Last month...

Signing up

Getting her ribbons

Proud Papy

At the end of October, Lucie was inducted into the National Honor Society - it was a very serious ceremony, nicely done. A little bittersweet since Lucie found out that her good friend Brittany would have been in NHS if she hadn't had to move to Chicago - she had a private induction before she left evidently. So far, the meetings are just about the service part - they did a bake sale during the intermission at the school musical (OKLAhoma!) last weekend, and they are nowplanning an Appreciation Breakfast for the teachers, maybe that's why they raised the money.  Lucie signed up to be on the gift committee for the breakfast and she was the only one on the list so she freaked out thinking she'd have to think up presents for all the teachers! I don't know why she chose that committee since she is not a shopper and knows her mom is not the Mother's Club type. The leadership and character requirements are a little fuzzy, but we'll wait and see. Hopefully the scholarship part will continue to be maintained!

Here's Lucie as the 11th Doctor or did you all figure that out? Hope you had a happy hallowe'en, following an honored tradition we turned off the lights and snuggled in bed to watch The Crimson Horror…love from all of us, Agelaius

(That's a sonic screwdriver in her hand)

The best comment from a schoolmate: "You are SO PERFECT!!!"

Gulfstream and wires. Oh so many wires!

So as I finish up my last semester at college (42 more days, not that I'm counting) I find myself getting busier, so I figured I would put off the work I am supposed to be doing and share the things I've been up to. First things first, I've been finishing up my last semesters classes. The main bulk of them are the Avionics program we have. Basically all the radios and electronics on the airplane.The first half of the semester was taken up with two classes, General Aviation Avionics, and a class about the FCC.  The FCC class was really learning the material that we would need to know to pass the General Radiotelephone Operators License, which is required to fix and install radios on boats and airplanes. The final of that class was the actual test. So I can install a radio on your boat now.

The first class was a general introduction to how the different radios work and things like that. The majority of that class was spent in the lab building our own radio stack. They have carts with a rack that radios would go in that we have to wire up to make it work.

 

Now imagine that those wires don't exist. That is what my partner and I started with. Then we started adding wires. We had to go through the installation manuals to figure out what wire went where to make everything work. This took most of the first half of the semester.

 

As you can see things are starting to come together. By which I mean there were times where there was a rats nest of wires everywhere. Actually the most tedious part was tying (the black lines on the bundles are essentially thick tough dental floss that is designed to tie wires together) everything up and making sure the wires had the right amount of slack in them. But not too much. 

This is the final product. Once we finished wiring everything up our teacher graded it, and made a list of things we had to fix. So when the second half of the semester started we had to fix everything. Then we had to go through with a multimeter and check every wire to make sure it went to where it was supposed to, that it was not going to ground, and that the wires all had the correct resistance. Then if that wasn't bad enough, we had go and check another teams cart before moving on and testing everything. When we got to that stage we plugged in the radios and instruments and turned it on.

We had a list of things to check to make sure all the radios worked. (From top to bottom of the rack we have the Audio Panel, which controls what goes to the speaker/ headset. Then there is the GPS unit, followed by the two Communication and Navigation radios. They allow us to talk to people, and navigate by radio aids. The top two instruments on the left are controlled by those two radios. Under those two is the DME, which stands for Distance Measuring Equipment, which is used to know how far away you are from certain radio aid stations. Its very useful when flying. Below that is the ADF which stands for Automatic Direction Finder. It is an old archaic technology that really isn't used much any more in the United States and was replaced with the other radio aids to navigation (which are now being replaced by GPS). Basically the ADF just points the arrow to the station and you cannot adjust it, that is the bottom instrument. And then last on the radio stack is the Transponder. This sends a four number code (in base 8) to Air Traffic Control to let them know who you are.

Once we were done with that we fixed the errors we made. Which was very few. The rest of the class is more focused on avionics in Airline sized airplanes. We talked about fiber optic cables (which are not used very much due to cost and how fragile they are) and digital data. Two days we spent in the lab looking at a string of 32 binary bits on an oscilloscope and deciphering them. It was a lot more fun than it seems.

We also got a new airplane as well. They won't let me fly it, and I wouldn't be able to afford it if I was to fly it, but it is very cool. Some company donated a Gulfstream GIII corporate jet. It is the nicest airplane I have been in. 

The big one is the new airplane. The small one next to it is a Lear 20 I think. Either way its a Learjet. The Gulfstream dwarfs it. I took that picture from the second floor. 

