Legos

I should have told everyone to buy stock in Legos this season. GP got Lego Universe (PC-based MMOG), and CP got a motorized walking AT-AT. GP's lego game is taxing the old laptop - it's pretty graphics intensive and needs a lot of horsepower. CP's AT-AT had over 1100 parts. We had read reviews of it that said to expect 8-12 hours of assembly time. As we unbagged the parts, my level of concern kept climbing.

CP started after lunch and worked all afternoon on it.

After 4-1/2 hours, he had his AT-AT walking along. I just hope that it doesn't become a dog toy - the dogs HATE it.

Christmas

GP got into bed with us @ 4:30 this morning. He was too excited to sleep, so he figured he would let us in on his excitement. We managed to contain everyone until 5:40. In the boys' minds, that's close enough to 6:00. They dressed themselves in their new Boston shirts and were ready to go, as can be seen in the picture.

Dinner was nice, as usual. Ate too much, as usual.

Christmas Eve

This year we have Nana here for X-Mas. The O's came over Christmas eve.

Santa's little helper.

Helpful Kitty

JP is knitting a sweater for the dog. The cat wants to help, too.

CSSBB!!!

This week I gave my presentation to the UNL Six Sigma Black Belt certification board and received the piece of paper that says I'm now officially certified as a six sigma black belt. I was never planning on it when I started back to school, but it worked out with this last class (4th stats class in a row) and I figured that it was now or never.

Now that the semester is officially over, I'm ready to relax and get a life again! JP has plans for me - exercising, finishing the basement, fixing the one strand of lights on the xmas tree, etc.

If you're clueless about what six sigma is: wikipedia article
Or interested in getting certified: UNL Engineering

Old Tron

Last weekend we had a movie viewing party at the neighbors' for the original 1982 TRON. This weekend we're all heading out to see the new "Tron Legacy" Everyone is stoked for some good scifi action. Hopefully it won't be over the top slo-mo kung fu fighting and bullet dodging. We're wanting more video game connections like in the orginal.

In Production

The other day at work, I received a big box full of these circuit boards. It made my day! This is the first circuit board that I designed from scratch that has made it into production. I'm not an electrical engineer, nor do I play one on TV, but it is fun to dabble in.

What is it, you ask? It's a multi-purpose tachometer signal conditioner. It accepts pulses from a wire wrapped around a spark plug wire, a normal NPN switch, or a switch contact closure and converts the pulses to solid 5-volt pulses that can be used by other instruments. It also converts the pulses to a proportional voltage signal, and it has an alarm output that can be used to turn on/off whatever you need if the speed falls below a setpoint. It runs off of 9 to 30 volts AC or DC and cannot be hooked up backwards.

I love my job!

Holiday Spirit

CP turned his nerf rifle into an M-16. It looks like he's ready for the holidays in the holy land.

Farewell Katrina

This morning we put down Katrina. She had some dental surgury and wasn't able to recover. Turns out she had severe kidney problems. She was 6 and a survivor of Hurricane Katrina.

When we first brought her home from the cat rescue lady, all she wanted to do was to be near our faces. She climbed our legs and climbed up JP's back when she was tying the boys' shoes. Any time we sat down, she was immediately in our laps. I don't think JP ever ate breakfast without Katrina sitting in her lap.



All of us will miss her. She followed JP around the house all day, sat in our laps at night in front of the TV, and slept under the covers with us. Valentine will probably miss her the most.

Thanksgiving

This year we tried something new for Thanksgiving - we went to JP's cousin's house. What a joy it was not to have to cook & plan! We can't wait for next year. I wonder if they'll do Christmas, too. . .

New Wimpy Kid

Tonite we went to B&N for the release party of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth." GP had a good time. The rest of us browsed and each found several hundred dollars of books that would be nice to read.

When we left the store we were greeted by a full on snow storm. I had to clean the windows of the van with my hands - no scraper in the car yet - it was 70 degrees last weekend!

Choir Concert

CP had his first choir concert this week. The pic is a bit blurry from the phone cam, but you can pick out our boy - he's the tall kid in the back row just right of center.

Robotron!

I've been playing Robotron on the Dig Dug machine, but the monitor is arranged vertically and robotron is a horizontal-format game, so the screen comes out fairly small. Too small for such a legendary game.

Last Sunday it was too nice to lay around and watch TV and I was burned out on my school project, so I found a piece of scrap plastic and made a new control panel for Pole Position. The kids were the only ones that played it, and I think we'll get more play time out of the joystick control setup.

I recycled JRO's Chinese Hero control panel artwork, joysticks, and buttons. What a game! My hands hurt from cranking on the sticks.

Barber Mom

JP got tired of shelling out $15 for bad haircuts, so she took matters into her own hands and gave GP a nice haircut with the clippers. The cat & dog were very interested in the whole thing.

Halloween

This year the CP went as the Terminator, and GP was Jason, and I was wishing I had taken a hat with me when we went trick or treating. It was cold and breezy.

2010 Cub Scout Rocket Launch

We had a perfect day for the annual cub scout rocket launch. Both boys are now able to setup their own rockets. The wind was down to 10 mph, and we only lost one that drifted out into a cornfield.

Gramma's Funeral

Saturday was devoted to the whole reason we went to Utah - Gramma's funeral. She lived a truly fantastic life and went quickly without pain or suffering. I hope someday I can do the same.

As usual for any big family get together, the S family provided all the live entertainment.

Good bye Gramma. We love you!

After a long day, it was face down time on the table for GP.

Family

After Snowbird, we went to uncle O's place to say Hi. Little O was to be married on Sunday, so Aunt A was busy trying to put everything together. A wedding and a funeral in the same weekend!

After Uncle O's, we went to R & JP's place for a shrimp boil. The boys were uber impressed with RP's firearms and civil war stuff. They have a new real-life hero that competes head-to-head with the xbox.

TB says "If you'd just take off that other sock, I'd be able to fly around the room."