Loner's Odysseys

Professional Inventor

I told my family about this, they smiled and humored me, but I am still high on excitement, so I'll tell you too.

I have been considering ways to capture video while snowboarding without damaging myself or my devices. I had a dream the night before going to Dodge Ridge that involved a tube sock.

Tube socks and duct tape can essentially solve any modern problem, so I went with it.

What you need:

1. Sock
2. Scissors
3. Duct tape
4. Cool Dad to make you a delicious breakfast burrito

Process:

1. eat the breakfast burrito
2. dissolve any emotional attachment you have to the sock
3. clip a small piece of duct tape, about 1.5" x 1.5"
4. find the center of the sock (between toe and opening) and place the clipped duct tape over this section
5. pinch a fold of the tape-covered sock and cut a half-circle to make a hole about the size of your camera's lens
6. turn camera to the video setting and slip it in to the sock, positioning the lens to come out of the hole you cut
7. tie the sock around your shin
8. start the video

Testing.

Does that goose perspective look clear and about shin level to you?

Me too...we are in business.

Implemented only on the bunny hill. It was a snowy day and my shin was in the snow on most other runs.

Added Cake because it is boring.

Snow Sock Cam from Scott Bolter on Vimeo.

Problems:

1. requires a waterproof camera
2. tube sock knot could easily come out and fall off while heading down the slope
3. people look at you funny
4. even on a less than stormy day the camera lens is likely to catch snow from carving, obstructing the view
5. cameras often have no outside indicator telling you that video-record mode has been started so you don't know if you pressed the button (through the sock) correctly
6. if you use this invention, you will be nicknamed "Captain Jenky" by your friends, family, and strangers
7. my camera is not meant for taking videos

Sand or snow, still true:

Day's Discourse

• To the 7-toothed limping pregnant lady smoking a cigarette at the gas station: Don't do that. Don't you realize you're pretty much limiting your kid to being a snow shoveler at some ski resort?
• To the Subaru in front of me: I love to hate or I hate to love you, I can't decide...but my hick-mobile certainly envies your WRX and STI-ness
• To Sonora's WAL-MART: Thanks for welcoming in to your bosom all of those people, helping to keep the interwebs hilarious.
• To the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid owner pulling in to the Arco gas station: Who the hell are you kidding?
• To the snow starting to hit my windshield at increased speeds: Chewy, lock in the hyperdrive! Light speed!
• To the CHP officer: Did you give my buddy Casey a bull shit fix-it ticket? No? Then yes, I am carrying chains, carry on.
• To the Subaru crashed in to the snow bank: ha ha.
• To the snow shoveler with dreadlocks and pessimistic countenance: I'm sorry buddy. I bet your mom smoked while she was pregnant with you and also had few teeth and also didn't love you when she limped around at gas stations. It's not your fault.
• To the chair lift operator: Yes, that is a hidden camera on my shin inside a sock. Yes, the sock is clean. And yes, I am a spy, but we are not after you.
• To the heavy storm and powdered-with-snow mountain: Please don't have an avalanche for the next 100 seconds while I am in this porta potty.

Finally, to my hick-mobile...

Thanks for backing out smoothly and turning around to exit without requiring me to shovel lots of snow and install chains like the folks all around us.
Let's never fight again.

Conclusions

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Not sure about the name...

Hooray for magnetism, wasting time, and wasting time with magnets.

He dunno shit about shit

I dunno why they all still hate us Amurcans.
I mean, we elected their Talibany leader president.
If we just let the guy grow his beard back they'd all see we are friendlies...

What's that?
...not Middle Eastern?
...African-American?
No...you're thinking of a few years ago.
Back when Keifer Sutherland was still the anchor man on that 24 hour news network.
He already served his two seasons. They can't re-elect you again.

Gahd, I am so sick of this crowded city.
San Francisco...the whole Bay Area...no, the WHOLE STATE is clogged up with all these gays and their families.
You can't even merge on to the highway anymore.
Just terbal.
They're exploding our population!

What's that?
...don't procreate?
Well of course they ain't pro-cration, they's all a bunch of welfur chasin' librals.
They's bound to be pro-choice.

Oh, boo hoo!
Your school fees keep increasing because you chose to go to an expensive school, ya dummy!
College isn't for everyone. And you picked biochemistry so you can go to medical school to boot! You're going to be making a fortune when you finish, you can't complain about a solid investment like that. Just wait it out.

What's that?
Of course I want free health care!
We are the only good country that doesn't have it!
Those doctors owe me health.
I have the right!

It's just because they never had good Mexican food, they want to close the borders.
We need more restaurants around here.

What's that?
...other professions?
Me and everyone I know work at In-N-Out Burger...

What's the big to do about stealing music?
In my town when someone tries to steal something, like a Safeway shopping cart, we have detectors to make the wheels stop working once it gets outside of the Safeway parking lot.
They oughta just shock people's heads when they take the song too far from the store.

What's that?
...intangible?
Bull shit sonny. My ear phones are always knotting up.

I wish you'd bring some of your love home to me.

I've spent some time in the studio - running, assisting, and performing in my share of sessions.
Without a doubt, this is the most accurate portrayal of the passage of booked studio time.
While I've only been involved in 20 or so recording sessions and a mere 7 of them were graced by a Rick James appearance, watching this was like playing back my own memories...

Can you count how many inaudible guitars there are in that room?
It's tricky...
(Hint: Not only the guitars being played are inaudible...)



[look to the side] {c l a p} {c l a p}

Reefer

Remember a while back my brother gave me his old 10 gallon fish tank?

It died. The electrics stopped electrifying. No more light for the creatures.

