This is a PREEMPTIVE Post!

I am posting this to remind you that any and all Holiday Shenanigans should be posted here in an effort to spread holiday cheer and stuff.

I'll be catching a plane to Portland, Oregon Tuesday to see my sister get hitched! Ian, keep an eye on Southern(ish) Maine for me. Tyler, you've got the county under control. I'll be taking lots of pictures and hopefully seeing lots of hipsters.

In the meantime, please enjoy this.

Another Uneventful Weekend

Hey guys, figured I'll keep you posted on this boring life stuff.

So this week I didn't get to go to my sweet-ass job piling hardwood veneer, so instead I took a short little drive to the southern end of our state. Spent Saturday night drinking mediocre craft brews with an okay friend from high school. Then I had to get up first thing in the morning to drive further south just to meet a couple of douchebags I used to room with. Apparently if one of them flies from the west coast and brings some lady friend of his I'm obligated to meet up with them. Not like they're offering to pay gas money, assholes.

Spent a few hours having this self-involved cunt-waffle tell me all about his job and how it was helping the environment and stuff. Yeah I'm sure, let's just power the whole United States of America on fucking air. While we're at it we'll just replace cars with hot air balloons powered from our own farts. Dickhole.

Then they were all like, oooooh, lets go get some beers from some brewpub restaurant. Look how fuckin' hip we are, can't just eat at Wendy's like the rest of us? Got to hear all kinds of stories about these guys building airplanes and windmills and shit. Well I make shit too, you know? Hardwood veneer is serious fuckin' business. I stack some good fuckin' panels! Motherfuckin' full loads of 0 Select Whites, make a ceiling in a ski lodge or some shit. Asshats...

Then they're all like "Dur! Let's go to the mall, herpderpflerp!". Just full of original god damned ideas these cocksuckers. Then this fuck has the audacity to take him and his lady friend and fuck off to Rockland or something. Good thing I drove all that way. Fuckin' amateurs. Spent a few days wandering around shops in Portland and spending money I don't have. Went to the movies to see the fiftieth anniversary of some stupid cliche science fiction show. Fucking nerds everywhere. Had to help one little nerd pick up the pieces to his glowy stick, called it a screwdriver. What kind of fuckin' screwdriver doesn't even have a head. Just some glowy lights and stupid sound effects. Only screws he's taking out are the ones loose in his fucking nerd head.

Then these fuckin' people in the county have the audacity to make me go pick up a load of craft beer for them. Yeah, that's what I want to do, drive your stupid goods around. Now I have to go and eat a bunch of high carb food with these familial types. Thanks for fucking up any chance of success on my diet you sons of bitches.

Hope you guys had a better weekend, maybe with some super cool guy who drives a super cool Jeep and stuff. That would've been awesome.

<\sarcasm>

Wuv you,
Tyler

Awesome Domain Name Deal

Hey yall,

Just saw this post on Jalopnik. It's a wicked good hosting deal from dreamhost and seems like you can get two domain names plus unlimited storage for a year... I don't really have any use for it other than to steer tonynuzzo.com at it and maybe get a legit name for this blag but it's a really good deal for the money. Maybe it's time to get a domain name? I would advocate for moving from Blogger but it seems to work really well and I don't wanna mess with setting up a wordpress for something that works fine as is.

Thoughts? Opinions? I just need an excuse to buy this deal haha.

3rd Shift Piler and Other Tales from The County

So I haven't really written since I started the job because there isn't much to write about in regards to that. The planks come down the line, I pull them off and put them in the correct pile. We process 5-8000 panels a night. Also a man wore a gorilla mask Halloween night on the splice line. The place has got a lot of good folk in it and thank jebus I work the night shift where they have a smidgen of a sense of humor. Suffice to say that The Fox hit Columbia Forest Products like a ton of bricks last week. Everyone keeps on sneaking up on each other and yelling "HEY ______! WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?" and then _______ responds. One guy on the line near me just put his hands up and when someone asked him why he said without singing, in a perfect monotone "I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, saying ayo." I'm stealing that.

