Playing Catch Up

In the last few weeks I've gotten the garden planted and the auto-watering system running. Also got the deck plants put out and on the watering system. Did the spring bird-bath cleaning/re-painting (I use pool paint on the inside).

I got some nice plants at Strawberry Hill Nursery. Pretty much all of them. I put various shades of alyssum in the strawberry pot, bought a new citronella hanging basket. Also got a hanging basket with this plant that has little flowers that look like small petunias. Can't remember the name of that one. Red, white and blue(-ish purple) petunias in the pot out front -- and this year, I did something I've been thinking about every summer for a long time.

There's this yellow flower they use as ground cover along the sides of roadways called birdsfoot treefoil. It seems to be pretty much indestructable, and it thrives and flowers all summer long even during the driest and hottest spells.

My kind of plant.

I always thought it'd make a nice hanging basket. Since I don't have an auto-watering system out front, I figured that would be the perfect place for one. So I went out to a nearby vacant lot which has been taken over by weeds (and many would consider this a weed as well) and dug up one plant that was aready hanging basket size.

Voila! Tastes great. Less filling. And stuff.

Went to the Williams' new place for a BBQ last weekend. It's such a nice house. I suppose it ought to be for the price.

But now, of course, we have to fix our place up. I think we're going to start by replacing the sliding door to the deck with a swinging door -- kinda french style but not. Vicki hates the sqeaky sliding door.

I think next up after that is our bathroom. I need to plumb in a new drain and water lines so we can add a second sink. Then we'll replace both sinks. And Vicki wants to paint the cabinets.

Then there's tiling both bathrooms and the front porch. And of course, the big bamboo floor project is still looming in the future.

So I went to the pawn shop the other day to look for a gasoline stove for camping. Didn't find one, but I did find a nice, heavy tri-pod for $20 (Sam's been bugging me to get a decent tripod, and they're expensive) and a little vaccuum cleaner for the office to clean up the dry leaves that fall from the fern, and other office messes. There was this little "shark" thing for $9. They gave me both for $15. Nice.

But as I was leaving the store, I saw a 12-string guitar on the wall. Asked them how much. He said "$100". Hmmmm. Then he added "I don't think it's really a Martin". I looked closer, and yes, it indeed had a Martin sticker in it and the Martin logo painted on the head. I picked it up. It didn't feel like a Martin, either. I went back to the office, but I started thinking.... If the neck and keys are ok and it's structurally sound, I can probably take it home and fix it up and have the cheap 12 string I've been looking for ... and who cares if it's not really a Martin? It's not like I was going to go out and spend $2,000 on a guitar, anyway. My real Martin D-15 is great. And I also have the Martin backpacker -- which I am on the "pro" side of. It does what it's supposed to do and it does it well. So I went back to the shop. It definitely has a plywood top. Not a Martin. Plus the head is panted. The finish is ... I don't know, just not "Martin-ique". There was a slight but noticible bow in the neck, but the neck was adjustable. And the action was way high.

McGyver can fix it.

So I bought it. Took it home. Knocked some height off the saddle piece and actually sanded the bridge down about 1/8" to compensate (so the saddle would still stick up over it after being shortened). Bought some new strings. Fixed the 12-th string key (the top threaded piece wasn't quite catching the bottom due to the fact that the head was just a little too thick at that point. You think Martin would've let a hand-made guitar out of the shop with that little problem? I think not!). And adjusted the neck. It plays pretty well! It doesn't sound like a Martin. But hey, it was $100, and I have playable a 12-string now. So I'll call it my fake Martin.


Rhapsody just got most of Paul McCartney's catalog up, so I've been listening to a lot of old Maca. I've always loved the first two solo albums, "McCartney" and "Ram". I have those on CD. And Ram on vinyl. And a lot of other McCartney on vinyl. So now I'm trying to learn "Junk" -- always one of my favorites, but a little tougher than your average I-IV-V song. Still, there are other ditties on there that are easy, like "Eat at Home", and "That Would Be Something" I've been having fun with. I think I want to try "Every Night" as well, but that sounds a little tougher. Ah, you never know until you try, eh?

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Update: I noticed upon closer inspection that the Martin logo "Painted" on the head is actually a sticker with a transparent background, and that it looks suspiciously like someone removed the original label from inside the guitar (you can see a lighter area around the label) so they could put the fake Martin label in there.

For $100 and a little work it's not a bad little 12-string. Definitley NOT a Martin, though.

Long time, no post, I know

When we last left our hero, he had just sent an incompatible memory stick back in an attempt to upgrade his computer. Got the new one, and now I have 1.2GB of memory in my cratchety 3 year old box. At least I think that's how old it is.

I also got a 19" flat-panel LCD monitor to replace the 15 year old SGI 17" CRT monitor I've had for 10 years. I had no idea how bad it was. I put it side by side with one at work. There was no brightness, no contrast. No wonder my eyes hurt.

