A new dual energy souce green clothes dryer!
After much internal debate over the plusses and minuses, I finally decided to break down and purchase and install a new clothes dryer. I did some searching and found a model that not only runs on green energy, but two sources of green energy! It was very inexpensive, and the money spent will pay for itself in savings on the energy bill in no time. You may ask “Where can I get one of these amazing new dryers?”
ARRL SSB Sweepstakes 09
My 7 year old daughter Gillian passed her Technician test a few weeks back and made her dad very proud! Her callsign, KF7FVK, was issued just in time for us to work the November 09 ARRL SSB Sweepstakes contest together. We didn’t go into it trying to win any awards, I had the simple goal to have some fun and give her a chance to work some HF. We entered as KB7QOA multi-operator.
Pet Peeve: No listed price
Just a quick rant to get something off my chest. I’ve received a copy each of the Ham Radio Outlet and the Amateur Electronics Supply catalogs and have been happily drooling over them. What drives me nuts is when I go to look at the price of a radio, it just says “call for price” or “see website.” Huh? Why bother to print a catalog? I fully understand that prices are changing on a regular basis, but there is always an MSRP price. Print the MSRP price with a note that says call for latest discounted price. At least give me a ballpark price so I can compare two radios within a same price class.
Even worse are companies that have a website to sell a product, list all the features, maybe a snazzy demo, then have absolutely no pricing information available. Read more
Technology sometimes takes away from the experience
Today I stopped by my local library and checked out a book. The 1980 edition of the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Handbook to be exact. While some of the rules and regs are out of date, the electronics theory and information is just as accurate as it ever was. Since I’m considering winding some coils for an antenna, I figured I’d do a little R&D rather than just taking somebody else’s example and copying it. I’d prefer to understand why I am winding that many turns on the torroid and what value I’m ending up with.
When I opened up the front cover of the book, I saw something I realized I hadn’t seen in quite a long time, the due-date log.
Windows 7: Way to screw up printing!
For the most part I am liking Windows 7 pretty well. I like the eye-candy in the interface. The Task Bar layout is starting to grow on me. Microsoft has taken quite a few things and tweaked them just enough to make things nice. So far the only program I’ve tried to run that doesn’t is Trillian Pro, so I switched to using Digsby instead. Trillian may have fixed the issue on their end, however my subscription has run out so I am stuck with the version I paid for, and would have to pay again to maybe fix the issue.
That said, I have found a huge oversight on Microsoft’s part, supporting old printers. I have an older HP Laserjet 4L in my garage attached to my Linux server. It is shared to the network using CUPS. In Windows XP they had drivers included for that printer, so I just set up a new printer, pointed it at the right network address, and selected the driver and was up and running. Piece of cake! Not so with Windows 7.
Joule Thief Workshop
The Reuseum held an awesome workshop back in April based on Make’s Joule Thief weekend project. There were over a dozen people in there using space on 5 workbenches, plenty of soldering irons, and plenty of knowledge being passed around. It was nice to see a complete range of skill levels there, from people who are always tinkering with electronics, all the way through people who have never touched an electronic component before. While Gillian was the youngest, there were several younger kids in attendance. In our ready-to-eat society it is encouraging to see the future generation taking an interest in DIY and the sciences in general. Read more
I’m still here, just not online right now
It has been a very busy couple of weeks. Makayla had her cranio surgery on Monday, so between the preparation and doctor appointments last week, and keeping the kids rounded up this week, I haven’t had any extra time to blog or do much of anything online.
Just a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to in my “spare” time, is the weekend before last I attended Boise Code Camp. I didn’t have time to fully prepare my presentation, so I just attended this year rather than presenting a half-finished talk. I attended several sessions on robotics and physical computing, and they all pointed in one form or another to the Arduino microprocessor development platform. It is a very cheap but powerful method to of getting started playing with digital circuitry and interfacing a PC to the physical world. I went ahead and ordered one myself, so expect some projects to start appearing here soon.
Work was spent getting all of my loose ends tied up in preparation of being gone this week. Thank you to everybody who has allowed me to concentrate on my family right now rather than worrying about what is going on at work.
I’ve watched a couple things on the TV after getting home in the evenings from the hospital. I’ve needed something to do while doing nothing, and a good movie is a good way to do it. Mythbusters is back on, as is South Park, and I watched the movie Walking Tall.
Anyway, that is just a quick update on what is going on in my world. Makayla has been cleared to go home today, so as soon as the doctors get done with all the discharge mumbo jumbo we’ll be headed that way.
Goal Update – 10 Weeks + 2 days
Just when I want to get back in gear, I get sick again. I’m finally getting over it now after seeing the doc, so I’m hoping to hit the ground running again quickly.
Goal Update – 9 Weeks
Its been a very trying last couple of weeks. I’m falling behind a little in a couple of areas. Time to put the nose to the grindstone and catch back up.
Socialist at Heart
I decided today that I’m a socialist. This doesn’t mean I want our country to become a socialist state, but I believe in the socialist ideals. The socialism that first comes to mind (government setting everybody’s wages, telling people when and where they can get medical treatment) is not what I am talking about, this is not true socialism. I believe we should all be working in order to advance the society as a whole, not just as individuals. I believe those working toward that goal should be provided basic needs and wants by the very society it is working for. That being said, I understand reality, and I know our society as it is now could never support such a high ideal.