Elser Family Blog

Christmas (and school) in the VI.

Merry Christmas from the VI!

Rockwell’s Teacher shared this one with me. It’s good to see him.

Here is Rockwell’s class picture this year. Class of 2021!

And Melinda’s Class picture this year. Class of 2019!

Parasitic wasps (And Mistletoe…)

Anyone remember this picture from back in October?

Turns out Hannah found some parasitic wasps.

These guys are, uh, interesting. Not only do they grow inside the caterpillar, they have a virus that causes the caterpillar to protect them from other parasites!

Funky! Here is a interesting Youtube video from a channel that I am subscribed to that is seasonal, (Merry Christmas!) and at the same time relevant. (Yes, to parasitic wasps… go figure.)

Exams over.

So, Hannah Kept her All A’s average.
She aced that math test like she thought. She said she got A’s on all her exams except English. She got a 88% on that one, but she was able to keep her 93% (I’ve been corrected..:) 94% average (by a hair!) in that class. She was the only one in her science class to get a A on the final.. that had to feel pretty Good!
But importantly, she has been working on studying, so I give her a high grade on “effort”.

Good Job Hannah!

At a band concert

We are at sweetwater baptist. Hannah is playing in a Christmas concert tonight.

Rockwell in the VI

Here is a little celebration video Rockwells teacher sent me from the VI. To be honest, I have not quite figured out what they are saying…. OK, so Kathi cleared that up.. they are saying
“Momma bake me a Johnny cake, Christmas coming, ooh ah, Christmas coming, ooh ah, New Years coming, ooh ah, Christmas coming, ooh ah, New Years coming, ooh ah……”

Exam Time.

Dad: “So how did tests go today?”
Hannah: ” Eh. No problem. The ones tomorrow are what I’m concerned about.”
D: “What tests were today?”
H: “Math.”
D: “How did it go?”
H: “Too easy. Pretty sure I aced it”

I like to hear that.
She is really studying too. She has stacks of flashcards! She even made flashcards for gym(PE, whatever)…

It’s English she is sweating. She wants to keep that A pretty badly. If the effort she has put into it is any indication, she will do fine. Good luck Hannah.

Science!

Well, They launched the Balloon yesterday! It was pretty exciting, I must say. Here they are preparing the insulated box. It is supposed to get below -30F at 60000 feet, and we did not want the camera shutting down unexpectedly. It also allowed them to put a little Fox creek logo in the shot, so it would have their High school logo in space! Sarah writing the note that will go into the box in case we cant retrieve it, to make the odds better that it can get back to us.

Getting the Balloon ready for filling.

Getting ready.

Still getting ready..

Counting down! seconds before launch!!

Here is a youtube video of the launch itself! This was as exciting as it seemed..

We were able to track it for about 15 minutes. Here are the last two readings before we lost contact. It looks like was at about 15000 feet when it tried and failed communication the last time. We waited for about 2 hours for it to come back down into cell service again, but it never did. it must have landed in an area with no cell service. 🙁

So, what did they (we) learn? Well, lot’s really. number one, make sure we use a checklist!! There where a couple things that we failed to do that would have helped it be returned to us in case of communication failure (like we had). We learned that cell service stops around 15000 feet! We learned the rate of ascent was around 1000Feet/M… pretty fast. We also learned that we need to use a cell carrier with better coverage. Turns out virgin mobile pretty much only covers the major highways. And we learned to be patient.. we could have avoided some of these pitfalls with a little more patience and research. Also, I feel I participated a bit too much.. But it was fun! Next time I will make sure they do all the work. They are perfectly capable of filling the balloon and sealing it, and tying the knots on the string. Dad just got a little too interested for his own good.
But other than that? It was science! Even in failure you learn a lot.

Hannah Science Project

Hannah’s science project is to launch a balloon and see how high it goes.

It’s T minus 14 hours to the Balloon Launch. 122cuFT of industrial helium costs 75 bucks these days.. But I guess I should be glad it was available.. the guy said he has not been able to get any lately. She is going to be attaching her cell phone to the balloon and using an android application ( spacetracker ) to track its location and altitude, and take pictures along the way. The only risk is if it lands in a area with no cell service, it’s pretty much gone. But she will still have the data of its height, speed and location sent back to my phone while it is in the service area.

Wish her luck! We will report back here with the results!

Back to the future.

So, I have a email debate friend that I have never met.. It’s the sister of a good friend from my past (Bill Sawicki, the artist). She is always sending me right wing rants, and I am always giving her a hard time about being right wing. The usual stuff.  But not always. She often mixes feel good posts in there too.

So about a month ago she sent one of those “remember when you could….” emails. One of the things was “Remember when you could write someones name and town on a letter, and they would receive it? And I replied, “I bet you could still do that with me in my little town..”

Forward a month and what do I get in the mail? A Christmas card! Addressed to “Ed Elser, Georgia ave, North Augusta SC”!

Thanks Virginia! I wish you a very merry Christmas too.  The best to you and yours.  I promise to try and be more civil in 2013 in your honor.

Misc. cell phone pictures

Hannah was so enthused to have her picture taken at the soup kitchen this Sunday. I will give cudos to Hannah though.. She has been going to the soup kitchen once a month for over three years now. I think when Melinda gets back, she can join us.

A Winter Rose in the Garden. Just one.

There was a guy that brought his tortoise to the local park. Not sure why… but it was interesting all the same. These people where just passers by to the event also.

Acknowledging this strange date of 12-12-12 today.