Elser Family Blog

This is a link to a video of the Yellow Jessamine festival fireworks.

The festival had been moved to the river front last year, but this year, they decided they liked it down town better.. And we do too! because then we get to have fireworks in our yard!

jesseminefireworks10

Or, if you prefer youtube:

Kathi txt’ed this picture.. I’m not sure if he is upside down or not! But it is funny either way.

We visited the “PALMETTO ALPACA CLASSIC” at the hippodrome in North Augusta. It was fun.. Apacas are weird animals.. Kathi said “if you get chickens, I get to have an alpaca.” Hey, If we can hide that in the city.. sure!

Here is a neat picture of Hannah… This is next to the horse arena at the hippodrome.

Rockwell at the basketball awards lunch. I think they all had fun.. its helpful that they had arcade games. Trivia: did you know that people under 18 are not allowed to play pinball in South Carolina!? for real. you wont find pinball machines around here (much at least, I think i know of a miniature golf place that has one)
It’s an old rule from when the place was overrun with gambling pinball games in the late 60’s and 70’s.

Melinda and Rockwell sunning themselves on my disabled Bug. I had to replace the master brake cylinder.. and the new one did not work.. so I’m a bit frustrated.

Ah, a the elusive picture of Dad.. You wont find many of these on this blog. This one is thanks to Melinda.. while she sits on my bug.

Hannah Received a third place in the 6th grade science fair! Good Job Hannah. The title of the experiment was “timing electricity”. The judges comment was “very unique experiment”. The least unique ws Mentos an Coke.. I think there were about 10 of those.

There were a lot of entries.. the Gym was full. This is all three grades;6,7,8.

The upper grade winner did an experiment trying to see the difference betweeen Beef and Chicken DNA.. Pretty impressive.
Kathi is in Chicago today to go to the Oprah show. She will be back tonight.

Hannah is doing a science project for school. Her question is “how long does it take for electricity to travel through a wire? well.. having a dad that has access to test equipment, and wire, helps! She has done just about everything, I have only explained to her how to measure with the oscilloscope, and how to connect the signal generator to the scope and wire to be measured. she has had to do everything else.. It was harder than I thought to explain the concept of “y axis on the scope is voltage, x axis is time”
how do you explain that the still image on the screen is actually a square wave that passes by over and over.. “but its not moving”..

And, the final measurement! the orange trace is the signal going into the wire (the lading edge of a square wave), and the cyan trace is the signal coming out of the other end of 1000feet of wire, 1.23 microseconds later.. neat huh?
The next thing she did was measure an unknown length of wire, and estimate how long is it, by how long it took the signal to pass through it. I am looking forward to seeing how the report actually turns out.

OK, I have been collecting up some pictures since the hard drive disaster. Here are some from the last couple months in no particular order. 🙂
First, the kids made a gingerbread house. they decorated, I did the infrastructure of making the house itself. they did a good job IMHO.

If you did not know, Hannah plays the bassoon. I think she chose it just to annoy her mother. Its an interesting instrument, but a pain to assemble every day.

And, Kath is officially a OTA. she not only graduated, (with honors) but she has passed the certifications, and I believe she just got registered in SC and GA. now all she needs is a job. 🙂

fancy sash there ehe?

Over the Christmas season, there is a forest walk called “lights of the south” where you go through the woods and look at all the decorations. It was fun.

Hey, I made it into a picture.

Do y’all remember doing this? I do.

Melinda does dance class.. This was before a recital.

And this is at the recital with her friend Raven.

I went with Melinda on a field trip to the Ruth Patrick science center. Its a really nice science center in Aiken SC.

Comparing density of similar sized minerals.

Rockwell playing Basket Ball! he is #13.

Building a wood block tower. I remember being his age and doing this. It was lots of fun. Yikes; that room in the background! what the.. I’m sure Kath is going to appreciate this picture.

I was just reading the mom blog entry about video games.. and all of her comments are from kids saying “VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT BAD blah blah”
No, they are not inherently bad. just like guns are not inherently bad…

The problem is abusing them is the norm, not the exception!!

I took Rockwell to the BMX park this weekend. Actually, I took all the kids to the BMX park.. they all rode their bikes and played and we raced. (I can beat them all, even with a 1/3 track lead.. we will see how long that will last! ha.)

I am posting this for one reason.

Man, I am so proud of my kids. They love doing stuff.
Kathi might have a different story, being with them more during the day, but my kids have no interest in video games. or Cable. (OK, I did hear a grumble, just recently, about cable.)

It’s just not a real subject in our house. How great is that? I know it wont last forever, and perhaps it shouldn’t even, but I am so happy we have even gotten this far.
I love my kids.
They are the best.
Hey, I’m allowed my opinion. (smile)

This is far and away the longest I have gone without a post… If I did not post tonight, it would be the first time in 5 years I would not have posted a whole month.
Its mostly because I have been preoccupied and a little depressed.. and the fact that I formatted my hard drive that had two years worth of mydocs files on them really made it worse. not really because I formatted it it, as much as I had not simply backed the mydocs file up on DVD in forever. what on earth was I thinking? its not like its difficult, and its not like I don’t know better. It was just stupid. I DID have all of my pictures backed up, so that is a consolation.

And I could probably post a hundred pictures that I have taken since the last post.. The kids in the Christmas pageant at church, Melinda’s dance recital, the North Augusta Christmas parade, Christmas.. and a dozen other things I have already forgotten.

As many good things that have happened in the 00’s (all related to the kids) I am still glad they are over. Mostly for political reasons.

How about I just list some things I am thankful for. Like Melinda not having a bad burn, The All of us being healthy, the kids doing great in school, Me still having a job, Kathi doing great in school, living in my little town that I like, A new democratic president, The stock market going most of my retirement back (smile).
There are a lot more things to be thankful for than that. But it will do for now.
Sorry for the delay in posting. I go though phases I guess.

Happy New Year! See you in TWENTY TEN.
Love, Ed and Family.

Well, here is an important mile-stone..
Rockwell lost his first tooth!