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So tonight I took Michele to the Van Halen concert at MGM. I wanted Michele to see what a rock concert was like. Until tonight she had never been to one. I also figured if you're going to see one for the first time Van Halen was a good one to see. Well, we'll see what she posts tomorrow on her blog. Hehehe. Now matter what, I'm glad she went and got to have the experience and with a band I really like.

In any case, the last time I saw Van Halen it was in 89 at Star Lake in Pittsburgh. Sammy Hagar was with the band then. Tonight's concert was with Diamond David Lee Roth. It was the last performance of the first leg of their world reunion tour. And yes, I got a concert t-shirt. $35 for a single t-shirt. For those that do not know, this is not bad. I still have my t-shirt from the 89 tour. It too was $35. I thought for sure that with inflation, and the crappy performance of the US dollar right now, that shirt was going to cost me $80. In fact, I think just about every concert t I've ever bought was around $35. Unless your into it or know about these, it will defy your personal logic as to why anyone would shell out that kind of money for a t-shirt. What-ever, here's mine.

Tonight's concert also marks the first time I've used ear-plugs for such an event. Wow, I had forgotten just how loud they are but we went prepared. I'm glad I had those things. It actually made the music cleaner to listen to. Without them I was hearing a lot of distortion or complete gibberish in the higher tones. With them in, it all cleaned up.

Michael Anthony is not on this tour. Instead, Eddie's son Wolfgang is playing bass. He's good but definitely not the type to bounce around on stage like his old man does. He pretty much just stood where ever he was and just played.

I would show you pics but my new phone royally sucked at getting shots in there. It has a ton of issues with low light and to make it harder, there was theatrical smoke everywhere the entire time for the lasers and other lights they were using throughout the show.

I was lucky I even got tickets for this. The day they went on sale I forgot and didn't buy mine until four hours after the sale opened. I got tickets for the second day in section 204 row H. That means about 20,000 seats sold before I got mine.

They're stage was actually S-shaped with part of the crowd in the S but I could not get a seating chart from tonight's concert. This is one for an upcoming event. But our seats we're still up there.

I'll leave the rest to Michele. I can't wait.

So to recap, seats high! Pictures Bad! Concert good!

Well I got to go to the 2007 G2E here in Las Vegas. It's the Global Gaming Expo and is devoted almost entirely (~98%) to the gambling industry and slot machines. It was held at the Las Vegas Convention center just a couple blocks East of the strip right next to the Hilton and the Rivera.

My company paid for all of us to go. And when I mean all of us, I mean the company. Which is pretty amazing since it costs about $1100 per person to send us for the full four days. We were there to see what the competition was doing, get some inspiration and maybe see if any of our patents were being infringed upon.

My company had the second largest booth at the show.

One view of the booth

And another view

The companies just under us in competition had large booths as well. IGT is the biggest. I could not get their whole area in one shot. They had one entire wall at the end of the convention center right across from our booth.

A company whose artwork I always studied at my last job is Williams. This is their booth.

The LV Convention Center is huge. It has four wings and covers about the area of, I would say, 6-7 football fields. G2E filled all of the available space.

While there I was able to meet up with Kevin, my old boss from Suburban. He is now working at Acre Fiore, a subsidiary of Bally Technolgies, one of our competitors. We went to lunch at the Hilton's Star Trek Experience. The entire area is set up to look like the deck of different ships and stations from Star Trek. We ate at Quarks Dinner where we were kept in line by a Borg, served drinks by a Ferengi and waited on by a Vulcan.

Here is the ceiling inside the Star Trek Experience.

All in all, it was great convention. I've never been to something like it before. The only larger one I have been to was PITTcon in Chicago at McCormick Place. That was five days in four halls each of which was about 1/4 mile long by 1000 feet wide with electric taxis to get you around the place.

My dad was out here just two weeks ago for a visit. I had to do some errands at first on Friday. But, after that, I took him to Baker California for lunch at Big Boy and to see the worlds tallest thermometer and Alien Jerky. Alien Jerky is an odd store. They're draw is jerky, different kinds of jerky, pricey jerky. It's good stuff, I bought some a few months earlier, but it's not worth the drive and the $8.00 for a few strips. They also have in their store an entire wall of hot sauces. Now I'm pretty sure there are not that many types or versions of hot sauce out there. But, there certainly are a lot of different labels for it. There are very few duplicates on the shelf. Names like "Colon Cleaner", "Searing Sphincter", and "Kiss Your Ass Goodbye" were some of my favorites. The list goes on and on. The wall is covered. I really don't know how many people actually buy them. They are fun to read though.

