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

How Bumpy is It?

This morning I got my latest datalogger project running like it should. I added a tri-axis accelerometer (glued onto the main circuit board) and a GPS puck. I'ts logging all three axes of acceleration 50 times per second plus a GPS fix twice per second to the micro SD card.

The little inset map is a plot of driving. Red indicates zero mph. Green is medium speed, and purple is fast. We can also overlay the acceleration values to see where it's bumpy. 

We're going to use this on a new soft-ride mower to see if people drive their mower faster when the ride is smoother.

Worthwhile Cause

The UNL Sig Ep fraternity that I'm chaperoning has set up a website for the funding of our Ecuador trip. Click here: GoFundMe. We've nearly reached our goal of $58,000 for taking 15 guys on a two-week expedition. If you have extra cash that you're wanting to throw into the wind, please consider a donation to our cause. I'll put up another post with the details of the trip. 

This is Dean, our fearless expedition leader in Achuar territory. When he's not globetrotting, he gives speeches at schools in Nebraska and Iowa to motivate kids. He's a very dynamic leader.

60 Megapixel Ecuador Map

This week I created a 60 megapixel relief map of Ecuador from the digital elevation data I've accumulated. I was able to use our plotter at work and plot it out in large format (36 x 42") on glossy paper. It came out amazing!! DM next door is going to get it dry-mounted so that we can give it to Dean Jacobs.

The whole map includes portions of Columbia and Peru to the north and south, respectively. The black portion is the Pacific ocean. 

Below is a full-size detail of the area surrounding the active Tungurahua Volcano that's in the middle of the overall image above. The dataset used has an elevation point every 100 meters (330 ft). For large area maps, it's decent, but for details or low-relief jungle areas, it breaks down. I found a dataset that has three times the resolution; stay tuned for some higher resolution maps.

Busy Night

This past week was non-stop every night. Monday we went to Omaha for plates and camping gear. Tuesday I had a late dinner with a supplier (at The Lodge - it was yummy!). Wednesday we had Dean Jacobs, the leader of the upcoming Ecuador trip, over for dinner. Thursday was the night of ceremonies.

I went to CP's Speech Team Banquet and awards ceremony. What an amazing bunch of kids!! It was sad to see the seniors make their last appearance on stage.

JP went to GP's choir concert. From there she ran over and caught the last half of CP's ceremony where she was awarded for helping out with the upcoming national tournament in Lincoln in May.

Friday we took it easy and watched the stormclouds from the G's deck out in the country.

Patented

The patent we submitted in 2013 was finally approved!

It's for a control system on our commercial mowers that controls engine speed with an electronic governor. It's marketed as Exmark RED Technology. Helps to save fuel as well as reducing wear and tear on the clutch and engine.

Exmark RED Video

Next Project

Last weekend we began destruction on our next construction project: a sundeck in the back yard.

We've been talking about this for a few years. We leveled out a spot for the kiddie pool a couple years ago and used the area for the lounge chairs. We're going to enlarge it and put down some nice light gravel that won't burn your feet.

Easter Saturday Brunch 2015

Our friends, neighbors, and ex-neighbors joined us for our annual Easter Saturday Brunch. This year we were able to seat all of us at one big table.

The fruit bunny was tasty, as was everything else. 

The uneaten fruit was recycled in the blender and made into fruit smoothies.

Because we went to such lengths to fit everyone inside, we had spectacular weather all day. Everyone worked on their pre-season sunburns.

New Dining Room

The problem with Easter is that it's in the spring. We never know what the weather will be like for our Easter Saturday Brunch. This year we turned the living room into the dining room with seating for 20.

Of course, the dining room is now a much smaller living room. The sofas fit perfectly.

King of the Road

CP finally received his driver's license!!!

Here he goes on his first day of driving himself to school. Hard to believe he was such a little kid when we moved here.

Spring Break 2015

I had to take a miserable trip to the west coast of FL for work. It was awful. 80-something degrees. No snow. No cold wind. Had to use some sunscreen to keep from getting burned. Loud music. Too many girls in bikinis crowding the dance floor and blocking my view of the gulf.

Someday we'll be able to go there for vacation instead of work. It's a fun place, but staying on the beach and having to get up early for work aren't compatible activities.

New Stairs

This week the carpet guys came and installed our new stairs carpet. We were going to go with all wood, but after we tore out the old carpet we realized that wood stairs would be too noisy. The cats' dragging their toys up and down in the middle of the night was loud enough to wake us.

St. Patty's Day 2015

This year St. Patrick's Day fell on a Tuesday. Our neighbors invited us downtown to hit the Irish pubs that had blocked off a street in the Haymarket with live music. We were still dragging from our trip and the sudden return to reality and work and getting up early, so we stayed simple and joined the G's at the local watering hole for some green beer and an early night.

New life for Old Grill

The other day we were at the Home Depot and found some nice Weber cast iron grills to fit into our grill. They almost fit - it took CP an hour on the bench grinder to coax them into place. Our 10-year old grill is like new again! Time for outdoor cooking season.