A Musical Road to Nowhere

I know this is going to sound completely insane, but the Japanese have done it again. Avenue K just west of our house plays the William Tell Overture when you drive over it at 60 mph.

I know, I know it sounds crazy and impossible. My coworker at work told me about it yesterday and I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not, and Chad was convinced he wasn't serious. But it showed up in the paper today, and, if it's in print it has to be true, right? So we went on a little trip after work to verify that it was, indeed true .. and sure enough.. it worked!

They filmed a Honda commercial out here and the Japanese (who have done this on a few roads in Japan and Korea) cut grooves in the road at just the right intervals / frequency to produce music. It uses your car as the 'tuning fork' and you can hear the music by simply driving over it.

It is, by far, one of the wackiest things I've seen/experienced in a while. The funniest part? It's out in the middle of nowhere.. our housing tract is pretty much the west end of town and Avenue K just stretches from here out into the desolate desert beyond. Just begs the questions.. why here?

But.. I guess we needed another tourist attraction, right?? See.. more of you want to come and visit us now.. don't you? Hmm.. perhaps it's working. :-)

Here is the audio we recorded on Chad's phone on our 'musical journey'


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If you're totally fascinated (how could you not be?) Here is the youtube link for a video of someone on the road in Korea that plays "Mary Had a Little Lamb": Anyang Singing Road

Huntington Lake (aka The Fuel Pump Saga)

Because we had some time off for Labor Day, we decided to take advantage of it and go on a little camping trip up in the Sierra Nevadas. We looked at maps for weeks and finally settled on Huntington Lake -- about 70 miles due east of Fresno and about 50 miles from Yosemite (as the crow flies).

We set off on our trek on Friday morning in the Excursion with our quads and mountain bikes towing on the trailer behind. By the time we got to our campground and set camp (after a few stops in Fresno), it was 5:00 in the evening. We went on a pleasant little ride around the lake on our bikes and then settled down for the evening.

On Saturday we got up and went on a quad ride up in the higher parts of the mountains for the better part of the day. Aside from some annoyances because the state of California doesn't really allow you to ride on many of the perfectly good quad roads, and I'm a bit of a wuss so the more challenging trails weren't really an option, it was a beautiful ride.

On Sunday we went in search of showers in the morning (and, luckily were successful 20 miles down the road at Shaver Lake), attended the Auberry Ward sacrament meeting (terribly friendly group) at the base of the mountains and then came back via Shaver Lake where we had a picnic and watched all the crazy people who had come out for Labor Day weekend. We took the scenic route back to camp, stopping by some geocaches and then took a little hike up to Rancheria Falls. Beautiful. Here are some pics from the first half of the trip:




Monday morning was COLD.. but we started out early and loaded the Mountain Bikes into the back of the Excursion, planning to drive up over Kaiser Pass to check out the scenery and hopefully find some trails to ride. When we started the car that morning we immediately knew that something wasn't right. We started down the road anyway, but as soon as we turned to go up the mountain, we both felt like we should turn around and head back to the little 'village' and check out the car. We parked across from the 'general' store and decided to first change the fuel filter to see if that was what was causing us grief (we just happened to have a spare). We got that done, started the car and pulled right in front of the store. Chad was idling while I went in to buy some wet wipes to rid our hands of the smell of diesel when the car just died. And then refused to start.

We tried starting it over and over and over again. Nothing. You could tell that no fuel was getting to the engine, but we had no idea why. After several minutes (possibly hours) and help from several of the locals who were hanging out at the bar next to the general store, we finally determined that the fuel pump was not turning on. We had no idea if it was an electrical problem or if something was stuck in it, or if it was dead. We found a listing for the local Napa dealer (20 miles down the road at Shaver Lake), and called to see if he happened to have a pump in stock. He said no.. but he could have someone bring it from the distribution center.. $290... ouch.

But.. since we didn't even know if it really was the pump, we decided to hike back to camp (1.5 miles up the road), get some tools and return to do more troubleshooting. Sure enough, Chad removed the pump and put voltage straight to it from the battery (thanks to some wire we bought at the store), and it was dead. Not even a spark.

One of the terribly helpful locals, Niles, had been listening to our troubles earlier and had spent the afternoon locating a small fuel pump he had 'in the back'. He broght it out and we figured.. why not try it? Even if it just gets us off the mountain and into town where we can buy a new fuel pump (for less than $300). We insalled it (with the help of some random fittings and clamps from the general store) and it worked like a champ -- it just wasn't big enough to actually push the fuel into that big diesel motor. So.. here it was.. 5:00.. all the parts stores were closed.. we knew we had a 'bad' pump but couldn't do anything about it. So.. we hiked back to camp, made dinner and ate smores and tried to figure out what to do next.

