The problem I had was by the time I realized my Groupon was expiring, all the classes were full. I was bummed. So I chalked it up to yet another expired Groupon, and let it go.

Until a couple weeks ago.

I haven’t posted much of anything on my blog about no longer being over the road, I’ve just been busy and non motivated. But, last November I came off the road and into a local position. And a couple weeks ago, that local position actually took me right past Aquila Glass School. I noticed it on my way out, so I thought I’d go by and see if I could use my expired Groupon for something else.

I spoke with Don while I was in there, and he explained to me that they weren’t able to fit all the Groupon folks in before the deal expired, so they extended the Groupon until the end of February. Then, we look at the calendar, and signed me up for my fused glass class.

I was really excited. It was about all I could talk about for the week before my class. I think I drove Pet crazy talking about it over and over, but making fused glass sounded like a lot of fun, and I was so thrilled my Groupon didn’t go to waste.

The class was great. I wish I hadn’t needed to get back to work, I could have stayed there longer and played with the glass. Scott was really patient and helpful, and it was just great.

I thought I’d hold off on posting the pictures from class, because I wanted the after pictures as well. Since the glass has to be fused, and in some cases slumped once it’s fused and cooled, it took about a week to get my pieces back. So now I have the pieces back and I can post pictures.

The Intro To Fusing class has you make 6 pieces: 2 fused glass pendants/magnets that are 1″ x 1″ and 1″ x 2″, 2 tack fused glass pendants/magnets, 1″ x 1″ and 1″ x 2″, a fused glass bowl that’s 4″ x 4″, and a tray that’s 5″ by 8″. The bottom layer of glass for everything is clear, so despite the odd colours you might see, all of these have a clear bottom and colours on top. I apologize for the crap photographs, but I used my Samsung Droid Charge, and it’s a decent phone, but not a good camera.

Fused Glass Pendants

Fused glass sounds exactly like it is: glass that’s been heated until it fuses together completely. The result is a smooth piece of glass.
Before:

After

Tack Fused Pendants

Tack fusing is different than normal fusing. With tack fusing, the glass is heated until it’s sticky, but not so high as to let it completely fused. So, the pieces get smoother edges, but retain some of their shape.

Before

After

4″ x 4″ Bowl

This one was really neat. The back is a 4″ piece of clear glass, and the top was a smaller (3″ I think) piece of opaque blue glass. We used a hammer to smash the blue, and then laid the pieces out to our liking. I put mine out to the edges, but I didn’t fill in teh space between the blue pieces with anything, not even clear, so the edges of my bowl dip in further than some do.


Before

After

Large Tray

The large tray was my favorite thing to make, but it’s my least favorite once it was fired and slumped. We were given a 5″ by 8″ sheet of clear glass, and we could make what we wanted on it. Aquila trots out their scrap glass for the classes, so we had cookie sheets full of glass of all kinds of colours. And, they have bins of scrap glass as well, sop if you were looking for a larger piece, or a specific colour, you could dig through them.


I had trouble settling on what to make. I wanted something interesting, but I didn’t want it to be too thick or thin. If you don’t make it so it’s pretty much 2 layers of glass thick, you get thick and thin spots in your fused glass, depending on where you are. So I wanted a nice smooth tray. I ended up going with the block design, which I liked, but I think I’d do differently if I was making another one. I didn’t really know how to cut (still don’t) and so I didn’t make good corners, and when everything fused together, the squares went funny. I still like it, and I’m going to use to to hold stuff here on my desk. I just think I’d do it differently if I did it over.


Before




After

Of all the pieces I made, I think the small green and black fused glass pendant was my favorite. I didn’t really set out to make it that way, because I don’t really like green, but in the end, I like it best. I just wish I’d noticed at Aquila Glass School that one of the pieces I thought was black was actually dark purple. Here’s a better look at it.





I highly recommend Aquila Glass School if you’re in the Portland, OR area and you want to play with glass. They have other classes too, beadmaking, borosilicate glass, and even how to make molds. It’s worth the time, and the folks there are really nice.

