The Science of Life and The Art of Living

Completion.....At Last.

2011-12-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

It's finally done. I've been working on it since May 2010 so this day is a long time coming. The crawlspace work is finally done.

In April 2010 I decided to check out my crawlspace since I hadn't been down there. So in the name of being familiar with the health of my house, down I went. There was fresh new plastic that the previous owner had placed down there when we bought the house. He had put it there because the home inspection turned up "conducive debris". That bascially means there was wood, insulation, etc., that is a breeding ground for insects, rodents and mold. We asked them to clean it out. The reinspection showed that things were great so I didn't think more of it.

At first things looked great, but after a while I found an area that was like crawling over a waterbed. Bad news. I kept crawling around to see if I could find any more wet areas. I did find one, but what I also found was that there was lots of stuff under the plastic I was crawling on. I started to do some more poking. What I found was all that "conducive debris" that had supposedly been removed. It turns out all the previous owner did was cover it with new plastic. Classy.

Now that I knew I had a problem I started looking into solutions. My first thought was to install drains around the outside of the house. This would have been pretty invasive and pretty much wrecked my yard, but I thought that was the best way to handle it. I had a contractor come out and look at it and I described my problem. He told me that in his experience it is more effective to put the drain on the inside rather than the outside. A good part of his work had been in crawlspace repairs so I put a lot of stock in his opinion. The problem was that his opinion came with a $4800 price tag. I figured I could get this knocked out for much cheaper so I decided to basically do what he said he was going to do. So away I went.

This is basically what I did:

1. Remove all the old plastic (it turned out there was three layers)2. Dig a 6"-8" deep trench around the inner perimeter of the foundation with a low catch basin in the front of the house

3. Install a drain pipe out the front of the house under the foundation to drain the trenches

4. Fill the trenches with a pipe and gravel

5. Repair insulation in the floor that had fallen down

6. Replace the plastic on the floor

Sounds pretty easy right? That's what I thought. Step 1 took almost a month. Now I started to question my judgement. This was a dirty part of the job. The underside of all the plastic was very muddy and there was some places that it seemed the various layers of plastic were holding more water than they were keeping out.

Then I moved into digging the trenches. I don't have a big house, but the perimeter adds up. I ended up digging around 160 feet of trench. I did it all with an hand shovel and a little pick. Remember, I only had 30" of height to deal with so I was doing all this on my hands and knees with a headlamp. Here's a picture of my tools. I'll get to the cart later.

The digging went very slow. I only did it a couple of hours at a time. For the first two months I was really good about working on it regularly. I figured that consistency was the most important.

Pretty soon I had to get the drain installed in the front yard because I needed to have someplace for the water to go while I continued with the digging. I wrote a blog about digging under the foundation and across my front lawn. Check it out if you missed it. As soon as I started having some trenches I noticed they started to fill with water in wet weather and the places that were wet before were staying dry. Things were already looking up.

Now it was time to get all that gravel in the trench. This was an interesting problem. Have you every tried to wheel a wheelbarrow into the crawlspace? It's not going to work well. Well I had to get about one and a half yards of gravel into the house. That's about 8 wheelbarrow fulls. Well, how many 5 gallon buckets does it take to fill a wheelbarrow? I don't know, and I don't want to know. All I knew is that the 5 gallon bucket was all I had to get gravel into the crawlspace. Here's where that cart came it. I had to make it small. It could be no more than 10" tall so it could fit under everything down there. I don't think I could have done this job without it. I could dump two 5 gallon buckets into it from the crawlspace access and then wheel it wherever it needed to go. nice.

At long last I got all the gravel done and it was time to install the plastic. I bought a plastic roll that was 200 feet long and I needed some specific peices cut. I didn't want to do that in the crawlspace so I took it over to the church to lay it out on the gym floor. It worked great.

Today, though, I finally finished it all. I saved myself about $4000 but it took about 19 months. You decide if I saved any money or not.

Here are some pictures that I hope you enjoy.

This is the crawlspace access from underneath.

This is a cleanout that I installed in case the drain under the front yard gets clogged.

I little while before taking this picture there was water flowing through this like crazy. I wanted to get some video to show what it was actually working, but you're just going to have to take my word for it.

I decided to tape up the seams between sheets so that water wouldn't flow on top of the plastic.

Here are just some photos from under the house so you can get an idea for the spaces I've been working in.

Good to be done. At last.

More Time Under the Hood

2011-11-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

At last I have a free weekend to do some really long overdue service to the Landcruiser. The main purpose of this round of work is to replace the valve cover gasket, which is what I'm convinced is causing all the oil stains on my driveway. Since you have to move a fair amount of stuff to get that off, I decided to also clean out the top half of the intake plenum and the throttle body.

Since this is Thanksgiving weekend, I feel it's appropriate to express some gratitude. I'm thankful for my garage. Since I've started working on cars I've spent lots of time working on them out in the street, under a carport or out in a driveway. It's so much nicer this way.
Here's my temporary work bench.
Let's get down to business. Almost everything in this next picture had to come off. The big silver thing in the middle is the valve cover and it has a gasket that needs to be replaced. Everything on top has to get out of the way first. So here goes.....

That black hose across the middle came off without a fuss. Next was the throttle body. That was a little more fussy because of all the wires, cables, and hoses coming off of it. It looked like something out of a borg ship. Here's what it looks like with the throttle body and spark plug wires removed. The next step is to remove that other big silver thing to the right. That's the intake plenum. This was very fussy.

Here is the throttle body. Note the nice caramel color of the inside. That's undesirable but it's the inevitable result of 200,000 miles. I'll be cleaning that off.

I'm going to spare you the details of the intake plenum, but I'm a little bugged at the way the Toyota people wrote how to do it. If you want the details, just ask. Here is the removed intake plenum. The jumble of hose and wire is indicative of the rest of the job. All in the name of emission control. Note that caramel color on the inside again.

Here is another view of the intake plenum. This is the surface where the throttle body attaches. There's a little channel that goes from that small hole on the left and connects to the small hole right above the big hole in the middle. Over time that little channel tends to fill up with gunk. When this becomes clogged it reeks havoc on the emission system. According to the forums there are some very tricky problems that this can cause. There are a few little quirks in the engine performance that I'm also trying to correct through this work.
Once I got that done, it was pretty easy to get the valve cover off. Here it is. Look at all that gunk in there. The little black part around the edge is the gasket that I'm here to replace. Around each hole is also a little seal. Those holes are for the spark plugs. All of these seals were ridiculous. They should have been replaced 50,000 miles ago. Seals should be flexible, but over time they lose that flexibility and become hard. That's why they start to leak. The valve cover gasket was so hard I could barely get it out. It broke into several pieces when i was removing. All those little oil seals were just as bad. All ridiculously brittle.

Here's what it looks like now. Everything that's coming out is now out. Now the camshafts can be clearly see as well as the valve lifters. Now would be an excellent time to do a valve adjustment, but I don't have the tools, expertise or time for that this time around. All that's left is to clean all the parts and put everything back together. Unfortunately, though, I forgot to order one gasket that I need. I had to head to the dealer today to order it. I won't get it until Tuesday, so I know the car isn't going back together before then. Good thing I bike to work.

Gears are cool.

New Wheels!

2011-11-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

I took a big step this month. I finally bought a new bike. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but as you know, bikes are expensive.

This time I was lucky enough that the stars all aligned with a good deal and available resource. One of my favorite websites to buy bike stuff from is JensonUSA.com. They also sell complete bikes, but buying a bike without having ridden it is a crap shoot at best. I found this bike on their site and after thinking on it for some time, I decided to roll the dice.

I make it sound like I'm just leaving it up to chance, but that's really not the case. Bike manufacturers publish detailed charts that outline the dimensions of the bikes and it gives you lots of information to base your guess on. The "roll of the dice" part is the fact that these values for bike geometry aren't always reported the same by all manufacturers. It's not always apples to apples, but you make an educated guess. I spent lots of time researching and measuring my bike and I finally decided on a size.

Remember before how I said this was a good deal? That's the only reason I was willing to chance buying the bike online. If I was going to pay retail, I would definitely go into the local bike shop, but in this case, I was being pretty chincy. I got the bike for almost half of retail price because it was a 2010 model. It was brand new, they were just clearing out the inventory.

I've been riding it now for a little over a week. It took a little tweaking (all bikes do) but I'm very satisfied with the result.

The bike is a Rocky Mountain Metropolis YYZ. It's a commuter. One of the reasons I was looking at bikes in the first place (besides the fact that I do it a lot anyway) is I've been looking to either upgrade or replace the bike I ride to work. I was riding my old Trek 930, which is a vintage 1997 (approximately) steel framed mountain bike which I had outfitted with some decent road tires and some worthless fenders. I say worthless because they never really succeeded in keeping my but dry on those rainy commutes.

Another feature of those rainy commutes: water. I know you're surprised. That old mountain bike ran better than it should have for its age, but notwithstanding, the brakes were old. On my way to work I go down some pretty nice hills, so I rely on the brakes a lot. One hill in particular, if I were to have a brake failure I would fly across a road into the ocean. Two excellent ways to negatively impact my health. So this new bike has disc brakes, which were a requirement for any new commuter or mountain bike that I buy.

Anyway, If you've read this far on this post you're either bored, my wife or my mother. Thanks for reading, and know that I'm very much enjoying my commutes.
I guess you could say I rolled a 7.

More Landcruiser Work

2011-09-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

Here's another installment of my work on the Landcruiser.

Lately I've been focusing on cosmetics. I want to do a little to update its look and hopefully turn a few heads.

The three main eyesores that I'm trying to correct are 1) cracked fiberglass fender flares, 2) rusty running boards, and 3) shabby looking door molding.

Here are some pics of the current state. I've removed the running boards for rust removal & painting and I've also been working on some of the fender flare pieces. In this first picture you'll see that I took off the piece on the rear door-it was easier to work on it that way.

On the other side, the fender flare is MUCH more difficult to remove so I left it on to work on it. In these pictures you can also see the side molding. It may look nice from a distance, but the chrome accents are flaking off and after seeing other Landcruisers without the molding, it's going.

Here is the repaired fender flare piece that was missing from the first picture. It's not going to get painted again. The fender flares are getting coated with Monstaliner, a roll-on bed liner.

Here are some running board pictures. The running boards are metal with a plastic cap piece. In those nasty Utah winters, ice and salt would get trapped between and rot away the metal. Here's an example. There are some places where the top of the running board is rusted through, but since there's a cap I didn't worry about it.

I cleaned it up real good with a grinder and wire wheel. (Always nice to have an excuse to buy a new tool.) After cleaning it I washed it and let it dry. To help take care of the rust I painted it with Hammerite which inhibits rust and forms a protective coating. It usually comes in a "hammer" finish, thus the name, but I wanted the gloss. I think it turned out pretty good.

Finally, we come to the door molding removal. This has been a learning experience because I had no idea how to get this off. It's a dealer installed option so i was hoping it would come off pretty easy. I read on a forum that I should "saw" it off with floss. I tried that and it wasn't working very well. In the end I just pried it off. Looks pretty nasty underneath.

Not to worry, though, after only a few minutes of rubbing with some goo-gone I had made significant progress.

I'll keep you posted.

The Pesky Heater Hose

2011-05-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

On the Landcruiser there is this small hose. It's about two inches long. Because of it's location on the engine, the inconvenience of accessing it, and it's predisposition for failure, it has been dubbed by the online community as The Pesky Heater Hose or PHH for short. Here's a picture.

The little rubber hose in the circle is the one I'm talking about. Like I said, it's only about two inches long but it's still big enough that if it fails, it will take the engine with it. As you can see it's covered in grime. That grime and the grime on the engine around it tells me that it's been leaking for some time. I guess that explains that antifreeze smell I would get a whif of every once in a while.

The purpose of this hose is to carry engine coolant to the heater core where it uses heat from the engine to heat the air in the car. If I just said the heater hose was bad you might just tell me to deal with not having the heater until you can get it fixed. Unfortunately, though, since the heater hoses carry coolant, a leak in the heater system means a coolant leak, and if you let that go unchecked you will soon be buying another car.

From the picture you can also tell that this little hose is in a very inconvenient location. In order to take the picture I had to take off the driver's side front tire, remove part of the wheel well, and lay on my side next to the truck to get just the right angle. In order to reach the hose I had to sit in the wheel well (with the truck on jack stands) reaching into the engine up to about my elbow. Oh, and I could only fit one hand in there, so it's like working on the car with one hand tied behind your back.

It was tough to wrangle this little hose. This whole job took me about 7 hours to complete. That included flushing the coolant, changing all the radiator hoses, several of the heater hoses, and the thermostat. I think around half of that time was spent on this little heater hose alone. It was pesky indeed.

Because of the awkwardness of the location I had to try lots of different things to get this done. I had read all the methods from the forums and websites and I thought I was ready to tackle the job in no time. I was wrong. Even though I was using the proven method it still proved difficult. The last step in the process was to just slide the hose over the final connection on the engine block. I had fought the good fight up until this point and suddenly, that stupid little hose would move no more. I still had to move it just three quarters of an inch--just three quarters of an inch! But it would not move. Using my trusty Dremel I made a tool to make it easier to push on the hose, but that didn't seem to make any difference. My arms and hands were getting so tired that I didn't know how long I could keep fighting it. I was running out of ideas. Finally I decided to try some hot water. I boiled some water and poured it into the hose from up above. I hoped this would lubricate it a little as well as make it expand a little from the heat. At this point it was a last ditch effort. After pouring the water in I got down to push the hose and with only a little pressure that dang hose.........finally........slid on.

I almost cried. I was jubilant. At last I had prevailed. Really, the hard part was over. All that was left was to tighten the band clamps. Now here's a tricky one. Tightening a band clamp with only one hand. This is really hard. In fact, I decided I'm not talented enough for it so I had to use a special tool. Here it is.

It's not that it's that complicated. If I had one long extension that would have worked, but I didn't have one long enough so I had to use almost all I had. So using this tool I had one hand on the band clamp and the other hand on the wrench and I eventually got it. (Chelsea, I need some longer extensions.)

Here's what it looks like now. Note the nice new band clamps and I also cleaned up the pipe a little. It should be good for another 100,000 miles.

Here's that hose after being pulled out. The tears were caused while I was pulling it out, but the nasty gunk on it was the reason for pulling it out.

A good time was had by all.

A Quick Trip Home (Overdue)

2011-04-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

I wrote this blog right after I got back from Japan. Shortly thereafter I began a very successful program of procrastination. Now my program has reached it's completion so it's time to post it.
Have a good read.

Not that the trip itself was that quick. It wasn't. But more on that later. What I mean is that I had less notice to fly home than I had to fly out. When I left it felt like short notice because I got notice on a Monday and left on a Thursday. This time I got notice on Thursday afternoon and flew Friday afternoon.

What would make a person leave Japan in such haste? I don't think I need to answer that. Narita Airport was in a state of exodus as thousands a day fled Tokyo. I'm bummed because my trip got cut short by two weeks, but I'm glad to be back at the same time. It is nice to be back with Chelsea and Jake.

One interesting thing about this trip is that I didn't take the normal Narita-Seattle direct flight that we usually get. I went through San Francisco. Again, this has it's pros and cons. I had a three hour layover there and I had to collect my suitcase and go through customs and security. That was a pain. Next to the confusion at Narita it seemed calm. Unfortunately, the connecting flight between San Francisco and Seattle was delayed so due to the layover, extra flight, and delay, I got home seven hours later than most of the shipyard folks. This was OK, though because it meant that my lovely wife could come get me from the airport. It made that drive home much more pleasant. Another pro is that I got to ride a 747-400 to San Francisco. I've done a little international travel here and there, but I hadn't ever been on one of these before. They are big old monsters.

The flight was pretty nice. Me and another big guy like myself were sharing a row of three seats, of which the middle seat was empty. Perfect. The view was really nice too. The moon was out as well as many stars. As we crossed the pacific the sky above was clear and the sea was hidden by the clouds. We only had about four hours of night. I managed to sleep about two hours during the night. They served dinner about 9:00 pm Yokosuka time. I was excited about it because I hadn't had anything to eat since about 7:00 am.

When we got off the plane in San Francisco we were greeted in the jetway by about eight homeland security officers. Not surprisingly, one of them was trying to be inconspicuous about the geiger counter he had. They were just standing there while people walked by. That was the second sign of concern about the nuclear accident. Right after we took off the pilot came on the intercom to assure everyone that the air traffic controllers had routed us well away from Fukushima. At that altitude we were all getting more exposure to radiation from the sun than from any earthbound source, nuclear disaster notwithstanding (as is the case with any airplane flight).

In San Francisco it was raining buckets. I'm not talking about that nice drizzly northwest rain either. While I was in a store in the airport I could hear a national weather service alerts on the radio. It was bad enough that our flight to Seattle was delayed almost two hours. That wouldn't have been a big deal except that the SF airport only gave you one hour of wi-fi for free! What was I supposed to do with the rest of the time. I'm just kidding. It gave me time to have a little lunch: $11.50 for a wrapped up egg salad sandwich and a diet coke seemed pretty reasonable.

The flight to Seattle was uneventful. Thankfully. I finally got there around 5 pm (about 7 hours later than my colleagues that got the direct flight) which was perfect because it meant that Chelsea was able to come get me after work. That was nice because I'd much rather ride home with her than cram myself onto the Airporter. Also, we stopped in Tacoma for some wings at Wingers. It was a good time.

At home Jake was glad to see me. I was glad to see him too. It's good to be home safe again.

So what happened to you this weekend?

2011-03-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend was pretty eventful for me. It had it all. Natural disaster, looming industrial disaster, and a pretty Sunday afternoon.

Not that I would have known about the pretty Sunday, though. I spent most of Sunday (Saturday and Sunday for that matter) deep in the belly of George Washington. We had time sensitive work that had to move forward so it waited for no man. As it was, though I did get some chances to go outside and enjoy the day from time to time.

This weekend I had a pretty good seat for one of the worst earthquakes we've had since we started keeping track. As if the earthquake wasn't enough, the the ensuing tsunami really made headlines. And of course, this couldn't be complete without a mention of the trouble going down at Fukushima Dai'ichi power plant. It's been quite a ride.

I have a writing style that tends to feel light-hearted. I say this because I don't want to make it seem that I'm making light of the plight that the people face here. A large part of Japan is in dire straits. The tsunami has killed hundreds and there are still many more hundreds unaccounted for. This is serious and is one of those times when all of the countries in the world unite to buoy up those who were hit the hardest. Already navies and military forces have been deployed to help in the rescue and recovery effort. Humanitarian aid is coming from every corner of the globe. Japan does face a difficult road, but they will have help and they definitely have the fortitude.

This is one of those things that you remember where you were when you found out about it or when it happened. I was sitting on in our office trailer on the hangar deck of George Washington. When the ship is being worked on, the hangar deck fills up with trailers just like you would find on any construction site. As we were sitting there things began to shake. Shaking isn't that unusual. Sometimes when a forklift drives by you get a little vibration but this was like 50 forklifts driving by over and over. We looked at each other and joked: "Are they moving the trailer on us?" Then we went out onto the hangar deck and looked out those big doors that the airplanes go through. Sure enough, the land was going up and down. Oh wait, that was us. The ship was rocking several feet side to side. They weren't letting anyone off the gangway because it was turning out to be a better ride than a mechanical bull. Pretty soon the ship calmed down and they opened the gangway again.

But what about the tsunami? One of the tell-tale signs that you've got a tsunami headed your way is the tide will recede dramatically. Well, about 90 minutes after the earthquake, the tide began to recede and dropped about four feet in 10 minutes. This was cause for alarm and the gangway was closed again. People out in town were headed for higher ground and you could see ships out in the bay headed for open water. I was pretty lucky. I didn't have any family in harm's way and I felt very safe shipboard so I wasn't anxious to go anywhere. Many of my coworkers did have family in town so we tried to help them get in touch with them. Their anxiety was heightened because for several hours after the quake cell phones were not working. Internet, however, was so people were able to make contact via email. Ironically, the most reliable communication seemed to be via facebook. Fortunately, here in Yokosuka, the tsunami didn't really hit. The tide just kind of went back up to normal. Here we are protected by the Chiba peninsula so we didn't get hit.

