What I Think (as if you give a damn)

After A Year And A WHOLE Lot Of Wrenching . . .

2011-04-04T12:31:00.001-06:00

Just In Case Anyone's Wondering Where I've Been . . .

2010-11-20T16:37:00.003-07:00

Been busy turning this:

Into this:

No, I'm not dead, not by a long shot. ;)

Peace.

And Happy Holidays.

Still Kicking . . . Just Not With The Left Foot

2009-06-08T23:33:00.005-06:00

Seems that when mowing one's lawn on a steep downhill slope, it's a wise idea to not allow yourself to slide down said downhill slope. The reason? There's a good chance that one or both of your feet could wind up in great peril at the hands of the rapidly rotating sharp thing located under your lawn mower. I know this first hand.

Word to the wise: Don't try to trim your toenails with a lawn mower, they tend to be a bit aggressive about it.

Basically, my wife got to to spend Mother's Day at the Emergency Room, I got to be tortured by a crew of sadistic medical "professionals" in a manner that would get government officials indicted had it happened at Guantanamo, and I got a three week vacation from work. I'm walking again now, wearing shoes, and didn't lob off anything that won't likely grow back. I was EXTREMELY lucky, and it's a mistake I won't make twice.

Enough of this nonsense, here's some model airplane pics. Seems I've had plenty of time to work on projects over the last few weeks.

The Slope Monkey flies! OK, it glides, but it's going to be a blast on the slope either way. My sore foot hasn't been too comfy with the idea of hiking to the top of any hills yet however, so Dick was nice enough to hall her aloft for a couple of test flights atop his venerable Telemaster.

Here's part of my almost completed Mini Telemaster, a scaled down version of Dicks famed glider hauler. I'm doing several mods on this kit, in the form of a magnetic battery hatch, ailerons, drastically reduced wing dihedral, and a modern outrunner motor. Stay tuned for more updates. I didn't get it quite finished during my healing process, but it's entirely framed up now, just waiting for finishing touches and it'll be ready to cover.

Here's a plane that's so darn cute, I couldn't resist building one. The Micro Stick from Radical RC. This is a kit built plane, no ARF available to the best of my knowledge, but thanks to Dave Thacker's expert design skills, and the quality laser cutting of this kit, it goes together faster than most ARFs I've built. Basically, if you can put together a jigsaw puzzle, you can build this airplane in short order, and best of all, you get to cover it however you want. The little mosquito not only actually flies, but actually flies quite well. If you can handle a Mugi Evo, you can handle this little guy no problem.

Just a little parting shot to show the diversity available to the model aircraft enthusiast. Everything from the Micro Stick, to Crashis Clay's 46% Extra 260, is available for your flying or spectating pleasure at a model flying field near you. Be sure to stop by the Billings Flying Mustangs field on June 19, 20, and 21 for our annual fly in. There will be 3 days of nonstop flying action with not only these two planes, but everything in between, good food, good friends, night flying, free camping, hot chicks . . . you name it, we got it! Stop by and say hello if you get the chance, you won't regret it. Full details on the 'Mustang's site.

Mugi Tea Racer: Another Hit From Across The Pond!

2009-04-11T16:29:00.003-06:00

The Tea Racer has flown! Numerous flight tests this morning concluded however that I have too much positive incidence in the wing. Apparently I didn't cut the wing saddle out deep enough, however this is easily remedied by simply cutting it deeper. Now I just hope I can find the template that I made so I can keep the shape right.

On the first takeoff it appeared that the plane was tail heavy, even though I had purposely balanced it a bit nose heavy for the initial flight. It lifted off the ground by itself long before I was ready, then porpoised badly all the way back around to a rather disgusting but thankfully damage free landing. I moved the battery farther and farther forward on subsequent flights until the thing was so nose heavy that it would barely set on the landing gear without nosing over, still no joy.

I then greatly reduced the elevator throw and programmed in a ton of exponential, still it was extremely sensitive on the pitch axis. A closer look revealed that I had a ton of down trim in an attempt to attain level flight, even though the plane was now obviously nose heavy. This is a dead giveaway for excessive wing incidence. Also the plane would tend to want to climb more and more as speed was increased, which is another dead giveaway.

It did however, accelerate dead straight with no pitching tendencies on throttle application, so the thrust angle must be in pretty good shape. Also, even though the wing was running far too high of an angle of attack, the venerable Tea Racer showed absolutely NO tip stalling tendencies at low speed, which is truly amazing for a plane this small. This, coupled with the fact that even though this plane feels a bit heavy for its size it glides FOREVER, is a testament to Morgan's design ability.

