Gorilla Fireworks

Gorilla Fireworks.

I think the appeal of Gorilla Fireworks is self-evident.

Stump Removal

It's amazing that Jon Sr.'s property used to look like this:

Todd & Amanda, pre-clear cutting.

Because, now it looks like this:

Post-clear cutting.

And what's the point of having an isolated Alaskan cabin if you don't have a great view?

Once enough trees were cleared, the addition of a gravel driveway made everything look downright civilized:

Uncle Jon's driveway.

After the trees were dealt with, there was still a lot of stump removal, which was probably my favorite task:

Step 1: Chainsaw the roots:

Jon Sr. chainsawing through the tundra.

Step 2: Tie chain to stump:

Step 3: Tie chain to truck & drive:

The stump pops right out, like pulling a tooth, with a satisfying, "craaaack - pop" sound.

The property is pretty much ready, Jon Sr.'s well and septic tank are in place (sidenote: the well site was discovered when a former Salvation Army preacher walked over the property with a dowsing wand). Once the garage/workshop is finished, it'll be time to start building a cabin. No electricity or phone yet, but there is a generator, so he can run his power tools. 

Apparently, extending the phone and power lines a few more poles costs several thousand dollars out there. The custom is to wait until 3 or 4 people all decide they want power, then they all share the cost.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Sep. 10, 2005]

Rural Eateries

Uncle Jon's cabin site is in a pretty ideal location - about 50 miles north of Anchorage, and even closer to the growing city of of Wasilla; so you can still get into town pretty conveniently.

At some point after miles and miles of nothing but trees, you turn down a long gravel road, then another long gravel road, then there you are.

It's a pleasant little community of isolated cabins - everybody I met was real nice, nobody was full of shit.

The only nearby  commercial facilities (and by "nearby," I mean 20 miles away) are a couple of gas stations, a hardware store, and the occasional lodge.

The low population base makes waiting in line extremely rare. This was particularly impressive coming in from southern California.

Typical Alaskan roadside lodge.

Interesting hood ornament.

A little further, and you'll find a couple of local eating establishments, both of them provide huge portions:

Sunshine Restaurant.

Sunshine Restaurant is my favorite, it's right next to a gas station, so we ended up there more often than not. They always had a giant stack of newspapers piled on one of the tables. I don't know if they are ever packed to capacity with customers.

In the other direction, towards Willow, is the Trading Post:

Willow Trading Post.

This place was a little rowdier since it is also a bar in the evenings. Huge portions, again.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Sep. 7, 2005]

Go, Wood Chipper!

Jon Sr's Rural Alaskan Property Site.

I had a good time helping my Dad clear his property and roof his garage last month.

I really loved getting out of crowded California - most days, we didn't see more than 1 or 2 cars go by all day. When somebody drove by, everyone would stop and look because it was kind of a rare event.

And I very much loved using the rented wood chipper. The property site was originally just full of trees which Uncle Jon had pretty much cleared out by the time I arrived.

Once all the firewood had been cut and stacked, he was left with a mountain of brush. The locals don't like people burning brush because of the possibility of starting a forest fire (it's a tundra environment, so the ground is covered by a thick carpet of low shrubbery), so we had the pleasure to indulge in running everything through a rented a wood chipper.

It took us 8 hours (!) to clear all the brush.

Wood chippin'.

Just feed in the limbs -

- and out fly the chips:

It turned out an 80 year old former school teacher who lived out there had a use for those wood chips. She wanted to use them to pave her garden walkways, so we took her over a few truckloads and were rewarded by an amazing moose dinner!

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Sep. 3, 2005]

Sidekick

Yep, look at me in the Alaskan roadside bat mobile.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Sep. 2, 2005]

Homecoming

I'm back from my travels, just in time for my final MLIS class.

August was great! I got to help Jon Sr. build a garage on this Alaska property:

 Then I got to fly down to the mid-west to meet my brand new niece, Mina, in Missouri:

Mina & Uncle Jonnie.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Aug. 31, 2005]

Giant Cabbage Secrets

Look at the size of this cabbage!

With Jon Sr.'s giant cabbage.

