~300 Full Size Candies, ready for the trick or treaters! This year I had sugar-free, gluten-free, and vegan options just in case.
I let the kids choose their favorite candy themselves. This can sometimes lead to a prolonged choosing process and discussion. It's awesome to hear them debate the pro and cons of various candies.
As has become tradition, I made a timelapse movie of handing out candy to the kids. This year, I started when the first trick or treaters appeared around 5:30 PM. Former Nanny Rachel was here to help in the beginning.
Early on I ordered a pizza for dinner but it took a long time to arrive. Once it was here, I was so busy with kids, I couldn't get up to eat. Syd arrived around 7:30 and spelled me for a bit while I wolfed down a pizza slice. To our Halloween horror, we realized that I was out of Rye and we could not make our regular Manhattans. We cracked open a bottle of Glenfiddich and enjoyed some scotch on the rocks.
I had wired up the GoPro camera to make the timelapse movie and had have power full time. Unfortunately, in my haste I forgot to flip the power strip on, so the camera ran out of battery before the evening was over. The video captures just over 2.5 hours of the 3 hours we were handing our candy.
When people come to the door, I ask every person what they were dressed as and wrote down their answers. I am careful to ask what they are, accepting their answers rather than interpreting what I see.
This Halloween makes it 12 years of data to compare, going back though 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Here are the top ten costumes for the last eleven years compared.
This year, Dwarves take the top spot. A bit of an outlier, a family showed up with a toddler dressed as Snow White accompanied by 7 adult dwarves. Each dwarf had a custom and correctly colored costume made of felt. They put a lot of work into the effort, all for a toddler that seemed bewildered by the whole thing. I considered not counting the Dwarves, but considering the time they took, decided to count them all.
The rest of the list are perennial favorites with Witch easily taking second place. I was pleased to see Zombie Adam Sandler make a return visit from last year. Amazingly, there was not a single politics themed costume. It seems children aren't into the nonsense.
Our total number of visitors was up significantly, into 200s easily. Getting back to a weeknight for Halloween has seemed to improve the numbers.
This year's complete costume list of 211 people:
7 Dwarves
6 Witch
4 Batgirl
4 Captain America
4 Death
4 Días de Muertos
4 Elsa
4 Minnie Mouse
4 Princess
4 Vampire
4 Zombie
3 Batman
3 Iron Man
3 Spiderman
3 Superman
2 Animaniacs
2 Bumblebee
2 Cat
2 Devil
2 Dorothy
2 Elena
2 Fairy
2 Harley Quinn
2 Indian
2 James P. Sullivan
2 Jason Voorhees
2 Minion
2 Monkey
2 Ninja
2 Police Officer
2 Skeleton Boy
2 Snow White
2 The Flash
2 Wonder Woman
1 $100 Dollar Bill
1 50s Girl
1 Alice in Wonderland
1 Amelia Earhart
1 Andy Biersack
1 Angel
1 Anna
1 Anonymous
1 Assassin
1 Astronaut
1 Baby
1 Baseball Card
1 Bear
1 Bela Legosi
1 Belle
1 Black Panther
1 Bunny Hopper
1 Butterfly
1 Buzz Lightyear
1 Candy Corn Fairy
1 Charizard
1 Cheeky Chocolate
1 Cleopatra
1 Cloud
1 Darth Vader
1 David Beckham
1 Deadpool
1 Doctor
1 Dora the Explorer
1 Dracula
1 Eastwood
1 Elmo
1 Evie of Descendants
1 Ghost
1 Ghostbuster
1 Halo Soldier
1 Hot Dog
1 Hulk
1 Ice Cream Cone
1 Insane Asylum Inmate
1 Irish Dancer
1 Jabberwocky Dancer
1 Jack Skellington
1 Jasmine
1 Jedi
1 Jeffrey
1 Jester
1 Joker
1 Josh Dun
1 Katniss
1 Killer Clown
1 Kings Hockey Player
1 Kubo
1 Kylo Ren
1 Leo - TMNT
1 Lifeguard
1 Light Up Pumpkin
1 Little Red Riding Hood
1 Mad Scientist
1 Mass Murderer
1 Mickey Mouse
1 Monster High Skeleton
1 Monster Hunter
1 Mr. Grimm
1 Negan
1 Noah Syndergaard
1 Obi Wan Kenobi
1 Optimus Prime
1 Ostrich Rider
1 Panda
1 Party Animal
1 Piggy
1 Pikachu
1 Pirate
1 Princess Leia
1 Queen of Hearts
1 Rafael TMNT
1 Reaper
1 Rey
1 Robin
1 Ryu - Street Fighter
1 Saint
1 Samantha
1 Scarecrow
1 Scary Skeleton
1 Scream
1 Sheriff Kelly
1 Skeleton
1 Skull Man
1 Slinky the Dog
1 Soldier
1 Spider Cat
1 Squirtle
1 Stitch
1 Supergirl
1 Surgeon
1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
1 Thing 1
1 Thing 2
1 Tokyo Ghoul
1 Transformer
1 Turtle
1 Tyler Joseph
1 U of Wisconsin Fan
1 Viking
1 Waldo
1 Yoda
1 Yokai
1 Zombie Adam Sandler
1 Zombie Cheerleader
1 Zombie Prom Queen
1 Zombie Skeleton
211 Costumed Visitors
~250 Full Size Candies, ready for the trick or treaters! This year I had sugar-free, gluten-free, and vegan options just in case.