When I get the wing incidence right, this thing is going to be an absolute JOY to fly. It already shows potential far beyond several factory made planes that I own with no doubt MUCH more money poured into their R and D. The takeoff run was basically uneventful, with only a tiny application of right rudder necessary to maintain a straight track, and once again, even with the incidence issues I can tell that this plane will practically land itself once it's flying the way it's supposed to. So far I'm impressed, and I can't wait to fly it once the wing is pointing where it's supposed to be.

Oh yeah, did I mention that it's FAST! I couldn't really open it up for obvious reasons, but I did manage one or two high speed passes with a victory roll or two thrown in for good measure. It's not called a Tea RACER for nothing! This thing is going to be a blast, and judging by the interest it generated at the field, I won't be the only person around here flying one for long.

So overall, my opinion of the Tea Racer at this point is pretty high. The incidence issue is my mistake, not a flaw in the design, and hopefully I'll be able to measure the actual incidence when I get it figured out so I can post it here as well as on the Mugi Forum. Even so, there are many variables when folding a Coroplast wing, so your mileage may vary.

The tailwheel? It performed flawlessly, no ground handling issues whatsoever unless you count the nose over tendency the plane had with the battery crammed too far forward. My main gear mounting methods are subject to review however. It seems that the hardwood blocks I used to secure the gear should've been anchored somehow to the wing spar for added stiffness. I'll revise that on version 2.0 and see if I can't come up with something better. For now they're getting some glue shot under them so the testing can resume.

What are you doing reading this? Get your butt busy and build a Tea Racer, you'll be glad you did!

Tea Racer Tailwheels and Monkeys From Wyoming

2009-04-10T23:05:00.004-06:00

I mentioned in my last post that my current project is the Slope Monkey from Wyoming Wind Works. Thanks to my friend Mark for turning me on to this little gem. Considering he's the same guy that turned me on to the Mugi, I really should start listening to this guy a little more methinks. Basically, it's a non powered slope glider made of hot wire cut EPP foam with a balsa tail assembly and ailerons. As a testament to Adam and the gang at Wyoming Wind Works however, I won't be doing a build thread on this bird at all. The reason being that the included instruction manual is THAT GOOD! It truly leaves nothing to be desired. Follow Adam's instructions and this plane will virtually fly off of your build table. This is coming from someone who has never worked with EPP before. If you have some EPP experience, you could practically build it without the manual. This thing is truly a piece of cake, and should make a great sloper when it's done. Slope flying sites around here tend to be a bit rocky and treacherous, so a durable plane made of either EPP or Coroplast is basically a necessity if you don't like packing home chunks of busted equipment every time you fly. I think my little 'Monkey will fit the bill nicely when it's finished. All that's left is to cover it, and of course I'll post pics when it's done. Wyoming Wind Works has some other interesting projects in the works as well, so go check them out. Personally, I'm a bit stoked about the Orangutan, (larger version of the Slope Monkey), however Mark and I have decided it should be called the "Grade Ape". I'll be watching for a special on a roll or two of purple Ultracote just in case.

I decided to go ahead and add a tailwheel to my Tea Racer. Why? Cuz it looks cool that's why, and because I get annoyed by planes with crappy ground handling. Tailwheels don't add much weight, and they definitely improve ground handling, so why not? Here's how it's done.

First of all, there's an easy way, and there's a hard way. I did it the hard way, simply because I couldn't find one damn elusive wheel collar in one of my many small parts boxes. Of course I found said wheel collar the next day after the deed was already done, but that's the story of my life so we won't go into that.

The first step, is to locate a length of music wire, doesn't really matter what size as long as it's capable of supporting the weight of the tail of the aircraft and is large enough to fit at least somewhat snugly into one of the flutes of a piece of 2mm Coroplast. It also helps if you happen to have a small wheel, and a wheel collar or two that isn't buried in the bottom of a box of little parts that will fit on said piece of music wire as well. The wire needs to be long enough to reach through the rudder fin and protrude out the bottom of the aircraft far enough to bend it, and attach the wheel. If it's a little short, no big deal, it only needs to be about halfway inside of the fin when you're done but if it's longer it'll be a lot easier to work with.

From the top of the aircraft, insert the wire into the frontmost flute of the rudder. You want it going through the part that moves, right behind the hinge. When you have it inserted, double check that the rudder is straight, then press it through the coroplast until it protrudes inside of the fuselage. DON'T press it all the way out the bottom at this time! Remove the wire, disconnect the rudder linkage if it's connected, and swing the rudder off to one side. When it's out of the way, enlarge the hole that you just made in the horizontal stabilizer enough so that the wire can swing with the arc of the rudder. I used a small phillips screwdriver and just pressed it through. Try not to get the hole too large or it'll look like crap.

