Sign Language Help

I just found this cool site that has video clips of sign language. Ok, potentially not earth shattering, but cool none the less.

Born 2 Sign

Hummer Hybrid

I have always been facinated with spoof ads so tonight I took a few minutes to create the ad I had been joking with Kirsten about. Not super high quality, but fun. Stole a pic of an H2 from their website, did a color replacement to make it green, masked and cut out the "mountain meadow" exhaust.

hehehehehe

linux, laptop, wep, wireless..

I am now sitting at my kitchen table writing this blog post. This is significant to me for several reasons:

1) My computer is at my desk, so thus I have got my laptop connected to the internet
2) I connected my laptop wirelessly, thanks to the card Tina gave me!
3) The laptop is running Xbuntu (linux). The laptop can now boot linux or Win98 (which I need to run my CNC.

Ironically I have been putting off doing this for a while, I would start researching it, then get bogged down in the details... Tonight I sat down and was trying AGAIN to test the set up while booting linux from a bootable CD, but that is 2 slow. So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and actually install linux. I went to back up some files only to discover I had done it already. Then, as it turned out I just had to put in the Xbuntu CD and start the laptop and wait... that's it! Eventually I had to turn the WEP off on the router to connect, but nothing else...

go figure

Gates and Roller Blade Wheels

This weekend I built a new gate to keep the kiddies from running away. Notice the garage sale roller blade wheels on the end of the gate!

Metal Detecting and Light Boxes

What do metal detecting and light boxes have in common? Let me tell you a story.

Tonight I decided to try out my $10 garage sale metal detector at the local park, specifically in the sand around the climbing structures. I have only tried out this detector in front of our old apartment and then only found garbage. My goal is to find enough coins to pay for the detector. Even then, just to find one coin with a metal detector had been a bit of a life time goal. After about 20 minutes of nothing but a bottle cap, low and behold I found a 1969 quarter, my first find! That made my day. So when I got home I wanted to take a picture in our light box, but was unhappy with how the light box pictures were turning out. So I rebuild the light box, much better! Below are the pictures of my quarter and at the bottom a picture of the set up. Two halogen flood lights, a small halogen desk lamp in front and a small flashlight to light up the quarter a bit more. It was fun taking the pictures. I think the cars look good in the pictures too. Now, you are thinking, sure the cars make good eye candy, but what's the deal. Well, if you metal detect in the sand at a playground, chances are you will find more than just quarters... the cars are finds 2, 3, 4 and 5! I had a chuckle when I dug up the first one. Jack and Eric will be happy!

As Paul Harvey would say, " And now you know the rest of the story."

SLR Remote Trigger

This is the remote trigger I made for Grant's camera. I got the circuit off the inter-web, it is pretty simple and has buttons for the shutter and auto-focus, and a toggle switch to lock the shutter open on the camera's "bulb" setting. The mini-headphone jack just plugs into the camera. I couldn't decide how long to make the cable so I wired both ends for 4-wire phone cable so Grant can use whatever length cable he wants. If you were wondering, the case for the switches is made from a 35mm film case (not my idea but I liked the irony). I also got to use our spanky label maker I gleaned from work.