There is a Bed in the Car

There is a Bed in the Car, originally uploaded by Dar Moorhouse.

Eli's new (to him) bed has arrived home. He's pretty excited about it because it's rather like a bunk bed but below is a fold out couch/bed combo. So the majority of the time Eli will have his very own couch to lounge on and play his Nintendo DS (when we allow him to play it). His old bed was made of that evil particleboard and was beginning to fall apart. I'm pretty amazed that I managed to fit the whole darn bed in the Neon; two mattresses in the trunk with a few rails and the rest of the frame on the roof rack. We used zip ties to secure most of the bundle and two sinch straps for extra security. Worked a charm.

Airport Walk

I've driven past the airport numerous times and I keep telling myself "I have to go for a walk around that trail". Well it was just so nice out today and I was just so sick of being at home that I decided to drive into town with Eli (Erica has a cold and has to study, poor kid) and go for that walk. Glad we did. The perimeter path skirts the edge of the security fence but once it approaches the clay cliffs which dominate the skyline along the western edge of town, it branches out into the trees to wind it's way to the cliff edge. We wandered all through that area and took advantage of the warm sun and great view over the town. We also had fun watching the airplanes taking off and landing in turns; some big jets and some small cessnas.

I have to go back again when the sun is much lower in the sky and try to get some nice shots of the city and mountains together.

Rocket Science

Here is a letter I sent to NASA just the other day...

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Hello,

Back in 1970 or 1971 I received a letter from NASA thanking me for my contribution to the Apollo Program (I think it was). The letter in question was lost many years ago so I have no further information about it. The strange thing is I was born in 1967 so this would have made me a rather young member of any Apollo Program.

How would I go about finding information about this?

Thanks for your help is this curious matter.
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I wonder if they will ever answer my query...

Computer History

I found a piece of computer history the other day at work. We went on a major cleaning spree to try and clear out junk from our office space to make room for future junk storage. Amongst some of that old junk were boxes of books ("The Complete Reference to the Internet", "How to Use Windows 3.1") and even some CD's packed in with them. Being curious I started to search through the books and software and found a CD of Open Linux from Caldera. This particular version (2.2) dates back to about 1999 when Linux was still young and mostly unheard of. Caldera was just one of the players out there who adopted Linux and tried to market it to the business world but never really got anywhere with it. They were just one of those companies I was aware of, neither good nor bad, just kind of there. One day, however, they decided that they owned Linux and all others were in violation of their lisencing. And so Evil Caldera was born. The company existed simply to sue and their brand of Linux became a lackluster product.

Strange Connections

What have fence posts got to do with changing a flat tire? It all started when Tanya and Eli went out to play two person baseball (with a stick and a rubber ball) and Tanya noticed our car had a flat tire. I put down my book (The Skystone by Jack White) and went out to swap the tire with the spare I've got all ready just for this kind of situation. I'm just so darn prepared. Lug nut one loosened easily as did number two. The third jammed, as did the fourth and fifth. This looked bad. I got my proper tire iron out and tried. It bent. I got my other tire iron out. It started to strip the outside of the lug nut so I stopped. I figured if I had good enough leverage I could do it. I started wandering around the property and noticed a hollow metal pipe used as a fence post (at least it used to be used for one when the chicken coop was in operation and maintained properly). I checked and it was pretty loose in the ground so I yanked it out. Yup, it was hollow. I took it over to the car, stuck in on the tire iron to extend the handle and yanked. Pop. The lug nut released! So I tried it on the other ones and they too came free. Whew. That saved a tow truck bill. I then went over to get the spare tire and remembered it needed to have the mud cleaned off it from last fall or the wheel would be all out of balance. I also remembered that the filter in the well needed changing because the trickle that came out of the hose wouldn't clean even a speck of dust. So I had to jump down into the well housing and replace the filter. After that I got the tire cleaned up and put it back onto the car. Whew. What a strange series of events I had to run through just to change the tire. After all that I don't feel like getting a picture of the tire...

Weather Change

The weather has shifted a bit up here in the north. We've had blue sky and warm sun for the past three weeks or so and I've enjoyed every minute of it. A couple of days ago the winds shifted and increased in strength and today it's blowing so hard I can use it's force to aerobrake with the car. A  few badly needed rain storms have washed over us in the last two or three days as well.

Yukon Cycles

The Yukon can be a land of cycles and extremes. From year to year you never know what is going to happen. Five years ago when we first moved here there were so many wasps we couldn't even go outside without having them fly into our food and our faces. They built nests everywhere, even one on our power meter. Every year after that it's been something new; dogwood seeds blowing in the wind so thick they created small dogwood seed vortices in the wind; another year it was grasshoppers so thick they jumped out in waves as we walked through the tall grasses. This year the wasps are back. Not as thick as previously but still a nuisance. One bonus is they make really cool homes. I've always been fascinated by wasp home building. They scrape off bits of wood and chew it up to create a type of paper and somehow, amazingly, they build spherical nests. Inside these nests is a small honeycomb shaped dome in which they lay their eggs. This particular nest was fifteen feet up a tree which I scaled to retrieve. The tree was pretty thin and Eli couldn't believe I made it up.  I was thinking I should collect up some more (I know where to find at least ten) and make a mobile to hang from the kids ceiling...

Erica and Topper

Today my girl turns fifteen and part of her birthday is attending a weekend Horse Camp out by Takhini Hotsprings. Yesterday Tanya had arrangements to transport Topper from North Forks out to Takhini so he could take part in the camp as well. After Tanya got Topper out there we all headed out there last evening to go see him in his new weekend digs (Eli crammed in the back seat with the hay for Topper). Erica with her new riding boots, was already there helping out and hanging with the other girls. We all leaned against the fence and watched the fun as the horses began to fight for their social positions. A normally gentle horse like Topper can get pretty aggressive in situations like that.

Erica gets to skip school today as part of the deal but I don't think she fully appreciates that it's going to be a lot of hard work this weekend. Hope she has a great birthday today!

Rack This

Erica's friend is moving and her Mom had a garage sale. I spotted two wooden racks amongst the things to be gotten rid of and picked them up for a total of $20. I got them home, reassembled them with the help of my boy dragged them into the boot room and looked at the mess I had to organize. It took a while to unhook the computers and network equipment and to untangle the massive ball of wires which had gotten steadily worse over the last few years. Dust everywhere. After some amount of time cleaning I re-racked it all into it's new home and now things look much nicer. I've even reclaimed a substantial amount of square footage which is at a premium in my place.

The next thing I need to do is run some network cable under the floor and do a proper punch-down into a proper panel. I don't have much equipment (compared to a real server room) but even a handful of wires turns into a clutter pretty darn fast.