I also got a big, honkin' 250GB hard drive to help manage my music files and photos.

Then we went to Fort Wayne for the 60th reunion of the 671st army unit my father-in-law served in in WWII. The group, as you might expect, is getting smaller and there are many more widows than soldiers left. A couple of guys who normally come couldn't make it this year due to health issues. But there are sons and daughters and even grandkids sometimes that come to this. It's pretty neat.

The following weekend it was high time for a Groves visit. The kids had soccer games on Saturday. Nathanial's team lost, but he scored 5 out of the 6 goals his team scored. Cassie's team won handily, and it was good to see her out there running around.

Mark whipped up some awesome cornish game hens on the grill for Saturday dinner, and Cami made this low-carb veggie salad with a balsamic vinegar/splenda dressing which was very good. And we can't forget the Snoopy Waffles for breakfast on Sunday, and the cornish-game hen pot-pie for dinner.


We helped Brian and Kristin move to their new place on Thursday night -- we rented a truck to make it go faster. Which helped. We've been in a rather wet weather pattern, too, for which I thought the truck might come in handy. But the rain held off for us.

Back to Fort Wayne last weekend to get Mom for her birthday and Mother's day. Vicki got her 8 cards for her 88th birthday on May 8. If she'd've been born a year later, we would have been doing it in 2008 as well. Well you can't have it all, can you?

We had a nice spaghetti dinner, and the boys and their respective women over, and cheesecake for dessert. A very nice evening.

And back to Fort Wayne this weekend to take her back. Then it's off to a conference for me. I'll be ready for a slowdown.

Memory.... like the low density kiiiind

My computer at home has been quite slow lately -- probably due to the fact that every bit of software you install wants to put a stub in memory to "detect" some action or make it come up faster. Over time, it has gotten to the point where I'm routinely using 700MB out of the 512MB I have. This is not good.

So I decided to order a gig of memory. It's PC2700, 333MHz, DDR memory. Figured that's all I needed to know.

Apparently not. I went through an Ebay vendor called BzBoyz because they advertised their pride in their support after the sale.

Good thing they weren't lying. It turns out I ordered high density memory. My motherboard won't take it. But, even though it was my mistake, they are taking it back and sending me a low density stick that'll work -- I just have to pay the difference.

They've been very helpful and willing to get me what I need.

Floored

I helped Ryan over the weekend. He's installing hardwood flooring over 1600 square feet in their new house. I figured it would be a good way for me to get know-how and experience doing it.... and I was right. We'd like to do our house, and now I have a good idea how much work it is and what the likelihood of screwing it up is... those answers being 1) a lot, and 2) not too bad. It's not hard work. It's just a lot of work.

Knee pads are a must :-)

Brian and Kristin had a "Spring Break" party friday night. We went and stayed past midnight yammering and eating and drinking and generally being merry. Kristin was lamenting the fact that this is the first spring break where she isn't going anywhere. Ha. I went to Rolla for a week one spring break and stayed with Jeff. That's been about the extent of my spring break experience. Not that it wasn't fun, mind you ;-)

As you can see by that last post the flowering pears are flowering. The redbud will probably pop this week. And I'm anxious to see what the Japanese Crabapple will do this year. They say they're slow to bloom. Last year was the first year it had any blooms on it at all. Maybe 10. I'm hoping this year it'll go all out.

Vicki and Kristin and Angela went down to the lake on a little shopping trip. Vicki had never been down to the outlet shopping mania that is "The Lake". Nor have I. But she has now. By all accounts they had a good time. Ok, so I really only have Vicki's account. But, since that's all the account's I have, then hers is all of them.

We definitely have house envy over Ryan and Kristie's new house. (We won't have house PAYMENT envy) It's really nice. 5 acres ... about an acre's worth of a small lake, large, well-planned house. Huge garage. Nice deck. Peep frogs. I heard peep frogs. I love that sound. Ryan pointed out last night back in our neighborhood that you can, in fact, hear them, but they are only part of the larger din that is the city.

At least we don't live in Dallas.

Spring is Here

High Heeled Marathon

Not much into watching people run, but here's a marathon I'd go watch.

Gotta hand it to the German chicks. :-)

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update: Here's another thing I'd like to see catch on:

What's goin' on

Full calendar last week... Tuesday evening we went to the Elks for a while. Wednesday evening we went to the Chancellor's concert at Jesse Auditorium. It was a free concert with the University Singers, University Philharmonic, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble. Went to dinner with the Jorgensens at the Berg beforehand. Had a good time. And on Thursday night we went to Osaka's for Angela's birthday with Brian and Kevin ... and of course, Angela.

During the week I also experimented with my new 1.4x Tamron teleconverter. It works much better than the Kenko 2.0x one I got. I took some shots of the engineering building on the quad.