You can tell how big it is in this picture. We also have the Radome open too so we could look at the Radar antenna, which is kind of cool, it looks like this:

That thing gives the pilots the ability to see weather in front of them. 

And then there is some more eye candy of the airplane. Other than that I haven't done much besides finishing up my flying, and the occasional job interview. So I'll end this post with a picture of the cat.

~Dan

Work: Creative Side

Every year at Bowood we do Boo-wood or as Lizzy's 5 year old writes 'Boo-wet.'
I'm always in charge of the Scavenger Hunt - last year it was the 'Zombie Apocalypse' so this year in honor of Dr. Who I made it 'Scarecrows from the Potter's Field' not that anybody gets my sense of humor but...

I made a Bowood Sales Associate to sit on the strawbales by the Italian Fountain. Doesn't she look just like me? It was weird because when you came around the corner and just saw her legs sticking out, you thought there was a real person there and Morgan told me she could see it from the cash register and kept thinking I was out there sitting (not allowed!)
It was fun but a lot of work, I also made a skinny Rastafarian Scarecrow and a duet of evil pumpkin hoarders that Ellen nicknamed June and Ward Cleaver since they were dressed sort of fifties.
I'm not into Hallowe'en at all and it was really early this year, so, well it's done, and I had a bit of fun.

Mama's coming over here this afternoon because she still doesn't have heat! It doesn't seem to cold to us, but she says it's too cold, love Agelaius

Report from 7227 from Karen

Mama is playing Bach on the piano, first time since her eye surgery so that is a good sign.  She seems to be doing well tho she complains her vision hasn't improved a bit.  I tell her, well at least you don't have a cataract anymore... but I just did a little research and the Mayo Clinic website seems to list improving vision to be the main reason and only vaguely refers to other complications that may justify the operation.  Anyway, now Dr. Bobrow can stop bugging her about having the surgery!

The research was due to a discussion we started about halos of light at night time (which mama had on the way home from the train station) and Van Gogh's "Starry Night" -- possibly he had glaucoma which keeps the eye from fully dilating in the dark, causing halos.  Took me on an side track reading about "artists and diseases" including a reference to Mervyn Peake who evidently had Lewy Body's disease which caused him to create hallucinogenic drawings and poems. Did you know Monet & Cassatt both had cataracts?

OK... so the real reason I'm on the blog: to post these photos for you.

 Here is a photo of me from Mexico.  I will include the Picasa Link for the two albums I made but this photo is not included.  We thought it was quite funny to put a clown nose on Juarez but our host Javier said -- "This is not a good idea because I might lose the good graces of the museum who is donating the space for your class."  He even asked me to take it off my facebook page -- maybe we are a little more cynical about our heroes.

Here is a photo of Jackson and Torbin our German exchange student.  He was very polite and well mannered but not very social.  He mostly wanted to hang out with the other German students and go downtown to shop for shoes and other things they can't buy in Bremen (?! -- well, I guess the exchange rate was in their favor but I really didn't expect him to want to spend ALL his time SHOPPING!)  We did take him on a kayak trip down the Chicago River the Saturday before he left and that was a big success.  And it wasn't too expensive since Pam's husband David was the guide and helped us get a bargain price!  Torbin came while I was in Mexico and stayed with us for two and half weeks... PS. Notice the new steps & railings on our front porch?

 So this one I titled a "Posthumous Portrait of Daddy."  This paper bus (I believe it is one of my creations) was hanging from the  ceiling and as you can see was COATED with dust.  Daddy is the opposite of Mama, everything we made for him (or that our children made for him) he saved.  Hung it from the ceiling at least forty years ago and it was still there until about five hours ago when I finished my massive clean up of the study.  Carpets pulled up, tons of plaster swept up, floor washed, furniture lined up to be carted away...

and then a last minute rescue from the recycling bin of the play posters after a phone conversation with Geoff who wants one last look at them.  Here's a portrait of Mama -- you can't see it but her eye looks pretty good, not too much redness anymore...

So for the rest of my visit, I will work on sorting and tidying.  Perhaps with Kathie & Ruben's help put the "to be thrown out" furniture in the garage to wait for bulky pick up -- or let it sit in the corner of the basement.  Mama & I will try to go thru the files that were in the top drawer of the file cabinet and maybe those two boxes in the pink closet that were from the dining room schpint.

