Bent Barnfan Reviews

Got the boat in the water!!

2009-07-12T22:24:00.001-05:00

I spent more time then I should have today working on the boat. When I put it in the water, the temp keeps slowly climbing. I am baffled by this as when I use a hose, it doesn't do this.

I found out that there is not a thermostat in the engine, so I'll have to order a new one.

I decided to go ahead and take it out on the lake, so with my neighbor following me on his boat, Broderick and I took it out.

I was hoping that when moving in the water, the extra water pressure would help push through the engine to keep it cooler. Well, for the most part, it worked. The engine stayed at 180F which is still too warm, but not dangerous.

Broderick and I make 1 1/2 laps around the lake when the freeze plugs on the other side of the engine popped out and started leaking water like crazy. So Mark had to pull us back in.

Overall, the boat road really well in the water though!!!

The boat saga

2009-07-11T18:49:00.004-05:00

Earlier this year I bought a boat off of ebay. It was one of those Boat Angels auctions where people donate the boat and all proceeds go to the charity. Well, I bid $150 thinking there was no way I would ever win it and guess what.. I won it.

It's a 1977 18' Bonanza OMC 175 HP with a Ford 302 engine.

So, suddenly I had to explain to Holly why I bought this thing and what we were going to do with it. Obviously, for $150, it was pretty rough, but I started to work on it.

Here are pictures!

This is a really abridged description of everything I've done. A lot of trial and error and I decided to just mentioned what worked instead of all the things that didn't. :)

The first thing I did was change the oil... I figured if there was water or something in the oil, then no reason to go any further. Surprisingly, everything looked great.

At first, I couldn't get it to crank over, and replaced the starter solenoid and it turned over like a dream. But, it wouldn't fire.

So, I pulled the wire between the coil and the distributor cap (randomizer) and the end was bad... New set of plug wires and plugs and the engine fired right up.

The next thing was to replace (or put together) the lower unit. Buying a rebuilt lower unit is about $800, which is more then I wanted (or could) spend.. so I put out an ad on Craig's list and found the entire outdrive for $100. Good thing I did, because my upper unit was bad as well (seals pretty much gone).

Putting everything back together, I found some stripped screws, so I had to drill them out, put in a liner, and replace.. so that was working.

I also discovered during this process that the boot around the intermediary housing was bad, luckily that unit I bought for $100 came with a basically new boot, so problem solved.

The only real way to test this is to stick the butt of the boat in the water and see what happens. I found a water leak around the housing (I hadn't tightened the band holding the boot tightly enough) and the engine was running hot, but the biggest problem was water pouring out of the engine. Looking, I could see that a freeze plug had popped out. And of course, the one that popped out was behind something nearly impossible to get at, without taking the whole engine out. :(

My little bilge pump could barely keep up with all the water coming in... so good thing I left it on the trailer.

So, I brought the boat back up the house, tightened up the band and started messing with the plug. I couldn't pull the old one out, but I could stick a screw driver in, so I pried it back into place.

Also, I put in a new toggle switch for the gears (That's why the previous owner had ripped apart the lower unit as it stopped shifting... turns out the switch went bad).

So, I just stuck the boat back into the water and all of my water leaks are fixed!! So close!! Unfortunately, the engine is still running hot, so I think I need to rip apart the water pump.. I'll do some more testing first as some of the ports on the pump are capped off, this might be effecting the water flow and causing the problem.

There are two pumps on it.. 1 pulls in water from the lake and the other circulates around the engine. so I have to figure out which one is bad.

Update!

I was reading the manual tonight and learned normal operating temperature is about 180F. The temp gauge shows 140 in the middle and it goes up to about 210... so 180 looks pretty high. Long story short, I shut off the engine before it ever got up that high, so everything might be working just fine. I'll try it again tomorrow!!

A great, fun filled day

2009-06-06T22:41:00.002-05:00

First of all, Holly and I are going to make a commitment to start blogging again. With facebook, it is very easy to forget about blogging as we put in daily status updates and such (now, if there was some way to pull those into a daily post!!). :)

We had our Beaver Lake community garage sale this morning, which turned out to be a huge success. We were worried as we had storms last night, but by 8 AM, everything was cleared out. We made some money, but more importantly, we got rid of a bunch of stuff! Now, we just need to sort through the garage again and put what's left into various storage areas (attic, closets, etc) and maybe I'll be able to park my car in the garage finally!! :)

We stopped selling around 2:30 and drove into town for the Taste of Omaha. Man, sooo many people. We had a good time and the kids rode a few rides. I was disappointed as the food was pretty expensive and rather then being able to "taste" different restaurants, you got enough food from each for a whole meal. I would have rather received much smaller portions so we could have tried more places. :(

There is also a sand building contest at the Quest center, so we checked that out on the way home and took some pics that I'll upload eventually. Pretty neat though, some amazing talent in the area.

