Archive for Miscellaneous
Getting back to it
Hey everyone, if there are any of you reading this, I’m back. It’s been a long and rough off season this year. My intent to keep up with posts throughout the off season quickly became overshadowed by a number of life’s little tasks and road bumps, and the site has been left unchanged since the beginning of the year. With Halloween now just less that 2 months from now, and having done virtually nothing in the way of building new props, I have found myself re-evaluating my plans for new additions and changes for this year.
The year started out with my focus directed towards the restructuring of my Reef Aquarium, which had suffered a few problems in the preceding months. The efforts would ultimately be all for naught, as the aquarium was dismantled and sold off later in the summer.
The spring followed with the loss of my Grandmother, my last remaining grandparent, which was followed immediately thereafter by my wife’s surgery and recovery. All of this virtually extinguished my Halloween spirit and my drive to work on new projects. I began to focus more on my garden, which was a good outlet for my stress and frustrations, and the 28 Pumpkin plants kept the last of my Halloween spirit from fading like the flame of a spent candle. That until the Squash Borers struck. Needless to say, I’d seen enough misfortune for this year. It was time to get things turned around.
As it turns out, a Vacation was the perfect remedy. Earlier plans for a day trip out to Salem, MA were altered to include 2 extra days, and a campsite that overlooks Waikiki Beach on Winter Island. On August 23rd, we packed up all the crap, the kids, and a good family friend and hit the road. I’ll go into more detail later, but let’s just say that this trip was just what the Dr ordered. I am ready to get Halloween underway and not even Hurricane Irene could bring me down.
What’s he building?
Halloween ’02
This morning, My son had dug out my old laptop and left it out to charge so he could mess around with it. Curious, I started the old buzzard up and to my surprize, the desktop wallpaper was a photo of my daughter’s first Halloween. As I ventured through the documents therein, I came upon a few more photos. I couldn’t help but share a few of them here.
The fate of the Jacks
Every year, more than a few people ask me what we do with all of the pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns after the Halloween display has been taken down. It used to be as simple as placing the discarded jack-o-lanterns at the curb. The village Dept of Transportation would come by several times throughout the fall vacuuming the leaves from the curb, and would gladly smash and suck up any jack carcasses they might come upon. Fifty one pumpkins, that’s a lot to waste. We have since changed our thinking and now we try to use as much of the pumpkin as possible.
When cleaning out the pumpkins for carving, we keep many of the seeds for eating. After being removed, the fiberous strands, or “brains” as they are often referred to, and seeds are handed over to my wife for separation and preparation. She prepares a few different flavors, which are then served at our Halloween Party
Since we grow our own, I pick out the two best looking pumpkins, and the seeds from those are cleaned, dried, and saved for next year’s planting. The fiberous strands, or “brains” as they are often referred to, and any remaining seeds are then spread out in the, now empty, garden. The seeds provide food for the local wildlife (squirrels and birds) while the rest of the waste provides nutrients to the soil.
As I mentioned, we grow our own pumpkins. About 1/3 of our nearly 550 sq foot garden is reserved for the pumpkins. We, as a suppliment to our gardening, also compost our organic wastes. The straw, corn stalks, and yes, all of the Jacks will eventually make their way into the compost bin. A fitting end, as they will help provide the nutrients to feed next years crop.
While they will all make the journey eventually, not all of the Jacks will go right into the compost bin. Only half of them have made it there thus far. The remaining stand poised atop the last of the straw bales, awaiting the opportunity to be photographed at the peak of their collapse. Last year I came upon another site that shared photos of their decomposing jack-o-lanterns. It was a great concept, and I plan to try my hand at it as well. Stay tuned for the “Rotting Jacks”
Gazette Article 10-26-10
Stephen Austin carves a pumpkin as he decorates his Scotia home for Halloween Monday.
SCOTIA
Scotia native exhibits his Halloween spirit in big way
BY MICHAEL GOOT Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Michael Goot at 395-3105 or mgoot@dailygazette.net.
Stephen Austin wishes every day could be Halloween.
The Scotia native tricks out his house on James Street with a fullscale display including skeletons and tombstones, pumpkins and witches.
“Halloween is our Christmas,” said his wife, Lauri.
Because Halloween falls close to Austin’s Oct. 28 birthday, it has always been a big event for him.
“It’s like a giant celebration of my birthday,” said Austin, who is turning 40 this year.
Austin has been decorating for Halloween since he was a child when he used to help his mother. “I just kind of took it over. It got bigger and bigger,” he said.
Austin says he has always had artistic talent but pursued a career in public safety. He works as a Scotia-Glenville dispatcher. “I’d rather do it for fun instead of a job. It’s not fun if you have to do it.”
