Mead supplies are on their way

According to fedex, the rest of my supplies should be here on saturday. I should be starting my first batch of mead by sunday. :)

The honey is here

I have 24lb of blueberry honey sitting here for my mead. Now I just have to wait for the yeast to be delivered along with a few other things.

Mead supplies are ordered

Last night I ordered 24lb of blueberry honey. Once that gets here along
with the other equipment I ordered, I'll be ready to make my first batch
of mead. I can't wait to get it going. :)

Gallery is back up

The galleries are back online after an upgrade last night.

Jeep repair

Well, after backing the jeep into the snow yesterday trying to get to the trailer, I cracked a brake line. So me & fred spent some time today making a ne brake line for the jeep. It was a success and I'm glad we did. The line was pretty corroded.

Photo gallery is down

I have an issue with the galleries right now. I am working on resolving
it. They will be offline until this is resolved.

It looks like i'm finally a brewer....

Well, since Santa brought me a winemaking starter kit, I have no excuses
now when it comes to making meads. I've been reading about it for years,
and now it's time for me to see how I do at it. :) If all goes well,
maybe I'll have some mead or wine for everyone to sample at Quest.

Website facelift

The website got another facelift today. One of these years I'll settle
on something, but right now this makes the most sense...

Fw: Mail from Stafford Township School District

You have got to be kidding me! Ok, it snowed last night. I get that. The roads are pretty clear and there's no reason to close school. These school administrators need to grow a set already!

---

From: "Stafford Township School District" <none@staffordschools.org>

Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:45:01 -0500

To: <joe@irvinefamily.org>

Subject: Mail from Stafford Township School District

Please be advised that the Stafford Township School District will be closed tomorrow ... Monday ... December 21 due to inclement weather.  

The official snow fall is....

24" in my front yard. This is only the third time ever I recall that
much snow falling around here.

After shoveling about 1/3 of the driveway I had enough of it (60 foot
driveway). I turned around and shoveled a path to the Jeeps and fired
them up. I then used the black one (which has new A/T tires on it as of
last week - talk about good timing) and worked it back & forth, chewing
up the snow till I got decent traction. I then plowed through the snow
bank at the road and mashed it down a few dozen times. Man, did that
feel good...

I told my wife It's time for her to learn to handle a 4x4 in limited
traction conditions, because it's gonna require 4wd to get into our
driveway for about a week till the snow starts to melt. It's not
supposed to get more than a couple degrees above freezing for the next 4
days.

Now, where did I put that "Jeep parking only" sign? :)

Snow...

Well, I can sort of tell where the walkway and driveway that I shoveled yesterday are. Just barely. There has to be a good 2 feet of snow out there. I am not looking forward to shoveling all of this.

snow.. and more snow...

Well, I just went outside and the snow is up to my knees. I'd say we're
gonna see 2 feet of snow out of this storm. It;s not supposed to stop
until sometime in the morning.

On the plus side, Katie and I just had some real snow cones. All I had
to do was step outside and scoop up a big bowl of snow. :)

I hate snow...

I just got done shoveling and salting the walk and driveway for the
third time today. We have somewhere near a foot of snow out there
already and it's still coming down. It's not supposed to stop until
tomorrow morning.

holy @(#&* it's cold!

When I got up this morning it was 17 degrees outside. It's warmed up to
a whole whopping 19 degrees at 8:30. They're talking snow/rain tomorrow
which means it'll probably rain here...

Plywood Ger - initial results are in!

I know a number of people are wanting to know how this turns out, so I
started a page on our site to track the progress of this project. Here's
the link to the page.

http://www.irvinefamily.org/wiki/doku.php?id=sca:plywoodger

Ok, who ordered the monsoon?

Man, it's raining it's ass off this morning. I am so glad I got the new tires on the Jeep.

New tires

Well, last night the black Jeep got a new set of tires. More than likely
it's last set for some time to come. I went with Kumho tires since the
guy at the tire store recommended them highly for both on & off-road
use. There went $500 real quick, but worth it I'm sure.This winter is
looking to be a cold one and I have no doubt I will be needing the tires.

I think the blue Jeep got jealous because rain got a flat on the way
home today. She picked up a hunk of steel somewhere, but luckily Iwas
able to plug the tire, so we should get another year out of the tires on
it I think.

My first consist

If you're not a railroad fan like me, you probably have no idea what
that means... Basically, each locomotive has only so much horsepower and
traction. This means that a single locomotive can only pull a certain
number of cars. In the case of my 3 truck shay, that's around 7 short
coal cars. Any more than that and the shay just sits there and spins its
wheels (all 12 of them).

In the real world, let's say an engine can pull 10 cars. If the railroad
needs to move 15 cars, they hook 2 engines together to do the job. Since
modern engines are electronically controlled, the control systems are
also linked and the 2 engines operate as one. The engineer in the
primary engine operates the controls and the second engine mirrors them.

This is what I did this morning for the first time. I hooked another
engine to the front of the shay and hooked 12 cars together. Without the
second engine, the train did not move at all. When I made a consist and
linked the engines, the train now moves with ease.

Since I run DCC (digital cab control) on my layout, I control each
engine independently on one electronic controller. I told the controller
that the 2 engines are a consist, and the control signals sent to the
primary engine are obeyed by the secondary engine as well. I can consist
up to 4 engines with my controller I believe. With analog controls, it
is much harder to do this unless the engines are identical. Otherwise,
they would want to run at 2 different speeds. With the digital controls,
if the 2 engines run at different speeds, it is possible to program the
speed tables in the on-board control chip so that the 2 engines match in
speed and acceleration. This is so cool to see in operation.

It's alive!

