So today Downey's stock prices continued to drop and gas prices continued to rise. The President of Downey Savings Rick McGill resigned today in what is heavily rumored to be a forced resignation. The text of the email basically said that he was resigning and "taking some time off" before pursuing other career opportunities.
I am not sure whether this bodes poorly or well for the company.
I have an interesting possibility opening up in the IT industry working IP sales. As with many sales jobs it would start with a low base, but be laced with incentives and commissions. This one is going to take a lot of thought and conversations with various trusted advisors and of course the company itself. Due to the low base I might usually give something like this pretty limited consideration, however this particular company comes highly recommended from a trusted family member and so I am going to look into it very seriously.
Mom came by last week and confirmed that there is nothing wrong with our pumpkin plant in the back which I am stoked about. We are trying to grow pumpkins to have a pick your own pumpkin carving party the week of Halloween.
Last weekend was Ben's bachelor party in Havasu which I am happy to say went off really well. I think everyone had a great time, we were safe and under budget, so all in all a success. The Havasu House we have is actually in a gated community in Northern Parker, AZ and it was unbelievable how empty the place was. I am sure part of it is because there is a big holiday weekend coming up, but also as the convenience store clerk put it "the gas prices are keeping people away." I must admit that looking at the fact that gas was well over 50% of the budget for the whole weekend I worry about how many river trips we are going to have this summer.
Shannon has been tutoring some students for a friend of hers who has overflow work right now. The downside is that she has to drive all the way to Placentia, while the plus side is she is making some extra cash doing it. We talked about how next summer she might want to look into some tutoring work down in south county to save gas.
That's about all for now...back to work.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Dorked Out
So last night we dorked out hard core on the whole haunted house idea. We measured the whole outside of the house and laid out a floor plan in Visio and everything. Here is what we are thinking so far:
When you first walk in the gate there will be a nice big graveyard to your left with low crawling fog made possible by a fog chilling device I am working on. There will probably be a couple of spooks to warm people up while they are in line as well.
We think we are going to do guided walk-throughs to make things a little more safe. So at any rate, you will walk into the first room which will be the "Mannequin Massacre" room. Basically it will look like a little girls room, except that a psycho obsessed with dolls has turned the little girl into a ghoulish doll. This will be one of our friends dressed up in a doll looking dress with white body paint and black beady eye contacts dancing in sort of a robotic way maybe with strings hanging down from the ceiling. We will have various doll parts and maybe a doll house strewn about the room for added effect. That room will be made by a 10x10 canopy.
Next you will walk onto a teeter board, which is essentially a board that kind of sways to the right and left with your weight shifts. Of course we will have to limit the tilting for safety. After the teeter board you will enter "Dracula's Lair" thorough a coffin entrance. Inside is a good opportunity for a scare from behind as we have a sliding glass door right there. So, we will probably have one of our friends dressed as a vampire "feeding" on a victim in the corner which will get your attention, and then have another vampire come from behind. This room is a combination of our side patio and an 8x8 canopy, and will be the only walk-through room as opposed to a kind of staged room.
You will walk through another hallway into another room which we titled "Baking Ben" for the moment, but I am sure we will rename. In this room will be assorted torcher devices highlighted in the center of a room by a victim in an electric chair. Randomly the chair will "electrocute" the victim and he will jerk around with a zapping sound and smoke coming from under the chair.
Next will be the "Spider Cave" this is our back porch and an area about 10x10 extended behind the back porch. The back porch itself will be full of spiders, webs, etc. and then the extended area will have another "victim" cocooned in Spider webs. We are thinking we will leave the roof open and use a fishing pole style rig from the top of the patio to have a giant spider drop in to feed on the victim as people walk through.
Lastly, visitors will go into our living room which we will probably setup like a scene out of "The Grudge" with a TV showing static and a long haired undead girl crawling out to spook guests.
Then of course they will walk down the hallway and out the front door right past our Halloween Village that they can look at :)
We are thinking of calling the whole thing the "Heaton House of Horrors" but we want our friends to have a part in creating the haunted house too, so we will probably have to come up with a different name.
We are not sure on how old people coming through should be, or if we can dumb it down for younger visitors. We are thinking the doll room won't be that bad for younguns. Then the vampire room we could just not have the vampire actually feeding on someone. The electric chair could not jerk when they walk through and maybe the victim in the spider room not talk or get feasted on.
