Shed Building Plans: day

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A Summer Day in beautiful Chicago

The Chicago River at the end of a beautiful summer day.

I spent a lovely summer day in downtown Chicago. I dont get downtown as much as I used to and to spend a day on a gorgeous summer day, it always renews my love affair with such a beautiful city.

The Chicago Farmers Market was at the Daley Center Plaza complete with the famous Picasso art sculpture.

We started the day at the Chicago Farmers Market. A lovely al fresco assortment of both flowers, fresh produce, and various other products.

Such pretty sunflowers!

Gorgeous bouquets of wild flowers! Only $4.00.

String beans, green beans galore!

Shopping on Michigan Avenue, this is the AMAZING Burberry remodel in which they are going to replicate the signature plaid on the building. I cannot wait for this to be completed!

There is a a new TOMMY BAHAMA (LOVE) store opening on Michigan Avenue in Fall 2012. This was the adorable advertisement in the windows of the new store. We should all follow this sentiment, agree?

Then it was down to the piece de resistance - the Ralph Lauren Store - a true landmark on the famed Mag Mile. I have been here before but I always take a deep breath upon entering - it is that gorgeous!

The other side of the store as it is on a corner. The Summer Sale Event window was TOO adorable to not take a picture.

The foyer and grand staircase. The first floor is completely dedicated to the London Olympic Games 2012. It is awesome. The Ralph Lauren Store Chicago is the largest Ralph Lauren store in the world.

The staircase is absolutely STUNNING and the rich woods and wainscoting are unbelievable.

The landing of the staircase on the way to the next floor is adorned with a gorgeous clock and amazing equestrian themed art.

Yes, this is the womens department upstairs. Exquisite - would you expect anything less?

Womens shoes and jewelry.

A beautiful pair of saddles flank a doorway in the Womens clothing area. Gorgeous!

The Womens London Olympic Collection room.

The entrance to the Home section. Breathtaking. The larger portion of this floor was closed as they prepare for the Home Collection for Fall 2012. So exciting.

Beautiful etched caraffe and leather embossed tray. Wow!

These huge and stunning hurricanes were on the floor and were GORGEOUS. Love the sand and shells!

Another beautiful tray and liqueur set. Love the glasses!

In the Water Tower Place shopping center, one of the windows was a Chicago Skyline done in LEGOS! Does it get any better than this? Even Buckingham Fountain and the water. So amazing!

Such a lovely day in Chicago - "definitely my kind of town"!

A Summer Day in beautiful Chicago

2015 ARRL Field Day

Basic 20 meter inverted Vee dipole at 25 feet.

This past weekend I took part in my amateur radio clubs Field Day activities as usual. This year the big factor was the weather. I had planned on just using a pop up shelter to better enjoy the outdoors but after watching the weather forecast for a week before hand I decided to err on the side of caution and go ahead and break out the extreme weather tent.

I am so glad I did too. It was pleasant and dry Friday night when we set up but soon after we arrived back at the site Saturday it started raining and it never did let up. Along with gusty winds we ended up with 3.5" of precipitation before all was said and done. Dealing with the weather is what Field Day is all about. While it did add quite a challenge my old gear and some new pieces came through with flying colors

In the above picture at the far left is a small shelter I constructed to keep the elements off my new 1000 watt inverter generator.

Inverter generators are a relatively recent technology that work great for powering sensitive electronic gear like amateur radios. The generator works by first producing AC power output like a traditional generator but next converts the current to DC then back to AC. This "inversion" creates a clean output with a true sine wave at the required voltage and frequency.

The engine is a four stroke so no premix fuel is required and a feature I really like that this little gen-set has is called Auto-Idle. Unlike a traditional generator that always runs at full throttle this unit idles down and then increases engine speed based on the load applied. This does two things. First it saves fuel and second with a light load such as my ham station the generator barely came off idle. With a 100 ft extension cord between the generator and the operating position the generator could not be heard.

We used maybe a gallon and half of gas for the 18 hours of time we spent on the air.

A couple months ago when the clubs sign up sheet came around I signed up for the 20 meter (14.000MHz) band and CW (Continuous Wave Morse Code) of course. In the past years I had to tear down my permanent station and transport it to the Field Day site. I have several ancillary devices like computer interface, antenna tuner and electronic keyer connected to the rig in my home station and it was always a bit of a pain to disconnect all this stuff.

Ive been active in the amateur radio hobby now for seven years. I figure its something thats here to stay so I decided to add another new piece of gear to the station. Something to make the logistics of portable operations easier. I took a trip down to Columbus Ohio to visit Universal Radio where I source most of my radio gear and picked up a Yaesu FT857D amateur transceiver. The 857 is a full power HF, VHF and UHF multimode radio that has most of the features found in a full sized rig but comes in a very small package aimed at mobile use.

The pink cell phone and glassed belong to my lovely assistant the RoadQueen, who handled the logging chores on a spreadsheet program she created herself with a dupe checker even so we wouldnt waste time and effort working a station we had already contacted. In contesting these are called "Duplicates" and are to be avoided because duplicate contacts to same station cannot be counted for points.

The only other thing I added to the Yaesu was a Collins 300Hz mechanical filter to help navigate the busy and crowded Field Day band conditions. Most amateur transceivers come without filters which can then be added as needed depending on the type of activity the operator persues.

