HELMET MAN IS BACK AT IT AGAIN!

Back at the "helmet hobby" with a fury this week and it seems to be helping to get me out of my recent doldrums. I dug out a red Rawlings helmet that I had done up as a Kansas City Chiefs helmet. I had put it away in a deep dark corner of the closet because I massacred the helmet while trying to drill the mounting holes for a face mask and I couldn't stand to look at it! I don't know if you've ever experienced that: making mistake after mistake after mistake on a project and feeling your face redden, your pulse race, and your entire body break out in a cold sweat.

Later on I found a Schutt, red in color, and absolutely clean, and I bought another set of decals and that helmet displays proudly with my other worthy projects in the office proper.

So earlier this week I determined, after finding some "throwback" San Francisco 49'er thin decals, to use the ruined helmet as my guinea pig. I went to the Auto Value store and got some bumper filler, filled and sanded the holes (not very well) and then spray painted the helmet gold over the original red. It took about three coats to really cover up the red.

The decals arrived and I had never worked with 10 mil decals before. The ones Ii had gotten before are 20 mil, really heavy and easy to place on the helmets without wrinkling or bubbling.

The 10 mils were a complete nightmare!!!! Again with the red face, the racing pulse and the cold sweats! I just could not get any of the decals on without buckling, bubbling and wrinkling. The outside red stripes were ridiculously difficult! And the SF decals were a complete wrinkly, crinkly disaster! (I really should have taken as picture). Instead, after a day or two, in a fit of rage, I tore all of them off and threw them away.

Luckily I found another site that carried 49er decals. Unfortunately, they are the new decals - not the ones from the 1960's and '70's - I don't like the added black replacing the white stripes - but at least they are 20 mil!

I also ordered the New Orleans decals since they go on a gold helmet. The Rawlings helmet will become a Saints helmet. I took another "disaster" helmet, a Riddell VSRY4 that was supposed to be a Badger helmet - and this morning spent most of it prepping it to become the 49er helmet.

I have another set of decals (20 mil - thank you very much - ) that will be applied to a helmet that I won on eBay some time ago. The guy sent me the wrong helmet first time around, so I am still waiting for that one to arrive. It is yet another Rawlings helmet, white in color, which I will paint "midnight blue" and it will become my salute to Walter "Sweetness" Payton. I already have the correct Shutt OPO 1980's face mask on hand.

(side note: MAN! HAVE THOSE PUPPIES GOTTEN EXPENSIVE THROUGH A DEALER -- NINETY NINE DOLLARS!! I got mine on eBay for $29.00.)

__________________________________________________________________

I kinda like this one!
The IRS sends their auditor (a nasty little man) to audit a synagogue.
The auditor is doing all the checks, and then turns to the Rabbi and says,
"I noticed that you buy a lot of candles."
"Yes," answered the Rabbi.
"Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?" he asked.
"A good question," noted the Rabbi. "We actually save them up. When we
have enough, we send them back to the candle maker and every now and then,
they send us a free box of candles.."
"Oh," replied the auditor somewhat disappointed that his question actually
had a practical answer. So he thought he'd try another question, in his
obnoxious way...
"Rabbi, what about all these matzo purchases? What do you do with the
crumbs from the matzo?
"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi calmly, "we actually collect up the crumbs,
we send them in a box back to the manufacturer and every now and then, they
send a box of matzo balls."
"Oh," replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the Rabbi.
"Well, Rabbi," he went on, "what do you do with all the foreskins from the
circumcisions?"
"Yes, here too, we do not waste," answered the Rabbi. "What we do is save
up all the foreskins, and when we have enough we actually send them to the
IRS .."
"To the IRS?" questioned the auditor in disbelief.
"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi, "directly to The IRS ...And about once a
year, they send us a little prick like you.."


At a recent computer expo (COMDEX),Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads...

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car

10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.


That's all for today! I am getting hungry for lunch at the Wigwam -- best soups in town - and I see that my paint is good and dry so it is time to reassemble the gold helmet. wish me luck!

_________________________________________________________