Our happy Halloween pumpkins.
The night view of the decorated Cruft Manor.
Michele scaring children in her No-Face costume from Spirited Away.
I let the kids choose their favorite candy themselves. This can sometimes lead to a prolonged choosing process and discussion. It's awesome to hear them debate the pro and cons of various candies.
As has become tradition, I made a timelapse movie of handing out candy to the kids. This year, I started when the first trick or treaters appeared around 6:25 PM. Michele was here, as was our friends Kate & Syd to help. Piper & Lulu the dogs were supervising.
Children arrived in clumps, as usual. We had a great dinner of steak, salad, and corn to help prevent eating only candy. Syd made me a few delicious Manhattans to drink. We watched John Wick and the beginning of Inside Out.
When people come to the door, I ask every person what they were dressed as and wrote down their answers. I am careful to ask what they are, accepting their answers rather than interpreting what I see.
This Halloween makes it 11 years of data to compare, going back though 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.
Here are the top ten costumes for the last eleven years compared.
Surprisingly, perennial costumes like Cat & Witch were fairly low on the list compared to previous years. The Purge masks arrived in full force, surrounded by other common costumes.
Our total number of visitors was up a little, but not into the 200s as in previous years. Many kids in our neighborhood are growing up and out at parties and college now.
This year's complete costume list of 185 people:
6 Ninja
6 Skeleton
6 The Purge
5 Batman
5 Spiderman
4 Jason Voorhees
4 Minnie Mouse
3 Elsa
3 Princess
3 Scream
3 Superman
3 Witch
2 Angel
2 Bee
2 Belle
2 Chuckie
2 Clown
2 Construction Worker
2 Day of the Dead
2 Devil
2 Grapes
2 Grim Reaper
2 Indian
2 Iron Man
2 Kitten
2 Little Red Riding Hood
2 Pirate
2 Storm Trooper
2 Supergirl
2 The Joker
2 Vampire
2 Walker (Walking Dead)
2 Zombie
1 A Bush
1 Akatsuki from Naruto
1 Angry Bird
1 Anonymous
1 Ariel
1 Army Guy
1 Assassin
1 Bat Fairy
1 Baymax
1 Beta Pig
1 Blue Man
1 Blue Man Superhero
1 Boba Fett
1 Boogieman
1 Bunny
1 Buzz Lightyear
1 Cat
1 Cat in the Hat
1 Cavegirl
1 Charlie Brown in Costume
1 Cheetah
1 Cher from Clueless
1 Cheshire Cat
1 Chewbacca
1 Cinderella
1 Color Runner
1 Cop
1 Cowgirl
1 Creeper from Minecraft
1 Dead Basketball Player
1 Dead Clown
1 Dead Schoolgirl
1 Deadpool
1 Demon
1 Destructive Monster
1 Dinosaur
1 Doll
1 Elementary School Teacher
1 Emoji
1 Flash
1 Frankenstein
1 Friar
1 Gypsy
1 Half Reptile Half Woman
1 Harley Quinn
1 Harry Potter
1 Hippie
1 Hulk
1 Indiana Jones
1 Inmate
1 Invisible Man
1 Killjoy
1 Kung Fu Panda
1 La Muerta
1 Ladybug
1 Little Flower
1 Manga Character
1 Mardi Gras
1 Mary Lennox from the Secret Garden
1 Masquerade
1 Maybelle from Gravity Falls
1 Messi (football)
1 Minion
1 Napolean Dynamite
1 Nerd
1 Neymar (football)
1 Ninja Turtle
1 Ninja Turtle - Leonardo
1 Ninja Turtle - Michelangelo
1 Penguin
1 Phantom
1 Pin-up Girl
1 Police
1 Rapunzel
1 Ren
1 Ruby from Steven Universe
1 Sally (Nightmare Before Christmas)
1 Scorpion
1 Sinister Jester
1 Skeleton with red mowhawk
1 Soul Taker
1 Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
1 Supervillian
1 SWAT
1 Timmy Turner
1 Tony Esposito (Blackhawks)
1 Unicorn with wings
1 Waldo
1 Wanda from Fairly Odd Parents
1 Wild Kratz
1 Wizard
1 Zombie Adam Sandler
185 Costumed Visitors
The task was fairly simple. I explained I had guns I wanted to get rid of at the front desk. They made a copy of my driver's license and then walked out to my car with me to retrieve them. We went into the station to an interview room where we looked at the guns and they wrote down the serial numbers. They looked up the serial numbers to check for any issues, found none, and I left, no longer a gun owner.
