Fathers Day Was A Blast

On Saturday before Fathers Day, my wife’s sister’s husband’s sister’s husband invited us and other branch kin to a barbecue and skeet shoot.

Yep, we did it again.

If aliens attack in little red flying saucers we are prepared.

Last time we just hand threw the clays. This time we had a bench mounted thrower. The lady shooting is my old Sunday School teacher from when I was a tot. I didn't remember her from there but I used to work with her at my last job. Turns out she is my wife’s sister’s husband’s sister’s husband's sister. Got That?

The little one tried shooting. She shot the .410 single shot several times. She finally winged one clay. It doesn't kick much and she never complained.  She loved shooting the pistol as well.

This is my sons head. If you look close you can see the clay exploding. He shoots amazingly well. He didn't learn it from me. I did end up winning the group shoot off. If you remember he won the last time.

Here are some of the young ladies shooting. They shoot pretty good as well.

After a while we broke out the pistols. They had set up a pistol target and this time I remembered my Colt. It shoots as good as it ever has. This is not me and my Colt.

We could not have asked for better weather or better food. We had wild boar and deer.

And hot dogs. They cooked the corn on the grill still in the husk. It was delicious.

Here is the back of the house. Its about 200 feet from the field.

At the end of the day everyone had a good time and no one left hungry.

It was a great Fathers Day. Hope yours was.

Overheard in the Break Room

Every morning at work starts in the break room. Folks getting their coffee and breakfast before retiring to their offices.

We chat and have a good time. That morning I mentioned seeing a coyote on the way in.

They are new to our area and have been causing issues that we typically didn't have prior. One of the other folks mentioned having three fighting in his front yard the other day. Another guy spoke saying he saw an uh, uh ,what do you call it? a "land beaver" in his yard. What?? We quizzed him a bit till we finally figured it out that he had seen a groundhog.

Silly Guy, This is a groundhog.

This is a land beaver.

Get Off My Property!!

I am proud of my garden. I take a stroll out there every evening when I get home to water and check on it. So far it has really flourished and is putting on well.

Us country folk are typically a friendly breed. We love to share our bounty. That said, we much prefer to offer something to you before you decide to help yourselves.

I thought we made that perfectly clear.

So imagine how surprised I was to find that some one was doing just that.

I needed another sign.

He is a cutie tho ain't he?

Kinda Alien like.

But he was eating my tomatoes.

So he was put in jail.

If things go well he is spose to turn into a Carolina Sphinx Moth.

You would think he would be cuter.

How disappointing.

But he will never eat on my Tomatoes again.

Overheard in the Restaurant

My wife and oldest took me to the Bonefish grill for Fathers Day last night. You know, beat the crowd thing.

As we were waiting on our food, the booth beside us was talking about their upcoming trip to Seattle and maybe taking a day trip to Vancouver. One of the girls was asking what sites were famous there. You know like the Space Needle in Seattle. The other girl asked, "don't they have the Vancouver Dam?". The boyfriend asked if she meant the Hoover Dam. She said "oh yea, We should go there!".

                                                   Vancouver Hoover Dam

Dear Lord, Thank You For Your Blessings

200 feet is all it is from the garden to the kitchen.  I walk out there every nite when I get home from work to survey my little crop. Last nite we picked our first two squash . The wife sliced them, battered them and fried them up for a fantastic meal. We have been anticipating this day for a month since we planted the garden. Is amazing how good fresh squash tasted. Paired with oven baked chicken and garlic mashed taters it was a great meal. We are looking forward to our tomatoes turning red in a week or so. The zucchini squash aint far behind. We planted 2 hills but then had 3 volunteer plants come up. We will be loaded with zucchini come summer. The cukes were planted a tad late so we will have to wait a while on them.

The larger squash in the middle was named Billy Bob Joe Jr. by the little one. ???? Don't ask! He was bigger last nite and the first picked. Lots more little ones on the way it appears.

This is our scarecrow. Looks real huh? The tomato plants are taller than she is now. We have had to add baskets to some of the shoots that got out of the main baskets. Hopefully they bear as good as they have grown.

The neighbors garden is right across the fence. They always do well. They make a lot of spaghetti sauce. He borrows my tiller each year (so does my next door neighbor and my dad and anyone else that needs it. Tools aint no good just sitting there.) so this year he brought me a 1/2 load of mushroom mulch. What a great deal that was.

That's it for the tour.

Have a great day.

Gifts To Go, Part 2

This spring my current boss announced he was taking another job across the country. Sooo, it was time to make another going away gift. His work scope was broader than that of my old boss so it was a bit tougher to nail down what to make as a gift. However, one thing we always joked about was his penchant for modifying the probes we had made. In the shop we would manufacture the probes to exact tolerances and he would take them and adjust them for his purpose on a belt sander.

We decided to make a miniature belt sander. This is something most folks are familiar with. It started out as a nonfunctioning unit but one of the other guys suggested we make it actually work so I added a motor and a battery pack.

The company had a going away party before we had it completed so one of the other guys threw together a piece of rusty pipe and a probe. He also spelled his name wrong on the plaque. He didn't look real thrilled with it but he smiled anyway.
 
We gave him our real gift at our department going away party.



Here is the design I came up with.

Here is the exploded view.

Here is the animated assembly view.

Here is the actual working model.

Here is a short video of it running but idiot boy/me shot it sideways so it looks kinda weird.

While I enjoy designing and building these things I wish it weren’t for folks I like to work for. Of course if I didn’t like working for them they would be getting the standard adios plaque.

BTW, He was speechless.

If you were to retire/change jobs what kind of gift would best suit you?

Gifts To Go

Being in the machine shop we are often asked to make unique things. One of those things is going away gifts. Over the years I have made a scaled reactor vessel and a small steam generator for departing folks. I have no pics of those.

Last year one of the senior staff here at work decided to retire.

The company has a standard three figure plaque design they give to retiring management. Problem is I have worked for him in some capacity for over 28 yrs. He and his wife are wonderful folk. His daughter baby sat my kids when they were little. Knowing his family is being part of his family.

For him I wanted to make something a bit more unique. His main field is turbines and turbine generators.

This is not the first time he has left a company where I worked for him. For his first departure I machined a small steam turbine as his going away gift. I turned it from solid brass.  That was about 17 years ago.

This time I wanted to create something more complex. I designed this as a miniature turbine generator. It’s the thing that is turned by the turbine and generates electricity at the power plant. The actual components vary but a common unit is approximately 42 inches in diameter and up to 40 ft long. A bit large for setting on your desk.

This is the concept drawing.

This is the final product.

It is about 10 inches long and has a brass body with 64 hand formed copper windings. I had the body turned by our machinist and the stainless steel end rings turned outside. I made the slot wedges and formed the copper windings. My fingers were sore for days. There are a total of 83 pieces in the completed model.

He seemed to like it.