Part 2 - What Lurks in the Night? (at a rest stop)

After seeing the wind turbine blades at the rest stop, I contacted Skypower to get the specifications on the blades we saw. Grace sent me some great links - so if you are interested in renewable energy, like B, you might want to check these additional resources out. Good info!!!Enjoy!

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/downloads/ge_15_brochure.pdf

http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas.aspx

http://www.powergeneration.siemens.com/products-solutions-services/products-packages/wind-turbines/products/swt-3-6-107/techspecification/techspecification.htm

http://www.enercon.de/en/_home.htm

And the Move Begins

From 2pm until dark, the move was on!!! Thankfully, I have a big truck, so I could take a lot over on each trip. I think I ended up making 8 trips in 7 hrs. Needless to say, progress was made!

before
after

Yes, a giant wall of legos. You would believe how empty my living room seems!

Well Rounded Education

Our day began with core curriculum, then we added music credit, and finally got some international community service exposure. Pretty well rounding day, if you ask the teacher.

Tonight we went to see Three Men and a Tenor. B had seen them before, but this was my first experience. WOW! I know, not a very sophisticated adjective, but these men were so impressive. Both of us strongly recommend, if you ever have a chance to see them – it is so worth it. Not only can they sing, but they are funny and just a really nice performance to watch.The international/world community service comes in with the reason for the concert. The Rotary Clubs have, for more than 20 years, worked to eradicate polio in all countries. The concert tonight was the Washtenaw County Rotary Clubs’ fundraising effort to support the International Rotary Clubs commitment to this far reaching eradication project. The US Rotary Clubs have committed to raising $200 million in a 4 yr span (2008-12), and events like this will help them do just that. Tonight’s event was also important because during a certain time frame, the Gates Foundation has committed to matching $2.50 for every dollar the Rotary raises. So our dollars were well matched!

Horsing Around - with a colt

After community service today, B and his riding instructor went to another barn to see a new colt. The colt is 6 days old. He is a standard breed, race horse trotter. Charming, to say the least. B's words, "He's a little spit-fire."
B letting the mare and colt get use to him.

Finally, B figures he can reach out......

.....and the colt nibbles back.

Tonight's burning questions, "Mom, will you buy me a horse?" Mom's answer is still the same, "Not happening." He is pretty cute, how to say no?????

What Lurks in the Night? (at a rest stop)

You never know what you are going to drive by when traveling home, late at night, from an art class?! LOL This was good enough that we got off the freeway (we were going W on 94), got back on going back east, got off again and came back west and pulled into the rest stop where we had seen 2 of these strange things!!! Never seen before, and probably never will again.

This is what we saw from the freeway at, um, 70 miles per hour (ha ha).
This is the treat we got to experience up close! And please know, this picture does NOT do the sight justice. It was simply awesome. The whole truck and trailer took up the width of 6 1/2 semi-truck parking spaces. B used the best adjective - massive!

This is what we figured out after we dug around the internet this morning. These are blades for a wind turbine. Skypower, a Canadian company, is a leader in the renewable energy industry. They are involved with both wind and solar projects.

If you are at all interested in renewable energy, you've got to dig around their website. http://www.skypower.com Many cool things await you, like videos, bios on current projects, general information on wind and solar power, etc. There is even an Educational Center on their website! http://www.skypower.com/Education_center.html

The timing of seeing these could not have been better, given it was Earth Day! B has not stopped talking about renewable energy. And he is back on wanting to erect a household wind turbine at the lake. Sometimes you just never know where and when you are going to find a lesson just waiting to be discovered!

Blowing Neon - project - pt. 2

Since this is an art, there are is a certain 'learning curve' when it comes to getting the technique down. Most of that is done on scrap pieces of glass tubing, until you get the hang of it. Along one side of the shop there are metal trash cans, and B use to save all his pieces until I would pick him up. We both love the sound of the glass breaking apart when it is tossed into the cans. Needless to say, B threw his fair share of pieces away. Even Bob the instructor has been caught throwing tubing away. In any event, several pieces made it home - B has made me a few very cool designs and I have the word "mom" written in glass tubing too. BUT tonight, we brought his first piece home that actually had electrodes attached and was hooked to a transformer. B has worked on this piece for weeks (unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the paper design and template process). I have seen the pieces come together one by one (more on that in a minute), but tonight is the first I have seen all the pieces together and lit. I know I am bias, but I think it's a pretty amazing piece and wait until you read what he is going to do with it.

