The Spohn Clan

Climbing the Tower

2011-12-29T18:18:00.000-08:00

Phil and Marcia decided to climb the water tower while they were visiting in Campbell over the holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T09:32:00.001-08:00

Here's the William Davis family gathering at Thanksgiving in 1917 (click to embiggen). Fairly grim lot, eh? (All except the guy on the right.)

Happy Thanksgiving,
Gpa

Sampson

2011-11-18T17:39:00.001-08:00

Back in the heyday of Henly Aerodrome, I took aerobatic lessons from Steve Wolf in a Pitts Special biplane. I also watched his progress building his first, legendary Sampson biplane, and I was there when he flew it the first time.

Steve was the Michael Jordan of airshow pilots. He's the only pilot who was ever asked to fly a show every day at the EAA Fly-in held in Oshkosh every year.

Now he builds airplanes full time, and his wife teaches aerobatics. All of the planes he's built have been unique, but biplanes are his first love. And here's a video of Steve giving someone named Gail an introductory ride.

Recently he built his fourth (maybe third) Sampson. You can have this one for less than $500,000.

Just for comparison, you could buy a Stearman biplane for $500 after WW II. Steve got his start many years later building replacement wings for them. He also soloed in ten different planes on his sixteenth birthday (the earliest you can solo).

Serendipity

2011-11-18T12:17:00.001-08:00

Beyond Hetch Hetchy

I stumbled across this picture buried in Windows 8 files. I'm using the next version of Windows on this computer, and it's a background image. Strange.

It shows an ancient lake bed filled up, and on its way to becoming a meadow. There's even a bit of open water left. Right now it's mostly covered with rough vegetation. There's a trail down the middle about three miles long and that's where Mark, Nancy and I once hiked.

You might possibly remember this place Mark or Nancy. That is if you remember the backpack trip. I don't remember if we camped near here (to the left around the corner) or went on further, but that meadow was part of our route.

Army Tour of Duty

2011-11-11T07:58:00.001-08:00

I made a Google map that shows where I was stationed when I was in the Army. I started off with three months in the Kansas National Guard because they promised they'd promote me before I went in the Regular Army. That paid off very nicely, thank you.

You can click on the list of places in the left column to zoom into the places I was at.

Soccer Dog

2011-11-10T08:33:00.001-08:00

Dog invades the field and the crowd yells ole ... - YouTube

Fresh View for The Spohn Clan

2011-11-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

You should be looking at the new look right now. Google is making changes to Blogger, and the old look does not fit in so well. I think you'll like this new one.

Update: I discovered that not all the text, and none of the embedded links show up, particularly in the "Magazine" view, until you open the post (by simply clicking on it). In fact, you need to click most posts to see all the text and photos. Just click anywhere on a post to see the whole enchilada.

The blog should have opened in the "Magazine" view (I hope). If you like, you can try "Classic", Flipcard", "Mosaic", etc. I like "Magazine" because it's compact, the images are in the same frame as the text, and it's got the latest posts at the top.

Those of you who have a smartphone should also be able to see a mobile version. It might not be too thrilling, but it should squeeze in. :)

Quantum trees

2011-10-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

As an updated version of an ancient parable frames it:

If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? One sage says, "Yes it does, for it makes vibrations in the air." Another says, "No it does not, for there is no auditory processing in any brain."

When I stumbled across this recently, I was reminded of the time we heard a large tree fall in Yosemite. We were on the first leg of a backpack trip, and were camped by a beautiful, seldom-visited lake. It was a quiet night, and the crashing sound was unmistakable. We looked for the tree on our way back to the trail the next day, but could not find it. We definitely heard the sound though.

False conundrums like this are really just a question of semantics. I won't go further, or this could degenerate in to a discussion of quantum mechanics, and the collapse of wave functions. Suffice to say, hearing that tree fall is a treasured memory.

happy birthday Mom!

2011-10-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

I had a heck of a time getting good photos at the restaurant, it was really dark in there! But the company and the food were great. Barb got a really special cake to celebrate Mom's big day!

Downtown Chicken, Alaska

2011-09-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

My only regret about my bicycle tour through BC, Yukon and Alaska is that several rolls of my best photos got lost in the mail. And then today, while fooling around with maps on the internet I stumbled across photos of Chicken, Alaska.

You may recall that I was there. I had recently eaten breakfast, but I had a great bowl of chicken soup, wandered around downtown, and bought a book written by a woman who went there about 100 years ago to teach school. And just to remind you that the world is a small place, our friends from Vancouver, BC know the mayor of Chicken. He comes to Arizona in the winter, and Brian met him playing golf.

But on to the pictures: The ones I found are on Panoramio, which is part of Google Earth. You can go most anywhere in the world on Panoramio, and find pictures that people have posted. You can navigate to several pictures there, and don't forget to click on them to see them full size. Return to the main page by using your browser's back arrow.

Where it all began...

2011-09-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

after our trip to Sonoma, we came home 101... across the Golden Gate

and then down 19th Avenue...

A boyhood dream

2011-09-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

This story starts when I was in high school. It's part of the series labeled "lucky". I was looking on the internets today for information on HP's 2116, their first minicomputer (it came way before PCs). I found some good stuff, and then it occurred to me to search for "hp 8553", which is part of the best engineering I ever did.

The 8552 and 8553 together realized a boyhood dream that formed in my amateur radio days. It's basically a radio receiver that displays the signal strength of all the stations in a specific band of frequencies. It's called a spectrum analyzer.

