Upgrading my guitar...or downgrading?

Recently I've had loads of spare time and decided to put some of my time to use.  I've had Epiphone Les Paul sitting in my closet for years without being played, most of my electric guitar time was been taken up by my Delonge es-333.  A few years back I took my Les Paul apart and repainted it, but I wasn't satisfied with the outcome. Ever since I got my 333 I've loved the simple set up it has with a single pickup and single volume knob, yet its a bare bones setup that a lot of musicians prefer. With this in mind I decided to to transform my 2 pickup/2 knob/1 switch, into a single pickup single knob.

Here is the original guitar, as you can see its been sitting collecting dust. 

Guitar taken apart, pickups and hardware removed, also bolt on neck removed. 

After 2 sessions of stripping the paint with paint stripper. You can see some of the original paint.

Filling in the 2 extra holes where one of the knobs and the switch use to be.  Also filling in the extra pickup void. Had to cut a piece of wood to fill in, then filled the crack with wood filler. 

Sanded down the whole guitar, after hours of sanding I got the filler flush with the rest of the body. 

Filled in all the minor scratches with filler on both the front and backside. 

Sanded for another couple hours, got the body smooth as needed. 

Tapped up the back opening and the front screw holes for the bridge, also the gap for the neck. 

 

Prepped it for its first coat of primer.  Hung it by one of the screw holes for the neck. 

3 coats of primer and sanding later its ready for some paint. 

Got the stripes ready that I made fro painters tape, also made the circle with the "L" with the same tape. 

 

First coat of Glossy grey.  Looks a lot like the primer.  Did 2 more coats of the glossy grey. 

Added the striped and the "L" logo

Next I sprayed 3 coats of flat matte black to the entire guitar. 

Removed the painters tape to reveal the glossy grey graphics. 

sprayed a clear coat of matte on top, ended up doing 3 coats of this paint as well.  As you can kinda see it gave it a smokey tone to it which I wasn't going for but it turned out pretty cool. 

 

Added the hardware, pickups and knob back on...almost finished. 

Finally added the neck back on, now all I need is a new set up strings and it will be done!

 

After 2 days of almost nonstop work Finally finished.  the next looks weird since its a glossy finish, but I really liked the flat matte finished that you don't really see too often on a guitar.

Dungeons and Dragons!! What!?

Never in a gazillion years did I think I would ever be playing Dungeons and Dragons, what would be next?! Going LARPing?  I've always heard of it but I never really knew much about it, to me it was what all the losers and uber nerds would play during lunch at school.  I always kinda thought I was too "cool" to play it, but damn was I wrong, I had an amazing time during my first DnD session.

If you've never played DnD its basically a pen and paper video game, but more intricate and customizable.  You create your character, choose your backstory, choose skills, etc. The Dungeon Master (DM) then creates a scenario, with custom enemies and story line, then you improvise dialogue to accompany the campaign. Since I'm pretty new to role playing characters, it's still pretty awkward for me, but when you have a cool group of friends it tends to help.  To all my non-gaming friends, yes I know this doesn't sound very fun, but trust me I had a great time during our first campaign and I am looking forward to our next session.

Back in the day this was all done with pen, paper, tokens and dice; but since that can't happen due to us all living in different states we used a neat website called roll20.net.  which is basically a table top application that enables users from around the world to be able to play DnD with their friends.

Here is our test run where we were trying to figure out how this damn thing worked. Like Tobias so eloquently put it, "I’m afraid I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run if you will, so I’m afraid I have something of a mess on my hands."

Our "dry run" so to say

Thanks to everyone who set this up and participated, Jeul, Cyb, Unitas, Riv, Alextrios, Kaeth, Ayra, Merick. Can't forgett Avendi who setup the whole thing with the help of Keidras.  

-Luz

Gaming!

I am a gamer, there I said it!  Many of you don't know that I like to play games, but I'm not just talking about the typical Call of Duty console gamer, instead I'm an actual gamer...well kinda of!  The first image you get of a gamer is some middle aged gamer sitting in their parents basement; rocking their carpel-tunnel wrist gauntlet whilst sipping on some mountain dew. Thanks South Park for setting the stereotypical image. But I'm here to inform you that that's a pretty skewed view of the gaming community and most of people I've met on my adventure have been pretty normal cool people.

I've always played video games, but I've never been hardcore, and I'm still not. I usually played  a couple games on and off, anywhere from 0 to 10 hours a week, and sometimes taking up too 6 months at a time off.   My adventure began one day while playing one of my favorite games, Guild Wars; that's where I met 2 of my online  friends which lead me to an online community of gamers. I never really thought of meeting people in a game and actually interacting with them, mainly because of my xbox live experience, which mainly consists of of everyone calling you a faggot noob. So the idea of a gaming community was foreign to me. We continued to play Guild Wars, I became good friends 2 of them, Jeul and Cybele.  While playing I come to find out that I have a lot more in common with them than I had first thought, even came to find out one of them lived about 5 hours away! We quickly moved on Guild Wars 2, that's where I met the remaining members (Ayra, Rivehn,Kaeth, Alextrios & Rolendia) of the Eventide, which is the name of the community. I finally meet their unofficial leader, Unitas, and again I find out I have many things in common aside from gaming.

