Midlife Sooner

Well the solar panel, or what I like to call the Power Cat Panel is mostly done there are a few trimmings that need done and then it is to be shipped tomorrow to California where it will be testing in the desert, that is desert with one s not 2. I don't don't know how it will do in the desert or the dessert for that matter. I have had a hard time chasing down shorts because of my decision to use an aluminum panel under the cells, I did this because we had it and didn't have time to lay up a fiberglass one, although now I think it would have been less headache to do so. I have really struggled with whether or not to inscribe a K State power cat on it or not, I didn't and settled for a drawn one in marker.

Angie is tired of being pregnant but doing well. Zeke is singing more, he sings a song that I taught him about Uncle Jim.

Uncle Jim was a man

He was a farmer man

but he hired uncle Justin

and uncle Justin couldn't

be trusted

with a cow

 

well it was fate

that he didn't lock the gate

and the cow

was spinning on the ground.

 

Flippos won't know what I am talkingabout but the Rocco side will.

Dan

We are back from a great weekend in Kansas, we left our little guy there with Grammy and we are trying to figure out how to be kidless for a while (Wednesday). It has been nice but we miss him and always talk about him. I drove around yesterday jumping through all the hoops to become a member of this oky state. We have a license plate from Oklahoma now, she handed that over and it hit me that we are here. I have yet to put it on though. Solar panel is going well, I am waiting for the cells to arrive so that we can start putting them on. My spanish friend Pedro has offered to help me with this, he has been pretty bored since his advisor left for the summer. Going to California is still up in the air, supposedly I will go next week, but no one has told me yet.

Well gotta go, keep your entropy low.

Dan

Darn Garnet is Zeke's new explicative. I like and think that I will incorporate it into my vocabulary.

Mini Pearl's dad was 17 years older than her mother and was 54 when Minnie (really Sarah Ophelia Collin) was born.

I got most of the design done on the Solar panel, now I am playing with the shear and brake in the shop to see what I can do with it. I ordered some epoxy and overcoating yesterday, it was good to see how the ordering process works, now I can get that hot tub for the Lab.

Dan

I am looking for an affordable honeycomb core fiberglass panel! very frustrating, all these vendors that don't call you back, what kind of service is that? it reminds me of Kazakhstan and the snail paced service there. We are ordering solar cells today, 600$+ of them. Solar cells have come a long way lately, the best I could find are about 27% eff. That may not sound good but it is a lot better than it used to be, I even heard of a company that had 35% but I don't think you could buy them and the 27% cells are way out of our reach financially plus there is a 5K$ min order. I came in last night to work for an hour while Angie sewed her dress she wants done for this weekend, we are headed home. Her old small group is throwing her another baby shower, I don't mind, more stuff we don't have to buy. I probably will have to take some work home with me to do there, we are leaving Zeke with Grammy for the first part of the week for a little break. I was hoping to rest a lot but it looks like I will be here in the office most of that time.

Well gotta go engineer something. Keep her between the ditches and your entropy low.

Dan

So we went garage saleing all morning on Saturday, Angie was very pleased because we came away with 2 big bags of kid clothes for under 5$. I came away with a new mug, some stuff Zeke and I can take apart, and Minnie Pearl's autobiography which I have already started to read. it's not that I am a Minnie Pearl fan it is just that she is not anyone I thought would have an autobiography, I guess everyone wants to write about themselves. I read Leonard Nemoy's autobiography (his second one, not the firstone) so I get a kick out reading biographies of strange people, especially autobiographies since that makes it even more strange. Zeke had fun and played with many toys along the way. I almost purchased a leather ez chair for the lab so that we could take naps and have something to attach wheels to so that I could cruise campus in style, but they wated 30$ and that just went against my upbringing.

Angie loved her mother's day OU hat that Zeke and I got her, I told him that it was a secret but the very moment we seen her he blabbed! I will have to surprise both of them next time.

 Dan

So I meet with Doc today to tell him how many solar cells we need and go over the initial design. This guy is really layed back so I have a lot of lattitude and not attitude. This morning I gave Angie an early mothers day present and took Zeke to wall mart for an oil change and playing with toys. I have a present for her as well but that will have to be on sunday. Zeker and I stopped by a garage sale and paroozed their goods. We bought some DVD's for 25 cents a piece and a dump truck (old tonka type) for 1.50. Uncle Jeff gave Zeke a dollar the other day and Zeke wanted to buy the truck with the dollar so we went for it. I asked if she would take a dollar and she said no, man how cheap some peopl! I was obligated to buy it and she knew it by looking at Zeke already playing with it so there went my walk away power. WAP is something very important in garage saleing. if you show that you can't walk away then your at the mercy of the salesman. WUP (Walk up Paroozal) is very important as well, when you walk up to the garage sale and you see something you want walk to the other section of the sale and work your way slowly over to it, that way you don't give yourself away too soon. I will try to give more garage saleing advice as the season progresses. Maybe I should start a garage saleing tutorial web site?