By 1966, I had acquired just the right background to know just what product to design, as well as the engineering experience I would need to pull it off. Part of that experience came from being an engineer on the very first solid-state product at HP. Before that, HP's products all used vacuum tubes, which would not have led to a small, compact, and relatively-inexpensive product.

My experience with amateur radio, and a lifelong interest in electronics was the other dimension of my background that was important to knowing what to design, and how to do it. I was also well along my way to an MSEE at Stanford at that time, and I had picked up some analytic tools that were a big help too.

That experience was important, but it was the dream about having just such a device for myself that was essential to getting it just right. I was the project manager as well as the principal engineer, so I was a confident perfectionist throughout the project. That project was the most fun I ever had. And HP was paying me to do it to boot.

I put my personal stamp on every aspect of the overall design, and on each electronic circuit. There were several engineers working with me, and I used them to explore potential designs for their part of the project. But when it came to the final designs, they were happy to adjust them to my vision of the final result.

The 8853, 8553, and other related products of mine were in continuous manufacture at HP for over 20 years. That's a rare length of time for any electronics product. I think it's ample evidence of the elegance of the design. And the longevity didn't stop there. It's now more than 40 years later, and these products are still actively for sale on the internet. And I have the engineering prototype myself. :-)

[You can see more pictures if you explore the related pages at AZUR Electronics.]

A better Ford example

2011-07-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Photo source is Conceptcarz.com

This is the best example of a 35 Ford 5 window coupe that I've found online. It's just like the one I drove to high school. This one even has original wire-rim wheels. (It was extremely hard to put a new tire on those rims.)

Mine was a beat-out, raggedy old thing, but it was still nice to drive (except it had extremely poor brakes and no heater). If I still had it I could probably get it restored to this level for $125,000 or so. ;-)

You could tilt the windshield out and roll down the rear window. The breeze was almost as good air conditioning. The last mine was seen was in Hutchinson, Kansas. My dad and sister just happened to see it plow into the rear of a Highway Patrol car. No doubt the new owners never learned how to drive without brakes.

Nut Goodie Bars

2011-07-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

There is a new store in Campbell - and they sell Nut Goodie Bars, in addition to lots of different candies and sodas!

Sherman Pass

2011-07-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

This is a story from the last century. ;-) It's about my "retirement ride." The first 8 days were tough. A friend and I rode over 100 miles a day on fully loaded touring bikes. Those distances were not my choice, but I made it.

On the second day it was raining, and we were facing Sherman Pass, the highest pass in Washington. The picture is not mine... remember it was raining.

So off we went, starting at Kettle Falls on the Columbia River, which is 110 miles from Spokane. We ended up in Osoyoos, which is nearly in Canada. Fortunately it wasn't raining there, but we had ridden 107 miles and I was a bit tired.

Maybe you can see why from this profile of the altitude. Kettle Falls is on the east, at the right end, and the profile ends somewhere in the mountains. The average grade of the steep part is about 4%. After that, as they say, it was all downhill. Of course we still had another 80 miles or so to go to Osoyoos. :-)

Seriously San Francisco

2011-07-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

This photo is by Thomas Hawk, who blankets San Francisco like the fog. I believe it's at California and Grant.

Malefic serendipity: a personal story

2011-07-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

A recent article about the Nation's power grid reminded me of a peculiar event that had me stymied more than 50 years ago. I was in the lab at Heald Engineering College in San Francisco at the time. The lab had a vintage collection of large electrical machines, along with a unique electrical system.

The electrical system was a fluke [another word for serendipity]: Like other cities, San Francisco installed Edison's DC power system more than a century ago. But Tesla's more-efficient AC system was soon being widely adopted. Most cities just switched, but San Francisco left their old DC system in place. That made it easy for Heald to build a nice electrical lab that offered both AC and DC machines to students.

I wanted to run a lab experiment on that ill-fated day, but another student was using one piece of equipment that I needed. So I decided to modify the experiment so that his piece wasn't required.
Here's more or less what I planned to set up: Use a big DC motor to drive a big alternator (AC generator). Then connect the AC output from the alternator to a big synchronous AC motor, and use it to drive a big DC generator. Finally, connect the electrical output of the DC generator back to the DC motor.

This setup would be a sort of perpetual-motion machine, with the DC generator circulating up to fifty thousand watts of power through the AC machines and back to the DC motor. Power from PG&E would make up the relatively small losses in the loop. You did know there is no such thing as a real perpetual-motion machine?

The point of the experiment was to measure the efficiency of the synchronous motor at different loads. But I couldn't get my locally-generated AC to synchronize with PG&E's frequency so that I could connect it directly to their AC system. I finally figured out that their frequency was about 50 cps, not 60. That seemed crazy, but I ran out of time, so I had to stop the experiment.

The next morning I spotted a front-page story in the San Francisco Chronicle. A Cessna had crashed into one of the main transmission lines in the Bay Area while I was setting up my experiment. The short circuit caused by the aluminum wings so overloaded PG&E's system that generators all over California had slowed to 50 cps. I wasn't crazy after all.

I set up the experiment again as soon as I got back to Heald, and it only took a few minutes to get my data. My experiment was still running when the lab instructor came by. He was visibly shaken after I explained what I was doing. He expected the whole thing to blow up.

Of course the electrical systems were only linked mechanically, not electrically. He didn't quite understand that. However, there were no fires or blown fuses. He quickly approved my data, told me to shut down the experiment as fast as I could, and left the building.

