Today's Lesson: Mechanical Advantage

Word Problem: You are on a bicycle, traveling at 25 mph for 27 minutes, into a 5 mph head wind. At 8:17 PM you reduce speed to 15 mph to avoid an oncoming traveler. At exactly 8:18 PM, you ride over a twig, which gets caught in your wheel and disables your bicycle.

From 2009-06 Bike

You realize that the "bike malfunction" is a broken derailleur, which retails for $43.94 + tax.

Question 1: What distance would you have traveled by 9:30 PM assuming constant speed and no breakage?

Question 2: How many nice things can you no longer buy in your new house due to the cost of replacing the derailleur? Can you negotiate a lower price?

Question 3: Calculate the applied force of a twig on the derailluer. The bike wheel is 26" in diameter, the twig is .25" in diamater, and is caught in the spokes 5" in from the rim of the wheel. Forward speed is 15 mph. Show your work.

Question 4: What is the total energy of of the system of 1) the bicyclist, 2) the rescue vehicle & driver and 3) the babysitters who watched the kids while Liesel drove to Huber Heights.

Extra Credit: Explain what the bicyclist could have done to avoid having a mechanical malfunction. Do not use passive voice. Do not use Wikipedia.

Hold on to your hats!!

What, two posts in one day? Obviously a couple of things have occurred. First: Dom is taking an extra long nap. Second: Will is playing particularly well by himself.

Reading another post I remembered a couple of things I wanted to share.

Despite the fact that I have not read to Will as much as I did with Dom, he has developed a fascination with books. He will sit and leaf through them for long stretches of time. Any book. He seems to often go after mine. I'm thinking his thought process must be "What is it about this that makes my mom ignore my cries for more food?"

Dom is getting ever more verbal. Recently a conversation went like this:

Dom: "Watch it "Cars"?
Mom: No
Dom: "How About, "People"?
Mom: No
Dom: "How About, hm. . . "Nemo"?
Mom: No
Dom: "How About, hm. . .let's see "McDonald's Farm"?
Mom: No
Dom: "How About, hm. . .let's see. . .Watch it "Cars"?
Mom: Go outside

Dom has also developed a taste for working in the food industry. We were in Target not long ago and one of the registers was empty. Dom walked around and leaned on the counter like he was waiting for some business. I walked up and ordered a coffee and donut. Dom goes: "Um. . .OK!" looks around and finds a "button" to push that magically brought forth both a coffee and donut. "Here you go" I also managed to get some ice cream, waffles, and spaghetti from this same button. Best of all? It was all free.

House Hunting with the Boys

Now that Eric has posted with pictures, I can give a few anecdotes without feeling like I'm short changing those who have trouble visualizing situations.

Dom and Will are getting to be more and more entertaining as time goes on. Maybe this parent thing wasn't such a bad investment after all. We are saving bundles on movie tickets alone. As some of you know, we are house hunting and as such have gone on a few house visits. We considered finding a sitter for the boys, but since this consideration didn't occur to us until a couple of hours before the onset of the first tour, Dom and Will have been accompanying us and sharing their opinions along the way. A select few:

A bathroom that connects two bedrooms is a big plus. Dom found it hilarious that he could go in one room (Bye Bye, Momma) and then come out a totally different room ( Hi Momma!). I was surprised every time.

A house with a dog always beats a house without a dog. Unless, the house has a play set. That's "pretty cool" or "awesome" depending on the play set. Oh, and a piano helps increase the value of the house exponentially.

Lastly, wood floors are great. Especially if you want to be heard. Not that they need much help. Both boys enjoyed listening to the sound of their own voices immensely. I wonder who they got that from. . .

As a side note, the houses that we are considering all have laundry chutes. The boys are too low to notice them, but I'm sure there is a blog post in the not too distant future where the chutes will have a prominent role. I just hope it is not entitled: " Adventures with the Indoor Slide"

Would you even believe me?

Holy cow! Somebody tell that guy to quit watching The Tonight Show and start blogging already! And cut it out with that Twitter stuff too!!

Our last update was a month ago? Really? Sorry about that. We've done a lot since then. And by a lot, I mean, went to Kansas for the Wertin wedding, went to Oklahoma to see family, and then came home. In more recent news: we're looking for a house to buy, keeping up an herb garden, planting flowers, training for a Bike Ride across Ohio and trying to get our boys to go to sleep at night. But we'll get to that.

We present for your consideration, two boys...

one dark,

the other fair,

yet both cunning, subtle, and grave of purpose. Together, these two engage in the most heinous of deeds:

sleeping,

wrestling,

trainspotting,

feasting,

and covert espionage.

They are masters of disguise, and can blend in anywhere.

Rarely caught unawares, and always with a plan up their sleeve, they are - Dom and Will, the Busch-Boys.

While in Oklahoma, we visited the Oklahoma Science Museum. You wouldn't know it from this video, but there's a very large model train set there.

We could almost make a full-length motion picture of these videos (there are more). Someone remind me to pull this out at Dominic's high school graduation.

Liesel and Dad got in on the brainteaser action.

They figured it out eventually, but they're not telling.

We took a trip to Lawton to see Fritz & Kelly. Their backyard was huge!

