Category: earth

Camping, hiking, exploring, and general nature-communing.

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firsts


A weekend of firsts: First night away from home with little Keaton; Keaton’s first camping trip; Keaton’s first time to the ocean; and Keaton’s first night slept entirely through (she’s been doing ~6hrs for about week, but Sunday night she went 11 hours – in a tent no less). Camping was good, but freezing – windy and in the low 50s / high 40s at night. We bundled Keaton tight, and she really seemed to enjoy being outside. Laying down in the tent must’ve seemed like a circus-colored light show to her, with the wind blowing the canvas walls in and out and the sunlight playing through the trees we were pitched under. I’ve posted the Keaton-specific pictures from the trip in a new gallery, and the more general camping-related pictures in another new gallery – go there or be square.

Speaking of galleries and pictures, I made some simple optimizations to my Coppermine gallery script (the machine behind my photo galleries). I’d had problems with slow loading and updating, and most annoyingly I was getting SQL “max_questions” exceeds errors (seems Coppermine is pretty liberal in the number of SQL SELECT statements it does, and my server limits me to 5000 per hour). I actually think it’s Google’s robot spidering the images that was constantly pushing me over the limit – but regardless of the culprit it was annoying to have the gallery go down for an hour at a time. I added a brilliant bit of randomization to the SQL user, so the gallery will run the SELECT statements with one of four different users each time, randomly. This way, I can effectively have 20000k queries per hour. What’s more, it seems to have greatly improved the speed of the galleries – maybe by deserializing all the queued SELECTs from a single user. Either way, it seemed to be working well over the weekend – but I did get a couple slow loads… we’ll see how it works under the “strain” of all my readers.

Tomorrow, Monday as I write, is gonna be a busy one. Unfortunately, I had to cancel this first of my two much-looked-forward to Lasik consultations… to schedule some last-minute meetings at work. Things were thrown into the air at work Friday, as some major shakeups went down. So much so that my planned travel this week is now up in the air, which is tough because I was using the trip to Oregon to get to my folks’ place for our Mother’s Day visit (Sharaun is meeting me there Wednesday). Now, however, I don’t even know if my work-related travel is still on – although the trip to the grandparents’ place still is, meaning I may have to find my own way there… which may or may not be on the same flight as Sharaun and Keaton. Not a big deal, it’s just that, me being anal, I like to know how I’m getting where I’m going – especially when it’s Keaton’s first plane trip. It’ll work out I suppose.

Three songs from the to-be-released new Radiohead album leaked in live form this weekend, from a recent Thom & Johnny outing – and they’ve got me salivating for this thing. Also, tickets for the show at Berkley’s Greek Theater (a short jaunt for me) go on sale next weekend… and I’m just dying to find a way to go. Too bad I’ll be out of town the day they go on sale, as I know I stand no chance online and the phones will be jammed. I’d love to see them again, any chance I can get really… maybe Sharaun and I can hire a babysitter… or I can take a night off and head over with someone of similarly excellent musical taste. Maybe… just maybe…

Blogging this week could get sparse, as we’ve got more firsts for Keaton which may end up taking precedence: first trip on a plane, first time meeting grandpa on dad’s side, and mom’s first qualifying mother’s day. Until tomorrow, take care out there in the real world… and we’ll do the same here at sounds familiar.

Goodnight.

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bank error in your favor


I’ve been writing and rewriting the topic-major of this entry over the past two days, and I realized it’s as good as it’s going to get. I wanted to convey more, but I couldn’t seem to get the words right… or maybe I don’t have the spirit or attention span to make it happen. Here goes anyway.

We’ll be taking Keaton on her first camping trip this weekend, hoping to infuse her with a love of the modern version of outdoor life. We’ll be packing it in and heading to the coast for a short overnight sleepover in the tent. We’re heading down with a close knot of folks we run with on a regular basis, including those ones with the twins (important, as we’ll not be the only folks with babies on the trip – potential relief from that “baby’s gonna ruin it” apprehension). Sharaun went out and bought a little bug-net cover thing for Keaton’s stroller, and got her some baby sunblock and a cute floppy camping hat. If we can pull it off without all three babies protesting the entire time, it stands to be an awesome adventure – I’ll let ya know how it goes.