We were lucky, but not everyone was. The media has being doing a great job of showing all the carnage and destruction that has befallen people to the north. Tsunamis are terrible forces. Japan has spent lots of money and time over the past couple of decades building sea walls specifically for withstanding this sort of thing. They have been controversial. Some people thought they were just extra public works projects. As far as I'm concerned there is only one way to survive a tsunami: get your butt out of the way. It's hard to leave your stuff, but it's the only way.

It also seems that the human race has learned a lot about how to make cities earthquake resistant. Japan is an excellent opportunity to see how a first world country handles a major earthquake. Without the tsunami, the death toll would have been a few hundred at most. That's impressive, especially considering how densely populated the cities are.

This word on earthquake readiness leads me to some comments on the Fukushima Dai'ichi power plant. If it had just been for the earthquake, this plant would not have suffered the fate it did. In case you haven't followed the news, the downfall of the plant came from the failure of the backup diesel generators that power the pumps that supply cooling to the plant. Those generators failed because they got flooded out by the tsunami. Again, if it had just been the earthquake, there most likely would not be a problem. This has rekindled the inevitable debate in the media of whether nuclear power should be used. I tire of this debate. I heard a quote on CNN from the Wall Street Journal that said we don't stop flying because of a plane crash. That's the way I feel. The world, not just the US, is dependent on nuclear power. The next inevitable debate is what we must do to ensure this doesn't happen again.

So what do you design for? We said they must survive an earthquake, so mother nature sent an earthquake and a tsunami. She will prove time and again that she can undo the works of men in a stroke when she feels like it. We study things like this in engineering school. There are methods of probability analysis where you try to understand the risks that are posed to a structure. Like a bridge for instance. It has to be strong enough to hold itself, and of course cars. What if there is a traffic jam and it is totally loaded with cars that aren't nicely spaced out in traffic? What if it's winter time and there was tons of snow on it? What if that snow storm had really high wind? How do you design it? To design it for all those loads at once, the bridge might be too heavy to even work. It would certainly increase the cost exponentially. I had an engineering teacher who put eloquently. One or two of those loads you can account for, but you can't account for all of them. If you have all of them at once it means that God is after you and there's nothing you can do about it anyway. That's how I feel about this case. People are now going to look at all nuclear plants and cry that they're all unsafe. I throw the B.S. flag on that crap. No matter how indestructible you make it, mother nature will match it.

I am a firm proponent of nuclear power. I admit we have to figure out a better way to handle the waste, but that's really the only argument the antis have. They try to use accidents like this to point out how unsafe it is, but I also throw the B.S. flag on that. They might say it will be another Chernobyl. B.S.. Not going to happen. I doubt that a Chernobyl-style accident will ever happen again. Nuclear plants can not explode like nuclear bombs. Its not the right kind of material inside there. It's physically impossible.

In the Navy we have lots of experience dealing with radiation and contamination and from what we can see we are confident that we are safe. It seems to me that things are moving toward good in Fukushima, but that's just the gospel according to Tom.

As I've said before, I'm fine and I know that many of my family are pleased to hear it. Pray for those that are on the edge of survival today. Prepare you own house to be ready for your own earthquake.

Econ 101

2011-02-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

Here is a fun math problem. It will take some research on your part and I don't know the answer because it will be different for everybody. If you're not a homeowner or haven't bought a house since 1997, then don't bother working the problem. It doesn't apply to you.

First, the research part: You need to know what your house was worth in 1997. This information is available from the county and even in my backwater county is available online. I only had sales data from 1993 and 2001 so I interpolated to get my 1997 value as $117,500.

Second, adjust for inflation. Since 1997 there has been about 30% of inflation, so take that number and multiply it by 1.3.

$117,500 X 1.3 = $152,750

What does this number mean?
According to John Talbott this number is where the value of my house (or your house as the case may be) will bottom out at when the housing bust bottoms out and the coming recession is in full swing. I have been reading Mr. Talbott's book Contagion - The Financial Epidemic that is Sweeping the Global Economy...And How to Protect Yourself From it, and I can't help but believe it. It's actually the second book I've read recently on the same topic. The other one was Aftershock - Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown. These guys have similar things to say about the days to come but they say they are happening for different reasons.

This is not a book report so I'm not going to compare and contrast these two books but I will say that their message is of vital interest to all of us. How many people do you think bought houses since 1997? And of those, how many had 20% or less of the purchase price as a down payment? It's a lot, and those mortgages are in significant peril of defaulting as home prices fall. So what happens to the economy when lots and lots of people start defaulting on mortgages? I think we'll all get to find out pretty soon (we've only seen the beginnings).

So to put the math problem into perspective, I bought my house about 16 months ago for $226,800 and if I put any faith in Mr. Talbott's estimate I should expect that its value will fall to $152,750.

It's a good thing I like my house. I will most likely be here for a long time.
I think everybody should read Contagion and Aftershock and determine for yourself how you will meet the coming challenges. The sooner preparations begin, the further along they will be.

Math Problem Details:
For the details on the math problem and why 1997 was chosen as the key year, please see Talbott's book, chapter 5.

This Winter Is Going To Be A Bad One.....

2010-10-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

.....Or so I hear.

So over the past couple of weeks I've heard a couple of people say that this winter is going to be a bad one. The reason that I'm writing about this today is for two reasons. The frequency with which this statement has been thrown around lately has piqued my interest and if, in fact, this winter will be a bad one then I would like to take advantage of the Les Schwab fall tire sale right now.

Now, since new tires are riding on this, I need to know if the winter will be bad or not. It's a gamble because I don't have the cash for new tires. If there really is a need then I will pony up (plastic style) for them, but if this winter is like last winter, then there is no need. Of course, if it's like two winters ago, I'll buy them right away.

My current tires are about 45,000 miles old but they're still in fair shape. They are Toyo Open Country H/T tires and According to Les Schwab they should be good for 60,000. They are not fantastic on wet roads, but I am a very conservative driver. I like to keep that following distance nice and wide. But having old tires eats away at my safety margin, so even though I try to compensate with safe driving, my overall safety margin is decreased. I feel them slip more than I would like.

So now that you know what the current situation is, I return to the question at hand. Is this winter going to be bad or not?

If we were to base the coming season on the current season there would be enough evidence to say that we risk a bad winter. This summer was unusually rainy and cold (yes, even for western Washington). But wait, last winter wasn't bad, so using this logic the summer should have been nice. As I said, two winters ago was bad (very bad-I'm talking paid leave from work, people stranded in their homes, etc.), and that was followed by a nice warm summer. I don't think this argument is going to fly.

What about heresay? Are there some old folks that have lived in these parts for decades that can just tell when bad weather is coming? Or is it just nonsense that was born in rumors?

So.....
How do I find out if it's worth throwing down a big pile of fake greenbacks right now?

In Over Your Head

2010-10-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were in over your head? I did recently.

Today a friend was over helping me with my current project and while we were discussing it with Chelsea he jokingly asked, "How can you tell if your husband is in over his head?" "Answering out of turn, I said, Look out the window." Today I felt overwhelmed with the project.

The project I'm referring to is my crawlspace improvement project that is now in its fifth month. More particularly, though, today I was working on the drain that I needed to install between my crawlspace and the storm drain at the street. Getting this drain is was a key project milestone. Since the rainy weather is upon me, I can't really continue my work in the crawlspace without having a place for the water to go. The trenches that I've already dug down there are filling with water during the rains, so in order to continue I had to complete this step.

Unfortunately the project is turning out like I hoped it wouldn't. In the early stages it was going slow and I joked with Chelsea that at the rate it was going it would be done by winter. It looks like I'm not far off.

So, getting the drain in was a key event, but it was also the part of the project that I most underestimated. You see, I had to tie the drain line into another drain line that is buried somewhere in my front lawn. I had a guess where it was, but no firm knowledge. So, armed with nothing more than a vague idea, I set to, armed with my shovel, pic, and digging bar (priceless). After two evenings and a Saturday I had a fair sized hole in my yard accompanied by a pretty good trench. But I had not found the pipe I needed, and the trench still required more depth (which also required digging under the foundation to place the pipe). I decided I wanted to put this phase to bed, so I bit the bullet and brought in reinforcements-in the form of a small John Deere backhoe. Now I was ready to inflict some serious damage to my yard.

Using the backhoe I enlarged the hole to around four times it original size, but still didn't find the pipe. Then I moved to the backup plan which was to continue the trench. I did that, but gingerly since there were now utilities in the area. After digging some more I found a large gravel bed that seemed bottomless. Gravel beds like this don't occur naturally. After doing some testing we determined that this gravel bed actually drained out where we wanted to tie this pipe into anyway, so we decided to just drain the pipe to it instead.

Anyway, the pipe is in and partially covered with dirt. The backfill will continue over the next few days. I am very relieved to have the pipe in, but there were some tense moments along the way. Like when I couldn't find the pipe and I had to decide where in my yard to dig up next. Or knowing that I would have to start digging over utility lines.

But now the pipe is in. My back, hands, and feet are dealing with the pain of a job well done. I don't often get to work like this, but it feels good when I do. The stress of not knowing whether I'm making the right project decisions makes it bittersweet in the middle of the process, but that goes away once the problem is resolved.

I guess the point is that it may not be a bad thing to bite off more than you can chew from time to time. Being in over your head makes to struggle to find the answers and when it's all said and done, you are wiser for experience and you have completed what you set out to do in the first place.

2 Years in Washington

2010-08-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

This morning when I woke up I could hear that it was raining. We had the window open so I could also feel that cool air from northwestern summer rain. As I was lying there it occurred to me how similar it was to the first morning waking up in our new apartment in Washington. Almost two years ago to the day we were arriving in Washington for what we thought was going to be an extended stay. That first morning were also sleeping with the window open and it had been a cool rainy night. I remember it because when I woke up my throat was a little sore. I decided to go find some kind of medicine, but of course I didn't have any real idea of where to go. We had just pulled into Silverdale the afternoon before. I figured it out, and you'll be glad to know I pulled through the sore throat. I liked the cool rainy weather then and I still do.

That's about where the similarities between that day and today, though. I remember we were sleeping on our air mattress in our new apartment. Our living room furniture consisted of two camp chairs and a couple of cardboard boxes. The rest of our stuff was scheduled for delivery on Monday, so we had the weekend to wait. We didn't even have Jake yet. We solved that later that day by answering an ad in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for Beagle puppies.

Today we have a great house, great dog, and Chelsea and I are very happy. In the middle of August I'll finish my second year working for the Navy and I'm glad to report that's also going well. My job is interesting and I like the people I work with. This weekend is also the summer picnic for my office. I remember the weekend before I started they were having the party and those of us who were new hires were contacted and invited. We didn't go because we thought it would be too awkward. It probably would have been.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

2010-04-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

Hotel life is almost at a close. I can't really say I'm going to miss it. Japan has been cool, that I'll miss, but I'm looking forward to hanging around my own house and sleeping in my own bed. Oh, and showering in my own shower.
Compared to most, though, my room is quite spacious. I have a kitchen. Here, I'll show you.Pretty sweet, huh? That white pitcher-looking thing actually boils water. I didn't take a picture of them, but I also have a small fridge and microwave. Between hot water and a microwave the gourmet possibilities are endless.

There is no shortage of entertainment possibilities either. I have one of the few rooms that has a couch from which you can enjoy your favorite programs on the nice flat screen TV provided. There is one whole English channel to watch. It's CNN. But when I say it's English, I mean England English. Plus it is updated at an astounding rate. You might watch some headlines on it and four days later watch again only to find a new set. They really spare no expense.

I did manage to pull myself away from the entertainment for a while, however. Since I had my computer I was able to watch some conference. When I'm at home I like to build a puzzle during conference because it keeps my mind aware (so I don't nod off) but I can still pay attention. So I figured I'd find a puzzle. I didn't have to look hard because they had some at the NEX. After I bought it, it occurred to me that I might not have a surface large enough to put it together. At home I always have my card table so I didn't even think about it. Well fortunately the desk was large enough. Here it is about done.Speaking of puzzles, this weekend we had a bazaar on base. They have one of these twice a year and you can buy all sorts of cool stuff. One of the cool things I bought was this little wooden puzzle. My family will appreciate this because I remember when I was a kid my dad had a few of these little wooden puzzles and one of them looked just like this one. When I saw it I had to have it.

Anyway, back to the room. The real centerpiece of the room was the high tech toilet. Check this beast out.Before I came to Japan I had never seen a toilet with a control panel. To be accurate, though, it's actually the toilet seat that has the control panel. It's very advanced. Here's a close-up.From this panel you can control all sorts of ways of cleaning yourself up. Plus the seat has a little heater in it for added comfort on those midnight potty breaks. I actually saw a row of these in an electronics store. Maybe I can fit one in my suitcase.

Anyway, this Friday it's USA or bust. I can't wait to see Chelsea and Jake again.

More Fun with GIMP

2010-04-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

So here's another little project I've been working on with the time I have here in Japan. Check out this picture. I took it up at Queen's Square in Yokohama.
I like this big sculpture they had there. The picture looks good but there are two things that I would like to improve upon. I'd like to bring out the blue in the sky a little more and that tower in the middle is a weird color. I don't know why it looks so different than the other parts but it needs to be fixed. So here's how I did it.

First I tried editing it with Nikon Capture which is what I use mostly, but it didn't work out because of all the little sky peeking through the tower. So that's the challenge. I have to edit the tower without changing the sky inside it and then edit the sky without changing the tower. It's almost like I need to be able to mask it off. Hmmmm..... masking...... Oh, in GIMP there's this thing called layer mask. This is how it works. You start with a background of the main image, then you make copies of that image and overlay them on the background. Then you use this layer mask to make only certain parts of the overlays visible. That way you can edit each part separately. Finally you show all the layers with their layer mask applied and you are left with the final image. This will make sense shortly.

First I have to make that mask of the tower. I use a tool called threshold that turns everything white and black. Here's the result. Now I've isolated the tower, but it needs to be the other way around. Using the invert command I get this:At this point, remember I made an overlay that looked like the original picture. I need to apply the layer mask to the overlay. The point of the layer mask is that part of the layer is visible and part is not. Where the layer mask is white, it shows the layer. With the layer mask applied it looks like this:In this view I've already changed the colors. I wanted it to look more gray rather than blue. It's easier to see the difference when the image is all together. Here's the intermediate step. The tower is how I like it, and the sky is the next step. This is the new tower overlaid on the original background.Now it's back to the layer mask. I kept the white one from before so I could modify it. I had to exclude the lower part because I don't want to change that. Here's what the sky layer mask looked like.
And here's what the layer looks like with the layer mask applied:In this picture I've already edited the sky. I just changed the colors a little with color balance and curves tool. You can see all the little places where the sky is peeking through the sculpture and the tower. So here's the final picture. I like how it turned out.
I hope you enjoyed it. I tried to keep the detail to a minimum and I skipped some steps in the blog so if anybody has any questions feel free to ask for more clarification. Thanks for reading.
Here's a side-by-side to make it easier to compare.

Fun with The GIMP

2010-04-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today I've been playing around with The GIMP a little bit and I thought I would post my little project. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It started out in the Linux computer world (hence the "GNU") but it's also available for us Windows users. I've been using it now for a few years, but since I finished school I've been able to spend much more time with it (sometimes to my wife's chagrin).

Yesterday I met a friend up in Tokyo and we went to visit a part of town called Akihabara. It's a famous electronics district. The place was amazing, but it's a post for another day. One of the stores we explored was a model store. They had lots of fun little models and I decided to buy one. It was a small model of an F-18 Hornet. I work for the Navy, and it's a Navy plane so I thought it might make a nice desk trinket.

After I got it home and started looking at it I was really impressed by the level of detail that it has. It was only 700 yen (about $8.00) and it's only about 5 inches long so I didn't expect it to be very realistic. After I put it together I thought it might be neat to take some pictures of it. I set up a little backdrop using a pillow case and took a handful of photos. Here's the one I chose for my project.Since I had taken the pictures with a white background I figured it would be pretty easy to replace the background with some sort of sky so that's what I set out to do.

The first thing I did was get rid of the little support piece at the bottom. That was no problem thanks to the clone stamp tool. Next I used a tool called threshold that makes everything turn black or white. It makes a nice outline of the airplane where the airplane is all black and the background is all white. Then I tweaked a little and made it a layer mask, which means that it would show the airplane but not the background.

The next step was to find some sky. Fortunately, I've taken lots of pictures recently here in Japan and lots of them include some sky so it was easy to find. I opened the sky picture as a layer, did some more tweaking, and before I knew it, had an airborne F-18.
I also added some cool afterburner.

Thanks GIMP!

Favorite Food in Yokosuka (aka "Things I Ate")

2010-03-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about being here in Japan is trying all the neat food. Japan is a place that people from all over the world come to live or work, and it shows. Just like in the US you can get so many different kinds of food. It's fantastic. Here I've had some of the best Thai and Indian food of my life. Ironically, I'm not really one for Japanese food. Sushi is good, but a lot of the food seems pretty basic. One thing that the Japanese have figured out, though, is curry. Indians and Thai people brought curry here and the Japanese have made their own version of it that I think is great. Curry has been a staple since we got here. We've Indian curry (two kinds), Thai curry (four kinds), and Japanese curry. My life has changed forever.
Oh, I forgot about Yakitori. It's like kabobs. Yakitori means barbecue chicken, it just happens they cook it on a stick. Yakitori is delicious; you have to eat kind of a lot of it to make a meal, though.
So anyway, here are my two favorite places to eat and my favorite place to have a snack. The favorite places to eat are in no particular order. I can't be forced to make that choice.

I'll start with Thai Erawan. My buddy Jordan introduced this place to us the first night we went out. We were very disoriented so he was leading us around. Pretty soon we came to this elevator, which I though was odd because it was basically out on the street. Up to this point it had been my custom to enter a building first, then the elevator, but this is Japan. Sometimes there isn't space for it.
Up there on the third floor you can see some windows. That's the place. I'm guessing they rely on word of mouth because if you didn't know it was there, you never would. Also, at the bottom of the picture you can see the elevator. Don't worry about them, though. The place is famous (at least among the Americans). I'm sure they never hurt for business.There it is, on third floor. (Well, actually, it is the third floor.)

Like I said, the food is awesome. Here I'm having a yellow curry. I don't know why they call it that, but all their curries were just called by a color. Most of them were spicy, but this one was just about the flavor.That thing on Chelsea's plate is a rice paper. It's kind of like a non-fried egg roll with some different flavors. Tasty.
At the counter you get a friendly reminder that you must carry cash in Japan. Most restaurants don't take card.

Next is Coco Curry. I love Coco Curry because of the value as well as the food. Thai Erawan is great, but it's just a hair on the spendy side. Coco specializes in that Japanese curry I was talking about. Delicious. Another nice thing about Coco is that it's about half a block away. Perfect for those crappy weather nights we have here sometimes.
Coco is also interesting in that they really try to cater to an international crowd. I can understand having an English menu, but their is in several languages (which they like to show off).Of course the top is English, second from the bottom is Portuguese, so I could read that too, and the very bottom one is Japanese, so I can almost identify some of the characters. The other thing that says "foreigners come eat here" is that you will find no chopsticks. They serve up the curry with a spoon (you can take one home for only 250 yen). Here's a picture inside. The last place is the snack place. Yakitori. Occasionally you will find these little stands that always have people huddled around them. They are always busy with good reason. It's tasty and cheap. The sign says that everything is 70 yen. That's about 85 cents. Basically, you grab and eat and when you're done you take your sticks to the guy and pay for as much as you ate.
At the yakitori stand they have chicken and pork, but if you're really adventurous you can try some hearts and liver too. I'm not a fan, but they seem to sell. It's not really surprising, though, that the biggest stack there is the chicken stack. Also check out his automated cooking machine. He puts raw meat on a stick and it goes through one side, is automatically dipped in sauce, then passes through the other side, and falls out ready to go. Like I said, you would have to eat a lot to make a meal out of it, but it makes for a great snack.