Last night I made a new leather sheath for my ridiculously large sheath knife. It's one about the size of Crocodile Dundee's "that's not a knife... now that's a knife" knife. I also sharpened the heck out of it and managed to slit a bit of the sheath pulling it out. But I took care of that with a bit of superglue.

Got the taxes done last weekend. So that's out of the way.

It was a pretty wild week of weather. We had snow last weekend for another walkabout, but it was in the mid 70's early in the week. Cooled down again Friday. Yesterday morning we got about an inch of snow between 7:00am and 11:00am, and it was gone by 4:00 in the afternoon. The daffodils are blooming. And some of the trees look a bit anxious to bud out.

Fixed a couple of things around the house. Bart's anti-corner flashing and a leaky water valve going to the downstairs toilet.

Ryan and Kristy did their own walkabout today from the Fulton side of Cedar Creek. This afternoon we spent on his lawn -- looking through the Campmor catalog, sharpening knives, drinking beer... we set up my hiker tent I got from Sam's. Pretty cool. But I think I want a piece of tivec to make a footprint for underneath it. The floor doesn't instill me with confidence against rocks & sticks and saturated ground.. It's plenty big for a couple. It's great for one person. Also started a sun fire with leaves from the yard just to prove we could do it.

Heh. I'd better stop before you fall off the edges of your collective seats.

Not a lot

You haven't heard much because not too much exciting has gone on. This past weekend Vicki got a "Gazelle" cardio machine from a co-worker. It'll definitely get your heart rate up.

I loaded some bullets for my Colt -- .38 S&W.... it's about the only economical way for me to keep it in ammo. It's a neat old gun, but ammo for it isn't made en masse, so it runs a good 40 cents a pop. Reloading (once you've bought the equipment) brings that down to about 15 cents a round.

Ryan and I went on walkabout again -- this time on Saturday. We tested his new pocket chainsaw. It definitely works as advertised.

I made a little bowsaw with my pocket saw ... the little cheapie rough cable saw. You use a bit of sapling cut a few inches longer than the cable. It works better than no saw at all, but I wouldn't want to have to cut a lot of wood that way. It is less liable to break from kinking that way.

We figure in a pinch you could carry two or three of those little things for little bit of weight and space they occupy and if one breaks, "eh". They work ok held between two hand with not too great an angle.

The pocket chainsaw, on the other hand -- mows right through logs. It'll give you a bit of cardio exercise, though. I guess the reason it's so fast is it allows you to put a lot of energy into cutting per stroke. It's sturdier, but definitely heavier. All things considered, though, if you need to cut any amount of wood at all, it's probably worth the weight. I think it's less than a pound, especially if you leave the can it comes in behind and use found sticks for handles -- if you even think you need handles. Camp cord works for handles, too.

We got some water from Cedar Creek in the silnylon bag and filtered it -- but I'd never tried the iodine treatment and I wanted to know what it tastes like. Well, you have to let it sit 30 minutes, and by that time the top was starting to freeze over.... so the water itself was pretty close to freezing and it tasted pretty much like ... water. Even without the neutralizing tablets.

We also boiled the hotdog water this time with coals removed from the fire (on a piece of bark) and put under my little pan instead of the alcohol stove. It took longer and about two reloads of coal, but the water boiled and we cooked the hotdogs.

We reeled off a few shots at a target I brought, including my reloads. They worked fine. I did forget the walkabout camera, though. So no pictures this time around.

It was cold and snow flurries fell through the cedar trees most of the time we were there. Quite a nice day, all in all.

Ryan and Kristie took us to dinner at Murry's Saturday night and I had their ribs. They were very good. Sunday we helped out at their new house getting it ready for the painters to come -- we had to clean all of the dust and dirt out and the molding and doors.

Their house is going to be cool. Too bad it's 25 miles away.

The King of Somewhere Hot

The water heater circuit board came today, and I spent a couple hours putting it in tonight. The rubber foam I got to put behind it wasn't going to work out because it held the big transistors away from their heat sinks. So I fashioned a shield of sorts from a ziplock bag, poking holes in it where wires needed to go through. Also needed to re-shape some of the connectors that had gotten stretched and wouldn't grip tight to the contacts.

Vicki went out and got Oki Mama's for dinner, so I stopped and ate that (it was very good, thanks, sweetie!)-- then went through one final check, and ran through the circuit board matching instructions, and bam! Hot water.

I'll always appreciate hot water coming out of the tap from now on. After 12 days without it (except for the camp shower and whatever we heated up on the stove)... a full, real shower in the morning will be nice.

Ryan and I went on walkabout on Sunday. This time we got video of starting a fire with a fresnel lens. It's 47 megabytes so I won't post it here ... until I can shrink it down, anyway. It had snowed about 4 inches. That pretty, sparkly cold, dry snow that blows around. So it was a nice hike in. On the way in we ran across an interesting print in the snow. It took a couple of seconds, but it was obviously the landing spot of a turkey, and you could see his tracks away from it. The tail feather imprint gave it away.