Well, today we did the Xmas decorating, and as part of that I set up the
train around the tree. I have 2 trains running on a double loop and am
loving it. There is nothing like the clickety-clack of train wheels on a
track joint. I did some more painting on the layout too since it's in
the living room now. I figure that by the time it's time to take the
tree down I'll have the 4 curved sections all painted and landscaped
pretty well.

What happened of note on 8/17/1930?

I've been going through old family photo albums, boxes of photos, etc.
and organizing them lately. In a plastic shopping bag buried in a box of
photos and albums I found a few sections from the August 17, 1930
edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper is in pretty bad shape,
but still readable if handled with care. Parts of it are starting to
fall apart on their own, so I am reluctant to fully un-fold this
historical gem just yet. I saw an ad for a new Hudson (car) for $885...

This leads me to ask the question of what happened that was so important
that someone thought to hang onto these 2 sections of newspaper for
nearly 80 years. This isn't a newspaper clipping, but what appears to be
2 whole sections of newspaper still folded as it came off the news stand
(more or less). The front page headlines that I could get to didn't
strike me as anything noteworthy, so I'm digging for an on-line archive
of this newspaper or information that might point me to the reason why
this paper was kept for so long.

I'm also looking for information on how I might preserve this item and
maybe be able to actually open it up fully and read it. For now, it is
safely stored away in a hard plastic box (the back side of a photograph
organizer I'm using to hold some of the thousands of prints I have to go
through) so that moisture exposure should be kept to a minimum and it is
protected from further physical damage as much as I possibly can for now.

If anyone has any advice or information, please pass it along as I am
dying to know what this contains.

Social services

I'm at social services attempting to get adrien covered under medicaid. Hopefully this won't take too long to do. They're looking it up. Now I wait.

Ugh

Its 9:40pm and I'm going to bed... What's wrong with this picture?

Bike parts

I got the parts I ordered for the bike today and the shop manual. I've been wanting to get that for a few years now since I do most of my own maintenance anyway.

My first trigger

If you're not a database user, this will be greek to you, but I wrote my
first database trigger today and it was a success. :) I just opened up a
whole new world of possibilities in my job.

Photos... And more photos

Ok, so I've been going through the piles of photo albums and boxes of photos and sorting them out. I have somewhere near 3500 sorted so far and another 1000 or so left to go through. Then the fun part begins. Trying to scan them all in because only a small number are scanned in so far. I can see me killing a scanner to do this job and that doesn't count the hundreds of rolls of negatives.

The cat condo

Well, since we rearranged the living room, the cats have started using
the cat condo very regularly. I'm happy to see that my hard work didn't
go to waste in making it.

It's been a busy weekend

Yesterday I did more cleaning in the basement. In the process, I found our wedding cards. I decided it was time to finally put them into a scrapbook. At keast that way they might get looked at once in a while.

Last night we went out without the kids for once. That is always a good thing once in a while.

This morning I took zack back home so he could go to work. I needed to work on the brakes on the black jeep since the rear was grinding. It turns out that I had a seized caliper, so I had to replace it. The new caliper came with pads, so that saved me $45.

I did more scrapbooking of the cards today. Now I'm working on sorting through some of the piles of photos that we have. I have hundreds of rolls of negatives too that need to be put into binders and preserved. For now they're stored flat in the sleeves the lab put them in. Eventually I'll find more 3 ring binder sleeves and move them to binders.

Web Site

I re-did the look of the website. It is much easier for me to add pages
now as well. :)

I've been busy

Tonight I decided to rearrange the living room. It took 3 hours but everything is pretty well put away and all the electronics work. :)

Rotten "Christians"

I have to say that I am rather irked by the rottenness of some
"Christians" around the holidays. Last night was Halloween. We took the
kids trick or treating, which is a really harmless, NON-RELIGIOUS event.
Apparently some "Christians" don't get this concept. So as I am going
through the kid's goodies, I find a pamphlet advertising "Jesus Christ".

Ok, so you have freedom of religion, but that does not automatically
give you the right to advertise your religion on a holiday which is all
about wearing costumes and getting candy. So you don't agree with the
holiday. That is your right. If this is the case, turn the porch light
off and don't answer the door. It's as simple as that. Really.

How would you feel if I handed your kids pamphlets advertising "The real
truth behind the bible" when they were out Christmas caroling? I can
pretty well imagine you'd get quite pissed if I did that, wouldn't you?

I hate to break it to you, but Halloween has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do
with religion, contrary to what your narrow-minded bigoted religious
leaders tell you. It is not about worshiping pagan gods or anything of
the sort. Yes, it does fall on a date that was STOLEN from the pagans by
"Christians" way back when in an attempt to do away with their religious
practices (and they almost succeeded too).

Halloween is about one thing and one thing only... Putting on a costume
and walking miles and miles in an attempt to fill a really big bag full
of candy. Why do these "Christians" have to try and ruin a PERFECTLY
HARMLESS holiday by preaching to these children. Get with the program,
folks! These kids don't need to be preached to about how if they pray to
your God that their "sins" will be forgiven. They need to have fun and
get lots of candy.

Has your life been so bad that you have forgotten what it is like to be
a kid and just have fun??? Maybe you should dress in a costume and wish
the kids a "Happy Halloween" for a change. Go to a Halloween party with
some friends and have fun. I realize that this concept is probably
foreign to you, but maybe it will help you get that stick out of your ass!

Cleaning the basement

I finally got back to cleaning in the basement. I have a sort of kids play area put together now. With a little more work I should have a rec room setup again.

