Modelmaker's Ponderings

I can haz a job

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:37:05 GMT

WEll, I went and met with the old workplace today.
I basically got my job back. Good things - Same pay I was making with reviews and raises based on work. And I get to keep my seniority, Which means as of Jan I'll have 2 weeks of vacation time.
the bad - I'll miss my one year+ of paid vacation I just had. I won't get to go with the family up north to the UP to go sledding after xmas.

What to do

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:38:23 GMT

I've got mixed feelings right now. I just got a call from where I used to work. The owner wants to meet with me on Wednesday to see about possibly coming back to work there.
I really liked working there and loved working with the people, the problem? A big reason why I liked working there passed away last week and I'm still not totally over that. I'm not sure what that place will be like without him.
On the other hand I need a job, it's been over a year now and unemployment will run out in about 39 weeks (not that I'm counting). I'm going to try and make sure I get my seniority back, that way I don't have to work for a full year without any sick or vacation time.
I guess I'll wait and see what Wednesday brings.

catching up

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:47:23 GMT

trying to get caught up here.
Mainly I've been remodeling the upstairs bathroom.
The old bathroom wall in the shower had a few soft spots. bad enough that the grout was falling out. so, I tore out the walls surrounding the tub/shower. they had used plasterboard and not sheetrock for the walls. Right after I got the walls out and took out the insulation (one of the walls is an outside wall) I was interrupted with a Handyman side job which was good timing. That way I could let the walls dry out before sealing everything back up.
fast forward a few days - I put in new insulation, plastic sheet water barrier, and cement board. then I started tiling. Instead of using the 4x4 inch tiles that were in there, I'm replacing it with a nice 12x12 porcelain tile. I finished putting the tiles up friday and started grouting last night. I also need to get up into the attic and wire in the 2 new light I put in over the bathtub. kinda took a lazy day yesterday. After the shower is done I'll be removing the toilet and counter. We're going to replace the toilet with one of those dual flush toilets. Before the toilet and sink get put back I'm going to pull up the peel and stick tile that is in there and then first put in radiant heat and then ceramic tiles over that.
This time I did remember to take a before picture and I'll take an after pic when I'm finished.

More to follow later

A small update and an apology

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:00:15 GMT

Saturday evening I received a phone cal while I was at Faux Thanksgiving that pretty much ruined the evening for me and for those of my friends that were there I apologize for being no fun.
The phone call was one informing that my old boss and good friend had passed away. He was a great friend , mentor , and boss. He was always more than willing to help out, share knowledge and make sure things are ok with everyone.
He will be severely missed. I wish there were more people like him in the world

Upcoming Event

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:46:09 GMT

If you are local (or in town ) this saturday I'll be at the Rolling Meadows Park District Craft Fair at Park Central, 3000 Central Road.
From 9am to 4pm selling my pens and coffee
I hope to see some people I know there

My Coffe Roasting Blog

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:47:06 GMT

Can be found here freshstartroasting.blogspot.com/2009/10/welcome.html

A new direction

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:55:11 GMT

I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of being laid off (still no work, except for some side jobs), and after looking for a job that doesn't exist We've decided that I'd get a part time job and run my own business.
I know, you're thinking I do the pens and that's true. The problem with the pens is that they're hit or miss. sometimes I sell them like crazy and sometimes nothing. What I'm going to do is ramp up the coffee stuff.
I've been roasting my own coffee for awhile now and now I have customers that buy from me on a fairly regular basis.
I currently have 15 different type of coffee including 2 blends, 1 decaf and the rest are single origin. I also have access to a lot of other varieties too.
I also have 2 small roaster with a medium one being delivered on saturday. I'm also starting on construction of a large roaster able to roast up to 12 pounds at once. I'll probably take pictures along the build process and post them here.

My coffee is the freshest you will ever taste because it's roasted to order the night before delivery. Since I have started roasting I have learned that there are so many flavors to coffee. For example the Sumatra has a chocolate flavor that when it cools tastes like chocolate milk (when you add cream and sugar) and the Ethiopian Yirgacheffee is just a fruit bomb. It smells like strawberries when it's roasting and taste like blueberries when your drinking. The amazing part is that's the natural flavor of the coffee nothing is added.
I'm really enjoying roasting and learning all about the different coffees.

so, if you are looking for some real good coffee why not give mine a try. I'll try and get a website up soon listing what I have available for immediate roasting. I'll probably do a blog, it'll be easier to maintain that way

A tiring weekend

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:03:01 GMT

Last weekend was the annual Plowing Match out at Big Rock. Ok, now you're probably thinking that sounds like an incredibly hick event out in the rural country, and you are correct! It is literally a plowing competition that has been going on for over a hundred years. There are all type of old fashions tractors and everything and they get judged on how well they plow a few rows.

