I'm hijacking Carrie's blog...

Bled the brakes tonight. In the dark. Then Carrie, who was assisting me, offered to take the Daewhoopteedoo for a test drive to see if there was any noticeable difference in the breaking performance. She pulled out of the driveway and sped off into the distance. "Maybe a little caution with the untested brakes?!?" I think to myself. I was expecting her to come back around the block in a minute. A minute passes by. No big deal I think. I'll just put my tools away while I wait. And clean up Miles's toys in the back yard. And put away the bike. And sweept the garage. And put all the drill bits in order. And now I'm getting kinda nervous. I DID re-tighten the bleeders, right? I did put the cap back on the reservoir, right? What could possibly go wrong?!? Omygosh the brakes failed and she's wrapped around a telephone pole or under a truck or something. Should I go looking for her? But I would have to take Miles with me, and should he be traumatized watching his mother take her last gasp of air? Should I call the cops? No, don't be irrational. She'll be back any moment. Right? I should just pull some weeds here along the fence. In the dark. That will take my mind off things. WHERE IS SHE?!? 

Oh here she comes. Apparently the stopping off at the library and picking up a book on tape should be part of a brakes test drive.

Sheesh.

I wanta help!

As most of you know we have an adorable 2 1/2 year old little boy who is always wanting to be a part of our garage projects.  He wanted desperately today to use "Turner" and "Phillipe."  I've been trying to come up with things that he can do in the garage that is safe, and fun for him.  Below are some of the pictures of the projects that we've created. 

I took a branch that blew down in the last storm and drilled a series of holes in the branch.  These served as pilot holes for  Miles to drill a variety of screws into.

Miles can match up the nuts and bolts.  It serves as a great fine motor development activity, and is relatively inexpensive to create if you buy "by the pound" at the farm store.    

Watering the garden, or missing as the case may be. 

Hammering nails in a board and removing them with "Pat the Hammer."

Sometimes we just have him pop in the car and "play driving."

The cars can always use another washing.  Too bad he's too small to do an adequate job on the dog.  

When you just need a good spin, play airplane!

Keeps him away from under fast cars and dangerous chemicals.  

Another project that I'm working on creating I took from "Teacher Tom."  Its a peg board that uses "tree cookies" (Tree Cookies=pieces of tree cut into 2 inch sections and then have holes drilled into them.) I just need to finish cutting my dowel rods and then drill the holes.  I wanted to buy the dowel rods before I drilled the holes in the tree cookies, so I would create them in the right size.  It looks like it will be a lot of fun!  I'm pretty excited about creating more manipulatives for Miles to use in the garage. 

 

Cool New Toy

... FOR THE TEACHERS!!  OK, once we are more familiar with the process we may involve the children in some way, but give us time.  The ideas for new projects are bubbling over.  So what did we get?

 ...  a yudu (a home screen printing system).  I'm very excited about the probability of staff shirts, field trip shirts for the kiddos, and maybe bags or something like that for a field trip.  The possibilities are endless. We might even get into some screen printed art project with the older kids...  We'll see how it goes.

I brought the yudu home to watch the video and to take the opportunity to see how it works.  We're using the BABE Rally as an excuse to create a screen printed t-shirt.  (We certainly didn't think it would be at all fun.  You know I'm all work, work, work all the time totally serious.)

Step 1: Design

It sure comes in handy being married to an engineer who can put together really awesome designs for me! (Thanks hon!)

Chris pulled up pictures of the car choose one that he liked and printed the picture on the provided transparency.  It's nice to know for the future that you can draw them with black permanent marker too. 

Step 2: Prepping the screen

This isn't as easy as the lady showed on the video.  Although, it may just take some practice.  ( We were going to try to use half the screen as a future bird logo screen, but the emulsification didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped and so the design won't fit.  (Note the bubbles.) 

It took quite a while to clean up the image after we had developed the screen. 

Step 3: Print the shirt

Since this was our first time trying this process Chris and I made this a 2 person process and forgot to take pictures.  Oops!

Here are the finished shirts though.  We were having so much fun that we made an extra from a shirt that we just had laying around the house.  We plan on having a give-a-way at the send off.  (Friday June 3 at 3:00.)

Step 4: Iron and wear (The ironing is for setting the image.  You know I only iron in extreme situations. i.e. weddings and funerals) 

No, Blue Popsicles for You!