After the hole is enlarged, reconnect the linkage and recenter the rudder. Place the wire back in the foremost flute of the rudder and press it down through the hole you just enlarged. Now look in through the hole in the back of the fuselage and see if the wire is pointing toward the center of the bottom of the fuselage. If it is, it will be aligned with the carbon rods you used to secure the fin. Also check that it's not colliding with your elevator linkage. When all is well, and you're sure it's straight, go ahead and press it on through the bottom of the fuse. DON'T enlarge the hole in the bottom of the fuselage.

Now, if you have an appropriately sized wheel collar, and you haven't lost it yet, place it on the wire that is protruding from the bottom of the aircraft. Slide it up to the bottom of the fuselage, and gently pull the wire downward until the upper end is about halfway through the rudder fin. Leave a little more if you want more strength or happen to need tail weight, just make sure the wire is inside the leading edge flute of the rudder where it can't be seen. The wheel collar will reside against the bottom of the fuselage acting as a thrust bearing so that the rudder fin itself is subjected to the shock exerted during rough landings. The collar will transfer said shock to the bottom of the fuselage instead.

When everything is situated, tighten the setscrew in the wheel collar, then bend the protruding wire into a typical tailwheel holder like shape, attach your wheel by whatever means you choose, and you're almost done. The only thing left is to attach the wire to the rudder so that your new tailwheel is steerable. Simply look at the plane from the rear and ensure that both the wheel and the rudder are straight, then drip a few drops of thin CA down the flute with the wire in it. I find that when securing things inside Coroplast in this matter it helps to gently squeeze the coroplast against the wire or carbon rod inside. It seems to set the glue faster and provides a stronger bond. Let the glue cure and voila, you have a tailwheel.

Or, you can do it the way I did. I couldn't find the right size wheel collar, but I did happen to have a Dubro Micro Tailwheel kit handy. Either way, you're Tea Racer is bound to taxi a lot better. With a little luck, I'll know tomorrow morning how it effects the takeoff run.

Also, Morgan has placed a discussion forum on the Mugi site. It's not going full steam just yet as it's rather new, but it will no doubt soon be filled with a wealth of information regarding Mugi aircraft. Go check it out and don't be afraid to contribute if you have something other Mugi flyers may find useful.

Until next time . . . . . .

Yet Another Project Finished

2009-03-29T15:38:00.004-06:00

It's been long awaited, it's been anticipated, it's been languishing on my list of "to do" projects long enough, and it's finally ready for a test flight. That's right folks, the Tea Racer is finished! Here's a few pics of the last build steps outlining some of the deviations I made from the plans.

This pic shows the aileron servo installation. Getting the servo and the linkages to clear the battery, as well as the other servos and their respective linkages was a bit of a trick, but luckily it appears that all will be well. I can't say that I'd recommend going the torque tube linkage route on your Tea Racer, but if you want to this shows that it can indeed be done. About halfway through I was starting to wonder if the mod was worth the effort, but I do think it contributes a cleaner look, and probably shaved a tiny bit of weight by eliminating one servo.

Here's a pic of all of the gear, minus the battery, and how it's laid out in the fuselage and wing. The empty servo lead protruding from under the white velcro square is the extension into which the aileron servo connects. The receiver is attached to the bottom of the fuselage right behind the wing opening. You can see the bundle of wires leading back to it although the receiver itself is out of sight. The battery attaches to the velcro strip barely visible at the top of the pic. No additional straps should be necessary, as with the wing installed on the aircraft it's sandwiched pretty good between the wing and the inner fuselage plate. This should be sufficient to keep the battery from detaching from the velcro on the wing. I attached my battery to the wing attachment tongue according to the plans, and found that the CG is correct with the battery even with the front of the tongue. Your results may vary, but there's a fair bit of room to move the battery, as well as the ESC, around in order to get the balance where you need it.

My insistance on using a single aileron servo limited me somewhat in this respect, but a good CG was still easily attained although I was forced to install the ESC in a manner in which it will be in constant contact with the battery. I don't particularly like this for reasons of cooling, but there isn't really another option due to the fact that I can't move the battery back any farther without hitting the aileron servo, and moving the ESC forward is limited by not only the length of the wires, but also the fact that my CG would then come out nose heavy. We'll see how this works, hopefully it isn't a problem, but I already have an idea of how to correct it if it is.

Also, my original hunch involving keeping the aileron linkages close together at the center of the wing paid off. They JUST clear the linkages from the rudder and elevator servos, as well as everything else.