At any rate, we think we can do this whole thing pretty cheaply, especially if we can get our friends to help.
When you first walk in the gate there will be a nice big graveyard to your left with low crawling fog made possible by a fog chilling device I am working on. There will probably be a couple of spooks to warm people up while they are in line as well.
We think we are going to do guided walk-throughs to make things a little more safe. So at any rate, you will walk into the first room which will be the "Mannequin Massacre" room. Basically it will look like a little girls room, except that a psycho obsessed with dolls has turned the little girl into a ghoulish doll. This will be one of our friends dressed up in a doll looking dress with white body paint and black beady eye contacts dancing in sort of a robotic way maybe with strings hanging down from the ceiling. We will have various doll parts and maybe a doll house strewn about the room for added effect. That room will be made by a 10x10 canopy.
Next you will walk onto a teeter board, which is essentially a board that kind of sways to the right and left with your weight shifts. Of course we will have to limit the tilting for safety. After the teeter board you will enter "Dracula's Lair" thorough a coffin entrance. Inside is a good opportunity for a scare from behind as we have a sliding glass door right there. So, we will probably have one of our friends dressed as a vampire "feeding" on a victim in the corner which will get your attention, and then have another vampire come from behind. This room is a combination of our side patio and an 8x8 canopy, and will be the only walk-through room as opposed to a kind of staged room.
You will walk through another hallway into another room which we titled "Baking Ben" for the moment, but I am sure we will rename. In this room will be assorted torcher devices highlighted in the center of a room by a victim in an electric chair. Randomly the chair will "electrocute" the victim and he will jerk around with a zapping sound and smoke coming from under the chair.
Next will be the "Spider Cave" this is our back porch and an area about 10x10 extended behind the back porch. The back porch itself will be full of spiders, webs, etc. and then the extended area will have another "victim" cocooned in Spider webs. We are thinking we will leave the roof open and use a fishing pole style rig from the top of the patio to have a giant spider drop in to feed on the victim as people walk through.
Lastly, visitors will go into our living room which we will probably setup like a scene out of "The Grudge" with a TV showing static and a long haired undead girl crawling out to spook guests.
Then of course they will walk down the hallway and out the front door right past our Halloween Village that they can look at :)
We are thinking of calling the whole thing the "Heaton House of Horrors" but we want our friends to have a part in creating the haunted house too, so we will probably have to come up with a different name.
We are not sure on how old people coming through should be, or if we can dumb it down for younger visitors. We are thinking the doll room won't be that bad for younguns. Then the vampire room we could just not have the vampire actually feeding on someone. The electric chair could not jerk when they walk through and maybe the victim in the spider room not talk or get feasted on.
At any rate, we think we can do this whole thing pretty cheaply, especially if we can get our friends to help.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Halloween Already?!?
So can you believe it...Robert and I are already making Halloween plans. If you didn't already know, we are a bunch of nerds and LOVE Halloween. We figured since we are in this nice big house, maybe we can have a haunted house this year. So of course we spent the whole night yesterday measuring the backyard, making plans, drawing sketches.... A pretty perfect night in my opinion!
Nice!
So it was another dreary day at work when I found out the new Less Than Jake album released today. Downloaded through amazon Mp3 and I have a new summer soundtrack.
<----Stoked
At any rate, last weekend was ridiculously hot and awesome in Havasu. Got some new boots for my wakeboard so my feet aren't dying every time I board and I am happy to say I am feeling the familiar pang of underused muscles in my back this morning. The first Havasu trip of the summer went well. I am going back out there this weekend with a bunch of my friends for a bachelor party trip which I am sure will be fun as well.
<----Stoked
At any rate, last weekend was ridiculously hot and awesome in Havasu. Got some new boots for my wakeboard so my feet aren't dying every time I board and I am happy to say I am feeling the familiar pang of underused muscles in my back this morning. The first Havasu trip of the summer went well. I am going back out there this weekend with a bunch of my friends for a bachelor party trip which I am sure will be fun as well.
Looks to be a good week. New LTJ album, O.A.R. concert in Hollywood on Wed. night and another weekend in havasu. It's a rough life.
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