Friday, June 30, 2006

Friday

ending 92083 - I think I only rode to work and back today. About 90 degrees and PLENTY warm on the bike.

Had dinner with Jason and his wife tonight. Nice evening!

GOOD day to be in A/C

not good! My work pc!

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Pix

I need to get some pix posted. I'm way behind on that.

Friday/Saturday plans...busy with Masonic stuff:

BBQ on Friday night and I'm working at burger day on Saturday at the lodge. Last month I went there as a member of the public eating burgers.
This month I go as a fellow brother of the lodge (working AND eating).
:)
Sunday...wide open...I need to get the starter out of the Suburban and see if it's bad. A little time on the old GoldWing too? Maybe work on the screwdriver antenna?

Monday is July 3 (happy birthday Grandpa Orville! - he'd be 94 - wow time flies)

Tuesday is the day we celebrate Independence from (and now alliance with!) those wonderful Brits....no work!

Weds....back to the grindstone.... :(

Thursday

Thursday starts after a long Weds. night working with the TAC on a Unity problem. Jerrie calls me Thursday morning and says her truck is acting weird again...
We decide it needs to go to the dealer for a brain scan. So she drops it off in Burnsville at Park Jeep on the way home from a meeting in Prior Lake. It made it that far and that's good!

I went down to pick her up and bring her downtown to work. I had Punkin along, so I went back home to work for the afternoon and took the bike down later to bring Jerrie back home. Nice bike ride home and we stopped at Krumarczuk's (sp?) for dinner. Their Warsaw Ham is SO good.

Tonight I met with mentor from the lodge to go over some material for my exam there later this month. Had a great time doing that and it was a perfect night to study outside in his back porch. Headed home (on the bike), had a little snack with Jerrie and now I'm laying here catching up on the blog!

Weds.

Weds. I worked a little late to get a head start on some stuff.
Jerrie made pork chops and in spite of a carbonizing of part of them { :) } they were DARN good.
The apple raisin stuffing was most excellent and she made me brussels sprouts...I love em! AND her.

Then we started clearing out the room that's to become Austin's nursery/bedroom. VERY DISAPPOINTING to find
the the Queen guest bed we bought about a year ago won't go upstairs or downstairs!
This little old 1953 Cape Cod will only allow a double bed to go on either set of stairs. :(
We have a king bed upstairs in the master Suite, but it's a "sleep number" bed, so it can go anywhere.
The box spring of the Queen guest bed would not go up or down the stairs NO HOW>

So it sits in the living room!

I was able to get the mattress downstairs to get IT out of the way at least.

ECI 13

OK...so Tuesday I wake up knowing that I have a big test to take Tuesday evening for CAP. I working on getting promoted to Captain in CAP (Civil Air Patrol.)

http://www.mncap.org/viking

It's kind of a busy day at work, but I wrap it up, put on my uniform and head over to Eden Prairie to take the test. It's a nice evening and I get to take the motorcycle.

I get over there and Capt. Collins is all ready to go with the test. It's the "ECI 13" test. A test of knowledge about a BUNCH of things for Civil Air Patrol officers.
Stuff about history, the Air Force, Aviation, Uniforms, US Flag history, Commuincations (writing and speaking), and Leadership and stuff I'm probably forgetting.
It's a LOT of material. I start taking the test. Some questions...very easy...I remembered the info easily... Others...I'm thinking "What book is this from?!"

Anyway, I got through thing in about an hour. I left there wondering if I was going to pass! I'll have to wait till the Air Force grades the test and sends out the results in a couple of weeks.

When I got back from the test I looked through the material and found that most of my "guesses" were probably right. The material WAS in the book and I apparently didn't recall it conciously, but it was back in the old brain.

So we'll see how it goes. I sure hope I pass, but I won't be the first to fail it. I have to say it's a tough test. Just a lot of material to cover.
I've gained new respect for all those Captains and above who have passed good old ECI 13!

Hope I'm done with it. Then I'll need to order up some captain's bars I guess!

I've been 1st. Lt. long enough.
:)

I'm an Entered Apprentice


I have so many things going on this week and I'm way behind on Blogging!

It's been a very exciting week and prior weekend.
Saturday was mostly dedicated to ham radio and Field Day.
Sunday was a day of relaxation for the most part.

