Mini E-kit

I've been working on a new set of e-drums using acoustic shells. I am still working on the final arrangement for a full posting of THAT project. But, as was the plan, I was going to use part of the full kit to use as a mini kit for the PS3 - for Rock Band and Guitar Hero use.

Key to this was finding out that GH4 came with one of those cheap, lame drum kits, but it had a MIDI input in the kit. I figured if the drum kit came with a MIDI option, then a MIDI converter without a crappy drum kit would soon be an option. Well, not an official one, but I did find one. IF you are on the Rock Band or Guitar Hero forums online, you'll probably find the 'Seth' MIDI-PS3 adapter. Well, I did, and I bought it. It took me about a year to finally hook it up to a drum kit, and play with it. Basically, my existing drum brain (to MIDI) is an Alesis IO. This then sends MIDI to the 'Sethbox' converter, which acts as a PS3 adapter and controller - it's got all the buttons like the square, triangle, circle, x and the Start PS3 and select buttons. Much like the drum kit controllers for the PS3 or any other console.

So, on to the details and pictures!

Implements of construction: hacksaw and file for cutting and de-burring the strut, nuts bolts, washers, wrenches, brackets, braces, extra strut, flannel shirt (cutting strut outside in the cold!) and an extra 1/4" patch cable. And, etc.

This is it. I built the rack out of my typical Super Strut rack construction. The feet are 18" long, and the verticals and horizontal are 24" long / tall. The 18" bass drum (12" deep) fits in great, with some room to spare. I am happy how this ended up fitting together.

Rotating around a bit, you can see the toms and snare. I opted to use my e-snare on a snare stand like a typical drum kit rather than 4 toms mounted on the rack. Mostly for space reasons. I'd need a longer bar for 4 toms, and I like the visual of the snare.
The white caps on the strut are to minimize clothing and carpet snags from the cut ends of the strut - even tho I filed it smooth, can't be too careful for Meran!

Another angle. One tom head is white - it's the first mesh head I got - I bought it. Making the black mesh heads myself is more cost effective. The green 'dots' are nerf gun bullets (2" in diameter) cut in half to serve as a dome for the piezo underneath. Roland vdrums uses foam 'cones' and cost about $8 each. I got 10 'domes' for $5.

Mostly straight-on front view. I plan on making the back resonant head out of mesh eventually. I cut a hole in the mylar head because I was getting some resonant sound from it when it was whole. I'm trying to cut down on as much acoustical noise as possible.

Higher angle

Top view, it's pretty compact!! I plan to add my electronic hi-hat and 2 e-cymbals for more realism during play. All it takes is duplication of Rock Band / GH colors on the game to map to the additional bits. Example: Blue is used in Rock band for a middle tom, a ride and the open hi-hat sound. I can map the second (middle) tom to blue, my electronic ride, and the open action on the hi-hat to all blue, so depending on the song I can use it more realistically. Or not, choice is yours on which blue to use.

Left side, nothing too new here

The "bits". The Alesis Trigger IO - translates the piezo signal from the pad to a MIDI signal. This normally goes to a laptop, keyboard or other MIDI sound source to produce the sounds.
The little white box is the 'Sethbox' or 'sethmeisterg's EDRUM-USB adapter" converter. Built by a RockBand forum member named Seth. This takes the MIDI signal from the IO and sends it to the PS3 for game play. It's also got the standard PS3 controller buttons - Square, Circle, Triangle, X, Select, Start and the PS3 button. It's also got flashing LEDs to indicate mode, setup and hit registers. I am impressed; it came with 20+ pages of documentation for some super customization and setup options.

Who's ready to give it a try?

Playing Cards and Dice Tower

I tell people not to bother with gifts for my for my birthday, but I usually get a good gift from Meran. This year was no different, with an added surprise.

First up, Meran's awesome card decks she found; a bunch of really cool deck themes, with some really good art in them, too.

First up, the Pirate deck! Yarr! Really neat and clever deck. All the Jacks, Queens and Kings are famous pirates, and have an antique feel and look to them.

The rest of the decks are from Bicycle and are all from their 'custom decks' line. Or magic decks. If I were into card tricks, these would be great to play around with and learn. They are also usable for regular cards. Cribbage or Poker, anyone?

• Black Ghost
• Ghost
• Black Tiger
• Shadow Masters

And some I can't find reference to anymore:

• Black Spider
• Purple
• Guardians
• Black Scorpion
• Black Light Glow in the Dark

If you want a unique deck of cards, check out Bicycle's arcane line.

I hosted a Titan game in my new game room, there will be a post for that soon, too (The game room, not Titan). Probably after Thanksgiving. One of my friends gave me some passes to get into the Portland Chinese Gardens. We've been to the Japanese Gardens (mostly for the Bonsai showings) but not the Chinese Gardens - we are looking forward to going.

