Archive for June, 2008
Enjoying the gaps (between the storms)
Posted in Copilot Egg, kit cars on June 29, 2008| 3 Comments »
Our friends, the birds
Posted in Me, Sitow on June 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I haven’t been feeling well for the last couple of days. A flu-like malaise, basically, that makes the long hours trapped in the office a waking nightmare. Work is work and can’t really be avoided recently; commitments and deadlines and all of that.
But along about noon there was a gap in the schedule. No appetite for food, but I thought it might be nice to at least get some fresh air. We’re only a few miles from one of our local reservoirs, and there is a little parking lot right by the flow off from the dam. Top down in the Kiata, relaxing with my head against the headrest, eyes closed to better enjoy the soothing sounnds of the water running off of the dam…
SPLAT!
I guess I should have considered what an attractive target my upturned face was to the circling birds.
Bastards.
London Pit ‘O Cobras
Posted in Cars on June 22, 2008| 1 Comment »
They don’t call it anything near as cool as the “Pit ‘O Cobras” of course, but that’s what I would call it. The real name is the London Cobra Show, which I find to be somewhat lacking in describing an event that shuts down a few central blocks of London, OH to provide a venue for a gathering of hundreds of Shelby Cobras (99.999% of which are replicas, but still… each and every one of the possesses the winning trifecta of shiny, loud, and fast!) every June.
Flying being off of the agenda for various and sundry reasons, the criticality of the Weather-out-the-Window(tm) forecast was reduced such that I could safely delegate the task to a lesser denizen of the house:
He reported back that it was weather sufficient to the task of a top-down Miata ride across the 20 intervening miles from home to the burg of London. An early start, as usual, being desired in avoidance of heat, weather, and crowds had us (me and my photographic gadgetry) on the road by 0900. A swell drive it was, with nary a slow granny or even slower farmer to be seen on the country paths that are my preferred means of navigation when traversing the Central Ohio farm land. The problem with a drive like that is, as you may be able to imagine, the temptation to just keep a-going upon arrival at the presumptive destination, but said temptation was easily averted upon the hearing of the deep, bass tones of a high powered V8.
As mentioned, the very, very large majority of the Cobras at the show are replicas, and a very large majority of those are built from a kit, and a good sized majority of those come from a kit manufacturer called Factory Five. Factory Five could be considered as the “Van’s Aircraft” of Cobra replicas: they have sold thousands of kits, peer-level support is incredibly easy to find, and the kits have gone through multiple iterative enhancements to refine the building process down to something resembling a science. I think that they are on at least their third re-design of the basic Cobra kit, with each preceding re-design having been focussed on improvements in kit quality, ease of construction, and not least importantly, safety of the end product. There are no air bags in these cars, so they are built tough and crash worthy.
Here’s a naked one; you can see the steel cage that protects the driver:
Here’s some of the suspension gadgetry – it is no coincidence that it looks like the suspension of a race car:
The Cobra kit can be built by using a Ford Mustang as a donor car for the rolling bits and engine, or you can buy a kit that provides all of the parts needed (except the engine and transmission) brand new.
Here’s what they look like with their clothes on:
I’ve been looking at these things for years with the idea of building one, and I think it would be a great deal of fun to do so, but there’s a problem. At the end of the day, I’d end up with an expensive toy, and I already have one of those. A car like this would not lend itself to my daily drive to work (the cost of the gas to feed even a small V8 alone would be prohibitively and painfully expensive) and would be difficult to store. Beyond that, I don’t have the tools for facility to support the build. And, as it turns out, you’re always having to work on the darn thing:
I could build a variant that could be used for spec car racing, but as cool as that would be, racing is expensive, time-consuming, and puts an uninsurable $25,000 car at risk every time it goes out on the track. Not for me, thanks!
So, best to just look at these every now and then:
From the comments:
Your reasons for not getting one are well-considered, logical, and show great perspicacity and restraint.
So what color is yours going to be?
A very astute question! You guys know me too well! And as fate would have it, it’s a question that I have given long consideration to. I was thinking something like this:
The purists would hate it, of course, but a subtle reminder that they themselves are driving replicas should suffice to squelch the criticism.
Kayaking 101
Posted in kayak on June 20, 2008| 1 Comment »
Co-pilot Egg and I attended the beginner level kayaking class offered by Clintonville Outfitters tonight. They hold the class at Aquatic Adventures, a scuba and swimming training facility just a few minutes from our house. Our instructor, Matt, had trailered over a nice selection of kayaks to choose from, and Egg and I chose a pair of Hurricane Kayaks.
I was particularly interested in the Santee 100LT, which is a ten-foot recreational model weighing in at a mere 31 lbs. My 17 ft. touring model is a real strain for me to move at 47 lbs, so I was interested in looking at something lighter that I could move around by myself on those days when I want to take it to a reservoir or lake. I also wanted one that would be small enough for Egg to control. She took the 100LT and I went with the next larger model, the Santee 116. It too is significantly lighter than my Shearwater at 36 lbs.
After a brief introduction regarding some of the different types of kayaks available, we started the in-water training. Egg volunteered to be first in the water and had very little trouble getting into the boat. We were using a “deck launch,” which is really just a way of saying that we stepped into the boat from the edge of the pool. On my two trips down the Darby, I didn’t have the luxury of an edge to step off of, so I’ve been using a “get yourself all muddy with the nasty smelling crud on the banks of the river and then try to push yourself across the mud like a freshly born sea turtle” launch, which I’m here to tell you is a vastly inferior cousin to the deck launch.
As I cannon-balled myself into my boat, narrowly avoiding an ignominious plunge into the water, Egg paddled off across the pool. Much like my single experience with snow skiing, she almost immediately learned that getting moving is pretty easy, but getting stopped is an entirely different story. Without the benefit of an actual river stretching off in front of her, it was just a matter of time before she pranged into the far side of the pool.
It was a small class with only four students and Matt, but even with just five boats in the water it quickly degenerated into a kind of slow-motion, water-borne bumper car fiasco. At least until we started getting the hang of turning, anyway. I noticed a couple of things about the Santee as compared to my Shearwater right away: it is much easier to turn, and the seat is MUCH more comfortable. The comfort factor was greatly increased by the type of PFD (life jacket) that I was wearing. I’ve been using a cheap Wal-Mart ski-type PFD, and it is very uncomfortable in the small confines of the Shearwater’s cockpit. The PFD I was using tonight was specifically designed for use in a kayak and thus was orders of magnitude more comfortable.
The easier turning thing was a mixed blessing. The bad thing about the Shearwater is that it takes some effort to get it to turn, but the good thing about it is that it takes some effort to get it to turn. It turns out to be situationally dependent as to whether it’s good or bad. When you want to apply some power strokes and stay in a straight line, its tendency to stay straight is a plus. But if you let it get away from you and get into a situation where you need to get it turned quickly, well, not so much.
After paddling around awhile, Matt had us all move to the edge of the pool. This is where he demonstrated the stability of these boats. This is exactly the part that I wanted Egg to experience because she had said that she was afraid of the boat tipping over. These recreational boats are far broader in the hips than my Shearwater is. They’re more like the Oprah of kayaks, while my boat is more like a Keira Knightley model. (Use Google images if that comparison doesn’t mean anything to you – you’ll see what I mean). Anyway, what it all comes down to is that the only way to tip one of these boats is to really want to.
So, having proven to us that it is pretty hard to tip one of these boats over, Matt’s next assignment to us was to immediately forget that lesson and tip them over anyway. Which we did. It wasn’t very hard to do deliberately, but I did manage to bang my head on the bottom of the boat while I was under it, and Egg, being in a perpetual contest of oneupsmanship with me, promptly banged herself in the face with hers. The point of getting us out of the boats was, of course, for us to learn how to get back in. Let me tell you, even with a boat having the hips of a brood mare, that is one helluva hard job to do. I found it to be reasonably possible if I was in the shallow end of the pool and I could essentially just jump in, but when I went down to the deep end I found it to be much more of a challenge.
