Category Robots

It felt weird on Thanksgiving morning to be getting up so “late” at 4:45 am since this was the first time in years I was attending a race as a participant and not a timer.  We left the house around 5:30 for the race scheduled to start at 7:30.  I wanted to get there early to lend a hand where needed.  Once I got there it didn’t take long for me to track down my timer buddy John who was handling the event.  I wound up spending almost all of the time pre-race talking and helping John, it just felt like the natural place for me to be.

The atmosphere at the Gobble Gobble was so much different from what I became accustomed to at the running club Thanksgiving race. I would compare the feel of that race to a mob waiting to beat in the doors on Black Friday.  It was just chaotic as hell from start to finish. The club race has over 3000 participants, the Gobble has less than half of that.  This race breaks the event apart into a chip timed and fun run division which further helps with congestion. They had a woman doing announcements on a small stage during the entire time leading up to the race which made it very clear and easy to figure out what was going on instead of just herds of people following other herds of people, hoping they are going the right way.

Cindy and I were in the timed event which took off first, 5 minutes before the fun runners started.  Cindy has not been been able to do consistent running leading up to the race so I knew it was going to be tough for her.  Despite her saying I should just go ahead and run whatever pace I wanted , I stayed with her for the majority of the race.  She was struggling at points and I tried to give her encouragement to keep pushing ahead.

When we got to the 3.5 mile mark I told her I was going to push for the last half mile which she was fine with.  It gave me a chance to briefly indulge in my normal race mode mindset where I acquire targets ahead of me to run down and pass.  My official time of 38:30 was slower than most of my training runs but I could have cared less, it just felt good to be a participant instead of an organizer.  Cindy came across the line pushing hard about 45 seconds after I did.

The post race scene again was far less chaotic than I was accustomed to due to less people and the simple awards structure where only the top three finishers of each gender get anything.  Instead of posting paper results John just had a couple laptops set up that runners could use to print out their individual time slips, further relieving congestion.  Cindy and I indulged in some of the post race refreshments.  I hung at the finish line with John for a little while before we called it a morning.  It was good that I got to see the race director, Matt, who I had not seen in person for a long time although I chat to him online on a regular basis.  Cindy and I left the parking lot both feeling very good about the experience, it was such a refreshing change from what I had become used to.

When we got home there was no equipment to put away, no data to be massaged and no results to be uploaded.  Instead I got to just flip on the Macy’s Parade and chill.  I had not seen more than a few minutes of the parade for the past five or six years.  I got to watch almost two hours of it this year and loved every minute of it.  The rest of Thanksgiving followed the same general feel good vibe.  Cindy did most of the heavy lifting for the day, preparing a hybrid tofurkey/turkey Thanksgiving dinner that we enjoyed with Katie and Daniel.  Before dinner I actually shot over to the school with the kids to get some more EUC riding in where Katie once again showed massive improvements in her ability to ride the electric unicycle.  The meal Cindy prepared was very, very good.  We relived the meal via warm ups during the weekend and it was still delicious.

On Friday I was outside early trying to get chores down to free up the weekend since Randall was rolling in for a visit.  After I finished up we headed out for some errands.  Since it was Black Friday I didn’t expect it to be a pleasant experience.  We stopped at Sam’s Club first which was busy but not a mob scene, I saw some good deals but nothing I wanted for myself or others.  I was a bit annoyed that the 4K tv I bought at Sam’s in May was now like 400 bucks less on Black Friday.

We then headed to Lowe’s and Home Depot with a primary goal of securing a new artificial Christmas tree.  The tree I have is about 5-6 years old and works fine but I am not thrilled that the built in lights are incandescent which eat a lot of power.  I wanted a tree that used controllable LED lighting.  Getting into the Home Depot parking lot was just ridiculous.  As annoying as it was, I just reminded myself of what date on the calendar it was.  I knew what I was getting myself into.

The interior of the store was no better with mobs of people clogging the aisles.  Cindy swooped in and claimed the last box of a tree model that seemed to have the specs we wanted, a seven and a half footer with led lights that could be color, white or cycle between the two, perfect.  While we were there we picked up a few other items.  I felt relieved when we finally got out the door, the Black Friday mindset is just something that leaves me feeling unsettled.

