Flaming Pumpkin!!

I was boppin’ around on the internet a little bit ago, looking for some cool pumpkin carving ideas. But what I found went far beyond carving a simple pattern into orange skin; I found something that involves FIRE!

And searching further, it seemed I was behind the times with this activity, as there are several sites that have done this before. Oh well, better late than never.

Items needed; a pumpkin, some kerosene, a roll of toilet paper and a container to soak the TP in.

Well I had a pumpkin already. Let’s see about the other stuff. Toilet paper? Check. A container? Check. Kerosene? Oh yeah baby! Check!

There was a bunch of fine print on the kerosene label, but I figured it wasn’t anything important so I didn’t bother to read it.
Now the instructions said to soak the TP overnight. Ok, that’s easy enough. I poured the kerosene into the can, put the TP in and even weighted it down with a rock to keep it submerged.
I figured a good place to do all this would be outside. Away from my lungs (and away from my furnace’s pilot light!). But some pine needles fell into the mix when I put the rock in, which made me realize that a good protective cover was needed to keep other dirt, leaves and other crap out of my experiment.
All set and ready to go, right? Ahhh, so I thought. The following day arrived and I was too caught up in some other kind of mischief to get my pumpkin carved. The day after that; it rained and a rainy night is no good for filming a flaming gourd, so things were postponed yet again. The night after that…well, I forget what came up, but the pumpkin didn’t get done that night, either. Can you guess where this is headed? Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to carve the pumpkin in time for Halloween. Dammit! Oh well, the pyromania would still be done!

Hmmm…would the TP have held up, or would I be faced with a disintegrated pile of liquid slop? (You’ll be happy to know that things held up wonderfully.)

So there I was; Halloween had passed and I still had the ingredients for something truly cool. So I cleared my schedule for an evening, assembled some tools and hunkered down to see just how well this activity would come together.

A nice skull stencil seemed to be appropriate for the event…
I opted to carve the pumpkin by opening the bottom, rather than the top. This was important, as it would allow me to get the TP situated on the base, and then I could place the carved pumpkin over everything, nice and easy. More importantly, if I needed to get at the flames once things were lit, I could just lift the pumpkin off, rather than having to screw with trying to lift a flaming roll of poop-paper out of a mini-furnace.

Also; I left the sides nice and thick to help keep the pumpkin from drying out too soon, once the flames got going. (It may look like I cut the top off, but I assure you this is the bottom.)
The tools which were used in this creation…
Ta~Da! A skull! (It doesn’t look like much in this pic, but trust me, it looked great in the dark, with the flames going.) Some chimney holes were needed around the top to allow the flames to shoot out of, otherwise everything would shoot out the face/carving and that probably wouldn’t look as cool.
I figured the fire pit would provide a safe area for the lighting ceremony…and then figured a nice mini-stack of cinder blocks would provide a bit more safety.
The TP has been placed and the pumpkin is ready to be placed onto the base.
Here, everything is set and ready to go…
JEEZUS, ENOUGH WITH THE PICS!!! JUST LIGHT THE DAMN THING ALREADY!!!!

Wow, pushy crowd, ain’t ya? Ok, ok, no need to shove. Here ya go…

The flames came up nicely. There was no “WHOOMP” like gas would give you, just a rapid-but-controlled spreading of the burn. Once things were fully going, the flames coming out the top were pretty sweet. Not too high, not out of control, but just really cool, man.

I’ll DEFINITELY be doing this again next year!! Hell, I might carve a SANTA pumpkin and leave that out on my front doorstep for when the Fat Bastard comes by with this year's gift of coal!!

Wheeeee!!!!

Halloween @ Sue and Ed's

Last year’s “All Hallow’s Eve” ride found me on the doorstep of Ed & Sue’s cemetery, where we whiled the night way with laughter and libations. All this, while warding off the curses and incantations of creatures, both tall and small, with promises of sweets and treats. Yes, it was a grand evening, and we all survived to live another year.

And here we were; that year had passed all too quickly it seemed! A quick call to Ed & Sue to inquire if this year would find them repeating the events of 365 days earlier, and sure enough; it was on!

I loaded up some of our my talismans (beer, wine and candy!) and made the trek over to the aforementioned cemetery where I settled in and made my preparations for the coming darkness.

Let’s see if we have things covered…
We’ll need plenty of candy to bribe any demons or witches that want to cast spells on us…
We’ll need a stellar cemetery layout, to fool any of the undead that come along looking for live folks, in hopes of eating their brains…
“Ghosts” in the windows to keep out any wandering spirits who might be looking for an un-haunted location to take up residence in…
Here and there, some eerie blinking eyes had also been set up, which just added to the overall atmosphere. Ed had the chimenea fired up and it was billowing flames to ward off the chill. One final look around to make sure everything is covered…Ok, I think we’re good to go! And it was not a moment too soon, as the creatures of the night began to appear out of the darkness. The trickle started slowly and then picked up to a steady flow of both mini-critters and their accompanying guardian ghosts (parents).

