Saturday, January 24, 2015

Tulip chairs

 

Remember that crazy small nano quadcopter I showed last month?   I discovered an even smaller one, easier to fly, and only costs $20 preassembled!

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That bigger black one costs a whooping $45, as it has a build in camera for recording pictures and/or video.   My initial crazyflie kit copter, while harder to fly, has the most potential, as I can control it via the computer.    In theory.  So far, best I have done is to almost give dog a hair cut by launching and flying it automatically by giving a voice command to my watch as shown in a video here: 

  http://misterhouse.blogspot.com/2014/12/voice-controlled-nano-quadcopter.html

All of these small quadcopters are loads of fun to fly indoors and mostly safe.   As long as you don’t have hair, as Boris discovered:

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Dog likes to play with them also, until his tail gets in the way:

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We had a nice video chat with now bearded Noah from a coffee shop at one of the ports he was stopped at.  He is playing a piano on a cruse ship somewhere warm on the Atlantic Ocean:

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We took another trip out to Miles City last week.  Got Dad moved into a nice room:

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Had wonderful visits with siblings:

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Helped with some cores around the house.   Mike and I got the pool table cleared off:

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Then he proceeded to woop me 5 games straight.  Scott has some beautifully cut agates … forgot to take pictures of those:

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Also helped Scott move out an old massive couch from his room and we set Mike up with a smaller and more solid bed frame:

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In the process, we sent 10 bags/boxes of donations to St Vs and the library and collected a 300+ lbs donation for the dump: 

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Sub-zero weather created pretty ice roads on the greenhouse windows:

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Scott bought Mom some dictation software, so that inspired her to write down an outline of her life history, then dictate that into a 20+ page memoir. 

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I taught Mike how to play the theme from Batman, Helen taught him how to make Sushi.  She even FINALLY allowed us to put some chocolate into one of the Sushi rolls, nummy!

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Dogs got along well:

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On the way back, we visited with friends Marie and Jason in Billings.   Those rocks are some of the new ones that the RimRocks deposited in their yard a few weeks ago:

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Back home we finally decided on a new set of kitchen chairs.  These ‘tulip chairs’ were designed by Eero Saarinen 2 years before I was born.  He is the architect who also designed the St Louis Arch and JFK.  Love these chairs, novel, affordable, AND they best of all they swivel!

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Yesterday our biggest house plant decided it wanted a change of venu.   So it walked itself up the stairs, with Bantik’s help:

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It landed in a nice spot next to the bear.  That frees up a 2’ x 20’ strip near the downstairs windows that I hope to make into a ‘water wall’.   Basically 10 18”x10’ fiberglass tubes filled water to serve as a 1300 gallon, 5.5 ton solar battery to store some of the passive solar heat we get on sunny days. 

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Dog is not so sure about this plan.   “What if that 10,000 lbs of water escapes?”  he said.   “I think I’ll stay put, nice and dry upstairs”.

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He was also not so sure of these dorky looking shoes Helen put him in.   Cat found it amusing

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He soon escaped them and bounded freely in his beloved snow:

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Final pic is of one of Helen’s most beloved things in the Universe …  crystals in sunlight:

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Bruce

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