The cold has broken for now. We've been way below normal for about the past 5 weeks. This week it's going to be in the upper 50's and maybe low 60's during the week. We've had some sleet and/or snow on the ground for pretty much that whole period. Most of it's gone already except for the piles pushed up by the plows.

Been playing with the doubler on my Digital SLR with the Tamron 28-300 and my old Vivitar screw-mount 75-260. I'm going to have to try it with the tripod. I've had mixed results. I don't think it's going to do well with the Tamron past about 260 or so, though. I'm not finished experimenting, though.

All this talking with Megan has me kind of psyched about photography again. Don't think I'll ever make a living at it like I'd like to, but I'd at least like to be a good amateur someday.

Speaking of amateur, I'm doing as well as I'd ever hoped with the guitar. Not great, not even really good, but good enough to sit and have fun and pick things out -- simple things - pop, rock, folk, a little bluegrass and country stuff. Still strumming and pattern-picking chords with a few walks and flavor-fingering, and I'm still going to Lee Ruth and he keeps me honest and makes me practice better technique. Thumb joint on my left hand hurts a bit. Think I'm going to have to start exercising it.

Oh, and the rest of me. I think my elbows are healed. The excuses are gone.

Purple Ball

Saturday evening was the Elks' Club Purple Ball -- I guess it's a Valentines day thing. We called it "Prom for the Elks". Vicki bought a stretchy velvety black dress with a kind of a sheer lacey mini-jacket. I rented a tux -- and we went. Even danced some. I really need to learn to dance. Vicki loves to dance, and I frankly suck at it.

It was nice to see everyone dressed up. We don't really do that anymore in middle class America. There's rarely a reason to. Had dinner in the dining room -- good filets prepared ala Jack's Coronado. The local band Brothers' Image played -- they do a lot of classic rock and oldies, and they're very good.

Imagine this -- I neglected to take pictures before we went. There are a couple of pictures of us that were taken at the ball -- but not on my camera. We'll get copies eventually. I did take some of Greg and Georgeanne for them. I should've had someone take a picture with my camera.

Anyway, we had a really nice time.

Weekend Walkabout

Ryan and I went on walkabout Sunday. It was quite treacherous - the trail was still mostly ice and quite slippery. We had to tread very carefully.

When we got to the famous "waterfall" that I always stop and take a picture of, we were in for a treat. Whereas last time it had been warm a few days before and the temerature dropped to 5 or so degrees the night before but the water was still running from the previous days' snowmelt -- this time that water had had a chance to freeze.

When we got to the Cedar Creek crossing to "the hotdog spot", the water was much lower, and the day was much warmer -- so we were able to cross on some rocks that were barely or only partially submerged.

And we started our first flint and steel (with tinder) fire. We used what I call "cedar down" ... stringy bits of cedar bark. The oils in the bark and the thin fluffiness of it make it almost ideal tinder.
We tried it a couple of times with the sun and our freznel lenses, and that worked, too.

Ryan brough a can of chili, so this time we had chili dogs. We tried rigging up a bow and drill set but I don't think by that time our hearts were in it. But after lunch I decided to try it with dried grass. We were able to get it to work. Then leaves, all crumbled up in your hand.

Your hand. We discovered the best way to start a fire with any tinder is to do it in your hand, especially a sunlight/magnifying glass fire. The reason, I guess, is that you can control the density of the tinder. You want it fairly dense (so you squeeze and pack) with a flat surface to focus the light on to get a tiny coal started. Then you ditch the magnifying glass and start to blow on it. As you blow, you slowly loosen your grip on the tinder, allowing it to expand in your hand. You should see more and more smoke each time you blow. Finally, at some point your hand is open with the tinder sitting on top and one final puff will get it to burst into flame. They you quickly set it down on something you don't mind burning (ie, not your hand) -- probably more tinder or kindling -- and start your fire.

Pretty friggin' cool. We should've taken a video of one of our many successful attempts.


(note: this shot is here to link to in my profile -- gotta put it somewhere on the web)

Water heater saga, continued

To expand on last night's quick post, Seisco told me they'd ship me a new circuit board for freight -- the catch being that there were none in the warehouse and probably wouldn't be until... today. Then they have to be inventoried. And I had them second-day it to me, so he said it should be here by friday.

The worst thing about not having hot water is showering.

You can now buy Bosch electric tankless hot water heaters at Lowe's for a little less than you can a Seisco. Nice thing about the Bosch's is that they use copper pipe instead of the special plastic that Seisco uses. It's the plastic that has caused all of my problems. After about 3.5 years it started developing stress cracks. I noticed that the plastic they sent to replace it is a different color -- so I wonder if they've changed the formulation. I asked if they had a run of bad plastic, and they said "not in your serial number range." At any rate, if it were going to cost too much to replace the circuit board, I was going to go to a Bosch. Since they'll ship it for freight costs, I decided to save the money. $745 vs $35. Only no hot water for a week in the middle of a cold winter....

