Category RC Flying

I forgot to mention that I finally got around to getting nightstands for the master bedroom again.  Ever since the split some 20 months ago I have had a flimsy, small shelf on my side of the bed that was loaded down with remote controls, magazines and books.

At first I looked into getting the matching set from Rooms To Go since that is where the bedroom furniture came from.  They no longer had that style of furniture and any nightstands they were selling were between $200-$300 each, more than I was looking to spend.

Well as has often been the case, Amazon once again came to the rescue.  I found $70 stands that appeared to be a close match to the wood color of the existing stuff.  All I had to do was grab two metal knobs at Home Depot to mimic what is on the RtG furniture.

Assembly of the nightstands was straightforward and despite the low price, they seemed to be pretty high quality.  The finished stands felt solid and looked good.  The color match with the old stuff was very good as well.  To the casual observer, they may even think the nightstands were part of the bedroom set.  Their addition to the room added a completeness that was missing.  The only in house item that I need to reinstate is a king size bed in the guest bedroom.  Hopefully that will be a 2014 item.

On Saturday I had various things I wanted to get done.  I mowed the big section of the backyard and then ripped apart the dash of my SSR for seemingly the 100th time to adjust the gain on a potentiometer in my stereo system.  When I last ripped it apart to redo the ground I turned down the gain.  Well I turned it down too far, so far that with the stereo set at max volume it was hard to hear during topless highway driving.

I also needed to check the clutch fluid on the truck, shifting was feeling different.  Well the reservoir was very low.  The question was where did the fluid go?  I opened the remote drain line while refilling the clutch fluid tank to fill/bleed it.  I am hoping that possibly I just didn’t have the drain plug on tight enough, causing the slow leak.  I will need to keep an eye on things.

So back to the stereo.  I ripped the front dash cover off, something I am quite adept at by now.  I turned the dial up on the potentiometer and turned the key enough to flip on the radio.  It was loud with volume to spare, sweet.  I put everything back together, happy to have completed the project.

Well I wasn’t happy when I took the truck to the movies with Cindy Saturday night.  When I started the truck I immediately heard the annoying as shit electronic whine that follows engine RPM.  Evidently I cranked the knob too far, enough to once again pull that noise into the system.  When I tested it during the day I stupidly didn’t turn the truck all the way on.  So sometime soon I will be ripping the dash apart yet again, fantastic.

The movie we went to see was 47 Ronin, an action movie set in ancient samurai times starring Keanu Reaves.  I was SHOCKED when we walked up to the box office and saw a line of 30 plus people at Coconut Point.  This theater is never, ever this busy.  Evidently I must have never gone there to see a movie between Xmas and New Years.  Luckily the long line moved quickly.  The line at the food stand was equally long and unfortunately much, much slower.  By the time we got into our seats we were well into the previews.

I thought the movie was good, not great.  It was nice seeing Keanu back in an action film.  I’d give the flick a strong B+, bordering on an A- depending on my mood.

Perhaps my rating is negatively biased from the fat, zit faced kid that was sitting two seats to my left during the film.  Every few minutes he felt the need to light up his phone, just to make sure he didn’t miss some social media, text message or other brainless activity.  When I see individuals that are so connected with their electronic devices that they can’t even sit through a movie without interacting with them it sickens me.  It makes me feel badly for even owning a smartphone myself.  As I was waiting in the hall after the movie, 75% of the human beings in the hall with me had their heads down, making virtual love to their phones.  It just bothers me.

When we got home we had to light up a vanilla birthday cupcake for Nicki, celebrating her 11th birthday.  Both Sadie and her LOVED their sweet treat.  Sadie was pushing the dish across the floor, trying to lick up every last speck of icing.  Tonight I get to repeat the process since it is Sadie’s bday.

Sunday was a very slow/lazy day for me.  It was off and on raining for most of the morning, scuttling our tentative plans to do a bike ride.  Late morning we headed back up to Coconut Point to the ATT store.  We had stopped there before the movie to look into replacing Cindy’s aging Iphone 4S.  I had made the suggestion that she looks into breaking away from her Iphone heritage and look into a Samsung Galaxy S4.  Since playing with my Galaxy Tab 3 Cindy bought me for Xmas I am more and more impressed with the Android environment.

The S4 hardware is superior to what Apple offers as well with a better camera, dramatically larger screen and release from the typical Apple shackles, allowing you to do things like add a memory card and swap out the battery yourself, GASP.  Cindy wanted to go back to that particular store because she had a soft spot for the kid that helped us. He had a pretty noticeable stutter, something difficult to deal with in the sales field.

Well her loyalty came with a price.  The cost was at least 60 minutes of standing around, waiting for Nathan to get free.  We had the misfortune of showing up while he was in the middle of replacing phones for an ENTIRE family, four phones in total.  By the end of the 60 minute wait I was right on the verge of consuming my last grain of patience.

Finally he finished up and took care of the swap which was pretty easy.  Cindy converted over to the ATT Next plan which allows you to swap out your phone more often for less up front money.  I was skeptical of the plan since when you break costs into monthly increments you always wind up paying more than if you just bite the bullet and pay it up front.  However in her case the numbers made sense.  Instead of paying 199 up front for a new phone, her upgrade fee was 40 bucks and will remain 40 bucks in 18 months when she upgrades again.  With a 10 GIG shared data plan (her daughter is on her account), her monthly bill only went up roughly 10 bucks.

Cindy was scared to leave the comfort of her Iphone but I convinced her after the transition phase which is sure to be frustrating at times, she will be glad she made the switch.  I know multiple Galaxy former iOwners that LOVE their Droids once they switched.  A good portion of the rest of Sunday was spent fussing with the S4, migrating data from her Iphone to it and exploring/learning/configuring things on the new phone.

I sort of felt like a lazy bum during the afternoon, surely due to the lack of any organized exercise during the weekend.  It wasn’t like I was laying around watching tv and drinking beer but still, my mental health requires physical effort.

