Married Life

  Well as if I didn't post not often enough as it was, I have my (our) own apartment with no wifi!!! Complete with fireplace, 1 bedroom (with a king sized crammed in), antique loveseat & chair, my black cat, and a crap tonne of house plants (house warming present from my loving mother)...
  That and I went and finally married my other half.. sucks though is that we both are going back to work now. We have spent most of the Honeymoon doing married people things, cleaning, cooking, unpacking, and playing videogames (she had never played Kingdom Hearts until now and I have been playing Battle for Middle Earth). Lots of fun! :^D

 

2 financially free new SteamPunk accessories

Well I converted one of my cruddy goggles into some monocles and made some denim spats...Yeah,I also painted (was going to dry brush but the paint stuck REALLY well so I just painted) my Solidified Alcohol Petroleum Based Fuel Byproduct goggles.Yeah...I'm broke for a little bit and I wanted something new,Thank You God for DIY subcultures!

Origins 2011

Well I've been to Origins and volunteering there was one of the funnest things I've done in my life (aside from every time I'm with God,CloudLand Canyon trips,Miniature Donkey shows,or mission trips).I met so many people and made a lot of new friends.I plan (assuming God lets me but I think it is alright with Him) on going next year but this time I'll be actually there the whole time (Wednesday (or Tuesday) through Sunday NIGHT..Ugh,I missed quite a bit with leaving early and getting there late...Noot next time).They have moved the dates to the first week of June for the next couple of years but GRCC's semesters should be done by then (I pray and hope so).Anyhoo,I played a LOT of games.I tried SmallWorld,played WereWolf (by the one and only Loony Labs),and a bunch of other things.

  I went to get rid of hobbies (I was gonna get rid of BattleTech and still plan on it...VERY soon at that as well) but came back with several more.WereWolf,MechWarrior (which I have tried before and detested but they had a Age of Destruction starter for $6 (then two days later I found another vendor that had it for $4..Ugh,I guess the saying is true..There is someplace that always has it cheaper (Okay,I know it physically impossible for that to be true but always someplace minus 1)) so I bought it and tried my hand again at it and I REALLY like it.I bought 3 WolfStrike boosters,1 Falcons Prey,3 Age of Destruction,and 1 Death from Above..Yeah,I wish I hadn't bought the FP and DFA and had bought the Ares 3-pack (for only $9 at one place,no Poseidon though..They even had Solaris VII action packs for $9 a piece or sets of 2 for $14..UGH and lol).I also tried my hand at Amtgard but I don't like the Magic aspect of it so I'm probably going with Dagorhir instead.Plus there are Dagorhir players in Grand Rapids as well compared to none from Amtgard that I know of.I told my younger sister about it (she is in her teens) and she REALLY REALLY loves it and I also got my neighbor kid interested in it (13 I think) so it is gonna be a fun summer.Anyhoo,I'll be posting more tomorrow and later on.I actually have 23 more thank-you cards to write.--Nate--

Updates and greenhorn Backpacking

Well hello blog followers,I have been busy (No,not idle) and am able to now upload pictures (Yay) so I have worked a lot on the mask (all I have to do is get a strap on it and more breathing holes/openings/etc) and the bike is good now.Also,as some of you may or may not know another one of my favorite outdoors hobbies is hiking..well backpacking actually.In Florida I used to go on a lot of day hikes and when I was 14 I saw a 2 (maybe it was 4) hour documentary about backpacking the Appalachian Trail and I knew that someday I was going to hike it.Yeah,yeah,yeah,almost everybody from this Nation has heard of or known someone who said they will and then call it quits (theres a reason why only about 1-in-4 people who start it as a through hike finish it) but they usually don't have a) the will-power or b) the training,stamina,etc (please note that b) is completely optional if you have lots of a)..It has happened).With me I won't be able to realize my dream until I retire or take a summer off but if I retire early I won't need to take a summer off (It's amazing how living on less than you make frees up all that money that you could,say,put to retirement with dignity).Another reason why I can't take the summer off is because thats when I'd be working at my Greenhouse/Nursery.

So I've finally started training just for backpacking period yesterday and took out my external frame Cabela's for the first time with 50lbs of chickfeed in it and over a 1/2 gallon of water...Bad Idea!From now one I will follow what every dag-nabbit book/website/person says and not do that! Ooh I still ache all over,it was fun but it was hell (then again I didn't learn how to put a backpack on correctly till AFTER I had hiked 9.2 miles in four hours(please note that that is including breaks and searching for a geocache at the halfway point)).When I placed the pack on correctly then I realized how wrong I had put it on..lol.Anyhoo,so my hip-bones are chaffed and I also learned why most hikers try to keep it under 40lbs.Another good thing is that I found that cache.

My External frame Cebala's I bought for $20 at a garage sale last September.Whenever I can find it online again I'll post the site here.

Masks

Well as some(or most in this case) of you may or may not (definitely the latter) know is that I love hats and masks(masquerade style and the like) and what I love even more is making them.I have made quite a few masks and hats (and mock helmets) and I decided to embark on the making of one for my SteamPunk Costume Contest Entry at Origins Game Fair this year and it so happens to be a Plague Doctor Mask.Ok,lets fill in some back story here(and history),I saw this mask for the first time in the 2009-2010 winter playing Assassin's Creed II (the doctors wear them) and I was recently reading up on the mask and found out that during the 13th century (Bubonic or Black) Plague Doctors were hired to treat people afflicted with said virus.The mask's "beak" or nose contained a very crude breathing filter that was thought to stop any air-borne viruses (unsurprisingly many doctors contracted the virus) but the mask has existed for the many centuries since then and now here we are.About the construction of the mask,I still need to coat it with paper-mache or a glue and flour mixture and then paint it.The main thing stopping that is that I need to find some red lenses to place in the eye-holes but I also need to mount them in some goggles that I can pop in from the back but I gotta get those lenses(the reason for red lenses is that was the traditional colour for Plague Doctor Masks way back in the day).Anyhoo,for my costume I plan on getting a black frock or over coat (maybe both if I can find/make them) that I'll wear over my "bloody" Sweeney Todd shirt,black vest,and black dress pants.Then I shall have a small chest of drawers rigged as a back-pack to hold all my herbs(I actually am learning about medicinal herbs and know quite a bit so it ain't all rubbish let me tell you),and will be carrying a leather hand bag that will hold all my apparatuses(Dullified hand operated circular saw blade for amputations and whatever crazy things I can come up with by then)oh,I also need to find/make a wide brimmed black hat.Anyhoo,it shall be quite interesting being a SteamPunk Field Medic/Herbalist.

Goggles

Ok,I've decided to post pictures and brief descriptions of two pairs of goggles I have made recently so here they are.

Well the black and grey one I made last friday and is made out of a bunch of plastic (uck),while the one on the right is made out of leather and tin coated bronze (I think),only the strap is made out of pleather (the back side of it is coated with "velvet") while the rest is real.

 I made them yesterday and I think they came out rather nicely.

I still don't really know what to think of these guys.

It is a danged pain trying to see out of these guys.

I personally think they make me look like "Moaning Murtle" from Harry Potter.I actually still need to find lens for these (gonna try for glass though),didn't think of that when I made em (shows right?).