Gem Mining

My wife, a friend of her's and I took the kids and went gem mining today.  Western North Carolina is known for all their different gem mines.  We got a little lost, thanks Mapquest, but eventually made it to Emerald Village Gem Mines in Little Switzerland.  We had a blast.  You buy a bucket of rocks and take it to the flume and sift through it.  We found topaz, garnets, emeralds and a ton of other stuff I don't even remember the names of.  If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it.  Everybody was ready for lunch and I wanted to go through another bucket.  Good times.

Posted by H2Daddy @ 6:38 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

Test

I have been studying for my ham radio test.    I have wanted to do this in the past but learning morse code did not excite me.  Now you can get your license without learning morse code.  I am ready for the first license.  It is called the Technician class.  I have been taking tests online practicing and I am doing fine with them.  I am also thinking about taking the next test on the same day.  It is called the General class. It will allow me to do what I really want to do and that is make contacts from around the world.  This is called DXing.  Not sure I can get ready to take it in time.  I don't have the study book for it yet.  We will see.

 

BubbaJake, if you read this, would you please send me a private message?  I have some questions.

Posted by H2Daddy @ 6:20 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Ham Radio

Anybody out there into ham radios? As I mentioned in my last blog, a guy from NASA came and spoke at the aerospace workshop I attended. He mentioned that he was a ham radio operator. It got my interest up and I ordered my study book so that I can take a test at the end of the month to get my license. It is a really confusing subject to learn. I was hoping somebody out there had there license so that I can pick your brain. I know, you are probably like my wife and are asking, why in the world would anybody want to talk on the radio to somebody on the other side of the world. Not sure why. Just seems like another thing in life I want to try.

Posted by H2Daddy @ 4:52 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

My Summer

I am taking an aerospace workshop/class. It is put on by ETSU. It is free for teachers so I am taking it with a few buddies so that we can transfer the credits to another college where we are working on our Eds degrees. That is the degree right below your doctorate.

Anyways, I am loving this class. It is covering everything from planes to space. I never knew how much I loved this stuff. One day a guy brought in about fifty model airplanes he had built and talked about the history of aviation. I even went out and bought a model myself. Haven't built one of those in about 30 years. We also get 2 free flight lessons out of the class. A guy from NASA came and talked to us. That was really cool. This week we are building rockets, delta dart airplanes, parachutes and egg drop containers. We also are going one night t the school's observatory. I have always wanted to look through a nice telescope. We are finishing the class by going to Charleston to tour some aircraft there.

The guy from NASA shared this youtube clip with us. It is a google earth clip where they have zoomed in on all this cool stuff from outerspace. Check it out.

www.youtube.com/watch


Posted by H2Daddy @ 9:33 pm EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

Vasectomy Research

My wife has been on me to get a vasectomy.  I guess like most men, I am a little hesitant.  I was bored at work this morning when I decided to do a little research.  I found an interesting video of the entire procedure.   As painless as they say it is, watching this video was not a good idea for talking myself into this.  Video might be NSFW.  Proceed with caution.
http://www.vasectomymedical.com/features/vasectomy-videos.html

Posted by H2Daddy @ 12:50 pm EDT | Permalink | 13 Comments