The BABE Rally organizers have asked for each teams Bluetooth information, so that they can try out a new system of keeping track of the cars as they pass check points and such.  I think its great what technology is capable of these days, but am still struggling with owning a cell phone.  (No you may not have the number, cause I'm just going to keep it in the car to avoid spontaneousness combustion.  i.e. I have no intention of actually carrying the phone.) I thought that Chris' response to the BABE Rally organizers was funny, so I felt compelled to share it. 


"We didn't even have a cell phone until a couple of weeks ago when I learned that it is apparently mandatory equipment for every life form, without which slow painful death on a deserted highway is certain. (This paraphrased from the speech my mother gave me after telling her about the BABE rally). I should not have pointed out that she drove 1000 miles, crossing a desert in an Opel GT with one kid in her lap and 2 kids on the shelf-like thing in the back and no cell phone. This only led to an argument about how times were different then, and what was safe back then is not so safe today.

Anyway, long way of saying, a prepaid Nokia 1661-2b apparently does not have Blue Teeth, sorry, as such, no Big Mac address."

I'm not inherently anti-cell phone.  I just struggle with peoples lack of presence with those around them due to cell phones. For example, we were at a holiday function where there were approximately 20 people we hadn't seen in 6-8 months.  At one point I looked around and 5 people were using their cell phones.  (One person had excused themselves from the room to take a call, but the others remained.)  When I attend such events or even if I'm just in the grocery store, I try to be present with those around me.  I want to greet the cashier and wish them a good day.  I want to greet neighbors as they walk down my street.  I want people to see my car when they are driving and me in turn to be paying attention to them when I am driving.  When I attend functions, even if I'm meeting with just one other person, I want to present with them. 

My policy is if you need my attention, call my home number and leave me a message if we don't answer.  I do return calls. And I try to do it when I will be able to be present with the person on the other end of the phone.   I value my time with people.  

Needless to say I don't have blue teeth.  ( I used crest white strips just yesterday.) 

Making Lists

We have 9 days to go and we've begun compiling our lists.  I have assembled 4 lists.  Did I forget anything?

1. Things I need to do to have Miles ready to leave for an entire week. (We've never both been gone that long.)
2. Tools to pack (Well actually, Chris is in charge of the packing and creating of this list.)
3. Clothing to Pack (This is my job, so end up with enough socks and undies :)
4.  Menu items for cross county meals on the road (We'll leave venison off of this one since we don't want the wolves to jump under the car and steal that meal again.)  

List One:

• Temporary POA for grandparents in case of an emergency.
• General Daily Schedule
• List of potential babysitters and their numbers.  
• List of friends that could help out with anything
• New set of books from the library to enjoy at bedtime
• Leave zoo membership card and the like for potential fun.
• Food in Dog's hopper (Yes, our dog is more like a cat than a dog. She eats on her own schedule, only wants attention on her own schedule, and creates fur balls in the corners of my rooms.) 

List two:

• First Aid Kit/ make sure it's restocked
• Metric Sockets/Wrench/ allens
• Pliers
• Electric kit
• Jumper cables (The good set.)
• Duct Tape 
• Electrical Tape
• JB Weld
• Metric assorted bolts
• Battery/ charged (Oddly we already have one of these lying around, so we thought we'd take it.)
• Silicone
• Fix-a-flat
• Air Tank
• Tire Gauge
• Jack stand
• Fuses
• Paper clip
• OBD2 reader
• Fluids
• Breaker bar
• Hammer
• Gas can
• Assorted hoses
• 18 GA wire
• Garbage Bags

List 3:

• Clint Eastwood Costume for day 2 
• Trivia about the "man with no name" series 
• Shirts
• Pants
• Socks
• Undies
• Slip on Shoes
• Toiletries
• Camera
• Computer
• MP3 player 
• Wallet
• Extra car key
• My book club's book if they decide on a title before we leave.

List 4: 

• pasta salad
• carrots, celery, broccoli
• wraps
• lunch meat
• cheese
• lettuce or spinach salad
• breakfast bars
• Trail mix
• drinks

 I feel like we're forgetting something very important, but I can't for the life of me think of what it could be.  I hope it all fits...

Transforming the Lobby

The children of MTCC have been participating in a variety of activities related to cars and other modes of transportation to gear up for the send off on June 3rd at 3:00.  Here are the displays from the lobby for those of you who aren't regular visitors of the school.  

