Tiny House Movement

The “Tiny House” movement is on the rise and I’m working on getting a ticket. The economy over the past few years have gotten shakier than ever. There are people that have been forced out of their jobs and had lost their “Dream” homes. Out of the fire and coming in to the main stream “Tiny Houses” have seen the light and people have realized that they have a better life by living smaller.

It was just a few years ago my wife told me about a man who lives “off the grid” and loves it. His lives in a 14’X14’ wood home with solar panels and a good size front porch. Here is a link to his website. http://www.simplesolarhomesteading.com/  I was brought up like most other people to live better than how you did when you were growing up plus at the time of the conversation we had two teenage boys who I could not conceive being cramped in to a small 200sq foot house. I need room to relax after a hard day’s work and didn’t want to be stacked on top of each other. She again told me that we could design a home that we can expand in any way we wanted to achieve the effect that we desired.

            Right now we live in a house that is over 2500sq feet. We also have her mother that we moved in to help her out with health and bills. My wife also explained to me that the less you spend on monthly expenses, the more money we would have in our pockets to spend on something else. I love to be able to use solar panels to power my home and save that energy money to put towards a family vacation or whatever we want. For example, we build our home at 600sq feet on our property. It’s not going to take much energy to power the place so the solar array wouldn’t have to be so large. Therefore we could add “Extra” comforts that we normally put in a house like heated floors. While some people wouldn’t have that expense living in SC, based on the size of the house.

            I started thinking about it and it started making sense to me to start downsizing now and building what we want with the best layout that made more practical sense. Let’s just look at the house we have now. As far as we can find out, the house was built in the late 1800s so by now there are so many problems with the layout. It’s a 3 bedroom house and these rooms are very large. The 3^rd room was added to the house much later and added to the back porch and house. The large hallway is 6ft wide. There are 2 bathrooms but are small. The kitchen is large but not at all laid out like it should be. We have 3 other large rooms living room, Sitting room, and a front entry room. The entire house has 10.5ft ceilings. There is a lot of energy use to heat and cool the house. There is a lot of wasted space that we don’t need or use.

            We started shopping at a store called Ikea. In the Concord NC location, there is a house that is showcased that is just under 600sq foot. It is only a two bedroom layout but the bathroom is much larger than the one we have now. With a couple adjustments to add a set of stairs, we can add the two needed rooms to an upstairs area. The Ikea had shown us how to set up storage units in a way we can have larger spaces for what we need. Ikea has a lot of great products that will fit your every need.

            After long talks with my wife we started looking at a transformation a transformation from a large house down to a small home. While looking at this we found a website about “tumbleweed” houses. http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ These are even smaller homes with a smaller footprint. Another advantage is that they are designed and built to be taken to other locations. This is where I got some of my inspirations. The website shares stories about several people/couples that have left their former lives of big houses to a much smaller more comfortable living.

            It wasn’t much later that we started looking at what we can do to get to this stage. The stage of smaller living that we can take anywhere we can. We looked at trailers to build on with much of them being out of or price range. My wife did more research and found that there are some people building these homes on the trailers of old campers. They were strong enough to hold the weight plus many had the braking system already build in them. At most we would have to put some extra metal on them for added support for the weight and the building of the home. So she started looking through Craigslist for a trailer that was cheap and able to get moved to our house. It wasn’t long before she found one. It was a good price so we bought it. I post a few pictures of it on facebook and my friends said it would be nice once it was fixed up. They didn’t understand that there was no way that I was going to put money in to this camper only to have it collapse on me later. There were all kinds of leaks on the outer metal shell that the wood in the walls were rotten. There were buckles everywhere. I didn’t care, I was going to take it all apart down to the trailer and then build it back up again this time the way that I want it. Here are a few pictures of what I have done so far. I still have a long way to go. I will post lots more information here as the project grows.

 

Lone Ranger Legos

I have just finished putting together the last set that I received as a Christmas gift.
The set that are shown are all I have been able to buy.
The Stagecoach 79108.
Colby City Showdown 79109.
Constitution Train Chase 79111.

 

The following pictures are of those I arranged as Christmas decorations. I like Lego trains so I added one to the scene. I also like The Walking Dead TV show. See if you can locate any Zombies here.

 

There are so many sets that I am behind on buying.

 

Once I have the cats gone from my Lego area I can more sets back together. They like to play with them and move the figures around the house while we are a sleep.

