No more dyed hair

When GP got his hair dyed at school, it did not all quite wash out. JP's yellow sofa did what shampoo could not - get the black dye out of GP's hair. We had to unstuff some cushions and wash them. Valentine was happy to help monitor the stuffing for us.

Busy Weekend

Friday nite I stayed late at work to finish up part of a project I've been working on - a microcontroller-based blade stop timer. It measures how long it takes for the blades on a mower to stop spinning. One of the challenges has been that the 8-bit microcontroller is not well suited for doing heavy-duty math, and part of my program is that I need to do a little bit of math. I ended up writing some routines that allow me to work with 128-bit numbers. I can now add/subtract/multiply numbers from zero to 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456. Nice.

Our project for Saturday was to replace the 4' x 5' window above the front door. Sometime during the winter it started to crack on the inside pane. Our builder gave us a new window and said good luck. At first we thought that we would have to peel back the siding and pull it out from the front. Turns out the replacment was only the glass thermopane (no frame at all) that we could replace from the back side without tearing apart the entire window.

It has been rainy and in the 50's all week. Friday nite it started to clear off, and by 8:00 Saturday morning we were back into normal Nebraska weather - windy. It blew 30 mph non-stop all day. JP & I popped the old pane out and nearly dropped it as we were trying to hook up some slings to lower it. The wind was pressing hard on the 2800 square inches of 70 pound glass. We hollered for CP to go get CG from across the street. He came over and helped up lower it safely. After that, we realized that we needed to close all the windows in the house so that the wind wasn't trying to blow thru the window.

I went to the home depot for supplies and found that the eight-year old battery in my car had finally died. JP & the boys came to my rescue with jumper cables. CG came over again to assist with the installation of the new pane. It was spooky, but it went in without a hitch.

Notice the wind-blown small maple. It blew non-stop ALL day. After the window, we cut the grass and then went to Sam's Club for cookout supplies and a new battery (only $65 !). We had CG & family over for a cookout.

New Webelo

This week we had our final pack meeting for the year at the outdoor education center (OEC). BG & GP are now officially Webelos. Only two more years!

The OEC is east of town and is a beautiful facility owned by the local scout council. Their main offices are there as well as meeting rooms, a nice climbing wall, and some campgrounds. Thursday nite I helped out with a climb - I need to help out with five climbs before I am officially a climbing instructor there.

Growing Like Weeds

Both boys ran in the Mayor's run again this year. It's a one mile run around the state capitol grounds. I think every kid in Lincoln shows up for it. We were running late, but were able to make it all the way from our place up there in ten minutes. That's what I love about Lincoln.

CP finished up his B-29. He painted everything as well as doing all teh decals himself. What's next? Must be the B-36...

JP volunteered me to work a shift at the boys' school's family fun night recruiting potential new scouts for next year. GP went with me and had a blast. Not only did he get his face painted, but he also got his hair painted green & black. One of the raffle prizes was a football signed by both Bo & T.O.. We didn't win.

Omega Racing

With the warm weather and sunny afternoons finally here, I can work in the garage again. The first project of the season was to get the spinner on omega race working. I used an optical mouse and a cardboard disk. Simple, but it's working great.

I installed a 21" flatscreen CRT monitor in it last fall. The PC & hardware went in this spring. I still need to build a wheeled base so I can move this thing around and raise it up so a normal size person can play it without stooping over.

Springtime

The animals are all shedding their winter coats.

The first storm of the season passed just to the east of us. To the west we had a beautiful sunset, to the east it was swirling black clouds and a tornado warning. Straight above it was a mix of blue sky, thunderheads, and the moon.