But, I need to set some goals, because I turn 32 this year, and well, I can’t keep running in circles. So, here are some health improvement goals:

Lose weight: I know, this is everyone’s goal right about this time. It’s been my goal for over a year now, but it’s really hard to keep. I’m down about 13 pounds from my DOT physical in April 2009, but that’s not very much. I really need to lose about 80 pounds. However, “Lose 80 pounds” is a hugely daunting task, and I tried this one: I gave up after losing 16, and then I put 10 of it back.

So, my goal is going to be to be under 200 pounds by Blizzcon. If I can’t make Blizzcon, then I will do it by the end of the year. That’s not a huge goal, but it’s obtainable.

Build Endurance: I live in a canyon, and walking up the hill to get the mail puts me out of breath. Part of my problem is because I have asthma, and I hate asthma attacks, so I avoid exercise. I can’t keep doing this though, because if walking up a small hill puts me out of breath now, what’s going to do it in a few years? is climbing the stairs going to wind me?

That’s embarrassing. So, the goal is to be able to not only walk up the hill to get the mail without getting winded, but to do it at a decent pace. What’s decent? Hell, I don’t know, anything faster than now.

Find out my Cholesterol: I had it checked in high school, and it was super low, but I have no idea what it is now. My health assessment for insurance asks, but I don’t know. And I’m realizing if I don’t know, how can I keep it in check? I’m at risk for diabetes and heart disease, and now is the time to make changes so they don’t happen. It’s better to try and prevent problems now, than learn to live with them later.

Take Vitamins: I’ve been taking vitamins off and on for years now, and I’ve found when I take them, I feel better. The problem is it’s really easy to get out of practice with taking them. You skip a day, and a day becomes 2 or 3, and then you’re up to missing weeks, and weeks turn into a month, and then it’s a case of “Why bother?”

I have a very good reason to both: my 81 year old grandmother has been taking vitamins since she was young, and she’s still reasonably healthy and with it. So, I need to get in the habit, especially since my nutrition has suffered for the last 5 years, or more.

Work out more: I think working out more will help with goals 1 and 2. I have some weights, and I’m going to get a workout dvd or two, and see if I can fit them in a couple times a week.

None of these are set in stone, I’m just trying to set up some goals so I’ll be accountable to myself. I realize not many people read this, but it gives the appearance that there are people I’m being held accountable to, so in my mind, it might work. Notice none of these are real strenuous; I know the moment I over set a goal, everything is going to fall apart.

By the way, if it’s 2012 and you’re reading this, do me a favor and post a comment, asking how I’m keeping up with things? It might motivate me if I’m slipping.

Often, my resolutions are something that ends up being unobtainable: writing 1000 words a day, losing 60 pounds, etc. So, I get discouraged early on, realizing how far behind I already am, and then I just give up all together.

I’ve considered doing that 100 things in 1000 days, which seems like a much more sustainable way to make changes and set goals. After all, I really want a decent digital camera this year, but I may not have the money for it. But obtaining one in the next nearly 3 years? Totally doable.

So, this is why I don’t make resolutions, but I do want to make a list of things I’d like to change this year, and work on. That’s another post though, because one of those changes is more posts.

Want a caption of your own on this drawing? Check out Hymhawk’s Fiverr gig.

It was 7 years ago, and Pet and I are in the women’s underthings section of Walmart, staring down the wall of bras. While we’re there, a guy comes along, and joins us in staring at the wall of bras. After a couple minutes, he grabs one, and tries it on. Around his waist. Like a belt.

He notices us looking at him, and goes “How do you find the right size for one of these?”

I, having no common sense, and no shyness around strangers, immediately start explaining how a bra is fitted. If you’re not familiar with how it goes, it involves measuring under your breasts, and across the widest part of your breasts, and doing some fancy calculations. You end up with a band size and a cup size.

While I’m explaining this, the guy is looking at me like I’m giving a doctoral dissertation in Klingon. As soon as I’m done, he goes “I just need one for my Halloween costume. I’m going as a school girl.” I don’t know if we gave him a look or what, but he adds, “I’m a drag queen.”

So, again having no common sense, I say the first thing that comes to mind. “If you’re a drag queen, how do you not know how to pick the right bra size?”

“I use the stick on ones.”

“Oh,” was my stunning reply. So, I look him over, decide he’s got a ribcage roughly the size of mine, and dig out a bra that would fit me, with a cup size you could put cantaloupes in. “This should work, if it’s too loose, go down one size.”