God twitters creation

By melindataub | Published: October 29, 2009

God: Gosh its dark in here.
7 days ago

God: There thats better.
7 days ago

God: Hey guys im finally on twitter! Whats up?
7 days ago

God: guys?
7 days ago

God: oh right. i’m the only thing in existence, haha.
7 days ago

God: shut up i wasnt talking 2 you RT @Satan I TOO EXIST
7 days ago

God: BOOORREEDD with endless void gonna make some stuff
7 days ago

God: Hey look what I did today! Separated the darkness from the light. Universe looks like a black and white cookie.
7 days ago

God: I shall call the light day and the darkness Eileen.
7 days ago

God: Darkness doesnt look like an Eileen. Lets go with night
7 days ago

God: Also i created heaven & earth.
7 days ago

God: also i created apostrophes but im not gonna use them
7 days ago

God: thats enough creating for now. Catch ya tomorrow
7 days ago

God: RT @Satan: WHAT IS “TOMORROW”
7 days ago

God: oh i forgot 2 mention i created time too. Busy day.
7 days ago

God: kind of lame creating 2day. Created a firmament. Not sure what that is
6 days ago

God: OMme so much 2 do 2day you guys! Got to bring 4th land from the waters AND create plants and trees. What should i do first?!
5 days ago

God: should have done land first. plants sank
5 days ago

God: fixed! Trees now ON TOP of land.
5 days ago

God: sorry no tweets yesterday guys. Made the sun moon & stars. turned out 2 be more work than i expected. Theyre bigger than they look
3 days ago

God: another busy day. Made @beastsofthesea, @birdsoftheair, and best of all: @penguins. Those turned out so well.
3 days ago

God: made some more kinds of penguins.
3 days ago

God: Poll: What else should i make? a. beasts of the land b. creatures in my own image c. more penguins
2 days ago

God: Answer my poll!
2 days ago

God: maybe it was a mistake to create the internet b4 invention of computers
2 days ago

God: all right penguins it is. Yay!
2 days ago

God: oops. Penguins don’t like the desert.
2 days ago

God: or Indiana.
2 days ago

God: or the sky.
2 days ago

God: ill try the rainforest. Everything thrives in the rainforest.
2 days ago

God: Not penguins.
2 days ago

God: screw it. Made a bunch of other beasts of the land. Not as awesome as penguins but much less picky.
2 days ago

God: also created fake fossils and planted them in the ground 2 make the earth appear much older than it is. Just a little practical joke.
2 days ago

God: i need more followers.
2 days ago

God: #FollowFriday @adam @eve
2 days ago

God: @adam @eve I am the LORD your God who separated the light from the darkness. You shall have no other God before me for I am the LORD your Go
2 days ago

God: &#$%ing character limits. Point is, yay! I made you! Hi! Do what i say.
2 days ago

God: @adam: such as #noteatingapples.
2 days ago

God: @adam what do u mean why? Because im ur god and i said so.
2 days ago

God: @adam why r u bugging me about this? u can have all the mangoes u want and theyre way better.
2 days ago

God: @adam well youre just going to have to take my word for it.
2 days ago

God: @adam WHAT is ur DAMAGE with this apple thing? Eves not tweeting about apples. Shes just off – um –
2 days ago

God: @eve Hey!
2 days ago

God: @adam @eve: EPIC FAIL at #noteatingapples. Both of u r BANNED
2 days ago

God: so yesterday was really stressful. Im taking a break today. No more tweets til tomorrow.
1 day ago

God: Check it out, baby panda sneezing! http://tr.im/DsZ5 (took a break from my break to create YouTube.)
1 day ago

Trick or treat

We're trick or treating with the kids. I've gotten a few people with my abby costume. The don't realize I'm a guy until I say something. :)

Philosophy

Keep this philosophy in mind the next time you hear, or are out to
repeat a rumor.

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his
wisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance, who ran up to
him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about
one of your students...?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me, I'd like you to
pass a little test. It's called the Test of Three."

"Test of Three?"

"That's correct," Socrates continued.

"Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to test what
you're going to say. The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely
sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man replied, "actually I just heard about it."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or
not. Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness. Is what you
are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him
even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued, "You may still pass though because there is a third
test - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my
student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True
nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed and said no more.

This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such
high esteem.

It also explains why Socrates never found out that Plato was banging his
wife.

Backups

Well, my backup strategy got put to the test today. My computer crashed and I was not able to save all the photos. I'm pulling 9500 down from the ftp server. Backups are a good thing!

Ever watch How do I look?

I felt like one of the hosts on that show yesterday. We went shopping
for some new clothes for Rain to update her look at the outlet tores in
Jackson. I had an image in mind and was searching for a very specific
look. As we picked through the racks at a few stores I was throwing tops
and jackets and jeans together to see how they looked. I loved it and
actually had a bunch of fun doing it. At the same time, I couldn't help
seeing the humor in the fact that I looked like one of the hosts on that
show as I did it.

9 years...

Its hard to believe, but 9 years ago today Rain & I got married. Who would have thought that we would have an adopted daughter and a foster son now. It's been over 12 years since we met. Wow, how time flies...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

I got a crackberry

I got a crackberry today. Originally it was supposed to be rain getting a new phone. She likes having a pda phone so I wanted to get her a new one. The problem with that is that they require internet now on them. That's $30 a month for internet access that she won't use. So she has my pda phone now and I got the crackerry. At least I'll use the internet some.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Changes...

Ok, so I finally got tired of having to load Windows (virtually) every
time I wanted to use Quicken. I decided to give Quicken Online a try. It
lacks a few things like the ability to link it to my bank's bill pay (I
need to use their website for that) and the ability to actually
reconcile against receipts, but other than that it seems to work really
well. There are even 2 credit cards that I could never get to link in
the installed version that I can now see in the online version. I'm
going to give this a shot and see how well it actually works out for me.
The major advantage to this is that I can get to it from anywhere I have
Internet access and it works in Windows and Linux (yay!).

I'm getting a workout...

