Dec 2004
Christmas begins
So yesterday we spent getting ready for Christmas. We’re spending the week with my parents in Portland. My sister Charis will be arriving too, but no grandmas this year.
We had a lot of packages to wrap, and some of them were biggies. I sent Anna out to shop for the things we hadn’t picked up yet while I wrapped and packed. We finally got everything done and set out on our three-hour drive at 9:30pm. Fortunately traffic was light (Monday night at midnight is apparently not a popular hour for driving through the mountains, imagine that) and we made good time. I didn’t fall asleep and drive off into either solid rock or empty air, either, which is always a good thing.
We arrived at a darkened house and crept upstairs and into our bed.
This morning I awoke to find Mom gone to a Gideons meeting and Dad gone to do a grandma swap. Dad’s mom Ida lives in Portland and is spending Christmas with my uncle Darwin in Medford (to the south). Mom’s mom Phyllis lives in Eugene and is spending Christmas with my aunt Louise in Vancouver, WA (to the north). So Dad gets to drive Ida to Eugene and hand her off to Darwin, and pick up Phyllis and drive her back to Vancouver and hand her off to Louise. He’ll be back home around 5:00pm this evening.
Meanwhile, Anna has opened up her laptop and fired up Geneforge and I have been catching up on my email. The hospital seems to be carrying on without me.
Now let’s see if this remote blogging trick works. Hello, world.
We had a lot of packages to wrap, and some of them were biggies. I sent Anna out to shop for the things we hadn’t picked up yet while I wrapped and packed. We finally got everything done and set out on our three-hour drive at 9:30pm. Fortunately traffic was light (Monday night at midnight is apparently not a popular hour for driving through the mountains, imagine that) and we made good time. I didn’t fall asleep and drive off into either solid rock or empty air, either, which is always a good thing.
We arrived at a darkened house and crept upstairs and into our bed.
This morning I awoke to find Mom gone to a Gideons meeting and Dad gone to do a grandma swap. Dad’s mom Ida lives in Portland and is spending Christmas with my uncle Darwin in Medford (to the south). Mom’s mom Phyllis lives in Eugene and is spending Christmas with my aunt Louise in Vancouver, WA (to the north). So Dad gets to drive Ida to Eugene and hand her off to Darwin, and pick up Phyllis and drive her back to Vancouver and hand her off to Louise. He’ll be back home around 5:00pm this evening.
Meanwhile, Anna has opened up her laptop and fired up Geneforge and I have been catching up on my email. The hospital seems to be carrying on without me.
Now let’s see if this remote blogging trick works. Hello, world.
|
Half a loaf is better than none
I've managed several small work-on-the-Ghia sessons this month. I haven't gotten a whole lot done, but at least it's something.
Here's a brief list of progress made since the last post.
So now it's time to focus on Christmas. Here's a little piece of Eldritch Christmas Cheer for you to enjoy, courtesy of my favorite webcomic Penny Arcade. I can't wait for the rest of the story.
Here's a brief list of progress made since the last post.
- The battery regulator heat sink can be moved by loosening the nut and moving the heat sink to a different hole. This clears the mounting hole on the circuit board, so I won't need to do any grinding.
- Rich Rudman replied to my list of questions regarding the regulators, so I have a better idea of how they should be installed and used. He hasn't replied to my followup questions, though.
- I've given up on the allthread hold-downs for the batteries. I measured how long they had to be and they were exactly eight inches, so I bought 32 8-inch 5/16 bolts from Fastenal. They work perfectly, and take up less room than wing nuts or homemade knobs, leaving more room to mount the regulators on top of the batteries.
- Made contact with Randy Holmquist at Canadian EV and inquired about their prewired electrical boxes, containing all manner of parts such as contactors and relays. I can order up what I want and they'll build it, and I can just bolt it in and hook it up. Jonathan has one and it's great -- very nice and neat. They also have an electric heater and one remaining DCP DC-DC converter, which I'm considering purchasing.
- Jonathan came by to visit and check out the charger and regulators. He was favorably impressed. He also really likes how I am managing to fit 16 batteries into a Ghia. We talked about how to mount his controller in the Ghia when I'm ready for it. I'll need to replicate his heat sink since he doesn't have another one.
- Built brackets to hold down the front shelf. They're just four one-foot long pieces of angle iron that will bolt together in pairs, one on the inside of the wheel well and one on the inside of the front trunk. The pieces inside the trunk will hold down the shelf, the ones in the wheel wells will stiffen the body and help prevent things from tearing loose in a wreck.
So now it's time to focus on Christmas. Here's a little piece of Eldritch Christmas Cheer for you to enjoy, courtesy of my favorite webcomic Penny Arcade. I can't wait for the rest of the story.