The problem was that when you turn the boat back to right side up, it’s full of water. That extra weight naturally makes it sit far lower in the water, and it becomes much tippier. You have to kick with your feet to get yourself up out of the water and straddled across the boat, but when you try to get yourself actually back down into the boat, you will either tip over to the side you’re climbing in from, or flip right over the far side. It was roughly 50-50 for me as to which side I would flip towards. Eventually I learned to get straddled on the boat and then ever.so.carefully move around to get back down inside of it. Even with an abundance of patience and caution, I’d dump myself right back out 80% of the time. And boy howdy, is it ever TIRING!
This difficulty in getting back into the boat finally made me realize why you want to be able to roll the boat. If I had this much trouble getting back into a boat with hips that could graciously be described as “child bearing,” I would have no hope of getting back into my anorexic Shearwater. With the roll, you simply (well, probably not “simply”) stay in the boat. Unfortunately, the roll is a topic for the as-yet-unscheduled advanced class. I’ll be watching the Clintonville Outfitters web site for that, though, because I can’t see going out in deep water without knowing how to do it, and I really want to explore some of the local lakes and reservoirs. For now, though, I’m fine with periodic trips down the Darby.
Egg seemed to have a great time, or at least is no longer afraid of the boat. I asked how much the Santee 100LT costs, but it’s a bit steep at $678 or so. There’s another light boat called the Featherlite 9.5 made by Heritage Kayaks that’s cheaper, but reportedly at a lower level of quality. Affordability is, of course, a desirable quality in and of itself, so it becomes more a question of exactly how much lower in quality it is. Matt was using a Heritage Kayaks boat and managed to stay afloat (and dry, the bastard) for the entire class, so it can’t be too bad and a price difference of roughly $225 is pretty significant. It’s not like it would see the hard use of a rental or white water boat, after all.
So, great fun, albeit fun that I will pay for tomorrow with sore muscles. I’m very definitely looking forward to the advanced class, and I want to stop by the shop and see how much a better PFD is going to cost me.
Another trip down the Big Darby
Posted in kayak on June 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »
The Weather-out-the-Window(tm) morning observation indicated that the forecast for a gloomy first half of Saturday had, in fact, been accurate as can be. Low, scuddy clouds were really all I needed to see to know that flying was not in the cards. Winds and visibility don’t matter when the clouds are low and angry (or at least morose) looking.
Round about 1pm, however, the clouds parted and it looked like we were in for at least a few hours of nice weather. I thought that it might be nice enough for another ride in the kayak. We’ve had a bid of rain, though, and the stream that runs through my neighborhood was still showing the effects of recent flooding. I figured it to be worth taking a look, so went ahead and loaded up Blue Heron One.
The river from the launch area was clearly higher than it was back on Memorial Day weekend, but the water didn’t seem to be overly excited. Intrepid is my middle name (well, it’s not, but I owned a Dodge Intrepid once, and that’s close enough) so I decided to press on. As it turns out, it was an even better ride than last time. While I missed the compliments paid to the boat by the beer drinking canoe paddlers, solitude on the river has a quality in and of itself. I did not see another boat for the entire trip.
It’s not a lonely feeling at all – it’s similar to flying alone. Just you, your conveyance, and the challenges provided by the unpredictability of the medium, be it water or air. Decisions to make, control to be maintained, will to be exerted over sometimes recalcitrant conditions. Satisfaction by the bushel when mastery of the elements and vehicle conquers unexpected events. The feeling of a job having been well done, without the burden of having had a job assigned.
With the benefit of having a few hours of experience from the last trip, I found it very easy to put the boat where I wanted it, when I wanted it to be there. The water was moving faster than the last time, so the utility of the paddle was more in the realm of directional control rather than propulsion. Except, that is, in the not uncommon situations that required a few power strokes to move the boat from a current that was taking us where we did not want to go (which was, more often than not, directly into a solid object) into a more friendly (survivable) stream. It’s a lot like dealing with a crosswind when flying; the nose is not necessarily pointed in the direction you’re actually going. There were a number of times that I had to paddle cross current to get the boat into a flow that wasn’t going to drive us into a tree or under an obstruction too low to the water to pass under comfortably.
