Building the Chapparal Recon Bike

Today, another model build. This time, the Chapparal Recon Bike from Ebbles Miniatures 2007 lineup. If building this model, take heed: There are some seriously small parts and several of the glue tabs are placed in such a way as to interfere with other glue tabs.

This first shot is, of course, a shot of the parts after trimming. Here's a tip for you novice paper model builders: score your fold lines before you trim the part from the page. Also trim the parts out instead of cutting away the surrounding paper. You will place much less stress on the part and have less trouble with tearing.

 

 This next pic contains each component part assembled. I had to remove several glue tabs to get some parts together properly only to find out afterward that I removed the wrong glue tab or that I should have merely trimmed the tab to a different size. If at all possible, test fit before you glue and don't just hack the tabs off complete. Trim them to make everything fit without overlaps or large gaps.

  

 Finally completed and being shown by our lovely cheerleader (from Shadowforge Miniatures) who is still in need of a paint job.

 

Build Time: approx three hours
Complexity: 3.5 of 5, mostly owing to small parts and glue-tab placement issues
Next model: Who knows? As my regular readers can probably tell, I really like Ebbles products, but it's time to highlight a few other excellent model makers. I have several to choose from and am leaning towards something Star Wars or Aliens. Keep checking to find out what I finally settle on.

Building the C6 Cassowary

Yet another successful build. The C6 Cassowary Light UGCV comes from Ebbles Miniatures' 2005 line. This is, so far, the easiest build I've written up on these pages. Very few parts, little complex geometries come together for an entirely pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

 

As you can see, very few parts. In fact, only one page of parts, here.

I'd say it turned out okay, though. The other figures: VU-22 Percheron (Ebbles paper model; left rear), C6 Cassowary (right year) a Bunny cheerleader from Shadow Forge Miniatures (front left) and a 15mm Gray Alien from http://www.15mm.co.uk.

Junk Faxes - I hate 'em! Do you?

I've been on the receiving end of a veritable flood of junk faxes over the last couple of weeks. There seems to be no pattern to the increase. They come from all across the spectrum of business and non-profit entities so I can't pin it on some upcoming event. It really, really pisses me off that I'm paying for these bozos to print their ads on MY EQUIPMENT! They should be paying ME to do that.

There are laws regarding junk faxing, specifically the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. section 227) and the Junk Fax Prevention Act (47 C.F.R. section 64.1200). The FCC has a web site for submitting complaints but I bet complaints get acted on faster if sent via the mail because the paper lands on someone's desk and nobody wants a desk piled full of paper. :)

I thought up a better way to deal with it, though. I filed for another business license with the state. I am now doing business as "Anger Management Ad Consultant Group". I can now assume that [nearly] every advertisement printed by my fax machine is a binding commercial contract for my services of review and commentary. I can safely make this assumption because very, very few of the advertisements I receive via fax come from entities with whom I already have an establish business relationship (as defined in 47 CFR 64.1200). Therefore, I can essentially force them to pay for my consultation service or face the legal consequences of violating the Acts and dealing with my potential civil lawsuit(s).

All I have to do is send a reply fax thanking them for initiating a business relationship with me (legally establishing that such relationship did not previously exist) and informing them that I will send my written review and bill in some sort of reasonable amount of time, like 30 days. Of course, I also have to follow through. I need to send them - within the time I specified - a written review of their advertisement and an invoice for my services.

No problem! I can whip up a review template in a matter of minutes and then it's just fill-in-the-blanks for every review I perform. Then I can create an invoice for any amount I choose - $500 is the federal "minimum" for considering it a felony to steal another's property or services - and send the whole thing to the offending advertiser via US First Class Mail, Registered, Return Receipt (this establishes that the party did, in fact, receive the service rendered AND the bill, should it ever come up in court).

