Bud Husk Time

It is the time of year when we get the annual dropping of the bud covers on the trees. It started late last week, and now every time someone walks into the house they drag in a few of the red husks in on the bottom of their shoes. I will need to get outside shortly to start sweeping and vacuuming to get them out of the normal walkways until I can spend a day getting them up with the shop vac. And I’ll also need to climb the ladder and get up in the gutters before things get clogged up and the water runs over the top. I really hate this time of year. Once it is over and done, the maple seeds will start dropping. So I have that to look forward to in about a month.

Fixing the Saturn… AGAIN!

When it was time to get the oil changed on the Saturn I asked the mechanic to look over the power steering lines. After the last time I had the oil changed, I asked to have the engine given the once over because there were oil spots all over the driveway, so there was definitely some leaking. At the time, he told me there were lots of little leaks, but it would really be a hassle/expensive to fix it, so since it wasn’t catastrophic, he recommended just keeping the fluids topped off and check it every week or two to make sure it hadn’t dropped too low. Which is what I was doing.

After having to constantly add power steering fluid every time I checked it, I figured that would be the worst leak that needed fixing, so I asked them to look at it. And I was right. There was definitely a problem with the lines to and from the power steering reservoir. Additionally, the front end (particularly the front passenger tire) was making a loud clunking noise periodically, that I assumed was not good. It wasn’t. The front swaybar link had completely broken. I was told it really would affect driving it, but it did make the loud banging sound, so I thought I had better get that fixed. It’s always best to have something that isn’t broken on the car, ya know?

I have two weeks to get it in and get it fixed before Sarah comes home for Easter. I am sure when she does get here, she’ll want to drive her car to visit friends, so I better get it taken care of now, or at least sooner than later. So more money getting tossed into it. Actually, with all the stuff we’ve done to it, it should actually run pretty well. I will need to look at maybe getting the A/C fixed though. But that’s going to be almost $1K, and I don’t know if that car is really worth it.

Well That Stinks

No seriously, it stinks! I am talking about the air outside. A few months ago, the landfill opened up a new section to filling/dumping garbage. Even though it is four miles away, it is a pretty rancid smell from time to time. I don’t know why it would be any smellier than normal since the landfill has been there for the entire time we have lived in the Falls and it has never been as bad as it has been lately. It seems like every other day we are catching wind of the landfill. I have a theory though. The new section that has been opened is right next to Brown Deer Rd/Main St.. Because of all the traffic on that road, the vehicles do a lot to pull that air over the new garbage along as they drive by. So because of that the smells whaft over in our direction much more than they normally would. Just something we have to live with I guess until they move on to a different area.

More DNA Supplies

I had to make a trip to the Science and Surplus store for more supplies for Ali’s DNA project. I think the tube idea was working well for the wrungs of the DNA ladder, but because the tubing was in coils, the cut pieces have a “curl” to them. So I think that I will need to put a wooden dowel thru the entire piece in order to straighten it out. Also, for her sugars and phosphates, we went with ping pong balls painted different colors. This is going to work out well I think, but the wires I had initially planned to run thru them are a little bit too stiff, so I have to look for a different type of wire for her. I think some 18 gauge copper wire would work well. It is stiff enough to hold its form, but flexible enough to twist without causing any problems to the rest of the structure.

It would have been so much easier using marshmallows. I think we are up around $25 or $30 now to make this model. She better get a good grade for this is all I will say.

Spectrum WiFi - 2

Hooray!!!  We have WiFi again! 

The service guy who came out this morning took one look at our router and said, yeah, he was just going to replace it.  Further, he said they equipment wears out all the time.  When you think about it, the routers are on 24/7 so eventually they just wear out… nothing lasts forever.

He pulled a new one out of the box and went to work getting it hooked up.  Once it was plugged in and booted, he had to do a couple of things to get the setting correct so we could connect things.  It took a bit of doing, such as resetting the router to factory settings and rebooting a couple of times, but at least we’re up and running again.

One thing he also pointed out was that the router really wasn’t in an optimum spot in the house to send the signal everywhere.  That makes sense because we have a sort of a dead spot which required me to hard wire Kris’s computer to the router because it kept dropping the wifi signal, even as all the other devices in the house were working.  I thought it was something that was blocking the signal in that corner of the house, so I connected a couple of Cat 6 cables together and strung it thru the basement to the router.  The technician recommended spending a few bucks to get a wifi extender if we wanted to keep the router where it was.  That may be an idea, but I have no problem moving it if need be, as long as it is out of the way.  But for now I’ll wait and see how the new router performs before looking into picking up an extender.

Spectrum WiFi

For the last couple of months, Kris has been losing her wifi connection on her computer and the girls have complained about the connection dropping when trying to watch Netflix, or do homework.  I had initially chalked it up to too many devices wanting bandwidth.  For the last couple of weeks I tried rebooting the router, and running the troubleshooting app thru my phone to reset the router.  I had finally had enough when we were unable to connect any devices, phones, computers, tablets, etc. to the wifi even after rebooting, so I called the tech support.  After talking to them for a good 20 minutes or so, they had remotely reset it and told me if I had any more problems to call back right away since their diagnostics were showing nothing was wrong.  DUH! I could have told them that the wifi was working fine when I called!

Then today when I got home from work we had no wifi yet again, so I dialed up Spectrum to get them on it.  After about 30 minutes of playing around, trying to remotely access it and not being able to, they said they would need to send out a technician because they believed there was definitely something wrong with my router.  Again, DUH!

So now I have an appointment to have a guy come out this Saturday morning and have a look at things.  We’re running now, but it is still going to be spotty for the next couple of days.  

Nope, Not Me

If you were watching the news, you may have heard that there was a Powerball winner from Wisconsin last night (I think it was $60 milion?) and the ticket was sold in the Milwaukee area.  Sorry, it wasn’t me.  I just wanted to head that off ahead of time so I don’t have to field calls from family and friends. 😀

Preparing for Tryouts

Since the Cheer showcase and the cheer banquet are now over, the next thing Ali has to look forward to is preparing for the 2017-18 tryouts. She had about a week off, but the date for tryouts has been announced, May 21st, which means beginning the process of getting ready for them. The biggest thing will be keeping her tumbling skills up for the next two months. And since the varsity squad is only losing three seniors (and I think there are two other girls who are not planning on trying out next year) there are going to be limited spots open. Additionally, the JV squad looked pretty good based on what we saw at the cheer showcase, so I think there will be some competition for spots, and just because Ali made varsity as a freshman, there is no guarantee she’ll make it again for next year. I like to hope she has an advantage since the coaches wanted her last year, especially after she didn’t make it initially, and was added to the varsity squad as an alternate. I hope she puts in the work and doesn’t get complacent, because I think if she ends up going back to JV next year, she’ll find it is a step down after spending a year on varsity. I want her to work at it, but I also don’t want to be the one pushing her, she has to want to do it. The big thing, I think, will be keeping Ali focused.

DNA Model

We have reached the point where Alison is starting to get into doing the same sort of projects that Sarah had to do for school. For biology she has to make a DNA model. However, she has a different teacher than Sarah had, which means different requirements. When I helped with Sarah’s project, we made her model out of marshmallows, toothpicks, and floral wire. Ali’s teacher dropped the stipulation that they were not allowed to use food items. So that threw a wrench into things.

After looking over models online to see what sort of ideas I could come up with for her. I saw some pictures of people making their models out of paper when I thought that maybe we could do the same thing they had done by using PVC tubing. I thought we could cut a few lengths and paint them different colors for the different components of the DNA strand, and use small pcs. of wooden dowels to connect them. That was where we started. So we went to American Science and Surplus on the south side to see what we could get along those lines that would work. We have a couple of weeks to get it put together so when we finish, I’ll put up a couple of pictures.

Work, Classes, and CNA

One thing that we found out after Sarah began her freshman year at UW-LaCrosse was that in order to get accepted into the PA Program, she needed to have 1000 patient contact hours logged. They gave her examples of service that would count toward those hours, and the most popular, or easiest to get, was doing work that required having a CNA degree. Unfortunately, Sarah does not have her CAN. Had she known, she could have taken the required classes for it in high school. There are programs that you can take at tech school, but it requires 80 hours of class time and 40 hours of patient contact time. That time is spread out over an entire semester.

She could potentially take the required classes over the summer, but because of the time commitment, that would cut into her ability to work full time this summer. And since she is going to be living off campus, she will need to work as much as possible in order to pay her rent and bills. She doesn’t absolutely NEED to get her CAN, but then that leads to the dilemma of how to get those hours without having to cut into work or class time before she is able to apply to PA school. Even if she could get her CAN, she’d still need to figure out where and how to work in the healthcare field where she would be able to get those hours in. We do have a couple of years to help her figure it out and nothing says she HAS to go to UWL to get her PA degree. Sarah could always transfer. But every school we have looked at since finding out the patient contact requirement has some sort of requirement of hours, just not as many as UWL. Until she has to apply, we’ll keep looking for ways to help Sarah get those hours.

Cheer Banquet

The 2016-2017 cheer season has now officially come to an end. We had the annual cheer banquet tonight where the girls get their awards and letters (for varsity), we review the season, watch some compilation videos, etc., and the seniors all gave their farewell speeches and thanks to the coaches. Overall it was a pretty good year. The varsity advanced at nationals for the first time in about 15 years (I’d have to actually go back and figure it out for the exact time frame) and the JV’s had a very good showing at State. The only big disappointment (in my opinion) was the varsity’s performance at State. But I don’t fault the varsity, I fault the judging. I believe they should have placed at least third. I think they got screwed, but it’s over and done with.

Now we have a short break until tryouts for next year. They usually happen around the end of May, but preparation will start before that, usually about a month ahead of time. So we finally get to relax a little bit, if only for a short time.

