here's life

I have been either too bored to write, or too busy to put down the interesting things that are happening.  So, here's what's going on:

Work:
Continues as normal, punctuated by the abnormal.  Like for the next couple weeks, I'll be spending about half my time in class, learning some interesting things about making engineering drawings to show the guys who make it, what is important, what needs to be accurate, what can have some slop in it, as long as certain things happen.  Plus, it is an industry standard, so even if I can't think of much way I will use it in my current job, it will be helpful later in my engineering career. Actually, if I had known this at my last job, I would have done much better. I think my text book is probably less dry than just reading ASME Y14.5M-1994.  I am also doing the regular work thing, with it's joys and frustrations.

Projects:
Well, I'm on my way to getting an airplane that flies again--got the carb fixed, need a new airframe...
I am also working with Fjord on a new touch-screen system that others have been experimenting with. My IR LED's and webcam arrived today, I but I didn't get home until the office was closed. I built a preliminary set up, and Fjord has gotten the programing to the point that it can analyze a photo I took, and move the cursor on my screen to the place indicated by my index finger in the photo. Once we get the webcam streaming pictures in, I can just touch the glass, and move my cursor. I need some more glass.

Apartment:
As usual, it is a mess, although I did the dishes last night.  I should probably find some other place to live--somewhere that has a garage. I need to make my house a nice enough place that I can invite people over.  I did clean off my coffee table the other day, so I could sew some pillowcases.

Car:
While it still seems to operate correctly, my car may be needing some replacing pretty soon. It hadn't failed me---well, I've run it out of gas, water, or let the battery die, (always my negligence)---until today.  As I drove into the parking lot after class, the tire was very low.  So, after work, I was going back to my car, and I saw a Spirit Security officer filling up some one's tire.  So, I waited until he was done, and asked for the same help.  Sure enough, when I got to my car, the tire was pretty much totally flat.  But, when he filled it up, I was able to drive to the store, get a patch kit, and then to a gas station with free air, and repair my tire. (really, it's not the car's fault I ran over a roofing screw).
As expected, the horrible scraping noise my brakes made is gone.  Seems my rotor is now divided into a inner hub, and a thin outer disk that the caliper is tightly gripping.  See? If you ignore problems long enough, they will go away!


Got the August VOM newsletter today---rather sobering.  If you don't get this publication, visit www.persecution.com
It sort of puts into perspective the problems I have in my life.  Maybe building codes get in my way, but at least I don't have the Ho Chi Minh City police using building codes as an excuse to demolish parts of the roof of my house church/bible school.  Plus, they aren't beating me, or raiding my home and interrogating my wife more than 100 times---while I am in prison for 15 months.  Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang has been the target of much abuse--as well as many other Christians in that area.

Today I watched the FIFA World Cup final game, at the home of a guy who grew up in Italy.  We had a whole group of people there, and had a good time.  I had watched very little of the games leading up to this, but then again I watch very little of any sport.  The rest of the US watches lots of sports, but not much World Cup.  The statistics I heard was 1 billion people world-wide watched the final game--that is nearly one sixth of the world's population--counting the guy who lives in a grass hut, and hasn't seen a TV.  On the other hand we have the US, who have an average of 2.24 TV's per home, and who watch more than 4 hours of TV per day.* From this demographic, only 6% were watching this game today. It is obviously not that we don't have the wherewithal to see it---I was watching a local channel, picked up by connecting some coax to the metal fireplace insert.  More than half of Americans have cable, and didn't have to adjust the chimney/coax connection part-way through the game. 

What does this mean? It means there is a disconnect between US and the rest of the world.  Many people couldn't care less that the rest of the world is cheering and screaming when the team from their country makes a goal. The rest of the world is celebrating this game...and we are so insulated from them that we don't seem to notice. There was a country in Africa that had to call their civil war on account of the game.

What should we do about this apathy for the rest of the world?  Get out more. Find out more. Host an exchange student from another country. Build a global community. We just don't understand what is going on out there, except that most of what we buy has "Made in Some-wheres-else" stamped on it.  We are deeply effected by what goes on in other countries, maybe we should start paying attention---instead of having an attitude that  as long as we still get stuff from them, and don't get immigrants, everything is peachy. The rest of the world matters---America, wake up to this fact!