Dan

So tonight was our weekly dinner that we have for our college age friends and we had about 13 people! We cooked hot dogs and hamburgers so it was cheap. It is really neat to see what God is doing with all these people. 5 guys came from my lab which was fun, a few of them are leaving this summer and not coming back, that is the hard thing about school people are always graduating! except for me that is.

Found out today that I have 2 weeks to build a new solar panel for my doc's robot that is being tested in the desert. I have never made a solar panel so it is good experience for me, I am a little worried about the deadline though. I really am not into all nighters like these guys do, I can do it but I am shot for the next few days. If anyone cares the solar panel will be about 30X35 inches and have 6 strings of cells giving me a wopping 16 volts at 6 amps a little over 100 watts. I am just learning all this so don't be impresed, the solar panel that is on the robot now was made by undergrads and we all know how shoddy that can be!

 

daddy "without a muffler a car would be loud"

zeke "what about tooties?"

daddy "you need a muffler for your tooties?"

zeke "noooo that would be scratchy!"

 

till tomorrow.

Dan

The pie festival last weekend was interesting, it was kind of rainy so that was not good. This is a very small town probably (without the Oklahoma city housing additions) about the size of Udal (not real big) but they had this huge Baptist church with a gym. Well anyway we walked around and visited the museum and the town store, and then before we knew it we were walking out into the country. We didn't stay long, didn't have any pie either it was 3 bucks a slice and who knows if it was worth it or not. Although the Piedmont Pie Festival shirts were kind of hard for me to turn down, maybe next year.

We are considering going to the Chinese church that meets at the same time our church meets in the same building. We go to Sunday school and then would go to the Chinese Church, they speak in English, but sometimes maybe I could practice my pu tong hua! I would like at least to know one other language well, Chinese seems to be the one so far. I know a few key phrases in Spanish (big fat loser) but not anywhere close to being fluent. I need to have a Chinese office mate that can't speak English then I would get some learning done!

Well had better go, today I am working on a Robot with 3 swedish wheels, I am going to call it Picard just cause I have a Picard poster head that I will put on it.

Dan

Angie "I love you"

Zeke "yeah doodly doo doodly doo"

 have a tooth that hurts, this really disturbs me. Every time I go the dentist it hurts so bad, even just a clean. you see I didn't take care of my teeth real well in college or high school so now I am paying the price, I floss and brush now well but the damage is done. I fantasize about dentures, when I go to bed I just plop them babies out into a glass of something minty. No more painful bites, dentist visits, or discolored smiles. My dad says that dentures are painful as well, they gotta be better than this though. I guess I see teeth the same way as hair, if it starts falling out take it all out and be done with it!

I am done with all my classes and projects, now I am busy with all the small stuff I didn't do during the semester. I am trying to get our car and licenses transferred over to Oklahoma, going to be a hassle and probably expensive. I also finished a microcontroller for a prof here, he taught my class and a little brown nosing help now and then.

We are going to have a movie party at our apartment complex outside this weekend and invite all the little kids, I will borrow a projector from the lab and hang a sheet. That should be fun.

until tomorrow.

Dan

I got a speedometer for my bike for my birthday (March 31) from my lovely wife, since then I have logged over 100 miles. Feels good to ride to work everyday and I think it is getting me in shape even though it is not far. Sometimes, when it is muddy out, it is a hassle to ride and I look like  a dork in my helmet but Angie has Zeke trained to ask me to wear it on the way out, who can say no.

Grammy and Papa (Angie's parents) came on saturday for a surprise visit, we met them at the omniplex (really cool science museum) and stayed there all day and then they took us out for dinner that night, good time. Zeke was tired and didn't do well in nursery the next day at church.

We are headed back in two weeks for graduation party and baby shower and haircut and whatever else we can fit in, mom by the way if you read this we will be coming home on Thursday night and staying till Saturday.

I have one more controls project due on Wednesday then I am done with classes for the semester, I am working full time for the Doc this summer and he already has a few projects lined up for me. I may be going to California to support the rover tests there in June. Also my abstract on Europa porbe steering (boring) got accepted to a conference in September in Santa Rosa CA, so I have to write that paper this summer. That will be my first publication, hopefully not the last I need to publish a lot to get a job teaching.