The comments on my powderkeg entry this week really pleased me, especially the one from my own mom. I don’t know when I officially became a “grown up.” Maybe it was when I got my first job, or moved out of the house, or bagged my first vagina; maybe it was when I stopped smoking weed, or asked Sharaun to marry me; maybe when I bought a house or started my career – who knows. What I do know, though, is that, with the arrival of Keaton, I feel like I have passed that milestone for sure now. Regardless of how drawn-out and blurry the transition period may have been, I’m now comfortable saying I’m on the other side of it – crossed over. And, along with “adulthood” comes this feeling of wisdom-gained, not to mention shame of things done prior to the metamorphosis. My mom’s comment brought to mind one moment in time I remember from my youth that’s always given me that sense of shame, only more acutely now – now that I have my own child and am beginning to realize just how kids can effect parents. Read on…

I don’t remember how old I was but I’m guessing under 10. I do remember it was my family: mom, dad, me, and my brother all spending a week or weekend or whatever with my mom’s folks up at a cabin on a lake we frequented. I loved that place, they had those plastic paddle-wheel big-tired tricycle-looking contraptions you could take around the lake and a rustic hunting-lodge-esque building overlooking the lake where you could get three meals a day. The cabins were surely rentals, and were small if I remember, but nice. My story takes place with the entire family playing a game of Monopoly on a picnic table outside the cabin one evening. Multicolored money splayed across the table and little green and red plastic houses and hotels cluttering the gameboard – we were deep in the throes of a game and, I, I was losing. It was time to start mortgaging properties, and anyone who knows Monopoly knows that’s a player’s last raspy breaths before death.

Valuable information about me as kid you’ll need before proceeding: When I was a kid, I was a manipulative brat. I had well-formed methods by which I attempted to get my way, mainly through emotional plays and tantrums. These weren’t things which I did subconsciously, but things I’d thought through on a very conscious level, best-known-methods which I’d honed over time for maximum results. Despite how calculating and “grown up” this might sound, it was really nothing more than a bratty, stubborn kid trying cheap tactics to get his way – and breaking down into plain fits when they didn’t work. And folks, that was my endgame strategy – if I wasn’t getting my way, I’d scream, cry, kick, punch walls… whatever it took. I know all kids do this to some extent, but I’m pretty sure I was different, somehow more “extreme.” So much so that I remember my folks taking me to a “family therapist” about it, although my memories of our “sessions” are mostly of me sitting around trying to make the perfect paper airplane. But, that’s another story altogether… and you’re now properly setup for me to continue.

So here I am, something of eight or ten years, losing badly at Monopoly and not wanting to mortgage Mediterranean Ave. to stay afloat. So, I lost it; went completely berserk. I don’t remember all the details, just remember putting all I had into the effort. I’m not sure what my intended results were: the family declaring me winner by default, the banker cutting me a break and slipping me some yellow $100 bills under the table… I don’t know. I do remember, however, that the situation was such that I realized I mustn’t back down from the tantrum – in order to maintain the strategic advantage I perceived I’d built with such fits. So, I escalated, and things got out of hand. Now, the part that brings me shame, the one thing that sticks in my mind and makes me shy away from the memory… is something I overheard my grandmother say to my mom after we were all back in the cabin and things had died down:

“You don’t have control over that boy,” she said to my mom, “What are you doing with him that he thinks he can act like that?” Sure, I’m paraphrasing – but the gist was that I had caused my mother’s mother to question her child’s parenting skills. Even then, young as I was, I knew that must be a crushing blow. Now, as a self-conscious new parent – I can’t imagine how devastating it would be to hear my own mom question how I was raising my daughter.

