This weekend I got possibly the most difficult part done!

I finally got the biggest part done that I couldnt do alone.  Last semester i went to observe a welding class at a high school.  The teacher is a graduate from our program.  He is a cool guy so I asked him if he would be able to help me with this very task and he agreed.  it took a few months from that day but on saturday the 8th of march 2014, we welded on a hoop to complete the look i was going for with this bike.  The lines are much different now having gotten rid of that huge poofy seat that was comfortable but hideous (thank you the 80's).  I rode it to and from the high school and then back from my parents house.  A total of 12 miles or so but it is good to ride again.  I need to get going on a seat pan so I can stop getting a butt full of moving tire and a crack full of gravel but it is really coming along.  What do you think of the new rear end?  I am loving this look way more than the previous style.

The bike is coming along

I've done a little work on my bike over the past couple weekends.  It used to be ugly and 80s funky but now it looks taken apart and minimalistic.  It is coming along and I'm excited.  One big thing to note is that the apple cider vinegar trick to remove rust is totally true.  I started off with just two gallons of it and after a week it was working so well that I poured it all out and removed as much rust flakes as I could then I put it back in and got four more gallons to add to the tank so it would be as close to full as it could possibly be.  I just flipped it over this evening and set it over a bucket so it drips into the bucket to let it work in the rust on the very top of the tank.  I'm excited to pour it all out and see how we are doing tomorrow.  I removed the carbs last week and cleaned them.  They were pretty dirty after not riding much the last could months because the winter but they cleaned up well too.  I took all the parts and screws that I thought I could and put them in the vinegar as well but I took them out after just an hour because some of the little parts had a rust proofing and the vinegar was removing it.  The biggest difference in appearance is the lack of all the old seat and trim pieces.  I also took off the old gauges because I'm not using them anymore.  They are bulky and ugly anyway.  I got a new speedo for Christmas and a couple of blinkers and a stop light.  They are mostly from eBay but they will do I hope.  Today in the shop at school I made a little bracket to hold the license plate below the brake light.  It turned out really well for a quick job on the band saw and brake.

I was Robbed

We went and stayed with my in-laws for christmas and spent a whole week just hanging out and enjoying company.  On friday morning my wife's sister came in and said that our van hatch was open and the door was popped open.  I figured that we must have left it open all night and went on with life.  Today we were getting everything in the car and and i noticed my toolbox was gone.  I always bring my toolbox when we go on the road in case I need to use the tools.  Anyway, I look around and realize that it was stolen and the day that everyone was telling me that the car was open was the day or morning it happened.  I have heard of people telling me before about how their tools were stolen once and how much it sucks but I couldnt ever say anything other than that sucks.  Now I know how it feels.  I made that toolbox in high school.  I collected those tools over the past decade.  Many memories are tied to those things and while they are just things, the pain of being stolen from, being violated like that really hurts.  The tools can be replaced and life will go on but I am still hurt.  I guess all I can say is farewell to my tools.  We had some great times.  I just hope that whoever they serve next will treat them well and that they will work hard.

Final 276 post!

So the semester is almost over but I still feel a lot of stress.  After Wednesday it will be way easier.  Its not the finals that are worrying me this semester but everything else it takes to get there.  I feel like if I am going to teach something when i graduate from this program, it needs to be computers and electronics.  Nothing else really floats my boat.  I just finished watching our 6th grade teaching video and i was thinking about so many things we could have done better like teach something else.  I'm really disappointed that we didn't do the spud lab like the other group.  I loved that lab when we did it last year and it totally didn't occur to me that we could do that.  It is all done now but what a missed opportunity.  I wasn't excited to teach airplanes.  Aviation isn't what is in my head all the time.  If I am going to teach in the future, its gotta be one of my passions that I teach.  i love electronics and computers.  I do that stuff for free.  I really don't get tired of it either.  I got tired of the airplane lesson before we even started and that is a problem.  I'm not in a very good mood tonight.  I have a lot on my plate and it is uncomfortable.  Maybe I should have saved this post for Wednesday night.

Week 12

We had the chance to teach Ms. Hensen's 6th grade class at Mapleton elementary this week.  We prepared a lesson on flight and we used paper airplanes to keep the kids attention.  They seemed to really like it and were interested.  The kids were forgiving to our teaching.  When we made mistakes they didn't jump all over us for it.  It was a good experience but I was not happy with the lesson.  I didn't care for it because i was bored while we were preparing it.  I don't want to teach about why planes fly.  I want to teach technology, more specifically, I want to teach how certain technologies work and be able to play around with them.  If we had a plane to fly around it would be different.  Paper airplanes just aren't enough for me.  Everything went fine, but I was bored.  As I heard about the other groups and the lesson they taught on electronics I was excited.  Lighting LED's and messing around with wires to shock the whole class sounds fun and educational.  I dont know why I didnt think to do that stuff.  That is what I like to do.  The only thing i can do now is wait for next time.

Week 11!

This week we prepared for teaching the six grade kids in maple ton when we come back from thanksgiving break.  Our group is going to teach about the physics of flying.  We are going to use paper airplanes and talk about or really have the kids experiment and see why certain styles and designs of paper airplanes work and why they don't.  I'm not really excited to teach this subject.  After hearing the one of the other groups talk about potato batteries and having the kids do that it makes me want to scrap the whole plane idea but its too late for that.  I will still be a team player and teach and act as excited as is appropriate but our lesson plan is boring.  I'm hoping that it can be over soon and we can move on. 

Week 10!

We had our last stl lesson presentations this week.  They were pretty good today.  The activities were engaging and they were things that I wanted to do so it wasn't a chore to do them.  I kinda want to talk about my woods project that im working on.  I am building the writing desk and of the three options that were available to us i thought my Paige could use a little desk when she gets older for school and stuff.  Tate and I will make something else so he can have that experience with me but I decided to give the desk to Paige.  Its coming along really well.  I wasn't making good progress on it last week and then I decided that I was going to speed up and do things my way instead of looking at the plans so much.  In the beginning you have to look at the plans because I didn't make my own plans so I was using someone else's idea and it is a little complicated but now its really coming together.  Today I cut the drawer rings to fit inside the desk and give it some much needed structure.  We have a dado blade set for the table saws but there are so many students in the class and they are all trying to use the same dado set so i just went over to the table saw and did the work way quicker because I wasn't feeling the pressure to hurry up so some one else can use it.  because i decided to go this route, Im farther ahead than I would have expected to be and Im feeling good about the whole thing.  I even had the whole thing put together as a pre-dry fit and I am very pleased with my own work.  It may not be the coolest thing ive ever made but it is by far the finest thing I have ever made.  I have never used so many good tools and machines.  I have never really had the chance to work with anything but plywood and pine 2x4s.  That is the stuff you can buy at home depot and so my work was construction site grade.  Im going on too long with this but im having fun except for the little quizzes that Dr. C has to make the class a class.  If it was just go work in the wood shop I would love this class.  As it is now, it stresses me out.