Here is the landing gear. I think I showed earlier in the build where I attached two hardwood blocks to the bottom surface of the wing with 30 minute epoxy, just in front of the wing spar. This what the landing gear attaches to, and between the two screws, and the fact that the wire sinks into the coroplast rather nicely, the gear seems quite secure. The wheels were just some that I had laying around, nothing special, and the landing gear itself was salvaged from the wreckage of my P38 Lightning and modified to fit this application. The largest prop this thing is likely to see is a 4.75X4.75, so it doesn't need very tall gear for ground clearance. I kept them as short as possible for weight/drag reduction purposes. I haven't decided if I'm going to add a tailwheel yet, but if I do, I already have the plan figured out. I might fly it first and see about the ground handling, then make up my mind from there.

Here's the method I used to attach my wing, it varies slightly from the plans. Two hardwood blocks sandwiched together, and attached with 30 minute epoxy. A hole was drilled into the center, and threads cut into the hardwood to accept the #10 nylon wing bolt. Be sure to harden the threads with thin CA to prevent them from stripping.

When you thread your wing attachment block, run the tap THROUGH the mounting hole in the wing. Not only will it cut a better thread because the tap isn't wobbling around, but it insures that your threads will be aligned with the hole in the wing. Will save you a lot of time fiddling around trying to line up your wing bolt. Mine practically falls right to where it needs to be.

This pic shows my simple motor installation method. The motor mounting system outlined in the plans works famously, however it's a bit of a bugger to get the motor inserted in the front of the aircraft with the velcro in place. I simply wrapped my motor in a bit of heavy, clear plastic, inserted it into the nose, then carefully slid the plastic out from around the motor allowing the velcro to take hold. I tried a few different materials, including heavy paper, as well as a hunk of "bleach bottle" plastic, but this method seemed to work the best.

Here's the finished motor installation. Be sure to attach the wires from the ESC before installing the motor, and check the direction of rotation unless your motor has a lot longer wires than mine. Connecting them, or reversing the direction, would be impossible with my motor without removing it from the airframe.

And here she is folks, the finished Tea Racer! As I mentioned, there's a few loose ends I still want to tie up, as well as perhaps adding a bit more to the color scheme in the form of perhaps some yellow stripes on the fuselage, and some more black on the tail, but if the weather cleared up right now I COULD fly it in its current form. It's been a long time coming, but it's finally ready to go, and I can't wait to watch it accelerate down the runway and lift off, hopefully uneventfully.

Oh yeah, remember this bit of tangled wreckage that I bought oh so long ago?

This is what it looks like now. All of the crash damage has been repaired, as well as the addition of Futaba 9252 digital servos on the swashplate, a GY401 gyro with 9654 tail servo, Throttle Jockey Pro RPM limiter from Model Avionics with a Spektrum crank pin sensor, Spektrum AR7000 receiver, shiny new Mavrikk pipe from Heliproz, 600mm Mavrikk carbon fiber main blades also from Heliproz, a header tank, all new fuel lines, new carburetor for the OS .50 SX engine, as well as a new Sport canopy from Compass Model. Oh yeah, and stickers, can't forget the stickers. All it needs now is a receiver battery and regulator, and it's ready to take to the skies. I'm currently accepting donations for the purchase of the remaining parts. ;)

It's been a productive winter here at the Big J Aviation production facility, which will hopefully lead to an enjoyable summer of flying.

Next up: The Slope Monkey by Wyoming Wind Works. Stay tuned!

What I've Been Working On Lately

2009-02-12T10:49:00.003-07:00

Been busy in the Big J Aviation Production Facility lately. I barely got to fly helis at all last summer. Hoping to remedy that this year. I have to get back to work now. 2 helis are done, 2 more to go. Peace.

The old reliable T-Rex 450, now new and improved with a shiny V2 carbon fiber frame. Just waiting on the speed control and it's ready to fly. Posing next to it is its new little brother, the recently released T-Rex 250. It's all done and ready to test fly this weekend if the weather holds.

Now it's time to start on the Compass Knight 50 and the Walkera 52.

The Most Important Question Of This Election

2008-10-05T12:04:00.004-06:00

Let's face it.

It needs to be asked.

It probably has.

But it hasn't been asked by me yet.

So here goes.

Who's Hotter?

Michelle Obama?

OR

Sarah Palin?

Whoever gets the most votes will be the proud recipient of the What I Think (as if you give a damn) 2008 Political MILF Award. Please leave political preference aside, this is strictly a vote for which one you'd most like to bang, not which one you'd most like to see in a position of power. Unless of course you happen to be one of those kinky submissive types. ;)

Is Anyone Taking Applications? I'd Like To Be An Economist.

