Muffinman

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 05 Nov 2007 01:37

I finished #032 today, and then whipped through half of #033. I really enjoy stitching in, like, little periods of time where there's nothing else to do, like waiting to watch a movie, sitting in a long car ride, riding the bus, waiting for someone. #031 + 032 will prolly be a bit smaller like #030, 'cause I was being careless. I still haven't been able to fill, but realized this 3 pents into #033. I'm probably going to just do #034 + 035 instead of #031-032. I'll probably have to wait until Winnipeg to fill them and send out anyway.

Psilocybe · Post by **Psilocybe** » 05 Nov 2007 12:24

Dude I had my first session in like FOUR(five?) months where I didn't hurt the morning after. How exciting. Granted I didn't do anything too strenuous and doing butterflies still hurts, but damn maybe I will play again at full capacity someday. I almost even hit flip blurrier.

Things get better...slowly!

Sporatical_Distractions · Post by **Sporatical_Distractions** » 05 Nov 2007 17:42

I was going to attack you in warbook, but you're too powerful so it wouldn't let me. I have no idea what i'm doing.

Lackey82 · Post by **Lackey82** » 06 Nov 2007 07:16

Yeah don't attack him.

He'll screw you up.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 06 Nov 2007 11:37

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 07 Nov 2007 14:51

I'm getting my @$$ handed to me in Warbook by all these people attacking me. Any tips? I used to be good at these types of games. I've built a very defensive army but people are still just attacking me left and right, killing soldiers and taking land. What should I do?

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 07 Nov 2007 17:26

I had no idea how it worked, so I looked up a strategy guide thingy and then started over. It's all about how big your army is, basically. What class are you? General and Visionary are best for defense (in reverse order). I actually don't worry too much about being attacked at this point -- I concentrate on earning gold and building my army, and raising my level. PM me and I'll give you tips

Josh Lackey is creeping up behind me!!

I just scored a scale!!!!
I may have pictures of, like, 3 new bags tomorrow. Yay.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 09 Nov 2007 02:17

I filled, like, 3 hacks today, and stitched half of another from scratch.
Eck! I'm getting an injury from stitching... my right middle finger feels so... arthritic! What is wrong with my body??? I'm pretty sure it's the holding of scissors, so I am going to try to find scissors like Johnny Suderman's (without those huge pain-in-the-ass handles like regular scissors. Geez. It actually hurts...

So here are my newest bags:

Some of my most recent hacks. #027, #029 (I think?), #030 - #033.

This one was going to be for Byrin. I thought it wasn't going to turn out just how I wanted, so I rejected it even before I filled it. It turned out to be incredible, but I'm giving it to Marita; she's called it Kate Spade, after a designer who uses those colours. (#031)

#032. This one, like the other, I knew would turn out crap, and it did, so... ha. Well, I mean, it's okay, but the stitching looks ugly, and I knew it would.

#033 custom-made for Kevin Regamey; all yellow. It needs a bit more break-in. I made a rad discovery on this bag!! Okay, so, I'd been having stupid weird crap happen in my bleed holes, where you could see the stitch, and I talked to Matt Cross about it briefly, and he thought that it might be the side length of my hexes. I'm pretty sure that I figured out today that it is from my hand-kneading to work in my bags; I work way too hard. I always figured before that if it can withstand a rigorous knead-, then it's stitched well enough... I'm going to be more careful from now on and see how that goes. Having said that, this bag has a few visible stitches, but I don't think it will affect play.

Here's #034, in progress. This one is gonna go to Byrin, instead of Kate Spade. It looks a little weak here, but they always look way better after they're filled, and I'm doing well on it so far, so it should look just like the other good ones. It feels choice already, too. Man! And I'm kind of excited about the colours and pattern I randomly chose. So yeah, I accidentally ended up doing something that Dave said that he was trying out, and I think it will be awesome.

I've been so excited to have a handful of bags with which to make a pile and take a picture! I really want to make a ton of bags and make a photo like Brian. So this is exciting. (My finger hurts while typing

)

Here are some more photos.
I'm visiting my girlfriend and her family in Lethbridge, Alberta, right now. It's been a couple of weeks, and I'm here for another week still. We're going on a trip through Montana to see the hot springs and Glacier park this weekend... there should be more fun photos to come.

