Videos

Here are a couple of recent videos for you to enjoy!

First, I chase Jack around the backyard--one of his favorite outdoor games.


Next, Jen tests out a solar powered "car" she made to test out an educational kit for an upcoming Society of Women Engineers event.

bathroom, bike, & tile: a weekend at home

After spending so much time on the road or otherwise occupied on the weekends, we finally have a weekend at home! To celebrate, we worked on 3 big projects: fixing the bathroom wall (in progress for over a year), get the Buell in good working order & ready to ride, and getting tile for the laundry room.

When I got back from my 3-week adventure, Jen surprised me with a bare concrete floor in the laundry room. She had recruited her mom & Shannon to help her pull out the old carpet while they were in town. Although it was not the top of *my* list, Jen really hated the nasty old carpet and wanted it gone! This weekend we shopped for tile & have an appointment to get a final estimate this week! I hope the cats like beige tile...

The wall in our guest bathroom has been 'in progress' for over a year. We pulled out the old medicine cabinets and filled in the holes with new drywall. After unsuccessfully trying to spackle the job (wrong stuff!) I hung a mirror that covered most of it and just ignored the problem. Armed with drywall mud and tape (the right stuff!) we scraped, sanded, mudded, and taped several times until it looked fairly smooth. Now we just need to prime and paint to be done!

The bike was a bit more of a challenge. Robert and Art both came over to help with the project. We stripped down and cleaned out the carburetor, gas tank, spark plug, and air system. In the end, it took a $2 can of carb cleaner and a $3 spark plug to get it running. That and 3 days of manual labor stripping it down, putting it back together, losing parts, finding parts, and testing it out. We had at least five "this must be the last thing" moments! In the end we did finally get it up and running and out for a test drive. This week Art is taking the bike out to use for his motorcycle license test. Good luck, Art!

It was a great, productive weekend! Good thing, too, as we'll be busy for the next month or so... as always!