An Adventure Out West - Part 3: Graduation Day

Friday, 2 May was graduation day for Peter who was getting his bachelors degree in Economics and Psychology.  We had to get him on campus by 0830 for the (new) traditional processional under the clock tower to the Centrum (Colosseum). (The tradition is that new freshmen walk under the tower from west to east when they start at Southern Utah University (SUU) then avoid walking under the tower until they graduate - this time walking east to west.) After dropping off Peter, we went to Uncle Brent's house to pick up dad. He had his handicapped parking tag, so we didn't have problem getting a place to park. He went on in to find a seat while we waited for the processional. Led by the faculty and drums and bagpipes, the graduates walked down, by school, to the Centrum.

Faculty lines the walkway while pipes and drums play in background

Peter in processional

Peter, and his brother Paul (who was getting his masters degree in accounting) both participated. After they went by we all went into the Centrum Special Events Center for commencement. Ann Romney gave the commencement address. She gave a good speech  and made eight points:  "1) Your friends at Southern Utah University will last a lifetime; 2) If you want to get ahead, if you want to achieve success, do someone a favor; 3) Do your present job well; 4) Parenting is probably the most important thing you'll do in life and the hardest; 5) Don't judge other people, and don't judge yourself as the only one passing through problems; 6) Live a purpose driven life; 7) Do something you love every day; 8) The Bible works, so do what it says." (from SUU website)

Ann Romney
Photo from http://suualumni.blogspot.com/2014/05/commencement-2014.html

After commencement, we all went over to this mom-and-pop restaurant that PB&J (Peter Brunett and Jessi for the uninitiated!) found last semester called the All American Classic Diner. Food was great and portions ridiculously huge!

After lunch, we took dad back to Brent's house. At 1430 we were back at the Centrum for the School of Business Convocation, where both Peter and Paul walked to get their diploma (holders.) Real diplomas are actually mailed later. Jessi used all the good pictures of Convocation, so see them at Jessi's blog. Afterwards we went to the rotunda in the student center, then outside for pictures. Here are a couple that I took in addition to Jessi's. (Some are a little fuzzy.)

Jessi and Kira at convocation

Kira and Jessi in rotundra

Taking traditional pictures

The Diploma (holder)

Afterwards, we went to PB&J's apartment where Peter opened his graduation gifts. His big gift from Jessi, Peter's parents, and JoAnne and I, was a new hybrid laptop (can be used as a laptop or a tablet - runs Windows 8.1) We all went over to Chili's for supper. After supper, PB&J and Peter's family went back to the apartment to play an SUU version of Monopoly, while Kira and I went over to Brent and Lynn's house to visit with them and Dad. We heard lots of stories about the early days of BAC/SUSC/SUU and family, too. We went back to PB&J's apartment around 2100 just as Julie (Peter's mom) was finishing up beating Jessi at Monopoly (everyone else was already out of the game.) That night after everyone left, Jessi, Kira and I stayed up way too late just visiting.

An Adventure Out West - Part 2: Vegas

Wednesday night/Thursday morning sleep was pretty short. The time change helped a little. I went to bed at 0520 Eastern DT, but that was only 0220 Pacific time. Kira had offered to come bring me her car at lunch time so I could sleep in, but I knew my body wasn't going to fooled by a little airplane ride, and sure enough I was up before 0700 PDT. Thursday is still a little fuzzy on the details. I took Kira to work, then went to visit with Dad for about an hour. He was leaving at about 1000 to go to Cedar City by way of Washington Utah for the graduation. After the visit, I had to do a little shopping. I needed to get something for both Kira and Jessi. Jessi was easy (Chromecast device), but Kira was a little complicated. I was looking for a Sodastream machine. She had been using her mothers machine the week she was in Rock Hill with me and really liked it. It was to be an early birthday present. The machine was easy. Both Walmart and Target had them. I was having some problems finding the syrup flavors she liked. Also no one had the half-liter bottles, just the 1L ones. I decided to think about it.

At lunch time, I picked up Kira at her school and we went to the first restaurant on my "pick list", Cafe Zupas. I had what she had, a  TBA (turkey, bacon, and avacado sandwich) and a red raspberry spinach salad.

