The Treehouse Monticello photo 35015 698 0 right Blake Ledet and David Spencer standing in front of Monticello photo Perhaps one of the most interesting adventures I have ever been apart of was constructing a four story tree house on the bayou banks of Ft Bend County Texas The tree house stood 55 feet from top to bottom We began construction of the tree house which was later named Monticello in January of 1997 It sat about one half mile to the north of Beck Middle School Estimating about 4 to 5 hours of work per day 7 days a week it only took a few weeks until Monticello had multiple rooms was entirely framed in had sleeping quarters a shingled roof was water tight and walls full of pornography Shortly after it became a regular spot for dozens of our close friends to throw parties at In high school that was quite a luxury strong Constructing Monticello Phase I strong The construction of Monticello began in early January of 1997 The spot had originally been discovered by a friend of mine Aaron Duke and the original construction crew consisted of Aaron Duke Daniel Putt and myself It wasn t long before I decided this was a great project and was going to require a great deal of time on our parts Aaron was knee deep in high school and Putt was in the middle basketball season both were inhibited from dedicating the necessary time to the project Since I was a senior and football season was already over I was really just counting down the months until graduation One afternoon I took two of my other good friends Blake Ledet and David Spencer to see the site The size of the tree definitely impressed them Since they were both heavily into construction projects it wasn t hard to get them on board photo 35163 698 0 center From left to right me Blake and David posing from the top of the tree house photo br style clear both In the first few days we simply created a platform on the tree just as you would expect from any tree house I don t think there was ever really a grand plan but it was so much fun working out in the woods that we decided to go all out In the next few days we each took on our own separate tree house projects The general idea was for each of us to construct a room more or less thus growing the tree house very quickly One of us built a balcony another of us built a sitting deck and one of us built sleeping quarters Once we had each completed these individual tasks we began focusing on the sleeping quarters an expansion of the original platform that had been created We decided that the only proper way to make the treehouse water tight would be to frame it a la traditional framing standards We laid down the lateral 2x4s on the platform and erected a series of 2x4s about 16 inches apart each properly fastened to the baseboard Plywood was harder for us to cut at the treehouse so most of the measurements were taken and the ply was cut back at our houses Once we had it ready to go we would bring it out there and attach it to the framed sleeping quarters The back wall consisted of some plywood some industrial plastic crates and a giant road sign that read Prison Area Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers another interesting story With the sleeping quarters completely encompassed by walls and the additional deck and balcony attached Monticello was beginning to take shape strong Gathering Supplies strong Many people have asked over the years where did the supplies for Monticello come from Naturally most people think we stole the wood but that s actually not true at all Since we lived in a rather suburban area there were constantly new subdivisions being constructed The houses always had enormous piles of scrap wood sitting around Rather than stealing good wood we would instead ask the foreman of the house if we could take from the scrap piles We were always granted permission and it made for an excellent CYA should someone ever question what we were doing By exclusively combing scrap piles we were able to get plywood drywall 2x4s large wooden beams even shingles and occasionally nails The only thing we paid for out of pocket were some additional boxes of nails And of course we all had our own hammer strong Constructing Monticello Phase II strong photo 35128 698 0 right Blake taking a break in the sleeping quarters It comfortably slept three people photo It didn t take us long to complete the initial design of Monticello The only problem was that we were still having such a good time with it that we didn t want to quit One afternoon while going through some scrap piles we came across the cut out of a staircase that had not been used Most likely it was designed for the construction crew to get around more easily We took the staircase cutout and immediately built it into the treehouse This opened the design scheme up to a 2nd 3rd and eventually even a 4th floor though only the 2nd floor was actually accessible via traditional stairs The staircase was lined with 2x6s that we had found and cut to fit The steps led to a small platform that allowed the person to climb their way to the 2nd floor A few months earlier the local movie theater was getting rid of their promotional The Hunchback of Notre Dame cutouts I had taken them and had them on my bedroom ceiling before an opportunity to use them for a greater cause presented itself We stapled them to the wall next to the staircase Once the 2nd floor had been nailed down a 3rd floor was built above it It did not have nearly the structural integrity as the 1st and 2nd floors did but it was still well supported The 3rd floor had a heavy roof laid upon it with 2x6s It wasn t watertight as the single pieces of wood had small gaps between them but it provided shade from the sun The roof was strong enough to support people and thus effectively led to the 4th floor though the 4th floor was nothing but a platform strong Final Additions strong Once everything was more or less constructed on the tree house we began creating a camping ground for people to sit around eat cook and drink Naturally this required a nice campfire pit Since the tree house was constructed along a local bayou there were plenty of giant concrete rocks around that we could transport for the fire pit We dug a hole about 8 feet in diameter and a few feet deep Giant bayou rocks were laid around the fire It was a daunting task to pickup the rocks from the bayou walk them up the slope and then another 100 or so meters to the actual camping ground And to make matters worse since the campfire was so large the project required quite a few of these rocks I distinctly remember the process taking the three of us many many hours In addition to the campfire we built benches tables and just about anything else that we could think of for people to sit around on We even went so far as to bring a chainsaw out there one afternoon and cut down more than enough trees to keep us warm in the cold Texas nights of January and February We brought lawnmowers and weed eaters to designate pathways and otherwise created one hell of a venue for our friends to party at photo 35102 698 0 center One of our parties out at the tree house on February 22 1997 photo

American Healthcare Part V Impractical Expectations Obviously every medical emergency is different and every patient unique However if you take that story into consideration without applying any type of political bias there is at least one point of comparison that should stand out above all else How is it that the price of one health care option is able to outweigh another by twenty fold Is it actually possible that I or any other patient could have been the recipient of twenty times the level of care It is highly unlikely Had I been comprehensively insured at the time of my accident it is a fact that that I would have received the highest level of care immediately following the accident Furthermore it is highly unlikely that I would have questioned any of the associated finances with the examination since I would not be directly responsible for them But in a healthcare system whereby finances must be accounted for in one way or another the question still remains of how the two estimates of care could have varied by so much This is why having a thorough grasp on the economics of modern health insurance is so important These huge cost differentials are common and due to the fact that there is no incentive to control costs within any step of the process Insurance companies and medical corporations massively benefit from the liberal and often unnecessary applications of their products This is exactly why the hospital bill would have been so much more expensive than the minor care facility turned out to be I would have paid twenty times the cost for a fractionally more accurate diagnosis all the while experiencing a barrage of the latest and greatest medical technologies The question that should be asked of all Americans is whether our expectation of a healthcare system is to save lives or to provide individuals with every advanced comfort available regardless of the broader scope of costs It seems that the expectation from most people who supported the healthcare bill is the latter every medical condition should be accounted for regardless of the costs involved Not only is this impossible it is unconscionably selfish There are a finite amount of monetary resources available within the United States and every medical procedure uses up some of these resources When we waste precious resources in an effort to make fractionally better diagnoses there are simply less resources available for the greater good The consequence of this will be an increase of medical spending across the entire country albeit abstracted through insurance premiums Of course with any type of spending increase those at the bottom are always going to get hit harder than those at the top In the nineteenth century it would have been considered a medical luxury for one to have access to a drug like acetylsalicylic acid Despite the comfort it could have provided to millions at the time there were still costs involved in its production and thus it was generally administered only when absolutely necessary As medical and technological advancements were made the drug became cheaper to manufacture Eventually it became readily available albeit as something called Aspirin This type of history is significant to our current predicament Not all medicines can be made instantly available to those who need them If politicians had a genuine interest in helping to solve the American healthcare debacle they would be working to reduce healthcare costs They would be ensuring that the costs of modern drugs were decreasing and becoming more accessible to Americans much like Aspirin once did They would not be instituting policies guaranteed to increase the level of medical spending under the false pretense that this will somehow result in better healthcare Any politician who would attempt to convince people that the intent of mandatory insurance is to put everyone on equal footing should have his or her motives severely scrutinized The notion is both impractical and illogical If we assume for a moment that every single American were somehow provided the exact same quality convenience and cost of healthcare then we would also have to assume that not one other American of over 300 million would attempt to find a medical product or service even slightly better more convenient