We came back to Vegas then, picked up Michele and showed him our top choices from the homes we have been looking at. Our favorites so far are a three story about 2 miles east of us and a town house just about 500 feet away in the community they have been building right next to our neighborhood.

My dad said that he had never been to a national park so on Saturday we took him to Zion National Park in Utah. It was a bout three hours each way, with stops, so we spent a lot of time in the car but it was worth it to show him the park and to show him just how much nothing there is in Nevada as we headed there.

On the way to the park we also stopped in Virgin Utah at a trading post where they had a petting zoo and a small mock-up of a town.

Michele had sown him an add for flights on warbirds, planes from WW II where, for a time-based fee, you can take a ride in one of them. Well my dad chose 30 minutes in a T6 trainer. We went to the Boulder airport on Sunday and my dad hopped in to the cockpit and took off with the owner of the plane. While he was up there he got to fly it for a while. It is really the happiest I think I have seen him in some time. I'm glad he got to do it.

Monday was a slow day with just some putt'n around. We went to a camera store to get some prints of his flight and for me to look at some lenses. We went back home and got to watch some of Transformers before it was time to go to the airport. I look forward to my dad's visits here. I can't wait till the next one.

As promised, here is a shot of the turtle basking under his UV light. He actually rotates his back feet so that they lie flat but do not touch the rock he is sitting on.

I caught him in the act this morning.

And another shot I dug up from earlier this month.

My first wedding album is now on its way to the printers. My couple in April just picked their photos for their album. I did the page designs and just got it off to the printers tonight. It's not your standard paste-up album where you would just insert photos. Instead it is made up of full page layouts with backgrounds and the photos are laid out overlaying it. These are some of the two-page spreads.

I think it turned out nicely.

They are printed on matte papers with a glossy hard cover and slip case. I'm having them put the couple's names on the slip case in gold. These are more like very high-end coffee table books when they are done.

I am now officially in business according to the city of Henderson here in Nevada. Michele took my paperwork in on Friday and now I have my business license so I can operate as a photographer here and advertise without getting fined. Whoo Hoo!

I will be updating my site and I will be advertising in print soon locally and then in national magazines for fine art prints. Locally I am going for wedding photography.

http://www.davidclittle.com/

Now for the sucky part. My successful application for a business license is now known to everyone that watches the list of new businesses. So now, my cell phone and mail box, just over the weekend, are flooded with calls and junk mail for credit card processing, pay-role, accounting services, web hosting, editors, insurance, etc. The phone stuff bugs me a lot so I am trying to get on a do not call list here but the mail stuff you can do something about.

Most of it comes with pre-paid postage envelopes. You know the ones, "No Postage Nescissary if Mailed in the United States." These are the best.

I have been mailing these things back loaded with my trash. But you can go one step further. You can attach these envelopes to any thing that does not exceed the maximum length and girth measurements or 72lbs in weight. These are the restrictions set by the USPS

So! Find yourself a nice box to fill with old magazines and tape that envelope to it. They have to pay higher postage for weight then. One of my friends had done this a while back with a cinder block.

In any case, I'm open for business now. Tell your friends. And they'll tell their friends, and they'll tell their friends. Promote me, that is if you like me and my photos.
I want to sell some prints!

- - - >

Well, it's now official. I have a new job. I am going to be a designer for the Australian based gaming company Aristocrat. I will be on a design team here in Vegas, at their headquarters here in the Americas, creating themes and pay symbols for video slot machines. It's been in the works now for almost three months. They are slow and picky with their interviews. But I think it was slowed down even more by the fact that the job posting was through a staffing company. Michele found this little gem and forwarded it to me. The staffing company has made their presence known throughout the entire process. Even now they want to know how it's going even though the offer has been made and the paperwork done.

My last hurdle was a full background check and drug testing. I got word this morning that I was good to go and I tendered my resignation at Suburban...sadly so. I am really going to miss it there. I rate whether or not I like a job based on the people I am working with, not the job. I really like the people in the art department there and will miss them. Don't get me wrong. The work is great too. I was back in a creative position, something I had been hunting down for seven years.

It's a really great move. Considerable raise in income, great benefits, more vacation time and other perks. It's closer to home, about five blocks away and no highway to drive on. They have a gym. And, at some point I will get to go to Sydney for some training.

So, I am psyched but also bummed. As I said, I'm attached to the people there at Suburban. The 25th will be a hard day for me.

