‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 10 (Part 1)

Wednesday and the day after we went to the New York State Fair.  I’ll admit it was kind of the last “hurrah” for the family for the summer.  We didn’t take a summer vacation because we couldn’t afford to.  We just couldn’t afford to do much.  Heck, we’re cutting it close for that first paycheck of the school year, but we’ll manage to make it through like we do every year.  I got up around nine o’clock and started my day by watching “Dr. Phil” on TV.  After watching Dr. Phil, I then went into the basement and did some work on Gary’s gauntlets.  I sanded down the gauntlets and found some gaps in the fiberglass and the cardboard.  So, I sanded them down and then fiberglassed over the gaps.  It took most of my morning to do that so that the gauntlets looked right.  As I worked, I watched some more shows on DVR, including “Hell’s Kitchen” with the kids and then I watched some episodes of “South Park”.

At noon, I went upstairs and got some lunch.  After lunch, I headed into the basement and continued to work on Gary’s gauntlets and had them ready for priming by mid-afternoon.  I continued to work on my codpiece as well as Austin’s codpiece and had most of them finished being painted by late afternoon.  I had most of the work done just before dinner.  I continued to watch “South Park”, “Billy the Exterminator”, “Top Shot”, and “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” before dinner.  I headed upstairs and joined the family for dinner.  After dinner, I went into the basement and worked on the podcast.  I had one episode I needed to edit and then I uploaded four episodes to the server tonight.  It will take a little bit of time to get them up, but they should be coming along soon.  It took a while because I was having problems with my software and it’s ability to hook up to the server that we have.  While I worked on the podcast and uploading, I watched my usual shows including “Big Brother”, “Sons of Guns”, and “Storage Wars” before heading to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 10 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 9 (Part 3)

Well, it’s Tuesday and it oddly felt like a Friday for my family.  But, that is because we took a vacation today, of sorts.  We headed to the New York State Fair.  We got up at six-thirty this morning and I’ll admit that Heather and I hit the snooze a few times.  After a while, I got up and headed into the bathroom and started to get things ready for my day and I watched “The Early Show” while I shaved for the day and then took my shower.  The kids slowly woke up and we got things together.  Austin walked our dog, Chewie and put him back in his cage and we were on our way.  We got in the car and stopped at the “Hess” station at the corner of 12 and 12A and got some sodas and I put some air in one of our rear tires.  Before long, we were on the road.

We got to Syracuse around nine-thirty and parked the car in the Orange parking lot and grabbed the shuttle bus down to the actual fair.  We paid for our tickets and then went into the park.  We headed to the first building we could find, but it wasn’t open for another ten minutes, so we simply waited until the building opened.  We made our way around the fair and had a blast today!  Lots of cool things to see, and we even picked up some cool things.  I picked up a new wallet that was a St. Louis Rams wallet.  We got the entire family some of those cups that are advertised on T.V. that take any beverage and turn it into a slushie.  It was cool and we decided to get them.  We had a lot of fun and took some pictures that I hope to get on my Facebook soon that you can go and check out.  We had a lot of good food today as well.  I had my first ever, donut burger and I’ll have to admit, it was actually pretty good.  It’s probably more calories than I want to think about, but it was very tasty!  We also had all sorts of other food, but the one thing I wanted to try, deep fried kool aid balls, were not there.  They ended up at Spiedie Fest but not the New York State Fair.  It was a fun, but tiring day.

