Winter Update...

Okay, way over due for an update, so here is a summary of our recent activities:

We started 2006 with some skiing at Big Sky, Montana—home of gorgeous Lone Peak. A lovely day for skiing, bluebird skies and fresh powder to play in. We haven’t skied a whole lot this year, but we were able to put together a MT Family Ski Weekend for the church folks over President’s day. We had decent turnout including a family from Washington and a minister from Wyoming (the famed and acclaimed Big Ben). It was –35 degrees (in the morning) at the ski weekend, and we decided to wait until the temperature rose to –20 before skiing—anything else would be lunacy! The last day we were able to ski a full day, because it was only –14 when we woke up.




We were/are trying to figure out ways to visit Ohio at least once a year without spending a fortune each time. I think our last trip was around 2 grand, which isn’t too bad. So if Laramie, Talia, Josie, Nat and Risa get hitched that is 10 grand right off the bat just in plane tickets and traveling expenses. So we have been thinking a great deal on how to continue the visits without dipping into our property savings. Last summer we had experimented on the way out to the Uncle’s ranches (Eastern Montana) with camping in the back of the Honda. We had fun! But the Honda with the back seat down and a futon pad into the trunk doesn’t leave a whole lot of space. We ended up fishing that day on the way out, so we had wet waders and all sorts of stuff packed in there with us! Good times. My point being, we have been looking for a better solution. A 1978 Volvo 245 DL wagon fell into our laps at just the right price---FREE! The previous owners had been using it for hauling kayaking gear, and stopped using it so they let it sit for a few years. We had answered an ad in the paper for which they were asking $300 for it. Well we checked it out and did some dreaming and scheming and were thinking about it some more. Two weeks passed and the guy calls us, and says, “listen you kids were the only ones interested so if you want it come get it for free, I am just looking to clear it off the property.” Whoo hoo! We called grandpa and he brought the truck and trailer up last Friday.
We started Sunday on it and now have it cranking with a good sputter. Emil is an excellent mechanic, and with his electrical engineering degree we have been just a diagnosing away! The car has two fuel pumps and wouldn’t you know, letting a car sit like that led to some stuck parts. We tore the main fuel pump apart and ungummed the workings with a WD-40 bath, a hammer and a block of wood to the rotor. The electrics in it look good; they were just a bit dirty. We also tore out the in-tank fuel pump and re-routed the fuel hose to a gas can for further testing. The main pump works great (saved $55 with Emil’s ingenuity!) and we have diagnosed the next stuck part to be the cold-start fuel injector (which we unstuck now). Nat (my brother who welds in the guest room of his house) would be proud, I allowed parts rinsing in my kitchen sink! We will continue with this project, it will likely take some time to get all of issues resolved. After we get the fuel pumps all back online, we need to look at the clutch plate and also the brake system.

In other areas, we have been brewing honey mead and rhubarb wine (for mom G.). Right now we have a 15-gallon capacity operation in our basement. Our first batch of mead was by far the best, that was last fall though, as it was of a nice thirst-quenching dryness with a mild yeasty nose. This batch is very different since we decided to experiment with the water (we used distilled water this time) and honey (we used our local unpasteurized source) and yeast types. It is amazing how the flavor, dryness (or lack thereof) and speed of fermentation can change drastically by manipulating those variables. We think the honey mead with freshly juiced ginger for flavor is the most refreshing so far, but not really dry enough for our tastes. We think if we let it continue to age (they say at least 6 months is best) a see how the flavor changes with time. Anyone else ever try making Mead?? We have also made some excellent root beer--but that is mainly a summer operation. Our goal when we get some property is to have a self-sufficient kind of operation, with our own bee hives, milk cow, garden big enough to provide for the year as well as the rest of the family etc, with a glass of mead to drink in the evenings.

Last year we were able to have a nice garden up at the parents (we tore out their back yard) that provided for both tables through the entire summer. We will do that again this year, with an additional garden here at our house. Mom G. and I were able to put up green beans from a church member’s garden that was over productive. We will be planning the gardens in the upcoming week. Mom G. and I have a standing ‘date’ on Thursday afternoons (in the winter) and Wednesday afternoons (in the summer) to do our gardening stuff and or plot and scheme to take over the world… I mean, quilt or something. We (and Jenny's mom)just finished sewing together a quilt made of squares from all of the church ladies for Miss Jenny. We then had a special fancy ladies tea on March 4 while the men were at Spokesman’s club in order to present the quilt to the gal. Anyhow, we were all supposed to wear fancy tea-going hats. Pat and I came up a bit short and showed up in pirate hats, which wasn’t exactly what the other gals were wearing. Good times though, and it sure has been fun putting together the quilt. (I know, I can’t believe I just typed that…) I made Emil a quilt before we were married, and he would like me to make a baffle-box quilt with goose-feathers to ward off the winter cold. I will as soon as I find out what a baffle-box is!