Sorry mom (and dad), I didn’t really mean it…

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nap in a hammock


I can feel the weather starting to turn: a little warmer with each day, trudging slowly through Spring on our way to what’s sure to be another sweltering Northern California Summer. Every time I go outside in the evening to take out the trash, or, recycling, if you’re more eco-sensitive, I get a little more anxious for my first Summer with a backyard. Oh, and I’ve got plans; I’ve got hammocks to string up and benches to build, foliage and flowers and groundcover to plant, and garden-boxes to build and seed. I want strawberries and maybe corn and tomatoes and fresh herbs; maybe cucumbers and squash or maybe even a watermelon or two. I want summer naps in the hammock, beer in-hand while the iPod shuffles my favorite songs over the speakers and the sun shines. Am I dreaming? I can have this, right?

While reassembling my PC after dropping in my new RAID array, I took the time to throw in a friend-donated PCI card to parallel port (so I can use my trusty laser printer, which has been sitting idle since I upgraded to a legacy-free PC), and I took a chance and re-hooked up my old DVD burner which I disconnected long ago when thought it failed. Turned out, the drive is fine – and I’m back to having a decent speed DVD burner again. Not only that, I removed a PCI Firewire card that I never use, as well as the swappable drive bay hard drive caddy thing that I also never use. Stripped down and back to health, the machine is running like a champ again. Not only that, but the PATA drives that make up my new RAID5 array seem to run much, much cooler than the SATA drives of my old RAID0+1. Don’t know why, but I do know it’s better for the drives and everything in that case. Sorry for the nerd talk, I write what I do.

Travel coming up for work, taking me away from Keaton for the first time. I’ll be doing a US tour in early April: Texas, South Carolina, and Colorado. Then I’m off for a few days in Germany later in April, I think four or five once all is said and done. My first time in Germany, or Europe, for that matter – I’m pretty excited, but leery leaving Sharaun alone with the baby. I know she can take care of herself, I just feel bad taking off and romping ’round the world while she stays home and does the mom thing. I’m also a little worried about the material I’ll be presenting, as, for the first time in a looong time, I’m not the one developing it. Presenting something you created is one thing, but presenting something borne of someone else’s mind and organizational/content-flow preferences is another thing altogether. I just want to make sure I have time to get comfortable with the stuff before I’m up in front of a group of Germans parroting it. Germany!

I guess it’s time to go to bed, I’m not doing any good here anyway. Goodnight.

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dressed in cobra

Who cares, I'm going to bed.
Gonna try and make this an early-to-bed night, I have to be at the airport tomorrow for a 6:20am flight… which means leaving the house before 5am. Bummer. Another there-and-back-again one-day trip to Oregon, work crap. Then, we’re off to camp this weekend in the Sierra foothills of Northern California. Hopefully, we can get the gold equipment working: highbanker, pans, etc. Should be an interesting weekend if nothing else, and I’ll be glad to get away for a bit – even if the lawn does need mowing something awful.

I dunno; I’m not wholly opposed to rap as a form of music. But I’m not 100% why the new Kanye album is so good. Sure, there are some good tracks – but I’m not sure why it’s gush-worthy to the level of the reviews it’s been getting. I can appreciate things like stellar production, I really can. I like to think I’ve got an ear for an extremely well put-together album… something where the production is the keystone of the whole thing’s success. But I dunno, while the production on this album is indeed stellar, some of the tracks aren’t so noteworthy. Call me a hater, whatever you want, I guess I just can’t get as full and appreciate for rap as I can for more “rock ‘n’ roll” type jams. Sorry Kanye.

This page’s two-year anniversary is coming in a little under two weeks. The approaching milestone got me thinking statistics, and I looked back over the entirety of my written output – since I’ve been writing. I started my original journal in 1995, and wrote fairly faithfully through 2000 (exactly 100 pages worth). I started a new journal upon graduating college / getting married / moving to CA, that one covered 2000 to late 2002, clocking in around 200 pages. Then I guess I took a break. That 2nd journal goes through September 2002, and this page didn’t start until that same month, 2003. A one-year gap. I don’t remember taking a year off, I guess I just got wrapped up in other things. That would’ve been my “growth” years at work, where I was likely coming into my own in my role there. Who knows how long this one will last, two years is a good start. I’m sure I’ll have more to write about when Lil’ Chino gets here… so no worries I suppose.