2008-09-24T20:55:00.001-06:00

Catch the President's speech tonight?

Yeah, basically the president said what I've already been saying for years. The banks loaned a shitload of money to people that had no possible freaking way of paying it back, now it came around to bite them in the ass. Only trouble is, when banks get bit in the ass all at once, they drag the rest of us down with them.

I've been laughing for years at all of my friends that found it perfectly acceptable to spend 150 grand on a pile of sticks and eat macaroni and cheese for 30 fucking years so they could make their $1000 a month or better house payments, all the while thinking that it was perfectly normal and sane to do so and that they were making a wise investment. Idiots. The only reason there was a housing boom in the first place is because there were no shortage of mortgage lenders willing to loan astronomical amounts of money to people that had no business buying a house at all, let alone a house that cost 100K+. When the "value" of something is artificially inflated that's called a bubble. Bubbles tend to pop. Oops.

I've said all along that all it would take was a minor economic downturn to make these morons unable to pay their mortgages, causing a rash of foreclosures that would crash the lenders and drag the entire economy down with it.

How did I know this?

Am I a college educated economist?

Am I a corporate lackey warmonger douchebag that calls myself the president of the United States?

Fuck no, I'm a guy that's been in debt up to his ass before and realized just how small of an upset it takes to throw a person into total financial ruin when they cut things too close every month. When I was in that situation, I looked around me and almost everyone I knew would've killed to have the tiny little pittance of debt that I was wrangling with, they were in far far deeper than I was. Multiply that by a significant percentage of the population of the entire country, and the whole situation was a big fat ticking time bomb. Well news flash morons, the little red flag just popped out of the top of the box, and there's a word printed on it.

Looks like it's . . . . .

BANG!

Now hang onto your ass cuz it's gonna be one hell of a ride . . . . downhill all the way.

Lose money on your house?

Cry me a fucking river.

That tends to happen when you pay 5 times what something's worth dumbass. I don't feel sorry for you. I'm not losing any money on my house, because when you take into consideration what it cost me, it pays for itself every day. What I mean is, that the value of my house can stand on its own merits, it's not dependent on the up and down swings of any market per se. My house is worth every penny that I paid for it for the simple fact that it keeps my fat ass dry, gives me a place to sleep, gives me a place to store my shit, a place to take a shower, and a place to take a dump with the modern convenience of a flushable turd mill. The payment I make every month comes out to about a third or less of what it would cost me to rent something similar, so the way I look at it, even if the fucker burned down the day after it was payed for it still wouldn't owe me a dime. Sure it may not impress anyone but ask me if I care. It impresses me, my family's fine with it, and that's good enough in my little world. If I wanted to spend 150 grand just to impress someone, I'd buy a fucking Ferari. I couldn't afford it either but at least I'd still have a place to live when it got repopped. I'd have a damn sight more fun with it than you do primping your yard and planting begonias too.

I've lived in a car before dude and let me tell you, it sucks. I however had the luxury of being able to go back home to my parents' house when I'd had enough of it. Where are you gonna go when your house ain't yours any more? Taking into consideration that you probably owe twice what your car's worth if you're like most people, that'll probably be leaving via the repo man's tow truck too. Sucks to be you man. After you've had a few months to get your head out of the clouds and come back to reality though, I'll still be here in my low dollar trailer house NOT eating macaroni and cheese because I wasn't dim enough to betrothe my entire prospective income to a mortgage lender. If you can dig deep enough to find the humility necessary to drop down to my level, stop on by. I'll be glad to share what I've got, and after 30 years of macaroni and cheese, that steak and shrimp off of my barbecue will look mighty tasty.

Lose your ass in the stock market?

Sucks to be you.

It never ceases to amaze me that our good right wing gawd fearing friends will not hesitate to denounce the evils of gambling . . . . . . and then call their stock broker to make a trade. Whether you stuff your money in a Keno machine or the stock market, it's all the same. You're hoping to get something for nothing, take a risk and possibly get a return, it's all gambling and when you gamble, you usually lose. Gambling is always loaded toward the house, and if you think the stock market is any different than the sleaziest casino in Vegas, I've got some mighty freaky news for you my friends. The house will always make money, you however are not so situated. You wouldn't take your entire retirement savings to Lucky Lil's and plug it a Player's Choice would you? And if you did, would you be crying to the government to bail you out when you lost your ass? Would you expect them to actually do so? If you did, you'd fit into a special class of people. I call these people morons. Welcome to the club, would you like a Player's Rewards card?

