Wow, would I like to have one of these:
At $3,295, though, I don’t think it’s gonna happen even if my Garmin 195 that I bought used is over eight years old. Not even with Xmas coming soon. Sigh.
Posted in stuff I can't afford on October 31, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Wow, would I like to have one of these:
At $3,295, though, I don’t think it’s gonna happen even if my Garmin 195 that I bought used is over eight years old. Not even with Xmas coming soon. Sigh.
Posted in Me on October 19, 2008| 1 Comment »
Fall Cold? Yeah, I got one. And the Weather-out-the-Window(tm) also fits the bill:
It looks like it will be another day of staying in and finding ways to fill the time. Madden ’09 on the Wii, which was worth the purchase price for the new 5-on-5 mode alone, will help. I like the 5-on-5 because it helps geriatric old players like me to pick the receivers out of the crowd. The simplified play calling helps me quite a bit too. It’s rough & tumble fun!
When I first got addicted to Guitar Hero on the Wii, I used to joke that I couldn’t wait for them to come up with Wii Bagpipe or Wii Orchestra Conductor. I pre-ordered Wii Music yesterday, my first-ever pre-order:
As shown above, you can play as the conductor. And one of the sixty available instruments is…. the bagpipe. I am soooo prescient, even when I’m just being a smart-ass!
I checked the comments on my Bucket List post, and darned if there wasn’t the offer of an opportunity to operate a backhoe. I know that this doesn’t seem to be all that exotic of a wish, but there’s just something about moving large amounts of dirt with the precision inherent in the scalpel-like backhoe that appeals to me. So, who’s got a helicopter? Or a tank?
Brave Sir Hogarth, who is anything but a stranger to his nether regions, has been showing even greater attention to that area than normal. I got him on his back this morning and made an aerial survey of the area. I found a flea! I believe this to me my fault. I must have picked one up when petting the beautiful Faygo at The Farm(tm).
She’s a sweetheart, but she’s somewhat Palinesque in her love of the outdoors. (Note to New York Times: I am NOT insinuating that Sarah Palin has fleas. Dig up your dirt elsewhere. In fact, I know a guy that can hook you up with a backhoe.)
I tried to watch the newest Indiana Jones movie last night, but was unable to sit through it. It felt very contrived and formulaic. It’s a shame because I find Harrison Ford to be one of the saner Hollywood types, the whole Calista Flockhart thing not withstanding. To each his own and all that. But he digs planes, and is very active as a spokesman for the EAA. Stand up guy, if impressions matter. But that movie was awful.
Posted in Copilot Egg, Me on October 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »
The Weather-out-the-Window(tm) forecast this morning could have been written by The Autumn Chamber of Seasonal Commerce. The promotional materials would write themselves: Crisp! Clear! Seasonally Temperate Temperatures! And, last but not least, Deep! Blue! Sky!
And I awoke with a cold. Stuffy head, watery chest & cough, and a deep feeling of malaise. Rats. Not that would have mattered, though, what with college football on the TV and, as I found out mid-morning, my assistance desperately needed for one of Egg’s school projects. Accelerated biology. And me? I never even had regular biology back in the day. So, with an appropriate level of trepidation, I requested a review of the assignment. It turned out to be less accelerated than I had feared: create a 3D model of an animal cell, and a rudimentary drawing was provided for guidance.
I have a sordid history of assisting Egg in her projects. The first (and most memorable) was the Pine Box Derby car that we built together when she was 7 or 8 years old. We started with the basic kit; I’m not sure they even had the fancy pre-cut kits that they have today. The basic kit is pretty much just a block of wood, some nails, and four plastic wheels:
She wasn’t really into cars or racing very much back then (but more than she is today), so I came up with the design plans. Unfortunately, just about any modification to the shape of the block was going to require the use of a power saw and I wasn’t overly keen on the idea if turning her loose with a band saw. In the interest of good parenting, I did the sawing. Putting on the wheels also seemed a bit risky, both in the construction phase (let her use a hammer??) and in the ultimate performance of the racer. Straight wheels are fast wheels, I figured. The body needed to be sanded before painting and, well, she just wasn’t strong enough. So what exactly did Egg do as part of the construction of the car? She painted it. I then sanded it, painted it, sanded it, and painted it again, of course, but she put on the first coat.
Came the day of the big race, and there we were at the registration desk. I was filling out paperwork (covenant not to sue, liability release, etc.) and Egg was rolling the car back and forth on the desk.
SO the lady behind the registration desk says, “Be careful Honey, you’re going to break your Daddy’s car.”
Hurumph. At least the child wasn’t standing there with a stump where her right hand used to be. I mean, I had to do some of it, didn’t I? Really, what was she trying to say? That an eight year old couldn’t have built this?
The weigh-in was next. I believe the weight limit was something like five ounces. Of course, Egg’s car was much lighter – something less than three ounces if I remember correctly. “Yeah,” I remember thinking, “lighter is better in flying and racing.”
Then, The Race! We were up against the complete antithesis of our entry. This kid, whose father apparently wasn’t quite as loving and devoted as Egg’s, had taken the block of wood from the kit, spray painted it bright yellow, and written “School Bus” on it with a Sharpie marker. Sad, it was. Made me feel bad for his impending humiliation. I even thought about slipping him one of those Big Brother brochures, thinking that he must be some kind of orphan or something.
