1st Day of School (Again)

This year both boys are back in the same school. CP is driving them both, so JP has her mornings back to herself for workouts. GP is a freshman this year and he's loving it. Except for his math class, but he'll get over it.

Pizza on the Grill

While in IL, JP picked up a glazed pizza stone at Williams Sonoma so that we could keep up with our friends that have one. It, plus JP's bread dough, makes for the best thin crust pizza in the world. 

The boys eat them as fast as they come off the grill.

Last Trip of the Summer

JP took the boys to IL for one last roadtrip before school starts next week. They hit Galena and had fun there, as usual. They ate at an Italian restaurant that JP and I have always wanted to take the boys. I wish I could have been there.

GP resisted temptation and bought nothing! He's saving his funds for a new video game system for his birthday. 

10 Years

It's hard to believe that we've now been in Nebraska for 10 years! I forgot the whirlwind that surrounded our move here. I had been working for a week and living at the Holiday Inn in Beatrice while JP packed the house and helped the movers load our hoard into a truck. I flew home and JP picked me up at O'Hare and we drove to Lanark to see the gang there one last time.  

We celebrated with lunch at McFarland's Irish restaurant down in the Haymarket. The boys found that they love Irish food. Except for the peas.

When we moved to NE, the boys were small and my hair was dark. The only one that hasn't aged is JP - she looks the same as she did 10 years ago.

Snowballs in Summer

JP's snowball bush is going crazy this summer. 

Her roses took a beating last winter; she had to trim them way back. All of her TLC has paid off and they are back into full blossom production mode. 

Bye Bye in the Car

This summer we've been spending every weekend at our ex-neighbor's house & pool. M doesn't like the water, but she does like to go with us. She starts to get excited when JP pulls out the pool bag and towels. Some days it's just too hot for a black dog to be out in the sun, so M gets dunked in the pool. When she gets out, it's straight to rolling in the grass to get the smell of cleanness off of her.

Sun Deck in the Sun

The sun deck summer project has been our slowest summer project ever. I think it's because it's not very technical - just dig out the sod and fill it in with stones, right? All of our other projects were thought out, planned, drawn up in CAD, and budgeted. This one has been scraping along with no real planning or funding. 

We finally got the 96 blocks for the edging put in place. A $15 diamond saw blade on the circular saw was able to cut 51% through the thickness of each block. We built a fixture to position the blocks for the second cut on the backside to finish off the other 49%. We still need to get the top layer of gravel hauled it. Right now the deck surface is 4" below where it should be; it's just the crushed limestone base now.

Speech Camp

This year LSW didn't host the summer speech camp; instead, it was held at UNL. The boys packed up their suitcases and lived on campus in a dorm for the 4-day event. When they arrived to check in, they were a bit apprehensive when they only saw the sign for Wrestling Camp on the door. It didn't take them long to realize that there were other summer camps going on (cheerleaders & girl mathematicians) and the dorm was filled with kids from all over. They had a blast and are now ready to leave home and live at college forever. GP was enchanted with the dorm food. 

Thanks Gramma & Grampa!

Tulsa Hard Rock

JP took a few days to go down to Tulsa to see our old neighbor and her daughter. They stayed at the Hard Rock Casino. JP Loves casinos and the nightlife! Just ask her.

Rocket Boy

Our neighbors' nephew came to Nebraska for six weeks this summer again. He's a really cute kid and full of endless energy. We took him to shoot rockets last year and he loved it. This year we built a classic Big Bertha (thanks B&B!). He gave it a custom green paint job (his favorite color). As the launch date neared, the wind forecast looked sketchy, so I picked up some B engines instead of the usual C's. The wind was blowing 10-15 mph the night of the launch, so we enlarged the hole in the parachute to ensure a rapid descent. After shooting an old rocket as a test to see how far the drift would be, we shot the Big Bertha. It was a flawless flight and a safe landing. We were able to repack it and shoot it again without incident. We had a happy rocket boy that night!

Summer Fun

CP has been enjoying the company of a cute girl this summer. We went down to the Railyard for movie night and caught American Graffiti on the big screen. I forgot what a good movie that is! I gave CP some $$ and told him to go and have fun, but 10 minutes later they showed up and sat with me throughout the movie.

July 4th at the Pool

We all headed out to the G's place in the country for a mellow day at their pool. BG brought his lizard out for some sunshine on the rocks.

We brought dough and everyone brought some pizza toppings. CG cooked up a dozen of the best pizzas ever on the grill. 

July 3rd Fireworks

Now that our ex-neighbors have their pool, the place to be on the 4th is not here anymore, so we celebrated on the 3rd. We had a beautiful day in the 80s with our current and ex-neighbors.

CP's girlfriend even came over and hung out with us all night.

Sun Deck Progress

With the long 4-day holiday weekend, we put some major effort towards the sun deck. We ran some conduit from the deck to the far side of the new space so that we can have lights and tunes out there.

