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This morning I drove out to Woburn for a company’s liquidation sale, and picked up a Gast 1023 vacuum pump for $100. These retail for around $700 new, so this was a BIG score and shaved a ton of money off the vac table bottom line. I was SO tempted to pick up a second one for a spare, but refrained. I’ll probably contact them again next week and see if there are any left. If so I’ll likely go back.

Then when I got to work, I found that my tonneau cover had arrived! It really was as easy to install as they claimed. It took me about 15 minutes to get it out of the box and on the truck. I wasn’t able to do the tailgate weather strip, since it was VERY dirty. I’ll have to do that later.

This will be great for a number of reasons. Like, for example, the $700 vac pump in the bed is not out in the open for the whole world to see now!

I also won’t have to strap in any small things I put in the back. I’m probably going to pick up one of the cargo separators for it next… it’s a rigid wall that installs into the rails on the bed and can be positioned wherever you need it.

With something like that, you can put, say, grocery bags, in the bed of the truck and not have to crawl all the way in to the back of the bed to get them back out.

It was a busy day filled with meetings!

First was the benefits meeting, where we discussed the relative value of various lost appendages.

Then lunch.

Then the full on company meeting, where all of us were in one room. I got to present a bit about IT security at it, which was wildly exciting. Really.

It’s nice not having any fear of public speaking. Our company is smaller than some of the convention panels I’ve done, so it was cake.

Then the big news. It’s official: we ARE moving in to the new office space I went to look at a month or two ago. It’s still in Waltham, but WAY bigger than what we’re in now. HUGELY bigger.

And now we kill time until the company party at Tempo on Moody St at 6. Now, do I park at home and walk down, or park there? Probably the latter… it’s cold.

hello there, new year. how are you? i’ve had a cold, but otherwise i’m doing well.

let’s see, what’s going on?

i’m moving ahead with the “finishing the basement” project. i’ve repointed and walled in about 1/4″ of the place now. one wall is still open while i sort out electrical stuff. it’s looking good, if i do say so myself

we got a wii, and have been playing around with wii fit. i’m digging it so far. it’s fun, and i do manage to work up my heart rate pretty nicely. and doing it as a penguin trying to catch fish is way more fun than as a guy in a gym.

we also reactivated weight watchers, and have been on-plan for 4 days now. whee fun!

new years eve was spent with the waltham music scene at harper’s ferry. crazy show with tons of tribute bands, waltham the band, and other madness. good stuff!

we saw avatar in imax 3d and i was just awed by the technology that went into it. definitely the most believable cg world i’ve seen. i absolutely loved the movie and really want to see it again.

back to work tomorrow. after so much time off it’s both exciting to be back and a bit of a downer. ah well, we must pay the bills!

it’s almost election time in 501st land. leadership transitions are always interesting. this year could prove very interesting indeed.

i’m finally repairing my fett helmet mold. the silicone is fine, but the jacket has a HUGE crack. i poured resin in it months ago, so that the silicone would be solid. now i’m making the new jacket.

i’m using plasti-paste from smooth-on instead of fiberglass. the fiberglass smells terrible and leaves itchy, hazardous fuzz everywhere.

plasti-paste costs about 2x as much, but has no odor, and requires no fiber sheets / mat.

so far so good… i did one coat on one side. i’ll need a second coat on that side, since i didn’t mix enough. side 2 i’ll do enough in 1 shot.

i also got some of the sonite wax paste for a release. i’m mostly interested in preventing silicone from bonding to itself, but i’ll test it out on the jacket.

fun with casting!

all this is to clear up some space, physical and mental, for the clone weapons that i’ll be casting up soon… hopefully next week.

Silly Christmas Cartoon, originally uploaded by stormtrooperguy.

Ever wonder how Santa manages to be at thousands of shopping malls all year round and STILL has time to deliver all those toys?

did they TRY to make this product look dirty?, originally uploaded by stormtrooperguy.

tear, squeeze and toss! 100% silicone! caulk singles!

Smooth-On is the company I get my silicone, resin, etc… from.

The recently launched a product called “Onyx”. It’s a black resin. It’s surprisingly hard to tint resin to really get BLACK. I usually end up with some purplish grey color. So this was pretty neat. It’s only $5 a bottle more than the white that I usually use ($89.75 I think for the Onyx).

The color is great. It really is black as can be. It kicks FAST! The pot life is 2.5 minutes. Pot life is essentially how long it is still liquid enough to pour. From the time part A and part B touch, you have just about 2 minutes to mix and pour it before it’s useless.

Needless to say I wasted a fair bit of it tonight as I learned how to use it.

I don’t think I’ll get more of it, unless I get VERY good at casting quickly with this bottle. Having to fly like that means more bubbles, voids and other things requiring cleanup.

I did get a workable clone commander pistol pull out of it. I needed that to clean up and re-mold. My first attempt at molding it (nearly a year ago now!) did not go so well. The master was trashed and the mold tore in a few places. So I made a messy cast of it, and am repairing it. A pain to be sure, but better than scratch building it again.

So, in an effort to reactivate parts of my brain that have gone dormant, I bought Batman: The Killing Joke today.

Yes, I’m reactivating the bat-brain. Woo!

I didn’t really appreciate what a disturbing book it was when I first read it. I was 12. I wasn’t exactly the most seasoned reader.

Anyway, I’m reminded now how Oracle was born.

like any good cat-parent, i got the kids some christmas presents. tucked away in my closet to save for the morning.

tonight, i see mal with something odd in his mouth.

it’s a tube about 4″ long, 3/4″ diameter, stuffed with catnip. he’s entranced with the thing.

then i think… wait… he doesn’t… did he???

go upstairs.

closet door: open
target bag: open
pack of catnip tubes: open, scattered.

so yeah, he snuck into the closet and stole his present!