Walking and biking last week

Last week I made a real effort to get out and walk or biking. In fact once I started doing it I felt guilty if I missed an opportunity that could have been better spent getting in a couple of laps. Part of this was because I was using an app on my DroidX phone to help plot my treks and keep track of my info & then upload it to GoogleDocs.

Last week I documented walking a little over 8 miles and riding a little under 8 miles. While this is not overly exciting for some people this is a big deal for me this year since I have been semi-locked in the house for work.

I need to see if I can continue the trend. All of the things that compete for my time make this a challenge so I will need to try to keep up the momentum while there is still a guilt factor for when I miss my opportunity for a trek outside.

Camping at Nerstrand Big Woods State Park

The sky was clear & cold Saturday and Sunday night so I took advantage of this shoot some images of the stars.


The campsite was great once I fit the trailer between the two trees at the end of the driveway. After we pulled in the campground host mentioned that it was a tent site, not that the reservation system mentions this. A couple of minutes of patience was all that it took to back into the site without damaging anything.


To give the kids the whole camping experience they also get to sleep in the tent. (The new Columbia two person tent is extremely sweet!)


Here is our mandatory kabob on the grill picture. (We cooked on two grills, one gas & one charcoal.)


The family dinner at the picnic table on Sunday night.


The boys played several chess matches with other friends and their mother.


I cracked open an book from my bookshelf.


The boys road their bikes around the park like crazed nuts. A couple of us drove to a nearby town and then went mountain biking and toured town for a total of about 7.5 miles on Saturday.


Bored by the campfire.


Cold by campfire.


Ben playing Super Stickman Golf while I shoot some photos of the stars.


At the suggestion of the Christie family I installed some star gazing applications on my DroidX phone and iPad. From the Droid Marketplace I picked "Google Sky" and "Space Junk" which are both great apps.


On the iPad I installed "Star Walk"


The star gazing applications were simply incredible. I probably spent 2 hours over the weekend looking at the sky and the apps trying to figure out what was above me in the sky.

The final image was actually the first star trail image that I ever tried to take. I was standing next to the campfire with the shutter open for 15 minutes.


We had a very enjoyable weekend at the park. I laughed as we were packing up, I had shot photos from my DroidX phone, my wife's Nikon CoolPix S210, and my Canon T3i DSLR. I was surprised to use three different devices given that I really did not take that many photos.

Monday Night Walk

I decided to go for a walk after dinner. I fired an application on my DroidX phone called "My Tracks" that my boss mentioned to me recently. It uses the GPS on your phone to help track your path while you are working (walking, running, riding a bike, etc.)

I had no idea how long on trip around our loop was. (It is ~0.6 miles)  I walked three laps (1.88 miles) in about 34 minutes. My pace was between 3.5 & 5.9 miles per hour. The loop is moderately hilly so it was a nice work out.

At the end of the walk I uploaded the info to my Google Docs folder. I was able to create a map of the walk, look at my stats, and it creates a log/journal of the activities.  I will have to try to get out walking more often and play with this software a bit more.

I was listening to a recent edition of TWIT on my phone via my Bluetooth stereo headphones while I was walking in circles. :-)

Self portrait

A weekend of camping

We are staying at Lake Bemidji State Park



















The photos are from my T3i imported into my iPad and then pushed to the Internet via wifi at the campground. --Camping is just not the same anymore. :-)

New shack

Here is a quick picture from my phone that shows some of the gear as it is getting moved into the new office/shack.

Don't worry, ALL of the empty space on the shelves will be full once I finish moving stuff from the old location to the new location. I am making slow but steady progress on the project. All of the new coax  & the rotor cables are in place.

73 de NG0R

New shack project

After returning from the Fargo hamfest I spent Saturday evening working on the shack project. (I am moving into a new room.)

I pull out the bag of connectors and the 10 runs of coax (that I cut to size last weekend) and decided to get to work.



I use two coax prep tools for all of my 1/2 inch coax like LMR-400



This gives you an idea how the clean the cuts are



I ended up putting on 20 connectors (2 per piece of coax) in about 2 to 2.5 hours.


It is hard to beat the quality that you get by using the proper coax prep tool.  No shorts, no splinters... clean cut every time. I have not had any bad connections since I started using the prep tool about 8 years ago.  I prefer to solder my connections... other people may prefer to crimp, either is fine.

Link to the goal prep tool:
http://www.dxengineering.com/Parts.asp?ID=2368&PLID=138&SecID=127&DeptID=36&PartNo=DXE-UT-8213

Fargo Hamfest

Ben (10 - N2BEN) and I went up to Fargo for the hamfest this weekend.













Turn out for both the attendance and the flea market tables was lower than past shows. We still had a great time and plan to attend again next year.

I have not inventoried our backpack yet to determine what we bought. I think that we probably spent about $32 on parts. As time permits I will try to grab some images of the parts for some future homebrew projects.

73 de NG0R

Tuesday night rain

I am in the metro for work related activities for a couple of days. Tonight as I was leave the office it was raining like there was no tomorrow. While eating dinner the rain got crazy intense.

I am not sure how much rain we actually got back at home... It looks like about 1 inch on the radar.






ps... a picture from my phone of the rain gauge once I got home Wednesday. A little over 1.5" in there.

Coax for new shack

Ben (10) N2BEN and I spent a few hours on Sunday creating 10 new runs of coax for connecting the new shack to the coax patch panel.

I will need to get the connectors in stalled and then hang the coax when get a few of hours of free when I am back at home.