Now, I can just wait for the check! :) Should the check fail to arrive within the time period stated on the invoice (probably 30 days), I can then send a follow-up statement (invoice) with an additional late fee. I can continue to do this ad infinitum, but it eventually will get expensive with all those Registered mailings. When a bill is 120 days past due, I can then send the whole thing to a collections agency and report the offending advertiser to the credit bureaus. Hah!

Start of a wonderful mead: Blueberry!

Today, I underestimated the messiness of using my Champion Juicer to get juice from ten pounds of blueberries. My hands will undoubted be blue for days. Such is life.

Recipe

• Juice of ten pounds blueberries
• 12 pounds mild-flavored honey, in today's case it is clover
• enough water to top up to six gallons
• two tablespoons of a combination of urea and ammonium phosphate, labelled "yeast nutrient"
• one packet of Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast

All ingredients were combined as per common practices in the art. Specific gravity of this mixture: 1.068, a little lower than I was aiming for, but it'll do. Yeast was pitched at approximately 20:38 Alaska Daylight Time.

25 days from now, I get the pleasure of racking into the secondary fermentation stage which will consist of:

• siphon liquid off top of carboy1 into carboy2, leaving the solids in the bottom of the carboy1
• add six pounds honey
• top up with water to six gallons
• clean yeast-smelly muck out of carboy1

25 days following that, I get to:

• siphon liquid from top of carboy2 into carboy3, leaving the solids in the bottom of carboy2
• clean yeast-smelly muck out of carboy2

Another 20 days shall pass before I:

• siphon liquid from top of carboy3 into carboy4, leaving the solids in the bottom of carboy3
• clean less-yeast-smelly flocculent out of carboy3

Then I get to let it age in the carboy for ... however long I like before I bottle this sweet nectar. I'm looking forward to this time, when I will sample my first portion.

Mmmm.... blueberry.

An open Letter to the President of the United States of America

B. Charles Reynolds

c/o General Delivery

Seward 99664

Alaska, USA

2009 February 03

President Barack Obama

c/o The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington 20500

District of Columbia, USA

President Obama:

The sovereignty of the several states have been called to question numerous times in the federal court system. Most of those cases revolve around linguistic ambiguities in the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America. The Supreme Court of Utah, in the case of Dyett v. Turner [439 P.2d 266, 270 (1968)], documented several anomalies in the process of ratifying the 14^th Amendment. These irregularities were also read into the Congressional Record [House - June 13, 1967 at pages 15641-15646] and were never acted upon. The question remains whether the 14^th Amendment was ever properly ratified. The Supreme Court of the United States of America has refused to rule on the matter, calling it a “political matter.”

The 14^th Amendment arguably removes the sovereignty of the several states with regard to citizenship (and, by extension, legislative authority) and places all citizenship status firmly under the sovereignty of the United States in its role as a corporate ruler of its own territories such as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. If the several states cannot be allowed their own citizens, then to whom or what do their laws apply? Prior to the 14^th Amendment, the Constitution for the United States of America was very clear that all citizenship status belonged firmly in the hands of the several states. This removes, also, the suffrage rights of the citizens of the several states because there are none (State citizens)! Since our right to vote is central to our republican form of government, it is essential that this question of sovereignty be put to rest for once and ever.

I need not remind you that the 14^th Amendment also ended aparthied in this country. However, it did so in such a devious and underhanded way as to make it unacceptable. An alternative, more acceptable Amendment, would be, substantially, “The several States may neither refuse nor deny the natural rights of citizens based on race, creed or religion.” Such a simple statement is all that was required for the 14^th Amendment to end aparthied and insure that no citizen whether black, mexican, chinese, hindu, wiccan, jewish, democrat, republican, libertarian or other could be denied their natural-born rights as protected by (not granted by) the Constitution for the United States of America.

To finally put to rest the question, would you please either 1) propose a Constitutional Amendment in repeal of the questionably-ratified 14^th Amendment or, 2) propose a Demand that the U.S. Supreme Court render a ruling? Support can probably be found from Utah, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Louisiana, Delaware, Maryland, Mississippi and Ohio. Most of those southern states listed reversed their Rejection of the proposed amendment under military occupation (see Reconstruction Act) and also were denied representation in both the House and Senate during the initial proposal of the Amendment.