Well no new Zeke quotes that I can remember, sorry this is kind of slow news day but that is what you get when I write daily and when I don't get paid for it.

Dan

No riding today we have to go to a defense and eat pizza. This morning I took my seat off my bike so that the mile and half to work is a little more exercise, it worked! I couldn't sit and coast. I like the feel of my bike without the seat, I can steer from the rear a little better without the seat getting in my way. I am sure people saw me and thought "oh that poor student got his seat stolen and couldn't afford to replace it"

Well I did my presentation on Escalators yesterday, everyone got applause for their presentation but I got two....(boastful tone). I don't mean to brag but my movie clip on Jacobs ladder was a hit, also the FLASH program that sends people flying off the escalator was popular. What can I say I know what this generation likes. The teacher asked me when I was going to start writing for the simpsons, I am not sure how to take that. So I am done with the multi media class, I just have a controls project to complete now, yesterday my classmates sent me to the teacher to ask questions because they know he likes me better. What can I say I am a big suck up. I am making a micro controller card for him for one of his projects so that pretty much sent me over the top to A status in his class. We have evaluations at the end of every class, when a teacher is not popular then students look forward to this time and make a point to be there with pencils sharp to fill in circles in hopes of making them feel better about the semester. The mood in controls class during evaluations was a serious and therapeutic one to say the least.

Tomorrow I think we are going to a small town nearby and be part of a pie tasting contest, that should be worth writing about.

Well until Monday, keep her between the ditches.

Venus was her name!

Thursday morning and I am giving a presentation on escalators today, I can't wait. I think I got some entertaining stuff but more than anything I just like attention so the presentation arena fits me well. A lot of people are nervous in front of people, I used to be but now it feeds my need for attention like gasonline on a fire! Maybe that is why I want to be a teacher, all those people looking at me and they have to be there for their grade! I think I am going to try to write everyday to this blog, they may be shorter but I think that I won't forget as much then.

Friday at 3:30 a "collegue" is giving his defense, usually they bring food for this so I will be there. After that is a party at my Prof's house for drinks. We have a sitter so we will go to the party and then when that gets old we will head to barnes and noble for a little R and R. I think I will start a list of my body parts that are hurting and post them on this blog, maybe this is more of the attention thing. Anyway my knee really hurt yeterday, I squatted down and bam.... pain. My pregnany wife really didn't feel sorry for me.

Zeke "We have a nice potty"

Zeke in the car "keep it between the ditches daddy"

Since I am not wanting to work on my project and my sister is hounding me to post the lyrics to the flippo song...well that is what I will do. This is a song Zeke, Angie and I wrote. A lot of it is born out of the emotional trauma that We the Flippos have endured. 

 

F.L.I.P.P.O

That is my name

everybody knows

Flippo

 

may sound funny 

I suspect

but you better say

it with respect

Flippo...

 

chorus

Got that name from my Pa

he got it down in Arkansas

Flippo

 

it is spelled the way it sounds

but I always have to spell it out

Flippo

 

no I am not a dolphin or a clown

and your not the first to try that joke out

Flippo

 

Chorus again

 

Well there it is, it has a groovin bluegrass riff to it. maybe someday I will go to River and get it recorded. 

Today my son and I, as we were walking to the park, discussed when and where it is appropriate to pick our noses. Up till now there have been "safe" picking areas such as the bathroom and his bed, no we have graduated to where we don't pick in front of other people, this is kind of hard for him since he is rarely alone but he will overcome.

I have been listening to the 80's music station on the web, I don't have serious documentation but I do see a definit improvement with productivity. I also have honed my 80's music trivia prowess, I took on my sister in law the other day (who has bragged that she knows the 80's scene) in a little 80's music trivia. The songs were played and the first to guess of course gets the point. We will just say that she has some more listening to do, at least I am a good sport about it....mostly.

The janitor here at Felger hall is named Richard, he is a good guy and we have a conversation most days. He is Creek indian and has taught me some words in his language. I found it funny that the word for girl is "Hokie". So from now on I will try to use my creek language when referring to Hokies. I also have learned from my Spanish friend the term gordo perdador, which means big fat loser. Someday I will pull that out of my vonacular arsenal and it will be a defining moment for Dan Flippo.

I have a presentation to do on escalators this Thursday, most people wonder why I am studying escalators, I say escalators are machines too. here is the site to see my presentation

http://mmeng.ou.edu/107/project/home.htm it is actually a media class that I am learning FLASH and some other programs. I am thinking about making a movie about martians attacking Ann of Green Gables.

Well I had better head out.

Zeke "I ate too much my belly fat like mommies"

Zeke in the car "keep it off the grass daddy"