Mrs the Poet had a wonderful Mother’s Day

We went to Corinth to see the Number 2 Daughter and Number One Grandson, and eat Mex-mex Mexican food. Mission accomplished, foot eaten and Grandson seen, along with a nice conversation with said grandson’s mother. Grandson’s Father was his usual self, there was some interesting stuff on TV and I missed the Darlington Cup race but I DVRed that to watch tomorrow. Mrs the Poet is now snoring up a storm in the living room, the day was an effort for her right after Grocery Day. Excellent presents were given to all the mothers present. I’m still having allergy eye issues and can “mostly see” what I’m doing right now.

I will forego my usual linking of the Jerry Jeff Walker Mother’s Day song, it’s still on YouTube if you want to hear it. And I still have several hundred unread e-mails to at least look at the header before I can sleep.

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Mother’s Day was pretty good

Mrs. the Poet was fed up to her eyeballs with delicious food, my meal was fantastic, the grandson was great to be with, and we had a wonderful chat with the daughter in Scotland. Mrs. the Poet said she had a wonderful day.

Now the reason why this is going out Tuesday morning instead of Monday, while I had a great day I had a crappy night, as in could not get the mind to shut down so I could sleep crappy. I was designing jigs and fixtures for building the Sprint-T all night long, except when I was redesigning the front axle to be lighter because seriously, I could build a car that loaded the axle with over 3000 pounds on the axle, and the whole car weighs between 1600 and 1800 all up without the driver. A 2″ diameter by 0.25″ wall DOM steel tube with no bends is way overkill for this application and could easily be made from the same diameter and wall thickness aluminum tube in any of several alloys and still have more than enough margin (not as much as the steel one, but that’s the point, the steel one has enough margin for a vehicle more than twice as heavy as the Sprint-T). Basically this design puts almost no load on the tube because the spring and shock mount right next to the kingpin boss and the load path is like about 2″ of moment arm compared to the roughly 10-12″ the axle is built to handle. The steel axle comes in at 22.5 pounds without brackets, while the calculated weight of an aluminum axle of the same dimensions is a bit over 8 pounds in the same condition. And by “a bit” I’m talking less than 2 oz depending on alloy, 8.05 pounds for 7075 alloy or as light as 7.8125 pounds for 6061, choosing weldable alloys for fabrication.

And I’m doing the same thing tonight, thinking about making a better Sprint-T when I’m exhausted physically but still running wild mentally and needing to get to bed and take the load off my neck. So this would be a wonderful place to call a stop and take my night-time meds and go to bed.

I hope all you Mothers had a Happy Day

That’s it, that’s all I want to say.

happy day all you mothers, and I have a new favorite beer

Today is the day we celebrate our mothers. I loved my mom even though she drove me crazy. But I have to post this video.

On the other half of the headline I bought a sixpack of local beer at the local supermart for less than a sixer of Shiner. I was attracted by both the price and the reputation of the brewer, Deep Ellum Brewing. As you can tell from the headline I was not disappointed in their Double Brown Stout.

This beer is seriously smooth and drinkable with lots of flavor without having so much hops that you think you’re drinking from the medicine chest. I sometimes enjoy an IPA, but I will always come back to a rich, smooth stout. And notice that I never mention American Pilsner when I list beers I like…

And on a completely different note, I have sharks in my birdbaths in my Virtual Garden. I have no idea how they got there, I just know that there are no birds using the birdbaths.

Enjoy the rest of your day. Opus

Happy day all you mothers

And I even have a song for you 😉

Seriously, I hope every mom and mother out there had a happy day today, and was honored as you so richly deserve.

My mom passed about 11 years ago, so I honored her with a raised glass of my favorite malt beverage. I have somewhat gotten over her assessment that my Pagan beliefs were “just another phase” that I would get over, because I was a “good baptised Missionary Baptist boy”. Seriously Mom, I was more than 15 years Pagan when you died, that is way past “a phase”.

I also honor my Grandmother, a strong woman with knowledge of native plants. She showed me a native sarsaparilla bush and had me dig up the roots so that we could have real sarsaparilla to drink (tastes a lot like root beer), and would not take any disrespect from me while I was growing up.

Mrs. the Poet’s parents are still alive and she called her mother this afternoon to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and the kids took Mrs. the Poet out for a huge lunch yesterday so as to beat the rush for Mother’s Day. How huge do you ask? I had one of the lighter entre selections and I still had to quit halfway through the dessert. And I’m used to eating 4K-5K Calories a day when I’m riding. I had a burger that came with half a pound of meat, about the same amount of mushrooms, and about a quarter pound of cheese and cheese sauce, and cheesecake for dessert. It’s a good thing I’m not lactose intolerant, eh? I also had a Shiner on draft and an equal amount of water for my beverage. That is a huge lunch.

I’m ending this early so that it will still be Mother’s day when it posts.

Happy Mother’s Day,

Opus the Poet