New Joint Venture Blog!!!

For a few years now the Paisley and I have had our very own blogs chronicling different things in our lives.

I believe hers is way more organised than mine, however.

That kind of leads me to our joint venture. Organisation.

The Pais has been reading a lot of blog lately about minimalisation and we have been clearing our home of unnecessary clutter for a few months now.

I'd have to say we have done a good job in getting rid of things in our life that we just don't need anymore.

I won't go into detail here. That  is the purpose of the new blog. The new one is simply titled: Enuff Stuff: Confessions of our Possessions. I had actually wanted it to read: "Enuff Stuff: True confessions of possession whores" but the Paisley wasn't having any of that!! Not that she is opposed to the word whore (since we freely throw it around in reference to my ex), she was just looking for something that conveyed we are consumer hogs in a more professional sounding manner.

Please take the time to click on over and have a read. This is where you can watch us transform our home and our lives to be more independent of consumerism that we as Americans are driven to believe we need to be.

We will still maintain and continue to write on our seperate blogs. Don't worry. There will always be material to read from your favourite Kilted Agent.

Happy Reading!

Deck Build: Coming to a halt?

It seems that one of my neighbours has taken issue with our deck. The funny part is that we don't know what that issue is. She won't say.

Even in her email to our property management rep she didn't specify.

Here's her email to our representative at the property management company that oversees our condo.


Good morning S and M

cc V


Yesterday K inadvertently told me she was helping the T's build their deck.......
.......and we had a little more mild conversation with me saying they cannot do
that and K saying oh they have permission.....and so on...


So! I am pretty sure I know the answer to this but my question to both of you is
if you remember any conversation etc about this in the past. K seemed to think
it must have been approved by a "previous board". And that their "stack" was fine with
it.


Well, I am not fine with it!!


We simply cannot let this happen.


And I am gathering info I may need to stop it.......help me!


I have spoken with V. She is out of office until about 2pm today, but I will get back with her then.
And I will go around and see what I see....and let you know more when I do.


Thanks, D

It all sounds so urgent yet when I pick through this email I find nothing to back up her urgency in stopping us from builing our deck.

Let me point out that our "stack" she is refering to are the residents that can actually see our yard from their condos. D is not one of them. She lives at the opposite end of the building. In fact the only way for her to see our yard is to leave her unit and actually walk her nosey arse into the backyard and walk all the way down to our end and stand in it.

All of our neighbours that can see the yard have no issue with a small deck being built there and quite often we do have neighbours down to socialise and enjoy our yard in the summer months.

This is the same woman who demands that the animal owners in our condo take their pets off property to do their business. By animal owners she is refering to the DOG owners. As a cat owner she has no problem in letting her bundle of fur outside to piss wherever it pleases.

She also suggested that we ask the landscaping company to use all electric equipement instead of gas powered tools when mowing our grounds and blowing leaves into a containment area becuase for the the 6 hours a month that they are there (every two weeks for 3 hours) she is bothered by the smell of gas and the noise their equipment makes.

My neighbour and I recently fixed some latches on both the garbage kiosks at our condo. Guess who complained about the repair?

YOU GOT IT!!! D!!! She didn't like that one of the four bolts replaced was not uniform to the others.

REALLY??!!

What I can't believe is that she has to be the only Democrat that is encouraging a nanny state living situation for everyone in our complex.
I will keep the good thoughts that this will blow over and that the rest of the board will see that our deck not only enhances the yard, but that it will somehow increase our property value since where we are placing it can't grow grass. It's a shaded area and all the water run off from the yard in the winter months runs right into that corner causing moss to grow where grass should be growing.

Here's to hoping that this ends well for us.

Deck Project Pt II

Spent a bit of time yesterday in all my busy-ness working on the area that will soon be our deck.

Our neighbour came down and helped pull out the rest of the moss and sod and root systems.

Once that was finished we graaded and leveled it was stamped down to pack it into place.

Graded and leveled. Ready for the next stage.

Next was the trip to Home Depot where we picked up 500 pounds of sand and some heavy duty visqueen.

We turned my neighbours Honda into a lowrider with all that sand.

I had a little fun at the Paisley's suggestion:

A temporary zen rock garden !!! Fun to do until I get the lumber.

Building A Deck: Pt I

So we have a resident in one of the other buildings in our condo that had permission from our former HOA president to have her common area yard pulled apart and professionally landscaped.

Well that just opened up a the Paisley's brain and together we started thinking that we really need to do something to make our backyard our a little personal and make it fit our needs/wants.

We have done some landscaping and trimmed back (severely) a hedge that the landscaping service can't seem to trim on a regular basis.

So now it's time to get someplace to socialise. Let's face it, a 6' X 8' concrete patio just doesn't have enough room to have people gather in nice weather. It's time to build a deck.

The SW corner of the yard is graded for water runoff/drainage and is completely shaded with trees. What this means is that where there should be grass there is only moss. This is a huge turn off to me since I like my grass and I like it trim and green.

The other nite I came home got on the working in the yard clothes and the gloves and started to pull out the moss/sod and pull out root systems and rocks. I still need to finish the clean up and break up the dirt and and then level and grade the area. That should happen today or tomorrw.

Here is the progress to this point:

The start of digging out moss and sod

With all the moss and sod gone and most of the rocks and root systems pulled out.

Steampunk Weapon Build: Fresh from the DSB Workshop

So without any blabbering from me here is a preview of the first steampunk weapon to come out of my workshop.