Tonight I bought tickets to see Architecture in Helsinki at Slims in the city. I’m so pumped.

Goodnight.

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not really working

I'm sorry I worked late.
On her way home from a day subbing today, Sharaun stopped at Blockbuster to return a movie, and locked her keys in her car. Her keys, and her purse – containing her cellphone. Meanwhile, I stayed late at work, finishing up. I tried to call her several times, but with no way into the house and no cellphone – it wasn’t much use. When I finally decided to come home, around 7pm, she had been locked outside in the heat for over two hours. She spent her time walking around, and sleeping on the bare concrete of the front porch. I felt so sorry for her… I swear I was about to cry. Poor girl… I’ll never let her get a manual-locking car again.

Sitting at home, having gone into work for a couple hours before this appointment with the landscaper. He’s 15 minutes late; I wait, glancing out the window every few minutes expecting to see a truck. Passed the time unpacking from the weekend’s camping trip, making the dirty laundry hamper smell like a campfire. Lately, it seems that Fall is in the air. In the morning, the air is dry and cool, and I can even feel it sometimes in the day… when a cool breeze blows by or there’s a hint of something in the air. It’s coming soon, and I couldn’t be happier. It seems like we had the shortest summer ever this year, it stayed cool late and now I feel like it’s Falling-up early as well. Oh, I’m all for it – let’s not get that confused. The faster that magical season gets here, the happier I’ll be. Fall-thoughts got me thinking about February… when Lil’ Chino will arrive. Not Fall, but still part of the Fall-Winter cold-months… the time of year I love. Landscaper just called, gonna be another 20 minutes late; I’ll wait… work’s already bored me today.

I hate to say that albums “grew on me.” I always feel like I may be fooling myself; like I should trust my initial reaction and not “force” myself to get into something I didn’t like at first blush. To me, having an album “grow” on you is kinda like saying, “I didn’t like this album, but then everyone else did – so I listened to it until it was good.” It reeks of every-half-hour radio playlist mass-hypnotism type “hits.” But… then I thought about it in the context of beer. When I first tried beer, I hated it. Had to drink my first quart of Red Bull (the malt liquor, not the caffeine cough syrup stuff) over a sink, gagging a little with each gulp. But, everyone likes beer. Men drink it; it’s so cool. If you don’t like beer, you’re not right. So, I kept fighting down the beer. And now, years later, I’m gag-free, and often catch myself thinking how good a beer would taste in certain situations. So, likening an album’s “growing” on me to my coming-of-age taste for beer – I’ve somewhat legitimized the fact that the new New Pornographers album I spoke somewhat ill of last week has now become something I’m really enjoying. At times melodic enough to make me smile, it just keeps getting better. Dang… am I brainwashed?

Time to get another R.O.C entry and exit stamp in the passport, I’ll be boarding the plane before I know it. Off to Taiwan for another week of work and play. Work during the day, play at night, sleep when I can. It’s always like that I Taiwan. I have a small base of local friends there now, and I enjoy spending time with then when I can – which is always late-night. Tracy’s doing me a favor and getting me a local Taipei phone number, so I can pickup pre-charged SIM cards and have a local number people can call. That way, I can limit my transcontinental calls to the company calling card on landline phones… and avoid the highway-robbery international roaming rates the cell company charges – but I can still makes calls to local numbers. I think it’ll be a welcomed luxury. I wonder about travel after Lil’ Chino comes… I’ll likely want to do it less, and I’m sure Sharaun would want the same. I guess a week here and there isn’t too bad, but I don’t think I can keep up 2005’s pace. It’s OK really, I think the transition to management probably inherently means less personal travel, as you pass those opportunities onto the team; so, that fits. But I’ll still want to get back to Taiwan every now and again.

