Settling back in

Not a whole lot of new stuff to write about really, but since I've got some time I figured it might be a good time to throw a quick post up here. Basically just been settling back into the same old outfitter groove. Work, eat, play, sleep, repeat. The sleeping bag is on order, should be here in another week and a half or so (they've gotta stuff it, then mail it,) crampons probably made it to the shop today, boots will be here sometime next week, small stuff came in a few days back.

I'm at my dad's place (half hour drive from Neels Gap) right now - have a few consecutive days off, so I'm down here helping dad with some projects he's been saving up and playing with electronics. Working on a USB interface, 4 axis bipolar stepper motor controller that'll be handy down the road as well as a pet project (the resistivity thing for those who know about it) that I've been tinkering with on and off for 5 years now. Unsurprisingly, after about two years of not doing anything fancy with electronics, it's taking a while to get back up to speed. Let the smoke out of a chip earlier today; somehow had it in my head that it was E=I/R instead of E=IR...

Think I finally managed to track down some info on how to get our hand-me-down industrial sewing machine up at Neels running, so I'm a bit anxious to get back up there and see if I can make it go. It's an oldish single needle lockstich Juki that was given to the shop by Dana Gleason (of Dana Designs) last fall, hopefully once we get it running we'll be able to do fancier pack repairs and make some new gear. Plus, it's a cool machine that would be that much cooler if we could actually do something useful with it ;) Also did my taxes and mailed them out this morning, isn't all this stuff exciting!?

Suppose that's all for now, might go through some of my later NZ pictures and get a few of them posted here tomorrow, so stay tuned!