He took off with the bra, and we never encountered him again, so I don’t know if the bra fit or the costume was a success. There were no news stories about crazy schoolgirls with canteloupe sized breasts in the news after Halloween, so all’s well that ends well?

Bra: 1

Drag Queen: 0

I wasn’t planned, it just sorta happened. Pet and I had purchased a Groupon that included a basic exam, X rays, and teeth cleaning, since we didn’t have an Oregon dentist. Pet has a wisdom tooth that’s in bad shape, so we decided to bite the bullet and make appointments. We went in Tuesday, and Dr. Christiensen (however it’s spelled), gave me doom and gloom, and how I was going to end up with a horrible infection with one of my wisdom teeth, and they needed to come out soon. I had known I’d have to have them out eventually, so Pet and I both looked into appointments, and they could fit me in Wednesday. So, I went.

To avoid creeping people out, I’ll skip the details. I showed up, they gave me sedation medication, and I got the riot act, nicely, from the dentist. He said I shouldn’t have had breakfast, and he told me not to eat for X hours before the procedure. He never told me, or Pet, not to eat. And, the receptionists both agreed I should eat a light breakfast ahead of time. The dentist seemed annoyed by that, but hey, it’s his staff, they should all be on the same page about what a patient should do before an appointment.

The procedure sucked, but I’m having my teeth extracted, I expected as much. The dentist wasn’t unnecessarily rough, and the dental assistant was very nice, so it went as well as expected. I felt like hell when I was done though. The most annoying part? Finding out after I was done that I needed to schedule a follow up appointment in a week to make sure I’m healing correctly. If I take a week off to come back to the office, I’m going to lose the truck. So it’s not possible, and they needed to tell me up front, so I knew in advance.

We stopped by Rite Aid so I could get my Percoset prescription, and took me home. I got a pain pill, and went to bed. Got up about 5 hours later, managed half a cup of soup, and a glass of water, took Percoset and went back to bed. Got up this morning, took Advil again, had a cup of mint tea, slept til noon. This evening I had to take another Percoset. I didn’t want to, but I was hurting badly enough, and it had only been 5 hours since Advil. I’m trying not to use them, because I can’t work if I’m taking pain pills. I managed 2 cups of 2 this evening, and a cup of chicken noodle soup, with chicken, noodles, and veggies, and I am feeling better. I look like a chipmunk storing nuts for winter though, all swollen and funny looking.

Pet goes in on the 8th, and sometime after that I have some crowns to take care of. That’s two things I really didn’t like about this place: the dentist didn’t look much at fillings (I was told by previous dentist I needed 2), he just briskly told the assistant I needed 4 crowns, including one that I question if I needed. The other thing I didn’t like: the receptionist pushed to have me pay for all the work up front. I use CareCredit for any unpaid portions of the bill, and she wanted me to put the 4 crowns worth of work, as well as the $500 for the extraction on my CareCredit.

2 problems with that: My insurance won’t cover all of the work this year, so I’d end up paying out of pocket for 2 crowns. Second, I want a second opinion on all the crowns they suggested before I agree to any of them. I can’t say I can recommend Downtown Dental Care in Clackamas at this point, but I’ll give them another shot. Just not for a few months.

I know I shouldn’t assume, but for this article, I’m assuming you’ve read at least the beginning of option 1. You should know about BuyCostumes and why I use that website, and you should be at least vaguely familiar with the Google Keyword Tool. If this makes no sense, I suggest you go read option 1, at least the first few paragraphs.

First, we start at the Google Keyword Tool.

To start, drop in a fairly generic search term. It could be “Halloween costume” “superhero costume” “kids costume” or anything else you’re looking for. Next, limit your searches to between 50,000 and 1,000 results. For this example, I’m using “superhero costume” and you can see how I have the search set up below.

Once I have my results, I like to sort by local monthly searches. I scroll through the results, until I find one that catches my eye. I see “Catwoman costume” has a lot of search traffic. This also has a lot of potential, because there’s a new Batman movie coming out in 2012, and it has Catwoman in it. That means you can get a couple years out of the website, and there should be additional interest once the movie comes out.