Luckily, Fritz was able to provide for us all (a kegerator?!) and a good time was had by all. Thanks for the hospitality, Okie-Keels!

Will was happy to spend time with his godfather, Scuba

and his uncle Brian.

Somehow, while all this was going on, Will's klutz of a Dad (almost) broke his toe (toes?) playing frisbee in the backyard. Way to go, genius. (it still hurts. seriously.)

We also photograph well as a family.

The girls:

The Boys:

The Siblings:

The Rents: (and the g-kids)

And the family-all-together:

So that was a lot of fun.

Also, snuck in the #4 anniversary of this:

Isn't my bride still the most beautiful thing? A quick 4 years! Here's to many more!

Also four years ago was THIS:

After four years as a lieutenant, I'll be promoted to Captain on 29 June at the Base. All (and I do mean all) are welcome to attend the party!

Also, we ARE looking at houses, but we don't really have any pictures of them. Stay tuned, and maybe we'll get some shortly.

ciao ciao, and we are looking forward to seeing lots of people this month: Jeff, Ernest & Sarah, my family, and then 4th of July in Wisconsin -- On a Boat!! (NSFW - or small children)

Rainy Days and Wednesdays. . .

My mental note facility is getting close to capacity, so I will upload a few of them to make room for more. So here is the latest edition of the adventures of Dom and Will:

William is officially a crawler. I recall a few months ago blogging about looking forward to the day when the boys would be running around together. I now realize that is a dream where they are running in the same direction and I get to follow at an easy pace and they both stop and return as soon as I beckon. Ha! Last week at storytime, as my eldest walked out the door without my permission, my youngest was crawling up a set of stairs acting not exactly thankful for a little motherly assistance. This, I realized, was merely a taste of future much more stressful parental situations of which I have only heard about. I guess I really do need to start that running program. . .

Dom has reached the age of selective hearing. I would be concerned that perhaps he might have a hearing issue as he can't seem to hear us yell "STOP!" as he nears the end of a sidewalk, or "don't hit Will" as he nonchalantly swings a book in the general direction of his brother. However, he hears the word "movie" spoken in conversation in a different room and thinks it means he's going to get to watch one AND he can hear the clink of M&Ms as a parent attempts to sneak one from the children and deems it only fair that he should have one also. His hearing is just fine.

Will has started waving and it took a complete stranger to point this out to us. We knew he waved his hands around, but never thought it was with any purpose until we saw him wave to someone at the doctor's office. For about five minutes this guy would wave and Will would wave back. It's that backward wave, but it still counts.

We did just return from a trip to Chicago and Madison to visit an uncle, a couple of aunts, cousins, and a new member of the St. Lawrence Family. The highlights for Dom probably centered around riding the public transit system in Chicago. On the bus, Dom just sat on my lap looking around. Every once in a while he looked up say: "Pretty cool, huh" and would tell anyone who would listen "bus" just in case they weren't fully appreciating the overcrowded experience. The train was "Awesome", and with a trip to the Disney store, who the heck needs Disney World?

While the boys nap

It's been a while since I gave a written update of the boys activities. So here it is without pictures or hyperlinks.

William is crawling, but still feels that the quickest way to get something is to stretch out and army crawl. He is actually incredibly fast and thinks it is funny to see us run to intercept him as he heads for the top of the stairs. To be honest, I think it is funny to see how he always tries to sneak out of his room. He would be incredibly stealthy, except you can hear his grunts of determination as he claws his way out of the room. He is presently showing seven teeth and likes to bite. As a result, he is also quite the eater and generally finishes his brother's un-touched meal. More on that in the Dominic section. Will can pull himself up into a standing position and actually prefers to be in a standing position when possible. Lucky for me, he is much more interested in toys and will entertain himself for longer stretches of time. Not so lucky for me, he is apparently also quite taken with Thomas the Tank Engine based on his squeals of delight and little sitting jig as the theme music came on the DVD that Dom was watching. He continues to be an overall happy little boy who gives big hugs and will imitate the kissing noise. Oh, and I'm pretty sure he is saying "ma-ma" and "da-da" which puts him ahead of his older brother who mastered "da-da" much sooner than "ma-ma" and actually called his aunt Mitzi "ma-ma" before he ever called the woman who bore him the beloved name.

Speaking of Dominic. . .

He is turning into quite the older brother. For the most part, he plays really well with Will and loves to make him laugh. He shares pretty well and only inflicts pain when he feels we have neglected to give him the attention he deserves. Some of his current favorite activites are playing with bubbles and running up and down the hill in our backyard. He really likes it when I run with him which is probably beneficial in more ways than I appreciate at the time. He has reached a decision in his diet that only things with sugar will pass his lips. I have no idea where he picked up this bad habit, as those who know me will attest to my overly healthy eating habits. Granted this might be re-evaluated as he refers to the Reese's Peanut Butter puffs as "Ma-ma's cereal" when he requests it and the Yoplait Key Lime Pie Whips are "Ma-ma's yogurt." He is also an overall happy boy unless you turn off a movie that he was watching. Then he flies at the TV with tears streaming down his face screaming "NO!!!!!". This reaction along with pushing Will over out of boredom makes me mad and annoyed. Yet, all he needs to do is say "Thank you, Mama" for a bringing a drink, or say "Snuggle, Mama" and all is forgiven.