It’s a day after the 2020 election was called for Biden. It’s been a tense time for the Lacey household. Nancy, me, and Vector were all hoping to not have another four years of Donald Trump. Honestly, the thought of that maniac in the White House for another four years was scarier than the Covid 19 pandemic that has brought the country to its knees, and it is deadly for someone my age. The very thought never left my mind for long. I sat down a few times to write for this Blog. I couldn’t concentrate long enough. I ended up with a collection of unfinished posts.
Last night Nancy and I had a couple of bacon wrapped sirloin steaks a tossed salad and a bottle of Rose Champagne and at noon today my blood pressure was back in the “normal” range. 
I’m looking forward to once again having a professional at the helm. One that knows what he’s doing. This past four years have been the nightmare that I thought it my be in the blog I wrote on November 10th, 2016 called, “Shock and Ahh…Shit.” I was hoping for the best but the reality was far worse than I had anticipated, and that doesn’t include the current pandemic.
One of the things that stands out for me is the fact that he was quick to claim credit for things that he couldn’t possibly have accomplished. Three months into his presidency he claimed undue credit for revamping the United States nuclear arsenal. As Air Force acquisition professional, I can tell you that you can’t do anything in acquisition and modernization in three months. Each of the weapon systems I worked on including the B-1B Bomber, the Global Hawk Unmanned Air Vehicle, and LADAR weapons took at least 7 and in most cases 11 years to bring online. Nuclear systems are more demanding than any other weapons system in the entire Department of Defense and will take an estimated 30 years to modernize. He did write a memorandum on Jan 27, 2017 ordering a new nuclear posture review, but writing a memo is a far cry from “revamping.”
There are quite a few things that Mr. Trump claims that he’s done that he didn’t. I can’t cover all of them. The four years of fabrications would be impossible to cover in a brief blog. I only went into detail on the nuclear arsenal because it was one of the first outrageous claims and it is one where I could add the benefit of personal experience. In the first 100 days alone, 492 false or misleading claims were documented. There were false claims about jobs, immigration, foreign policy, health care, the economy, his own record, the election (remember those claims?), crime, trade, and taxes. That was just the first 100 days.
Couple that with the fact that he never took responsibility for things going wrong. “For Trump, the buck always stops somewhere else.” (Los Angeles Times) While it happened quite a few times in the past four years, his claims about the current pandemic are rather noteworthy. He screwed up every aspect of the situation and his responsibility started well before the virus came out of China. Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit and cut the budget of the CDC in 2018. He didn’t fire everyone, he but half of the people working in the office lost their jobs. He eliminated the office especially made to handle the COVID 19 situation. The travel ban was late and ineffective. His handling of the PPE was abysmal. The kicker is that he rated his performance as a “10” and that he was doing a great job.
Well, that went too fast. I was going to include some other stuff that I’ve been trying to write about but I didn’t get to it. Tune in later and I have a couple of good personal stories about 2020 that I’d like to share.
BU-BYE!
I got started late this year preparing for Halloween. Who knew we were even going to have one? Well, I knew I wouldn’t be having a party which has been a Lacey tradition since 2010 but trick-or-treat was still a possibility. However, I saw on the internet an 
Next, I had to decide what I would NOT be putting out for the display. I have quite a collection of props since I first started building them in 2009. Nancy and I decided to not have the trick-or-treaters come up to the door. We decided to set up in the driveway. Jack, the talking pumpkin would go in the driveway and talk with folks. We would be behind a graveyard fence with the candy dispenser and chute. All the decorations would be in the yard. I would have the giant skull on the tower, the “Flying Crank Ghost”, the Tomb Lifter, the Vicious Dog, Steven King’s It prop (with the jumping spider), the animated witch, and the clown-in-the-box, and the pop-up ghoul. You can catch all of the action 
Here it is mid-September and I’m missing normality more than ever. Normally, I’d be deep into Halloween preparations. Actually, I would have started the effort a couple of months ago. Last year the theme of my display was Aliens from outer space. The most complicated new prop from last year was “
Regular readers, all two of you, will probably be wondering what I’m going to be doing for my favorite holiday this year. We won’t be having the normal party on the day before. It would have been great too since it would have been on a Friday. I’m not sure that there will be any kids out Trick-or-Treating, but I still plan on building a few new props, dragging out the old ones and decorating the outside of the house. I had a theme, and it this had been a “normal” year, I would have used it. I guess it will have to wait until next year.
“Holiday from Danger” was the name given to the base picnic when I was 7 and growing up at the Air Force Academy. It was quite an affair as I remember it. That was 60 years ago. My father was stationed at the Air Force Academy when it was at Lowry AFB. My very first memories date back to living in Denver. We moved to Palmer Lake Colorado when the academy cadets moved to the campus near Colorado Springs. Our house in Palmer Lake was at the top of a hill, and our 55 Ford red and white convertible wasn’t good on hills. Dad bought a 57 Chevrolet Townsman station wagon with a 283 V-8 Power Pack. I believe it was his all-time favorite car. He loved kicking it down into passing gear on the highway. We drove it all over Colorado Springs including a trip or two up Pike’s Peak.