Super Girlfriend to the rescue!

She got me a JBJ 12-gallon Nano Cube Deluxe. It's gorgeous, with nice blue and white daytime lighting, surface skimmer, filter media, great flow, and LED "moon lights" which look awesome in a dark room. It also fits on the same old stand, which is nice.

Three weeks ago the brother came and coached me through the tank transfer -

Man, I really hate the Southwest Airlines "bags fly free" commercial.

HATE IT.

- what was I saying - oh, right...

We took out all the live rock and creatures, dumped half the water, and poured the other half in the new tank, put the rock and sand in to the new tank, made a saltwater mix with a package of sea salt from local fish store and tap water (found out this is bad, more later), and filled the new tank up.

- shit, stupid Colts took the lead. I hate you Manning. -

- Oooh, Mass Effect 2 commercial. Cool. -

Umm...oh yeah...moments of truths came:

• Tank does not burst under pressure, check.
• Plug in, flip the switch and stuff turns on, check.

Sweet. My girlfriend didn't get me a piece of junk...I will keep her around...

Minutes after adding everything and turning it on, the water is already starting to uncloudify, showing how strong the pump and filtration is in the tank...

Shot with LED moon lights:

Jump forward two weeks. I have put a few snails and hermits in the tank.

Zoidberg, the alpha-hermit from the old tank is still alive and well:

Next to another hermit, really showing size:

Snails in the moonlight:

For a healthy tank, water conditions must be just right.

Among other things, you have to maintain healthy parameters for:

• Temperature
• Salinity
• pH
• Ammonia
• Nitrites
• Nitrates
• Phosphates

I picked up a test kit, made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals at the fish store. I will wait until the tank is healthy and stable before adding fish.

Brother also gave me a heater, so my temperature is maintained around 77 degrees fahrenheit.

Ammonia levels are ZERO, good.

Nitrite levels are also zilch, good.

pH between 8.2 and 8.4, good.

Nitrates at highest part of scale, BAD!

Nitrate is the last effect of the nitrogen cycle before being released as nitrogen into the atmosphere - aka, living room area behind my couch.

So why are my nitrates so high? Hobbyists keeping saltwater tanks will often have nitrate spikes when adding to or removing something from their tank. This changes up the chemistry of their tank and will usually correct itself.

However, since half of my water came from my old tank, my suspicion is that the old water, with no light, improper maintenance routines, and other general newbiness on my part, such as overfeeding, are to blame. Another possible culprit is the tap water used to make the saltwater. Tap water is treated with all kinds of chemicals and could very possibly contain chemicals you don't want to put in your tank, so I should have instead been using RO/DI (reverse osmosis and/or de-ionized) water.

How do I rectify? Water changes. Patience. I purchased some water from the fish store and will use this when I do water changes:

Create a syphon, drain portion of tank, dump, and add new water.

Hopefully in a few weeks the tank will be good to add some fish.

Until then, I'll keep watching crabs and snails...

Like this crab looking for a new home to grow up in...

Watching

The Jets lose their lead. Stupid Colts. I hate you Peyton.

Mad Men

District 9

Playing

With my new phone - LG Env3, hooray for me.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Bioshock - sequel coming soon!

Listening to

Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus

Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom

Deftones - White Pony

In Groveland, we'd swing at deer...not people...well, sometimes people...

This is hilarious in English, but let's expand our horizons...


I don't know if you know this or not...but I went to Italy (everyone, cheer for me)...so um, let me help with the last lines, starting around 1:37...

D-Fens: What's wrong with you?

Golfer: Heart...

D-Fens: Your heart, something's wrong with your heart? What can I do?

Golfer: Pih...my...pills...

D-Fens: Pills? Where are your pills?

Golfer: ...On...the...cah...cart...

D-Fens: Well I guess you're outa luck aren't you? Your little cart's going to drown. Now, aren't you sorry you didn't let me pass through your golf course?

Golfer: My...golf...course...

D-Fens: Yeah. And now you're gonna die wearing that stupid little hat. How's it feel?

General Oversight

So I just finished watching the second Transformers movie on Blu-Ray, "Revenge of the Fallen".
I enjoyed the first one. And even the second was entertaining. Yeah, it was reviewed poorly and most will complain about plot holes, but the sequel was entertaining. I liked it.
What are you expecting anyway? It's a film about robots that have an exclusive deal with General Motors.

Yep, the autobots can only transform into marvels of humanoid engineering if what they scan is derived from the great minds at GM.
Chevy (those controversial, illiterate ghetto twins and Bumblebee), GMC (Ironhide), even Saturn (the Astra used to escape from evil robots at the college) were all pushed by the film.

This exclusivity (all-)sparked a train of thought...maybe we pay taxes to keep GM in business because they threw all their money into the movie and forgot about that secret to capitalistic success...innovation.
What's that? Transformers 2 was still a success?
Well that's the the sticking point isn't it?
...But I'm convinced there is an explanation.
While Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg realized about halfway through the film that they had a bunch of compost in between their fingers, they also knew there was a perfect solution: throw in a few more scenes with Megan Fox in a low-cut top running from danger in slow-motion.

General Motors had no such hottie to salvage their incompetence, resulting in any tax-paying U.S. citizen dumb enough to purchase a new GM vehicle not only paying for the (eventual) pink slip and right to drive it off the lot, but also putting up the dough for its production.

I don't know what the big deal is though...I always return to Safeway and pay (in full, with a huge markup) for my plate of pasta after I go grocery shopping (at Safeway) for sausage, cheese tortellini, peppers, tomato sauce, salad, and bread.
That's...the American way...?