Where do I fit in this? glad you asked. We (M and I and eventually the kidlets) have been going to this event for the past 12+ years. A friend of ours introduced us to it because of the miniature railroad that they have out there. They have a mile of track and give rides. they have "diesel " locomotives and real steam engines that are just way cool.
Let me backup a bit, as part of the event there is also a County fair type thing, with the 4-H barns, a horse show, BBQ dinner, a midway with rides for the kids, and a craft fair. This year I decided to setup and sell my pens with the goal of at least making back what the space cost me. Well I did really well. The weather was just totally perfect for a nice relaxing day in the country, everyone was enjoying themselves and I sold a bunch of pens.
And I won a Blue Ribbon for my table. I'm not exactly sure what that's about. Apparently judges come around and check out each crafter and vendor and I won first place. I'm thinking of bringing the Lathe out next year and making pens at the event for something to do (although I did get a lot of comments on my knitting, Some of my favorites are "I've never seen a man knit before" and "Do you cook too?" after answering yes I was asked if I was single.

Coffee and Web sites

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:09:18 GMT

Saturday I got my 5# of Sumatra green coffee beans, I fought the urge to roast them all and just roasted enough for the week. Took it just far enough into second crack. just a note that this coffee needs a day (or overnight ) to "rest" in order for full flavor to present itself

I really need to get my website (www.pensbykris.com ) fixed and setup so it's easy to maintain/change the pen offerings there. Since the my I have for sale are always changing I need to make the website "shinier" too.

A little brag

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:07:19 GMT

Just recieved notice in that mail that I got my 4th patent (yay!)

Not that I get anything out of it. I can't even say it'll look good on my resume, cause the other 3 haven'tdone much in that regards

This week's coffee to roast

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:55:20 GMT

At the Farmer's market during a slow period I managed to get 3# of Tanzania Blackburn Estate greens.
Scott roasted some of this at the market and after cupping it would be nice for an espresso blend (though we need to figure out what/how to blend it with). It's a nice dark roast between a Sumatra and a Colombian.
Scott will definitely have 5# of Sumatra for me on Saturday (so he says).
I'm going to wait till the weather cools a little bit before I go out and roast.
Also tempted to convert one of the turkey fryers that I had gotten for an all-grain beer brewing setup into a drum coffee roaster.

Coffee roasting 2nd attempt

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:09:55 GMT

As I wrote about earlier, I started roasting my own coffee. My first attempt I didn't roast it long enough and it had a "weak" taste.
My 2nd attempt I let it roast longer into the "2nd crack" stage. This is where the coffee beans sound like popcorn almost. Once I pulled it out of the roaster and cooled it, I let it set for a day to finish degassing.
Ground some up and ran it through the Aero-Press and tasted. Wow, what a great cup of coffee. I roasted the rest of the pound right away and have been drinking it all week, mmmm yummy. Though the Columbian is nowhere as good as the Sumatra.
the guy I get the beans from should have 5# of Sumatra for me this weekend, I can't wait.

History repeats itself

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:37:27 GMT

I was laid off again yesterday.
For those of you who know, the reason why is because of lack of work and the return of the "Princess" . Yes, I was floored when I walked in yesterday morning and there she was. Apparently the other job at the Tile Shop was too "salesy" for her and she decided that in this economy that she couldn't take the risk. Somehow she got exactly what she wanted and had her couple week leave of absence and came back.
This all happened Wed. when I had my "day off" because of being cut back to 32 hours a week.
I came home and restarted the unemployment, hopefully that will kick back in without any problems.

Now I can get back to working on the pens and casting(which I desperately need to get caught up on)

Once again I must ask, Does anyone need the services of a model maker?

