High Speed Gyroscope
We had a wonderful visit from Zach, Nick, Chloe, 9 month old Max. Initially they forgot to re-extend Max’s head, which was left in collapsed airplane mode so he would fit in the suitcase:
But with a few quick upside down shakes:
Out popped his oh-so-adorable little head:
Actually not so little, he is 90+% sized for his age:
He is a fearless eater. This banana didn’t stand a chance:
Nor did this scary plant-from-outer-space:
I exploited Zach’s muscles and we did some landscaping:
Max was debating a swim, but the water tested a little too cold:
We set our sites on a new world record for the highest rpm and longest lasting spin for a toy gyroscope. Here we were trying a drill:
Here Zach is holding the gyroscope while Nick is about to swing a 15' pole attached to the string:
That actually worked pretty well, if you ignore the dent the pole put in the wall:
It was all great fun:
We introduced Max to pong-ping:
And the secret loft with a bear:
But I think he liked the building blocks best … so did doggy:
Micro quad-copter pilots in training:
Science experiment. The red wine enhances the scientific analysis:
Our final activity was to waterboard each other. The girls took a pass for some reason, but we three ‘boys’ took our turn on the plank. It was an interesting experience, something we can probably leave off of future fun vacation activities:
In projects this month, I replaced an above stove microwave with a hood that can more quietly suck up cooking smoke. 3 useful tools: headlight, long screwdriver, and an small height adjustable chair to position it on:
I re-purposed that log that used to be a bridge before it broke. 1/2 I made into a pond dam, and the other 1/2 I winched up the hill to use as a trail border:
Remember those big Koi fish in last month’s post? Not surprisingly, they were too big for a 50 gallon fish tank, so we tried them out in one of the pools we made in the creek. This is Helen trying to instruct the fish on how to eat:
The pool worked ok until rained:
After the first few rain storms, I was able to rescue the fish from downstream, but eventually I think they moved to Florida. We tried normal sized goldfish in our now empty fish tank:
They lasted a couple of weeks:
But then the water clouded up (I think the Buddha neglected to use the bathroom) and the fish decided to re-incarnate elsewhere (hopefully not into local angry birds with grenades seeking revenge). That leaves us with a mostly empty fish tanks, which is still pretty:
My geek video this month was about a system I setup to display house information, while at the same time displaying 100,000+ photos:
http://misterhouse.brucewinter.net
Bruce
Originally published at bruceletters.blogspot.com.