Today was a surprisingly good day for me under self-imposed lockdown restriction. I slept in a bit longer than usual. The morning scale reading was not higher than expected and there was a new GeoCache within a half mile from the house. The temperature was only 84, and I felt good. My normal routine now is to get my pills, eat a hard-boiled egg, load up with water, and head out the door for a five-mile walk. I decided to go after the new GeoCache instead of walking on the section of the Tucson bike loop that is near my house. It’s Sunday, and there were probably a good number of people on the “Loop.” Besides, the GeoCache was new and there was an outside chance that I’d get a “First to Find.” I didn’t PhilBeer beat me to it, but that didn’t make the activity any less fun. After swapping swag and marking the log in the GeoCache, I still had some distance to go to get to my normal 5-mile distance. I headed out to find a few more local caches that were nearby. Luck was with me throughout the hunt and not a single DNF (Did Not Find). I got all five of them without bleeding a bit which is quite a feat given our kind of vegetation. I did get a thorn through the shoe, but that only held me up for a bit to remove it. No blood involved.
The is a great project! It gets a little “fiddly” at times but it is one that starts with 
cut out with a razor blade on plexiglass and applied. The arms were assembled from FireBall mini bottles and automotive air fresheners. I also painted the fabric softener dome top.
the inside of the soup can. A belt sander makes this particularly easy since it can remove a lot of material quickly. I placed sticky hook and loop fasteners (Velcro) to the battery pack and the mounting platform and hot glued the assembly to the front of the robot. I may want to replace the batteries in the future and having the holder mounted on Velcro will allow me to remove the holder when required.
I bought D.C. power sockets and plugs in the past for previous projects, so I knew that they were available—somewhere. After a short search that felt longer than it was, I came up with the socket and plug combination. I also had an Apple USB charger adaptor that someone conveniently left for me on the side of my walking path. Finally, a quick rummage through the “wire box” and I had the needed USB wire. Once again, I had the pleasure of using materials that I had on hand.
wiring this little robot toy is terribly confusing, and it shouldn’t be. There are only a couple of components and a few connections. Even though this was my fourth one, I had to get out my pencil and paper and turn down the radio so that I could concentrate. I’ll include the diagram here but it’s hard to follow. The secret appears to be that the ground connection is the one that is switched. In my experience, it is usually the positive lead that is switched. In this case, the battery positive lead, the socket positive lead, and the LED positive lead are solidly connected without an interrupting switch. The pushbutton switch on the back of R2 interrupts the ground to the LEDs. One end is connected to the LEDs and other end is connected to the socket negative lead. On my socket there was a connection without a wire, a bare connection. I checked with an Ohmmeter and found that when the plug is not in the socket this bare connection and the ground connection are shorted. Once the plug is inserted, the bare connection and the socket ground connection are disconnected, and the ground provided to the LEDs is from the external power supply.
The first step in building the R2D2 tin can robot is collecting a few things. This is my fourth one so I’m familiar with what I need for materials. The one luxury that we have these days is plenty of time. I’m not in a hurry. I have no deadline to meet. I’m going to enjoy every part of the build.
I love CampQuestAZ. It gives me the chance to share the “maker” experience with the young campers. My R2D2 was only an example. They had to come up with their own design made from the parts I brought to camp. Check out the imaginative and creative robots they built!
Unlike their effort, I have a plan and the experience of building 3 previous R2D2s. So during my build today, I skipped around a bit. After collecting all of the necessary materials and tools, I cleaned and painted the can, the dome, the tiny liquor bottles, the air fresheners, and the dental floss container. All of the parts require a multiple coats. The base coat is black.
Next, I painted the can and the dome metallic silver. Finally, I masked a couple of small areas on the can and painted the can and the “arms” an off-white (ivory). The masked areas become the vents on the front of R2. 
The blue highlights are made of vinyl tape applied to a piece of plexiglass and cut out using an Exacto blade.
R2 is starting to take shape! All that remains is to add the wiring and electronics. They are amazingly simple. The model uses only 3 LED bulbs, 3 AA batteries, and a switch. Since the LEDs are different colors, each one will require its own current limiting resistor. The blue LED has a forward voltage drop of 2.8 V; the red LED drops 2.0V, and the “Rainbow” LED drops 2.5V. I calculated the resistance values needed to provide 20 mA through each of the LED (assuming a nominal power supply voltage of 4.5 V). The values only have to be in “the neighborhood. I chose an 85 Ohm resistor for the blue LED, a 100 Ohm resistor for the “Rainbow” LED, and a 125 Ohm resistor for the red LED. If you’re interested in how these calculations are done, leave me a comment.
You may recognize this picture. Especially, if you are a long-time reader of this blog. It is a model of the Star Wars robot R2D2. It has LEDs that light up; it is crude. Most importantly, it is something made almost entirely out of recycled materials. The main body is a Healthy Choice soup can. The dome is from the top of a fabric softener bottle. The arms are made of small liquor bottles. The front foot came from my dentist. It had a small amount of dental floss in it originally, and the main feet are automobile deodorizers that I found on the side of the road. There are parts that I had to purchase, however. I used hot glue, two hex head bolts with matching nuts, multiple colors of spray paint, some vinyl tape, light emitting diodes, a few resistors, a battery holder, 3 AA batteries, and a switch.
This is the first one that I built to use as an example for a Camp Quest AZ activity called “Tin Can Robots.” In all I built 5 examples: A Dr. Who Dalek, this R2D2, Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons cartoon show, Rocket Man, and Robby the Robot from the movie Forbidden Planet.
build in the comments. I’ll do my best to be as descriptive as possible, but I may miss a few details that need clarification.
This should be fun. We’ll start tomorrow with cleaning up the parts…
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