Over ten years ago, I saw an ad in the paper for a WW II rifle on sale for under a hundred bucks and decided to buy one. As an engineer, almost everything about firearms is interesting; the history, the design, the operation, and the effects. I took it to ranges and shot it several times. I let friends shoot it. A few years later, I got the idea that I needed a shotgun to go hunting and shoot clays with. I took it to ranges and shot it alongside the rifle a few times. I even took photos of myself with them as gags on social media.
Most of the time, they sat in my attic, locks in place, with the ammo in another place. For a time, I pondered getting a handgun and browsed the internet.
Last week, I sat in a hotel room and watched the President talk about the latest mass shooting and how they had become routine and the concern that nothing would change. I started to shrug it off and pretend in my mind that there was nothing I could do. But the idea that gun culture doesn't bear some responsibility for these killings didn't make sense to me. I didn't want to be a part of gun culture anymore.
I was never going to use these guns for self-defense, they were safely locked and out of reach. I don't hunt. I don't shoot clays. There are no dangerous animals where I live. There are no zombies. I'm not a police officer or soldier. I am not part of a well regulated militia. There's no reason for me to have them.
So I got rid of them. Firearms are no longer a hobby of mine.
I came up with a way to smoke riblets that has become a fun treat for parties. Michele requested it for Christmas Eve this year. Who am I to refuse?
So here is how I smoke riblets.
I pick up standard baby back ribs from the market and have the butcher split the ribs with the band saw. When I get home, i wash the ribs well to get off any debris and blood.
An important step is removing the membrane. I pat the ribs dry and use a paper towel to get a better grip.
I put my smoke rub on the ribs. Not heavily, just enough for a thin coating.
After letting the rub sit on the ribs for an hour or so, I cut them in half and place into my smoker.
I let the ribs smoke for about 2-3 hours. Just one box of chips in the box until I pull them out and bring them back into the kitchen.
The trick to good riblets as appetizers is to cut them individually BEFORE they go all off the bone soft. If you wait until later, everything tends to fall apart.
The riblets are now placed in a basic 'Texas Crutch' setup where they are wrapped in foil, in a pan. I pour in a cup or two of apple juice to help keep them hydrated and add a tiny bit of sweetness.
I put the pan back in the smoker and just keep the heat at 200-225° for 8-10 more hours. No more smoke, just heat.
When it's about a half hour before dinner, I pull them out and open the foil to let them rest. When it's time to eat, I place them in a serving dish, warm up some BBQ sauce to accompany, and the riblets are good to go.
]]>~300 Full Size Candies, ready for the trick or treaters!
The Mike Tyson costume was great.
A Minecraft Creeper showed up, but had a hard time juggling his head, sword, and bag.
My favorite costume of the night, a Cereal Killer.
I let the kids choose their favorite candy themselves. This can sometimes lead to a prolonged choosing process and discussion. It's awesome to hear them debate the pro and cons of various candies.
The classic sheet over head with eye-holes cut out costume. I gave him two for awesomeness.
As has become tradition, I made a timelapse movie of handing out candy to the kids. This year, I started when the first trick or treaters appeared around 5:30, so there is some time until the action gets started after dusk.
When people come to the door, I ask every person what they were dressed as and wrote down their answers. I am careful to ask what they are, accepting their answers rather than interpreting what I see.
This Halloween makes it 10 years of data to compare, going back though 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012and 2013.
Here are the top ten costumes for the last ten years compared.
Many predicted that Elsa would dominate, but I only saw 3 Elsa costumes. Cat and Witch again dominate as the go to costume for girls. There was more variety, as you can see when costumes with 2 people wearing them make it into the top ten.
No one showed up without a costume, except one father who appeared quite new to the concept of Halloween and was simply interested in the free candy.
This year, we saw a dip in visitors. I had thought that Halloween on a Friday woudl lead to big numbers, but maybe people went to parties or other things instead of heading out. Another factor may have been the rain forecasted. Some may have stayed home due to that as well. This was the first time under 200 people in several years. I have a lot of candy left over.
While I waited in the doorway, I watched The Shining and 47 Ronin. The Shining was better. Thanks to Cousin James who helped me set up for the night and keep me company in the beginning.
After giving out ~200 full size candies, the rain started around 9:15 PM and I closed up for the night. Outside a few groups were scurrying home to get out of the rain.