Tuesday morning, we called the Napa guy in Shaver.. yes he could get us the part.. but it was an extra $50 to get it that day and he could only go as far as Shaver. We had talked to the local boat mechanic, Mike, the night previous and he said he'd run and get the part for us for $20. We called AAA and they said we only had 7 free miles of towing and it would be an additional $7/mile after that, which didn't help much. So.. we ordered the now $340 part and packed up to hike back to the car.

Mike agreed to pick it up and Glen (the guy in Shaver Lake) promised it there by noon. Mike said he'd deliver it to our car around 1:00. It was 10:30 at the time.. so we had some time to kill. We hiked down to the lake and just hung out in a small meadow/beach area. It was definitely a beautiful day.. and all the tourists had left on Monday, so it was nice and peaceful. We hung out there until about 12:30 when we went back to the car to prepare it for the new part.

We took out the little pump that Niles had given us and then were just waiting around for the new part with nothing better to do. So.. we started messing with the broken pump just to see if we could figure out what was wrong with it. We banged it around a bit, etc. Nothing too specific. Then decided to put the wires to it again just to see. The thing sprang to life, shot out a bunch of diesel and seemed to be running fine.

So.. we put it back on. Yep.. the same 'ol part that had come off of it. Installed it.. the car started right back up and after a few minutes of driving around the block.. seemed good as new. We waited for our over-priced and now possibly unnecessary part.. and then headed back to camp:



Having had enough drama for a while and not wanting to chance getting stuck anywhere, we hung out in camp for the rest of the afternoon and took a nice walk down by the lake:



We packed up and drove home the next day without a hitch. We were tired and dirty, but we made it, which we were grateful for. It was not the best experience, but it was definitely another sign that Heavenly Father is taking care of us. We could have broken down way back in where we would have had to hike out just to flag someone down to get back to camp. We could have broken down on Tuesday when there was no one around and no store open to help us out. We could have broken down on the way back home and had to change that pump on the side of the highway. But we didn't, and thanks to Niles, Dave, Glen and all the other nice folks up in Huntington Lake, we were able to get back home in one piece!

Besides.. at least it was in a nice, cool, beautiful place. :-)

P.S. We were driving yesterday around here when the thing started going again. So.. last night we changed it out for the lovely overpriced one that we couldn't return anywhere. We truly were blessed that it even lasted as long as it did..

Oops...

Every now and again I do something just to prove to the world how stupid I really am. Previous feats have included flooding my first apartment by thinking I could hang a hanger on the fire sprinklers in my laundry room; sitting down while holding a yard stick in my mouth (long ways) and almost puncturing the roof of my mouth when it hit the ground on my way down; removing several inches of skin off my arms the morning I was flying to NC for an interview because I climbed on what turned out to be a VERY unstable piece of furniture in the bathroom to close the vent (I was cold..).

Luckily my most recent 'incident' was not nearly as painful as any of my previous ones (perhaps getting wiser with age?), but it was still just about as stupid.

I was packing my camping stuff last week, preparing for our Labor Day Weekend Camping trip and all of my camping pots / pans / utensils/ dishes were covered in a thin film of dishwashing soap that had broken open and leaked all over my kitchen tote. I looked at all that stuff, and since I was limited on time, decided to just throw them into the dishwasher to run for a cycle. Then they'd be all clean and happy so I could repack them into my brand new clean tote.

As I was putting them into the dishwasher, I had a fleeting thought that warned me it might not really be that great of an idea to put liquid dish soap residue into the dishwasher. However, I quickly rationalized that it wasn't THAT much soap so it shouldn't hurt anything.. right???

Um.. well.. about 20 minutes later I was rushing around the kitchen trying to get everything else packed when I stepped into a nice, wet, suddsy mess that was pouring out of my dishwasher:



















Nice, eh?

Three towels, three dishwasher cycles, and a bunch of salt (which apparently breaks down suds) later, my dishes were, in fact, clean.

Someday, perhaps, I'll learn...

Olympics

I have always LOVED the olympics. I don't know what it is exactly. Perhaps it's the concept of the whole world getting together; perhaps it's being able to witness so many dreams coming to fruition after so many years of hard work; perhaps it's the patriotism from cheering for the US competitors you've never even heard of; perhaps just the spirit of competition; or perhaps it's all the cheesy over-dramatic comentary.