We bought Dance Dance Revolution 2 for our Wii over the weekend. I have
to say, it was worth the investment. Not only is it really fun to do,
I'm getting a workout in the process. I am actually planning on using it
to get back in shape since I really started to break a sweat when I was
using it in the workout mode. It was also a bit of a challenge to keep
up with some of the songs on level 2 (of 4 levels). I figure with time
I'll get better and faster with it, and at the same time maybe get my
lungs back into better shape so I don't get winded so easily. Sitting at
a computer all day will do that to you. Katya is having fun with it too.
The way I look at it is if it keeps her active I'm all for it. Rain is
still getting used to it, but once she does I think she'll use it more too.

Candles...

Well, I started to make my holiday jar candles yesterday. So far I have
made 15 candles. I'm actually having fun making the candles. The wax I
got is a single pour jar wax which is really great. Just pour it and let
them cool, no top-off needed. This is a good thing.

OBD scanner paid for itself

Well, the OBD II Scanner I bought just paid for itself. I had to use it
for the second time on the blue Jeep. I got the code and looked up the
possible causes on the Internet. One cause was a gas cap issue so I
unscrewed the gas cap and put it back on. A couple of days later, the
check engine light went out. :) If you figure at least $50 every time
you need to take it to the shop to have the code checked (at a minimum),
the $100 scanner has paid for itself.

Lakewood Ren Faire

We went to Lakewood Ren Faire today. I did some archery at the demo and
had a good time. Fred and crew joined us and Amanda came along to be
with Adrien as well. A good time was had by all.

Astronomy

Last night we broke out the telescope to look at some stars. I was able
to get Jupiter in focus clearly with the 6mm eyepiece, giving us a 133x
magnification. We were able to see the dark bands and even the eye. We
also looked at a star cluster 22,000 light years from Earth and 160
light years across. It is definitely humbling to look at light that left
a star 22,000 years ago. It kind of puts things in perspective. I even
managed to bring the Andromeda Galaxy into my sights, though with
background light at my house it was barely visible but we were able to
make it out a little bit.

I ordered a ring to make into a camera piggyback mount so I can start
taking some photos of the night sky soon.

I had fun tonight

Tonight I got to do something that most people never get to do. I got to
look at Jupiter and 4 of its moons with my own eyes. I'm loving this new
telescope. I took Katie out to the bridge to nowhere and we set it up
for some stargazing. She got to see Jupiter for the first time. We
looked at a red giant 137 light years form Earth, Uranus, and a handful
of other stars. After we came back home, Rain & I went out and I showed
her Jupiter and we just scanned the sky for interesting star clusters
for a bit. It was definitely cool. I know what I'll be doing on some
clear nights from now on. :)

I bought a telescope. Meade 90mmx800mm, f8.8 with autostar. Can't wait to try it out. I'm gonna get a T-mount for it so I can take pics with the camera.

I hate being sick. Friday night I got really sick at dinner. Barely made it home before throwing up and then the other end too. Took most of sat. to recover.

Labor day BBQ

The Labor Day BBQ that we had was a big success. We had like 20 people
at the house and everyone was having a great time. We definitely need to
do this again. Who knows, maybe next time we can get a few more to come.

A lesson learned

Lube the rear brake cable on the bike regularly... The cable almost
seized up. I'm still working on getting it moving freely again. I guess
I can't complain after 41k miles and no lube.

Going a little greener...

Well, after spending 2 hours taking the carburetor apart on the lawn
mower and it still only running for 3 seconds and dying, I got fed up
with it. I know its a blockage and probably not too hard to fix, but
I've had it with the thing... I went and bought a good old-fashioned
push lawn mower. Once I get the real high grass taken care of with the
weed whacker, I think it'll do a real good job of keeping the grass mowed.

Pennsic and such

Well, Pennsic went rather well for us. The weather was not bad - mid
70's during the day and most evenings weren't too cool. I spent much of
my time gaming with some friends and made some new gaming buddies, which
is always a good thing. We're talking about maybe getting together on a
monthly basis to play games.

About 300 miles into the trip out to Pennsic, the check engine light
came on but all seemed to run well. The Jeep only got about 13mpg which
is low. The black Jeep got about 15mpg or so, but the different gearing
may be the difference there. When we got home I bought an OBD-II scanner
and found the code. I cleared the code and will see if it happens
again. Now I have the scanner and can read & clear codes from any car
made since 1996. I'm sure it'll come in handy again. If I use it twice
it'll pay for itself.

We ended up taking like 200 pictures at Pennsic this year. They're in
the photo galleries already.

While we were at Pennsic we learned that Rain's brother Dave has cancer.
We went to visit on Wednesday since it is only 100 miles from Pennsic.
We learned today that it's terminal and he might have a few weeks. We're
preparing for an unscheduled trip to WV in the next few weeks.

Pennsic photos

Here's a link to the pics from Pennsic:

http://irvinefamily.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=17860

We've been vgetting buzzed by a pair of apache helicopters for the last 10 minutes or so...

13mpg after 200 miles... Black jeep did 15.5mpg. On the plus side it handles hills better and lower temp.

4 days till Pennsic

Oh, how I can't wait. The trailer is loaded and most of the food bought
and frozen. We just have a few last minute items to load in on Thursday
and we'll be ready to go.

Pennsic packing is almost done...

Today I did the bulk of the Pennsic loading on the trailer, Since I now
have the poles loaded outside the trailer and will be loading the
coolers in the Jeep (due the the spare being under the floor and more
room) the trailer is actually loaded a good foot or so lower and has a
little space left in it still. It shiuld be interesting to see how it
works out in the end, but so far it is looking really good.

Candles...

Well, tonight I made more candles just to be sure we have enough for
Pennsic. Katya also helped me start on my first actual jar candles.
We'll have to wait till tomorrow to finish them, but it seems like a
good start. I'm sure I will need to make a bunch before I get good at
it, like the votives. About 15 dozen candles later and I'm still picking
up some things. I'll probably make 2 dozen more votives tomorrow just to
be on the safe side.

