Half a month? Wa's goin' on?

Yeah, it's been a half a month since I've posted. Not because I don't want to share, but because I've been overwhelmed. The month started out with some Mr. Mom duties (a job that everyone, especially the kids, are pretty sure I'm crap at). Then was finals week for school, featuring the biggest debacle ever.

I built this really nice and interesting box of goodies for my electronics class. Basically, it is beatbox/babblebox made from a bunch of kids' voice recorders and an arduino. I put it in a nice (and expensive) Budd box, with groovy panel controls and some blinky lights. Worked on cleaning it up for a week before class, and was really happy with the result.

I took it to school on Tuesday to show it off to my Visual Programming class, which was also doing its final presentations to me. I hauled all the video gear, cameras and my beatbox back to the car, setting all of the stuff on the roof while I unlocked. I loaded my stuff into the car - or at least most of my stuff. I left the beatbox on top of the car as I rode off.

This big aluminum box apparently decided to leave my employ somewhere on Hwy I-25, and I'm sure it made a nice hood ornament for someone. I retraced all my steps the next day, and Kristin even called the state patrol - with no success. In order to make my final on the next day, I had to redo the entire project over in one night. Luckily, I had documented the work for the class, but this represented a whole lot of work in just a few hours.

Finished about 6am, then got 3 hours of sleep before I had to head into school. It worked, and using it in "babble mode" with the input of the iScan police scanner software worked to perfection. But it almost took me out.

Follow that with a week of head-crushing meetings in San Francisco, and I'm looking forward to a long nap. I should be able to get it in about 10 weeks - when I graduate.

[ddg]