Thursday we had 5 yards (13,000 pounds) of crushed limestone dropped off in the driveway at lunchtime. The boys helped out and by 6:00 we had moved it all to the back yard. Next we need to compact it and lay in the border blocks, then we'll fill it with the finish gravel. 

Backyard Summer Green

Our trees are finally doing what they're supposed to do: block the view of the neighbors. The cottonwood we planted a couple years ago has passed up the maple and river birches.

JP planted the flowers she received for helping out with the speech team. They've taken over their pot on the deck.

Anniversary

This year the planets aligned once again for our anniversary like they did when we got married.

We took the boys downtown to the Rodizio Brazilian grill for dinner. All you can eat meat - they were in heaven.

Pinball!

I spent last week in Detroit Rock City (for work). The highlight of the trip was a place we went to for dinner. They had nine pinball machines is perfect working condition! I was in heaven. All the flippers and bumpers worked on every table. I could have played all night.

Pool Season!

Our rainy spring is giving way to some perfect days. Hot, humid, and no gale force winds. It's dry enough here that even at 95°, you'll freeze when you get out of the pool. That's why JP won't get out for hours on end.

San Clemente

We spent a few days in the community of San Clemente. It sits on the western flank of the Imbabura volcano. Population: 180 descendants of the Incas. They live traditionally and have embraced tourism as a means of bringing in some income in order to keep up with the bustling world around them.

Our group split into threes and we stayed with families. For four days we helped out around the house and ate their food. I LOVE Inca food!! We had different varieties of corn and potatoes with every meal along with fresh mint tea and exotic fruits.

Our hostess, Nancy is on the left. Christina, one of our guides is on the right. I always thought that the Inca dress was just for show. Nope - it's their daily dress throughout the Andes. The women purchase the white shirts and then add the embroidery to match their skirts. 

The house next door to where we stayed was where our host was born. His mom still lives there and keeps herself busy cooking and making yarn from their llamas' wool. She always had a huge smile and was fun to chat with, even though she spoke more Quichua (original language of the Inca) than Spanish. She said she likes sheep more than llamas because they are edible. 

One afternoon I stopped by to say hi and she tossed me a smoking hot ear of corn right out of the fire. It was tasty and would have been mind blowing with just a bit of butter and salt.

I asked our host if I could buy some llama wool from him. He produced some yarn. Through a protracted discussion in spanglish and hand language, I was finally able to explain that my wife wanted raw wool (with all the dirt and sticks in it) so that she and her friends could make yarn themselves. He thought it was a strange request, but obliged me anyways with a big chunk of raw wool.

San Clemente was my favorite part of our trip. The people are beautiful, the landscape is breathtaking (as is the altitude of 9,000 ft), and their lifestyle is totally relaxing. 

GP's Weekend Away

GP Spent the weekend with his friend at a cabin on The Lake of the Ozarks.

He doesn't do well away from his family, but I'm sure he had fun, despite himself.

Before and After Ecuador

I'm still going thru photos from Ecuador. These are from JP's phone. Before and after pics of the group in the airport.

GD Open House

Our next door neighbor invited us to the General Dynamics open house yesterday. CP and I went and had a great time. The Lincoln plant produces filament-wound pressure tanks, launch tubes, rocket motor casings and rocket body tubes. Most of their stuff is made of carbon fiber, but they also use fiberglass and kevlar filaments.

We got our picture taken in front of a Patriot-3 rocket body. If you look close at the upper end, you'll see a shiny section that has a bunch of little round things. Each of these is a single-use rocket engine that can be fired to provide last-instant guidance as the missile intercepts an incoming rocket. In the lunchroom, they had some amazing videos playing showing all the GD products in action. It was something out of a Dick Cheney wet dream.

I'm used to seeing sales literature for mowers or general manufacturing components, not products designed to kill and maim. This flyer is for a 120 mm Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot Tracer round. It has a big tungsten rod that can go thru anything. Muzzle velocity: 5200 feet per second!!!

Ecuador 2015 Snapshots

Yesterday I arrived home after spending 16 days in Ecuador with a group from the UNL Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. There were 14 of them, two guides, and a chaperon (me). We started in Quito and went north to Otavalo, Ibarra, and Salinas. We stayed a few days in San Clemente on the flanks of the volcano Imbaburra. 

We then crossed the Andes and dropped into the cloud forest. We spent a night in Tena near the Napo River and then took planes from Shell 100 miles east into the absolute middle of nowhere near the Peruvian border. We hiked and canoed and hiked some more further into nowhere to the settlement of Tinkias where we spent 6 days.

We got to see piranhas, tarantulas, and giant maggots in the rainforest, as well as plenty of mud and rain.

One of our guides was a professional photographer (Dean Jacobs - http://www.deanjacobs.org/) - I can't wait to get the shots that he shot for us. Until then, I put together an album with some of the photos from my own snapshot camera.

Click here for more snapshots: Ecuador Pics