My Dad's friend, Tom, grew it in the backyard. Tom might enter it in the Alaska State Fair competition, though Alaskan cabbages are usually even much bigger than this one; because of all the summer sunlight, I guess.

A trick you can all try at home:

If you stick a cabbage plant's roots in a gallon of milk, it will grow to HUGE proportions (supposedly because of all the growth hormone in cow's milk). The practice has been outlawed by the Alaskan State Fair and authorities test for it (like steroids), but you can certainly try it at home with your personal cabbages.

Jon Sr. and Tom are currently debating whether to let the giant cabbage continue to grow naturally and enter it in the fair (though it will not come close to the usual contestants' size) or to stick its roots in milk and see how much bigger it gets.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Sep. 4, 2005]

Mayhem

Two disasters I witnessed this week:

1. An upside down Mercedes blocking 2 of the 55 Freeway's 6 lanes. It was just laying there upside down with its wheels in the air, dead. And 3 girls were smoking cigarettes next to it.

2. We were delivering some trench braces and the onsite backhoe apparently busted an underground water line, flooding the 10-foot deep trench in seconds. We were on the truck and all of a sudden heard a bunch of chatter, then 4 or 5 workmen came piling out of the trench they were digging and soon it was completely flooded and water was overflowing into the street. It was like when someone breaks a fire hydrant in a movie. A kid was coming uphill on a bike and when he turned the corner, a bunch of water was running down the hill at him and he looked really puzzled. Since it wasn't our fault, it was pretty funny, so we were laughing about it; then we loaded are truck really fast before all of our shit was underwater.

Those are pretty much the highlights of the work week. The weekend will be spent polishing off a records management final exam.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, July 29, 2005]

James, the Former Carny

The spider man guy in the previous post was named James, and I really like working with him. In addition to being a former carny, James is also a barrel of laughs. I took notes yesterday and recorded three noteworthy weird things he said or did:

1.)  Upon walking into the break room and finding Ambush Makeovers on the television -

James: "Fuck this! I don't wanna see an ambush makeover!"
[changes station to Judge Joe Brown]
James: "I wanna see someone get hung!!"

2.)  RE: "Day-O" by Harry Belefonte -

James: "Come Mr. Tallyman, Tally me banana" - You know what that means, don't you?"
Me: "He wants the foreman to count his bananas."
James: "NOoo - well, ok, maybe...but what it really means is he wants a guy to measure his dick."
Me: "HAHAHA"
James: "Well, yeah, 'tally my banana'! That's what it means."

3.)  Spider Venom Contest –

James: "Did you know the Daddy Long Legs is the most venomous spider in the world?"
Me: "No."
James: "Yep, but its fangs are so small, they can't break your skin."
Me: "huh!"
James: "Look it up! Or watch the Discovery Channel!!"
Me: "ok."
 James: "And I've always wanted to put a Daddy Long Legs and a Black Widow in a jar together         and see which one would walk out alive."
Me: "YEAH! I want to see too!! Let's do it here at work!"
James: "OK, keep your eyes peeled for a Black Widow and a Daddy Long Legs. And a jar. And keep your gloves on".
Me: "HAHAHAHAHA...OK!"

Other things I remember about James:

1. In the world of day labor, doing something "Mexican-style" means doing it half-assed. I learned that from Jay.  Though the Mexican guys we work with are probably the most competent guys on staff.

2. One day at lunch, somebody asked James, "What would you do if you looked down right now and there was a rattlesnake?"

James said he's always wanted to catch a rattlesnake and if he did, he'd skin it and make a headband out of the skin (with the rattle hanging off the back).

3. I give James a ride back to the Rebel Leady office after work and yesterday's James monologue went something like this:

James: "Did you know the fly is the only animal that can be frozen and then brought back to life?"
Me: "Really?"
James: "Yep - on the Discovery channel they froze one, then thawed it out later and it came back to life".
Me: "Like Captain Ameria!"
James: "Exactly! Freeze me solid and thaw me out in the year 3000! Or better yet, freeze me and thaw me out once there's a cure for AIDS!!"
Me: "hahahaha"
James: "The only other animal that can be frozen and brought back to life is the lobster. You can  freeze a lobster solid, then throw it in boiling water and the fucker will scream every time! You killed him once, now you're killing him again!!...Imagine doing that to a human!"

