Some of the most fun I had as a child was when I had the raw materials to do something- and conversely often the biggest frustration was a lack of materials.

Wood, rope, large cardboard boxes, tape, etc. Strangely rope seemed to always be in short supply. Hammer and nails. Much learning occurs when idle hands are armed with stuff :)

And actually I think the best gift you can give is time. One of the best times I had with one of my young nephews was building a swing- just your simple board and two ropes off a tree limb swing. We discussed how big the seat needed to be- actually measured some assorted butts!, how big the rope needed to be, we measured and cut, learned about knots, tied the whole thing up, and it got a lot of use for years. The designing, acquiring materials, building, overall a simple but enjoyable project with an immediate return, and a template for many other projects.

Later projects were a potato cannon, tree fort with crows nest, for-real play house (including wiring in outlets, windows, insulating, basically a small guest-house)... we spent an afternoon pulling cat5 to all the rooms in their house and putting in a router... soldered up a pong game and a couple other odd electronics kits. Next up may be firearms if I can get the parents to buy into that :)

Time, encouragement, and patience are incredibly valuable and are remembered. Not easy if they're far away or too busy with all the distractions kids have these days. Maybe my entire comment is out of date in today's world. ?

Something I've wanted to try- mount a speaker at the focal point (or actually a little off from the focal point, ideally you would focus the sound to a "point"), and then use it to torment the neighbors pets. Better yet is some manner of mounting something louder- something like a firecracker- at the focal point. And of course servo controlled X/Y pointing on the dish. And a camera "sight" in the dish connected to your computer so you can aim remotely.

I don't know how tight a focus you could get out of a TV dish, I don't know if quite the right shape.

Or, you could get two of them and then.... torment two pets at once?

I've found that while my handwriting and spelling abilities haven't suffered too much, I do tend to type sloppily and count on spell checking to clean things up afterward. But this has led to some funny mistakes.

I got an email back from a friend once asking "How did you know I was having problems shitting?!?!?" I was totally stumped and confused, and he finally had to rub my nose in it, told me to actually read my original email. In regards to an issue I was working with him to resolve, I had meant to type "Sorry about the inconvenience", had typo-ed, and Outlook had helpfully corrected it to "Sorry about the incontinence".

Totally changed the tone of the email.

This is exactly what I do, other than I use two male-to-male regular plugs, as I don't have a dryer outlet (have a gas dryer).

My procedure is to trip all my 240 breakers- the main (of course!), then the stove and AC breakers. Then I plug the generator into an outlet, this powers roughly half the outlets... then test with a plug in outlet tester until I find a dead outlet and then plug into it as well, so I have both phases. I have a small 1800w generator that runs my furnace blower just fine, along with most everything else. The microwave, at about 1200w, is my biggest load, and I can run it so long as most everything else is off. But I have a gas stove so why bother?

Since I have gas heat I've got it easy. For those folks with electric heat or heat pumps, they've got a much higher load to deal with.

Cheap and simple :)

I think I'll wire a 240v outlet on the outside of my house, though, to simplify things.

So funny, a friend and I were bouncing emails back and forth over the use of small GPS chips after seeing an article on GPS enabled pet collars. The Desire to Profit was in mind... we envisioned a cool web site with all sorts of interesting images of cattle being manipulated by cool technology,etc. Anyway, my joke/rant from 2003:

The Digital Ranch(tm)

"Wireless Ranch(tm)"... (Web site and hardware in development, pricing to be announced)

So, you have your herd of cattle, bison, horses, sheep, whatever- you implant one "Ranchhand(tm)" chip in each, and then you can monitor all your ranch assets via your computer. Each chip monitors all of the animals vital statistics, as well as it's location, and reports them to you via wireless networking. So you can pull up a real-time display of your herd at any time, pick out individual animals and check on their health, see where they've been, set watch points on health and be notified if anything goes out of bounds. Of course, all this ties into "Ranch Database(tm)" that you use to track the health and progress of each animal through it's life cycle.

Each animal can also be fitted with the optional "Drover(tm)" module, which provides audible signals to the animal (backed up with a mild to severe electric shock) to modify the animals behavior. As the animal approaches the perimeter of the area you have defined as available to it, it receives a pleasant "chirp" warning it not to proceed, followed by a mild shock if it doesn't comply. Fences and the cost of their maintenance become a thing of the past! When it's time to move the herd to another pasture, to the barn, etc., the "Wireless Ranch" software module will send the appropriate signals to gather your assets together and herd them to where they need to be. Individual animals can be separated and directed as needed for grooming, health maintenance, harvesting, etc.

Feeding chores become more efficient with the "Smart-Trough(tm)". Using the "Drover(tm)" module, animals can be guided to specific feeding receptacles, so supplements and medications can be automatically dispensed to specific animals. Using the optional pressure mat at each feeding trough allows you to automatically weigh each animal. With the "Ranch Vet(tm)" health monitoring software the need for supplements and medications can be automatically assessed and dispensed!

Docile healthy animals, with less effort than ever before- the "Wireless Ranch(tm)" is your ticket to a more efficient and profitable ranch than ever before!