This was written while sitting in my basement apartment, where I spend 86% of my non-working time.  I don't know my neighbors.

This evening I went to the house of a coworker. I drove 30 minutes out into the country, between freshly plowed fields that had just received a light rain. There were tree-lines splitting the fields into manageable chunks, and houses, and old outbuildings. Finally I turned onto a sand road, and then parked at the end of the row of cars along the road. Old farmers stood around in little groups and talked. People walked around the stone-faced house, nestled in the gums and cottonwoods. One group was discussing a large tree. "Figure it's about a hundred years old--26 feet around" It was indeed a large tree, an old cottonwood that had been there since before any of the old guys standing around--guys tanned to leather by hard work and sun. I sort of felt out of place, but I shouldn't have--I'm an old farmer myself, but am totally out-classed by these guys. We had a good meal of brisket, pork and all the side dishes one would expect. I was introduced to various family members, and made to feel included. But, as often happens, I copped out most social interaction, and after discussing the major of one girl who goes to Rolla (Aerospace) I went over to the circle of people listening to a handful of musicians play bluegrass. It was interesting--especially to see the different styles/interests/specializations of the different artist. One guy wrote gospel-centric pieces--coulda been at that church in Beulah. One lady played violin and guitar, and sang songs about cowboys. Another guy with the same instruments played pieces that he wrote that made fun of stuff--himself, politics, domestic woes. One guy had a bag of harmonicas and accompanied the others. A guy plucked silently on his steel guitar. It really wasn't good weather for instruments, but they just kept tuning them, and didn't really seem to mind the rain blowing off the trees. I saw a cicada shell on the underside of a mulberry leaf.
After they stopped playing, I went over to the other group of people---these guys were playing country--Johny Cash, and that sort. But then it was getting dark and the fireworks were really starting to pick up down on the bridge over the creek, so I wandered down and tried not to get hit by stuff. A family (another coworker) was shooting stuff off--mother playing the voice of caution, son playing the somewhat compliant pyro, daughter and dad mostly just shooting stuff off. One ironic sequence: the son is holding roman candles, and directing the fiery projectiles off the bridge--into the air, into the damp bushes, into the water. "You aren't supposed to hold them! It's dangerous!" Dad can't really find a way to stand up the roman candle he is about to light, so he props it up somehow on the concrete bridge, and lights it off. Of course it falls over, sending a flaming ball of incendiary gunpowder across the bridge, narrowly missing the fleeing mother. The son rescues it a unpredictable discharges later, and directs the rest safely away from the bystanders. After all the fireworks were gone, I went home. Driving through town I could see explosions all over town, and I think someone is attacking my apartment complex.



Some pictures of my plane's "exploded view."


The engine---I think I see why it doesn't run:


Wing-bone not connected to the fusilage-bone...


Bad lighting on a broken plane:

This weekend I didn't have much planned, even though it was a long one. I was sort of wondering what I was going to do, but then Bubbles showed up. After we talked about our jobs for a while, we decided to make something. Well, first we cut some stuff up with a thread. Yeah, just a piece of thread, pulled back and forth against pretty much anything will cut a fine-kerfed line. And very manuverable.


We got my airplane engine back together--well, all the pieces that were reusable anyway. I need a few carburator parts.


Most of our time was spent machining a new manifold for the top of my fountain/waterfall. It was just a hose, delivering the water to one place on the stone--now we have a multi-ported distribution device with holes drilled from multiple directions, intesecting in the inside, with the ends of some holes plugged afterwards with epoxy'ed-in rubber stoppers. We tied some plants to it as well. Especially without a machine, (is that what you "machine" stuff with?) the fiber/plastic material we used was much better than wood or metal. I got some scraps when they made the deck around the apartment office.

I'm afaid the little plants are going to die, just siting out there without dirt--but that is how they were before I cut them off the parent plant--and I put those stems in the water...Maybe I'll machine some holes in the top of the block, with a tiny port to the water flow, and plant them in some dirt.