I took Kira back to work. (Now after Kira reads this there may be some minor corrections - see remark above about being fuzzy!) I went back to Mike and Kelly's place and crashed. Sometime that afternoon I went and picked up the SodaStream for Kira. Dad called me from Washington saying he had forgotten his temple bag and asked if we could pick it up for him. Not a problem. Kira had packed all of her stuff so I loaded her stuff and mine in the car and made sure we had a full tank of gas. At 1800 I picked her up at her school and off we went.

Because we had a late lunch we decided we would wait to eat when we got to Mesquite. We swung by Grandpa's house and picked up the bag, headed out Nellis and on to I-15. We did grab a hamberger in Mesquite. Only issue with the trip to Cedar City was construction on I-15 in the Virgin River Gorge. They were working on some of the bridges and had it down to one lane each direction. So we had a 2-3 mile stretch at about 35mph, but other than that no problems. We got to Cedar a little after 2200.

An Adventure Out West - Part 1: The Flight

Peter graduated from Southern Utah University on May 2nd, and I used it as an excuse to go out west to see +K Turek , Dad, and of course +Jessica B  and Peter.  +Joanne Turek  originally planned on going but state PASS testing was scheduled for that time so she could not get off from work. This would be a solo trip.

The Weather
I knew weather was going to be a problem. Turned out it was, but not in the way I expected. The forecast for South Carolina was for heavy rain (3-4 inches!) and thunderstorms. This is a problem for Greenville Spartanburg Internation Airport (aka GSP) because there is no covered walk ways from long term parking to the terminal, and no transportation. (I was flying out of GSP because the fare was cheaper, and yes, I hate flying out of CLT that much!) I waited too long to reserve a parking space close to the terminal so I was stuck with the long term parking lot. On Wednesday morning (30 April), the day of my flight, it became more and more obvious that the weatherman blew his forecast for the Carolinas. But the same system was producing problems on the northeast coast. Early in the day I started seeing major delays for Philadelphia. This was a problem for me as the plane that was taking me from Chicago Midway airport (MDW) to Las Vegas (LAS) went from Vegas to Denver to Chicago to PHILADELPHIA back to Chicago back to Vegas. Because of low ceilings and visibility, flights going into Philadelphia were being held at departure airfields for over two hours. I kept hoping it would clear up before I left, but no such luck. (The same weather pattern was disrupting flights to all the major airports from Washington DC to Boston.)

The Flight

Southwest 737-700 at GSP

I left the office at about 2:30 for the drive to GSP.  The weather was cloudy with a couple of sprinkles in Charlotte but not much else. I got my bags checked and into the waiting area with no problems. My flight, which was coming from Houston Hobby, was right on time. I saw my bag go up the baggage conveyor into the airplane. So far, so good.

The flight took off on time, but even as I left GSP the next leg was showing a two hour delay on Southwest's web site. Not good. Flight to MDW was uneventful.

Flight from GSP to MDW

When I landed, I found out my next airplane had just barely left for its legs to Philadelphia and back. Now looking at 2 hours plus delay. This was on top of a scheduled 2 hour layover even if everything was running okay. So I was looking at 4-5 hours of waiting! The terminal was packed as every plane that went through the northeast US was running form 1 - 3 hours late (that is a lot of airplanes!) The one bright spot in all of this was I found the Midway USO. There was at least a comfortable place to crash out, with soft sofas, free food and drinks, and a place to charge my phone and tablet. There was a very friendly lady with a pronounced Polish accent manning the USO. She was supposed to close at 2100 but stayed open and extra half hour for us. Long story short, it was about 0020 Chicago time (3 hours late) before we left (last plane out of Midway that night.)

I landed in LAS about 0138 Pacific time.  I texted Kira to come get me and headed toward baggage claim. I got about halfway there and discovered my wallet was missing. I sprinted back to the plane and with a little help from the cleaning crew we found it. It had worked its way out of my pocket while I was trying to sleep during the flight. I went back and picked up my already waiting bag, headed out to passenger pickup to my already waiting daughter and we took off for Mike and Kelly's house. I finally got into bed Thursday morning almost exactly 24 hours after I got up on Wednesday morning.

Constitution Build Log, 17 March

The work on my USS Constitution model progresses. I finally have all the yard arms up and rigged. That means it is time to get serious about creating and mounting the sails.