We ended up finding some afghans and some doilies by some students that I teach and have taught at my school.  I was excited to see that my kids had made it to the State Fair.  We walked all around and had fun looking at everything.  We ended our day watching a horse jumping competition in the horse arena at the fair.  We then headed back to the car and used the GPS to get us out of Syracuse and back home.  We got home by about ten o’clock and Heather and I watched “Hell’s Kitchen” from late last night and early this morning and then we watched “Top Shot” and an episode of “Billy the Exterminator” on DVR before heading to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 3 of Chapter 9 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 9 (Part 2)

Monday.  This is my last full week of freedom before school starts next week and I think the kids got that I was going to laugh, have fun, and enjoy while I can.  I got up around seven o’clock this morning and snoozed the alarm for a good half hour.  After that, Heather and I got up and started to watch some TV as they covered the news of the day.  Of course, the discussion of the morning was the damage from Hurricane Irene.  I can safely say now that the Northeast actually dodged a bullet with only minor damage from the hurricane.  I know some may not feel that way, but trust me, it could have been worse!  I then got in the shower.  I got out of the shower and got dressed and then found out that Heather needed me to take Austin to a doctor’s appointment this morning.  So, I watched the beginning of “Dr. Phil” and then had to leave for the appointment.

We used the GPS and it got us to the office fairly quick.  We signed in and waited for about ten minutes and then Austin went through his physical.  He’s doing fine, but had to have a booster for his chicken pox immunization and he was not happy about having to be poked by a needle.  We got done there and headed straight home.  We got home and had some lunch.  After lunch, Austin and I retreated to the basement.  We started to watch “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” and I think I got my son hooked on a new series.  I took a quick nap and then woke up and started to clean my shop and my shop table.  Heather took off with the girls for their doctor’s appointment.  They weren’t happy because they had to be poked with needles as well for shots.  The girls got home and Heather decided she wanted to mow the lawn.  I continued to work in the shop while Austin and I continued to watch “Avengers” on DVD.

We then got called upstairs for dinner.  After dinner, I helped Heather clean some things outside and fixed some of the decking on our porch so people wouldn’t trip.  After that, I finished cleaning up the shop.  David came over to tonight and Heather and I met up with him and his wife and it was nice to finally meet his wife in person.  After they left, I finished cleaning some things up and we went to watch “Hell’s Kitchen” and Heather got really upset because it was pre-empted by a Preseason NFL Football game between the Jets and Giants.  So, Austin and I continued to watch “Avengers” while Heather went out and got some gas in the car and stopped at Dunkin Donuts.  Heather came home and we watched “Rizzoli and Isles” on TV and then watched “American Choppers” on DVR before heading to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 2 of Chapter 9 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 9 (Part 1)

Well, it’s Sunday and I gotta be honest, I didn’t sleep well at all last night!  Several things got stuck in my head.  I couldn’t get my brain to stop thinking about all the things I needed to get done.  Not just things for the beginning of the school year, but also things I need to get done for the house before school starts.  But, that is not what was on my mind at four o’clock this morning.  That’s right, I ended up waking up at four o’clock this morning.  I woke up to rain.  More rain than I have ever heard come out of the sky at once and I’ve lived through a tornado and a hurricane in my life!  It was coming down fast and I was getting concerned.  Mostly about flooding in the basement.  So, I grabbed a flashlight (because I didn’t want to turn on all the lights and wake everyone up in the house) and headed into the basement.  Luckily, it was dry.

I ended up hanging out in the basement for about an hour and then went back upstairs and went back to bed.  I woke up again around eight o’clock this morning and as I watched Pastor Brandon Samuels’ sermon from the First Assembly Church from downtown on T.V., the power blinked.  Twice!  I got a little worried, but did not panic.  Well, that woke up Heather.  I waited for the satellite to get back up and running and we switched over to FoxNews.  We got updates on Hurricane Irene and it was all that FoxNews covered.  I was surprised that it didn’t hit New York City any harder than it did.  It seemed to have done more damage to Jersey City than it did to NYC.  But, we got a lot of rain from it.  As a matter of fact, it rained most of the day in Binghamton today.  We had flooding south and East of us, but luckily we had no flooding here in the city.  And my house survived it all.