I had the Phantom in the air a number of times over the weekend.  Each time I was amazed at just how ez the thing is to fly.  I had so much confidence in it’s stability that I even let Cindy fly it around the yard quite a bit.  As long as you make sure you are away from/above any potential obstacles you are good to go.  Crashing it would require an act of extreme negligence.  I’m not quite sure what the range is of the radio but I have had the sucker quite high, to the point where it was a small red/green blip in the sky.

Wow, the Eagles did it.  They beat the Cowboys to win the NFC East, delivering a huge interception at the very end of the game to secure the win.  The game was great, just what you would want for a contest deciding the division champion.  The Eagles never trailed but were only holding a very narrow lead for most of the game.

For Dallas it had to be a heartbreaking loss, akin to what the Eagles experienced losing three or four NFC championship games in a row.  You see for the past three years Dallas had a chance to win their division on the last game of the season against a division opponent.  For three years in a row they have gone down in flames, losing to the Giants, the Redskins and now the Eagles.

The Eagles winning the division is part of a dramatic turnaround that I never would have predicted a couple months ago when the team seemed destined to be in the midst of a rebuilding year, sitting at 3-5.  I am very happy to pronounce myself mistaken in my analysis of the team back them.  Nick Foles meteoric rise at QB and the defense playing better resulted in 7-1 finish, putting the Birds at 10-6 for the year.

Even with the great finish I am still not taking anything for granted.  I have no idea if they can make any headway in the playoffs or if the Saints will come in to one and done them.  It doesn’t really matter though to me, it’s all gravy at this point.

My Saturday morning was a bright and early one as I was doing my once a year timing of a cross country meet.  Timing a cross country meet is a different beast from what I normally do on a race day.  There are 4 races total in the meet, held one after the other.  It’s a fast paced day.

I like that I get to set up in the middle of the football stadium for this race.  I don’t like how my sneakers become stuffed with the little black rubber balls that cover the NexTurf playing surface.  Timing the event, despite it’s additional complexities went well.  The only problem I had was we didn’t get back about a dozen of the timing chips, despite written warnings ahead of time that we HAD to get them all back.

I got an unexpected treat while I was there, I got to fly a DJI Phantom, the high end quadcopter I eventually hope to get.  One of the coaches had his there to shoot some aerial video of the event.  I told him I had the smaller quads.  He immediately told me I should give his a try.

Wow, what a difference compared to the very twitchy, always on the stick flying experience my Blade MQX offers.  The Phantom was so stable.  If you took your hands off the controls it would keep itself nearly stationary in the air.  I asked Chris if he took the recommended path, buying a smaller quad first?  Nope, he went right to the Phantom and really hasn’t had any issue because it is so smooth.  This test flight just happens to coincide with my being made aware that the Phantoms have recently had $200 cut off their price tag, sweet.

Despite the smooth event I still was out there all morning, not getting off site until a little after 11:30 am.  By the time I got back home it was well after noon.

I had a lot to do Saturday afternoon since Cindy and I were supposed to go to a 7:20 movie that night.  After doing the post race processing I wanted to get the property weeded and mowed.  I also had promised Cindy I was going to make her a belated birthday cake, the magical chocolate variety that I was only partially successful at creating once before.  It was a lot to get done in a limited time window.

By the time I got the outdoor work done it was after 4PM.  Despite feeling very sleepy from my 4:30 alarm I had no time for drowsiness, there was cake to be made.

Cindy has made the chocolate cake a number of times but ran into several roadblocks.  She kept trying to tweak the recipe, making it “healthier” by substituting in some healthier options like Truvia for sugar, coconut flour for regular flour and a few other changes.  Her efforts were good but never quite hit the mark as the original that uses good old fashioned 100 year old ingredients.

I learned a few things from my first attempt at the cake like using the hand mixer instead of the platform mixer to make sure I wasn’t leaving a layer of unblended ingredients at the bottom.  Having the butter at the right softness level helps a lot too for the icing, if it is too hard or too melted the icing will suffer.  Of course I also made sure to not put the cake pan on top of a hot burner afterwards this time around.

I was very pleased with the end result, it was quite a good facsimile of the cake I have enjoyed for decades courtesy of both my mom and Ali.  Cindy agreed that my end product was outstanding.  I guess certain recipes are best left alone.  If I want to eat healthier I’ll chew on some celery, you can’t f with the cake. 🙂

Saturday night we went to see Escape Plan that featured two of my favorite action stars of all time, Stallone and Arnold.  Despite both of these guys being of social security receiving age they actually still managed to pull off an entertaining and enjoyable action movie.  Sure neither of them exposed anything beyond their forearms for the film but it really didn’t matter.  It was a good time. A- believe it or not.

On Saturday I suggested a different running plan to Cindy compared to out circles around the track the week before.  I said we could try to run 10 miles but do it starting at the waterpark, doing the Oakes loop 10K first and getting the last 4 miles inside the park courtesy of 2 laps.  However if I was going to attempt a double digit mileage run, the first since the half marathon in March, I said I had to start early, as in before the sun comes up early.  During last weeks track run the sun beating down on me really destroyed my motivation to continue on.  Plus, the forecast for Sunday was summer-like with lows only in the mid-70’s with high humidity.  Cindy agreed that starting early was a necessary evil.

So as we approached the entrance to the park around 6:30 Sunday morning I noticed there was a lot more traffic than normal for that time of day.  As I turned in and saw the park lights lit up and cones in the road it hit me, there is a 10 mile race going on that day that I totally forgot about, doh.  Oh well I wasn’t going to change the plan based on that.  The race didn’t officially start until 7 am.  We hit the pavement around 6:40.

Running in the early morning hours definitely brought me some relief compared to the week before.  However even without the sun hitting me the thick humidity had me dripping with seat in short order.  I was tired by the end of the 10K loop but not wrecked.

As we ran back to the truck to grab a quick Gu and water break we crossed the official race route.  We got a few strange looks from people that wondered if we were part of the race or not.  We headed back out and did the first lap clockwise, opposite the direction the runners were going. We didn’t run the exact race course but spent a good amount of time running head on into the stream of race participants which was kind of a pain.  At the end of lap 1 we spun around and ran with the flow.