I got a package from UPS today. It was from my brother-in-law, Dennis. I had an inkling this was coming, but I wasn't going to expect it, but enjoy it if / when it showed up. It was a dice tower. I love dice games, rolling dice, and dice towers. I've never really gotten around to making or even buying a dice tower, or a rolling surface. Best I ever did was to line my dice box with a soft, rubbery surface that Meran got for me at a hobby shop. It's a great surface - I may line this dice tower with it, but the cork Dennis used is probably sufficient. Anyway, the dice tower collapses for better / easier transport. Many of my friends' nice wooden dice towers are all-in-ones that are bulky to carry. Other friends have collapsible dice towers made from cardboard or even PVC pipe. Enough squall, on to the pictures:

Pretty cool, huh?

Here it is collapsed, ready for transport!

Close up of the dragon graphic.

That's my gift synopsis. If you don't know how old I am, I won't divulge that intel in this post. You'll just have to figure it out on your own. Here's to another year on the planet.

Green Chile

Green Chile - This is by far my favorite dish. I was introduced to it by a friend of mine (Brooke!) at a Rock Bottom Grill in downtown Denver. It was only offered as an appetizer in a cup like soup. I was hooked. I was constantly on the lookout for green chile in any restaurant. I found that it varies from a watery greenish sauce to a think, hearty stew. I tend to like the thicker stuff, not so much the watery stuff.

I've learned to cook it to the capacity where I enjoy it immensely, although I usually forget the cumin until late (usually Meran reminds me to put it in). We've done variants with potatoes instead of pork for a vegetarian green chile, and changed out some of the ingredients, but it is pretty consistent of Hatch chiles, tomatoes, pork, onions, garlic and spices to taste.

Whenever I make it, I am always trying to do different things with the end product; smother burritos, nachos, or quesadillas. Eat it alone as soup / stew, with flour tortillas. Huevos Rancheros. And during my last gallon of chile, it got me thinking. When I see (or saw) kids eating french fries, they didn't really eat the fries. The fries were mostly a ketchup delivery device. So, with all my burritos and various dishes, was I really just delegating them to a green chile delivery system of my own? Well, yes, I guess so. Although, I do eat it on its own, I also use it as a gravy or condiment of sorts.

With the last batch I made I committed a holy sin of Green Chile - I used canned chiles. I just haven't found a source of fresh fire-roasted green chiles in Oregon. I've heard rumors of an occasional farmer's market, but I haven't found anything solid. Oregon is a 'Chile free' zone, it seems. It's even tough to find big cans of green chiles. I can find big ass cans of jalapenos, but not green chiles. (I finally found them at WinCo and Cash & Carry.) This last batch, along with the cardinal sin of canned chiles, I used tomatillos instead of tomatoes, and that kept the green chile green! Boy howdy! It was a good experiment; I've seen recipes with tomatoes and tomatillos, and the tomatillos are a keeper. Now I gotta find fresh ones because, alas, these were canned, too. This whole batch was the 'canned chile' recipe. It still came out really good, tho.

What do you like YOUR green chile on?

New Carport

Remember my post about the 30" of snow that took down our carport? If not, remind yourself of the carnage here. I'll wait while you go look.

Back? Okay, so, here's the NEW and IMPROVED carport. It's much sturdier, so we've upgraded its status to a shed. (Candy calls it a "garage extension".) We've got a concrete block base wall (there is a small hill behind it, so we wanted some water / soil proof barrier wall, but it didn't need to be the full height, so a 3-block-high base was built. Then the framing was put on top of that. We hired someone, so don't get all impressed that I did this myself. It went up while I was in Florida at a customer site. It was nice coming back and seeing this:
Here's a quick shot of our temporary storage area.. not covered.




The new structure sat there like that for a few weeks as I was still traveling. I finally got some siding on there. Kudos to Matt who came over and held up the other end of the 12' Hardie Plank siding.
Below is the old metal roofing, cleaned up for reuse.





Again, a few weeks pass. Then, the roofing. I recycled the original metal roofing. This time, Since I am an equal opportunity friend abuser, Jacob came over to help with the roofing. Candy took some action shots. Also, this was the first time I put my new Ryobi impact driver to some real work. I was impressed.

We put in two sections of some clear plastic roofing for some light. We'll see if the theory holds out.



That's the end of the post. I guess I had one more 'done' picture, but I don't. It's not that much different from the last shot here, though. There's still some work to be done, but for now, it is functional as an outside rain-free storage zone. And, I can move my table saw and use it as a work shop for the multitude of other endless projects.

Stay tuned.. the Game Room is reaching critical mass...