Julia's Latest Height and Weight

2009-05-25T08:31:00.001-05:00

Julia had her 6 month check-up this week and boy is she growing!!!

She is 95% in both height and weight, at 27" and 18 lbs 1 oz.

Julia is home

2008-11-23T09:29:00.002-06:00

I've uploaded quite a few pics of Julia and I'll be adding to these regularly. Having some down time in the hospital was nice as I took the time to update past pictures and upload new ones (well over 600 added/categorized).

Julia is home and doing really well, all the kids love having her around although, all she does right now is eat/sleep and cry. :)

Lucy gets pretty upset when we try to put Julia down (which we rarely do since she wakes up almost as soon as we do).

Holly and I are trying to sleep in shifts, and Holly sleeps during the day when she can. Her recovery from the c-section has been amazing and she came home from the hospital after just 2 days.

Welcome Julia Elizabeth!

2008-11-19T09:33:00.000-06:00

Julia was born this morning at 9:09 AM. She weighs 9lbs and 2 oz and is 21 inches long!

I'll be uploading lots of pictures over the next couple of days.

Everyone is doing well!

Tomorrow is the big day!

2008-11-18T21:29:00.002-06:00

Well, I have been horrible about keeping things up to date on my website and I am not even going to try to catch up with everything, although, I am going to try to keep things a little more current moving forward.

The big news is that tomorrow, my 4th little one is due. We go in at 6:45 AM for an 8:30 AM C-Section.

I'll be posting a lot more details and sending people emails, at least those emails that I have!

I'll also be posting information to Facebook, so if I haven't added you as a friend, you should put in the request now!

Congress Light Bulb debate

2008-06-20T08:58:00.004-05:00

I didn't know anything about this...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=e-LOtKIIKcg

Eric Richrath's Band

2008-04-09T14:08:00.001-05:00

I just came across their myspace page. :)

Visitors and catching up

2008-04-09T11:30:00.003-05:00

Man, I have posted in ages!!!

So, here are some recent things that are going on.

1) We had a very successful implementation of CRM on Feb 18. We were kinda flying by the seat of our pants, but it all worked out OK. Definitely could have used more testing, but that's probably always true!!

2) We've had several visitors.

My mom came out Easter weekend with Aunt Betty, which was really nice. We took her to the Zoo and showed her around town. She was only here for a few days... but it was nice to catch up

Mary (Holly's mom) is currently visiting us. We'd love to convince her to move closer to us, so we'll see. :) She's staying for a week, which is really nice.

Steve Layland stopped by Saturday night and spent the night on his way to California. He is going to be working remotely for Wolfram. It was fun to catch up with him and I took him to gallup and showed him around. (Maybe I can convince him Omaha is better then California!)

We have a ton of weddings this fall. Let's see... Glenn Smith (long time friend) and then cousins Whitney, Curtis, and Ben are all getting hitched. So, we'll have to see what I can make. I doubt Holly will make many as...

we are now expecting our 4th child. Due late November. So, that's very exciting!!

We're getting ready for our vacation in South Carolina this June with most of the Barnhart clan...

Toy Rental

2008-02-11T08:08:00.000-06:00

I found this website which looks pretty neat. Basically, you can rent kids toys, kinda like the netflix idea. Keep them as long as you want, but when the kids get tired of them, ship em back for something else.

http://www.babyplays.com/

Creepy Old Ads

2008-01-10T08:16:00.001-06:00

Check out these old Ads. I have to assume these are real. :)

http://www.2spare.com/item_92595.aspx

Gallup in the news

2008-01-08T11:09:00.000-06:00

Talking about our company growing and building a new building in the next couple of years.

Read about it here

Trip home this weekend

2008-01-07T15:25:00.000-06:00

We traveled back to Illinois Wednesday and came back Sunday. My family did it's Christmas as Karen's on Saturday.

Overall, the trip was great. Wed night, I was a bit stressed as I had been driving all day (8 hours from Omaha to CU). The house was pretty clean, but the storm door on the west had been ripped off the hinges by the wind (you really have to make sure it is completely latched) and we only had one mattress. Bridget slept on the sofa, Lucy was supposed to sleep in a portable crib, and Holly and I had 2 twin inflatable mattresses.

Unfortunately, Lucy really did not sleep well in her crib, which translates to Holly and I didn't sleep well.

But, it was nice to be home and see everyone. I stopped by Wolfram and said hello to people, which was great. I also saw Uncle Dave.

Broderick spent two nights with different friends (Sam and Austin) and Bridget also stayed one night at Austin's.

We picked up some more stuff (and left a couple of things).

Overall, I would rate the trip a big success!

New pictures

2008-01-07T13:58:00.001-06:00

I just uploaded a ton of new pictures to the web site. These date back several months.

Take a look..

http://thebarnharts.org/pictures/date_display.cfm?date=12-30-07

"This is the sheriff's office"

2008-01-05T23:36:00.000-06:00

OMG, I got a voicemail tonight from the Bellevue Sheriff's office (I'm back in Urbana on the farm) saying that our Garage door back home was opened and they had secured the house. They tracked down my cell phone number by calling the kennel where Sam is being kept. Unfortunately, they didn't leave a number to call them back, so no idea if anything is missing.

I guess it means that our door has been up now for 3 days!!! We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Update: When we returned home Sunday night, everything was fine. Nothing missing. I guess it shows we live in a good neighborhood. I have to assume a neighbor called them, but no idea who.

Lucy Videos!

2007-12-26T20:11:00.001-06:00

I finally figured out how to upload some videos of Lucy :)

If you'd like to see them, you have a couple of options... One is YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSDE9G_ucIg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLk0gtv4Hr4

Or, there are links on http://thebarnharts.org/videos (from here, you can download the videos that will look much better when playing them).

Great Christmas

2007-12-26T09:50:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to everyone!

I had a very nice Christmas! We spent some time these last few days driving around looking at Lists on houses. Holly found some website where people report nice houses. There was one that was just incredible.. the lights were set to music that played on FM. Incredible.

Santa treated me well, I got an electric razer (I asked for one) and an IPod Shuffle. I had a very nice and relaxing day. Holly made French Toast for Breakfast and Turkey for dinner... very delicious!!

Hey, if you are reading this, why not post a comment with what you got?

Lucy has really started taking off walking.. she can make it 10-15 steps now on her own..

Barnhart Christmas Letter 2007

2007-12-19T15:31:00.001-06:00

It has been another big year for the Barnhart family with the arrival of our third child and relocating for a new job.

At the end of February our sweet little Lucy Olivia made her long awaited debut into the world, at almost 3 weeks late it was a bit much to be considered 'fashionably late'.

Our move to Nebraska is the 2nd biggest happening for us this year. Brett received a job offer from Gallup (as in the Gallup polls..) in Omaha and we moved the first part of November. For now we are renting a house in a suburb outside of Omaha until we can get a good feel for the area and decide where we would really like to put down roots. There is a lot to do here, a wonderful zoo, children's museum, Strategic air command, water parks, skating, and ton of other stuff we haven't even gotten to yet. The kids are a part of the Omaha school district and have an opportunity to apply to some of the magnet schools for next year. The one we like is a science and technology school that partners with NASA for some of their robotics programs. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed that this works out for them.

Lucy is quite the busy princess ruling over her loyal subjects. She is 9 months old and has mastered the art of stair climbing , very important when storming the castle, toilet paper unrolling (not so sure of it's practical use in society), wiggling like crazy when it's diaper changing time and has also managing to walk cruising the furniture, walls, pants, fingers or whatever else may be handy. She also enjoys eating books, squealing, opening and closing cabinets, turning off lights and the usual baby babble.

Broderick adores Lucy and she adores him at least that's what we tell him when she grabs a handful of his hair and pulls with all her might. He still enjoys all things Star Wars, video games, sometimes reading books, coming up with new inventions video games, trying to skateboard, legos and did I mention video games? Broderick has been a great student even with the move to a different school. As I'm sure most of you have noticed he has grown his hair out this year. The plan is to cut it very short on New Year's Eve and let it grow the entire year until next New Year's Eve, measure it and cut it off to donate to Locks of love.

Bridget has been a great big sister unless she's preoccupied with reading. Most of the time you can find Bridget curled up on the sofa or in her room with a book in hand. She probably reads 2-3 books a week and can occasionally be found reading long after she's been tucked in for the night. Bridget has adjusted to her new school quite well too. She says she has better friends here than she did at home. Other than reading Bridget enjoys playing video games, watching movies and collecting dragons.

