Abstract Evil

I am so far behind in my Halloween projects for this year.  I had hoped to have had the inside of the Shed all set up as a Mad Scientist’s lab by the end of September, but the bad weather coupled with all the long days at work put me pretty far behind.  I was supposed to have had all the new graveyard fencing built and painted by the end of August and I’m just NOW finishing that.

I’m going to have to cut out some projects I had planned on if I’m going to get the majority of the props set up and ready to go.  It’s unfortunate.  I really have to stop working late hours this time of year.  They can get late nights out of me the other 10 months of the year, but September and October are MINE dammit!

With luck, the cemetery will be set up outside this week.

Our yard was visited by turkeys twice today.  There was about 20 - 25 of them back there pecking around first thing in the morning and then again about an hour ago.  I took a few photos, so I thought I’d share one:

I know.  How many web sites can a guy run?  Well, being I’m bat-shit-loco, I have no idea how many I’ll have.

About a week ago, I started another WordPress site.  I like the software enough, that I decided to use it to run the backend of the Unpleasant Projects site.

Unpleasant Projects is a site specifically for all the how-tos I’ve penned over the years.

Over the years, my neighbors have discovered we have a web site, more specifically one that shows how a lot of my props work.  My haunter friends can appreciate how much it can ruin a scare when a dad brings their kid through the haunt and points at every prop and tells them exactly how it works.  Well, I’ve stripped the projects and any link to them from the Unpleasant Street site and have started adding them one-by-one to the new Unpleasant Projects site.

Nothing helps to fuel a Halloween prop builder like the beers of fall.  Many a caramel-infused beer have passed these lips whilst building Halloween props.  This photo from my recent foray into re-building my Cemetery Fence shows just that:

I was noticing this past weekend that the red maple tree in my back yard had started to turn colors.  I love this time of year.  The colors of the trees are amazing, the crisp air of the morning and evening are refreshing and the perfect temperature of the afternoons are, well, perfect!

These things also bring with them the beers of fall (my favorite seasonal selection), and of course, Halloween.

With today being Labor Day, there is now 60 days for me to prepare for Halloween!  This is always the time of year when my hobby (obsession) kicks into high gear.  In about 45 days, that obsession will turn into stressful obsession as the days are ticking away and I usually have more projects to finish up than I have time for.  Somehow, it all comes together on the big day. 

I still have to finish the new cemetery fence.  I’m about 85% done building it, then I just have to paint it.

I also have to finish clearing out the shed and start to set up the Mad Scientist stuff in there.  That should be lots of fun.

Next up after that is to set up the Gypsy Fortuneteller tent we plan on for this year.  I have a canopy that will serve that purpose.  With luck, a friend of a friend will be doing Tarot card readings in there.

The final thing to set up will be the back deck.  The pirate skeletons are moving from the shed to the back deck this year and they will be getting a new dialog set for their bantering.

Amid all that, I have to set up the graveyard, find time to work on the shaker board, and who knows what else!

In anticipation of the new Haunting Season, I have gone live with the new Unpleasant Street design.  There are still a few areas that need to be finished, but it’s basically done.

I have also started construction on some Halloween props.  Today, I assembled my first piece of NEW Cemetery Fencing.  I had to toss out the old stuff because it was so beaten and in need of “loving” that it would have taken more time to rehab it than it will take to just build the 8 new sections of fence I need.

This weekend is also a Make and Take being hosted by yours truly.  We will be corpsing a Bucky on Saturday.  The corpsed bucky I make on Saturday will become the Pirate Ship Captain on the back deck Pirate Ship display this year.

Back onto the subject of the Unpleasant Street site and this year’s plans…  Since I am doing a mad scientist theme in the shed, I thought it’d be neat to start an online Journal (aka Blog) for the mad scientist.  He will start out seemingly sane in the earlier posts, but as time goes on and his experiments continue to fail, his postings will get more and more nutty.  It will all come to a head just before Halloween in his last post before Trick or Treat night.

That’s all I got for now.  I’m off to bed.

I’ve been tinkering with a re-design of the web site for my Halloween Yard Haunt, Unpleasant Street.  A few years ago, before I split HauntForum off on its own, it was part of Unpleasant Street and therefore the two sites looked the same.  With HauntForum as a separate entity now, I want them to look different.  Plus, a new design every now and again helps freshen things up.

So, with you my friends, I thought I’d share my progress thus far.  It’s not much yet except for a new header graphic, new logo and a series of menu items (that don’t go anywhere yet).

Some of you that are haunters may notice the absence of the “Projects” section.  This is deliberate.  Since I want to promote my yard haunt without “spilling the beans” on what I’m working on to my neighbors, I will be eventually giving the Projects their own secret location on the site.  It’ll essentially be a subdomain of Unpleasant Street.

As if I don’t have enough to do as it is.

Have a look at the progress so far:

http://www.unpleasantstreet.com/new/

So, I find myself going to work in the wee hours of the morning again tomorrow.  This will be the 3rd time I’ve gone in at 4:00 AM in the past week.  The other two times wound up being for 12 - 13 hour days, as if the early hours weren’t bad enough.   Last week alone I logged over 50 hours and also wound up going in to work on my “Off Friday.”

The thing is, we have this job that we took on that isn’t exactly a part of our core competency.  We can do it, sure, it is just taking us more time and effort to reach our goals with this project.

We have a deadline to meet where we need to ship 5 units to a customer by next Wednesday.  This is why I am working the early hours and long days.  We need to get past the R&D portion and get things ready to present to our customer.

Once this job is behind us, I am SO taking a long weekend where I do absolutely nothing.  Well, I’ll hang out with my wife and friends and do fun stuff, but if you think I’m doing any chores or yardwork you can kiss my ass!

I logged onto my computer this morning — as I do most mornings — and browse around the Yahoo! news pages.  Well, I saw something really badass about one of my favorite bands on said news pages and thought I’d share it with you guys.  Weezer playing Pork and Beans with a twist; the crowd is playing the song too!

It’s pretty cool and I just thought I’d like to share that with my friends.