New Story

I am putting a story together based on the movie character “Leatherface” from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. As some of you may know that I played this character in a Haunted House this past Halloween. I find the story from the original Hopper movie great. There was no gore to the movie just a lot of buildup, sound, and surprise. I will be writing the story from the view point of Leatherface. It will be continuing that will be posted over time, it maybe a page or idea everyday or so and there could be a bit of editing to older entries. So if you find the story is more puzzling to read and doesn’t flow real well, please contact me and I will rewrite it so it can make sense to you. I will only use one label “Leatherstory”. The main page will be "edited and added to so look for it in the same place every week.

So please look for it weekly.

Direct email

The Leatherface Chronicles

 

            Much of the time I stand here looking out of the landscape of our immensely large back yard with the tall grass blowing around in the wind where you can see rusted cars parked throughout the clearing and overflowing through the tree line. I listen to a calming song over the old AM transistor radio that my grandmother listen too when she cooked for us years ago, with the warm meat and flowing blood of the fresh kill reminds me of the first time I took the life out of another living thing.

            Growing up in Travis County Texas was a fun time in my life. The entire family would get together and have cook outs that would last for hours. Back in the 60s the family was much larger with many political and official connections. The larger annual gatherings brought in people from all over Texas and were used as a ceremonial event for coming of age to those male family members that were turning thirteen. Years earlier while I was real young I was being watched by my overweight aunt who would come over and sit with us while the family went out to handle “family business”. It was at this time she taught me a little about the business. With living on a farm, we had plenty of animals. While we walked around in search of a possible killing, a small kitten started rubbing at my feet and let out a small “meow”. My aunt with her raspy voice yelled to me “Grab that little beast”. So I picked it up and cuddled it like it was a small newborn baby so it would feel safe and try not to escape. We walked up to the butcher room that was attached to the backside off the kitchen. I was not allowed to go in before now. I looked up and my aunt and she gave me the nod to assured me that it was okay to go in. To a small child looking up at everything that the family has built on for years made me feel honored and proud. To think I would be able to use these tools of the trade made me feel proud. She helped me up to the edge of a large dark would table that was covered with stains of the past. She put on a large pair of leather gloves took the kitten from my arms and held it down on its back. The leather gloves protected her from the screaming and clawing that the kitten was doing to protect itself from what was going to next. With the other hand she pulled over from the side of the table a clean canvas roll with bulges on all sides. She told to take it and unroll it out. I pulled the neatly tied knot that looks it the ones on Christmas presents. As I opened it, the tools shined in the sunlight as each on became visible. They were each cleaned and unsoiled. The handles on these tools were darker than the table and were smooth to the touch. These are the only tools I have ever seen outside the rusty saws and farm tools in the barn. She told me to pick anyone I wanted to use. There was a small awl that had a little button type handle that fit perfect in my small seven year old hands. With my left hand I but the butt of the handle and slowly put it in the mouth of the screaming kitten that I was just holding like a baby just moments before. The awl was so sharp at the tip that it just slid in like momma’s rose torn in my finger with I pick one for her. I can feel it hitting the back of the skull so with the right hand I make a small little fist and slam it down on top of my other hand. This also made the kitten fight a little harder but kept it’s head still while the rest of the body was scratching and fighting to get away from it’s soon to be death. The awl was small and made a small hole that caused just very little bleeding. There was just enough blood that it was pooling in the back of the throat. I stood over it watching the kitten scream and claw under the powerful grip of the leather glove that was getting covered with pattered blood from the kitten spitting up in order to breath. Blood from the back of the head was pooling under the body and absorbed in the fur of its head and back. With all the fighting and jerking of its head it made the hole larger and the blood to flow more and now running out from under the slow moving body of this kitten…………..MORE TO COME

"The Lego Movie"

As some of you may know already, 2014 brings a long list of movies. One of the hottest movies everyone’s waiting for is “The Lego Movie”. In the US the movie comes out on the 7^th of February. It has a host of star voices. It needs to be on every child’s want to watch list. And as Lego goes, If there is a movie about Legos, there should be Lego set to go alone with them. So they have put together 14 sets to be bought and put together so you can re-enact the scenes from the movie. That also includes mini-fig sets that are in packs that you have to buy enough in order to get a full set. Here are a few links to the action.

The Lego Movie Lego Sets

The Lego Movie

Plants Vs Zombies

If you have not yet played “Plants Vs Zombies” by PopCap games, you are missing a lot of fun. It is only .99 for the app through the app store. You can also download it for android. It starts out easy on lower levels and build up to harder levels. As long as I’ve playing both 1 and 2, they don’t seem to be patterned like the 80s video games. After a while you get frustrated because zombies will hit you sooner or later. You can play these are much as you want without having to worry about too many lives lost where you have to go to Facebook to get your friends to help you out. Give both versions a try you will be glad you did. I don’t know why it took me so long to start playing.

