Frog Mummy

 

I was up north the other day, doing a bit of prep on the new deer hunting property.  There are two nice box stands, each about 15 feet up in the air.

Unfortunately they seem to have been built by and for a guy who we figure was 7 feet tall and preferred to stand for hours on end waiting for a deer to maybe saunter past.

As this can sometimes take a while, it's preferable to have an option to sit down.  But normal chairs, while they might give you a shot at passing flights of ducks, do not get you anywhere close to being able to sight out those ridiculously high up windows.

So I built this out of various stuff.  Free swiveling bar stool, steel milk crate, etc.  Works pretty well but we'll have to add or subtract a bit more underneath plywood to accommodate hunters of various heights.  

As I was taking this picture from the door way I looked to one side and saw something rather alarming.....

Yikes, it's a mummified tree frog!  Although it has a rather zombie like appearance I guess its just part of Nature.

Build and Rebuild. Robot Summer, 2025

The thing about school based teams is that you are always in rebuild mode.  Realistically kids are in high school for four years.  The things they need to learn to excel in say robotics, or for that matter football, etc, take years to learn.  Then they graduate.

Our FIRST robotics team has always had its foundations at the middle school level.  It evolved, or perhaps mutated, from a fun after school class where kids built small combat robots.  We've had some good years, some off years, but overall the trend line is heading up.  If we can keep the talent coming.

I have a higher than normal tolerance for middle schoolers.

This summer we are taking a batch of kids who have shown interest in robotics and are just having them build their own robot to compete in an off season event.  Obviously this is insane.  A crew of 20 with seven weeks to get it done was hard pressed last season.  Rookies who only get seven 5 hour sessions?  Aw heck, we'll get it done.

We are starting with an existing drive base.  Oh, the sides had to be replaced.  And while some of the wiring was "on board" already it all had to be checked and secured.

This frame dates back to "Howard", our successful 2023 machine.  It's pretty sturdy, also pretty heavy but since the design is fairly simple we should make weight.

The grabber device for picking up the PVC pipe game pieces.

Works pretty well.

We think we set a one day record for most parts made on our CNC.  Last year's Design Lead had a bunch of things he wanted to try on this design.  The newbies are not ready for full on design work, but learning how to secure metal for cutting, keep the cutting bits cooled, keep fingers away from spinny, sharp things.  It's all fundamental stuff.

As always, software waits for the machine to be operational.

The kids are doing well.  What we are really looking for is awareness of safety, the ability to tell the difference between shoddy and spiffy work, and of course being able to work well on a team.

So far, very good.  We'll see how things come together for that mid August mini-competition.

Hank and the Coyotes

Hank is a dog with large ears and a small brain.  So while he loves being up at the cabin he gets a bit confused.  Happily confused for the most part.  So many things to sniff at, so many things to roll in!

Sounds confuse him.  When hummingbirds come to the feeder he can hear their noisy approach but not immediately spot them.  Non specific barking ensues.

The other day my wife was playing crow noises on her ipad, in an attempt to chase away a pesky family of same.  Hank cocked his head in a bemused fashion.....more bird noises without evidence of birds.

So I decided to play him some coyote sounds.  Here's his reaction....

Hank got his name from a series of books featuring Hank the Cow Dog.  Apt, as that Hank also was a dim bulb, ever goofing up in his tireless efforts to guard the ranch from non existent threats.

In one of the books Hank went Outlaw and ran off to join a pack of coyotes.  One of the coyote gals was pretty taken with that Hank.  For this Hank, I don't see that working out for him.

Janky, Janka and Jenga

After a quarter century of building robots and related things you might imagine I'd be getting good at it.  Not really.  I lack both the patience and the base skill set.  Plus, I see building things as more of an art form.  I prefer funky and creative over cold, efficient engineering.   As a result, many of the things my hands have touched have been described as "Janky".

If the term is unfamiliar to you, well, it means roughly "slapped together, temperamental, probably made of dubious parts".  I plead guilty as charged.

I see it as a term of mild affection.

It is also a very new word, originating sometime in the 1990's, and probably as a variation on "junky".

"Junky" as in, made of junk, dates to the 1870's, while the base word, Junk is older.  Mid 14th century in fact, and supposedly derived from "junc".  This nautical term meant rope or cable, stuff that when it got old was cut up and used for caulking hulls.   A worthy form of recycling in my opinion.

Recently my eye was caught by a word that is trying very hard to be related to Janky.  Specifically, "Janka".

The Janka Scale is a way to accurately measure the hardness of wood.  Quite handy if you want to build non-janky things.  It is equivalent to the Rockwell scale for metal, and measured in much the same way.

It would be great if Janka, Janky, Junk and various other words like junk (as a ship) or junket were all related somehow.  

But, alas.  Junket derives oddly from iuncus, a Late Latin word for basket.  Junk, in the sense of a Chinese ship, comes from a Malay word jong, meaning a large ship.  Nothing to do with caulking of hulls.

And Janka was the name of the Austrian born engineer who invented the Janka test.  His surname, and that of my old pal Kim Johnke, probably derive from a variation on the name "Johan".

