Have a Belated Merry Christmas and an Early Happy New Year!

For Christmas, K got a Fushigi, and M got a Chia Obama. Remember Chia Pets? This is the same, but with a Barack Obama head. (Yes, it's a real thing.)

A Frasier fir - no word on Niles or Lilith.

Christmas
Christmas Day is past, although we haven't had all of our family gatherings yet. We've had a fun vacation so far. We saw the new Muppet movie yesterday, met Laurie's new cats (Granger and Tonks), and are regularly visiting the front window looking for signs of snow. We've had a little, but not enough for sledding, skiing, snowboarding, or anything-ing. The closest we've come to snow is the ice we got a few nights ago, but ice is no fun.

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Science Olympiad 2012
This year I agreed to help play a bigger role for Lawton's Science Olympiad team, and the other Head Coaches and I are working our way through the signups (over 90 students) and trying to sort out who will be starting out on what team. It's challenging but fun.

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Air Hockey: Battery Hog
In the tree picture above, you can see a table-top air hockey game. It was a present from J to the rest of us, although she's pretty good at it herself. We were not thrilled to find it takes six AA batteries, so M and I are plotting to add an AC adapter and plug to the internals, and mount a switch where it's accessible from the outside. (The current switch is underneath the top, and you have to turn it over to reach it.) We have the adapter and 2.1mm connector to hook up to the motor, we just need a switch. I'm sure I have one somewhere downstairs we can use...

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Happy New Year!

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Pre-Christmas Status Report

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Brief Update
Not a whole lot of news here, but sometimes no news is good news.

M is playing saxophone at school when he's not waiting out sore gums from having his braces adjusted. He's still doing a great job in his classes. We can see all his grades online at a website called PowerSchool. We can see as much detail as the teacher wants to add - every homework assignment, quiz, class project, etc. has a score.

K isn't going to be playing an instrument at school until next year, but he's making progress on piano and his own schoolwork. M modified a blinking LED "warning" light that he used at last year's Science Fair for a project K is working on. K wanted something that would draw attention to his project over the other projects in the room. One of his project teammates is bringing in something else to draw attention: mints.

The Christmas tree is up, and we're on course to have our shopping done before it's necessary to panic. J does most of it for the family, but I've gone out on a few present-buying runs for J and the kids.

Oh, and I finished "The Hunger Games" which I have to admit was quite difficult to put down. I know that's cliche, but it was, in fact, hard to put down. I could have done without the part where the the dinosaurs visited District 12 in the spaceship, but other than that, it was a great book. I'm going to start on the second in the series, "Catching Fire", sometime soon.

Metalworking Links
A man built a small-scale compressed air-driven v-12 engine. Check it out.


Plans for this small, two-stroke engine can be downloaded by registering with the website.

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December So Far

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Lots of little things going on in December.


Mark's Mouth
The biggest news is probably M's oral surgery yesterday. I don't want to tell his story (because it's his) but it went well and his recovery is coming along just fine.

Family Stuff
We bought and decorated our Christmas tree today. K disagreed with our choice of a corkbark fir like last year's and he was right for a change. We got a frasier fir (no relation to Frasier Crane) and after decking it out with lights and ornaments, it is gracing our dining room in its usual spot.

Science Olympiad
Last week was the official kickoff meeting of Science Olympiad at the elementary school. I'm playing a bigger role this year than I have in past years, and am part of the parent committee to organize all the students, coaches, and practices for the school. Last year there were almost 100 students who participated, so it's not a simple job to manage it. I'm working with three other parents this year, two of whom did all the work themselves last year.

Snow and Trees
We got our first real snow of the year early this week. As the snow came down and the wind blew hard, our phone rang. It was my next-door neighbor letting me know that one of my spruce trees was leaning over his driveway at a 45-degree angle. We pulled it back up with some rope and staked it. I couldn't feel my fingers when it was over. I'm grateful my neighbor is such a good guy - he didn't want the tree to block his driveway, but he didn't have to spend his evening getting wet and slopping through my yard, holding a rope while I tied it to a stake. Thanks, Jim!

The tree is still staked up. I'm not expecting it to stay up for long after it's unstaked. Remember this tree? I have a feeling my staked tree has the same root-poor condition. We'll see.

Go State!
I spent the first quarter of the Big 10 Championship game (MSU vs Wisconsin) on the treadmill. I'm spending the fourth quarter on the computer typing, watching the teams beat the heck out of each other. A great game so far...

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