Family Rebellion 2015!!!

Been a few years since we've all been able to get together at the same time, and I'm not sure this really counts since Grandma and Grandpa are still serving their mission in Barbados (what a rotten place to have to be doing service, eh?!?).  We'll call it a reunion though since my sister made the drive allllll the way up from New Mexico.

I'll apologize for the lackluster pics... Still learning how to use my new phone but we'll discuss that later.

First time we've all been together in something like 3 years?



Be very glad this isn't a video and that there's no sound!



We had a great family dinner on Sunday.  There were a few comments on why we had the boys peel so many potatoes... Then they saw how much my boys eat.  They would subsist on nothing but mashed potatoes and gravy if they could- and would probably go through a 10 lb bag of 'em every single day.  After dinner we went on a short walk to take everyone on a tour of the soon to be "new" house.


They had a great time exploring the "Clue" house and playing in the yard.  Of course, Don had to inspect the green equipment that comes with the place...


That was about it for Day 1.  Got to sit and visit a lot, which was great!

Day 2 was SSUUUPPPER hot.  Topped 101 degrees.  We mostly hid out in the a/c for the afternoon.  We lit the fire to roast dogs on in the late afternoon before a refreshing dip in Jensens Grove.



 
Then off to the "lake".



 

After the swim we came back home and re-lit the fire for some smores.  The right way to do it- in tin foil like a dinner.  Makes 'em about perfect every time!  

 
We also had to make some Dirty Diapers.  My favorite camping treat!

 
That was it for day 2.  Day 3 was a little more relaxed.  In the morning we went and toured the Potato Museum (yes, it really exists). 



We also stopped at my shop to show everyone around, had ice cream at Rupes, cleaned the house for a showing, and skeddadled back to Sarah's school to watch a show on her big screen while the house showed.  After that it was a relaxing evening visiting!



Day 4 was super relaxing for us- Kristi's family went up to Steve's in the morning to spend the next couple of days with them.  Day 5 found us up early packing for the next couple of days at Steveos.  It was a crazy busy day-  Spent 3 hours at Squealers Fun Park up in Rigby almost constantly on the go-carts!  Kids are CRAZY drivers... Kade managaed to ram every single person on the track at LEAST once, more like 2 or 3 times!  They got pretty fast and it was a real competition!





Of course, we also did some mini-golf,

 

The gyro thingy, and a few other rides.





After Squealers we blasted up to Rexburg for a cheap movie.



Then off to a Pizza buffet...

 



And then we blasted to the splash park...





And then back to Rigby for some backyard camping.



Whew!!! Talk about a crazy day!  If that wasnt busy enough, how about we wake up the next day for an 8 mile hike with the kids!?



4 miles in, 4 back out.  8 mile round trip to the Lower Palisades Lake. 







Cool hike, nice shade, decent trail with some nice cliffs along the river.



Cool bridges,



And finally, the lake!!!



Saw some Moosen.  Hard to see but there is one out there in the middle in the above pic,  and a momma and her calf in the lower pic.



Of course it was hot enough to require a dunk in the frigid lake...





A quick break and the hike out.  Got to lug this little squirt for a bit while she napped.  She even would talk to me when she woke up!



Saw a mountain goat on the way back,



and FINALLY made it to the cars!





Whew.  Who wants ICE CREAM!?!?





The world famous SQUARE ice cream in Swan valley.

Long drive home but we finally made it.  Kristi hung out at Steves for another day and it sounds like they had fun.  We lolligagged around the house relaxing the next day, and then on Saturday evening they came back to watch fireworks with us, spend the night, and start the journey home to New Mexico the next day.

Anticipation!



Well, maybe they didn't all like it...



But the show was pretty darn good!

 





Everybody fell right to sleep after the show and we saw them off this morning.  It was a great visit, sad its over, but hopefully now that they don't live on the other side of the country we can make this happen a little more often!  Here's to next years family reunion! 

I ain't dead yet...

"Just, very, horribly burned..."

No, not burned, but between the bolt of lightning and the sheet of plywood flying down the freeway in front of me I'm beggining to wonder if my days aren't numbered...