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, July 16, 2005]

Fuck It, Let's Make It Look Like Spider Man!

Lately, at work, I've been tasked with equipping trench braces.  They are based around hydraulic cylinders. Sizes range from little ones (pictured) to five or six feet long:

Pallet full of freshly tested cylinders.

My favorite task is assembling the cylinder sets because that requires a vice, which means I am at the tool bench inside the shop and out of the sun, often with a radio nearby.

Here's the outside work area where we test freshly used braces, note damage with red spray paint, and drain the old hydraulic fluid:

Brace lab.

I wish I'd brought a camera on Monday - the whole area was covered in huge spider webs. During a lull in production, a co-worker of mine was examining the webs. We're like, "Dang, everything is covered with spider webs," and he suddenly exclaims, "Hey! Fuck it! Let’s make it look like Spider Man!" and started spray painting all the webs red. They were all around us and they looked really cool. Then we just went back to work and I was thinking, "What a fucking cool guy!"

But really though, what a cool fucking guy.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, July 15, 2005]

Long Live This Ditch, 1983

Long Live This Ditch, S.G. & J.C. '83."

Found this message inscribed in a cement ditch. The message has survived 23 years so far, though it narrowly escaped destruction from a severe crack.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Feb. 4, 2006]

Paperclips

Since paperclips tend to damage documents over time, archivists remove them from their collections; otherwise they can leave rust stains and can sometimes result it tearing the papers they are securing.

Look at all the paperclips that were removed from one particular Senator's papers:

Probably a small trash bag's worth of paperclips removed from one collection.

 I think if the paperclips come from the collection of a famous enough person, archivists should sell them in a souvenir shop instead of throwing them away. It seems like a waste of a perfectly good keepsake.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, July 3, 2005]

Pass the Hardhat

Alright! We set up trench supports in a construction site up in the hills of Newport Beach, which surprisingly looked like a dessert.

Construction site looking down on Newport Beach.

Truck full of trench braces.

I pretty much just managed the chains and ran around being hardcore.

Me about to release the chains.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, June 23, 2005]

The Cone Graveyard

There's no cones

Like snow cones.

Like no cones

That I know.

[Originally posted on The Real World...Blogger Style!, June 23, 2005]

Fan Hat

It's a hat:

Hat.

It's a fan:

Fan.

It's a fan hat:

Fan hat.

A hat that collapses into a fan! A fan that expands into a hat!
Folds up to fit in your back pocket!

Beat the heat!

Aerial view.

Thank you, Chinatown, LA!

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, June 22, 2005]

Rebel Leady Orange

I set up so many signs and cones last week! Truckloads of them at multiple sites. Night set ups can be pretty hazardous, especially with traffic happening, but it's fun.

Truck full of traffic equipment.

Me at the traffic blinker parking lot.

Since all my work clothes are dark, they gave me a cool orange t-shirt with the previously mentioned logo of a bicep coming out of a truck & holding a steel plate on it, so I will treasure that little souvenir.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, June 18, 2005]

Rebel Leady HQ

I begin each morning in this little pocket of blue collar sentiment:

Rebel Leady Strip Mall.

Labor Ready is on the left. Barber shop is on the right, with the entire outside wall painted like an American flag. In the center is the World of Warriors gun shop. I went in there once. Besides guns and ammo, they also sell walking sticks.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, June 7, 2005]

Rebel Leady Work Site

 I'm on an ongoing job in Irvine. The work site is cool, I like that it's not cluttered like some of these operations sometimes are.

Dirt lot, equipment, and steel plates.

More of the same.

And, if you ever need chains, they have a shitload:

A shitload of chains.

I like it here. They don't care if I take occassional time off to continue volunteering at my intership site, so it'll get me by untilsomething better comes along.

And, it says a lot about  company when they have a cool logo. This place's logo depicts a rickety old truck with a huge bicep attached to the back holding a giant steel plate.  They have the logo on their staff t-shirts and on the mudflaps of their trucks.