Some Spokane trip Photos

2011-06-23T13:49:00.001-07:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Talent

2011-06-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

I don't watch TV much so I had no idea that this guy has some real talent.

Family Reunion Time!

2011-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Soon we'll all be gathered together to celebrate Miss Melissa's graduation and to celebrate "all things Spohn" ♥

we will be missing Mike however... so hopefully he can join us through Skype... or Facebook... or the phone!

happy Birthday Chris!

2011-06-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

30 Minutes of Beach Time before we get serious....

2011-04-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

Melissa & Kyle (Coach Todd's son) enjoying their daily allotted 30 minutes of beach time in Ft. Lauderdale before the meet starts tomorrow.... below are some links to follow the results.

YMCA Short Course 2011 Results and Video Streaming

Tuesday: Women's 200 Medley Relay (definitely)
Wednesday: Womens 200 Breast
Women's 400 Free Relay (maybe - depending on who's swimming good)
Thursday: Women's 800 Free Relay (maybe - see above)
Friday: Women's 200 Free Relay (most likely - see above)
Women's 100 Breast
Women's 400 Medley Relay (definitely)

Enjoy!!

Happy Birthday Phil - Dad - Gpa!!

2011-03-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

have a super day... have a cupcake on us!

Happy 21st Birthday NICK!!

2011-03-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

What an exciting birthday - you're 21 now!

ENJOY!!

it's starts with an S, but it ain't snow...

2011-02-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

Well, there isn't even that much snow on the hills around us. All the hype - :-p This is what we woke up to!
notice the mulch on the driveway - the little birdies like to dig and make a mess. Everyday I sweep it up...

Girls Weekend Getaway

2011-02-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to go spend the weekend with one of the Swim Mom's (Susan) up at Schweitzer Mountain resort over the holiday weekend. Don't know if any of you remember going up there way back when in the 80's but it's very different now. There is a little "Village" at the base where the lodge is and they have boutiques, wine/cheeze store, pub, bakery, etc. and a big fancy hotel. Can't even see the bunny hill from the village. Susan and her family have a condo right on the mountain. If you see the pic with the condos & red roofs, she is the very end one on the right...right on the run. Those condos were there when we skiied back then, but you should see everything up there now! Huge out of their gord expensive homes and condo's
. The view to the valley hasn't changed much from what I remember. We snow-shoed Sat & Sun & I walked up the hills while Susan skiied on Sunday. It was 20 degrees but the sun was shining! A very nice relaxing/enjoyable weekend! (Susan is the lady in the pic) Very nice!!

Part Timer....

2011-02-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

I started a new part time adventure on February 8th. Miss Madi (Neighbors K.C. & Tiffany's little one) comes to my house now every Tues, Wed, & Thurs.... we have a good time and try to keep her entertained. She's 3 months old as of 2/23 and getting into the fun stage. The first few weeks were challenging... I think she is a colicky baby, but hasn't been diagnosed... just needs to learn how to burp better. We're working on that...and a "schedule". She's been a blast this week and Missy even got to play with her Thursday... CV School district declared a "snow day" so she had the day off.

It's hard to get a little one to smile when holding a camera in their face LOL!

it might snow...

2011-02-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

The weather man keeps saying that we could get snow here in the Santa Clara Valley - wow! If it does be sure to watch this spot 'cause between Dave and I there should be some photos!! Ofcourse Barb probably isn't interested in snow at this point ♥

Happy Birthday Melissa!

2011-01-27T13:05:00.000-08:00

Happy 18th Birthday

Missy PB!!

Happy Birthday Ken!

2011-01-10T10:40:00.001-08:00

Hope you have a terrific day!

New Years and Fun at Bead Lake

2011-01-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some snapshots of the fun over New Year's Weekend. Lots of snow to start with in Spokane Valley. It was about 5 degrees when this picture was taken on Friday morning.

A snapshot of Nick playing. We stopped to take a break during one of the rides and I took the opportunity to get a pic.

This is our view on the way up to Bead Lake. It's the Pend O'Reille river headed north from Newport, Washington.

I don't have any pics of the actual lake. It was way to0 cold and too much snow to hike down (then back up). I would have never made it to Midnight. :)

Christmas time in C-town

2011-01-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the gang mid-way on the walk on the LG creek trail - it was a gorgeous sunny day after lots of cold and rain!

We had loads of fun with Gramma and Grampa in town for the holidays. Christmas Eve at the Mahaffie's with Erin's delish red velvet cupcakes and then Christmas Day at the Young's with turkey and all the trimmings. Two days to spread out the presents too!

Happy Birthday Barb!

2010-12-31T13:46:00.000-08:00

have a super day snow-mobiling and celebrating your day!

Final Swim Meet Update

2010-12-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Melissa made the A final in the 50 Breaststroke on Sunday. Finished 7th. SAS took home 5th place. One of our swimmers, Coleman took home individual High Point award for the meet and set a few new records. Whew I'm tired!!

Here are a few snapshots of her on the awards podium and with Coach Todd.

Sunday Update

2010-12-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

Made the top final for 50 Breast - going in seeded 6th. And will swim in the 400 free relay tonight too! Muscles are holding up pretty well. :)

More Meet Results

2010-12-19T07:59:00.000-08:00

200 Medley Relay-6th, 50 Free-40th & 200 Breaststroke- C Final, 3rd in heat, 2 second drop, YNat Cut & 19th overall finish.
Here is a pic of the result of the 200 Breast.... Strained the Hammy & Groin a bit so into the ice bath.... no complaints yet this morning so it must have helped.
Going to be a long day today - finals over about 7:30pm then load the bus for the trip to Spokane.