or cheaper Of course human beings simply do not function in that way This is why the tenants of capitalism despite the flaws are what drive a free society Perhaps not surprisingly then the bill also addresses at least one capitalist enterprise The healthcare act of 2010 curiously contains a provision for levying additional taxes against tanning salons This is actually one of the mechanisms installed to cover the additional costs albeit a seemingly small one The idea behind the tax is that since tanning salons are unnecessary according to the state and increase the risk of skin cancer then they should be taxed accordingly The idea is actually quite logical the higher the risk of adverse health effects the higher the tax should be But this is an extremely dangerous precedent we have permitted the government to set for itself By what authority does the United States federal government have to dictate what is good for us and what is bad for us Moreover who makes that decision While I personally believe a tanning salon is a ridiculous waste of money many would say the same of a motorcycle Many might also say that a motorcycle is far more dangerous why not tax motorcycles in the same way Statistically speaking they pose a far more significant risk to riders than those of cars What about the correlation of fast foods to obesity and diabetes or perhaps the ratio of adventure activities to injuries or promiscuity to pregnancy and disease There is an almost never ending list of causality in our world It would stand to reason that within this government controlled framework any type of non essential higher risk activity could be subjected to arbitrary government taxation in the name of better healthcare If I had to guess I would imagine tanning salons simply lacked the necessary lobbying power in Washington prior to the bill s passage Allowing the government to be the judge and jury of what constitutes acceptable risk would lead to a nanny state of unfathomable dystopian proportion The United States was founded on the idea that people control their government not the other way around This basic concept is responsible for the entire western notion of democracy But given the obvious dependencies we all have on healthcare is it really so wise to promote a system that exploits this dependency in the name of better health The Bush Administration made a case that it was necessary to forgo certain civil liberties outlined in the Patriot Act in order to remain safe from terrorists These types of hollow promises in the name of security and well being run contrary to the American foundation of liberty They exploit the fears and needs of Americans to promote policies that benefit others The healthcare bill has is no exception to this rule I would completely agree that nobody in the United States citizen or otherwise should have to suffer unduly at the hand of a medical catastrophe The country is far too wealthy and technologically advanced to accept such a subpar standard of human accountability and compassion But at the same time neither should any person be legally mandated especially at the federal level to provide private industry of any kind with his or her business While about half of the country might still be convincing themselves that their party would never have led them astray the reality is that in due time the healthcare bill will prove to be far worse than having done nothing at all We cannot have a system built upon financial risk mitigation whereby nobody loses and meanwhile expect it to become more affordable it is a mathematical impossibility The basic misconception lies with people believing that smaller incremental costs are somehow better or cheaper than one lump sum This might be true if we spread those costs out ourselves but in reality we just wind up paying substantially more for goods and services that we never needed in the first place This is very similar to the idea behind gift cards that we explored earlier in the book The more you abstract the cost of something the less likely people are to consider the price and the more wasteful they ultimately become But that does not change the original cost of the good or service from existing Rest assured we do pay for those costs as well as all of the administrative costs that go into managing them They are merely abstracted into smaller monthly or quarterly payments em continued in a href blog 2125 American_Healthcare__Part_VI_Practical_Healthcare_Proposals Part VI Practical Healthcare Proposals a em

Stylish Bluebird House Plans photo 1221615 1223577 0 right One of the completed and installed birdhouses photo My friend s dad found the plans to this a href https www familyhandyman com project build a bluebird house title https www familyhandyman com project build a bluebird house particular birdhouse on a handyman site a There is currently a sizable grass roots effort across the United States to repopulate bluebird populations and these particular birdhouses are specifically designed for doing just that Something about the shape and the opening is attractive to bluebirds over many other species This same friend of mine recently purchased a large piece of property deep in the woods and has been working to attract any number of bird species I thought it would be fun to construct a few birdhouses for her property but didn t really have a starting point So I took these plans and made a number of fancy modifications to them just to make them much more aesthetically pleasing and hopefully much more durable in the elements The birdhouses are designed with a swivel door so that they can be easily opened and cleaned from time to time While it s not entirely necessary to include that functionality they came out very nicely and the mechanics work well strong Materials Needed strong table tr td strong Qty strong td td strong Item strong td td strong Purchase br Price strong td td strong Birdhouses br Per Item strong td td strong Material br Cost strong td tr tr td 1 td td a href https www homedepot com p 2 in x 4 in x 8 ft 2 Ground Contact Pressure Treated Lumber 106147 206970948 2x4 pressure treated a td td 6 88 td td 2 td td 3 44 td tr tr td 1 td td a href https www homedepot com b Lumber Composites Boards Planks Panels Appearance Boards Softwood Boards Common Boards 1x12 N 5yc1vZ1z18gp1Z1z1a6ed 1x12 Pine Common Board a td td 27 36 td td 2 td td 13 68 td tr tr td 1 td td a href https www homedepot com p Everbilt 3 16 in x 12 in Cold Rolled Plain Round Rod 800407 204325644 Everbilt 3 16 steel dowel rod a td td 2 11 td td 6 td td 0 35 td tr tr td 5 pack td td a href https www amazon com dp B00BLC26SA psc 1 ref ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Schlage interior bathroom key a td td 4 99 td td 5 td td 1 00 td tr tr td 50 pack td td a href https www amazon com dp B09BQ3GDYH psc 1 ref ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Uenhoy 5 8 diameter plastic bushing 50 pack a td td 8 99 td td 12 5 td td 0 72 td tr tr td 1 box td td a href https www amazon com GRK 96060 2 inch HandyPak Finish dp B07Z5BNGX4 2 GRK 8 White Finishing Screws a td td 16 99 td td 8 td td 2 12 td tr tr td 1 box td td a href https www homedepot com p SPAX 8 x 1 1 4 in T Star Plus Flat Undercut Interior Exterior HCR X Multi Purpose Screw 230 Box 4191670400324 315173629 Spax 8 1 25 multi purpose screws a td td 13 98 td td 16 td td 0 87 td tr tr td 1 box td td a href https www homedepot com p SPAX 10 x 3 in T Star Plus Drive Flat Head Partial Thread Yellow Zinc Screw 16 per Box 4191020500752 315515211 Spax 10 3 exterior screws x3 a td td 4 67 td td 5 td td 0 93 td tr tr td 1 box td td a href https www lowes com pd SPAX 8 x 3 4 in SPAX Pan Head Unidrive Zinc Coated Screw 35CT 5001700963 Spax 8 3 4 multi purpose construction screws x3 a td td 2 78 td td 12 td td 0 23 td tr tr td 1 box td td a href https www homedepot com p Everbilt 17 x 3 4 in Copper Plated Weather Strip Nails 50 Piece 801604 204274044 17 3 4 weatherstrip copper nails a td td 2 10 td td 3 td td 0 70 td tr tr td 1 pack td td a href https www homedepot com p Everbilt 4 x 5 8 in Phillips Round Head Brass Wood Screw 4 Pack 809991 204787347 Everbilt Brass 4 5 8 Wood Screws a td td 1 28 td td 4 td td 0 32 td tr tr td 1 roll td td a href https www hobbylobby com Beads Jewelry Bead Stringing Chains Chains Chain Spool 5 5mm p 155889 Rolo 5 5mm Brass Chain a td td 15 99 td td 12 td td 1 33 td tr tr td 1 sheet td td a href https www homedepot com p Everbilt 13 in x 18 in 26 Gauge Galvanized Metal Sheet 801527 204225788 Zinc Sheet Metal 26 gauge 18 x 12 a td td 6 83 td td 2 td td 3 42 td tr tr td 1 td td a href https www homedepot com p TRIMFINITY 11 16 in x 11 16 in x 96 in Polystyrene White Outside Corner Moulding 85044 206822154 White polystyrene molding 11 16 x 11 16 x 96 a td td 5 36 td td 2 td td 2 68 td tr tr td 1 box td td a href https www homedepot com p Everbilt 18 x 5 8 in Stainless Wire Nails 1 oz per pack 802694 204281730 18 gauge 5 8 stainless wire brads a td td 2 10 td td 8 td td 0 26 td tr tr td 1 can td td a href https www homedepot com p BEHR PREMIUM PLUS 8 oz Ultra Pure White Satin Interior Exterior Paint Primer Color Sample B370016 307332424 Colored exterior sample paint a td td 4 98 td td 2 td td 2 49 td tr tr td 1 can td td a href https www homedepot com p BEHR PREMIUM PLUS 8 oz Ultra Pure White Satin Interior Exterior Paint Primer Color Sample B370016 307332424 White exterior paint a td td 4 98 td td 16 td td 0 31 td tr tr td 2 td td a href https www homedepot com p 2 in Chiseled Foam Paint Brush 8500 2 100671926 2 foam paintbrush a td td 0 98 td td 1 td td 0 98 td tr tr td 1 roll td td a href https www homedepot com p 3M ScotchBlue 1 88 in x 60 yds Original Multi Surface Painter s Tape 2090 48CP 100550611 Painter s Tape a td td 7 48 td td 50 td td 0 15 td tr tr td 1 can td td a href https www homedepot com p Rust Oleum Painter s Touch 2X 12 oz Semi Gloss Black General Purpose Spray Paint 334097 307244961 Rustoleum Semi gloss black spray paint a td td 4 98 td td 8 td td 0 62 td tr tr td 1 td td a href https www lowes com pd Simpson Strong Tie Wood to Wood Tie Plate 3379782 5 zinc plated 20 gauge tie plate a td td 0 70 td td 1 td td 0 70 td tr table strong Tools Required strong ul li Miter saw ideally with fine tooth sawblade li li Jig saw with wood and metal saws li li Drill li li Various drill bits li li 60 grit sandpaper li li 400 grit sandpaper li li 5 8 hole saw or paddle bit li li Drill press li li Wood clamps li ul strong Cutting out the Pieces strong I won t go into all of the details on how to cut the dimensions of the birdhouse namely as they re all available in some detail on the original website but would instead just note that the project is probably easiest with a jigsaw You can configure a table saw to do the cuts but I found it much easier just to use the jigsaw and then handle any straightening during the sanding process I should note that this is also a perfect project for all of the scrap wood that you might have lying around While the birdhouses are larger than any others I ve built in the past they still don t require all that much material There are just three sides and a roof the entire back and separating pieces inside of the birdhouse are all constructed from a single 2x4 After you finish cutting out the pieces described in the plans you should have 7 unique cuts of wood two sides a front door without the door hole a roof