Protected: Animal Kingdom – Day Four
February 6th, 2010 | Posted by in Personal - (Enter your password to view comments.)Protected: Magic Kingdom – Day Three
February 6th, 2010 | Posted by in Personal - (Enter your password to view comments.)Protected: Epcot – Day Two
February 6th, 2010 | Posted by in Personal - (Enter your password to view comments.)Protected: Getting to Flordia – Day One
February 6th, 2010 | Posted by in Personal - (Enter your password to view comments.)Went to the Rough Riders hockey game tonight, they played the Sioux Falls Stampede. Couldn’t ask for a better game, Rough Riders dominated them, there was also a fight, just pure Awesome!!! The final score was 10-1, we left early when the score was 9-0(the kids were ready for bed). Just a great night with the family.
What to do when your in the car for 7 plus hours? Take pictures!!! Here are some pictures from our unexciting trip from Bloomfield Nebraska to Marion Iowa
Me Driving
Nekota Sleeping
Snow in Nebraska
More Snow
More Snow again
Sign for Sioux City, 34 miles
Un-harvested Field
Snowy Trees
Me Cleaning the windows, and it freezing to the windshield
Iowa, Fields of Opportunities ( no wonder why field of dreams was filmed here)
Nekota Still Sleeping
4 hours later ( Kayla went to sleep)
Kayla being Smiley
Tanger Outlet Mall
Dear Interstate Driver: Your gas cap is unscrewed and your gas door is open.
Me smiling instead of driving
GPS – Almost there!
Cedar Rapids Exit, YES
Who needs a Maid Rite when you have taverns
Thank you for Iowa Rest Areas!!!
Another Sign for Cedar Rapids
Worst Interstate Intersection
Cedar Rapids 19 Miles
I ruined Kayla’s Picture!!!!
Mercedes gas Millage, helps to drive slower.
Sign for Kaylas Work
Aegon in the background
Cedar River Sign
Yeah I can upload images easier now 😀 Thanks for the fix @ http://www.presidiacreative.com/wordpress-flash-uploader-fix/
I decided to try and make a TV antenna from many different online resources I have read. The Antenna I made was a 4-Bay bow-tie antenna. You will see this called a coat hanger antenna also, because you can make the whisk out of coat hangers easily. I first read about this antenna from this website, but I am sure its been on the internet long before this. My goal was to get some vhf channels in ( channel 7,9 and 12) , and since this antenna is mostly UHF, I found some modified designs by mclapp that help produce a small gain in the VHF-HI range.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~mclapp/Antennas/4baystuff/4%20bay%209%201-2%20element%20layout.pdf
http://www.frontiernet.net/~mclapp/Antennas/4baystuff/4%20bay%209%20inch%20phase%20line.pdf
Unfortunately the antenna didn’t work as well as I was hoping it would. The antenna worked for 12,51 (2-1), and 20 in my area, even though there is channel 48 and 28 which it was missing. My guess is I did something wrong.
The antenna was fairly cheap to build from all store bought parts. It was under 9 dollars from my local Menards.
Wire ( I used 14 gauge galvanized steel)
#6 wood screws
#6 washers
Board from the scrap bin ( 15 cents !!! )
Balun – Converts it over to coaxial cable.
If anyone has any suggestions on why it doesnt work as well as my DB2, let me know 
I would like to note: I am not an antenna expert, just a beginner. Just going off what I have read online for information.
Merry Christmas!!! Its been a long year, and its coming to an end. I am on my stretch of a long winter break off from work and school, and I am going to enjoy it. The weather has been crazy, its snowing where we wanted to go ( SD/NE) but only raining here. Today it finally started snowing. Santa showed up, and made the kids happy. I got some great gifts from the family ( SDSMT t-shirt, Hangover, Super Mario Brothers Wii, Jelly Belly Jellybean Dispenser, and a new wallet). Hangover is a awesome move, I suggest watching it. Super Mario Brothers Wii is a very fun and hard game. Its a perfect blend of old and new Mario redesigned. You can play with up to 4 people, so far I have only played 2 and found it to be challenging when playing with multiple people due to the lack of room to be running around, bumping into each other, jumping on each other, and competing for mushrooms. My goal today is to get back on the treadmill and see if I can run my 3 miles like I was, I am guess it will only be 1 or 2 haha. Luckily school doesn’t start until Jan 11th, so I have a few weeks of breaks to play games and relax. Other then that, nothing new here. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
I added a plugin to import my twitter feeds once a week into a blog post. I thought this would be nice since I dont always write something but I post on twitter pretty regularly.