Here is what it looks like when there is no electricity running from the outlet, through a transformer, into the electrodes and through the tubing. Cool, but nothing too exciting right?
Here's what it looks like lit up!!

This is mounted on a 24x24 inch piece of 1/4" thick plexiglass. Each color is a seperate piece of neon with electrodes on each end, which are then all wired together into the transformer. So B had to make the blue outside circle and go through the whole process in the previous post. Then he made the white circle, then moved onto the green zig zags, and lastly did the red fish. Took some time, and there was definitely some glass crashing into the trash bins each week. And there were a few snags along the way. A big one was on his zig zag piece there was an arcing problem and it blew a hole in the tubing at the bend before the electrode. When that happens you learn how to repair the tubing. Thankfully, Bob is a patient man!

Anyway......it was pretty amazing when he turned this on for me to see. Now, what is he going to do with it??? His first neon project, goes to....................................his boss at work. Can you even believe????!!!!! This is the logo on for The Fish Doctor, which is the tropical fish store where B works. He is taking the sign in this next Monday. I can't even imagine the reaction.

Blowing Neon - shop/process - pt. 1

B has been taking classes at the Glass Academy in neon blowing at The Furance for 10 wks now. He got interested in learning how to blow neon when we came to the holiday open house/demonstration back in December. I finally remembered tonight to take the camera. This post has to do with all the general neon blowing information and pictures. The part 2 post has to do with his first neon project, which we brought home completed tonight (more on that in the next post). Enjoy!!

This is the actual shop at The Furance. The Furance offers glass blowing in an glory hole, lampworking, stain glass classes, and slumping or fusing classes, plus the neon shop.
This is how the glass tubing is shipped and stored at the shop. They all look pretty much the same, but as you will see in a minute - they aren't! The glass tubes come in different mm sizes, colors and types (depending if you are going to pump neon or argon in them).

THIS, is how you tell what color you are picking. THIS, is also one of B's favorite parts. Who wouldn't love to get to play with a black light? When you illuminate the ends of the tubes with a black light, you can tell what color the tubing will be once the 'filling process' is done and the electricity is hooked to your piece of work.

It's important to pick the right color now, because you don't know for sure until the end of the project - and if you spend all the time bending, blowing, filling and then plug it in and find your UofM letters are in green - well you have to start again :-)

ribbon torch

cross fire torch

heating the electrode

butt welding the electrode into place, which seals the tube

Unfortunately a step is missing here - which is the actual heating, bending and blowing of the tubes. Which is really the 'art' part of this technique. We might get those pics another day and I can update. sorry

electrode being attached with a hand torch

pumping station, where either the neon or argon is pumped into the sealed piece

gadgets and gadges galore!!!

Piece hooked to the station, just about ready to be pumped. This piece is completely sealed and has been butt welded to the station (that is actually what Bob is doing in this pic). This is where a lot of science comes in. All of which B understands, but I am left clueless.

A drop of mercury is added to a small bubble (which is blown into the tubing before it is hooked to the pumping station. This mercury is eventually "dropped" and "walked" around in the piece (more on that in a bit).

Then when everything is hooked up, and each bend is protected with mica between the glass tubing (so the electricity can not arc between the bends), then the piece is heated and pumped with the gas.

Once the piece has cooled, after being pumped, it is taken off the pumping station. Then that drop of mercury is 'dropped,' which means it is shaken out of the bubble and the mercury is 'walked' around the piece - which means you turn the piece in your hands until the mercury has been totally dispersed inside the entire piece of art. Then the piece is hooked to a transformer via the electrodes. When electricty is first sent through the tubing it is white, but as it heats up.......................

....your piece takes on the color, hopefully, that you wanted and chose at the beginning.

The art part and the science part are a little more complicated than I have depicted here, but you get the idea. And I am sure I have missed some important details. But it is late and this teacher/mom has had it for the brainwork side of things.

True to My Word

SUPPORT LOCAL BREWERIES! True to my word, I retuned to the Jolly Pumpkin brewery today to purchase a birthday gift for my dad. Knowing next to nothing about beer, other than it tastes yucky, the young man tried to help me choose as best he could. I knew I didn't want a dark beer, so he made a few suggestions. True to being a woman, I picked what I liked on the label. If you are into labels, you've got to go to their site and check out all their different lables, pretty cool! I know, so lame! I ended up getting a pint of Bam Biere Farmhouse Ale, and a pint of E.S. Bam Hoppy Farmhouse Ale. And naturally, since B lives in hoodies, I couldn't leave without getting him an advertisement to wear.

