Lincoln Field Trip

I took a day off this week to go with CP's class on a field trip to downtown Lincoln.



We saw the County/City building, a fancy architectural firm, the main library, and went on a fun walking tour of downtown.

Deck Construction

The inspector came out and signed off on our footer holes and explained that we really did not need to have dug-out footers, despite what the guy that issued our permit told us. We anchored the posts to the patio and finished up the holes.

All the neighbors like to watch the slow progress. They all seem to think that it's funny to come by with cold beer, knowing that I have 6 more hours of work to do.

Today we poured the concrete footers. I think we used nearly 20 sacks of concrete for 5 footings. Next time we will rent a mixer.

Tomorrow we'll hit Menards for some 2x10's.

GP's Tooth

GP had three wiggly teeth. After yanking one out, he now has two.

Last week we had almost two inches of rain and the wind blew 30 mph non-stop all week. On Friday we had giant snow flakes mixed with the rain. Saturday morning the wind stopped and the sun came out and we had 70 ° with absolutely no wind all day. We worked on the deck and got sunburned.

Back from the Dead

We have not posted anything new lately - the hard drive on JP's laptop committed hari-kari and refuses to succumb to my amazing powers of resurrection. We lost all our family photos from October 2007 forward. Note to self: "Time to start a periodic backup program." Fortunately, I uploaded most of our Utah vacation photos to our web album, so all is not lost. I bought a backup drive a couple years ago, but it's full of junk and needs backing up itself.

Besides trying to rescue files from a dead hard drive, this past week I put in some CAD time and completed our deck plans. I haven't done any CAD work in quite a while, and I've never done anything architectural. I'm used to working with fairly detailed manufacturing drawings and my deck plans reflect that. When JP took them downtown for approval the guy laughed at them because they are somewhat oerkill for a deck project.

The drawings turned out to be OK and we got our building permit. Today we go to Menard's to start the real work. Step one will be to buy a hammer.

Utah Vacation - Day 1

We left Easter Sunday for sunny St. George, Utah, for a fast-paced (would we do it any other way) 3-day vacation with Gramma & Grampa. After breakfast, we grabbed the 4-wheeler and big wheel (sand motorcycle) and headed for the dunes at Sand Hollow park.

The boys were a little more than excited to ride around. The weather was absolutely perfect and the scenery even better. We had blue skies, orange sand, snow on the mountain, clear water, and 80°. The concept of public lands is good for the soul. JP & I rode up on top of sand mountain to take in the scenery.

Too bad St. George isn't a hotbed of engineering jobs.

Easter Sunrise

As usual, the boys were up before the dawn on Easter. The Grammas were here, so we had a real sit-down dinner and the Easter bunny came and went and left some goodies.

Springtime orienteering

Today we went orienteering with the cub scout pack for our March activity. Last year at this time, we enjoyed blue skies and warm weather. This year it was cloudy, cold, and breezy. JP gave up after CP took her neck gaiter. I think she enjoyed watching the snowflakes from inside the van.

The boys all had fun, as they were bundled up and more active than the adults.

The Grammas arrived Thursday on their way to OK City to see RK. He got home last week after serving in Iraq.

That's the way we've always done it.

Sorry, no pictures - I just need to vent a little.

The official Nebraska motto is "That's the way we've always done it."

This week the Lincoln city council voted to keep their tradition of allowing council members to have business contracts with the city. Their reasoning: "That's the way we've always done it." The news girl covering the story kept talking about it as if it was an issue of fairness, not ethics.

Our cub scout cubmaster has his own goofy way of choosing which dens do what during the monthly pack meetings. This entire year, the tiger cubs (1st graders) have done everything while the older, more capable boys have done nothing. The tiger cubs can barely read, much less do skits and group demonstrations. When I suggested that perhaps the older kids should be doing the more age-appropriate activities, I got "That's the way we've always done it."

This is the land of the eternal comfort zone. If change scares the pants off you, come to Nebraska where you can stay the same forever and ever.

CP's new Look

CP is growing up and has joined the 4-eyes club. He's fired up about his new glasses.

Paper V-2

This weekend we worked on GP's balsa Hawker Hurricane and finished up the paper V-2 that has been sitting around for months. One of the cool things from the 'net is the availability of card models. Just download and print and you now have several pages of small parts to cutout and glue together to make something big. Most of the V-2 was OK, but last night I worked for an hour assembling one of four steering vane assemblies (1/2" x 3/8" made of several pieces of paper). This morning I found it smashed, so I decided that the other three were not worth the effort. I found plans for a 36" paper model of the USS Arizona. It looks like it would require more work than I am willing to spend. Besides, within a month we will be starting on our deck, and then a MAME cabinet, and who knows what else. We have so much planned for summer already, I almost feel like it's over before it has started.

