Happy 110th Grandpa

The man in the image above is Howard Foley, my grandfather (with my grandmother, Wanda, on their wedding day) . He was born on the 14th of August, 1902. He is the reason I have a quarter of the genes I have. He is the reason my parents took me to vacation in the forrest every summer. He is most likely the reason that I live where I do today (or my family rather). He worked on radios and cars when they were new things. He vacationed in the parks of California more then I can imagine. He loved the outdoors, a love which he passed on to my mother, who passed it on to me. He overcame the emotional toll of the death of his first daughter and never gave up on exploring the wonders of the California countryside. And he inspired a family character that I hope has been inherited by me.

So happy birthday grandpa, wish you could have seen it.

Custom LEGO Troop Transport Vehicle

So I was thinking I shout upgrade my LEGO troop transport vehicle. I had made this a few years ago, so it looks kind of, um, crap.

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Side view.

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The back opens up and can hold 2 minifigures.

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Cockpit holds on and has controls.

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Gunner postion swivels and has limited armor. Apparently the guns are anti-aircraft, as they can only point up while still being held by the minifig.

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Fits 4 minifigs total.

I decided to overhaul the design as the colors were mixed up and the resemblance to a military vehicle is only slight. Here was my first attempt.

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Sorry about the finger in the way. The remodel is slightly larger than the original, the side armor is sloped but the integration with the front slope is non-existent and looks ugly in my opinion. The turret is redesigned, with a short barreled cannon and some armor, it rotates fully but has nothing in the back.

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The driver has a small gun and the turret is placed slightly to the side as to not interfere with the drivers hatch.

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The side armor on either side is different, and the turret (which is my favorite part) extends over the back. There is no room for additional troops.

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Round back is nothing special, pieces don’t quite sync up, but that’s my fault.

After this I decided the body was to short, so I remodeled and added some length.

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Here you can see how I retained the sloping side armor.

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I decided to get rid of this side armor as it looked unrealistic.

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Here is my eventually finished product, occupied by a driver and a gunner. I ran out of pieces so I’m not fully satisfied, but I like it.

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The driver now has more room and retains his small machine-gun.

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The turret is once again moved to the right to prevent interference with the driver position.

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The hatch, when fully open is will prevent the turret from spinning, but at when it is angled down slightly like this the turret is freely spinning.

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The turret redesign is what I’m most proud of, it has sloping armor on the front and back. It fits one minifig, but unfortunately without any gear.

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Hatch at the back.

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The back compartment fits two figures, good for black, red is holding onto his gear.

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Opened hatch.

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The vehicle holds four total. Here are some other shots of the finished product.

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(the side armor is my least favorite part, it looks too bulky for me)

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Speak Your MInd 12 #56-60

QUESTIONS

1. How old will you be when you graduate from high school?

2. Would you like to live in a mansion?

3. How do you feel about lying to your parents?

4. Are you in love?

5. What is your favorite soap opera?

ANSWERS By: Austin Smith

1. I am supposed to be 17 when I graduate, but if all goes to plan I will be 16 and it will be in a few weeks.

2. Only if I had a lot of people to fill it.

3. Depends, is telling a story lying, I find it quite alright to simply not tell the whole truth. But I would never lie about something that could hurt anyone.

4. Yes, madly.

5. I do not watch soap operas.

Lying to people who trust too much.

This is going to be short, but I can’t think about anything else right now. This is making me feel so… such and unquantifiable feeling.

About a week ago I saw the worst fake documentary in history, Mermaids: the body found. It was on the discovery channel at some ungodly hour (after some investigating I found it first aired on animal planet). The thing was proposing the idea that mermaids were still around, blah, blah, blah. I thought it was like those other discovery shows that use the thinnest evidence to support the most outrageous conclusion that could possibly be drawn, and I am used to those, it is interesting to hear what little evidence they have to offer. And so I watched, just watched, casually thinking it was some lame program, and then this happened.

I am not joking, this is in the documentary. And yes it is purposely blurred in an attempt to distract from the fact that it does actually look that fake. I should mention that this comes at the end of the most professional looking “cell-phone” video of all time. By that of course I mean the most fake. The entire thing is obviously fake, and is completely unnecessary to the documentary. I mean they could have just done what all other Discovery shows do and just show people talking, but no, they had to show this.

Now, why do I hate this so much? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you were saying “so what if the creators want to show off a little crappy CGI, what’s so bad about that?”. I’ll tell you, because people will believe it. I don’t care how crappy or fake it looks and is, people from now on will be saying “no man, mermaids are real, I saw it on the Discovery channel, they had a video and everything”. Some people really are that gullible/stupid. And they could have done without it entirely, it’s irresponsible of the creators and the Discovery channel to show this obviously fake video and claim it’s real. Because someone will believe it. And while it’s not alright that they did that, they still went further. If you went to check on the story’s credibility and found the website that supposedly belonged to one of the people interviewed in said documentary you found this.

Yes, that is a very fake Homeland Security seizure. And let’s thank the officers seizing it for providing us with the very specific badge that says “Special Agent”, even though no agents are actually there. Of course we all know that “a” United Stares District Court is the most trusted U.S. District Court there is.

I hate this! It is, like the video, obviously fake, but if looked at from far enough away appears to be real. And since it aired on both the Discovery channel and Animal Planet people will believe it. They will believe that there is video of mermaids, and that Homeland Security is trying to stop the truth from getting out. It is a completely irresponsible usage of this Science Docufiction piece. And I can’t get it out of my head the fact that now, along with all the other stupid conspiracy theories, we have to deal with mermaids. Why, why… mermaids?

Speak Your Mind 11 #51-55

QUESTIONS

1. If you could be anything in this world, what would you want to be?

2. How old were you when you started kindergarden?

3. How would your life change if you were named Mr. or Miss Universe?

4. Do you like to walk in the rain?

5. What would you do if you won 32 million dollars?

ANSWERS By: Austin Smith

1. Like a “thing”? I would be a mushroom in a remote part of south america and just chill. (or and eagle, that would be cool to) (perhaps a desk, a nice one that doesn’t get used)

2. I was 5 years old.

3. If that was my name more people would make fun of me. If I got the title much more of my life would be dedicated to working out, as in all of it because my body doesn’t develop muscle easily and looses it fast.

4. Yes I do enjoy walking in the rain, although I prefer a drizzle to a downpour.

5. I would spend a quarter of it frivolously, give half to my family and use the rest to start or beef up my business (depending on when I win it).