I’ve been diving into my electronics box and testing out a few small LED lighting effects for halloween. I think I’m doing a decent job of updating some old decorations, and that’s when I see what others with more unlimited budgets are breaking out this year:
Halloween effects utilizing modern tech are really maturing, but I think I’ll stick with my resisters, transistors, capacitors, photocells, and potentiometers. There’s just something about making things for yourself that’s much more rewarding, even if it is a bit more low-tech.
What can I say? I’m more a DiY’er than a technology flaunter…
Karin and I took Tyler to the San Diego Zoo to oggle the alligators, assay the elephants, and ponder the pandas yesterday afternoon. Tyler has a certain fascination with animals, and this was more than evident at the zoo where he was blowing kisses to every animal he saw. But of course he also blows kisses to cars and to the food in the baby aisle of the grocery store, so he pretty much makes it known what he likes.
We also took time this weekend to make a patriotic pilgrimage to a military surplus store to pick up a few emergency and camping supplies. Man, I love these stores. They all have that musty smell of long-term storage and quiet desperation that I somehow find comforting. Watching the clientele slowly pick their way through clothing and weaponry, weighing the pros and cons of MREs vs. dehydrated food and whether or not they should buy a back-up whetstone should their primary one go AWOL, I came to the conclusion that it’s nice to know that there are others out there who are more paranoid about the future than I am.
This weekend I learned a very valuable lesson: I am not immune to cactus.
I was mountain biking in Anza Borrego when I felt something hard slap into the the flesh of my right shin. The pain was so sudden and shocking that it took a couple of seconds for my brain to catch up with what had just happened, and when it did a second even more intense wave of pain came rushing over me.
Grinding to a halt I looked down and saw a large piece of Buckhorn Cholla cactus had embedded itself into my flesh.
And here’s a curious fact that I was previously unaware of. It appears that the needles of this evil plant curl a bit when they puncture flesh, making it just that more painful and difficult to remove. After ten minutes of hunting and pulling I managed to remove the majority of the infiltrating spikes, but continued to find broken remnants buried in my shin as the evening progressed.
Luckily no other misfortune befell me for the rest of the trip. And admittedly we weren’t quite “roughing it” in the great outdoors where we were able to drive our vehicles right up to our campsite:
And after an evening of steaks and beer I find myself back amongst the rigors of the working week. I’m sunburnt, sleep deprived and ill-prepared for returning back to work, but what can you do? At least with Easter right around the corner this week will be truncated a bit and I’ll have three days to catch up on my sleep…
Oh, and if you ever find yourself in San Diego, please give me a heads up. I’d be more than happy to take you camping to this spot! We’ll share a few beers and filet mignon. Nothing but the best for my blogging friends…
I’m headed off to the desert for a couple of days to do some primitive camping, star gazing and reading up at Anza Borrego. I feel that it’s about time that I recharged the batteries a bit and contemplate my future, hopefully with the assistance of a beer of two
And so, if the world should end between now and next week please consider me uninformed and fill me in on the details when I get back on Monday. I’d hate to come back to a zombie apocalypse and nobody told me.