Running amongst the racers actually was beneficial, it helped me keep my mind off the physical discomfort.  I always have found that running in a large group helps reduce the misery somewhat.   Cindy I finished the 10 miles pretty strongly although the overall pace was not fast, in the high 9’s.  Still just completing that distance was an accomplishment for me and the last mental hurdle in being officially prepared for the Tough Mudder in a couple weeks.

Wow that Eagles came didn’t quite go as planned.  Yes I expected them to lose but I expected it to be a high scoring game with the Cowboys running rough shod over the Eagles nearly last ranked in the NFL defense.  Instead the game for the most part was a defensive struggle.  The Eagles D played well, probably the best they played all year.  The offense was horrid.  Nick Foles fresh off his great game in Tampa looked totally lost yesterday.  He was just making a lot of poor throws, missing open receivers in crucial situations.  The receivers did their fair share of pouring gas on the fire, dropping several easy balls.

The game extended a pretty embarrassing streak, the Eagles have not won a home football game in more than a YEAR, a YEAR.  That is sad.

After the game I went outside with Cindy with my two mini-quad copters.  She had indicated she was interested in trying them out.  At first I gave her the controls for the Blade but power and twitchyness of it was a bit much.  After she “landed” it on top of a cabbage palm, requiring my extension ladder to retrieve, I gave her the controls of the X1 which is less aggressive.

For the most part Cindy did well considering it was her first time ever flying a RC quadcopter.  Other than a small incident where we had to retrieve the copter from the far side of the neighbors, she did fine.  I did my first considerable damage (required part) to the Blade when I came in hard at an angle, striking one of propellers and bending it.  Luckily the copter comes with 1 full set of replacement blades.

I reattached the winglet to my Tuffwing last night however I also determined I need to get a new radio/receiver for it.  The AM 3 channel receiver I am reusing from the Speedwing is glitching when power is applied.  All of a sudden the prop will start spinning or the servos will fire off without input.  Neither situation is acceptable.

Sunday night we watched my latest Netflix dvd, 7 Psychopaths.  It was an “interesting” film that mixed in some gore with various oddities.  It was half decent but nothing that made me stand up and take notice.  It gets a solid rental B rating.

When I got home last night I got busy.  First I jumped on the tractor and finished mowing the back half of the back half of the yard, giving it a much more uniform cut than the first time.  I am hoping it is the last time I have to do it in quite awhile as the wet season weather pattern seems to officially be behind us.  Cutting the grass that late in the day is actually a good thing.  The grass is completely dry so all the clippings that pile up on top of the mower deck could be blown away with some brief work with my leaf blower.

While I was out front I pulled out the WD-40 and sprayed a couple points on the Tacoma driveshaft.  You see ever since I bought the truck back in 2000 it had an off and on problem with a horrible sounding metallic squeal that I determined was the driveshaft after much investigation.  During that investigation I found out that my truck was in a pretty serious accident while being driven by the prior owners 16 year old son.  That accident I assumed caused the driveshaft problem and is also the cause of the ugly section of the exterior of the truck where it was repainted poorly.

Well the noise was quite annoying, annoying enough that I eventually bought a used driveshaft to silence the squeal years and years ago.  It worked, for awhile.  In the past couple years the noise has been gradually coming out of retirement, occurring more and more frequently.  Since it is a different driveshaft making the same noise I can only assume it is because something in the factory geometry of the drive train was altered in that accident which over time causes the driveshaft problems.

Now I am certainly not going to put another driveshaft on the truck.  I am however thinking about jacking up the back end, putting it in DRIVE and seeing if I can pinpoint exactly where on the shaft the noise is coming from.  If I can, I’ll see if I can take that area apart and lube the shit out of it.

So since I had a freshly mowed and completely dry flying field behind the house I figured it was a good time to take the Tuffwing out for it’s initial flight.   I eyeballed the ailerons to make sure they looked like they were even and at a small angle upwards so the wing would go up instead of down after launch.

My Speedwing had a small wooden frame/handle on the bottom which I would use to launch it.  The Tuffwing does not have this.  Instead the recommended launch technique is grabbing a wing and sort of flinging it Frisbee style.  I was a bit nervous about launching it in this manner.

I shelved my launch anxiety, powered up my transmitter and plugged the battery for the plane in.  After hearing the series of beeps that indicates you are ready to go, I held the right wing, applied enough throttle where I could feel the plane pulling strongly and gave it a little flick.  Within a half second the plane had barrel rolled left and was upside down.  A split second later it was nose first into the ground where it bounced high off the ground like a super ball.  I killed throttle before it came back down.

The good thing about EPP foam planes is they designed to crash, hard.  Besides some grass stuck to tape I didn’t see any noticeable damage although the prop adapter was a bit loose.  My non-expert flight crash analysis seemed to indicate the plane was trimmed too far left which caused the immediate roll.  I used the trim adapter on the transmitter to compensate right a little bit, hoping it would prevent a repeat impact.

So once again I found myself at launch time.  Again I throttled up, tossed the plane and before I could get both hands on the radio it again had barrel rolled and found it’s way into terra firma, this time impacting in such a way that sent the plane into a cartwheel knocking off one of the glued on wing tips, great.

Well I was annoyed.  I mean the plane was not even close to being stable or gaining altitude.  I will need to repair the wing tip and do some more tweaking of it’s set up.   I am hoping I will be able to get this thing in the air before I push the impact resistance of the EPP foam to it’s breaking point.

The majority of the rest of the night was spent attending to running club and race timing issues.  I did manage to find about 45 minutes to play a little Hearthstone.

Hey the government is open for business today again!  The republicans finally conceded that their ill advised hostage taking of the federal government was doing their cause more harm than good in the big picture.  I am glad the doors are open once again.  Do I wish that the federal government wasn’t 17 TRILLION dollars in debt? Of course.  Do I think I will ever see that debt eliminated in my lifetime? Not a chance.

The bottom line is massive federal debt is a deliberate act, masterminded by those deviously brilliant crooks at the Federal Reserve.  They want the government to owe money, lots of it, it’s good for (their) business.   Short of nuking the planet, I really don’t see any scenario where the corrupt system that is in place can be rebooted.

Today is Cindy’s birthday, wish her a happy one if you see her.