Only 10 more days till we leave for Pennsic! :)

Why I hate car dealerships

When we bought the new Jeep, we only got one key with it. Ok, no big
deal really.. I'll just go get 2 more keys made. Yeah, right! The Jeep
has a transponder based key (Have I mentioned lately how much I despise
factory car alarms???). This means that not only do I need keys cut, but
the Jeep needs to be programmed to recognize them. So I start calling
around. I start with a local locksmith. He quotes me $125 for a key, and
"about $20 less" for a second key. Woah! That's a bit steep, so I go to
the local Jeep dealer. The local Jeep dealer has the keys ($45 each),
but they can't program them because they are no longer Jeep Authorized
as of 2 weeks earlier. Nice... They send me across the street to the
Chrysler dealer - $65 each for the keys and $55 to program them... Ouch!

I decide to call around. Here are the prices I got from various Jeep
dealers for the EXACT SAME PARTS & SERVICE:

Key - Programming
50 - 50
53 - 50
58 - 50
75 - 60

I got fed up with the major differences in pricing. I went on the
Internet and found the same keys from a key dealer for $15.99 each. Now,
that's a significant profit margin if you ask me. I got 2 keys off the
Internet for $38. It cost me the $50 to cut and program both of them at
the dealer (oh, did I mention that the dealer didn't stock the keys to
fit a 2000 Jeep that fit every Jeep up until 2007????).

While I was at the dealer I priced up a screw I needed - $6.99 ($2.60 on
the internet), and a switch to disarm the alarm when you use the key to
unlock the door - $68 ($44.23 on the internet). Needless to say, I will
be ordering the parts I need on the internet and not the dealer whenever
possible.

Helmets...

If you aren't a believer in helmets, you would be after seeing Katie's
helmet. I was riding to work Wednesday and had the helmet strapped on
the back of the bike. Somehow it worked loose and I heard it bounce off
the road (for those who think full helmets block sound, think again.)
It got wedged under the front of the car behind me and dragged a good
300 feet. The helmet did wear through in one spot, but the foam was
still intact. The face shield was still intact until just before he
stopped the car. There are some scuff marks elsewhere, but overall the
helmet survived impact and dragging down the highway remarkably well.
I'll post some pictures later.

I hate leather car seats... I'm wearing shorts and sticking to the seats! Seat covers are a must here.

I hate ants!

I so hate ants right now. It seems as if a colony of ants decided that
my dining fly made a good home and they proceeded to chew 20 (yes, 20!)
holes in it in the process. Thankfully, the holes are not too big and I
was able to glue on some canvas patches. I still need to sew around the
edges of all 20 patches yet to make them permanent. Needless to say I am
not real happy about it.

This also means that I have bought plastic bins to store the canvas in.
This is a bad thing, because any moisture at all on the canvas when I
pack them away will mean mold will grow on the canvas. This is why I
have stored the canvas rolled up on a shelf (so it can breathe) for the
last 13 years, and probably why is still is in good condition (minus a
few holes from animals and stupidity).

New photo albums

I just added a new photo gallery to the website. All new photos will be
added to the new gallery and I will work on re-uploading the previous
photos over time.

We had adrien's birthday party today. It went real well. Amanda is really working hard to get him back.

New Jeep

Here's the new toy

The new Jeep

We're getting a new jeep...

Well, I went and looked at a 2000 Grand Cherokee yesterday. I liked it
and got it for a good price, so I should have it shortly. I just got
back from the bank and the girl is nice enough to run the Jeep over to
the house to save me some driving back & forth a few times. We're a 2
Jeep family now.

Bluetooth headsets can't swim

Who'd have thunk it? We found out the hard way today when Adrien put my
headset in the fish tank. So needless to say I went shopping for a new
headset tonight. I was not happy at all.

Took rain to the ER after dinner because she couldn't breathe. Mom & dad are with the kids. She's looking better. Waiting on tests.

Just a quick update

The social worker was just her a little bit ago to check on Adrien. All
is good. Tomorrow Amanda is gonna come over and visit with him for a bit.

We're on the ground...

We're on the plane and should be airborn shortly.

We're at the airport... We have about an hour till boarding.

We're on the ground in milwaukee..

Plane's finally here... It's a baby. Should be a fast unload & reload.

You look familiar. Are you somebody famous? Are you a rock star? All quotes heard at security about me when I was getting my stuff.

We're on the way to the airport headed for milwaukee...

Quest....

Well, we went camping at Quest this weekend. It was a good weekend and
only rained Sunday night. I managed to get some great lightning shots
during the storm, which I posted the link to earlier. Katie won a prize
at the event during the quest, which was cool. She got called into court
to get her prize. Linda came out with 2 kids for the weekend so it was
cool to see her again. Fred came along as well. This was his first SCA
event in nearly 10 years. I got him out on the archery range shooting in
the tournament too. He did pretty good and I came in somewhere near the
top of the pack in the tourney.

Light show of the gods...

I just thought I would share some photos I took last night during a
thunderstorm that blew through while we were camping at Quest. It took
over 175 photos and better than 2 hours, but I managed to capture 5
lightning bolts with my camera. Here's a link to the photos if you are
interested. The first one is kind of faint but if you look you can pick
it out.

http://irvinefamily.org/photos/thumbnails.php?album=73

Ugh! what a day!

