M5952 | Children’s/Boys’ Hero Costumes | View All | McCall’s Patterns
Mischief Managed…
I have been wanting to get another tattoo for a while now and finally decided to get “Mischief Managed” on my right forearm using the Blackadder ITC font. Over the weekend I went to dinner with a friend and on the way back I thought I’d stop at a local tattoo shop to research the tattoo artists there. I met Angie at Someplace Else Tattoo. She took a moment to pull up just what I wanted, gave me a price and time. Since it was under and hour, I decided to go ahead and get it. So here it is:
Here it is as blue neon:
This is it sketched:
It hurt very little and has been healing quickly. I have some other ideas of what I want put on me and I think that Angie is the one to make that happen.
Star Trek: Voyager Uniforms
My current prokect at the moment is creating Voyager uniforms for the girls and I for the upcoming Dallas Comic Con. The task is proving to be quite a challenge. Although there are commercial patterns for adult, such as the one at Roddenberry.com or from Joseph Kerezman, no one currently makes one for kids. After making one for myself and understanding how it all fit together, I decided to use McCall’s M5952 as my base pattern and modify it to work. The good folks at Starfleet1701st have been an amazing resourse through this project. I am only finished with the first mockup of the pattern for my oldest, but I am hopeful the others will go quicker once I have the patter down.
Comm badges and rank pips are another item required to make the uniform complete. They are easy to find for adults, but I wanted some that would be proportional to kids. I happen to work in a place that has CADD designer so I asked if he could model the badge I had purchased. He did and scaled it down to both 75% and 50% of the original. I uploaded the OBJ files to Shapeways.com and now I am awaiting the 3D printed versions in white plastic. With any luck, these will have the look I am after.
Update: the badges came in and they are AMAZING! Exactly what I wanted. The patterns for two of the jumpers are cut out. I love it when a plan comes together.
Days like these
I went out dancing wit my beautiful bride last night at Pearl’s Dancehall & Saloon in the Fort Worth Stockyards. I drank just enough to loosen up and get out on the dance floor. After a few false starts, we were able to get around the dance floor without hurting ourselves or those around us. I had a lot of fun and look forward to future trips. I got to bed about midnight and a few hours later one of those famous Texas thunderstorms passed through. Kids and pets got stirred up, so sleeping locations were rearranged. I got up to get a drink of water when I found my nutball mut in the window, four foot off the ground. She was pretty stirred up. Tried to sleep, bot woken up by one of the cats. Went to sleep, woke up at 5am, no reason. Went back to sleep and got up at 6:45 to get out to Dallas for the Texas Lottery event releasing the new Star Trek scratch off.
I was there about four hours, got to see some great costumes, meet some lovely and interesting people and be counted in an attempt to break the Guinness record for most costumed Star Trek characters in a room. We missed the record, 1064, by half. May have had something to do with being on Easter weekend.
I got home, made lunch and went to work in the garden for a few hours. I just finished dinner and I’m completely wiped out. Need to find some energy to help dye eggs with the kiddos then I may call it an early night.
Camping
Camping is always an adventure. And by adventure, I mean tortuous decisions of which comforts to sacrifice. I joke but the purpose of camping; at least to me, is to get out of my comfort zone and see what’s really important. This past weekend we decided to go camping, so I gathered up the equipment while my lovely bride gathered the food. After a couple of hours, everyone is packed and the cars loaded so we headed to the closest state park. When we got there the nice asked if we had reservations. When I answered in the negative, she looked shock, hurt and so very sorry for me. They were all booked up as were all state parks in a 200 mile radius.
Anyone with kids knows you cannot plan too far in advance, so you walk a fine line between losing money and disappointing you children. Undaunted, my courageous partner and I swung into action and made call after call to any and all camping sites we could find on our handle held computer phones. We finally located a spot at Lake Lavon just past Wylie, Tx. We arrived, got out and found the hurricane force winds were going to make this especially challenging.
We unpacked, wrestled the tent up and noticed it had a pretty severe lean in the wind. I found trees close together, so I tied up a tarp to act as a windbreak, took down the tent and put it up again behind my makeshift wall. Now that we felt the tent would not collapse on us, we got all the beds made.
To make this long story less long, I’ll just summarize. Army Corp parks don’t have good bathrooms, teenagers like to talk way into the night, Lake Lavon is a good place to find spiders, 50 mph wind gusts wake me up, I hate air mattresses, always make sure the lights are off in your vehicle.
We had meant to be out for two days, but I found one to be more than sufficient. The best part of the whole things was meeting Joe. He’s a volunteer out there and is the friendliest most helpful person you’ll meet. If you know little about camping, pitch you tent there and feed him a meal and he’ll help you out. He’ll also entertain you with his guitar and harmonica.
MUSE in Tulsa
I had the privalege of seeing Muse in Tulsa, OK with my bride on March 10th, 2013. We had floor tickets and were able to make it off to the right side about 20 ft from the stage. The crowd around us was considerate and the concert was AMAZING. Thanks to my sweetie for buying the tickets with money she made from her business Hello Aunt Flow. I’m prous of her for all the work she’s done there and grateful to have been with her to see Muse.