Fence Posts

With the weather beginning to warm up, I was out in the backyard picking up downed, dead branches that had broken off from the trees over the winter. In doing so, I noticed something. The fence posts along the back lot line are beginning to shift. The posts on the side lot line have moved slightly, but they are still pretty straight even after 10 years. The back posts are only 4 or 5 years old and are starting to tilt back toward the yard behind us. I suppose it would make sense based on the guy’s yard, since it is under water a good part of the year (I kid, but only slightly). Since I am 6-8 inches (estimated) above the guy behind me, there is more support for the posts on my side of the lot line. Not all of them are tilting, and some are worse than others. I really hope I can fix them, I would like to think that they should be able to be straightened. Once the ground actually thaws, I’ll have to go back and take a good look at the posts and see if there is anything that I can do to pull them back to vertical.

Learned Something Today

I was working on getting videos off of the video camera and off my hard drive this weekend since I noticed that the files were starting to take up LOTS of space. As I was burning them, I noticed a couple of things I never realized before. My camera saves the files on the camera, and downloads them as .vob files. Unfortunately, these don’t convert in any meaningful way to be burned to a DVD. After researching this problem years ago I found something that said I just need to rename them as .mpg files and they are good to go. I found out this weekend that isn’t exactly true.

When I record things, I have the camera set up to film in the 16:9 aspect ratio. However, when I convert the files and burn them to DVD, they are always in a 4:3 aspect ratio. This makes the images look squeezed and distorted (in my opinion). I always figured I made a mistake when I filmed it, and did it in 4:3 by mistake. When I was attempting to burn the latest batch of DVDs, I noticed that strangely ALL the videos were in 4:3, so before burning them, I decided to try playing them on my laptop first. When I played them, they were in the correct 16:9 ratio. Which begs the question, what is going on?

I discovered that when the files are converted and moved into the program I use to burn them to DVD, they lose whatever formatting there is on them and puts them into 4:3 ratio automatically. After a bit of researching, I learned that this is fixable by simply going into each one and manually correcting the setting back to the proper aspect ratio and they will burn to the DVD in 16:9 wide screen. Unfortunately, I have just been loading all our home movies for the last 7 or 8 years automatically without looking at the aspect ratios, so everything was burned in the 4:3 ratio. I suppose it’s not really a problem, just a little distorted when you try to watch them. I guess I can live with it, and I’ll just fix it going forward.

Another thing I noticed was that they DVDs don’t look like they are in HD, even though the setting on the camera is to record them in that way. So I will have to look a little more deeply at that. Finally, I noticed that it might be time to start thinking about getting a new digital video camera. The max resolution is 720p. Taking video on Kris’s iPhone records it in 1080p. So the quality ends up being higher with an iPhone? I suppose the camera is 10 years old this fall, and technology is always changing. That is one of the bad things about technology though.

Spring Break 2017

Sarah has reached the Spring Break point of her first year. Luckily she isn’t doing anything this year so Kris and I don’t have to worry. I have seen the horror stories on the news for the past couple of years and just cringe at what goes on in Florida and Texas on Spring Break now. But I digress…

Sarah came home because she had an interview for a summer job, and Kris and I ended up driving up to LaCrosse to get her. We got there about 3:00 in the afternoon and the campus was already absolutely dead. I think we might have seen all of two or three kids still hanging out in the dorm, everyone else was gone. We got her packed up and ready to go in about 10 minutes, and that was also after having a look at her Papasan chair, which had a piece of the bamboo break shortly after the semester started. I got it glued, and put some tape on it to hold while the wood glue dried. Hopefully that will fix it, since it wasn’t cheap and I don’t want to have to buy a new bowl.

Before we left, we did end up running into one of Sarah’s friends from grade school who also goes to school in LaCrosse. She was picking up a friend who lives on Sarah’s floor and they were heading out to Colorado for their Spring Break. At least that is a break trip I would be in favor of. It was good to say hi to her and see how she was doing so far. After that we got the car fired up and headed home. Nothing like six and a half hours of driving to start off a weekend. And in nine days we’ll be doing it again.

Cheer Showcase

The cheer season officially came to an end with the cheer showcase tonight.  As always, the teams all do a performance, and the varsity girls demonstrate some of the basic moves/stunts that they use.  We also got to do the annual father-daughter routine.  This year though, there was one parent who was annoyingly in my way when I was trying to take pictures of Ali.  Somehow, this clown has taken it upon himself to be the “unofficial” photographer for all of cheer even though his daughter is still only in junior high.  I think the guy is rather creepy, always lurking about, and I am too nice of a person to get in his face over it.  I figure if the coaches have a problem they’ll say something to him.  I would like to think that the guy would at the very least be courteous enough to allow other parents to take photos, or video, of their children as they see fit.  Why does he think that HE is the one who needs to take pictures?  He was walking around without any regard to any of the other parents in the bleachers.  I had a couple of shots of Ali I could have taken, but was unable to because he was strolling around. This is just one:

What a D-bag!  One reason I didn’t much care was it was the showcase, and essentially just a practice.  But if this were a competition, then you can bet I would have been angry!

Since Kris didn't know how to use the good camera, there are no pictures of the father-daughter routine this year.  Sorry. But here are a few pictures from their routine: