So, I hadn’t built a model in a while. The last one I built was a 1/350 of the Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) by Polar Lights. The brand name is rather deceptive there in that there really aren’t any lights included with it–not that I was expecting any when I got it.

It turned out to be a most excellent model, with some detail that I hadn’t expected. It included a full shuttlebay, complete with a couple of shuttles, the officer’s lounge just behind the bridge, and the botanical garden in the primary hull that we never actually saw in the movies.

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It came out pretty well, in the end. The biggest hassle, besides making the thing stay together and not fall apart on itself due to size, were the Aztec decals. These are decals which add detail to the model. Basically, in this case, it made the hull look as though it had actual plating. The entire hull was skinned in it.

So, it’s been a couple of years since I had completed it and I decided that I wanted to go do another model. This time, I would do the works with it: lights, Aztec decals, and even spray the hull instead of brush with the paint.

Hence, I got an Enterprise (NX-01), again from Polar Lights. I began a few weeks ago. The very first thing I did was paint parts. Spraying model parts isย so very easy and quick. I can’t believe I hadn’t done it with a model before.

I primed the interior pieces of the model with black and then two coats of white. This was so as to reflect the light given off from the LEDs, to disperse it throughout the hull.

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Between that and some clear coat, that pretty much covered the bulk of painting for this sucker. I’ll have to go back and do some touch-up once assembly is complete, not only to get spots I very likely missed where parts meet but also so as to get rid of light leaks.

I had found a nice spray color for the hull calledย Champagne Nouveau by Krylon. I had some initial trepidation about putting regular ol’ spray paint on a model like this, but spraying portions of the part tree seemed to yield pretty good results. So, I went for it, and this is how it came out:

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A pretty good approximation of what I think the hull of the NX-01 looks like.

So, this weekend I began the fun task of soldering! I got two different lighting systems for this. One was a pre-built LED system to light the nacelles and certain other portions. It also included blinky nav lights. I got LED strip tape lighting to take care of the windows. I had been inspired by a video I saw on YouTube, and he seemed to have pretty good results with the tape.

Problem was that the pre-built system required 4.5V and the LED tape required 12V. I found in playing with it that the LED tape actually lit pretty well with 9V. So, I decided to go with that as my primary input voltage. I had to get a voltage regulator to bring this 9V input down to 4.5. I could’ve gone with a voltage divider for the job, but I didn’t want a lot of variance–might’ve burned out the control board on the pre-built system. At least, as of today, it’s working quite well. I had soldered for most of Friday and half of Saturday. The real headache was soldering the terminals of the sections of LED tape and then putting wires on them. Then, I started wiring it up a section at a time, testing all along the way.

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It’s been a pretty cool experience, thus far. I think the bit that’s going to be the real “fun” will be the Aztec decals. I learned a few lessons from constructing the 1701-A, and I think this time I’m going to cut the decals into smaller and more manageable pieces. We’ll see how that goes.

Oh, well…for now, I’m going to retire from all of that for the weekend. While I’ve been soldering, I’ve been watching some Knight Rider, Quantum Leap, and started in on Breaking Bad. The later is a pretty good series, thus far. Obviously, not quite the sci-fi goodness that are the first two, but very entertaining drama. Apparently, it’s on A&E. Since we cut the cord from cable/satellite, I don’t know where these shows come from anymore.

But, now…time to do some mindless first-person shooting with some Call of Duty 4. An oldie, but a goodie (and much better on PC!).

 

 

Well, hello ๐Ÿ™‚ So, I’ve been on the blogosphere for a while, though on-and-off of-late. LiveJournal was where I stomped for years. I’ve imported those entries, just for posterity; LJ seems to be a bit barren these days, and I figured I should import everything while I could. But, who knows? Maybe there will be a resurgence there. If that happens, though, I’ll probably dual blog it…gives me an idea for an on-demand export plug-in, if it doesn’t exist ๐Ÿ˜€ It seems like they have one for everything these days, though, so perhaps I won’t get to have that fun. Re-inventing the wheel is for dweebs…unless, of course, it’s a better wheel!

In any case, it’s good to have most of my old LJ entries in my own database.

There’ll be a lot that’s incomplete there in those archives; I’ve had to remove the private posts, and many of the images won’t be there because I had hosted it once upon a time on an old server that doesn’t even exist anymore–not to worry, though, my backup skills are far more leet now ๐Ÿ™‚

For now, though, it’s WordPress ๐Ÿ˜€ Hosted by yours truly! I also host my bro’s WordPress blog, so I’ve been around the block with this stuff. Pretty much a snap to set up, and voilร !