I'm getting to the point that I'm ready to come home, but I'm definitely going to miss the food.

Bachelor for a while....

2010-03-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

This trip has been incredible. Over the last four weeks we have been able to see so much cool stuff and eat so much delicious food. I'm really happy that I was able to share it with Chelsea. (Incidentally, the food has left us with a few souvenirs we can't wait to get rid of when we get home.) Unfortunately, it came time for Chelsea to head home. Right now she's on the plane and should be landing in Seattle in about 3 1/2 hours. Despite having to leave our house and our dog it was one of the neatest experiences either of us has ever had. We have felt very fortunate that we got the opportunity to come here. I've often thought that one of the best choices I made in my life was to go to engineering school. This is one opportunity that I wouldn't have had if I had chosen differently.

Our time here has also helped me to further appreciate the best choice I made in my life, marrying Chelsea. There isn't anyone I would have rather had here with me. I always had someone to go to dinner with. Now I have to spend almost 4 weeks one my own....but I'll pull through.
I love you, baby. Thanks for coming to Japan with me.

This Reminds Me of a Scripture...

2010-03-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article that I came across today:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-lawyers25-2010mar25,0,1782265.story

Basically, many, many lawyers met to decide how best to sue Toyota.

As the title indicates, this reminds me of a scripture:
"Now, it was for the sole purpose to get gain, because they received thier wages according to their emply, therefore, they did stir up the people to riotingsm, and all manner of distrubances and wickedness, that they might have more employ, that they might get money according to the suits which were brought before them;...." Alma 11:20.
The "they" here is lawyers and judges.

It's unfortunate that Toyota is in this mess. It's their fault they are in the spot they're in, but the issue is getting out of hand. Perhaps if the same litigious and entitlement minded environment had existed when other historic recalls had happened (like the Pinto) it would have turned out the same.
As for me, I will still buy Toyotas. Who knows, maybe this will make them a little cheaper.

Sushi!

2010-03-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

I've really never been that enticed by sushi. Lots of people say it's delicious and that they enjoy eating it, but I've never really eaten it. My sushi experience amounts to a couple of california rolls at the occasional chinese buffet but I'm sure many sushi lovers would say that that barely counts. In coming to Japan I figured if I was going to really try it I might as well do it in Japan. Tonight we went to Point Sushi here in Yokosuka. It's one of the many "sushi-go-round" places here. I don't know if that's what the locals call it, but that's what us Americans call it. Basically, the sushi is on little plates which ride around the restaurant on little tracks. As it goes by you pull off the ones you want. Here's a picture of our booth's control panel. It's very high tech.

On to the sushi!
The way this place keeps track of what you eat is by how many plates you take. Each plate is worth 100 yen (about $1), and after you eat what you took you put the plate in this slot and it keeps track of your tab. You can see the slot in the bottom of the control panel picture. In the next picture there is a really thick blue plate and a red bowl. The thick blue plate is actually two plates which means that item is 200 yen. The red bowl is something that was ordered by someone else so you shouldn't take it.

That 200 yen thing looks like crab or something. The thing on the red bowl is a seafood salad wrapped in some seaweed or something. The seafood salad was good, but I could do without the green wrapper.
After one or two harmless but tasty little bits I decided to be a little more daring. A little plate came by containing three little squid. I thought, "what the heck?" and I grabbed it. Here I am about to tuck into it.

I'm glad I ate it because now I can say I've done it, but I don't think I'll be doing it again. It was a little too squishy.
We mostly stuck to the tamer stuff, but there was something there for everyone.
Chelsea particularly liked these little sweet potatoes.
They had a delicious honey glaze on them.After we had our fill we sat there for a while watching things go by and taking pictures of some of them. Here are some of them.

This one was pretty tame. Tasty too.

Here is one of my favorites. It had some onion and mayo on top. Tasty.

This one looked like it had bacon on top. I don't know what it was, but I will eat it again.

After the squid I wasn't adventurous enough to try this one.

I already didn't like the green stuff, and the fish eggs just weirded me out.

Lastly we have some octopus. Again, I wasn't brave enough to tackle this one. Maybe next time.

Some More Pics

2010-03-05T23:42:00.000-08:00

The first night we got to Japan we were pretty wasted and we just wanted to crash. The next night, however, we were ready to go see some stuff. I took a few pictures and I thought I would leave you with my next installment of Japan photos. Enjoy!

The night before we left my coworker gave me 4 jars of salsa that he and his wife make every year.Knowing I could get chips at the commissary and not wanting to wait for some delicious salsa, I wrapped one of them in bubble wrap to take it with me. You'll all be glad to know that it made it just fine, and is very delicious.

So which is it? Irish or American?Check out this beast!! It's a 70 series Landcruiser. I knew that Toyota sells these in Australia, but I didn't know that they sold them here. They are awesome. Some more pictures of them can be seen in my facebook album, Aussie Style Landcruisers. I wish I could take it home, diesel V8, manual transmission, and all.Here's another cool Landcruiser. As you can see, this one is a street machine. If you were to take it off road, you would lose all that stupid body cladding in the first few miles. Note the extra mirror above the headlight. Most SUVs here have that.Here's a picture of Blue Street (it's name possibly comes frombecause of the blue tiles on the sidewalks). It's a fun area.This is a restaurant called Pepper Lunch. We went there with some friends from the old ward who are stationed here. It's cool because your food comes on this skillet that is still hot, but the food isn't cooked. You basically wait until it's done then start eating. It was delicious. The one in the pic has ham, eggs, rice and some cheese. I got one with beef and rice. This is what Chelsea had at Pepper Lunch.After dinner we walked around some of the shops in the area. There are tons of shops around. I like walking through them even though I can't read anything on the packages. Most of the malls have a grocery store built into them and all the grocery stores have delicious looking food out all ready to eat as well as great bakeries. If you get tired of Japanese food you can always stop by the Burger King for a good old flame broiled Whopper. This is down on Blue Street.

The Flight

2010-03-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

It seems that whenever I fly somewhere I like to take a picture of the airplane. Here is the 777 that took me to Japan. Airplanes are a marvel of modern technology. The airplane is a piece of art, and no matter how many times I do it, I love it. Flying for 10 hours only increases my appreciation of the concept. It is astounding that you can get into a tube in Seattle and only 10 hours later emerge from the tube on another continent. We as Americans do a great job of taking this sort of thing from granted. Not only do we want to be sped to our destination at breakneck speed, but we want two meals along the way, not to mention snacks. I must admit, though, the movies made the time go very quickly.
The seat I got was the isle seat on the last row of the left side of the plane. It was perfect. I don't mind sitting in the back. There's nobody looking at me when I stand up. (Speaking of standing up, the guy in front of my stood for at least half the flight.)

One thing about the flight that I wasn't really prepared for was that we were not going to fly at night. We followed the sun as it tried to escape around the horizon. Of course, we didn't fly due west. We actually flew over the Bearing Sea. Not that you could see it, though. At 38,000 feet we were well above the storms and clouds that make Deadliest Catch a hit series. Unfortunately, that means you don't get to see much. This is what it looked like:
Not much to see but some deep blue sky and cloud cover. You can see a little water down towards the bottom of the picture.

Some ice crystals on the window were a friendly reminder of the not so friendly environment outside:
At some points during the flight, the display at my seat indicated that the temperature outside was a withering -70°F.

I'm glad it only takes 10 hours to travel halfway around the world. This is already shaping up to be a great experience.

Valentines Day

2010-02-16T18:01:00.000-08:00

This year for Valentines Day I decided to grill up some steaks. I bought some beauts too. They were some lovely NY strips or Top Sirloin or one of those nice cuts. I could hardly wait. There was just one little possible problem. After all, this is western Washington. Not to worry though, I had a redneck tarp handy so I set it up. I was determined to be grilling-rain or shine.See, neat, huh? Grilling in February Western Washington Style.

Well, the steaks were really good. I can't say they were epic because I was trying to make too many things at once and the grill was a little hotter than I thought. The steaks wound up with a little extra color (black) but overall they were still very good.

The heat from the grill also caused another casualty. I've always used the grill right next to the house and never thought anything of it, but this time the price was steep. One of the times I went in to tend the stuff in the kitchen I left the grill lid open. When it was open it was only about an inch and a half from the glass of my back window. All of the sudden I heard a loud pop that startled both Jake and I. It seems that the heat from the grill heated a small area of glass to the point that it couldn't take it anymore. So now I get to replace the biggest window in my house. My favorite. Check it out:
I've been thinking I want to get one of those little gazebos to go out on the patio. This might be a nice excuse. Also, with one of those I could grill all year round.

Churrascaria!!!!

2010-02-08T22:01:00.000-08:00

Most people in the US would know this as Rodizio. In Brazil, Churrascaria (shoe-has-cahr-ee'-a: two r's together make an 'h' sound, the a's are like in "father") is the generic term for this type of restaurant and you order the Rodizio if that's what you want. "Churrasco" is barbecue. It has been too long since I've had Brazilian food and I didn't even know it. This was a surprise that Chelsea has been cooking up for some time now as my 30th birthday surprise and when we were on the way there today and she told me I was excited, but I didn't know how much I was missing it until I started eating. We went to Ipanema Brazilian Grill in downtown Seattle.

They have a way of flavoring the meat so that it is so savory. I can't understand how they make it that good. So the meat was absolutely delicious, but the thing that really put me over the edge was the rice and beans.

The rice and beans........

Mexican style rice and beans is delicious, and readily available, but Brazilian rice and beans is more delicious and as rare in North America as jaca fruit (google it). I could be biased but I think Brazilian beans are much better. One of my favorite ways to eat rice and black beans is with eggs. It make a fantastic breakfast. If I wasn't so stuffed my mouth would be watering.

Chelsea thought that this was a little ironic. There are all sorts of vegetables and delicious meats cooked up Brazil style, but the thing that really set me going was the basic rice and beans.

Here's a picture of my rice and beans with a little sausage and bacon wrapped sirloin. I'm sure we had our month's worth of sodium.
Here's me being sad because I got full and couldn't keep eating. Thanks for a great surprise, baby.

Project of the Week

2010-02-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

After sitting on it for a month, I finally decided what to do with the Christmas money my parents gave me. It took me a while to decide, but after looking at my pitifully inadequate toolbox I finally resolved that it was high time for some organization.

So I headed down to Lowes and after drooling on all the neat tool tool chests I finally accepted that one of those still isn't in the cards for me. I settled on a nice portable toolbox with some drawers in the front to accommodate my sockets. There was some money left over so I also bought some drawer liners.

So I brought it home and started putting all my tools into this great new toolbox. It was clear, however, that the sockets weren't going to stay put. I had to figure something out. Sure if you want to spend some money you can get some nice little "socket rails" that organize those for you, but, since the Christmas money was exhausted, and I'm a new homeowner, I wasn't interested in spending the money.

I had a better idea. At work we assemble specialized tool kits for the Navy and we use this white foam to pack it into nice pelican cases, so I went scrounging for foam. It wasn't hard to find a scrap big enough to do the job. After all, I only needed a piece about 17"x7".

Next I laid it out how I thought it would look and measured all the sockets. Then, at work, during my lunches, etc., I laid it out with the CAD software. Here's a pic of the miniature:
There is a list of all the sockets on the back of this card, and each of the numbers corresponds to the socket that lives in the hole. That way I can keep track of it if there are any that go missing.

I plotted the layout at actual size and used these special punches at work to cut the round holes for the sockets. The other stuff I just cut at home with the Xacto knife. Here's the finished product. See, way cooler than socket rails.

Best Toy EVER or Doggy Crack

2010-01-25T22:42:00.001-08:00

For those of you who don't know my dog Jake, he is one of the most even tempered dogs I know. He's a lover, not a fighter and he wants to make friends with everyone. Today, however, we had a little change from his usual. For a short time he actually became a junkie. You might ask, how can this be? How can dogs become junkies? Well we found out. It all started at Christmas.

Lots of our friends and family remembered Jake this Christmas. Mom gave him this cool dog treat thing that looked like a stocking and was filled with rawhide treats. Here is a picture of it when I unwrapped it:Looks fun, huh. Well it was. The rawhide treats were a hit. (All rawhide treats are a hit, for that matter.) So at last, Jake had eaten all the treats in the little stocking. But wait, just when you think the fun is over, the stocking itself if made of rawhide. So, today Chelsea gave the stocking to Jake. Due to it's unusual shape she didn't know if he would know what to do with it, but he did. In fact he prized it above just about any toy we've ever given him. It was a while before he even got down to the business of chewing it. Chelsea said he spent some time just carrying it around the house. It was too cool to let anyone (even Chelsea) near it. So Jake spent most of the afternoon munching away.

Then, as is my custom, I went over to pet him while he was chewing. Usually he just lays there happily chewing while I pet him a little, but today, as soon as I touched him he started to growl! So, like that person you can't help but tease because of the reaction, I couldn't leave him alone. I don't think I've ever seen him get like this. So now we've come to the reason for this long-winded post. I took a video because I had to share it with all of you. Enjoy.

Sorry Jake, but it was really funny. How about that, the container was more interesting than the actual gift.

By the way, this was my 100th post. It only took me four years to get here.

Why Not Take the Train?

2010-01-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

Good question. Why not take the train?

That is the very same question that Chelsea and I have been asking ourselves. This summer my family is meeting in Nauvoo Illinois for our second bi-annual family gathering and we thought it might be fun to take the train out rather than flying. It turns out we were wrong.

Don't take this as being anti-train, it isn't. I still think it would be fun to take a trip somewhere by train. On those kinds of trips it's about the journey more than the destination. This, however, is more of a destination trip. As you will see shortly, taking a trip all the way to Illinois from Washington by train would probably be a little much for us.

This is how it compares:

Flying: We could fly from Seattle to Peoria for around $500 per person round trip. The trip would take about 6 hours and we would still have to drive for about 3 hours to reach our final destination which is near Nauvoo. Not bad. (It turns out that Nauvoo is a little more remote than I thought.)

Train: I've been looking at Amtrak's website and it looks so fun. All the lines have cool names. Taking the "Empire Builder" is so much cooler than "flight 1554". So anyway, to get to Nauvoo by train you take the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago and then the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Fort Madison. This trip is a little longer. The trip from Seattle to Chicago is a modest 45 hours and the trip from Chicago to Fort Madison is only about 3. The catch is that you get to Chicago about 45 minutes after the train for Fort Madison leaves, so you have to spend the night and get that train the next day. Fort Madison is then about 40 minutes from the final destination. There is one Empire Builder each day, so if we got it on, say, a Monday afternoon, we would get to our destination on Thursday night. That costs about $360 per person round trip.

Chelsea said I was a weenie for thinking that was a little too much to bite off.

Well, it looks like we'll be flying. I don't even know if Peoria is the best airport for getting to Nauvoo, but I just used it to have something to compare to. We will probably end up flying back from Indianapolis, though, because we're going to try to visit my brother's house while we're out there.

I'll yet you all know how it turns out.

The Naming of the Land Cruiser

2009-12-30T16:02:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking for some time that the Land Cruiser needs a name. For a long time I haven't known what I what I would like to name it, but that all changed today. I was reminded of a story that is a great science fiction classic, Dune. It is a story about a prince called Paul Atreides of the House Atreides. who becomes a leader for a people who live on a sand planet which is called Dune--hence the name. Anyway, this prince has a certain friend who was his closest friend. His name was Duncan. Duncan was also one of the greatest warriors of the House Atreides. He died in the stuggle to win the Dune Planet from the Harkonnens. So, in honor him, the Land Cruiser will be called Duncan.

The Joy of Homeownership

2009-12-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

The insurance company can bite me.

So we closed on the house and everything was going fine. Then, one day around the middle of November we get this call from the insurance company. They had sent out an inspector to look at the house and they found a deficiency. The fence was leaning. It's true. This is what it looked like.

Now, I can't deny that I wanted to fix the fence; the only problem was that they only gave me until January 4 to do it. Now I don't know about you guys, but wintertime yard work is the way I've always wanted to spend the holidays. The short timeline was a problem because the fence fell over due to a drainage problem that exists in the backyard. If you look in the picture you can see a couple of low spots where the water pools and undermines the fence posts. I wanted to fix the drainage before fixing the fence. I know that may sound a little absurd, but that's what I wanted to do. So I presented this request to them and asked for more time-a couple of months at least, if not 'til summer. Well, they refused, but suggested that we might be able to board the fence or prop it or something. Ok, I thought, I'll try this halfway approach since they won't budge on the timeline. So I got this long board and screwed it one there, believing I was satisfying their requirements. This is how it turned out (in all it's glory):

Well, they didn't like it. And I quote: "You need to put the board on the other side so it isn't visible." and "The fence isn't fully upright." I can't really argue with either of those, the board is ugly and the fence isn't fully upright. But if you ask for half-baked you get half-baked.

So after this I finally asked the question: "What if it isn't my fence?" Ownership of the fence was never actually identified. The neighbor doesn't know whose it is either. Well, they said it was still a possible claim. and I had to fix it. At this point I really began to push for an extension. For a while there was a glimmer of hope that they would extend the deadline until renewal which is in September. Last Thursday (12/17) they called to say that they would not give me the extension. From that point I had 18 days-10 of which we are going to be out of town.

I have forgotten a key point. When they asked us to fix the fence I figured if we hadn't done it by the time they asked they would send a notice of some kind. Well I was wrong. The week after they called to say we needed to fix it, we got a cancellation in the mail effective January 4. That seems pretty drastic to me. So, all I have in writing at this point is that my insurance will be cancelled on January 4. Before we leave town this Christmas Eve I have to get something that says I will have insurance again in the new year.

Now I figured I just had to get it done. Any more time spent arguing with fools is time lost for making the repair. The night I found out I went to Lowes and got cement, new posts, and everything else I needed to get the job done. Then I started calling around and emailing to see who I could get to come help me set the posts on the Saturday before Christmas. Luckily I have many generous friends who came to help me work on it in the winter weather. Between Josh, Rob, Derek, Nicole and myself we had it done in only a couple of hours. It was a dirty job because if you remember, the drainage wasn't fixed. Once we redug the holes we had to scoop out about 10 inches of water out of them. When the water level was low you could see a nice little trickle down the sides of the hole filling it back up again. Nice. I think that's good for the concrete, right? Anyway, despite the mud and muck we got the posts set. Here they are setting up.

Looks nice, huh. I was able to pull the old posts out by hand. It was a quality job.

We let that set up over Sunday and yesterday (Monday) Chelsea and I put it back together. Here is the finished product.

It looks passable, it won't last, but all I needed was this picture to appease the insurance company. As you can see, the drainage problem is still just as bad as ever. Next is a great pic that shows one of the new fence posts. As you can see, the concrete is fully underwater. That helps keep the concrete from curing to full strength and makes sure the post will rot at the base.

It just gives me that warm fuzzy of a job well done.

Now I will actually look into getting a drain of some kind installed.

Like I said, they can bite me.

Change

2009-12-07T19:19:00.001-08:00

Back when we first got Jake he was just a little guy. I think the first time we weighed him he was like 8 or 9 pounds. His body was shorter than my forearm. He was a little pill. Just ask Chelsea. I had this new job that I had to go to all the time, so she bore the brunt of his 4 month old attitude. He's still a punk, and he'll still lie to your face if you catch him doing something he shouldn't, but we're just as glad as ever to have him around. (Except now he takes up more space on the couch.)

Some Recent Pics & Etc.