Later in the day we actually went back out to the Bonita Home Depot, bringing Elsa along this time.  I wanted to pick up a spot light I could install on the water equipment shelter to provide night illumination for that side of the house since it is where we normally walk Elsa.   We took Elsa to Home Depot with Sadie the week before and she seemed to like it.  Well without Sadie around it was a different story.  Elsa seemed scared most of the time, I felt bad for her.  Hopefully more exposure to more people, sights, and sounds will help her not react in such a scared manner.

We did our exterior decorations on Friday.  I totally abandoned the all white exterior lights that I used to decorate the house with, replacing them exclusively with colored LED lights.  We strung lights on the front palm trees and the opposite front fence lines.  When combined with our other color/pattern changing decorations the house looks incredibly colorful.  I like it.

Randall did not arrive on Saturday until early in the afternoon giving us time to get stuff done in the morning.  One of those things was me installing the new flood light.  It was an LED model so I was a bit concerned about it’s ability to light up the yard compared to conventional lighting.  When it got dark those fears evaporated, the lights were extremely bright, it almost looked like stadium lighting. I also shaved my head Saturday morning.  When Elsa first saw me with the buzz cut she barked in fear, thinking somebody new had replaced me.  Once she heard my voice her stubby tail started wagging again.

Randall pulled up in his Prius with his road bike in the back.  Even though I wasn’t planning to ride my road bike with him I had an idea of riding my Gotway Msuper with him instead.  We hung out for a bit catching up although Randall is usually up to date with most aspects of my life via the blog.  It didn’t take long until I was ready to load up the car with PTVs to take to the school, hopefully to get Randall rolling.

I brought a Minipro along as well, thinking it would be good for him to cut his teeth on the far easier to master vehicle.  I was surprised that at first Randall was very unstable on the Segway.  When he stepped on he was lurching forward awkwardly with the frame of the bot bouncing up and down.  He soon became more accustomed to how the gyro felt, balancing for you.  Within 5 minutes he was able to roll around pretty comfortably.  I tooled around on my Msuper while he followed me for awhile.  At first I was thinking it might make sense to just stick to the Minipro on Saturday and maybe let him try the training EUC on Sunday but when I asked him if he was up to trying the unicycle he was ready to give it a go.

We used the same game plan as what seemed to work well for Katie and Daniel, setting up the wheel next to the fenced in bike corral, giving Randall ample hand support as needed.  Slowly he was able to go further in between touches and had a number of step offs as he lost balance.  Within maybe 20 minutes of trying and falling he was doing better.  Randall left the safety of the fence and headed down the sidewalk.  He wore his helmet at the start of the EUC training but removed it later, stating he felt like it affected his balance, despite my encouragement to wear it.  Randall gave me a verbal waiver of liability, claiming that his mountain biking experience has taught him how to fall.  He got to put that experience to the test.

I felt nervous as I trailed Randall around the parking lot.  He would have moments of extreme shakiness, sometimes he recovered, sometimes he didn’t.  Most of the time he was able to jump off the wheel and let it roll to a tumbling stop.  A few times he was the one that went tumbling, hitting the ground hard.  To Randall’s credit, the spills didn’t slow him down, he got right back on every time.  By the time we left the school some two hours later Randall was still shaky but able to ride around, turn, mount and dismount at a decent level.  He said he now understood why I found riding PTVs so much fun.

On Saturday night we enjoyed more Thanksgiving warm ups while watching the latest Netflix rental, Purge, Election Year.  I had already seen the first two Purge installments so I sort of knew what to expect.  Randall had not seen any of them but knew the general premise.  The movie was not bad by Purge standards and in some ways made me think about the 2016 election which is a bit disturbing.  If you don’t deal well with movie violence, steer clear.  I’d give it a B as is.