Whatever it is, there is no doubt, I LOVE the olympics -- so much so that I've had two rather sleepless weeks. No matter what I did, I didn't seem capable of going to bed when Michael Phelps was about to swim, or Shawn Johnson was trying yet again to win that elusive gold, or Misty May-Tranor and Kerri Walsh were beating yet another opponent, or.. well.. if there was olympic coverage of any type on.

Yep.. I admit it.. I'm an Olympics addict...

So in honor of all of those who have competed and won or lost in the last two weeks (and all of those around me who have had to deal with my sleepy crankiness), I thought I'd post some pics of my favorite memories of the past two weeks.

Cruisin' with Uncle Chad

We were babysitting little Steven and Nathaniel this evening and decided to go for a little walk. As we were just cruising around the neighborhood with the boys in the stroller, we happened upon the leftover of a garage sale -- what looked to be a fairly functional child bike trailer with a sign on it that said "Free.. just haul it away". We tested it out.. and aside from some terribly flat tires and a missing bolt it looked like it just might work.

So.. we picked it up.. rolled it back to the house while still pushing the double stroller and feeling just a little silly. Once home, we put some air in the tires, replaced the bolt (that, of course we just had lying about), loaded up the kids (who were pretty confused at this point) and pretty soon we were cruising around in style :-)

We took a nice jaunt around the neighborhood (of course, passing in front of the house we picked it up from -- just so they knew it had found a good home.. or perhaps just to show off how cool we were). The boys seemed to like it and it helped give Uncle Chad a pretty good workout -- especially with the ever present Antelope Valley headwind! We even got a few comments from kids in the neighborhood that wanted a ride... Too bad everyone can't have an uncle as cool as Uncle Chad!!

Light Box Anyone?

OK.. so apparently there's a whole lot of photography 'stuff' that I don't know (shocking.. I know..). I was having trouble taking pics of my new groovy bead accomplishments to share with all of you, so I started doing a google search to see if I could find anyone who could share their wisdom with me. Turns out that photographing jewelry, electronics, random figurines, etc. has become a hot topic out there with the advent of ebay. So, I read all I could find and discovered that apparently I needed a 'light box'. Never heard of 'em.

For those of you out there wondering what I'm even talking about, a light box is a hollow box covered with material that you put a spotlight through. The material diffuses the light to evenly light a subject so you can photograph it without excessive shadows, etc. Who knew?? (Apparently not me..) I continued my internet search and discovered that you can buy light boxes, which pretty much look like laundry baskets turned on their side. Not wanting to spend any cash, especially for a glorified laundry basket, I continued looking and found several options for building your own. So, tonight I cut some holes in a shoebox, taped tissue paper across them and stuck my halogen light into it. Here are my first experimental results with my new contraption:




Amazing what a little tissue paper can do, eh? Oh yah.. and the beads are pretty cool too ;-)

Same Old Stuff..

I haven't posted in a while, and I'm starting to feel guilty. Somehow, in my head, I've convinced myself that all of you are checking my blog daily and are always disappointed when you don't see something new here. So, although I have no terribly exciting news to share, I felt the need to at least post a note to let you know that we are all here and alive. We've actually had a fairly calm couple of weeks.

Work, for me, has been slightly crazy. I've been put on 'special assignment' to take factories that are still operating in the stone ages and update them, make them 'visual' and create flow through them. No problem, right? Anyway.. we spent the last two weeks trying to fix up our first factory for a tour from Ft. Worth big wigs last Tuesday. We made it.. barely.. as we were sliding desks and stations into place at noon that day (tour was at 1:30), but the Big Wigs were duly impressed. First milestone down, but it's only the beginning. I've been given a team of three full time people to help me get it all done, but it's still overwhelming at times.

We had a visit from family this week. Unfortunately, it wasn't really for any happy reason. Uncle Bob passed away last weekend and was buried here. So Mom, Dad, Keri, the boys, Mikey and Dawson came and spent the night and then we all went down and met up with Frances, Linda and Diane in Gardena for the graveside memorial. It was a simple service, but it was very nice and I'm glad we were able to be there. It was a quick trip for them, but it was nice to see everyone.

Other than that, we've just been trying to get stuff around the house and I've been practicing my glass bead making skills. I seem to be getting better, perhaps I'll post some pics if I get some cool beads this week.