Washington State Championships Results

2010-12-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

We had good results at the finals yesterday. 7th in the 200 Free Relay, 8th in the 100 Breast Individual Final and swam the 400 Medley Relay, but not sure of the results. 4th Place overall so far :)

Here is some rookie video from the nose-bleed seats!

We woke up to no power in the hotel this morning. 50 MPH winds last night and pouring rain was too much I guess. The continental breakfast was in the dark and while loading the bus for the pool the power came back on. All the moms stayed behind to wash up and have some coffee before another long day. We are having fun tho!

2010-12-17T15:51:00.000-08:00

We're at the Washington State Championships here in Federal Way. So Far, Melissa is swimming in the finals for the 200 Free Relay, the 100 Breast & the 400 Medley Relay. You can view results and follow along by clicking on the link below.

WA State Champs

Will post pictures when I can get them.

Christmas Computer

2010-12-14T10:10:00.000-08:00

What did the elf say was the first step in using a Christmas computer?

2010-12-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

Birthday Wishes for Mark!!! Hope you enjoyed your day!!

Another Christmas Joke

2010-12-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

Why does Scrooge love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?

Another Winter Question

2010-12-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

How do sheep say Merry Christmas in Mexico?

Winter questions

2010-12-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

Let's see who can come up with the correct answer first: Why did the snowboy knock the snowgirl down?

Out Huntin

2010-12-04T20:54:00.001-08:00

Went Hunting Today - here is slideshow of the fun we had! Enjoy!

Click here to view these pictures larger

no snow for us

2010-12-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

a little different look than when Gma was here in August!

Get Well wishes to Barb!

2010-12-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hoping that you are feeling LOTS better today and maybe soon you can go out and make a snowman!

It's SNOW...VEMBER!!

2010-11-24T08:08:00.000-08:00

Well, this is at 7:50AM today, coming home from dropping off miss Melissa at school. She hasn't been interested in driving this week. (I think it's more lazy than conditions) The beautiful blue sky was a welcome sight today, compared to the last few days of blizzard conditions. You can see by the thermomoter in the car that it's coooollllldddd! Not very much snow, but enough to get out the sled and get in some hot-laps around the neivorhood. :)

thunder & lightening & rain... oh my!

2010-11-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

Well - on Friday Russ the UPS guy delivered my new camera so now the learning begins. It's got lots of cool settings and I think it's going to work out pretty well once I get it all figured out. This is a photo on the macro setting - I'm very interested in having the close-up subject be in focus and the background be blurry. Anyway... you can see all the leaves back there, the front yard was worse. So today we spent some time raking and cleaning out the gutters. Needless to say I was watching Mark very carefully when he went on the roof, and held the ladder whenever he used it! Don't want anymore falls in the family!

We look each morning at the weather for Fresno, Phoenix and Spokane. This morning Mark said - yikes, 25 in Spokane and cold in Phoenix too! Dana was happy for rain in "the NO" :-)

At the Shark Tank

2010-11-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

Well... we certainly had our Saturday full of sports. Watching the Giants on TV, they lost that game, but are now the World Series Champs! We got some great tix to the Sharks game against the Ducks... we had a great time. The Sharks won and there were lots of good fights! I don't know what was more exciting... watching the game or seeing Neil Young just a few rows in front of us! Several years ago Mark and I were in about the same seats watching the awesome CSN&Y concert - it was cool watching him tap his toes and bang his hand on his thigh when Led Zep was played! Keep on Rockin' in the New World!

Oktoberfest 5K

2010-10-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the photos of our momentous day! Team: Mark and Nancy Photographer: Cathy!

We probably weren't as prepared for this as we should've been, but hey we gave it our all! After we went home and showered we walked back downtown for a beer and lunch... I got the teryaki chicken bowl with veggies (I know... not to German was it?) and Mark got his annual Cheesesteak! Now we need to work on getting ready for the Valentine's Day Fun Run!

Homecoming 2010

2010-10-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Homecoming for the CV Bears was this past weekend. CV won the Football game and the Dance was a blast! - so I'm told. Melissa & Kayla Panter went with Evan and Kayla Peterson went with Tyler. Here are some candids and posed pics. Enjoy!!

Point Lobos

2010-10-22T22:38:00.001-07:00

Blank Project Wall Art

Unique party invitations and greeting cards by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Happy Birthday to NANCY!!!

2010-10-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

So on this very special day

I would like to say to you

I hope you'll always find happiness

In whatever you may do.

Hope you're having a super duper birthday!!

Love,

Barb, Ken, Nick & Missy P.B.

Blue Grass in Wisconsin

2010-10-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Still can't get all the scavenger items outta my head! This was at the barbecue at Retreat - it was held at the Paper Museum. It's right along the Fox River and used to be a paper mill... this is paper makin' country. So I think the Fox River is probably similar to the Spokane River and it's flour mills! Nice they keep the old buildings and use them for something! The gal you can partially see in red, with a bottle of beer, is Dinah one of the owners of Club Scrap.

The guys in the band were joking with me and said how come I didn't want my photo with them - specifically one said "what's wrong with a bass?" So I told him next year maybe it would be a different instrument LOL

I'm back....

