Cannibalism WTF??

I hate the daylight savings time change.  It totally screws me up.

I hate my cats now.   They do not let me sleep at night with all their shennanigans.

So between the two I am suffering horrible insomnia....oh I can get to sleep.  its all this other crap that wakes me up and prevents me from joyful REM sleep

Let me introduce the feline team and some background info:

We have 3 cats:  Dash, Chip and Belle.  They are all rescue cats, we use Pawsibilities in Daytona Beach area they do a great job, check with Kim she is wonderful.

This is Dash, our oldest.   White cat with the bluest eyes....really well behaved but has become somewhat of a chubby chap.   They say white cats with blue eyes are deaf, that is not the case with him as his significant Pavlovian response when you open the pantry in the kitchen and he is awoken from deep cat nap at the other end of the house.  Not deaf, definitely fat (he doesnt look it here as he stretches out and reclines in the wonderful sunny heat on our back porch)

Here is Chip and Belle.... Chip is on the left, Belle on the right

Belle is a all girl....affection and attention is strictly at her convenience and on her terms.  She sleeps the whole night and is really a good kitty, but definitely a Diva

Chip....he is our problem child.  His work shift starts after 2 am.  Knocking stuff off tables and desktops and chewing wires and making and raising a ruckus with feline frolicking.  He stirs the other 2 up.  He is adorable and cute during the day, but night time is a terror

Of course this wakes me up....I can then cannot get to sleep.

What the hell is the deal with the time change?  Why is it necessary now?  Kids going to school in the morning?  Let em start later in the sunshine dont change the damn time cmon people!  Farmers needing extra daylight to harvest and all that crap? Bovine Scatology, all the farmers I know start work before dark anyway and finish when its dark.  Hard working people God bless them!  So we dont need to change the time due to daylight savings time.

I find that I cannot go to sleep at night and cannot wake up in the morning.

So between the cats and time change I am without sleep, and as I lay there at night unable to sleep I start thinking crazy stuff like cannibalism.

Why would people resort to that?  It seems to be based out of indigenous peoples in warm regions like Africa and South Pacific were there would be plentiful other food choices, why resort to as they call "long pig"?  Only western based cannibalism is when people are stuck in a mountain due to plane crash or in a mountain pass on a wagon train stuck due to blizzard.  The rule is stay out of snow then if cannibalism is not your thing

But what would the menu be like in a cannibal restaurant?   Would you have Prime Minister Rib, Old Man and the Sea (surf and turf) or 3 Men and a Baby (platter)?

This is the crap I think of at night when not sleeping....Cannibalism??? WTF!!!

I just need some sleep.

Holy Crap... Amazing Haunt

This guy is amazing....once you get to his blog, start going through his different posts for his Halloween haunts.  Click on each link below to take you to the blog post and you can see videos and other pics of their incredible Haunted Mansion inspired haunts.  Simply amazing!!!

Here is Indian Jones Temple of Doom Haunt:

Here is a Haunted Mine Walkthrough.  Simply brilliant!

Here is their Haunted Mansion Inspired 2006 haunt:

Take a moment and review his blog and all.... Kudos and more Kudos.  I dont know how they get the time and space and energy to do all this with different haunts every year.


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Yogurt Anyone?

Ok so not everything on the blog is going to be Halloween related of course...its my blog and I will do what I please...  and I am really pleased with my homemade Yogurt.

I made a 1/2 gallon of yogurt last night in crock pot, its so easy.... I got the instructions from the following Our Life Simplified website, I forgot to take pictures but my yogurt looked just like their pics and my crockpot looked to be the same one, so I borrowed their pic!  When I was done it looked exactly like the above.


Ingredients:
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• 1/2 gallon of milk
• 8 ounces of plain yogurt with active cultures (let it get to room temp). I use 2 small 6 ounce yogurt containers and mix it all in...what the heck!
• Crockpot (I like the ones with the removable pot insert)
• Thermometer (temperature control is a must!0
• 1/2 cup non-fat dry milk (NOT instant milk.... this is for extra protein and thickness)

Steps:
----------------

1. Put milk in crockpot
2. Put crockpot on high setting to 180F
3. Then lightly uncover crockpot and turn off crockpot and let cool down to 110F
4. Then at 110F take a couple of cups of the cooked milk and in seperate container mix in the plain yogurt (used as starter) and 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk, stir well and then mix back into the crockpot
5. Put lid back on, wrap in beach towel or blanket to help insulate the crockpot
6. Place in oven and turn on oven light
7. After 8-10 hours (longer more tangier the yogurt) remove from oven
8. Uncover, (if successful and careful with your temps during the process) and you will see all sorts of yogurty goodness.  
9. There may be yellowish fluid on top, that is whey, it is perfectly ok and does not mean anything bad has happened.
10. I like a thicker creamier greek style yogurt, so what I do is get paper towels and lightly lay it on top to absord the whey (people cook with it and all....check the internets). Whey is what they make protein shakes with.
11. For greek yogurt line a strainer/collander with coffee filters or cheesecloth and strain for a couple of hours or so (no more than 2....remember it will still be "yogurting" and the longer it is doing that, the more tangier it is so to speed up the process you can place a lightly weighted plate on top of the cheesecloth.
12. Place in sealed plastic containers and refrigerate for 10 days.  After that its time to make fresh batch.  You can use the yogurt from your own batch, the cultures should still be active.  

You can use fruit from jams or preserves or fresh fruit mixed in, if you want a more savory topping you can mix in spices and fresh herbs.  With the thicker greek style yogurst you can make a cream cheese like product great for spreading on toast or for dips.

