And may all good dreams come true,
Granny

Good morning all .
If you have tried to phone, the blasted phone line has been acting up again and all we get is static.

As a rule Phillip and I usually go down on the desert on a holiday, but today we stayed at home because it was a cold,cloudy and windy day. Couldn't seem to get really warm all day.  Thought for a while we were going to get some rain even.

Hope you all had a good Christmas.

Granny

 Found out how to do something new here. When adding pictures, you can click on the torn page icon in the bar and it makes a page break. so you can write between pictures.  always did it the hard way before.

 Believe it or not, I finally got on the blog again with this computer Donna gave me. Was looking thru my old picasa album on the blog and found these photos.  Just had to repost them

Hell I knew this all along. Santa has long done the same crap to me. If he really wanted to, he could bring me a new young body.  I don't mean a youthful lover, but a new body for me.  This one is getting too damn old.

Can you remember being up to the cabin and seeing this?

Well everyone has a very nice Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Love ya Granny

The devil made me do it.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween.

See the posts on facebook but can't get on there anymore with the setup I've got.
Have fun Granny.











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Howdy!

Carry on.
The Hanks in AZ.



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Hi everyone.

Sending this by e-mail, because I can't seem to get anywhere on the net this AM.

Hey everybody! Guess who's having a birthday today?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEANNINE.

Fishing and hiking

Hope y'all have been enjoying the summer.  I've been trying to squeeze in as much fun as I can before the fall starts up again and then it's back to the grindstone.  I didn't apply for funding to do research this summer so I'm not working in the lab.  I offered to teach a summer course but I guess folks didn't want to spend the long, warm summer days working on physics problems, because I only had two students sign up.  If less than five students sign up then the class is automatically cancelled.  Can't say I blame them.  

Since I have the summer off I have been trying to stay busy picking up chores at home and preparing for the big move in August.  For those that don't know, Steph took a job in Spokane and I got a one-year position at Gonzaga U.  This past week I was caught up on chores and I felt good about the progress as far as packing for the move I decided to take some R & R time.

Last summer we purchased a rubber raft and I've been wanting to take it out on some of the lakes around Billings.  One such lake is East Rosebud.  The fishing was pretty good.  In about 2 hours I caught a few brown trout.  They weren't monsters and from the fight reeling them in and from the pale color of the meat I think they were fresh from the hatchery.  Oh well, they were pretty good eatin' and that's what I care about.  

The trip up to East Rosebud is worth it for the scenery alone, but I'm not gonna lie, it's fun to catch fish as well.

After getting my fishing fix in a couple days later I went for a hike along the Lake Fork of Rock Creek trail.  It was a decent stroll (6 miles in and back) but I could tell I was out of shape.  Steph and I hiked this trail a couple of years ago.  I wanted to hike in a ways past where we turned around on our last visit.

It was nice to see the huckleberry plants all over the place, but as you can see they are pretty green still.  It's weird how in one area the berries are green and just over a ridge you can see fully ripe berries.  I have heard whisperings of ripe berries in other parts of the Beartooth Mts.  My brother in law is coming out for a visit.  Maybe he will be willing to do some huckleberry exploration to find where the ripe berries are.

Canoe-in' and fishin'!

Hey y'all I thought I would upload a video of a few clips of Dad and I floating the Bull River.  We casted a few lures in the water and caught 3 brook trout and 2 browns.  Just for good measure we drove up to Bull Lake and caught a kokanee salmon.  All in all, not a bad day of fishin'.

The years go by.

The years are going by fast. Believe it or not, Donna turned 53 today. Happy Birthday, Donna.
Ole Dave turned 61 this month too. Shishhh. Making me feel old.

Had an overcast day today for a change. The predicted rain we were able to count the drops, it was so poor. It all went to the east of us as usual. Prescott should have gotten some from the looks of the radar. We really need rain bad. The yard is so dry and all the water Phillip puts on the garden seems to draw every bird, bug and bunny. He had to replant the cukes this morning. Something got the last ones as soon as they came up.

Phillip made fried bread for lunch and used the rest of it for pitsa for supper. Damn good. I love fried bread with butter and strawberry jam.

Worked hard just sitting on my butt and doing nothing today. Oh! I did read so I guess that counts for something.

Getting about my bed time. Night all, Granny

Down by the river.

Took a run down to the river to relax in the cool. First thing we saw as we drove down in to the water, was a cayote. He must have been looking for the nest of the resident mallards. We usually see the male duck swimming in the pool at the road crossing. He was't there but seeing the cayote I can guess he flew off to distract the sneaky thing. Phillip took the chairs out of the rig and set them up in the shade. It might be hot, but not hot enough for me to sit with my feet in the water yet.
Phillip took a hike and the camera with him and I was sitting there listening to all the birds. A hummingbird buzzed up by me and gathered spider webs for it's nest. Came back for seconds and thirds. Gonna be a cozy nest with all those webs for a lining. Saw another small bird doing the same thing. knew hummingbirds used webs but I didn't know any other birds did. Don't know what kind it was but it was green back with a bright yellow belly. Lots of birds down there I don't know what they all are. I can hear a lot of different birds but with all the tree leaves I can't see them.

While sitting there I saw a tiny yellow spider as big as the head of a straight pin, spinning his web from a blade of grass to the ground. Wonder Phillip or I hadn't stepped on him. So many tiny bugs and ants of all sizes crawling around I suspect he catches some things to eat if something don't get him first.

There are some of the weiredest bugs down here. There are some who go down in the ground by puffing dirt out of their way. The make a cone shaped hole about an inch and a half deep. Ants fall into them and can't get out because the sides keep falling in on them. Then the bug who is hiding just under the sand grabs the ant or bug and eats it. Real crazy to watch.

Saw the resident heron fly upstream for lunch. We hadn't seen him for a while then one day there he was in the pool at the crossing.

The hawks have hatched out and the parents are in a frenzy to keep them fed. Also see there is a vulture nest up in the cliff above the road. First time I have seen a vulture nesting.

After Phillip got back, the residen turtle swam down stream to the pool. I wanted Phillip to get a picture of him but the turtle hid down in the watercress roots. First time we have seen him this year. Last year Phillip picked him up but he never took his picture.

Was a beautiful day. A slight breeze and a few puffy clouds. Only one propane truck took the river crossing instead of the bridge.
Granny

Down by the river.

Yesterday we went down to the river. Had a couple from Idaho,meet us
down there. I was teaching the gal to wire wrap and Phillip and the
guy took a hike down the river. It was a beautiful day even though we
thought it might be windy. We have been having quite a bit of wind
lately. Looks like it is trying to build up a storm, but still no
rain. I don't care to be down at the river when the wind blows very
hard. there are too many tall cottonwood trees and they are brittle.
Lose too many branches. As it was the guys drug some branches out of
the way that had fallen on monday. Was a real bitchin wind monday.

Saw our resident heron still trying to sneak up stream.

There are a pair of nesting mallards just a bit upstream. Well the
hen is but the drake spends most of his time swimming in the road
crossing pool. I tried to get a picture of him but it didn't turn
out. He was too far away and I didn't want to try and get closer and
scare him off.

The pictures are of some Phillip as taken down by the river.

I think our wire wrapping date turned out pretty good. She had some
small sea shells and beach glass she wanted to wire wrap. I took my
copper and craft practice wire down but she didn't think she would
have to practice. She had silver wire but used the copper wire to try
and wrap a shell. I never wrapped a shell before, and I think we both
learned something yesterday. Now that she knows how to figure how much
wire she will need, she can go to the silver wire. They were just
back from a trip to the Baha, where they got some beautiful shells.

I couldn't get on the blog dashboard so I thought I'd try the email
route. Hope it works....Granny

Blog

Well I tried to put some stuff on the blog. Got the pictures to
finally upload but then before I could write anything much about
them I got an error on page message. I hate this new blog format and
this damn slow internet connection.
Next time I'll just say the hell with it and try to email stuff to
the blog and see if that works.

Out and about.

Phillp hard at work panning.

Good morning everbody.  Thought I'd check and see if my luck with the blog still holds.  It works yet but ever so slooooowly.
Granny.

2012-Spring project

I have an old tube framed tarp covered carport I had to replace. It has seen its better day. I managed to get three years of service out of it, but the wind had tore it to shreds. I started pricing the metal carports. For a 12' x 20'x 9 foot tall with a back and a cheap door they wanted $3300. I decided to go ahead and design and build my own. I started drafting late February and by the end of March I had us complete set of construction drawings and a materials list. Total cost- with the wooden front-double doors is $1600. I decided to use 2.5" x 2.5" square tubing with the wall thickness of .093 for the trusses and the walls. These will be strategically welded to a 3" x 3" square tubing with the wall thickness of .188 , 20 feet long. This 3 inch tubing would be the base that sets on the ground. Because I was doing this by myself I had to build a jig table for fabricating the trusses. To make the job easier, I built a jig square-true 90° that would hold the wall trusses on centerline. It made it a lot easier to clamp the already made wall trusses to the base tube on line, then weld in place. Next, taking all the parts lists, cutting every part I needed to fabricate the framework. Double checking all lenghts and angles and making sure all the parts are there at hand. The weather held out while I was cutting all the structural steel. Using the forklift to handle the structural steel on the saw has to be done outside. This part of the job is bust ass. Now I can move the jig table in the shop and fabricate the wall trusses. Kickback time, take my time, drink my tea listen to my rock 'n roll. Good thing now because the weather really sucks outside. Because this was going to be an all welded joint tubular structure it had to be fabricated level. So I fabricated a large legged angle iron framework as to set the base in and on centerline. Before I know it the framework was done and waiting for the metal sheeting. I chose a 36 inch deep Delta rib 20 foot lengths. This took a little long to do because at that time the wind was an issue. I left the metal sheeting off the bottom on both sides so we could tie to the structure to Drag it in place. Linda got recruited as the navigator. Good teamwork, it went well.

Well I'll be damned.  I can hardly believe this.  I couldn't get on the blog after they changed over their format with the old computer or the lap top, no matter what I did. After the HP went tit's up I went to the thrift store and bought an OLD 10 dollar computer with windows XP on it and and it has Chrome. I tried this thing and even though it took 8 minutes to load the blog, it worked.  Who knows for how long or how good but maybe now I can communicate again. I don't have any pictures loaded on it yet so don't know how many things it will support. Has plenty of ram but not a whole lot of virtual memory .  Any way we'll see.
Granny.

Whoops! I got the blogs mixed up

When Grandma started the "This and That" I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread (and sliced bread it pretty cool in my book). Anyway, I was inspired to start my own blog with my snowboarding buddies. When I was typing up my last blog post I accidentally clicked on Grandma's blog rather than my snowboarding blog. The snowboarding blog is PG and there isn't anything on their that I wouldn't show my Grandma (if you can't show it to your Grandma, you best keep it to your self). So at first I cringed, and then thought "what the heck maybe I'll make dual posts?" So here is a post of the 'helmet cam' videos I mentioned in the earlier posts.

This past week was insane! It was the week before spring break (students coming into my office every 10 minutes wanting to know what their grade is) and I was trying to get a revised paper out the 'digital door' to Thin Solid Films, which is a journal that a lot of my fellow physics nerds publish in. So fun stuff like video editing had to take a back seat to getting work done. These videos are from my outing last week. Now that I'm on spring break, as Fred would say "yabadabadooooo!" I'm hoping to get some more pics and footy as I will be on a plane in a few hours bound for Oregon. I'm hoping to get some slope time in with my best man Woods and my Sis. Stay tuned for more posts. First run Barriers Headwaters

Tuning problems solved

Hey y'all how are things out in the shred-o-sphere?  I'm doing okay, I haven't been up to the hill for a while so I'm due for some snow therapy.  I went up last a couple weekends ago and ran into one of my fellow faculty members.  It was a pretty cool to do a few turns with a fellow shred enthusiast.  Ironically I haven't ran into any of my students on any of my snowboard outings.  

I don't know if y'all watched the X Games, but it was kind of a bummer.  A lot of competitors opted out because they didn't want to get hurt before the olympics.  That kind of sucked but I figured the games in Sochi were going to be awesome.  Well my "stars and strips" pride took a hit when Senior Blanco didn't even medal and neither did Nate Holland or Lindsey Jacobellis.  I guess Europe has caught up with us.  It was a trip to see two Japanese dudes take home medals in the SBHP competition.  

It pains me to say it but I was a bit more into the two plankers sweeping the half pipe podium, USA baby!  What I didn't like were all the insane nasty crashes!  My jaw dropped and I just stared at the screen when I saw Sarka Pancochova hit the deck.  I've known some tough women, but this lady is tough as nails.  If you haven't seen the carnage, here is a news clip with some gnarly pictures of Sarka's helmet.

Are you kidding me? 

I've taken some slams but nothing that would crack my helmet.  She waved off the medical staff after her crash because she wanted to make it down on her own.  Damn!  Well, I guess that is why she is in the olympics, some like Sarka send it....   and others (like me) think "um.... yeah..... I think I'll pass.  One broken bone is enough for me."

In other news my waxing table finally arrived and now I can make a mess in the garage if I need to tune my board.  If you look to the left end of the picture you will see what looks like a bag of PVC pipes.  That is "lawn golf" which was a wedding present by Dr. Chris Borstad.  It is a badass game that has been busted out at many a picnic and summer gathering.  

Well I had better get some sleep, it could be a sick pow day tomorrow.  I'm thinking about taking the helmet cam and getting some footy.

Good show.

You got to check this out. It's the coolest.

https://twistedsifter.com/2014/01/randall-rosenthal-carves-wood-block-into-box-of-money/





That's my story and I'm stickin to it.