the top 2x4 the midpoint 2x4 and the birdhouse stem 2x4 photo 1216420 1213140 0 center The various pieces of wood for a single birdhouse after making all of the required cuts photo photo 1216444 1213140 0 center A collection the assembled birdhouses photo strong Birdhouse Assembly strong The assembly of birdhouse should be pretty straightforward to anybody even nominally capable of doing craft construction projects The original plans used nails for the construction but I thought it would be nicer to use GRK finishing screws These are extremely thin screws and have no kind of visible head on them This makes them ideal for countersinking which is of course why they re used for finishing With a little dab of extra paint over the holes the birdhouse will appear as if it has been glued together Incidentally you can use wood glue for the entire process but there s really no advantage and then have to wait for it to dry If the goal is merely to hide the screws then either finishing or cabinet screws should do the trick Either way it s just a birdhouse so there s really no wrong way photo 1211645 1213140 0 right A rough version of what the door hole looks like after being cut This one got a little scraped up but it still works just fine photo strong Cutting the Front Door Hole strong I tried cutting the door hole using a variety of methods on my drill press but the bottom line is that it s just very difficult to use a boring bit for overlapping holes Not to mention you d still need to trim the edges of the hole slightly to get the ovular shape With that in mind I found it best just to use a jigsaw If you re going to be making several of these birdhouses at once a I did then it would probably be easiest to create some kind of template on paper first This way you can just set the paper atop the door and use a punch or pin to trace out the door hole Whatever method you use the jigsaw will work best for the cut itself The original plans suggest scraping up the inside of the hole so that the birds have something to grip onto when entering the birdhouse So don t worry about the hole not being perfectly smooth This is actually to the advantage of the final product strong Painting the Birdhouse strong Painting the birdhouse is a pretty simple and fun process I found it easiest to use foam brushes They re cheap effective and more than large enough for expedient painting I wound up applying 4 or 5 coats to these birdhouses and sanded them with a high grit paper to give them a smooth looking surface Keep in mind that the first two coats are going to absorb pretty heavily into the wood so you re really just create a base layer You can apply a primer first if you want to but I didn t think it was necessary to do this since it was just as easy to add additional coats Try not to get any paint on the inside of the birdhouse itself I used some paper towels and tape to prevent this from happening but you can also just be careful It s likely that a little bit of paint will get inside of the door hole opening but this can just be sanded out later The airholes require slightly more attention as the plastic bushings won t properly fit if there is a buildup of paint inside of them photo 1209755 1213140 0 center Three of the birdhouses drying in the sun before the next coat photo photo 1209840 1213140 0 center Continuing to add coats of paint to the birdhouses photo photo 1211200 1213140 0 right Playing with one of the airhole bushings photo strong Adding the Airhole Bushings strong Once all of the painting is completed you can finally install the plastic airhole bushings These certainly aren t necessary but add a really nice flair to the final product They re also useful in preventing the airholes from getting warped and rotting out in any kind of way You may need to clean up the inside of the holes ever so slightly I just used a small piece of 60 grit sandpaper to smooth them out The 5 8 bushings should fit perfectly into the 5 8 holes you drilled They re a light plastic so be sure to use a gentle mallet if you encounter any resistance they will definitely break if you hit them too hard strong Cutting the Trim Pieces strong I m not going to lie this part is a real pain in the ass It will absolutely require some kind of miter saw and ideally one with a high tooth sharp blade given you ll be cutting polystyrene There s really no good way to join the two pieces along the front perfectly together at the bottom corners but you can give the illusion of this with some careful cuts photo 1209766 1213140 0 right Testing one of the trim pieces against the front edge of a birdhouse photo Since the birdhouse has been cut using 63 degree and 27 degree angles you ll want to set the miter saw for 27 degrees It s probably going to take a little playing with it to see which direction the molding has to be cut I found it easiest to cut a piece about 20 long place it along the front edge it s going to be affixed to and then use a pencil to draw the angled direction of cut The front molding will need to hang down slightly lower than the birdhouse walls so that it can be joined to the base molding I won t go into textual details on how to accomplish this but if you look closely at the picture provided you should be able to recreate the process To keep myself humble I should note that I went through quite a few pieces before I finally settled on a cutting pattern that worked for my tastes strong Attaching the Trim Pieces strong Attaching the trim pieces is actually a pretty fun step I decided to go with the copper nails for durability in the elements but also because I happened to like the aesthetic of making them visible along the edges I used my nail gun and air compressor for the first version but found it difficult to purchase 3 4 brad nails at my local store After experimenting with a few different materials I found that the copper heads provided a good contrast against the black You can really do this part any which way you like but I did meticulously measure out the sides and then affix the nails at even intervals Again this is entirely for the aesthetic of it So long as the trim is properly affixed to the underlying wood it ll work just fine strong Adding the Door Lynch Pin and Chain strong photo 1220990 1223581 0 right Holding one of the lynch pins against the left side of the door I wound up placing all of them on the right side of the birdhouses photo I tried a variety of different locking pins and lynch pins for the front door but none of them really accomplished what I was hoping to find My Schlage keypadded door came with a special tool for opening the door in an emergency I noticed that it was the perfect size for a lynch pin and found that I was able to order additional ones directly from the manufacturer on Amazon Use a 3 32 bit and drill the lynch pin hole so that it aligns with the bottom of the bird hole entrance Be sure to align the drill on the side so that it s as centered as possible in the front door Once the hole has been drilled and you ve tested the lynch pin use about 4 5 inches of the brass 5 5mm chain and one of the 4 brass wood screws The brass chain is malleable and should be easy to affix onto the side of the door The lynch pin can just be slid into one of links of the chain and will rest in the looped part This part isn t entirely necessary but given that the birdhouses should be cleaned at least once per year and the fact that the lynch pin is so small it just seemed like a better way to ensure it doesn t get lost during cleaning photo 1221153 1223581 0 center Experimenting with the brass chain photo strong Creating the Mount Points strong photo 1221578 1223577 0 right Affixing the tie plate to the back of the birdhouse photo Starting on the front side of the birdhouse place a mark in the dead center of the 2x4 about 2 from the very bottom of the 2x4 Place another mark in the dead center of the 2x4 where the base of the house walls end Using a 3 16 drill bit drill holes through These will be used for the mounting screws along the stem Flip the birdhouse over and place the tie plate at the very top so that just one row of holes is exposed above the birdhouse itself Use a sufficient number of the Spax 8 3 4 construction screws to affix the tie plate to the back of the birdhouse We ll use the center hole on the top row as a means to secure the top of the birdhouse to a tree You can skip this step if you re planning to mount the birdhouse to a pole strong Affixing to a Tree strong photo 1221254 1223577 0 right The ladder leading up to the mount point for the purple birdhouse photo Insert a 3 10 Spax Construction screw into each of the two holes on the stem I found it best to get them started so that it was easy to screw them into the tree when I was hanging by the ladder The two screws along the stem are likely more than enough to affix the birdhouse to a tree but it s best to use the exposed tie plate as a final mounting hole The screws should be more than long enough to seal against the tree with a significant bit of pressure

The Golf Ball Injury One evening over the Thanksgiving holiday during my freshman year in college I took to the local driving range with my little sister I had been learning to play golf earlier in the summer One of my roommates Donlee Cone Smith was an accomplished golfer and a rather good teacher I was neither but he was doing his best with me The interesting thing about our local driving range is that was uniquely designed by a guy who won the lottery Evidently he used some of his winnings to develop and presumably patent a system that automatically placed the ball on the tee for the golfer It was a pretty cool device All you had to do was tap your golf club on a lever and a PVC arm would drop down into place set the ball on the tea and then retract itself Just when it seemed golf could not get any lazier this guy proved the world wrong The relevance of this detail is that one key component to golfing is how one stands relative to the tee It took me a number of swings to find a good setup but once I got perfectly into place I didn t have to move This presented a pretty big advantage to non golfers like myself As a result to all of this I was actually hitting the ball really well that evening One after another I was driving well beyond my typical norms My sister just 13 at the time was seated in the bench behind me If it seems strange that she was just watching her brother play golf keep in mind that 13 is a pretty young age to be independent I think she just enjoyed the fact that I would take her out and about the adventure otherwise being unimportant In this instance it s good that she was there with me After I d gone through about half of the balls I sliced the hell out one shot It was at this moment that a huge flaw in the driving range was inadvertently discovered There were metal rails extending beyond the area that one could shoot The ball I sliced hit one of these metal rails to the right of me and before I could even finish my swing came back and hit me square in the head over my right eye I was likely immediately knocked unconscious As I started to fall to the ground the momentum from my swing continued and my golf club bent itself around the metal rail to the left of me I have no idea how long I was unconscious for likely only seconds but as I was lying face down on the AstroTurf I could hear my sister chuckling behind me She later explained to me that she thought I was just playing around as I typically did When I rolled over in her direction I was holding my right hand above my eye I could feel the injury that I had sustained but had no idea just how severe it was As I removed my hand my sister screamed and realize that not only was I injured but that I had a protrusion literally the size of a golf ball just above my right eye I was in a very blurred state from the injury and only vaguely remember another golfer from a few stalls down coming to my rescue He picked me up and brought me inside insistent that the place call an ambulence My sister instead got in touch with my parents and they came and picked me up instead Another trip to the emergency room ensued I was told that I was extremely lucky the injury pushed outwardly from my skull Evidently an inwardly bruise of that size could have resulted in serious brain injury or other complications I was also lucky enough not to have fractured my skull I was perfectly fine just a few days later albeit became the only of my friends to have ever rendered himself unconscious with a golf ball It was many years later before I was comfortable at a driving range again My sister sent a package to my college dorm a week or so later The package contained a note taped to a golf ball that read The golf ball that so viciously attacked you I still have it