2010-10-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

this is my friend Jen and I collapsed on the sofa in Lucy's suite on the last day of my Club Scrap Retreat. What a fantastic time we had... Wisconsin is beautiful... well right now it is, perhaps I would have a different opinion during January and February LOL

The Sea Was Angry

2010-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Dave, Nick and Erin what boogie boarding Saturday at Rio Del Mar beach. The waves were epic. Dave and Nick had a "near death" experience as they put it. Erin decided to go in and watch with me from the shore. Can anyone say Rip Current.

Turnbull Wildlife Reservation

2010-09-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

TheMarcia and I went to Turnbull for a little hiking last week. We saw lots of ducks, but no geese or swans. We did see a scruffy looking coyote though. We ate lunch at Kepple Lake.

And just a few more

2010-09-01T19:26:00.001-07:00

More Pics from the Trip

2010-09-01T19:17:00.001-07:00

Pictures from the trip...

2010-09-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the highlights from the trip to San Jose/Campbell that Mom and part of the Ps made! Feel free to add some of yours ;-)

Upcoming Meet for Missy P.B.

2010-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Here is the website for the Western Zone Championships happening in San Jose, August 10th - 14th.

So far she's qualified in the 50, 100 & 200 Freestyle; 100 & 200 Breaststroke; 200 Fly; & 200 IM. She has the Inland Empire Championships to try to qualify in the 100 Back & 100 Fly.

At this time I don't have any idea what events the Zone Team Coaches will enter her in.

It looks like Wednesday and Saturday would be the best days to go. Not sure about the relays as they will pull the best from all of the teams from the Inland Empire, but she's got a good chance to be in one.

Will post updates as they become available. (subject to my availability to do so. :) )

2010 Speedo Western Section LC Championship

2010-07-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

Melissa is in Gresham, OR all week competing at the Sr. Sectional meet. There are 11 from her team. She is swimming today in the 200Meter Breaststroke and I think the 200 Meeter Medley relay.

She swimms again on Friday in the 100Meter Breaststroke and then on Saturday in the 400 Meter Medley Relay.

Click on
Real Time Results in case you want to follow along.

Lemonade in the Shade

2010-07-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

From the Geezer Team: Marcia at the neighborhood Lemon Ade stand. Kudo's to Barb for spotting them while on the way to a wedding. Phil was the photographer. Too bad the house wasn't purple. Found at 4th and Progress in Spokane Valley, Washington.

visiting Spokane

2010-07-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple photos from Spokane this week - Mark & Nancy have been dragging Barb (and whoever else had time) all around the area!

Bicycle Adventures

2010-07-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

John Speare, the fellow I gave my RB-T bicycle to, told me he was going to use it on a dirt-road trip he was thinking about. He and some buddies recently rode up in the Coeur d'Alene Forest (I was up there once myself). He just posted some details in the Cycling Spokane blog. His first picture shows my bike on a bridge over a nice creek.

Hello! and Happy Dad's Day!

2010-06-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

Here we all are saying hi to Grampa! Hope you have a great day :-)

'maters

2010-06-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

My tomato plants are doing great - probably be ripe while we're in Spokane! I better have Dave check on them and pick if needed, Chris would water but he hates tomatoes!

Top o' the mornin' to ya

2010-06-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

Just another day in Paradise here. We slept in till 8:00. In case you haven't seen this, and to mark this place in history, I'm sending you the link to the comic of the day.

Marcia gets Potted

2010-06-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

No doubt you recognize this as the front deck looking into the living room. That's the beautiful hanging basket that Phil and I picked out. I didn't get a good picture of the one that Barb gave me, but it's beautiful too!

The slideshow below has the rest of the best of the pictures we took. See if you can find the bird on the rail by the feeder. The last two pictures are in the back yard, showing work in progress

Happy 50th Cathy!

2010-06-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Cathy!

love, your big sister ;-)

Happy Birthday Chris

2010-06-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

I guess I should've done this for everyone's birthday... but I just thought of it! This was way back during Nick and Missy's California trip in 2006 I think! Chris looking out at the ocean - which are his plans today too - however there will be disc golf first and a 6 pack added to the "menu"! Hope he and Tim have a great day!

Phil's RB-T news

2010-06-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

John Speare is preparing for a gnarly trip on my RB-T. I figured he might be changing the saddle (to a Brooks all-leather classic) and the pedals (he probably doesn't have shoes with Shimano cleats on them). You can read about the rest of the preparations here.

Announcing Benjamin!!

2010-05-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

He's finally here. Baby Ben arrived early this morning at 12:34am. 6lbs 14oz.; 20 inches - just a little guy. Proud Parents are Joe & Danielle (Dani) Ryser. We haven't seen him live yet, but wanted to share some pics that Gramma Laurie (Ken's Sister) sent. Our thinking is that he looks just like Dad Joe did when he was born. Enjoy

Seen in the newspaper

2010-05-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

Hey look, Nancy and I both showed up in the Spokesman-Review today. ;-)

Phil's RB-T

2010-05-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

RB-T is the designation for the "Road Bike - Touring" that Bridgestone (the tire company) used to build. I rode this bike to British Columbia four times, to Glacier NP (twice), to Yellowstone NP, across Montana to North Dakota, and many thousands of miles locally. I never crashed it, and there aren't even any noticeable scratches on it. It was simply a dream to ride.

I'm sure I could have sold it, but I had a better idea. I've been reading John Pierce's posts on the "Cycling Spokane" blog, and I could tell he really appreciates bicycles, particularly Bridgestones. So I decided to email him see if he might want it. He said that he thought it must be a hoax, but then what if it wasn't, so he replied. He and his wife soon came and picked it up. Both of them were really nice.

