Next Best Thing to Having an Expensive Hobby

Hand Launched Gliders (HLG) are so cool. Sometimes they have wings that are solid wood (balsa with a harder wood for a leading edge). Sometimes they are made with a bunch of "ribs" made of balsa glued to a leading and trailing edge and then covered with a tight tissue or mylar skin. There are HLG used for indoor events and outdoor events. The point of these events is to test your building skills and to see just how long these gliders will stay aloft. The first bit is about skill but the staying aloft has a lot to do with luck.

I found a bunch of places that sell kits. I also found places that sell tools, materials and plans. I had no idea there were so many cool little tools. One of the cool things I found is a razor plane called the David Combi Razor Plane. It's like the bigger hand planers for wood working but it's little and uses a razor to plane balsa or foam. I noticed that they are pretty popular for surfboard shapers as well. So cool.

I've built quite a few model airplanes. Most of them were plastic. however, I've done my share of balsa planes. Some were powered by rubber bands. The biggest were rope towed gliders that had wingspans over 6 feet. Both were cool for different reasons but they both lost my interest because one was too little thrill for the work and the other was too much work for the thrill. I think these HLGs might just be a good balance.

And, if I'm lucky, I can sever one of my fingers with an exacto knife like I almost did as a Cub Scout.

GF

Work Isn't So Bad

Just like the kissing scenes in The Princess Bride, I'm finding that if I can just get to the True Love part, I begin to see that work isn't so bad. I mean, I'd rather finish the story, knowing the good guys win and the Prince Humperdinks get their butts kicked with a lifetime of self-loathing. (I've been wanting to use "self-loathing" in a post.)

I just have to keep searching for Miracle Max. I'm sure he'll have the cloak and wheelbarrow I've been looking for. Besides, when work is really bad, I just have to keep in mind that I'm only mostly dead. Even a little head-jiggle should make me happy.

Test Questions

Why is the test for mononucleosis based on finding mono anti-bodies? Why isn't it based on something that will show up closer to the onset of illness?

The same question applies to Strep. Why can't we come up with test that's a bit more binary, earlier.

I guess what would really be cool is if we could predict ideal conditions for these ailments to happen and then prevent them.

Pay to Pray

Maybe if it were to cost money, we would do it more...

Pay to Play, Who Really Came up with Itunes?

I've, recently, been on a tune by tune music purchasing spree. I purchased two songs by Royksopp, a song by ms. john soda, a song by Klee, a song by Husky Rescue, a song by Lisa Loeb and a song by The Broken West.

It is always a pleasure to think about how much I relish not having to purchase entire albums and then hope my children won't turn into losers because of some offensive song in the collection.
I'm always open to the concept of using masking tape on album covers. Now, it's even possible to download a song to the Mac and edit it. But, all that work is so painful when you can just buy what you want and ignore the rest.

I want every reader to know that my wife came up with online dollar-a-song music purchasing fifteen years before it was a reality. We could have made millions if we had just done something about it. Note to self; listen to wife more often and then do something about it.

More about the individual tunes later.

Golden fleas

Running AND Thinking

Okay folks. The topic today is adventure racing. The Portland metro has a cool club called CROC. That stands for the Columbia River Orienteering Club. See http://www.croc.org/ for more details.

This is another local adventure racing site:
http://www.pdxadventureracer.com/

This event looks cool:
http://www.cascadeoc.org/Degrees/SixHome.html

Here's another site for a related club (Klubb) down south: http://www.forestrunner.com/orca/Club_Info/index.htm

Here's a group that does lots of stuff in Washington:
http://trioba.com/triobahome.html

Okay, back to CROC stuff:

The next event is in Antelope Oregon and is a long event called a mini-rogaine. I'm not sure what rogaine means but it sounds alot like the cure for baldness. So, I'll encourage you to restrict the laughter to a minimum and maybe have a moment of silence out of respect for those among us who have lost so much and have so little left.

Moving on... uhhem, here's a snippet from the CROC website that talks about the event:

6-hour mini-rogaine, Big Muddy Ranch near Antelope OR Apr 25 2009
This event will be a 6-hour mini-rogaine: Participants may visit as many control points as possible in any order they wish, but must make it back to the event center start/finish area within the 6 hour time limit. Points will be taken off for each minute over the time limit.

The control points are found using an Orienteering map and a compass. The participants are running (mostly) to track down proof they've visited as many control points as possible before the end of the allotted time. The race element of this event does not restrict old and young from participating. It's a very open event with a focus on choosing efficient routes and managing your energy and orienteering skills to get done as quickly as possible.

I'm a fan because I like orienteering but I'm also beginning to be a fan because I'm starting to like running a bit more. Especially trail running. This is definitely a thinking sport. It could be cool.

Internet Church

Today, I went to church and they had connected a projector to a laptop. It was broadcasting a concurrently occurring stake conference from another building.
It kept cutting out pieces of the talks, songs, and prayers, and only at the very end did a man decide to try to lower the quality of the video to speed up the connection.

Oh well. So much for tEchnoLoGY...