Oh, and when you are thinking on hard wooden objects, what about Jenga?  Sorry, Swahili this time, kugenga, meaning to build.

Word origins can be convincing mimics.

Mentioned in part because another Project approaches......

  

Fashion Dogs

Ah, Fashion Dogs.  AKA Purse Puppies.  They seem to have gone out of style these days.  In the modern era they do seem a bit gauche.  But from an etymological perspective they are pretty interesting.

The list of things I call my dog Hank is long.  I favor alliterative versions, such as "Whining Whelp".  Whelp is a marvelous word from way back, it comes from Old Saxon and goes back who knows how long.  When looking this one up I read that the more common term "puppy" supplanted it starting in the late 15th Century.  It's origins are about as clear as the family tree of Ol' Hank, but it is felt to have come from the French word poupee, meaning doll or toy.  Whether the Mademoiselles had actual little dogs they held as accessories is unclear, but in any event they treated them like small toys.  

The same word also gives us puppet, and for similar reasons.  In fact early on the two words were used interchangeably.

Having grandkids rather into bugs I wondered if pupa, an immature form of moth or butterfly, was related.  Hmm, well sort of.  It's a modern-ish creation, invented by Linneaus who in the late 1700's basically invented scientific classification of animals.  He leaned into the Latin pretty hard, and there the word  pupa, means girl, doll or puppet.  So obviously this was also the source of the later French word.

The concept of a young person also turns up in pupil, as in a student.  Oddly, pupil as in a part of your eye supposedly originated in the observation that you could see a small reflection of a person on the eye surface of the beholder!  I'd call that a bit of a reach but evidently there is a similar concept in Greek and in early English.  Reese Witherspoon sort of spoiled the effect by wearing big sunglasses most of the time.

The dog in these movies was named Bruiser.  He passed away a few years back at the venerable age of 18.  His obit is HERE.  

A Forgotten Brewery Cave - Remembered.....and Now Sealed.

Leinenkugel's brewery.  No, not the one in Chippewa Falls.  The family had lots of branches.  This establishment was run by Henry Leinenkugel and was on the banks of Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire.

A brief history of the brewery.

Like the Jacob Leinenkugel brewery up in Chippewa Falls, this one started in 1867.  It was actually run by Henry Sr. and his son, Henry Jr.  It got off to a good start, and for a time was the top producing brewery in Eau Claire.  But in 1876 Henry Jr. died, and as his father had by that point retired, the enterprise was taken over by Caroline, wife of the Departed.  Things got difficult.  Their production dropped in half, and their credit ratings were not positive.

A partnership of Frase and Lissack bought the brewery and did their best for a couple of years, but also failed.  The next owners were Carstens and Hartwig, who with additional partners ran the place until it burned down in July of 1885.  It was never rebuilt.

The newpaper article that described the fire mentions that the beer in the underground vaults was preserved.  So lets visit these "vaults".  Or actually, revisit them, as this is one of the brewery caves I have previously shown but not given a location.

While not generally known, the location did attract the usual unwelcome visitors.....

That picture was from a later visit.  The first time I crawled in it looked like a bit more of a cozy hangout for neighbors.

Yes, crawled in.  The entrance had been sealed at least twice in the past.  

Here's what the entrance looked like until recently.

Summer of 2025.

I can actually trace the history of the cave since 1885 in some detail.  I've seen a photo circa 1900 that shows the remnants of what would have been the original entrance.  It was of course a straight run out, so that beer could be hauled out and ice hauled in.  This was about the time period in which the local paper describes it as being a hideout for local delinquents who were stealing things from cabins around the lake.  

In the 20th century it was used for a time by Silver Springs, a company now known for various mustard and horseradish products, but back then they had a larger line of veggies, some of which required cold storage.  The nice cement floors and the remnants of an electrical system must date to this era.

Times more recent have been troubled.  Eau Claire has a significant problem with homelessness.  And brewery caves naturally attract people with nowhere else to be.  Both this cave and "The Cave of the Mad Poetess" have had semi permanent residents in recent years.  There have been issues.  Danger of people being hurt.  I've heard there was a sexual assault.  It's worth noting that this cave is adjacent to a public park/beach.

So the "other" Leinenkugel cave has been sealed off.  Its the right call.  Everything is still down there and now preserved, perhaps for some happy day when history is appreciated more and the troubles of the world are fewer.

After I took the last photo, Hank and I walked past the beach.  It was about 9am and a homeless guy was sleeping on the ground next to the beach house.

Well This Seems Like a Bad Idea

A sign along a rural road.

 Oh, surely you remember the Morlocks from H.G. Well's Time Machine????

These guys:

Cannibalistic troglodytes of the, or at least of a, distant future.  Living in dank caves I don't expect their home decor skills would be much.  And if you brought them a deer carcass the best case scenario is that they'd eat it.  Worst case, they'd eat you too!

Kidding aside I'm sure this family of Morlocks are swell folks.  The name btw is German and translates loosely to "black haired one".  Kinda the opposite of the Wellsian version.