At least at the casino you'd get a "free" beer or two for your sizeable donation and maybe some peanuts or something. In the stock market, you don't. You don't even get to hear all about the 70 year old chain smoker lady at the machine next to you and her agonizing battle with terminal hemorhoids. Or how her skanky crackhead granddaughter got busted for selling her ass to buy meth but got off with a warning because she blew 4 cops and a judge. Believe me, I've been there, I've seen it, and her skanky granddaughter is actually kinda hot if you can believe that. Better hurry up and hit it before her teeth fall out. Maybe if you're lucky your wife will catch you and divorce your ass. That way she can take your worthless fucking house before it gets repo'd.

All of this is so much more fun as a spectator sport. Peace all.

Red Bull Gives You Wings!

2008-07-10T13:21:00.002-06:00

Or at least I gave my Tea Racer wings. In this pic you can see the balsa ailerons fitted to the wing and ready to be covered and hinged. Actually they're covered now, but I've yet to get the hinges fitted and attach them to my super jammy whiz bang torque tube aileron linkages. Sorry I didn't get any pics of how that was accomplished, but there really isn't all that much to it. I simply hogged out a channel in the inside of the Coroplast, hogged out another channel in the corresponding location on the opposite side of the wing, epoxied the plastic bearing tube into the channel on one side, fitted and bent the torque rod linkage, cut holes for it to pass through in the top wing surface, then folded the wing as per the instructions.

I also epoxied two hardwood blocks in front of the wing spar at equal distances from the centerline of the wing for landing gear attachment points. I had originally intended to install retracts, but decided against it. This plane will only be using a 4 1/2 inch prop, so the landing gear won't need to be long enough to create much drag. I may fashion some aerodynamic fairings for the landing gear legs, but retracts would be more trouble/weight than they're worth methinks. Perhaps I'll include them on my next Tea Racer once I've got a bit more experience building and flying them.

The single aileron servo will mount to the center of the wing, inside the fuselage and out of sight. Zero drag for the breakneck speeds this thing will be attaining with the 3800kv powerplant in the foreground. Don't let my drawn out build of this plane discourage you. This thing virtually flies together once you get started. Mine is just taking a while to finish because I've had a lot of distractions. Everything you see here was constructed in only a few short hours of actual build time.

When this thing finally makes it to the flying field, there shouldn't be any confusion as to what aircraft it is, nor where it came from. Morgan was nice enough to send me a sheet of official Mugi Tea Racer decals, so this plane will be flying its colors proudly.

Everybody Likes A Little Tail . . . .

2008-06-05T09:27:00.004-06:00

And the Tea Racer now has one. A tail that is. A little more graphics work and it's on to the wing construction.

Morgan wasn't kidding when he said the structure gains a good bit of rigidity once the seams are taped. I could use this thing for a prybar if I wanted to.

I'll be adding more black to the tail surfaces before I'm done, mostly around the edges to seal the exposed flutes in the Coroplast for better aerodynamics. This pic shows the detailing that I've applied to the canopy for a slightly more realistic look. If a person wanted to, it would be a piece of cake to fashion a canopy for this plane from a clear plastic blister pack or a hunk of plastic soda bottle, then perhaps add a lightweight pilot figure to the cockpit.

Had to toss in one more pic . . . . . Just because this thing is SOOOOO damn sexy!

The wing is where I'm planning the majority of my deviations from the original plan, so it'll no doubt take a little longer than intended to build. Another beautiful thing about this design however, is that it would be a piece of cake to make more than one wing for this plane, each being suited to a different purpose. One with retractable landing gear for show and flying off of pavement perhaps. Another with no landing gear and a double layer on the bottom side for hand launching and belly landing on rough surfaces. Maybe another with some dihedral added and perhaps a bit more span for a more leisurely flying experience.

Stay tuned.

Progress

2008-05-31T00:16:00.002-06:00

The fuselage is almost done!

Here is the nearly finished fuselage ready for the seams to be taped. The instructions say that the fuselage is a bit flimsy until the joints are taped, but I'm actually quite impressed with how stiff it actually is. Sure it'll flex if I get a bit western with it, but I've yet to see a foamy that doesn't flex this much and then some. This is shaping up to be an extremely rigid airframe especially for a low cost, high durability design. It definitely beats the heck out of anything foam. Perhaps not quite as light, but far, far more durable.

