Home Lunch

Emilie is out tonight so you'll have to settle for a guest post. It's been a while since I've guest posted, so this should be fun.

The older two kids have been on this home lunch kick lately. They are waking up early so they can make their lunches and do all the rest of their morning jobs before school. Here's the conversation I had with them about home lunch and school lunch:

Me: Why do you want home lunch so bad?
Them: Because school lunch is nasty.
Me: Why is it nasty?
Them: Because of Michelle Obama.
Me: Michelle Obama?
Them: Yeah, she wants school lunch to be healthy so now we only have healthy stuff to choose from. They tell us we have to have enough fruits and vegetables.
Me: Do you have dessert?
Them: Dessert?
Me: Yeah, something sweet.
Them: Sometimes we have fortune cookies, and this blueberry stuff.
Me: So let me get this straight, you don't like school lunch because they tell you what you have to eat and it's all healthy?
Them: Yeah, it's all Michelle Obama's fault.

They usually end up making peanut butter sandwiches with some other things thrown in to round it out.

I think it's interesting that they are completely irritated because the government (Michelle Obama) is trying to choose what they eat for lunch. I guess we'd better make sure we have enough peanut butter...

Guest Post and Yard Sale

Emilie is off to bed early tonight after a long couple days helping out with this fund raising yard sale.  It was very successful and Emilie was happy to be a part of it.

In the meantime, the kids and I hung out, delivered a few campaign signs, cleaned the house a bit and hung out some more.  That about sums it up.

I'm sure Emilie will give a more complete account of the yard sale in the near future.  Until then, here's an idea for the next garage sale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL5kDG7YMVA

Twice in one week?

Emilie's sleep pattern has been all messed up lately.  As you'll recall, on Monday I posted for her because she fell asleep at 8:30.  Then she went most of the rest of the week coming to bed sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 am.  Guess what time she fell asleep tonight?  That's right before 8:00.  She did get her portfolios done and ready to print tomorrow so maybe now that a big stress is gone she can relax a little and catch up.

Don't worry, she should be back here posting up a storm tomorrow.

Science Experiment, Take 2

Emilie fell asleep around 8:30 tonight, so I'm filling in for her tonight.  I thought I'd give a real quick update on our second attempt at determining how fast the creek flows under the road.

On Friday I found a 8-10" long 2x6 board in the garage and painted it Home Depot Orange.  I drilled two holes in the  middle of it and threaded a strand of heavy duty jute twine through, then tied it off with a nice bowline knot.  I was pleased with it.  Emilie was not so sure.  I assured her it was strong enough and that we would not have a repeat of last week's failed experiment.  I even stood on the board and pulled up on the line as hard as I could to show her how strong it was.

When we got down to the creek the setup time was a lot shorter because of some of the lessons learned last week.  Lesson #1 don't stand on the line after tossing your "measurer" (Beckham's word) into the creek.  Lesson #2 leave Sanders strapped into the stroller so you don't have to tie up one hand holding on to him.  Lesson #3, know where to stand so you can get the best view.

Everyone was all set.  I dropped the board into the creek and it took off.  I waved at Emilie and got the timer started with only a slight delay.  Emilie waved back and I stopped the timer.  Then came the fun part.  I handed my phone to Karaia so I could go about "reeling in" the board.  The problem was it was fighting hard.  I figured it was stuck on something so I let out a little slack then started pulling again.  Then it freed itself up.  Or so I thought.  There was still a fair amount of pull on the line, but then Karaia started telling me that it had broken.  Apparently Emilie had been signaling to her from across the road.  Sure enough, the tension became less and less until I reeled in an empty line.  Just like last time.  Ugh.

Emilie said the board came shooting out of the culvert then promptly bee-lined it for a large-ish stick over to the side.  When I started pulling back it got caught in the stick.  As I was pulling then letting go a little the jute twine was rubbing on the stick.  As far as ropes and twines go, jute twine scores very low on the abrasion resistance scale.  Away it went.

Beckham and Emilie watched the board head down the creek and around the corner.  The creek crosses through three yards, then back under the road again before emptying into a small pond that mainly acts as a debris basin.  We decided to walk down to the pond to see if the board had made its way down there.  We had a nice walk around the pond, but didn't find the board.  We even drove by the pond a few more times throughout the rest of the day to take a peek.  We never found it.  It must have gotten stuck against some stick, rock, eddy, etc.  I can always paint a new board, but that one worked so well why roll the dice with another one.  Besides it was the line's fault we only got one shot at it not the board's.