Lethbridge is in these massive hills, called "coulees". It's incredible, and beautiful, and I love it, and I love walking in there. Apparently there are lots of rattlesnakes too, and I wanted to see them, but I guess it's too cold now. This is me excited about the coulees!

We went on a trip to this Aboriginal reserve close to the Montana border. There are wall carvings from 100 years ago in this valley filled with "hoodoos" -- those crazy-looking rock formations. They don't look nearly as awesome in these photos, but I did take crap photos, so... Yeah. They're basically incredible and awe-inspiring!

Just some photos to get an idea of what they're like.

A photo of the coulees. It's hard to capture their awesomeness too.

Me and Marita.

A picture I took in the Lethbridge mall, waiting to see "Dan in Real Life" (which was excellent, and really sweet!)

I found a podium for the Petro Canada contest that I posted a topic about in the General Footbag.

Here's my facile. I looked for a photo for that colour suggestions thread that I started, but couldn't find one that I'd taken of all my colours.

Here's my new scale beside my old scale.

Nice, slick, steel face, nice back-lit display, nice grippy rubber feet. It shuts itself off pretty fast, though, so I will have to see if that's adjustable. It's, like, 5-10 seconds, whereas my old scale was 2 minutes. It does take more accessible batteries, though -- AAA, instead of watch batteries. It was $10 more -- $30 instead of $20. The guy had a whole drawer of them at this bong shop ("head shop"?).

The stupid error that my old scale reads... Whaatt??

mannampepo · Post by **mannampepo** » 10 Nov 2007 00:00

haha. nice pics of you in Lethbridge Erik.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 11 Nov 2007 14:18

erik, i came across some interesting information about fibular fractures while reading a radiological journal the other day.

fibular stress fractures are considered a low risk fracture, agressive treatment (like surgery, immobilization, or casting) are usually not required. it's often called a "runners fracture" as it's often found in long distance runners. The causes are believed to be compression, torsion (twisting), and rythmical muscle contractions of the peroneal muscles, which evert the foot and are located right ontop of the fibula, so this would make sense for a footbag player.
patients report lateral leg pain which is often exacerbated by exercise and relieved by rest. swelling and redness can some times be seen as well as limping or alter gait in severe fractures. pressing the fibula against the tibia provokes pain (duh, mobilizing fractes tends to do that),and some times the bone callus can be felt. since the fibula is not a weight bearing bone, these stress fractures tend to heal well by relative rest, but healing will be delayed when offending activity is not stopped.
healing time is dependant upon the classification of the fracture. stress fractures are clasified into 4 grades depending upon the severity and other classifications: grade one we see mild to moderate swelling of the connective tissue sheath covering bone, grade 2 is moderate to severe swelling of the bone sheath and mild swelling of bone marrow, grade 3 adds more swelling of bone marrow, grade 4 there is a greatly visible fracture line. Ardent and Griffiths suggested rest times= grade 1: 3 weeks, grade 2: 4-6 weeks, grade 3: 12-16 weeks, grade 4: more than 16 weeks. Fredericson et al. suggested healing times= g1: 2-3 weeks, g2: 4-6 weeks, g3: 6-9 weeks, g4: 6 weeks casted + 6 weeks rest.

thought you might find that interesting. i'll e-mail you the journal article if you want.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 15 Nov 2007 02:08

Hey Andrew.
Yeah, I'd love to see that article.
Yeah, I haven't really done anything active for almost a month, so... yeah. I was gone, so I don't know if I got a call back about schedule an MRI appointment, but I'm gonna call tomorrow and see about that.

Here are some more photos:

I totally took this picture with Sam in mind. I missed this photo sooo many times, and got so many opportunities at it. Frustrating! This is the best that I ended up with.

Me stitching in the car.

Closeup.

I don't know if we have this in Canada, but I freaked out when I saw it while I was in Montana.

Stopped at a diner in Montana, the walls covered in writing, and I left a mark.

The wand maker was closed.

Mountains

Hacky sacky for Byrin.

Hacky sacky.

Just got my BSOS hoody today, when I got home

I LOVE it!!!

I bought these RAD $30 scissors in Lethbridge, to help with my arthritis pain.

A drawing with my markers.

Another.

