Josh Renaud's weblog detailing the exploits of his family in Ferguson, MO, USA. Starring Yoli, Jadzia, Ludi, Josie, and Joseph Renaud.
This year, we constructed a new room in the basement for Joseph to move into, giving each of the kids their own room. It was a long road to get here.
Joseph tells the rest of the story:
I have a new bedroom. It’s in the basement, so the ceiling is low.
It all started with the sounds of drilling in the night. There were builders at our house! I went downstairs and there was a bunch of wood studs instead of our old TV room.
From the time she was little, Jadzia enjoyed having her nails done. She liked watching videos with Yoli to see different techniques and patterns. Then, one year, Nan gave the girls a “Salon Nail Station” made by “The Color Workshop.”
Josie tells the story:
Okay. So, full disclaimer here — I don’t claim to remember this trip perfectly, accurately, or entirely. Most of the time I was reading or working on my coloring book.
WELL. I guess I should get to the point. This Spring Break, we (me, Ludi, Mamá, Papá, and The Boy) went to Hannibal, MO.
Growing up, it felt like I often had to start over — moving to new houses, switching schools, losing grandfathers.
One of the rocks I could cling to amid the sea of changes was Nan.
Her house at 5118 Village Lawn in San Antonio was like my lifelong second home. I can’t think back to a time without it, without her.
This year I decided to revisit the dot-matrix Lego printer that I first built and programmed in 2017. The original design was the result of a lot of iterating, but it still had some significant problems. I wanted to try again, with a focus on eliminating errors and printing very consistent images.
You can download .LXF and .IO models of v3.0 of my LEGO printer, plus Python code for the printer, from the Viper Bots’ GitHub repo.
Keep reading to learn more.
Continue reading “Revisiting my dot-matrix EV3 Lego printer”
Ten years ago, the Good Friday tornado smashed houses, uprooted trees, and disrupted our lives.
This morning I saw morel mushrooms at the Ferguson Farmers Market. I had to buy them.
It goes back to an experience I had last year.
It was March. For the kids’ spring break, we asked Aunt Marcy and Uncle Ken if we could stay a few days at the clubhouse near Clearwater Lake, and they said yes.
The weather was cool and the lake was high, but that was fine by us. We just wanted a safe escape from the pandemic with no worries of running into other people.
We were surprised and pleased to learn that the Ferguson Swim Team had arranged to dedicate a tree in Jadzia’s memory at January-Wabash Park. Earlier this summer, they also made a team T-shirt to honor her.
This morning, the Parks and Recreation Department held a short dedication ceremony for three families’ trees at the Ferguson Community Center. Afterward we went with Jadzia’s friends Jossie and Kai to see the tree at January-Wabash. It’s positioned on the hill overlooking the water slide at the pool, not far from where Yoli and I liked to sit with Jadzia when we watched home swim meets. Keep reading to see a short video.
Jadzia loved the “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” soundtrack. As we were preparing for her funeral, I learned that “Sunflower” was one of her favorite songs.
Like some of her siblings, she might have complained before going out to Columbia Bottoms to visit the sunflower fields. But once we got there, I’m sure she would have appreciated it.
I wish we had her in these photos.
Ludi tells the story:
One of my favorite creations I’ve made so far this year was Violet Lemonade. I first saw it when one of my friends posted about it on social media. It looked really cool and we had all the materials to make it.
To start, I picked enough violets to fill a mason jar. Later I made a violet syrup. Once I mixed the syrup into a pitcher of lemon water, the color changed and it was a pretty purple.
It tasted very good, just like normal lemonade with a hint of… I don’t quite know how to describe it. I almost want to say it had a hint of watery ground pepper.
It was very good, very pretty, and very time-consuming but overall it was very fun to make.