Random crap with Uno.

[Unorthodox]

We're having a great day. 

Kyle got injured on the Scout backpacking trip.  Couldn't hike well, SO THEY LEFT HIM, to take gear back to the car and told him to start walking slowly down and they'd come back for him. 

Guess what happened?  Yeah, so he was lost for about 3 hours this afternoon.  Missed the trailhead and hit the highway where he then found the trailhead. 

Rule 1 is the buddy rule, right?  Not to mention they took all his equipment with them to begin with so they left him with not so much as a water bottle.   

Oh yeah, injury last night, stick impaled bottom of his foot, they didn't even bother to rinse it off.  Great first aid practices there.  Already infected.  Yeah, great day...

[Buster's Uncle]

Wow, that's lame.

I didn't intend that pun.  But I'm too evil to take it out.

[Unorthodox]

Well, time for something serious. 


We've been inching towards making a business out of this Halloween stuff for some time.  Beginning July 10th, there's a real possibility it could become my full time job...

[Buster's Uncle]

How did you come to change your mind?

[Unorthodox]

Wierd [poop] going on at work right now.  As of July 10, I'll be on furlough that could turn into a layoff.  The company is trying to prevent it, but congress has really fubared some things.  Officially it should end sometime between September and late November if nothing the company does works. 

It's not entirely unforeseen, and we've budgetted so we're fine, I wouldn't need to look for employment until January if everything went to hell. 

So, what to do with the time off?  It's the perfect time of year to give ye olde profession another go.  This time I plan to focus on building/sculpting though, not the technical/setup/advisory stuff (though will likely do one or two haunts this year in that capacity as well).  If it takes off, I might stick with it, but it's equally plausible it'll drive me nuts to not have a 'regular' schedule.  I like my structured days.   

[Buster's Uncle]

There's the thing too, with creative stuff, that it's nice to be able to walk away when you get pissed or stuck, as long as your subconcious takes to sort problems out.  Needing the money is an underrated source of artistic inpiration, but not a first-class one.

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, I have a whole sketchbook I'd like to get sculpted.  Some non-halloween even.  Well, sorta. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Still, making money doing something you're passionate about, that you've put a lot of yourself into, can be so sweet.  In my showbiz days, I eventually came to sincerely view the tips as the very best form of applause.  Y'know, the Andy Warhol thing where it was the best measure of how I was doing, not entirely just greed.

Not entirely not, either.

[Unorthodox]

Well, sounds like I'm going back to work next week, for an undefined length of time.  So, 6 days off, enough to get caught up on my stuff.

Day one:

About 7 hours getting my shop into shape.  All tools where I know they are, all kids stuff outta there, compressor oiled and tuned, etc. 

Finished the protective coat on side 3 of the tomb. 

Going to lose a day installing a basketball hoop for my son's birthday, but I expect to have the tomb finished this week. 

[Unorthodox]

The painting of this tomb is brought to you by the fine people at Aleve.  As some of you know, I have some pretty bad tendonitis in my thumbs after an accident that dislocated them years ago.  (yeah as much fun as it sounds).  So, the (so far) 15 hours and 4 gallons of drylok on this thing wouldn't have been possible without popping plenty of them...


Tipping on end to add the foam coat to the last corners, and attach the final pleurant.  Can you tell my son broke off, and then fixed that middle one?  Thought I might not notice the monster mud EVERYWHERE. 






Since we've had some issues with the pleurant coming off, I added some cheese cloth with the drylok to help glue them on. 



We also added cheese cloth to the BACK side (inside) of all pleurant , and it's made the whole thing VERY sturdy. 

First side after a couple coats of drylok.




Have some family obligations tonight, and need a few more coats before we can start detailing the whole thing.

[Buster's Uncle]

Very nice.

You could do worse than a boy willing to try to fix his mistakes...

[Unorthodox]

Well, back to work today. Didn't get quite as far as I had hoped, but all sides of the tomb are now painted, and it's back upright. Just got to do the top and a few spot touches here or there. Probably have the dryloking done tonight, then we can see about the rest.

I must say, putting up a basketball hoop is more complicated than it appears at first.


Also considering building a Barghest.

[Unorthodox]

Little test....The one on the left needs some more attention, but I ran out of my paint mixture.

[Unorthodox]

My little paint helper.  We did a quick wash of Trevor.  Need to go back and do some dry brushing.









Tombstones as well. 



The tomb itself is 90%.  Just a couple spots to touch up.





Any luck and I'll be doing a lighting test tonight, seeing if adding a 2X4 to the bottom fixes the fog dispersal problem on grass.  But, we might be getting rain, so who knows. 

[Buster's Uncle]

That is lookin' mighty fine there, sir.

...

I fixin' to start a mask lesson with Buster her own self this afternoon.  We have an infestation of family for the last few weeks, which has been a decidedly mixed blessing...  I've only had one attack of nerves bad enough to make me throw up.

I love them, but not so much I like having so many people and dogs in my hermit cave...