His yellow bus beat us by a country mile. Not. even. close. It turns out that you need to have your car’s weight right up to the limit. Who knew? Well, besides the bus kid, who knew?
So, here we are a few years later, trying to figure out how to make a model of an animal cell. These days I act more in an R&D role whereby I provide a working prototype and let her do the rest. The first step is supply procurement, and for that we go to Egg’s version of Harbor Freight: Hobby Lobby. We wandered the aisles for half an hour on a scavenger hunt for the most fiscally viable means of making the model. We looked at paints, fabrics, felts, wood chips, and Styrofoam, adopting and rejecting ideas as different and less costly alternatives were discovered. By the time we got home with the supplies, we had spent over $28. You can buy a model for $18.95. I guess you wouldn’t get the full educational experience out of that, though. Here’s the pile ‘o stuff:
Even at her age, I still do the cutting. The smaller spheres that would be used for the nucleus were cut on Co-pilot Rick’s band saw, and I cut the large sphere with a saw left over from the kayak build after first testing it on one of the left over smaller spheres:
It didn’t take long to finish up the proof of concept:
Egg did the rest, and this time I have proof:
I think it turned out very well. But I still know nothing about biology!
Posted in airplane building, Me on October 18, 2008| 2 Comments »
The new bucket list over there on the right sidebar has listed as one of its items ‘Build an airplane.’ Make no mistake: I am under no illusions as to what that means. Even a “quick build” kit requires years of effort and devotion. My take on the whole thing is that it is a great thing to do if you’re trying to productively fill your time, but not so much if you’re at the stage in life where you have to find time. Keep in mind, though, that my viewpoint on this is heavily biased by the fact that I already have an airplane. I’m afraid my motivation would be in great danger of flagging during the years of effort required to build something as complex as an airplane if I, you know, already had one.
The number of hours that go into a project like this are staggering. For example, Bob Collins is building an RV-7A, and recently completed one part of the canopy that took a total effort of 235 hours spread across three months! As a comparison, the only significant building project I’ve completed (the kayak) took a total of 80 hours, spread across six months. A few minutes of introspection into my working habits, patience, diligence, and competing demands on my available time indicates to me that I will have to select from one of three possible strategies:
– start now, with the goal of completion being very, very far in the future. There is an RV-6 based at Bolton than took 14 years to build. That approach is viable in that it spreads the time and dollars demands to a sustainably thin level, but creates other issues. For example, what if that 14 year builder had decided halfway through that his flying needs would no longer be met by an RV-6, and that he needed some other model? Given that to this very day I cannot decide which plane I would want to build, this path seems rife with risk.
Another problem is that you can’t economically test yourself on a smaller project such as building a tail. The tail kit isn’t hugely expensive relative to the remainder of the plane, but you need a lot of tools to build it. The cost of the tools and building a work shop easily exceed the cost of the tail. And, of course, if you decide not to press forward after the tail you have a lot of tools on your hands, and a tail with no airplane.
– wait until I’m either fully or semi-retired. This would alleviate the time concerns, but exacerbate the funding concerns. Between being on the dreaded fixed income by then and the increased building pace dictated by having more hours to fill, it would be harder to afford.
– Build something simpler than a “legacy” RV. This is where something like the RV-12 would appeal – it allegedly requires roughly half of the hours of one of its bigger, more complex brethren. Still, it has a canopy. Having followed Bob’s progress on his canopy this summer, I’m not sure I could ever get that part done. An open cockpit RV-12? Hmmm.
Well, there is in fact a fourth option: modify the bucket list.
Posted in Copilot Egg on October 15, 2008| 2 Comments »
It was bound to happen, what with all of the hours practicing with the band and the long bus rides to competitions. Co-pilot Egg has got herself a boyfriend. He’s a percussionist in the band. Quiet lad, though; it’s hard work to get a word out of him. You could count the number of words that he has uttered in my presence on your thumbs. So, it was dinner with the family tonight, and with the boyfriend along as a guest. There wasn’t much by way of dinner conversation, so the Co-owner seized upon the opportunity to convey some marching orders, primarily with regards to the dress code for the lunch that they have scheduled with Egg’s grandparents on Friday. Jeans are OK, but they have to be ‘nice’ jeans. Egg seemed unclear on the topic of what exactly constitutes ‘nice’ jeans, so I volunteered that jeans with holes in the knees would not meet the standard. A poignant look from Egg prompted the BF to reply:
“I don’t have any jeans with holes in them.”
Loath as I was to respond in anything but a friendly, respectful manner to what was by far the longest series of words that I had ever heard him string together, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m weak, damn it! Weak!!
I said, “Well how do you get your legs in?”
Dead silence from him, and barely stifled guffaws from the ladies, both of whom had fervently hoped that I wouldn’t embarrass the lad. Sorely disappointed, they were, but not at all surprised that I had.
Trying to settle things down, the Co-owner shared with him that “he had really stepped into that one!”
Ok, I simply lost it over her unintended continuance of the joke. I admit it. And I only made things worse when I suggested that to avoid further damage, she “should just zip it.”
I’m not sure, but I think he broke a smile at that one.