Archive → January, 2004
Flying and Sledding
We tried flying today, but at 20 degrees, the plane engine wouldn’t start:
I found some tips on how to fly in cold weather, so hopefully we’ll do better next time.
On our way out of Silvermine, I took Mechel sledding down the abandoned ski run while doing my best Howard Dean impersonation. You can either watch the video, or download it and then watch it.
Let there be (more) light!
I added a 55 watt light kit to my aquarium tonight. Here are before and after pictures. Both pictures are taken at 1/15th of a second at F2:
Before: Stock 36 watt (2 x 18w T-8 bulbs) lighting.
After: 36 watts + new 55 watt kit = 91 watts!
Rockin’ C++ routine o’ the day
Wow! strtoc! What a function!
Sunday is for the birds
I hooked up my digital camera to my little telescope using my SteadyPix adapter and took some bird pictures. Here’s a sample:
Breaking in the snowblower
We got about 6 inches of snow last night. This morning, I broke out our new snowblower and got to work. It took about an hour to clear our 300 foot long driveway.
After that, I drove the snowblower up to our walkway and blew some snow onto the window for Trish and Mechel:
Shortly after that I ran over the power cord for the walkway lights. It cut the cord, and tore the connector out of one of the lamps. Tonight I fixed the cord, but that lamp is still broken.
No wonder I like cycling!
Read this article.
Come fly the friendly skies
We took the plane out today, despite the 20 degree weather. The first flight was in pretty high wind and ended badly – I had to replace the propeller and spinner. On the last flight, we discovered that the plane will actually take off from the ground, and does not have to be thrown – probably due to the wheel I added to the back of the plane.
Anyway, the last flight went pretty well until I got a little too close to the trees. A 1000 x 1000 foot field isn’t all that big when you’re going 30 miles an hour! If you like, you can watch the video, or download it and watch it later.
As you’ll hear in the video, the engine noise made Mechel upset. He also cried when the plane crashed. Its OK Mechel!
I realized I was in trouble when I saw the left wing go behind a tree branch (below). I tightened up the turn, but I was too far into the trees and hit another tree 25 frames (0.8 seconds) later.
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Living up to it’s name, the DuraPlane survived the 40 foot fall unscathed.
Mechel helped me clean up the plane and posed with me for a victory shot:
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I’m looking forward to next Sunday!
Saw the ISS
When I went out to the car yesterday at 6:30am, I saw a bright object moving across the northern sky. It years past it could have been the Shuttle or Mir, but nowadays it had to be the International Space Station. Using NASA’s J-Pass webpage, I verified it was the ISS:
We’re in the Eruv!
I spent a good part of today getting our house in the New Hempstead Eruv. It took a few hours and several 16 foot high poles to get the job done:
Now friends with infants who can’t walk yet can come over for lunch on Shabbos.
Flying in Harriman State Park
Today, we took my Duraplane 20 Trainer up to Harriman State Park. I joined the Interstate Model Flying Club and the AMA, which allows me to fly my plane at the abandoned parking lot at Silvermine lake (formerly overflow parking for the Silvermine Ski Area, which was closed in the 1980s.) As you can see from the width of the road, the lot is roughly 1000 feet by 1000 feet:
It was raining quite a bit, but I really wanted to fly, so we gave it a shot anyway. Mechel helped me prep the model before we started. We brought along the controller for his radio controlled car so he could pretend to control the plane:
I throttled up to 100%, and Trish gave the plane a toss. I throttled down too soon, though, lost airspeed, and crash-landed (The plane was never more than 20 feet off the ground). The elevator came off, and I broke the propeller, but otherwise the plane is fine:
Even though I only got to fly for 10 seconds or so, it was fun. It will take a while to get back to where I was in 2000, able to do loops and such.
On the way back to the van, we spotted some berries dripping with water:
Can’t wait for next Sunday!