Sunday, November 15, 2009

New Project - Bobber



Thanks to Mr. Grant McCaleb I have a new project. He is such a good influence! This Bike really needs some work... On friday I put the carbs back on (they were unattached, and banged up) and cut off some stuff to simplify the look, changed the mag wheels to spokes.. give me a few weeks and hopefully it will be up and running.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

1936 BMW R12


I mean... whats so wrong with wanting a motorcycle collection?

Monday, October 26, 2009

Kelly D.


We did the Thanksgiving point Scare Crow Festival with Lee, Jo, and Soren.
James and I spent some time on these peddle carts. He was a natural.
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Monday, October 12, 2009

Siblings


In all our glory - Together we are the equivalent of a 154 year old athletic she-man! with 11 kids, 4 houses, 9 cars, plus 1 dog. I love my siblings.

  • Shara - Was laughing too hard to do anything but jump.
  • keri - Wonderwomen and will probably save an entire 3rd world country.
  • Dan - How does he keep his shirt tucked in? amazing.
  • Jeromy - Gap Model
  • Shane - Just spilt an invisable tight rope and is impacting... painfully

Nielson Ponds

Here is one of my projects. Its a 200 acre foot p0nd.. when I say pond I mean small lake. Easily big enough for multiple boats and water skiers. Its been a fun one for me. (It is empty in these pictures.) It has 2 embankments that combined are a little under 1200 feet long.

I always wonder what people really do for work. I design dams and pipelines, and any water structures, review canal systems to make sure they work, design culverts and such. I do studies on stream and river capacities. I design Fish ladders, spillways, diversions, weirs, flumes.. and things like that. This happens to be the same thing my dad does.. but add more soils and mining...


Stats for Dad:
  • 27 feet of head
  • 3:1 upstream
  • 2:1 downstream
  • Filtered toe drain w/ 8 inch slotted ADS separated in to left and right
  • its a homogeneous clay compacted at 95% Standard proctor
  • the clays optimum moisture is around 18% It was hard to keep it that wet
  • riprap D50 = 6 inch (I submitted a memo to Dam safety with wave analysis to get it that small and saved $40,000)
  • 10' bottom width spillway 3 to 1 side slopes 3 feet deep with a 3 foot concrete cutoff ripraped for 50'. Max Q = about 264 cfs
  • 15 inch outlet conduit - which fills and empties the reservoir from another control reservoir that I'm redoing. with a sand collar and a 4 inch drain pipe seperate from the 2 toe drains
  • its off stream and has essentailly no water shed.
  • around 23,000 CY to build. (it was an enlargement of a smaller dam not meeting any dam saftey requirments.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Training


Friday, September 18, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


Lauren is now the same age I was when we got married... What a Women!

Yamaha xt 500 - I think.


BIG NEWS - I got another motorcycle for FREE! It pays to do Engineering Design work for ranchers! I'm building this fellow 2 dams. I was at his ranch the other day and he gave me this Motorcycle. I'm not sure if its a 1978 or 79 or 80.. I think its a 79 and I think its a 500cc.

So I have a new project! This bike is going to shine! first major overhauls;
  • clean the collaborator (there's only 1!) my cb 550 had 4 stinking carbs
  • the handle bars need to go
  • the seat will be recovered
  • new plastic up front
  • paint
  • new break light
  • fork boots
Oh right and I have to make sure It will even run.... I love motorcycle projects

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Rockets

We had an Amazing Family Reunion where the whole family minus a few hardy folks got horribly sick. We managed however to play way to much 'Ticket to Ride' and Shoot a 2 liter bottle 150 feet in the air. Maybe higher, we were afraid of going over 85 psi on the bottle, I didn't want to pick plastic shrapnel out of my face. Anyway there was all sorts of other things we did, guns, 4 wheelers, swimming, shopping for watches.

Observations:
  • I am getting to a place where a highlight of vacations and reunions are definitely the kids.
  • It seems that playing with cousin is about as fun as life gets. I always look forward to time with cousins. I wonder why this is.
  • As I watch the young kids play I realize how old I am, and how old I must seem to them.
  • Hunger Games is a good book.