Monday, March 8, 2010

spring has sprung... sort of



Slowly but surely it's been warming up around here, unfortunately its been raining a lot too, last week we did have a few days that were warm sunny and dry though. One day I went over to Ben's new place and we went out for breakfast, it was warm enough to eat outside...




I went out to check the mail the other day and this guy was on the sidewalk trying to soak up some rays, needless to say he was not happy to see me. At first I thought it was a rattler, but it's actually a gray rat snake. When they feel threatened they rattle their tail and open their mouth.


We were doing some cleaning recently and found some old photos. Here's me as a juvenile delinquent circa 1988.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Luna's Party

Yesterday was my friend Luna's 2nd birthday, she had it at this inflatable jumpy castle place. It was awesome...



Tina and Cody


I only got to use the slide once and I had to pretend I was helping some kids
Annie and Olive

Friday, February 26, 2010

snow blog


OK, so it finally snowed... It was actually coming down all day and even stuck on the ground for a few hours. This was the most its snowed since we've been here. Everything closed down and people were avoiding driving. Thank God we had the day off...


The next day after the blizzard I went to the Avenue Barbershop on Congress. this place has been around since 1933 and never disappoints,

as long as you obey the three cardinal rules...

Monday, February 22, 2010

sunday...

This was in the back yard of a townhouse my mom is considering moving to. No Thanks.

My buddy Paul came by yesterday and we welded a bunch of scrap metal in the garage. We're going to start making tattoo machine frames pretty soon and want to brush up on our welding skills before we jump into it, Ben has been staying at our house for a few days so he got in on the action too...




Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Grainger


It's been raining like crazy for the last few weeks, and it's been cold. I havent done any outside stuff lately. bummer. The weather broke this last weekend and Chan and I went exploring north of Austin. There's beautiful land that the state and Army corps of engineers manage, people hunt fish and hike, its huge. Unfortunately because of the rain a lot of the fishing docks were under water. I think the fish were kind of freaked out too, we didnt catch anything. It was great though.


I think this spot was near Circleville. That tree used to be on the shore. When we were leaving this place we saw a lot of coyote carcasses on the road.




This is an awesome Santa Fe caboose from the early fourties. It was on blocks in a field by some silos, not near any tracks.


It was locked up but here's a pretty good view of the inside, I really wish I could've gotten in there.



Friday, January 29, 2010

Cabela's!!!

My good buddy Chan and I are planning on going rabbit hunting in a few weeks, we needed to get some related stuff and decided to go to Cabela's to get it. I had never been before and was blown away at the awesomeness of the place. It's basically a 2 story outdoor Mecca. There was cool taxidermy everywhere and a whole room of full body taxidermy of Texas native game in natural environment. It was comparable to some of the stuff at the Museum of natural history in New York, and probably better than the Field museum in Chicago, here're some pics.... and sorry about the bad picture quality, damn my iPhone

Yep those are actual american buffalo at the foot of the hill, dont know why there is also a polar bear
In the collectible firearm room there were historical handguns and rifles upwards of $20,000. Shoulda brought my checkbook.

Chan being mauled by a bear chair
And we couldnt pass up the animatronic shooting gallery, we were the only adults there for some reason.



Again, the checkbook problem.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Shannons machines

I finally finished building the tattoo machines that were supposed to be a Christmas Gift for my friend Shannon. I didnt have a lot of money, so one of the frames is from CAM and the other is a Dermagraphic from the 90's.
But besides the frames and screws, everything is hand made. I got the chrome off and blackened the CAM and chopped the Dermagraphic. This was also the first time I lathed copper, and the last time. I broke like 3 cut off bits. In spite of their humble roots both machines run really well, perfect for someone just starting in the business.