Happy Chinese New Year!

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I don't really celebrate Chinese New Year, but so many people do, it just seems right to wish everyone a happy one. I also wish you a conventional new year, and when the various Indian New Years roll around, why not have a happy one of those too? In general, I hope you're happy and it lasts a year.

Now that the polar vertices have gone back to Santa Claus where they belong, we’re trying to get back to normal where we can go outside for more than a minute without the inside of our noses freezing.



A few years ago, we had a leak in the space above our garage where the bathroom is – the person who updated our shower forgot to put everything back together correctly. We had another leak a few weeks ago. This time it was the toilet leaking. It happened right after the first big freeze, and I was worried it was a burst pipe, but it wasn’t. I need to fix the drywall, but for now the insulation-stuffed-into-a-hole-in-the-ceiling-held-in-place-by-a-piece-of-wood approach is sufficient.



M got his braces off right about the time we were wrapping up our payments to the orthodontist. An amazing coincidence.

In the picture above, you can see M without his braces. I spent a few minutes trying to convince him to pose like the monkey in the picture behind him (he didn’t know the picture was there) but knows me too well, and wouldn’t do it. I finally showed him the picture, and he felt very smug that he hadn’t fallen for my ruse.

K has been selected as one of the ten Mathcounts contestants from his school, and is the only 6th-grader. The competition is in February and he gets to skip a day of school to go. Good luck, K!


K and his friends are playing football in the front yard during one of the cold weather waves. He’s the one dressed like Peyton Manning.

Several of us at the company are teaching a Python programming class to 7-9th grade offspring of our co-workers. Our first class was earlier this week, and it went really well, with 12 students in attendance. There are six more classes to go. I taught the first class, and there will be three other instructors over the course of the class. We’re hoping this whole “computer programming” thing will catch on with the younger crowd.


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The Cold Report

Here's proof that we had some cold weather. The little red square in the left side of the picture, across the street, is a "For Sale" sign in our neighbor's yard.
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I'm changing the name of this blog to The Cold Report in honor of our recent cold weather. The forecast says it's coming back soon, so we can't say goodbye to it quite yet.

Below are some links to keep you warm. I'm working on a version of the Coca-Cola truck at home to keep my mind off the arctic blasts. I'm also in the process of making a toolbox out of pine. The pine is kind of frustrating to work with - it's so soft, it tears and gets crumbly sometimes. But I want to get my prototype working correctly before using real wood on it. I also need practice with sawing dovetail and finger joints. I always need practice on those.

Links
Dave Hax makes a scale model Coca-Cola truck out of Coca-Cola cans.

How to make a vase out of a light bulb.

Making a nickel, which is already a work of art in its own right, into a more interesting work of art.

Here are the instructions for building a space-age nixie clock that will tell you the time if you go back to the future. It's modern and retro and antique at the same time. The wiring diagram is pretty involved, so give yourself at least an hour to build it.

The Floyd Leg is a great idea. It's not a commercial product yet, but it should be.

The Wipebook is another product that isn't commercial yet, but for those of us who still use a pen to record our thoughts, I can see this coming in handy.

Happy New Year!

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The snow is falling in Michigan. Meanwhile, in Pasadena, the Spartans are getting ready to take on Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

In Ann Arbor, there will be a hockey game in Michigan Stadium between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's going to be really cold, so I hope the fans brought their long johns. A few years ago, we went to see Michigan and Michigan State play a hockey game in the stadium, but fortunately, we had better weather.

Happy New Year! Go State!