John said he'd put it on the blog, and here's the link to his post about my bike. You'll see that his friends think he's pretty lucky. I'm glad to learn that he's going to tour with it soon.

Last of the triad

2010-05-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

Click for the last of the series.

8-8

2010-05-19T19:53:00.001-07:00

So, I got all my pictures on to my new computer (glad I back things up all the time). My 8th picture from my 8th folder is an "aww" moment. Here is a picture of Kaylyn Grace Moore with her mom, Leisa. She is about 8 hours old here. That little girl is now 9 months old and looks just like her mom. Big, Big blue eyes.

It gets better...

2010-05-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

Click image to go to today's strip.

Better Blogger

2010-05-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

If you follow this link you'll get to use a better editor for writing these posts. It's explained here.

8th-8th

2010-05-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the 8th-8th picture, but it's part of a sequence that I stitched into a panorama, so I'm including that one too. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

You may have seen these before. They're of Mt. Baker, in northern Washington. I took the them when we went up to visit our friends from Vancouver.

Geneology -- my grandfather, grandmother, aunts and uncles

2010-05-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Note: most of this is not new. It dawned on me that I should have put this in the blog in the first place. ;-)

Just poking around on the Internet and stumbled across this from some old book that Google indexed. Thought it might be interesting.

The last paragraph is the one of most interest. It lists my grandfather, grandmother, aunts, and uncles on the Spohn side. The book was published in 1903, so that's probably why my Dad is not listed.

Note that Sadie is the familiar name for Sarah, so she is Aunt Sadie. The dates there would make her about 8 years old when my Dad got typhoid fever at the age of 2 or 3. Dallis was a half-brother, who I had never heard of before reading this excerpt.

Dad's doctor discovered—at the age of 80 or so—that the typhoid had damaged a heart valve, and that his heart had grown to twice normal size to keep up.

Farming was a labor-intensive enterprise in those days, involving laundry, feeding and housing of hired hands, plus all the other family duties. And they didn't have washing machines, refridgerators, electric stoves and microwaves in those days. Dad was very sick, but his mother was overwhelmed.

So she said to Dad's sister Sadie something like, "I'm giving you this baby to take care of. I can't do all the other work and take care of him too. See if you can keep him alive, but if he dies don't feel bad about it. It's not your fault."

On this date in 1980 (30 years ago!)

2010-05-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Today is the 30 year anniversary of the Mt. St. Helens eruption. Of course everyone here in the Inland Empire if over the age of 5 or 6 will undoubtedly remember exactly where they were and what they were doing.

I certainly remember! Lake Coeur d'Alene - on the Hobie Cat with no wind and the sky looked like there was a shade being pulled accross it making it darker and darker.

2010-05-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

So 8-8...

This is what is on my work computer 8th file, 8th pic. Bring back some memories? Her already is finishin' up her Sophomore year of college. :(

8-8 photo

2010-05-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

I found this idea on a friend's blog. The idea is to go to where your photos are stored on your computer, open the eighth folder and choose the eighth photo and tell it's story. Since I am at work I have fewer photos that at home, but I thought I'd give it a try. The eighth folder happens to be labeled "cousins"!

The story behind this one you probably all remember! Nick and Missy were here visiting and I wanted a photo of all the cousins together - especially a cool one to make into a Christmas present for the Gs. If I remember correctly Dana had the idea of all the heads together! This photo was taken August 5, 2006. We only had a small window of time when ALL the grandkids would be together to shoot the photos!

When I went searching for the eighth folder & photo I figured it might be boring - but what a great surprise this was!

More Bridgestone

2010-05-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

Scary coinkydink: This is a picture of the guy I gave the RB-T to. It came from an article in today's paper. He is active in all kinds of cycling activities here in Spokane.
Coinkydink: This is a word one of you uses, or used to use. I can't remember who. Would one of you like to claim it?

Comic of the day

2010-05-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

I'll bet you can relate to this comic strip. This is the first panel. What do you think the next one will be?

Bye, bye Bridgestone

2010-05-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

No not a tire -- a bicycle. Bridgestone built some of the best bicycles ever made. They quit making them in 1984. I bought a model RB-T at a "blowout" sale in about 1986. It had been hanging in the back of a shop downtown. I knew nothing about them at that point, but they are a cult item among cycling cognoscenti.

I went on many long-distance tours on that RB-T (the T is for touring) back in the day. But it had hung in the garage unused for 10 years or so, and once again TheMarcia had asked me when I was going to get rid of it.

I have followed the "Cycling Spokane" blog, written by an interesting fellow who loves RB-Ts too. So, it dawned on me, why not give it to him, and I emailed him to see if he might want it. The way I put it, I was looking for a loving home for it.

Yes, he was very much interested, so today he and his wife came to pick it up. He told me it sounded like a prank, but he thought it might be legit, so he figured it was worth a shot.

He's going to ride it for a year or so, and then probably give it to someone else who would appreciate it. John already has bikes galore, and in fact he is co-founder of a non-profit bicycle shop where they refurbish bicycles and sell them to people at affordable prices.

Zucker no longer

2010-05-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

I did it. I deleted my Facebook account. Primarily as a matter of principle. Not that I think Facebook is a big risk (although it is if you put too much identifying or location information in there).