Not really sure what I want to blog about, at this point. Maybe I’ll throw up happenings in life, maybe some source code when I find something interesting. Basically, something that’ll have a bit more meat than a Facebook wall post. It’s been a while since I’ve written substantially beyond anything I’ve put on there, and I’ve definitely missed it.

 

So, a lot has definitely happened over the past few days. There was a slew of storms which pelted north Alabama on Thursday. There were at least six tornados which spawned from all of that nonsense. Fortunately, neither I nor Ruthie were caught up in it. Ruthie stayed at home that day, which was nice–she started looking online for roofing estimates ๐Ÿ™‚ I got home just before the final wave came through, which just so happened to be the most violent one. We we hunkered down in the hallway for most of the evening. The power fluctuated all that time, until finally going out completely.

We spent the rest of that evening reading by candlelight. I found it a bit difficult, mostly because all we had were little votive candles, hardly sufficient for such a task. But, in the end, they did alright. I listened to the radio a little bit in the Mustang before going to bed, seeing how the world was faring since cell reception, and therefore Internet access, was completely down. They were saying power would be down 3-5 days because basically the main lines out of Brownsferry Nuclear Plant had been cut.

So, it was the next morning that we decided to hoof it to Louisville…there was power, hot water, and Ruthie could get the paper done that she needed to write for class. We went to visit mom and dad before leaving. Their house hadn’t been damaged, fortunately, beyond a bit of gutter work from a tree next-door. We asked if they wanted to come along, but they decided to stay behind and guard the fort ๐Ÿ™‚

It took us over 8 hours to get to Louisville. We started out down 565 to make our way to 65. It was at that particular interchange, however, that traffic was a total zoo. In the 15-20 minutes we had been sitting there, it hadn’t seemed anyone on 65 had actually moved. So, we got on 65 south, which had relatively no traffic. We decided to make our way through Decatur and then to Florence, where there was power, so that we could gas up before making our way back east to 65 at a more northerly point. When we emerged on the interstate, there wasn’t too much traffic at all until we got to Nashville at rush hour.

And, so, today has been spent relaxing. Ruthie did some shopping with her mom a bit. And then we got a new iPad…I was finding the 16GB one a little cramped for space, so I got a 64GB one and handed off the other one to Ruthie. She was most appreciative to have such a cool little device ๐Ÿ™‚

It looks like we will make our way back on Monday, since it sounds as though power might be restored that afternoon. We’ll see…it’ll probably be a good idea to bring down a loaf of bread or two and some extra peanut butter and jelly, just in case ๐Ÿ™‚

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

So, I got a new heli. It’s a Blade mCP X. It’s the second micro heli I’ve had, the first one being the Blade mSR. Going from fixed-pitch to collective-pitch is totally a night and day contrast. I’m still getting used to it. The little guy saw some hang time yesterday and today, but a lot of today was fighting the wind. The night I first got it, it was flopping around on the ground like a fish a lot.

I’m still liking the iPad 2. I think it’s inspired me into seriously considering getting the iPhone 5 when it is out for VZW. Android isn’t pissing me off, necessarily, but what the carriers and manufacturers do to it does. They pretty much rape the platform, putting bloatware and custom interfaces on it…personally, I prefer AOSP. Fortunately, there’s a ROM for my phone, though it’s not fully functional (e.g., doesn’t do video at this point or MMS).

Anyway, that’s all for now. Time for some sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

I have been so bad about keeping up with LJ. All of the other social outlets tend to keep me distracted ๐Ÿ™‚

I just found a very nice app for the iPad, though, by LJ. Maybe that’ll get me going on again. Typing on this little beastie can be harrowing at times, but the new cover which comes with the iPad 2 orients the device such that typing can actually be quite comfy on the thing. Speaking of the device, I waited in line for four frickin’ hours on Friday night to get this thing from the Apple Store. Nice device to have, and all, but I really don’t think it was worth that wait. Oh, well…I’ll have a story for the grandkids about how I braved the fanboys on the release date. lol.

I had been pondering waiting for the HP TouchPad in the summer, but I really have bought a lot of iOS apps to abandon the platform, at least at this point….it would’ve been nice to give WebOS a spin, though…maybe if they ever make a touchscreen only device ๐Ÿ˜€

Today was the most beautiful day in a long time. It was sunny and 70ish. Couldn’t ask for any better weather to wash the old Mustang ๐Ÿ™‚ Of course, that means it’ll prolly rain tomorrow. lol. There’s a 30% chance, so maybe we’ll just dodge that bullet ๐Ÿ˜›

There is a Cubs game on WGN tomorrow. This is happy time. There was also one last week…odd that they’d be doing two weeks in a row for spring training, but it looks like they’re going to do three telecasts this year.

