Fire goes in...fire comes out the other end.

Val's folks visited with us over Easter weekend. We all had a great time with them and were sad to see them go - except for one thing. They left us a TON of snacks. Val's dad, Lee, just buys random treats every time he goes to the store. Some times it's candy or cookies, other times it's nuts or chips, or crackers. When they left, they couldn't take it all with them, so we got to keep it all! I gathered it all together to look at it all at once (you know, like you do with your Halloween Candy or Christmas presents), and I noticed a trend in the treats.




If you look closely you will see that every box, every bag, every jar contains the words "Hot and Spicy" or "Jalapeno". That's right, we got a life time supply of Hot and Spicy (and pepper jack) Cheez-it's, Jalapeno Pringles, Hot and Spicy Ketchup, Jalapeno Mustard, Hot and Spicy V8, Hot and Spicy Jalapeno Cheetos, Hot peppers, and more. It's a good thing me and Xander like spicy foods (Mia does sometimes too)! The only thing is what goes in - must come out, so we only snack in moderation.


In other news, we make stuff.


This is a Wall-e that CJ made all by herself with a couple of boxes and toilet paper rolls. You might have seen it before.



My big project is a paper/cardboard/foamboard R2-D2 which has taken me forever to build - and still has a long way to go. But I made this handy gadget in the mean time. It's a 5 way switch for head phones. At work I have 2 computers that do different things. Sometimes I listen to music on one, other times I watch (really "listen to") movies and shows on Hulu.com on the other one, and sometimes I listen to my iTouch. This results in a lot of unplugging and plugging of my head phones and constant tangling of and running over of the headphone cord. With this switch, I have one cable plugged into each of my computers, and have 3 empty head phone slots to plug in my itouch and anything else I might want to listen to. Then I plug in my headphones into the single output jack and simply turn the knob to listen to whichever device I want. I searched the internet for something like this and could only find professional audio equipment costing $300! This one cost me about $10, 2 hours, and a phone call to my brother, Joe, to clarify the circuit technology.




I plan on taking pictures of my future projects and posting step-by-steps of them for those who are curious.