Rob's Journal » Family

Trip To Point du Hoc

rob — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:57:16 +0000

Click here for the map

This is pretty cool! Here is the track log from my GPS on my side trip to Point du Hoc, France. You can see the routes Dave and I took along the Normandy coast. I’m going to try to figure out how to add geotagged photos to the map, next.

GeoCaching

rob — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:12:28 +0000

Bella and I started looking for a geocache yesterday afternoon. It was a two part ‘cache and we found the first, which was the coordinates of the real cache. It got dark and we had to abandon the search for the cache and went back today and found it. The autumn leaves made the finding the green ammo can in the woods pretty tough. We were walking in circles for about 40 minutes before we spotted it.

Bella looked through the cache and chose a happy meal toy someone had left. We put in a toy car, which we dubbed ‘Gunner’s Bling’, with a notation to get it to Australia (at Bella’s request).

If you want to learn more about geocaching, go to www.geocaching.com

Happy Halloween

rob — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 00:00:22 +0000

Bella and Gunner came by the office today after Bella’s Halloween school parade.

Bonnie Gets Hitched

rob — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:54:16 +0000

Congratulations to Bonnie and John. They were married in New Bedford, Mass., this weekend. Here’s to your future together!

On a related note, Gunner got his first plane ride on the way home from the wedding. He is a great traveler, just like his sister.

Now that’s a Wasp!

rob — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 03:30:29 +0000

More wasps! This one was flying around inside the house. Diffinitly not a Yellow Jacket. This one was huge with a tiny waist and big stinger. I dusted it with that Sevin, so that’s why it looks powdery-white.

Rob Goes Chemical on a Yellow Jacket Nest

rob — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 03:46:51 +0000

First, the back story. I was mowing the lawn Sunday afternoon when I got stung by one, then two bees. I realized I had hit a piece of bark that was laying on the ground that came off the big tree that we felled last year. Well, I turned around and saw a swarm gathering behind me. I must have looked like 5-year-old palsy kid as I hopped and yipped across the yard. I ended up getting stung about 5 times, as a few of the little suckers had flown or crawled up my shirt and jeans.

It didn’t take long after a little Googling to figure out what I had uncovered, and how to deal with it.

I waited for a cool, rainy night when the bees were less active. The first task was to find the hole the wasps were using to crawl in and out of their nest. I read that it can be as small as a soda straw. I set about the task with a rake and a light touch. There was a lot of bark in the pile and each time I pulled a piece away I winced and braced for a swarm. Piece after piece came away until I hit the honeypot.

The bees whipped up into a small angry cloud and I high stepped it, chucking the rake and running for the can of RAID Wasp and Hornet Killer spray. I shot volley after volley at the little swarm and saw them sputter and drop. Then I saw it, that last piece of bark was covering the top of the nest. The exposed portion looked like a buried volleyball. Oh, this was gonna be sweet.

The Raid spray was the initial knockdown, and there were wasps crawling around, but the hammer was the insecticide powder I dumped on the hive. The stuff is called SEVIN-5 made by Garden Tech, the active ingredient is 5% Carbaryl, and it was $10 for a 5 lb. bag. The one-two punch of the spray and powder ended the fight in minutes, although I suspect the darkness and dampness were contributing factors.

An overhead view of the hive. Notice that it’s partly out of the ground. The bees had dug the nest in under some sheets of bark and must have thought that was good enough cover. The white stuff is the insecticide powder I dumped on it after hitting it with the spray.

For the coupe de gras, I waited about 5 minutes and then broke open the top of the nest to see the body count.

The writhing mass of yellow jackets in the throes of death.

The honeycomb with wriggling larve.

Lastly, a photo of what I’m guessing is the queen. It was about three times the size of the other wasps and crawling away…slowly, so slowly. Heh. Revenge.

Bella’s 31337!!

rob — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 01:14:21 +0000

Well, my first computer was a Franklin 1000, an Apple II knockoff. That thing had a floppy disk drive, a green monitor, and a 300 baud modem. Bella’s new $100 craigslist grab has 60gigs, firewire and a 5meg fiber connection to the internet.

She’s all over the Disney Playhouse website, and two kids programs I got for her at MacWorld, Kid Pix and Dr. Seuss.

And before anybody asks, no she hasn’t got a cellphone, yet.

New PhD Camera!

rob — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 02:23:43 +0000

We got our new digital point & shoot today. It’s a Canon SD400 and it’s a sharp little camera. It’s a little bigger than an iPod mini and has a good sized monitor on the back.

I wish I had it on the Cape last week. I’ll be posting the photos from our vacation here as soon as I get them off the laptop. Should be one night this week.

Chris and Michelle

rob — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 03:28:35 +0000

Okay- Here is a low res gallery of pics. I’ll have some time to edit and post a nice hi-res gallery with color corrected and cropped images next week. These will make decent screen savers/wallpaper. But, I’d wait to try to make prints from anything until I get the hi-res versions up.

Best to Chris and Michelle!!

Family Photo Update

rob — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:19:18 +0000

Here are a few new photos of Bella and Gunner. Everyone here is happy and healthy. We can’t wait for the sun to come back to Virginia. Seems like this winter is just hanging on too long!