So Saturday morning I suggested to Cindy that instead of getting up hella early to drive all the way into the club run that we instead run laps at the nearby middle school track.  I used to run this track quite a bit but I haven’t been there since my epic 10 mile Tough Mudder training run last year.  The temps had actually dipped into the high 60’s for the first time in 6 months Saturday morning so I figured getting a little later start would be fine.

The optimal goal was to do 10 miles, splitting it into four 2.5 mile segments for water breaks.  We started off and it didn’t take long for me to start feeling warm and bothered.  Despite the relatively lower air temps, the sun was unobstructed in the clear blue sky and felt like it was melting me.  By the time we got to the 5 mile water break I felt gassed and was debating pulling the plug right there.  I reset my goal to complete one more 2.5 mile segment.

During this segment I felt miserable, I was hot, tired and not in the state of mind I needed to be.  I failed to even complete my revised goal and bailed after exactly 7 miles on my GPS.  Cindy ran 7.5 miles and then for good measure wanted to see how fast she could run a single 400 meter lap.  The answer was, pretty damn fast.  She circled the track in about 1:37 which works out to be just above a 6 minute mile pace.  It was very impressive.

As I was leaning on a recycle bin sucking wind next to one of the light towers I felt something hit my head.   I instinctively reached up with my hand and came back with something black and wet.  I look up and see a starling about 75 feet up on top of the tower.  The damn thing shit on my head.  It was quite the shot from so far up.

So I felt like a failure for missing even my downward shifted goal.  Cindy on the other hand could have kept going I am sure, all the way to 10 miles if I had the energy to do so.  It’s good that she pushes me but frustrating when I don’t answer the bell like I should.

When we got home we were in the driveway and Cindy made a comment about a wasp dive bombing her as she walked by.  For several weeks I have allowed a wasp nest to be built under the left cut out of the garage entrance.  In my sometimes neurotic compassion for animals, I have not knocked it down because of the effort the wasps have put into constructing the nest.  I have walked by it many times without incident so I figured I would just continue to let it go.

So to demonstrate to Cindy that the wasp nest was harmless I walked towards it and stopped less than 6 feet away from it.  I said “Aw, good wasps, good wasps…” in a voice I usually reserve for my conversations with my pets.  Almost the instant I finished speaking, a wasp launched itself from the nest and rocketed at my face, stinging me less than an inch from my right eye.  I stumbled back in disbelief as I flailed at the air.  I could not believe the mf’ing wasp stung me.  Where was a camera when you needed it?

After confirming I was ok, aside from a burning sensation by my eye, Cindy and I lol’d at the irony.  Still, I have not knocked down the nest, but if I get attacked again my benevolence will have reached it’s end.  When I woke up Sunday morning it looked like I was smacked in the right eye, it was all swollen.

On the way to the movies I had one more interaction with nature, this time saving a turtle that was just about to make a very unwise trip into three lanes of traffic.  I spun the SSR around at the first intersection I could and headed back.  I scooped the turtle up, carrying him down to the canal I assume he was trying to reach.  I see so many roadkill turtles.  It angers the hell out of me that people are too lazy, stupid or oblivious to avoid them.  It isn’t like a rabbit or a deer that dashes in the road in front of you, it’s a TURTLE.  Idiots.

The movie we saw was Captain Phillips, the Tom Hanks movie about the 2009 incident where Somali pirates hijacked an American freighter.  As expected Tom delivers a stellar acting performance but that is the norm.  I thought the movie was very well done.  It made me think about the reality of living in a destitute place like Somalia.  Imagine living conditions so awful and options that are so limited that being a pirate was one of only a few choices you have to put food on the table.  People are a product of their environment.  If all you have know your entire life is misery, that becomes your norm. Anyway, good movie, I’d give it an A-.

Over the weekend I put out my limited amount of Halloween decorations.  My favorite item is the blow up pumpkin with the silly looking grin.

The back part of the yard finally got mowed.  It had attained true jungle status from weeks of being untouchable due to the never ending rain.  We finally had nearly a completely dry week allowing water to seep back into the ground.  Even with going slow and the mowing deck at max height the tractor couldn’t come anywhere close to doing a clean cut.  The grass looks like my head would if someone would cut my hair with a butter knife. If time allows this week I may zip back out there on the tractor to do a secondary speed mow.

On Sunday morning I did my second endurance training session of the weekend, doing the 20 mile DD ride.  It’s funny, I have pretty much switched back to riding my dirt cheap, heavy,  Dawes road bike instead of my Trek 2.1.  The aero bars and general body position I use on the Dawes is just a lot more comfortable for longer rides than the extremely low handlebars on the Trek which cause me to put so much weight on my hands.

Sometime in the future I may see if I can simply get a different stem for the Trek but for now it is all Dawes, all the time.

I picked up the girls late morning to spend the day out at the house.  I have stopped giving Nicki “elevator rides” and picking her up for lift assist unless she clearly wants it.  3 times she has peed when I picked her up, acting like she is afraid something bad was going to happen.  She managed to get into the van herself on Sunday but it wasn’t easy.

The Eagles game went surprisingly well.  Both the offense and even the defense (at times) played well which I was glad to see.  Of course I temper my praise with the knowledge that they were playing the 0-4 Buccaneers.  But hey, a win is a win.

There was one moment late in the game that the announcers totally glossed over.  To me it was a totally incredulous (and stupid) decision by Chip Kelly.  The Eagles were ahead by 8 points with three minutes to go and were facing a 4th an inches inside the Bucs 20 yard line, an easy chip shot field goal.  I was in disbelief when I saw he sent the offense back on the field to go for it.

Why the fck would you do that? A field goal makes it a two score game, virtually sealing the win for the Birds.  The Eagles snapped the ball, Foles dropped back to pass and was sacked for a loss.  LUCKILY, the defense was off sides, giving the Eagles a first down.  Now the announcers and the media in general did not identify what a potentially dumb call this was.  Yes, drawing them off sides is a viable strategy in that situation but if that is your intention, you DONT SNAP THE BALL.  You hard count them and if they don’t fall for it you call a time out.  I don’t understand why everyone is ignoring how risky and foolish that decision was.