This year's complete costume list of 177 people:
1 "I Don't Know"
1 50s Girl
1 Alien Soldier
2 Anna - Frozen
1 Annie Oakley
2 Ariel
2 Assassin
1 Astronaut
1 Ballerina Bat
1 Batgirl
2 Batman
2 Belle
1 Biker Girl
1 Black Mask Guy
1 Box Troll
2 Broken Doll
1 Broken Porcelain Doll
1 BumbleBee
1 Bunny
1 Burglar
1 Buzz Lightyear
2 Captain America
1 Carebear
9 Cat
1 Catwoman
1 Cereal Killer
1 Cheetah
1 Chinese Girl
1 Cinderella
2 Clone Trooper
1 Comic Book Character
1 Commander Cody
1 Cowgirl
1 Dad
1 Darla from Nemo
3 Darth Vader
1 Demigod
1 Demon
1 Dipper from Gravity Falls
1 Doctor
2 Dorothy
1 Elmer
3 Elsa
1 Fairy
1 FBI Agent
1 Finn the Human
1 Fiona - Adventure Time
1 Fireman
1 Floating Sheet
1 Football Player
1 Goth Zombie
1 Greek Goddess
1 Green Ninja
1 Guy w/ Cigarette & Tux
1 Indiana Jones
1 Iron Man
1 Jabberwocky Dancer
1 Jason Voorhees
1 Killing Guy
1 Kitty
1 Koala Tamer
1 Lilo
1 Link
2 Little Red Riding Hood
1 Lizard
2 Luigi
1 Luke Skywalker
1 Magician
1 Mangaverse Spiderman
1 Mario
1 Matt Harvey of the Mets
1 Merida
1 Mermaid
1 Michaelangelo - TMNT
1 Mike Tyson
1 Minecraft Creeper
1 Minnie Mouse
1 Monster High
2 Monsters Inc.
2 Mouse
1 Mulan
3 Nerd
3 Ninja
1 Panda Bear
1 Paper Doll
1 Pikachu
2 Pirate
1 Pokey
1 Policeman
1 Power Ranger
1 Princess
1 Queen of Hearts
1 Rafael - TMNT
1 Rapper
1 Red Power Ranger
2 Robber
2 Sailor
2 Scarecrow
1 Scary Clown
1 Scary Hockey Player
1 Scary Rice Picker
2 Scream
1 Severed Hand Guy
2 Skeleton
1 Skeleton Girl
2 Snow White
1 Soccer Player
1 Soccer Referee
4 Spiderman
1 Starlord
1 Stitch
1 Sub-Zero - Mortal Kombat
1 SWAT
1 Sweet Scare Crow
1 The Devil
1 The Doctor (11th)
1 The Purge
1 The Reaper
1 Thor
1 Tuxedo Guy
1 Union Soldier
1 Unusual Kind of Alien from Homestuck
2 V for Vendetta
2 Waldo
1 Werewolf
1 Whoopie Cushion
5 Witch
1 Wolverine
1 Woody
1 Zombie Bride
1 Zombie Doctor
1 Zombie from the Core
]]>
Liberty Puzzles take the hobby to the next level, providing heirloom quality puzzles that look and feel like artwork. The term 'jigsaw' puzzle comes from the fact that early puzzles were cut from wood sheets by a jigsaw tool according to a pattern drawn on them. Liberty continued that tradition but uses a laser cutter to get the precision needed to cut what they call 'whimsy' pieces. Whismy pieces are puzzle pieces that are cut into a shape that is in line with the picture on the puzzle. Holiday images are made of holiday shapes. Japanese woodblock prints are made of Japanese icons and shapes. Liberty puts a huge amount of effort into creating a cohesive puzzle that doesn't use repeating standard shapes, instead using a unique set of shapes literally designed to accompany the puzzle image.
If you know someone that likes puzzles, they will love getting a Liberty Puzzle. They aren't cheap, but they are most definitely worth it.
Tonx is a subscription mail order coffee company. Met the founders, Tony & Nik in of all places, a coffee shop, when they were just getting started. They find and roast great coffees from all over the world and ship them directly to their subscribers. Personally, I love the lighter roasts with more flavor and notes than the heavy dark roasts you find at most chain coffee shops and beans you get at the super market. Tonx provides just this kind of coffee.
I love the delivery aspect of the business and the serendipity of not knowing exactly what you are going to get. In a world where people spend endless hours analyzing before purchases, it's fun to simply put yourself in the hands of an expert and try new thigns.
It's more spendy than the average bag of coffee, but I think it's worth it to get the quality. Just like wine or spirits, spending a little more for quality can be worth it and much more enjoyable.
You can give a gift subscription or subscribe for yourself. You can use my referral link if you want to try it for free.
Victorinox Swiss Army Knife - Rambler
Everyone should have a small pocketknife with them at all times. Be Prepared is not just the Boy Scout Motto, it's a good way to look at life.
I recommend the Victorinox Rambler. This knife doesn't have a single 'wasted' slot, filled with tools you'll use on a daily basis. Just a bit over two inches long, it has a perfect assortment of bits. The small blade and scissors are probably most useful. The bottle opener and file aren't used as much, but when they are needed, nothing else will suffice. They are nicely topped with small flathead and Phillips screwdriver heads. Rounded out with the traditional tweezers and toothpick, the Rambler is all function, no fluff. It's great on a key chain or in a purse to solve life's minor inconveniences.