Hi yall,

Again, behind with the typing an-dat....yoi.
Well there has been a lot going on, some of which I will talk about later in the week. But, first, it's all about the reptile.

If you've been reading Michele's blog then you know we have a turtle as a pet. I won the little guy, hope he's a guy, at a county fair in Winnemucca Nevada. The second ping pong ball I tossed landed in his bowl making him the prize of the carelessly aimed, and never intended to win, toss. He cost $2 to win.

In the past two months he has totaled about $175. He was won, and traveled in, a small 3"x4" clear plastic box with some water and a micronized iridescent green palm tree. He sat on the dashboard and watched traffic, or us, for the whole Labor Day weekend. We got him a bigger box when we got home. But, I started reading about this little guy, hope he's a guy, on the internet. I found out he is a Red Eared Slider. He is semi-aquatic spending most of his time in the water and sunning on land. You can find out all you ever wanted to know about these turtles here http://redearslider.com/

I have plenty of pictures of him too...go figure.

These shots are from a week and a half ago. He is a little bigger than a quarter when viewed from above. He has taken a real liking to eating feeder fish. We get him these little bitty gold fish. It's really a mix of gold fish, comets and koi fish. In any case, he digs 'em...allot. I had a huge can of cheese balls, that took two weeks to consume, it is now the home of the feeder fish. It holds about 3 gallons of water and has a filter and everything. It is home to about a dozen or so fish and when it's feeding time, we just toss ping pong, that's his name, into the jug. Once in there he eyeballs a fish or two and starts following them around in there until he gets close enough to take a chunk out of them. Then it's go time.

You can see that he has graduated to much better surroundings than a plastic box. He is in a 10 Gallon tank with a submersible pump and filter. The filter in the feeder tank is one that I built. It is made from a small water bottle and has an air stone in it. As the bubbles rise through the bottle they drag water with them creating an upward current. There are holes in the bottom of the bottle that let water in. The water then passes through some filter media that I put in there to do the job.

The air comes from a small air pump out side the tanks. It is split and goes into both tanks. The main reason for getting this thing was to keep his food alive.

The filter in his tank was an absolute necessity. He is one dirty turtle. He poops indiscriminately and he has no lips so his food floats everywhere. The last time I pulled the filter out it became apparent how much he likes fish. The bottom of the filter looked like a Lego box of fish parts just randomly stuck to the intakes. All together it looks like he's killed over twenty fish in the past three weeks. We watched as he ate the last one like a cookie. Taking only the edge off all the way around the fish. Morbid, but entertaining none the less.

Here's some shots of the action!

He has a rock to sun himself on and he does so underneath a 60W UV bulb that provides A and B. It makes him absorb calcium for his shell and makes him hungry too. If I can get a good shot of it I'll post him when he's basking under the bulb. He sits on the bottom of his shell with his neck and feet out as far as they will go with his toes spread out. It's supposed to be a normal behavior for these turtles. It looks totally goofy.

I really am fascinated with this little guy, hope he's a guy. If he's not a guy, I'm gonna need a much bigger tank in the end as it will grow to about 9-11 inches long instead of about 5"-7" if "he" is a male. The bigger the turtle, the bigger the tank for swimming, sunning and territory.

I have to say I love having an aquarium. I will admit that this turtle is one dirty little pet. He makes a royal mess in there and keeping him requires allot of work in the tank but it's worth it. He's neat to watch in there doing, his... turtle business.

Wow! I haven't posted anything since July. I guess I'm not as good at the blog thing as Michele. We just got back from another one of our weekend trips here in the Southwest US. We went to Cedar City to go to Skyfest. We had gone to this last year and we got to see hot-air balloons being set up, inflated and then take off from a ball field there in town. They did not launch any balloons this year. The wind was too high and bad weather on Sunday kept them from doing it as well.

So Michele came up with Bryce Canyon. Great idea! I've wanted to go there for some time now. It was only two hours away from Cedar City. So we had breakfast, stopped at SUU and then off to the canyon. It was beautiful. There are no words to adequately describe the landscapes there. I have over 1500 photos from the day that I have to sort through and then I will post them in the photo gallery.

This trip and the ones before, Brianhead, Salt Lake City, Kolob Canyon and Zion have only served to cement the desire to live in Utah. Not to mention it's clean and safe there too. Even the panhandler we ran into in Slay Lake, twice, was wearing a sport coat. :)

Now I just need to find a job that pays as well but allows us to live in the mountains.