Outside of that, I've consistently been having crazy weekends. Where the hell were these when I was unemployed? The first weekend a bar in Presque Isle had a party for Bradd and his fiance Carlina, welcoming them back from basic training. It was a camo party so I went in full dress from the Civil War. After much whiskey I don't remember the latter part of the night, but according to eyewitness testimony I may or may not have projectile closed the bar early. Not too proud of that. I blame Bradd since the last thing I remember is asking him to order me whatever he thinks I'll like. I don't remember the name of the drink but I will just refer to it as a Humdinger in future conversation. Good thing I know the bar owners, they were very nice to me about it.

The next weekend there was a surprise 40th for my cousin and wouldn't you know the whole Beaulieu clan showed up. I don't know how much I've told you guys about Beaulieu family parties, but they are pretty nuckin' futs. Country music cranked right up, a beer selection of Bud and/or Bud Light, obligatory dancing around 1-2 AM. Also there haven't been that many in the past 5-6 years since a lot of them moved in recent years. I ended up at my uncle's house, just drinkin' Buds with all my older cousins and uncles until 8 AM. Very good times.

Then last weekend Bradd came over for a LAN party which just turned into us drinking and trying to install Windows 7 on his laptop. Fun times.

Well now it's November or as I like to call it, Ernest Hemingway appreciation month. That is because it is both National Novel Writing Month and No Shave November. Also I'm still doing the low carb thing so I'm surviving on a diet of steak, bacon, eggs, whiskey and black coffee. Been trying out the NaNoWriMo thing, which is hard when you work a job that leaves you exhausted, so my word counts are less than stellar. I'm not writing for any other reason than to have a project, so if I fuck up, fuck it. Also I'm trying to write a really bad book on purpose because that approach seems to really take a shit on writer's block. Also if I accidentally write something good in between, well that's just neat.

My "technique"

If I actually do meet some stated goals on that I'll let you guys know. 

In the meantime there is a partial solar eclipse tomorrow morning here on the east coast (suck it Seattle) and I'm going to MSSM to see it with the Mr. Larry Berz. In the meantime I'm going to stay up and write about two guys eating tacos and/or burritos with some not so clever passages over-analyzing the Baja Blast Mountain Dew because this book is just me rambling. I'm good at rambling. You know that. You read all of this stupid shit.

This Prime Automobile!

Blatant picture dump. So.... long time no post but I had this crazy weekend where I took a wind turbine to MIT energy night (which was sweet), drove back that night. Next day went to Pika's annual Cider weekend, took Rita Cooper with me... it was pretty sweet. Then finally the day after that I went to a VW swap meet in NH. Now that I am an adult... why not do ALL the fun things, right?

Sweet VWs and I scored some good parts for cheap!

Look at how jovial this guy is, yes that is a human powered cider press!

Rita and I kicked some serious cider ass this year. I just got in the zone and pedaled my arse off and also pushed apples into the cutter machine which is the messiest and most satisfying job. Made it home with a bunch of cider and some of last years hard cider. Nice.

On the trailer!

So, I found this one on craigslist for what seemed like a good deal. I got there and found out it actually was a good deal. The dude held it for me until I could come back with a trailer which was sweet. Also, it's very hard to find a trailer this time of year... seriously several Uhauls were out of car trailers two weekends in a row. This bus loaded much easier than the last one I put on a trailer. We hooked it onto my dad's truck and he towed it down the guys driveway (which was wicked nasty). Loaded it on the trailer when we got up on the pavement. I got to drive it while it was being towed, which makes it officially my longest ride in a VW bus thus far.

Checkout that plaid!... Just don't look at the curtains. Please.

This one is a Westfalia which means it has a wicked sweet pop-top. The tent is missing but I will replace it once the thing is running again. I was surprised at how much room there is in the top though. I am 6 ft and I could probably sleep up there. Also allows you more head room in the back if no one is up there.

At her old home

Needs a new battery and a list of other things but the important thing about this bus is that there is less than 10k miles on the rebuilt engine. The rebuild was even done by the guy who is doing my engine (or... actually what is he doing with my engine). Also the bus was stickered last year, so it is much closer to being road able than my other rig. I jumped it with the Subaru and got it to turn over, all the lights work and there is fuel to the carbs so .... it's on the right track. I mean it's so much further along than my other one that in my mind, it's already running! First things on the list are to fix the drivers window (which doesn't go up or down), get a new battery, recondition the wheels, fresh tires, brake job and obviously get the thing to you know... do the whole start and run thing. After all that I'll re-pad the front seats, get a new westfalia tent and clean up the top part, maybe replace the gasket up there too. 