See's Candy is a Los Angeles institution. The familiar black and white shops are scattered across the Southland and are a welcome sight to any Angeleno. Everyone has a favorite candy (mine is the Scotchmallow) and for most brings back memories of the free samples in the store. While See's has maintained a very traditional brand with uniforms, limited hours, and an emphasis on customer service, they have a great online store where you can get anything packaged and shipped. Besides ordering the standard boxes, you can also make a custom mix of just the chocolates that you think would be best.
Pretty much everyone loves a box of chocolate, and See's is the perfect mix of tradition, personalization, and wonderful tasting candy.
Kevin Kelly is an amazing polymath, having been involved in the Whole Earth Catalog, Wired Magazine, and writing one of my favorite books, What Technology Wants. In Cool Tools, he's taken the reviews he's gather in the last decade on his Cool Tools site, and actually printed them out into a gigantic catalog of, well, cool tools. Prefect for a coffee table or a bathroom read, the book is something that engages your mind in the possibilities of making new things and new ways of doing familiar things.
]]>Things have changed a wee bit since those heady days, just past the Y2K scare, when mobile phones were used for talking, the wail of a modem connecting was common, and Napster was a new idea.
I'll come right out and say it, personal weblogs, for the most part, are dead. [queue the furious responses] I can almost hear the keyboards typing in fury in response.
But it's true. Social software has replaced the role of weblogs in documenting and sharing an individual's life.
Yes, there are still people with personal weblogs out there, but for the most part they focus on a specific topic or issue the person is interested. A person's interest in a sport or fitness program, or their food adventures in eating out or cooking, or even facing illness or other tough circumstances are the kinds of things that is what makes up the fewer and fewer number of personal weblogs out there.
That said, it's not a bad thing. Change is inevitable and generally we forward in a better direction. Twitter, Facebook, and other modern sharing systems are fun.
I do worry that the ephemeral nature of social networks does lead to a tremendous amount for information being lost and unretrievable. Weblogs at least have a chance of staying up long enough to get indexed and maybe even backed up on archive.org.
Many weblogs exist today as adjunct to the main focus, which is social media and getting posts to go viral. They are not about having a conversation anymore. Here, I actually turned off comments because no one used them except spam robots. No one said a word when I did.
I spoke to my daughters about my weblog. They are 15 & 18, growing up immersed in the internet and connected as long as they can remember. I asked what they thought of Cruftbox. They said that it was neat, but that no one does this anymore. I asked what they considered their 'home' on the internet, where people coudl best get a view of who they are. One said her Tumblr site, another said Facebook. This it the foreseeable future. You can rage against if you want, but the coming of age generation sees personal weblogs as an anachronism.
Now we shouldn't take that to mean that people should stop blogging, simply as a sign that change is happening. Just as at one time, your .plan file and your usenet signature were important identifiers in a way that many can't comprehend today, weblogs are heading down the same path. New things continue to appear and allow your voice to be heard, weblogs are clearly not the only way.
So face up to the reality that most personal weblogs are run by tech saavy middle aged folks, slowly watching an era end. This is not something to be sad about, for new amazing things are coming. Think of it like the leaves of fall on the ground being the fertilizer for the flowers of spring.
I wrote a few things on Medium:
I took a photo of myself everyday in 2013 using the Everyday app and it converted them into this movie.
Everyday of 2013 from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.
This is what a Thursday Group Ride looks like:
Thursday Group Ride from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.
On a recent ride up near Dodger Stadium, I spied a pair of needlenose pliers, circled back and picked them up.
When I got home and took a closer look, they were a bit beat up, but would be great if I cleaned them up a bit.
They had a little rust and grease on them, and the rubber grips were a bit torn up.
I cut off the grips with a knife and washed the pliers in dish soap to get as much grease and dirt off as I could. Michele told me I had toss the scrubbie I used since it was now "unacceptable" for use on our food dishes.
To get the rust off, I decided to get a little help from chemistry. I placed the pliers in a glass dish with vinegar and let the acetic acid do it's thing.
Within minutes, the weak acid was attacking the rust and breaking it down. I left it in the vinegar for about two days.
After washing the pliers off from the vinegar bath, I went to work with steel wool to remove anything else that remained and generally polished up the pliers. I put a little WD-40 into the joint to make sure no water was lurking there.
Next step was putting on new grips. I decided to use Plasti Dip, which is a simple way to coat tools or anything with a rubberized coasting easily.
I strung up the pliers from above with enough room to put the Plasti Dip can under it and simply dipped the pliers handles into the can.
I put three coats on the handles, waiting about two hours between coats. I let it dry overnight before touching it.
Here is the final result. The look great IMHO. The grips aren't as rubbery as the original ones, but they still look and feel great.
In the future, my eyes will be peeled for new groundscore tools to refurbish!
300 Full Size Candies, ready for the trick or treaters!
Our pumpkins looked great this year.
The outside of the house, with our terrifying Dalek guarding the door.
My daughter Mira, as a Kyoshi Warrior from Last Airbender with her boyfriend, Nick.
