Technology, Flying and other Interests

I am currently taking a break from doing some projects outside and decided to check email. A friend of mine noted that I have not posted to my blog in a while. I cannot believe it has been 2 months since my last posting. A lot has happened in 2 months.

I think the most interesting event that has happened in the past 2 months was a visit from the local sheriff’s office to let me know that my LP tank was leaking. This is after my wife came home and stated that she had been stopped by a neighbor asking if she noticed the smell of a leaking LP tank. I told my wife it smelled more like a skunk that was in the neighborhood and then told her that it was probably nothing.

This led to one visit from the sheriff’s office, one visit from the company who takes care of our LP tank and two to three calls from the neighbors. Once the LP technician arrived, the problem was taken care of.

What was the cause of the leak? A bleeder valve had worked loose allowing the gas to escape. By the way, as noted above, the odorant that is added to the LP gas has a very nasty smell. It smells like a skunk or rotten eggs and the smell lingers for a very long time.

On another note, my wife never did state the words, “I told you so” but I know she wanted to.

Other things that I have been doing are family reunions and doing some more flying of Quicksilver Ultralights at Ultralight Aircraft of Iowa.

Upcoming things will be to break the bikes back out and wipe the dust off the geocaching stuff.

Honda came through with my Honda Odyssey ignition switch issue. They ended up, under warranty, replacing the ignition switch as well as all the locks on the van. I ended up with 2 new keys and a working ignition switch. Thanks for standing behind your product Honda .

Spring fever has really, really set in now. I went out to Ultralight Aircraft of Iowa this weekend to check out their new planes and to see if anyone was flying. They are continuing to see a growing demand for the float planes that they are now selling. I hope to see more videos up on their site soon as well. 

It was an early morning for me this morning as I spent the time digging out from an ample amount of snowfall from last night. The official snowfall for my location was 17”, which I confirmed by measuring the snowfall in various locations at my home. I have included pictures below.

As I began to the job of clearing the snow, I noticed one van that had gone into the ditch on our private road. I pushed the snow blower over to the van, once I had my driveway cleared, and blew the snow back away from the van. I figured this would help the missing owner when he/she came back to retrieve the van. About 20 minutes later, along came a tow truck and the owner. I soon found out why the newspaper had not been delivered to various homes in our neighborhood… I am glad that we did not have to deal with any wind today as that would have added a lot more work to the morning snow cleanup.

Tonight was a night of sledding with the children, this lasted a whole ten minutes as the temperature had fallen to 1 F. We spent most of the time getting on boots, hats, coats, gloves. I cannot believe how long it takes to get winter clothing on children.

Someone could become very rich if they could invent a velcro/zipper/snap style suit that would have all of the winter accessories built in. I would envision it as a coat, insulated pants outfit with boots, scarf, gloves and hood all attached together. The user would lay the outfit on the floor, sit in it, pull the boots on, snap/zip/Velcro the legs and pants on, slip the coat part on and zip up. The scarf and hood would be together, wrap the scarf, pull the hood up. When the hands go in to the sleeves of the coat they fit in to the gloves at the end of the sleeves. Walla, the person is dressed for the winter weather in 30 seconds. The sleeves and legs of the winter garb would have to be expandable to fit different sizes and I am sure other items would have to be taken in to consideration for fitting vs different sizes. This would also stop the many mornings searching for the kids scarf, mittens, etc as they would all be integrated in to one super snowsuit. Then we could add a wireless internal temperature sensor that would have a receiver in the house to alert the parents when the children are getting cold.

Ok, so maybe I have been out in the snow too long today.

This is the first week after the Christmas Holiday and it appears that my wife, kids and I made it through with minimal issues. No battles ensued at our home other than the normal skirmishes between my two children. I went through the normal day after Christmas assembly of various toys that came in way to many pieces. For the record, the directions for assembly that come with some of these toys are useless and should be considered a cruel joke to the parents or the other lucky ones assigned the task of putting the toys together.

Now on to New Years Eve  and figuring out what my New Years Eve resolution will be. 

More ultralight videos are available for the Quicksilver Ultralight fans out there. Take a look if you get a chance. In addition, it looks like the floatplane is now listed for sale as well. It must be a blast to fly and then be able to land on water or paved runway. I wonder if people actually go fishing from these.

I am online briefly checking email and thought I would tell everyone Merry Christmas. The kids are now fast asleep dreaming about Santa’s arrival. My wife and I have finished wrapping some final presents along with what now appears to be our traditional viewing of one of the many adaptations of Scrooge, aired on TV.

Earlier tonight, my brother-in-law assisted my daughter in finding the current location of Santa by using the on-line Santa tracker service provided by the folks at Norad. Many thanks should go to the people at Norad that make the Santa Tracking resource available. Going to the Norad site has also become an important annual tradition for my children and for my other nieces and nephews as well. It was enjoyable to watch my children’s excitement as they intently viewed the new reports on Santa’s whereabouts on the computer. They also went to bed quickly once the report stated he had reached the east coast of the United States. Hmmm, I wonder if Santa can arrive at the east coast of the United States earlier next year?

Once again, Merry Christmas everyone and Have a Great New Year!