Jason Calacanis has a comprehensive (to say the least) post on Zuckerberg's conflict with your interests, and here's instructions for how to stop being a zucker yourself -- not that I think you should, but just in case...

So if you want to post something interesting for me to see, you can always use this blog. ;-)

I hope these email notices work out

2010-05-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

OK, just had a bad experience with the email subscription box I tried to set up. It originates at a possibly malicious 3rd party site. I don't know why Google is using a 3rd party site anyway. I wanted to set up an alternative to subscribing by web feed.

So... I ripped out the subscription box, and subscribed you all directly on the blog. We'll see how that works out. You should get an email notice of this new post as soon as I post it. I don't know exactly will happen. There may be a way to unsubscribe if you don't want it, but if there isn't and you do, let me know and I'll see if I can fix it.

You Betcha's

2010-05-07T15:22:00.000-07:00

I guess there's a new name for the restuarant in Crosby on 1st Street behind the Gas Station - Accross from the Fire Dept. ??

Carolyn (a.k.a. Snookie) had lunch there not too long ago. I was talking to Marcia the other day and she mentioned it. ROFLMAO!! Then I googled it and there were a few reviews - get a load of this one:

BEST EVER!!!‎
By Leah Mallon - Oct 28, 2009
I travel up from the Cities just to go to Ya Betcha Bar and Grill. Not only is the staff the friendliest and most inviting ever but the food is to die for. They have a unique menu and the bar tenders can make anything. ...

LOL LOL - hehehehehe - chuckle chuckle chuckle - They should serve "Hot Dishes" too!

Checking feedmyinbox

2010-05-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

Checking to see if atom feeds work. (RSS is available.)

4th of July at the Lake

2010-04-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

Our vacation is on the books here at the shop so it looks like we get to hang out at Loon Lake for the Fourth! Barb says it's "not to be missed"! you can just see the top of her head in the bottom of the photo.

Hi Ya!

2010-02-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

That Missy, she's a card!

Blustery Day

2010-01-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

We were awakened this morning with thunder and lightening - followed by lots of rain. Then at lunch time the sun came out and there was a big rainbow, as we turned onto our street it went from the left to right in a huge arch. Then when I came home at 3 pm it was starting to turn very, very dark. About 5 minutes later the lightening and thunder and a huge down pour started. The thunder was just rolling across the sky for minutes it seemed, so loud and crashing. And windy - oh boy!

This brought back memories of chasing the trash cans - and lids - down Tartarian in big windy rain storms. It was always great fun to play in the rain, then come in and strip in the garage and head up to a warm bubble bath that Mom had ready. Do Cathy and Barb remember that?

The thunder and lightening also reminded me of our road trips to Minnesota and Kansas when we would see the lightening and hear the thunder and count between them to know how many miles away it was. Do I have that right? Well today it was FLASH - slight pause - CRASH, BOOM! So methinks it was upon us!

Cathy and Barb, what do you remember? How about Mom and Dad - although you probably have better weather stories being from the Midwest!

remember when...

2010-01-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

Remember this? Now we are all gearing up for 2011 and Melissa's graduation and the "official" Spohn family reunion! Hey - Nancy Spohn will be there... she just got invited to join Netflix!

Last of the Wild West

2009-05-08T08:44:00.001-07:00

If you go by this article in Forbes, legendary places like Dawson City, Virginia City, Tombstone and Cripple Creek weren't the last vestiges of the Old West. Who'd have known it still exists in Spokane? They even claim that Butch Cassidy may have hung out here. It is true that "Utah" Phillips, the greatest writer ever of songs about bumming on the railroad, lived here for a while.

They missed the other side of the story though. Just like in the old west, most regular people here are friendly and unassuming, much like people you find in semi-rural areas. They are also less ideological than people from the central and southern parts of the country. Montana may be the "last best place" overall, but Spokane is definitely the last best metropolitan area. Barb was right when she called it a "hick town" soon after we arrived here, but it's our hick town. ;-)

Guitar God

2009-04-04T17:31:00.001-07:00

I jumped on the website that Nancy found, and created my first major release. :-)

Click to embiggen.

Rusty

2009-01-27T08:36:00.001-08:00

Next month I'm going to take a collection of photos to the next meeting of our photo group, which is part of the Happy Trails Computer Club. The theme is "rust". I wish that I had photos of some of the old-time cans that I've seen in the desert, but in spite of the tidy nature of this place, I found some rust here too. :-)
I'll put the collection online as soon as I've edited it, but of course you're looking at a sample here. One of the things I try to do with photos like this is to compose them well enough that I don't need to crop them, or do any other messing about. I don't remember if that's what Ansel Adams did, but I suspect so. ;-)

Update: The “Rust” collection is now online.