Best costume of the night: The boy as the Death Star!
Great couple costume of the House & Carl from Up.
Once again, I made a timelapse movie of handing out candy to the kids. Unfortunately, the GoPro camera stopped before the end when it ran out of batteries. I'll need to rig up a power supply in the future.
When people come to the door, I ask every person what they were dressed as and wrote down their answers. I am careful to ask what they are, accepting their answers rather than interpreting what I see.
I now have nine years of data to compare, going back though 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Here are the top ten costumes for the last nine years compared.
Our biggest amount of visitors in recorded history of Cruft Manor. The same generic costumes like ninja, witch, and cat popped to the top again. A brand new entrant to the top 10 were the Monster High Doll costumes. These are very popular with the young ladies. Lots of homemade costumes for the older kids which is good to see. Since I speak with every trick or treater, I get time to really look at their costumes and talk about them. I'm never in a rush and want each kid to be able to take their time. They are often paralyzed with indecision when faced with the choice of full size candies.
Almost everyone had a costume this year, but we still ran into a few without costumes. We were prepared this year and had masks on hand to hand out. The costumeless only got a candy if they took a mask and put it on. People were kinda excited about this.
After giving out ~300 full size candies, we ran out a little after 9PM and closed up. A few kids came by as I was shutting down and they got microwave popcorn packets.
This year's complete costume list of 264 people:
3 50s Girl
1 80s Girl
1 80s Witch
1 Accident Victim
1 Airline Pilot
2 Alice
1 Anonymous
1 Apple Juice
1 Army Man
1 Aurora
1 Ballerina Zombie Roadkill
3 Batgirl
2 Batman
2 Belle
1 Black & White Waldo
1 Black Swan
1 Bloody Mary
1 Boo (Monsters, Inc.)
1 Bumblebee
1 Bush
2 Buzz Lightyear
1 Candy Corn
3 Captain America
1 Carl from Up
1 Carlos Beltran
8 Cat
1 CERT Person
1 Cheetah
1 Cholo
1 Chucky
2 Cinderella
1 Clark Kent
1 Clone Trooper
3 Clown
1 Construction Worker
1 Cookie Monster
1 Cowgirl
1 Crash Test Dummy
1 Crayola
1 Creeper
1 Dark Alice
1 Death
1 Demigod
4 Devil
1 Doctor Zombie
1 Dodgers Fan
1 Doll
1 Dragon
1 Easy E (in blackface)
1 Elmo
1 Enderman - Minecraft
2 Evil Jester
1 Ezio of Assassin's Creed
1 Fairy
2 Finn from Adventuretime
1 Fionna from Adventuretime
1 Fireman
1 Frankenstein
1 Gangster
1 Ghost
2 Giraffee
1 Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
1 Green Lantern
1 Grillin & Chillin
2 Grim Reaper
1 Halo Soldier
1 Hellraiser
1 Hermoinie
1 Hobo
1 Hobo Angel
1 Hockey Player
1 Indian
2 Iron Man
1 Iron Man III
1 Jack Skelington
2 Jailbreaker
2 Jake the Pirate
1 Jasmine
2 Jason Voorhees
1 Jester
1 Joker
1 Katara from Last Airbender
1 Katniss
1 Killer
2 Killer Clown
1 Kyoshi Warrior from Last Airbender
5 Ladybug
2 Leatherface
1 Lightning McQueen
3 Luigi
1 Mad Scientist
1 Masquerade
1 Master Chief (Halo)
1 Matrix Person
1 Medusa
1 Merman
1 Michael Myers
1 Mickey Mouse
1 Mime
1 Minion
4 Minnie Mouse
1 Miss Captain America
1 Monk
1 Monster
7 Monster High Doll
2 Mummy
4 Nerd
11 Ninja
1 Ninja Lord
1 Nun
1 Old Lady
1 Old Man
1 Owl
1 Pink Goth Pirate
1 Pink Power Ranger
6 Pirate
1 Poker Cards
2 Power Ranger
2 Princess
1 Prisoner
1 Raggedy Ann
3 Rapunzel
1 Reaper
1 Red Queen
1 Rick from the Walking Dead
1 Robin
1 Roman Empress
1 Russian Soldier Alien
1 Sailor Venus
1 Saka from Last Airbender
1 Santa
1 Scarecrow
1 Scary Clown
2 Scream
1 Shadow
1 Singer Bumblebee
1 Skateboarder
2 Skeleton
1 Skeleton Motorcycle Rider
1 Snow White
1 Soldier
1 Spidergirl
2 Spiderman
1 Squid
1 Storm Trooper
1 Superman
1 Taco
2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
1 Teenage Zombie
1 The Death Star
1 The Doctor (11th)
1 The Doctor (9th)
1 The House from Up
1 Tinkerbell
1 Transformer
1 USC Student
7 Vampire
1 Vietnam Soldier
1 Warrior's Girl
2 Wednesday Adams
2 Werewolf
10 Witch
1 Wizard
1 Wonder Woman
1 Woody
1 X-Ray Patient Gone Wrong
4 Zombie
1 Zombie Cheerleader
1 Zombie Skeleton
]]>
I tap my hand on The Gate, my ring connects, and the sound travels up the hillside.