So, that's another reason I like working there.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, May 26, 2005]

My Worldview

Results of my "Worldview Quiz":

You scored as Postmodernist. 
Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

What is Your World View?

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, May 22, 2005]

Cheap Video Reviews: NKOTB - Hangin' Tough

Hangin' Tough.

VHS. 1989.

Boz sent me a copy of New Kids On The Block’s Hangin' Tough videotape which he acquired for a mere 25 cents; a fair price.

The video contains four music videos with some behind the scenes road footage included to fill the tape out to a full 30 minutes.

NKOTB were 1.) Joey Joe, pre-teen of the group; 2.) Donnie, the wigger; 3.) Jordan, who wears a Batman shirt exactly like one I used to have; 4.) John, who has no personality but is often considered the most handsome of the group; and 5.) Apeface (Danny).

The video opens with black and white footage of the group's tour bus and Jordan comments that his favorite part of being on the road is looking out the bus window and "watching the world go by,:

Joey Joe.

Then all of a sudden - BAM! - we're watching the group's first video, "Please Don't Go Girl", featuring Joey Joe on vocals.

Jordan (wearing a hat with a giant bill) also plays a big part in this song. The other three stick with background vocals and come off as a chorus of douche bags. 

The video is divided between performance footage and video of the group following a girl with a huge curl on her head (and her friend) around in an amusement park.

Please don't go, curl.

In the video's story line, Jordan flirts with the girls after all five New Kids have been following them around all day. He makes them laugh then eats a hot dog with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Joey Joe is just too young for the girls, although they find him adorable. He sings practically the whole song though. It's probably about a girl who's mom is making her leave the amusement park and Joey Joe wishes she didn't have to leave.

After the first video, we go to footage of the New Kids fucking around with a bunch of old casino signs in Las Vegas. Danny is filming the rest of them on his personal videocassette recorder.

Then - BAM! - we're watching the "Right Stuff" video!

In this video, the New Kids On The Block are having the time of their life riding around in a convertible.

They notice a couple of girls and everybody except young Joey Joe goes over to flirt with them.

While everyone is posturing and grabbing each other's asses, Joey Joe steals the car and drives off while laughing like a little maniac.

The other New Kids on the Block chase after him. Under-aged driving is no joke to the elder NKOTB members. The girls think it's hilarious and adorable though.

"The Right Stuff" performance footage includes a lot of heavily choreographed dancing. Gone are the days of the douche bag background singers. NKOTB are now a well-oiled high performance machine. You have to give them some kind of credit for that.

Then there's more candid tour bus footage of Donnie talking like a thug while playing video games in a hat.

Cut to dinner time and Jordan complaining that they always get served fried chicken: "When we get to a new city, we think we're gonna have something different [for dinner]", but it's always fried chicken."

Cut to Donnie talking shit - "We always drink milk with our meals...we never drink soda".

This is the same Donnie who, a couple of years later, was arrested for pouring a bottle of vodka on the rug of his hotel room and lighting it on fire.

All of a sudden, we see the sound man's microphone poke up against Jordan. The camera pans along the mic stand to reveal Joey Joe dressed up like a sound guy!

Haha! Joey Joe's the sound man!

Hangin' Tough.

The other New Kids find this absolutely hilarious and they all convulse in hysterics, Jordan can hardly breathe from laughing so hard.This scene reminds you that NKOTB are not yet mature adults.

The final video, “Hangin' Tough” features a more experienced, more mature NKOTB. No more dicking around. This is when Joey Joe started wearing the hat with the top cut out of it.

The video documents the New Kids' rise to greatness and includes tons of footage of little girls freaking out while they perform.

Donnie's Home Boy t-shirt.

The song also features Donnie's famous "Home Boy" t-shirt.

At the end, there's a half-assed statement in which Jordan states, "New Kids On The Block is about being yourself, it's not about being cool."

I enjoyed watching this one time, but just once. I’d say it was worth the 25 cent price tag. It was kind of nostalgic to see my old Batman shirt.