There were no deer today, but there was a blue heron that I chased down the river. Every now and then I’d spook him out of whatever hidden lair he was resting in and he’d fly further downstream. I never saw him soon enough to get a picture, which is pretty much my experience with blue herons. They simply don’t like having their pictures taken. At one point, I must have gone past him because when he took flight, it was from behind me. He flew right over my head. I saw where he landed, though, so I was ready with the camera when I caught up to him:
It’s my ancient Fuji digital (I’m still not willing to risk the good camera) and its viewfinder is simply awful. I couldn’t be sure if I got the picture or not, and since he hadn’t flown away, I turned around and paddled back up the river to try again. Man, did that ever piss him off! He flew away, but rather than just fly quietly down stream as he had been doing, he squawked and honked and generally groused until he went around a bend far down river.
I also saw a few turtles, but just as they slipped off of the river banks and into the water. There were no exposed branches for them to sun themselves on with the water being as high as it was. There were also a lot of dragonflies, many of whom hitched a ride on the front of the boat:
The ride only took an hour and ten minutes this time, and it was way too short.
More video, different process
Posted in videos on June 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I had some of my weekly space quota left over on Vimeo, and I wanted to see if it was better/easier to process the video in iMovie on the Mac vs. the Windows Movie Maker I used before:
Better? I can’t really tell. It’s probably not a fair comparison since the camera isn’t subject to the vibration that it was in the airplane.
It’s easier in some ways to work on the Mac in that the software tools are better, but the Mac only has a 60GB hard drive, so I have to shuffle things through the home network to store them on the 750GB file share.
My Big Screen Debut!
Posted in videos on June 12, 2008| 2 Comments »
I took the new camcorder out for a spin last night (well, it could be more accurately described as a loop) to work on getting it positioned in the plane, and of course, to re-test the microphone that I had so much trouble with (“trouble” being defined as “forgot to turn power switch on) the first time I tried it.
As far as placing it in the plane, I finally ended up simply using the same tripod and hand grip mount that I use for the still camera. You’ll see me moving it around to look in different directions. It worked well enough, but you will also see that it does nothing to dampen the vibrations of the plane. Hand held might actually be smoother, but I can’t do that and fly too.
The microphone worked, as you’ll note when you here me get my taxi clearance. Those will be, sadly, the last spoken words you will hear. While I was taxiing out, I somehow managed to pull the microphone out of the ear cup on my headset. The microphone is very small, roughly the size of a small watermelon seed. Not the hard, black seeds; the small white ones that you accidentally eat. So small that when it pulled out of the ear cup, I never felt it go. My titanic struggle with providing audio continues.
A shame, really, because there was a lot of interesting talk with the control tower concerning the three deer that were grazing at the side of the taxiway. Oh, and you missed out on my real-time critique of the landing. Probably to the good, that.
The video looks pretty good, but it’s not as good as it could be. I shot it in full, glorious 17mbps HD, but had to push it through the video abattoir that is Microsoft Windows Movie Maker. That knocked it down in resolution enough to fit within Vimeo’s 500MB size limit. It’s still pretty good. Note that you will have to click on the video, then click on the little button that counter-intuitively says ‘HD Off’ to see it in full resolution.
So, without further delay, here it is:
Camcorder update
Posted in videos on June 11, 2008| 1 Comment »
So, those of you that have suffered through the poor resolution and doofus narration of my previous efforts will be happy, or at least mildly gratified, to know that I have taken delivery on a new camcorder. It’s HD, so the resolution issue should be much better than before. And as we all remember, the narration on the old videos was merely to cover the fact that my technical incompetence precluded the recording of live audio. The new camcorder has an external microphone jack, so it should now be possible to record the actual sounds that I hear in my headsets.
The language parsers will have noted my use of “should” in the previous sentence. I would be able to make a far more definitive statement if it weren’t for the fact that I’m an idiot. See, I got home from work much later than usual on the day when the new camcorder arrived, so I was kind of rushed when I went out to the hangar to test the microphone. I pulled the plane out, hooked the camera and microphone up, started the engine, and made some test comments through the intercom. It was getting dark and I was pretty tired from my extended day at work, so I also rushed through getting Papa back in the barn and heading home for a well-deserved beer.
So, what happened with the test? I forgot to turn on the power switch on the microphone.
The Weather-Out-The-Work-Window(tm) looks pretty good today, though, so barring another work debacle I should be able to try again tonight.