I'm working on that.

I am working on a photo gallery that you get to from our home page
http://www.the-little-family.com

Its address will be
http://www.the-little-family.com/photogallery

So I forgot to post this back when it happened but here it is anyway. There was an accident on I15 South on my way home back on the 11th of June. There are these trucks here that haul rocks around to the various construction sites in the valley. They're pretty big and heavy and they even run them doubled-up. Well one of them took a little spill on the highway just South of Tropicanna on the right side. It happened just before I got there. I was four cars back from it when the truck caught fire.

The initial fire and smoke

In this shot you can see all the smoke. I also like the PVC roll bars the guy in front of me has on his Suzuki. That'll really keep his head on if he rolls, but back to the crash.

A closer shot of that fine "roll bar" and the smoke.

A couple of fire trucks showed up and put it out pretty quickly. There was an ambulance but they never loaded anyone up so that's good. You can now see the truck below. That police car was not visible till they got the fire out.

After the fire was put out.

And here we have the final result of the crash and fire. I don't know what he hit. He may have just "burst into flames!" as Eric would put it. ( he thinks that's why there are no animals around here. He thinks that if they come out of their burrows during the day they will "burst into flames" in the desert heat. He went to college too. )

The aftermath

All told, it took 20 minutes to go from crash, stop traffic, get the fire truck there, put it out and get things moving again. Pretty quick I say. And, as far I could tell, no one got hurt. Even better.

This was the one line that had Josh irritated. I think it was used three times. I went with the Stroders to see the move Transformers on Thursday night.

As a kid I thought the cartoon sucked as bad as anything could suck. I just can't stand cookie-cutter plots and crappy art. The Transformers had both. Josh could argue on this at length, but, that show is his thing. He can have it. I grew up on Robotech, Star Blazers, Speed Racer and Voltron (the one with the lions and NOT the one from the DMV).

The movie was great, in my opinion. And, they totally ripped Las Vegas a new one with the fight scenes. At least I think it's Vegas. Not the strip, but down town Vegas maybe. They do show some skyscrapers though. I don't think there is anything here bigger than the hotels on the strip. In any case there was no shortage of robots. Whether they be just tooling around, talking, transforming, fighting, being philosophical and destroying buildings.

There were no FX teases in this one. The transformation scenes are pretty elaborate and complex. They do not transform as easily as the toys do. I think you would need a degree in physics to completely get it.

If you want to see a movie where great big robots completely destroy a place in the name of fighting their enemies, and do so with the coolest looking weapons and high-speed action, this is it. This movie is definitely entertainment. I know there are those (Josh) that would like to see things kept in their purest form as they saw them when growing up. I just look at it for what it is, a movie. Technology, time constraints, actors and audience demographics are what determine the final product. I think they did fine.

I am sitting here in my office looking out of my window watching as literally hundreds of pounds of sand go by every minute. The steady winds right now are 40 MPH and the gusts have gone as high as 65 just 2 miles away at one of the weather stations I watch online. It's a good thing all the cabling and electrical are burried here, otherwise the power would be out by now. It has been building since about noon today. A cold front has gone through the north end of the state. The temperature yesterday was around 100-104 and today it topped out at 93 and now it's in the 70's. Big change for this place. Most of the desert, at the south end where we live, is very fine dust. It can squirt into the house through almost imperceptible cracks and seams. My windows are closed tight and locked and it still finds its way in and onto the windows sills. I have a had a fine grit in my teeth for most of the day as small amounts of the stuff go in with every breath.

Correction, there was a gust of 72 just recorded. The walls and floors shake while this is going on. We've had several such nights since we moved here but not this bad. This is, here, what a thunderstorm is anywhere else...just no lightning. It's really quite impressive to see just what the wind can carry. Undoubtedly, my dashboard and steering wheel will be covered with it tomorrow morning.

When I got home, I put about 100 pounds of concrete pavers into the bottom of our new grill on the back porch so it doesn't go anywhere.

Weeeeeeeeeee.

Fanny packs are better protected from pickpockets by camouflaging them as a bun in the oven. HA!

Today marks the day that we first met two years ago at Atrias in Warrendale PA. Since then a lot has happened. It seems so long ago now.

. . . . . .

So I found out today that my Adata 4GB CF cards are waterproof. Add to that detergent-proof, dryer-proof, getting hit with zippers and jeans proof as well. One of my cards survived the entire trip through the wash and dryer with all the data on it perfectly in tact. Sweet!