Drinking from my bottle, I think about slowing down my heart, and look down the canyon, toward the city.
Cyclists find challenge in riding uphill. Sounds a little silly, but the tough work of riding up a steep hill is the goal for many in the quest to get better.
The Gate is at the end of a short route I've ridden over a hundred times. My friends and I call it Tour de Steve, in honor of our friend and coach, who loves to take people up it. Others know it as Paso Alto to Glen Oaks Dead End.
The route is about 2.5 miles at an average grade of ~5%. In cycling terms, it's challenging, but not insane. "A good training climb" is how most people view it. The different parts have names in my mind that only I know. In my mind there's the "veteran straight", the "quick down", the "hot bend", and "not quite corner".
I've ridden up in group, dragging new riders along, encouraging them upwards. I've ridden up when feeling full of energy and when my muscles are cramping. I've ridden up in the pouring rain, the blazing summer heat, enveloped in fog, and in the fading light of dusk. I've ridden up with my heart heavy from one of the inevitable gut punches that life can bring. I've ridden up after surgeries and broken bones.
Climbing up to the The Gate is part of many of my rides. It's how I measure myself. With all the technology someone can use, nothing is more revealing than how you actually feel while testing yourself.
I rarely ride up with others. It's a ride I do when alone. Sometimes for speed, sometimes as a warm-up to the rest of my day, sometimes simply to see if I'm healed enough make it. Sometimes it's simple to see if I can will myself to do something hard instead of taking the easy road home.
The point is to ride it, regardless how I'm feeling. To push myself, even though no one else cares or is even watching. The climb is just about me, no one else.
Everyone needs a Gate to reach. A way to see how you are doing, without comparing yourself to others, or caring what others think. In today's connected world, many are obsessed with sharing and comparing everything publicly. Looking at the relentless oversharing that make up much of our personal interactions, it seem to me that rarely do people have a private test. A truly personal way to check themselves.
In the end, it's about how you feel about yourself, and not about anyone else and what they do or think. Getting to this is perhaps the toughest climb of all.
Many years ago, I started the geekcalendar.com site on a whim with my co-workers Travis and Yoshi. We messed around with the idea for a few months and promptly got bored. And so it sat for years on end, taking up space on my server.
When I first got the email, I thought, "I'm gunna be rich! This guy is already offering me money. He must really want it."
And then I thought a bit more. And I remembered why this weblog is called Cruftbox and not Cruft.
Way back in 2001 when I decided I wanted a separate domain name for my weblog, different than my site using my last name as the URL. My first choice was cruft.com. I loved the word, ever since I heard it as a teen back in the early 80s. I quickly found that cruft.com, .net, and .org were all registered already by a guy named John Walker. There was nothing hosted at the domains, but he had them registered. John Walker is a smart guy and one of the founders of Autocad. I wrote him an email about the domain. We went back & forth a bit with him asking what I wanted to do with the domain and my explaination. In the end, he decided that he was saving it for "something important".
I was a bit crushed, but started riffing on alternate names like boxofcruft.com, crufty.com, cruftlike, and others before finally settling on cruftbox.com. I registered the name and went on with my life.
For the record, Mr. Walker still has done nothing with the 'important' domain names of cruft.com, .net, and .org. They have been parked with Network Solutions for over a dozen years now, evidently waiting for an important use to come along. His own blog, fourmilab.ch, is good and I do check in with it from time to time.
It was that remembrance that helped me decide to give the domain to Chris and not charge him a silly amount for it. Trying to be true to the the geek spirit, I sent him this reply.
I would have loved to have seen his face as he read the letter.
After a bit of back and forth on specifics, he sent me a package and I transferred the domain registration to him.
Here is what I received.
I am happy that everything turned out so well. The Oreos have been eaten, the book has been read, and Watto graces my desk.
Chris now has the geekcalendar.com site up and running and I'm proud to have helped a little bit make something where there used to be nothing. Go take a look, it's kinda neat.
So if you are someone sitting on a bunch of domain names, maybe instead of waiting for "something important" or a big payday to arrive, have some fun. Let go of the things you aren't using and help something new appear.
As the Golden Rule says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
]]>When you are a cyclist, life is often all about the goal. Sometimes the goal is the hill, the time, the stop sign, and for a lucky few, the podium.
Everyone is moving toward something. An objective that rolls around their brain pushing and pulling them past the comfort zone into the suffer.
A friend coaches athletes and his motto is "Train focused." For a long time I thought it was some new-agey bullshit. Kind of like the motivational speeches I've heard from coaches all my life, a purely emotional tug to pull that last ounce of energy from deep inside. I have to admit, that kind of thing can work, but the effects are fleeting.
Recently, I learned what he was actually getting at.