So here's the skinny.  Schools out.  I survived the 8th grade Cali trip, barely.  The house is sort of caught back up.  I've taken a "part time" job subcontracting small engine repair for ACE Hardware in addition to all of the other small engine repair jobs I've been putting off until school got out.  We are pushing our house hard- our "new" house is now vacant and we are taking care of the yard etc until we can get our house sold.  Can't wait to get over there!  Lots been going on, lots of things I plan on posting so stay tuned. 

In the meantime, here's whats going down in the dorkpunch garage:



And that's just the little stuff!

Lightning Rod Hat.

So I have this hat...





So yeah. Day one of a 6 day, 5 night, 2,000+ mile drive with 100 eighth grade students. One of the stops along the way is Bryce Canyon. Cool place, lots of fun stuff to see, plus after a bit of a hike the kids are tired enough to sleep all night on the bus.

Small problem- its raining. On the way up its full on downpour complete with enough hail to cover the ground / road to look like snow, and cause a truck to slide off the road and roll.

We weren't sure what to do. By the time we got to the parking area the rain had pretty much quit, and the storm had moved a ways away. We got the kids off the bus and headed towards the bathroom. The tour director and I headed over to the trailhead to check out the situation. 

We got up to the rim trail and walked along the edge a bit. It was obvious that the trail was waaayyyy too muddy- people coming out were drenched and had 50 lbs of gooey muck stuck to each foot. We wandered over to Sunset Point, which you can see at the bottom right of this map.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Su...7b4e33!6m1!1e1

If you zoom in on it you can sorta tell what its like- it juts out over the edge of the hoodoos and gives a great view of the Wall Street trail. We're just standing there, minding our own business... I happened to be standing in a small puddle.

Just above the brim of my hat I see the bolt fall and curve towards me, and at the same time hear the air SIZZLE like when you drip some water in a pan of hot oil and ZAP. Little tingly feeling on the top of my head.

I don't know if I ducked, or if I convulsed, or what, but as I did I hollered and my hat somehow ended up several feet off to my side, next to the other counselor. I was still ducked, and we looked back and forth from the hat to each other about 4 times and we asked each other "Did that really just happen?! " before the thunder finally hit and jarred us into action. We took off running and all of the nice tourists standing around with shocked looks on their faces kinda slowly turned around and started scooting out of there.

Surreal experience. Very lucky it was a baby lightning bolt- it felt like someone had stuck one of those therapy electric shocker thingys on my head.

No marks on that hat, no known side effects / superpowers, other than being called "Sparky" for the next 5 days.

Apparently, lightning strikes up there are not too uncommon as illustrated by this awesome sign...



If only that sign had been down by the main parking area...  They even have a Don't Get Zapped section on their website where you can take a quiz and print out a certificate so's you know you won't get struck by lighting.  On my list of things to do now!

Ready for the irony?  Not 5 minutes before this happened, we were on the bus and the students were joking with my about my Lightning Rod Hat, saying how they wanted to be struck by lightning.  Guess we forgot to knock on wood!

The rest of the trip went smooth- Dodgers won their game, we saw 2 Blue Whales out on the ocean, found lots of interesting sea life in the tide pools including star fish and sea hares, road every ride possible at Sea World, Universal Studios, and California Adventure, and even managed to make it all the way back to lonely old Idaho without losing a single student.

More Old School Greene.

Time for some more greene. We've been having a LOT of rain lately- nothing like Texas at the moment but for Idaho, LOTS. After 2 weeks of wet I finally had the chance to cut grass. My grass clipping pile is over flowing, so I decided to go old school- dug out the '65 110. Love this thing! It always fires right up and cuts pretty darn good.

Had to drive it a few hundred yards from the "shop" to my yard, and on the way I stopped to check on a neighbor who's been in the hospital and has grass over a foot tall. Doesn't sound like he's going to be able to do much for a while, so I put all 8 ponies to work knocking down his rather large lawn. Any excuse for more seat time, right!?



Finally made it to my yard and man- for 50 years old this thing does a GREAT job. There's just something about sitting on that steel seat, having to pull levers and push buttons and clang gears. Slow, but fun. SMoooootthhhh cut too.