If you are interested, and you should be if you use CF cards (not Eric though, as he is using girly-man SD cards) here's the info on them and the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211047

Most cameras do not take advantage of the high-speed functions of some of these cards and are limited by the size of the buffer on their cameras or by the firmware loaded on them. These are 120X speed which has shown to be plenty for me with my Nikons. So, buy em up I say!

Well I am typing to you now from the keyboard of my HP laptop. It now has a new hard drive. I bought it today and installed the OS on it. The old drive is going into an external enclosure so I can access all my old files via USB. So far so good. It just sucks having to track down all those drivers.

I'll tell you more later and have an update for you about our trip to San Francisco later on.

Yes, it's time for another update from the guy who can't seem to stay on top of the blog thing. I started these things up and was gung ho when it came to fixing up the servers them and all. But, I am the one who can't seem to get the time to put my 2 cents on here. Michele is really good at keeping her's updated.

I any case, my laptop has had a fatal run-in with a variant of the sasser worm which has rendered it unable to boot past the windows login. It got violent when I tried to remove it. No biggie though, just an annoyance really. I need to yank the hard drive and back up the data on the second partition and then it's scorched earth for the puppy. Just a re-installation...of everything I stuck on it in the past two years. Feh!

The Jeep has had some upgrades as well. The air box has had a face-lift where I removed the entire front face of it to increase the air flow to the throttle body. It works great. I am now toying around with building a chiller for the air box that will cool the air before it goes into the filter. Even if it's only a drop of 10-20 degrees from ambient it will be a boost in efficiency and horse power.

It will soon be getting a few inches added to it in the suspension and later on some larger tires. nothing monster truck, just an inch or two larger than what is on it now. The rocker panels will be cut out completely and replaced with rock rails. The frame will get an upgrade too.

Thanks to the welder I will be building a new rear bumper for the Jeep with a tire carrier as well. And, my good old roof rack will be coming back. I'm designing it now.

My friend Tim, who I worked with at CMU, and his wife now have a baby daughter, Sophia. I will post the pic I was sent when I get my laptop working.

And, Michele and I are headed to San Francisco this weekend for our anniversary / honeymoon. We never got a honeymoon. Things went pretty fast once we got married. This past year has been something else. Getting married alone was huge but with moving across the country and getting new jobs added to it, it's been exciting and interesting. And, through all of it I am ever so happy that I have had Michele to experience it with. I love Michele and I don't know what I would do without her. She is the best thing ever to happen to me.

We'll be eating our cake when we get back on Monday.

Till then, bye bye yall. I'll type at ya later.

DAY ONE
Saturday

Well today started with a little bit of a surprise. Well, not too much of a surprise as I had bought extra supplies "just in case." Everything welse with the Jeep's repairs have been a chain of events leading to multiple trips to the parts store or out for new tools. But this time I was pretty well prepared.

Step 1. Remove the driver's seat (it was the only seat left in the car. It was a bit like driving a UPS truck for the past week.) ...

and this

Pretty nasty that there's rust coming through the carpet. Thsi should have been my first sign as to what was coming.

Then Step 2. Remove the trim and old carpet.

The trim had to come off first as it holds the caret in place all the way around the Jeep. I found, as I pulled each piece, that there is mold on the plastic on the inside surface facing the body. This is most likely what has been giving the Jeep the smell that Michele does not like so much. I guess I have gotten used to the smell in there and never paid it much attention.

Removing the carpet in the rear also shows you what I have been using for sound-deadening material. A mixture of cardboard, newspapers and Ikea mouse pads. That's right, mouse pads. I had a bunch of these thinking I was going to put my logo on them over the ikea one but so much for that, they worked better here. I think they are going to find there way into the new padding layout as well or as spacers and pads.

Since the installation of the new exhaust, which I am going to extend all the way back soon, and the holes in the transfer case showd up, the Jeep has become a very noisy vehicle to drive. I play the stereo louder, turn up my phone or, in this case, fill in the gaps with mouse pads. Anything that will make it quieter in there.

Step 2a

Step 2b

And then you have all the bits and pieces that were inside.
It's mainly the beige ppices that have all the mold in them. They go all along the perimiter of the vehicle neer the bottom. I have not looked at the upper pieces yet. They're for another day. The dashboard will come appart at some point as well. I have some dead bulbs in there and I think there is a filter in there for the air that goes into the cabin of the vehicle. I still need to check on that. Michele's car has one, which I think is nice. If the jeep does not have one then I will be making a filter holder for it and finding the best fit for size in available filters.