Read the labels on commercial yogurt.  Even the organic stuff has all sorts of crap in it.  Here you can control the amount of sugar (Yoplait has as much sugar as 2 candy bars or 2 sodas) and other ingredients.


So the price of 1/2 gallon of milk is like $2.50 or so, the plain yogurt is about $1.50, so for $4.00 I got a half gallon of fresh and healthy yogurt.   At the cheapest for crappy yogurt at about $1 a container to get the equivalent amount of yogourt it will cost you $11

2012 Halloween Set Concept Rendering

Using Microsoft Paintbrush and some camera pics I put together further rendering based on the earlier blog post sketch.   The skull on the entrance way header is a hacked Gemmy skull that will be doing the Haunted Mansion ghost host speech... "When hinges creak in doorless chambers...".   Ghost Host raven friends have glowing eyes and the haunted tree has flashing lighted eyes and mouth.  The gatekeeper spirit will wave the lantern and point the way through the flickering lighted columns.  The portion of the set that is in the background between the front columns is already done.  Hopefully if I start in February I can complete.

Dave Lowe's Christmas Display...

Dave Lowe posted his design for his niece Devin and it is awesome... here is pic I stole off his site but you have to check it out...Dave is such an inspiration:

Here is Dave Lowe Christmas blog posting..

New For 2012 - Halloween Plans

Well good lord willing and the creek dont rise, hopefully this will be the Halloween set for next year.  I hope I can swing it

I am basically adding the front two columns, the header and talking skull there with his raven friends and then the fencing holding back the haunted tree and his owl friend accompanied by spirit waving a lantern and pointing the way to the entrance between the columns

You can see the existing bust and columns and candelabra in the background between the two new columns.   The tree will essentially be just a plywood cutout possibly covered with celluclay and painted as well as the owl. 

I will use the audio from the Haunted Mansion for the talking skull "Welcome foolish mortals..."

Merry Christmas!

Ok I know its a Halloween Blog, but the best ghost story ever is of course A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens,  and so I love Christmas too... so to everyone I wish the best Christmas Blessings to All

Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but may your Christmas be merry, and your New Year a happy one! 


Merry Christmas!
Preston(aka In Irons)



Here are some Christmas pics of the homestead....

Awesome Steampunk Garage Haunt Via Time Machine

I kinda like the Steampunk stuff cause I love Jules Verne and HG Wells and all, but these guys take the cake for steampunk and a garage haunt.  Simply amazing, its a time machine journey through the ages to the time for a murderous rampage by a Jack The Ripper type character.

Did I say they did this all in their GARAGE?!?!

Here is the link to the first person perspective:

Here is the link from the presenter perspective and how they were able to accomplish this in a garage:

It took them 18 months to put this together....


Kudos to the Fangoria guys, here is their Fangoria website.  You can see their other efforts for previous Halloween haunts.

Halloween Night, A Little Spooky and a Little Rainy

Well we had a ton of kids tonight, went through 200 pieces of candy with 2 pieces per tot so we had a hundred kids which is a lot more than the previous years, when we first moved in we had maybe 10 kids 6 years ago.

As you can tell, the video camera I have for youtube videos is ok for video but absolutely horrible for pics, sorry for that.  Rain showers came so cut short prematurely our Halloween night before I could get our other camera out.

Here is  a shot of Madame Leota Oakbrook and Haunted Candelabra:

Here is our front door approach on the way to get candy:

And here is daytime walkaround video:

And here is our night shot of our set:

I had my Madame Leota Oakbrook and other lighting out, and after a few hours rain showers came through so I had to take the more sensitive electronics in, I felt bad as I told some of my neighbors to come by when it was darker to see the special effects and they missed it because of the rain.

But I was able to get some shots made, here are some more day time shots:

And some more night time shots:

Rain was a bummer but we were getting low on candy even with the rain!

Well there is always next year and it will be easier to setup and all as its pretty much done now.  Hmmmm except maybe for those walk through columns and maybe the groundskeeper from Haunted Mansion and ....and.......and.....

Ha!  Always planning for next year!

Happy Halloween everybody!

Halloween Trial Run Integration Testing

Ha ha....harking back to my days as a aerospace engineer...here are some trial runs for integration test for Halloween...... you will hear in the background a box fan running (cause its Florida and its darn hot) and on the other video the control relays for the skulls.

Here is my Madam Leota Oakbrook:

Here is the Boys singing Grim Grinning Ghosts...they are the hacked Gemmy Skulls from Lowes they are driven by 2 Mr Christmas Digital Display units (i.e.light organs) which drive relays which cycle DC power off and on to the skulls.  The relays will be inside the house tucked away in a box so you wont hear them outside, that is what all the clicking sounds are...if I could find ac coil solid state relays reasonably cheap I would incorporate that in the design, but alas I am limited to what I can get at Radio Shack.  The relays when mounted in box inside  may garner the attention of the cats who will think its mice or something but it will be more seamless presentation to the TOTS outside, I hope young and old alike will get to enjoy it:

And here is the Front Door Header with the skulls, candles, mad Ravens with red glowing eyes and flickering pumpkins...the large candles are made from plastic bottles of that yucky stuff you drink for cat scans (non-feline more x-ray related), they are mounted on greek yogurt containers with caulk for melted candle effect...

When installed and running on Halloween I will take videos and pics and post them....here is just a little sample of lighting and just a small bit of decoration that I have up for halloween: