Sophie Takes the Fifth

We celebrated Sophie’s 5th birthday today at Mermaid Park.  The theme of her party was mermaids so the park was quite appropriate.

The park has picnic pavilions, a large playground area and a water play area.

It has one choice pavilion that is right inside the play area.  Christy and Christian went there early this morning to claim the pavilion for us and decorated it while they were holding it for the party.

Here is the party girl and her sister/

First a little wet fun.

Kerry and Annie arrive!

Lucy looking mischievous.

You think they like Uncle Christian?

Food time.

Imagine that! It’s a mermaid cake!

Karen decorated the cake and also made mermaid towels for each girl.  The guy on the left is Neptune.

Presents !!!

More water.

The wonderful Feagins"’ family.

Then it was time to pack up and go home.

It was a fun party!

Be One With The Yard

Who says yard work is boring. With all the yard cleaning I’ve been doing I’ve discovered that my yard is an interesting ecosystem that I am both disturbing and fostering.


The bugs, lizards, frogs, birds and mammals have adapted to the environment in a fascinating manner. It speaks volumes for natures resiliency.

My garden, with its ample water supply provides homes to slugs, lizards, frogs, toads, various insects and now a turtle. I’m feeding cats by day and possum and raccoons by night. The broken rain spout is home to at least 1 tree frog. The birds have also developed an appetite for cat food. The jays and mockingbirds also hang around while I mow the lawn. They’ve learned that it kicks up insects like grasshoppers. They are not bashful about swooping down and grabbing a meal that I have provided for them-while I am still mowing.

Evidently my security cameras ultraviolet lights are visible to some insects and spiders. I keep having to clear away spider web strands from in front of the lenses. Sometimes I get to watch a spider weave his web in a blurry close-up image. The webs reflect the UV light into the cameras and block out portions of the camera’s imaging.

I found out how the turtle disappears so quickly when he sees me. He dashes to the cat feeder and slips under the raised feeding tray. Speaking of the feeder; my last modification to the feeder put he storage/feed bin inside the raccoon protected box. The bin is a 5-gallon water bottle. It supplies food to the dispenser in the same manner it supplied water-gravity feed. At the current setting it will feed for 3 weeks or more. It feeds only in the morning after daylight. Otherwise I’d be feeding only raccoons and possum. (this sounds a little bit like the rules for feeding Gremlins) As it is now the raccoons only get the remains of the day and they do lick the plate clean.

Every couple of weeks I open the top hatch to replenish the food and without fail I find a lizard living there. The sides of the bottle are too slick for them to climb so when the food supply gets low once the get in they can’t get out. Oh, the lizard is alive and well. I catch him and toss him into the garden.

My closing for this blog is my experience this morning as I went to feed the outside cats. On one side of the door mat sat Buzz. On the other sat Meredith. In the middle sat the turtle. It appeared to be waiting to be fed. In actuality the cats had just positioned themselves when they saw me and ended up cornering the turtle. I arrived as its confused little turtle brain was trying to decide what to do. At least I finally was able to get some sort of picture of it.

When the cats don’t eat all the food it attracts flies and ants. Today after feeding we had a brief but very heavy rainfall. I sneaked a peak outside after the rain and the turtle was gobbling up flies that were knocked down by the rain.

The yard is full of entertainment.

Strike While the MOJO is Hot

I’ve been trying to get my pressure washer to start since it died on me at K&T’s after I refilled the gas tank.  I went through the whole process of checking out  the fuel system and the electrical at least 3 times.

Finally I decided to take a step I haven’t tried on any of my engines and I pulled off the valve cover and looked at the valve operation.  That revealed the problem.  I pulled the starting cord and watched the valves.  The exhaust valve was opening fine, the intake valve wasn’t. I didn’t have the specs for valve clearance yet so I tightened the set screw to just open the valve and went on to see if now the machine would start.  It did but ran rough.  I went on line and found the valve clearance specs and will set the valves to spec and see if my pressure washer will now run correctly.

Now I’ve also advanced my knowledge about  how to keep my small gas motors running.

That success spurred me on  to do another repair.  The DVR in our bedroom once again had failed. The last time it failed (April 2009) 2 capacitors had lost their electrolytic.  This time it was  the same issue with 3 capacitors.  From my reliability engineering days I know this is a typical failure mode fore these parts when they age.  It is the reason we forbid the use of this technology capacitor in the missiles we built.  The last thing you want is having dead capacitors when you take something from storage and need it to work.

I had ordered the replacement capacitors and they had just arrived so, while my fix-it mojo was hot I made the repair on the DVR. 

I’m pleased to report the DVR is now working properly.

3-years ago I put the blue parts in this picture in.

This time these 3 parts were bad.  You can see the brown residue on the tops of the parts.  Only 1 of the 3 tested out dead electrically but  the other 2 would be failing soon.  You can see that 3 years ago (above) these 3 parts were clean and shiny.

Nostalgia or Silliness?

We had lunch at Olive Garden yesterday.  When I paid with my credit card the server came back to our table explaining that their computers were down and I would have to use the old paper imprint method for the credit card.  Then she went on to explain that it worked just like the electronic box you slide your card in and that I just had to sign the paper.  Penny and I explained that we knew how it worked but because the server felt the need to explain I would guess that we are sufficiently away from the use of the paper that many young people would appreciate the guidance.

That got me to thinking about the people of my generation who keep posting other items that used to be in common use but may not be recognizable to those younger than 40 or so.  Along with the posting is a statement like: if you know what this is like it and pass it on.

The pictures are of things like skate keys or ice cube trays or wax candy lips.  I guess the sender gets some comfort from this remote connection with their age group.  Sure it’s fun to remember that stuff but I don’t get what the “like if you know what this is” does for anyone.

Am I any better than someone who doesn’t remember buying baseball cards with bubble gum in the package? No.  But things like that do surface fond memories and also a sense of loss.  Maybe these folks posting their nostalgic items derive comfort in knowing there are others who have the same memories.

So what’s nostalgic to our children’s generation?  Apple II computers? Chuckie Cheese? R.E.M.? E.T.? Cabbage Patch Kids?

All I know is I won’t be posting stuff like -  on what show did Froggy pluck his magic twanger? – like if you know and pass it on!

The Rain Returns

My yard work got interrupted a couple times today by rumbles of thunder, threats of lightning and actual rain.  Despite that I got a good amount done.  I’ve got a pile of yard trash out front for pick-up tomorrow.

I also made a trip to the county landfill yesterday with a trailer full of yard junk that I had piled up over the years  because maybe I would use it someday.  I finally realized that as the song says, “someday never comes” and so I’m dumping most of that just in case stuff.

The land fill was an interesting place to visit.  It’s a much neater place than the dump used to be.  Now you dump your stuff inside a big multi-bay building.  The process involves people dumping in consecutive bays followed by the stuff being scooped up and loaded into a trailer truck.  The process continues all day.  The only thing that is not improved is the smell.  It is quite memorable.

On one of my trips into the house today I once again surprised the turtle feeding on the cat food.  Once again I dashed inside, got the camera and went back out.  The turtle was nowhere to be seen.  I can’t figure out how he disappears so quickly and completely.

I made the final payment for this years “big” vacation trip this week.  We are going to spend 8 days touring the Canadian Rockies and Glacier National Park.

We are taking a packaged bus tour that Caravan offers.  If we enjoy it we will probably do a bus tour early next year in Nova Scotia.  Here’s a link describing the tour; http://www.caravan.com/tour/canada-rockies

We enjoyed our bus tour of Alaska and that gives us some idea of how this trip should work.

We put off this year’s vacation for various reasons and didn’t take any small vacations.  Next year may be different.  Time will tell. 

Annual Moon Launch Blog

Once again it is July 16th. 

This year I finally made digital copies of the documents I kept from those days.  I’m not a bragger so I’ve had these documents tucked away.  This was an exciting time of my life, however, and I realize In my concern for looking like I was gloating I erred in the opposite direction and didn’t pass along some of my life story.

So here are some documents from my “Apollo Period”.

First the letter that started my employment with NASA. 

I remember my first day at the Kennedy Space Center.  It was a little scary because this was my first experience in the working world and I had no idea of what engineers really did.  Add to that the relatively shy person I was and the immensity of the Moonport facility and the fact that I was really on my own there.  I had found and rented a small apartment in Cape Canaveral – had no roommates and knew no one in the area. 

After the moon shot NASA sent certificate of participation to the entire workforce  with an inspirational letter.

 

 

I worked in the Launch Vehicle Test Conductor’s Office.  This office had total responsibility for the Saturn 5 launch vehicle.  Their job was to get the Apollo Spacecraft off the launch pad and into orbit.  Their portion of the Apollo 11 mission was completed successfully on July 16.  To celebrate they sent a great letter postmarked July 16, 1969, with an Apollo 8 stamp and a Launch Vehicle Operations cachet (an official seal, as on a letter or document on the envelope – I had to look it up).