Monday was kind of normal day that turned into an extraordinary evening.
It was the evening I became a Freemason and member of the Lake Harriet Lodge #277 AF & AM

Somtime I'll have to post all the history behind why I pursued the Masons. I have a lot of it written.

Monday evening I put on my best suit (and the only one that fits presently!) and headed over to the lodge at 5pm.
Met with some of the brothers for paperwork and other discussions and we sat down for a delicious ribs dinner at 6pm.
A lodge meeting was then held at 7pm while the 3 other candidates and I were prepped for the evening.
In the meeting I was voted in as an acceptable candidate for the degrees of Masonry! That alone was very good news indeed and
it just got better as the night went on. Myself and the other 3 candidates were made the newest Entered Apprentices of the lodge.
After we were initiated, there was much handshaking and congratulating going on. They were truly glad we were there and we were
made very welcome.

After a short meeting of the new brothers (us!) with our mentor, we broke and went to have refreshments.

I had a great time after meeting talking with the other brothers in the lodge. Time flew by and next thing it was after midnight!

I know after Monday that I have chosen the right lodge.

I had a bit of a headache from all the excitement...one of those "good" headaches I get occasionally from big events, like new jobs, weddings and
big moments in life. :)

All this week I keep thinking about it. It almost doesn't seem real. I'm really looking forward to progressing through the degrees, meeting more brothers and participating in the lodge.

On the way home from lodge I had a great chat on 2 meters after midnight as you see in another post! It was a great way to cap the evening.

I'm proud to be one of the newest members of Lake Harriet Lodge!

Thursday, June 29, 2006

92064 ending

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Wednesday, June 28, 2006

fire drill!

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fuel
92023
116mi
3.287g
2.939per
xerxes
1158am

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92022 ending mi yest.

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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Brady's Sub-Optimal Blog

Worked KA6TMQ - Rich - tonight on the .85 machine on the way home from Lodge. Nice contact!

Sunday, June 25, 2006

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
test keyboard test
1234567890($#)!?@:,"'/&
dropped the fone!

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FM Modulator

I need to take a pic of the FM modulator I use on the bike. It's one of the best Christmas presents ever.

I bought the FT-7800 to put on the bike. But the FT-50 works so well, I may never put it on the bike! Plus, I love the 7800 in the car!

Masons

Tomorrow I hope to become a member of Lake Harriet Lodge #277 A.F. & A.M.
(Ancient Free and Accepted Masons) http://www.lhl277.org/

They'll be voting on accepting me and if all goes well, I'll become an entered apprentice into the craft.

I'm very much looking forward to it.

I hope to go through the "first degree" which will make me an entered apprentice. From all I hear and all I read, it should be a very interesting evening indeed.

It's fascinating to become a part of an organization with their ideals and history.

All the men I've met at the lodge have been good, helpful, friendly men. Becoming part of fraternity with them and learning and improving myself are very intriguing. I guess you get to a point in your life where you feel you can do more and be more. I'm there.

If you are reading this and unfamiliar with Freemasonry, go to google and check out the "grand lodge" sites. There is generally one grand lodge site for each state.

Up until the last year I was so ignorant of Masonry that I didn't even know that all Shriners are masons. (Not all Masons are Shriners, though!)
My mom knew that! I guess Masonry needs a boost in publicity. Yes, part of it are "secret." There are many parts of all of our lives that are secret or private.
Fortunately, with the Internet there is a lot of good information available on Masonry. Of course, like everything else on the Internet, there is a lot of mis-information.
Use your brain and sort it out. That is necessary with any Intnernet information.

So, as I find out more firsthand, I'll post my experiences...within the prescribed limits. I expect all of those experiences to be positive!
:)

Pix from Field Day and radio install on GoldWing

Got the pix up from Field Day and of the "quick" radio installon the bike.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradypalmquist/sets/72157594176412361

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Field day 2006


Ending miles today 91978 - which means about 83 miles today...a guess since I don't know the starting miles, but I do know I drove to Burnsville and bought gas. 12.9 from Home to the SA at CR42 and CR11 according to mapquest.

