I did something really stupid on Sunday while up in Jim Thorpe: I dropped my camera. I brought it with me to take on the trails and as I was taking it out of the car, the strap got caught on something and it pulled the camera right out of my hands. It fell upside down on top of the flash housing.

The most obvious damage occurred to the built-in flash. The little plastic hook that releases the flash and allows it to pop up had broken off, so the flash doesn’t stay down anymore. After checking the camera over I realized there was other damage to the flash that was now keeping it from firing. Thankfully everything else seems ok.

This evening I took apart the flash housing to see what was going on and I realized that the flash is still functioning, but that another plastic component had broken off, keeping a connection from being made. There are two little metal contacts that look like they should be pulled together when the flash pops up. When I do this with a pair of tweezers it does what it’s supposed to and fires. If I want to get this working again I’ll have to figure out a way to get these two contacts touching.

The set of contacts are towards the bottom of the exposed flash housing:

The little rectangular hole here is where the plastic hook should be:

Photos courtesy of my old Nikon 990 that I took out of storage.

We spent this past weekend up in Jim Thorpe for our 6th anniversary. Believe it or not, it was the first time we had been alone for a night without the girls (4+ years). It was well worth it… Neither of us could remember the last time we woke up in bed without a child sprawled out between the two of us.

Saturday we spent our time walking around town, stepping in and out of the shops, and even took a tour of the Asa Packer mansion. - This place had some insane woodworking and carvings all throughout the house. Lunch was had at JT’s Steak & Ale and dinner at a place called Moya. - We recommend both.

That night we ended up staying in a B&B called the Minnie Victoria. Susan, the inn keeper, was such a pleasant host that it made our stay even that more enjoyable. Her house was gorgeous and she made us these delicious little heart-shaped waffles in the morning. How we ended up there was a bit comical… We had reservations at another B&B downtown, but when we got there to check in we were greeted by an individual that my wife uses the anology of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, as a way to describe him. This guy’s creepy factor was through the roof and the inn itself was something left to be desired. We couldn’t run out of that place any faster than we did.

On Sunday we went hiking up and down the rails to trails along the Lehigh River. Here was a small set of falls that we came across:

We also picked up a few loose railroad spikes that were strewn around the old tracks:

I like to fly a flag outside our house during the nicer months and for the past few years we’ve had one up, but it’s taken a beating through the elements. The sun had faded it and worst of all it was torn up beyond belief, because every once in a while the wind would be so bad that it would get itself caught on the roof gutter above it. I finally got around to buying a replacement for it a few weeks ago, but it didn’t seem right to just throw out the old one. I did some reading, and it turns out there’s a proper way to dispose of the American Flag - See Title 4, Chapter 1, Sec 8k of the US Code Colletion. So I did as this mentions; respectfully folded up the flag and burned it in a fire this evening.

Finished up a new painting last week. It’s been a while since I’ve painted, but it felt good to get back into it. This particular piece had been started last year - just never got around to finishing it. Not sure why, but I felt inspired the other night and decided to take a swing at it.

The two pieces of 2×4’s in the center came from a pile of wood my Dad gave me as part of his winemaking equipment. He would stack up these blocks of wood in his wine press as he crushed and pressed the grapes. Some of the red discoloring on them is probably from the grapes.

The painting measure 36″ H x 48″ W. I used a plastering technique I taught myself last summer over top of most of the surface. House paint was used for the colors along with roofing tar around the blocks of wood. Rusty nails protrude from the wood with some copper wire wrapped around a few of them. And the four things in the corners are carriage bolts.

A detail of one of the four carriage bolts:

A detail of the 2×4 blocks:

Another detail of the right side block and the “S” that was on it:

So this morning I thought about my yard’s to-do list, specifically with regards to our lawn. It needs to be aerated… badly. I tend to not bag my lawn clippings and so the thatch that accumulates is pretty thick. I’ve known about these silly shoes you can buy that will help you aerate your lawn but from what I’ve read they don’t have the best of reviews (in regards to their design as well as their use). Regardless, I thought to myself… hey, I think I can make those! And so for the next couple of hours I proceeded to do just that…

1. Grab a pair of old sneakers.
2. Trace the outline of the sneakers onto 1/2″ pressure treated lumber, and cut out the patterns.
3. Align the sneakers with the boards and drill two holes (one in front and one in back) through the bottoms of the shoes and into the wood.
4. Pre-drill a bunch of random holes in the wood, large enough to except 1 1/2″ decking screws.
5. Proceed to drive your screws through the boards.
6. Fasten the shoes to your iron-maiden-like platforms with carriage bolts.
7. Walk in circles around your lawn so that your neighbors think you’re crazy.

