EdgeOpener

May 30, 2015

Ok it has been soo long I think I have forgotten how to blog.  Is that something you can forget…is it even something you can learn?…anyway I have created a bottle opener that everyone needs.  See it here www.edgeopener.com

I am trying to fund the project though kickstarter.com, I need some equipment if I am going to make these things in any sort of volume.  So if you have not seen my e-mails, facebook posts, twitter posts, listened to me talk about it at work or had to listen to me go on and on about it at home, please back my project…for the good of all mankind.

 

Posted in Engineering, Technology That Improves Our Lives | Leave a Comment »

31

April 3, 2013

31

Well I am 31 and I nearly missed it.  Nine days before my birthday our son, Callan, was born.  Needless to say my birthday party was the least of my concerns.  I remember being tired on my birthday, kind of like I am tired now…kind of like I have been tired since March 12, though I shouldn’t complain Callan has been a great baby.

The day after my birthday I did decide, fairly abruptly, to sell my car and buy something different…a 2006 Mercury Milan.  It doesn’t have quiet the prestige of the BMW but I got it for a good price and it has leather seats and a manual transmission.  With the money I got from the BMW we will be able to pay off the Subaru, hence the real reason I sold the car.  I do like the Merc but I die a little inside every time I tell someone I drive a Mercury Milan.  It is an old man’s car, I should be wearing a hat when ever I am driving it, because old men love to wear hats when they drive.

I guess I have always enjoyed the old-timey ways of doing things and I have been told on more than one occasion that I have an old soul, so now I have a car to match.  Rest assured I will own something far less sensible in the future, but right now sensible is the best course of action.

Not sure how this post about my birthday turned into a post about my car…maybe I am getting senile.  Anyway, thanks everyone for the birthday well wishes and if you see a Milan going way too fast in reverse it is probably just me trying to find the brake pedal.

P.S.  See me loss weight and hair through the ages here: 30, 29, 28, 27

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Introducing Callan Gregory Frost

March 15, 2013

Callan Gregory Frost

I would like to introduce you to our new son, Callan Gregory Frost.  He was born on March 12th at 8:13am and he came into this world in a much less stressful way than Elena.  He weighted in at 7 lbs 4 oz and is 20 1/2″ long.  Both mom and baby are doing very well and we where able to come home yesterday.

Gillian went full term and did not have any complication, no pre-eclampsia this time!  Callan was actually born on his due date, something that only happens about 2% of the time, so says my mother-in-law.  Gillian also did not need to have a c-section, which we have discovered is a much better way to do things.

Elena is ecstatic! Her baby Callan is finally here and not in Mommy’s belly anymore.  She has already started talking for him and bring him toys that are far to large for him.  She has been very sweet to him, I can only hope it stays that way … at least for the first year…six months?…ok, if she can go 3 months without demanding Callan goes back into Mommy’s tummy, I will call it a win.

I did purchase CallanFrost.com and avid readers of this thing may have noticed the “Callan” link in my Friends column.  His website is up and running, so feel free to visit for all things Callan…Elena might be in there a little as well, I doubt I will be able to take many pictures of him without her.  Pictures, like always, will be up on flickr as well.

So far he has been sleeping fairly well, so Gillian and I are not complete walking dead, of course it has only been two nights.  The little blonde opinionated two and half year old still wins the most frustrating child of the house award, Callan has a lot to training  before he can even think about taking a run at that crown.

The strangest thing for me is that it is not just Elena anymore, I can now say I am a father of two… weird.  Also, since Elena was really my only experience with babies I associate “baby” with “baby girl” so I find myself looking at the bright pink whatever in a store and I have to stop myself and say “wait, he is boy”.  Not that I would really care if my boy wears pink, I just don’t want to force it on him.

Oh and everyone asks about the name so here you go; Callan is just a name for a baby book, we liked it, that is it. Gregory was my Dad’s name, it was actually his middle name but he always went  by Greg instead of his given name of James, this caused a lot of confusion with people in his life, and death for that matter.  I thought it would be a great way to honor my father and give my son a little story to go with his middle name.

Alright, I have finished a post, something I haven’t done in a while, everyone is asleep so I should really stop typing and join them…I have a feeling I am going to need it.

 

 

Posted in Baby, Callan, News, Parenting | Leave a Comment »

2013: The Year of the Mustache

January 2, 2013

2013: The Year of the Mustache...no?

I thought I would start 2013 off with a sporty new mustache…Gillian disagrees.   I will be shaving this afternoon. Shortest New Years resolution ever 😦

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Boy oh…Boy!