Wall Street vs Hollywood photo 258001 740 0 right photo A few weeks ago my father and I were discussing the influence that American corporations have on politics It s a pretty important topic these days given the rather bleak state of the economy and the seemingly endless corruption being uncovered Between the Tea Party the Occupy Movement and everyone in between nobody really seems happy with the way the government is conducting its business And in my opinion rightfully so But as we continued chatting we discussed the fact that for whatever reason voters instinctively tie Wall Street CEOs to the Republican Party and Hollywood celebrities to the Democratic Party It s one of those things that most of the voting populous just seems to accept Obviously there are notable exceptions to this rule but I think most people would assume that if you work on Wall Street you re voting Republican and if you work in Hollywood for a Democrat While there are undoubtedly some social issues that could be addressed the biggest problem in 2012 is hands down the economy Liberal friends of mine often bring up the huge disparity of wealth that exists within Wall Street corporations how that gap is widening and how it is being used to control Washington The data seems to corroborate this and I definitely believe it s a problem we should be intelligently discussing as a nation But my father was quick to add to our discussion that this same disproportion of wealth is rampant throughout Hollywood as well The difference is that nobody really seems to notice much less care Curiously we even go so far as to celebrate this disparity with the affectionate term celebrity This raises a pretty interesting philosophical question If two groups are ultimately responsible for the same fiscal gluttony why is one celebrated and the other castigated Since the crux of our discussion was riding on the back of conjectures and assumptions I thought it would be interesting to actually do some research on the matter That is how do the top dogs of Wall Street and Hollywood actually stack up against one another Is there a difference between them and if so what is that difference After a bit of online research I constructed this table of the top twenty Wall Street and Hollywood salaries of 2010 it was difficult to find consistent data for 2011 The results are pretty interesting table class BLOGData tr th colspan 4 class top middle Wall Street th th colspan 3 class top Hollywood th tr tr th CEO th th Company th th class right Employees th th class middle right Millions th th Celebrity th th Title th th class right Millions th tr tr td Philippe P Dauman td td Viacom td td class right 10 900 td td class middle right 84 5 td td James Cameron td td Writer Director Producer td td class right 257 0 td tr tr td Ray R Irani td td Occidental Petroleum td td class right 11 000 td td class middle right 76 1 td td Johnny Depp td td Actor td td class right 100 0 td tr tr td Lawrence J Ellison td td Oracle td td class right 111 297 td td class middle right 70 1 td td Steven Spielberg td td Director Producer td td class right 80 0 td tr tr td Michael D White td td DirecTV td td class right 25 700 td td class middle right 32 9 td td Christopher Nolan td td Writer Director Producer td td class right 71 5 td tr tr td John F Lundgren td td Stanley Black amp Decker td td class right 36 700 td td class middle right 32 6 td td Leonardo DiCaprio td td Actor td td class right 62 0 td tr tr td Brian L Roberts td td Comcast td td class right 126 000 td td class middle right 28 2 td td Tim Burton td td Director td td class right 53 0 td tr tr td Robert A Iger td td Walt Disney td td class right 156 000 td td class middle right 28 0 td td Adam Sandler td td Actor Producer Writer td td class right 50 0 td tr tr td Alan Mulally td td Ford Motor Co td td class right 164 000 td td class middle right 26 5 td td Todd Phillips td td Writer Director Producer td td class right 34 0 td tr tr td Samuel J Palmisano td td IBM td td class right 426 751 td td class middle right 25 2 td td Taylor Lautner td td Actor td td class right 33 5 td tr tr td David N Farr td td Emerson Electric td td class right 133 200 td td class middle right 22 9 td td Robert Downey Jr td td Actor td td class right 31 5 td tr tr td Howard Schultz td td Starbucks td td class right 149 000 td td class middle right 21 7 td td Will Smith td td Actor Producer td td class right 29 0 td tr tr td William C Weldon td td Johnson and Johnson td td class right 114 000 td td class middle right 21 6 td td Joe Roth td td Producer td td class right 28 5 td tr tr td Louis C Camilleri td td Phillip Morris International td td class right 78 300 td td class middle right 20 6 td td Kristen Stewart td td Actress td td class right 28 5 td tr tr td Randall L Stephenson td td AT amp T td td class right 256 420 td td class middle right 20 2 td td Jerry Bruckheimer td td Producer td td class right 27 5 td tr tr td Miles D White td td Abbot Laboratories td td class right 90 000 td td class middle right 20 0 td td Robert Pattinson td td Actor td td class right 27 5 td tr tr td George W Buckley td td 3M td td class right 80 000 td td class middle right 19 7 td td Jason Blum td td Producer Writer Director Producer td td class right 26 5 td tr tr td Louis Chenevert td td United Technologies td td class right 199 900 td td class middle right 19 5 td td Tyler Perry td td Writer Director Producer td td class right 25 0 td tr tr td Robert P Kelly td td Bank of New York Mellon td td class right 48 700 td td class middle right 19 4 td td Jennifer Aniston td td Actress td td class right 24 5 td tr tr td Muhtar Kent td td Coca Cola td td class right 139 600 td td class middle right 19 2 td td Jon Favreau td td Director Producer td td class right 24 0 td tr tr td Robert J Stevens td td Lockheed Martin td td class right 126 000 td td class middle right 19 1 td td Nicolas Cage td td Actor td td class right 23 5 td tr tr td td td td td td td class middle nbsp td td td td td td td tr tr td td td class total strong Total strong td td class right strong 2 483 468 strong td td class middle right strong 628 0 strong td td td td class total strong Total strong td td class right strong 1 037 0 strong td tr tr td td td class total strong Average strong td td class right strong 124 173 strong td td class middle right strong 31 4 strong td td td td class total strong Average strong td td class right strong 51 9 strong td tr tr td td td class total strong Source strong td td colspan 2 class middle right span class source a href http money cnn com galleries 2011 news 1104 gallery top_ceo_pay index html money cnn com a span td td td td class total strong Source strong td td class right span class source a href http www therichest org entertainment vanityfairtop 40 highest paid stars in hollywood therichest org a span td tr table I was actually pretty shocked by the side by side comparison Certainly we re all aware of the amount of money that celebrities make but I was a little surprised to discover that the Hollywood list was significantly better than the Wall Street list Even more surprising is that the Wall Street figures include base salaries bonuses yearly stock grants and options and even estimated company perks The Hollywood figures only include estimated earnings from movies and specifically exclude special appearances television works and perks photo 258006 740 0 center A side by side graph of the top 20 Hollywood vs Wall Street salaries in 2010 br ordered from highest salary to lowest br a href http www kevinludlow com photos download 2658eb28c55fcebd5baf5baf7ac1a199 Download High Res a photo br style clear both Of course there are plenty of other factors that can be considered too For example Wall Street corporations are frequently condemned for allowing huge disparities of wealth between their employees In other words while the CEO might be making tens of millions of dollars annually those working just as hard at the bottom may be struggling just to feed their families I would not disagree that this is a major concern of our long term economy However having been an extra on a movie set before I know for a fact that I was only paid minimum wage for my work and suspect this is pretty consistent across the board Moreover and having lived in Hollywood I m positive that your average actor is flat broke Therefore it would seem to suggest that the same income gaps probably exist in Hollywood as they do on Wall Street So why is one fundamentally better than the other Another common point of critique is that corporate leaders are consistently sending American jobs overseas This is definitely a political point of contention and another serious issue we should be trying to intelligently address But again I m not so sure Hollywood operates on a much different principle Many of the 2010 and 2011 blockbusters I researched were filmed in exotic overseas locations In those particular cases the national and local economies of foreign nations were the beneficiaries not the United States I would also suspect that foreign film crews are predominantly used in overseas shoots as well albeit have no specific evidence to support this claim But again couldn t Hollywood just fly entire film crews and cast members even the extras abroad Naturally the answer is yes but much like Wall Street s argument their margins would significantly suffer But why is this an acceptable practice in one realm and not the other We might also consider the topic of actual employment numbers em included in the table for reference em While I unfortunately was unable to locate data on specific movies various online searches suggested a modern summer blockbuster might require between a few hundred and a few thousand cast and crew members But for sake of argument let s assume a big Hollywood blockbuster is going to require 10 000 people and that the top billed actor is willing to settle for just 20 million these figures should be greatly skewed in favor of Hollywood Sam Palmisano the CEO of IBM gets paid 25 2 