2004 Adventures

Updated: 18-Oct-2005

January

I really enjoy warm weather, yet I continue to live in Colorado.... the warm summers are delightful, but I'm not so fond of the cold weather.... I love everyplace that I go, so it's hard to pick any new place in particular to live.

On one mid-January morning, the temperature here was about 10 below zero, so I got into the car and headed down into the Arizona desert and northern Mexico, to the Sea of Cortez.... ahhhhh sunshine..... and there was virtually nobody else there... the beaches were empty... just me and the sea gulls.

Work on the web site continues to gobble up about 30 to 50 hours a week, creating and updating web pages.... a labor of love.

February

The warm Caribbean breeze, and the glory of the Divine Presence everywhere. In February, I spent three magnificent weeks in Puerto Morelos.

Puerto Morelos, Mexico, is a small fishing/tourist village about 30 miles south of Cancun. So far, it remains relatively undeveloped and is a haven for those trying to escape the phony glitz of the mega-resorts.

March.... April.... May... June....

Working on more articles and more music for the web site...

... and spending a lot of time working on a new electronic product for amusement parks, special effects robotics and remotely piloted vehicles.

This servo control system will eventually be sold via my web site at:

http://ShelquistEng.Com

July

A delightful day at the Butterfly Pavilion near Denver.

And they have creatures other than butterflies too...

July - December

Working on software for the servo control system... seemingly endless lines of C code to connect the servo controller CAN bus to a remote computer via TCP/IP... yikes this is a chore. Layer upon layer of software protocols, and two different C compilers... each with their own petty rules. Arrrgggg.

And then even more software in Visual Basic to create a signal generator and digital oscilloscope to analyze the servo system tuning and performance. Kinda boring, yet very challenging.

It's the end of December now... I've spent six months on this silly project, and it all works! It is a digital servo controller, with internet TCP/IP and CAN bus interfaces, but I'm so sick of it that I doubt that I'll ever market this nifty new product.