Noonish now, landscaper was badly late (is that proper English?). I walked around the backyard with him, pointing out what I saw as the remaining work, asking him to draw up the plan as a series of line-items, so I could pick and choose certain aspects of work if needed. Then I went inside and made a tuna sandwich while he measured and calculated. What surprised me the most, though, was that his plans to finish the yard were exactly what I’d planned to do. Modify the sprinkler heads, pour a border around the stones, bring in soil and add drainage, planter areas, etc. His plans were my plans, down to the last aspect. He also commented that my do-it-yourself work up to this point really wasn’t all that bad. My retaining wall had the proper drainage, was mostly level and true, and was set in the ground to a proper depth. My paver porch, although not 100% level, was properly sloped away from the house and crowned to the center – and would only get better with fill sand and plate compaction. My forethought to make the planter areas drip-ready (adding PVC “through” pipes under the pavers) was correct, and my cutting the downspout and routing it under the pavers was correct. My sprinkler heads to zone ratio was correct, as were my pressure calculations and water coverages per zone.

I actually thought this might happen; the landscaper coming and telling me how much money it would take to complete the work would stoke the fire within me to get it done myself. I don’t know though, it just seems like so much work. He did give me one more option for the paver border, which I hadn’t thought of yet. He suggested a cheaper alternative to the concrete border may be running a 3″ thick “plastic” bender board around the entire porch, and using a sledge to butt the pavers in tight before staking it every foot-and-a-half with steel stakes driven into the earth. This was interesting to me… as I have lots of steel stakes that I figured would sit unused after I was done with the yard. The stakes would be driven in to just below the level of the bender, and then left in the ground permanently with topsoil and turf hiding them in the finished version. That got me thinking… I could likely do that pretty easily – and I’m sure my cost for the 3″ bender would be a heck of a lot cheaper than theirs. I’d still have to reposition the sprinklers, add some drainage, till in topsoil, grade, and bring in sod. It’s a lot of work, and the guy said I could pick and choose any of his line items if I wanted some help getting the thing to a state where I’d once again feel confident taking over. That’s good, because, if I chose to go with his entire package, I’d be looking at a >$10,000 bottom line. Ouch.

Goodnight.

Posted on

dreams

Verdant.
Don’t know if anyone else managed to catch the National Geographic Channel’s Inside 9/11 documentary, but man was it excellent. Crammed with interesting details, the first of two two-hour installments details the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on America. The forming of the cells, flight training, etc. The second installment chronicles the events on the day of the attacks. Masterfully put together and chock full of emotional firsthand stories and tons of amazing footage and audio – it’s by far the best telling of the events I’ve ever seen.

Sunday the backyard beat me again. I’m about at the level of frustration where I’m ready to call in a landscaping crew and just hand the task off to them. I really don’t know what else to do. Every time I put on my work clothes and get all motivated, I only end up pacing around the edge of the pavers wondering what to do. Soon enough, I’m so confused and frustrated by not being able to see the solution – I give up and come inside, take off my workclothes, and sit down on the couch in defeat. I really just don’t know what to do. Moving the sprinklers back is such a chore… and then there’s still the problem of actually placing a border around the porch. Sharaun suggested I call a landscaper, have them come take a look, and then pay them to fix it. Problem is – I know that’ll be thousands of dollars… and I begin to wonder about my priorities, spending thousands on a backyard when we’ve got a baby on the way and aren’t really sitting on a pile of money. My pure frustration and this extended (more than a year) stalemate have me nearly convinced that I’ll never actually get around to do anything – and paid help may be the only option. In fact, I think I kind of silently made the decision today… that I’m going to call on Monday, and have them come out this week to evaluate it and draw up some plans. At least at that point, I could still say I did most of the yard. Bottom line is: I just want this dang thing done.

I’m sure someone else, somewhere, at some point, has written about this before, but I’m gonna go ahead with it. I’m not sure how many of you out there used to (or perhaps still do, I’m not judgin’) indulge in a little recreational drug use. Me, I gave up the weed years ago – but my smokin’ years left me with a question that I still think about every so often. Maybe you’re not too familiar with the world of drugs, that’s good, you’re likely better of for it. But, I’m sure you’ve seen an episode of COPS or Law and Order where they show some kind of drugs (pot or cocaine, maybe) packaged for street sale in those little tiny ziplock baggies. There are varying sizes, but when I was in high school you could buy a dimebag ($10 baggie) if you only wanted a joint’s worth of stuff. Most bigger dealers won’t mess with dimes, since they are a pain to package – but the profit margin is higher the smaller you breakup the brick. Anyway, kids are poor, and dimebags are cheap and easy – so that’s what we bought when we were weaning onto the stuff.