I talked to Ryan about it -- he had once mentioned that we could hook the wiring directly to the heating elements with the breaker off.... then if we wanted to shower we could turn the water on, go turn the breakers on, take a shower, leave the water on, go turn the breakers off, and then turn the water off. Theoretically, that should work.

However, we decided that if we were planning on using the water heater and not replacing it, that could be a bad idea.

So I went to Bass Pro and bought a Zodi camp shower. It runs on propane, and produces just enough of a hot water stream to take a shower in hot water. Well, I do let the bucket of water sit all day and adjust to room temperature, which helps. And the stream of water is less than 1/8 of the stream of a regular shower, and not excactly a lot of pressure, either. So while the water is hot, you get cold, because you're wet and not enough warm water is compensating for the evaporation off of your body. It also takes longer to rinse. Still -- it's waaaaaaay better than a cold shower.

There is carbon monoxide to worry about, but a couple of 5 minute showers doesn't produce enough to cause us any harm, plus just to be safe we leave the door open and turn the exhaust fan on. (note: if you do this, don't sue me for carbon monoxide poisoning. The packaging clearly states it's for outdoor use only. Do it at your own risk, etc, etc. I understand the risks and that they are my responsibility when I take them myself)

One more thing... you gotta love the girl on the package - now wouldn't you like to run in to that in the middle of the woods! Nothing between her skin and the trees but the water.

Seisco comes through

The good news: Seisco is going to ship me a new circuit board for freight.

The bad news: They can't get it to me until friday.

The ugly -- it's February and hot showers are nice. The water out of the tap is like 55 degrees.

Maybe.

So ... the temporary solution is: this

I wish I were kidding. More later.

Water Heater Update - the culprit

I got in there this morning to see what was up -- and to document what happened. (you should be able to click on the pictures to see larger versions).



I detatched the circuit board to photograph the inside. As you can see, quite a bit of carbon was splashed about, painting one section of the cylinders black, and coating the back side of the circuit board.

Last night Ryan and I saw what we thought was a drop of water where the limiter screws in to the cylinder body. Wasn't sure if that was it or not. Well, closer inspection this morning reveals that it very likely was (I feel like I should go on CSI or something). You can see the drip of water up by the limiter, and another spot below it when it dripped down. The arcing occurred right vertical with this. This, combined with the fact that the heater had not yet been attached securely to the wall mount yet (until I was sure that it worked) so the unit wasn't completely vertical front-to-back, allowed a drop of this water to fall on to the circuit board and short out 240 volts and ... well, at least 40 amps.


I was trying to be sure I didn't tighten the thing too much like the instructions said. Guess I should have made it a little tighter. A little drip like that. It's a good argument for epoxy-coating the back of that PCB, no?

Anyway, need to call Seisco and see about a new one.

Water Heater Troubles, continued

The part came in a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't had time to install it. It involves taking pretty much the whole water heater apart.

Well this morning, I heard the leak alarm going off, and I went down to check. It was leaking from the top of the third cylinder, in the other cylinder pair (the one I hadn't ordered a replacement part for). I stayed home to address the issue.

I took it apart and, not surprisingly, what I found was yet another crack in the plastic had developed, this time through the threads where the heating element plugged in. I talked to a tech at Seisco so I could order another part. I asked him a few questions, like whether they'd had a bad batch of plastic. He said "not in your serial number range".

I decided to replace the worse leak with the new part, since the leak in the other one was controllable and away from electronics. Which is what I ended up doing. I ground a little grove into the crack on the less-bad leak and patched it with epoxy, and I cut a gasket the size of the whole bottom plate to cover all the bases. By about 4:30 I had it all put back together and hung it on the wall. Turned on the water. No leaks. Cool.

Turned on the power and went through the matching routine. Everything tested fine, and bang, we had hot water! Success!

I could hear it clicking on and off as Vicki used hot water upstairs as I was cleaning up. About 6:30 I was putting stuff away that I had removed from under the stairs to do the work when I heard a loud pop and a saw a blue flash.

Not good.

I tested it a few more times and couldn't tell where the flash came from -- finally, I decided it had to be from behind the circuit board. Really not good.

I took the circuit board off. A big square black mark over part of the two cylinders behind the circuit board was revealed. There was a big black smudge and a huge bit of PCB burnt out on the back.

The circuit board is toast. Some water must have gotten on it. Probably happened when I was turning on the water -- a few drops dribbled out of the intake pipe. I quickly tightened it and it stopped. I didn't see but a few drops of water, and I dried those up. I flashed a flashlight around to see what I could see. I should've checked harder. I figure the ruckus of me putting stuff back in the stair-hole where the water heater was ... dehumidifier, vaccum cleaner, carpet cleaner .... caused some drop of water to ooze its way down to a bad spot, and POW!

