High Speed Gyroscope

We had a wonderful visit from Zach, Nick, Chloe, 9 month old Max.   Initially they forgot to re-extend Max's head, which was left in collapsed airplane mode so he would fit in the suitcase:




But with a few quick upside down shakes:




Out popped his oh-so-adorable little head:




Actually not so little, he is 90+% sized for his age:

He is a fearless eater.    This banana didn't stand a chance:

Nor did this scary plant-from-outer-space:

I exploited Zach's muscles and we did some landscaping: 

Max was debating a swim, but the water tested a little too cold:

 

We set our sites on a new world record for the highest rpm and longest lasting spin for a toy gyroscope.    Here we were trying a drill:

Here Zach is holding the gyroscope while Nick is about to swing a 15' pole attached to the string:




That actually worked pretty well, if you ignore the dent the pole put in the wall:




It was all great fun:

We introduced Max to pong-ping:

And the secret loft with a bear:




But I think he liked the building blocks best ... so did doggy:

Micro quad-copter pilots in training:

Science experiment.  The red wine enhances the scientific analysis: 

Our final activity was to waterboard each other.  The girls took a pass for some reason, but we three 'boys' took our turn on the plank.   It was an interesting experience, something we can probably leave off of future fun vacation activities:

In projects this month, I replaced an above stove microwave with a hood that can more quietly suck up cooking smoke.    3 useful tools:  headlight, long screwdriver, and an small height adjustable  chair to position it on:

 I re-purposed that log that used to be a bridge before it broke.  1/2 I made into a pond dam, and the other 1/2 I winched up the hill to use as a trail border:

Remember those big Koi fish in last month's post?   Not surprisingly, they were too big for a 50 gallon fish tank, so we tried them out in one of the pools we made in the creek.  This is Helen trying to instruct the fish on how to eat:




The pool worked ok until rained:




After the first few rain storms,  I was able to rescue the fish from downstream, but eventually I think they moved to Florida.   We tried normal sized goldfish in our now empty fish tank:




They lasted a couple of weeks:

But then the water clouded up (I think the Buddha neglected to use the bathroom) and the fish decided to re-incarnate elsewhere (hopefully not into local angry birds with grenades seeking revenge).   That leaves us with a mostly empty fish tanks, which is still pretty:

My geek video this month was about a system I setup to display house information, while at the same time displaying  100,000+ photos:

   http://misterhouse.brucewinter.net


Bruce