Weekend of 3/30/14

Time to play catch up! The last two weeks have been extremely busy. I was gone the first half of last week to Utah to work on NASA stuff. ATK, who manufactures the solid rocket motors for the SLS project, have had some issues with the quality of their motors. It all stems from a change in the materials used. In the current state of affairs, green is everywhere....even in rockets. The insulation that is used on these motors was an old asbestos formulation. Asbestos is really great at some things. Just ask Early.

Anyway, the new "green" formulation has caused voids in the propellant. And that's bad. If you really care, I will explain why. Anyway, the smart peeps think the propellant voids are from the new insulation, so we developed a new inspection technique to look for possible gas sources.So, I had to go in order to see if it would work.

I got home Wednesday afternoon. After doing some chores and having a nice dinner, I wanted to work on my latest AR. Actually, I wanted to repair one AR, which I had broken a gas tube because UAG makes some questionable quality products. You can read about the modifications in my AR V2.0 Part 3 post.

Thursday afternoon, I did some much needed work on the boat. You may recall that I had issues with the boat during the NATA Open. I wasn't terribly scared it was mechanical because it idled smooth. After researching and calling my good buddy Chris, who works at the Boat Wrench, I had some ideas on where to look. I had a limited amount of time, so I picked the 3 easiest things to check. I cleaned the 02 sensor, took the fuel/water seperator apart and cleaned it, as well as teh low pressure pump prefilter. I did find a lot of this:

I put it back together, fully expecting it to be something a little more in depth, but I couldn't spare the time because we had a tournament on Saturday.

Friday evening, Alyse and I headed to Pickwick. We wanted an afternoon to ourselves before fishing our very first tournament together on Saturday. After testing the boat (and finding it still had problems), I managed to 1) nearly throw my wife out of the boat 2) bang the prop into rock.

Dejected, we shared a nice quiet evening eating at River Bottom Grill, right in McFarland Harbor on Pickwick. We watched the sun go down and then drove a few miles to her aunts lake hour where we spent the night.

Then, it was up and at it for the MFC Tournament on Pickwick. Go check out the vid and read it!

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, my dad and uncle were doubling up on the first day of turkey season!

After the tournament, we were able to meet my inlaws with the kids and Alyse's grandmother for dinner at Homeside in Florence. I ate the all-you-can-eat shrimp, Griffin ate chicken fingers (as usual), Aubree ordered a ribeye, and Gavin ate whatever we put in front of him. I can't WAIT to see what our grocery bill will be in 10 years. And yes, Aubree ate all of her steak.

Then it was the long drive back home. We were so tired and dead that we over slept and didn't make it to church. I know. I've got to get better.

Sunday afternoon we cleaned out the garage and started the garden! Alyse couldn't help but poke fun at me as I emptied out the boat and stored my rods. She went to social media and posted a pic of all my rods, then made a comment about needing more shoes. I don't know how these two fit together.....

"This is not even all of them. He has 24 rods easily. Looks like I need to step up my shoe game."

So, about that garden. It will be interested because I am getting ballsy with this years garden. Bigger. Better. I planned on selling grown plants and my extra veggies. You may recall that I bought a seed starter setup last year. It's essentially a set of lights to grow indoors. I pair that with a heater. Anyway, here are some pics. If you want some fresh produce this summer, or plants for your own....holla at your boy. Check out the vid! 

Keep up with updates on BestGarden 2014 Here! 

And, just like that, adult softball season began. It was a rocky start to the season. In the next to last inning, we found ourselves down 6 runs. We managed to score 4 before they secured 3 outs. It left 5 minutes on the clock, which meant we had to get 3 outs in 5 minutes to get another at-bat. Somehow we managed to get all 3 outs with mere seconds left on the clock. We needed 2 runs, but managed to get 8. All we had to do was get some outs. The first batter walked. So, our chances looked fairly poor. The next batter hit a rocket at me in right-center. At first it looked like it was going to be well shy of me, but I made a run at it, dove, and made a pretty good catch (if i do say so myself). I popped up and gunned the ball to 2nd. The runner hadn't advanced. The 3rd batter fouled a ball all the way to the left field fence. It looked completely out of play, but Jimmy managed to get his back on the fence and make the nab.The next batter crushed a ball at right field. Now, that's where things were interesting. The guy we had playing left field was an NHL player. But he had never played softball. Or baseball. He didn't even own a glove. But, just as natural as can be, he made a great catch.

I still don't know how we won that game. We didn't play very well. Our batting alternated between terrible and awesome. But, we won. And we needed a close game to knock the rust off.

Then it was back to work on Monday! The first thing I had to do yesterday was drop the boat off at the Boat Wrench. I asked if I needed to bring some of this:

Chris thinks it is a torn diaphragm in one of the fuel pumps. I sure hope so. And, in the meantime, the prop doctor will be straitening out my prop. 

I pulled the lawn mower out of the shed yesterday. This was an in-depth process that involves draining old gas and refilling. I did all this only to find out that the batter was toasted. Another $45. Drove it to the garage. Filled up the tired. Then replaced the lawnmower blades. Why? Well, take a look. 

I don't think they will work so well that way. But these new ones will. Until I hit a tree. Or a rock.

Late that afternoon, we ran to my grandparents to visit for awhile. The kids were able to watch some deer play, which is always funny. Aubree has trained eyes from her ripe old age of 8. Griffin has a little more trouble seeing the deer. I just says he sees them, even when he doesn't. They ate ice cream with their great grandparents. Before we knew it, it was 9pm. 

we got home just in time for Aubree to tell us that she had a report card from before spring break. Convenient, eh? Well, just as we thought, it had some not so great grades. The kicker was when we reviewed her graded papers and we found the corner of a torn page in the mix. After a little detective work, we found the rest of the page. And the red ink that covered it. As well as several more. Well, we knew it was coming. I do admit that she is smarter than I. Not because she is trying to hide bad grades, but because it took me until 4th grade to come up with the same ploy. It led to an "animated" discussion. She will either never do it again....or get smarter and start throwing them in the trashcan on the bus....just like me.