Heather and I watched the news till about eleven o’clock or so and then got lunch with the kids.  After lunch, we both ended up taking an hour or so nap.  After our nap, I started to work on more things.  I continued to work on my new codpiece for my Mando costume, and even started on one for my son.  I worked on Gary’s gauntlets and then started to work on some podcast things.  I worked on the blog while I edited recordings that I had done.  It was something that took a while.  I stopped long enough to join the family for dinner.  I kept recording while I watched “American Choppers” and “South Park” along with my normal Sunday night shows including “Big Brother” and then a special on National Geographic Channel on the continuing war on terror and then an interview with George W. Bush on his view on September 11, 2001.  I find it it interesting that he really was in just as much of a panic that day that we were.  We always forget that the President is human too.  Bush even admitted that he may have hastily gone into Iraq more out of anger than a resolution to weapons of mass destruction.  Right after that, Heather and I went to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 9 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss……..

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 8 (Part 3)

Well, it’s Saturday and the end of one week adn the beginning of another week.  But everyone was watching, listening, and talking about one thing today – HURRICANE IRENE!  The idea of a hurricane hitting the East Coast this hard is a little bit scary.  The last hurricane that came even relatively this close to New York City was hurricane Gloria and I think that was back in 1984 (if memory serves me correctly).  I’ll admit that I’ve never experienced a hurricane up close and I’m kind of glad that I have not.  This is one of the reasons I really don’t want to live that close to the ocean.  I don’t like the idea of having my house blown down by winds or having flooding issues.  But, I still have to worry about rain/flooding where I live because of my proximity to the river.  But, I discovered later today that even people in my area are panicking about the hurricane here.

Today I woke up at nine o’clock and prepared myself for my day.  I headed downstairs and worked on Gary’s gauntlets quick and put on the final layers of the fiberglass to finish out his gauntlets.  I then headed outside to work on my new codpiece for my Mandalorian costume.  However, I ran into complications and I ended up messing it up.  To make matters worse, when I went to grab my can of grey primer, I ended up grabbing a can of grey spray paint with gloss.  Things just did not work out and I was not in a good mood because of it.  I can honestly say I was in a pretty pissed off mood about it.  So, I did what I had to do.  I started over.  On top of that, it meant I had to put some other project aside to make that happen.  So, I pulled out some sintra and made brand new parts and had it at least glued together before lunch.

After lunch, I continued to work on my codpiece and some parts of the gauntlets we are making for Gary’s Mando.  I spent most of my afternoon working while I watched “American Choppers” and “Rising:  Ground Zero” while I worked.  I got into an altercation with my son and him lying about something he did.  He ended up getting punished for the rest of the weekend.  Heather had to leave the house around four o’clock and she ordered some pizzas and wings for us from “Pudgies” before she left.  I continued to work after Heather left on Mando armor as I watched the movie “Arthur” which was surprisingly not too bad.  I liked it when Jennifer Garner got stuck under the magnetic beds.  That was hilarious!  The pizza arrived shortly after that and the kids and I sat down and ate dinner.

We watched “Fox News” as we ate dinner.  It was impressive to see the destruction that Irene was leaving behind her.  There was no doubt now that the storm was going to hit New York City and it was going to hit pretty hard!  After dinner, I started to watch “Cedar Rapids” but decided to head over to Lowe’s to get some spray paint and Heather asked me to get some D Cell batteries for one of our lanterns at home, just in case.  Well, there were no D Cells in Lowes.  They were completely OUT!  So, I headed over to “Weis”, then “Staples”, then “CVS” and everyone was out of D Cell batteries.  I just gave up and went home.  I went into the basement and continued working on things while I finished watching “Cedar Rapids” and then Heather joined me and we watched “No Strings Attached” before going to bed.  Both movies, were actually pretty good.  I was impressed with both and would probably watch them again if the opportunity came up.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 3 of Chapter 8 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 8 (Part 2)

Well, it’s Friday and the end of everyone’s week and I had a decent day today.  I got a lot done for both myself and a friend and I was a lot less stressed out by the end of my day today.  I was happy with how things went and I think I can have a relaxing weekend.  Of course, the real story of today is the discussion of “Irene”.  Irene is NOT a person, but a hurricane.  If this hurricane hits like it’s supposed to, this could be a record breaker and it could be the one hurricane that hits New York City pretty hard.  I just hope it does not wipe out the city and I am praying for everyone down in New York City and I hope that the storm actually does not hit the city as hard as they are saying it will.  If it does, NYC may not ever be the same ever again.