1947 Radio Amateur's Handbook

2009-01-16T11:00:00.001-08:00

By the time I reached high school, I had messed about with radios quite a bit. I acquired some ancient pamphlets that showed how to build vacuum tube radios, and I had great success with one of them. I'll never forget tuning in London, England. I was using a tiny 18" piece of wire for an antenna. I learned years later that my most ambitious project failed because one of the tubes was defective.
It had never dawned on me that there was information available on more modern designs. Maybe it was just as well. They would have been too complicated for me at that point. Of course World War II was underway at that point, so I wouldn't have found many radio parts either.
Then one day Bob Gaeddart, one of the students in my high school class, brought the 1947 edition of The Radio Amateur's Handbook to school. He was what would later be called a geek -- the only one there, except for possibly me. :-) To put things in perspective, there were 150 students in school, so the ratio of geeks to hicks was about what it now is in the wider population.
I was surprised that such a book existed, and instantly recognized its value. It went well beyond the material that I'd had access to before then. It was not engineering level in scope, but it was well written, and adequate for a practical approach to designing radio receivers, transmitters and antennas. I immediately sought funding to purchase my own copy.
I don't think that I'd have gone much further with radios, much less electronics without that handbook. I built more radios, taught myself Morse code, and passed the radio amateur's license exam by the time I was a sophomore in college. You had to be able to read Morse code at 13 words per minute, and know quite a bit about radio and the FCC rules to get your license. I got it all from that handbook, or later versions of it. I had never met another ham (amateur) at that point.
After I got my license, I built a transmitter so that I could get "on the air" and contact other hams. I designed and built several more additions to my "station" over time, and by the time I was a Junior I had quite a nice rig, as hams call it. I was rooming with Kenneth Brown, and he was a serious photographer. We squeezed my amateur station and his darkroom into our dorm room. There wasn't much room for visitors. ;-)
A few years ago, I learned that Dave Packard had also been a radio amateur. It's funny that I never heard anyone mention that while I was there. Bill Hewlett may have been the only one who knew. Anyway, I'm quite sure that without Dave's practical experience, they would not have made it out of that famous Palo Alto garage.
Then, armed with my body of knowledge and experience, I was able to persuade Leon Matson, the owner of Matson Radio Repair in McPherson, to give me a job. He wasn't sure if he could afford to pay me, but he let me start. He decided to keep me on after I fixed the starter in his pickup. That had nothing to do with radios, but it saved him a bunch of money, and showed him that I had a practical bent.
There's another side to that stroy too. A couple of years later my Dad introduced me to one of his friends as his "Chief Mechanic," which was quite a compliment as my Dad was a very good mechanic himself.
That part-time job lead to the next fortuitous book. It was not actually a bound book. It was a big three-ring binder with a complete set of chapters on television repair. I borrowed that for the summer and taught myself how to repair TVs (in theory, no practice yet). Leon had closed the radio shop by the time I got back to school in the fall, so I was without a job.
Then I met a real live ham -- whose name I've forgotten -- in person. He maintained radios for McPherson Power and Light (where your Uncle Lynell later worked). He was helping Carl Holloway, who had previously been a butcher at the Safeway store, get started in the TV Repair business. They were unable to fix one of the TVs in his shop, so I went over there and fixed it for them. Naturally, Carl hired me on the spot. ;-)
The next pivotal book came along after I had graduated from McPherson College, served in the army as a counter spy, graduated from Heald Engineering College, and started working for Hewlett-Packard. That book will lead to another short story, which will bring us to the end of this serendipitous string of singularly important books that I stumbled on early in my career.
Without that handbook, I would not have had the practical experience I needed to get as much as I did out of engineering school. I would not have gotten a job at Hewlett-Packard either, because they were in a recession and were looking for people with practical experience, not more engineers.
I understand perfectly well what they mean when they say you should follow your passion, but you need some luck to make that possible. That 1947 handbook gave me the break I needed.

Crystal Detector - not About a Drug Bust ;-)

2009-01-04T13:48:00.001-08:00

Much like the issue of Popular Electronics that Paul Allen showed to Bill Gates, reading an issue of Popular Mechanics was pivotal for my career in Electronics. I stumbled on a tiny ad in the back of the magazine. It was for a galena crystal (a bit of lead ore used to convert AM radio signals to sound). The ad went something like this: CRYSTAL - Send 25 ¢ - Allen, PO Box 123 - St. Joseph, Missouri (St Joseph was in the lead-mining district of Missouri). It was three lines in size as I recall.
Update: I found a similar ad from an old Popular Science magazine, and here it is. This ad (somewhat later and now with an image) uses the word "Melomite", which is a brand name for crystal radios. :-)

I was about 10 years old at the time. I don't remember how I knew what a galena crystal was for, but it's the heart of a crystal detector radio. There are no tubes or transistors in crystal radios. Just a coil of fine wire, a tuning capacitor, headphones and the crystal. Along with the crystal, I received instructions for a simple "crystal set" for my quarter.
There were a few old radios and radio parts laying around in our "North West Room" (junk room at the farm house). I used a few of those parts and some improvised pieces to build my crystal set. Of course I knew a bit about electrical circuits from messing about with batteries, electro-magnets, etc., so it wasn't to big of a stretch. Now that I know more about electronics, the wonder was that it worked at all.
You also need a really good antenna to get a crystal set to work. I soldered together some pieces of old copper wire, enough to reach from my bedroom to the windmill out by the barn, scrounged up some insulators, and built a dandy antenna. I also learned something about static electricity from that antenna but that's a story for another time.
My dad had a college friend (in the late 1920s) who was a radio "experimenter". That's probably where he got an old book called Radio Telephony for Amateurs. That was what I needed to figure out how to build the antenna. I may still have that book in Veradale.
Over the next couple of years, I spent something like $2.00 for more crystal set plans and parts. One of the sets that I made was "portable". It was about 3" x 3" x 1", but it also required headphones, 300 feet of fine copper wire for the antenna, and a small kite to carry one end of it aloft. :-) How about that for a nice "show-and-tell" to take to grade school?
That was my start in Electronics, but of course I didn't think of it that way at the time. I just wanted to mess about until I got something to work. I soon went on to more ambitious projects, but getting started was the most important step. More to follow.