So early this summer I picked up a Barbie power wheels jeep at a garage sale for Abby. It was in rough shape but for $30 with two batteries it seemed like a good deal. I was talking with a coworker about what work needed done and a few weeks later he brought me a nearly identical power wheels jeep to use for parts. It was the "boy's" version but otherwise identical. Today I finally got some time to Frankiestine the two power wheels together to make one good one. It came together pretty good. Its ugly but should work. Its the pink Barbie chassis and rear end with the other jeeps front end, grill, hood, and roll cage and seats. The best part is I have a complete and functional power system (wiring, gas pedal, fwd/rev/speed selector, motors and transmissions) in reserve if something wears out or is damaged.

Here's Abby checking out her new ride.

Was out to California for most of the week for a business trip. Flew out Sunday back on the red-eye on Wednesday-Thursday. Over all it was a long, busy, but good trip.

Monday was in LA to meet with a potential commercial partner a tier 2 Defense contractor on Monday. Got to see the assembly lines for the CAS (Control Actuation System) for the Mk 82 & 84 guided bombs, SDB (Slender Diameter Bomb) and AIM-9 Sidewinder.

Later that day I got another tour of NASA JPL. I toured it once many years ago back just after the first mars rover was launched. This time I got to see the sand box where they have a rover set up in the same stuck position as Spirit is as they try to figure out how to un-stick it. Got to see some of the actual subsystems and a full scale model of the new mars rover. That was pretty cool. The funniest thing was a machine shop we went through had vending machines that would vend tools (end mills, drills, etc) to the machinists and allow them to charge the correct project for the tool.

Tuesday we traveled up to San Jose.

Wednesday we kicked off my Phase II program with the Army on the rotorcraft program I have been leading up. That was at NASA AMES so I also got a brief tour of that facility. AMES is home to the first and second largest wind tunnels on the planet. They are huge. All in all I saw probably 6-7 wind tunnels that day.

So in the four day gone I flew five times and compared to US Air, Southwest is like flying first class. US Air sucks big rocks! Their people are as friendly as a grumpy badger and their gates have less power outlets than some Amish homes.

Good trip but it was better to be home.

Source

I am not sure I can say too much meaningful on this subject but I find it encouraging (in a very very small way) that people are starting to see and realize that government running our health care system is likely to be worst not better than the crappy system we already have. Even if your of the opinion that it is the governments responsibility; the above graph and associated article seems to point at the fact that the government has done such a crappy job in general, and specifically in selling the idea of government run health care, that the people are coming to the conclusion that its not a good idea.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire!

So I watched G.I. Joe Saturday night. Yes it was a very bad movie, but despite the bad acting bad lines I really enjoyed it. Having grown up in the eighties and having nearly all of the first 4-5 years of the action figures and toys and an avid watcher of the cartoon the movie brought back much of those good memories. The massive submarine battle at the climax was very reminiscent of the cartoon. It all it was a pretty good conversion of the cartoon feel into a live action movie.

I did find it funny how many actors from The Mummy movies was in G.I. Joe it almost became a distracting trying to see who would show up next.

We all had lots of fun with Halloween. Abby had funny walking around in her costume. She was less excited about going up to stranger's houses. I couldn't get her to say "trick or treat" or "thank-you" but she would frequently say by-by as we walked away. After we went up and down our street she had a lot of fun handing out candy as long as the trick-or-treat'er was not too scary. Little princess got an extra big handfuls of candy.

<- Notice this is grumpy Troll as opposed to the geeky Troll in the previous post. :)

I have probably ranted about Tactical Reloads before but Tactical Reloads have always bugged me. What's a Tactical Reload? Well that it is, in a gun fight, reloading a weapon while retaining the partially used magazine in the gun for possible later use. Part of my angst for it comes from the draconian enforcement of it in IDPA competition. Part of it comes from my realization that in a real gun fight the likelihood of it being useful is slim and is something I would never want to try while suffering an adrenaline dump.

This YouTube video covers sever good reasons why I don't like it and when and why it might be appropriate to use, better than I probably can.

So we were at Grandma's and Pa-pap's tonight for dinner. While we were getting ready for dinner Abby got a small pot lid and a triple-spoon-rest from under the range top and as she walked around the end of the kitchen cabinets my first thought when I saw here was she has a buckler and was wielding a small battle axe. Sorry Abby, your dad is a geek!

So we had a lobster/claim bake at the bosses house yesterday afternoon. Abby found the lobsters interesting.