The Apollo 8 stamp carried special significance. Apollo 8 was the first launch mission to take humans to the Moon and back, the first manned mission launched on the Saturn V, first manned launch from NASA's new Moonport, first pictures taken by humans of the Earth from deep space, and first live TV coverage of the lunar surface

I also have this 250 page Saturn 5 flight manual for the Apollo 8 launch vehicle.

The manual provides general mission and performance data, emergency detection system information, a description of each stage and the IU, and a general discussion of ground support facilities, equipment, and mission control.

Christian – you might enjoy thumbing through the manual.  Remind me to show it to you next time you are here.

Now the best document I have is one given to me by Penny’s Dad.  It’s a first day cover of the Apollo 11 stamp. The dies to make the stamp were on the moon with the astronauts.

It’s strange that I forgot he gave me this until Penny pointed out that the stamp and letter were mailed to him. In my mind I had confused it with the Apollo 8 stamp I received.  I’ve got my facts straight now and the fact he gave it to me is an excellent reflection of the type of person he was.

That’s my documentation trail.  Eventually I will make a little shrine to my early career accomplishment and make a display with this stuff on it.  We already have a shelf for it.   I’ll make some frames for everything.  Maybe by next year’s Apollo blog I’ll actually have completed it.

I also have an Apollo 11 patch.  The story of the Apollo 11 insignia (courtesy of Wikipedia):

Mission insignia

The Apollo 11 mission insignia was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States." He chose an eagle as the symbol, put an olive branch in its beak, and drew a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. NASA officials said the talons of the eagle looked too "warlike" and after some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the claws. The crew decided the Roman numeral XI would not be understood in some nations and went with "Apollo 11;" they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing."^[8]

All colors are natural, with blue and gold borders around the patch. The LM was named Eagle to match the insignia. When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released a few years later, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side.^[9] The design was retained for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar which was unveiled in 1979, ten years after the Apollo 11 mission.

It was exciting to be growing up when the space race was in full swing.  It inspired me to want to be an astronaut like 50 gazillion other kids.  I realized that the only way for me to get pilot training would be in the Air Force and that was not a great idea with the war in Vietnam needing canon fodder. I instead ended up seeking an aerospace related degree.  The gods smiled on me and although I didn’t get to ride into space myself I ended up in the thick of the action at the culmination of our race to the moon.  I experienced the space program from the inside.  I got to see and touch and learn about the most complex machine man had ever built. I got to ride out to the launch pad with Apollo 12 as it was carried on the giant crawler transporter. Yes, I even helped in a small way to put those first men on the moon and those of Apollo 12 and to launch Apollo 13.

It was a long time ago.  I think I understood the unique position I was in.  I can remember thinking how fortunate I was to be there and experience  history first-hand.

The Fleet Has Wheels

I finally got around to making kayak carts out of the 2 golf caddies I got at Goodwill .  The setup is OK for now but I’m going to make the strap-downs a little more robust and easier to use.

No Blues on Friday 13th

I pondered all week whether or not to go to the Blue Angels show on Pensacola Beach today.  I finally decided not to go.  Instead I stayed home and continued with my yard clean-up.  I’ll catch the Blues next time, God willing.  After watching the show from the Pensacola lighthouse I know I’ll never have a better seat for the show.

I’ve made good progress cleaning up the yard.  I’ve got a trailer full of yard junk to go to the land fill .  I spent a good part of today repairing my security cameras and running their cables neatly to the DVR.  My garage door had sliced 2 of the cables and I replaced older cameras with better ones I bought a while back.  Now the system is back to full operation.

While running cables I again had company from a tree frog that has made our separated downspout its home.  I was surprised that with all my movement and hammering the frog didn’t hide.  It is as if it was watching me work.

I got my camera  and snapped a few pictures.  He even smiled for me.

Then he made a bubble for me.

 

This frog has lived there for at least 3 weeks.  It’s right below a floodlight that must attract many insects to his location.

Tomorrow I may slack off on yard work and make Kayak carts for 2 kayaks.  Well that is related to yard clean up.  I going to move the kayak storage racks to behind the workshop/shed.  The carts will make it easier to drag the yaks to and from the CRV.

Yesterday when I fed Meredith in the morning she only ate half of the can of cat food I gave her.  Buzz didn’t show up and so that half can of wet food just sat there all morning.  I was working in the back yard so none of the other neighborhood cats came around to eat it.

