We won!

Remember this? 

It was an entry into the ID Parts Cold Start contest and it won! We got the award for "Most Creative Video" which is what I was going for. Its certainly not a Spielberg movie but I'm pretty happy with it. Of course watching it now I can see all kinds of things we could do to improve it, the first scene could use some help and Angie needed a little more coaching for her start but we did okay for basically no preparation and maybe 3 hours total of production.

So heres something else I made, this was just over a month ago:

Generally speaking I don't like vlog videos so I've tried to keep this one short and optimistic...

More diferenter

I've been bad at updating here, I realize I've made a couple things you haven't been notified about.
One of the parts suppliers I use has a yearly cold start contest. If you're not into diesel cars you need to realize that a diesel engine runs only on the heat of compression, if you can't get the engine warm it won't run. When its really cold out that can be an issue. So lots of YouTube space is devoted to cold start videos.
Its been really warm this winter and I was worried were weren't ever going to get any cold to make our cold start video but a sudden cold stap came along. There's price money on the line so on Valentines day we busted out the camera and made a video:

I dunno if having a ton of views and positive comments will make this video win the contest but it sure would make me feel good. :)

I need to find more video making challenges, it can be hard to come up with inspiration for what to make, its a lot easier when theres a challenge. Anyway with one cold start video down I'm already thinking about what next year's

I didn't win but...

I buy a lot of my VW parts from IDparts.com which is located right here in MA which makes for quick shipping for me.
Recently they had a cold start contest where folks were challenged to start their car in the cold and make a video, the prize was a $200 gift certificate so of course I entered:

and while I didn't win I had a good time making the video. It reminded me of the days spent working on the cooking challenges and made me realize that something like a cooking challenge was a really good way to get motivated to actually do something. I guess I need to spend some time researching other video challenges.

What is beauty?

Like many people I struggle with the idea of beauty. I look at my wife and I recognize her as a beautiful woman, thats a good thing too, I'm married to her and intend to stay that way. For the most part Angie doesn't wear makeup and for the most part I don't care. On some special occasions she'll wear some lip gloss or eye makeup and I think thats great too, whatever she wants to make herself feel special.

Our society, and in this case I really mean our global society places a high premium on perfection for women and they are encouraged through a million images every day to strive for that perfect look. Over the years I've subscribed to several automotive publications where you'd expect the objectification of women and I'm always kind of disgusted to realize that the real objectification of women is in WOMEN'S magazines. Pick up "Women's Day" or "Redbook" or even "Prevention" and you'll see all the ads for makeup and support clothing suggesting how much better your life would be if you used this or that product.

Anyway whats gotten me on this maudlin topic is a video I caught today on BuzzFeedYellow. I'll admit I'm a bit of a BuzzFeed junky, the short vignettes are mostly easy to digest fluff so this one caught me off guard.

I'm pretty much disgusted that the United States artist created an image so far from reality but honestly I'm not that surprised...

Working on those resolutions

Remember my new years resolutions? If I'm honest I haven't been great about them. I'm probably 5 or 6 writings behind and considering I was allowing myself to make up missed opportunities thats terrible. On the other hand I lost a bunch of weight last week, just about a quarter pound a day which is pretty dang good. One difference I made was drinking a lot of water, another was snacking a lot less. Thats easy when I'm in the office and not so easy from home which is where I'm at this week.

Anyhow you might have heard that "Snowmageddon" hit the north east yesterday. We were spared the worst of the storm, it passed mostly to the east of us, but I took the opportunity to make a video!

I'm having a hard time getting used to letting the quality of the video not be perfect. If you watch this and then go back and watch my Lantern Lab stuff you can see I'm putting a lot more time into Lantern Lab which is as it should be I guess. This is more in the vlog format where good enough is good enough. I like it though, it allows me to get thoughts out without a tremendous amount of effort.

There is a little snowmobile footage in that which is the first snowmobile stuff I've put on YouTube. I have made snowmobile videos in the past but they're all on my website in a super compressed format and I didn't keep any higher quality copies which is too bad, I'd like to put them up but I won't with what I've got...

Coleman #16 Radiant heater

I don't remember if I've mentioned my Coleman radiant heater before. I've wanted one since I first found out they exist. I got mine from Warren at the True North Gathering last fall, then he sold me the radiants early this year.
Its pretty badass, built mostly like a stove but with a manifold not unlike the exhaust manifold on a car which distributes the gas to just below the radiants.
Anyway enough yammerin' wheres the video?



BTW: I was denied a YouTube partnership, apparently I don't get enough traffic. Plan on seeing some new videos from me that aren't mostly about Coleman lanterns ;)

AGM 3705

I just realized I haven't posted the video of the AGM 3705, in fact I don't think I've ever talked about the 3705 before...

Its an odd little lantern from the '30s from the company that was famous for odd lanterns. If you look carefully at the picture you can see that the knob tilts down. Thats normal, it makes space for air to go into the air tube. Why they just didn't put the air tube on the other side I have no idea...
Anyway you can see my 3705 in action on YouTube