So we have no hot water tonight -- and we probably won't have it until Saturday at the earliest.

I'll call Seisco in the morning and see how much they'll charge me for a new PCB. They were second-daying me another 4 cylinders -- that was $25. I think it'll be $35 to overnight the PCB + whatever they'll charge since this wouldn't be covered by warranty.

There's no way to fit a standard water heater under the stairs anymore since we drywalled it off. I mean, one would fit, but you couldn't get it in the door past the furnace. This is why we bought the tankless to begin with.

My other option is to go buy a PowerStar at Lowes. Not quite as advanced circuitry, and slightly less wattage.... but local replacement is a possibility, and I think the cylinders are made of metal instead of plastic. I'd also have to re-do the sub panel with 3 40 amp brakers and pull some new wire ... though not much. The water heater is right there. But we're talking about $650 with tax, plus probably another $55-$60 in breakers. It depends on how much they want for a new PCB from Seisco.

So anyway, that was a wasted day off. Not that I didn't learn something. Actually I learned a lot. But to go from "Whoo-hoo, I did it" to "B-U-M-M-E-R" in such a short period of time....

I'm bummed. I hope I can sleep.

Lord knows, the cold shower will wake me up in the morning.

Bears and Birthday Bashes

Well, what's gone on since our last episode?

I married in to a Chicago Bears (and Cubs) family, and the Bears made it to the Superbowl. I had made the boys and Angela Bears T-shirts for the occasion. We went over to Ken's last night -- he had a Superbowl party on a big screen, flat screen (like 60") and Kevin & Angela and Brian and Kristin were there along with Vicki and myself. Sam and Deb even dropped by.

Of course, after some initial excitement, things got ugly and the Bears never hit a stride. So the evening did not end on the happiest of notes for the big Bears fans. But hey, my football Cardinals never made it to the Superbowl, when I was a fan (when they were in St. Louis). The Bears have been to two in relatively recent memory.

Went down to Mike & Lois' house for the 25th anniversary of our first mutal birthday party. We tried to make the food part as easy as possible. We brought sandwiches for Saturday lunch and stuff for eggs and snoopy waffles in the morning. Mark grilled up dogs & burgers Saturday evening -- and that pretty much covered it. Vicki brought a Germann's Chocolate Cake, and we had a good time talking, pretty much, and not much else. Which is the way we like it. Mark and I broke out the guitars and mando for a bit.

Let's see, I got an oilskin coat from Outback Saddle Supply ... the "Copperfield" -- for an outdoors, woodsy jacket that will stand up to the abuse of trees and thorns and rocks and rain. It smells like horse tack, which brings back pleasant memories from my childhood. Plus it goes great with the leather hats.

Well, lookie there. If I'd've waited a week I could have gotten it for $40 less! That would have paid for the fleece liner for it I was thinking about getting. Oh well. That's the way life goes. I see they made sure to mention it doesn't apply to previous purchases.*sigh*
Got my whole Cokin filter system for my camera, part of Mother's birthday money (along with the Nikon CoolPix)... and I think I'll get a doubler as a cheap way to turn my Tamron 28-300 lens into a 56-600. That's a 900 eqivalent in 35mm land. That's .... significant. So I can shoot grizzly bears from a safe distance. Well, safer than last time.

Next weekend is the Purple Ball -- it's like Prom for the Elks. And we're going. Vicki got a nice formal dress and I'll be renting a tux. Should be fun.

And that's about all I've got for now.

Forty Three and Counting

So I turned 43 this past week. It pretty much seems like a number anymore, although you do correlate it to little injuries that don't heal as fast as they used to and you realize that it does mean something.

Vicki got me a Thermarest self-inflating sleeping pad for lightweight low-bulk camping, and a happy Buddah from Signals, which is pretty cool. She said it makes her laugh. It does. It's kind of infectious.

We went out to Buckinghams BBQ for dinner with Brian & Kristin & Angela (Kevin was in St. Louis in training) and Ryan and Kristie. Sam came by, too and bought a round.

Thursday we went to the celebrity basketball game -- the Q106.1 All Stars vs the Gentry Middle School teachers starring my favorite daughter-in-law (she's awesome). After a basket she scored, as she came running back down the court she pointed at Brian with a "that was for you" kind of look on her face. She's a funny girl. Afterwards we all headed out to Murry's and had a nice time with the crowd -- Sam & Deb, and Ken, along with the rest of us.