Sunday morning I was up early to run, despite logging four miles on Thanksgiving.  I let Randall sleep as he isn’t doing much running nowadays.  He had indicated he might get up and ride to Ave Maria and then meet me on the way back on my unicycle to head to DD.  The air was nice and cool which felt refreshing as I circled the track 16 times.  I wound up averaging an 8:55 pace, almost 45 seconds better than Thursday.

When I got back I saw Randall’s bike was still in the garage so I figured he scrapped the Ave Maria ride idea.  We instead shoved off for Dunkin Donuts with Randall on two wheels and me on one.  At first my intention was to handle the ride like I did the first time I tried it, almost exclusively on sidewalk.  I started off that way but found it annoying to have to slow down at the crosswalks as Randall would be able to keep cruising along in the bike lane.  About a mile and a half in I swung into the bike lane and just stayed there, riding within a few feet of Randall, taking advantage of his wind breaking.

I told Randall that if he could keep his speed around 18 mph I should be ok, well within the 25mph+ top speed of the wheel.  I had never cruised this fast for this long.  The wheel felt very stable at speed although I was obviously a bit nervous having nothing between me and vehicles other than a painted line.  Randall said he was surprised how easily I was able to keep up.  At one point his bike computer was showing we were over 20 mph and I was still right there.

After enjoying a large coffee at DD we headed the opposite direction and it was much more challenging.  A strong head wind which was more like a cross wind made Randall ineffective as a wind blocker.  There were periods of time where I was struggling big time to stay in place as the wind was pushing me towards the curb.  I was worried that the additional wind pressure could gobble up battery life to the point where I may have an issue.  The Msuper chugged along, I still had about 30% battery life when we pulled back into the driveway.  The video of the ride is pretty interesting.  It looks like we are going VERY fast at times.

Late morning Katie and Daniel showed up for us to go for our Sunday ride.  Despite logging 20 hard miles a couple hours earlier I was happy to go back out.  I had just enough vehicles to cover all of us although we are running into an electric unicycle issue.  Both Katie and Daniel have advanced enough that the training wheel is just not enough machine for them.  At first she rode the black MiniPro with Cindy who was on the white one.  I was on my Msuper with Daniel on the Ninebot One, while Randall continued his learning curve on the training wheel.  Randall was already feeling beat up from his day one of training.  After a pretty bad spill he said his back was really bothering him.  We switched things up and had Katie get on the training wheel while Randall got on the less physically demanding MiniPro.  Once again Katie did fantastic, she was able to actually navigate the boardwalk at North Collier Park on one wheel. After the ride we all headed to Panera for a nice late lunch. It was quite busy but fun first half of the day with me logging four plus miles by foot and another 25 miles or so by wheel.

Late in the afternoon Randall, Cindy and I headed to the Miromar Outlets, a sort of holiday tradition when Randall visits.  He wanted to primarily check out the Oakley outlet but we ducked into a few other stores.  It was crowded but not a madhouse so my skin wasn’t crawling to leave immediately.  We picked up a few heavily discounted items before calling it a day.

Before Randall left I asked him if he was interested in my Phantom drone.  I plan to get a new Mavic Pro drone once they become available again and I knew in the past he had expressed interest in drones.  Randall was surprised by and accepted my offer.  I was happy to let him have it as opposed to selling it.  I have been through a lot with the drone that Cindy so generously surprised me with years ago.  It last saw consistent use when we went out west last year, capturing the footage that resulted in my prosecution by the national park service which was one of the more aggravating experiences of my life.  In some ways I am sad to see it go but glad to give it to Randall instead of selling it to a stranger.  I put the drone up in the air once last time Saturday morning just to make sure it was in good working order.

We thanked Randall for his visit.  Elsa had up and down moments with Randall, mostly erring on the side of caution when he was around.  He still had fun interacting with her.

So this weekend had two noticeable deaths on far opposite sides of the popularity spectrum, Florence Henderson and Fidel Castro.  I was a big Brady Bunch fan and always thought Florence was the blueprint for the perfect mother.  She remained somewhat relevant late into life which I thought was cool.  Fidel, who was rumored to have died several times over the last decade finally kicked the bucket for real which has been celebrated wildly in south Florida which has a large Cuban population.  The guy was a piece of shit without a doubt.

