Testing

Yesterday the 3000 timing chips from MyLaps arrived which meant I could do some more realistic testing of the system last night.  I have the timing box and mat in the dining room.  I had the box of chips on the dining room table when I opened it.  When I turned on the timing box it started making an ear piercing noise, very similar to a smoke detector.  I didn’t know what the f was going on so I turned the timing box off.

At first I wondered if there was some sort of malfunction with the new timing hardware.  Then I realized what I was hearing was the sound of all of the chips in the box being read, which causes the system to emit the tone.  When I moved the box to the far side of the office the noise stopped.  I quickly found the setting to change the volume of the detection tone from the default, ear bleeding high setting, to low.

In my testing I was pretty impressed with the read range of the system.  I had the detection mat in the middle of the dining room.  I had a timing chip on the left side of my desk, some 20 feet away.  All I had to do was wave the chip over my head and it was read by the system, wow.

I had a few hurdles to clear but eventually I was able to get chip reads to go into my results software.  There is a bunch more testing to do.  I will have to rethink the way I do much pretty everything prior to the start of the race.  In the long run I think it will actually be simpler than what I currently have to do.

On the chicken front things have been odd, yet positive.  Yesterday Cindy said Lucy was crowing like rooster for a short period of time which is bizarre.  Obviously we know Lucy is a hen as we have been collecting her eggs for several weeks, yet Cindy said it sounded exactly like a rooster crowing.  The first thought in my head was I hope we did not mistakenly cast off Nona, Kathy, and Curly for rooster crowing.  Perhaps one of them was simply gender confused as well?

The baby chicks hardly look like babies anymore, they are growing so fast.  I never knew that chickens could be so entertaining.  I really enjoy watching them, especially when we allow them to roam around for short periods of time.  They are just funny.  I can only imagine what it will be like to have 13 chickens roaming the backyard on a daily basis.

Lola appears to slowly be acting better.  She is once again holding her wings in a more normal way and whatever growth that was one her eyelid has mysteriously disappeared.  Cindy and I are hoping that her malady was all parasite related instead of an avian STD.