That's about it.
I put all of this stuff on my Facebook, so I didn't even really feel like bothering to write stuff again or post all the pictures, or whatever. I had a really radical vacation, though, lots of fun, lots of love, and yeah. I also got to see Kevin briefly today on one of my layovers in Edmonton. We hung out and it was nice, even though I felt rushed and wished we could have talked more and not felt tense about being late. I gave him some hackys and he bought me some dry ribs, and then I went and ended my 14-hour traveling day. Ick!

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 15 Nov 2007 06:16

Cool pics, footbags and marker renderings - this blog rocks

What kind of markers do you use?

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 15 Nov 2007 21:16

Copics. Like, $9 each!!
I feel that there is too much of a gap between, like, either 4 and 3, or 5 and 4... you can't really see the lighter tones in the drawing (on the computer anyway).

I told Marita that I would invent a trick and name it after her, so pixie same-cloud-kick-set opposite legover (probably not an actual invention) is now called "Marita"

Oh! I'm going to duck it, and then call it Marita! That's more likely to have never been hit. I'm so going to do that right now.

Also, Kevin Regamey was telling me about this game, "Portal", the other day, and so I YouTubed it, and it looks INCREDIBLE!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if3Qv2tHyfA

Sporatical_Distractions · Post by **Sporatical_Distractions** » 16 Nov 2007 09:10

Tell us about your Montana trip

david · Post by **david** » 16 Nov 2007 09:35

i really liked the pictures.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 16 Nov 2007 18:13

Umm, I'll try.
I'm going to look at a map so I can tell where I was and in what order.

So, well, first we went up through the mountains in Canada, crossing the Alberta-B.C. border (I got a picture of it... it's right in the middle of a mountain pass... though blurry picture, like most, taken from a moving car.) We went through a lot of small towns. We passed this landmark called Frank Slide, it's a town that was hit by a landslide from the mountain range above it, like, 60 years ago, or something, and the town was instantly burried in boulders. Everybody was burried alive. It was an intense sight -- huge boulders for probably a kilometre. And you could see where the mountain fell apart. JUST as we passed through the first time I vomited all over myself in the rental car. A couple times. I felt sick the whole time and by the time I realized that it was going to happen, I couldn't speak or move really. It sucked. Oh yeah, and they named it "Erik Slide"...

Then, yeah, there were lots of other smalls stops and stuff, but our first day's goal was a hot springs town in B.C. -- Kootenay, maybe? Invermere? We were in both of those towns, but I forget if either were where we stayed. Anyway, we chose it because of the hot springs. It was basically this super nice swimming pool complex with three sections, a "cool pool", a "heated pool", and a hot tub, or whatever. All pools were outdoors (it was pretty cool... in the mountains, snowing), but naturally heated (so only chlorine was added)... and there was this chart listing all of these TONS of minerals that are incredible for your body. The "cool" pool was, like, 30 degrees celcius (so.... quite warm!), the heated pool was 35-40 celcius, so steaming and awesome!! And the hot tub was, like, 40+ and you weren't supposed to stay in it for more than 5 minutes. It felt SICK on my legs. That was the same place where we saw mountain goats outside of our hotel in the morning. I put pictures on Facebook, but not here for some reason. It was really neat, and I saw them pound their horns into a tree, jump over a fence, and...stuff.

We drove South to the Sweetgrass border crossing. I only had a driver's license, and Marita's mom was born in Germany, so her birth certificate made it look like she was a German citizen, not Canadian... Ha, this is funny. Okay, so the guy in the booth was SUPER, like, cruel, or something and he made us go inside. The guy inside was nicer and EVENTUALLY let us go through after a lot of questioning. When we ended up going back into Canada the next day, the guy was, like, "Where are you from?", didn't even ask for any ID, and waved us through. Stupid U.S.A.

Well, the first town that we got to, right outside of the border isn't listed on my map, but that's where I wrote on that diner wall. Neat. Eureka and Whitefish and Kalispell are familiar. Maybe the town was one of them... but I don't think so. Anyway... ummm. We stopped at a lot of little towns again. Not much happened. We wanted to see Glacier National Park, but it was closed for the season, where we wanted to go. We drove in and saw a little bit (some more pictures on Facebook), with a nice lake (lots of lakes really brilliantly blue from glacier silt, or something) misty in the morning. The air smelled INCREDIBLE. It was basically kind of as if when you bite into a fern leaf and then smell it, you know? But without having to do that, and everywhere... although not as intense... more just like real air that was so refreshing that you were constantly aware that you were breathing well!

Then we wanted to drive through the park, but it was closed, so we went back out the way we came and drove around. Once we got to the other side, around somewhere called, like, "St. Mary something", that isn't on this map I looked up, was where we went looking for the Wand Maker, where they had visited before. Then, yeah... we basically went back. We crossed at a different border crossing, which was good, because somehow we heard on the news that at Sweetgrass, someone was delayed, like, 4 hours or something trying to get back into Canada... and like I said, we didn't even have to show ID.

That's basically it.
Lethbridge was awesome too. It was quite relaxed, and I slept in a lot, and we stayed up a lot, and it was awesome to sleep together every night. Oh, wait, like, one of the towns we stopped at was... I forget. Maybe it was West Glacier? There was this historical hotel that we stayed in and we walked around the town, I guess that was the night before going to Glacier Park. We saw this nice mansion and stuff, ate out at this really fancy restaurant. So yeah, Marita's mom order a steak, and, like, usually, you just have a steak knife brought with your meal, but instead, she had a single knife brought to her on a platter, wrapped in a napkin. It was fancy!! Then also, we had chilled salad forks brought to us on a platter! Wow! We laughed. And then there was a moment where her mom was trying to cut me a piece of steak without using her fork, for some reason, for me to try, and the fancy-pants waiter came by and thought she needed help, and she explained what she was trying to do... and I think we really just didn't fit in

Oh yeah, but, so the hotel was nice and her parents got us a separated room, so we got our own king sized bed, which was huuuuge, and we watched this animal kingdom show about wildebeasts, which was soooo great!! It was like Lion King, but from the baby wildebeast's perspective.

But yeah, Lethbridge itself was quite small, and relaxing. I slept in a lot, stitched a lot, drew some. I ended up going to campus with Marita a lot and just stitching or reading my book while she was in class. Yeah, I read a lot too. And I ate a lot of beef jerky. She takes a film class, so I sit through a lecture of that once, and that was really interesting. Then I sat through a movie on my last night, "Tokyo Drifter", which Kill Bill was modelled after, and which I assume "Tokyo Drift" was named after. It was really bad. We had bubble tea a lot, and the toast was amazing, as I previously posted. What else. We brought their family friends from Colombia trick or treating for the first time, and they weren't into it... haha. Plus, apparently Halloween in Columbia is "The Devil's Holiday". They don't really speak English, but we got that from "El Diablo!" And they weren't allowed to dress up... but we painted their faces. Yeah, I dunno. It was a really nice time overall. Basically good to spend time with my girlfriend

Oh yeah, we also watched her favourite movies, "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", with Ethan Hawke. They are soooo good. Very sweet. From her description I never thought that I would like them, but they're great. We also watched Bridget Jones' Diary, which I didn't like lots, but I like Hugh Grant romantic comedies, so that was noteable.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 17 Nov 2007 05:05

I am so completely obsessed and in love with footbag!!!!!

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 17 Nov 2007 11:42

well that's nice! aaw, warm fuzzies...

ObArA'BaRs · Post by **ObArA'BaRs** » 18 Nov 2007 11:53

I completely love that last post Eric.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 18 Nov 2007 19:38

Some thoughts on Modified drama: Fuku Yourmama (or whatever) is really funny. I'm convinced that Jeremy O'Wheel Wikipedias everything that he feels like arguing about so that he looks smarter than everyone else. I'm also glad that that one kid seems to have stopped posting altogether.

Manna came over to shred tonight.
It was pretty fun. I basically just filmed. I got some neat shots that I think will be fun for a Christmas Calendar video. I helped him drill a bunch and that was fun and productive. I helped him hit flip whirl for the first time, and then made him hit it 10 more times on that side. Immediately after he hit blurry whirl for the first time. Later I also got him to drill toe set whirls, which he hit both sides. He got sick of drilling, but we also drilled some clipper set drifters a bit, and that seemed to stick.

He hit whirl BSOS also, a couple times I think.
Super close to eggbeaters.
Close to stepping whirl both sides, which he thinks is easier.