Signs of Winter

This January brought one of the warmest birthdays I can remember, but the warm weather did finally succumb to more normal temps, and, of course, some snow.  The snow finally gave me a chance to try out Johnny with the snow blade.  It wasn't the most ideal situation for a first trial.  There was about a 1/2" of slush under the snow, and the timing of the snowfall was such that C and I both drove on it before I had a chance to blade it off.  These combined to create a scenario where the blade skidded on top of the packed tracks, plowing the snow but leaving the slush to quickly freeze into ice.  Needless to say, the result wasn't quite what I had hoped for.  By the end though, I think I figured when to use the shovel and when to use the tractor.  Of course, the shovel can't pull the boys around on a sled. 

I've had a few projects going in the workshop the past couple weeks.  The first was getting some signs put up for decoration.  I've been meaning to put up some of my grandpa's signs for a while, and got a couple more for Christmas.  I think they add a nice touch to the garage.

I posted a picture a while back of a model prototype for the antique Cat club.  I got another set of samples a couple weeks ago to review.  We are now very nearly ready to start into production, with model delivery due in April.  To coincide with delivery, I put together an article for the club newsletter on the real machines based on the research I did for the model.  Those are always nice because most of the research is already done, and it's a good way to document everything I learned.

I also continued to work on using up some of the monster truck supplies I had left from last year.  I still have some parts left, but finally got to the point where I would need to buy some additional supplies to do any more. I think that's a good stopping point until I sell out of the stock I have. For the most part I used designs I made last year, but did add a couple new ones just to keep it interesting.  I'm looking forward to moving on to something new though.  Before I dig too far into any new projects however, I'm long overdue to clean my office and storage room, and need to clear out some other surplus toy inventory before selling season ends.

Of course the past few weeks haven't been all about work.  I got to spread my birthday out over several weeks.  We got to have a nice little celebration on the actual day.  The bigger party with the rest of the family got pushed back a couple weeks to give everybody a little more of a break from the holidays.  I got to start off the party weekend on Friday morning with "Donuts with Dad" and N's school.  It was fun to take N to school.  I could tell he was excited to have me there, and for the donut.  Not everybody could make it for the party on Saturday, but it still was a good time.  It's always alot of work to host a party, but it is nice to be home where the boys have all their stuff to entertain themselves more, which allows us to spend less time playing defense, and gives us more time to visit with everybody and enjoy it.

Christmas Break

Happy New Year!  It's pretty shameful that I had a week and a half off of work and didn't find the time to update my blog.  We stayed pretty busy with house guests and family gatherings over the break.  It was nice to have some quality family time, but of course it also was nice to fit in a little project time as well. 

I think the boys and C enjoyed me being off of work as much as I did.  With N in school, he is used to having alot of structure in his day and always having something to do.  Obviously over break he didn't have that, so it took a little while for all of us to adjust.  The first half of break C and I spent alot of time getting ready for or cleaning up from various family events.  This always frustrates the boys because they don't understand why we can't just play all the time.  They also quickly got used to getting a bunch of presents every couple of days, so that was a big let down when that stopped.  After about a week, I think we found a pretty good routine, but of course by then break was almost over.  The routine included going to the gym as a family.  While C and I got our workouts in, L stayed in daycare and N played in the open gym.  From the weight area I could look down and watch N play.  It is always interesting to be a fly on the wall and see how he plays with the other kids.  While waiting for C's class to get over, I was walking around the track and decided to go get N and L and we could all walk together.  They really liked it, and I think getting to run around was good for them. 

 "Real" winter seems to mostly absent so far, which turned out to be a good thing for an unexpected reason.  One afternoon to help entertain L, I decided to take him for a ride on Johnny.  While riding I noticed a squeal coming from one of the front wheels.  I quickly pulled it into the garage to check it out, and found one of the wheel bearings was shot.  I was glad to find it now rather than while I was trying to plow snow.  Fortunately the local Deere dealer had the bearings in stock and they were fairly inexpensive, so I replaced them all. 

Mother nature hasn't totally been resting on her laurels though.  We did have a few days of colder weather and rediculously high winds.  With the winds came another bout of our furnace going out.  With some intervention, I was able to keep it going most of the first day.  I tried going the extra step of building a wind break around the flue outlet, which seemed like it would help, but in the end did not seem to make much of a difference.  The wind picked back up later in the evening, and my efforts to keep the furnace running had minimal success.  Much like the last time, I finally had to throw in the towel by the end of the evening and break out some extra blankets.  By morning it was only 59 degrees in the house.  In the morning I was able to get the the furnace running long enough to get the house warmed up, and called the HVAC guys to come back yet again.  Long story short, they suspected some changes I made to the flue piping when I finished the basement was causing too much backpressure.  Fortunately, it was in a location that was still exposed, so they redid it with fewer bends.  It seemed to help the furnace stay on, but of course by that point the winds had also died down a little.  It remains to be seen if it was enough of an improvement to make it through the next windstorm.  In the meantime, I'm leaving the wind break up just in case. 

In spite of that, I did find some time for some projects not related to combating the elements.  A couple weeks ago, I thought it would be a neat idea to make a Christmas ornament that represents my major project for the year.  I set out to make a Power Wheels Bigfoot to represent 2009, a Caterpillar Ten for 2010 and a John Deere 110 for 2011.  I got the Bigfoot and 110 done, but am still working on the Ten.  I also did a few more Monster Jam trucks.  I still haven't sold all the ones I have been putting up since October, but since I already had the materials I thought I would use them up by doing some new trucks.  The first one from the new batch is already on Ebay, and has a bid, so maybe I just needed to freshen up my offerings to spark some interest.