What I’m wondering is, where the heck do people get those miniature baggies? And, under what guise are they sold? I would argue that bags of those size are used almost exclusively for the resale of illicit drugs. You never see them in stores, although I have seen them for sale at a head shop or two before. If I’m a soldier in the war on drugs, I’m gonna start tracking customers of these little baggies. Because I’ll tell you what, the guy that buys 10,000 of them isn’t using them to store buttons. Honestly, what else can you do with a 3/4″ by 3/4″ ziplock baggie? You’re not storing screws or beads in there… you’re hawking crack or coke or something on the streetcorner.

Lately I’ve been remembering my dreams when I wake in the morning, which is unusual for me. Some of them were so strange, I wanted to write them down and try my hand at “interpreting” them. Here goes. Wednesday night: I crap my pants at work. I’m running down the aisle trying to make it to the bathroom, but I don’t make it. Interpretation: I’m afraid of messing up at work. Thursday night: I witness the murder of a young girl on a school playground, Ben and I are chased by the killer. Interpretation: I’m afraid of something, and I’m trying to avoid it. Friday night: Anthony is too drunk to drive, so I’ll do it for him. But, he’s towing a boat and I can’t back it up. He agrees to backup the boat and then I can drive away. However, he backs up over a fire hydrant, overturning the boat and killing two kids who were sitting in it. Interpretation: To me this implies I have guilt of some kind, feeling bad for letting those girls get crushed. Saturday night: I’m back working at Omni Music & Video in Florida, but my coworkers are my coworkers from my current job. Interpretation: Work’s got me stressed, and I’m casting thought back to the simpler days of working at the record store. There’s an underlying theme here… one of work and fear. New job, new responsibilities, new fears.

I don’t know how I missed the fact that the Arcade Fire put out a 7" single with two new tracks, but I did. Consisting of one original and one cover, which are simply gorgeous and OK-for-a-B-side, respectively. The A-side, Cold Wind, is a haunting tune that was supposedly done exclusively for some show on HBO I’ve never seen because we don’t have HBO. Who cares, it’s new Arcade Fire… and it’s lovely. Please, our Father who art in Heaven, please allow this band to continue producing music of this quality. Too bad their September show at the Warfield is sold out. I think we paid ~$10 to see them the 1st time at the Bottom of the Hill… oh how they’ve come along, fetching a cold $25 per ticket now.

‘Night.

Posted on

three days without pills

Paydirt?
Sunday night and I wrote more than one entry’s worth, so I split it in half and will post the spillage tomorrow. Makes things easier for me, and helps to avoid last week’s spotty posting style. This entry can be summed up as a “blog update,” so to speak. The “meat” of it is down below, but here’s a couple shorter updates before we get to that. Enjoy.

First off, an update on my post about my attempts to kill off the bermudgrass armies marching on my front lawn. This past Friday, nearly a week to the day I sprayed, I finally started seeing results. The weedy areas are browning up, but the good turf still looks healthy, untouched. I’m not sure if I need another application or not, I was going to do it on Saturday – but I think I’m going to give it a few more days lest it just needs more time and I over-poison.

Next, remember that ridiculously obscure state-mandated test I mocked when we learned Sharaun would have to take it for her teaching credential? She took two of the three units (the hard two), and, to her immense surprise, passed them both. The day after the test, she came home so bummed, convinced she’d failed. She didn’t even logon to the website to check her scores. But, when the official results came in the mail – she had passed both. It really made her happy, and that made me happy. One more unit to go (the one about songs and dance and whatnot), and she’ll be done.

Flashing waaaay back to the entry where I learned of my allergic-to-cold malady – last week I ran out of my allergy medicines, and I forgot to fill them right away. By the third day without pills, I was nearly unbearably itchy. I itched when I got out of the shower, when I drove to work with the windows down, after coming back into the air conditioned building where my sheen of summer sweat slowly cools off. Guess this nuisance disease is here to stay for a little longer, which really bums me out.