Next stop is BuyCostumes, because there’s no point if there’s no costume. We’re in luck, right now we have 2 Catwoman costumes, and an accessory kit. One of the costumes is new for 2011, which is good too. Anything new this year won’t get put on clearance before Halloween.

At this point, we should check and see if there are more search terms for this costume. With something as vague as “Catwoman costume” there’s a good chance that the top level domains will be purchased, so we should see if there’s another search term, getting a good number of searches, that will also work. I replace “superhero costume” with “catwoman costume” and then I change the maximum number of searches to 27,100.

Why? Because the search term only gets 27,100 in a month. Since the first search won’t narrow anything down, we don’t need to see the unrelated results that are higher. I don’t care if dog costume or superhero costume get more hits, I’m focusing on Catwoman.

I ended up seeing over 300 search results, most are unrelated. So I used the find in my browser to look for Catwoman options. It seems to fall into 4 categories: Catwoman costume, Catwoman outfit, Catwoman fancy dress, and then costume, outfit, and fancy dress, followed by the word Catwoman. It’s too much to sort through, so I check “Only show ideas closely related to my search term “ and look again. Only 7 results, which is much better.

I repeat the process, but I substitute outfit and fancy dress in place of costume. For this example, I’m only going to use the highest searched for terms, and I’m going to limit it to 6. Here’s my list:

• Catwoman Costume
• Catwoman Fancy Dress Costume
• Catwoman Outfit
• Catwoman Fancy Dress Outfit
• Catwoman Costumes
• Catwoman Fancy Dress Costumes

You’ll notice I used costumes, plural. It’s a good choice if there’s search volume. People will often put the plural into a search engine. They might only buy one costume, but they love to have options available. So, use the plurals when you search.

Now, I go to Google and check out the first 3 pages for competition. After checking, I throw out “Catwoman Fancy Dress Costume” because the first result is a niche site for Catwoman costumes. While it’s possible to outrank it, if you’re just starting out, it can be tough to do. I also throw out “Catwoman Fancy Dress Outfit” and “Catwoman Fancy Dress Costumes” for the same reasons.

I’m left with three this way:

• Catwoman Costume
• Catwoman Costumes
• Catwoman Outfit

I’m going to throw in “Catwoman outfits” as a potential. It only gets 3600 searches a month, and there’s a website at the bottom of page 2 that could be a problem, but if you could be the top search result, it would be worth it. And now I have 4 Catwoman and 4 Tron domains to search for in Godaddy, so it’s even. That’s next post though.

For this post, I’ll show how I find my first set of costume options. I’ll make a second post about how I find additional costume options, and then I’ll show how I register domains. So, two options and a tutorial on registering, and then I’ll probably go back to blogging about food and trucking for a while.

First, I go to BuyCostumes. Why BuyCostumes? Because Commission Junction is easy to get accepted into, and the BuyCostumes program is auto-accept. So, I don’t have to apply and hope I’m accepted.

Once I’m there, I start browsing costumes. Personally, I like to type in “new” and see what pops up. These are the new costumes for the year, and often they’re related to popular culture. Comic book movies, big movies of the year, natural disasters like the oil spill, Lady Gaga dressing odder than usual, or a revival in a certain fashion will spark a bunch of costume options.

Once I’ve searched under “new” I usually browse until I find something interesting. In this case, on the first page, I found a good choice: a Tron costume.

Tron’s never been my cup of tea, but it will work as an example. So, I decide Tron’s promising, and put it in the search engine of BuyCostumess to see if they have accessories or more costumes. I’m in luck, there are costumes for men, women, and kids, and the disc accessory. This gives options.

Now that I have a costume idea, I head to the Google Keyword Tool. I drop tron costume into the keyword tool, and then I make a couple modifications. First, I check “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms”> to narrow down the crap. Then I choose advanced options, and filter keywords so they’re= 1,000. Sound confusing? It’s not. What I’m doing is limiting the keywords to things related to “tron costume” so it’ll only turn up results with that in the name, and limiting the search terms to anything getting between 1,000 and 50,000 searches per month.

Why limit searches? On the high end, anything getting much over 50,000 searches is going to be hard to rank for. Anything under 1000 really isn’t worth buying a domain for; 800 searches a month means you’re going to see about 300 visitors a month. I’ve found the actual buying percentage is about 1% or less, which means you’ll see maybe 3 sales a month, and that’s during costume season (September and October). That’s not to say that you can’t make money off these sites, but I find anything over 1000 is usually better.