2009-09-25T09:50:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I posted so I thought I would write a little and show some of my recent pictures. I'll start out with a couple of Jake. He and I were haning out around the new church bulding that we got. It was a little before sunset so the light was kind of cool.
These next pictures are of these new stoves I've been tinkering with. They're made out of pop cans and run on almost any kind of alcohol. About an ounce of fuel will burn for about 7-8 minutes and can easily boil two cups of water. Basically I cut the bottom off of two pop cans with one can section just a little taller then the other and shove them together. I'm keeping this description brief to spare the large majority of my readers who probably don't care how the stove is made, but if you'd like more info, then I would again direct you to google. I also made this little pot stand out of a coat hanger. It's getting harder to come by a metal coat hanger these days. This picture is the first of these stoves I made. (The above picture is the second). Pop cans a pretty easy to come by so I just keep making them. Apperantly the best stoves are made using 12oz. Heineken Beer cans. Since I'm not a beer drinker those are tougher to find, but the pop cans seem to be doing the job. This is what the stove looks like when it's running. I was too lazy to get out the tripod so the picture is a little dark. If you would like to see more, google "penny stove" and you should get some better ones in no time. This next picture is an oddity from the kitchen. This was one of those moments where I took leave of my senses. I turned on the front burner on the stove and put the kettle on the back burner. This unfortunate container (which happens to contain dog food) was just a little too close. Since the burner was on high, just being close to it was enough to melt the container. It created kind of an interesting effect with the dog food partially spilling out.

Last time I turned on the wrong burner I had left a plate on the one I did turn on. That was cool because it was a stoneware plate and it exploded. Chelsea can vouch for me on this one--it popped while we were both in the kitchen and scared us to death.

These adventures in turning on the wrong burner may sound fun, but caution should be exercised. Airborne chunks of stoneware is more dangerous than glamorous and the combined smell of burned dog food and plastic is enough trigger convulsions.

We'll finish out with one of those right-place-right-time-with-camera moments. Sometimes Jake finds a comfy spot and just sticks with it--no matter where it is. Coming soon: Hopefully by this time next week we will be homeowners. We'll tell you all about it.

Auto Tour: Bon Jon Pass

2009-09-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

So what do you do when the rain is coming down like crazy and you want to get into the wilderness? Why take an auto tour, of course. When I moved up here I bought a book called Washington Byways that has lots of good backroad drives. This weekend I decided to go to Bon Jon pass because it's relatively close, and because I've wanted to get to know the area a little better. And since rainy days make for some different photographic opportunities than sunny days, of course, I took my camera.

Bon Jon Pass is located in the north east of the Olympic National Forest.

Jake accompanied me on this trip, but I think I enjoy these car rides more than he does. Come to think of it, if Jake can put his head out the window he will be content for hours. Today it was raining off and on, so he couldn't stay out the whole time. We also hit a section of the road that the Land Cruiser barely fit through and he was getting smacked in the face, so I made him come in.Here's an interesting plant from the roadside. I don't know what it is, but I'll find out.As the rain came and went, the clouds rolled around the mountians creating these great effects. Bon Jon Pass itself was a little inderwhelming. I don't even have any pictures from it. There was no sign or marker indicating your location, you just had to recognize the location on the map. I love the Washington landscape and even though the pass wasn't all that cool, I still liked the drive. As always, the Land Cruiser was awesome. Despite its age, it brings comfort to the backcountry. This is the first long backcountry drive that I've had since I did some work on it. bumpy roads used to make my ABS light and check engine light come on and neither of those came on this time. All systems ran flawlessly. Jake was a champ, too. After three hours of driving he curled up on the backseat and waited patiently to get home.

Backpacking at Heather Creek

2009-08-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my constant desire to find my way into the backcountry, my buddy Wood and I took advantage of a free Friday to hit the trail. We went to the Dungeness Trail in the Olympic National Forest. This trail is a little to the northwest of the Big Quilcene Trail that we took to Marmot pass about seven weeks ago. It was a great time.

This is Wood.This is me and the great pack that I got this year.This trail has two cool log bridges.

We found this great meadow to camp in. It was a little up the trail from the main camp so we had the place to ourselves.

Wood wanted to revive a tradition of old that he and his buddies used to have of cooking meat over the fire on a spit when camping. I was a little dubious at first, but he made a believer of me. We stopped at Wally's World on the way out of town and bought this seasoned pork loin roast.Wood made this spit out of some sticks that we found nearby. We basically just ate the meat right off the spit. It was quite delicious.For breakfast Wood was going to have scrambled eggs, but I also had a pouch of salmon and some tortillas so we had salmon and scrambled eggs breakfast burritos. Let's call it the accidental backcountry gourmet. I'll definitely remember this recipe for the future. It beats the crap out of outmeal.

I love the forest and I'm glad we had the chance to get out, brief though it was. Here's one last picture of the beauty of the backcountry.

Swing Shift & Star Gazing

2009-08-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

This week I switched up the routine a little bit by working the swing shift. It was also a departure from the norm in that I was doing a job that has nothing to do with my normal job. I was working in a support role for the shipboard work that is happening on the carrier Abraham Lincoln which is at the shipyard right now. This was really fun for me because I've been wanting to get some experience working on the ship. The office I was in was on the hangar deck of the carrier and even after working out there for a week I still think it's awesome to see the ship as I'm walking out to it.

The other thing I like about swing shift is that I get done with work when the stars are out. Usually I have to be in bed by this time so I can get to work on time. So I decided to scout a little and I found this great place near my house to see some stars. It's the parking lot at Island Lake. The county park commission was nice enough to not put lights in the parking lot so the darkness is pretty profound.

I want to get a telescope but before that I need to orient myself to the night sky so I can actually point it at something interesting. During this week I have been able to identify several constellations and a galaxy. I've seen Andromeda, Pegasus, Perseus, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Aquila, and Lyra. Inside Andromeda I saw a well known galaxy called M31. Through binoculars it looks like a large fuzzy star. Stars in Cygnus, Aquila, and Lyra form what is know as the Summer Cross. Here at about 47 degrees latitude it's almost directly overhead at midnight.

Anyway it's fun to look at stars. Soon I can buy myself a cool telescope and actually have a good look at that galaxy.

Dogs

2009-07-29T11:14:00.001-07:00

Here are some more recent pictures of Jake. We also have a little neighbor beagle named Sasha. She's a cutie too.Here they are, Jake and Sasha. They both have to be tied up because it's an apartment complex and there are no fences. Technically, it's against the rules to tie your dogs up outside but we justify it by saying that we never do when they aren't supervised. It's a good compromise because Jake won't tolerate being inside all day. They get those ropes tangled pretty good sometimes so we have to go rescue them every once in while.

The winter time this year was very strong, and so far the summer is shaping up the same way. This morning we went on a walk (since I'm working the 4:00pm to midnight swing shift) and when we got back Jake went straight for the water dish then to the floor. He's doing his best to stay cool.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

2009-07-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

I started this post more than two years ago on June 29, 2007 and I finally got around to finishing it. I wrote three quarters of it back then, but I was reminded of how the book effected me and decided it was important to finish. I hope you enjoy.

One of my favorite authors of all time is Mark Twain. It may sound cliched, but there is no other author that I have read as much. In "Roughing It" he relates an instance that involves the destruction of a certain raincoat at the hands of a camel's ravenous appetite. I laughed for a day. Later on in the same work a dog is humiliated by a coyote. I still laugh about that one. Twain's humor is always balanced by his wisdom. Every subject from social injustice to the high ideals of a republic government to the divine friendship of husband and wife can be found in the writings. Almost all of his stories involve social injustice in some way, but I had no idea what I was getting into with the Connecticut Yankee. In this story he managed to deal with all three of those topics.

The problem with a great story is that it is used over and over and many liberties are taken with the story to give it a semblance of novelty. Also, many authors aren't as concerned with making the reader think and therefore water down the more poignant areas of the story. It is for this reason that I was caught unawares. I had only known the story as a cute tale about a man who finds himself in another time and has some lovely adventures before waking to find it was all a dream--or something. The truth of the matter is that Hank Morgan is about to turn the sixth century on its head.

This Connecticut Yankee is from early 20th century New England. This a man who has been raised with liberty and knows what it is to live free and he is flung into this world that is utterly backward to him. Peasants are treated as scum by the nobles and the fact is illustrated by numerous examples. From the very beginning he begins to work towards the reform of the country. His major targets are the idea of divine nobility, the organized church, and illiteracy. In his estimation these were the conditions and institutions that were most detrimental to the founding of a republic. Nobility and the apostate church (the book names the Roman Catholic Church) work together to continue the oppression of the people with illiteracy as their chief tactic. Early in the story, Morgan's resourcefulness wins him Merlin's post as second in command in the kingdom and he begins to work secretly toward the pulling down of the institutions of the time starting with secret man factories. Man Factories are places where he sends individuals that he meets from time to time. These individuals are usually young men who have shown the capacity to believe that a better situation could exist. In the man factory these students are taught all subjects beginning with literacy. It is from this stock that he hopes to propagate a change in the kingdom to bring about the Republic. It is righting the wrongs of the church and state that is his chief concern in his endeavors.

He says this about the public at large: "The most of King Arthur's British Nation were slaves, pure and simple, and bore that name. and wore the iron collar on their necks; and the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name; they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves so. The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of the world." What a vivid picture of contemptible nobility. Also of note is his indication that the men who consider themselves free are also slaves, but to a different degree.

A republic government is put up as the antithesis of this society which is degrading to its members. Morgan believes it to be the way any country should be run and is thus motivated towards his revolution. The presence of his man factories underlies one of the most important aspects of a republic, that each citizen must be educated. The only way to properly revolutionize a country is with a stock of well-educated individuals. Education is key, but does not stand alone in terms of importance. The individual must have a desire for and a belief in the possibility of change. These characteristics can not be effectively taught; no teacher can force learning if the student does not wish to learn.

Finally, I enjoyed Twain's description of the fast relationship that formed between the hero, Hank Morgan, and his wife, Sandy. The way they came together was unorthodox for our time, but Hank 'drew a prize' nevertheless: "...Ours was the dearest and perfectest comradeship that ever was. People talk about beautiful friendships between two persons of the same sex. What is the best of that sort, as compared with the friendship of man and wife, where the best impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? There is no place for comparison between the two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine."

The next time you're looking for something to read, give this one a try. Twain has never let me down.

Marmot Pass

2009-07-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had the chance to head to the mountains for some nice rest and relaxation. Or is that toil to lug a big pack up a mountainside? Well, I had fun no matter what. Our destination was Marmot Pass, a very popular destination for the folks around here. It's location is indicated by the "A" marker on the map below. I also included a nice topo of the area because I like to be able to illustrate what I'm talking about. We are in the Buckhorn Wilderness in the Olympic National Forest. This was a Varsity Scout High Adventure outing, but since there was only one boy with his father and two other leaders it was more like a standard weekend outing of friends.

The Trail

This trail is one that offers the reward of breathtaking views, but it's not willing to give up the vista without the work. From the trailhead to the pass you climb 3,580 feet and you do it in 5.3 miles. It's a good workout. For our purposes, though, we didn't plan on going all the way to the pass in the evening. Our destination was Camp Mystery, 4.6 miles from the trailhead. Based on the topo map it looks like the climb to Camp Mystery was about 2,830 feet.

The first mile of the trail is very pleasant. It climbs but it's very gradual. After that you start to rise a little more. At 2.6 miles you pass a small area called Shelter Rock which provides a small area to camp if you would like. Shortly after the first camp the trail really gets about the business of taking you to 6,000 feet. In the next mile you climb about another 1,000 feet and you really begin to feel it. Before arrival at the camp you begin to pass in and out of forested areas and pass over some areas of shale on the the trail.

Camp

There was only one other party at Camp Mystery so we practially had the run of the place. The camp is great. There are several little nooks in the trees where your tent fits nicely. Campfires above 3,500 feet are not allowed in the Buckhorn Wilderness, despite that there was evidence of fire in the camp.
Here are the guys, and of course, I'm behind the camera. From left to right there is Charlie (the lab), Lyle, Adam, and Kim. Olaf, the bernese is also not pictured, but you'll see him down below.

The Pass

In the morning we woke up fairly early and with a little breakfast headed for the pass. Since we had done most of the work the previous evening we were ready to tackle it. Just before you reach the pass there is a beautiful mountain meadow. If you squint just right you can see the trail in the middle of the picture, just above center. When I took this we were about a quarter of a mile from the pass. One of the great things about hiking to a pass is that when you get there you can see so much in so many directions. Here I am at the pass. This is looking west toward the Olympic National Park. The ridge of that next range over is the border of the national park. Here are Lyle and Olaf at 6,000 feet.Off in the distance you could see the Hood Canal. Beyond that the upper end of Kitsap County, and further out you can just make out Whidbey Island. With binoculars you can easily see the Hood Canal Bridge.
The Descent

Having recieved our reward it was time to head down. A quick stop at camp allowed us to collect the rest of our stuff, and we were off. After about a mile and a half Adam rolled his ankle on a bit of shale. We stopped in some shade and were deciding what to do about it when we encountered a man on his way up. Well, it turns out that this guy was an orthopedic surgeon. What are the chances of that? So the surgeon wrapped up Adam's foot with the bandage that Lyle had and we were back on our way, albeit at a more conservative pace.

I wish I could say that our troubles were over and the rest of the hike was uneventful, but that's not how it played out. About a mile and a half from the bottom Olaf's will gave out. He's done this hike before but not for a while and it seems that he's not as young as he used to be. After a great deal of trying to bribe and coax him we finally devised this stretcher out of two ski poles I had and two jackets. Carrying a 100 pound dog out of the wilderness is not as easy or as a fun as it sounds.
Anyway, we get our merit badges for wilderness rescue and some valuable experience for the future. I'll be powerful sore tomorrow.

A Quick overview

2009-06-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

Well a lot has happened since my last post. For one thing my wife and I went on a cruise with her family. It was probably the best vacation I've ever been on. And that's saying something because I've been on some really great vacations. I mean, how can you improve on a floating temple to sin and gluttony? The entertainment was great, the food was great, and the people were great. I don't know if the cruise line did extra to make this cruise better due to the rerouting but I don't know how they could have improved. Since I have so much to cover in this post I'm not going to go over this in detail, but Chelsea and her sister Ashley have both done great write-ups with pictures and those can be seen here and here.

On to the more recent adventure. Last weekend the scout outing was to go on a little backpacking trip. This one was more about making sure you had the right stuff, so we chose a short hike. It was in an area called Green Mountain out here in Kitsap County. The trail was about two miles to a little campground. We couldn't have asked for better weather. When we got there we were walking around in flip-flops and shorts all evening. It was great. Here are a couple of pics, including the maiden voyage of my new Jetboil backpacking stove.This was the little pack that could. I've never taken this one overnight before but I thought it could do it. I was right. Although, you have to be a little strategic about what you bring. It's very limiting. I thought I was doing pretty good, but in retrospect, if we had encountered any foul weather my one rain jacket and tarp wouldn't have been enough (especially because the tarp was supposed to go under the tent). The Jetboil is more bulky than most also. The idea is that you are trading compactness for efficiency, plus you don't have to carry other pots. It cooks dinner soooooooo fast. Hopefully I'll be able to get in two or three overnight or two night mini trips this summer.

Now I'm up to date. I'll keep you posted.

Camping at Salt Creek and Cape Flattery

2009-05-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we went on a great camping trip to Salt Creek. It's out on the north shores of the Olympic Peninsula about 10 miles west of Port Angeles. It's a fantastic campground. I love camping by the ocean.
This is Tongue Point. It's right at the campground. Beyond this rock is another camping area called Crescent Beach.
This is a cluster of clams or something. It's about six feet top to bottom.
Can you spot the crab right in the center of the frame?This was the maiden voyage of the hot dog roasters that Chelsea's parents gave us.This is at the marina at the Makah Indian Reservation. All the other boats were neat fishing boats. I'm not sure how this one is still floating.
This is on the Cape Flattery Trail. It's cool.
This is at Cape Flattery. There are lots of sea caves and the water is beautiful. Those are seaweed floating in the water.
Here's another one from Cape Flattery. The scenery is great.
This is Tatoosh Island off of Cape Flattery.
On the way home Sunday morning Chelsea and Jake crashed. Doesn't that look cute.

The first of many trips to the ocean was great. I'll keep you posted.

Stargazing

2009-04-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

When I was a teenager I never thought of myself as being interested in astronomy. I do, however, remember appreciating the brilliance of the night sky when I was in the wilderness and it could actually be seen. Over the past few years I have become more interested in astronomy, though. I remember once about five years ago I was camping with the singles ward near Smith and Moorehouse near the Uintah Mountains in Utah. One of my friends knew some of the sights to look for in the night sky and he showed them to me. The one that I most remember was a star cluster that he called the Three Sisters. It could be seen with a simple pair of binoculars.

Now lets skip ahead a few years. The end of my junior year of school was approaching and we had to select the senior design teams that we were going to be a part of. A friend of mine had proposed a project to build a telescope. The project was unique because the goal was to design a very large telescope that could be carried into remote places--place that were much better for stargazing. So I took my interest in the night sky and a little knowledge of physics and mechanics and joined this team. The telescope that resulted from months of struggle turned out to be really cool. I've posted pictures of it on this blog in the past, but if you haven't seen those, here is another picture:I only got a few chances to look through it, but from what I saw it turned out to work pretty good. The day before the picture above I set it up on my front steps and looked at the full moon. You can sure see lots more lunar features through a telescope. It's been almost a year since we finished the project. I'm not sure where the telescope went. Chances are it's in my teammates garage. He's the one that proposed the project and this was the fourth telescope he'd built. It makes sense that he would have it.

Now we live in Washington and the area I live in has less city lights so you can see the stars a little better (when it's not overcast). So I decided to buy some binoculars and this little field guide so I could get to know my way around the sky. I've had the field guide now for a couple of days and so far it is very interesting. Here's something I didn't know: constellations aren't just stellar formations, they are viewed as regions of space. Like a state is divided into counties, the sky is mapped using constellations. The stars that lie within these boundaries are given names that relate them to the constellation that contains them along with a greek letter. For instance, the star that is the upper corner of the cup of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) is called Ursae Majoris Alpha. So I've learned something already.

I'm looking forward to doing some star gazing from the wilderness here. And recently another thought came to me, what must the stars look like from the sea? I've seen them from the mountain tops where they blanketed the sky. What would it look like if the only light source around was the light on your boat? The light from the stars would have no competition to reach your eyes. In three weeks I'll get to spend some time on the ocean, but I'm afraid the lights and glitz from the opulent cruise ship will block out the stars. At any rate, I'll find a spot on the ship to see some stars.

Another Rope Toy Bites the Dust

2009-03-25T21:59:00.001-07:00

"That was fun......Where's the next one?"

Camping with the Scouts

2009-03-21T17:30:00.001-07:00

One of the nice things about living here on the west side of Puget Sound is that you can camp in very thick forests without having to go very far. This month we camped at Scenic Beach State Park which is only about 20 minutes away from the church building. Here's a map.
We were camped very close to the Hood Canal. There are many state parks on this waterway and there is so much to do. So far two of the last four camps were on the Hood Canal. I love being by the water. Last month we camped by the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Up there we were camped near the edge of some rocks that apparently reveal some fantastic tide pools at low tide, though we weren't there to see that.

At Scenic Beach the trees are thick and the underbrush would make the area impassible if not for the roads and trails that have been cut through. It would be the ideal area to camp in the heat of summer because there is no shortage of shade and the trees have that cooling quality. We got to the state park before the sun when down. In some of the pictures you can see the sun peeking through, but if not for that it would seem later in the evening than it really is.

So here are the pics:
Here is my new tent again. I guess it looks more at home in the woods than in my living room.

Here is Derek unrolling his sleeping pad.

We finished the night with a rousing game of Chinese Checkers.

