a little disk. Well, if you are interested, I know a good way to store thousands of pictures on a micro-drive. This won't work on every digital camera, but there is a list of cameras that it will work with. You could buy this 4 gigabyte Hitachi micro-drive using conventional means, but it will cost approximately $500. I have a cheaper option for you however. You can buy a Nomad Muvo2 (MP3 player) for ~$200. It comes with the $500 hitachi micro-drive and all you have to do is take apart the player to get to it. You could also do this with an Apple Ipod mini, but they cost a little more at ~$250 and are rumored to be harder to reformat.

Flat Rock School

My mom has been wanting to go and take pictures of where the Flat Rock school-house used to stand. I told her that we could go today so she arranged it with the property owner. We met each other about half-way and were only a few minutes late due to traffic. When we arrived at Mrs. Davis's house, no one appeared to be home. She had a beautiful yard with a wide variety of flowers, bushes, and trees. Mom decided to wait near the house while I went off in search for the school site. I entered the woods which was over-grown with under-brush. I saw two buildings and worked my way towards them, but then I started seeing poison oak and poison ivy everywhere. I am highly allergic to it and had to be careful not to touch it. The first building I came to was pretty spooky looking. I imagined that the Blair Witch probably lived there at one time. It was absolutely covered in poison ivy.

I walked around it and circled around to the other building which was very long. I found out later that both buildings were used to house migrant workers.

I gave up trying to find where the school was however and made my way back out.

When I exited I saw that the owner was back home and she led us to near where I was originally. She had clippers and cut us a trail to the water pump and the chimney of the old school. The chimney and some steps are all that is left of the place.

I took my mom out to Fatz Cafe and we had a pretty good dinner. Then I made my way back to the apartment and promptly took a shower so that I could hopefully prevent any blisters from the poison oak.

Bleh

I was up all night with a cough. My throat was really sore last night and I didn't think I would sleep at all. I got up today and found that I had lost my voice. I can only whisper, but my throat is feeling better. I've been eating cough drops like candy and drinking OJ. On a good note, my ear finally stopped popping.

May Day

Not only is it the first of May, but it is a cry for help. Floyd and Teigue got in about 3 am last night. I waited up for them, but fell asleep at 2am or so. I was half asleep, but I remember Floyd wanting to use my computer to send Vanessa an email. I tried to start up my computer but it didn't see my hard drive. That kept me awake last night thinking about it. I finally nodded off but I heard Teigue at 6am and I couldn't go back to sleep.

Before we left for breakfast, I made sure that my computer was working. It started up just fine, so I was happy. The three of us went to Huddle House, but had to sit in the smoking section. The place was absolutely packed. After we sat down, people were lining up out the door. Floyd and I both got the "ultra mega" breakfast, whatever it is called. Teigue got the waffles and bacon. The cook didn't see that there were two orders of the same thing, so the waitress gave me the biscuits and gravy part and Floyd the rest. I was afraid that it would take forever to get the rest of the order, but before I could finish the biscuits, she had the rest on the table. All three of us must have been hungry, because I usually can't eat all of the "ultra mega" breakfast and we cleaned our plates. Teigue turned around and started blowing smoke away from us. A guy was smoking behind us and Teigue didn't like it.

After breakfast, we headed over to Janet and Dale's house. There was a bunch of people from the 4-H club there looking at chickens and the ponies. Janet saddled up Hershey for Teigue to ride back up to the pen. Then we went inside and played with Hazel and "Teeny" (Isabelle). Josh had to go herd some cattle and was going to meet us back in town.

When we got back, I turned on Blue Planet for Teigue and promptly fell asleep in the chair. Every so often he woke me up by jumping on me or "tickling" my face. Floyd fell asleep on the couch as well.

Since it wasn't raining, we decided to shear the sheep tonight. There were only two to shear, but it seemed to take a long time using hand shears. I ended up getting blood all over me from one of the lambs. It jumped into the fence trying to elude us, but got a bloddy nose and a cut behind its ear. Then I got raked by barb wire in the process. It was probably when the big ram decided to push me into the fence while I was holding him, but I don't remember. It always amazes me how strong they are. Reece's neck is a solid mass of muscle. Having four horns is a good and bad. You have to be aware that they are there and can hurt you with them, but they are good handles to control him with. We ended up finishing by flashlight, but I'm glad we got it done and it didn't rain on us while we did it.

We had a late supper at the Huddle House and called it a day.