But hey the Eagles are 3-3 in the horrible NFC East, things could be worse.

Sunday evening I took advantage of the mowed and dried out backyard, taking my Blade MQX out there for some open air flying.    My hope was that the lack of obstacles would allow me to work out some of the issues I am having flying the quad copter.  The good news is the grass makes as a great cushion for crash landings. The bad news is I still am unable to do simple, controlled circles with it.     It is so easy to get disoriented.  I will continue practicing outdoors although that comes with it’s on set of hazards.  Several times a gust of wind sent the Blade soaring in directions I did not anticipate.

Sunday night we finished up watching Avatar in 3D.  It looked so damn sweet on the new tv.  Too bad I was so damn sleepy that I was nodding off and on throughout.

When I got home last night  I had a headache and was feeling pretty annoyed.  For some reason I got it in my head that I should go out and try the hard mode of the BB challenge (20 pull ups as fast as you can go), despite my state of being.

It was again another wet evening and it was in fact drizzling as I headed outside with my tripod, camera, towel (to dry the bar) and chalk.  I didn’t do any warm up or stretching, I just dried the bar, chalked my hands and started pulling.  You can definitely tell I was in a shitty mood from my commentary. 

I did manage to best my prior attempt by exactly one second although while I was in mid-set I thought I actually was going faster than that.  20 pull ups in 30 seconds.

So my major project for last night was more work on my Tuffwing construction.   I got my hands dirty (and sticky) with CA glue.  The use of CA accelerator really helps move the build process along.  I got the wing halves, carbon fiber spars, motor mount and electronics hatch assembled and glued together.

I will need the radio receiver that was used in the Speedwing so I had to extract it.  I felt genuine remorse as I used a combination of scissors and my fingers to rip apart the wrecked plane to get to the electronics.  When Mike built this for me he meticulously and professionally embedded the rc gear inside the body of the plane.  As I ripped it apart it gave me a greater appreciation of just how much care he utilized when building the plane.  It also made me more angry at myself for crashing and destroying the wing.

I considered filming the build process but there is already a very well done Tuffwing build video out there so I didn’t bother.  I’m not in a rush to get the wing done since until my yard dries out I won’t be doing any non-quadcopter flying anytime soon.

So I got back to the bedroom early, around 9pm,  hoping to catch up on the triple header of shows I am currently watching, Breaking Bad, Dexter and Ray Donovan.  I fired up my Xbox and tried loading Breaking Bad.  It acted like the episode was available however each time I tried to view it I would get stuck in “trouble loading video” loop.  Ok, well I guess I’ll watch Dexter/Ray Donovan.  Nope, neither of their latest episodes show up as being available on the Xfinity 360 app either.  Mother f…

Ok, I grab my Kindle and browse to the Xfinitytv web site.  I see the latest Breaking Bad episode is available on their site. Awesome.  I try to load it up but get stonewalled by the version of Flash running on the Kindle.  I am unable to update it conventionally on the device so again I am left jonesing for my Breaking Bad fix. Ok on to plan C.

I grab my laptop and again bring up the Xfinity site.  I am finally able to launch the episode, sweet.

Watching shows the the Xfinitytv web site sucks, of all the ways to watch a show, their website jams the most commercials down your throat.  On top of that they disable your ability to cleanly navigate through the shows timeline.  So yes, this is normally annoying, however last night it was maddening.

Ever since I upgraded my laptop to Windows 8 my video does not work well on the Xfinity site.  Right in the middle of a show the video will freeze, (audio continues) and I get a message about the video driver encountering an error.  The only way I can get video back is to refresh the page which is where the problem snowballs.

Let’s say you are at the 35 minute mark in a show when you have a problem and the last block of 6 or 7 commercials last played at the 30 minute mark.  If you try to resume the show it will make you watch the most recent block of commercials again, even though you already suffered through them before.  As time went on the error was popping up more and more often, sending me back into this maddening advertisement downward spiral.

I tried a video driver update and still had no luck.  I then resorted to using a generic video driver with poor resolution to just get through the damn show.  I finally finished the hour long show after a nearly 2.5 hour ordeal.  It was so fcking annoying.  Thank goodness the episode was awesome and worth the effort.

On my drive home last night I headed into what looked like a wall of black clouds.  Shortly after I pulled into the driveway the heavy clouds let loose, dropping another inch or two of rain on my already sopping wet property.  I am really ready for summer/wet season to come to an end.

Last night I was flying my Blade indoors in the great room.  It felt much less stable than before, it just wanted to drift around the room, requiring constant correction by me which often became over-correction followed by impact with some object.

I even tried setting the controller to it’s less aggressive control rate and still had issues.  Trying to trim the copter didn’t seem to make much of a difference, it just did not want to hover in place for shit.

I started on building my Tuffwing although I only spent maybe 10 minutes on  it until I reached a point where I would need to apply CA.  I need to get some wax paper to cover my work surface to prevent inadvertently gluing my wing to the table.   I need to abandon my normal somewhat play it by ear approach I use for many construction projects and make sure I follow the instructions to a T.  Failure to do so will result in an unstable, sloppy aircraft that will be a pain in the ass to fly.

I heard people talking about the ridiculous performance Miley Cyrus put on at the MTV VMA awards on Sunday night.  A 5 second search had the performance in front of my eyeballs.  It was like a car wreck, despite it being awful on multiple levels, I couldn’t turn my eyes away.  I don’t know what was the most terrible, her facial expressions, her creepy mouse back up dancers, her outfit or her disturbing gyrations.  The song was pretty damn awful too.

If this is the current state of what the music industry thinks is cool I suppose I am as uncool as it gets.

The performance and the associated buzz afterwards has somehow managed to drown out a legitimate horrific world news story, the use of chemical weapons, likely sarin gas, in Syria.  There have been reports of the use of sarin by the government against rebels for many months, evidently the most recent case was just the most extensive.  Syria’s government is claiming innocence, saying the the gas is actually being released by the rebels themselves to garner international support for their cause. Um yea, ok.