100 things your kids may never know

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:37:48 GMT

Audio-Visual Entertainment
1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo.
4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
5. Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
7. High-speed dubbing.
8. 8-track cartridges.
9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
10. Betamax tapes.
11. MiniDisc.
12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio b0rk this concept.)
14. Shortwave radio.
15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’

Computers and Videogaming
18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
23. DOS.
24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
28. Counting in kilobytes.
29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
32. Joysticks.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
35. Recording a song in a studio.

The Internet
36. NCSA Mosaic.
37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
50. Privacy.
51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs
55. The time before PC networks.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.

Gadgets
57. Typewriters.
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
59. Sending that film away to be processed.
60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
61. CB radios.
62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
63. Rotary-dial telephones.
64. Answering machines.
65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
66. Pay phones.
67. Phones with actual bells in them.
68. Fax machines.
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.

Everything Else
70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
78. Neat handwriting.
79. The days before the nanny state.
80. Starbuck being a man.
81. Han shoots first.
82. "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father." But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
84. Trig tables and log tables.
85. "Don’t know what a slide rule is for"
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
87. Swimming pools with diving boards.
88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil to break off the first finger
90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
92. Writing a check.
93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
95. Cash.
96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
98. Omni Magazine
99. A physical dictionary - either for spelling or definitions.
100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.

A Games meme

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:58:42 GMT

thinking while driving can lead to some interesting thoughts.
Here's one that I thought would be neat to share and see what my flist has to say.

The Games Meme
This asks you to list your favorite games in different categories

1)Favorite Board Game
-when I was a kid - Monopoly
-since high school - Backgammon
2)Favorite card game (traditional type) - Poker
3)Favorite card game (non-traditional) - Fluxx
4)favorite Tabletop game (non-rpg) - when I was a kid - Gnip gnop, currently - it's a tie between Battletech and Car Wars
5)favorite tabletop game (rpg) - Gurps
6)favorite outdoors type game - when I was a kid it was Jarts(in all of their pointy goodness) now it's Baggo
7)favorite arcade game - Tron
8)favorite video game (home console) - Call of Duty-Modern Warfare
9)overall most favorite game - the one where everyone has fun playing(can't just narrow it down)
10)game you always wanted to try - Chess
11)least favorite game - can't think of it right now

Thanks to my lovely wife for helping getting my categories straightened out

So, Let's hear it. What do you have to say?

The results of yesterday's experiment

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:28:54 GMT

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I roasted my own coffee for the first time.
I brought the roasted beans into work this morning and ground and brewed. Not bad, it turned out to be a really light roast, I'll have to let it roast longer to get more flavor out of the bean, but it's drinkable.

Tried something new today.

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:57:10 GMT

Since I love coffee and going to the farmer's market to sell my pens had me setting up next to a coffee roaster (he roasts coffee right there at the market) It brought up an old inklin to roast coffee myself.
With the knowledge that Scott (the coffee roaster) had given me and a few pointers in the internet direction I roasted my first batch of coffee today.
I roasted a nice Columbian FTO coffee. It only took about 10-15 minutes total to roast and is cooling now, but it will need a minimum of 4 hours to "degas" and rest to be at peak flavor.
I'll try it tonight and see how it tastes.

what was once lost is now found

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:25:51 GMT

after a few late night messing with restore programs (thanx for the tips guys) I couldn't find anything to restore and was resigned to everything being lost to the bitosphere. well, messing around last night I found that everything was still there. it was all hidden. so I've been going through and "unhiding" all of my stuff, ghods, what a pain.
it's even worse because of the fact that something is running an causing the computer to run real slow. when I move the mouse I have to wait for the pointer on the screen to catch up.
I know in the past I saw a program somewhere that will tell you EVERYTHING that is currently running, anyone have any ideas what it was or where I can find something like that?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:46:25 GMT

Apparently I lost almost everything.
something happened to my computer, I lost ALL of my Documents folder, My personal folder which contained ALL of my pictures, my website files EVERYTHING!!!
I lost Dreamweaver, and a shitload of other programs, ALL of my email everything!!
AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!
and on top of that, the internet has been very slow for the past few days, it took 15 minutes just for me to get to this page to post this. Speedtest shows that I'm averaging .337 Mbps down nad 1.2 Mbps up. Comcast is sending someone out to check tomorrow between 1-4. Ok fine, but Tomorrow is the 4th of July, I have to work the Farmer's Market from 7-1, I get home around 2 and then I'm supposed to wait around the frigging house until the tech shows up? if he shows at all.