The night saw no shortage of costumed creations; there were ghouls that were fools, and monsters who were songsters. I saw vampires and umpires and even one noble squire. There was a witch that was a bitch, and a squid from Madrid (walking with the Karate Kid). Barbie and Ken were hanging with the X-men, while a Frankenstein was drinking wine with a swine from Rhine. Hell, there was even a zombie from Bombie looking hip in Abercrombie.

I’d seen enough; it was time for another beer…

On my trek to find said beer, I found myself in the old abandoned barn where Ed stores his prized Harley. He had a blue light on it, just like last year, and since I just love how this thing looks, I had to snap a pic again;
The rest of the evening was much of the same. We checked out the monstrosities as they presented themselves to our altar of candy, and each time, our offerings were adequate to send them merrily along their way, without any thoughts of casting curses in our direction. Overall, the night was a compete success.

This year was fantastic as always, and we hope that Ed and Sue will be gracious enough to host again next year. For if they do, I’ve got something else planned for the night’s display. Something that involves pumpkins and pyrotechnics. How can we go wrong?

Happy Halloween!!

Costume Pics!

Yes, Halloween has come and gone, but I’m not done posting about it, so you’ll just have to bear with me.

Each year, I like to bring my latest costume creation over to show Sam and Zak, and to also check out their costumes. They usually get quite a kick out of Uncle Dave and his silly costumes. Here are some examples of years past;

This is the earliest one I could find. I was decked out in 70's gear, Sam was a giraffe, and Zak was a frog.
The following year, I was a 7' tall Frankenstein Monster. Sam was a cat and Zak was the Hulk.

Zak wasn't too keen on the costume (which you can see from his body language in the pic) - for some odd reason he thought my face was scarier with the green makeup than it is on a regular basis. (In this pic, they're sitting on my costume's boots. They were huge clunky things that sounded awesome when I walked.)
The next year, I was a 7' tall Grim Reaper. Sam was a cowgirl and Zak was a ninja.
Zak and I squared off against each other (he's swinging his foam nunchucks at me).

I can't remember if this was the following year or not (Alzheimer's is a bitch), but suffice to say that this costume came along at some point. I thought they'd get a huge kick out of this costume, but unfortunately; The Muppets were a bit after their time and they really weren't too familiar with the character - and therefore; they thought I was kinda retarded (in this pic, they're both making fun of me) LOL.
The year after that, I was the Headless Horseman, and while pics from that year are in that year's Halloween post, I'll pull a couple up for posterity. Sam was a pirate and Zak was an alien.

I didn't like how my costume looked in that last pic so here's one I shot at the house - I loved this costume!

Last year's pics of myself (as an outhouse) with Sam and Zak can be found in last year's post, but here's a reminder; Sam was a clown and Zak was a mini Grim Reaper.
Here’s a pic of Sam and Zak from this year; Sam was a cavewoman and Zak was a Frankenstein, with a giant head and googly eyes. (If you compare these pics to the above pics of prior Halloweens, you can see how tall they’re getting!).

We didn't get a good group shot of the three of us, and I think it's because they were a bit unsure of the reliability/stability of my shower costume. And they had good reason, as evidenced by the clip in one of the below-posts, in which I can be heard to exclaim "I'm getting wet!".

Next year should be a return to the fun, group thing. I've got a good idea of what I'm going to dress up as and it shouldn't involve any moving parts (which is a relief to everyone).

And there you have it; a wrap on the Halloween Costumes.

Ok, I believe I only have two more Halloween posts coming (one of Halloween night @ Ed & Sue's, and the other involves fire!); with any luck I can get them up here tomorrow.

Whew – almost caught up!

Shower Costume!

I should have taken pics along the long and crazy trip that was my Halloween costume creation this year. Why? Because of all the changes and obstacles I encountered along the way. But, I didn’t, so I’m afraid you’ll have to accept a few pics of the completed project, along with a vid which hopefully illustrates the working effect.

The idea began simply enough; take the plain ‘shower costume’ idea and extend it one step further. I mean, how hard could it be to incorporate actual running water into the grand scheme of things? Ahhh, I was destined to find out just how hard!

First things first; I had to rig up the shower stall. For this, I took 7/8” copper tubing and a borrowed pipe-bender and made myself a nice circular shower rod. Nice and easy so far.

To support it over my head, I used my T-Bag from my Fatboy, as it came with backpack straps which zipped up inside the back of it. Pulling those out, I had a nice working backpack which I would wear, and from which, I’d support the getup.

Into the carrying space of the backpack, I stuffed an empty bird seed container (rigid plastic, roughly 8” * 12” in size, and it fit perfectly. This would give me something to hold the water in, as it circulated through the system. I also cut a piece of 2x10 board to stuff into the carrying space. To this, I bolted another section of copper pipe which would act as the backbone to the costume. This was attached to the circular rod. I also attached two sections of 3/8” threaded rod to the shower rod; one on each side, roughly 18” out from the backbone piece. These three posts did a great job of holding the curtain rod, even after I’d attached the shower curtains (I needed two curtains, as one wasn’t enough to wrap entirely around me.)