I start playing games that I wouldn't of even thought of playing, for god's sake I'm playing a Star Wars game with them, I haven't even seen any of the movies and never gave a shit about the lore! But needless to say I'm enjoying playing most of these games, not necessarily because of the games themselves, but because of the people I'm playing them with. We play variety of game from MMO's like StarWars to Simulations like SimCity. The Eventide to me has always been group of friends that not only like to game, but share common interests and ideas. I find myself logging on to our voice chat just to chat and not even play. It's safe to say that I now refer to them and just my friends, and not just my gaming friends.  

Lost on the Mountain

The day started as a normal day at Bogus for some snowboarding.  We started on the backside, we did around 5-6 runs, in probably the best snow of this season.  The whole time we were off the groomed trails, into the fresh powder off trails.  Hitting jumps into fresh powder weaving in between the  trees and carving up several inches excellent snow, everything was great.

We started the next run, the same we started the last few runs, hitting the off trails, everything was going normal, until I took a wrong turn and lost Vince and Jose.  I didn't think much of it because it has happened before, usually I just follow the mountain down. So I start following the contours of the mountain. I quickly notice that I'm starting to slow down, I look up and see a slight uphill incline coming up, I know I don't have enough speed to make it up.  I come to a complete stop, I look down, I see I can't see my snowboard anymore, it has sunk about a foot into the fresh powder. I try to get my snowboard above the snow, but with every slight wiggle or jump, I only sink more and more into the snow.  So at this point I'm kinda annoyed that I have to unstrap and get over this slight hump. The exact moment that I unstrap, I sink into the snow above my waist.  Now I think I just need to army crawl to the top of this slight hill and strap back up and head down the mountain.  I finally get to the top of this slight hill, and I look out, I see a ravine, a gulch ahead.  At this point I know I can't ride down this, the snow is too deep; but I also know I can't climb back up for the same reasons. At this point I start to realize that his situation is a little bit more serious that I previously thought. 

I try to to advance down the hill, but every step feel like I'm taking 100 normal steps.  I probably only take about 15-20 steps, and by this point I'm exhausted, my throat feel like I'm breathing in razor blades with every breath of freezing air. I finally get down to an opening were it's relatively flat, at point I'm starting to genuinely panic, I starting yelling "help" at the top of my lungs for a around 5 minutes, but I never got a response. I look around I see nothing but snow and thick brush surrounding me.  At this moment I also realize that its starting to get pretty dark, my heart starts racing, reality is starting to set in.  I take a moment to calm myself down, I take slow and steady breathes, until I finally come down from the panic.  After countless hours of watching survival shows (Man vs Wild, Survivor Man, Dual Survivor, etc), I remembered their number one rule, don't panic and analyze the situation.  

At this point I check my phone, I had it on airplane mode to conserve battery, I take it off that mode, I receive a couple text messages from a friend.  I try to call out to my friends to no avail.  So I send them a text message to let them know that I'm lost.  Where I'm currently located I don't have a good vantage point so I crawl along the snow, using my snowboard as an anchor to push me forward. I finally get to a place were I think I can have a better vantage point.  At this point it crosses my mind that if it gets darker, I might have to stay put and spend the night, rather than risk getting lost even more in the dark.  I look around I see a tree that has leaned over and under it there's dry land, and I know if  I have too, I'd make my shelter there. The survivor shows also taught me how to make snow shoes out of tree branches, which was another option for me.  I lay my snowboard upside down, and climb on top of it to get a scope of whats ahead.   I can barely make out what I think is a trail.  Now I have to make a decision to either stay and shelter up or try to reach that trail before its dark.  

I decide to try and reach the trail.  I use the same technique to crawl along the snow using my snowboard as an anchor.  After about 20 mins of  crawling I finally reach the trail.  I notice that its a snowboard trail, and I knew that if I followed it, it would lead to the main trail. I look up and I'm relieved I can see the orange glow of the light from the trail. I can't strap back up and just ride out, the snow is too deep still and its too flat.  Luckily the trail has compacted a bit and I'm only sinking past my boots.  

I finally reach the main trial, I take a good 10 minutes to collect my composure and catch my breathe.  After sitting down, I can hear someone calling my name in the distance, I recognize Vince's voice, and respond to him, I strap back in and head down the mountain to meet up with them.  After I reach the bottom I set down again, coming down from the rush of adrenaline gives me a feeling of nausea.  I was relieved that I had made it down before dark!