My poor neglected blog

I didn't realize that it's been since Hamvention that I posted here!

After Hamvention I decided to go for my technician's license. When the local ham radio club offered a free class at the community college nearby that just sealed the deal. My husband was fully on board of course and willingly got out of work early on the nights that I needed him to. A four nights of class and a review session and an exam later and now I have my first amateur radio license! Whoohoo!!

Meanwhile we went to NEAR-FEST in New Hampshire a few weeks ago and to keep our daughter busy we brought some LEGO with us. She quickly made some bracelets and we set up a display. She made her first sale before the end of the day. She'll be selling more of them at our local craft fair in town in December.

I should post a picture of those bracelets. Hmm..

NaNoWriMo is around the corner and a friend got me on a Rick Springfield kick just in time. She had read "Magnificent Vibration" and said it was good so I borrowed her copy and read it.

https://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Vibration-Novel-Rick-Springfield/dp/1476758905/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1509387723&sr=8-2&keywords=rick+springfield+book

That followed with me reading his memoir which has been listed as one of the top 25 music memoirs or something. It was very good and I just finished it yesterday.

SO I'm fangirling on Rick Springfield although I'm not going to spend $50/year on his fan club or whatever. I did spend a few bucks on some cds though, both old and new. Maybe that will be my soundtrack for NaNoWriMo.  (Oh yeah I've blogged about him before, haven't I? maybe?)

And yeah Rick Springfield was in Vietnam! F++K! Even Bruce Springsteen can't say that.

It's going to be tough doing NaNoWriMo this year because I also want to study for my General license and the next chance to take the exam for that is at the end of November so the two overlap pretty much exactly! Yikes!

So there you go.... oh yeah I'll be at the Big E in January for the railway show again too. Hopefully I'll actually have a LEGO MOC built by then. I think I have all my parts. I just need time and space to do the building.

Hamvention 2017 in pictures

First let me give you all some background... My husband got his first amateur radio license in December 2015. We had plans to go to Hamvention 2016 at Hara Arena but had to cancel at the last minute due to him being seriously ill. I'm not licensed and neither is our daughter. I support his hobby though and he participates in our town's emergency management team and in our county's emergency preparedness programs and our local amateur radio club. After failing to get to Hamvention 2016 we weren't sure about going in 2017. Finally after Christmas we decided to go for it. By then most of the hotels were sold out and we got stuck paying too much for the room we got. Our fault. Rookie mistake. None of us were sure what to expect for this adventure except that it would be BIG. We've been to Hamfests but never anything on this scale.

Here's some pictures from the weekend....

Grammar may not be correct but I'd never seen this before. I guess it's common.

The famous Gordon.

Not many people at this forum but the room was air conditioned and comfy.

Didn't expect to see guys playing guitar at the flea market! I would have stayed longer if my family hadn't pulled me away.

Robots!

The beginning of Ham Nation forum.

A stage full of Ham Nation personalities. Not often they are all in the same room together.

Big audience for Ham Nation.

Who are those guys in the back?? LOL!

Out at the flea market this food was happening but we didn't eat it. Nice trailer though.

This is the food we got. Dogs. Not exactly hot dogs. More like sausage.

Guy dressed in military gear and the rainbow flag in the background. Never know what you'll see here I guess

Trailer with canoe.

I gotta look up the website. Nice camper.

inflatable antenna

muddy feet from walking around the flea market on Saturday. Yes, those are mine.

Anyone want to buy the jaws of life?

Another forum. This one was on MESH I think. Was very crowded!

This giant antenna tower was for sale...

and they sold it!!

My car got some Ohio mud.

On Sunday the parking lot was closed because of the mud.

Nice ham shack trailer.

More food....

Cute robot...

Men in kilts! I had seen them walking around earlier. Finally saw them in their booth and asked them for a picture.  :-)

robot....

Goodbye Hamvention! Hope to see you again!

A Lap Around America by Shawn Inmon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I don't read EVERYTHING that Shawn writes but I do like his travel writing. I followed his blog posts while he was doing this trip and I was eager to get a copy of the finished book. He's currently working on his NEXT big adventure and I'm following that one too.

Shawn is a very accessible author and I've said this to him already- I wish there was a map. That's my only complaint. I really, really liked this book but a map of the route would have been really helpful. I'm tempted to go back through the book and pull out all the places and create my own but I don't know if I will.

When Shawn was traveling around America and I was reading his blog I had no idea where my life would end up leading me. About a month ago I found out that I will be doing my own lap around America. So reading this book with my own travel plans in mind became extra special. My trip will go in the opposite direction that Shawn's did but I do see some overlap. As all of my stops have not been mapped out I can see potential for more. Shawn's adventures went to more extremes and covered more time and miles than my trip will be able to do. He's given me a lot of inspiration for future adventures though.

After finishing Shawn's book last night I looked at the map hanging in my hallway and said "Is Wall Drug really THAT far out the way?" The answer hasn't been decided yet.

I'm looking forward to Shawn's next book about Alaska although I know it will take me longer to get there.



View all my reviews

Sometimes I tweet....music

I've got an idea for a blog post but I don't have time to pull it together right now. It's been a long time since I updated the blog though. Guilt.

On my headphones right now is a band called LuxDeluxe. They are fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLtg0XropFA

Yesterday I was listening to Sallie Ford. She's awesome too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAggVHb8B8U

On Twitter my pinned tweet says "If you follow me you see a mix of Lego, writing, reading, libraries, lgbt, politics, music, health, parenting, & local news. You’re welcome."

A recent tweet "Looking at patron requests that came in around 2am last night. Sex, Unibomber, revolution... an undergrad had a busy night. #librarylife"

As far as Lego goes I've been going to some LUG meetings and I've been keeping up with collecting the series that I like but I'm still limited on my actual space in the house. That hasn't changed.

I have managed to read some magazines recently but I'm behind on my books. That Springsteen biography didn't get finished yet but I did manage to read Carrie Fisher's book. I just didn't blog about it I guess.

More recent music-
https://t.co/TZ9wWvvoXo
That would be Colorway

I was listening to Russell Crowe again this morning too but I guess I didn't tweet about it.

So I want to do a blog post and somehow put LuxDeluxe and Sallie Ford into it but I'm not sure where I'm going with that thought just yet.

Also Camp Nanowrimo is coming up in April! Yikes. I'm signed up. No idea what I'm doing. So I'm twirling this music around in my head hoping some inspiration will shape up. We shall see.