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Today marked the end of M's flag football season. The semi-final playoff game was at 2:30, followed by the championship game at 3:15. M's team won the first game, 9-6, and he had three tackles (a personal best), and three receptions: one was for a first down, and one was for an extra point.
They didn't fare as well in the championship game, losing 26-6 after being down 20-0 early in the game. The other team had an outstanding runner who was able to beat everyone, and he scored three touchdowns in the first half by himself. M had another solid game, with three tackles (to tie his personal best), one reception, and he broke up a pass play on defense.
He's worked very hard at flag football, and plays a lot of football with his friends in the neighborhood, and I can tell all that practice is paying off.
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I told you recently that we had our master bath shower remodeled, and that we also had an unfortunate failure of the garage door opener. It turns out, those two things were related. The people who installed the shower door didn't attach the shower head arm back to the supply line correctly, and water was leaking down behind the wall whenever we took a shower. We didn't notice it right away, so it wasn't apparent that the water was responsible for ruining the door opener. On Monday of last week, I left for work, opened the door to the garage (with the new opener) and saw water dripping down from about ten different spots in the ceiling. That would explain the sudden failure of the door opener pretty well, and the mysterious puddle of water J had seen the day before.
I called the contractors, who know me by name very well at this point, and they sent someone out who was able to successfully turn a threaded pipe so that it attached correctly to a threaded opening, and now we don't have a leak any more. They are going to reimburse us for the door opener, but even with their prompt attention to the problems they had with our project, we won't be calling them again. That is, unless we find some other problem, which I hope we don't.
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After seeing a project at the Science Fair that used an Arduino, I am seriously considering buying a starter kit. I was at the school when a fifth-grade girl brought in a project that used it to demonstrate how a remote garage door opener works (yes, I've had a lot of contact with garage door opener-related things lately.) She told me her dad had worked on the project with her, and after I got all the information I could out of her, I kept a lookout for her dad during the Fair's operating hours. He was there, and I asked him every question I could think of. It looks to be a great way to start getting programmed behavior into an electronics project, which is one of those things I've had on my list of things to learn.
There are many different versions of the Arduino, small ones and large ones, and add-ons called "shields" that help perform tasks such as writing to a memory card, communicating over ethernet, or powering electric motors.
When I would find the time to do this is an entirely different question that needs to be answered first. I've also considered taking an introductory electronics/circuit analysis class at Washtenaw Community College or Jackson Community College, but getting a weeknight free is not that easy, especially in the spring with Science Olympiad and soccer.
By the way, get ready to hear a lot about Science Olympiad and soccer. I'm organizing the yearly Science Olympiad demonstration night at the school, and I'm again going to be assistant to the assistant coach for M's team.
And I still have a job I have to fit in somewhere.
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