Gable

A little bit closer to the finish line.

Today, the weather was really nice so I worked on this gable. Putting up wood shingles takes at least 10 times as long as the plywood siding but it looks better.

Paintball Party

Brandon had his birthday party today. It was a paintball party at an old warehouse. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Getting geared up for action.

Ready for combat.

Brandon and John got out one after the other.

Comparing combat wounds.

Tyler not be able to see after being hit.

Coming up with a plan on how to beat the dads.

The Dads planning their strategy on how to beat the boys.

The Dads won.

After combat duty.

My Trip to SC and AL

Last weekend Brandon and I went to Aiken to visit Mama and Daddy. Brandon's birthday was Monday so he opened presents on Sunday.

Tonight Brandon had a basketball game. They won 32-29. It was a very exciting game. John said that this was one of the most exciting this season. Brandon scored 2 points. I think he was just showing off because I was there. He has another game Thursday night.

Timelapse test

I've been waiting for one last part to come in the mail for the circuit board. It took it about 3 weeks to get here. I didn't know when I ordered it that it was coming from Thailand. A long way to ship a $2.00 part!

I had a couple of hours before dark so I put in the part, and programmed the chip to take a picture every 10 minutes from 4:00 - 6:00, and strapped it to a fence post. This was the first test. (And the first time I have been able to see if the board can even turn the camera on and off and take a picture.)

I was suprised that everything worked the first time!

I put the photos in the slideshow program to make a short video. The picture is fuzzy because the camera was set on the lowest resolution.

A new project

I thought I would try building a circuit board. I found out about a microchip called a Picaxe. These chips act like mini computers that can be programmed to do different things. The system was designed for high school students to be able to learn and experiment with electronics so it isn't as hard as it looks. (otherwise I wouldn't be able to figure this out!) I spent all day Saturday soldering this thing together:













The plan is to have this one control a camera so that it will take time lapse photos. The idea is to be able to set the time interval to one of several settings: 1 minute, 3 min, 10 min, 30 min, 1 hr or 1 day.



The camera would take pictures during two time periods each day (unless set to only take 1 picture per day). The times for these periods could also be adjusted.





There are a lot of trail cameras around that are activated when a deer walks by. This will be a "field" camera that will take multiple pictures of a large area.
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Terry is down South for a couple of weeks. Said she was wearing shorts outside. Wonder what that is like?

For February, it hasn't really been too cold. High today was bout 38.

Work never ends

We got some snow Friday night so I had to cancel my helper for Saturday. Saturday and Sunday were nice and the roofs eventually all dried up. Terry helped me with the roofing on the porch.

Also put the metal roofing on the little roof across the front of the garage:

The big things left to do:

roofing on garage

finish the rest of the siding on the house and garage

garage windows

gable siding

garage doors

landscaping

some electrical in the garage

Warmer

The weather has been getting nice lately. Supposed to be in the 50s some this week.

We are still waiting for Curtis to finish the garage but there is still plenty to do on the house.

I found some inexpensive cedar fence boards at home depot that make pretty nice siding:

Not sure if it will be stained, painted or left to weather.