Fixing GE Microwave

Last week at work, the GE microwave in the kitchen area of our offices was working  hard for us continuously during lunch time - 3 person heated their lunches,  until the 4th person put her food in. Everything looked fine, but the microwave's plate was not rotating. The microwave stopped working! She screamed for help. My office was next to the kitchen area, so I was the first to come out to take a look.

I quickly determined that it was likely due to the fact that the latch malfunctioned, it was not engaging. Upon checking on the latch, I further hypothesized that there must be a spring like mechanism that try to keep the latch in lock position.

Broken latch

test of hypothesis 

Open the door, the latch was found to be free. 

To check the\ hypothesis, Pete placed a rubber band  on the latch, and pulled downward while closing the door. The microwave worked! The hypothesis was right. So the spring mechanism must have failed.

Upon further checking on the door, I observed that the black inside cover seemed to be removable, and Pete pried it open and found the hook of a spring, which was attached to the lower latch, broke.  Bending the lower straight wire to form a hook, Pete made a temporary fix and  ordered a new spring.

In about 20 minutes, a root cause of failure was hypothesized based on observations, and was verified. Once the root cause was verified, the fix was easily made. 

Pete and I were very pleased. 

The spring mechanism that male the latch work

I made some other similar fixes based root cause analysis and applied mechanics. The most significant repair was the central AC for two story house. Others include fixing washing machine, fixing the dryer, fix AC in my van, fix AC vent for cooling at a room ...

Different problems, different root causes, the same problem solving skills.

Hiking on Skyline Trail

The skyline trail at Beavers Bend State Park of Oklahoma is the longest (7.3 mile) and most difficult trail of the Park's David Boren Hiking Trails (DBHT) system. I picked Skyline trail for the second day of our trip at Beavers Bend mainly for one reason - to  have only one outdoor activity for the second day , which lasts 5  - 7 hours. Despite the fact that  I was worried that it was too long and difficult for most people in the group, I did not change the plan after talking to a few man in the group.

After a hearty breakfast, we left the cabin for the Beaver lodge nature trail trail head near  Broken Bow lake spill way. We parked at parking lot on the west side of the dam at the spill way, walked down slope to the Beavers bend lodge nature trail trail head at the spill way.

It was a cloudy morning, and temperature was around 60F, perfect for hiking.

After some photos at the bottom of the dam and spill way,we started hiking on the Beavers lodge nature trail - which follows the spill way creek. This is a pretty trail by the  river bank. The sound of rushing white water, the boulders, rocks in the creek, small water falls along with the clearing sky - white clouds, blue sky ... made us stop frequently to take pictures, and our teenagers to play.  It took us 55 minutes to finish the 1 mile hike to reach the  trail head of skyline trail.

our trail

Broken Bow lake spill way

taking picture of the water fall at the spill way

The group

stop to play on beavers loge nature trail

one of a few water falls

Enjoy the nature

the moms

Large red letter SL and red marker with a hiker profile indicate the start of the Skyline trail for us, we started at the trail marker SL 28.  The trail starts with the steepest hill that has the largest elevation change of the whole trail, fortunately everyone was near their full strength at the moment, and the whole group made it to the top of the first "peak" without problem. We would encounter 6 more such steep slopes, the rest of the slopes have smaller elevation changes but just as sleep. Some adults started to lose breath, and needed a hand as we moved on.

On the trail, we saw the dogwood flowers here and there, an indication of coming spring, and small flowers near the ground. We heard bird chirping all day long but rarely saw any.

There is up, there must be down ....we crossed many creeks in the valleys, some dried, others have running water. Watching carefully, some creeks had transparent small fishes in them. At one crossing, we saw a "large" black insect in clear water, which turned out to be the shadow of a water insect walking on the water surface!

From 5  to 6 miles on the trail, we were right by the mountain fork river, on top of a several hundred feet tall, nearly vertical cliff. I guess it is where the name skyline of the trail comes from. Then we were on another stretch of skyline from 7 miles to 8 miles! We did not loop back to Beavers lodge nature trail to get to our vehicles because many in the group were exhausted . In the end  we had two victims of the hiking, one injured her left ankle, the other had a minor heat stroke!  Nevertheless they were very proud of themselves for hiking the longest most difficult trail of their lives!! 

Floating on mountain fork river, and kayaking in the cypress tree dotted river used to be the main attractions at Beavers Bend for us. Skyline trail is the new featured attraction!

One of the very steep slop

Elevation change (in meters) of the trail

purple flowers

dogwood 

a creek 

Watching carefully a water bug enlarged shadow in the bottom

Another creek transverses the trail

On the skyline looking down at Mountain Fork River

Note: Beavers Bend State Park is free for admission but it has several deficiencies - too few public toilet, and the park map and trail map are not very clear.

