Scouting Again

Another school year means another year of scouting. This year I’ll be running the Wolf Den, second graders ready to be.. well, prepared. I’ve been looking for activities that complement the standard scouting requirements and keep the kids earning badges and pins and belt loops. I still need to avoid wood craft, at least as far as whittling for a while. I think they are allowed to earn their whittling chips this year, and that allows scouts to carry pocket knives into camp and at meetings. There are serious requirements, however, and we’ll be putting that off for a while.

I was thinking about leather craft. There’s so much fun stuff you can do, though the kits aren’t particularly cheap. Then there’s all the tooling and dyeing and such. That’s right. Did you know you can dye leather? I mean, well yeah, I guess that’s obvious once you’ve seen a pair of purple leather pants on an 80s glam rocker. But who would have thought it was a more or less common DIY craft type thing. Maybe you. Certainly not me.

I’ve resolved to do some easier beading stuff in the beginning. I found some great beaded snake key rings for cheap. And I got some paracord kits that show you how to tie those cool knotted paracord bracelets that have become all the rage. The kits even include little plastic buckles, so these kids are going to be seriously styling.

Repairs!

Fixin’ things! fixin’ things! Fixin’ lotsa things lately. Cracked boards on the front steps from the refrigerator delivery guys. A rotten piece on the rock wall part of the kid’s swingset. The below-grade pump that lets us have a utility sink in the basement. Point me to some appliance parts online and baby, you know I’m gonna get all DIY up in there.

Fo shizzle.

You’ll note, of course, that I did not in any way repair the busted refrigerator. Not that I wouldn’t have tried, but I really did hate that blasted piece of junk. And now I have so much love for the new fridge.

Ch-Ch-Changes

I am kind of bummed by the number of little local restaurants that keep closing. It is said that our lousy economyis making it so hard for such places to stay in business, offering fresh, healthy cuisine as an alternative to fast food, frozen beef-like “meat” and that strange, bitter, red berryish fruit from South America that certain mega-retailers label as strawberries. If you’re thinking of opening your own bistro, I say go for it. Make me something speical and fresh and full of love and I will happily try it. And if looking for restaurant equipment at RapidsWholesale.com fails, there are probably two or three spots with gently and lovingly used gear you can check out.

Sigh.

Raisin’

In recent times, my alumni oriented professional activities have collided big time with fundraising – specifically for nonprofits. Now, I have big respect for the work of many nonprofits. The missions of so many of these groups are admirable and necessary. I really have no issue with most nonprofits I encounter. So, unless it is a thinly veiled hate organization pretending to be something else, I say go ahead and do your thing: donate real estate to charity, give your clunker to the heart association, part with a few bucks… whatever feels right.

Here’s the thing, though. I have found that many of these organizations hire third party vendors to do data research and handle massive fundraising campaigns, and at the end of the day, very little money is actually raised. Well, no, maybe that’s not true. A whole bunch of money is raised, but a huge percentage goes to paying the vendor for the various research and data expenses. Not to mention the letter writing and postage and ginormous telecommunication efforts. It’s just… a drag to realize how few pennies of each dollar will actually make it to the folks who need it.

Of course, this is generally the case when responding to a mailer you receive or something along those lines. If you step up and research a cause you believe in and donate… well, then, most of your cash goes to the source. In most instances, administrative costs do not actually eat up a lot of contributions, or at least not as much as some people might claim. So please don’t think I’m am telling you to keep it close to the vest and stop being generous. My point is just that you must do some of your own due diligence in figuring out where you want to spread the wealth so it is, in fact… spread.

Flight

I can’t believe how fast time passes with kids. My oldest is turning 10 in a couple weeks. Holy crap! Staggering.

We’re shifting stuff around in his room, pulling out the train table and putitng the extension back on the desk I gave him. That would be one of the two desks I used to have in my studio. He gets expanded study space and I have reduced tabletop for rock and rolling.

It’s a good thing I save all this stuff, even if it is way crappier than it used to be. His desk could never support the old school desktop computers we had. Or, God forbid, an electric typewriter. No freakin’ way.

I have this one desk I have tricked out 8 ways from sunday over the years. I’ve attached and removed drawer slides and hutch-like shelves. I’ve drilled holes to snake cables. I’ve attached power strips to the sides. I’ve alternately added risers and removed inches from the legs to allow for varying clearances in different apartments. Now that’s the kind of quality a guy wants in his desk, right?

Incidentally, this latter desk is the one I still have in my studio. It is an “L” style desk that currently supports my hard disk recorder, desktop and widescreen monitor, computer speakers and subwoofer, studio monitor speakers (love my KRKs), a turntable, a dual cassette deck (don’t ask), a lamp, a fan, a phone, and last, but not least, two PA speakers.

Yes, I keep a PA on my desk. What do you have? A laptop?

Wuss.

Sweet Shelves

 Speaking of making stuff last… I bought this industrial shelving unit when I graduated for college – my ersatz bureau. Seriously, I had a tiny TV and VCR on one shelf, books on another, and my folded t-shirts and jeans on the others.

I still have those shelves in the garage and they’re way more solid than the ones I bought a couple of years ago. Same chipboard shelf on steel frame except the steel frame is now something not quite steel-ish and made in some far away land. The chipboard is 1/2 inch instead of 3/4 inch, and the weight ratings are in the toilet. My old shelf can hold more on one shelf than all shelves combined on this new unit.

I bought the new one oln sale for roughly twice as much as the old one. I know time has passed, but…come on. What’s happened to expectations of quality? It seems like we are supposed to be happy with something lasting 4 or 5 years these days. Does anyone remember the lifetime guarantee and the expectation that things would actually last a lifetime?

Files

I’m sick of the virus threat culture we live in. Computer virus threats are what I’m specifically referring to. We have a billion dollar firewall/virus protection/malware blocking industry and it really pisses me off. What is wrong with us, as a species, that there are so many people who spend inordinate amounts of time writing malicious code?

I mean, I get identity theft. I don’t support it, of course, but I understand the criminal allure of stealing stuff from people. There’s some history there.

I also understand the evil plans of government agencies, both domestic and otherwise. Again, not something I support, but I get the whole cyber terrorism thing… intellectually.

But the people who write code that just destroys data and takes hours out of people’s lives and makes Norton and Mcaffee mega-corporations… what the hell are they thinking. Unless you have a contract from Norton to create a virus to prove the necessity of Norton to potential customers… what the hell? Why?

Personally I have had very few problems with viruses and such. I stay away from some of the mainstream targets, MS Outlook being one of them, and I rarely visit Websites that might host malicious content – intentionally or otherwise.

In fact, these days my PC backup is a memory stick with all the working files for Skateboard Heroes, Mad Science The Card Game, and Pour More. What’s Pour More you ask? Oh… just the new card game I’m developing. All about Winemaking. Oh yeah, it’s totally going to rock.