Brett is really enjoying his new job at Gallup. The people he works with are fun and outgoing and he's excited to be working with the latest technologies and learning a lot of new things. He has also started exercising at Gallup's in house gym a few days a week.

As for me, I stay home and take care of Lucy, take the kids to and from school, and have recently started going to the gym again. I hope to resume belly dancing classes in the New Year.

We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and best wishes for a fantastic 2008!

Staying in Omaha for Thanksgiving

2007-11-25T21:14:00.000-06:00

We decided not to drive back to Illinois for Thanksgiving. There were several factors, not the least of which is our dog Sam. Being new to city life, I didn't even think about boarding him, so when I called the Monday before thanksgiving, all the kennels were full.

That would have meant that we would had to have taken him with us, which isn't really a bad thing, other then it meant we couldn't have brought much stuff back with us. It also meant that we would have had to change our plans. We were planning on staying with Holly's aunt Joyce for a day or two, which would have obviously been difficult with Sam.

So, we decided to stay here and take advantage of some of the local stuff.

Wednesday night, a mall near our house had a lighting ceremony that we went to. It had Santa, Rudulph, Frosty, and other characters walking around. We also got a fair amount of snow on Wednesday, so everything was really pretty!!

On Thanksgiving day, Holly made a great dinner and we headed downtown to see the lights downtown Omaha. It was so pretty! We walked around the old market which has some really nice shops and found a big slide.

On Friday, we went to the Omaha Children's Museum which was a lot of fun. It's not the biggest one we've been to, but they have a huge ball area which the kids loved.

After that, we went to McDonalds for lunch and then headed out to the Strategic Air and Space Museum. They have lots of airplanes (some of which, this was one of only a couple left). They also had a flight simulator that Broderick and I flew... well, Broderick flew it. Whenever I took the controls, it would going into a spin.. Not me, something was wrong! This is one of those simulators you ride in, so if the plane is spinning, so are you!

Saturday, we didn't do much... checked out a local bookstore and went to go get Library cards. Turns out that we aren't in the library district either, so we have to pay an annual fee of $25.

Today, we checked out the local Vineyard Church to see what it's like. We're on the church hunt! Unfortunately, it really didn't jive with us. The service lasted 1 1/2 hours. I appreciate the fact that this is just a small portion of the week for church, but 1 1/2 hours is just too long to sit there. The sermon was OK, but long. :(

After church, we went to The Pizza Machine which is like Chuckie Cheese on steroids. We were there for a few hours and the kids loved it. When we got home, I took Sam on a nice walk and then hung up some of our Christmas lights before it got dark.

Holly found something where the kids can take skiing lessons. Something like $200 gives them a season pass, 6 weeks of lessons (once a week) and rental. Compare that with the normal kids season ticket price of $200 and it's a no brainer! Lessons and rentals for free basically!

End of the first week of work

2007-11-16T14:30:00.000-06:00

Well, I have to say it's been a good first week of work. Of course, a fair amount of time was spent setting up my computer, learning where a handful of conference room were, getting my fitness evaluation, etc.. but I am starting to get a feel for the place.

I've already started working on a couple of issues here and solved one, which is nice. Since I am supporting finance, which is one of my weaker areas, there is a lot to learn, but that's a really good thing!

The kids had their first day at school yesterday and generally liked it. Coming in so close to breaks, there are some things the classes are doing that they can't participate in, but that will change after Thanksgiving.

Gallup paid me today, which I wasn't expecting. They pay on the 1st and 16th, and since I just started, I didn't think I'd receive a check, but I did! That's a huge help for trying to go home next week.

Fontenelle Forest

2007-11-11T16:57:00.000-06:00

Today, we visited Fontenelle Forest which is a private not-for-profit 1,400 acre forest a few miles from our house that borders the Missouri River. We only walked a very small portion of the trails, but even that really wore us out!

I am so impressed with the amount of things to do not far from our home here in Bellevue, NE!

We still have quite a bit to see (like the aquarium, a few museums, etc)!

Day at the Zoo

2007-11-10T20:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we went to the zoo for a couple of hours (I had to go to work briefly to sign some paperwork) and we went back today. We really enjoy zoos and we've been to a couple of dozen over the years, but this is hands down our favorite!!

It may not be that animal friendly (some of the enclosures were not that big) but you could really see all the animals. One thing we read stated that the zoo is rated #1 for North America and #5 in the World.

They have so many neat things to see, that I have no doubt we'll be spending lots of time there. Also, it is right up the road from us, so we bought a family pass.

