just call me gizmo, *zzzz*

[boogieshoes]

'good morning' is an oxymoron of a phrase if i ever heard one.  i really didn't want to wake up this morning.  at 9.30 when i typed this up... i still didn't want to wake up.  i had a dream that involved the mag7 boys and dinosaurs in the old west, and also their descendants in the modern world, and Chris's great-grand-daughter crossing the timeline from present to past.

the modern world was just like it was today.  there were 7 direct-line male descendants of the original 7, all physical re-incarnations of the boys except for minor details, like eye color, shade of hair, mild strengthening of jaw or something.  scars were different.  they all had families in different stages of maturity, and were spread out over the nation, but kept in touch with each other, because they all owned the original FC town and environs.  imagine that FC was actually in a valley, maybe surrounded by buttes, canyons, and mesas instead of outright mountains, and the valley held the James ranch and Chris' shack and the various other outlying farms we see in the show.  now imagine that the railroad ended up dynamiting through to a deep cave on the valley side.  it's still active, but there's a running/ hiking/ riding path through the train cave, too, for ease of access to the town's site.  there's also a river that runs through the cave - in and out on the valley side.

so in the old west environs, it's just like it is in the show - except that there are the remnants of great dinosaur populations running around, and part of the boys' responsibilities is to finish off the dinos/ protect the town and travelers from the dinos.  the cave is part of their stratagem, because it makes a good hiding place from the t-rex, which can't fit through the opening.  the compys can, though, and i can't figure out why they would be deterred from the cave except for *bigger* dinos and predators.   whatever.

so in the dream, Kris, who is Chris's male descendant, has a 17 yo daughter who has just graduated high school, and his family lives in Montana.  she's the oldest of her generation in the families, and she's been fascinated with the FC time period and people, and has written several pro-level research papers and a college-level thesis on the old mag7 all ready.  but she's never been to the town, and she's dying to go, but the modern m7 guys keep putting her off.   Kris's daughter tells him she's going camping to celebrate graduation, and ends up sneaking down to the area where the FC site is.  modern-day Vin - who isn't actually called 'Vin', but i didn't 'catch' his name - has a horse ranch there. the girl steals one of the best horses, a stallion who's a mix of quarter horse, arabian, and something else.  and rides down to FC railway. she's on the 'outside' side of the cave, and decides to ride the horse through the cave as the best way to get to FC.  so they're going through the cave, and something spooks the horse, and it starts running out of control.  and of course, they go through a kind of 'time-curtain', which isn't always there, but appeared at just that time for reasons unknown.

they run through the cave, and nearly run into OW Vin and Chris, who are being chased by a T-rex and a herd of little compys looking to get in on the action.  and the horse, not being an idiot, rears and cavals and dumps the girl in the river and skedaddles on out of there.  Chris and Vin throw themselves on her to protect her from the t-rex or compys (gotta love that dream-logic!), so she wakes up looking right into Chris's eyes.  and everyone's going 'wtf?!', but there's no time to waste, and they run back into the cave to hide.  i'm... still not sure how they got rid of the compys.

fast forward a couple days later in modern-time.  Kris has figured out his girl has lied to him and struck out to go to FC on her own, which the guys didn't want.  so *he* goes down to Vin's and they tack up the horses and track her to the train cave.  and Vin wants to go through with Kris, but Kris says no, it's something he needs to do alone.  He's got a lantern/ flashlight, and he follows the tracks to about the midway point where they just disappear, and there's no indication of what might have happened.  he's worried, so he goes all the way through the cave on the theory that he'll find their corpses on the other side somewhere.  he comes out the other side, mounts the hill in front of the cave (it's basically hidden in a little draw), and the wind is blowing, and... OW Chris and Vin fade in in front of him.  it surprises both Chris and Kris, and there's the amusing 'who the heck are you?!' thing, and then Kris argues with Chris about giving his daughter back again.  no, i don't know wht Kris thinks Chris can do, but he's a Dad, dads worry.

