Jesus Birds

Today we saw a miracle...or maybe the pond was just frozen over...when we saw bunches of Canadian geese walking on the water in our pond. It was quite humorous to watch them attempt to walk and take-off because they were just sliding around. And now there are nice white/black piles all over the ice...yuck!

Movie Costumes at the Henry Ford

Saturday we went to Greenfield Village/Henry Ford Museum again because they had their annual Member sale at their stores and there were a few things I wanted to purchase for Christmas. While we were there, we decided to check out the Hollywood movie costume exhibit that they have their for a few months. The pictures aren't the greatest because of the lights and barriers, but you can still tell what they're supposed to be. It turned out that we weren't supposed to take pictures at all, but I totally missed the signs when we walked in. :) Enjoy!

This is Robin. It was definitely the cheapest costume we saw. It's a plain green t-shirt and a thin red vest tied with shoelaces.

Here is Batman. The headpiece didn't look very comfortable at all!

The Batmobile!

The door of the Ghostbusters car. Whenever you stepped too close to the car, it said, "Please step away from the vehicle!"

More of the Ghostbusters car.

Imperial Army costumes from the old Star Wars.

The headpiece and sword. I'm not sure how they could see out of the headpieces.

Light saber!

Luke Skywalker's jumpsuit.

Darth Vader! The buttons and things on his chest are only painted on. Nothing fancy. He was tall though!

Obi-Wan Kenobi's cloak.

Two weeks ago I, Brian, took a trip to Mankato, MN for a training class with work at MTU Onsite Energy. MTU Onsite Energy is a part of MTU and here they manufacture Gensets. Everything from small ones you all have seen at the store to big ones pictured here.

Pictures of the building. The sign is new from the last time I was here early in Sept. About a year ago MTU bought Katolight and now they have changed their name.

16V4000 genset. I don't know for sure but I think it has an electrical output of 2000Kw
To give you an idea of how big this is - the ladder (orange) is an 8' ladder folded up so it is probably closer to 9' tall the way it is right now.

This is a S60 (same kind of engine found in freightliner trucks) genset in a sound attenuation (fancy way of saying making it quiet) enclosure. This has an electrical output ranging from 300Kw to 700Kw

This is another 18V4000 genset only this one has a remote radiator setup (no big black thing in front of it). This engine is also getting ready to be tested before going to the customer.

Yes, we test all of our gensets before they leave our facility. In fact, we even test the engine before it leaves our plant in either Detroit, MI or Germany, so the engine gets tested twice before it gets to the customer. This way we know that everything is working properly and can ensure the customer that this genset will work 100% if installed correctly and there will not be problems. The engine runs for a couple of hours at full load to be sure that nothing is going to over heat or come apart.

For those of you who have no idea how much power these engines put out because you do not have anything to reference it to; an average house would require 5-8Kw genset to run a house if the power went out. Some houses can get away with as little as 3Kw genset others need much more (ex. Al Gore's home would requre 15-30Kw genset)

Wednesday after my training was done, I met Wade and Rebecca Kreun in Owatonna, MN. It was about an hour drive for both of us for the Kreuns live in Rochester, MN. We ate dinner at Timber Lodge Steak House which is located right next to a Cabela's were we decided to meet. It was great to see them and catch up on things as well. I hope to be able to visit them again on future trips and maybe sometime I will be able to take Beth with me too.

Beth just read this to see if it all made sense. She learned some things by reading this...did you??

Candy Corn and Dash Lights

Just thought I'd share a few fun things with those of you who read about us every so often.

Last week I came home to find flowers and a bowl of candy corn on my desk. There was a note with it that explained it was a gift for Sweetest Day, because Brian had been gone the previous week, and because I'd been sick. Here's what the end of the note said: "If you eat all this candy corn on your desk, there is more, lots more, but to find it you must play my game." Following were a set of clues I had to figure out to find the rest of the candy corn.

Clue #1: "40 days and 40 nights"
I knew this would be the wooden ark we have in our living room. Inside I found the next clue.

Clue #2: "I know the ark is large, but do you think I would really put 3 lb. of corn in an ark? That much corn and it would sink. Your next clue is found between cariban and caribe and piranha and pirogue in the Webster's College Dictionary."
After looking in the dictionary, I found Caribbean and pirate, so I checked in our copy of "Pirates of the Caribbean to find the next clue.

Clue #3: "The next clue brings "Netherlands" to mind for we have had great memories there. Just find the one that does not belong for the next clue is there."
Since we have never been to the Netherlands together, I figured the next closest thing was Holland. I have sunset pictures in a collage on our wall. At the moment, there is a picture of Brian in one of the spots because his friends put it there, so that was the one that didn't belong.

Clue #4: "Now that I have you on memory lane, the next clue is similar and involves both of us."
I don't have any other pictures of Holland up, but there are other collages of pictures. The one from our honeymoon is the only one that both of us were at, so I knew the next clue had to be there.

Clue #5: "I will not make you search anymore. Just find what is so common with MTU, Wayne State, retirement, and computers for there you shall find a corny treasure."
These are all files in the bottom drawer of our file cabinet and that is where I found a 3 lb. bag of candy corn! I'm still slowly working on eating it all. :)

The dash lights in my car have not been working correctly for the past few weeks. For a while, they would come on partway through driving, but eventually they just didn't work anymore. I've become accustomed to driving with cruise because there are no street lights on the highway to see my speed. When we were home this weekend, Brian fixed them. The whole way home, every time Brian turned them on, they worked. Yesterday morning, I got in the car and turned the headlights on and there were no dash lights! They did come on before I got onto the road. I think they just don't like me for some reason. Hopefully they're not broken enough to have to replace anything.

Brian has some pictures from his latest trip to Katolight/MTU Onsite Energy. I don't know what all the machines are, so I'll have him post his pictures and tell you what they are.