Hooray projects!

To War

Before I start, ATTENTION TONY NUZZO, THE FUNNIEST MOTHER FUCKING COMEDIAN I KNOW WILL BE IN PORTLAND ON MONDAY OCTOBER 21ST. GO.

HERE HE IS ON NATIONALISM OR FREEDOM

So the plan. Get up at 3 AM Friday, leave to pick up Toby from a train station in Brewster, NY and then to Alfred by Friday night to help them prepare for the war. The next day, battle and party. Then on Sunday up at 6 AM to drive back to The County. Damn near 1700 miles of driving in about 3 days. My family said I was crazy. What they failed to realize is that this is what I've been mentally preparing to do for months. Also it was just sort of amazing to do something, anything, especially something a little insane for mostly very silly reasons. After four months of absolutely nothing, three days of hour by hour something were a godsend.

The truly amazing bit, it all worked. Brilliantly. The trip was zero stress and adhered to schedule surprisingly well. The only glitch was the curse of Toby. Every single god damned time Toby and I get in a car together and say "LET'S GO ON AN ADVENTURE" the car fails. Every. Single. Time. There was my trip to see him in Toronto where my Jeep died in the parking garage. Him and Renee's trip to see me where her clutch fell out. Then this time my battery just sort of disappeared about twenty minutes after he got in the car. After we pulled off it was pretty apparent that all that happened was the battery terminal was loose and sort of bounced the fuck off after a bump. But still we had to pull over and tinker for an hour to figure that simple thing out. It is Tobias Hrynick and I, we are not known for our mechanical prowess.

We arrived in Alfred and dove right into helping the club build swords for the war. We had a good twenty five people building swords quickly for about four hours and met our quota. of 72 new swords. Got to meet a lot of the new faces including one kid everyone refers to as "New Tyler". I was weirded out until I found out he got the name for having similar drunken personalities. Looks like I've got someone to take on an adventure at Hot Dog Day. Then Toby and I went back to AJs apartment, had some beers and went to bed.

Wake up at 9 AM for the Officers breakfast, Toby, AJ and I were not officers but insisted that we are a necessary element of their discussion. Also I need Battle Waffles, it's tradition to eat waffles prior to combat for me. It's kind of my thing. We ate our waffles and headed up to the field of battle to set everything up. There was a lot of on the spot improvisation as it turned out we didn't have half the things we needed but in the end the new officer corps did it up nice. Alfred States army arrived and after a pretty ad libbed speech about the rules, we all headed back to camp.

I was happy that this year we got time to properly put together a strategy. We divided up into units, nicknamed the units, even had a group dedicated to relaying communication from the General. I could have really used that last time. We fought for maybe 4 hours and it was awesome. I spent most of the match defending the AU homebase which eventually fell after a near 90 minute siege. In the end Alfred State won, again. I had fun, Toby had fun, trip well worth it. After the war we got a couple cars and took some good folk to the chinese buffet in Wellsville and then went to AJs apartment for a wonderful night of drunken revelry.  I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to see because of the short window of time I was there but I saw a good bunch. The weekend was pretty expensive to pull off but it was well worth it. PICTURES!

Toby Hrynick, in Alfred, helping fend off the State school horde.

My good friend Gaelen representing.

Pic from the final battle around the King Alfred statue.

A nice orchestrated group shot.

Toby and I left at 7 AM Sunday and I got home around 2 AM so I could start my new job at 8 AM. After 10 hours of OSHA safety videos I was considered an employee at Columbia Forest Products, making whole piece hardwood veneer of the maple and birch variety. The job is not exactly what I would call a dream job for me. The job is very physically demanding and only just mentally demanding enough that I'm not allowed to zone out for even a second. That said, the people are all very nice and the pay is quite nice. It's mostly headed to the bank where hopefully I can finally grow a small amount of savings. I haven't had more than a few hundred dollars in the bank since High School. A bit of money in the bank to fall on is just what I need while I plan the next step, which currently is move somewhere that people live and get a job that sort of uses this brain thing I got bouncing around my shoulders. It works decently and could be applied to any number of things.