The plan is that we will leave Evansville on June 4 ugly early and make our way to Hershey, PA.  We/ I want to visit the Hershey Factory, so hopefully we'll get there early enough to enjoy that.  We will make the remainder of the trip to NYC on the 5th.  We will meet up with the rest of the BABE Rally participants there.  We will spend a week following the BABE Rally's directions to the Big Easy.  Where we will take it easy and possibly meet up with one of my good friends from middle school.  (We're still working out the details.) We will return home to E-ville just in time to start a refreshing week of work on June 13th and to finish the silent action on for the car (www.daewhoopteedoo.org).  

We are marking down the days until the pledges are due and we take off!! 

We just don't want anyone who enters the building to be unaware of our plans:) 

 This is a sculpture that the Redbirds made using the cars they colored to help in determining the color scheme for the car.  

The kids can guess the number of keys in the jar to win a car cap.  I've been told that I should change the wording to hat as none of the children will know what a cap is, but I'd rather expand their horizons

.  

Here is a mobile that was made from the cars the kids designed.  

One of the classes even created a class book.  The teachers took pictures of each of the children driving the cars in the Celebration Center.  They then used the pictures of the children in the cars and pictures of places the children may see around town to make a book the children can enjoy.  This not only builds excitement about the rally, but more importantly about literacy.  

Practically Amish

Practically Amish-  Someone who, while being exposed to technology and possibly owning it does not utilize said technology to its full capability for hippie like reasons often living unaware of many social norms.  i.e.  We had a television, but no cable.  We were aloud to watch movies previously viewed by our parents, but only things that they thought had some educational value or would bring meaning to our lives.


So as many of you know, I was raised "Practically Amish."  This makes things like the day 2 challenge particularly difficult.  We received the following e-mail from the BABE Rally Event organizers.

"  * * * * * * * * * *


You are receiving this email because you are listed as the team contact for
a team that has signed up and paid fees for BABE2011.

* * * * * * * * * *

BABE2011 Informational Mail Blast - Costume Day Challenge Prep

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY as there is a lot of information here.

* * * * * * * * * *

This message contains important information that you will need to prepare
for part of the Day 2 Costume Day Challenge.

As you know, this year's costume challenge is Clint Eastwood's  character
from the movie "For A Few Dollars More". This movie is part of the "Man with
No Name" Trilogy of Eastwood movies, but it is very important that your
costume be modeled on this particular movie.

Why? Because part of the score is for accuracy! (for a change)

There are multiple parts of the challenge for the day.

Part 1: The Assignment
Your team will be given the challenge on the Day 2 Start Line. Specific
instructions for the assignment will be given and points awarded as
described in the assignment instructions.

Part 2a: The Costume
For this day's challenge, you will need to remain in costume all day. If you
have to remove bits while in the car during travel, that's fine. However, if
you are caught out of costume by Marshals or other teams outside your car
during the day, your team will LOSE points and the capturing team will GAIN
points, so consider that your heads up.

At the end of the day, when you turn in your points, it is necessary that
all members of the team report to the Marshals, IN COSTUME. Judging for this
Part is strictly on authenticity. Does your costume look like the one in the
movie? Remember that the devil is in the details, as they say. Exceptions
apply to your physical body. In other words, it is NOT necessary to grow a
scruffy face, to style or color your hair, or anything else to your physical
body!! This is about the costume you are wearing, along with its props (hint
hint).

Also, it is not necessary to loom a poncho to be certain that the right pattern is woven in exactly, using the right goathair and plant dye. And don't run out to a prop house and spend $1000 on an "authentic reproduction". Get real! We say this because BABE teams are notoriously competitive and detail driven and we don't want to push anyone into therapy. It's meant to be fun!

Only after you've been judged by the Marshals should you remove your costume
so the sooner you get your points in, the sooner you can get out of your
ponchos! There will also be a deadline for reporting in on Night 2. Plan
accordingly.

Part 2b: The Pistol
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES bring anything along that looks even remotely like a
firearm. That should go without saying, but hey......

For the purpose of the challenge, you should have a water pistol. Any type
of water pistol is fine, but as there will be a water pistol fight, remember
that bigger is definitely better in this case.

Extra points are awarded for the Triple Shot Super Soaker model. Keep in
mind that this is an out-of-production, true vintage water pistol, hence the
extra points.

Each team member's costume is tallied and the points averaged by total team
members for the team's score for Part 2.