Well, today I decided to replace the fuel injectors in my wife's car.
Replacing the injectors was the easy part. The hard part was getting to
the darned things! This car is a marvel of American engineering. It
makes me wish it was a Japanese car. Most of the bolts were almost
impossible to get out without disassembling the entire car starting at
the rear bumper, but I managed to do it. Upon reassembling the car, I
lost a socket and a bolt somewhere down in the murky depths of the
engine (the outside of it). Oh, well.. The bolt was not a critical one,
so I was not too concerned. Upon re-starting the car it seemed to be
running better so I took it for a spin down the road. At the end of the
block I swung a U-turn and headed back. As soon as I turned around I
heard this awful grinding/scraping/clunking sound that seemed to be
wheel rotation related. I stopped and checked things out, but could see
nothing wrong. All the way back there was the sound. I pulled it in and
took another look around but could find nothing.

I decided to let it sit and grabbed my dad's ladder and proceeded to
climb on the roof of their house to clean out the gutters for them while
I was there. As I got to the driveway, my wife pulled the car back so I
wouldn't get the crap from the gutters on the car. As she did so, the
front wheels of the car locked up hard and the car refused to move.
Uh-oh, not good. She pulled forward and it moved, then backed up and at
the exact same spot the wheels locked up again. I told her to put it in
park and leave it till I climbed back down.

When I got down I pulled the car into the garage and felt a weird
clunking from the front end. When I backed up, the wheels locked. My
parents watched the front wheels and it was the passenger wheel that
locked. As I proceeded to begin jacking the car up I decided to call to
check on my motorcycle which was in the shop for a new front tire since
Wed. Now I really needed it back since we were down a vehicle. They had
not even looked at it yet. Needless to say I was pissed. I told them I
was coming to get the bike.

When I got back, my mom took Rain & the kids home while I proceeded to
put the front of the car on stands and remove the wheels to look for the
problem. With it on stands, I could put it in drive or reverse and the
wheels moved just fine. I thought this was odd, so put a jack under the
passenger wheel arm to put pressure on it thinking that the lack of
weight might have changed the angles and the issue was not apparent that
way. No luck there, but we noticed the half shaft was moving around an
awful lot. I suspected a bad CV joint at first, then I noticed the whole
engine moving around a bit and thought I had a bad motor mount that was
allowing the shaft to contact the frame. Nope, not that either. The
motor mounts were solid.

As I was putting the wheels back on to try again on all 4 wheels my dad
noticed a bolt in front of the garage sheared in 2 pieces. I went to
look and it was the bolt I had dropped earlier. I had earlier mentioned
that I thought maybe it was the bolt, but I dropped the bolt on the
drivers side of the engine and the passenger wheel was the one with the
problem so I had discounted that as the cause. Well, it seems that when
I made the left hand U-turn the bolt which I dropped on the left side of
the engine slid across the engine and fell on the right side into the CV
joint on the half shaft. This was the grinding I felt & heard and the
source of the wheel locking up. It seems as if when I pulled into the
garage the last time to check it out I finally sheared the darned thing
off, which is why I couldn't locate the problem with the car on the
stands. Ugh! What a nightmare to diagnose.

So, the car sits in front of my parents house waiting on us to retrieve
it tomorrow (I took the bike home). I think its time to put the gremlins
to bed. We're gonna look for something else. I'm tired of dumping money
into it. On the bright side, the car does seem to be running a bit
better though it still shakes a tiny bit, but I suspect that is the
computer compensating for the old bad injector which is no longer
installed. Hopefully it will start to run better with a few miles on it.

The novelty of a new brother is starting to wear off... Katie is starting to get jealous because she has to share the attention now.

Adrien is adjusting quite well

Well, he's going to sleep within 15 minutes of being put to bed and more
or less sleeps through the night. He's managed to wake up each night,
but he goes right back to sleep with a little back rubbing or such.
Katie is enjoying being the big sister to him as well. We're just
waiting on the judge to sign off on the custody paperwork and we'll be
able to take him to Pennsic as well. The DYFS workers were here
yesterday to check out the house and all is fine there as well.

My laptop is so much happier now

Well, my new screen arrived on Tuesday and it went in with no hassles.
It is working beautifully. Now, if only I can keep from dropping it
again I'll be doing good.

(almost) parents again!

Well, today we're (almost) parents again! We went to a meeting with DYFS
regarding Fred's grandson today and it went well. We went to the
courthouse with his daughter and filed for custody of him and are just
waiting on the judge to sign off on the paperwork. This evening we got
his bed and some essentials form the house and got him set up. Putting
him to bed was a little rough, but after about an hour he seems to be
asleep now. I figure the first week or 2 are gonna be rough until he
gets used to us as caregivers, but after that I'm sure it will work
smoothly.

It's amazing how things can come back from memory. Katya was 2 when we
adopted her. Fred's grandson is also about 2. It just seems natural to
have him here. Everything I learned with Katya is starting to come into
play now. I know its only temporary, and that is a good thing too.

my re-done fish tank

my re-done fish tank, originally uploaded by graewulf.

today, we moved the contents of my tank to fred's old one and took advantage of the move to redesign.

$130 down the drain....

Well, I'm $130 poorer today because of my own carelessness. I was going
outside to work since its such a nice day and was carrying the laptop
(open, on my arm), my cell phone, the power cord, etc. all at once. As
soon as I got outside, the laptop took a tumble. My display is now a big
white blob and it is actually physically twisted and cracked in multiple
places. I know better, but I carried it that way anyway. At least I
managed to find a reputable supplier on-line (I checked them out on Ebay
and other sites and they get good reviews). $130 incl. shipping is alot
cheaper than the nearly $300 that other suppliers wanted for the same
screen. So, now I'm working off a flat panel monitor for the next few
days until my new screen gets here. At least I know how to replace these
things... This isn't the first screen I have had to replace, but it is
the first one I have had to pay for.

Music..