The only woodworking project we have undertaken lately is a second table. This one is three times as large as our first table, which we use as our dining room table. The new table is Red Oak and measures 4’ by 8’ with a one (1) inch kerfed edge. We are going to pour an Enviro-tek hard top on it and use it primarily for assembling projects without damaging the oak surface. It is out in the mother-in-law suite until it warms up enough to pour the top. The mother-in-law suite, by the way, started as a joke when we moved in here. Mom R. and Mom G. have a place to stay when they come visit. Okay, one lives only a mile or two away, but we thought it would be funny if we had our shop room out behind the house designated for them both as their personal private quarters if they need a place to escape.

Oh, that reminds me. Our other big project this winter has been designing and building phase optimized pre-amplifiers for high-end sound equipment. We will be taking on Bose someday! What is a pre-amplifier and why would anyone care to have one?? Good question! When a CD is played in a CD player a laser moves across the surface of the CD and detects changes in the reflection of the laser which is determined by the bumps and pits on the surface of the disc. The changes in reflection are captured by an optical pickup in analog form. Analog is an older, less precise form of storing information, in which information is stored on variable but continuous wave forms (signal with an electromagnetic carrier). Radio stations have used this traditionally by attaching their signal of a varying frequency and amplitude (song with singers voices and musical instruments of different pitches) to a carrier wave of a given frequency of alternating electromagnetic current—which is why you can always get T-100 at 100.3 FM…. but I digress. When Edison originally scratched a tin foil with a needle in order to record a human voice, he was recording in an analog format. After playing the foil recording several hundred (or less) times, the sound would be noticeably different than the first time it was played. That is because the process as he designed it is purely mechanical. The tin foil was etched by a needle that vibrated with the diaphragm (microphone) into which he spoke. To play back the etching, the needle was passed along the foil, and as it bounced along the groove in the foil, the diaphragm (speaker) vibrated with the needle. With each time the needle ran along the foil grooves, the grooves became worn and the signal or sound became less and less like what was originally recorded. Kind of neat. In this way, the bumps and pits on a CD are very much akin to a vinyl record, or a tin foil etched by Edison himself. Anyhow, in a CD player the analog form of the signal is translated into a digital waveform by a digital to analog converter (DAC). The digital waveform is basically computer-speak. It means the analog or mechanical signal has been converted into 1’s and 0’s or binary—which is what most modern electronic equipment (computers, cell phones, CD’s, DVD’s etc.) use as their language. The new digital signal is based upon sampling of a sampling of the analog waveform and is consistent in its repeatability. This is why Garth Brooks always sounds the same when you pop in a CD—unless you have damaged the surface of the CD. Anyhow, the digital signal is very, very tiny and is sent to an amplifier, which then makes the signal large enough to hear through the electromagnetic vibrations of a speaker. A pre-amplifier (and yes, it took me that long to get to what we are making) takes the digital signal before it goes to the main amplifier (and speakers) and makes it larger in stages so as to avoid distorting the original signal. So the signal that goes to the amplifier is much, much larger than what would have been sent without a pre-amp. The kicker is this. A good pre-amplifier, meaning one that is phase shift optimized and lacks electric buzzings, is so good at preserving the integrity of the original signal that it will sound like Patsy Cline or Roy Orbison is right there singing to you in your own living room. An amplifier takes such a large step that the components of the original signal—think about the ranges of vocals, drums, guitars etc—are distorted and some parts can be left out in the sampling of the player. The pre-amp serves to preserve what the person originally did during the recording. It is really cool to listen to something without a pre-amp and then with a pre-amp. The difference is astounding. One of the large drawbacks is that most people listen to music and they don’t even notice that say the violins or the guitars are moving around the room on them and that there is a lack of clarity in the overall sound. A phase-optimized pre-amp can correct that flaw and keep instruments and vocalists in one place. The other drawback is that in the average radio, a pre-amp won’t make much of a difference, so quality of speakers, cables and electronic parts does also make a difference in the end-sound quality. The point being we have been making pre-amps to market to the high-end music stores here in Montana. They have wooden and chrome finished aluminum cases and look super-classy. As opposed to cheap and junky ;-)

[It is Emil’s area of expertise not mine…and here I rattled on like I knew what I was talking about. Anyhow, it has been a fun project for both of us, and we both have been learning lots of new things in doing it. Dad G. is our prototype tester guy since he got his hands on a set of fancy-dancy speakers some years back. (No, we haven’t burnt the house down yet with electrical fires!)]

So folks, there are the winter projects thus far: skiing, pre-amps, "junk" car fixings, brewing stuff and keeping each other out of trouble in general ;-)

What have you other non-updating bloggers been up to??

(p.s. only one of my pictures uploaded to this thing... so you all will have to wait to see the pre-amp and the amazing Volvo project car...) :-)