KF7AWE

2009-03-12T19:49:00.001-07:00

The first time I became interested in getting a ham radio license was when I was in junior high. I bought a study book to help me learn and I studied it for a while, but then started doing other things. That is partly because it became very clear that I wouldn't be able to afford a radio for a loooooonnnnggg time. So last year my little brother Shaun got his license and I became interested again.

Last year after Shaun got his license I tried taking a practice license test. Without any studying, I missed passing by one question, so I thought my chances of passing a real test were pretty good. So I studied more and got ready to take the test, but before I could take it all the craziness of last summer got in the way and we moved to Washington. So now that we are all settled I had time to wrap it up.

One of my main motivations for this is emergency preparedness. Amateur radio emergency services (called ARES and RACES) have been in place almost as long as radio technology and they are indispensable in disaster situations where the communications infrastructure is rendered inoperable. Cell service is more fragile than landline communications and these both rely on the same basic infrastructure (once the cell service is recieved at the cell tower). With a backup power source amateur radios can be operated as stand-alone units or as part of nets with extensive range. That is what makes them so useful for the emergency preparedness role they have assumed. For me one of these radios belongs right alongside the 72-hour kit and food storage at home.

Another interest that I have in this equipment is the ability to use it in the backcountry for fun and emergencies. A handheld unit can be used when backpacking both to contact other amateurs and can be used to call for help when necessary. These also have the capability to use things called repeaters that retransmit your signal so you can talk to people that are far away. They also make some of these for your car that are about the size of a CB radio but have 10-15 times more power for much greater range.

I hope to be buying a handheld radio soon for the 72-hour kit and maybe over the next couple of years it will work out that I can permanently install one in the Landcruiser. Keep a lookout for me on the air.

KF7AWE

Jake at the Dog Park

2009-03-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Jake loves the dog park. I know that comes as a surprise to all of you but it's true.
Jake still gets a little nervous when he interacts with other dogs. He'll get over it, but in the meantime I love the nervous ridge that goes all the way from the base of his neck to his tail.I think it's funny how Jake's ears flap in the breeze when he runs. What could be better than a grimy old tennis ball in the mouth?

Here are some scenery pics that I took while we were out. It was a beautiful day.

Some Pics from Silverdale

2009-02-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

When we moved from Utah to Washington we moved from one outdoor playground to another. Over the last few weeks we've done a little exploring and I have some pictures. These pictures are from right here in Silverdale. There are lots of trails throughout this area that are maintained in managed forests. They are are usually on private land which the owners have allowed to be designated for public use. These pictures are from the Clear Creek Trail. I included a map of the trail system. I'll put a number in parentheses after each picture that corresponds to the numbers on the trail map so you can get an idea where we were. By the way, our apartment is about where the "North" arrow is on the map.
Jake is always ready to go. All Star Lanes (10)

This is one of those managed forests I was talking about. This land borders a local hospital and the hospital owns the land. We've walked a large portion of the trail and I think this is our favorite. (11)

Through the trees you can see part of Silverdale. We live on a hill above and to the north of Silverdale, and this area of the trail is partly up on that hill. (11)

(11)

I love that I can park at the Chuck E Cheese and soon be in a forest. (10)

We love taking Jake on these trails. It's a great way to work out his beagle energy. This is another section of the Clear Creek Trail. It is farther south of the other section, and as you can see is down by the water at the northern tip of Dyes Inlet. This was taken at low tide. There is usually much less beach. (1)

This is an older picture of another section of the trail. We hiked here back in October. (14)

(14)

After we get home, Jake is usually ready to curl up on the blanket.

Quote of the Day

2009-02-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

"One of the most insidious aspects of government paternalism is that it deprives people of the will to be free. By Means of continued doses of government welfare, people are transformed from lovers of freedom, motivated by a spirit of independence, to seeker after security unsure of their ability to stand on their own feet with the help of God. They are willing to forget about freedom if the government will promise them security."

Jerome Horowitz
The Elders of Isreal and the Constitution

New Tent

2009-01-27T18:46:00.000-08:00

Pop Quiz: It's the middle of winter and you just got a new tent. What do you do?
If you just answered "set it up in the living room" then you get a gold star! If not, you might need to spend a little more time outside.Here it is, my new tent. I've wanted a good lightweight backpacking tent for a long time now, and the stars finally aligned. I found this on Coleman's online outlet for 65% off. It's called the Heka X2. This is the website image of it. It's kind of hard to see what the tent is really supposed to look like when it's unnaturally crammed into a small living room.
I can't wait to get it out at the next scout camp!

The Phone Dilemma

2009-01-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, Chelsea and I have moved. One of the things affected by this move is our wireless phone service. So far we haven't done anything about it. Currently, we have Utah phone numbers and we haven't been under any kind of contract for about 2 1/2 years. In that time we've just been using whatever phones we could scrounge from our friends and family. We're a long way from cutting edge in this respect. It's nice not to have a contract hanging over our heads, but I've been with T-mobile for more than six years and Chelsea has been with them for more than eight. It's not something we like to mess with.

Well the time has come to do some messing. We are tired of having the wireless equivalent of a 1988 Buick. We want some new phones, but I am dealing with some serious restrictions when it comes to the phone I select for myself. For Chelsea it's pretty easy--something cool looking that works as a phone. Easy enough. But you see, I can't have a camera on the phone, and it can't be considered a smartphone, if I want to take it to work with me. When was the last time you saw a phone without a camera on it at the wireless store? They are becoming an endangered species. I've found a few, but they are usually prepaid phones that are compatible with my network. The advantage of these is that they don't lock you into a new contract, but the con is that you have a limited selection of phones.

I don't really need a selection, though. I want a Blackberry Curve. I've wanted one for a long time now. So you see, the Blackberry has two strikes against it (smartphone and camera) for taking it to work--or does it. The rumor mill at work has been producing some very nice bits that tend to make one think that within the next year we might be able to work a deal where we could bring personal smartphones to work. This younger generation of engineers that they are hiring by the bus load has the desire to own smartphones and bring them to work. The outgoing generation was essentially indifferent to it, but now the cry is raising from the ranks.

Now, if it turns out that the planets aren't aligned for me to have a Blackberry right now, then I guess I'll figure out a way to live without. But if I'm buying the phone to be able to take to work then I'll still have to live with the very limited selection, and if I have to buy the dumbest phone in the store, I sure as crap don't want to get stuck in a contract for it.

At the same time, Chelsea needs a new phone, so we have to do something soon.

So, should I get the Blackberry in hopes that they will see the light at work, or should I just live with the stupid phone. What do you think?

Stuck in the Northwestern Snow

2008-12-28T22:56:00.000-08:00

If any of you haven't been watching the weather or haven't been outside for the last week or two, you wouldn't know that this week has seen some pretty remarkable weather in the western United States. Up in our neck of the woods, this has gone down in the books as one of the worst snow storms in Washington in decades. I think that this whole think gas been put on so that Chelsea and I wouldn't feel out of place. The amount of snow that has fallen is nothing we wouldn't deal with in a normal winter in Utah, so I'm sure it's meant to ease our transition to northwestern life.

Being that the weather has been so remarkable, it comes as no surprise that the local infrastructure is woefully unprepared to deal with it. As a result, you end up with a nice 2" ice pack forming on the streets. Add to that the widely varied topography of the region and you end up with some dangerous situations. Not to worry, though, the Landcruiser did exactly what it was designed to do: get where I want to go no matter what is happening with the weather. Praise Landcruiser.

Due to the snow we had two full snow days and two partial snow days. December 21, church was cancelled because of the impassible roads. December 22, the shipyard called a curtailment, and both December 23 and 24 we had a two hour delay in the start of work. It was not the most effective work week. What a mess.

Speaking of the mess, here are some pics:
This is the lawn outside our apartment. Someone built this nice snowman for us. It was quality work. The complex next to ours had this cool fountain installed only a couple of months ago. They didn't turn it off, and I think that's what saved it from destruction. This is that same snowman from above after only a few days. As you can see, the fate of a snowman here is dire and inescapable. It shouldn't be too long now before we can get back to a normal Washington winter.

"Arctic Blast" Northwest Style

2008-12-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

Man, did we luck out. Everybody thought we were crazy, but the second Saturday in every month is Scout Saturday and I'll be danged if any cold weather was going to stop us for having our outing. All day last Friday it was rainy and crappy, but we perservered. We still planned on going camping, no matter the odds. Fortunately for us, the stars aligned and we only had to deal with cold temperatures. We got rained on for about 15 minutes on the whole trip.

Saturday was cold, but still not bad. Then Sunday morning we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground and you would have thought that it was a foot the way some people were acting (church attendance was down about 30%). So we lucked out and missed the bad weather by one day.

I understand that this kind of cold is very unusual for this part of the country. In all honesty, I don't miss the bitter cold of winter in Utah and this week has helped me remember that. The climate with a much smaller temperature swing from the highest of the year to the lowest suits me very well so far. Hopefully this Arctic Blast will blow over soon and we'll be able to get down to some more camping in January and February.

A Rant: Black Friday

2008-11-28T09:04:00.001-08:00

Black Friday.

You know, up until recent history, if you named a day "black" it would have meant it was a bad day. Perhaps it is a day to be remembered in human history as an example of what not to do. Perhaps it is a day that was pivotal in history, like "Black Tuesday" referring to the stock market crash of 1929. Well, now the only reason we see fit to call a day "black" is that it is a shopping day.

Interestingly, Wikipedia lists 15 separate historical events that have been nicknamed Black Friday ranging from 1869 to 2004. You would think we as a civilization could come up with something better after the third or fourth Black Friday.

Like this one for example: in 1939 there were some big fires in Australia that earned the nickname (by the way, this one was also a Friday the 13th). Maybe we could have chosen something more fire oriented like "Orange Friday" (because flames are orange) or "Charred Friday". Now I know those don't carry with them the same ring and dark overtones as Black Friday but lets be honest, overusing a name or phrase lessens it's effect as well. I mean, if I went around calling days "Black 'day-of-the-week'" every time I got a hangnail or stubbed my toe or had to work late or something, pretty soon people would stop paying attention to me.

Having established that the name "Black Friday" is both overworked and under payed, now we should look at how the Friday after Thanksgiving came by this unworthy moniker.

Again, according to Wikipedia, Black Friday, in this case, originated in Philadelphia in the 70's. It came from the horrendous traffic conditions present in the city that were a result of the combination of the increased number of shoppers and an annual football game between Army and Navy. Apparently the name originated from the people that would have to deal with the traffic: police, bus drivers, taxi drivers, etc.

So, some bus driver said it in the 70's and the media has been jamming it down our throats ever since.

Retailers build advertising campaigns around it and news outlets use it in their vast array of tactics to get you to watch their programming or read their rag. It is as a result of the media outlets that you have this post today. I got to work and decided to check a few headlines on the ol' iGoogle homepage and every third one was "Black Friday This" or "Black Friday That", blah blah blah. It's a testament to the fact that so little that comes out of news outlets is actually useful.

And now I plead with society as a whole to disassociate the name Black Friday with the shopping day after Thanksgiving. If it must have a name, then lets use something that isn't so beat to death. We could go with "Super-Mega-Deal Friday" or "let's-go-blow-our-available-credit Friday". If we wanted we could still go with a color. Being that the weather starts to turn gloomy in November we could call it "Grey Friday". Whether we abolish the name altogether or simply change it, it will be an improvement.

Update:

Within a short time of writing this I found the news story of a 34-year-old man that was trampled to death by customers at a Wal-mart in New York State. It's a great day to call yourself a human being.

Thanksgiving Weekend

2008-11-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Actually, "Thanksgiving Weekend" is a misnomer when you don't have the following Friday off work. It ends up being just Thanksgiving Day.

Whatever you call it, this year it was nice. Unfortunately I was not with my wife because she went to be with her family for the weekend. You see, since I had work today it would have been a whirl wind trip to Utah and back and it would have been a record time. Since I stayed behind, Chelsea was able to spend much more time with her family.

So without my wife I went to Kirkland, Washington to have Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's house. After work on Wednesday I went home and got Jake and we headed for Kingston to get the ferry. I seemed to luck out because everybody was trying to get to Kingston so I was going against the flow of traffic.

In the morning on Thursday we slept in. It was nice. Later on in the early afternoon Wally and I shot bottles in the front yard with BB and pellet guns. Some redneck fun without leaving the driveway.

Jake was in a new place and that required some adjusting. He refused to take a nap like he was supposed to and was becoming very cranky. That worked out well in the end, though because he was so tired that during dinner I fed him and conked right out for the better part of two hours.

Later on in the evening it was time to come home and I decided to go ahead and drive around. Once again, Jake fell right to sleep on the back seat. And, once again, I was opposite the flow of traffic. As I came across the Tacoma Narrows bridge I found that the east-bound traffic was backed up for about five miles trying to cross the bridge. Once again, I'm glad I live on this side of Puget Sound.

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!

Jake at Dinner Time

2008-11-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

For some time now Jake has been trained to wait for his dinner until we tell him it's OK to eat. I love his energy and this shows his enthusiasm very well. The look on his face towards the end cracks me up everytime. "Do you want to eat?" always gets a good response.

More Canine Dental Pictures

2008-11-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

I'm intensely fascinated by this process that Jake is going through of losing teeth and getting his adult teeth. We've been waiting for this for some time because puppy teeth are sharp little suckers. The adult teeth are larger, but much less pointy and sharp. I imagine this is because when dogs are puppies, nature compensated for their weaker jaws by giving them sharper teeth. But that just an engineer's opinion.

Anyway, I have another picture for you all. Here it is:
The arrow on the left is pointing to the very tip of Jake's new upper canine. As you can see, it's being very impatient and not having the courtesy to wait for the other to vacate before muscling in. It looks painful, but Jake doesn't seem bothered at all. The arrow on the right is pointing to the lower canine which is coming in just fine. In an earlier blog I posted a picture that I took right after that tooth fell out. In that picture it was just a big red spot.

Here are the teeth I've managed to get so far:To give you an idea of scale, the one on the right is about 1/2" across. I'm hoping to get at least one canine, but I've already missed two out of four, so hopefully my luck will change.

Lastly, I had the camera out so I took some new pictures of Jake. Here's one of them:Always alert. You never know who may have food.

New RC Heli!

2008-11-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

As all of you know, I love RC toys. Recently I've been trying to learn how to fly helicopters in the flight simulator I bought when I got my first paycheck from my new job. Helicopters, by their very nature are unstable. Fundamentally, you have a mass hanging from a disc (which is formed by the rotation of the blades) and that disc is literally supported by thin air. It's something like trying to balance on a basketball. Also, in this case, size matters. The larger the helicopter, the more stable it is. Unfortunately, that doesn't bode well for RC helicopters because they are very small and lightweight. To combat this, designers have devised ways to add stability-both through electronic and mechanical means. Years of technological effort have now arrived at the point of my little helicopter. Here it is:

This little helicopter is very stable and easy to fly. The testament to it's stability is the fact that I can fly it in my living room. I wouldn't want to do that with most other RC helicopters. Anyway, it's fun to fly.

Baby Teeth Out, Grown-up Teeth In

2008-11-05T22:05:00.000-08:00

Since I've never raised a puppy I didn't know that they go through puppy teeth the same way children go through baby teeth. Jake has been losing teeth from time to time over the past few weeks and he's probably about a third of the way through them. Today he lost that big one on the bottom; obviously where the big red spot is. In the next couple of days we should see a new one poking in behind it.

Jake After a Bath

2008-10-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

I really get a kick out of Jake when he comes out of the bath. I do my best to dry him off, but he's never satisfied. I had to record it.

So......What's New?

2008-10-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

Lets start with work.....
After several weeks of various training classes, I've finally arrived at my "home code" (department) at work--for a while anyway. So, since August 18 I've had only 8 days that weren't some kind of orientation or training. The training is very valuable. The shipyard is bewildering for the average new guy like myself. It's tough to understand my place without any guidance, so I happily welcome it. As part of my new time in my home code, I have, along with my training coordinator, worked out everything that I need to learn before I can be really useful.

But, what is more interesting is what's going on in the rest of my life.
At the end of the paragraph the reader will be allowed to debate internally whether personal life is actually more interesting or not.

The Landcruiser had a record 2 dashlights on: check engine (CEL) and the brake light. The brake light was pretty easy, the pads were a little worn, reducing the fluid level in the reservoir. It was the same way my old pickup would tell me it needed new brake pads. Then I turned my attention to the CEL. I checked to codes and they said there was a problem with the post-cat Oxygen sensor and the throttle position sensor. The funny thing is that after I checked the codes they went away. Whatever. Light off.

About two weeks ago we took Jake to the vet and found out he was dealing with an ear infection. Ovbiously we have been treating it, but what we thought was an energetic puppy, now really became an energetic puppy. Prior to this a 15-30 minute walk would wear him out, but now it takes an equal amount of time running.

I've also been spending quite a bit of time learning how to fly RC planes and helicopters in my RC simulator. It's lots of fun. In only about 2 months of this I've crashed easily $50,000 worth of airplanes and helicopters. Since the simulator was only $100, it is a good investment. In a few months I would like to buy a heli. I think I would like to get the Eflite Blade 400 3D. Check it out.

Well, that's about all I've got going on for now. Also, my glasses are in the shop getting new lenses, and contacts suck at night, so I'm tired of squinting.

The New Job

2008-09-07T22:00:00.001-07:00

Here I sit on the eve of the first day of my fourth week at work. I promised my faithful blog readers (both of you) that I would post a blog about my first week of work. Since that is now two weeks overdue, I will post about my first three weeks of work.

The problem here is that there is so much to include that I don't have any clue where to begin. I'll start with the eagle-eye overview.

17 new hires started in the Nuclear Engineering and Planning Department (NEPD) on the same day that I did, as a result we have been going around the shipyard and attending our various classes as a pack. It's nice to have a group to do everything with. It makes the transition more comfortable for us. The down side, however, is that even though we are doing everything we can to blend in, the pack behavior gives us away as a bunch of greenhorns no matter where we go.

Our little pack splits up on occasion to visit different parts of the shipyard and the nearby submarine base, Bangor. We also have attended meetings to become acquainted with the various division heads within our NEPD department. All of these meetings are very informative and we are learning very quickly.

In the past weeks we have also found that we don't quite have enough to do to fill our time, so we've had a few early days. I figure we should live it up, because they won't last long once we all go our separate ways and begin work in our respective departments.

We have people from the group that are from Montana State, Boise State, Washington State, University of Utah (other than me), Brigham Young, Brigham Young Idaho, University of Wisconsin and others. I think it's interesting that the largest representation is us mormons from Utah, BYU and BYUI. There are many facets to doing nuclear work and that requires so much expertise from all types of engineering.

If you want to know more about how a nuclear plant works with it's steam generator you should look it up on Wikipedia. That much isn't controlled information.

Celebrity Moment

2008-09-01T21:49:00.001-07:00

Normally I'm not the one to try to see celebrities from my favorite shows. In general I think it's kind of a waste of time. I have, however, had a celebrity sighting that I got very excited about.

This weekend Chelsea's old roommates came up to spend some time seeing Seattle and the Kitsap Penninsula. Since the space needle was indisposed because of an annual music festival, and downtown was in a general state of disarray due to the Labor Day crowds, we decided to go see some of the lesser known attractions. Among those on the list was the Freemont Troll. (As seen in "Ten Things I Hate About You" and pictured here.) Since I've never driven there myself we got to do some great exploring while we zeroed in on it's location.
So there we were driving around Lake Union and going up and down some nice hills, when all of the sudden we crested on a hill and down on the water I could see the North American!!!!! This is one of the boats from one of the greatest TV shows in the history of man: Deadliest Catch. It's captained by Sten Skaar. I tried to get down closer but these were the only pictures I was able to get of it. If you are curious about the boat, you can check out the Discovery Channel website here.So there you go, to me the celebrities of the show are the boats.

