The engine and transmission are completely bolted in.
The drive line is installed.
The brake master cylinder has been bench bled, but not installed.
I fixed the door latches and locks.
Alternator, power steering pump, pullies, fan, radiator, distributor, all installed.

Headers are next, followed by the clutch linkage.
I need to get some new brake lines before installing the master cylinder.
Lots more to go, but lots of progress.

Writing things down has allowed me to better keep track of these ideas, and even plan some of them to a point where I have a prototype. All of the prototypes I have built have been excellent learning exercises. On occasion though, I’d like to take things a step further. I just don’t know how.

This can be a bit frustrating at times. Most of all when I see some large company implement an idea I’ve had. Even more so when I see a small company get funded to do exactly what I am experimenting with. (Really?!? That work I’m doing at home is worth $5 million in round one funding?!?! For what I’m doing with the computers in my closet?!?!). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think people are stealing my ideas. Everyone knows that lots of people can come up with the same idea at the same time, it’s really about execution on those ideas.

Then there is the problem of a piece of paper I signed for my employer. It says all of my ideas belong to them while I work for them. (How do you own somebody’s ideas anyway?) If I do come up with something brilliant, how do I mitigate the risk of having GigatoMegaSoftwareCorp claim my idea? Technically I would have to quit my job before I came up with the idea. Actually I would have to quite at least a year before getting the idea. How do you do something like that? You can’t schedule inspiration.

So I continue on with my small ideas keeping them experimental and educational. But one day it would be nice to have something go big.

Here we are in 2010 and I’m starting off with a post a day late. I hope that’s not a sign of how the rest of the year is going to go. At least I’ve been busy instead of slacking off over the holiday.

I’m going to start this new year off a bit different than I usually do. I’m actually going to make some new year resolutions. Call it a midlife crisis thing. Rather than running off and doing crazy things, which I’ve actually done most of my life anyway, I’m going to set up a plan to reach some goals.

1. Pay off my credit cards.
2. Get more physically active.
3. Pay off my pickup truck.
4. Finish small shed in back yard.
5. Build another bigger shed in back yard.
6. Build awning for patio.
7. Clean out garage.
8. Start engine in my 67 cougar.
9. Move into Build Development at work.
10. Get rid of cable.
11. Get back into boat building.
12. Stop ignoring my poor neglected blog.

Paying off my credit cards.
For more than a year, I’ve carried a balance on my credit cards. I’m tired of it. All I am doing it lining the pockets of the major corporations that sent us into a recession. Not to mention the extra cash from not having to pay interest every month.

Get more physically active.
Over the last few years, I’ve gotten lazy and it shows. I’m up to 195 pounds from an optimum of 165 a few years ago. I don’t like it. More walking, more stairs, less or at least better food. I’ve toyed with the idea of jogging a bit each day. Not having the time is no longer an excuse. It would be easy to spend 30 minutes in the morning or afternoon doing a little bit of a workout. I’m tired of the little aches and pains that come with the extra weight, and tired of being tired. It also sucked last Wednesday to have to stop skiing half way through the day because my legs were too tired to safely ski anymore.

Pay off my pickup truck.
My pickup truck is close enough to being paid off that I can almost taste it. It would be nice to have it paid off and have one less bill to worry about.

Finish small shed in my back yard.
I build the floor to a 8×6 shed intended for storing yard tools a few months ago, then it just sat there. Over the last few days, I’ve managed to finish framing it up between rain showers. All that’s left is roof, wall covering, a door and paint. I think I just might have this finished before February. This also lets me get some things out of the garage that are taking up space.

Build another big shed in back yard.
I started building another shed in the back yard some time ago. I never finished it because I realized there were several things I could do better. So now the old start of the big shed is going to be removed, and 10×12 shed will go up in it’s place. This is where all the extra car parts for the Cougar will be going as well as some of my larger tools. After what I’ve learned building the small shed so far, this should be a lot easier. Just larger.

Build awning for patio.
The patio needs to be covered. There are a few things sitting out there which are not doing well in the rain. It would also be nice to go outside when it is raining. This is not only a request from my girlfriend but something I’ve been planning for a long time. I now have the tools and skill to do it.

Clean out garage.
There is so much crap in the garage, you can’t walk through it. Part of this will be taken care of when the sheds are completed. If the Cougar is running, I can also get that out of there. A few things have to happen before this can be completed, but it’s part of the plan.