Here's the interview I did on WBEZ about our trip to Mexico:
https://soundcloud.com/wbez-worldview/global-activism-clowning

Here's the Festival Strongylus Picasa Album:
https://plus.google.com/photos/116102424675781776531/albums/5922849246485071201?authkey=CM6etuO2x4-naQ

Here's the Ai Chihuahua! Tourist Picasa Album:
https://plus.google.com/photos/116102424675781776531/albums/5923177588996046737?authkey=CPKQ5JnX95GegAE

And here's our Kayak Trip Picasa Album:
https://plus.google.com/photos/116102424675781776531/albums/5923955421820645617?authkey=CL_UpsPdr6OrfQ

xxx
Karen

Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the cats of war

I sent my dad a picture of Ziggy sleeping in a box and he suggested that I post it on the blog so that Dan and the Gages can retaliate with cute cat pictures of their own. So let the floodgates be opened:

 Also I have lots of other cat pictures.

Jupiter does this sometimes because he is strange.

Ziggy used to like hanging out in the bathtub but I tried giving him a bath and now he doesn't seem to like it so much.

The cats basically take up the whole sofa.

This is Ziggy being Long Cat. There is not much to say here besides Long Cat is long.

I had a party last weekend that was fancy dress themed. So I couldn't resist getting little bow ties to dress up my poor cats. Actually, they didn't seem to mind that much; it's probably not that much different than their collars.

Jupiter is less thrilled than Ziggy.

Here's the corresponding picture of Jupiter in a box. I ended up with two (they were from Petsmart shipping me food and kitty litter respectively) so now each cat has one. They take up a lot of space on the floor so I would like to recycle them but the cats just have so much fun with them. Also I guess they spend more time in my apartment than I do.

One of my friends likes doing crafty things so she wanted to try her hand at cat bow ties. We tried it on Ziggy because he's the more agreeable one.

As a bonus, I have a cat story. Last weekend, I was doing something in the living room (I think it may have been Russian homework). I heard a strange noise from the bedroom and thought "Well, I'll finish this sentence I'm writing and then go to investigate." When I got into the bedroom, I saw this grey, furry blob on the window -- Jupiter had, for whatever reason, clawed his way up to the top of the screen and was clinging to it. Naturally, I yelled at him and pulled him off the window screen, but I'm kind of sorry that I didn't take a picture. After all, the screen was ruined anyway. Subsequently, Jupiter has been known as Spider Cat.

Speaking of cats and spiders, here is a bonus bonus story: A while ago I found a huge, horrible spider inhabiting my bathroom. I told Ziggy he was the man of the house, so he had to kill it. He sniffed at it and walked away. So I told Jupiter that he was the man of the house now and so it was up to him to kill the spider. He was also uninterested. I went to work after sternly telling the cats that I wanted the spider terminated with extreme prejudice sometime during the day. It was still there when I got home. So over the course of the evening, I mustered up my courage and a broom and went after it myself. And, of course, it was nowhere to be found. There is no happy ending to this story. :(

All right you other people with cats, I have dropped the gauntlet. The die is cast. Damn the torpedos and bring on the cat pictures!

The second week of our vacation...

Tonio cooking breakfast for us

Rancho Viejo

Gorditas California style!

...began with a long and leisurely breakfast at Rancho Viejo. Armando and Mariella were there too with their girls so it was lots of fun as well as delicious. Then we all went to Mass at their church - Jorge and Juan Jose and Sergio were there with their families too. We had planned to go to the park near the restaurant and have a picnic with the oysters they had brought back from the beach, but the kids vetoed that for a trip to Morton's Warm Springs. So we went back to the house for our swimming suits - we didn't have to get any more food since there was so much left over from the trip to the beach.

[Oh, I forgot to say (because there aren't any pictures!) the night before (Saturday) we had gone to the orchard/farm where some other cousins work - the sons of Esther who is Lucie's first cousin (and also a grandma!) That was incredibly delicious and interesting too, a very pretty place - not just grapes but fruit trees and flowers and we ate under a big arbor that had beans and cucumbers making the shade. I say 'not just grapes' because in Sonoma there are grapes growing everywhere, in everybody's backyard and along their driveways.]

We just swam in the shallow pool - it was cool, not warm!

