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

No Humans Allowed

I'm doubt anyone will guess what this mystery photo is:   

You might guess the general nature this one:

I had fun with dirt and rocks again, this time building stairs and a trail out to the front yard.   I also re-arranged some rocks in the creek to build a small pool:

I was apprehensive that it would be washed away in the next rain storm.  We got that test last night.  This is what 3+" of rain looks like:

That little pond is submerged under this angry brown maelstrom:

Amazingly, this morning showed the little pond survived:

A clue on those 2 mystery photos:  there are no humans in this post.   But I have plenty of critters.  This one is doggy's nemesis:

This one loves my computer monitor:

I'd like to say I caught this one in mid-flight with my super-classified camera equipped micro-drone:

But in truth I caught him crawling on a window.    I convinced him (with a not-so-super-classified drug, commonly known as RAID), to pose for me on a plant leaf:

The fox made another visit:

Hard to believe he is related to this guy:

On the other hand, I guess humans share 88% of our genes with a mouse, so ...

We also share 65% of our genes with a chicken.    Doggy has slimed up his chicken toy so much we don't like touching it anymore.   I tried to teach doggy to play with a rope instead, but he had little interest.   So I came up with this compromise:  

That first mystery photo comes from the tails of these guys:




Helen's parents inherited them in the fountain of the house they bought.   They didn't want them, but   Fish Fan Helen did, even though we didn't have a place to put them.   So for now, we have them in an undersized aquarium on our deck:

I learned that Coy fish are basically carp that have been bread to be pretty.   

If you release them back into the wild, they will revert back to a boring brown color, so the predators won't find them in the water.   I am embarrassed to admit we though the black one was a catfish until we got a better look at him.   I felt like a terrible fish-racist: 

The other mystery photo is from doggy's right eye, which you might have guessed.   The reflection would have been a hard guess.   It is the tree house (our wooden porch) roof as he looked up:

Lastly, I did a vlog post on how to use my voice to control the doggy ... it is not what you think!


   http://misterhouse.blogspot.com/2016/01/voice-controlled-dog-crate-door.html


Bruce

My Fancy Pants

The clue to this mystery photo:  I hunted our backyard for 2 days to find it.   Answer a few photos below:

This year's flu hit us both hard.    5 days I'd rather not repeat, a good 2 weeks before we felt normal.  I was so delirious I saw bears in our bed:  

This guy doesn't get the flu.    Probably how he has survived longer than the dinosaur (300 million years).   Helen calls it a winged beetle, as she doesn't want to admit that we have an occasional cockroach in the house:

Doggy was disappointed to find a neighbor boy broke his favorite river bridge:

That mystery photo was where our 100+ feet of mostly underground 120 volt backyard lighting wiring had shorted out.  Looks like squirrel teeth marks.   It was not on a safe GFCI circuit, so whoever was having lunch there got quite a shock.   I re-did the wiring, adding a GFCI as well as a few LED spot lights.   Looks really pretty at night now:

We had a big storm recently, 5 inches of rain in a few days.   This photo was taken around midnight, but looks like noon as I caught it in the middle of a lighting strike:

Our timid little creek knows how to roar when it has to:

For you non-electrical people who feel cheated by the first mystery photo, here is a 2nd one:

Boris and Irene stayed with us for a week while waiting for their stuff to be shipped from Salt Lake to their new house here:

We enjoyed having a 2nd cook in the house.   This photo legend should say something like: Boris, Rose, and an air plant playing with Hanuka candles:

It took about a week to unpack most of their boxes:

I blackified another household item, this time an old spare, unused, rusting refrigerator.   Seemed easier than removing it:

I would have blackified the piano, but it was already black, so I did surgery instead, fixing a stuck key:

I gleefully discovered the ground here doesn't freeze in the Winter, so I spent much of the xmas/new years off days playing with dirt and rocks in the backyard.     This slate path was bumpy and uneven:

So I broke out my special fancy pants:

And scared the rocks back into proper form:

That got me fired up to create a new trail down to the river.   This is a before shot:

I first moved the white bellied Buddha to a spot where he could properly laugh at me, then used a come-along winch on some of the bigger rocks (those granite rocks are heavier than they look):

A couple of weekends and a few sore muscles later, we ended up with 15 steps and 50 feet of new trail:

I hopefully engineered it so this new little patio spot will not wash away in the next storm:

That 2nd mystery photo was a closeup from this guy.    We don't really know what it is.   Helen picked it up from a garden center.   Possibly an ancient squid tentacle, but more likely a now rotting gourd of impossible length:

Finally,  this month's geek video is about a magic button:

  http://misterhouse.blogspot.com/2015/12/wireless-button-control-with-flic.html

Bruce