OSnap App

OSnap is an app that I used on my iPhone to create a “Stop Motion” video of me putting together a tree house Lego set. It is really easy to use. My problem is that even though there is an Onion skin layer so you can see the previous picture and try to line it up, it is better to find a tripod or someway to steady your phone so there is not so much movement. As you can see in my 10 sec video it didn’t take me long to fill up the space I had on my phone and you can see the shakiness of the video as well. This app is a good place to start if you like to create stop motion style videos. There is also lighting issues with my video. I just put this together real quick to show you how easy it is. So now that Christmas Day has past and you have all your new toys, create something fun. this app is for iPads, iPhones, and iPods, I think that have it for androids too. lets see what you can do.

Halloween Haunted House

I didn’t get to post as much as I wanted to this past (2013) Halloween because I spent every extra minute and lots of other hours work at a Haunted House that did a review on last year. The part I played was “Leatherface” from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise. It had been something that I had always wanted to do. The first half of the season was the hardest because it was still hot. I was not use to the weight of the chainsaw and having to crank it up every 5 minutes for 5 hours a night. It was extremely hot due to it always hot in SC. But I lived. Right now with it being at the end of the year, I am planning on a redesign of the “Texas” house in order for it to have a different layout and different “scream” areas. It will be much more gorier than ever before. I love horror movies and I love to create areas that make you scared before the scare happens. It’s all about the buildup before the big scare. I will post updates here as well as Lego creations. I will post pictures of the process while we are working it. I have tons of ideas and sketches that I need to upload. The tear down of the old will start in Febuary. Thats is not soon enough for me by I don't own the place. So I wait and design.

Lego Christmas Gifts

First of all my family and I celebrate Christmas. God sent Jesus to earth to be our Lord and Savior. We give each other gives. If you do not celebrate Christmas, you can still get information concerning whatever information I post here.

I have gotten a few set this year including Disney’s “The Lone Ranger Constitution Train Chase” set, Lego City “Museum Break-in” set, and the Lego Creator “3in1 Family House”. These three are nice sets that I will enjoy building. I have to get some shelves together to put them on. Right now I have a few sitting on some selves that my wife’s cats can get on top of and when they get on top they stretch down to a lower lever and do a King Kong arm swing on them and their claws grab stuff. I was going to post another set of the Lone Ranger called “Stagecoach Escape” but it was late when I went off to bed, that I put it up but the cats wanted to see it ASAP. When I checked on it the next day, they had torn off two of the wheels and hid the safe from my on the floor under the desk. I think they even scared away the horses. Once I have The Lone Range sets all together I will post more of each picture sets.

I enjoy putting these set together along with any other sets. But I have limited space to put then to display so I break them down and put them in big boxes with all the other sets. This year I plan to rebuild each of my sets and upload pictures here so everyone else can see them. If anyone ever has any questions please ask or comment.

New Year Coming

The year of 2014 is just a few days away. So what are you planing to change in the new year. For me I plan to drop a few pounds, study more for school, work on my little house on wheels, work on my art idea, and buy and build more Legos. That's right more Legos. You can never have enough. In the year of 2013 I have bought a haunted house and smaller sets. I enjoy train sets so I was happy to be able to get the Disney's Lone Ranger train set, I get it on Christmas Day. It is a great set. I'm looking to buy the new Star Wars Ewak Village. It is large set. Stick around with me and see what I will be involved in the new year. One big goal is to be able to set more time aside to Blog every week it twice a week. 

Universal Studoos Halloween Horror Nights

These were all over the entrences. It is a large sign for The Walking Dead.

 

 

On October 4th 2013. I was able to venture out to see Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights. It is their 23rd year putting on the show. This is the first time I have been able to make the journey down to Orlando Florida to see it. The main theme which was my favorite was that areas around the park that were set up like AMC's The Walking Dead which airs again Sunday night October 13th. I have included several pictures of the area but i don't want to spoil it for those who want see it first hand.

 

This year they had several Horror Houses set up to walk/run through. Here is the list with my added comments. It was a very good event when can see everything.

 

Walking Dead: No Safe Haven

This one by far was my favorite. The house in side was set up great. It was as if you were in the middle of the zombie action. I wish I was allowed to take pictures of the inside to show the decor. one of the cool parts is the Governor's room with the heads in fish tanks. There you will also find his daughter trying to bite you.