Yes, I know… it’s a bit ridiculous. But I laughed out loud at myself this afternoon when I tested them out and that was well worth it.

They seem to go into the ground only about half an inch or so - which hardly does any good - but I hacksawed off the protruding ends of the lag bolts so when I use them again they’ll hopefully go in a little further. I figure I’ll use them every once in a while when I mow the lawn - that way I’ll only sometimes look like nut job while I’m out there. :)

Today I took the girls with me and we picked up fresh compost from our local yard waste center. Every year they have a huge mound of the stuff and its free for the taking - black gold, as I often refer to it as - and so must others because the stuff goes rather quickly. I used it to replenish the soil that’s currently in our two box planters. I keep a mixture of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite as my soil. Got the recipe last year from here: squarefootgardening.com

They recommend a 1/3 mixture with all three components, but I’m probably heaviest on the compost, then the peat moss, and finally just a dusting of the vermiculite. That worked well for me last year. After adding everything in this evening I spent a few minutes tilling the soil and getting it nicely aerated.

I use the square foot method discussed on that site, but last year the twine that I used to create my squares disintegrated towards the end of the summer and just became a mess. I like the idea so this year I’ll try fishing line instead and see how that holds up through the season.

I also need to get a decent rabbit deterrent system in place. We have a family that lives under our shed, and the planter boxes are pretty much in the middle of their living room. It never really dawned on me last year that I should protect the plants, until one morning I discovered that the rabbits had taken a liking to the romaine and broccoli that we planted. At the time, I had just thrown together a very quick and dirty wire mesh fence around the one box and it did the trick, but this year I’d like to make something a little more sturdy and reusable.

This week’s progress on the cabinet includes trimming out the left and right sides of the carcass and creating the face frame.

For the trim on the sides, I ran my 1×2’s through the router to give them a simple Roman Ogee design and then mitered the corners.

I ended up cutting a series of half lap and cross lap joints to bring together the 1×3 and and 1×2 boards for the face frame. I’ve never attempted this before, but it seems to have come out pretty nice. The glue up is still in progress for this:

The plants seem to be coming along nicely. I’ve transplanted most of the original batch of seedlings to larger cups. A few of the tomatoes and the broccoli have gotten tall enough now that they’re falling over, so I rolled up some paper around the cups to act as support for them. This was really just a quick and dirty way of adding support, and thinking more about it, I may add just add some chicken wire instead, so that I’m not limiting the amount of light hitting the plants and the soil. I did adjust the original light fixture, positioning it directly over the plants now, and added a 2nd light above the original tray that still has some stragglers in it.

One of the things I enjoy doing every once in a while is surfing the video sharing sites for various topics, including physics. Last night I came across something I had never heard of or seen before - Oobleck - or at least Dr. Seuss’ version of a non-Newtonian fluid. What the heck am I talking about you ask?… Take a container, add about 1 cup of corn starch, and slowly mix in about half a cup of water… then have fun with this very simple example of a fluid that can change its viscosity depending on how much pressure or stress gets put on it… in other words, watch it change from a liquid to a solid and back to a liquid, right before your eyes. I played with this stuff for about an hour last night:

A few things I noticed… over time it seems as though the water that’s in the mixture evaporates - I’m only guessing this because when I played with small amounts of it for a while, it stayed solidified longer. If it starts to solidify a little too much, you can revive the mixture by adding in just a little more water. If it sits for an extended period of time (say over night or a few hours) the water tends to rise to the top, while the corn starch falls to the botttom - the mixture will come back to life however with just a few good stirs.

I want to try and figure out a way to add a vibration to this as some of the videos I came across last night showed examples of what happens to this stuff when you do exactly that. The peaks and valleys that get formed almost look surreal.

Went down to DC yesterday to take some photos of the Capitol complex for a project at work (some more photos to come). But, the highlight of the afternoon was when we met Circumcision Dude out on the West Lawn. This guy was standing out there with giant posters, advocating a ban on circumcisions in the U.S. - For about ten minutes or so he went on about the evils of circumcision, why it was ever done in the first place, how it adversely affects your sexual senses as well as your partner’s, and so on. I honestly only half paid attention to what he was saying, but after doing some searching on the web, I found there’s quite a lot of information about this topic out there. Enjoy!