In the upper right hand corner of the circuit board are two slots where filters can be installed. One space for CW and the other for SSB (Single Side Band) voice mode. The Yaesu is set up with simple push pin sockets so I didnt even have to warm up my soldering iron.

What the filter does is drastically narrow the receivers passband. When the band is crowded with lots of stations operating side by side close in frequency to one another the operator can engage the filter and as a result of the narrower passband only hear one or two station instead of several. A radios receiver without a filter in line normally samples a segment of spectrum that can contain four or five or more CW stations all transmitting at once. Each station is transmitting on a slightly different frequency which makes the tone of the signals a little different in pitch but it still ends up being a wild cacophony of senseless noise.

In preparation for Field Day I limited all my operating to using CW only and the 857 to not only learn the new rig but to hone my CW skills for the event. It all paid off and I set a new personal best logging 159 contacts with stations in 34 different states, three Canadian provinces, the island of Puerto Rico and Argentina way down south.

Unfortunately the weekend wasnt without incident as wind driven rain did invade some club members tents and curtail operations while soaked ground loosened the guy wire stakes of the 6 meter antenna causing it to come crashing back to Earth sometime during the night. But I can happily report no loss of life or limb and we all managed to have a good time and eat lots of great food as is one of our clubs main objectives.

Did I mention it was wet?

2015 ARRL Field Day

A Sunny Winter Day

Today was a good day in animal land. The sun finally came out for the afternoon and I must say the farm pets enjoyed it thoroughly. In this picture the mother goat is nearly asleep. The goats are so fair weather that they wont go out of the barn for water when the wind blows, let along when its snowing. The chickens love the goats for some reason and the goats dont seem to mind the chicken ladies too much either.

The donkey boys like the sun to shine too! They were caught several times throughout the day laying down and just soaking it all in. That is, when the mother goat isnt chasing them and stomping her feet in their direction. Funniest thing I have ever seen as that darn goat is afraid of her own shadow but acts very tough when the donkeys are around. You should see a pygmy goat put the sneak on a pair of miniature donkeys. Its almost sad. It really seems to empower her, nutty goat.

And here is Ollie and the mother goat hanging out in the snow. It seems humorous to me that they wont go out into the snow in the barnyard which they have access to all day but put them out in the orchard area and snow doesnt seem to bother them at all.

A Sunny Winter Day

Guest Bedroom Makeover 30 Day Challenge!

One of my favorite blogs to read almost everyday is BetterAfter.net. I am sure you are a fan as almost everyone is. :-) Recently, I saw this post and it was on a blog called Thrift Diving. It was about ending decoration procrastination and finally getting to that room that you have been putting off for one reason or another. Weve all been there - I still am and so I decided to get involved in the next round this August!

This started August 1 and we have 30 days to complete the project from start to finish. It seems like a long time but wow, here it is a few days in and I have made very little progress. Im starting to panic and we are only 3 days in... not a good sign! :-)

I have decided to tackle the dreaded middle bedroom in my house. It now resembles an in-house storage unit more than a bedroom. It has become the catch all place for all of my holiday decorations and Disney items. What a waste of space! I have decided to tackle it head on. Here are the pictures of the space .....

PLEASE BE WARNED - THE FOLLOWING IMAGES MAY BE UPSETTING TO SENSITIVE VIEWERS! LOL - Seriously not kidding! Just remember.... dont judge me please!

Dont ask me what happened to Santas head - I have no idea! LOL Hopefully, I will find it before Christmas arrives. ;-)

That mountain of stuff is actually four large bins stacked on top of one another. I am realizing I have WAY too much Christmas stuff. It is time to lighten the load.

More wallpaper and lace window treatments over vertical blinds. YES, I said vertical blinds. And you can see a LOT of wallpaper. There will be a pang of sadness as I tackle this room because my Mom so loved the Victorian inspired wallpaper and draperies. But I know if she was still here, she would be helping me strip the walls clean to ready them for paint. I just know how much she loved this room.

I am looking to have a dark grey room with bright white accents! I have almost everything needed to do this room over as I have been hoarding things for a few years now. Whenever I saw a great deal on something for the room I envisioned, I would buy it and store it away. Here are some things I have at the ready:

This is the picture from the Craigslist ad for a bedroom set. I purchased this and it has been sitting in my garage for a few years now. Here are the pieces I have to scrape and re-paint!

I still love the lines of this set! I am going to paint it white again but the paint they used is textured and they didnt do a very good job. So it needs to be stripped down and painted again. I am going to paint the hardware silver instead of oil rubbed bronze. I want a more polished look.

I found this bench at a thrift store and I love the lines of it. It is also going to be painted white and the cushion reupholstered. The top has three marble inlays which may pose a problem but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I found it to be strikingly similar to the one in this inspiration photo...

I also found this accent chair at HomeGoods that has been sitting in plastic waiting to be put into place. I cant wait until the room to be done so I can take the plastic off and have a seat.

So that is the plan for this makeover! I am not sure I will make the August 31st deadline, but even if I dont, I will be that much further along than I would have been. Obviously, emptying the room will be a daunting task. I dont have very much storage space and I have a bunch of decorations for Halloween and Christmas. I would hate to part with them simply because I dont have anywhere to put them in the off-season. But if I stay focused on how the room will look once completed, I know I will find a way!

Guest Bedroom Makeover 30 Day Challenge!