 

Resident Evil: Escape From Raccoon City
This room was straight out of the video game. When you walk in the door there you meet the male player shooting at the undead as he tries to attack you.

Evil Dead
This house is based on the newly released remake of the Evil Dead. are are put in the middle with close contact with all the characters in the movie. It was like being one of them. Watch out for the woman in the floor, she is there waiting to get you.

The Cabin In The Woods
The details Universal has added to get the realism from the movie was great. This house is a strong house with all the bells and whistles. All I can say to not give too much away is the fact that the evelvators have all types of creatures waiting to eat you and any time. It was great.

An American Werewolf In London
This was for me a much anticipated house because I really enjoyed the movie. Like I had said before, they spare no expense to get these places to look as it did in the movies. I have to give you a warning on this one. There are LOTS of Werewolves.  
a Llorona
This one for me was not that good. Only because I have never seen or heard of this movie.

Havoc Derailed
It was with much regrete that I didn't get to walk through this house.

After Life: Death's Vengeance
This house was so different from all the others. It is not based on any movies, it was created by the people of Universal Studios. They give you paper glasses to wear while you walk through. I had a problem with them staying on but as I found out after they kept falling off that it doesn't cause any problems if you don't want to wear them.

This is the bycle woman from the show. ****Warning**** this is real, she has no legs.

As you can see I took this picure ealry in the day because of the wrapped dead body under the blue tarp.

When you walk through the park during the day, you can see where props are put out. The sword was in the tree by day and these two were added at night. They are still cool with thier pants falling down which might have caused them not to be able to get away fast enough.

This was the victim that was uncovered after the parked closed at 5pm to get ready for Horror Nights.

Yes that is a squirrel trying to get in to Rick’s guns. I guess theey need to fight off the undead as well.

They had dead people laying around where the undead would feed on them. They will also stop eating the old food for a chance to eat on some fresh food.

Pleygo Part 5

Hello again everyone. Today i am getting the chance to post about an update to the Pleygo.com Lego brick rental service. I received a new package in the mail yesterday in my mail box. Pleygo.com used a small box to ship Lego sets to it's customers. Based on the package I received yesterday, they are going in the right direction in saving money in shipping cost. The downside as they might find out later is that when kids get these in the mail they are going to rip open these envelopes that need to keep save so it can be used to send back otherwise parents will have to go out a buy new ones to use to for shipping.
One other positive point is that once they received my second set they 3rd in two was shipped out and it was in my mail box it just two days, a vast improvement to my first set. So I quickly put my set together and took it back apart bag it up and sent it back this morning to see a more accurate turnaround time for it. This will give my a a reason to keep my account or to cancel it based on the shipping of sets. If I can get a good turn around time I might just upgrade my membership from SuperFan to MegaFan. but only time will tell. Here are a few pictures of the package and set.

I chose to get the Desert Skiff 9496 from Star Wars

The new packaging use for my set.

Everything inside

The completed set and a few extra pieces

Luke getting ready to make a leap. "Use the Force"

I'm trapped. Or am I, Watch Episode VII to know more.

Z Day live game play

The following is from a kickstarter like site called pozible that is requesting money to start a zombie war zone.

Z DAY to view videos and to give money. We also need to have this done over here in the US. To me it looks like a great idea.

Z DAY CONCEPT & GAMEPLAY


Z DAY is a Live Action Role Playing Event that will be held in Sydney in 2013. If you've played video games like ‘Left 4 Dead’ and ‘DAYZ’, been addicted to TV Shows like ‘The Walking Dead’ and can't wait to see movies like ‘World War Z’ then you are going to love Z DAY!

This is a physical outdoor open world experience played on a 70 acre property in Sydney. Once you drive through our gates you will be immersed into a post apocalyptic landscape. It'll be like playing a 3D video game but everything that happens will be real and not virtual! The action and events will be unscripted. We will set up some parameters and missions but the rest will be up to you and your fellow players and every session has the potential to be different.

The setting is a world ravaged by a previously unknown virus. Once the virus broke out into the general population it quickly spread to create a global pandemic. Although vast areas and huge numbers of population have been lost to the infection, governments have been able to establish small containment lines known as Safe Havens. These last bastions are strongly guarded and remain the last hope of humanity. Outside the Safe Havens lie the Quarantine Zones and it is here that you will pick up the plot and play your role in Z DAY.

