The Think Tank

We started this line at 7pm and did not finish until after 11pm, so at this point it is is after midnight.  As such I am going to keep this brief.

I shot 288 on both rounds today, for a total of 576.  (600 is possible). My general rule is that I shouldn’t drop below a 290, so I was a bit off of that but not so far as to be really disappointed.  (FITA tournaments score this target differently than most.  For FITA, only the very small dime-sized X-Ring counts as a ten.  Everything else in the yellow is a nine.  The X-Ring is not really visible in the image at left, because it is underneath a pile of hit indicators.  For comparison, using normal Vegas scoring, I would have shot 596/36X  out of a possible 600/60X.)

I felt that I shot pretty well most of the night. I stayed pretty calm and focused on my form and usually when I missed I could identify why. I got shakier as the night wore on and my shoulder got sore, but that is par for the course right now.  I really need to into the shop to shoot 3-4 times a week (instead of once a week like I have been), and I also need to get into the gym as well and build up my shoulder strength.

I don’t know my placement so far because a lot of people did not shoot tonight: you have to shoot two of the three days (Fri-Sun), and only a few adults shot the Friday line. I’m guessing that score should put me in the top 5-6, but I find it doubtful I would be higher than that.

All in all I feel OK with today. I messed some up, but I shot pretty well overall. Tomorrow is the next day, as the man says.

The rest of the post will be my self critique and shooting notes. Read on if you like, but it will prolly be boring. 😉

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For our family and friends we are grateful

Please Join us for

Lois, Sue, Chris’

37th Annual Holiday Open House

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
2pm until late

3634 NE 17th Avenue
Portland, Oregon  97212
christian.robertsolsen@gmail.com
suzanne329@hotmail.com
503-287-8747

Regrets Only, Please

As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same.

Joel made a time-lapse video of himself working on his Jeep the other day, which inspired me to make one myself.  I was thinking that it would be really neat to set the camera up in the yard and make a film of the Halloween and Christmas transformations, but I got the idea too late for both of those projects, so instead I made a video of putting up the Christmas Village last night.

To do it, I set my camera to take a picture every ten seconds, then used Windows Movie Maker to compile it into the video you see above.  I think it turned out pretty neat.  The only thing that I wish is that we were able to actually get it done that fast!

In case anyone is curious, the video is comprised of 1,754 still images shot over the course of about 5 hours.

We held our annual pumpkin carving party on Saturday, October 29th and I have to say that it was one of the best years we’ve had a in really long time.

We would like to extend our great thanks to all of our friends who came, both new and old.  You all made it a wonderful party, as well as very productive!

A special thanks goes out to Jayme, for being our official pumpkin scooper-outer!

Click through the bump for close-ups and a breakdown of who carved what.

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Crestfallen Manor

The big day is finally upon us, and I have been negligent in getting photos or descriptions on here so that those of you who cannot make it are able to see what we’ve done this year.  Making matters even worse, I don’t even have a good excuse for not doing so.  We worked very hard this year to get everything up and ready early, and we succeeded in a way that I don’t believe we ever have before:  We were basically done by the second weekend in October, and completely done by 21st.

Getting everything done early was really nice because I got to just sit back and enjoy it for quite awhile, instead of having to be outside building it every night until Halloween, just so I can turn around and take it all down again.

I didn’t add much by way of new things this year, instead focusing on fixing several things that broke last year and making improvements existing elements. I did make a couple of new things, simple things though, just because I can’t help myself:

The Drinking Man

The first new thing I built was our Drinking Man.   I found a really good skeleton for an affordable price, and I rigged him so he sits on a barrel which is filled with water (dyed red, of course).  I put a small pond pump in the water, and a tube up his back so that the water pours out of his mouth and makes it look like he is trying to drink, but the liquid just pours down through ribs and back into the barrel he is sitting on.  It’s very simple but also effective.  I quite like him!

The second thing I built is a small pneumatic prop in the side yard, which is motion activated and springs up when people walk past.  I built the mechanism that drive it at Fright Fest this year.  The original idea had been to use a spider as the prop, but we found a light weight little skeleton with a glowing face and decided to use that instead.

We stuck him in the side yard, and he has been doing a great job of scaring unsuspecting people as they walk past the yard all season.

Chief among the improvements that I made was to fix our Crypt Creeper in two ways: I improved the apparatus that swings him out from behind the crypt, and I changed his sensor and added a couple of boards which do two things: 1) he makes sounds when he is triggered, screaming “Hail to the King, Baby!”; and 2) he now will wait for 20 seconds before being triggered a second time, even if the sensor detects motion.  That is a big improvement over last year, because when it got really busy he just popped out and hung there for minutes on end, not scaring anyone.  This year will he will continue to retract and pop back out again, so he will scare people even when it is very busy.

Other improvements to the yard were minimal and I honestly can’t remember what they all were, but they are nice finishing touches on several things.

As usual we will be doing our annual haunted yard tonight, so anyone who can should try to stop by!  It’s really a blast to see all the little kiddies coming through, hear all the screams and see the occasional parent run away down the street in horror.

You can see all the pics by following this link.

Happy Halloween!!!