The Eagles play the Packers tonight.  I have no idea which team will show up, the one that dismantled the Steelers or the team that looked so overmatched against the Seahawks.

So yesterday was Prime Day, a self serving event that Amazon invented a year or two ago as an excuse to have a large sale.  Early in the day Cindy and I took advantage of the combination of Prime Day pricing and an Amazon Echo voice ordering spiff to get a second Fire TV stick for 15 bucks.  However later in the day a much larger purchase occurred.

When the hoverboard craze hit last year I thought they were pretty cool however I never jumped on board, no pun intended.  In retrospect I was relieved I didn’t as the stories of shoddy workmanship as well as reports of the boards catching on fire when their lithium batteries burst into flame surfaced.  They were yet another example of a long list of sub-par Chinese products.

Well when I was browsing Prime Day deals I stumbled across the Segway miniPro.  First I was surprised to see the Segway name on a new product.  I had thought they went out of business years ago.  When I did some brief research on Segway I found that the company was actually sold a couple times, the last time to a Chinese company named Ninebot.  Of course seeing it’s Chinese ownership did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling however I saw that Ninebot sort of has followed the Lenovo blueprint.

Lenovo is a Chinese company that took over the IBM PC business.  They have managed to maintain a high quality product over the years.  I have actually owned a few Lenovo PC’s.  Ninebot has the reputation of doing much the same, building high quality, well engineered products instead of the typical knock off Chinese junk.

The miniPro has been available in other markets for a few months but only has been released in the US recently.  It is somewhat similar to hoverboards in appearance but there are a lot of differences when you look closer.  The base specs of the unit are impressive being able to support riders weighing up to 220 pounds.  It has a maximum range of 14-15 miles and has a maximum speed of 10 mph which is way faster than I could run for anything beyond short bursts.

The steering of the Segway differs greatly from hoverboards as well.  You still go forward and backward by adjusting your weight in either direction but the steering is not done with the feet.  Instead you use the thing that looks like a seat which is positioned between your legs.  By applying slight pressure you control left and right turns.  All the reviews I saw of the Segway indicated it felt like a superior control method to the foot pressure other hoverboards utilize.

Instead of the solid, unforgiving tires that other hoverboards use that cause traversing anything other than smooth sidewalk a bone jarring experience, the Segway has rubber pneumatic tires which absorb bumps much better.  I saw a video of a guy off roading on a trail with the miniPro and having very little difficulty doing so. It was pretty impressive.

The Segway has some other flashy features like Bluetooth integrated with a phone app that gives you lots of information about your rides as well as a bizarre remote control mode.  The miniPro can be driven around without a rider by a phone, having no issue keeping itself upright.  It also has very cool LED lighting and a status panel that lets you know exactly how much juice you have left in the battery.  Unlike the cheap boards, the Segway is UL certified and has a higher end battery charging system that will not potentially ignite the battery if left plugged in for too long.  You can completely charge the unit in four hours. Ninebot actually has some bigger plans for the platform, demonstrating a “robot” add in that utilizes the miniPro as it’s base at the most recent CES.

So anyway, enough of the sale pitch. The whole reason I did all of this investigation was because Amazon had them on special for Prime Day for over 40% off what they normally list for.  Now if I did a logical analysis of my need for something like this the end result would of course be no, I do not.  However being an adult approaching 50 with no kids I have more disposable income than my child bearing counterparts so I decided to bite the bullet.  I only did so once I got Cindy’s enthusiastic approval for the idea.  It will be fun, plain and simple.

I also noticed that there is rather gaping black hole of US based real world YouTube videos with the Segway miniPro.  I hope to help fill that void in the near future.