And the back as it was last week. I did a litte bit more trimming over the week but for the most part, if the metal is still pretty thick I have been trying to save as much of it as possible and ying it into the frame. I wanted to make sure there was as much metal as possible to connect the new pieces to. My other problem is the gas tank in the rear. I was originally going to dro the tank and weld back there but the time it would have added to the job would have made it more than a two day job.

I cleaned everything in the rear 9rust jelly) and sprayed it with a rust-stop and while that was drying I went to the front of the Jeep to pull up the front carpet mould. This is where my new purchasing habits for the Jeep paid off. If I ever have a question in my mind as to whether or not I need something of if I have enough of something, I buy it. Beter to have to return it than to have to run around. I had to cut the carpet into sections to get it out. It was quite a tight fit in there around all the wires, belts and bolts. But when I pulled up the front section on the passenger side I found this...

Yup, more holes through to the outside world. And some of these had a load of oil in them from the leak I am currently chaseing. But, I bought twice the metal I needed so this only phased me for a minute or so. Michele looked nervous. After all, she sits on that side! But I can fix it. It's just one more thing, that's all. So I got out the grinder and the cutting wheels again. Cleaned it and hit it with the same rust-stop. I think it rusted so bad on that side because the exhaust down pipe goes to that side and runs to the back on the passenger side. So the continual heating and cooling of the exhaust and catalytic would make it easier for the metal to rust. Also the front end of the floor pan under the dash gets hit with spray from the front tire. With the steel I have left over, I am making some sacrificial pieces. A new heat shield linked to the frame for the catalytic and a deflector under the floor pan behind the front wheels on both sides. It is a wonder, though, with all the oil and ATF under there how it Could have rusted. But oh well.

By the time I had gotten done with that, the back was ready for primer.

Next, new tools! Oooo I like new tools. This week's purchase was tin snips (strong enough for cutting 20ga sheet steel), variable speed drill, pop-rivit gun (profesional model with swivel head and four different shaft sizes), and caulking gun (for silicone sealant).

Under that is the steel I got and some straping metal to span the holes and reinforce them back to the frame.

After all that the sheet metal goes in, with sealant underneath, and then gets primed.

And Viola!

This was day one. Day two will be the carpeting itself.

ZZZzzzzzz....

DAY TWO
Sunday

This was a good day. We got the whole thing done. Michele was helping me today cleaning all the trim and the upholstry on the seats and vinyl trim. Without her I would still be out there right now working on it.

So here is how it started out today. I was able to salvage a good bit of the old padding from the moulded carpet I took out. It was already cut into the crazy shapes needed to fit over the transmission, transfer case and drive shaft. Saving it saved me a lot of time. I then laid down a second layer of padding that I got mainly as a sound-deadener. The floors are soft like indoor carpeting now. One of the mouse ads was turned into bushings and spacers for the mounting bolts for the front seats.

And the passenger side.

And here is the full view through the Jeep after the padding was done.

Next I started laying down the carpet. I got a very soft and flexible indoor-outdoor carpet. But, since I am not using a moulded carpet I have to lay everything in strips and shapes with overlap to accomadate the shapes of the floor pan. So, I had to stand there for a while just staring at the jeep like a special kid...pondering the order of events. I ended up doing the front in four pieces. One for the front of the hump back to just after the parking brake, one for each side from under the dash to the midpoint under the front seats, and then a u-shapped piece that overlaped those two covering the floor in the back seat. You would not believe the number of crazy little cuts you have to make to force flat carpeting to accomadate the curved geometry of a car floor.

The hump

Back seat

Driver's side

There's a lot of room in that thing without any seats but it's akward to work in it.

And a bit like a hoopty.

But I digress.

Here was the last progression starting with the front seat. I had to put in the trim to tighten the side of the carpet and keep it in place while I cut the other side before putting in the seat.

And the final product.

Now I'm really tired. Time for ibuprofen and bed!

We had our first wedding shoot this weekend. It was at Bear's Best, a Jack Nicklaus course with 18 of his favorite holes. The wedding ceremony was outside on one of the putting greens with the reception inside their banquette hall.

It was a small ceremony with just 50 guests. The ceremony itself was about 5 minutes, if that so the service shots are thin. But I did get to spend time with both the bride and groom before the service. The groom and his men were out in the foyer and the bride was back in the ladies room. Yes, I was in the ladies room...with permission...allowed even. :) ... With the bride's maids and the mother of the bride. All of them speaking in Thai. The bride's maids and the bride could speak English and would translate to me once in a while when the mother would say something.