Consider: Did the founding fathers indend for there to be several sovereign states, united? Or... Did they intend for there to be one national government with sovereignty over the population of the several states, as exists now if the 14^th Amendment has been properly ratified? Have you looked at a voter registration application? I mean really looked and studied the implications of the following question, which appears on every voter registration application in every state in the Union: “Are you a citizen of the United States?” If that question is answered in the positive, then the individual who signs that form is, effectively, volunteering to become a federal subject. It would be better for the question to be: “Are you a citizen of one of the United States?”

A state citizen receives all the benefits and protections of both his/her state constitution and the Constitution for the United States of America. A state citizen gets the best of both worlds. A federal subject, on the other hand, get no protections of any constitution because the federal Congress can make any legislation, even legislation in blatant violation of the protections in the Constitution for the United States of America, within the territories it has sovereignty over. The Constitution for the United States of America places no restrictions on the power of the federal government - whether legislative, judicial or executive - within its own demesne, nor protections of the natural-born rights of its subjects.

Thank you for your time. I'm sure you will give this very serious consideration.

B. Charles Reynolds
Citizen of the Sovereign republic of Alaska

2006 mead bottled

Well, what I thought was going to be a fairly sweet mead is finally in the bottle. I started this batch in October 2006. About 40 days in primary ferment, another 60 days - more or less - in secondary and then two years ageing in the carboy.

Final product? 30 bottles of a very dry mead. It's so dry, I was worried it might have gone to vinagar, which would have been okay except, what would I do with five gallons of honey-vinegar? It's drinkable and I can even think of a few dishes it would go well with.

The nose is slightly acid with floral hints of alsike, which tells me where the bees gathered nectar for the honey. I'm looking forward to drinking this over the next two or three years to see how it changes in the bottle. And I still have another carboy of mead, started immediately after this one finished its primary ferment - and using yeast-sludge from this batch to innoculate - is still waiting for bottling at the future date. I wonder how that one will turn out?

I'm ready to start another batch. Not sure how to go with it. I now have about 20 bottles of slightly-chocolate sweet methaglin, 24 bottles of sweet raspberry, and 29 bottles (I'm drinking one now) of this dry straight mead, plus the batch waiting in the carboy. Michelle thinks I should go for a blueberry, but blueberry doesn't come into season until late summer. If I start a batch of blueberry, now, I have to use store-bought frozen blueberries and I really don't want to do that. I'm not very satisfied with the chocolate. Perhaps I'll get some better ingredients and try that again. Still, blueberry sounds awful yummy...

Raising Cthulhu

Oooh, scary title. For those not in the know Cthulhu is an elder god straight from the head of H.P. Lovecraft, a turn of the 20th century story writer. This model comes to me courtesy of One Monk Miniatures. It's available free in the models directory.

On with the build! Our first two shots are just the pieces cut and scored.

Spiffy. The scoring is best done before actually trimming the parts out. Watch out on the body piece. There are some slots that need to be cut so the other parts can be fitted while building. It's easiest to do that now, rather than wait until the body is already assembled.
Here are most of the parts parts ready for assembly into the sub-components.

And, here are the assembled sub-components. The body was a real pain. That shape is simply NOT easy to achieve. Kudos to the designer because I'll bet it was equally difficult to design.

 

Aaw... Some kind hearted soul left him a sacrifice. How nice. The sacrifice is a 28mm cheerleader figure from Shadow Forge Miniatures, shown for scale.

Build time: about seven hours, but I'm pretty meticulous with my cuts and scores. It could probably be built in about four hours by someone less anal than me.
Build Difficulty: 3/5. Most parts are pretty simple, but the fiddliness of the body boosts this diffulty by a full two points!

Next project: Another Ebbles model! The C6 "Cassowary" Light UGCV.