I grabbed this snippit of video from my youngest:
Sales and Use Tax for the Little People
I have operated or help operate a few small businesses over the years. Many people turn a hobby they love into a business or discover there is a need to be met using a skill they have. Most of the time they want to do the thing they set out to do, organize homes, write, sew products, etc and don’t want to take the time to learn how to “run a business”. That’s all fine until you are a success and realize that the State would like a little part of what you have been doing. About this time, the accountant is called and the process or sorting it all out begins.
To help those who are just getting into it, there are a few things you can do to make it a little easier on your accountant at that time.
- Keep all your purchases for your business separate. You don’t need a separate account, though that is best, but you need to keep reciepts to know what went out.
- Keep a record of your sales. This can be anything from handwritten invoices to spreadsheet downloads from sites like Etsy or Paypal.
- Be as detailed as you can. If you sell widgets and ship them and offer discounts all of that is important information. Where you are performing the serivce or mailing products is also important since you have to pay taxes to the state where this happens. The giggler here is that the amount you charge to ship items is also taxable.
- If there is even the slightest chance this will be a business, just get a dba (Doing Business As) if you have a separate name and request a tax number from the state. It is low cost (under$20) and will same you a few headaches in the future if things take off.
- File your reports. The state does not care that you are doing well, just what you are doing that they can tax. Even if you have no sales, you need to files a Sales and Use tax short form each quarter letting the state know.
- If you have employees, you’ll need a federal ID number and you’ll want to get some professional help at that point as there are MANY rules the small proprietor will have trouble knowing about. There are also lots of fun new forms and taxes to pay.
That’s the short version. Just make sure if the state comes calling, to be prompt and poilte especially if you have to go to the locale office and talk to someone. They are just doing their jobs and like most of us will help those who are nice to them.
Moving earth
There is a small area in front of our house that had bushes and some vining ground cover. Mel has wanted a seating area out there for a while so I did that project this weekend. The area is bout 3′ X 6′. On day one, I cut the bushes, pulled and replanted the ground cover then moved the roots and about 6 inches of dirt. Day 2 I started moving and setting stones. I used the old concrete blocks I had collected for making a back porch. It took me the better part of the day to set the stones, fill in the dirt then put the left over dirt in the garden and clean up.
Wall of Fame
It took a while, but I finally collect enough photos and autographs to make the wall in my office something to talk about.
I have been going to convetions seriously since 2003. Back then, I mostly got sketches from my favorite artists. While I still do that, the past two years I have made it a point to get autographs and photos with some of my favorite celebrities. I thought these would be better in my office than copies of the sketches. It has worked out as well as I’d hoped, though I have to explain who most of the people are. I also wanted to get my degrees on the wall. That is high school through masters pictured.
The hardest part was finding a way to get them on the wall. I wanted something that was easy to hang, not requireing a lot of leveling and holes in the wall, was easily adjustable and relatively understated so as not to detract from the photos. I decided on STAS Picture Hanging Systems. It uses a bar across the top that you need to anchor and make level, then has cords that hang down and clips that slid into place. The pictures can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally this way. My only complaint is that the hanger clips are much more visible than pictured and they are pretty thick so the frame is pushed off the wall a bit and tilts making it hard to level.. I have ordered the smaller clips in the hopes that they will be less visible.
I also wanted all matching frames. I chose FrameUSA.com and went mostly with their Architect picture frame in black since it was simple and understated. They frames arrived quickly and well packed. Of the 30 or so frames I ordered, only one had cracked glass which I found a replacement for at Home Depot. Since nothing is ever perfect, my only complaint here was I did not get the hanger on the back for the smaller ones, perhaps I ordered the wrong one and the ones that did have it you have to attach it yourself. Home Depot again had the parts I needed and a couple of hours later they were ready to be hung. One note, when putting the hanger on, always mark and prepunch the holes. The hanger itself is pretty flimsy and the frame seemed to be a pretty solid oak or other hard wood.
I plan on getting a few more photos in May at Dallas Comicon, where William Shatner and some of The Next Generation cast will be appearing. I have space here to add about 6-7 then I may need to expand to a new wall.
Chair Project
I bought a couple of wooden office chairs at a thrift store last year for $5. That’s for both. $2.50 each. So of course I could not pass them up. I got them home, moved them around the garage for a year and finally got to work on one. I know at one time I have a before picture, a sanded and possibly one other progress picture, but I have sense lost them. However, the other chair was in roughly the same condition, so it is here to give you some idea.
I started by disassembling the whole chair. Every piece I could take apart, I did. I sanded all the pieces which was the most time consuming since I have to take off layers of varnish and stain. I reassembled the chair, stained and finished with three coats of clear. With the metal parts, I degreased, scrubbed, reassembled and reoiled. The only thing about the chair is that the shaft wobbles a bit. I think there may be a wedge or something missing. Overall, I am very pleased with the way it turned out.