November 10, 2012

Baby Frost 2.0

Well if you haven’t already heard we are expecting our second child.  Last Thursday Gillian had her first Ultrasound.  We are happy to say that “Baby 2.0” is a healthy baby …boy!  I quote, “110% boy”. The most important part is that he is healthy, everything is developing as it should, but I must admit I was a little nervous that I was going to have a house full of girls.  Gillian is also doing well, except for a horrible cough she has had for the last few days.

No, we have not picked a name yet but now that it is a little more real for me, it was always real for Gillian, I think I will have a easier time coming up with names…or maybe a harder time.

…LionHeart  McAwesome Frost?

Posted in Baby, Family, Parenting | 1 Comment »

72 Hours in Japan

October 21, 2012

The mission was simple; fly to Kobe Japan, meet with MHI on Monday, meet with Niigata in Tokyo on Tuesday, fly home Wednesday…and that is pretty much what happened.

When you tell people you are going to Japan on business, you get a lot of, “oh, how exciting” and it is exciting but it is also a  business trip and it doesn’t matter if I am in Tyler, MN or Tokyo Japan, I am really only there to work.

“Work” in this instance means sitting in a poorly ventilated conference room arguing heat rise calculation with a man who spoke English but not every day, for 10 hours.  Okay, we only argued about heat rise for two and half hours, but the meeting did last for easily 10 hours…  then dinner and bed.

Speaking of bed, we stayed at a fairly Americanized hotel, I think, I guess I don’t really know what a typical Japaneses hotel looks like.  I do know the beds where only about 8 inches off the ground and the toilet had a lot of buttons…and there was this thing.  I think it was a air purifier.  Whatever it was when I pushed buttons it blew air, I pushed buttons until it went off and left it that way.

Tuesday we took the bullet train to Tokyo. There is a sentence I never thought I would type!  As we hurtled towards Tokyo at 300km/h I did get to see Mt. Fuji.

Tokyo was another very long meeting, this time the ventilation was better, but surprise, no one was comfortable speaking English, luckily we had a translator.

Doing business through a translator is a less than efficient process, which meant another long meeting, dinner on the train back to Kobe, and sleep…by this time my internal clock was all kinds of out of sorts.

Wednesday we were supposed to have a quick meeting in the morning, then maybe actually see a few things before getting back on the plane home.   There is not such thing as a short meeting in Japan.  Long story short, then long again, I flew back home in my suit because we didn’t have time to change.

I would love to visit Japan, it seems like a very interesting place, but what I did while I was over there wasn’t visiting, it was work.

We did end up getting both contracts, so I guess it was  worth it.

Posted in Engineering, Rants, Trip, Work | 1 Comment »

Beautiful Smith Falls Nebraska

June 30, 2012

Freezing to Death!!

Freezing to Death!  Not the kind of words most people would like to use to describe a family camping trip, but they are the only words that accurately describe our trip to Smith Falls National Park.

It was a good plan,  Colin,  Katie, Colleen, and PJ flew into Omaha from New York on Wednesday night.  Of course the flight was delayed and they did not arrive until about midnight.  The next morning we packed into the cars with the camper in tow and headed the 7 hours to Smith Falls National Park.  In an attempt to avoid Memorial Day crowds, we were to camp Thursday night,  float down the river on Friday and come home on Saturday.

The drive up was fairly uneventful, especially considering we had  a one(nearly two), four and six(nearly seven) year old as part our Oregon Trail reenactment.  We safely ventured out into the middle of nowere without anyone getting Dysentery, though the closer we got to Smith Falls the darker the clouds got.

After making a slight “detour” down the wrong dirt road, we got to our completely empty camp site… the park staff wasn’t even there.

 It started to get dark…it started to get cold.  And to make matters worse, someone, I’m not naming names, had forgot to put the box full of sleeping bags and sweatshirts in the car.

We all made it through the night, Elena wasn’t bothered at all, I froze.  In the morning, it was 38 degrees and we could see dark clouds rolling in.  There was no way we were going to get in the river, so we packed up an went home.  We did go over and take a few pictures in front of the falls before we left. Linda went down and put her feet in because she is a crazy person and was probably having a hot flash.

All in all, the trip was such an epic fail you couldn’t help but laugh.  This will be one of those stories  tell for the next 20 years.

We have a new family rule…No Camping in May!!

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30

March 22, 2012

 DSC03938.JPG

How the hell did this happen!?! I’m 30…30.