Here’s what the search looks like, before I hit submit:

Here’s the first thing I see in the results:

27,100 results is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a lot of searches. If you could dominate that with a first page, top 3 listing, you could make a lot of money. However, the competition might be stiff. It’s worth checking out though, so I open a notepad file and write it down. I then go through the other search results, and jot down anything that is related to Tron costumes, without being a “do it yourself” option. Remember, you want to make sale of premade costumes, so you need to target appropriately. There’s no sense in luring in in folks who want to make either own costumes; you’re wasting time targeting a market that isn’t interested, and you’ll piss some of them off.
Here’s some of the other results:

I noticed 3 interesting things about the search terms above: “Tron Legacy” and “Tron Suit” both pop up, and there’s no plural for costumes. If the 6 search terms I’ve picked don’t pan out, I can use these, and “Tron costumes” to find more potential keywords to search for. For now, i’m sticking with 6 keywords:

• Tron Costume

• Tron Suit costume

• Tron Legacy costume

• Tron Halloween costume

• Halloween Tron costume

• Tron costume for sale

Of the 12 results above, I did not include the how to search terms, nor did I include “Tron costume Halloween” or “Tron costume sale” because both of those are going to be tough to work into a website without sounding like I don’t know how to write in English.

Now I’m ready to check Google, and see what shows up on the first couple of pages. All I do is drop the search term into Google, without quotes, and see what comes up. In essence, I’m searching for the term exactly like I would, if I was looking for a tron costume online. Now, I look for a few specific things: are there any first or second page results that are sites devoted to a premade Tron costume? Most will be domains that spell it out “buytroncostume.com” would be an example.
I’m also looking for any pages selling the costume, either a costume shop, eBay, or sub pages on a network like Squidoo that offer this information. How many are there in the first 2 or 3 pages of results?
After all is said and done, I’m down to 4 results. Tron costume and Tron Halloween costume had too many pages offering premade tron costumes, eBay listings, or too many detailed “do it yourself” options. Given the fact that a lot of people make their own Tron costumes, to me it’s not worth competing.
In the end, I had these 4 options:

• Tron Suit costume

• Tron Legacy costume

• Halloween Tron costume

• Tron costume for sale

The common problems I saw with all of these is that there’s a Squidoo lens that talks about Tron costumes and their accessories, and there’s a lot of Youtube videos in the rankings. The Squidoo lens has been around a while, and people love videos, so you’ll have a bit of competition, but if you can rank higher than they do, you’ll be okay.
Of the search terms, I personally like “Tron Suit costume” and “Tron Legacy costume” best, because they have the highest searches, 18,000 and 6,000 respectively. That means if you can rank in the top 3, you can see 1,000 visitors or more a month during costume buying season. That’s not a bad deal.

If you don’t have a couple of good options at this point, uncheck the box that says “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” and see what is gives you related to your search. With costume, you’re going to get a lot of unrelated costumes (peacocks, superman, etc), but you’ll also find gems like “Tron outfits” and “Tron Legacy suit” which will also work. You just have to comb through more search terms.

Now that you have some potential domain names, it’s time to go domain shopping. I’ll include a post on how I purchase domain names after I show a different way of finding potential costume sites.

Then Pet speaks up. “I saw the most incredible thing today. There was this pickup hauling with this trailer, maybe half as long as our cab.”

“So like an eight foot trailer?”

“Maybe six feet. And it was hauling a telephone pole.”

“What?”

“A long ass telephone pole.”

“So he has this 40 foot telephone pole on this six foot trailer? Did he have a flag?”

“Better. He had a plastic shopping bag. It was white.”

I dissolve into giggles for a few minutes. When I finally get under control, Pet goes “I should have gotten a picture. It was incredible. I have no idea how some people survive puberty.”

You would think that living in a truck, and having to find places all the time would make directions a breeze, right? Not a chance.

We found the detailing place no problem, got a quote for demolding my car ($400, yikes) and set up the appointment. Then, we decided to go find Yogurt Munch and have yogurt instead of lunch. Pet pulls up directions, and it’s about 12 miles away. So off we go.