PLEYGO Part 4

I have been charged the next month's charge. I chose the $25 "SuperFan" that allows me to select sets from the "Fan" and "SuperFan" sets. It took me some time to get my first set as you can see in my first set of Pleygo entries. Just days before I was charge for my second month, I received my second set. both sets were from the "Fan" sets and I have yet to receive a set from the "SuperFan" selection. I still think this is a good service but they need to add more sets to choose from. I still have the second set as I have not had time to sit and put it together. that will change today, for I will be heading to Disney's Animal Kingdom on the 5th of July. If there is anything that you want me to check on for you while I'm there just let me know.

I will be tweeting and instagraming while I'm there.

Instagram- plastictrooper

Twitter- @Plastictrooper1

Also once again to the people who work for Pleygo, let me know if you need someone to run the distribution center from SC.

World War Z movie review

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I was able to get on the computer to give my thoughts on the latest Brad Pitt movie "World War Z". I'm going to review without giving too much information to spoil the movie for you. I've read other reviews that compare this movie to other "Zombie" style movie and they don't give it a chance on it's own. If you have read the book you know it's a different style all together. This movie does not go in to the gore zone with Zombie slashing and heads rolling like scenes from AMCs The Walking Dead. But the movie does keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for what around the corner. There is a lot of action that takes place so watch each character you encounter. The money numbers are not as strong on the first weekend of release, but I'm sure Blu-Ray and DVD sales will exceed expectations. This is a movie that needs to be seen more than once and talked about for some time. This is a movie that involves the skill of thinking. trying to solve the problem before and seeing the connections that Brad's character. It will also make you read the book to get more information. It is a different type of "Zombie" for new fans.

Well worth the time and money to see it.

World War Z (movie)

As some of you may have noticed based on earlier post that I like all things Zombie. There is an upcoming movie staring Brad Pitt that everyone already knows and Mireille Enos who plays his wife. For those who don't know who Mireille, she portrays Sarah Linden the lead detective. The story of the movie is based on the novel by Max Brooks that takes Brad Pitt's character around the world looking for a solution for the possible zombie pandemic. I have high hopes for the movie that I hope that has not been over hyped.
The movie will be out in theaters on June 21st.
The book on the other hand was out in 2006.
There is an audiobook that was released in 2007. It can be bought through iTunes and Amazon.
Here is a link to thier website. World War Z
There is also a video game app you can download for $4.99. There is a nice video showing the game in action and looks great. Please read the warning before buying.
Mountain Man Blog

Lone Ranger 79108

I just bought a new set the other day. It is from the new Disney's Lone Ranger collection. I like all of the former western Lego sets and these are even better.
This set is of the Stage Coach. It comes with 5 mini figs including The Lone Ranger and Tonto, two bad guys, and a female rider. You may notice in the pictures that the Lone Ranger is on a different black horse. That horse does not come with the set. That horse is from my Hobbit set. I just didn't want to take the others apart and saddle one of them up. The horses and the front of the Stage Coach are free flowing. In past sets, anything that is horse pulled was basically one long piece. A nice addition so new Lego fans can do the same in their own creations.

 

 

Here are a few pictures.

Pleygo service review

This is from what I can find or not find the first review of the Pleygo service that allows you to rent Lego sets for a monthly fee. This service has been compared to Netflix.

After I found out about it and researched over the Internet, I decided to join it and give it a try. As some of you have seen in earlier post, I enjoy playing, building, and collecting Lego sets. As of the date of this posting, I am waiting for the arrival of my first rental set of Legos.

The Pleygo company wants to share Legos with as many people as possible. Meaning that you can pay a small amount for the monthly service, you Lego Fan can enjoy a set for as long as you want and return it back to them postage paid. Why spend money on sets that your child may get bored with and/or lose, when you can spend less on the service and play with larger sets.

There are three types of memberships to choose from.
 "Fan" which runs $15 for small and medium Lego sets.
 "Super Fan" which runs $25 for small, medium, and Large Lego sets.
 "Mega Fan" which is the best deal of them all cost $49. With this membership you get small, medium, large, and huge Lego sets. These sets are the big sets that can set you back a couple of hundred dollars each.

As some people have read in other sites, this service has been compared to Netflix. I for one have been a member of Netflix for several years and still enjoy it. But looking back to the beginnings of Netflix, it took some time for DVDs to get to those homes that are further away from the mailing site. Well that is where Pleygo is at right now. They send out the Lego sets from California. It could take close to five days for me to get the sets, one day to put them together and review, five days for them to receive it, and the process starts all over again. I could get as few as three sets and as many as four in one month. The reason for this is that I live in South Carolina.

Pleygo, if you need a place on the east coast let me know I will. Be more than happy to run your East Coast distribution office for you.

I love forward to getting you more information on this service as soon as I can review it.

Pleygo