See what happens?

I spend seven hours in the car (not all at once, thank god) yesterday, ace my general exam, then spend all night dreaming of the collapse of society due to compromised computer networks and panicky people.

And now I’m cuckoo for coax, trying to figure out all the little details of my first couple homebrew antennas. I think there’s going to be a copper J-pole and a smallish variety of wire antennas (say, one end-fed longwire, a couple inverted-Vs, and maybe a dipole or two for the higher HF bands.

Or maybe not

I’m such a flip-flopper, I should run for President. A month or two back, I went to taijutsu and I was all fired up for it and all was great. I haven’t been back because I’ve been busy. The Wife’s been slowing down so as to not cause too many Braxton-Hicks contractions, which means that she’s having a harder time keeping up with The Boy. For his part, The Boy has figured out that The Wife can’t really catch him or make him comply, so he’ll occasionally just selectively ignore her when something better comes along. Say, chickens, for example.

So instead of going to taijutsu, I go back to the ranch and try to give The Wife a breather for an hour or two in the evening, and try to give The Boy a chance to either “Climb daddy’s back, please” or “Jump ceiling faster!” I like the idea of going to taijutsu, but the reality is that I don’t see me having the time to go to class for the next year or two. And that’s OK. After all, the beginning of taijutsu was farmers that were banned from having traditional weapons had to figure out creative ways to fight to protect their families and communities. Someday, I’ll most likely get back to class, but for now, I figure I’ll focus on enjoying what we’ve been fighting for over the last 900 years. I’m sure the head of the art, Ol’ Ninja Britches, would understand.

“General”ly messing about

This weekend, early, in fact, Saturday morning, I go to Tomahawk, WI, to take my General class ham radio license exam. Woot, and whatnot.

I’ve been seriously studying for about a month or so, and I think I’m ready to go. You can see if you’re ready to go (or what I’m getting myself into) by checking out these practice exams that are pulled right from the actual test question pool. I’ve been doing pretty well on those practice tests, so I think I’m ready for the big time.

This new license will give me a whole lot more privileges on the air. So far, I’ve been pretty much restricted to playing with VHF radios that are more-or-less line of sight rigs. A lot depends on antenna and amplifier setup, but with the radio in my car, I can reliably get a signal out between twenty and forty miles. With my new ticket in hand (and a new radio in the house!), I’ll have potentially world-wide communication ability in the HF (think shortwave, though that’s not technically correct) radio bands.

Just think: I’ll be able to ignore my chores while yakking with someone in Europe, Aisa, or the southern Pacific who’s also ignoring chores. Booya!

Also: Kevin, this means you no longer have an excuse to wait. Heck, I’ll even send you my manual if you promise to take the dang test already.

Ain’t dead

I’m even working on a good ol’ leftist essay about how ethanol fuel is stupid from almost every angle. But you’ll have to wait, because for a change, I figured I’d actually revise the thing a little. You know, that whole “work on it and polish it until it’s better than a first draft” theory they keep pushing in writing classes around the nation’s middle schools? I thought I’d give it a try for a change.

My Bad…

Alright, alright; I figure it’s time to get on here and give my excuses reasons for not posting for a while, not that unexplained absences are anything new on this blog.

It boils down to this: I’ve been a busy, busy boy. Work has been going nuts lately with the IT offices moving across the street into the basement of the Courthouse Annex and now residing in a purpose-built space. We’ve pulled almost five miles of Cat6 data cable, 90 percent of which ends in one of almost 200 data jacks in the IT suite. We’ve even terminated half of that, and now that we have more patch panels, the punch-down tool and I will resume our torrid on-again, off-again affair.

Home life has been busy, too. The Boy is definitely a two-and-a-half year-old; sometimes he’s the sweetest, most thoughtful kid on the face of the planet, and sometimes he’s a raging monster that makes me want to pull my nose hair out with white-hot pliers. But no matter his mood, it continues to be my primary mission to be a good dad and husband, so when I get home, I try really hard to be home. I try to put aside the blog, outstanding work, and other things to concentrate on The Wife and The Boy (and The New Kid, too, some).

So there you go: the briefest of unapologetic semi-updates. I’d like to say that I’ll post more on the blog, but the proof of the pudding’s in how it sticks on your neighbor’s wall. Or something like that.