The bride was completely into having her picture taken and was more than happy to follow direction in posing and other requests. Michele and I got a really good chance at this wedding to take allot of what we had learned about the artistic side of wedding photography. Most of the shots came from the reception, as it was the longest part of the day.

The golf club and surrounding area were nice as well. Mountains were the back drop to the west as well as a large pond with palm trees, rocks, sand and ducks and Canadian geese. I got within about 2 feet of one of them before it decided to back up. Before that it was intent on getting to the bouquet which was laid out on the green with some balls for a detail shot. The closer it got, I moved toward it. It started hissing and you could hear the grooms men yelling it behind me. It finally gave up. No way it was getting that bouquet.

I'm still processing the files. I took over 1300 shots and Michele shot over 800. Very good coverage for the 5 hours we were there. Michele's shots are quite good. No, she's not just getting 20 of her shots in. I am still going over the shots and am already over the 50 mark with hers. In all we will be presenting the couple with about 400 shots as online proofs. Thy will get to choose about 120 to go into a custom album that I will design.

I'll post some of the shots once I get a chance to do the color correction and special effects. Right now everything is in RAW format and not able to be posted.

All in all, great shoot. We were well-prepared both in equipment and ideas from lots of studying. It was great.

The Jeep has been through many different states of repair, disrepair and other states of existence. But, before we moved here to Nevada I had to decide whether to keep it or not. At the time I was driving 35 miles each way to work between our apartment in Cranberry PA to Oakland in Pittsburgh. At the time the Jeep was getting about 10-12 miles to the gallon. not so hot since these things are supposed to get 18-20.

When I found out Michele had a job we went to Las Vegas to find a house and for me to find a job as well. When I got my job and found out I would be only 8 miles away, I decided to keep the Jeep. I own it. I make no payments on it, registration here in Nevada is cheap for it because of its age and there is a lot of desert play in with it (that last part being much further from the affordability part, but fun none the less.)

We towed it out here in back of the U-Haul with all our other stuff. Once here, I got new tires for it. "Nice" new tires. I was keeping it so no more bargain tires. Then the mileage got worse. Then it lost power. Then, I could go no faster than about 45MPH. I took it back to where I had gotten the tires. The guy there was nice to me he even saved me money on a thermostat showing me how to fix the problem right in the parking lot. Great. Well, not so much.

I already had planned on getting the rear main seal replaced as it was leaking and while it was in for that I had them check out the problem. They said it was the exhaust. An, after looking at it, they spotted cracks in the exhaust manifold and dirt in the intake manifold and injectors. This is where things started to get bad. Yes, the cracked manifold had to be fixed. I asked if they could get it welded, they said yes. They called me the next day to say no one would do it. They said they could get me a new one from the dealer for $390 and another 200 in labor on top of the $350 in labor for the rear main seal. I found a manifold at a local parts store for $260 and bought it over the phone. They would not go to pick it up. Mind you, it was two blocks away on the same street as they were. The dealer was eight blocks away. I took off a half day of work to get the part and take it over myself and then talk to them to find out why this was taking so long. At this point it had been there for three days. I asked if they were sure that this was going to fix the problem and they said yes. I asked what the diagnostic (promised to me earlier) had told them and he said it told them nothing.

After all the work had been done I was short almost $1200 in parts, which I supplied them with, and labor. The parts totaled $280.

After all this, the problem still persisted. Enter my old boss Kevin who, during lunch, gave my catalytic a kick in the parking lot at work. It sounded like a baby rattle. He said, your catalytic is broken and clogged, you need a new one. Yes, the guy who is a designer, no offense Kevin, and not a "professional" mechanic got the right answer. Kevin gave me a cat he had back at his place and we went out and bought a turbo muffler from Pep Boys for $20 and some extra pipe and clamps for another $20. We spent a day at Josh's place and viola! It worked! And, it worked better then before the problem. I am now getting about 19-22 miles per gallon and allot more umph out of the Jeep.

Since then, on my own and with the help of Kevin, Josh and Prinya from work, the Jeep has had the front and back brakes completely replaced, the rear brake cylinders, rear brake line, all the shocks, the transmission mount and the rear leaf springs replaced. For once, I did my own oil change too. Doing these repairs myself have saved me about $3200 in labor. I have been pretty frustrated a few times but for the most part this has been a good learning experience and other repairs are now possible.