If this was the case, why is it that Syria blocked UN inspectors from entering the area of the attack for 4 or 5 days and instead proceeded to bomb the shit out of the area during that time to obliterate evidence?  Then yesterday UN inspectors were shot at as they again tried to enter the area.  Do these sound like the actions of a regime that has nothing to hide?

For most Americans that are wrapped up in the truly important things in life like how Miley Cyrus sucks, Syria may as well be on a different planet.  It seems incomprehensible that in 2013 there is Hitler style mass human extermination still going on.  Sadly Syria is only the latest example.  Human atrocities still occur all the time, however out of sight, out of mind keeps most of us from having to entertain that reality.

Kerry gave a speech yesterday that left little doubt that something tangible is going to be done by the US as a result of this attack.  The situation is made very sticky by Russia’s staunch support of Syria no matter what sort of genocide their government is involved in.

Evil is alive and well in the world, no matter how hard we try to insulate ourselves with ignorance.

When I got home last night I felt really blah.  I had no desire to do a home workout or anything resembling work for that matter.  I treated my poor mood with play.

I got all of the parts of my Blade MQX out and ready to fly.  I had thumbed through the manual during the day to loosely familiarize myself with the copter.   I expected it to be a different flying experience from what I was accustomed to with the RC planes I have flown.  I didn’t expect it to be significantly more difficult.  I was wrong.

On my initial attempts I was trying to keep the Blade very close to the ground, not getting it more than a foot off the ground at any time.  The copter seemed to be drifting more than I expected but I later attributed that to my very conservative lift offs which could drag the landing gear, tipping it one way or the other.

I found myself really having problems with disorientation with the 4 additional control directions I had to deal with.  With my RC planes like my Sky Scooter I am controlling throttle, tail elevator  for up/down angle and the ailerons on the wing that handle turning.  With the quadcopter I have throttle to control altitude up/down, right/left rotation, bank left, bank right, and forward/reverse which is controlled by dipping or raising the front end of the Blade.  I really had issues when the copter was coming towards me, I just don’t have the reflexes yet to be able to react accordingly.

I went through three battery charges of flights.  I was surprised how long the tiny lipo battery lasted, giving me a solid 10 minutes of fly time.  As expected the Blade had a LOT of crashes however none of them caused any significant damage.  Luckily despite my issues with overall control, I was pretty good at just killing the throttle whenever I saw an impact coming, saving the Blade from any high speed crashes. The funniest incident was when I had the copter up 5 or 6 feet in the air.  It drifted too close to one of the plants on top of the media cabinet and chopped a few leaves off, sending the Blade back down to the carpet.

As you can see in the video, I did have some pretty controlled hover time going on but I was really bad at doing any “steering”.  I moved the Blade around the room almost exclusively using the banking capability of the quadcopter.  If I tried to turn it I always had problems with it either gaining or losing altitude since left/right is on the same stick as the throttle. I also expect that flying outside with the Blade will be a much better experience.  The living room, despite it’s size, just had too many obstacles for a noob copter pilot.  The backyard offers much larger open spaces to allow for pilot error.

Tuki was not a fan of the helicopter.  As soon as I put it in the air he retreated back inside his cage.  Perhaps he didn’t trust my flying ability.  He is a pretty smart bird I guess.

In between the charging cycles of the copter battery I supplemented my night of play by getting on my warlock, named KeddieFruger, in WoW.  I have not played anything but my panda monk in WoW for the last 8 months.  I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun I had playing my warlock.  There have been a number of changes that make them much more powerful than they once were.

I did a couple 5 person instances.  Despite having gear that was not great via MOP standards and not knowing the instances or how to really play my warlock well anymore I still unleashed the most damage of anyone in the group.  It was cool.  It’s fun having 5 or 6 demons by your side unleashing all sorts of hell simultaneously on bad guys.

Tonight there will be no time for copter flying or WoW playing, I am hosting my fantasy football draft party.  I will be quite busy rearranging the furniture in the house, setting up food, drink, and getting all the tech up and running.  When I first started hosting this party a few years ago I provided a bunch of food that I had to bake/cook myself.

Since then I have streamlined things. I will only be baking some spanikopita and buying some pizzas.  The other team owners will be filling in the gaps.  I realized that although it is nice to provide a big, diverse menu for the party it was totally unnecessary.  This is a fantasy football party for cripes sake,  the core needs are pizza and beer, done.

This party also means another late night by the time I wind up cleaning up afterwards. Sure I could worry about cleaning up the place until the next day but I hate going to bed having the house in disarray.

To add to the formula I am picking up Lucky this afternoon for 4 days of dogsitting.  It will be interesting to see how Lucky does with a house full of fantasy football owners around.  It will be fun having Lucky around for a few days, he is so much fun and Uncle Shawn lets him get away with more than his dog dad does.  I am sure Sadie will be thrilled to see her good buddy this weekend.

My Saturday was really busy from sunset to sundown.  After weeding before it got too hot, I headed inside to do the cleaning.  I was supposed to be picking up the dogs Saturday morning for a prolonged visit until Tuesday but Ali was delayed in her departure.  I wound up getting them early in the afternoon on my way back from stops at Home Depot and Auto Zone.

One of the items I picked up at Home Depot was a tile file.  When I installed the ceramic tile in the house a decade or so ago I had certain areas that were not as flat as they should be due to an uneven surface below it, despite my efforts to smooth it out with thin set concrete beforehand.  The end result was a few tiles that had an elevated edge/corner that I feel sometimes when walking around barefoot.  These edges also beat the hell out of the rubber portions of the Scooba when I set it loose.

For whatever reason, despite the annoyance this caused me, I never looked into how to address it, until last week.  I read about something called a tile stone that is designed to smooth sharp tile edges.  What I bought accomplished the same end result.  The file has a coarse texture on one side and finer texture on the other to finish the job.

I knocked down a couple high corners as a test.  It worked well, dulling the previously pointy reminder of my poor tile installation ability.  I plan to crawl around on my hands and knees in the near future, obliterating any and all sharp edges that remain.

