"I'm on vacation!"

A birthday vacation that is.  This year I decided to use 1 of my vacation weeks during the week of my birthday.  No big plans, just staying home.  Going to work on my Venom Creeper to get it up and going and get some actual video of it.  Might try to catch the new Spider-Man movie.  I'll even do some guitar playing/practicing (don't expect any videos).  Heck, I might even try out the new hedge trimmer.  Mmmmmm...power tools.  All in all, just a relaxing week away from work.

July 4th Fun

Well July 4th off was fun.  We had the eldest nephew spend the night on July 3rd.  Up at 06:30 and watched him and the wife play Lego Star Wars.  He was a blast to listen to as he played, really getting into the game.  While they continued, I decided to work on my Venom Creeper truck, trying to get the remote diff locking feature working.  Didn't happen.  The truck is still in the "garage".

At some point in the morning, the middle nephew came over to join in the Lego Star Wars.  After awhile, we decided to go see movies.  We all didn't want to watch the same one.  So wife and oldest nephew went to see Brave while middle nephew and me went to see Madagascar 3.  Madagascar 3 is a great movie continuing the NY zoo animal's quest to return back to NY City.  The penguins are awesome as always.

After the movies, we went over to the in-laws for dinner and fireworks.  We had a fun time with the family.  Pop in-law grilled up the typical burgers and dogs.  Yummy as always.  There were some salads, chips, and watermelon balls.  For dessert, younger sis in-law made up some home made Oreo cookies ice cream.  Yummy yummy.

Then it was time for the lights and noise in celebration of our great nation.  I was the designated igniter, or I guess the proper term would be the amateur weekend Pyrotechnician (not a professional of course, not yet anyways).  The nephews selected the fireworks to light, and as each was done they used their squirt guns to water them down.  The event photographers got some great pictures, especially of the nephews with the sparklers.

All in all, a great day to celebrate our Independence Day.

H a p p y 4 t h o f J u l y ! E n j o y g r e a t f o o d , f i r e w o r k s , a n d b e s a f e ! Ø<ÝúØ<Ýø

Justice League...Assemble!

I was just going through some YouTube channels I watch every so often, and came across a trailer for the new Justice League movie:

Had you going there a little, huh?  Well this is a parody by ItsJustSomeRandomGuy on YouTube.  He does a lot of Marvel/DC parodies, the best of which are the "I'm a Mac...I'm a PC" commercial parodies.  I prefer his parodies, but he does do some story lines.

Sunday update

A little slow on updating Sunday's cooking.  The meat turned out good.  We're all still alive and not in a hospital.  And it's good to know that at least my smoking won't be the cause of a zombi outbreak.  We had leftovers Monday night, and I enjoyed it.  Popped it in the nuker for a few, and yummy warm meat.  I prefer eating meat with some heat.

When I do another smoke session (and I know that it's coming), I want to do some bacon.  Not sure how to work that and smoke another meat too, so I'll ask and search ye old world wide web.  Or internets as those young hipsters say now a days.

Peace out!  Errr...smoke out?  Out-out?  Oh heck...laters y'all!

New crawler videos

Here are some recent crawler videos.

Helios - Mission: Patrol

SCX10 - Night Run Trailer

Helios - Mission 2: Survival

For more info on these, check out my Chuckwalla Crawler blog.

1st June Sunday

And what a day.  Decided to finally try some smoke cooking.  Got the firebox attached to our grill last night.  That was fun with the screw holes not wanting to line up.  Typical late night assembly challenge.  Luckily I had my lovely assistant to...assist.  She was extremely helpful.  Without her, the neighbors might have been calling the police about a very loud and unpleasant noise.  But we finally got it together.

Got up early to get the remaining items: Charcoal, meat thermometer, and vegetable oil spray.  Again I called upon my wonderful assistant to assist again.  I manned the grill, getting it preheated for first time use (we have only used the propane side thus far).  Lovely Assistant (in case you have not yet guessed, this would be my lovely wife) prepared the beef.

I finally got the grill setup for smoking and got the meat on.  Oh what fun it is to monitor a Charcoal grill to keep the temperature up for smoking.  Can't get involved in City of Heroes as I need to make sure I am available to add more Charcoal and chips to keep the heat up.  We are trying Apple wood chips.  I have put a few on dry and some soaked in water.  This is my first time so hopefully it turns out at least eatable.  The in-laws might want to have some pizza money ready just in case.  And I also have a water hose on stand-by.

Well back to watching the temp.