I am still chasing down an oil leak on the passenger side of the engine block and I need to replace the transfer case as well as the front coil springs and control arms. The Jeep is getting a slight lift in the process. If anyone out there has an NP231 transfer case they don't want, I'll take it.

I have a grinder and cutting wheels now and a MIG welder. So now I am eye-balling the rusted metal on the Jeep. Prinya has joked that he wished he had a bowl and some milk when the rusty flakes start falling out of the Jeep. Like it's raining corn flakes when we work on it.

Well check this out. I was working in the back of the Jeep today. Removing the trim and carpeting to see how bad it is and to track down some noises back there.

This is what it looked like when I started.

Rear latch for the hatch, not so bad. Wire brush and some paint. Tis but surface rust.

Small hole where one of the trim screws can no longer get any bite on some real metal.

I'll just grab the edge of the carpeting here...

Whoa!

Whoooaa!!

Yikes! Whoa! and Holy Crap-O-Lay!

After the initial shock of the injury I grabbed the grinder, changed the wheel to a cutter and cut out just the metal over the frame channel to clean it up and see inside the frame. After about three minutes and a couple swigs of manly green tea we have this.

And this...

Really, it looks worse than it is. The metal is easily cut out and replaced and while I am at it I can replace the carpeting and do something different with the floor of the payload area as far as retractable tie downs and skid strips for heavier loads. I have to drop the gas tank, though, before I do any welding back there. The tank is to the left of that canyon. When I drop it I will likely put in a new plastic tank. They are not that expensive and it would be an improvement.

The transfer case has been a pain in the butt. At some point, the chain stretched enough that it no longer engages the front axle but spins constantly. It has been striking the inside of the transfer case and wore two holes through the cast aluminum case.

I cleaned it as best I could, drilled the cracks so they would not crack further and drilled and tapped the case for screws. I fitted some 16 gauge steel plate to it and bolted it on with some JB Weld and put some ATF into it. It still leaks but it is a lot quieter now until I get a replacement.

You can see that the hole was there long enough for the chain to rust. I have no idea how I missed this considering the number of times I have been under this thing.

In case you might be wondering what to get me for holidays and my birthday you can check out my wish list back on the main page and, here is my Jeep’s info from the engine compartment if you think of anything I have not.

With the repairs that have been made, it is definitely a keeper now.

I will be adding new bumpers, rear tire-carrier and another custom roof rack to it as well.

Well, at work today, I received a new computer. It is a Pro Mac dual Duo Xeon Intel Box with 4GB of RAM a 300GB main drive and a 750GB secondary drive. But the special part isn't that it's way fast and spacious. This machine is running a program called Parallels. Check it out here. This little puppy lets the machine run Mac OSX and Windows XP simultaneously, and seamlessly I might add, on the same machine. I can drag and drop between the two as well. Each of the Duo processors is dedicated to each OS. Mac OS boots up, Parallels starts and a virtual machine running XP starts. All in under 30 seconds or so. I have the Mac bar at the top and dock up the left side and the Windows task bar and start button at the bottom. It's running dual monitors too at 1600 x 1200. Super supped up! I'm happy. I have never gotten to work on such a machine. I won't completely convert to Mac but this is a nice combo.

So, I got to see my first swarm of killer bees here in Vegas. We were out for lunch today at Satay Malaysian Grille http://www.sataygrille.com/ and as we pulled in to the parking lot, Kevin blurted out "Oo! Roll up the windows." We drove through the swarm at one end of the lot and parked on the other side. That was it, no stings or being chased. Whatever had their attention at that end of the lot had it good. We went in to eat and by the time we came back out the bees had left.

buzz buzz

Today was Kevin's last day at Suburban Graphics. He has accepted a position at a company in the NW end of town doing the same thing...design work for slot machines. The difference? He'll get back his management position as the lead designer there. All the machines they work on are video machines. There's still slot glass to be designed and produced but the reels and strips are replaced with video screens and LCD panels.

I still see him, though, he'll be helping me out some more with the Jeep over at Josh's place and he want's to do mountain biking and hiking at Valley of fire and Zion.

Well, my old blog went kaput. I did a server upgrade on the blogging software and I use mine as a guinea pig to be sure before doing Michele's. She does, after all, write quite a bit more than I. Well, the upgrade did not go so well. I saved the previous posts but don't know if I'll try to incorporate them into the new blog. This little snafu has taught me to create another account on this server called "Test" which will now get all the server upgrades first.

In any case. I'll be posting some things soon. And, with any luck, more often than usual.

Ta ta for now.