Yesterday we went out to Mom & Dads (finally) for our Christmas get-together. Had sweedish pot roast (for those of you who don't know what that is you're really missing out). Jeff brought dad a new computer that is acutally capable of running Windows XP -- so that got all set up. We opened presents. Joel & Dawn got me a nice Pelican Case for carrying cameras into dangerous environs, and got Vicki a nice fluffy blanket. I tried re-repairing the pot-handles on Mom's old stainless steel pans using JB Weld and a nut, and did some adjustments on their pepper grinder. We met our "adopted sister Keri"'s fiance -- Dan -- who tried on her pink cowboy hat (from Mom & Dad) for style (man card still intact, of course). I will say Keri looks much better in it, but not nearly as funny.

Today Ryan and I went on Walkabout in the cold morning. It was something like 10 degrees when we left and maybe 16 or 17 when we came back. Hiked about a mile in to Cedar Creek Wildlife Area ... but couldn't cross Cedar Creek (it was too high for a winter crossing, and where it was frozen across I wasn't about to test the ice with that water and current with today's temperatures). We ended up finding a spot and making fire with a magnifying glass and sunlight. First time we've successfully started one that way -- so that's progress. We each did it twice, so we're pretty sure what to do and what to expect.

You need to get at least a racketball to tennis ball size ball of fibrous material with lots of fine, stringy strands, and pack a little bit of it tight -- leave the rest of it loose. Then you focus your light beam on a spot. As SOON as it starts smoking, start blowing on it, but keep the light beam focused. It'll get smokier and smokier -- that's a good sign. Don't give up, keep blowing as steady as you can and pretty soon -- poof! Flame. Third time I tried it today I had flames in under a minute -- so I think I know how to do it. Not saying I could do that every TIME, but I think I understand what's going on and why you have to do what, when, and for how long.

DON'T SCRIMP on your tinder.

We had Brian & Kristin and Kevin & Angela over for dinner tonight and had a nice chat with all of them. I did nip of to Sam's Club -- Ryan found a nice Swisstech hiker tent there for $35 -- so I can retire the kids tent for solo hiking. It's 3.3 lbs and packs down nice and small. Probably not any lighter or smaller than the kids tent, but it's actually going to be long enough to hold me at my height. The kids tent was a bit of a tight fit in the diagonal -- you really don't want to be touching the tent walls and my feet were. So this will be much better. When it gets warmer, of course.

Icy January

We had plans for the second weekend in January, and they fell through. That's why we didn't do the Christmas get-together at Mom & Dad's that weekend. Then this past weekend, we got a fairly nasty ice storm. Sleet and freezing rain. So it was rescheduled for the last weekend in January since we had the January Club™ Birthday party scheduled for this coming weekend.

But the ice storm knocked out the Hilgers' power and they're not sure when they'll get it back. So that got rescheduled for the first weekend in February.

Last friday before the storm got going Sam said he had a pot of venison stew on and wondered if we'd like to pack our jammies and head up and weather the storm out in the country ... with a fire in his big stone fireplace, whiskey, dominoes, guitars. We even watched a movie... "Dreamer". Nice feel-good family movie.

We got about 2.5" of sleet outside mixed with freezing rain. The freezing rain kind of glued it together. When we went to leave the next morning, the car wouldn't budge from its spot in Sam's flat driveway. After several tries we finally got enough traction to get a little momentum and move. Once we got out to the highway the roads were passable.

We decided to see Charlotte's Web -- my favorite book when I was in 3rd/4th grade. I'd seen the animated one that came out a few years after that, and I was disappointed. It was pretty cheesy and they made it into a musical. But after having seen Dreamer with Dakota Fanning -- and realizing she had been cast as Fern in the movie -- I thought it was great casting. She fits the look Fern had in the famous illustrations. Delicate, but determined.

It was done very well, and stuck to the book for the most part. I think the biggest deviation was the crows, but they were a fun addition. It was shot well and had the right feel to it. They couldn't pull off those special effects in 1974.

Got a smaller camera to carry along when the big one is just -- well, too big. Found an inexpensive Nikon CoolPix L3 -- and it'll fit the bill. Not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes, runs on AA batteries. 5 megapixels. Video with sound. SD memory (compatible with my Pentax). 3x optical zoom. Lots of pre-set shooting modes and a fully automatic mode -- plus there's this cool "panorama assist" I'll have to check out when I see something I want to "panoramize".

Not a lot going on at home. Still waiting for my Seisco water heater part. Need to call tomorrow. I put up some aluminum flashing in the corner of the downstairs bathroom to deter Bart from peeing in that corner which is right outside his darned litterbox anyway!!!! It seems to have done the trick. For now.

I've also been meaning to make a foam cutout template for the Pentax camera & lenses in my camera bag. Got that done this evening. Niiiice. Even bought a body cap for the camera. So everything's protected.

The ice started to melt today -- we finally got above freezing. It was difficult to cross the street on Sunday. Saturday night we got about 1/4" of freezing rain on top of the sleet. It was like trying to walk on greased white plastic. Except you could slam your heels into it and make a dent and get traction that way, which is what I ended up doing.