Well, as of the other day our music collection consists of about 21,000
tracks and about 49 days of music. I put up a Linux server to handle the
library and found a web-based music player to serve up the songs. Now I
can listen to our music from anywhere on the Internet. Pretty cool...

Dad is out of here as soon as the wheelchair gets here.

It looks like dad will be discharged tomorrow. This is a good thing since he hates the hospital.

Dad is making progress

They removed more of the stuff he was hooked to and it looks like he
should be moved out of the ICU sometime today. I'll know more when we go
and visit a little later on.

Just left dad. He's doing pretty good. Not sure if he'll be transferred to a regular room tonight or not.

Just spent about an hour with dad. He's doing pretty good. He wants out of the ICU real bad.

Dad's doing pretty good

I just called to check on dad. The nurse said he's doing good and is off
the ventilator. In fact, the nurse had just been there and talking to
him. He said that chances are dad would be moved to a regular room later
today.

Dad is out of surgery. Waiting to hear from the surgeon now.

Still waiting on news of dad's progress. Should be another hour or so.

They just wheeled dad into the OR

Dad is waiting for word on when he'll go to surgery. It should be any time now.

Dad

Well, today I spent all day at the hospital. Dad went in for a
catheterization and they realized that it was much worse than they had
anticipated. He was admitted and is scheduled for open heart surgery
tomorrow morning. I'll post more when I can.

Dad goes in for a double bypass tomorrow at 9:30am.

Still waiting for them to start... Probably not til 11

They just took dad back... Don't know how long it'll be.

Dad is registered. Now we wait...

Tomorrow morning dad goes in for his catheterization. It's a pretty
routine thing and I don't think anything will come of it. We ended up
canceling our weekend trip so I can stick close to home. I'll post more
later when I know what's going on.

Plans have changed

It looks as if our plans for the weekend are changed. Dad went for a
stress test and they want him to go in for a catheterization or stent
today or tomorrow. I'm waiting to find out when it will be.

Rain's car may need new fuel injectors... Fun fun. It flooded trying to start this morning.

Saturday, we took fred's bike apart and had new keys made for the ignition. We got a good 70 mile ride in on sat. and sun.

Yay! Mobile blogging... :)

Friends....

It's times like this that you find out who your friends really are. We
have a house guest for the foreseeable future. We spent a good part of
the evening sorting through the clothes that his (soon to be) ex wife
threw together in bags for him. I'm sure there's lots more coming before
too long.

Syncing in linux

Well, I just got my phone to sync with my computer from within Linux.
Well, technically from XP within Linux, but no reboot to Vista anymore.
yay! One less thing tethering me to Vista.

A busy weekend

Yesterday I went to the junkyard and got rid of a few tires and the old
rear from the Jeep. I also got a new tail light and instrument cluster.
I now have a properly functioning speedometer again. I replaced the fog
lights because one was busted and they'll fail me at inspection because
of it.

I also used some scrap material and made Katya 5 skirts and a dress for
the SCA events. We started reorganizing the garb and sorting out the
stuff we wear from the stuff that we don't. I think next week it is time
to break out the tent and re-do the stoves for the season. The stoves
are like 20 years old and I think it might be time to replace them.

Internet exploder 8 is out....

Well, it looks like Microsoft has released Internet Exploder 8. Of
course it is packed with all kinds of innovative features to make your
web experience better. And, as usual, Microsoft is behind the times.
Most of these "New" and "Innovative" features have been out in Firefox
for at least a year now. The address bar search of your history is old
news for Firefox, as is the safe site filter. I found it funny how all
but a few of the features in the new IE I have been using in Firefox for
quite some time now. I can't wait to see how many features and controls
Microsoft took away from us with the new release in an effort to protect
us from their own poor programming practices. I'll probably download it
at some point and play with it,but not at home since I have no desire to
ever try and run Microsoft's virus, spyware, and malware-prone browser
platform again. Since I went with Firefox as my browser, surfing the web
has been so much more enjoyable.

I love Wine...

One of the biggest reasons I haven't really played much with Linux so
far is that most of the things I do don't run on Linux. Well, I use
Thunderbird for Email, and Firefox for the web. Both have Linux
versions. Quicken doesn't run on Linux, but Wine may make it work (Wine
is a Windows emulator of sorts for Linux). I did get Evernote to work in
Linux tonight, which is way cool since I do use it quite a bit. I
haven't checked all the functions in it yet, but I can definitely access
all of my notes that are stored in Evernote. One thing at a time I guess...

valuable candlemaking lesson learned

Clean the molds! All 12 candles I made last night stuck to the molds. I
guess they weren't quite clean enough...

Candles....

Well, I'm getting pretty good at making candles now. I managed to make
almost 4 dozen votives from recycled candles (ones we'll never burn or
are almost burned down to nothing). I'm actually having fun with this
one. It's a fairly simple process and doesn't take all that much effort
to make a batch really. Next I'll try some jar candles or something I think.

Linux is progressing nicely

Little by little I am figuring this thing out. Now that I have an XP
virtual PC for my Quicken, etc. I can get to everything I need without
rebooting. Now to figure out how to sync the phone from Linux.

Linux....

Well, I finally decided to try Linux again. I have my laptop dual
booting Linux and Vista now. I can use Virtual Box to get a Windows
install going for the apps that won't work in Linux since I don't want
to have to reboot all the time. I'll have to see how it works out for me
before I decide to switch over totally...

Making candles...