Bam Bière - An artisan farmhouse ale that is golden, naturally cloudy, bottle conditioned and dry hopped for a perfectly refreshing balance of spicy malts, hops and yeast.

E.S. Bam - Extra Special Farmhouse AleA Bam celebration of excess. More malt, more hops, same vivacious personality.

I'll let you know how dad likes it, when he finally opens the bottles and tries them. Cheers!

Odd Combination!

Can you guess what a labyrinth, a micro brewery, and wildflowers all have in common??? These are all things, plus others, that we came across today while we were out geocaching. Yes, even geocaching will open the doors to new things. Our Garmin did not let us down today!

We started our day in the woods and along the path found newly opening wildflowers, a babbling creek (from all our recents rains) and yes, the cache container - in which we traded some travel bugs.
You surely didn't think we would identify the wildflowers, did you? Remember we are an animal species motivated group, not botany. Maybe our botany prone friends could help?

Clear water.

B gets the 'find.'
A few caches later we came across a puzzle cache in which we needed to count the steps of the 5 circuit Cretan style labyrinth, do some math and then pace off 47 steps to actually find the cache container. If you had been a fly in the woods, I'm sure you might have found it interesting to hear what a 13 yr old, a 43 yr old and a 65ish yr old might have to say about the labyrinth - please let it be known - we all had differenting opinions and observations!

Center

Counting and figuring out the clues to which direction we should be taking our paces to find the cache.

Who knew??? Not us. There is a micro brewery right here in Dexter, and we didn't even know it. It is the Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales Brewery. (if you go to their website, you've got to click on their products link. Again, who knew?!) Now had it been a winery, I'm sure I would have been up on the details. It was closed today, and the Tap House is not to open until later this year. But it was fun to make this find, only about 5 blocks from our house. We are going to return this week to buy gramps a few bottles of the Jack O'Lantern brew for his birthday, which is this coming weekend. Should I pick a few bottles up for anybody else???

Taproom won't open until after we have moved. Reason to visit?

Here are the details about the brewery, for those interested:
Founded in 2004, this brewery makes use of open fermentation (wild yeasts) and oak barrel aging to produce delightfully sour beers and farmhouse ales in the Belgian tradition. No two batches are ever exactly the same, intentionally and enjoyably so. The brewery is named after two of the very favorite things of the founders: Halloween and pirates! There is no brewpub at this unassuming location, but they do have a small retail store and occasional tasting counter on premises which is open Fridays from noon to six. After Thanksgiving and through the coldest months you may also find them open on Saturdays. If they are open and you drop in, you will likely get a chance to say hello to the owners Laurie and Ron (the latter also being the the head brewer). If they are not open, you can find their product sold in wine bottles at various local stores that carry craft beers. They are surprisingly well known and widely distributed given the relatively small size of their largely family-run operation. This is no doubt due to the quality and uniqueness of their products, which have won awards at the Great American Beer Festival. Once we were visiting Tokyo, Japan and were pleased to find two of their beverages on sale at a store there!

So now do you see how a labyrinth, a micro brewery, wildflowers and caching all go together? LOL, for us it's just a 'normal' day of geocaching and enjoying the different things that we find along the way. The weather was perfect, the exercise needed and the company was - let's just say entertaining!!! The three of us added 12 'finds' to our geocaching find column, found 3 new travel bugs and dropped off 2 bugs we had with us, we found 2 things we didn't even know were there, and laughed at a couple of things along the way. It was great to be outside!!! We were hoping that spring and the warm weather was here to stay, but the next few days are going to be rainy and cold again. Thankfully, we enjoyed while it lasted.

Playing Hookie

It's Friday, sunny, and predicted to be in the 70s (and yes, it's still April). So what is a home schooling teacher/parent to do??? Suggest we cram as much as we can into the morning, attend Chemistry lab, and then head to the lake to play hookie!!!! The promise of hookie was a tactic to get B to help with some of the chores at our favorite place in Michigan - the cottage. So before the lab instructor could even get out of the drive, we hopped in the truck and headed for west toward the lake!!!! Next weekend is gramps birthday and we decided to the dock in for him. The lake looked pretty empty when we got there, but when we left we had remedied that!

