Caiden Joseph Schraut was born at 12:30 pm on May 4th, 2008 to Ashley and Joey. He only took 22 hours to come out, but out he came… 6 lbs 9oz, and 20″ long.
Check out Caidens Pics in the Gallery!
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The Chandra Telescope is a space based telescope like the Hubble, only it deals in Xrays. The Harvard/Chandra team have spotted what is going to be the next big thing (next to the big bang that is). 2 huge galaxies have been busily colliding for the last million years, and while that does happen from time to time, these 2 galaxies have huge super massive black holes at their cores. They are only 3000 light years away from each other (just around the corner in astronomical terms) and will crash into each other, causing distortions in the space time fabric and enormous bursts of gravitational waves!
This event will happen in the next couple of million years, but Dr Roger Brissenden of Harvard says their team is ready, and is already designing instruments to capture the event!
greg
March 27 was the 2nd annual high tea for the Pfeiffer side of the family. Women came from near and far to imbibe Bigelow’s best and munch on orange scones. As the day was fair, much of the activity was held outside. Comments overheard included
Much Ado About Nothing
To the Hounds!
it is ever so delightful
. The white rabbit was present as was the mad hatter! The invitation list is limited – to wrangle an invite for next year send $10 to Nikki.
The Journal Nature this month had an article on 2 scientists that extracted proteins from a 68 million year old Tyrannosaurus thigh bone and found that its closest living relative was a chicken! This is amazing that they could even get any matter out of a 68 million year old T. Rex, but even more amazing is the implications for evolution and the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
The claims of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky are now starting to make sense. According to them, Dinosaurs and Man roamed the earth at the same time, and that there is no such thing as evolution. Once a few cave men came across a dino that had been hit by lightning and found out they tasted like chicken, they were done for. They ate them all! You notice there are no more wooly mammaths around… They ate them too! Sabre tooth tigers, the Dodo, passenger pigeons, the whole lot. If we hadn’t learned to domesticate animals we would have eaten ourselves out of house and home.
I heard that the aliens at Roswell tasted good to…
greg
The tailight has undergone a metamorphosis in the last couple of years. From Henry Ford until the new millenium, the humble tailight hadn’t changed. It was very simple, all that was involved was a battery.. a wire to the tailight switch, a wire to the tailight, and then a wire back to the battery. Easy to understand by any human, and easy to diagnose. All you needed was a $20 test light and possibly (but not necessarily) a schematic.
Come the new millenium and the age of the computer and things are different. Tailights (the kind that still use a bulb, that is) now consist of a battery, a wire to the switch, a wire to the bulb, a wire to a computer, and a wire back to the battery. They now work by pwm (Pulse Width Modulation), which means you feed a bulb with power from the battery, and the ground side is pulsed by the computer. The frequency of the pulse determines how bright the bulb is. This does have several advantages, like the brake lites and tailights can all be the same bulb (simplifying logistics.) With the computer involved, you can also have any bulb take over any other bulb’s function. (like if a brake lite bulb fails, the tailight bulb can take over its function.) Diagnosis is more difficult, however. Now you can’t use a testlight because it’s impedence can blow the computer. Now you need $500 Digital Multimeters and a $4000 Scan tool to talk to the computer.
The net effect is that to install tailights in your car, it used to cost the manufacturer about 20 Bucks. Now it costs 500 bucks..
I think they call it progress…
greg
It has recently come to my attention that the do it yourself craze has reached a new level. Not only can you change your own oil, redo your own kitchen, or do your own personal makeover, but you can also build your own (very rare) WW2 fighter plane! Since you’re still not allowed to build your own airplane you will have to get an airframe and powerplant license from the Federal Aviation Administration. Then you can get the airframe newly made from Flugwerk. http://www.flugwerk.de/
These guys are turning out newly made airframes from the original dies and machine tools that made the originals. Next you’ll need a motor. Since the original BMW 801 powerplants are extremely rare, a better alternative would be the ASH-82. This is a Chinese made, Russian copy of a Wright Cyclone. The engine is available and has comparable power and looks to the original. All you have to do is put it all together and away you go!
You might want to get a few flight lessons first…
greg
Listening to podcasts lately? one on journalism, and the way the news media doesn?t decide anymore what you listen to and when and where you listen to it? it used to be at 6 and ll on tv and radio, and in the newspaper in the morning? now its whatever you want to listen to and when you want to? mp3 and video players and the internet have seen to that..
And what else is changing..? how about the music industry. The record labels are going crazy now trying to hold on to the old paradigm for the music industry, and they got fat at one time, but now? With file sharing and bands starting to break out on their own, some new record companies are starting to sell services to artists. How can they serve the artists, instead of how can the artist make them money..
What else is changing? (What isn?t)
greg
A few of our dear spouses will turn the big 10+10+10+10+10 this year.
Suitable gifts for anyone turning 5 X 10 years old are many, ranging from cheap to expensive.
A couple I have my eye on:
i like the one that has the basket for the Geritol…
If you want an account on the Spechtacle, you may:
1. email rademacher@armoredplanet.com and request one
2. register in the Spechtacle, and we will approve your joining the fray
3. send a million-billion dollars in a suitcase to 105 Blueball Road, Rineyville Ky 40162
Feel free to skip right to number 3, if you have a suitcase…
This page was made with love in remembrance of
Lauren Michael Pfeiffer
October 31st, 1986 ~ April 22nd, 2007
Lauren was a beautiful, intelligent, and loving, daughter, sister, and friend. She was not only these things, she was so much more. There’s not one person who had met Lauren who wasn’t drawn to her. She had a magnetic personality, full of charm and wit. She was humorous, generous, and had a huge heart. She was a very loving person. Lauren was a beautiful young woman, and she will always be loved and forever be missed. We love you very much!