Restaurant Review: Azteca

2008-08-16T23:55:00.001-07:00

Being that we live in a new town, and that I love me a good mexican joint, we decided to apprise ourselves of the local fair. To that end we tried a place called Azteca. It was by the grocery store, so don't think we went through a selection process of any kind.

Anyway, the food was fantastic. I was hungry because I hadn't eaten lunch so I destroyed the chips and salsa. I ordered a "Grande Combo #2, with a chicken chimichanga and a chicken burrito besided rice and beans.

What followed can only be called betrayal. Only a third of the way through my plate I already started to feel full. My own stomach betrayed me. How do you like that. The silver lining is that I get to nibble at it later tonight and I get it for lunch tomorrow.

If you are ever in the northwest definetly look it up.

Jake Monster

2008-08-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

The first week with Jake has come to a close. The first two days went fine, but on Monday the movers brought all our stuff and Jake's world came unglued. There was just too much changing without any time for his little mind to sort it all out. Apparently, strange boxes can scare some puppies. What must that mean for an empty room going to packed with strange boxes in only a couple of hours? Poor guy. That day was when Chelsea and I got "My Smart Puppy" and things have been improving daily.

Also this week I've been using my nickname for Jake: Jake Monster. I don't know where it came from, but it's fitting, isn't it. See, ferocious.

Jake's New Lifestyle

2008-08-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Jake has been home now for four days. It has been a time of adjustment for all of us but things are going really well. Since this is our first experience with a puppy we needed some help, so we went book shopping. We found a great book that came with a DVD and a website for extra help. It's called "My Smart Puppy". In the book, basic skills are learned as games. I say "basic skills" because they look like tricks; things like sit, stay, come, etc. I always thought of these as tricks and that they didn't have any useful purpose. I was wrong. Those simple tricks are the foundation of the skill set the puppy needs to be properly socialized and controllable.

I've heard people say that raising a puppy is like raising a child, and I can see lots of parallels (although I've never raised a child). For one thing, the importance of structuring the puppies life. You have to plan his day and teach him whenever you are with him. In my inexperience, I don't understand how you could train a puppy without a crate. It is a great way to relax a riled puppy and find a few moments of sanity for us as owners. Puppies also need nap times and get very cranky when they miss them. So the day goes through cycles like this: crate, come out and do your business, play around the grass for a while, work on homework, come inside and chew the rawhide with me (or Chelsea) then more homework and back in the crate for nap time and so that we can keep working on unpacking the house. It seems to be working well.

Jake is a smart little puppy and it's already showing. He'll sit for his dinner, sit to get out of the crate, come (this one needs a little work), and we are still working on laying down. Just a couple of days of working on homework and Jake has showed great progress. He's well on his way to becoming a very well trained dog.

Destination At Last!!!

2008-08-08T22:14:00.001-07:00

We won't be getting internet until next Thursday, so you can thank my new neighbor for letting us use their internet for the evening. Nowadays it really isn't a surprise that I can find at least one bar of wireless network for 6 different networks from my living room. Only one of them was open access, which shows that the folks around here are a little savvy with the intar-webs machines. Anyway, to my new neighbor, thanks for the temporary access.

(Que fanfare) We are now in our new home. (Fanfare ends) Here we are, after more than a week of wandering and living in the homes of others we have settled down and are now paying for our own place. As you can see from the picture, there is a lot going on here. Our classy camp chairs and tool box end table really complete the feel of the room. Our stuff won't be here until Monday, so this weekend we get to have a campout without even leaving the house. What's even more fun is the game of making meals without pots, pans, or a microwave. Pretty much we are limited to vegetables or things you make in the oven. Tonight we bought a frozen pizza. So far, so good.

Our apartment feels really good. It's like a daylight basement. Also we have a nice little porch with a nice lawn space. That's our spot right in the middle of the picture on the first floor. I can't wait to do some grilling out there.

This complex is shaping up to be really nice, except for one thing: I can't work on my car here. I'm going to have to press the rules a little bit to get a feel for the enforcement, so I'll keep you posted.

Stop #3: Spokane, WA

2008-08-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight we are staying in Spokane. It has been fun to spend some time seeing a little bit of this city. This was my first time here, but Chelsea said she might have been here years before as a kid. We gambled a little bit in that we didn't book anything and just hoped we would find a place. Well, we found a place. And since we get some travel per diem we also decided to stay at the Red Lion River Inn. They gave us a river view room (you can just see the river 200' away on the other side of the tennis court), which had just become available. Fortunately we decided to check in then get dinner; if we had decided to do it the other way around we may not have had a room here.

We set out on foot to find some food and to walk off that 8 hour drive we just finished. Spokane has a great park in downtown and we walked through it to get to dinner and to get back. Spokane River forks and forms a little island which, at the turn of the century, was a major industrial area. That little island is now called River Front Park. A space across from the river was formerly a rail depot and is now big civic centers, etc. Spokane has some great views. This picture is the Division Street Bridge just before sunset.

We also walked through a mall which was very vertical. It had a great entry way with these neat escalators.

Now we're back here in the room for the night. Hopefully we should be leaving for Silverdale pretty early tomorrow morning, then it will be back to life as usual. Well, as "usual" as it can be for big changes like this.

Stop #2: Rexburg/Idaho Falls

2008-08-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

The first leg of our journey is now complete. This blog post comes to you from Tara and Spencer's house in Rexburg. Yesterday we were sent off in style by my mom. She made breakfast for everybody (that is my brother, some family friends that were staying at thier house for Shaun's wedding, and us) and after that we jumped in the LandCruiser to get going.

This visit to Rexburg is unusual. We have come here many times since we were married to visit the folks that live here, but we always went back to Salt Lake. So at this point it still doesn't feel like we are moving. Sure, I know that all of our stuff is already well on it's way, and that we are proceeding from here to our new home, but since this feels like just another trip to Rexburg, the reality of the situation hasn't yet fully set in.

So while this reality doesn't set it, we are having a great time playing with the kids and spending time around these parts. Today Chelsea and I took Austin and met Ashley and Kinsey at Rigby Lake to play around for a couple of hours. It was nice to hang out in the water. Tonight we'll have dinner, then the day will end and we will be one day closer to Washington.

While we were driving yesterday I got a call from the travel office at the shipyard in Bremerton. They were calling to say that our stuff was ready for delivery. Now, the truck driver already knew we weren't going to be able to get it this soon, but he still has to go through all the bureacratic steps to get our stuff into storage. Also during this call we were able to schedule our drop off for next Monday. That means we'll just have to live the weekend without our stuff. It's no big deal, though, because we brought sleeping bags and an air mattress along with some cleaning supplies and our vacuum. It'll give us some time to really get the place ready to accept our stuff as well as figure out how we want everything. It's an exciting new start.

Since I'm not at my computer I don't have any cool pictures to post here. I promise I'll get some up next time.

The Gypsy Lifestyle

2008-08-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it's done. We're out of our house as of last night. Now the only place we have to stay that doesn't rely on the kindess of others is the Landcruiser. Fortunately, we don't have to sleep in there thanks to the aforementioned kindness of others.

Right now, as we prepare for Shaun and Alicia's imminent nuptials, we are staying at my Uncle Bruce and Aunt Collette's house. Also, this blog is brought to you buy the wireless internet access of the same. (We wouldn't want to have to live without internet for even a full day, now would we.)

Yesterday the packers and movers made short work of the vast majority of our earthly possessions. Ours was the fifth load that was getting loaded on this rig, and after loading it was bound for the northeast. They had loads going to Portland, Kirkland, Silverdale and Bremerton.

So our lives are on a truck headed for Portland then Puget Sound. We will be following but at a leisurely pace. From now until Monday morning we'll be staying here at Bruce and Collettes, then we'll head up to Idaho Falls and Rexburg until Thursday morning. From there we'll split the drive into two parts, stopping in Spokane, Washington. Finally on Friday we'll get to our new house in the late morning or early afternoon. Unfortunately, our stuff will be in Bremerton well before us. The driver wanted to unload on Wednesday but since we won't be there until Friday, the stuff has to go into storage. I guess by Friday he already has to be picking up his next set of shipments. So as much as two weeks could go by without us getting our stuff, but that's alright, we have a few days worth of stuff. And if we get tired of staying in an empty house we can always cross the sound and crash at Wally's for a little while.

I'll keep you posted along our gypsy-esque wanderings.

New Tunes for the Landcruiser

2008-07-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

Well, the radio in the Landcruiser really started acting up. I thought that after 14 years it had paid its dues and it was time for a new one. I had planned on getting one later this year, maybe for Christmas or something, but the old one began displaying new symptoms so we decided to move up the schedule. This guy is packed with features. Of course, you can listen to the radio, and CDs, but this also has a USB connector that lets you connect your ipod and control it through the deck rather than having to play with the ipod while driving. I can also burn data CDs of MP3s and WMAs and store several hours of music on a disc. As if that wasn't enough I can also plug a flash drive full of music directly into the USB drive and then the deck becomes an MP3 player as big as the flash drive I care to put in it. There's also an auxiliary input so I can plug any headphone jack into it and hear it. Here it is, neat, huh.

Since installation at Best Buy would have been $95 including parts I decided to do it my self. I ordered the deck from Crutchfield.com because they include those installation parts for free, so I saved myself a bunch by being a little savvy with the electronics. But just in case you thought this might not be a genuine Tom Kruger installation, or (heaven forbid) I start to get a little too confident in my abilities, I made a mistake. In my haste to get everything together and get the auxiliary plugs wired, I forgot to plug in the antenna cable. That only means I can't listen to my radio stations, but everything else works fine. It's not a big deal. I just couldn't fix it today because I ran out of daylight. Pretty soon I'll have to take the stuff apart again and get it all together.

Anyway, it sounds great. Thanks Pioneer!!

Insomniac Newsletter

2008-07-14T23:20:00.001-07:00

I seem to be suffering from some sort of insomnia. Since misery loves company it seems fitting that I include all you members of the blogosphere in my nocturnal rantings.

For the last two nights I've tried in vain to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. It just seems that I lay in bed and continually turn over in my mind one subject--photography. While I do love photography, I think this is my mind trying to distract itself from life at hand. Chelsea and I sit poised at the greatest disruption in our lives since we decided to get married. That was a good change, and so is this, but even being positive, the magnitude of the change is immense.

Right now we are at the point where all you can do is wait and prepare. For the last few weeks the calendar has been doing most of the work while we just continued going about the business of going to work everyday and little by little getting the house ready for the move. It's a very impatient time. They say you should never contemplate the future at the expense of the present, but this is one case where there really isn't anything going on in the present. I only have a few work days left and unfortunately I'm not going to be able to get everything done that I wanted to. Chelsea also has only a few days left but there is so much going on at her work it wouldn't matter for their situation if she left today or in another month. They will struggle with her departure either way.

So we are living in the future while waiting for the present to catch up. We are looking forward to our new apartment, new city, new lifestyle, new (insert noun here). We will still have the Landcruiser, couch, and mattress, but the list of familiar things is very short. I think that's why I'm thinking about photography, it's familiar to me and it goes anywhere I can take my camera.

Of course, our perception of the future is so bright it's hard not to get lost in it. Chelsea will finally finish her stressful job. I'll begin my career that I've been working toward for the past seven years, and we will be living in a part of the country that both of us love. Hopefully very soon we will also have an addition to our family. Grandmothers, don't get too giddy, I'm talking about the puppy we both want very badly. We've settled on getting a Beagle puppy. Now we just have to wait until we can get up there and find a breeder with a litter, or at least one on the way. We've wanted a dog since we got married and we've put it off in the interest of school and work but now our lifestyle will be such that we can give the animal its necessary attention. Also, since dogs never seem to tire of having their picture taken, I'm sure this, and many other internet sites I use, will be choked with pictures of it.

But before we get to all these great new things that we are anticipating, we have to get through the move. Every move is going to be stressful. That's just the way it is. This one is no exception. Due to delays and being out of town, I was able to contact the travel office just last week. they told me that many times the move can be scheduled no less than four weeks in advance. That would put us moving on August 12. My landlord is expecting to take possession of the house August 1. I'm still crossing my fingers. Tomorrow morning I'm making another trip to Hill AFB for my household goods shipment counseling. This is where we schedule everything and find out if we are screwed or not. But no pressure. This may turn into a personally procured move, but either way we're out of the house the last week of the month. That means that in two weeks we'll be homeless for about 10 days. Should be fun.

Here's to the future. Now, hopefully I can get some sleep.

Degree!!

2008-07-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

My degree finally came in the mail!! Now it's really, really official.

Primed for the Move

2008-06-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

It's down to only two months until we are heading to Washington for an extended stay. Chelsea can't wait to finish her job, and I'm excited to start my new one. I've just started all the paperwork that is necessary to get the logistics of the move organized, and according to my contact at the shipyard, everthing up there is moving along nicely.

The weather here in Salt Lake seems to be sympathetic to our move. The past month has been unusually wet--almost as if to prime us for our new climate. Chelsea and I like the wet weather, so instead of priming us, maybe it's taunting us. I don't know.

For some time now we've been planning a trip to Oregon with my family at the beginning of July. Chelsea and I decided to add a side trip to Washington onto that trip. Let's just say that when it's time to come home from Oregon we'll be taking a less direct route. We want to visit Silverdale and Bremerton since we'll already be so close. It will only add 184 miles to the trip if we go there on the way home. At first we considered going sometime during the week, but since we only have a limited number of days with our family there we decided we didn't want to lose one. It'll add a day or two, but that's just fine with us.

Respect the System

2008-06-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things to think about in engineering is how the different components you design will interact in the system for which they are designed. Here's an example: your car is the system and lets say the engine, transmission, and axles are all components of the system. Any component alone won't even get you to 7-11, and you usually have to have them all to get anywhere. Not only do you have to design the components to perform well individually, but you have to design them to play nice with the other components.

Today's blog is about how I didn't respect the system.

In this case the system is my 1/10th scale RC racer, and the components are the motor system, transmission, and differential. As indicated in my last blog, I have recently taken the step up to a brushless motor system. The power is fantastic, but there is one little problem--the power can't quite get to the road. I installed this new motor without any regard to the condition of the rest of the drivetrain and it was too powerfull for the differntial in the car. Actually, I shouldn't say that it's too powerful, but that the differential was not in good enough repair to accept the torque. A little running in the yard, and a couple dozen laps on the track spelled the demise.

The problem is there wasn't enough tension in the diff to keep it from slipping. Slipping is bad. In order to correct the slipping I tried to tighten the screw and after only about 30 degrees of turn I heard a snap. Snaps are usually also bad. The snap turned out to be the first three threads of the diff nut stipping out. This equals toasted diff. So now, the car is sadly stationary until the parts come in. This works out well because this Wednesday I won't be able to make it to the races, so it's the perfect week for techinical difficulties. Fortunately, this service isn't that expensive. All the parts came to only $17. We'll be up and going in no time.

The Latest Race Results

2008-05-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last night, being Wednesday night, was RC race night!! I always have so much fun at RC race night. Even when the car breaks you have a good time.

The races are organized as follows. Three rounds are run, two qualifiers and one main. Your best time in either qualifier determines your starting position in the main. Different classes are run to separate drivers of different skill levels and cars of different capabilities. I race in Novice right now and soon I'll graduate to Stock Truck, then the next step is to Modified Truck, but I don't think I'll ever go that far because of the required substantial investment in the car. There are also the same classes for buggies and in the novice class the buggies and trucks race together. Racing Novice and Stock Truck is good because I can get away with the budget car set up and still be competitive.

Last night I tried something new. I changed my gearing from 3.52:1 to 4:1 and it turned out to work very well. It might still be a little low, though. Sometimes I'd hit the straight away, and when I applied the throttle I got after it a little too much resulting in some fishtailing.

I also had to deal with two breaks. Well, only one break and what I guess you would call a come-apart. Somehow I have this particular part on the car that a nylon locknut keeps coming apart. It's in the steering, so it can have bad consequences. Anyway, in the second round I was in a strong second and this part came apart. What rotten luck. When the results came out I was only 0.07 average mile per hour behind the leader. Dang.

The actual break happened in the Main. Of course. As if that wasn't bad enough it also happened when I was leading by about 1/4 lap. Double dang. It was a ball stud. I hit the wall, but I was surprised that it broke because I've hit the wall much harder without breaking anything. Unfortunately, when the stud broke, the threaded part stayed in the hole so I had to adjust my suspension to use different holes. If I break any more like this I will have to replace the rear shock tower. That's not a bid deal, though, at $5.

Next week will be a different race experience, though. I've decided to reorganize and consolidate my racing team. The RC18T is up for sale and those proceeds are going to pay for (drum roll, please) a BRUSHLESS SYSTEM for the XXX-T!! I really enjoy these races and they never race the small cars, so I decided to put all my effort into the big car. I've already bought it and almost installed it and I can't wait to run it. It's the Novak XBR system with a 13.5 turn motor. This is a budget motor that I can still race competitively in the stock class. It will handle a little differently from the brushed motor, so I'll have to take it easy until I get it dialed in. The step to brushless is a big one and this is long anticipated. The only reason it happened was Novak came out this this XBR sport system that is much less expensive than their GTB racing system, but still has the features I wanted. I can't wait to try it out!!

New Lawn Tractor

2008-05-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent some quality time at Grandpa's house. He was having some trouble getting his new lawn tractor working so mom asked me to go see if I could help him out.

It didn't take us long to get things squared away, so naturally we spent much more time playing with the thing than working on it. I think that's how it should be-5 minutes of work to 30 minutes of play. Just about right.

You see, this machine will be used as a tractor, not a lawn mower, so Grandpa had to get the cutting deck off. After he did that there was some little safety switch that kept the starter from going and we just had to figure out which it was. Like I said, once we got it going, all that was left was to take about 30 laps around the backyard. Lawn tractors are fun.

RACE 1000: Intro to Competitive RC Racing

2008-05-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first lecture in the RACE 1000 series. I say it this way because I got schooled. Bad. Don't worry, though, I had a great time doing it. My XXX-T was easily the grandpa of the track and the only one there that was still using a brushed motor and an AM radio system.

In an unfortunate display of bad luck I also had equipment failure during my first (and what would turn out to be my last) race of the night. It was the steering servo. Basically I couldn't point the truck in the direction I wanted it to go. I've never hit so many walls in my life. I had an extra at home. Lotta good it does me there.

the guys out at the track are nice, though. They were very helpful about telling me what to do to get ready to race. I also became aquainted with another guy that showed me some valuable things about how to set the truck up to improve the handling. Next time I race I think I'll be able to do much better.

Tooling around in the backyard with RC's is fun, but having a track and competing in races is so much better.

Yeah for Graduation Ceremonies!

2008-05-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally graduated. I'm doing this long enough after the end of the semester that I've also gotten the last of my grades, so I'll talk about that a little too.

Graduation day was really fun. It was a great chance to hang out with my wife, my parents, and my wife's parents for the day. In the morning I had to line up to march with my class. There were so many graduates that it took me a while to find some buddies to sit with. I didn't want to spend that whole ceremony with nobody to chat with. The main speaker was Mario Capecchi, who was honored this year with the Nobel Prize for his research in mamalian diseases. He spoke mostly on curbing the amount of CO and CO2 that humans dump into the atmoshpere every day. The University is making a huge deal out of this guy. They gave him another honorary degree and named a street after him and he's the kind of guy that seems to be more happy by himself in the lab than constantly being in the spotlight. He did make some good points about global awareness.

For lunch we walked down to the Union. I thought it was going to be very crowded, but I was wrong. There was less than a handful of others around. I had some chinese which was delicious. After lunch we went to the bookstore and took advantage of the graduation day sale they were having. I bought a new hoody and Chelsea bought some new lounge pants. Mom also bought us some stuff which was great.