Yesterday Bernie officially endorsed Hilary for the democratic presidential nomination.  Within milliseconds the criticism started rolling in.  Of course I thought this was ludicrous if anyone took a moment to look at his options.  If Bernie decided to run as a thrid party candidate he would probably do better than any other third party candidate in history, but still lose. The end result of his run would be siphoning off mostly HRC voters which would surely make a Trump presidency a reality.  Even if he simply withheld his official endorsement out of principal, once again all it does is give Trump more opportunity to succeed which the majority of the country clearly does not want.  To me it is Bernie being a realist and sacrificing himself up for the greater good.  In my opinion this election is clearly a “who is less bad” scenario which is sad and depressing but it’s the choice we will be given.

Regardless, for people to take shots at Bernie, who may be the most honest and committed presidential candidate I have seen in my lifetime, is low class and serves no useful purpose.

I took a picture of the new solar lights I bought from Costco.  I told you they were cool.

Last night after work I had a number of packages to open that arrived.  Two of them were used in two “how to” videos I shot later.

One item was a fresh set of batteries for one of my Neatos.  Installing batteries in a Neato is a pretty simple and straightforward process hardly needing an instructional video.  Regardless, I saw it as an opportunity to suck dollars into my AdSense empire so I  recorded it.

The other item I bought was a special adapter to allow me to balance the props on my DJI Phantom.  The props on the new Phanton have an integrated hub which allow for very easy prop installation.  Unfortunately their design also makes them not fit on my Dubro prop balancer.  The lack of a center hole is the issue.

The adapter screws into the prop, eliminating the problem.  Balancing a prop is a pretty simple procedure.  After mounting it on the balancer you turn the prop so it is sideways.  If it is balanced it will hang in that position.  If it is not it will fall to whichever side is slightly heavy.

You then take some fine grit sandpaper and sand the back of the heavy side, removing small amounts of material.  You check balance and repeat the process until you can get the prop to hang.

The reason it is good to balance your props is because of vibration.  The less balance, the more vibration.  When you are using an aircraft to do stuff like shoot aerial video you want as little vibration as possible.

After balancing all four props I threw my GoPro on the copter and shot some test video.  To be honest I couldn’t really tell a difference although it was quite breezy outside, making stable flight tough anyway.  More rigid carbon fiber props are another recommendation to get the shakes out.  I may grab a set of them as well to test them out. Here is the prop balance video.

GAME OF THRONES SPOILER ALERT

Last night Cindy and I watched the most recent episode of Game of Thrones.  It was quite shocking, unexpected, yet very, very satisfying.  That little, annoying, evil, smarmy kid king died of poisoning.  Even though there are tons of hate-able characters on the show, Geoffrey was easily on the top of my “must die” list.  His actions from day one have been nothing but despicable.  The actor that portrays him deserves kudos for doing such a good job playing such a bad role.

So in less than an hour I have my court date to finalize the divorce.  It sort of feels like having a dentist appointment looming on the calendar to have cavities drilled, without novacaine.  Yes this is going to suck but it will be a relief when it is over.

Even with keeping my blog updated during my at home training week it feels like I have a lot of things to cover, without even discussing what it feels like to be officially divorcing the person you spent well over a third of your life with.  Perhaps I’ll try to describe that in the future.

On Friday, training got done early which gave me time to get a nice head start on my weekend.  I did a grocery run which included a Trader Joe’s and Sam’s Club stop.  I actually got out in the morning before class and got my Publix shopping out of the way.  Yes, it is awesome not starting your work day until 10AM.

On Friday I received the new Bar-barian bracelets that I ordered as prizes for the forum challenge.  Last year I received some from the NYC guys to hand out as prizes.  I wore them myself as well.  Unfortunately I have gone through two of them at this point.  The bands had the text printed on them and unfortunately time washed that text away eventually.  At this point they just look like a plain black and white band.

The bands I bought are laser cut, meaning they may get dirty and beat up but they should remain readable indefinitely.  Of course I outfitted myself with one for field testing.  🙂

The water level on the property actually dropped enough on Friday that the trenches out by the road dried up  enough to mow down the 2 foot high trashy looking grass that filled it.  I was glad I got to it when I did, it rained cats and dogs later, once again filling the trench.

When I was doing my grocery shopping I grabbed a new dog bed for Nicki, a Serta no less.  It claimed to be very soft, comfortable and therapeutic for older dogs with joint problems.