Ruthie is up in Louisville for a Dinner Derby musical with her mom. I’m not much into musicals, but I am into plays…so, I usually go up there with her for those ๐Ÿ™‚

I have been watching through Star Trek Voyager via Netflix. I had forgotten what a decent series it was…though, it really got going in it’s fourth season, the first three definitely had some decent story lines. I can’t say I was too wild about the Kazon, but the Vidiians were some pretty sinister and good nemeses.

Been playing WoW a good bit, of late. My main character, a Mage, needs some new armor…poor Dubi’s resilience is quite low and he needs a bit more to be able to kick some booty in the Arena ๐Ÿ™‚ I started a Worgen not too long ago, but haven’t been on him in a while…I may let him see some action tomorrow.

So, now that I have this new iPad, I’ve been thinking of rearranging my hardware…getting rid of a laptop and building a desktop again. I had sold my last one off before the wedding when we were saving up for our epic Alaskan honeymoon. I am thinking that the iPad sorta precludes the need for a laptop. In many ways, it makes for a fairly decent thin client, particularly in pairing with the media server I have. A desktop could handle WoW better than my aging little MacBook Pro, and it’d last a bit longer, too, given the modular nature of desktops ๐Ÿ™‚

Then again, there’s something to be said for the mobility of a full desktop environment. I know, either way, that I could get more for my money with a Dell than an Apple. Apple hardware is nice, and all, but OS X is really getting long in the tooth in comparison to Windows 7.

I think I’ll ponder a bit more ๐Ÿ™‚

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

Dragon*Con 2010 was awesome, of course. The costuming was a bit tame this year compared to others. pktaxwench and unclemollari had some excellent Star Trek II era uniforms, though, for the World Record attempt…it was a successful attempt, BTW ๐Ÿ˜€ hapflygirl and I went separate routes; she dressed as Major Kira and I was new movie Kirk. All-in-all, it was a great time both at the record attempt and the rest of the con.

The best panel was probably the Stargate panel we went to on Sunday. Futurama was pretty good, too, though…I never would’ve imagined that’s what the dude who plays Bender looked like.

The best costumes, I think, were pktaxwench and company when they dressed up and put themselves in doll boxes. Very frickin’ cool.

I have a whole slew of pics up on my site:

http://www.kevinconrad.us/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=DragonCon_2010&page=1

Speaking of my site, I’ve created a mobile version for it. I have yet to find a mobile version of Gallery, though, so that’ll have to remain full-blown for now.

Anyway, about the only big beef about everything this year, for me, was the Hard Rock Cafe. The wait was not only obscenely long, but half of our orders were frakked. However, after some talking with the manager, rynnweber was able to get us a free meal. Not too bad at all ๐Ÿ˜€

I’m still very much liking the Droid X that I got back in July. Of course, I’ve hacked the hell out of it by now ๐Ÿ˜€ I’m sure there will be some bigger & more sparkly phone in the next year or so that I’ll drool over and pony up full retail for. Seems to be inevitable with the way I upgrade electronics. lol! Not to mention the iPad…as soon as there’s a decent Android tablet out there, and Netflix is on Android, I think I’ll prove to myself that the iPad can blend ๐Ÿ˜‰

Not much else going down around here. I got a promotion at work, which is pretty cool. I’m now a Research Associate III – Step 3. I don’t think even Gordon Freeman got to that level. LOL!

I’m enjoying the heck out of Starcraft II. It makes for a good diversion while I wait until Cataclysm comes out for World of Warcraft ๐Ÿ˜€ I didn’t get to play much of the original Starcraft, certainly not as much of the campaign as I’m playing in the second one now. Good stuff, though. I hope they come out with a Warcraft 4–not an MMO, but an RTS. Of course, they have to come out with Diablo III first ๐Ÿ˜‰ Hopefully, that’s not going the way of Duke Nukem Forever…seems like the first time I saw screenies for Diablo III was at least 2 years ago ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

I married the most wonderful woman in the space-time continuum one year ago today ๐Ÿ˜€ One year and two hours, but who’s counting? ๐Ÿ˜‰

It has been a wonderful year since. We celebrated our first anniversary with a little road trip to Santa Claus, IN. We went to a place called Holiday World. It was a pretty awesome place which reminded me a bit of Opryland. It’s a smaller park with nothing more than wooden roller coasters (actually, one was made of steel but still had merely straight dips and curves…no loops). They also had a pretty awesome water park integrated into it.