This little gem was constructed from parts from a 1999 Subaru EJ25 water boxer engine. Mostly. The gauge is from one of my father in laws many previous Studebaker's. The brass connector fittings for the braided hose were just sitting around in a peanut tin on the shelf. The braided hose was found in a drawer at the work bench.

It all started with a cast aluminum coolant pipe.

 Then both the long ends are cut off. I used a Dremel tool. A metal hand saw will do just fine as well.

The opposite end of the pipe is cut off.

Now to add something special. Here is the fuel rail assembly and two injectors from the port side head of the EJ25 donor engine block.

Once it's back in the vice, I can drill the necessary holes to mount the fuel rail and injector assembly to the side the barrel.

This was the first stage of setting it into place. Once the holes were drilled to make sure that it would work in this location the upper holes were left unthreaded to allow the rubber o-rings around the base of the injectors to allow them to rest snug in the holes. The smaller holes though were threaded using an average tap and die set that is in the workshop. I had to make sure that with the injectors being long that I used a pair of long bolts and custom cut a pair of hollow sleeves for the bolts to go through in order for the whole assembly to be mounted on the port side of the barrel.

Jumping ahead a few step, here is the almost finished weapon in the vice with the injector assembly permanently mounted and the fuel line twisted to meet the brass fittings connecting the pipework and the braided line together. Just above the handle you can see I've added an amp-metre as a filler to the hole that is in the cast aluminum pipe where the cars thermostat used to be mounted.

A close up of the gauge.

A view of the topside of the steamy weapon.

It's so close to being finished.

Here it is getting the first coat of copper paint.

This is all I can show you for now. It still has more work coming. I need to get a cap for the bottom of the handle and I'm considering wiring it with some fibre optic lights and a little something to make the gauge show this weapon has a positive charge when the trigger is pulled.

Be on the look out for the finished product soon and start looking for the next weapons project from the DSB Workshop.

How Steampunk Weapons Are Born

OK I really wanted to wait to write about this little gem until I had finished it, but I'm just getting to excited about it.

I've taken up a bit of a new hobby. My wife (The Paisley) and I belong to a local group called the Seattle Steamrats. We are steampunkers. We have been doing this since last year and have met some really great folks of all kinds of talent.

You will get a chance to meet a few as I start to interview them in the coming few months.

Back the topic at hand. Weapons. Steampunk weapons to be more precise.

Last year I had to replace the engine in the Paisley's Subaru. After replacement the old engine has sat in a wooden cocoon in my father in law's garage for the past 10 months. Well a few months ago I finally got over there and started pulling the heads off the block and the old flywheel and other items that I thought I would be able to part out and recoup some of the money that the new-to-me-used engine cost.

No such luck. After a month of advertising I hadn't sold anything from the old EJ25 sitting there and taking up space.

An idea struck me as I was staring at it wonder how to unload these parts or make them useful..........Steampunk weapons!! YES!!!  

We met a gentleman in the SSR that spends his time scouring the thrift store and yard sales and other low cost and freebie sites for old lamps and candle sticks and other bits and uses them to make steampunk weapons. Pretty ingenious really. He makes some really great looking items.

If you peep my profile photo, the weapon I'm posing with is a creation that my friend made to give you some idea of his style.

This had me thinking that I could do the same, but with engine parts. This was just too perfect since my father in law has not cleaned out his garage in the 20+ years I have known my wife. He has lots of engine bits hanging about waiting for me to make strange and utterly bizarre weaponry from them.

So to shortly follow this entry I will be unveiling my first weapon from the new creative outlet of my twisted little mind.

I have to get on the ball and finish this one up. Steamcon II is coming this fall and the Paisley needs some small dainty lady like weapons from my workshop.

One Tired Dog

Sitting at our neighbours the other day I looked over to see our furry child, Bon Jovi passed out in the Paisley's lap. I love this photo of him. He was just so worn out.

Chocolate Covered Bacon

I love to eat.

There are just too many good things in this world to not like eating.

Vegetarians and meat-eaters alike all have that one food that just send us over the edge and makes us want to gorge until we pass out in a food coma.

Mine is bacon.

There is only one thing that could make bacon better. Chocolate.

I had been thinking for a few weeks that I needed to make chocolate covered bacon. This was a totally random idea when it hit me. I'm not sure what prompted it. No, it wasn't marijuana, although you might suspect it was.

It wasn't alcohol either. People don't get the munchies when they drink. They gain karaoke prowess.

I had a bit of time off over the 4th of July weekend and decided to use part of that time to dable with my food Frankenstein. We had just gone to Costco a few days earlier and one of the items we picked up was a twin pack of bacon weighing in at just over 5 lbs.

I wanted to make the whole thing as easy as possible so the chocolate that I used was Saco Dulci dips. It's the easiest chocolate to use for dipping things into and forms a hard shell when it cools. All you do is heat it in the microwave and after about 2 minutes it's ready for dipping.

I had preppared 8 strips of bacon and let it drain to get the excess grease off of it and then cut each piece down into bite sized portions.

Before cutting into bits

The next step is to then dip (quickly I should say before the chocolate starts to cool) the bacon and give it a good coating of chocolate and place it on some wax paper to completely cool.

Once the chocolate has set, in say 10 minutes or less, you then have a tasty little snack that offers the salty-meaty goodness of the bacon and the sweet of the chocolate combined in one neat little package.

Look out Recee's, I'm sure I've just made the next great food product of the 21st century!! I better call Anthony Bourdain to see if he needs an assistant.

It really is good. I plan on trying peppered bacon and a variety of chocolates to make the ultimate chocolate covered bacon.

Just try it if you're in doubt. After all in some countries, pan fried spiders are to die for.