Mary (of Jorgie) came up with an ingenious solution. She couldn't walk in her yard, and she has dogs to take care of... so she took an old pair of sneakers and put screws through the bottom from the inside out and made herself a pair of impromptu "cleats". They worked great! Have to keep that in mind.

I couldn't believe ... Saturday after the movie, on the way home I remembered we were out of eggs. Went to the grocery store. Their whole huge bin of eggs was completely empty. Most of the back wall was pretty barren, too. I think it's funny that people here rush the grocery store whenever a little snow or ice is predicted. I say if you can't get by for a few days on the food in your house you need to change your shopping habits. It's not like we get snowed in for a week or more around here. If you live in the city, a day and a half, maybe 2 -- max.

Anyway, we ended up picking some up at Walgreens. Yeah. Walgreens. Go figure. And they weren't that expensive.

Well, that's the update for now. Later.

To be fair... (Re: IE7)

I finally got the gumption to try re-installing IE7.

I got tired of not having Outlook Express. Not that Firefox's email is BAD... but I do happen to have one of those old hotmail accounts that is grandfathered for use with Outlook Express, and I like being able to get to all my stuff in one place.

So I re-downloaded and re-installed, and everything seems to be fine.

Oh, and after all these Windows Updates it looks like Windows doesn't lock up anymore when I boot up with my ergonomic (Microsoft!!!!) keyboard.

Magic Tree

Here in Columbia there's a guy named Fletcher who puts up a spectacular lights display. Someone told us about it on Vicki's birthday. I didn't remember what it was, just that it was off of old Plank Road. So when Vicki and I were driving Mother around looking at Christmas lights in the highlands, we decided to go see if we could find whatever it was.

Right about the time we were about to give up, we saw something amazing ahead and to the left on a side street. That had to be it. It looked like something out of a fantasy novel. It positively glowed. This 2-d photo here really can't do it justice -- and there's a further glow beyond what you can see in the photos. The second one is a little better.

I went back tonight to take a few pictures (no camera that night).

There are 68,500 lights on the tree. Literally every twig has lights on it. The guy says in his pamphlet it took 100 hours to put the lights on the 30 foot tree in their front yard. That, my friends, is the spirit! This is the most he's ever put on it. Last year he "only" had about 47,000 lights on it. He will probably drop back to something along those lines next year. He had to run an extra circuit to get that much juice to the tree.

We took all of the Christmas decorations down yesterday, inside and out. We have a lot. I like a bit of tasteful opulence in the house for the Holiday Season.

Sadly, I broke what I, at least, considered our most precious ornament -- the tree topper that belonged to Vicki's parents. It may even go back further than that. It was one of those antique German/Polish "mercury glass" indented spires. It was silver with a single indent, with gold and a maroon dot in the middle, and some white flocking around the edge of the indent.

I've been extra specially careful with it packing it and unpacking it every year, and putting it on the tree, and taking it off. Anytime I handled it.

But I wasn't handling it this time. I was removing an ornament from a branch a bit lower than it. As I pulled on that ornament, it pulled the little branch that held the ornament and the branch it was attached to back a bit. The branch the ornament on broke, releasing the tension on the branch it was attached to -- which flicked back in an instant and shattered the tree-topper. I was stunned. Speechless. In disbelief. It was so unexpected and so disappointing. I have a couple of pieces of it, including the top spire and the bottom tube. At the very least I will make a new ornament using these remains. I also intend to scour the web for the closest thing I can find to it - even if I can find just an indented ornament similar, I may even be able to fashion a new tree topper incorporating the parts I saved. I know it's just a thing, and given all the troubles in the world, it is a triffle. But some things carry more importance than others in a relative way, and I am terribly sorry it has been shattered forever.

We went to see Eragon today... it was ok. It helped that Cami mentioned it had been written by a teenager. The dialogue and depth of the story definitely showed it, but I was forgiving with that bit of knowledge in the back of my head. It was impressive for a teenager. It's not that it wasn't entertaining for a couple of hours... it just wasn't "great". Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars ... even Willow ... it was not.

We also went to the basketball game Friday night and watch the Tigers blow a SIXTEEN point lead with 15 minutes to go and lose it by 1 point on a shot with under 2 seconds to go (vs Iowa State). It was the first time I'd been to "Mizzou" arena (formerly the "Paige" arena). First time in years I'd even been to a basketball game. Cool arena.

Met a young lady through my blog last week as well. She's quite the talented photographer. She's Megan Owens, and she knows what she's doing with a camera. If I have an eye, she has five, and while I'm a technical amateur, she could be a pro. If I had need of a photographer for ... well, practically anything -- I'm sure she could do it. Publisher quality. Her stuff puts mine to shame. Not that I'm going to stop trying or anything ;-) On top of that, from my conversations with her she sounds like she's quality people -- far more important than any talent.

Anyway, Happy New Year to anyone who's reading this.