My cycling goals have always been stuff like beating my time on a local hill, staying with the fast group on the club ride, completing a century, riding cyclocross, and similar things that you read about in magazines. Most cyclists have their list of goals and ideas that percolate in their mind when they pull a jersey over their head. Staying focused on the goals is key to completing them.
But sometimes life doesn't go as planned. Recently, I crashed my bike. Hard. In a cycling trifecta, I broke my collarbone, wrist, and back. Leaving the hospital with both arms strapped to my body, pain shooting with every bump in the road, my wife's eyes still red from tears, I couldn't help but think about when I could ride again.
The first week I tried to do as much as possible, fantasizing about how to get back on a trainer or spin bike. And it was impossible. I literally could not feed myself and had to drink meals from a straw. Finally, my wife said, "Your job is to heal. That's it. Leave the rest to us."
At that moment I realized what Training Focused really meant. Knowing what you are trying to do and stop being distracted by all the crazy ideas. My job was to heal. My goal was to recover. Cycling could wait. And in reality, starting back too early would hurt my 'goal'.
Once I accepted my real goal, I could get back into my athlete's mindset and start focusing on doing what was needed to reach my goal. Getting enough sleep, eating right, ice, heat, taking pills on time, and even a little walking. Going in for the weekly x-ray became a event to be won, by focusing on my recovery.
Setting unrealistic plans of getting back on my bike too early, would have done nothing to help me with my real goal of healing. It's easy to be lured into the false goal of trying to be a tough guy that can ride through injury, but in reality, it's the worst thing someone can do.
Know what your goal is. Even when that goal is sitting in a chair wearing an ice pack. Work as hard to podium in the Doctor's office as you would on the road.
]]>Last January 21th marked the first day of the 14th year of Cruftbox. I've been blogging for 13 years now. Clearly, I'm not on top of my day & date blogging lately.
I've talked a little about where my blogging has been in the past, and compared it to social media like Twitter and Facebook. But I'm going to talk about where I think blogging is going next.
First, let me define what I mean by blogging, since, like many terms, it means many things to many people.
Blogging is an individual's thoughts and interpretations on a particular topic, presented in a unified way that creates a fuller picture of the person and their ideas.
Not a perfect description, but close enough for my purposes. Sure there are the occasional group blogs that might qualify, but most could be considered group sharing, not group blogging. Metafilter is a site for group sharing, not blogging. Comments are not blogging.
Many of the popular sites may have their origin in individual weblogs, but have morphed into online magazines, newsletter, and newspapers. Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, and The Drudge Report are all newspapers, virtually indistinguishable from print originated newspapers. Even sites like Daily KOS, Redstate, Talking Points Memo, and Breitbart are almost exactly the same as supermarket tabloids. They focus on gathering information and reporting on the information to their particular narrative for commercial purposes.
Some may quibble about my distinction, but they are the types that quibble about everything in life, so we pay them no mind. ;)
Social Media and your Digital Life
One issue going forward with individual blogging is how it continues in relation to social media, most of which is ephemeral, with an exceedingly short life of relevance.
I enjoy the social services as much as anyone. It's fun to get likes, retweets, and favorites. The majority of stuff posted there is OK to fade away. Your photo of a plate of pancakes captioned as "Noms!" is not going to be something your grandkids are going to frame and hang in the living room.
Social services like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ aren't going away anytime soon, but at some point they will essentially be gone, due to evolution of platforms, trends, and relevance. Don't believe me? How are your usenet posts doing? Maybe your explanations in the AOL forums are still easily accessible? Or your witticisms on MySpace?
But there are things from the social feeds that are special, that you do want to keep, and are important to you. But you need to realize that those things will fade unless you are the one to store them away. And you need to store them somewhere where you have a modicum of control.
I think that part of the future of weblogs is as a scrapbook of sorts for your social media 'moments' that you want to capture and preserve within your own control and outside the remit of ever changing privacy and usage policies.
A few groups are toying around the edges of this, but I think it's going to become more popular to exfiltrate your social media content to your own blog so you are not beholden to others. Thinkup is a start, but more focused on the analytics of social media feeds rather than sorting and storing the nuggets you feel strongly about.
The cost of storage and servers continue to plummet, in most cases far exceeding our ability to create content to fill what's available. Also, the faith in 'the cloud' to store your content as a service you pay for, like you pay for gas, electric, broadband, and water. It would be fairly straightforward to offer a blogging platform that allows you to write traditional posts as well and store whatever you want from your social media feeds.
Talking about this with my friend Greg, he talked about assembling the individual 'atoms' of social media into the large 'molecule' of an event or experience. Being to save and store these molecule outside the volatile they exist now will become de rigueur.
My friend Eric Freeman used to talk about lifestreaming and how we'd end up with a way to keep track of our 'digital life'. Today, most of us in the first world are living a digital life with bits and pieces scattered across the web and Internet. Time for people to take control of their digital life and bring it together in a way they like, rather than the way developers in Silicon Valley like.