million annually a tremendous sum of money no doubt But we might also consider that he essentially presides over more than 426 000 employees not to mention shareholders The per employee financial difference here is so great that it can actually be measured in orders of magnitude and that s making very generous assumptions in the case of Hollywood So again I am in no way attempting to justify Wall Street but this same Hollywood disparity is phenomenal especially if we consider a per employment sort of scenario We could even delve into the topic of corporate subsidies if we wanted to but once more Hollywood gets tremendous incentives and tax breaks to do what they do Not only that but they have the convenience of regulating their own industry whereas Wall Street at least has to contend with the SEC and a few other governmental bodies The bottom line is that I love Leonardo DiCaprio as much as the next guy but I sincerely doubt he is going to give up the earnings of his next 50 million movie deal so that his set gaffers can get paid better No more than the average CEO is going to give up his 50 million dollar salary so that the company electricians can get paid better The fact is that both Wall Street and Hollywood have a lengthy list of economic pros and cons In some cases those pros and cons overlap and in other cases they re unique to the industry The point is that neither is better than the other when it comes to addressing the dramatic income gaps that appear to be widening in the United States And yet for some reason it seems that the country remains deeply divided on which side is good and which side is bad which side is celebrated and which side is condemned As with most of my writings my point here is not to make a case in favor of one side or the other Rather my contention is simply that as a nation we are so incredibly susceptible to marketing and hyperbole driven agendas that we ve become deaf and blind to the realities of our own frustrations We completely ignore the fact that both sides are willing participants of nearly identical agendas I believe our greatest societal flaw is that we try to rationalize why one side is somehow better than the other one completely ignoring the possibility that perhaps there are some pretty singular agendas floating between the two of them Personally I commend anybody who is able to play the system for what it is and come out millions of dollars ahead of everyone else I only wish I were clever enough to do the same But having succumbed to a life far from that reality I just wish my fellow countrymen and women would consider the fact even if for just a moment that perhaps their political team of choice isn t really all they ve convinced themselves it is I think that would truly be worth something we could all benefit from

Bill s Day Bill s Day is a short that I constructed for an RTF class at the University of Texas in Austin I used a number of my friends as the featured actors The story follows the events of how a Dollar Bill is spent over the course of a fictional day The day however is presented in reverse sequential order strong Script strong KEVIN LUDLOW SHORT BILL S DAY SCENE 1 Scene opens near dusk A black SUV is shown screeching off down a road We show the car for a few seconds and then cut to the inside of it We have a shot from the back seat as we see three guys inside of it racing down the road a DRIVER a PASSENGER and DANNY Danny and the passenger are talking frantically to one another It wasn t supposed to be like that etc caption 8 18pm DRIVER Shut the fuck up The keep mumbling I said shut the fuck up already PASSENGER out of breath Dude it wasn t supposed to happen like that DRIVER I know I know Just shut the fuck Danny what did we get DANNY I dunno man here take it Danny hands the wallet to the passenger The passenger opens up the wallet and takes out a dollar bill with some writing on it PASSENGER What the fuck is this We got a fucking dollar bill One fucking dollar We see a close shot of the dollar in the dark and can see writing on it but not read it The driver has a sign of disbelief on his face THE SCENE FADES TO BLACK SCENE 2 It is dark on the same street where first saw the car take off from A GUY is waiting in front of his car Three guys get out of the original car They are see walking up to him caption 8 14pm DRIVER Did you bring our money GUY sighs Look man I just need a few more days The three guys approach him The driver is in the front DRIVER Well I m afraid that s something you just don t have The driver starts running after him The guy turns and runs the other way The driver leaps after the guy and tackles him We cut to the two other guys looking at each other with the driver fighting in the background The quickly run to his aid The guy gets picked up and hit a few times in the face They then throw him over the hood of his car We see the guy laying out cold on the ground with blood all over his face Danny runs up to him and kicks him a few times in the gut He reaches down rolls him over and takes his wallet THE SCENE FADES TO BLACK SCENE 3 AT THE QUIX MART caption 6 29pm The guy is scene driving up to a gas station These are very quick cuts to move the scene along He pulls up and gets out of his car We see him from the inside of the gas station walking inside He goes up to the counter and buys a pack of camel lights He furthermore pays with a five dollar bill He is handed back some change and a one dollar bill We can see that it has some writing on it He throws the change into the tip jar and leaves We see him driving away SCENE 4 caption 3 23pm We see a small child KELLY and her MOTHER walk into the same convienent store that was in scene three She walks up to the counter and speaks with the CLERK MOTHER Go ahead The clerk smiles at her KELLY I want one lottery ticket CLERK What kind KELLY That one She points to the rack of them The clerk takes one off of the shelf and gives it to her CLERK That will be one dollar The girl hands him a one dollar bill We close up on the transaction The daughter and the mother walk off The scene fades to black SCENE 5 Mother is seen walking into the kitchen where the girl is sitting coloring a picture caption 1 42pm MOTHER Kelly you got some mail The girl has a very excited look on her face The mother hands the girl the card The girl tears it open with great haste She pulls out the card The camera shows that it is a birthday card It reads the following to be added The girl pulls out the dollar bill from the money slot within it She has an joyous look on her face She puts the corner of it in her mouth MOTHER Kelly take that out of your mouth you don t know where it s been THE SCENE FADES TO BLACK

Crafting Rachel s Easel Legs Given the litany of things I ve been building over the past several months Rachel had noted how she had really been needing an easel Claire had a handful of them at her house and while I considered grabbing one of those for her I thought it would be far more enjoyable to build one myself You know just to give it that personal touch Plus I love a good woodworking project Rachel found a handful of woodworking YouTube and TikTok channels that had built standing easels I went through a handful of them focusing on one design in particular that she really liked Of course I ve no intention of building somebody else s design and so I set out to build my own mostly using it as a reference point for the scale photo 1228633 1229588 0 right Two of the pieces of wood waiting to be joined together photo While I was using the project she found as a kind of base idea I generally just kind of build these kinds of projects in my head first jot down a few brief notes and then bring them into existence with the wood often just figuring it out as I go along But with any good woodworking project first things first selecting the wood I took her up to Woodcraft so that we could find the kind of wood she wanted to use I wanted to make sure that I could help her understand some of the pros and cons to each type of wood she might like I also wanted to make sure that we d be able to get the wood in sufficiently large pieces We looked at dozens of woods The project she liked online was built out of a nice maple Woodcraft sells a variety of maples my personal favorite being Ambrosia Maple But she wanted something a little darker We looked at teak mahogany cherry cocobolo and a handful of others In the end she decided that she liked the Peruvian Walnut the most It s a little bit darker and harder than a traditional walnut and is overall a beautiful wood I helped her to select the pieces that we d need as there were certain properties I was looking for mostly dimensional but also to do with the grain and knotting patterns photo 1229676 1229588 0 center Preparing to rip one of the walnut pieces on my table saw photo With the wood in hand the first step was to fashion the legs I set the table saw to just over 2 and started ripping pieces of the walnut The wood is cut in the mill to about 1 thick so my thought was that we could glue two pieces that were 2 wide to one another thus yielding a 2 x 2 cubed rod Given the Peruvian Walnut has a pretty high hardness to it I had to work the table saw very slowly but the pieces came out nicely Once I had the pieces cut we chose the sides that seemed better suited for binding I poured a generous helping of LockTite wood glue all over both sides spread the glue with a foam paintbrush and then put the two pieces together Proper wood clamps are expensive Consequently I only have 12 adjustable DeWalt wood clamps of varying sizes Those alone probably cost around 500 but I digress Given that the legs to this easel are each 5 10 177 8cm in length and I really wanted to ensure a proper join I needed to use all 12 clamps per piece This wasn t a problem but just meant that I could realistically only build one leg per day photo 1228650 1229588 0 center With the clamps firmly in place the glue is seeping out the sides photo photo 1229738 1229588 0 center One of the leg pieces after having dried overnight photo I let each of the pieces dry for a full 24 hours before starting the planing process In retrospect one of the boards I used should have been planed before gluing It would have ensured there were absolutely no air gaps between the wood pieces but for the time being I m just going with it and will try to work out any gaps with a formulation of walnut sawdust and wood glue After the final pieces bonded together and sat overnight I began the process of planing the wood down The goal is for each of the legs to be 1 7 8 47 5mm squared by 5 10 177 8cm Given there are two pieces of walnut formulating each of the legs I also wanted to ensure that the thickness of each piece is equal This made the planing process slightly more involved as I had to keep measuring to the center line and taking sixteenth inch bits off at a time photo 1229823 1229588 0 center A pile of walnut shavings sitting next to my planer after thinning out two of the legs photo photo 1229736 1229588 0 center The three legs having been planed down to 1 7 8 47 5mm each photo I m planning on working in some inlays to the legs next before I process them further so I ll be working on some dado cuts next Rachel has been following along so that she can pickup some of these woodworking tricks and said that she ll do the next phase of planing for me photo 1229667 1229588 0 center The three legs planed and waiting for the next steps photo