I need to go hit something.

annoyances up the wazooo

Wed, 20 May 2009 20:17:56 GMT

Somehow my browser (firefox) got infected with clicksor.
I cannot get rid of it and it is annoying the hell out of me.
can any one help?

Just gotta love the system

Sun, 03 May 2009 20:06:33 GMT

Got a letter the other day from unemployment questioning my eligiblity for benefits. Apparently, MU (the school I test proctored for) reported that I returned back to work on 3/16/09 .
um, I didn't work that day. I did work on April 2nd as a test proctor for MU and I did report that. (all $20 of it.)
I now have to go to the unemployment office monday and try and straighten everything out so I can continue recieveing benefits.

Possible good news on the job front, a recruiter (yeah, I hate them too) called friday about a possible modelmaker position. I need to call him back on monday to find out more info. I hope this one works out.

The Kitchen Project

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:17:45 GMT

Since being unemployed means alot of "free" time on my hands. We decided that we would get rid of the closet in the kitchen that was a major pain in the ass to get into/out of and the back half of it was basically a "pit" that you'd lose stuff into.

The before
This is the closet ( or what's left of it) I forgot to take a before picture

But like every project this one grew a lif of it's own and spiraled out of control until the whole kitchen was basically gutted. Here is another before pic.

And here is what we finished with

The electric outlets, the under cabinet lighting, and the floor were all not part of the original project. Then again neither was the whole left side of the kitchen.
The final tally
Removed 1 closet
Removed fugly floor (I still have it if anyone wants it)
Removed 7 cabinets
Removed 10 sq ft of counter top
Removed soffits
Removed 1 portable pantry
removed microwave cart

Added 19 cabinets
increased countertop space to over 40 sq ft. (all oak butcher block)
added a commercial faucet to sink
built in the portable dishwaser
added a garbage disposal
added led strip lights under the cabinets
built in book shelf to close the extra space between cabinets
added tip outs to the sink front
built pull out sliding shelves to 3 of the base cabinets
added laminate floor.

Still to do
add tile to walls between cabinets and counter tops
add trim around floor

The Crew who worked hard on this project

Websites and blogs oh my!!

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:42:54 GMT

I have a new blog, it's pretty much setup just to keep a running track of my pen making stuff (blame the Otters) it can be found at
http://modelmakersponderings.blogspot.com/ This will probably get more updated that over here at LJ

My website (www.pensbykris.com) is having some issues at the moment and I'm in the process of moving to a new server. so please go to it's temporary home ( www.zarquon.net/~ksouth ) or Temp Pens by Kris site (clicky goodness for the lazy)
and don't forget "Everyone needs a good pen, so get one from me"

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:10:24 GMT

An update and a couple of links for my knitting friends.

I'm still job hunting. and the outlook hasn't been too promising. From being told by one recruiter that I don't have the skills required (nevermind is was for basically the same type of job I was doing) for a position, to being overqualified when I confronted him on it.
In this day and age how can they say someone is overqualified? They say I would just be bored in the position or not challenged enough. WTF?!?
I'm not out there for a challenge or an exciting time, I'm out there to make a money so we can survive. I would think that some employer would think they're getting a bargain for someone with my experience and skill set. If I have fun on the job the even better, but it's not a number one priority.
with all of the layoffs that have been happening around there is alot of competition for the same position.
Anyone know how I can get a grant to start a design consulting firm?
I have a couple other people who'd be interested in joining me if we can get it going, and between the three of us we could design practically anything.

I'm going to do something totally unusual this year and get myself into shape. To do this I started working out and training for a triathalon. It's slow going at the moment but once things get settled and I get into a routine I should start seeing results..
I also started learning how to knit, it helps when you have a great teacher like my wife to put up with my knitting "prowess", she has the patience of a saint. I'm knitting myself a Dr Who Scarf and I'm about halfway through right know and I really like the way it looks. I'll try and get a picture posted later. My next project may be a hat for fingerless gloves, then I'm going to make socks.
Speaking of knitting here is a link for a pair of mittens that I think look really cool and are apparently from the "Twilight " movie.
subliminalrabbit.blogspot.com/2008/12/bellas-mittens-updated-pattern.html

Pay it forward meme thing

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:33:58 GMT

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. (take special note of this)

The catch? The catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well. We all can make stuff!

(It's all abpeed 's fault... )