Portland Juggling Festival 2009

The weekend is over - well last weekend, it took me longer than anticipated to finish this post. Since I was traveling a lot right before the festival, I didn't do the Volunteer Coordinator this year. So, I volunteered to be put to work as "Gym Coordinator" and "Late Night Czar".

As Gym Coordinator, I was responsible for keeping the back door closed, general upkeep, and initial setup and cleanup at the end of the festival.

As Late Night Czar, I was there to open the doors for late night juggling and close the gym down at 2am, when we kicked all the jugglers out for the night. Kicking jugglers out at 2am is a lot tougher than you'd think. Like herding cats. it helped when security showed up, but not a lot.

Friday night Renegade Show - Late Friday night is 'Club Renegade'. This is a tradition for most juggling festivals for folks to do some acts that wouldn't be too acceptable for a public show. Beer (this year, tequila was added), partial nudity, and other questionable bits are to enjoyed.

Some of the top acts from the night:

1. Rhys - Steven Hawking does stand-up. This bit was hilarious. Rhys was merely sitting in a wheel chair, head lilting off to the side, and a laptop in his lap. Meanwhile, over the PA, the sound of a Steven Hawking voice over. Jokes consisted of classic jokes with a science boost. (I just flew in from the outer nebula and boy are my arms imperceptibly younger). The jokes were pretty rough, but I hadn't laughed that hard in a while.
   
2. Diabolo - Two guys, one was a narrator doing the Diaboloist's talking for him. The other was pretty damn good at the Diabolo. The voice-over / narration was funny, and contained a lot of Emu references for whatever reason.
   
3. Devilstick - A lone soul looking for a place to stay was trying to work the crowd with good Devilstick skills. The crowd managed to convinced him to take off his shirt.. He found a place to stay.
   
4. Bekka - From Vancouver, Canada. She's awesome! She does a lot of club tricks that involve rolling them and manipulating them around her body. Always fun to watch.
   
5. Poki & Parasol - The bit consisted of a contact juggling routine with a parasol, lots of isolation tricks to make it seem like the parasol was under its own power. Poki's fantastic at object manipulation.
   

Saturday night Extravaganza - the big show!
First off, since I am volunteering and we volunteers can't always get to the theater in a timely fashion for some really good seats, we get seats saved for us, so we are guaranteed good seats. This year, I got the front row! Unfortunately, my friends had a family emergency come up and I was left with some open seats. I browsed around and found a small child and his father (Rob Brown - unicyclist and his son Quinn) to take up some killer seats with no heads in the way.

The show was awesome, as usual, here's are some of the highlights:

1. Poki (and another guy, I forgot his name! Sorry!) This was awesome, they had on black suits and came out with their hands behind their backs. did some minor dance steps, and then, the big reveal, their arms were twice as long as they should be, and amazingly flexible. They had put gloves on the ends of some sticks and starting doing poi / swinging moves. It was fabulous! I thought it was clever and very well executed, too.
   
2. Poetic Motion Machine. Club passing mania! 4 guys doing some very entertaining club passing, with some really long and high throws mixed in. Really fantastic.
   
3. Sweet Can - A slack rope routine that was very good, and then, she lays on her back (on the slack rope) and does foot juggling with a rolled up carpet. Very entertaining.
   
4. Curtis Carlyle did a bit where he got an audience member to help him as he worked his body through a tennis racket. Great bit, good jokes, and fun.
   
5. Last year, we had a Japanese champion unicyclist. This year, Kawri returned, and was joined by another champion unicyclist. They each did a routine, then they did a duet routine. Really amazing uni-cycling!
   
6. Sean Blue - the headliner. He did ball spinning with small balls, contact juggling, and some high number juggling. Some of his ring manipulation / juggling was very visually incredible.
   

After the show, back to Reed for late night juggling!

On the last day, Sunday, Bernard hosted some juggling games. This consisted of a few games:

1. Club collecting contest - I managed 14. The winner of the game did 68.
   
2. Quarters - each contestant juggles 3 quarters. when you drop, throw your quarters in the middle. Last person juggling takes 'em all.
   
3. Club passing for distance - done like an egg toss. Standard 4 count passing, and every 2 rotations (8 throws) one of them takes a step back. The winners were from the Poetic Motion Machine group, and were probably 40-50 feet apart.
   
4. Combat - Juggle 3 clubs, everyone runs around trying to get others to drop by either using your clubs to hit other clubs, or just however it happens. Last person juggling wins. This game went on for at least an hour with a lot of rounds happening. I know this was Bernard's favorite.

Well, that's the report. No pictures this year, I think juggling pictures are kinda weak, I can take a picture of me 'juggling' 7 or 9 balls.. it really needs to be video. Last year I got some good pictures of people passing clubs from unicycles, but really, how many pictures of that do I need to post? It was a great time, and I am already looking forward to next year's festival!