google analetics

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A quick panorama to see if I can remember how.

Not my best work but it was on my way to...





I used XnView to resize the images and Microsoft Ice to stitch the four images together

It is always fun to rework an image using filters: in this case I used adobe photoshop 6.


Remember the various filters used on cameras or in the dark room to create cool effects!

Now we knock off this stuff with a click of a mouse. I try to restrain myself by resting the heel of my hand on the mouse's tail.

Day six...

Bye

Mike, broadening my horizons, E

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

just a haiku


Deep in soft spring loom

Tendrils of life reach skyward

Roots entwine my soul

Bye

  Mike, caught out without a hand basket, E

What am I up too

I have some downtime, out of oxygen again, so I have been working on box labels, boxes and sorting the working folder that contains all the box information, what a mess, at least I have this folder backed up all over the place. One of the projects was redesigning the 12 count tribute slag box label because I lost the first label and the marble images on the box. The marble images are the same for the new label but I had to copy them from the first sets label. See img.


I also started listing on MibAuctions.com. All marble stuff all the time but not many takers.

I listed a box of agates there.

With my next tank of oxygen I will continue to work on box marbles plus make at least one large marble per day to be sent off to where they need to go. The last marble I made last Thursday was a variation of the shadow and it is cool. You can see through it and when it is turned it has a lattice look to it. This marble is not signed, no place to put it.

Bye
Mike, rolling over a marble to see what is on the other... ,E

favorite, mostly, freeware programs I like

Other than solitaire city these programs are freeware, free versions and just free.

foxit reader PDF reader.
jarte......word processer free version if I had the money I would buy the full version, thats how much I like this program.
verse perfect....very cool
solitaire city - $22.00 try the trial version first
microsoft calculator plus
fraction calc
OpenGL extensions viewer
food file (calorie counter, more than you need to know.)
WIN image composite editor (panorama stitching program)
XnView (does lots of stuff, I use it for img batch processing)
arena 201 (chess program)
panda go (game of GO)
newton playground   sketchy physics type program
sketch up   free from google: a cool free CAD program
sketchy physics plugin for sketch up: build and animate just about anything.
everest home edition...."is a freeware system information, system diagnostic and benchmarking solution"
revo uninstaller... if you do not trust the windows uninstaller to find and uninstall all the bits and pieces related to the program you want gone, revo will find the regestry entries and hidden files and get ride of them if you want to.
cc cleaner  Registry cleaning utility. You can back up your Registry before removal.
avast home (firewall)
comodo... (firewall)
rising pc doctor
Alcohol 120% / 52% ... alcohol 52% free edition. mount one or more game disks etc.on your hard drive.
Ibreakout2... freeware, very nice multi level brick out game.
 
Bye
Mike, not so free, E

Monday, October 26, 2009

DAY FOUR without...

...and waiting...

in the meantime... a bit of nonsense;




The path forward done

Return steps a lot of fun

Fine day to be home

Bye
 Mike, lurking behind a shadow, E

Friday, October 23, 2009

Hard Times six pack marble set

OR


how to just get by


At thirty dollars for a box of these marbles I can get seven sets out of a tank of oxygen. That works out to be $175.00. $175 minus $35.00 for oxygen equals $140.00. And free shipping is $5.00 per package times 7 boxes equals $35.00. $140.00 minus shipping, $35.00, equals $105.00. Making approximately ten of these 7/8" marbles a day takes... Did I mention, I make the boxes too.
Hard times marble sets contain six app. 7/8" marbles of various types. These marbles make it into the hard times box instead of the numbered sets for various reasons as follows:
1. I am not fond of a particular marble... to critical I guess.

2. The size is a little too big or too small.

3. or the marble in a large number of cases is really cool and could have made the grade for the numbered sets.
The making of cardboard boxes for marble sets.
Making the prototype marble box
OR
the road to more work than I needed…
First you drink a lot of beer. Cut the boxes up into flat usable pieces. Cut up brown paper sacks into flat paper, that the beer did not come in, I had something go right for once when I was given a box full of new 14" x 8 3/8" brown sacks, I am wearing one right now. Do some math and get the math wrong over and over. I finally got a really good usable prototype box done. Now if I had been smart enough, I would have used the brown side of the cardboard to hide the Bud label, with the next box I was a little Weiser and hid the label...
.. After way too many trials and errors I had forms and templates plus correct measurements for making the strips for the side of the 12 count box. Then I became really stupid... a condition I have suffered from this year... I decided to make a 6 count box, how hard would that be... just about as hard as the 12 count box, you do not cut dimensions in half!... The 6 count box is now known as the six pack.
The first boxes went through some tweaks thus increasing the complexity of the box, just what I needed.
Bye,
Mike, terminal velocity is a reality, E








Thursday, October 22, 2009

it just gets better

Today is dull, cool, and the sidewalks are wet with the constant rain, thus my socks soaked up the inclement weather as I walked to the mini studio this morning and are wet.


  Used up the tank of oxygen and the propane is too low to use. Guess I will walk to Michelle's and wait for an oxygen tank to mysteriously appear.


Bye
  Mike, terminal velocity is a reality, E

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

level playing field

I finally figured out why the following three words spoken by people who seek to help their constituents, lobbyist and protect their own backside and those words are "level playing ground". The key words here are "playing field". I figure that if I am on the playing field I am there to win. I will play by the rules, politicians... hmm... Then there is the theoretical advantage of the home game versus the away game and who are the referees anyway. As you see there are some problems cropping up here. Ok you have a "level" playing field and what happens on these fields, why yes, games. What games are played on a 'field', hide and seek, basketball, soccer, tennis, checkers, kick the can etc. What do they have in common, a playing surface a 'field' and what drives a game, rules. Back to the level playing field: on this field there must be rules and who writes these rules and are the rules written on a level playing field, I think not. The rules are written by lobbyist in conjunction with a politicians staff. While the level field is being chalked out behind closed doors the politician is out on the front steps spouting the party line and soothing their constituents. Now as I look at the level playing field I realize the other side is not in view, could it be all those obstacles in the way?


Next chapter, the American people "believe".
 
Bye
 Mike

Thursday, October 15, 2009

moving always moving

A contemporary marble in a state of GIF





By
Mike

any takers... anyone... time passes

The guinea's are made using a gather of hot glass that has been rolled in small pieces of colored glass: known as frit that I make by cutting off very hot pieces of colored glass into a small bowl of water where it fractures into small pieces of glass. skipping a few steps Then the gather is cased by hand using clear rods of glass. Finally the cased gather has both ends cut off and shaping it into a marble.

Just in case 125 buck with shipping! AND I made the box too!!



Bye
Mike

I am busy

When you are at the long drop all you can hope for is strong fingers: good way to stay busy.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

always about oxygen...

Firsts day in app. 1 1/2 weeks that I felt the urge to go to the micro studio and work. May as well go ahead and use up the oxygen and then try to sell something to get more oxygen. I have been keeping track of how many 7/8" 'box' marbles I can get out of this tank of oxygen. With the information I can figure out how much I can sell a boxed set of marbles for so I can keep working and replacing supplies, mostly oxygen.
Bye
 Mike

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Woke up to a chill in the air, frost in the grass and guys shooting winged things out of the air, a hint that I should locate my two pair of warn out jeans... time passes... so far I located two pair of jeans. The pair I am now wearing is quite new looking and now fits: I lost some weight. I have several pair of jeans from 33 to 42 waist and in various lengths and at any given time only two fit, more or less. Now to find the rest and figure out what two fit this year.

Bye
 Mike

Thursday, October 8, 2009

wet feet

A cool rain along with water absorbing shoes has led to wet socks by the time I arrived to the micro studio, a good start today.

Bye
 Mike

ho hum

Have not worked in a week. Bought a tank of oxygen two weeks ago and started making more 7/8" marbles for the boxes. I was keeping track of how many 7/8" marbles I could squeeze out of an oxygen tank. When the tank got to half a tank I decided I will not be able to sell the marbles so can buy more oxygen so why bother. I need consistency in obtaining oxygen to continue and get some important objectives done. I may as well ditch the happy pills, there contraband anyway.


I was despondent enough a couple days ago that while walking to the library, to get online, I gave a 12 count box of marbles away just because the person said that they like marbles.

I am going to the micro studio today and in the next few days finish the tank and see how many 7/8" it will produce. Then when I get a new tank I want to continue the small marbles every day plus make two or three marbles that I used to get 40 to 125 bucks for, marbles that already have a home.

I assembled the rock and I now sleep on the hard place.



For a couple years I have been intending to get my affairs in order, not that I have much. I believe it is time to do so. They are not important but I would like to get them done. One of the two involves family history stuff such as images, papers/letters and probably the coolest would be mid the 1850's hair samples. I would like to photograph some of it and make notes for those who may care about the stuff later on.

The second is simply to send off stuff related to marbles to people who may be interested in such items and if they do not, there is always the trash man.



I am not a writer so any helpful criticism is welcomed about spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and if you like, you may ditch the "helpful" and let me have it. I do use spell check but have found such use problematic between versions that I have used.
 
Bye
 Mike

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

God and the fly

GOD and the FLY


God, after creating the universe and finding it good then decided to create man as a sidekick. Since God could see into future time lines with all possible twists and turns God realized the creation of mankind was an iffy proposition. Because of this concern God picked a nice mostly stable planet on the outskirts of a small but mostly stable galaxy to put his/her grand idea into motion. First God needed to create a bunch of creatures so Mankind would have something to have dominion over. So over the next few days, universal time, God created all manner of creatures, creatures for water, air and land and for a couple days, U.T, God allowed natural selection to sort the winners and losers out before moving on to creating man. At one point God had hoped one of the lines of 'apes' would become the mankind that he had in mind but the creatures never got beyond picking bugs out of each others fur and pocking sticks into ant hills for a light snack. So God left their fate to zoo's where in a future time line mothers would hurry the children past the monkey cage to the gazelle enclosure hoping gazelle's did not have the habit of mocking humans.

The day, UT, came for God to straight up create man from scratch and place the man, now know as Adam, into the garden of Eden so Adam could get a start on the dominion job.

Adam set about, when he was not chatting up God, cataloging the creatures about him and jotting down a name or two. One day while Adam was chewing a pear, just down the path from the forbidden fruit tree, he began musing about his charges and realized there were differences between creatures such as the lions lazing about a few feet from the pear tree Adam was sitting under having a light snack. Then there was the curious problem of the little lions that grew up to be big lions with the same differences, differences that always lead to other lions and so it went.

God, while chatting up Adam one day, b.e.f.a: before everything fell apart, decided he would create a companion for Adam so that Adam would not be confused about the birds and bees anymore. This new companion was called Eve. Eve began showing Adam the ropes and running the show as only a woman can without giving away the fact that Adam was no longer in charge.

God apparently had a few helpers with at least one of them wanting a bit more respect. This helper decided to test Gods dominion over Adam and Eve who had dominion over the creatures around them.

One day while Eve was admiring the beauty of the forbidden tree the helper appeared as a snake and chatted up Eve. By the end of this conversation Eve was admiring the great flavor of the fruit from the forbidden tree, a fruit she now called an apple.

Eve and Adam did not respect Gods number one rule to not eat from the forbidden tree until God evicted them from the garden. Outside the garden Adam looked at Eve and was again confused, Eve assessed Adam in the same way but was not confused. Eve decided to find a Gap store and pick up some 100% cotton clothing to fix the nakedness problem. Not finding such an outlet Adam did the man thing and killed an unsuspecting lion with a club to make a couple stylish loin clothes. This is the point where dominion started becoming domination.

Adam beget a few children. One of these children decided that his brother needed dispatching. This was the beginning of war, all be it a little lopsided in this first war. Since the winners suddenly got to write the history books war became a dominate way to keep the other guy from writing the history books.

Now back to the humans who are struggling in a too cold or too hot world. A now hostile world where a lion just as soon eat you for lunch and the bees who will now just as soon die than let a human have a bit of honey to snack on. A world where a pleasant rain with a nice breeze can now become an f4 tornado. I think you get the point: the world was not quite as nice as the garden of Eden.

At story time Adam and Eve passed down to their children their version of what happen in the garden, the forbidden tree, the idyllic way of life and the friendly lions. The bit about the snake was hard to get out of mom and dad. However like all children around the world they pestered their parents to hear the end of the story thus the story passed into legend along with the snake. The snake as we know it now still has a habit of suddenly appearing from the grass, tree or water just to give a human a start and remind that particular person why they are in this predicament in the first place.

Back to the story. Adam's descendants did the cave thing for awhile. But caves had drawbacks such as being drafty, gloomy(despite the cave paintings), smoky and then there was the clutter such as rock tools, bones, arrow points and the occasional club modeled after Adam's original club. Legend now remembers the club as a convincing matrimonial tool.

Cave life just did not cut it. So these early humans began creating an amazing amount of different housing designs. Such creature comforts also increased the population. The increasing population forced humans to spread around the world and along the way humans continued to improve the comfort level of their homes and so on. Of course these improvements came at the expense of the resources around them, sources that were soon depleted thus causing another migration to new locations to plunder and so on.

Very early on God pondered a certain irritation and this irritation was one of God's former employs who tempted Adam and Eve that lead to Adam and Eve's eviction. The eviction from the garden lead to the first known letter date: b.e.f.a, before everything fell apart. Much later on there were a couple more important dates: b.c. and a. d.

Back to Gods irritation, an irritation also known as Satan, the devil and quite a few other alias's.

God also saw that mankind was beginning to get a little too comfortable in their cozy homes. Then there was a momentous decision made by God, a classic old testament 'wrath of God' thing. This wrath was not quite like the wrath depicted in the old testament where things eventually cooled down.

Since God had to put up with an irritation, God figured that mankind should have a continuing and annoying irritation. The plan was simple and was designed to stand the test of time. God created the housefly, a creature that can survive no matter what new invention man creates to eliminate the pesky housefly, a.k.a. pestilence.

The house fly has the following feature that makes it a perfect pest. After what looks like a good swat the fly will not be found under the swatter. Also like snakes a housefly can suddenly come out of nowhere: reminding man that the original mistake in the garden of Eden has lead to this minor but very annoying irritation, Gods housefly.

Bye

Mike