I woke up at nine o’clock this morning and watched “Dr. Phil” while I worked on a new codpiece for my Mandalorian costume.  I had the piece, cut, filed down, sanded, glued, and shaped by noon.  Ruth was impressed that I was able to work as fast as I did, but as I told her, when I have a goal, I make sure that I get it done!  I worked hard all morning and when I finished “Dr. Phil”, the kids and I watched “Beyond Scared Straight” while I worked and we had a chance to talk about what these kids were going through and how it affected my kids.  I think it’s good for a discussion piece for me and my kids.  It also helps my oldest daughter who is thinking of being a teacher.  After that, we watched a series I taped off of Discovery last night titled “Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero”.  It was a cool series about how we are rebuilding the site around Ground Zero in New York City.  Fitting that we are watching it now as they are talking of this hurricane hitting the city.  We took a break around lunchtime and went upstairs and ate some lunch together.  After that, I went back to working on my codpiece and had it primed and painted by the time two’clock had rolled around.

At two 0′clock, I started working on some paperwork for the Mercs that I needed to finish and then my buddy Gary showed up.  We talked while I worked for a while and then we started work on Gary’s gauntlets.  I have personally been helping Gary become official and I have been working hard on making his kit as official as I can get it.  I just hope we can get him together so that he can pass muster the first time around.  We worked on that most of the afternoon and Gary joined us for dinner.  After dinner, I continued to work on his gauntlets and my codpiece while Heather and the kids worked outside.  I worked most of the night while I watched “Kitchen Nightmares” and half watched “Thundercats” on TV while I continued to work on my Mercs work and then I watched two episodes of “American Choppers” before deciding to head to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 2 of Chapter 8 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos:  True Colors” by Karen Traviss……..

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 8 (Part 1)

Well, I’ll be honest, it’s been about a week and a half since I last blogged.  Normally, I would scramble right now to catch up and give you all a day by day accounting of what is going on in my life.  But this time, I am not.  It has nothing to do with any of you and I hope that you are not all offended at my inability to update my blog, but life just simply got in the way.  My wife and I even had a discussion about how I put pressure on myself to keep this blog up to date.  Now, that does not mean that I will not be blogging from this point forward.  Of course I am going to do my darnedest to keep this blog up to date.  But, what I am asking for is forgiveness if I miss a day every now and again.  I know many of you are friends and want to know what is going on in my life.  If that is the case, please be patient and know that if I am not on here blogging, there are some good reasons and it’s not because I don’t want to be in touch with all of you or I don’t want to read Star Wars books.  Trust me, those things are on my “to do ” lists as well, but if my life takes me in another direction, I have to go that direction.

So, what has happened since I last blogged with all of you?  Well, quite a bit!  First, I had my last two days of work for “West Side Laundry”.  Heather and I had light work as far as lifting for those days, but the traffic in Pennsylvannia started to get on our nerves and I have to say that we were glad that we won’t have to drive in that state for a while.  Well, at least until next summer.  I was happy to have my last day, but as Heather said, the last paycheck until my first paycheck at school is almost a three week period and it’s hard to budget things over those three weeks.  Our only hope is that Heather can get some bus jobs between now and the beginning of the school year to try and get some money coming in.  We had another Binghamton FanForce event.  We visited with the “Star Wars” camp at the “Discovery Center” and had a blast running three stations, including a laser tag game, which was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast too.  I also played a late night Star Wars miniatures game and that was a LOT of fun.  I had a blast and I hope to have some more chances to play in the future.  I’ve even come to the conclussion that I need to get out of my “Lord of the Rings” miniatures in order to get into buying some more Star Wars miniatures.  I also managed to work on some costumes and do some updates.  The biggest single update I’ve done to date is taking Kal Falco and giving him a coat of flat lacquer.  It has changed the look of my Mandalorian costume and has toned my colors down a little bit.  We have had DirecTV over three times in the last two weeks for our problems with our TV as well.  This last time, a supervisor came over and he’s actually perplexed by our problem.  Because of that, I actually lost my Internet for three days over the week and a half.  Didn’t know my DirecTV was even hooked into my Internet until I lost it and my ISP provider found out that this was my issue.