Old mower has come a long ways- used to not be able to mow more than 15 minutes without having to stop and drain the rust from the sediment bowl or for something else breaking down. I used it for well over 2 hours and it didn't miss a beat. 

 

So after all that mowing, I figured I should give the old thing some attention. Pulled the deck off and commenced cleaning.



Lots of yuck, top and bottom.



Discovered the tensioner pulley pivot was siezed. Managed to break it loose and also managed to break the spring that pulls the belt tight... . Not a reall big deal because I've got a spare.

Pressure washed the deck off.



Decided to try something out. Probably should have spent some time knocking the rust off but I want to see how well this Rustoleum holds up to the abuse and over the rust.



Blades sharpened and back on. I know, I didn't do it right... Running out of time at this point.



Got the deck all buttoned back up and ready to mount but had to leave so I thought I was done for the night. Ended up getting back early enough to finish a few things up!



No pic, but I finally got the governor and throttle cable adjusted right so it will actually idle now instead of run at a constant 3,200 rpm's.

Also got this rat-nest figured out. No idea what they were thinking but it was wired in the weirdest way possible- the charging circuit was hooked in to the coil so it was powered even when the key was off, the starter was hooked up to something else, just everything was backwards.



ShaZAM!!! All buttoned up.



So now it will start, and more importantly STOP, with the key switch and I don't have to unplug the coil every time I'm done mowing. The throttle works, so's I can idle it down or rev it up. Blades are sharp, tensioners working so's the blades don't slow down when it runs into thicker grass.



Few things still to do though: Need to address the leaky carb and adjust the stiff clutch pedal.

Mendelmax 2.0 - 3D printed ball cap, letting slicer generate support.

Tried something new today. Let Slicer generate its own support material just to see how it would work. A student wanted to try making a hat, and I thought that was a good idea so here is my version. Pretty thin shell, printed in PLA. Really need to get back to ABS.

Took about 6 1/2 hrs to print, and without the support it probably would have taken 4.



First part bridged with the support material.





Taller,



and taller,



aaannnddddd TALLER,





Done.



Print came out pretty decent. Still trying to get a few more things dialed in but I'm happy with the quality.







The support material was a PAIN to get out. Still have some cleanup to do too.



Ended up cracking the shell in a couple of different spots trying to get it all out.



But hey, IT FITS!!!



Now to make a brim. This one's a bit small but I figure once I get everything figured out I can scale it up or down in Sketchup!

On a side note, as you can tell the hair is getting just a *tad* long...  The day I shaved after being in the play I was informed by my students SEVENTY TWO TIMES that I had, in fact, shaved.  Going to put the haircut off a few more weeks so's I don't have to endure that again!

Throw Back Sunday

Eyeballs...  Mrs. Punch has done some incredible things with photography but I've always loved what she can do with eyes.

This one is I believe our youngest son, great color and clarity.  Shes got a few more like this on her flickr page.  If you look close, you can even see the old walnut tree in our front yard!

For reference, here's the rest of him:

Pretty goofy smile but gotta love those eyes!

Sixth Grade Shoe Day.

My son had to "invent" shoes for Sixth Grade assignment. He got to my shop after school, I left for a meeting, and here's what he came up with.  Should have taken more pictures but I wasn't even in the room for most of his build!

One minor problem here... Can you see it?



It was pretty funny. I was out back observing the woods teacher and some students finish up for the day on a shed they are building. He came out and said "I've got 2 left feet"... Took me a minute to figure out what he meant!

I drilled the rivets out for him and he finished them up.







They have to wear them all day tomorrow at school. Should be interesting to see how well they hold up! I see a couple of potential fail points- the rivets holding the leather together are probably going to pull out but he'll live and learn.

Only one smushed finger out of the deal too!



I'm pretty impressed. I was worried he was going to cut himself on the metal, but he cut out both soles all by himself with the aviation snips. I sanded off the edges but other than that he designed and built them all by himself out of scraps from the shop.  Took him maybe an hour yesterday to get the soles cut out and he spent almost 3 hours tonight cutting leather, punching holes, and riveting it all together.  I think it took him a while to figure out a latch mechanism on the first one, but the second one seemed to go faster.