After the bookstore we headed back up to the Hunstman Center where the engineering commencement was going to start. The previous graduation was still going on so we walked around for a while. Pretty soon it was time for me to head to the tunnel and get ready to line up to march. That was fun because I got to hang out with all my buddies from school. We took a bunch of pictures together and just spent time congratulating each other and ourselves. Commencement is really the time for us to celebrate together. I saw guys that I've known since way back in the day at Salt Lake Community College. It's been a long time coming, but I never regret the expense, the effort, or the difficulties I had to overcome to complete the process. Actually, the opposite is true. I'm glad for everything I went through during school. Without the process I coudn't have developed the skills I have now. My life is richer for the knowledge gained. I often say that engineering school has ruined me because I can't look at anthing the same way. The simplest of things inspire curiosity in my mind. Before school an airplane was fascinating, now it's completely mind-boggling, even though I much better understand the principles that make it work.

The next adventure in store for me is to learn about how gigantic navy ships are powered by nuclear reactors. All of science is simple principles and engineering is applying those simple principles in systems with others to accomplish great things. This is a great time to be an engineer.

New Car Body

2008-05-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

If you read my last post you would know that I have been thinking abou how I was going to paint my new RC car body. The one I had was the one that comes on the ready to run version, but the car no longer qualifies as ready to run since I've put many different upgrades in it. I wanted to update the look and seperate it from the ready to run cars.

I decided on a paint mask from a company called XXX Main called Tribal Flames which results in a neat three color design. Also from the previous post, I didn't have an airbrush for adding some extra depth to the design, but I'm still happy with the results. Here it is:

Pretty neat, huh.

Back to RC, Etc.

2008-05-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Society has some mixed up priorities. For instance, I've been trained to think that when school is in session, I should be spending more time studying and otherwise fulfilling my scholastic obligations instead of racing RC cars. Go figure. Fortunately, school is not always in session and I can spend some time playing.

I decided my big car (Losi XXX-T) needs some stuff that I didn't get a chance to get for it last year, including some new turnbuckles and a new body. The new body is fun because it means a rare opportunity to exercise my inner artist. There are many cool effects that can be done with these car bodies. The interesting thing is that they are clear and you paint them from the inside so you have to reverse the order of painting the design. This also make the finish look great. That ultra glossy shine is automatic since it's showing through clear plastic. This will be my second attempt at car body painting; my first resulted in a really neat paint job on my little car (Associated RC18T). The current cosmetic state of these cars is depicted well by this pic on an old post. ("My Racing Team Grows by One", June 2007) You can't really tell from the pic, but the big car's body is a little trashed. It's got a couple of tears and some hole and it's in a general state of disrepair.

So as I said, this gives me a chance to exercise my inner artist. I've decided to try some different techniques and masking systems to see if I can get better results than in the past. As a kid I build many plastic models and I never really got very good at it. I always had a hard time keeping the paint from bleeding under the masking tape and getting a good finish, but I think I have many strategies to avoid this. For one thing, I ponied up and bought good masking material. If you have to measure something, then the measurement is only as good as the measuring tape, and this is a similar situation. For masking I will be using special low tack masking tape made by Tamiya for modelers and vinyl masking material that is used by professional sign and graphics people. This last stuff comes from the roll end department of a local plastic supply on a 30" wide roll, so I can have nice big pieces to make a design then transfer it to the workpart. When I was younger I didn't even know this stuff existed. I'm excited to try it.

This same inner artist had an affair with an airbrush about 12 years ago too. I took a few classes from a guy named Chad Bailey, who is an extremely talented artist. (My claim to fame with his work is he used my airbrush for some background fading on one of his paintings, "Where Eagles Play".) Airbrushing is really fun, but I didn't stick with it for many reasons. For one thing, my parents weren't willing to allow me space in the house for it since it requires some kind of spray area inside. This continues to be a good reason why I still don't do it. I also sold my airbrush since I never used it.

At this point (if you are still reading) you may be asking yourself, "what it the world does airbrush have to do with RC car?" The answer is simple, airbrushes are the key tool for getting great car body finishes. (Here's an example.) Only a limited amount of paint for this application is available in rattle spray cans. If I had an airbrush I would be able to use dozens more colors and using the colors that are available I could mix other paint colors. Have you ever tried mixing two spray cans together? If you are really good you can mix it by applying light coats of the colors you want to mix, but this isn't nearly as consistent.

Anyway, I'm excited to try some new things.

At Last, Graduation!!

2008-04-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

The odyssey that began in August of 2001 is finally coming to a close. At long last I will be finishing my undergrad. Today I will take my last final in Mechanics of Composite Materials and the graduation ceremonies will be on Friday.

As with any major change I'm happy to see it come, but there are things about the student life that I will miss. Believe it or not, I'll miss the late night homework sessions and test study sessions. I'll miss the people that I've met during my undergrad and the friendships I have with them. (Another guy from my class got a job at the shipyard too, so I'll see him still.) I'll miss being on campus and constantly being exposed to new concepts throughout the course of the various semesters. This time has been very well spent, and now it's time to look forward.

In the future it will be up to me to decided what I want or need to learn. Hopefully, school has taught me more about learning that it has about engineering and I will be able to structure my own studies. The problem with this is that I'm no longer limited to engineering. There are so many interesting and important topics to study. For one thing, I haven't given enough time to scriptural studies. And then there's current events that must be considered in order to be a constructive member of society.

When I was a teenager I didn't like change, but serving my mission taught me (if nothing else) that change was the only constant, and that making life successful was not about moving in the direction you wanted but doing the most with the direction in which you are moving.

FrontRunner Grand Opening

2008-04-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I like my job at UTA is that I get to be involved in things that the general public has tremendous interest in. Sometimes that's a bad thing. It seems that the transit authority can't do anything right some days. But every once in a while there comes along a great historical event that is long-awaited for many. One of those events happened this weekend. On Saturday April 26, UTA held the FrontRunner Grand opening. This marks the beginning of commuter rail service between Ogden and Salt Lake, and hopefully the marked reduction in traffic congestion along the I-15 corridor in Davis County.

Last time UTA did something this significant was when the light rail opened between Salt Lake and Sandy. That was 11 years ago and 10 to 12 years ago few people would have believed the impact the light rail has had on the valley. I think that the commuter rail will have at least as great an impact. Most of the people I work with were around when the light rail service was being built, so they have been through a big even like this before, but I'm happy that I've been able to be a part of this historic event.

By 2015 the commuter rail will extend from Brigham City to Payson and it will change the lives of people all along the way.

The Overhaul is Complete

2008-02-19T18:33:00.000-08:00

Well, it's done. For the most part the job went without a hitch. The grease I got from John Deere for the birfield joints turned out to be great. It was the stickiest, nastiest crap I've ever seen. Fortunately, sticky and nasty is just the ticket.

The birfield joints did turn out to have some damage. There was some wear, and actually some pitting. Pitting is bad. It means that the joints are on the docket for replacement. At $650 a piece for two its a chunk of change. I believe, however, that the grease will serve to prolong the life for two to three more years. The damage was actually caused by the wrong kind of grease, and improper greasing. That is, I didn't find enough grease present in the knuckles to properly protect it. As a part of the job this weekend I replaced all the seals that keep the grease in the knuckle, and replaced a bunch of other parts that should give me another 80,000 to 100,000 miles. So the knuckles are good, but like I said, I will probably have to replace the axle joints.

The next project is to replace the blinker/headlight switch on the Accord. I already have the part, but I haven't changed it because I have to take off the steering wheel. I haven't done it already because there is a little challenge--the airbag. If I do it wrong the airbag could go off, which would mean a cost on the order of $1000, not to mention the possibility of personal injury. But not to worry, there are methods to this. As long as I follow the rules, there should be not problem.

After that, the next project is the power steering pump on the Land Cruiser. Replacement is $330, but I can rebuild it for only around $40 for all the new seals and O-rings. Once again, there is a great FAQ for this found on ih8mud.com.

I like to work on cars. My poor wife has to put up with it, but since I saved us $1000 this weekend, I'll think she'll cut me some slack.

Major Overhaul

2008-02-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

Here I sit on the eve of a major overhaul on the Land Cruiser. It seems that my particular Land Cruiser needs to have some front axle service. The main thrust of the job is that I have to pull out the front axle shafts from the front axle, clean them and repack them with grease. In the proud tradition of my fore fathers I'm going to do the job right. In this case, doing the job right means that since I have to almost completely tear down the front axle just to get to the shafts, I might as well rebuild the rest of it while I'm at it. Heck, why not, It's already got 156K on the clock and it will only give me more useful mileage, not to mention make the underside of the truck more pretty.

Now this job should take about 9 hours. I hope. Unfortunately, there must inevitable be some form of difficulty that will prevent me from finishing on time. I'll keep you posted as to what it turns out to be. I've been reading and re-reading the manual and the absolutely indispensable FAQ page on the subject from the ih8mud.com forum. This will only be my second time removing the brake rotor from a truck. For this job I will actually be removing the knuckle which is the thing that carries the front wheel and allows it to turn. It's undiscovered country for me, but I hope my map is as good as I think it is. This picture shows a cut away view of what I've got to deal with, the front axle. I will be dissassembling it, cleaning everything as best I can and putting it all back together. Like I said, I'll keep you posted.

A Little Light Reading

2008-02-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

With a new car comes a new auto manual. I have owned the manual for every car I've ever owned since my 1989 Mazda 323. That car really took me everywhere. It met it's untimely demise in Arizona of all places. It overheated really bad and warped the valves inside. That was right after I had changed the clutch. I did that work myself too, though it would go much faster now. I digress. Back to light reading. Today I got the Haynes manual for my Land Cruiser. I already had the Chilton manual (same type of book, just different publisher) which unfortunately turned out to be useless. For some reason the Chilton folks decided they would combine the Land Cruiser manual with the one for the Toyota T100 and Pickup. That's all fine and good, but the Land Cruiser is built so different from these other trucks that it may as well have been a manual for a Ford Model T. Since I've only had the Haynes manual for a few hours I haven't been able to really get to know it, but I know it has some helpful info about the major job that I'm planning: front axle rebuild.

Up until 1998 Land Cruisers were built with a solid front axle featuring full floating axle shafts.
Basically, this means that the drive train was built as beefy as 3/4 ton full size pickups. As I have said in a previous blog, the Land Cruiser legacy is found in African deserts and the Australian Outback and the truck was designed to handle it. This front axle rebuild will involve tearing down the front axle including the wheel hubs, steering knuckles, and axle shafts, cleaning it all, regreasing it all, and putting it all back together like the day it was first brought to be in that Japanese factory. I should be able to do it in one eight hour session provided I can get my loving wife to bring me some tacos about midway. The nice thing is I can do it myself. Last time I did something major on a car I got my buddy Ben to help me. That was a transmission swap and when you are flat-backing in the driveway for a job this major there is now way you can do it alone simply because the transmission weighs so much. I've been researching on ih8mud.com and have found a wealth of information about the job. Some of the guys on the site consider your first axle rebuild to be a rite of passage for Land Cruiser owners. Well, here goes nothing.

2008-01-31T21:51:00.001-08:00

*sniff*

Land Cruisers are Awesome!!

2008-01-28T21:46:00.001-08:00

I recently tried out this website I've know about for some time now. It's called Specter Off Road. They specialize in all things Land Cruiser. I just ordered some little things that I needed to give them a try. It was a fairly complicated order with lots of little parts and it was perfect.

The great thing about Specter is that they aren't just there to supply parts, but to further the cause. By that I mean spreading the good news of Land Cruiser. I mean, just listen to this slogan: "Specter Off Road, Drive a legend." How can you argue with that? Lots of people who drive these things drive them at least partly because of what they are--an icon. Check out this picture of an early Land Cruiser, an FJ55 to be exact. Vehicles like this conjure images of the African or Australian bush and this picture would not look amiss if it was in an arid climate and also pictured a tiger or kangaroo. Though Land Cruisers have become very luxurious, the heritage still lies in the bush. Specter Off Road has a great section on the history of the Land Cruiser. You should check it out.

Now back to my Land Cruiser. It's time for a little service. I need to replace some of the front axle drive components as the existing ones are worn out. It turns out to be a pretty time consuming job according to my sources. By the way, my "sources" are hundreds of posts on one of my new favorite websites, www.ih8mud.com. This is an online forum for owners of Toyotas (mostly 4x4's and Land Cruisers) that has become a valuable resource since I'm the type of guy that likes to get under the hood every once in a while. For some time now I've been stifling my mechanical urges because I don't have a place to work them out, but my stifle tank is full and it's starting to spill out into the house and on the street. Most of the guys on this forum elevate Land Cruiser ownership from utilitarian maintenance to a very enjoyable past time. These many posts have helped me to have a good understanding of what I should expect when I'm up to my elbows in molybdenum grease. I'll keep you posted.

Direction for the Future

2008-01-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

Now it seems my years of school are paying off. This weekend I was offered a job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. It's all very exciting. Chelsea and I have often thought that if we were presented with the opportunity to live in Washington, we would take it, and we are going to. Now all I have to do is finish my last semester at school. I will probably start in late August, so we still have some time to get things together after school ends.

Working at the shipyard will be an excellent way to start my career. Training is very important for the Navy and my first three to four months will be spent at different types of training. Also, the nature of the work at the shipyard is very diverse so it will offer lots of different experience. Since so much training is required, they don't like to lose employees and as a result, they tend to be open to allowing engineers to move around to different departments.

As part of the visit we were taken around the shipyard and shown some of the interesting sights. One of the more interesting parts of the tour was a descent into dry dock where a Nimitz class aircraft carrier was getting a refit. The ship was the USS John C. Stennis. (For more info on it go here or here.) We were able to go underneath it. Aircraft carriers, particularly Nimitz class, are enormous. They are more than 1000 feet long and 250 feet wide. When you are under it, it seems much larger than that. The flight deck is four and a half acres.

So now we have some more direction in our lives. This weekend we spent some time cleaning the house and took some stuff to DI. Now we are working towards a date instead of just assuming something will be coming along soon. For now nothing will really change. We just have to finish school and wait for the calendar to do most of the work.

Grades Are In

2007-12-27T14:12:00.000-08:00

Well, the grades are in. Once again I don't care for them. I had a big post where I bitched about them, but I decided I didn't want to post it so I got rid of it. Anyway, bottom line, the grades are in and mediocre as usual. I'm going to change my class schedule for next semester. I'm tired of getting mediocre grades for the effort I apply to it. I'm going to take some easier classes. Hopefully it will leave me more time to post.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

2007-12-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

Raise your hand if you remember Kenners.

I'm guessing that nobody is raising their hand. You see, when I was kid my dad had these old toys from when he was a kid called Kenners. They were little plastic I-beams and columns that you used to make building and bridges out of. There was also little plastic panels that you could put on your buildings to make them look realistic. Kenners were one of the ways my creative gene was cultivated. They were in good company with an Erector Set and a vast collection of Legos

This year for Christmas my little brother Shaun got me a set of Kenners. He found them on the internet under the name of Bridge Street Toys. I couldn't go to sleep until I had built a bridge out of them. Check it out.

Neat, huh. This is the bridge set and they also have a set for making buildings and another for making some type of hydrology plant. Neat stuff. Here's another pic. The little cement truck didn't come with it, I already had that.

If only I had the time to play with Legos also.

Controls Test

2007-12-13T22:40:00.000-08:00

Well that controls final was a real kick in the shorts. The first problem featured a motor system with a load connected by a compliant shaft (that means it has a little springiness to it) and some damping. Its your standard torsional mass-spring-damper--or is it? Not quite, since the spring and the mass are connected in series instead of parallel it introduces an extra degree of freedom to the system. I could not solve it. After I finished the test I went to a study room and worked the problem over a couple of times. Each time I kept getting three equations with four unknowns. It was really frustrating because I felt like this type of problem is my forte.

The next problem was a root locus. These are not normally that difficult. Dr Minor, however managed to find one that was tricky enough to fool even the brainiacs in the class. (I know because I stayed after to talk about it with them.)

I guess I'll check my grades in a couple of weeks. I doesn't really matter, I know I passed all my classes, we'll just have to see how good I do. Now I have some time to rest my brain for a little while.

Finals are Almost Done!!

2007-12-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Well, today I had my second to last final. I also turned in my design notebook and design report which marks the end of the semester requirements for the first semester of Senior Design. Now all that is left is to take my controls finals tomorrow at 1:00. I'm not too concerned about it, all I have to do is make sure I have all the formulas I need on my sheet.

This semester has been really great. Contrary to what everybody said, it hasn't been much easier that last year. Well, that's not exactly right, it was easier, but still very time consuming. Really, that's only because I'm a glutton for punishment. The classes I'm interested in are the tricky ones. I know there is a future in robotics and effort now will pay off well. Even if I don't work in robotics directly, I really like studying it because it combines all the best parts of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science.

Here's to nerdliness!

P.S. I've been thinking of buying a vintage slide rule and learning how to use it. Neat, huh.

Robotics Project

2007-12-07T10:31:00.001-08:00

This semester has been great. I've been able to take classes that I really enjoy. Since I'm a glutton for punishment the classes I want to take are also very time consuming. My two favorites this semester are called Advanced Controls and Intro to Robotics. They are extremely interesting. Controls deals with properly controlling systems to do what we want, like controlling a motor to move a lever to make the lever get there when you want and as accurately as you want. Another example of a control system is the cruise control in your car. Robotics deals with the math of making a robot go exactly where you want it to. Its a hard problem because you have to make all the individual joint angles add up just right to put the gripper where you want it.

The final project in that class deals with just this problem. The graph below show the trajectory of the end effector. That is, if you were sitting in a chair that the robot was holding in its hand, the blue line on the graph would be like a roller coaster track that you would be riding on. The red line shows the path of a block that we want to pick up with the robot.To make the robot do what we want, we split that blue line into 235 pieces and we have to calculate the joint angles at each of those individual points. Neat, huh. You see, that's why want to make a computer do the math. It would take us days to calculate all those numbers.
Here's a picture of the robot that this program is for. Its called a Puma 560. This picture is from a research lab at Newcastle University. These are really common in industry. Actually, they are becoming obsolete in favor of robots that have much more sophisticated control systems.

Next semester I will be taking the follow on course for Intro to Robotics. It's called Intro to Robotic Control. I know that sounds like almost the same thing, but its not. It will take some of the elements from this class and the controls class I'm also in and build on them. For instance, we will learn force control. Here's an example: Imagine you want the robot to write on the chalk board. You have to be able to control the position of the chalk very precisely while at the same time making sure the robot is putting enough pressure on the chalkboard to make marks. What a trip. Unfortunately the real fun of robotics happens at the graduate level. I'll be back to school sometime.

50 Years in Space

2007-10-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

This week I have been reading all about space travel. 50 years ago the Russians launched a rocket into space carrying Sputnik, the first artificial satellite placed orbit. Most of the articles I've read this week talk about how space innovation was sparked by Sputnik,was continued for a long time, but has since dwindled. They also talk about the emergence of space a s a private sector pursuit. The common denominator among this discussion is that space is an untapped resource. While technology has put our entire music collections in our pockets and made the world's learning accessible to anyone who knows how to use Google, space missions are still being conducted on the aging shuttle. Innovation has slowed to a crawl when it comes to space.

This lack of innovation has been blamed on NASA, but I think that's a short-sighted point of view. NASA can only do so much when its funding is constantly being reduced or withdrawn by congress. The actions of congress are really reflective of the nation as a whole. And that brings us to the more important point--American values have shifted and national progress has been displaced by the desire to have the next smaller cell phone or X-box 360. To try to curb this trend a few members of the upper echelons of the technology industry have begun to put up their own money to make space a reality for everybody.

In my opinion this is a great time to be a young mechanical engineer. These industry leaders are pioneering the future. Hopefully looking back on the launch of Sputnik will spark a new wave of innovation in space and hopefully I will have the opportunity to participate in this wave.