I went to “Staples” for Teacher Appreciation Day and I’ll say that I got some good deals.  I was able to get a whole mess-load of supplies and I was able to pick up an external hard drive that I really needed for school that will give me the ability to keep all my things on one drive.  That way I have three places to back things up.  One at school, one at home and one in my external hard drive.  I was also able to start to get my house cleaned up from the summer and I’m starting to do things to start to shut my shop down for the summer.  It’s been a lot of work, but I’m happy with how things have turned out.  I still have some minor things to do.  I have to put together a new codpiece for my Mandalorian costume.  I also have to finish putting some buttons on my armor for my Mando (an upgrade) and I’m finishing up some backpacks for my kids’ Mandalorian costumes.  I changed theirs a little by giving them a 90 degree bend instead of a 45 degree bend.  So, as you can see I have been busy.

We were supposed to have a FanForce event tonight supporting the Kyds Coalition (a local children’s organization), but because of the rain, we were unable to follow through on that event.  In some ways, I was a little relieved after having all these events we had this past month.  We really gotta make sure that we keep these events spaced out a little further apart.  We always seem to get a lot of events requested in the month of August.  But I can never complain because I make costumes to get out into the public in them.  And after all, we do raise a lot of money for our charity, “A Room to Heal”.  So, what do I have to do over the next week and a half?  Well, I have to finish cleaning up my shop, get caught up on this blog and the podcast, get lesson plans prepared for school, continue learning guitar for school (yeah, you’re reading that correctly), and my family and I are going to the State Fair one day next week.  All in a week’s work, right?

Okay, so I’ve caught you up a little bit on what has been going on with me.  Take a minute and read my review of Part 1 of Chapter 8 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos:  True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 7 (Part 2)

Well, it’s Sunday and it’s the first day that I feel like I’m starting to get my life under control again.  I got up around ten o’clock this morning.  Yeah, that’s right, two days in a row, but I think I deserved the days of sleeping in after all the hard work that I have done this summer.  Heather and I slept in till ten o’clock even though we kind of mentally got up around seven o’clock, but we forced each other to go back to sleep.  I got up and found Heather out in the living room watching “Blues Brothers 2000″ on TV.  We watched that for a while, and then I got to work.  I spray painted some laser tag guns that I need to have ready this week for an event and then went into the basement.  Heather and I started to watch season 2 of “Hot in Cleveland” a show that we have discovered from TV Land.  As we watched, we got some lunch.

While I watched the show, I started to really do work on this blog.  I was behind by over a week (if you hadn’t noticed that yet) and I was drastically behind in my reading as well.  So, I would read a few chapters, do my write-up and then come over to my computer and blog for that day.   I worked hard and by the end of the day, I was finally completely caught up on all the work that I had been working on.  I was so happy.  Heather and I even got through most of the episodes of “Hot in Cleveland” before she had to go upstairs and get things together for dinner.  We also found out that we are only working two days this week – Monday and Wednesday, which meant we had the week to get things done and to catch up on what we needed to do.  We went upstairs and ate dinner as a family and we had quesadillas.  After dinner, I watched “Mythbusters” on DVR and then played some COD:BO on my PS3 Slim.  After that, we tried to watch “Big Brother”, but it was delayed thanks to the golf game.  So, we watched “The Simpsons”, and “Family Guy” and then watched “Big Brother” before watching another episode of “Mythbusters” and then went to bed a little early.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 2 of Chapter 7 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 7 (Part 1)