I also did three different filter changes on the van Saturday afternoon, swapping out the oil, air and fuel filter.  The fuel filter swap was the most involved.  The old filter looked like it had been in place for quite awhile.  All three procedures were taped to be added to my growing collection of amateur automotive maintenance videos. 🙂

During the day Saturday I took 15 minutes out of my day to try to fly my Sky Scooter.  On my first flight the plane was up and down almost immediately when it banked hard right after my toss, crashing into the ground.

The impact broke one of the folding props.  I had another set of props inside although they were smaller and would provide less thrust.  I put them on anyway, I had nothing to lose.

I got the plane up in the air with my second launch attempt but the small prop made a big difference in power or lack there of.  Compared to what I was accustomed to with my SpeedWing, the Sky Scooter was trudging through the air.

The slower air speed also means it was more susceptible to wind, the plane was getting buffeted about quite a bit.  I had to be really on the sticks and paying attention the entire time.  I managed to get the plane down safely after a 5 or 6 minute flight.

Ali said she was ok with me borrowing her Volt while she was gone for some gas free miles.  The only thing she asked was that maybe I could clean it since it was very dirty.  I did so both inside and out.  It was indeed very, very dirty but I figure elbow grease is free, gas is not.

A spent a lot of time cooking chicken for the dogs.  Ali bought a ton of what she thought were boneless thighs to add to their meals.  Well it turns out they were the bone in variety.  I had a huge pot of boiling water filled with chicken thighs.  I then pulled them out one by one and had to dust off my old meat cutter skills to remove the meat from the bones.  It was very gross.  I can hardly believe I spent over three years of my life doing this sort of stuff day in and day out in my late teens/early 20’s.

On Saturday night I watched Wall-E for the second time, I just wanted to see it again.  It’s such a cute movie but I also am in tune with the underlying tones in the film of where mankind is headed, with everyone being a huge fat ass that is carted around 24/7 on flying chairs.  All these people do is consume, consume, consume and nothing else.  Many people today are practically there already, just slap some rockets on their recliner.

On Sunday morning Cindy did another training brick with me.  I suggested we abandon the bike portion this week and instead do a longer run like the 10K square, using the water park as a starting point.  I figured we could then follow it up with a swim.  Well since the water park doesn’t open until 10Am I figured it made sense to start the run a little before 9, assuming a 10K will take somewhere around an hour.

Well my logic had a flaw.  It didn’t take into consideration it was August in SW Florida.  There is a reason that many runners start their runs very early (6AM) in these parts, especially in the 6 month long summers, it gets very hot, very early.

I was ok for maybe the first 2 miles of the run, after that the heat and humidity really started to bother me.  I just felt like shit.  Despite not running very fast (an average 9:44 pace), my body just wanted me to stop.  To be honest, if I was running by myself I can pretty much guarantee I would have stopped either at the 3.75 mile mark at the corner of Oakes and Vanderbilt or at the corner of Vanderbilt and Livingston.  I just wanted the misery to end.

My ego and desire to not look like a pussy, prevailed, dragging me to the finish line.  The funny thing is Cindy said she felt awful as well but didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want to seem wimpy.

I was totally exhausted as I sat down on a curb to try to catch my breath.  Running in the heat was bad enough but add into that we didn’t have any water stops along the way, adding to the fail in my logic. After a long break I finally got myself into the pool for three 400 yard sets.  My first 400 was really slow, about 9:30.  Surprisingly my final two 400’s actually got faster, 9:00 and then 8:15.  I guess I got a second wind.

I was so damn tired after it was all said and done.  I was sure at some point I would need to collapse for a nap but that opportunity never presented itself.

I got back outside to try to fly the Sky Scooter some more on Sunday afternoon.  After a non-damaging failed launch attempt I got the plane back up in the air on the second try although I barely avoided smashing into the fence on take off.  That flight went slow but smooth.  I landed the plane safely.

I had one of my two new battery packs out there with me as well.  I wasn’t quite sure if I had a full charge in the pack but I figured I would slap it in the plane and give it a try.  The new pack had significantly more punch than the 4 year old batteries I used on the first flight.  The Sky Scooter climbed steadily, much higher than I had it the first time around.

I was doing big loops around the back yard however after only a couple minutes I noticed a large drop in altitude like the battery pack was dying.  The plane at this point was out far beyond the rear fence line, I tried to get it back but it just kept going down.  I knew I was in trouble so just as it disappeared behind a large pine tree I killed the throttle and pulled full up on the elevator control, hoping to minimize damage.

I never saw the plane actually hit the ground, I just knew the general direction I last saw it, somewhere behind the pine tree.  As I walked out behind my property I saw the two fill pits in the vicinity, both filled to the brim with rain water.  I knew with my luck, the plane was probably in the middle of one of them.  I did a quick survey of both bodies of water and didn’t see my aircraft.

I kept looking around, figuring the blue fuselage should stick out like a sore thumb.  I also would stop and try to fire off the motor and rudder servos, hoping for an audible clue to the planes location.  I had no luck.  After I was out there for maybe 10 minutes wandering around, Cindy came out to help me with the search.

I was dumbfounded, how could we not see the damn plane!?  I canvassed certain areas 2,3,4 times, figuring I just had to be not seeing it.  At around the half hour mark of searching I was just about ready to give up and write off the Sky Scooter as lost in action.  I decided to do one more loop, farther out than I thought the plane could have been.

Finally I spot the scooter sitting in a ditch, a good 150 yards beyond my rear fence line.  The tail of the plane was broken but it was otherwise intact.  The battery was ejected on impact and was laying a few feet away from the plane.  I trudged back towards the house and yelled over to Cindy that the I found the Scooter.

I didn’t really care the tail was broken on the plane, I could get another if I want to.  I was more interested in recovering the plane for the various expensive electronics that are in it.  However repairing the Scooter will be a low priority since I have my TuffWing to build and my Blade MQX quad copter is supposed to show up today.

On Sunday night I saw the new Red Dawn.  It was pretty dumb but mildly entertaining.  For some reason the original Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze seemed much more believable than what was portrayed this time around. I’d give it a B.

Nicki once again has been concerning me with her eating or lack there of.  The last time I had them out at the house she was all on board with her new mostly chicken thigh diet.  She was chomping at the bit for me to put down her food and she was eating every last bite.