To work on his project, Austin takes off the week before Halloween.
Austin shows off his Halloween decorations on the front lawn of his home.
Most of the display is handcrafted. The dozen or so “tombstones” in the front yard are carved from foam insulation boards. He uses an utility knife to etch in epitaphs on the graves.
“Every one of the older stones is named after a character in a book I read,” he said.
For the more recent headstones, he just makes up a name that seems to fit the time period listed on the stone.
The skeletons are made out of papier-mâché — newspaper, paper towels and “a whole lot of Elmer’s glue.” The one holding a shovel in the center of the front yard is made from latex and cotton.
Austin said the most difficult part about his project is taking breaks. When he gets going, he does not want to stop.
“The hardest thing to do is my housework.”
He starts working Nov. 1 on the next year’s Halloween display, although he really gears up in the beginning of October. Austin gets some help from his three children, Savannah, 8, Bryce, 13, and Cody, 16.
“My daughter spent the entire day [Sunday] helping me with the pumpkins,” he said.
He is carving 50 pumpkins, about a dozen of which the family grew themselves. “We’re hoping for more next year,” Lauri said.
Cody made the bookshelf that sits in the enclosed front porch. The bookshelf contains jars with handwritten labels of various “potions.”
Bryce also helped with some of the papier-mâché.
“Halloween is a family event,” Lauri Austin said.
She added that it is a shame that more people don’t do their own decorations. She said Halloween has gotten too commercialized.
“There’s too much kitschy stuff you can buy,” she said.
Austin has a website at www. thehauntingrounds.com, where he puts videos about how to make some of these creations for people who want to do it.
The couple did buy an animatronic witch that will sit in the window and “stir” her cauldron. There will also be scary music playing from an Ohio-based band called Nox Arcana.
Because he is worried about the display being vandalized, Austin brings in a lot of the decorations at night until Halloween when it will all be illuminated.
“We have a lot of kids in the village who get a little crazy,” he said.
When the couple lived in an apartment on Fifth Street, some thieves stole a bunch of items from his display in the mid-1990s. That prompted him to suspend his display for a few years. When his parents bought a house in Glenville, Austin moved to the house where we was raised. He has been doing his most recent display for about three years.
The family enjoys watching the reaction from the kids that come up to the house. It’s usually “wow,” Lauri Austin said.
The two will be dressed in costumes — Lauri as a witch and Steve in a scary mask. He said he usually hangs out in the front yard while his wife gives out the candy. He does not want to scare anyone too much.
Austin said he tries to add more to the display and make it better every year. The display defi nitely attracts attention, Austin said.
“A lot of people do the rubbernecking as they’re going by,” he said.
Halloween display badly recieved
Here’s one from todays issue of our local newspaper, The Schenectady Gazette. Please note that this is NOT OUR DISPLAY. The story can also be found here: Halloween display badly recieved
Toy babies hang from nooses on a tree in front of a home in the Village of Scotia Wednesday.
SCOTIA — A Halloween attraction of baby dolls hanging from nooses in a tree outside of a Scotia home was taken down after about a week.
The display drew the ire of some who saw it, while others felt like it was in keeping with the theme of the season.
“It’s just a Halloween thing,” said David Miles, who lives in the neighborhood where the dolls were hanging.
Miles and his wife didn’t even really notice the decoration, as they focused more on the red handprint staining the glass door of the house.
For some living nearby, the attraction was distasteful and poorly represented the neighborhood because the dolls would be the first thing people entering the small community would see on their left.
Kayla Alvord, who worked in a house across the street, straddled the two extreme opinions. “I wouldn’t have done it,” she said. “It was creepy, but I guess it is Halloween.”
Attempts to reach the owner of the property where the dolls were displayed were unsuccessful.
According to Scotia Mayor Kris Kastberg, the village doesn’t get involved in what decorations people can put on their lawn or on their house.
Kastberg said they only get involved if “it’s something that’s overtly perverse,” and he cited an instance when a code enforcement officer asked a homeowner to remove a snowman sitting on a toilet.
The ambiguity surrounding the issue was a problem for Scotia Police Chief Thomas Rush, who said it is hard to determine what is appropriate.
“Where do you draw the line?” said Rush.
Another issue for Rush was protecting civil rights, which made it almost impossible for police to force someone to remove decorations that weren’t overtly obscene.
“There’s nothing really to enforce,” said Rush, adding that obscene decorations aren’t really a problem in Scotia.
Krastberg added that occasionally the village receives complaints about offensive signs, but they can’t force anyone to do anything because it is protected speech.
The position of the Albany branch of the American Civil Liberties Union was that any decoration that didn’t incite a riot, couldn’t be construed as hate speech and was not obscene in the legal sense was protected against any infringement.