Saturday and we had an event for the Binghamton FanForce today.  We have had quite a few events lately and I am really proud about how our group is coming together to have fun and make money for our charity, “A Room to Heal”.  It’s good to see my group work the way they do.  It seems no matter how the event is going, my group has fun.  I got up around nine o’clock this morning and the kids went into the basement with me and we watched some more of the old 1980′s version of the “Thundercats” on DVD while I started to read my book and catch up on this blog, which was an all morning process.  While I worked on things, the kids folded clothes.  Around eleven-thirty, we all got some lunch of leftovers from all the dinners from the week.  After lunch, I took a nap.

After my nap, I watched some more episodes of “Robot Chicken” on DVR and then switched over to watching “The Patriot” on DVR while I got ready for tonight.  The kids and I slowly loaded up the mini-van with all the things we would need for tonight with all of our totes.  We ended up having a small incident with my Tie Pilot jumpsuit, but fixed it really fast.  After that, we got done loading things up and by four thirty, we were heading for NYSEG Stadium.  Tonight was the Star Wars Night with the Binghamton Mets.  We got to the stadium and unloaded the cars.  Heather set up the table and I got a whole bunch of  people into the stadium, including our functioning R2D2 thanks to Kerry.  After a while, we then got into costume and started to interact with the crowd.  We had fun taking pictures, interacting with the crowd, running after other mascots, having Darth Vader throw out the first pitch, and even signing autographs.  It was a fun night overall and we got some great pictures of the event.  I changed into my Mando about halfway through the night and afterward got out of my costumes.  I helped Heather load up the car and we went home.

We got home and had some leftovers and some cotton candy and the kids went to bed.  Heather and I got hooked on a Lifetime Movie titled “Fat Like Me” that starred Kaley Cuocco and I couldn’t help but watch it just because she was in it.  After that, Heather and I went to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 7 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….

‘Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors’ – Chapter 6 (Part 3)

Friday.  It was a day off from work and an odd day where we really didn’t have anything planned for us to do.  It was so nice to not have anything to do today.  Although, we still got a lot accomplished and quite honestly, created things for us to do.  I had planned on getting up to watch “Dr. Phil” this morning, but that never panned out because I didn’t get up till ten o’clock.  It’s been SO long since I could sleep in that late.  It was rather nice.  I got up and went into the basement and finished cleaning up my shop.  After that, I finished working on some things in my home theater room and started to organize my basement, which I haven’t done since I can remember.  I watched “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Billy the Exterminator” on DVR while I worked.  After that, I switched over to watching “Robot Chicken” and “Looney Tunes” on DVR while I ate my lunch.

After lunch, Heather and I talked and we agreed that we needed to actually go out and get some things.  But, we put it off for about an hour and a half so we could also pick up paychecks.  So, I played some COD:BO before we left and we left the house around two o’clock.  We first went to work and picked up our paychecks.  We then went over to “Tioga State Bank” on the Southside and I stopped at “Manley’s” to get my wife some caffeine.  After that, we headed over to Johnson City and went to “Unicorn Electronics”.  I was going to get a computer speaker tweeter for my second speaker at home and found out that they had one good tweeter left, so I bought it for five dollars.  We then headed over to “Joann’s Fabrics” to get some extra material to fix my Tie Pilot jumpsuit and to do some other things.  After that, we headed over to “Wal Mart” and got a whole bunch of things there, including some school supplies.  We got done and headed home.

As soon as we got home, Heather cooked dinner.  We sat down and ate dinner as a family.  After dinner, Heather worked on my Tie Pilot jumpsuit while I played on some of my COD: BO before watching “Thundercats” on the Cartoon Network Channel with my kids.  After that, we switched over to watching my old DVDs of the 1980s version of “Thundercats” and we did that until it was time to go to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 3 of  Chapter 6 of “Star Wars – Republic Commandos: True Colors” by Karen Traviss…….