The Clancy School second graders went to the Elkhorn Rehabilitation Center in Alhambra and did a patriotic show for the residents. Alia did a wonderful job at being “The Statue of Liberty”. Check out the photos in our Picture Gallery.

Here is Alia reciting her lines as “The Statue of Liberty”.

And click HERE and HERE for two more patriotic videos of Clancy Elementary.

I spent this last weekend with about a dozen men from our Church and about 400 men from around the state. We were in Butte, MT for our annual “Men’s Advance.” We used these couple of days, worshiping our Lord, learning, listening, and having great Christian fellowship with other men. Our speaker this year was Dave Roever. He is a Vietnam Vet who had a phosphorous grenade go off near his head and had half of his face ripped off and most of his body melted off. Dave has a very powerful ministry, especially to teens, young adults, and to Veterans. Dave honored the Vets in the crowd, including my dad.

Dave was accompanied by Brad Hearon, who’s life had wandered from the Lord, and ended up being severely burned when a meth lab in a car blew up. What powerful testimonies these two men have. Sunday morning, they spoke at First Assembly of God (our Mother Church) here in Helena, and had a nice write up about them in Monday’s Helena Independent Record newspaper. Dave also has a powerful ministry to lost and forgotten troops called Eagles Summit Ranch.

Click here are some additional pictures from our time in Butte posted on our gallery.

And, here is a short blurry video of Dave Roever playing the guitar and singing to us.

Rod Dinkins, AC6V (SK)(ARRL.org)  AC6V, who has one of the largest Amateur Radio web sites is SK.  His site is listed under Favorite Ham Radio Links on my Favorite Links page.  His site is www.AC6V.com.  See more about AC6V at ARRL’s site.

My family and I moved to our current QTH (location) November 2004. Our new home had a lot of extra space in which we could build some needed rooms. The area was an open space of about 26? by 50?. We made the first 16? of the 50? area into a nice family room. With the rest, we built a spare bedroom, a large storage closet, and workshops for my wife and me. My area is about 14? by 12?, large enough for a good Ham Shack and work bench for my homebrew experiments.  Here is a photo essay of that journey. Put your mouse pointer over the pictures to get a brief description, and click the picture to see a larger view of it.

I finally was able to start construction of my shack in November 2006. I took some vacation time from work and was able to spend some good time on the shack. My goal was to have it mostly finished by Christmas 2006. Could I do it? Check it out here.

If you are interested in Homebrew (home made) electronic equipment, you should listen to “Soldersmoke“. It is a podcast done by Bill-N2CQR in Rome, Italy for Amateur Radio operators interested in homebrew electronics. I got mentioned in the latest episode, episode #77. I was traveling for my job along the Gallatin River near Big Sky, Montana. The river was flowing nicely with beautiful snow covered rocks in the middle. There was a big bull moose standing in the river. I was listening to Soldersmoke #76 while I was traveling through this area. Bill was having a very loud thunderstorm while he was recording the podcast and the rain and hail gave me great sound effects for the river I was watching go by. I e-mailed Bill and described this scene and he got a chuckle out of it and mentioned it on Soldersmoke. I also described how I believed I had “The Knack“, and he related to that.

Carol, here is the key to my heart.

I could not let Valentines Day go by without expressing my love for MY valentine, my lovely wife Carol. We had a romantic, candle lit dinner under dim lights. We then slow danced to some very romantic music. And where were all of our great children? They were right there with us… at home in our kitchen! Yes, we did have a nice romantic time with our children at our own dinner table. Our children helped set the mood. One got candles out, another shut down some of the lights, someone else put some nice music on when I asked my wife for a dance. Ahhh, what an evening, with those I love, and it didn’t do major damage to our bank account. Happy Valentines day Carol! I love you!

Last weekend, our family took a trip to my parents in Butte where we have our taxes done. While there, a conversation came up of my childhood curiosity with electrical things. At an early age, I was told, I would take tail lights off the cars and take doorbells on the house apart. I remember being given alarm clocks that didn’t work. These were the old mechanical type with lots of gears and springs and things. I would take those clocks completely apart and reassemble them and they would work. This curiosity with the mechanical and electrical has never left me. When I became a Ham Radio operator, I would completely disassemble old TVs and Radios and organize the parts and build stuff out of them. I now know that this “thing”, “sickness”, “curiosity”, or what ever you want to call it, is called “The Knack“. Once you have it, you might be able to repress it into remission, but you can never get rid of it. Here is a classic Youtube clip of “The Knack”.

You might have read the post below of Katie and Ana both on crutches for different accidents. Ana sprained her ankle a couple of days ago and has been limping around ever since. When she saw that Katie had crutches, she decided she needed some too. Today, at her Sunday School class at our Church, her fellow students prayed for her, our Lord Jesus instantly healed her. She has been playing at a friends house all day, running around like she normally does. We are so blessed with a Church that so eagerly seeks out the Lord, and the Lord hears our cries. Did you attend Church today? How about next week? I encourage you to attend a good Church next week, that truly believes His Word (The Bible).

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read this: If Microsoft Made a Car

Katie and Desire’ went on a ski trip with the school and both had lots of fun until Katie crashed and burned right at the bottom in front of everybody. She apparently was going to fast and ran into a “Slow Down” sign.  We spent the afternoon in the emergency room and fortunately nothing was broken. She will, however, be on crutches for a few day. Click on the pictures to see larger views of them.

A few days ago, Ana slipped and hurt her ankle, so when big sister came home with crutches, she decided she needed some also. So, here they are, both with crutches. If they think this is going to keep them from doing their chores, they are in for a big surprise. ;^0