From plastic, to paper, to cloth,
to finished sail

As I said in my previous blog, I have to start off by creating a paper pattern for the sails. I get this from copying the vacuum formed sails that came with the model, or from sail planes from the internet or from a book that I own. Once the pattern is created, I cut it out and use a pencil to transfer it to my cotton sheet cloth. Since the pencil will represent the seams and reef points on the finished sail, I have to copy it to both sides of the sail and since light goes through the cloth they have to match pretty closely. It is not as hard as it sounds. I transfer the pattern to one side of the cloth and literally trace through the cloth to mark the other side. The material has to be marked for hemming of the edges of the sails.

One of my sources for sail plans

Once the pattern is on the cloth, I cut it out. Using a product called Stop Fray, I treat the edges of the cut sail so they won't unravel. Then I use a hemming glue to double hem them so there are no ragged edges to the cloth. The final step is to carefully add the bolt rope around the edge of the finished sail. This is done by carefully running a bead of hemming glue along an edge of the sail, then gluing the heavy thread to that edge. It is kind of a pain but seems to be working. 

So far, I have all of the sail patterns created, and over the weekend I transferred, cut, and hemmed all of the sails for the foremast. I only got the fore topsail set up with the bolt rope.

Yard arms are up

So far I have tried to build the ship in approximate order the real one would have been done, but I think for the sails I will go backwards and mount the sails at the top of the masts first, then work my way down. This is because as you mount a sail you reduce easy access to areas of the mast and deck of the ship for rigging. Since everything has to go down the mast, leaving the bottom until last seems to be sensible.

Constitution Build Log, 10 March

I have the head sails installed. This consists of (starting from the bow and working aft) the flying jib, the jib, and the fore topmast stay-sail. Before mounting the sails, I reinforced the stays with .2mm spring/music wire. It looks like thread after being painted flat black, and keeps the weight of the sails from creating an unnatural sag when the sails are hung, which also keeps the stays that don't have sails on them from sagging. The sails mostly hide the fact that the stay is wire lashed to thread. The sails are made from a $5 cotton bed sheet we found at Walmart that was about the right color. For the flying jib and jib, I used the plastic preformed sails as a pattern. The model did not include the fore topmast stay-sail, so I used the 1803 sail plan I found on line as a pattern. The sails are hemmed all the way around, but I used fray check (a special glue that you run along the edge of cut fabric to keep it from fraying) and hemming glue. On the first test sail I discovered that pencil marks don't go away, even after washing, so instead of sewing the seam and reefing point lines, I just penciled them in on both sides of the sail. In the photo, you can see the main topsail is also hung temporarily. Close examination will show a couple of hairpins holding it on. Since sails on the yard arms will restrict access to running rigging lines they will wait until almost everything else is done before they get set up. I also have all of the yard arms on the foremast completed.

I am now working on patterns for the rest of the sails. I will need to get the rest of the yard arms rigged and on the ship. Spanker gaff and boom still need to be installed. I may also start taping up the hull of the Cutty Sark to get it ready for painting soon.

Constitution build log 24 February

I have the fore-, main-, mizzen-, and fore topsail yard installed. The fore topsail yard is in the raised position in anticipation of eventually adding sails.  It is starting to look like a sailing ship. I got the camera out and did some playing around, and was able to get a couple of pictures that I was able to crop to the waterline, to show about what she would look like in the water. Despite getting fussed at for leaving lights on in the computer room (guilty as charged!), I am rather pleased with how they came out. I had to get out the "real" camera to get them. I wasn't having much luck with the phone or tablet cameras.

No flash

Slightly different angle with flash

Front view of whole model

A little fun with photshop

Constitution Build log Feb 15

It has been a while since I posted anything on my USS Constitution. I finished the topmasts back at the end of December but it took about a month of periodic rigging to get the ratlines finished. Around the end of January, I started adding the jib boom and rigging the front of the ship, then added the topgallant masts. This past week during the snow storm, I have pretty much finished the standing rigging on all masts including the last set of ratlines (yeah!) That means starting on the running rigging and putting up the yard arms. About time I am going to have to decided what to do about sails. JoAnne has indicated she might be able to help with cloth sails if I ask real nice :-)

Dec 28. Topmasts about finished.

Feb 13. Finally a background that isn't cluttered.
All masts up and standing rigging complete.

First yard arm started