Spring Break at Beavers Bend OK

This Spring Break we went to Beavers Bend at Broken Bow, Oklahoma, with 3 other families, for a 3 day, 2 night trip. 

When we got to the Cedar Bluff area for paddle boat, kayaking, the greenish cypress trees in the water that I remembered were not there, instead the cypress trees were bald and grayish. The only obvious indication of spring was the early spring flowers in Oklahoma: the dogwood flowers and peach flowers dotted in the surrounding area. Looking carefully, some trees did start to bud. 

  

The group kayaked or paddled boats in the mountain fork river between two small dams at two bridges. There were surprisingly many people doing the water sports that day. Lily and I kayaked in a tandem kayak, first we paddled upstream, passing many paddle boats, avoiding racing kayaks from youngsters. We paddled to the north bank of the river, where the Sun shone and few boats/kayaks were there. I steered the kayak close to the bank, and zigzag through the bald cypress trees in the water, passing cedar bluff, and met many large turtles resting tree branches in the water,  we went further west, all the way to the upstream bridge. A father and son were fishing on the bridge, I waved to them and greeted them. They waved back. As we returned to the boat rental area, we paddled to the nearby downstream bridge through a narrow path between a small island and north bank, and inadvertently kayaked into a swimming area. When we realized that we should not be in the area as we saw a guy swimming,  a shop clerk came to us by a kayak and told us to leave the area.  It  was an easy 30+ minute leisure kayaking.

We left the park 4pm or so to check in at the cabin. As we arrived at cabin, we were impressed by its size, its huge connected 2-story area of family room and kitchen. The cabin also has a patio for BBQ, outdoor fire ring and Jacuzzi hot tub.  We have two fathers who are great at grill. We had BBQ dinner on the patio. As it got dark, we started wood fire in the fire ring, sitting around it, roasting bananas, grilled corns, chatted about many different topics until the fire faded. The kids joined their parents for a short period of time, and returned into the cabin to play cards and pool table.

The second day we hiked a 8 miles beavers lodge nature trail + skyline trail. The skyline was a difficult trail with very steep climbs. Most people in the group hiked for for the first time on such a difficult and long distance trail. Everyone in the group finished the hiking on their own, many of them were proud of their achievements! 

The decision to go on this spring break with 3 other families and to share the log cabin was a great one. Parents got time to talk and play, our teenage children had friends to hang out, to talk to and to do outdoor things together, which made the boring trip with parents fun. 

Egrets and Mallards at Russel Creek Pond

Last Sunday I went to Russel Creek pond with Lily and her friend for a walk. While they walked and talked, I was distracted by the waterfowls in the pond.

There were many ducks in the pond, gulls above the pond in the sky, mostly over the main body of the pond. Then I saw a pair of Mallards - a male and a female near the east end of the pond, there was a big egret nearby. I kept walking after taking a few pictures. I saw another smaller egret at the other end of the pond, in similar posture. A grey heron came into sight - it was so well camouflaged I did not see it during the first laps.

They are all regulars at the pond. Nothing special.

After our third lap at the pond, drama in nature stared to happen to observing eyes.

The pair of mallards were swimming by the east end of the end pond side by side as we passed by, and in next second the male mallard mounted onto the female. While on top of the female, the male kept pecking at her head, they were courting  - I saw this before. After a few seconds, I started to take pictures at the moment the female was submerged into the water, and then the two separated, and the female swam around the male, and flapped her wings really fast, almost standing on her tail in the water!!

Egret and a pair of ducks

A grey heron

Mallard mating and afterwards

The next thing I noticed was that the larger egret (A) flew toward the smaller one (B), seemingly trying to drive it away. The egret A flew to  B, and landed close by and started to flap wings. Egret B flew away, A followed. B landed on the bank, A landed nearby. B flew away  again, and stopped on a tree branch, Egret A landed right under the tree. Their fly around the pond with wings fully expanded and flapping was quite some awesome visual feast to me. They repeated this cycle quite a few times during the last 30 to 40 minutes we were at the pond

I initially thought that this was the ritual of egret courtship, the larger egret was male, the smaller one was female. But more observations made me think it might be the adult egret trying to drive the smaller and younger egret away from the pond. Either way it was a great show!!

Egrets 

Fly around pond

Can you see Grey heron in this photo?

Note: It takes patience, curiosity and luck to see great shows in nature. I got several chances to see such great shows in my front yard, around the community and by the pond

1) See who my neighbors are

2) Spring Time Stories

3) This Autumn