After buying gas I headed down to the Field Day site for TCRC (Burnsville group). Their site is just north of Farmington on Hwy 3. Looked around there and talked to a few folks and decided to head out and get ahead of the weather over to Hastings (SEMARC group). Not too long after I got to Hastings it did start to rain and was able to put the bike under the shelter there. It rained a fair amount, but not a downpour and no hail...and just a few wind gusts.

Talked with KC0FMI, N0UC, KX0N, W0FH, WB0OND and a few others I've forgotten calls and names for.

Had a delicious bar-b-cue dinner, cake and coffee too. Got out of there when the rain stopped and headed home to find the skies clearing nicely! Took a few pics with the phone and need to get those posted.

No operating, but did listen in while some of the guys worked some phone anyway.

Oh yeah! Almost forgot ....put the HT on the bike today with a mag mount on a sheet of metal I fastened to the luggage rack on the bike's trunk. Worked great! Very little ignition noise. I once tried using the HT on my belt, but ignition noise was terrible and made it useless.

On the Larsen NMO-MM mount, I put a little quarter wave sort of dual-bander thing. I was able to fasten the holster for the FT-50 to the bike in a great spot that allowed me to view the display.

I ran the coax under the seat up to the radio. Initially, I tried listening with the speaker mic, but need more full audio response and more level without distortion at highway speed.
So I popped into radio shack and bought a cable so I could take the audio out of the speaker/mics headphone jack and pump it into my FM Broadcast modulator. I ususally use that modulator to play mp3s off memory sticks. It has a line level input and I used the new cable to connect from the headphone jack on the speaker mike to the modulator. It worked great! The audio over the bike's FM radio system was very easy to hear (though I need a mono to stereo adapter so it comes out of both speakers instead of just one!). I didn't use the radio to transmit, but did listen to 2m and 440 all day. Lots of weather stuff going on, so it was nice to be able to stay up to date with the weather nets.

Al...thanks for the antenna mount from the "GLV" goodie box! It worked great.

Only a minor issue..the stupid modulator puts out some garbage in the 2meter band (kind of all over), but was able to minimize that by picking the right frequency for the FM band and positioning the modulator properly.

gas 91906
133 mi
3.99g
2.769per
sa bville
232pm

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Friday, June 23, 2006

start 91783

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Tuesday, June 20, 2006

flower of the day!

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Tuesday, June 13, 2006

ending 91790
edina
mpls
hopkins

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fill

91773
xerxes
4.062 g
2.899 per
$11.67
910 pm
6/13

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Monday, June 05, 2006

Saturday...Burger Day

I stopped in for Burger Day at the Lake Harriet Masonic Lodge on Saturday...
Great burgers! And I got to meet quite a number of officers at the lodge. I had a very enjoyable time and spent the better part of 2 hours there.

I'm very interested in their organization. It seems they have a lot to offer men and their communities.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

GPS abuse


Here's a pic of Sunday's ride..click on it for a larger version.

This is from my Garmin Etrex Legend GPS and MetroGuide Software.

Never really looked much at the "track" files the GPS creates, but they are quite detailed.

Here's a slice of todays ride:


Almost scary how much it records!

NICE day for riding...and a little sunburn..


Look at this ...the highest level of detail....note the 39 foot section in blue.

I drove into a Cub Foods parking lot to grab a soda..

You can see I stopped from for like 18 minutes there...

I need APRS to send this stuff up to the computer in semi-real-time! :)

(click any of the pictures for a bigger version).

ending 91724

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starting today 91662 approx

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Thursday, June 01, 2006

Gizmo!

I took this pic on the way home from First Thursday...a cool little electric powered pizza delivery car. At the moment, the driver was delivering a pizza to a house.

I need to get some pics from First Thursday posted!

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punkin playing with the dog across the street!

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Maxtrac

Put the 440 Mhz/UHF maxtrac in the Suburban last night. Nice night for working outside, but did have a few mosquitoes already!

Yeah, the maxtrac worked fine after sitting for years, but the stuff I have programmed in there is not TOO useful.
So I get to drag out the old computer and re-program a few channels. Will be nice to have radio back in the 'burb'.

Using just a quarter wave fender mount...I should put something on the roof.

fuel
91633
3.912 g
$10.95
2.799 per- 89octane
1 june 06 @1320h

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