Photography.

I am still learning all the darn settings on the camera, and shutter speed, and finally how to properly frame a shot. Anyway, here is a picture of a neat tower I took.

Golf

The last 3 matches 'A' has been the medalist. She shot a 50 at Torrey South, a 47 at Torrey North, and a 36 at Balboa 9( she had two birdies). One of her birdies came on the par 4 last hole, and the par 3 first hole.

I hope when she gets a taste of victory, and a good score, it willl inspire her, or at least teach her what mindset she needs to be in.

Welding with entertainment

My buddy
Dave came over this weekend, so we could finish welding on his trailer.
Tha idea is that he needs a little more length on his trailer to accomodate his Ryno/buggy. We welded on some hitch receiver tubes, and built a 1.5ft, by 2.5 ft plateform that fits inside the receiver, and will support the wheels of the Ryno. When he gets to his destination, the extensions can be removed for ease of storage.
It was fun day of welding, there is a certain amount of satisfaction in connecting steal, and building something usefull out of it. Here Dave is learning how to perfect his welds, and that without gloves it does not take long to examine a hot piece of steal that has just been welded. ( hope the Aloe helped, Dave).

















The Canopy worked to shade our work, ( with the helmet on it is hard to see your work when you have light shining in from behind you) it also kept our project secret from the prying eyes in the sky, "The Blue Angels" claim they were in town for an airshow, but you can never be too sure when you are working on cutting edge inventions.

fabricating out of boredom

Been working on getting 'A's bike going. It was bought for a very low price, but had some issues with it.
The first being that it had a hard time starting, and the valves needed to be adjusted. I adjusted the valves with help from Kelly (it was a learning expirence for him as well). Got those adjusted, and the bike starts better now. The next thing was cleaning up the bikes appearence, Using some mothers polish, and some diesel fuel and a brush, I cleaned up all the corrosion, and polished the frame.
Brushed and polished the shift lever, cleaned the carb, new air filter, new fuel, new oil, new trans oil.
I decided (out of boredom) that it was time to fabricate my own parts. A lot of bikes have skid plates which is a thin guage sheet of aluminum, that is shaped along the bottom/front of the frame, in order to reduce damge to the frame and engine when clearence is compromised.
I first made a template with cardboard that replicated the area I needed to cover.














I traced the template on to a sheet of Aluminum, and started cutting.
















I drilled holes for ventilation, and punched them out larger with a greenly hole punch:















I needed to bend the sheet to confoprm to the shape of the frame, so i used the tanks of my welder, and a rubber mallet, and finalized the shape:















I used a 3m pad on my pnumatic die grinder, to take off the edges, and give the plate a brushed look:















I cut a piece of aluminum bar stock, drilled and tapped holes with threads. this is on the top side of the frame, and allowed me to clamp it to thew frame. I drilled two holes in the plate, and recessed tthe holes for the tapered flat screws:

LPGA

'A' and her golf team went to the LPGA event at Torrey pines on Sunday. She got to rub shoulders with some great players: Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Julie Inkster. Shin, Choi.
The organizers do not want people clicking off pictures with noisey cameras, especially if the player is about to swing. So, I was lucky to snap this picture with my phone camera while Paula Creamer walked by 'A' to go to the 6th tee.















It was a little boring, but a day out on a course with the sun shinning, and the ocean, and cliffs at close range, while you watch women in short skirts play a sport, is not such a bad day. Anytime I can spend time with one of my daughters is a bonus.

Golf has started again

The last time I reported to you 'A' had gotten a score 55. Last week was her first round in many months. she dropped her score to a 50 on Tuesday, and then an all time low of 42 on Thursday at Torrey Pines. TP is a very tough course. Fast greens, and thick roughs, make it a challange for the pros who play the course in January for the Buick Open, and the US Open was played there last year too.

For those of you who feel strongly enough about it, and would like to sponsor her, she needs a new stand up bag, and she would like an Odyssey white hot two ball putter. For later in the season she is going to get a lightweight golf jacket, and we just ordered her Letterman jacket.

I am hoping the 42 is not a fluke, and she can repeat it, or even better it. If she gets in the 30's, ( which equates to 70's for 18 holes) colleges will look at her if she can do that consistantly.

Motocross in August

It was time to get the girls to focus on something other then softball. 'A' got a new set of riding pants and jersey, and we needed to take it out for a spin. We went to a local track that just opened up. It is on the Pala Indian reservation. There is 7 tracks for all levels and bike type. 'S' got things started on her TTR125l. she likes it because it is electric start. She jumped right out on to the 80/ women's track, and kept a steady pace, and even got some air! we are going to push her to go faster next time. 'A' also got started on the same track, on a borrowed CRF150. it is a pretty fast bike, but she is getting too big for it she also had a nice pace going where she was keeping up with everyone, and getting some air. It was apparent that she was ready to move up to a bigger bike, and a bigger more advanced track. We took 'A' to an Amateur track that should have been perfect for her, but some advanced riders could not keep themselves from riding on it. Bullies! We borrowed a yz250f from the family we were pitting with, and she handled it quite well. She kept a good pace, got some air, and eventually fell, and she was bombarded by riders who weren't looking ahead to see her down. and the volume of riders made it to busy to get an unmolested laps in. The both had fun, and would do it again even though they are just getting used to being on a track.

16u World Series USSSA west

'A' had a week long tournament in West Covina, CA. This was the World Series for the USSSA west 16u B.
They faced strong competition that was similar to their own level. The girls played 3 pool games and went 2-1. When they played there first braket game, they lost, and were put in to the losers bracket. ( which means you can still advance to the finals, but you have to play a lot more games, and not lose. )
They won 5 games in a row, and put themselves in contention, as there was only 2 other teams left. they played hard, but ran out fo energy, and lost to claim 3rd place in the tournament. They recieved medals. Dad was a Coach on this team, just for the week. I am very proud of the girls. 'A' pitched 3 complete games, and played 2nd, and SS. She started off the tournament with some great at bats, leveled off during the week, and came back strong on the last day.
In the picture 'A' is in the back row, and is the 2nd player from the right. Dad is the tall guy.

reunion time

Virgie, Mary Lou, Kim













Lynn and Kim














Kim and Diana













Kim and Eric before the party.













John and Eric













Diana and Eric















Class of 1979

Tsunami

'A' had her first tournament with her new team. The team consists of JV and a few Varsity players. This are girls we want to keep playing together, and they ave played together in the past. Saturdays pool play saw Tsunami 16u go 3-0 scoring 20 runs, and only giving up 2. Sunday started the girls in the quarter finals, and we won that game 5-1. Amber hit a 3 run triple out to the center field fence.
The semi-final game we played against the San Diego Legacy, Amber started pitching, and had a great first inning, striking out 3 out of 4. Amber struggled after that, and had to be pulled. we were down 6-1, but came back close scoring 4 more. We also had bases loaded in the last inning, but could not convert. This looks good for their future. i will try to upload some video of Amber pitching, and hitting:

Trip to the East for 'S'

She flew to NC. by herself. She did great. The Airline did give her an escort. She visit the Young family. They were great hosts, and showed her some great sites. They went to Washington DC. and watched the Marine drill team. (sorry, no pictures)
the saw some of the monuments The Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, Vietnam memorial wall. She got a chance to see, and play on the Beach. Her first time on an Atlantic Coast beach.

4th of July at the beach

It happened to be the birthday of one of her softball buddies/desert riding buddies.
We had already had an exciting day going to the driving range for some golf lessons, and the we went to the wrecking yards down by the US/Mexico border. This was a new experience for Kim, and she started to get into our little treasure hunt. we came up empty, on our quest for a drivers side sun visor.
We made another stop for shoes, or shorts or some damn thing. (editors note: shopping for cothes or shoes has become a whirling blur of daily occurances)
I was worried about access, or parking at the beach on the 4th, so I took 'A' to the beach on the motorcycle, and drove right up to the sand and parked in the front row. Ah, the bike is more then a girl magnet, it is practicle :).
Just as we got there the overcast was moving in..... then out. We tossed the football around, and met up with some of the younger girls from the party.

Trip to Michigan and Indiana

'A' flew back to MI. by herself to surprise her cousins, and spend some time with the Grandparents. She helped Oma prepare for her yearly garden party, and bousted about Oma's beautiful garden. She also told me how Oma, and Grandpa worked their butts off, too.
I wanted to make sure 'A' expierienced some Michigan culture, by going fishing. Grandpa showed her his skills with the rod and reel.
















She made her way down to Indiana, and hit the lake Michigan beach, as well as her cousins pool.

rewiring the house (original contractor flaw.... no big deal)

One event creates another.
I got a nice gift from Kim for my birthday.... which begets a nice gift for Kim from Me. which begets some household mods.

Kim twisted my arm enough that I bought a flat screen TV for the bedroom. finally something else for the neighbors to watch.
I mounted the TV high enough for us to see, but this created a new issue. The cable outlet( on the other side of the room), and AC outlet was now to low and we had to clean up the situation.

First I hired (at a very low rate) a local contractor to do all the grunt work.
She measured out the height of our TV, and located the wall studs. She traced out the outlet with a pencil, drilled some pilot holes in each corner, and used a drywall saw to cut out the shape of the outlet.













She tapped into the A/C in the outlet below, and routed the 2/14 cable up the new outlet. I went into the attic, and routed the cable to go though the ceiling down between the studs(not me, in this case).

we crimped on a new coax connector, and 'S' fed it into the outlet, and fed the A/C into the same outlet. 'S' pushed the outlet into the wall and turned the securing screws to hold it all in place.













She mounted the A/c, and coax receptacles, and put on the outer cover.... Job complete.

















note: The contractor was paid at current union wages, and did not violate any child labor laws. No animals were injured during the filming of this project.

Dad and daughter day

As a gift to myself, I took 'A' out for a day of golf. We did not set any course records, but we had some fun, made a couple of good shots, and didn't loose anything.
'A' made friends with a squirrel, and fed it some jalapeno patato chips. Squirrel was last seen looking for some cold beer to cool his little mouth.

















Our new buddy who was also laughing at my Tee-shot.

















I wore black because I heard it is slimming.

















Self portrait of my Partner.

















The happy golfer just double boggied.













Over looking the 18th hole par 4 that 'A' drove the green. it is about 215yrds uphill. We got some old guy to take our picture, but he had a little trouble with the new technology, couldn't center us, or find the shutter. What a great day!
Can't wait for 'S' to join us.