Arley and Judith

Brianna

This time we went straight to the water, and left the 'grown-ups' to get the food ready. It was awesome lovely - funny thing, people in California swim in their clothes and just bring another set of dry clothes to change into. Or do they do that elsewhere and I just haven't been to a pool in a long time?
I took lots of pictures and I love the way the reflection lights up the faces of the kids. I don't think I've ever done pool photography. We also did some group posing - but ran out of time, so we didn't get all the families! Dang, guess we'll just have to go back to California so Rubén can complete his genealogy.

Tonio, Sergio, Hilda, Rubén, Edgar, Jorge, Juan José, Armando

The next day Jenny and Tonio took off from work to take us to San Francisco - José and Christopher came too. We were up bright and early but California time is just like Mexico time, so by the time we went to eat breakfast at a (slow) cafe and then drove to San Rafael we got the 11:40 ferry, arriving in SF at noon.

Lucie, Toño, Jenny, José, Rubén

In front of the boats

We walked all along the Embarcadero to get to Fisherman's Wharf where Jenny wanted us all to have clam chowder, which wasn't so odd because the wind made it a little chilly. 

Almost to the top of Nob Hill
(or Russian Hill?)

Then we planned to go to Chinatown but got distracted by the cable car station - it was too expensive and the people in the long line had already been waiting an hour. So we figured we'd follow the cable car line to Chinatown - and so we walked straight UP! We had done all our research about how to get to Chinatown - we just didn't realize that the Embarcadero curves around to Fisherman's Wharf and we were so far west of Chinatown.

José and Christopher alternated riding the scooter up and running and I did a racewalk so I could take a million pictures and the other four were laughing so hard it took them alot longer! We got to see the crazy zig-zag street (Lombard) from above - it looks so different from the iconic postcard that it took me awhile to realize what it was! We got as far as Sacramento and decided we really needed to turn left. Funny, when we asked people where Chinatown was nobody seemed to know! Fortunately we were right and the nice thing was that we accidentally found Grace Cathedral which is really beautiful, full of big murals, stained glass, sculptures, and a labyrinth. The special Ghiberti front doors were closed during repairs to the front of the building - really loud blasting (especially downstairs in the bathroom!) - but there was a very cool exhibit 'Graced with Light' meant to visualize music in the cathedral (http://www.gracecathedral.org/cathedral-life/latest-updates/cathedral-news/detail.php?nid=178). So, that was a great serendipity, as Jenny said, if we'd never gone such a crazy way to get to Chinatown, we'd never have found the cathedral.

Looking for Chinese slippers

We did finally get there though, and did our touristy shopping thing. Lucie got a red dress like Ivy, the American Girl, and Ruben got some new paint brushes. I gathered a bunch of tchotchkes for the cousins.

It was a very funny, exhausting but exhilarating day. When a guy put us on the bus back to the ferry we just piled in and laughed all the way home!

We had a big dinner that night at the restaurant and everybody stopped by for one last visit. We snuck out early the next morning and headed home. We took our time and stayed at the same place in Wells, Nevada, as we had on the way out. So the next day we had the early morning view of the great salt flats from the mountains - the same view Rubén saw 'as a young man' thinking he saw an ocean:

Surreal Morning

We stopped in Salt Lake City again, this time with the camera - and they were having a parade!

SLC: a float goes by, the Temple in the background

Everybody was out on the street and most places were closed (we got there at 8:30) so we watched the parade which was all about "the future (remember the past)" and kind of corny and small town in a way. Lots of brothers and sisters out fishing for lost souls! Then we snagged some breakfast at a deserted mall and walked UPHILL again (though not as bad as SF) to get to Lucie's museum 'Daughters of the Pioneers' - it was amazingly full of items and very interesting.

Then we just had to go through more mountains to get to those endlessly interesting prairie flats.
We didn't push quite so hard so we ended up doing two more nights, which meant Lucie and I got to watch more Dr. Who in the motel rooms!

Heading Home Again

We got home at noon on Friday after a long rainy morning the whole way from St. Joseph to St. Louis. A very good thing we did NOT press to get home and stayed the night since we would have arrived about midnight - the downstairs toilet had a very slow leak - totally soaked the floor and the whole laundry area of the basement - yikes because that's Pleasantown - we had a lot of cleaning to do ('it didn't half ponk' - Emile Zola) so I'm glad it was daytime!

That's all from here, I think I have exceeded the limits of publishing here (blogger doesn't want to save anymore!) and better sign off, lots of love,
Agelaius