Finally, remember when I told you that Pat and I had talked about fixing up my grandpa’s old highbanker? We were planning a camping trip with a gold panning theme. Well, we finally pegged the weekend for the trip – Labor Day, and on Saturday Pat urged me to bring over the pieces parts of the machine so we could try and get it up and running. My previous description of the machine, linked above, was actually inaccurate. What I was describing was a dredge/sluice combo – where my grandpa’s old equipment is really just a water-assisted sluice, also known as a “highbanker.” It consists of an engine, which runs a pump. The pump sucks water from the river and routes it through a hose to a sluice. You then dump buckets of sediment onto the sluice and the running water powers it over the “riffles” (bumpy-edged stuff) in the sluice. The heavier stuff (including gold) collects at the bottom of the riffles, usually on black rubber mats. These “leavings” are then panned to reduce them to the “take,” or gold. It’s a fairly brilliant idea – elegantly simple.

My grandfather’s old highbanker was in need of some repair. First, we had to ensure that the old Briggs & Stratton motor was still operable. Once we emptied out the old oil and fuel and replaced them with fresh stuff, we mounted the motor to a piece of 1″ board and fired it up. Without much effort, the old motor was puttering away like a champ. Now, let me explain the basics of how the contraption works. While modern power-sluices or highbankers employ a motor/pump combo unit, my grandfather’s solution was simply a small engine powering a stand-alone pump. The two are connected by a drive belt, the engine turning the pump. In my grandfather’s original implementation (which I only know about because I was given hand-written instructions from my mom’s cousin when I inherited the machine), simplicity ruled. Both the pump and motor were mounted to pieces of 1" thick wood, and these two pieces were connected by way of a couple door hinges. When you connect the pump and engine with the drive belt, the two hinged planks can’t lay flat, and the weight of the pump pulling on the hinges provides the tension on the drive belt. Imagine it like this:

I spend too much time in Visio.

With this “clapper board” arrangement, there’s no elaborate mounting constraints to ensure the proper amount of belt tension – gravity takes care of that. Not to mention, you can tap out the hinge pins and separate the pump and engine boards for easier transport and storage (also mentioned in those hand-written instructions). When I got the parts, both the engine and pump mounting boards were missing, as was the drive belt. Pat and I made a trip to the hardware store and picked up some hinges, 1″ board, and a drive belt for an edger. We quickly mounted the engine and pump, and connected them with the door hinges. The gravity-tension on the belt worked perfect! We then moved the whole rig out to his backyard, where we’d be testing it in the pool. We attached the short intake hose to the pump, and dangled it into the pool. Then stretched out the long output hose around to the other side of the pool. Pat suggested we “prime” the pump by pouring some water into the intake hose and pump itself, this way, the pump would start sucking water as soon as the engine started turning it. His suggestion was a good one, as the pump would only start sucking water well after it was properly primed. Once we got it – it worked like a charm. So good, in fact, that we were both surprised by volume of water the little rig was transferring. Some imagey-goodness for your approval:



Affixing the hinges to the engine side of the “clapper board.”

Mounting the pump, the clapper is attached and hinged.


The hinged pump providing tension for the drive belt.

Hoses attached, getting ready for the test.


It works!

Labor Day could be payday if this thing works out right. Well, not really… but it would be super cool to at least get some dust/flakes from the process. I’ll be happy if we find anything. Changing subjects a bit, we’ll be camping for the next two weekends. This coming weekend at Erik and Kristi’s wedding, we’ll be camping on their land – where the ceremony and reception will be held. I’m actually in the wedding, so I’m really excited about heading down. I’ll be taking Thursday afternoon and all of Friday off from work so we can head down early for the rehearsal and dinner, and get in a couple more evenings of camping. It should be a great time, the weather is supposed to be perfect – and they dug a true firepit, ringed in stones and accented with stump-chairs – not to mention the beer. So, wedding camping this weekend and gold-prospecting camping the next. I’m pumped… really looking forward to both.

With that, goodnight or good-day – depending on where you are.