I’m not familiar with Beaverton or Hillsboro, so I made pet give me directions well in advance. We get on some busy street, and Pet goes “At the next light, turn left.”

“Left at the next light?” I ask to confirm.

“Yes, left.”

So I get in the left lane. This is a busy street, mind you.

“No, not left! I meant right!”

… busy street, curving intersection, no way to get over. So, I sit through 3 lights giving Pet shit about her other left. We get turned around, and back on the road. I head down this road for a while.

“Now, we’re looking for 117th” at least that’s what I think it was. I confirm the the street number.

I stop at a light.

“That’s the turn!”

“You said 117th, that’s <Insert Road Name Here>.” I start laughing.

“It’s the same road.” I make what’s probably an illegal right, since it had a protected turn. I’m still laughing at Pet. “Look, I didn’t know.”

I look over at the phone. “It says both the street number and the name. How could you not know. that’s twice you’ve told me the wrong thing.” At this point, I get told to shut up, but Pet’s laughing too.

We make a pit stop for fresh strawberries, and find Yogurt Munch, and a real lunch beforehand.

If you’re in Hillsboro, I really recommend Yogurt Munch. If you’ve never been to a place that sells frozen yogurt by the ounce, they’re pretty simple: you get a bowl, fill it with frozen yogurt, add toppings, and then pay based on weight.  The catch with these places is the bowl is huge, so if you fill it full, you will be paying for 2 pounds of frozen yogurt and toppiings. so be careful.

Anyway, Yogurt Munch is tucked away between a Petco and a Winco, out in Hillsboro somewhere. The link sprinkled through here is to the Yelp page, for directions. They had probably a dozen flavors of frozen yogurt: vanilla, chocolate, and then oddball ones: cheesecake cookies and cream, tart, taro, blueberry pomegranate, blood orange, and others I didn’t notice. I picked blood orange, with a tiny bit of vanilla, and it was really good. It’s also dairy free, if you avoid dairy. Pet did cheesecake, and it was super good too.

The toppings bar was a little odd. They had about a half dozen fresh fruits, including mango, which I hadn’t seen at a yogurt place before, and several things in the cold part of the bar: mochi, cheesecake, cookie dough, cookie crumbles, and boba balls. There was also sprinkles, nuts, syrups, and granola (weird). Also, a few strange addons: ever seen those mini gummi hamburgers? They had those, and these things that looked like a cross between an oreo and a whoopie pie, but pink where the frosting was.

Pet and I each oaded up on a decent portion, and it was $8.57. My crap math says that’s about 24 ounces, which means 12 ounces of frozen yum for each of us. Way more than we needed, but it was good. With our Groupon, it was $0.57 at the counter.

If you go, check out the boba balls. They’re not like the boba you get in bubble tea, where they’re firm and chewy. these are like a bubble of juice with a thin layer keeping them together. They looked pretty, and tasted better. Lynchee and strawberry were the flavors of the day when we were there, and I grabbed a big spoon of the lychee. No regrets, they were so good. The way they’d burst in your mouth and fill it with lychee was great.

Thw three drawbacks to the place are:

1. there’s no way to sample the flavors. the Yelp reviews mention you can get sample cups, but there weren’t any out when we were there. And, the place was busy, so I didn’t want to ask them if they had any. I did manage a “sample” of sorts by scraping a touch of the yogurt from the nozzles onto the edges of my bowl, and then tasting it. It was enough to get the flavor, so it helped me settle on blood orange.

2. Some of the toppings can be questionable. They had a half dozen types of granola there, which was a nice change from just candy. Some of the granola was sort of weird though, pumpkin seed and flax was one that was there. Again, reading on Yelp after we went, I discovered they pick up some of their toppings from the Winco next door in the bulk bins, so it might not be asfresh as it could be. If you go, stick to the moer popular toppings, and avoid the granola for the freshest stuff.

3. It’s loud, and they had a television playing Sponge Bob at a high volume. I realize it’s the kid’s corner, but it was uncomfortably loud back in the far corner with the yogurt machines.

In short, finding Yogurt Munch was an adventure, one I’d repeat again, and worth a repeat visit. Probably too expensive, and too far away for frequent visits, but worth a stop by if you’re in the area.