The Stingray After just having moved to Austin Texas to begin college at the University of Texas I spent the first summer of my time away from home in a provisional program It was essentially a summer program for those who were on the cusp of admittance but still needed to prove to the university that the individual was not entirely without merit and should indeed be admitted Basically my high school grades were good but not quite good enough to just get me into this huge public university So I attended Fortunately I fooled the school In the rather typical fashion I tended to treat college until I eventually pursued something I really enjoyed I did just enough to get by This is an irrelevant detail to the story of The Stingray other than the fact that I wound up starting college about three months before the majority of my friends and peers did and as a consequence had to fill my time with the few friends I had there Perhaps also worth noting is that until Austin Texas became a significant city on the US stage most of the city was shut down over the summer time as the reduced student population just didn t create the same demand for entertainment So the opportunities of finding activities in the evening were much more limited than they would eventually become in Austin I had been assigned a random dorm roommate named Geoff Smith Like me he was from Houston albeit not particularly close to where I grew up I also acquired a pseudo roommate who I had attended high school with named Donlee Cone Smith Despite the shared last name there was no relation between them If you met the two of them that would be immediately obvious Whereas Donelee was an athletic socially normal country raised kind of guy Geoff was a tall lanky quirky socially awkward person He was very friendly but ever so different from both Donlee and myself Donlee had been placed in single bedroom sparsely populated dorm Needless to say he was often very bored and used to stay over at our place a lot hence the pseudo roommate He would d hang out with me for most of the day attend shared classes when we did and then often sleep on our floor And although this was back in the day of Intel 486 chips and just barely Pentium branded processors I had a pretty solid rig that my dad had bought for me for college So I think Donlee appreciated the ability to not only have people to hang out with but also a way to play computer games too Incidentally our respective girlfriends were good friends and both were still living in Houston Although I d been to a strip club in Houston with my friends Daniel Putt and Roger Graham before infamously known as the PPP this was the first strip club that I had opted to venture out to in Austin though it would not be the last The strip clubs made a habit of littering the cars and door knobs around campus with coupons for their respective clubs All of the college material we were given upon arrival to school had equivalent coupons and ads in them too Who knew that college kids were such big patrons of strip clubs Geoff had never been to a strip club before and so of course Donlee and I were delighted in giving him that first experience As we walked inside of the club our first bit of awkwardness was using a coupon Yes you can actually use coupons at strip clubs but it surely has a stigma attached to it So with our discounted entry fee we we re already feeling pretty lost The PPP of Houston was been a pretty small club It was notorious for hiring pretty unattractive dancers often ones who were older or even pregnant not that there is anything wrong with that but it s not exactly what one tends to think of when imagining a strip club By stark contrast The Show Palace in Austin was a huge venue with three different stages and surprisingly very attractive dancers Like the PPP it was also an all nude club After a minute or two of exploring the place we awkwardly found a little area around one of the side stages We proceeded to sit down and watch the various shows going on all around us At this time in Texas history it was extremely easy to get into a club with even the worst of fake IDs That all changed around the year 2000 but this was still the late 90s The club itself only required you to be 18 years old to enter but you also couldn t drink if you were under 21 The Show Palace was the kind of strip club that advertised BYOB This just means that you could bring your own beer and alcohol into the club and then pay for mixers like coke sprite lime juice etc They weren t entirely uncommon and typically had the distinction of being all nude clubs The ones that sold liquor tended just to be topless clubs I was told it had something to do with insurance but who really knows Though none of us had fake IDs it didn t take long before some older lonely patron starting chatting us up He was probably in his 30s but when you re just 18 years old that seems pretty ancient In any event he invited us over to his area and offered all of us some drinks Geoff didn t drink but Donlee and I were more than happy to partake Naturally we wound up talking with this guy for awhile As we were all getting along he eventually asked if we wanted one of the girls to give us a private dance Before we could really even answer him he had his hand in the air and called upon one of the girls he knew by name to come over He paid her the requisite 20 and asked her to give these young men a good show He told us that her name was Stingray As strippers often do she started talking to us about her life her boyfriend how long she s been working and other mundane and trivial details like that It s always a little weird when a woman who has just been paid 20 to dance naked in front of you starts sharing her life story but again at 18 years old it seems like you should just listen And so we did At some point we asked her why she was called Stingray She didn t immediately answer but it obviously piqued some idea in her mind She wasn t giving any of us a traditional lap dance but rather just using one of the cocktail tables and a chair to dance privately for the three of us while this older gentleman just looked on A short while later she started telling us the kinds of sexual activities that she was into Namely things to do with pain submission etc She started telling us how she loved using candle wax as part of her sexual experiences with her boyfriend She asked us if we wanted to see it and so of course we eagerly nodded approval She proceeded to put one of her legs up on the cocktail table the other planted firmly on the ground Her legs were open rather wide at this point as she grabbed one of the candle jars from the table top next to her It was lit and had a fair bit of melted wax sloshing around the top of the jar She proceeded to lean back slightly using her left hand to balance on the chair while her right hand handled the candle jar She ever so gently started pouring the candle wax all over her lady parts either genuinely or pretending to moan in a kind of orgasmic ecstasy as she did this Naturally this was well beyond any expectations that we had If you re familiar with the female anatomy then it may have already jumped out at you but if not I ll finish the story After another short while the wax had stopped dripping and began to firm She set the candle jar back on the table and carefully proceeded to remove the now hardened wax from her body It came out perfectly in tact a small drip even remained attached to the bulk of it It had formed from drip running down her bare leg She proceeded to set this wax mold on my knee looked at us and said that s why they call me Stingray If I hadn t seen it myself then I wouldn t have believed it were possible But there on my 18 year old knee was a perfect mold of this stripper s vagina complete with that tail from the wax that had dripped down her leg And sure as she said it it looked exactly like a Stingray Perhaps more of a manta ray if you want to get really technical with it but when you re 18 years old are a bit out of your element and strippers are making wax molds of their female parts specifically for you it s just not the right time to get technical So Stingray it was

New Zealand FAQ h3 strong Technology and Computing strong h3 strong Where does New Zealand stand technologically strong It seems about 2 years behind the US While they certainly have the same technology that we have in the States it is simply more expensive As of now mid 2003 broadband is not entirely common yet and while there are internet cafes spread through and through I would not expect to see a broadband connection in many peoples homes I have yet to see what it is like at the University level strong Have you seen any interesting computing devices in New Zealand strong Two so far They are both regarding coin operated computers The first one I noticed when we were staying at Lake Rotoiti in St Arnaud The hotel restaurant where we had dinner had a coin operated computer that actually dialed up their local ISP when 2 00 NZ 1 20 USD was deposited in the machine This gave you only 10 minutes of dialup internet access Very expensive Though to some credit the dialup access was very fast The second one was at the Top 10 Holiday Park in Kaikoura They simply had a device that would give power to the monitor whenever money was inserted or so that was best I could tell It seemed that the monitor plug went into this coin box There were however two computers So anyone with a little experience could have simply unplugged one of the computers and used its power cord to power the other monitor strong What is broadband access like strong It is certainly not the speeds that we have been accustomed to in the past few years Every so often I will experience about 30 kbs though it seems that my average is around 15 kbs I believe that they actually have the speed its just a matter of how the internet cafes are hooked up When there is only one connection for 30 computers and the place is full not to mention me on my laptop working doubletime it can get a little slow strong Have you had trouble using your laptop in internet cafes strong Yes and No In the more populated cities 50 000 it does not seem to be trouble at all When we have stopped at some of the smaller towns 2 10 000 they are not very willing to let me plug in a laptop I have been denied use in a few places in the city but all in all it seems to not be a problem strong Is there anything you have found that makes computing a little easier strong In most every town we have passed through someone has setup a gaming shop In most towns they are quite plentiful in fact Counterstrike seems to be the game of favor but there are obviously many others These gaming cafes are delighted to give you access to the net and I have found that these are the best places to go In general the people working there have the most computing knowledge the computers are designed for gaming and thus very fast and the networks are designed to handle a great deal of traffic They may cost an extra 1 00 hr but it seems well worth it to me h3 strong Food and Dining strong h3 strong In general what is the food like in New Zealand strong While I have probably not had enough time to make a fair judgement in the relatively populated areas there is a restaurant to fit anyones taste We have yet to really not be able to eat what we want The