OK, for our favorites....
Brett- Desert Dome basement (nocturnal exhibit) and the Aquarium.
Holly- Monkeys
Broderick- Rain Forest
Bridget - Rain Forest

We also took a train ride. I can't wait for people to come visit us so we can experience it with them!!

Omaha Zoo

The Big Move!! (Part 2)

2007-11-08T22:52:00.000-06:00

The next morning (well, the same morning, Tuesday) we got up and started unloading the truck. Neither Holly or I really had recovered from loading everything, so we were really dragging.

Our landlord Robert came over to do a walk-through of the house and he helped us unload the hot-tub. A very nice guy, I think he'll be a great land-lord.

Robert showed me the hot tub hooked up that Michelle told us about and it was 2 small wires coming out of the wall. Looked about the right gauge to run a floor lamp. :( So, I'll have to call an electrician to hook everything up. I hope it's not too expensive.

We spent a chunk of the day unloading and getting supplies, driving around just getting a feel for everything. Overall, we really like the house, but some of the rooms are a lot smaller then we are used to. The layout is nice though!

By and large, the unloading and unpacking has gone well, but slow. We just don't have the energy to do everything at once. I hope by the weekend, we'll have pretty much everything unpacked and the garage cleaned out. :)

The Big Move!! (Part 1)

2007-11-08T21:35:00.000-06:00

Ok, we knew that this move would be big... but in retrospect, I had no idea just how big it really was going to be!!

So, we picked up the 26' truck and trailer Saturday morning. We had quite a few things already packed at that point, so I thought we had a good start on things. The kid's birthdays were coming up, so Holly let them each invite a friend and took them bowling while I loaded what we had packed, we also had a family b-day party that afternoon. (Thanks Scott for helping me carry down the vanity from Bridget's room). So, I worked for a couple of hours on Sat.. nothing too special.

Sunday morning, we went to church, took Sam to the groomer (he looks great!) and ran some last minute errands. Most of the afternoon was spent packing and loading. We hoped to have pretty much everything done Sunday night to leave first thing Monday and I thought we had a good bit done.

Monday morning, of course, I am exhausted by this point. Even though I thought that we had basically everything done, it seemed like there were still tons of boxes and Holly kept finding more things to bring out. We decided to bring our hot tub, which I measured and found that it would fit in the truck.

So, around noon on Monday (remember, we were wanting to leave early), we put the hot tub on dolly's, pushed it up the ramp and found that it wouldn't fit!!! So, we backed it back down, repositioned everything and we were just spent... we fought and fought and finally, 30 minutes later got it in.. Mom ended up showing up and helped hold down one side (nothing serious) to help stabilize it. OMG!!

After this was done, Holly was going to run up town and pick up supplies for the road, shut the sliding door to the van and heard a 'click'. Of course... of all times, the keys were sitting on the front seat (our only set) and the doors locked. I tried to get in myself, but the car has an alarm, so when I did manage to use a wire to unlock it, the car automatically locked itself again. We ended up having to call a lock-smith ($50) to get back in.

Then, we got our beds all loaded and finished packing the car. So, instead of leaving town Monday morning, we hit the road at 4 PM!

Of course, when I got about an hour away, I realized that I forgot to do a bunch of stuff... turn off the water to upstairs, turn the heat back on, left the Robert Jordan book I was reading in front on the fireplace, food in the fridge.. ughhh. At least we'll be home around thanksgiving to take care of some of it.

So, we are on the road, driving straight into a 30 MPH wind out of the west. Holly and the kids went ahead and Sam and I drove along at 55 (60 if I was really lucky). Also, I swear I could see the fuel gauge moving we were sucking down so much fuel. I filled up once on the East side of Des Moines, IA and put in $150 in fuel and again just before hitting Omaha.

When getting fuel in IA, I took Sam out for a walk and it was snowing! Incredible.

Sam was great on the road and spent much of the time with his head and front legs on my lap (nothing like an 83 lbs lap dog).

I caught up to Holly a couple of times (she stopped for dinner and such) and she ended up getting to the house about 30 minutes before me. Our land lady gave me the code for the Realtor box on the garage. unfortunately, I misunderstood her. I thought she said 'sun', turns out she said 'fun'. So, I had to call and wake her up at 1 AM to get the right code.

Since I put the beds in last.. we pulled them out right away to sleep. Of course, most of the bedding was not put in last (another uggh!), but we made due. Finally, we got to bed at 2:30 AM Tuesday morning.