« January 2005 | Main | March 2005 »
February 26, 2005
Introduce Meg to Engineering Day
The women engineers of the University of Texas sponsored an "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day" which Meg and I decided to attend.
We had fun roaming around my old stomping grounds on the forty acres, even on this cold, rainy Saturday. There were numerous activities where Meg and the other young girls did hands-on projects. These activities were led by the women UT engineering students who really did a great job of explaining what the activities were about, why they got into engineering, and some of the principles being demonstrated.
We started building Hoop Gliders why we learned about the aeronautical principles behind it's flight.
Then on to the extremely cool Hovercraft made with a balloon blowing air through a hole in the bottom of a disposable plate, to create a near frictionless contact between the plate and table, much like an air hockey table.
We did a quick check of what the 1st-3rd graders were doing a found a room where they were building gumdrop geodesic half domes. Little did we realize at the time what good fortune it was to drop in here...
...since when we went to join the 6th-8th they were having a competition who could build the tallest tower out of newspaper where it had hold a golf ball on top for ten seconds. The room was completely filled with all kinds of designs and strong efforts.
Being fresh from building our toothpick/gumball geodesic half dome, the engineering design became immediately apparent... build the base in this structure and add a bunch of rolled up papers as we build the tower on this strong base.
One of the engineering students came back to check on us and wondered why we were spending so much time on our base... little did she realize we were applying the first engineering principal of stealing a good idea and applying it in a novel way. This design helped us to completely blow away the competition. We pinned that golf ball to the ceiling!
Victory hadn't felt that good since when Bob Rice and I, back in our college days in the very same building, built a complicated electronics project in lab, smoke-tested* it, and had it work the first time... unheard of in those days!
Kudos to Meg's 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Huckabay for forwarding us an email about this event since we probably would not have heard about it otherwise.
*Smoke-testing--the moment all electrical engineers face when they've built their projects, checked everything, said a quiet prayer, and then throw the switch to let the electricity flow, and hope the whole thing doesn't go poof up in smoke.
Posted by Jim at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack
February 21, 2005
Adios Childhood, Welcome Adolescence
Happy Birthday Kate and Claire! Welcome to the teenage years.
Posted by Jim at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack
February 17, 2005
ATA usual day
I'm here at ATA runnin the proshop. gonna play some tennis then pack
for little mo
Posted by Meg at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack
February 13, 2005
Austin, Hiker's Paradise
Today is one of those days that makes me really love Austin! We had a heavy rain some time before daylight, and the the skies opened up to a brilliant blue by mid morning, with low 70s and a nice breeze. Tough to beat for February!
These are perfect hiking conditions for the canyons here in the Great Hills area of Austin, since the low area creeks will be really flowing with the rain runoff.
It's a dudes' weekend with just Scott and me home. Meg, Kate, and Deb are in Corpus Christi and Claire went with some of her ATA team members to Houston for this weekend's tennis tournaments.
After Scott's sunday class and Church we had lunch and took off for a new hiking trail. We started at where Bluffstone dead ends by Bluegrass and followed a trail which was made as they cleared a path for power line towers.
As we went down the trail a single deer stood there like a sentry on the path ahead of us. He wouldn't budge and just stared at us. I was concerned it was a buck looking to mess with us, when about 8 of his buddies leaped from the woods next to the trail. With that, he lost interest in us, and followed his buddies to go mess with other hikers I'm sure.
The hike was not as scenic as the trails behind our house, or by the preserve area by the "Jack and the Beanstalk" playground (so named by the kids because of the climbing beanstalk on the playground equipment.)
The surprise came at the end of the trail when Scott and I came upon a lake, which we never knew existed. From the satellite photo, we pulled down from the Microsoft Terra Server it did not show a lake. It may well only exist after a heavy rain, but it sure looked like someone had built a dock on it.
Here's the map with the waypoints from our etrex GPS device added in and my Photoshop hacked in blue spot where we found the lake.
Maybe next hike, the fishing poles will come along...
Overall, not a bad dudes' weekend for us!
Posted by Jim at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack
February 6, 2005
It's CLAIRE!
Well guys...I've finally decided to make my mark on this site. After weeks of my dad bugging me saying WHOS GUNNA BE LAST CLAIRE OR DEB...I've decided that I'm gunna leave the honor to my mom.
I don't think I'm gunna right in this thing ever again until we move. So if you ever want to see anything by me again...find someone to buy my house..OKAY? okay. (oh and buy from me...not kate or meg or scott..kTHANKS!)
Now my name is hyperlinked...EXCITING!!
Posted by Claire at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack
Safe to still be seen?
The countdown is down to 15 days of being parents without teenagers. Kate and Claire are soon to join the ranks.
Friday night, we were driving back from Chuy's and were kidding around in our usual ways about the music they listen to versus what I listened to in my younger days. We've been quizzing each other so I know today's pop, R&B, and even (gag) hip hop bands, and they know the bands of the 70s and 80s.
During this usual driving banter, I asked the girls if they were embarrassed yet to be seen with us parental types in public.
One of the girls (name withheld to protect the innocent) replied, "No, you're pretty cool because you used to go to concerts and stuff when you were young."
It may not last, but I'll take "pretty cool" for the moment!
Posted by Jim at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBack