General updates (mostly Burning Man)
Aug. 14th, 2005 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ambericaHoly smokes - Burning Man is 2 weeks away!! Ack! This whole past year I have been having dreams and worries about not being ready with all necessary plans and supplies when we finally get there, and now it's kind of looking like that might (partially) be the case! Well, not really... I mean, we will have food, water, shelter, all the necessities... But Jon is hellbent on building this "tower" in our camp this year, and I really don't see any way that the lumber for all our shade structures AND a tower is going to fit on top of the car... Plus, tonight we took his newly-finished motorized skateboard over to his parents' house to show it off and see how it ran, and the thing is a BEHEMOTH! It took up soooo much space in the (newly enlarged) trunk... ugh. And this is AFTER the initial phases of converting it to a two-seater with more trunk space! Well, I know that outside of building materials, our biggest space-taker-upper is probably going to be food. And there are plenty of ways to make sure it's nice and compact... and we always end up eating less than expected, so maybe I don't have to bring quite as much as last year - there was SO much left over, even with a camp of 6 of us!! (Well, Steve ended up spending most of his time at Spike's Vampire Bar... I guess he's actually officially camping with them this year! I guess it seems fitting. I'm suprised he is going at all. He had been claiming before that he wouldn't be going this year. I guess things change...
I went with Jon today because I wanted to see how the skateboard worked, and, as I told him, his mom would want to see the ring. (They were on vacation when we made the engagement "official".) He said that she'd seen the picture, but I know that it's not the same for women, and sure enough, one of the first things she did when we got there was ask to see the ring! lol - So sweet... She also asked what we wanted for an engagement gift! I've never heard of such a thing! I wasn't really sure... I don't really find myself wanting "things" very much. I guess Jon and I will have to talk about that. I know moms like to give presents, so we better think of something!
The skateboard is pretty neat. I'm really proud of what he's done with it. He found 10 inch wheels and a 3.5 horsepower 4-stroke engine (for just $106!!!) at that crazy store he likes to go to (I think it's called Northern Tool and Supply?) and rigged them up to an old "longboard" he had. It's pretty slick. The throttle is a handheld squeeze-lever to control the gas/speed, and there is a kill switch button that he attached tonight but it doesn't work. It's from some old ATM or something, and it's a big square button that says "REMOVE DEBIT CARD" on it! He mounted it on the board at the back, just in front of where the engine sits. The way it's wired, it's supposed to kill the engine completely, but it just doesn't work at all. Not sure why. I guess there's some bad wiring in there or something. But that's ok. He can still ride on it, and you can still kill the engine (he had to put his foot on some piece that I don't know what it's called but it looked like it was attached to the part that has a chain that attaches the motor to the rear wheel. Yeah, like THAT explains it!) But at any rate, it's ready for Burning Man! He can dink around with perfecting it later if he wants, but it's essentially "ready" so we can focus on other things now.
Oh, and the other goofy thing about the skateboard is that it can only take really big wide turns. This is because he had to alter the rear trucks severely... The way a skateboard usually turns is by leaning, which makes the trucks (which are attached to the wheels) turn. Well leaning would make the chain from the motor to the wheel either come loose or get too tight because of the leaning, so he had to switch some mounting stuff around on the back. I guess he and his stepdad talked about some ways to alter this in the future so that he can have a tighter turning radius.
I went with Jon today because I wanted to see how the skateboard worked, and, as I told him, his mom would want to see the ring. (They were on vacation when we made the engagement "official".) He said that she'd seen the picture, but I know that it's not the same for women, and sure enough, one of the first things she did when we got there was ask to see the ring! lol - So sweet... She also asked what we wanted for an engagement gift! I've never heard of such a thing! I wasn't really sure... I don't really find myself wanting "things" very much. I guess Jon and I will have to talk about that. I know moms like to give presents, so we better think of something!
The skateboard is pretty neat. I'm really proud of what he's done with it. He found 10 inch wheels and a 3.5 horsepower 4-stroke engine (for just $106!!!) at that crazy store he likes to go to (I think it's called Northern Tool and Supply?) and rigged them up to an old "longboard" he had. It's pretty slick. The throttle is a handheld squeeze-lever to control the gas/speed, and there is a kill switch button that he attached tonight but it doesn't work. It's from some old ATM or something, and it's a big square button that says "REMOVE DEBIT CARD" on it! He mounted it on the board at the back, just in front of where the engine sits. The way it's wired, it's supposed to kill the engine completely, but it just doesn't work at all. Not sure why. I guess there's some bad wiring in there or something. But that's ok. He can still ride on it, and you can still kill the engine (he had to put his foot on some piece that I don't know what it's called but it looked like it was attached to the part that has a chain that attaches the motor to the rear wheel. Yeah, like THAT explains it!) But at any rate, it's ready for Burning Man! He can dink around with perfecting it later if he wants, but it's essentially "ready" so we can focus on other things now.
Oh, and the other goofy thing about the skateboard is that it can only take really big wide turns. This is because he had to alter the rear trucks severely... The way a skateboard usually turns is by leaning, which makes the trucks (which are attached to the wheels) turn. Well leaning would make the chain from the motor to the wheel either come loose or get too tight because of the leaning, so he had to switch some mounting stuff around on the back. I guess he and his stepdad talked about some ways to alter this in the future so that he can have a tighter turning radius.