Fall Always Brings New Changes

2007-09-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

As my blog atrophes from neglect my life continues to roll forward. Since my last writing I have started a new job, a new school year, and bought a car. But overall, I'd say nothing new is happening. The new job is a very interesting new opportunity with Utah Transit Authority. I'm working in the Capital Developments department, but more specifically in Facilities Maintenance and Design. Since engineering is like law in that you are a constant student of your art, this is as much an educational situation as a professional situation. That being said, my boss and teacher, Crosby, is giving my ample opportunity to learn new things. Crosby is one of the very few other mechanical engineers around here and I can tell that he has the same appreciation for science that I do. He likes to talk about the interesting science that goes into rail design and yesterday he used a breaker point engine distributer as an object lesson. I like the people I work with and the work is interesting. It's a good combination.

As far as school goes this semester is shaping up nicely. It's my second to last semester which has sort of given me a second wind. It's that last burst of effort before the end of the race. my classes are intro to robotics, finite element analysis, advanced controls, and Senior design. For senior design we are building a portable telescope. It's a very interesting project and as is frequently the case, it is much less trivial than we thought it would be. I will post updates about the project here as well as on the class wiki site. It definitely promises some interesting experience.

Now, as for the new car. Even as a lad I believed this vehicle to be one of the coolest ever conceived by the mind of man--and now I own one. Mind you, I can only afford a 13-year-old one, but the one I got doesn't show its age. At this point you may be asking yourself "what could this magnificent vehicle be that even at 13 years of age it commands this level of praise?" The answer is simple: Toyota Landcruiser. From 1991 to 1997 Toyota made what is known as the FJ80 and FZJ80 Landcruiser. During that time I was a teenager and made a regular practice of drooling on these when they were late models and now I have my very own. For almost 50 years Toyota has been building Landcruisers and selling them in every corner of the globe. They have been the vehicle of choice on several Antarctic expeditions and have been to almost every other god-forsaken place on Earth. All of the abuses suffered during these long years have earned Landcruiser a reputation for near indestructibility. The Landcruiser that I bought appears to have spent most of its life in Sandy, Utah making runs to the grocery store and soccer practice. As much as I shake my fist at the idea of buying an SUV for this sort of service, I am glad for it. It means that there is still a great deal of useful life remaining in it and I plan to use it all.

The Purchase of the Landcruiser also marks the end of an era. For the last five years I have thoroughly enjoyed my 1986 Toyota Pickup. My wife viewed it as her main contender for my affection. Of that's just some exaggeration in the name of fun, but it is difficult to sell. That truck has gone everywhere I steered it, and brought be back safe. It is time, however to face the facts. The truck doesn't allow for family expansion and road trips in the summer time surely result in heat exhaustion. By comparison the Landcruiser rides like a Mercedes and has eight seatbelts. Plenty of room for everybody.

Change is good.

Wasatch Crest Trail Ride

2007-07-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy weekend. Chelsea and I went to Palisades Reservoir for the 24th of July weekend and had a great time with her family. Since everybody was taking pictures but us I can't really put anything about it up yet.

Just before we left on that trip, however, I went on the longest bike ride I've ever been on. I went with Jack, a friend from school. If you follow my blog, you would know that Jack and I were on a robotics team together this last year. Anyway, both Jack and I like to play outside so we decided to go hit this trail. The trail starts near Guardsman Pass, which links Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Park City side of the mountain, and it followed the ridge line over to a lake known as Desolation Lake then down through an area at the top of Mill Creek Canyon that is heavily populated with trails. The Dirt part of the trail ends at the top of this canyon and the ride is completed by allowing gravity to take you nearly 10 more miles to the bottom of the canyon. In all the dirt ride is about 12 miles and the canyon is about 10. It was tough. The hardest part (thankfully) is right at the beginning where you climb a very steep grade that has been nicknamed Puke Hill. Bear in mind that the hill was given this name by fit bikers. The bike computer said we did a total of about 3.5 hours of riding (not including breaks) and I felt like it. I hadn't had much to eat so when we finished I was really hungry.

Here are two pictures from the trip. Jack and I are in the first one and then there's me and my bike. The background is Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Fancy-Shmancy New Treadmill

2007-06-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

In keeping with our desire to constantly improve our health, this week Chelsea and I bought a brand-spankin' new treadmill. Also, as indicated in the title, it is fancy-shmancy. Here, you can take a look at it on Health Rider's website. I know it may seem like a dumb idea to spend a lot of money on working out indoors in June. At first thought that would be right, but when you think about it for a little while it will make sense. Buying stuff off season usually turns out well. We were going to buy one this fall, but we found this one now. It was on sale for half price, which works out well, because the half price ($700) is about what we thought we wanted to spend. I don't think we'll get much mileage out of it over the next few months, but that's fine, we'll make up for it this winter. This is one of those things we'll have for a long time.

Maybe we can buy road bikes in January.

My Racing Team Grows by One

2007-06-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'm finally posting about my second RC car purchase. I've actually had this car for a couple of months now and it's really fun. It's a Team Losi XXX-T. Here's a picture of the two cars together so that you can see how much larger the XXX-T is than the RC18T.

The XXX-T is in the 1/10 racing class while the RC18T is in the 1/18 class. There are advantages and disadvantages to each class. For one thing the larger car is easier to drive and control during jumps. but components for it are more expensive than for the little car. Racing the little car is also a rare opportunity since few people have them. Also, the local track is designed for 1/10 cars and sometimes has a tendancy to beat up on the little car. It has been a champ, though; the amount of beatings it takes without breaking is impressive. Don't think I do it on purpose, remember how I said it was hard to control on the jumps. The car is only 9 inches long and will easily fly 10 feet off of some jumps. The XXX-T doesn't get that kind of air, but that's mainly because the motor is not as hopped up as the motor in the RC18T.

Another downside of the RC18T is that I can't seem to keep the steering aligned. It's a constant battle. There is no sense in using the trims because a hard landing or bump into the wall just knocks it out again. The XXX-T on the other hand, never seems to be out of alignment. I've crashed that thing into the wall and thought for sure turnbuckles or A-arms were broken but it was alright and not even out of alignment. I think the problem is Associated's design for the servo saver. It's just not as accurate, though I do have to admit it is very durable.

Recently the reciever in RC18T has been acting up. It's range is down to less than 15 feet. I don't what is wrong with but all the indicators are that it must be replaced. Chances are that I won't replace it for a while. Right now I would much rather spend money on the XXX-T, I have more fun with it. Also I still haven't entered it in any races. I was going to do it once school ended but since I still work nights it hasn't worked out. Soon I will race to see how it does.

The Next Chapter in my Brother's Life

2007-05-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, today I helped my older brother Byron finally pack all their possessions onto the largest Penske truck you can get without a CDL. He and his young family are leaving tomorrow for Indiana and a whole new experience. For more than a month now they have been living at
his in-laws while his family's near future was worked out. At first they were going to move from Salt Lake to Ogden, a scant 40 miles or so, but when that didn't work out they decided that they would try Indiana, a bit farther away. You see, Byron's father-in-law has been living out there since about the beginning of the year with the intention of moving the rest of his family out upon completion of the school year. So even though it seems random, it's not so much.

So Byron and I spent the better part of four hours today loading this truck. James, the oldest son at just about three, amused himself by continually asking me what I was doing. I told him that if he asked me the same question every ten minutes for the next three hours I would always say the same thing: "moving stuff". His watch was fast though, and after what must have been one or two minutes he figured it was time to ask again. Micheal, at just over 18 months, wanted to see what it would feel like to pull an appliance dolly down on himself. It didn't turn out as well as he thought it would. Finally, Emily, at about two months old, didn't do much of anything except make sure someone was holding her at all times.

At last the truck was packed and one of Byron's former coworkers came to help lift the piano on the truck. We celebrated the initial packing of the truck with dinner at a little chinese spot in Clearfield and headed for Bluffdale. My wife met us in Bluffdale and we spent some time with them while we could.

The most difficult part about seeing them move is that we won't get to be around the kids. Last year we went to Island Park, Idaho for a week and the whole family was very disappointed when we found out that they wouldn't be coming. Despite that, it's a great opportunity for Byron and Kari.

Also I was happy that Byron, Shaun and I were able to go on a hike on Memorial Day. We hiked to Grandeur Peak and had a great time. Byron said its a good thing he was able to go to the mountains since Indiana's highest point is something like 1500 ft. Here's a pic of us at the summit (that's Byron, Shaun, and I from left to right). Thats what the Salt Lake Valley looked like at 8:00 am on Memorial Day.

Semester Results and An Eye to the Future

2007-05-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

It's now been a little while since my last post. I hope you all enjoyed my little special edition on the mechatronics competition. Now the grades are out and I get to see how I did. Unfortunately I had my worst semester since... well since I started really caring one way or the other. Here's how the dice fell: Mechatronics, B-; Heat Transfer, B-; Design Methodology, B-; and Intermediate Dynamics, D.

I think that the two largest factors resulting in these grades are the excessive amount of time that was required for the robot and the time I spent grading papers. Either one alone would have been harmful but the combination proved insurmountable.

Now I look to next semester. My schedule is laid out already (including an extra class to cover the D that I can't count for graduation) and since I have already quit grading papers the only challenge for me now is to come up with the money for tuition. I guess it's fortunate that I'm not a scholarship recipient. I would surely have lost it.

As far as money goes I've been trying to get some things going. It would have been nice to be able to start this process during the semester but it was impossible. I've been trying to get a job driving a mixer truck. Last week I applied at Jack Parsons and Geneva Rock which are two of the largest concrete suppliers in the valley and hopefully one of them will call me for an interview. I haven't finished my CDL test yet due to flakeage of others and now I want to wait to see if I hear from any of these companies. I don't want to spend $300 for nothing.

I also found out that I didn't get into the BS/MS program up at school. It's ok, though, that means I only have one year of school left. Since it will be my last year for a while I must start looking for a real job. In fact, if I can get one of those now I will keep it next year, but either way next years grades will be better than this years and hopefully increase my GPA. Once I finish and find work Chelsea has decided she wants to finish her accounting degree. I think it a great idea and I totally support her.

I'll try to keep you posted on the various summer activities until school starts again.

Team Zoolander, The Saga Comes to an End

2007-04-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

First let me tell you about the team name. The robot is programmed to follow a line and during the testing phases (actually, the day before the competition) the robot was successfully making the right turns, but for some reason when it got to a left turn it would go straight or actually go right. Hence, since the great male model Zoolander struggled with the left turn, at the last moment we unofficially dubbed ourselves Team Zoolander.

Here we are. From left to right, I'm first, my name is Tom Kruger, then Jack Stites and James Murray, and of course Jack is holding Zoolander. The event was held in the Union Ballroom at the Olpin Union Center nestled right smack in the middle of the University of Utah campus. The competition was part of Mechanical Engineering Design Day which is were the department gets to trot out all the cool projects they have been paying for. All the senior design projects are situated in a gallery adjecent to the ballroom (to the right in the photo above). This year there was everything from a mountain bike for people who have suffered spinal injuries to a powered long board to on and off-road race cars. No kidding. Anyway, enough about them, this epic is about the rise of Zoolander.

If you would direct your attention to the next photo you will see the track itself. Since the design of the robot is based on what the track was expected to be, I will explain the track first. It is designed such that four robots compete at the same time. Each robots must navigate the course on their own by either following the black line that can be seen the bottom left or by following the walls. The object is to get from the starting block to the two step pyramid in the middle, climb the pyramid, and stay on top before two minutes have elapsed. The trick is that in each robot must overcome four obstacles: turf, gravel, sand and water. Also, if the first to get to the top of the steps gets knocked off, then king of the hill rules apply and whoever is on top at the end of the round wins.

In order to tackle the step we devised a multi-degree-of-freedom system that we believed would make the competition tremble in their very shorts. The fancy jargon "multi-degree-of-freedom" just means that it can do lots of stuff and look really cool doing it. Unfortunately it also means "very complicated". The credit goes to Jack for being able to put the robot together. Between his ability to build and my ability to create strong descriptive solid models (computer models) we were able to develop the idea. You should read my previous posts for more information on the design process and for an example of a solid model. Its in that post where I talk about Autonomous Solutions' Chaos which is the poster child for this type of system.

Once we got the bot built we found that it was not strong enough to stand the way we thought we wanted it to. Also, it wasn't high enough off the ground to even tackle the smallest obstacles. To compensate we placed a large idler wheel right behind the sprockets. This raised the bot enough that we thought it would be able to get things done. For the most part we were right, but we still had struggles. Also visible in this picture is the battery. We were given an RC car battery for the project but we needed something lighter. Enter the battery from the RC18T. This little guy gave us better performance than the big one we had been issued. It was nearly one third the weight and it was a nickel-metal-hydride which is widely accepted as superior to nickel-cadmium which is what we were given. Why it's better is a whole blog by itself and I would rather treat that in a blog about RC racing rather than robot racing. Maybe I'll get to that one. On the other hand, maybe not, its a snooze-fest.

In the last paragraph I kind of flew past the point that the robot was too heavy to move the way we wanted it to. We didn't find this out until after six months of design and build. I don't think I've ever felt such intense frustration. I was ready to bag the design and throw together another chassis that we could at least use for line following. Jack, on the other hand, wouldn't hear of abandoning the design. No matter what problem we hit he always thought we could get around it. And we could to. If we had no lives and vast coffers we could make it work. Just look at Chaos. I said it in a previous post, but Chaos is the effort of bankrolled professionals with graduate degrees and years of experience. Zoolander is the best effort of three ME undergrads who were willing to make sacrifices to make a design work on a sparse budget. By sacrifices I mean grades. I can think of at least three assignments that didn't get turned in because we were working on the robot.

Before I talk about the competition outcome I'd like to take this opportunity to poke fun at one of the TA's. I apologize for the quality of this picture, but it was kind of taken on the sly. You see, this guy has had these headphones surgically attached to his head. I've never seen this guy without them and he's usually got at least one ear in them. As you can see, this was in the middle of the competition and he was a judge, but that wasn't enough to get him to leave them in his backpack.

The robot picured in the last picture was the one that took second place. It was the only one to successfully climb the stair, but took second due to some operator prodding. The winning team didn't climb but got all the way to the step and made a solid attempt at a climb without operator intervention.

All in all, no robots completed the entire course autonomously. It's strange actually, because I saw a team complete the course a week before. The problem is the excess of infrared light. You see, fluorescent lights do not give IR, but sunlight reeks of it. The ambient light levels in the Union Ballroom were off the charts compared to the lab and there just wasn't time to compensate due to the disorganization of the project and competition as a whole.

Disappointment about the competition was expressed by many at the event. While my disappointment in the project as a whole is undeniable, I am pleased with our robot. Now looking back it is obvious that our design was doomed from the beginning. It's the sort of situation where you don't realize what you don't know until you try to do it. We poured everything we had into Zoolander. We gave it all we had and it still didn't work. If it had worked at 80% effort then that's all we would have given it. Instead we tackled design obstacles we never even dreamed about at the project conception. The best way to learn about hot is to get burned, and the best way to appreciate the value of a simple design is to kill yourself making a difficult one. The lessons I have learned about hard designs will serve me more than winning the competition.

The Home Stretch

2007-04-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well, we have almost made it to the end of the semester. For better or worse it will all be over in less than 2 1/2 weeks. The robot competition, however is sooner than that. Next wednesday, April 25, is the Mechanical Engineering design day, which means thats when the robot has to be done. Let's see, today is the 16th, so that leaves only 9 days. It's time to work a miracle. The design has come across several stages since I last posted, so I'd like to showcase the current model. First, we replaced the track arm manipulation motors with servos which are easily seen in this photo:
At first the servo was directly attached to the largest gear that you see there, but it proved inadequate. This was a surprise to us since the servo is so strong that you can't really force it by hand. Anyway, we didn't want to lose the cost of the servos so we decided to hack them. Servos use a little device to tell where the arm is so that it can be controlled by the radio transmitter (which we are not using either). What we did is take out that little guy and replace it with the same type of component, just hopped up on steroids. It's the thing just behind the big gear with the wires coming out of the top. This thing tells us where the track arms are just like it would have worked in a standard radio system. The trick here is that the robot brain is what really needs to know where the servo arm is. That way we can give it a routine to perform beforehand and it can do it by itself.

Another change we made was the addition of another roller on the top of the arms. The idea behind this is reduction of the force required to lift the bot. It decreases the amount of leverage that is necessary. Here's a good picture of them:
Between these and the servos, we should be able to make the arm concept work.

Another challenge we are tackling is that of teaching the robot to navigate. Really all it has to do is follow a line or follow walls. The ones that follow walls do so by having little feelers on the sides. This method is much easier but having the track arms makes it impossible for us to use this method. Our line following array is built, but it's kind of hard to interpret the signals it is providing to the computer. Basically, the array consists of five little eyes that can tell the difference between black and white. They will be following a black line on a white background and the robot must be able to steer according to what eye is seeing the line. We should be able to at least have something by next Wednesday.

This has been a good project. If I had it to do over again I would certainly not make the project so elaborate. It has gotten several oohs and aahs for its craftsmanship, but that won't matter if it doesn't do what its supposed to. Wish us luck.

New Babies Galore!

2007-04-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the last few weeks have seen two new babies in born our family. My brother's wife had a little girl two weeks ago, and my wife's sister had one towards the end of last week. It's fun to see new babies, but my wife gets a bigger kick out of it than I do. I like children, but when they just sleep, eat, and poop they aren't that interesting. When I have my own it will be different.

In the last few weeks I have discovered the best part about newborns (at least I think it the best part because it gets so much discussion) are the spitups and various other bodily expulsions. The detailed descriptions of the color, consistency, and frequency over the dinner table really lighten the mood and provide top notch entertainment. I don't think I would have enjoyed my blade roast at all if I hadn't heard about the spitup that bore a strong resemblance to thin oatmeal. Pass the potatoes.

RC18T Update

2007-03-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I took the truck to the dirt track and raced it around a little bit. I was fun, except that the larger 1/10th scale cars see this little one as a sort of speed bump. The truck ran great and let me tell you, it took a beating. There was a couple of times that I thought for sure it would be broken by the time I got over to it (like when you get off center in a jump and it ends up cartwheeling down the track). Fortunately, the most damage of the day was a little tire mark on the body, which is more like a glory scar than damage. On the straight-away it could really go, but I was disappointed to find that it was about equal with a slightly modified 1/10th scale buggy or truck.

That was on Wednesday, and thursday through sunday we went to Chelsea's sister's house in Idaho for a little break. Naturally I took the RC to play with it. So Thursday night I got to playing around with the motor controller and really managed to mess it up-or so I thought. I found out that the motor had gotten programmed in reverse and I was having fits getting it to work right. Finally I had to leave it alone until Friday mornining when I could call the Castle Creations (the guys that make the motor and controller) Tech support. We sorted out some issues that I was having with my radio, like you always have to reverse the throttle channel when using Futaba radios, and the fancy anti-lock brake feature that my radio has will not work with this brushless system. Anyway, the point is the settings on my radio were preventing the proper operation of the motor system. This also explained some of the cars schitzofrenic behaviour. And at long last the motor and controller are properly programmed and playing nice with the Futaba radio system.

The great thing about all this is that it turns out that it was programmed to only run at 50% in reverse (which I thought was forward), so it was only running at 50%. Now that I got it fixed I know what 100% looks like and its downright dangerous. I wouldn't even be comfortable running it at full speed on the road in front of my house. The first time I fired the motor after fixing it was in my sister-in-laws living room and I gave it so much gas it wheelied right over on top of itself. I would not even be able to get it up to full power at the track. Not enough runout.

Now that I have fixed the warp drive, I have some concerns. The unfortunate plastic drivetrain parts are now not long for this world. The rear differential outdrive is already showing signs of deformation. These outdrives are definitely the weak link, so they will probably be the first to be upgraded. MIP makes equivalent parts that are made of hardened steel (slight upgrade from plastic), but they cost like it. They are $15.00 per differential and I would need two for the truck. I don't mind doing one at a time, though.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying this car. As I said in a previous post, I've wanted to get into this for many years.