finally, Chris says not to worry, he'll treat the girl like his own daughter, and keep her safe from bad guys *and* dinos.  and Kris grumbles and turns back because he can't really do anything anyway, he'll just have to trust his ancestor(s).  and then he stops: 'oh, and the modern age of majority is 18, Lisa is only 16.  (she lost a year, yeah)  don't let Buck at her!  beyond creeping her out, we've got this extended adolescence thing going on now, and it'll really be bad.' 

and then i woke up.  oi.


free stuff!

the quickest way to get an engineer to move is to offer free food, clothes, or gadgets.  they laid out the swag today from a celebration for a contract we didn't end up winning, and watching everybody descend on it is kind of amusing, even as i take part in the decimation myself.  i got stuff for my grandfather and my parents so they can show off where their daughter/grand-daughter works, heh.

weight loss frustrations

the official weigh-in today was 261.6lbs, which was... exactly the same as last week.  *grrr*.  i'm either eating too much, or adding muscle at the same rate i'm losing fat. either is a possibility, although i tend to favor the latter right now.  it's especially frustrating because while i don't think 'losing weight' is the answer to *everything*, for myself, i do need to lose weight, about 100lbs or so.  i know i have to keep working at it, but that red spot on my forehead from forceful application of head to desk is growing.  on the other hand, my wind is increasing.  or my allergies are dying off, thank goodness.

never-ending projects

i've decided to work on my chair, and get that done.  it's at a stage where 'done' can be accomplished, and i have the room, time, and money to do it.  i started last weekend on the theory i'd get a good push, and it was one of those funny-frustrating things where everything i tried to do was thwarted:

a) i tried to work on the seat cushion, but the largest pillow inserts Joann's had was 27"x27"... and it was too small!  i later measured the seat cushion support, and it's... 28" square, so my conclusion is that the pillow was either mislabeled, or that was the measurement before it was stitched up into pillow format.

the employee at Joann's suggested maybe Bed, Bath, and Beyond might have something larger, and I checked both there and Micheal's - no joy in either.  and i got to thinking about it, and decided instead of a pillow insert, which was mostly like a sleeping pillow, anyway, i needed the foam-insert stuff.  so i need to go back to Joann's and have them cut some foam squares for me - 2 at 27" square, and one at 29" square.  there's a method to my madness, just trust me.

b) i decided that since i couldn't do the pillow, one of the other steps was to cover the bottom chair base with naugahyde of a butter-yellow color, so it would have a finished look.  the chair is made of solid wood frame pieces, and it's very sturdy and well-made.  but the wood is raw lumber wood, which, yeah, not so great. 

could not find hyde of nauga of the correct color in Joann's, and online, the closest i could come was like, $13/yard.  i really don't want to do something that expensive for something most people won't see anyway.

c) ok, but i can do the upper base and the foam batting to cover the edges.  i got out the fabric i purchase at $25/yard for 2 yards and rolled it out.  i measured that i would need 12" for a wrap tight against the wood, and i added another 6" for space for the batting.  there are two problems with this.  1) i forgot a got a patterned fabric, which means that whatever way i *start* wrapping, i have to *finish* with - i can't just use the scraps to fill in, i have to make sure it matches.  2) the hand-powered nail-gun i was using... wasn't able to shoot the nails into the wood!

i ended up going to get upholstery nails... and an electric staple gun.  good times.  power tools!! :)

also, considering the pattern, the size of the chair, and the size of the pillow... i need to buy more fabric.  fortunately, this is a pretty classic pattern, and i should be able to order it pretty easily, but there goes another $50.

d) i thought i had dangling wood bead trim with a bit of an african flair look to it that would look good with the fabric.  i knew i had enough to go around the base, and it'd use some stash up, which is always a good thing.

except, the beads didn't dangle as long as i thought.  and didn't look as good.  and the beads that *did* dangle correctly and look good - i don't have enough of! i'm going to have to buy more trim, which i didn't want to do, especially as this Joann's might not have a good trim selection - and the Micheal's *certainly* doesn't!

the only thing which worked right was getting a piece of 1x6 so i could reproduce the wood trim pieces.  and even that was a sort-of fail, since i picked up a piece that was impregnated with that weather-protection stuff, and i should have picked up a piece normally used for framing.  there are days...

-bs, who is amused at her frustrations