Christmas Cookies

The boys helped JP make a batch of cookies. They are actually almost helpful now that they are getting so big.

This year's gingerbread house came out looking great. The boys completed most of it themselves.

Christmas Picture

Here's our 2008 Christmas picture.

Geologist Badge

CP completed the Webelos Geologist requirements at a nice program put on at Pioneers Park. We had a beautiful day compared to the last time we were here. The sun was out and the wind was nonexistent.

CP's friend is into hunting as much as CP is into WW-II, which is how much Forrest's friend Bubba was into shrimp.

Quiet Day

Today was a quiet day inside. It was cold (but sunny) out, and we are all still recovering from the long Thanksgiving weekend. This morning we cleaned up the basement. I took 5 huge cardboard boxes to the recycling center - their usefulness had been used up after being cars, planes, bunkers, etc. This afternoon, JP had the boys assemble their foam gingerbread house.

We put up all the Christmas stuff this past week. The house looks great. All we need is some real snow and it will really feel like Christmas. We had snow last week, but it only stayed around long enough to make driving hazardous in the morning.

Today I worked on the Tempest cabinet all day. I ended up giving everything a second coat, due to the translucent paint. I still need to install the glass properly, but all in all, it is looking pretty good. One of the guys at work gave me a non-functioning 60W receiver that is now functioning and pumping out the sounds of Tempest. Next step: upgrade the speakers and add a bigger hard drive so that it will function as a jukebox.

With the Tempest machine installed, my man-cave is nearing completion. I need to find a beer fridge...

Thanksgiving 2008

We went back to Illinois to the Grammas' house for thanksgiving. They had all the Christmas trimmings out and ready for the holiday season.

I took the boys for our obligatory trip to the dollar store in Savanna. We scored an H&K 94, a S&W 459, and two MP-5's all for $12. The boys took them on our hike (mission) to the top of the sentinel at the Palisades.

After the hike, we broke ice in the river for an hour.

We woke up to snow on Sunday for our drive home.

Pie in the Face

GP was the Den 11 popcorn sales leader, so he got to smash a pie in the face of the pack cubmaster. Fun! Fun!

HE Lives!

The FSM is coming to life on the Tempest machine! I think HE will look much better than the original demons.

The side art is going SLOW. As usual, I underestimated the effort. The good news is that I'm making progress. In another week I should have most of one side complete.

RAmen

Mame Cabinet Paint

Today I tore down the Mame cabinet and relocated it into the basement. It's too cold in the garage to play or work. The 22" monitor needs to be remounted more securely. JP doesn't like how it's mounted now. She doesn't like it so much that she offered to buy me a new 22" LCD display. Where was this offer before I jumped into CRT repair? Now that I have the CRT working, there's no way I'm going to abandon it.

I have been searching desparately for som hi-res side art pictures of a Tempest cabinet. The best I found is 500 x 1000 pixels (0.5 megapixels). I tweaked it a bit so that it just shows the lines between different colors and printed it out full-size. It came out 5 sheets wide by 8 sheets tall. I trimmed the sheets and taped them together then used JP's steam iron to transfer the ink onto the side panel. It almost worked as I had hoped. The lines are barely visible, and the paper stuck to the wood in some spots.

I got the orange outlines painted tonight. It's going to be a challenge, but I think I will be able to pull it off. The original design has several mean-looking demons in the middle. I'm going to try to swap them out for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Webelos Naturalist

Saturday, I took CP out to Pioneers Park to earn his Naturalist pin. The park has several programs tailored to the scout program requirements. We had a guide that showed us all the natural things outside. I was really impressed with his knowledge.

Last weekend, it was nearly 80 with blue skies. This weekend it was in the 30's with a solid 25 mph wind. We dressed for it, but I would still prefer something warmer, sunnier, or less windy for a three hour walk in the woods.

The boys got baclavas this year. They wear them everywhere. I'm surprised that they don't sleep with them.

Windless Rocket Morning

This morning we had blue skies, frost (supposed to hit 75 today), and absolutely no wind. I loaded up all of our rockets and the boys and headed to the outskirts of town (a mile away) to launch our big E-powered rocket.

Hobbytown has all of their Aerotech rocket motors on sale for 50% off. I picked up an E-15. Wow! I'm ready for some more big rockets. This one is about 5 feet tall, and it flies really well. It's so big, you can see it during the entire flight. The E engine makes up for the weight, and it probably goes as high as our little rockets.

The E engine doesn't roar like an H or J, but it does shoot out a nice flame for quite a while. We ended up shooting this one three times. On the last shot, it returned to the pad, and I was able to catch it before it hit. Niiiiice.

We also launched two stages of the Comanche-3. The booster used a D-12, which popped 2 of the three fins off when it staged. For some reason, the rocket curved from vertical when it cleared the pad, and it landed half a mile away, even with a streamer recovery.

What a fun day!

Halloween 2008

This year, the boys didn't do much for Halloween. GP recycled his A. Skywalker costume, and CP put together his army clothes and went as a soldier. We toured the 'hood with our neighbors and their kids. The best house was GT's, where we all got Budweiser products. The best costume was our next door neighbor, who went as that maverick, Sarah Palin.

Gimpy Hairwash

With his cast on, GP cannot wash his own hair, so he gets the same treatment as the dog.

CRT Repair 101

This morning I tried my hand at CRT repair and not only managed to avoid electrocution, but also revived the dead 22" monitor I had for the mame cabinet. It took a little bit of nerves to stick my screwdriver under the suction cup that covers the high tension anode to discharge the tube. The aligator clip that I had clipped onto the screwdriver snapped off just as I was starting to go under the insulator. The sound it made was exactly like a spark. Jump!

It took a bit of sweat to get the beast mounted, but it was well worth the effort. The picture is super clear, super bright, and really big. Niiiice. I still need to get the smoked glass and marquee.

The cat's favorite seat is JP's knitting bag.

GP Breaks His Arm

Last night GP broke his arm. It wasn't on the trampoline. It wasn't from swordfighting. It wasn't even from skatebarding. He broke it on a Barbie house.

He was running in the neighbor's basement and ran into a big barbie house and then fell on his wrist and broke both the radius and ulna. So far it has been exciting, but I think that at some point he will realize that he wants to play video games more than he wants to show off his arm.

Stupid Wind

Today we went out to shoot the rockets that we did not shoot yesterday at the cub scout launch. It was windy, but I found a field that gave us a full half-mile of recovery space.

At first it wasn't too bad. We shot a couple of low-power engines that arc'd over, but still landed downwind. I felt confident that we could shoot my big black rocket with an E engine, but even with rocks holding down the launch pad, the wind was too strong. The 1/8 launch rod was bending.

We gave up on the big rocket and went back to GP's little one with a large hole cut out of its small chute. I chased it a quarter mile. Stupid wind.