For the most part, anyone looking to create something like this needs to make it themselves, said Halloween Hall owner Lois Myers.
“Most of these people create it themselves,” said Myers. She added that her shop didn’t offer anything like the baby dolls in a noose.
Miles felt like there was nothing malicious behind the neighbors’ intent.
“They’re just average ordinary people,” he said.
Alvord said that she was surprised to see this in such a quiet neighborhood: “Wouldn’t expect it from them,” she said.
Buried Treasures
One of our plans for an upcoming Halloween display was to decorate our enclosed front porch as a Witch’s house. One of the key fixtures for this display was to be a bookshelf of potion bottles and jars of different ingredients and curiosities. Over the past year, my wife and I have visited several Garage sales, and I am always keeping an eye out for old bottles.
While digging a large hole in which to bury some excess stone, I happened upon a few small bottles buried about 18″ deep. My 15 year old son took an interest and took over the dig. Since the immediate area is all slated to become part of our vegetable garden expansion, I allowed him to dig to his hearts content.
After 2 days, we finally gave up on digging up the yard. Within the approximately 100 square foot area that we dug, we discovered a total of 31 jars bottles and medicinal vials, all dating back to the late 1800′s and early 1900′s.
Several of the bottles we found have one type of marking or another, but only 8 of them have any type of labeling print. The three cobalt blue bottles are all marked “BROMO-SELTZER EMERSON DRUG CO. BALTIMORE, MD”, which are apparently very common and worth very little (about $3-$5). 
The others, seen here, are marked with the following (right to left) DR. J.R. MILLER’S MAGNETIC BALM (on sides of bottle), HARRIS PURE FLAVORS BINGHAMTON, NY, SCOTT’S SPRING BOTTLING WORKS SCHENECTADY, NY (“S” in Schenectady is printed backwards and apparently upside-down as well), WEISS SCOTT’S SPRING BOTTLING WORKS SCHENECTADY, NY BEER REGISTERED(on front) THIS BOTTLE NOT TO BE SOLD (on back) A.C.W. (on bottom), and GUARANTEED FULL PINT H.HEILBRONNER & CO. WHOLESALE LIQUOR DEALERS SCHENECTADY, NY.
Anyone who may have information on any of these bottles, or on the companies named on them, please share your info. I plan to bring these all by a local bottle museum to try to gain some information on them all. Ultimately, unless there is any significant value to any of them, they will all be incorporated into the Witch’s personal apothecary in this years Halloween home haunt.
3 Months
Thats right, Halloween is but 3 tiny months/13 weeks/92 days away. We are 3/4 of the way there, and if you havent started on your Halloween planning yet, this might be a good time to start. As for me, I’ve still got a few projects lined up.
Macabre Discovery
It was decided, very soon after moving into our new home last year, that the 1970′s paneling in our dining room/den would be among the first things that we would remove. Last week, My wife decided that I had spent entirely enough time toying with Halloween props for the coming year, and that it was time to make good on the promise to remove the dark brown paneled walls and make way for some brighter colors. As expected, the paneling had been glued down so the drywall behind it was also in need of replacement, so down came the drywall as well.
The fully intact skeleton of a common field mouse.
It was about halfway down the wall between the Den and the Kitchen, above a cutout in the wall between the two rooms where I made a somewhat rare discovery. As I tore down the drywall, there stood before me, a complete and fully intact skeleton of a mouse. There was very little flesh remaining, probably only enough to keep the skeleton assembled in the creatures final pose. While it’s not uncommon to come across skeletal remains of mice, especially up here in the great northeast, this is the first time I have ever come across one still assembled.
While my love for the dark and often gruesome images of Halloween might suggest otherwise, I am not ill of heart. I hope that this poor creature met its end in peace. That being said, how cool would a replication of a skeletal mouse (or rat) be sitting atop a tombstone in a cemetery full of ground-breaking corpses. Hmmm, Ideas they are a-brewin’.
A “Host” of issues
So I return…. but not without a story to tell. For anyone who had not noticed, The Haunting Grounds website had completely disappeared from existence on the evening of Friday, January 22, 2010. Here is the skinny.
Oblivious to what troubles lie ahead for me, I toddled my groggy ass down the stairs for my morning coffee one Saturday morning, popping my Laptop on to boot up as I passed by. Returning moments later with a fresh cup of Maxwell House coffee, I opened up my Email, and nearly hit the floor when I saw the Email from my Web Host, titled “Cancellation Confirmation“. As I opened up the Email, I was overcome with a chilling sense of fear and confusion.