And now the part you've all been waiting for, the results.  The board took about 5 seconds to travel under the road, give or take a half second, which equates to 18 feet per second or about 12 miles per hour.  Emilie and the kids were certain it was moving faster than that, but I was less convinced. You'll be happy to know that at a discharge of 25 cfs, 18 fps means only 1.38 sq ft of area are being used by the creek traveling under the road.  The culvert's total area is 12.5 sq ft so there's plenty of capacity left as long as the culvert doesn't clog up with debris.

I'd still like to try the "science experiment" again, but this time with actual rope.  Something strong that can handle a little rubbing against rocks and sticks.  I'd also like to try snagging the board out on the downstream side of the culvert with a golf ball retriever or something to avoid having to fight the creek all the way back up.  If anyone has any other good ideas I'd like to hear them.  We're pretty booked up until probably Thursday, so I'll have time to adjust my approach.

In the meantime, happy experimenting.

Guest Post #3

I think this is the 3rd Guest Post.  Doesn't matter.

Emilie has been busy all day long.  Her friend Shelley came in today to get ready for market and Emilie has been helping her with her final preparations.  They've been painting, chit-chatting, sharing, painting some more, and finally, did I say chit-chatting.  I can tell its been really good for Emilie to talk to someone who's done this all before and get a good feel for how things are going to go on Friday and Saturday.

There is still some work to do on Emilie's designs, but she's pretty confident she can get it all done in time.  I'm sure she will.  Anyway, we're coming down the home stretch now.  Only three more days until market.

--Kevin

No time to rest...except when you're sick

Consider this guest post #2.

We had a great birthday party today for Sanders.  Emilie worked really hard and made an awesome train cake.  Sanders had a blast, the ice cream was good, everything was definitely a success.

Until tonight.  Sanders and Tennyson would not settle down and go to sleep.  They could have been completely wired on sugar.  Sanders even fell out of his crib tonight.  He probably landed on his left arm funny because he was complaining about his left wrist hurting.  Don't worry, nothing was broken, probably just tweaked a little.

Finally, the reason this is a guest post:  Emilie may have eaten something bad tonight.  She's definitely not feeling well.  I've ordered her to bed where she can hopefully recover quickly.  She should be back tomorrow with some pictures of today's cake and a little more insight.

In the meantime, last time I "guest posted" I mentioned some of the things that I would write about.  Here's a shortened version.  Consumers in the United States went a little crazy during the last decade and completely over-spent.  People used their homes as piggy banks and racked up debt like crazy.  That's one of the biggest reasons we had the hard crash in late 2008 and are still feeling the effects of the "Great Recession."  Individuals, businesses, cities, counties even states have all had to cut back in order to right the ship, per se.  One entity that hasn't learned that lesson yet is the Federal Government.  The United States government absolutely has to cut back and start "living within its means" or we are going to be in big trouble.

Here's a great video that pretty much sums it all up:

http://www.al6400.com/blog/2007/10/06/dont-buy-stuff-you-cannot-afford/

Oh, I and feel a guest post #3 in the not too distant future...

Guest Post

Hi, this is Kevin.  This is what happens at the end of a long day when the only thing running through your head is all the food you can't eat.  That's Emilie.

Here's what happened today...

We went to church.  It was a good day at church.  I have to be honest, I usually don't like Sunday School that much, but I kind of like the New Testament.  So far this year my Sunday School attendance has been outstanding.
 

Sacrament meeting was pretty good.  One of the things that made it easier was this:

This never happens.  Our kids pretty much only sleep in actual beds, or sometimes in the car.  We can probably count on one hand the times kids of ours have fallen asleep somewhere other than a bed or the car.

We went to Emilie's dad's for dinner tonight.  It was great.  We were in charge of dessert.  Emilie and I decided to make use of our new crepe pans and took all the fixins for crepes.  Poor Emilie had to stand there and watch.

Which brings me to my last thought.  The final weigh-in is tomorrow morning.  Emilie's pretty worried she's not going to make her goal.  She will.  She hasn't cheated once, and she hasn't missed a single day of workouts (as long as you count running up a giant hill at Bear Lake a bunch of times as a workout).

Don't get used to guest posts.  Most of the stuff that I would write about would bore Thinking Audibly's typical reader.  Stuff like Macroeconomic theory, bank regulation, political theory, soccer, college basketball and how to beat your six year old at Mario Kart Wii (which sometimes proves to be a little bit of a challenge, just ask Beckham).

Good night.