Korey Atterberry’s Idle Chatter

We like to take our kids camping in our popup, but one problem I hadn’t solved yet was the lack of a night light. Evan likes to have one, and it’s nice to be able to see a little bit when sharing a “room” with kids. What I did was modify an existing light in the camper to add a night light feature.

Once I figured out what to do, it was a fairly easy project. Check out the project page for more information.

Dusty had the good fortune to find a Peg Perego Power Pull ride-on tractor on Craigslist recently. The price was right, but unsurprisingly, it needed a little work. We found a new battery for a good price, but there were also some cracks in the chassis. Both the front end and rear ends have succumbed to the impacts a novice driver is likely to administer.

In only an hour, I built a PVC frame to reinforce and repair the chassis. Since the back end was toast, the new frame also provides sort of a hitch as well. Visit the project page to read more.

This week I finished the interior of the playhouse. I added a loft, ladder, bench and toy box. The upstairs is a big hit with the kids, and there’s plenty of room inside for playing and storing toys.

Take a look at the Playhouse project page or the new photos.

On Tuesday we took the kids to the zoo in Indianapolis. The zoo itself was nice, and the kids had a good time, but along the way I had several random thoughts.

• We missed almost every stoplight in Speedway, IN just by a second or two. My theory: the stoplights are timed for 10mph over the speed limit. Hmm… fitting.
• We stopped for dinner at a Wendy’s on the way home, and they didn’t offer diet Coke. All they had was caffeine-free diet Coke. Thankfully the Pilot station next door offered free “flavor shots” on their soda machine. I’d only seen that once before.
• There were dozens of oversize loads on I-74. In this economy, at least the pilot car escort business is booming.
• There were a number of line jumpers at the zoo, but at least they were polite and said “excuse me” as they pushed their way to the front of the line. My passive-aggressive side enjoyed standing in their way so that they had to say it to me.
• Our Garmin GPS needs a “It’s OK, I just have to pee” button. Whenever we took a highway exit for a quick stop, the voice directions went nuts “recalculating” our route to our destination.
• By my count, there are 53 orange barrels per mile in road work zones. That’s one barrel every 100 feet. According to my research, many of those barrels use 6V lantern batteries to power the flashing light on top. Not only does that mean a lot of money, but also there must be a guy who goes out and replaces or recharges the batteries.