Last trip to the Zoo?

Last weekend was nice and we all had a bad case of spring fever, so we headed east and hit the Henry Doorly zoo in Omaha.

As we wandered around, I couldn't help to wonder if this would be our last visit to the zoo. Our annual membership is up in April and the boys are getting older and don't get into it like they used to.

Interior Decorating

JP took the neighbor girl to pre-school the other day. Katrina claimed the car seat as her own.

JP has been working on finishing off the living room. I think we are just about there.

Morrill Hall and New Wall

I took GP to a b-day party at Morrill Hall (the Nebraska State Museum at UNL). We were supposed to go ice skating with the cub scouts, but who can pass up Morrill Hall?

Every time we go to the museum, JP & I pretty much chase the kids from exhibit to exhibit without getting a chance to read anything. I took advantage of GP being locked in with the party and wandered about and read all the things I have skipped by in the past. I even hit the gift shop and did not have to listen to "Dad, can I get this?" over and over and over and over again.

Saturday morning, JP started hounding me about building a coat rack for the laundry room. Friday, she went to Lowe's and found some bomber coat hooks and an oak plank. I put the power tools to use and hacked out a coat rack that should be able to withstand the boys. It's amazing how it changed the look of the little room.

Just another weekend

This weekend got off to a great start Friday night at the cub scout Blue & Gold banquet. CP won a medal for his pinewood derby dar: "Best Non-Car." He was up against a cell phone, a block of cheese, a wii remote, as well as several other non-cars. Of course, GP was bummed that his P-40 did not win.

Saturday CP & I built a big 1/48 scale B-17. GP built his own 1/72 Harrier and adamantly refused any help. He's very proud of building his own plane.

Saturday was beautiful and in the 40's. I tried to fix our garage door opener; it has an intermittent fault that makes opening the door a challenge at times. It looks like it may be a faulty circuit board relay that will have to wait for another day.

Last week our tax refund arrived, and JP let me run over to Guitar Center to get my birthday present. I spent 2 hours there trying different guitars and still could not decide. I had my heart set on a metal shredding machine straight out of 1984, but all that I tried did not live up to my expectations. None of them were significantly better than my $100 used Ibanez. I went back the next night without the need for a whammy bar and brought home a beautiful Schecter Hellraiser Tempest. All I need now is some talent.

Nebraska's First Ever Democratic Party Caucus

Tonight we made history as participants in Nebraska's first Democratic Party caucus. Instead of just going to the polls and voting, we went to the country club lodge with all the other 75 registered democrats in south Lincoln. We split into two groups, one for each precinct, and went into separate rooms. We then divided into three groups: Clinton, Obama, and undecided. Speakers from each group then tried to convince the others to vote for the better candidate. JP spoke up for Obama from our group. Of the four people that spoke up, three were from Illinois and one from Texas. Once the undecided folks decided, we then counted heads and found that Obama won 2:1, which matches the results for the entire state.

We brought the kids along to let them experience politics in action. They were unimpressed with the event, but were very interested in eating dinner at the country club.

Funny to think that I was a proud member of the teenage republicans in high school. Did I change, or is the world changing?

TP's 40th

JP Threw a big party for me last weekend. I think everyone was ready for a mid-winter party. We went through our scrapbooks and pulled out some funny photos from the last 40 years.

JP managed to light all 40 candles without burning herself. Pretty good for someone that usually burns herself when pulling tater tots out of the toaster oven.

The highlight of the evening was when I got to open my gift. JP bestowed a new addiction on me: Guitar Hero III. It has taken over my free time. I thought it would interfere with trying to learn the real guitar, but it hasn't.

The game features the song "One" by Metallica, a seven minute plus heavy metal song. The song is beyond CP's capabilities, so he plays it in practice mode on the slowest setting, which means it takes about 20 minutes to complete. He sticks with it and gets most of the notes. I need to get a microphone for him so that we can record his performance on video.

My favorite songs in the game are "Number of the Beast" and some crazy sped-up song by Dragonforce. I have conquered "Easy" and have moved to "Medium." I need to start practicing to get to get to "Hard."

Sunset

Lately, I have been leaving work as the sun goes down. We have the most spectacular sunsets here. The sun warms the colors so that all the prairie grass glows red, and the darkening sky brings out an almost ultraviolet tint in the snow.