Dear Stephen,
As you requested, we have cancelled your “????????”
account. As of today, all Web site files and e-mail addresses
associated with the account have been taken offline and no
further charges will be processed.If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not
hesitate to contact us. We wish you continued success and hope
we have the opportunity to work with you again in the future.Sincerely,
The ?????? Team
After a quick (hour long) call to the Tech Support Dept of my host, It was determined that a computer glitch in their system had carried of a “do not renew” order from a previous account under the same user name over to my account. I was assured that everything would be returned to normal as soon as the billing department could restore the account. Now I am not one to get irate over situations like this, as it often only serves to “muddy the water” between the other party, and a positive resolve, So I kindly thanked him for his efforts thus far.
By that night, a new account was created for me, and the files to my account had been restored. Unfortunately the WordPress database was missing, and with it, all the written content of the site. And another hiccup; the new account was opened for me was a $66.00 a year account (a 50% increase over the 44.00 yearly account that I had signed up for). So another long call to Tech Support was made, this time with a much longer hold time, and a much quicker resolution by the agent. My issues were forwarded to the next level of support technicians, and I should expect to hear back from them within a few days. “A FEW DAYS?!?!” I thought to myself… “Good Lord already, I’ll chew my fingernails off before this gets fixed!” Still I kept my ire in check, and politely thanked the Technician and bid her good evening.
The very next morning, I was pleased to find that I had received a reply from their Level 2 Technician. I was not pleased however, when I read his response. He explained that he was unable to locate the database on either the the server, nor the back-up, and suggested that I just reinstall WordPress. Now I’m not sure how anyone else sees it, but I translate that as “Hey Buddy, that’s too bad. We made a mistake, and we don’t know how to fix it. I guess it just sucks to be you!” Well, as you can guess, that didn’t fly well with me, so another call was made to Tech Support. This time, I politely over-emphasisedthe fact that 3 months of work were contained within that Database and I really need to ensure that every effort is made to find it. To my surprisethe second effort fostered more positive results and they were able to locate the database. The site was restored to a functional state, and after a few more days of restoring the Theme and resolving several minor hiccups, the site appears to be as it was before the mishap.
And now the best part. There was the other little matter of the cost of my service which had yet to be resolved. I received a notice from the billing department advising me that when the account was cancelled, I was credited $33.00 which was deposited back into my bank account (which it had not yet been). I was advised that I would have to repay that $33.00 to return the account to a zero balance. Now obviously, I am not going to pay that “balance” until I have received the aaforementioned credit they claim to have given me, so I hop online, check the upcoming transactions, and find no such credit. Guess what…. Another call to the host. I give the technician the whole story, start to finish, and explain the current predicament. The technician then says to me “because you have not paid your bill, your account has been placed in suspension.”"SUSPENSION?!?!?….. BECAUSE I DIDN’T PAY MY BILL?!?!?!?!” Yep, I did it.. I muddied up the water…. I very curtly re-explained the details of the situation (which he obviously ignored the first time) in a tone that could not be ignored. I quickly harnessed my rage and appologised for my outburst. After all, it was not his fault that the mix-up occurred. I politely gave him a final synopsis of the situation and advised him that I refuse to pay this “balance” until I recieve the alledged credit of $33.00 that I was told I was given. He then informed me that my account would remain in suspension until the balance was paid (can you say “THICK SKULL”). Well, obviously this is going nowhere so I terminate the call andrespond to the original notice form the billing specialist. I explained that I had not yet recieved the credit, and would pay the balance once it has been recieved. I then return to look at my bank account, andfind that the $33.00 “balance” has now been deducted from my account, and still no credit. I return to my host’s control panel andfind that my account is now “current” and the cost for the renewal has now jumped to $99.00 a year. Another letter to the “Billing Specialist” expressing my discontent with the whole situation…….. And the end result..
Hello Stephen,
We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. The refunds will appear in your account within couple of days. But it appears on your statement in 5-7 business days. We cannot speed up the refund process.
We continue working hard to provide the best products and services at a fair price and while we do everything possible to maintain low fees, we do need to increase the prices occasionally to cover rising operating costs. As a result, the renewal fee has increased to $99.00.
If you have any further questions, please update the Support Console.
Sincerely,
????? ???????
Billing Specialist
How’s that for a big “Fuck You!”? Their computer glitch causes me countless hours of headache after headache, and then they thank me by more than doubling the cost of their service. Then they chalk it all up to “rising operating costs”. I have been treated better by pimple faced teenagers at the counter of McDonalds! (no offense to them, I started there too). At least McDonalds employees will work to better a bad situation with a complimentary “free meal” coupon.
Needless to say, I’ll be seeking out potential replacements for my web hosting, but for the time being, I’ll stick with them, at least for the current term. Who knows, they may still redeem themselves, right? Well, we can hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first. Anyone with suggestions for another hosting option, please feel free to let me know.
