I love the smell of grease in the morning...

:)

Changed my front disk brakes...fun hour and a half for me today.  Took me a bit longer than the auto shops, but then - I don't do this every day and hadn't changed them on this particular vehicle before.  So now 'baby got a new pair of shoes' - my 2003 Ford Escape has more stopping power!  ;)

So I started by getting most of the tools I thought I'd need and making sure I knew where to put the jack on the frame.  Then, after loosening the lug nuts, I jacked up the car, removed the lug nuts, and took off the tires.

Had to loosen the hex bolts first to get the caliper off...*after* I realized I didn't readily have the right size hex - dammit.  ;)  There's always *something* you're missing and have to get!  ;)

Had to use a flathead screw driver to push the bolt out of the way once it was loosened.

Removed the old spring from the brake assembly.

Opened her up and GEEZE it was time to change them.  Side by side view of the brake pads.

Used a C Clamp and the old brake pad to push the fluid back into the master cylinder...

I.....don't know why I took this photo...er..proly to show the thickness of the new pad.  :D

New pads put into the assembly...aren't they purty!?!?!?!

Fit the assembly back in and line up the bolts to the holes...

Gotta love the socket action...!

It's all on and purty!  :)

Make sure everything is lined up properly...

Don't forget the springs!  After you get the tires back on - it's important to tighten the lug nuts AFTER you take the vehicle off of the jack.  Also important to test and pump your brakes *before* you start rolling!  ;)

Grubby hands....

Grubbiness...but no blood!  :)

I highly recommend Fast Orange for getting that pesky grease off - it's a great exfoliant for your hands, too!

Art ROCKS in Mile Canyon...

So...I went to the Rock Art Foundation Rendezvous and participated in 2 very awesome hikes.  The first was Halo Shelter - an amazingly colorful panel of rock art with multiple anthropomorphs and animals.  The second was a hike through most of Mile Canyon near Langtry, Texas.  There were several sites I took pictures of, including "Bonfire Shelter" where multitudes of buffalo were slaughtered after being driven off the cliff above, and even saw the largest Tinaja ever recorded at the end of the canyon.  It was a very interesting weekend in the Seminole Canyon area.  :)

 Pictured above is part of Mile Canyon as you hike towards Bonfire Shelter

 Mile Canyon...you can see Eagle Cave on the left side part way up the canyon. You can see there's the typical Texas windmill on top of the canyon on the right!  :)

Part of the canyon that was INFESTED with Monarch Butterflies as they migrated...it was quite beautiful!  :)

View from Eagle Cave in Mile Canyon

Largest recorded tinaja at the very end of the canyon.  Surprisingly, there were an abundance of frogs hanging out there.  :)

View from the other side of the largest recorded tinaja.

Frog Princes...?  The tinaja was quite the SPA resort for the frogs...

?

Judge Roy Bean museum: remains found in the canyon.  This was a skull of a mother and child who were likely brutally murdered.

Arrowhead collection from those found in the canyon.

More arrowheads from the canyon.

Remains found in Mile Canyon of a 30ish yr old male who died from chagras (assassin beetle).

Me in my baggy field gear with Jack Skiles, historian and author of "Judge Roy Bean Country".  He was gracious enough to show us his personal museum and allow us to access the canyon from his back yard.

Eagle Cave in Mile Canyon.

No country for old goats!

Very interesting rock formations in a particularly boulder-ridden part of the canyon.

RAF Rendezvous this weekend! :)

There's a Rock Art Rendezvous this weekend that should be fairly interesting.  :)  Check it out!

http://www.fellowpages.org/rockart/news.cfm?newsid=116

Harry Potter as a political commentary: a discussion with dad. :)

So, the other day I had an interesting discussion with my father about Harry Potter being a political commentary, in the spirit of Gulliver's Travels.  Very interesting conversation....and a realization that, if reached by those in power, would likely cause the elimination of it's support from those with the purse strings. 

I've also been watching Babylon 5 and am really enjoying the whole Jungian aspect of the story with the "Vorlons" and "Shadows". Bravo to the writers....which I understand to primarily be Straczynski, himself.  :)

...Watching Stargate SG1 and wondering why "Ergo" is therefore....

Mark finished the initial release of his program!

Palentier is here! After months of hard work my boyfriend, Mark Willis, has finally finished the initial release of his muse-inspired open source program: Palentier! As seen in his DIYDRONES post, Palentier is a program that leverages the latest in UAS robotics technology for real-world applications.

Named after the scrying ball Sauron in LOTR used to watch as 'one who sees from afar' over virtually any part of the world, Palentier translates photographs and telemetry info collected from UAS into data that real-world mapping systems, like Google Earth and ArcGIS, can use.

This initial release is only the beginning of what is sure to be a useful program with many field applications. Currently, we are testing it to cut down the number of manual hours (and hours and hours ad infinitum ad nauseam) required to get pictures taken via aerial photography into a usable format for photogrammetry  for map and model making. Our initial application is SAVING THE WORLD!!!! Well, okay, that's a bit dramatic - but we are trying to preserve data from archaeological sites, creating maps and models of those sites, to eventually build a fully interactive global representation of cultures and civilizations to record earth's history and be able to view it, as it was, at any given point in time. So...we *are* trying to save the world...digitally.

Should you find this program, Palentier, useful, please remember that it has taken many hours of "free time" to develop and test in order to get it "off the ground"...er...so to speak. ;) Feel free to download, try it out, and please, please, please - DONATE! :)

White Shaman Photosynth

So...my first post will be of my first photosynth created from pictures taken by my boyfriend and I at the Rock Art site: White Shaman. Post a comment and let me know what you think. :)