I've been rather busy the past week and the next few weeks are not looking much better. I'm not complaining though, I like being active as much as possible.

Last weekend we had a paintball tournament in FL. It was the first event in the regional tournament series. We did not do as well as expected but I attribute the poor performance to the lack of practice. Sure the team consists of several talented players but many had never played together on the same team and so team communication was lacking to non-existent.

I have been busy with website development lately. Currently I have two projects I am working on and two more in the pipeline. As it stands I am doing them on a barter system which I tend to lean more towards as I don't have to pay taxes! With the added attention I am receiving I decided to redesign my company logo, which I develop the software under(Triple 3 Studios).

So I have been slowly working on my first violin. Things progress slowly due to limited funds. I have managed to get the mould nearly completed. I need to varnish it and wax the edges to prevent glue from sticking to it. The metal plate on top is the pattern. There are a variety of holes in the pattern that will come into play later in the development of the instrument.

You can see the center hole is rather large. I'm not to happy about the outcome and am worried that the thin sides may lead to warping later on. Hopefully the varnish will help reduce any warping. I still have to cut the top and bottom holes and square up some of the cuts.

This is the current workstation setup. I'm in the process of reworking the garage so that I have more room but having two roomates makes things . . . well . . . difficult.

The batteries for my hand drill died completely so I may have to buy a new drill or some new batteries. To replace both batteries it would cost nearly $70 so I think I may be better off getting a new drill (still researching).

It’s funny, I heard the Coldplay song “Yellow” today. I have not listened to the song since the very first time I heard it years ago in college. Yes, that’s right I have only heard the song twice now. I specifically never listened to the song since that time.

I can recall exactly when and where I heard it the song. I was up all night working on a project for one of my computer classes. I can recall the exact program I was writing too! I had the TV on to make sure I stayed awake (I can’t seem to fall asleep if a TV is on, weird I know) and it was on MTV and “Yellow” came on.

With all the crap that was happening in my life at the time coupled with stress from school and life in general, I sat down in complete awe and simply soaked in the song. Then I sat and watched the sun come up until I couldn’t look at it any longer.

I don’t think there is any special meaning or some sort of profoundness associated with the song, I just think it’s amazing how hearing the song can bring back all those memories.

Its been a while (once again) but heres a quick update (not that anyone reads these).

Dragon*Con 09 has come to a close and the post D*C depression has set in. It doesn't seem as intense this year but that is likely due to the fact that I am preparing costumes for next year so in essence I am keeping the flame alive sort of speak. Costumes include Kratos (God of war), Yoshi (Super Mario Bros.), and possible the cybrog ninja (Metal Gear Solid 2).



Other than that its back to the grind.

New workout started this month and I discovered that a four month routine is too long. I should stick with three months or less.

Have a bunch of holidays in the next coming months I have to prepare for and I'm still trying to buy a house before the end of the year to get in on the $8000 Federal tax credit.

Oh I have started drawing again using my Wacom tablet so keep an eye out for new images and such.

OK so a quick little quip about cyclists. Firstly, I am all for "sharing the road" but think its stupid that in today's society we have to put signs up to tell motorists they they don't actually own the road they are on, and that anyone can use the road so long as they abide by the rules. But there are some dick cyclists that think they own the road. They don't maintain a close distance to the right curb, run red lights, hop sidewalks, and various other illegal and unsafe maneuvers. So in those rare cases I hope my side view mirror clips your dumb ass and sends you careening over the front end of your $2000 toy, because I'm not going to give you a wide clearing when I slap exhaust in your face.


As a side note, just heard this song 24.14 by b.fleischmann I really like it, check it out if you got the time.

Well I was going to write this up yesterday (Sunday) when I was only seconds from prying my eyeballs from their lovely little sockets. But instead the shear trauma of the situation forced me to play WOW and so I got side tracked, so here we are! I was sitting up at A Caribou, after having spent a lovely brunch with my family celebrating Fathers day, enjoying a cup of coffee and doing some office work (doing office work on a Sunday is whole other story). The Caribou is in a busy shopping center in the heart of south Charlotte and the latest past time for all the aging adults there is cycling.

Now don't get me wrong, I fully support anyone trying to improve their health with activities. However, irresponsible use of Spandex I cannot condone. So I'm enjoying my coffee and around the corner comes this lady on her cycle (that probably costs about 1.5-2 grand) FULLY decked out in spandex. Spandex shirt, shorts, even little sock booti thingys, and this is not a slender lady by any strech of the imagination. She has to weight at least 250 lbs. (perhaps more). In my twisted little head I hear the spandex screaming like some Vietnam Srgt. instructing his troops in the middle of a horrific fire fight. And it goes a little something like this. . . . :) "HOLD YOUR GROUND MEN!!! We have come too far to turn back now! We MUST hold our ground here and save the world from the horrors that are to be unleashed should we fail." Needless to say I'm giggling to myself by now and trying not to dry heave at the same time, quite the predicament!

Now I'm sure she read Lance Armstrong's nifty little book. She probably joined an online community that middle age women can chat with one another how the saddle is uncomfortable on their collective fat lethargic asses, hell, she has probably even picked up some of the lingo about her cycle while hanging out at the local cycle shop. But no matter how much she rides, that spandex she is wearing is NOT going to help her reduce her drag or make her more aerodynamic.

My point in all of this is that Spandex is a privilege not a right. People who are fat should not wear spandex under any circumstance. I don't care what the reason is. If the same fat ass simply painted themselves with body paint and tried to go out in public they would be slapped with a public indecency ticket. When a fat person wears spandex you can see all sorts of things that you should no one should ever have to endure.

I think I'll bitch about cyclists in general in my next post, stay tuned!

I'm not going to talk about back pain this time. I can be tiresome even to me at times. "So what are you going to talk about then Jeremy?" Well my friends, that is a good question! For my birthday (back in April) my family got me some fun hobby items, because apparently i do no have enough hobbies to begin with. I got a electronic prototyping board along with a few components. I finally managed to get myself pulled away from WOW long enough to build my first project, YAY! Here's the breakdown. The green board with all the part on it is a kit sold by sparkfun to get consistent power to the white part of the board (commonly called breadboard or prototype board). It can switch between 5v and 3.3v both common voltages for small electronics. The little black dial thingy is a potentiometer (dimmer dial) for the LED light. Here you can see the LED dimmed and at its full brightness. I'm sure I will make plenty of fun little projects in the future.