Super Bowl XXXI Mini Bike

This past weekend I was at the cabin and took a picture of the mini bike that I restored. I'm not sure how old it is because we have had it in the family for many years. I think it came from the Sears catalogue in the early 70's. A few years ago, about the time that Super Bowl XXXI had taken place (1997), I decided to restore it with a Packer football theme, since they won the Super Bowl that season. This is pretty close to the original color.

The seat was recovered in dark green vinyl and you can see some of the Packer/Super Bowl decals that were applied. Mechanically, almost everything had to be replaced, rear brake, wheel bearings, tires, and the throttle cable. A brand new 5 Hp Tecumseh horizontal shaft engine and clutch were added to complete the vintage ride. We have had several different size engines on the frame over the years, some smaller and some larger. Unfortunately, after the engine was mounted, I found out that 5 Hp isn't enough power to get a 190 lb person moving very well. So, it sits in storage most of the time and gets treated more like a rare collectible.

This week, while I'm on layoff, I have been spending about 4 hours a day working on changing the Midwest Machine Shop Network web site over to a database driven site. So far, I've been making good progress. The modular php code should be useful for similar projects. The only piece that remains to be completed is the search and search results code. I will be populating the db with machine shops that I find in the public domain, but shop owners are welcome to submit shop info. I'm hoping that more people will find the updated website useful.

Wind on the Moon

Seems like a lot of famous people have left us since my last post. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and just yesterday, Billy Mays. Well, Billy Mays wasn't as famous as the others, but I did see him on the Tonight Show just last week. It's weird, I didn't even know Michael Jackson was back in this country. At least he died in California, and it wasn't at the hand of someone trying to get famous (we hope).

There are a lot of polls out right now asking if he was the greatest pop star ever. Apparently there are still a lot of Elvis fans out there, because it's been 50/50 and 40/60 splits in most of the voting. At least we have the music and the videos. It seems like very talented or beautiful people always end up trading fame for a short life and a tragic ending.

This week I'm learning how to work with php sessions. You can use a session to keep track of who is logged into your web site and give them access to certain areas of the site. It isn't that complicated, you just have to keep track of a lot of information as you develop the log in scheme. I found a web site with some great php tutorials. If you have a basic understanding of php, the tutorials on this site should get you started. PhP/SQL driven web sites are great, they just take a lot more time to develop. I like finding easy to understand examples on the web, because if you're like me, finding the time and motivation to write code can sometimes be a challenge.

Homemade HD Antenna

Okay, one last iris pic. It's the middle of June, so they are done for this season. The orange lilly's are due to come out next! Not that I'm a big gardener or anything, it's just nice to see anything growing up here in Wisconsin after the long, cold, winter.

I was channel surfing yesterday and ran across a program on PBS called MAKE. They were running a series of MAKE episodes all afternoon. The show is about creative people who combine ordinary items to make things with a completely new function. I always find it interesting to see how innovative people think and solve problems. Many of the projects on the program are not very useful for the average person, because most of these projects are build by people who had an idea and simply wanted to see if it could be done. But you can't help but be inspired.

One of the episodes showed how to make a homemade HD antenna. I found out later that the inspiration for this was a video on YouTube that shows how to make an antenna out of coat hangers. You can search for other HD antenna designs on the web, so I won't list them all here. Most of these homemade antennas look so ugly, that you wouldn't want to put them up where anyone could see them. Some clever DIY'ers have mounted them in their attics. Like most antennas, they work better if you mount them up as high as possible. After seeing what other people have done, I am confident that I could build one that works just as well as any HD antenna you can buy, but for a lot less money.

Halfway thru 2009

Here is another picture of a bearded blue Iris from my yard. For the camera freaks out there, this was taken with a Kodak Z712IS using the Smart Scene setting. Although you can setup this camera so you can adjust all the scene settings, the automatic setting does a nice job of adjusting the depth of field on close up shots. I can put over 1000 6.3MP images on the high speed 2GB memory card that I added and the Kodak rechargeable battery pack will go all weekend without a recharge.

We are creeping up on the halfway point in 2009. I don't know about you, but I don't think much has changed since the beginning of the year. My employer is still struggling. The price of gas is going up again. And the price of everything else continues to rise, while my wages are frozen at 2006 levels. The only good thing I have to report is that the stock market has recovered from its lows earlier in the year. But it still has a long way to go to make up for the loses suffered in 2008. My guess is that the Dow will have a hard time getting past 8800 this year. More likely, with the world the way it is, it will retreat below 8000 before years end.

It might be time for all of us to review our goals and make some adjustments. We have already cut our living expenses as far as possible. Maybe it's time to look for a better job or start a business of your own. At least you wouldn't have to worry about a boss who doesn't understand you. I have set a selling price of $2400 for my 1976 Datsun 280Z (pictured on the right). If you like old sports cars and live in Northern Wisconsin, use my contact form to inquire about it.