grocery stores have everything that we have in the US just different labels and brands The only thing that I have found about eating out which is certainly different from the US is that salad does not seem common It seems rare you can eat out in the US without being offered a salad of some sort Not the same here We have only had one salad so far and that came from the grocery store in Palmerston North strong Are there any favorites so far strong Indian food seems to be our favorite in this country thus far It is delicious and plentiful A simple dish of butter or mango curry chicken with steamed rice and nann bread goes along way for a fair price Each restaurant has their own unique variety of the same meal and it is fun to compare strong Could you describe a dining out experience strong It is similar to the US but there are a few differences that in my opinion make it much more enjoyable We are seated as in any other restaurant with our menus The waiter waitress takes our drink order and quickly brings it Note that soft drinks are not served with ice and are non refillable They come back a few minutes later and take your order if you are ready if not they come back when you are They bring you your food a little while later and that is it There is little waiter waitress to patron interaction If you need something you grab their attention and they are happy to bring it to you When you appear finished they take your plates and bring your bill There is no tipping in the country as a general practise and so that is it I enjoy not being hassled every few minutes to see if I need something else or to be asked the ever so hollow question is everything fine On the flip side of that coin the waiters waitresses seem much happier as they are being paid decently to begin with and do not have customers and the desire to be tipped lingering over their heads strong How do the prices compare to the US strong We have really only sat down to a nice meal two or three times but it seems that the dining in experience is similar to slightly cheaper in New Zealand For example the other night we went to a very nice Indian restaurant for dinner We each had a flavored chicken curry dish a large bowl of rice three large pieces of nann and two softdrinks The atmosphere was very nice and the food was delicious The bill was about 44 00 NZ 26 40 USD which seems pretty cheap having each spent about 13 00 USD to eat out Remember there is no tip to pay I would also like to note it is a little cheaper for us because we purchased a travellers Top 10 Holiday Park card We receive a 10 discount at many restaurants hotels and campgrounds across the country and Australia strong Any noticible differences in the food taste strong I have taken quite a liking to Coke a soft drink that I rarely touch in the US It seems to me this is because all Coke in New Zealand is made with pure sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup It tastes distinctly different Fries known in New Zealand as chips seem to have a very different taste We have yet to figure it out but the best we can come up with is that they use a very different oil to deep fry them in It is not a bad taste but it differs quite so from what we are used to back home strong What are the grocery stores like strong Just like the US As aforementioned they have everything that we have just with different labels and brands The most common grocery stores seem to be Woolworths Pak N Save and we have recently come across one called Chopper whose motto is Chopping grocery prices It was a good laugh you can imagine their ads strong Is there tax on food strong As with most everything else in the country there is the standard GST Government Service Tax included This is a 12 5 cut to the government h3 strong People and Culture strong h3 strong What are the people like strong We have been asked this question a number of times and the best answer is that they are incredibly friendly Everyone seems happy to help you with any most anything You are always greeted with smiles and friendly voices and people seem to express a great deal of gratitude when you help them with something Most people are quick to ask where we are from and enjoy asking questions of where we are going what we are doing and for how long It is very enjoyable strong Have you learned much about the Maori culture yet strong Sadly we have come across only a few people that have told us things about the Maori s and their culture Most of our present knowledge comes from books the Te Papa museum in Wellington the Canterbury museum in Christchurch and from having watched the new independent movie The Whale Rider which was very good and will probably be in US movie stores soon h3 strong Weather and Terrain strong h3 strong Any interesting facts about New Zealands terrain strong I am told that you are never further than 90 miles from a coast at any point in New Zealand It seems that that is because of New Zealand s irregular geographical shape There are certainly points where the island is wider than 180 miles but in such places there is water to the north or south strong What is the weather like strong We only have near three weeks of data at this time but the North Island seems comparable to California while the South Island seems more similar to the Northeastern States In the middle of winter most of the North Island was very pleasant and while we had to dress warmly there was no need to entirely bundle up This was true of everywhere except for the center of the island where it does get much colder I am told it commonly freezes and snows around Lake Taupo where we stayed The South Island is wonderful It seems a bit drier and certainly colder than the north As we have travelled further south we have reached snow in Christchurch though you can easily see that all of the mountain ranges to the west have been covered in snow for quite sometime strong Can you compare New Zealand s geography to anything in the US strong Laughing No It is not possible The terrain stretches far beyond what we encounter in the US Many of the towns remind us of a Denver or Boulder Colorado feel but aside from that the countryside is more beautiful than any road we have ever driven down in the US Honestly The Lord of the Rings movie does a very good job showing off the terrain While there is much computer work present in that movie the terrain is exactly as it appears here It is actually humorous seeing the movie trailer after seeing the land because you can see the comparisons so clearly h3 strong Photo Gallery strong h3 strong Why are some of the pictures very dark strong Well there are really two answers to this question The first being that some pictures may be slightly underexposed Although we have a digital camera with us it is still a manual digital camera and it has taken a little while to tweak the apeture settings and whatnot The second and more natural answer is simply that it is dark As of now mid 2003 the sun is setting just after 5pm That means that starting around 2pm or so you can see the onset of dusk On top of this given that it is now the center of winter there is a ton of cloudy weather and the skies often take on that grayish wintery color strong Are those all of the pictures that you are taking strong No While I am sure it will slow down once we are settled somewhere and not exploring the entire country we are shooting about 60 90 pictures every new place we go in full resolution These are stored locally on my laptop though I will need to begin burning them to CD s shortly strong What is your general procedure for adding photos to the gallery strong In general we are taking pictures throughout the day When we arrive to our campsite at night we plug in the laptop and download the pictures from the camera This usually takes 10 20 minutes depending on how many photos we have shot Note Each photo is 2 3 mb times avg 80 pics using a USB port I forgot the firewire cable Afterwards we go through the pictures for our own enjoyment and then once again deciding which ones we should put online These are then batch processed and scaled to 31 giving them a resolution of 793x595 with 21 JPEG compression The batch process also renames them to ASMOKE0000 JPG where the numbers are sequential to what we are putting online Any photos that were shot vertically are manually rotated once the resizing and renaming is complete usually takes 2 3 minutes Then once we find an internet cafe the directories are uploaded to the server h3 strong Getting to Antarctica strong h3 strong Have you found out how to get to Antarctica yet strong No The US International Antarctic Centre is located in Christchurch I am waiting to talk to them strong What kinds of jobs are available in Antarctica strong It seems that there is actually a wide variety I am hoping that my skills and the fact that I am already situated near the point of departure will help in my quest to find a summer job there Note that by summer I mean Oct Feb h3 strong Living in a Dunedin House strong h3 strong How big is the house that you live in strong The house that I live in is very large I probably have a larger bedroom right now than I have ever had in my entire life While it seems that my house is slightly larger than most around here in general they are very good sized This is even more the case when you compare what the actual rent here is I am paying 75 NZ week to live in a very large 4 bedroom and 1 bathroom house with 3 other people There is also however a large backyard a fireplace in each room including the living room A good size front patio with a small stoop Stained glass windows large front bay windows a washer and dryer as one single unit does both without human intervention and all standard kitchen accessories fridge stove etc All of this for roughly 180 US month I am also having to pay about 30 month for power and telephone

Consequences of Neighborhood Governance photo 190695 740 0 right I found this parody slogan on the web and thought it was perfectly appropriate to my message photo It has long been my belief that the City of Austin places an undue burden on its citizens when it comes to developing commercial land The costs are outrageous and many of the city s policies ignore basic individual property rights one of the fundamental tenants of our entire democracy What most people don t seem to understand is that these developmental burdens don t necessarily prevent commercial growth they just ensure such growth is dominated by corporate interests Firstly let me state that I am NOT opposed to local regulations at all I think they are protective generally well intended and necessary for society to function But there is a line of reason that the City of Austin crossed long ago and is increasingly aiming to further surpass Anyone who has spent any time trying to develop in the City of Austin knows that developers are notoriously at the mercy of city staff and neighborhood groups No matter how many concessions are made there always seems to be something else holding up development This becomes a huge financial burden The problem stems from a mentality of collectivism gone awry For whatever reason Austin communities regularly feel entitled to dictate the specifics of new projects They are willing to spare no expense when it comes to the already cumbersome design process meanwhile enjoying the convenience of not having to pay the bills required to accomplish this And the city allows it to happen There often appears to be an engrained mentality that if the development exceeds a single family bungalow the developer s must be in cahoots with local officials and be extremely deep pocketed But in my development experience this is rarely the case This would be a more understanding perhaps even forgivable point of view if Austin took a more lenient attitude to zoning and development But the unbelievably complicated set of a href http www amlegal com austin_nxt gateway dll Texas austin title25landdevelopment fn altmain nf htm f templates 3 0 City Ordinances in Chapter 25 a better known as the a href http www amlegal com austin_nxt gateway dll Texas austin title25landdevelopment fn altmain nf htm f templates 3 0 Land Development Code a make it virtually impossible to negatively impact neighboring properties An application for a small commercial project will be reviewed by literally dozens of city staff and will likely take a minimum of a year to get city approval assuming the application gets approved at all In my personal opinion commercial development projects and residential projects for that matter should be governed on a case by case basis where common sense is applied to a common community goal It s not hard to comprehend why we might want to prevent people from building a chemical supply store in the middle of a neighborhood or a strip club next to an elementary school but Austin s approach is to design a black and white playbook for any scenario and this just doesn t work Moreover it creates a hugely disproportionate fee to valuation ratio This essentially means that a one hundred thousand dollar project is subjected to the same level of scrutiny and consequently cost that a one million dollar project would be This makes smaller projects very costly I strongly believe that this mentality will be the undoing of Austin within the next ten to fifteen years I won t go into all of the details in this post but the Keep Austin Weird mentality is a fading notion of the past it is a marketing tool for the city and increasingly just a hoax Unless one is backed by huge corporate coffers it is virtually impossible to surmount the sea of local development bureaucracy and that makes it damn hard for weird people to develop their visions The irony is that the very people in Austin who likely reject corporatism are the ones on the front line demanding more costly and impassible bureaucratic regulations Which brings me to my most recent experience on the subject strong 2200 Tillery Street strong I ve sat on the East MLK Combined Neighborhood Planning Contact Team since 2007 It was a group I helped to reboot after it sat defunct for almost six years Like all other planning contact teams the contact team is responsible for creating a long term vision of a planning area It also oversees future land use cases one half of Austin s zoning maze and helps dictate Capital Improvement Projects CIPs The group has absolutely no legal authority and its rulings are never binding But curiously it is codified by the City a href http www amlegal com nxt gateway dll Texas austin title25landdevelopment chapter25 1generalrequirementsandprocedu f templates fn altmain nf htm q 5Brank 3A 5Bsum 3A 5Bstem 3Acontact 5D 5Bstem 3Ateam 5D 5D 5D x server 3 0 sect 25 1 805 a and developers seeking to change future land use tables are still required to seek approval from the team For the past five or so months our team has heard and debated arguments over a commercial piece of property located at a href http maps google com maps q 2200 tillery austin tx hl en ll 30 285382 97 702596 spn 0 003197 0 004823 sll 37 0625 95 677068 sspn 33 984987 79 013672 hnear 2200 Tillery St Austin Texas 78721 t h z 18 layer c cbll 30 286033 97 702389 panoid dA6I98n4 bWD1UZ3RwBWiw cbp 12 218 42 0 2 2200 Tillery St a We have met with Richard Crank the property s representative at least two times since October of 2011 We have also met with representatives of the JJ Seabrook Neighborhood Association on several different occasions At our January meeting we heard again from the president of the JJ Seabrook Neighborhood Association And once again the contact team was asked to support a measure that would postpone the planning commission hearing for another month This would be the third consecutive postponement of the hearing and would bring the property owner s to the seventh month they have had their property tied up with City of Austin business The property is currently zoned commercially and has a future land designation of mixed use The previous property owner defaulted and the mortgage company now owns the property the mortgage company wishes to sell the property The property is not particularly viable in its current configuration not because it s a useless building but because the city s parking space calculator inhibits the type of use most suited for the structure As an aside street parking is not factored into these calculations despite it being overwhelmingly abundant in the area The owner feels it would be difficult to sell the property for its current use but a number of city ordinances prevent the owner from using the building for what it was originally intended I have asked on several occasions since October what the JJ Seabrook neighborhood association would ultimately like to see happen to the property Unfortunately the only consistent response I receive is with respect to mixed use and or residential development I even received an email from someone in the neighborhood association on September 28th 2011 that stated I think that the bank mortgage holder should demolish the building and devide sic the land into 4 lots at least 10 000 sq ft quarter acre to build single family detached homes Sufficed to say I quickly wrote back the many reasons why this would not occur Unfortunately the amount of money that would be required especially within the city s complicated guidelines would be financially devastating to the owner and thus not reasonable Although my position on the matter has been consistent since October I once again presented an economic case at our January hearing According to TCAD a href http www traviscad org travisdetail php theKey 204474 the property is valued at 834 857 a At a 2 3 tax rate this means the property owner pays over 19 000 a year in taxes alone In the seven months that the property has been tied up in the Austin bureaucracy they ve paid over 11 000 in taxes for a property they can t currently do anything with This figure does not even factor the few thousand dollars of filing fees they ve had to pay the City of Austin nor whatever fees their engineers and lawyers are collecting for handling the case possibly tens of thousands of dollars But it does not stop there Richard Crank has been completely transparent about the owner s intentions has met with multiple neighborhood bodies numerous times and has been willing to restrict a dozen uses from the property with a conditional zoning overlay He has even been willing to enter into a private contract with the neighborhood outlining specifically desired improvements and limitations My argument is that unless the neighborhood association has a specific compromise that they re willing to consider it is not fair for them to continue delaying the process while the property owner is left to front the bill Thus far the immediate neighborhood has rejected my position It was even suggested to me by a JJ Seabrook representative after I presented my economic argument that I should not be defending or sympathizing with the mortgage company I abhor banking and mortgage companies I speak and write against them regularly However this should not and legally does not change the fact that they have just as many rights to fair case management and expediency as everybody else In fact I am often left surprised that the City of Austin has not been hit with a class action suit for allowing this type of negligent behavior to hold up property cases I will be very curious to see what happens but even more curious to try and learn what the total cost of doing business with the City of Austin works out to be for this developer My guess is that they lose over 50 000 to the Austin bureaucracy or more than 6 of their current valuation So my problem with the entire system is simple There is far too much power granted to neighborhood associations and similar groups to raise problems that may not even exist while private entities are left to front the bill In some cases the neighborhood groups do not even represent the true intentions of a community Rather they represent the desires of a fractional segment of that community Incidentally the segment that is very vocal and interested in regulating everything not belonging to them I know for a fact that our contact team in no way represents the greater community We are essentially a group of twelve relatively young white people debating cases for a community of more than 17 000 people most whom are minorities But my intent is not to condemn neighborhood associations nor our own contact team I participate in many and believe they serve a very good purpose Rather my intent is to condemn a city that grants neighborhood groups the power to stop development while simultaneously forcing the developer to conform to thousands of regulations all of which have already been designated by the community in the first place and all while paying a premium to do so One of these systems has to give and until it does I don t see how the problem is going to get any better My personal preference is a simple five fold approach ul li Work to ensure that neighborhood associations are strong and well represented li li Get rid of the one size fits all development regulations codes and fees every development is different and has unique challenges and obstacles li li Have a single individual case worker for each commercial development and require them to serve a the liaison between the active parties li li Have a legal appellate process set in place for cases that cannot be resolved li li Require that all development projects have a fixed time in which business is resolved li ul So then coming full circle why would I tie this into corporatism Because as the problems that I ve described continue to worsen and they are definitely worsening the ability of small businesses to develop anything on their own trends towards being impossible The average business cannot simply float tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a year while attempting to stay financially afloat and be expected to meet the minute demands of community activists A community might see a few light poles as nice to have but the developer of a 200 000 project is required to see them as 10 of his or her budget It is simply not possible to fulfill these demands especially with the regulatory oversight costs read C Y A required by the city This essentially means that as Austin continues to mature more and more corporate interests will be served as they re the only ones with the time and money required to overcome these hurdles If the residents of Austin desire to see corporate interests take over the skyline that s fine by me though I personally don t support it I only ask that the city stop toting itself as weird because in my opinion there s nothing worse than turning a way of life into marketing ploy for corporate America