Here's what it looked like when we got started. Yes, that is Saturn in the water. B said the water was cold, I had yet to find out. As you can see we've carted all the necessary 'supplies' to the sea wall.
Take this child to the cottage, and put him in the water - you get HAPPY CAMPER!!! (not sure Saturn shares the sentiment)

First section done, working on the 2nd section. Saturn is the ultimate supervisor.

Second section done, third section is the toughest because of the end posts - they have to be screwed into the lake bottom (vs the other ones just sit on the sandy bottom). Saturn wants to make sure B is doing it just right, 'Make sure you get it straight kid, and level. I hate to walk on the dock when it is runs downhill on one side.'

Still smiling, while working. It's because we both went to the lake with a different motive. The deal was, once the work was done, B could work on his koi pond and I would get to kayak. Did that happen???? Doesn't look much like a boy does he???

JOB DONE!!! Plus we got all the sticks in the yard picked up and burned, all the outdoor furniture hauled out of the garage, the porch swings hung (hard choice, would have loved to have time to curl up in one of them and read - but not in the cards today), and the boat lift to the water's edge.

AND - we both got to 'play' after the work was done. B uncovered his pond to find his koi had weathered the winter just fine (only lost one fish, the gin matsuba butterfly koi). He began the clean up work on the pond and I filled my kayak in the water and got a chance to paddle. About an hour on the water, bliss!!!! The water was cold, I could feel that through the boat. The sun was amazing, and the there was not a sole around - so the only sound was the paddle in and out of the water and the movement of the boat. Heavenly bliss!!! I've missed kayaking. The lake level is SO high - highest we've ever seen. The neighbors 2 houses down, their sea wall is completely underwater.

Anyway......picked a perfect day to play hookie. It was VERY HARD to get in the truck to return to Dexter. If we didn't have a family commitment tomorrow morning we probably would have stayed. We can hardly wait to finish things here in Dexter so we can make our move out there. We'll have at least 3 1/2 months of living at the lake. Motivates us to get home, get the school work and chores done here so we can return!!!!

Horsing Around

Best part of my day - watching B work with River, all the while sitting the sun getting warm! I think, spring is here - although I'm careful to say that. Today B assisted with therapy riding at the barn, and then he got his time with River. They worked in the outside corral - only doing ground work. But you can clearly see, River doesn't care what they are doing - he likes B! River's owner is complimentary at how well River responds to B. I wasn't sure I would be able to get B and his big head (ego) in the truck to come home.
It's not all fun and games at the barn. B had to give River a bath and groom him. B actually likes to do the grooming, so he never tries to get out of it (like some of his chores at home). River looked awesome, and B looked worn out. In this pic B is distracting River while the owner is doing something with his hoof.

Sculling or Crewing or Rowing???

Finally, a beautiful late afternoon (we are tired of damp, cold rainy days)! This afternoon, when we were tired of school (okay that happens when B gets up, but that's a totally different post), we decided to enjoy some of the outdoors. B, Saturn and I headed to an Ann Arbor park where we were placing a cache. So we walked the dog, got our cache container placed perfectly, and noticed boats on the Huron River. It was the U of M Rowing teams - both men's and women's.
While we were watching we got into a conversation about what the difference between rowing, sculling and crewing actually is. So are these terms interchangeable??

What we decided is, the sport is called sculling - and what the people in the boat are doing is either crewing or rowing. But in many cases, the terms are used interchangably. Next time we're there - we're going to ask.

Now guess who wants to try it??!!! When we left the park I wanted to head right to the cottage and put the kayak in the water. I want to get a 1 person crew boat. B suggested a rowing machine, but I don't think that will do the trick. Part of the experience is actually being in the water, and a machine does NOT simulate that. B suggested a rowing machine that he would install on the dock. Gotta give the kid credit for creativity - but the momma is not buying it! But the momma such does want to try it!!

In any event, we enjoyed our time outside at the park. The dog got a walk. We got some fresh air, exercise and the treat of seeing these teams on the water. Afterwards we went downtown Ann Arbor to eat dinner at Tios, and then home to finish the last of today's language arts. Great way to spend sometime in the sun and with the son. Maybe???? Just maybe, spring is here. Hopefully!