Anyways, time to sit here and wait for something to happen.

Autumn, can we just call it Windmill season?

I've been at it at approximately 3/4 throttle with the gang at Pika over the past couple weeks. Last weekend was spent entirely at Common Ground Fair. Most of that time was hanging out at the Pika booth and talking with people who want one of our sexy wind turbines (I hope google catches onto that phrase and this blog comes up in search results for "sexy wind turbines", maybe I'll over use it in this post just to give us a fighting chance). I was pleasantly surprised to speak with some very informed customers on Saturday. Of course there were a few folks who didn't know how energy works but they were fairly few and far between. One point of discontent was that we had the wind turbine braked because in order to run we need an inverter and our inverter outputs "split phase 240V" which is what is at the entrance to your house.... however we only had a 120V extension cord. Most people understood why this was an issue but there was one man who simply did not understand that and was convinced that we were giving him some sort of BS. Next year we'll bring a transformer.

In the off times I hung out with Blandrea Jarrett (not actually bland at all) and her associated compadres. I have to say that after staying there all weekend, you really don't get the common ground experience until you camp there. The "volunteer" campground is the loosest run hassle free camping experience. I showed up too late to "get a permit" so I just pitched my tent anyways and no one bothered us the entire weekend, turns out that is what all of our neighbors did too. I just got a sweet new tent so I was excited to try it out, it worked great and despite wind, rain and uneven ground it kept me and my stuff bone dry. We did some contra dancing saturday night and witnessed a man playing guitar on hallucinogenics on Friday. Yup that's Common Ground.

That's right kids, it's a double rainbow over a wind turbine. Can you get anymore Common Ground than that!?!?! 

I didn't get to see much of the fair really but I did see a sweet booth with a bunch of bonsai trees. I nearly bought one because ever since visiting the national National Arboretum, I have thought they are awesome. There was some guy there who seemed to know everything about them too, unfortunately he was engaged in a Bonsai geek conversation when I was there and I didn't get to pick his brain. Overall a good time. On the way home my car started skipping, I put some "drygas" (moisture remover) in the tank and it ran fine the rest of the way home (more on this later).

Taking down our booth @ Common Ground

This past week we've been going great guns at work and installed two wind turbines and a bunch of solar stuff too. The two sites each have a turbine and 3kW of PV installed (or nearly installed at the time of this writing). We're not technically installers but we have been working with electricians and installers of other wind turbines to train them on our equipment. We had an out of state installer come up and walk through our manual during one of the installs with us. One of the sites has a sweet fiberglass monopole tower that comes in sections that slide over each other and glue together. The whole rig goes up with a winch so it doesn't require a crane, it's pretty sweet. We all take turns winching the towers up, not only is it a workout but it feels pretty BAMF to be part of the tower raising. 

I'll eventually get a picture of the monopole installed, I hope. My phone died part way through the install. 

In other news the Subaru is down with a clogged catalytic converter. After racking my brain to figure out why my car was loosing power, I decided to just play the uninformed idiot and drive it until it became obvious. After a painful 5 miles from my house to Josh's place (my car squealing and riding the struggle bus the whole way) I parked it and looked underneath. My catalytic converter was straight up about to be on fire. It was bright bright orange all over  and did NOT look pleased at all. A few months ago I had my friend scan the OBD2 port on the car with his fancy scan tool. The code read "efficiency of emissions tank 2 low", being an elitist cheapskate fuck I said "Oh it's probably just some sensor." Now I think that is probably directly related to the recent failure. Screw you hindsight, screw you! Also there really isn't much of a way around the expense of replacing one of these because the catalyst inside the part makes them $$$. Additionally it would be very difficult to replace with one person and no lift. 

So, this weekend I've been tooling around on my motorcycle which discouraged me from driving around at night much. It's kind of unsafe to ride when it is too dark, even though it is pretty awesome feeling to ride down the road surrounded by darkness with only a small headlight leading you home. 

I'm taking tomorrow off to spend the day with my pops at Fryeburg Fair for woodsmans day! It's where all the "big name" lumberjacks (is that even a thing?) come to participate in events like the springboard chop, two-man saw, underhand chop and various other lumberjack things. My dad and grandfather used to go fairly regularly but I could never make it because school. Should be a wicked good Maineahbubguy time!