I know Nicki will be suspicious of it and hesitant to use the new bed as she is hesitant about most anything new, but hopefully it makes her nap times just a little bit more enjoyable.

Unfortunately over the weekend Ali told me that whatever urinary issues Nicki has seem to have has returned, despite two weeks of antibiotics that we thought knocked it out.

On Saturday I kept myself very busy.  I changed the oil in the Tacoma and made a YT video out of the process, perhaps helping oil change first timers down the road.  Of course as in most of my videos, there were several lol moments involved.

I also hung a new floodlight out front, replacing the conventional motion detector unit that died recently.  The replacement was also bought at Sam’s Club and it was pretty cheap, something like $40.

The new unit isn’t so much a floodlight as a security tool.  It’s 4 ultrabright LED’s are motorized.  If the light detects motion it locks onto it and tracks it.  So the light shoots on and then follows you up the driveway.

It also has a constantly blinking LED that makes it appear to be a security camera as well.  Installation required some McGyvering.  The mounting screws they included were too long so I grabbed some shorter ones at the nearby hardware store.

Then, the screws I bought had too large of a head to fit in the narrow slot the base provided.  I remedied this via a big ass drill bit, boring the opening until it was big enough.  My unconventional installation yielded conventional results.  The new light worked as planned. Even during the daytime it is in action, tracking movement.  It doesn’t flash on the lights when the sun is out but is cool still the same.

Saturday afternoon I also mowed the property, going around the areas that were still submerged from the heavy rain.

Over the weekend I got turned on to a new type vehicle that they are trying to push into production sometime in 2014, utilizing a former GM production plant.  It is called an Elio.

The Elio is an American made trike vehicle 1+1 layout with two front wheels and one in the rear.  There is a second seat behind the driver seat.  The long narrow configuration helps contribute to it’s impressive gas mileage numbers, 84 mpg on the highway and about 50 mpg in city driving.

The engine that pulls the vehicle around is a small, 3 cylinder, fuel injected 70 hp configuration. (anyone remember a Geo Metro?) Despite the small motor, the light weight and aerodynamic shape allows the Elio to get up to 100 mph with 0-60 times of right around 10 seconds, not awful at all.

Overall I like the look of the Elio. the Plymouth Prowler naked front suspension looks cool.  The overall aerodynamic shape is pleasing to the eye.  Supposedly the interior is designed to fit 95% of the population, even 6′ 3″ storks like myself.  The interior also includes standard amenities like power windows, power locks, AC and a radio, nice.

Despite it’s small size, supposedly they expect the Elio to receive a 5 star safety rating with it’s standard 3 air bags, energy absorbing crumple zones and a cage designed to protect the occupant(s) surprisingly well in a collision.

Oh did I mention that the projected price of the Elio is only $6800?

Yes that is not a misprint, $6800.  At that price point I could buy an Elio and literally pay for it with gas savings as it would make a perfect commuter vehicle for someone like me that logs close to 50 miles per day back and forth to work.

So of course, there is some fine print.  The Elio, despite securing a potential manufacturing facility is not yet in production.  Their current timetable is a late 2014 production launch.  They are taking “reservations” for the car online.  Basically they have different reservation amounts, $100, $500, and $1000.  Basically the higher your reservation amount, the sooner you will get your new Elio. (reservation amount comes off the price of course)

Despite all of this potential goodness, as of now, there is no guarantee that Elio will get off the ground, it’s a very difficult thing to enter the automotive market.   Plus if the Elio does make it to production, we have no way of knowing just how good they will actually be.  If their build quality and reliability are Yugo-like, no matter what their price is, it won’t be very successful.

So although it would be intriguing for me to slap down a $100 reservation, I instead am just going to be waiting and seeing.  If the Elio actually does make it all the way to production I will seriously be considering squeezing one in the garage next to the SSR in a year or two.

On Saturday night I went to see Elysium.  I had some high expectations for the flick since it had some big names like Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in it.  The premise of the movie seemed intriguing as well, the ultra-rich build their own orbiting space station paradise while the common people are left on a decimated planet Earth to struggle to exist.