Saturday night she just picked the chicken out of her dinner, leaving all of the dog food untouched.  Then Sunday morning she ate nothing of her breakfast, despite it being loaded down with the chicken I just cooked the night before.  She has skipped meals before but I really started getting concerned when she didn’t even eat the treats I offered to her, something she normally never turns down.

Last night for dinner she ate a portion of her dinner but left at least half of it.  This morning she once again ignored breakfast until it was sat on the carpet next to her where she was laying down.  She then at least ate all of the chicken but once again would not touch the rest of the dog food.

I think her rear legs/knees are really bothering her, more so now that the baby aspirin was stopped after another vet visit last week.  When she is standing by her food platform I can see her back legs sliding on the tile, which she must find annoying/painful.  I am going to try putting one of the kitchen rugs in front of her food stand to give her better traction when eating.  If that doesn’t work I may be just feeding her from the sitting/laying position.

I hate seeing her struggle like this.

So after work I headed to Boston Beer Garden to attend our fantasy football league draft order lottery. This is where teams pick a number out of a bag to decide their place in the draft next week.  We have a total of 12 teams, 3 of which are owned by people out of the area. 6 of the 9 local owners were at the lottery, including myself, with this being my first time ever attending the event.

I wasted no time ordering my dinner, Miller Lite.  I had two or three of them down in pretty short order.  Doing this on an empty stomach meant I was hit pretty hard pretty quickly.

So the lottery began and Taylor, one of the three league commissioners was the first to put his hand in the bag that contained 12 numbered poker chips, one for each team in the league.  I couldn’t believe he pulled out the number 1 pick, beating the 12-1 odds.

My hopes of getting a better drafting position by being present for the lottery didn’t prove to be helpful, I secured the 9th picking spot, nothing to be thrilled about.  Oh well.

After the lottery was done I continued drinking.  In total I think I had 6 or 7 beers and no food.  I was drunk, no doubt about it.  I was going to be faced with sitting at the bar a long time until I sobered up.  I stumbled across some good luck when Cindy told me she was actually having dinner in the same shopping center, she was able to be my designated driver and get me home safely.

Yesterday I made my second RC vehicle purchase in less than a week, buying a Blade MQX, a RTF quadcopter.  I read that it is a great way to learn how to fly a quad to prepare you for something bigger like the DJI Phantom.

I had already spent my allocation of hobby dollars for the month so I squeezed the purchase in utilizing my Amazon spiff points, my out of pocket cost was $10.57.

Between my yet to be built Tuff Wing and the Blade I expect to have some aerial backyard fun on the docket the next several months.

I haven’t had a chance to do my normal evening weekend chore dilution this week so I have a full boatload of to do’s to be handled the next two days.  On top of that I would like to do some maintenance on the van and get in another training brick Sunday morning.  I also will have the dogs for another 4 days, starting tomorrow to add to the fun.

I am really looking forward to October when the first cold front rolls through.  I have had enough 90 degree, 90% humidity days for 2013, thank you very much.

I was surprised to see my 32″ Tuffwing showed up at the door yesterday since I only ordered it Sunday.  I have never built a RC plane from this point before.  All of my other plane have either been RTF(ready to fly) or ARF(almost ready to fly) or built by someone else (Mike). I am looking forward to the challenge.

I already watched a how to video on assembling the plane and I am very glad I did.  When assembling the plane many parts require CA glue, basically super glue.  Well when it comes to RC plane building there are various types of CA glue which I wasn’t really aware of.

They have thin, medium and thick varieties, each used for different situations.  They also have CA accelerator which you spray on something to be or already has been glued to greatly reduce the curing time.

However the most valuable CA glue tip I discovered via the video was that there is a type of CA specifically designed for EPP foam planes like the Tuffwing.  If you use normal CA glue on EPP foam it MELTS IT.  I can only imagine my reaction if I started gluing the plane together only to have the fuselage start melting away.  So, I ordered foam safe CA glue yesterday which should arrive soon.  Once it does my build can begin in earnest.

Yesterday my gym was closed because of construction.  As planned I headed up to the 4th floor of the parking garage to do my workout.  I will cover the workout more over in Dufisthenics but let’s just say it was challenging, with me netting a total of 620 reps in 30 minutes. I was joined on the 4th floor by a woman that was running laps around the same deck.  She said 20 laps around equals 3.8 miles.

I picked up the dogs last night on the way home.  While I was outside walking around with them I saw we had a beautiful sunset going on so I grabbed my phone and snapped several pics.  Beautiful sunsets are very commonplace where I live.  I don’t take the time to appreciate them as much as I should.

When we were inside I called Nicki back to the bedroom to see her new luxurious bed.  Sadie was first to see/smell the bed.  When Nicki saw it she abandoned her normal caution she utilizes with anything new, seeing Sadie sniffing about the bed must have made a difference.

Nicki got right on top of the bed and sat on it with what seemed to be a “This is MY bed” attitude, letting Sadie know the real deal.  I look forward to seeing how she likes it during the dogs extended stay this weekend.

My Google AdSense 2.0 account (well technically my mom’s) is starting to build up steam.  It got an unexpected $40 pop the other day, pushing the account total up to $120.  My mom had just gotten a $150 payout from them at the end of June.  To already roll back over the payout threshold in August is pretty sweet.

It seems like they track the dollars differently than they used to.  When I look at my adsense account from day to day it appears to just show banner ad related revenue and then right around the middle of the month the YouTube dollars get dumped in.  They way it worked before I thought I was seeing the YT money on a daily basis as well.  Regardless, it looks like the effort I put into rebuilding my AdSense account from rubble is finally paying off.  It’s not a fortune but it is a nice little bump in mom’s account every once in awhile.  Who doesn’t like free money?

Tonight I am playing the lottery but not like you may think.  Our fantasy football league is having a draft lottery get together tonight after work.  Basically you pull team names out of a hat to determine the order they will draft players next week at the league draft which is once again going to be held out at my house.

This is the 8th year of the league and I have never attended the draft lottery. Perhaps coincidentally my draft position most years is normally pretty poor.  It should be a good time and allow me to drink a few beers to commemorate the new chapter in my personal book of life that just started.