Start engine in my ‘67 Cougar
I have not touched my Cougar in some time. In reality, there is not that much to make it run, but in being lazy I found a couple of convienient excuses not to work on it. Things like “It’s too hot” or “It’s too cold” or “The garage is too messy.” Just getting it started and rolled out of the garage will help.

Move into Build Development at work.
I have pretty much reached the top of what I can do as a Builder. Time to finally make that move from Builder to Build Developer. In addition to my normal day job of building, I’ve also been helping out two separate teams in with the engineering of the build process itself. It’s a big step forward from where I am at, but it is also something I’ve already been doing for a long time and my skills are being recognized. Time to make it official.

Get rid of cable.
Cable is getting watched less and less in my house. Most of what we watch is on the internet now. I also have a hard time justifying the cost. Currently my cable bill is $140 per month. All I need is internet. I don’t need HD tv or Tivo, or on-demand, or any of the other items I am paying for when I don’t watch it.

Get back into boat building.
I keep longingly looking at my wood working tools, boat plans, and thinking about how I really need to get back into working on this. It’s not just about having a boat, but also about the joy I get from woodworking.

Stop ignoring my poor neglected blog.
It’s been several months since I made a post here. Starting off a day late for this year, but I will find the time.

30% of the people I grew up with.
Plus or minus 4 years in age.
All grew up within 50 miles of each other.

One died as a result of a brain tumor.
The rest of the %30 all suffered or are dealing with cancer. Mostly brain, thyroid, or pituitary.

We all spent our summers swimming and water skiing in the Columbia river. Less than 40 miles downstream from one of North America’s worst polluters. Cominco used to dump their industrial waste into the Columbia river. If you drove along the Columbia to where the Cominco plant was located, you would notice the land was baron. No trees, no forest. Dead. Just what were we swimming in?

Time was also spent riding motorcycles, hiking, and swimming along the Little Pend Oreille river or the various lakes there about. It was always interesting to come across a double chain link fence with razor wire and radio active warning signs while out in the middle of the forest. Uranium mines. Upstream. This same water that was our drinking water supply?

Forest fires were quite common. Ever see the pink stuff being dropped from an air plane to put out fires? Did you know that it is filled with Dioxons? Poisons that stay in your fat cells for decades. It was proven to be in the water supply we were drinking from.

Add to that three saw mills treating wood with arsenic, and one creosote plant.

Is 30% of the people my age who grew up in the same place at the same time a pattern? What about those same people suffering from only 3 different types of cancers? Is it a pattern yet? How about that those types of cancer seem to be rare in the general population? hmmm.

As for me, I don’t know. I’ve never been checked. But after finding out about just how high of an occurance it is happening among the people I grew up with, I think I should.

Those kinds of numbers really make me wonder.

This is all quite surreal to me. I grew up with lots of snow. A dry, cold, powdery snow that stuck around all winter. In fact I took my drivers test in snow. But after living here for over a decade, I’ve gotten used to getting a day or two of snow. Snow that was reffered to as the “Seattle Snot”. Wet, slippery, and gone within a day or two. This snow is not the typical Seattle snow, though. It is dry, powdery, and cold. Very much like the snow where I grew up.

I find myself quite unprepared for it. My sidewalk really needs shovelling. I have no shovel. My car has no snow tires and has not moved in two days. I dare not move it because it will get stuck. Probably within ten feet of my house. Yesterday was running around in my girlfriend’s Jeep, taking time to spin a few donuts in a parking lot, and getting some holiday shopping done. But tomorrow when she’s at work, unless I want to walk, I have to stay put. This is the first winter in a long time that I haven’t had a 4×4 to drive. I think I need to change that.

But as unprared as I am, I still like this.

My son decided to figure out how to play “Carol of Bells”.

All by ear.

And now he is playing it.

As if he has always known it.

When I extracted this file I found it was all of the original source code and web pages of my original mapping website. On the rest of the CDs were all of the tile images I had made to support the site. There are a couple missing, but I could have this site up in short order. It’s kind of exciting, but on the other hand, it shows how little I knew about programming when I put it together.

So, I may put it back up in it’s current form just to show what I did, but on the otherhand, I think it is going to need a full rewrite.

This is fun stuff to me.

My son, whose music constantly fills my house, which I miss terribly when he is not around.

My friends who really care. Who at time I don’t know how I would have made it without.

I spent thanksgiving day with a group of about ten friends and Debbie eating a home made dinner which everyone cooked together.  It was great. It’s not what I asked for but it’s what I needed.