Without getting into too much detail, I just found the movie disappointing and weak.  It just didn’t grab me like I expected it to and I thought Jodie Foster’s role was really lame.  I can only give it a B.

On Sunday I did another brick, a brick made more brutal by the blazing sun and high humidity.  It was a 17 mile bike ride, followed by a 1.25 mile run, 1200 yards of swimming, and then another short .6 mile run.  The circuit was made more difficult by the backpack I was carrying for the ride and run segments of the training.  Cindy and I were thoroughly beat by the end of it.  It was so damn hot and humid.

One thing the hot sun is good for is evaporating water.  By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around I was able to hop back on the tractor and take care of the spots I missed the day before due to standing water.  Since I weed whacked a few days prior, as a whole the landscape was looking pretty good for mid-August.

Sunday afternoon I also headed back outside with my flying wing.  I was a bit more daring this time out, despite some gusty cross winds.  Well, it cost me.

I was having a good time, looping, climbing and rolling at full throttle.  I brought the wing into a steep dive with the intention of pulling out of it maybe 50 feet above the ground.

Well as the ground was approaching I wasn’t being as attentive on the stick as I should have been.  A cross wind tipped the wing one way and by the time I realized it the wing had smashed into the ground nose first at probably 60 mph plus.  I knew it was going to be bad…

As I approached the wing I saw the motor mount lying on top of it.  As I got closer I knew the plane was history.  In addition to the broken mount the interior guts were torn out, the prop was broken and one of the servo mounts was destroyed.

I felt really bummed out and angry at myself for crashing the wing.  The plane was old and ready to be replaced, since it was probably damn close to 10 years old at this point.  However what made me sad was the plane was meticulously built by Mike, my former RC buddy that moved to Colorado.  I felt terrible destroying his handiwork via careless flying.

I wasted no time ordering an EPP foam wing to replace it, named the Tuff Wing.  My flying skills will put it’s name to the test for sure.  It’s supposed to be a 70MPH plane right out of the box.

I was also annoyed because I had just ordered two additional batteries for my old wing.  The new wing will utilize different battery packs.  I plan to try to get my old clunker Sky Scooter back in the sky with the new battery packs.

Sunday night I got to see Taken 2.  It was entertaining and action filled with bad guys getting what they deserve left and right.  I never would have pictured Liam Neisen as an action star years ago but in this role he excels. I’d give the film a B+, a very solid rental.

Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like I just had too many things on my plate.  In addition to the big project at work that has been consuming hours by the dozen I also had a number of running club items that I was working on simultaneously.  By the time I got home I just wished I could unwind by playing the Starcraft II expansion I bought last week, but instead I found myself still muddling around doing running club related work for a couple hours.  Finally, around 8:45 I was able to get into the game and at least play through one mission.

Complaining about having too many people requesting too many things of me really shouldn’t garner any sympathy as I have put myself in that situation.  Just stating it is enough of a pressure relief valve for now.  It sure would be nice to get away on a road trip where I could unplug from things for an extended period of time.

So on July 4th there was a guy at the race that shot awesome aerial video with his quadra-copter.  It pulled a couple of the RC enthusiast strings inside me that have been collecting dust for years.

Back in the early 2000’s I got pretty into RC planes.  I owned 5 or 6 of them and flew them on a very regular basis.  I had a buddy that lived nearby that was more into it than I was.  He and I would meet up to fly every week or two and enjoyed doing so.  Heck I had a whole section of my website dedicated to it.  Well Mike moved away to Colorado and once he did I found my interest in the hobby fading.  It has remained dormant for years despite two of my planes still residing in the hobby room.

Well over the weekend I was in Brookstone. I saw the Parrot AR Drone 2.0, a $300 “toy” quadracopter that has some very cool features like two integrated cameras, an altimeter, control via Iphone/Android app and two flying frames, one for indoors and one for the wild blue yonder.    Being out of the RC loop for years, I was quite impressed by the tech they built into the AR Drone 2.0.