I came in the house for lunch and when I stepped outside I was surprised to see a turtle, about the size of my hand, chowing down.  I dashed inside and grabbed a camera but when I turned it on it had no card.  The turtle was crawling away.  I went inside found the card and went back out.  The turtle was gone.  I was surprised how quickly it could move.

I have disturbed many critters in my yard clean-up.  Many lizards and toads.  Tons of slugs and snails – thankfully no snakes.  I had no idea there was a turtle out there.  I guess he lives under my garden decking.  There is plenty of water there and lots of vegetation and insects.  I’ll have to keep an eye out for him.

Better Today

My back improved overnight.  It’s not all better but it has improved all day-which is what I hoped for.

I didn’t try to do anything today – just let my back heal.  Tomorrow I’ll ease back into doing things.

Ouch!

A while back I hurt my back while working in the yard.  It wasn’t serious, just the run of the mill “back-going-out”.  This happens periodically and usually heals up in 2-4 weeks with the only serious pain occurring the first couple of days.  That was on the right side in my lower back and while I still had some pain from that “injury” it was mostly gone this past weekend.

On Friday while I was setting up the bed in the sunroom for the Feagins’s visit I started having pain in my left side lower back.  Unlike the earlier injury, where I heard and felt a “pop” in my spine when the pain began, this time a slight ache just showed up.  It has become progressively worse through the weekend.  Instead of easing up overnight, it doesn’t settle down.  It hasn’t responded to heat or cold and today I had to quit what I was attempting to do because it hurt to just stand.  It’s sort of like having a toothache – always hurting, sometimes worse than others.

I started to wonder whether something else is going on.  It feels like muscular pain and it is too low to be my kidney and it is not my hip.  So for now I’m assuming I have my muscles in that area tied in a knot and I won’t get relief until things relax some.  I have some pain meds to take and I will use that to sleep tonight.  If things aren’t improving overnight I will go see a doctor tomorrow.

We enjoyed having K&T and family visit this weekend.  We also had the 2nd and final marriage preparation session with a couple from Hurlburt on Sunday evening..  So the weekend was a full, busy but fun one.

Playing Tourist Again

One nice feature of living here is that there is no lack of things to do with company in town. 
The Feagins are here for a quick visit and we had about 3/4 of the day to spend with them.
We started with breakfast at Sophie's favorite place –Denny’s.  We planned lunch at Harbordocks so in the interim we went to the Destin Harbor area to show the redesigned boardwalk off.  It was a beautiful day to be there but it also was oppressively hot.

Most of the fishing boats were out, a good indication that this tourist season is a good one.  There were also lots of people taking dolphin cruises, jet skiing and partaking in other activities offered at the harbor.

A new addition at Destin is a pirate ship.  Here's a link to their web site with info:  http://destinpirateship.com/
The pass showed off its beautiful colors today.

We took pictures of ourselves.

The kids fed the fish
.
Sophie and Lucy had purple Gatorade and turned their mouths all purple.

Reminiscent of a trip to New Orleans we took several years back.

We were still warm when we got back home and a trip to the school yard only made us hotter.  I decided that turning on the sprinklers in the front yard would be refreshing. (no drought here) Sophie, Lucy and I ran around playing in the spray for about 20 minutes.  It was fun.

Tomorrow will be breakfast, church and then, sadly,  it is time for the Feagins to leave.

Yippee Kayak Oh

I put the kayaks on the CRV last night so we could get an early start this morning.  I didn’t count on it raining at 3AM and putting a couple of inches of water in my kayak.

We got out this morning, just a little later than expected.

Penny’s kayak worked nicely for her.  We had no issues with it.

We also saw some dolphin on our paddle.  I was able to get fairly close to them as they fed in the bayou.

Now I have to figure the best way to store 4 kayaks, a jon boat and a paddle boat.

The 4th Kayak

I’m gathering a small flotilla.  We bought another kayak today.  Penny has been wanting one that will track better than the inexpensive little one she’s been using.  She’s been watching Craig’s list and the adds and this weekend she struck gold.

She got a 1-yr-old fishing kayak for less than half the original price.  It looks to be in good shape.  Weather permitting we will take it out for our first paddle tomorrow morning.  Here’s what it looks like.

It looks quite stealthy.

It’s wider and flatter than our orange kayak.

Both kayaks are about the same length.

I’ll report on how Penny likes it in my next blog.  This is going to serve me also as a fishing kayak.