There is a party planned for Saturday and I had my final hockey game of the season tonight, so I really didn’t do much, except play hockey…we lost.

I did bring doughnuts to work and celebrated by eating four of them before having lunch at Qdoba will Gillian.  Elena also made me a birthday card at daycare, I think there was  more paint on her arms, shirt and pants then there was  on the card, it was very cute.

I am very proud of things I have accomplished in my 30 years but at the same time I have this overwhelming fear that time is slipping away, so look out for me to do something excessively ambitious and/or expensive.

Like last year I would like to  impart some piece of wisdom to my “readers”…can I call you guys readers?  Anyway, all I got is,” don’t wait, do it now, whatever it is!”  Also, as I look at  the picture above I realize three things; I’ve lost a lot of hair, a lot of weight  and own a lot of green T-shirts.

P.S. Thanks everyone for all the birthday well wishes!

Posted in Broken, Events, Failure, Rants | 1 Comment »

This Old House

March 20, 2012

Our House

On November 28th, after only about three months living in the Boyers basement (Thank you again) Gillian and I closed on our “new” home in Omaha.  We bought a 3 bedroom, 3 bath, 2 car garage home bulit in 1963.  Just for a reference, that was the same year Kennedy was assassinated.  This 2000+ square foot home was completely renovated… so time in the early 70’s.  It’s features include; wood paneling in the den, formal dinning room, three fire places, bright red carpet in the basement, a blue bathroom, a pink bathroom, a yellow bathroom, and wallpaper in nearly every room in the house!  I am not really complaining, it is a great house and everything is in excellent shape it is just old very, very old.  A lot of it Gillian and I actually like,  it is so dated it is kind of trendy again, or at least that is what we are tell ourselves.  I personally love the wood paneled den…Gillian, not so much.

It is a big house with plenty of space that we are planning on being in for a long time, so we haven’t gotten that fired up about changing everything.  I have started removing some wall paper, Gillian and I both agree that wall paper is stupid and ugly and if you intentional put it on your walls you should be attested for crimes against humanity.  Once the wall paper is removed, which at the rate I am going will take well into 2015, we will inevitably paint every room in the house.  The bright red carpet in the basement is probably not too long for this world and as most of the house has hardwood under the carpet I am going to need a dumpster to get rid of all the carpet and while we are at it we might as well update the hall bathroom and the kitchen could use new cabinets and the sliding glass door desperately needs replacing, and really all the widows need to be replaced…and I just got a nose bleed.

So, I guess this house is a lot like the last one, we don’t need to do anything to it but we will end up change everything.

Posted in Family, Midwest Life, News, Rants | Leave a Comment »

2011: Mission Accomplished

February 4, 2012

So Christmas and New Years have come and gone and I have failed to send out Christmas Cards or write a “Frost’s Year in Review”.  I am not going to go into all the details of this last year, because frankly there is too much for just one post, though I would like to give an update on a previous rant about  my new years resolutions.

Get my PE license – Hells Yea!  on May 28 2011 I received notice that I had passed the PE exam and became a licensed Professional Mechanical Engineer.  Just recently I used my license for the first time in the design of a lifting device.

Get my eyes fixed – On April 23 2011, I went under the laser….one of the decisions I ever made.  It is amazing how quickly I have forgotten about the hassle of dealing with glasses and contacts.  If you are considering it, do it!!

Loss Weight – I started actively trying to loose weight on Dec 1st 2010 at the weight of 198 lbs as I sit here today typing I weigh 169 lbs.  I lost the 30 lbs in mostly traditional ways, counting calories and  exercising at least four times a week. I found a website called Loseit.com, to help count calories and track exercise.  I also stopped drinking beer at home…mostly.  I would have a beer if we went out to dinner or where celebrating something, but I stopped having a beer after dinner for no reason.  I have stopped counting the calories but I still try to keep my portions under control and lay off the beer. I weigh myself about once a week just to keep everything in check.

Finish the $#%^ing Engine for the Falcon – I managed to get the engine back in the Falcon just in time to haul it to Omaha and park it in a shed.  Like ever other step in the never ending story of the Falcon’s resurrection, I started to do “just one thing”, then went all OCD and ended up manhandling the engine back in.

Paint the Ceiling & Install the sink in the Garage – Well, we sold the house without doing these things so I count that as the same as actually getting them done.  Now, we have a new house, subject of the next post I swear, so we get to start over and do all the things we have already done before.

So, yea 2011 was pretty damn good.  So good in fact that I am not making resolutions for 2012.

Posted in Rants | Leave a Comment »

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