I actually was considering buying one, thinking it would be sweet to get some aerial photography of my property and other venues although the AR Drone has a rather small control range of only 150 feet via it’s odd Wi-Fi control system.  The idea of getting one seemed even cooler when I saw there is a big variety of improvements/mods available for the copter.

As I was watching YouTube videos of the AR Drone, I stumbled across another quadra copter, the DJI Phantom. (this is what the race video was shot with)  I did a little digging and quickly realized the Phantom is no toy, it is a rugged, powerful unit with much more lifting power, durability and safe guards.  The Phantom has an integrated GPS which allows the copter to automatically come back to the spot where it took off and land without the pilot having to touch a single control.

The Phantom has 10 times the range of the AR Drone utilizing a more conventional RC radio system, allowing you traverse 1500 feet high and still be in control of things.

On the downside the Phantom is significantly more expensive. It does not include an integrated camera although it does include a GoPro compatible mount to capture video of significantly higher quality than the AR Drone.

So anyway, I think if I would jump back in to the hobby I would do so with the Phantom.  The consensus seems to be that even though it is twice the price of the AR Drone it is about 10 times the copter in terms of quality, power and versatility.  Of course until I once again have disposable income, it will just reside on the back burner with several other items.

So the final interior room that is still the blah builders white, the hobby room, is getting painted finally.  This room has been the dumping ground for stuff that had no other good spot like race timing gear, RC plane paraphernalia, exercise equipment and other various junk.

I pulled most of the loose items out and split the pile between the guest bedroom and the great room.  As I pulled it out I saw lots of sorting that needed to be done.  There are a lot of Ali items in there as well as stuff that can be thrown out or recycled.

I didn’t bother to put much thought into the color for the room, opting for the same pleasant sandy shell color that is used in the main living space and master bedroom/bathroom.

When the room is put back together I plan to do some major rearranging and optimizing.  It should be a nice facelift.

The only painting that is left on my to do list is painting the walls of the garage.  I always had this dream that it would look sweet in Eagles Midnight Green with silver on the back wall. 🙂

This morning I did my first real world video of my robotoaster in action.  It is simply incredible.  Hold on to your seat.

I forgot to mention some other robot news in my household, my Neato is getting replaced.  I mentioned that I had battery runtime issues a little while back.  I was only getting 10-15 minutes per run and was occasionally getting a “Please press OKAY to restart. Battery Issue (ooo2)” error.

I had a new battery set sent to me which I installed a couple weeks ago.  Well the new battery runtime has been steadily going downhill as well and the battery error has still been popping up randomly as well.  So I called Neato back and they told me they would send me a replacement unit, cool.

It’s too bad, up until the recent battery issue my XV-14 has been absolutely bullet proof. Doing it’s job well while requiring a fraction of the maintenance my Roomba army used to require.  The new bot should show up early next week.

So today one of my Obama hating friends asked me how I felt about Obama since the latest headline about Verizon phone records being collected by the NSA.  Of course my first reaction was to laugh out loud a little bit as I normally do when the “Blame Obama!” crowd attributes everything negative that happens in the government to Obama. They seem to believe he is directly involved in every email, text message, phone conversation and decision that is made within the geographic boundaries of Washington D.C.

Of course I think it is shitty that the government basically scrapes all communication that is made within the country and keeps it for safekeeping.  I read about the new underground mega-datacenter that was recently completed whose main purpose is to store, inspect and catalog mountains of communication, all in the name of keeping us “safe” thanks to those sweethearts at Homeland Security.  Yea that agency that was created by W along with the Patriot Act to protect us from “terror”, what a joke.

Do I think that Obama has stuck to his 2007 election promises that included protecting civil liberties? No, not really, but can you please give me a list of presidents that have delivered on the majority of their election promises?  I think you would be handing me a piece of blank paper.

If he is guilty of anything it is allowing the Homeland Security behemoth to keep rolling forward in it’s privacy smashing practices since it’s 9/11 era inception.  Does he have the power to dismantle the agency?  Theoretically yes, realistically no.

I really don’t understand the outrage or surprise with this story, to me it is old, old news.