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I’ve been pretty busy getting things done around the house. I’ve done some work on the vehicles, getting brakes replaced, fixing blinkers and doors – so Holly can take her driver’s test in a vehicle that will pass inspection.

The Christmas lights will be coming down in the next day or so. I’ve finally taken some video of the remaining working lights. The winter was hard on some of them – sections not lighting, some always on, etc. It wasn’t as grand as I hoped they would be, but it was a good start. Hopefully next year will be bigger and better. I’ve learned a lot about where I need to concentrate on for next year. I’ll try to get the video edited and posted in the next week or two. Here’s a picture of the wiring and controllers, but only 2 strings of lights – the rest are still up.

The kids started helping make the remote controller things for the video cameras. They were in the shop a couple days ago punching metal, drilling holes, grinding edges and taking LEDs out of the remotes. I need to show them how to finish preparing the metal plates and then powder coat them, along with soldering the wires onto the remotes and extending the LEDs. I’m not sure how excited they are about doing the work, but expect that the idea of them making some money is appealing. A couple weeks ago, I sent one to The Netherlands.

Since we live on a small lake, I have been slowly accumulating a small dock. I found some dock sections on Craigslist, some pipe on K-Bid (a local on-line auction) and some hardware from the company that makes the dock I bought. It’s a Crepeau dock, which I guess most of the people on Lake Minnetonka own. Docks are not cheap, if you buy new. I have stripped the stain off the old dock and am waiting for it do dry a couple days before I stain it. I’m hoping it will be in the water by the weekend.

The kids are in a play and I’ve been working on some LED lights and hooking them up to the computer using DMX – for theater lighting. I’m waiting to receive a bare PCB for the LED lights – it will control the 21 channels I need for the 7 lights (red, green, blue for each light) and run DMX firmware. I have 3 other boards that will control 12 PAR lights, running DMX – they are finished, except for putting them in an enclosure and making it look nice. The goal is to use the Freestyler software for all the lights and program the scenes for the play in the software. All of this is not really designed to be compatible, except that they all are DMX capable, which in theory, will work. Confused? So am I.

Here’s a good start – watch this video by Ronald Reagan. It is his famous “A Time for Choosing” speech from 1964.
Pay special attention to the video at:
1:25 – 2:15 Debt
3:00 – 3:30 Freedom
3:45 – 4:00 Self government
5:00 – 6:25 Constitution
8:55 – 9:15 Government inefficency
13:30 – 15:30 Social Security
15:45 – 16:05 Healthcare
17:50 – 18:40 Size of government

With the shennanigans that have recently been going on in Washington DC, it’s more important than ever to get involved. We need to stick to the Constitution and choose elected officials that will do the same. At the very minimum, vote! Vote for people that don’t want to re-invent our country. Find those that want to get back to the roots of our country. Like Inigo Montoya says in The Princess Bride:

                            INIGO
             I am waiting for you, Vizzini.
             You told me to go back to the
             beginning. So I have. This is
             where I am, and this is where
             I’ll stay. I will not be moved.

He takes a long pull from his brandy bottle. He stops as the
Assistant Brute comes into view.

                         ASSISTANT BRUTE
             Ho there.

                         INIGO
             I do not budge. Keep your “Ho
             there.”

He waves his sword dangerously.

                         ASSISTANT BRUTE
             But the Prince gave orders –

                         INIGO
             — So did Vizzini — when a job
             went wrong, you went back to the
             beginning. And this is where we
             got the job. So it’s the
             beginning, and I’m staying till
             Vizzini comes.

Our government has gone wrong. Very wrong. We need to go back to the beginning of our country. Back to the reasons our government was formed – personal freedom, free from government oppression, personal liberty. But, it’s not as simple as just getting the government back down to size and influence. The hard part will be to get the people weaned off the government pocketbook and to be willing to work, take responsibility and break free of dependence on the government. Do we as a group of people have the will and desire to shed the baggage of our bloated government? Or, are we really going to become another socialist European country?

Watch the video of Ronald Reagan’s speech and really listen to his words. Don’t forget about those Milton Friedman videos, either. Reagan and Friedman together with the Constitution. That’s the way it should be – back to the beginning.

Driving to work, I saw the new Twins stadium lights on. They also had the big TV screen showing some football program. From the little bit I could see from the highway, it looks like it will be really nice. I think it will be worth getting some tickets for a game, just to check out the stadium. That will probably a common occurrence once the baseball season starts. Sorry, no pictures. I didn’t have the camera with me.

Speaking of baseball and thinking about warm weather just around the corner – well, maybe in another 4 months – I was thinking about grilling this year. Have you ever seen the Big Green Egg grill/smoker? It looks like a great grill, but out of my budget at $700+ for the large size. I watched a video online of a guy smoking a ‘Boston Butt’ – a pork roast-type thing, not from the butt, but from the shoulder of a pig. We call it a picnic ham or picnic shoulder around here.

Being a DIY kind of guy, I was wondering how I could get the equivalent of the Big Green Egg, but at a decent DIY price. Obviously, there are others who have wondered the same thing and a search on the Interwebs finds THIS and THIS and THIS. Building the actual clay pot smoker/grill will be the easy part. I’d like to go a step further and make it a programmable, computer controlled cooking machine. That video I watched about the Big Green Egg had a device that would control the heat in the smoker by monitoring the meat temperature via a probe, it would monitor the temperature inside the smoker via a probe and the controller would adjust the smoker temp by turning on a fan that blows air into the firebox of the smoker/grill. The guy said with just a single load of fuel, it would burn for 24 hours. The long, slow cooking is what made the meat turn out perfect. Why is it that usually guys do the grilling? Is it the fire? The mess?

What about that State of the Union tirade that PeeBo (President Barak Obama) gave. Boy, does he think he’s something. I listened to some of it on the way to work, but I don’t think he heard me yelling at him and what he was saying through the radio.

At the risk of giving you armchair psychologists out there a reason to give a negative analysis of me, I’m going to write about Jessica and Erika today. It is, after all, the one year anniversary of them being stolen from our family. Don’t worry, I won’t go on and on about it for days to come.

One year ago today was one of the top 5 worst days in my life. If you read my blog entries on December 20th of last year, you’ll remember it was one of the top 5 best days in my life. How could those two days happen so close together? Why did they have to be the one of the top 5 for the same reason? I’ll say right now that there is no legitimate reason that Jessica and Erika were taken away. It did not have to happen.

Well, they were taken from me, but given up by others would be more accurate. I would never have wanted my God-given daughters to be taken away – for ANY reason. During the events of last year everything was a blur. It wasn’t just a little blur, it was a complete white-out. As time passes, things become much more clear. I can focus on what really happened and I hear things from other people that were familiar with or were in the events that led up to Jessica and Erika being taken. It all helps sort out what really happened. If only we could turn back the clock and change things….but, what’s done is done.

At the risk of sounding vindictive or blaming, I have to stop writing about it now. All I will say is that I would still to this day and will always, give anything to get Jessica and Erika back where God put them, into our family. That doesn’t mean that they are more important than Brenda, Holly or Mitch. It just means what it means…our family should be complete with all 6 of us together.

Here are my favorite pictures of Jessica and Erika. Below is a picture of all of us together.