Well, this morning was my first VE session since becoming a W5YI VE. It was at the Don Pablos on 183, just west of Beltline and was held by the Irving Amateur Radio Club. We didn’t have anyone come to take an exam so it was more of a chat session, but was fun nonetheless. I’ll be back out there next month to help out again, so hopefully there’ll be a few examinees then!
Author Archives: Pat
Building a telescope (part 1)
I finally started putting together the 8″ f/4 dobsonian that I’ve been talking about building for a couple years now. One of our neighbors helped me cut the sonotube into two sections, one for the primary mirror cell and one for the secondary cage. Then I drilled and cut the holes for the mirror cell, spider, and focuser. They’ve all been temporarily mounted so that I can test the optics and get the final positions for the secondary cage. I’m using an open tube design that will be using six aluminum rails to support the two sections. I got the idea from http://www.usno.navy.mil/8inchdob.html. Next weekend I’ll finish putting together the OTA, build the base, and collimate the entire system.
Starting potty training
We picked up a couple potties today because it’s about time to start potty training Reese. It’ll be nice to not have to change diapers, but it’s going to be interesting getting to that point. The good thing is that his daycare is also starting to have them sit on the potty, so he’s getting familiar with it already. Updates to follow…
External linking problems
So for the last few days I’ve been fighting a few sites that decided to put links to the bikerscum domains on their pages, one of which describes it as a porn site. It’s obviously not, and so after a little mod_rewrite work visitors coming in from there are going elsewhere.
If you’re going to link to me, fine. But let me know in advance if it’s got the potential to generate lots of traffic. Which, by the way was how I noticed this. It’s kind of funny to watch your traffic go up by a factor of 100.
School’s out
Yesterday was the final day of class for me. It was a long night trying to get the last of the team projects turned in and with UOP’s news servers acting a little flakey it was an interesting night. CMGT410 (Project Planning and Implementation) is done, now I’ve got two weeks off and then I start on POS370 (Programming Concepts). That’s going to be interesting considering I was a professional C developer in another life.
She’s out of surgery
Well, she’s home and sleeping off the anesthesia. They put in a plate and some screws but didn’t have to work on the tibia or screw the tibia and fibula together due to some of the ligament damage they’d seen. The prognosis is good, three or four weeks on crutches and then a transition to a walking boot.
Try explaining a broken leg and surgery to a two year old. He’s a good little guy, but just isn’t old enough to understand why mommy’s in bed.
My wife broke her leg
My wife fell this morning and broke her leg. She’s got an oblique fracture of her left fibula just above the ankle. The silver lining is that Reese and I are spending a lot more time together because she really can’t chase after him on crutches. I think we’re going to go to Texas Towers tomorrow to pick up some small parts for the hamshack rebuild. It’ll give her a break for a few hours.
First Baseball Game
We took Reese to his first baseball game tonight. We got a late start out because of Joi’s new job, but we only missed the first inning. The little guy did really well, but was getting a little cranky by the 8th inning, not too bad considering that was an hour and a half past his bedtime. So we deicded to take off with the score at Oakland 4 Texas 1. By the time we got to the car (we were really far out) the Rangers had scored and taken the lead. We’re thinking we were the jinxes and shouldn’t be going to any more games.
Crashing Sucks
So I get a call from my stepmother. It seems that on the way home she locked the rear wheel in some sand and went down. It was a low speed crash and she wasn’t injured until she turned to look for the other bike. The twisting broke her leg in three places. She’s going in for surgery tomorrow and will be tested for osteoporosis as well.
I’m really kinda bummed out about this…
Another one joins the family
I just got off the phone with my stepmother. It seems that she just brought home a black 2005 883L. I think this is really cool and am looking forward to taking a cruise or two with her.