To the backbone piece, I ran another section of 7/8” copper pipe, and bent this to look like a shower head, aimed back down into the costume. Inside this, I stuffed some ¾” (outside diameter) plastic tubing to carry the water for the shower. I picked up (from Home Depot) a rubber aerator for a kitchen faucet as it was wide and looked like a shower head. The problem with it was that it could switch back and forth between being just an aerator, or allow a full-blast of water through the middle of it. Kinda hard to explain, but the end result was that the center piece allowed water to leak out and didn’t leave enough pressure backed up to give a good shower effect (hey, the thing only cost me $1.29). To fix this, I took out the metal face plate, leaving just the rubber housing. Then I took a heavy plastic jug and carved out a round piece that was the same size as the metal faceplate. Then I kept heating up a needle (on one of the gas burners on my stove) to melt tiny holes into the plastic. Then I tucked the plastic piece into the aerator head and tested it out on the kitchen faucet – perfect!

Everything was coming together nicely! The one thing I still needed to locate was a battery operated water pump, as I had to be mobile with this costume, hence; no plug-in pump would work.

I found something that I thought would work (on-line) and ordered it. When it showed up, I had some serious misgivings about its ability to pump air, let alone water. Sure enough; a quick test of its strength and I knew I needed something else.

I found another pump on another website – this was a marine bilge pump, and worked on “D” batteries. It claimed to be able to lift water 4 feet. Perfect!! Time was running short (before the costume party at work) so I didn’t feel comfortable that it would arrive in time if I had it shipped, so I drove to the warehouse in CT and picked one up. Sweet!

Back home, I assembled everything; curtains were on the rod, water was in the container, which was in the backpack, I’d rigged up a third curtain (inside, where it couldn’t be seen from the outside) that would catch the water and return it into the container inside the backpack, batteries were placed into the pump, the hose and shower head were hooked up – everything was ready to go! With a profound sense of pride and accomplishment, I hit the switch on the pump...

…and almost started crying when the damn pump wouldn’t even lift the water halfway up the contraption.

Ok, I can fix this, I just need to do some re-engineering. First thing I need is to figure out just how much lift this pump will give me. Using a water-filled bucket and some spare tubing, I calculated that I had about 22” of lift-height to work with. Anything higher than that and I wouldn’t have enough pressure to garner a good shower effect.

Hmm…ok, 22”. That means my water storage container needs to be roughly the same height as my head. So what to use? After many ideas and failed attempts, I came up with something that worked great!

I took one of those 5-gallon water jugs (like from Poland Springs) and cliced the bottom off of it. Then, to my costume’s backbone, I connected a piece of 3/8” threaded rod, ending in a 2 ½” coupling. Inverting the water jug, I stuck the neck down through the coupling to hold it in place. Next, I ran another section of threaded rod out near the top of the inverted water jug. I drilled a hole through the jug, then threaded nuts onto either side of the plastic (one nut on the outside, one nut on the inside) and tightened them against each other. Now, between that and the coupling at the bottom, the jug was solidly secure.

The pump went inside the inverted jug, and the hose ran up through the shower head, which I aimed down into jug – since the bottom was sliced off, the water would now return to the reservoir to be pumped back up again. I gotta say that I was pretty pleased with myself. I used silver spray paint for the metal rod and shower pipe, and things looked sweet.

The day of the party came and things went off without a hitch. I’d picked up a shower curtain, some flip-flops, and I wore shorts – the ending result looked like I was nekkid and taking a shower. I could poke my head out to see where I was going, and it was great! Everyone was amazed at the working water assembly and wanted to know how I’d done it.

At the costume party at the end of the day, my costume wound up winning me a waterproof digital camera/camcorder. The thing is valued @ over $400, so that wasn’t too shabby at all.

Ok – pics!
Here, you can see the backpack was the center of everything. Even though the original idea of having the water stored in the bottom container didn’t work, I still needed to leave that in there (along with the piece of 2x10) to keep the backpack from folding in on itself. To that 2x10, was the backbone pipe, and to this you can see the threaded rods holding the inverted water jug in place.
The pump sits in the bottom of the jug and the line feeds up through the overhead shower pipe, only to return the water back into the jug.

Another shot of the pump, tubing, and shower head.
I’d love to show you a great walking-around action shot, but unfortunately; after the party was over and I went to stuff this thing back into my Jeep, I guess I wasn’t as careful with it as I should have been. I messed up the connections that hold this thing together and when I tried to wear it again (for the purpose of this posting), it wouldn’t hold up correctly and kept turning.
Anyway, I had to prop it up against the wall to get some semblance of it in action.

I did bring my costume over to show Sam and Zak, and we did manage to get a bit of an action clip then, but it only shows how messed up this thing had become, because the water jug shifted on me, and the shower started dumping water all down my back. Ha ha ha, you can hear me say “I’m getting wet!” right at the end of the clip. Ahh yes, good fun had by all.

I’ll do another post (probably next week) showing Sam and Zak’s costumes.

‘Til then…