I definitely had a very wonderful time, and somehow kept the sun from pwning me. Vive le sunscreen! lol. It seems like I did get a little tan, though…maybe I’m not as white as a vampire anymore.

I got Ruthie a nice starfish holly double pendant from Swarovski, the same place I got her heart pendant wedding gift a year ago. She certainly seems to love the heck out of it ๐Ÿ™‚

Unfortunately, while we were gone it seems the Cubbies started losing big to the Rockies. Meh. Same ol’. Maybe next year ๐Ÿ˜‰ I do hope that stories of Joe Girardi possibly becoming manager next season are true. With the departure of Pinella at season’s end, obviously there are going to be changes of some kind. It’d be nice if those changes included Girardi; he’s been to the World Series and is a former Cub. Can’t go wrong there.

Wow, July is full of a lot of birthdays. We celebrated my dad’s birthday this past week, countzero2k7‘s was this week, Daniel’s is tomorrow, and Lucas Meacham’s is Tuesday. The later was celebrated yesterday. I think it was really the first 1st birthday party that I’ve been to since my own brother‘s way back in the day. There wasn’t a much diving into cake as I would’ve figured. In fact, he seemed kind of hesitant ๐Ÿ˜€

The quality of the video is kinda “meh”. I was experimenting with my new phone a bit. Apparently, it does 720p far better than it does QVGA:

(Lucas Meacham’s First Birthday Cake)

In other news, it’s still hot ๐Ÿ˜ High 90s and plenty of humidity. Boo.

Ruthie’s coming back from Louisville today. Yay! ๐Ÿ˜€ She was up there for a dinner theatre presentation that she was going to with her mom. I don’t like musicals much, so she goes up for all of the those, and I go up with her for all of the plays.

Here’s an interesting one for ya. Apparently, Britain is now moving away from the direction that we’re going with that whole health care thing:

Britain Plans to Decentralize Health Care

I shudder to think how much my paycheck is going to shrink this coming January with the expiration of the “evil” Bush tax cuts and the anticipated increases in premiums for insurance, what with a program that was supposedly going to “help” with them ๐Ÿ˜

It’s definitely one of “those” Alabama summers. We’re having nothing but days in the 90s, with humidity in at least the 80% range. Quite miserable. Ruthie is training for a marathon she’s running with Keith in October in Chicago, and found she had to segment out her 7 mile run yesterday. Running while trying to breathe in what is effectively water is no fun at all.

I’m getting a new phone, supposedly this week. We’ll see. I pre-ordered a Motorola Droid X from Best Buy late last month. I am kind of ambivalent that I will be getting it the day of the release (the 15th, this week!). If it’s a popular phone, I’m betting supplies will be as spare as they were (and still are) with the likes of the HTC Incredible. Anyhoo, this is my first jaunt into the world of Android, so I’ll probably post a review when I’ve had some time to try it out and hack the snot out of it ๐Ÿ˜€

We saw Despicable Me on Friday. It was a cute movie. We didn’t see it in 3D, which is certainly quite fine with me; I tend to get headaches either because of the glasses or because of something with the rendering. I really don’t know which. The only movie that didn’t happen with was Avatar. Before the movie, we gave Cheddar’s a whirl; it was both of our first times there and we loved it.

I’m currently reading a Star Trek novel, something I hadn’t done in a while before my last couple of novels. It takes place in Archer’s era, during the Romulan War. What’s most interesting is how they have to step back in technology on newer starships (Daedelus-class ships, like what the Archon presumably was). It essentially gives some reason in the storyline why Kirk’s Enterprise (from the original series and original timeline) looked the way it did. A rather unique Romulan weapon necessitated this reversion. It sort of reminded me of why the Soviet Union used vacuum tubes for decades in their aircraft long after solid state became big; to escape the ravages of an EMP in a nuclear attack. Anyway, it was a rather interesting element of a very engrossing plot. If you’re a Trekkie, I’d highly recommend it.

Cubs keep suckin’ it, but that’s just normal ๐Ÿ˜€ They actually had a pretty good game against the Dodgers yesterday, but I’m not being lulled into a false sense of a streak here. If they’re not .500 by the All-Star Break, then I’m pretty sure all bets are off.

My mom actually *GASP* got a laptop ๐Ÿ˜ฎ It’s a hand-me-down from my brother. I refitted it with a new optical drive and RAM and gave it to her, in better shape than it was when Keith had it in its prime. It’s such an old lappy, though, that it’s pretty much nothing more than a netbook as far as caliber of power goes. Celeron M with 2GB of 766MHz DDR and an integrated Intel vid card. It’s running XP, of course. Good enough for email and basic stuff.