Today I decided to finally try my hand at candle making. I got a starter
kit for votives and have 8 candles that I just topped off for the final
time. If this works out the way I think it will, I will be making the
votives for us to burn when we camp from now on. I figure I can make
them for about 1/2 the price it would cost us if we bought them. I am
going to buy wick pins and some wicks in bulk, because the ones at
Michaels are very pricey by comparison. It worked for the started kit,
but I plan on making about 100 candles for camp and home if this works
out. Next I may try a jar candle or something like that. We're going to
start saving the dead ends of candles and re-melting them so that I can
make new candles out of the remains. We'll find out tomorrow how good
these are when we actually light one. :) I have to wait a while longer
to remove them from the molds because I just added a little to the
molds. As a candle cools, the top collapses and there is a valley left
in the top. It takes another pour or 2 to top the candle molds off
properly. If nothing else, this is a fun project.

we're sledding...

we're sledding..., originally uploaded by graewulf.

Lots of snow...

Well, I just shoveled the driveway. The snow was a minimum of about 8"
deep and well over a foot deep in other places. I'm pooped!

Go Obama! [Fwd: Keeping Promises]

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Keeping Promises
Date:	Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:43:00 GMT
From:	<The White House>

In the Weekly Address this morning, President Obama explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate.  On fiscal responsibility, a fair tax code, a clean energy economy, real health care reform, and education, this budget sets out a new vision for our country.

But having put his priorities on paper and having stood behind them, the President recognizes that there are those who will fight against change every step of the way.

"I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy.  Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.  I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families.  I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable.  I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries.   I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak.  My message to them is this:

"So am I."
 

Watch the full address below.

{VIDEO|56}
privacy policy | download .mp4

new photos

I uploaded some new photos to the galleries this evening.

trains...

Well, last night I actually finished a train module, complete with
paint, trees & bushes. Woohoo! Katya helped with the decorating and I
think it came out good.I'm sure we'll add more stuff to it over time,
but the section is pretty complete and looks good! :) Pics are up in the
galleries.

My, how katya is growing up

Tonight we played some board games for a change, We introduced her to
"Sorry". She is finally reading well enough to play those games that
require some reading. :)

test

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Katya is officially a "biker chick"

She had her third ride today home from school. She is loving it when I
pick her up. Once the weather warms up, I may drop her off at school
once in a while too. She made a really keen observation Tuesday when we
were on our way home from school. She realized that she can see a whole
lot more on the bike than in a car. That is one of the things that I
enjoy about riding too.

Katya's first motorcycle ride

Well, it got up to 50 today so I took Katya on her first ever motorcycle
ride. She had loads of fun and did really well too. I can see it now..
Rain and Katya will be fighting over who gets to ride with me on some of
the runs. I never got to ride on the back of my dad's motorcycle because
mom made him park it when I was born. This is another way for me & Katya
to do something together.

Our little biker chick

Yesterday I took the bike out for the first time in like 6 weeks. I was
going through some serious withdrawal with all the lousy weather we've
been having. Katya always loves to ride on the bike when I pull it into
the shed (the whole 20 feet or so that it takes to do that) ever since
she was big enough to climb up the bike and get on. Well, yesterday
before I headed out we decided to try and see if she was big enough to
ride again. I have said from day one that when she was big enough to get
on by herself and her feet hit the pegs securely that I would buy her a
helmet. Well, yesterday was that day. Not only did she get on the bike,
but she stepped up on the left peg, grabbed on the backrest and swung
her leg over the seat and sat down. Yup, our little girl is big enough
to ride with me now. I ordered her a helmet that she liked on Ebay last
night.

Now, before someone goes and gets all upset over this decision, let me
say this. It is our decision to make and safety is number one on my
list. Her helmet is not only DOT approved, but also Snell (2005 rating)
approved and full face. We'll start with short runs around the
neighborhood at low speed to get her used to riding with me. I will be
spelling out all the rules as to what she needs to wear, how she needs
to get on & off, and how to properly sit while riding with me. I have
saddlebags which will keep her feet out of the rear wheel and a backrest
to keep her from sliding off the back. She will also be required to hold
onto me the entire time. If can't feel her there'll be a problem. I also
plan on getting her the equipment to attach the headset to her helmet so
that she can use the intercom to talk to me if she needs to.

Website changes

The site is getting a facelift.If you spot any broken links, let me know.

A lesson learned

Never leave a 100 watt flood lamp turned on against an empty glass fish
tank. Now I have a cracked side of a tank. It's a good thing that I
didn't intend to put water in it...

Catapults!

Today we went to an SCA event (Bellringers). They were having a
marshmallow catapult contest where you had to build a catapult to throw
marshmallows from the materials they had on hand (a stack of 2' 2x4's,
some wooden dowels, twine, and a wooden spoon). I got drafted by the
Baronness of Carillion to help one team of kids build theirs. I have to
say, ours came out great and we easily won the distance competition. We
shot toward a wall 20' away. The second place team made it 19 feet, but
on our third shot we hit the wall about 4' off the floor! Sadly, we lost
on accuracy due to an equipment malfunction (I think we would have won
otherwise). Let's hear it for the Mongolian Engineering Corps! :)

Babies...

It appears as if a few of the mollies I got last week were pregnant
(Mollies give live birth). We now have at least 3 baby mollies swimming
in the tank. :)

Did Hell freeze over?

It sure does feel like it. I just got up and it's 3 degrees out!

Umm... it's cold out...

Friday morning when I was dropping my daughter off at the bus stop, I
see a guy at the next stop down the street wearing shorts, sneakers, and
a hoodie sweat shirt. Now, you might not think this odd if it were not
for the fact that it was 27 degrees out! I was wearing jeans, a heavy
winter coat and gloves and my legs were cold. I can't imagine how cold
this guy must have been.

bye bye Christmas

Yesterday, we took the Christmas stuff down yesterday and got the corner
of the living room back again. I decided to stack the games in that
corner on shelves and we can actually find them now instead of having to
dig through the closet.

A new year

Well, another year has come and gone... We spent New Years Eve with a
few friends and had a good time. Hopefully the next year will be better
than the last. Christmas was good for us this year and we're both still
employed, so that is good too.