Part 3: The Trivia Quiz

Pub Quiz BABE style!

Time to break out that Netflix account or Blockbuster card and get your hands
ahold of the "Man with No Name" Trilogy of movies and brush up on your
trivia. It is essential that you watch "A Fist Full of Dollars", "For a Few
Dollars More" and "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly". You will be asked a few
very short questions based on the films. This is game show panel style
question/answer, so you'll need to know the answers, no time for looking
anything up. It's a collaborative answer, so work together as a team
(another hint hint).

No cheat sheets, Cliff's Notes, or anything remotely similar during the quiz
itself. That should go without saying, but we thought we'd mention it
anyway. Just your team, the quizzing Marshal, and your impressive wealth of
trivia (you hope).

Be warned: Wikipedia isn't going to give you all the answers. There are,
however, some pretty decent trivia sites and sources out there, so the more
you know, the better prepared you should be. Generally, however, watching
the movies themselves is going to give you most of what you need. MOST.
(final hint hint)

So think of it as an excuse to pop not only some corn, but the tops off some
brewskis. Or as we do in keeping in "theme", having some chips and salsa and
a few ice cold cervezas!

Have fun!

Any questions, drop us a quick line. We will not, however, tell you what the
trivia questions are, so don't bother asking ;)

It won't be long now!

Regards,
Karin, Justin, Junior Teddydog
& The StreetSafari Team  "

This poses a few challenges for me.  First of all I have never seen any Spaghetti Westerns.  While I hear that these are iconic and should be seen by all I'm not particularly fond of movies where people get hurt (See "Practically Amish").  Second, Chris and I have been trying to watch them and we've fallen asleep 3 times during "For a Few Dollars More."  

The bigger challenge is that I am TERRIBLE at all movie and TV trivia.  I am bad at remembering names of actors, cause in my opinion if they are a truly great actor I won't be focused on who the actor is.  Instead I'll be focused on who the character is and weather or not I enjoy the storyline.  I often have conversations with friends that go along the lines of "You know, that one actor that was also in the movie that we went to see with the girl we went to camp with that one summer."  My best friend then answers, "Jerry O'Connell?"  "Yea that guy!"  is my response.  You can see how this would be problematic when it comes to movie trivia.  Needless to say there is much studying in my future.  

On a happy note, I think that I have noted all the pieces that Clint Eastwood wears in "For a Few Dollars More."  I will not list them here, since I'm pretty sure we have some competitors that could possibly read this.  I have all but a few purchased or acquired.  Pictures of us in costume will be posted on Day 2 of the Rally (June 7).  

I'm not sure that they will give us points for the excuse of being "Practically Amish."  The Rally is run by the Brits.  Do they know who the Amish are?       

The Car

So... the car is a 2000 Daewoo Leganza.   Because all cars need a name, she has been deemed Daewhoopteedoo!

It's black with a tan interior.  We've had to put a little work into it to get it to work.  We've replaced the starter, the water pump, some hoses leading to the water pump, a vacuum hose, and some rings in the engine that keep oil in the right place.  I'm forgetting their name.  She's in OK condition now.  Or I should describe it as, I feel like she is safe enough for my son to ride in around town.

We've noticed that she has the same quirk as every other Leganza that we've passed.  The dashboard has popped up.  She also has some interesting electrical features such as a cruse control button that presses and a light flashes, but then there's nothing!!  I shouldn't divulge this since she's such a classy beauty, but the security system works in much the same way that the cruse control works.  Well there is one exception... It has a red blinky LED.  The dashboard works great for intended purpose though (Radar Support).  The radio works, but there is no antenna which worries me a little through Appalachia.   Luckily, the AC blows coldish air at you, which is truly a blessing.  I'm not sure if I could make a 3000+ mile journey without those important features.  The interior plastic has melted on the doors, the seats are hard as bricks, and the sun visors have fallen and hit us in the head one too many times, so we fixed that problem by removing them and buying old man sunglasses.  The best feature is the exterior.  Aside from a few minor dings and a whole lot of grime the paint is in good condition.  I don't think she'll rust out on the journey.  It may be made of plastic like many of the other essential components, but it's always good to look on the positive side about something.  She is certainly classier than my first car.  If you know someone who is looking for a first car or one that runs, we are excepting silent auction bids for the car at www.daewhoopteedoo.org.  (Pending its return.)

Here are a few pictures to enjoy.