Sitting in front of the fuselage is the canopy, which I've colored silver by applying some scraps of silver sign vinyl that I had laying around. I think it'll give it a nice "reflective glass" look in the air. The instructions say to attach the canopy before taping the joints, but I think I'm going to wait until afterwards. Not only does this give me the opportunity to tape the joints where they run underneath the canopy, but I can then tape the joints on the canopy itself more carefully, hopefully giving the appearance of actual cockpit bracing. I know, it's not a scale plane, but I'm silly about details like that.

I did however encounter my first "problem" with the design/plans/templates today. It seems that my nose upper cowl, buy the kit and then you'll know what that is, LOL, didn't fit quite right. There was an angled section at the rear of it that needed to be cut straight across instead of beveled. It was an easy fix, and didn't even require making a new part. Simply test fit it and it's easy to see where the existing part needs to be cut. One straight slice across the rear of the cowl piece and voila! Fits like a glove. If you mess up a little bit on the cutting don't sweat it, when you tape the joints it'll all be covered up anyway.

Other than that however, my plane has gone together exactly according to Morgan's plans. Especially if someone has built a Mugi Evo before, they should have no problems assembling the Tea Racer from what I've seen so far. The radio installation will be a little more complex on this model I think, but a lot of that is my own fault. I'll be installing "old school" torque tube aileron linkages with a single aileron servo on this plane. This will require me to use balsa strip for my ailerons instead of the Coroplast ailerons specified in the plans as I'll be requiring a bit more stiffness than Coroplast can afford. I might be able to get away with a double layer lamination of 2mm Coro, but I think balsa will be easier and I have no question about the stiffness. It will also require me to do a little more planning in order for the bearing tubes and aileron linkages to come out in the right places, but I think the advantages will be worth it. If a person wanted to keep it simple, dual aileron servos in a flaperon configuration would definitely be the way to go. I'm going for a cleaner look however, with no visible aileron linkages on the exterior of the wing, as well as a bit of weight savings only running one servo instead of two. Aerodynamically, the single servo setup is also a bit cleaner, with no exposed linkages to create drag.

Another reason for the single servo setup, is that I'm seriously considering retractable landing gear on this aircraft and that setup will add back all of the weight and then some that I'm saving by eliminating an aileron servo. I've never had a plane with retracts, I've always wanted one, and this design is simply BEGGING for them. Of course this complicates the build even more, but I glean just as much pleasure from building planes as I do from flying them. If you're in a hurry to get in the air, then I say hand launch, belly land, and enjoy your Tea Racer. When you build little airplanes for fun, the sky is literally . . . . . The limit.

Color Scheme?

2008-05-29T23:41:00.003-06:00

Now you don't suppose the Granville Brothers had anything to do with my choice of colors do you? The Tea Racer is supposed to be a tribute to the Golden Era race planes isn't it?

Stay Tuned.

Tea Racer Racing Toward The Flight Line

2008-05-28T23:06:00.002-06:00

In just a few short building sessions, the Tea Racer is starting to take some serious shape. It's almost recognizable as an airplane now, rather than a pile of Coroplast scraps like it was in my last photos. So far the most tedious and time consuming part of the build was cutting the "kit" from the various paper templates that Morgan provided me with. Other than that this thing has been virtually flying together.

I've built a few planes from paper template style plans, and although I haven't found a particularly good method of doing so yet, I think I performed one of my best efforts on this one. I found that taping the various pages of plans down on top of the sheet of Coroplast, then cutting the plans and the material at the same time with a fresh Olfa blade worked pretty good. I also employed the help of my trusty metal straightedge of course. If you can cut a perfectly straight line free hand then more power to you, but I drink far too much coffee for that feat. I long ago gave up measuring each individual piece for the Mugi Evo kit and cut myself some aluminum templates that cut build time about in half. I think a set of templates for this plane would have a similar effect on total build time, but the templates themselves would be considerably harder to make.

If you peer through the smoke from my trippy hippy incense burner, you can see the Tea Racer fuselage beginning to look like . . . well . . . . a fuselage. That's it pinned between the two gel cell batteries as the glue finishes drying overnight. Morgan suggests a large mug of Yorkshire Tea in the build instructions, but I've never quite been able to acquire a taste for tea, so I substitute incense instead. I find that burning incense while I build airplanes helps me acquire a true Zen oneness with the aircraft that I'm constructing.

OK, that's bullshit, actually it just helps cover up the stench from the contact cement.

Here's a little more of a closeup shot of the fuselage. The only deviation that I've made so far from Morgan's plans was to fit and mark the mid upper cowling before fitting and gluing the rear lower cowl. The instructions don't make mention of this, but I decided to do so anyway because I don't have that much faith in my Coroplast cutting skills to believe that everything would just magically fit. Turns out, that had I just lined everything up the way Morgan said to, it would've fit just fine, but having never built a Tea Racer before I figured it a good idea to be sure.

Another beautiful thing about the Tea Racer design is that as long as everything is straight, the edges of the various pieces don't exactly have to line up perfectly. Of course if the fuselage is built with a warp or a twist in it flight performance will suffer, but if there's a gap between some of the fuselage pieces, it'll get covered up later as all of the seams in the fuselage are taped at the end of the assembly process. This taping over of all of the joints is said to drastically stiffen the fuselage structure, and I see no reason why it wouldn't do just that. I actually intend to double tape mine, but sealing the joints with black vinyl stripe tape, then covering the flat sections with black sign vinyl. by using black Coroplast I've assured that any exposed edges won't look funny, but the vinyl over the top of the exposed surfaces will not only strengthen the airframe but give the outside a nice, shiny, painted metal look instead of the dull sheen of the Coroplast itself. Obviously the color scheme for this model is black and yellow, but the rest is a surprise. Stay tuned.

OK, that's bullshit, I haven't figured out what the rest of the color scheme is going to be yet, but I'll come up with something you can bet.

Next time: Finished fuselage, now what the hell am I going to do with the wings?

Anyone For A Spot Of Tea?

2008-05-26T21:15:00.005-06:00

Just in case you were wondering what's been keeping me so busy lately.

I've been filling up my airplane room of course. What's that? You're wondering what all of those coroplast pieces on my workbench are?

These Coroplast pieces?

Oh . . . . . THESE Coroplast pieces?

Only about a year overdue, but construction is finally underway.
Stay tuned.

Remember the Logo Contest?

2008-04-22T23:29:00.003-06:00

So anyway, I didn't exactly get an overwhelming response to my logo contest that I held way way back when I sort of tried to get back into blogging the time before the time before last or whenever the hell it was. So I did what I always do when I can't find anyone willing to do something for me so I don't have to. I sat my big ass down and figured out how to do it myself. Turns out that raster images aren't all that hard to make in Paint Shop Pro, nor is it all that hard to turn a photo into a 2, 3, or 4 color graphic if I just read the damn help files and quit trying to do it pixel by pixel like a moron. Snap a line, fill it with color, tweak a little here, tweak a little there and voila! Instant logo graphics! Whaddya think of these?

I did it all by myself.

Peace

What Did You Assholes Do To Rockstar Mommy?

2008-04-20T16:10:00.002-06:00

Rockstar Mommy is gone? When the fuck did that happen? A guy quits blogging for awhile and the whole damn world changes? Shit, no wonder I can't find any peace. I liked her site. Besides that, she's damn hot. What the hell will this world come to now? Now I'm scared to click the rest of my links. Who the hell is next? I can't do it , I just can't. One letdown is enough for today.

At any rate, RSM, just in case you happen to read this, thanks for all of the laughs. It was nice to read a blog that didn't have a damn thing to do with politics and war and hate for a change. Most of all, I'd like to thank you for turning me on . . . . . . hehehehe . . . . . . . . . not that way you pervy bastards . . . . . . . . . . to Sock Dreams. Guys, if there's a special lady, hell, even a not so special lady for that matter, on your gift list, you can't go wrong with Sock Dreams. Sock Dreams is your friend. Sock Dreams Gift Cards are really your friend. Go there, buy one, be loved. It really is that simple and socks don't die like flowers. Besides, who the hell likes a chick with cold feet? What the hell are you doing reading this? Go buy some socks damn it. Go on, get the hell out of here. You're still reading this? What the hell is wrong with you? You don't follow orders very well do you? Screw it, I'm gonna go buy some socks, you keep reading this all damn day if you want to.

Peace.

Let's vent a little shall we?

2008-04-19T23:38:00.002-06:00

This is the kind of shit I started this blog for. The days when I'm just plain pissed and need to make someone else miserable. Actually, it's more about making someone else laugh at how miserable I am . . . . . Because making people laugh makes me feel good. I like feeling good.

I'm forgetting how to make people laugh again and it sucks.

I'd like to start this rant with a public service message to Corporate America. Please Click Here.

Now that we've got that out of the way, are there any Mom and Pop companies out there that pay half decent wages that are looking for employees? . . . . . . . . . . . . ~crickets~

Yeah, that's what I thought. Too bad all of the Mom and Pop companies that pay a decent wage have been run out of business by . . . . . . . . . . . . Corporate America! Please Click Here.

I'm beginning to think that perhaps Lotto Winner would be a good career choice for me. It's not that I'm not willing to work, quite the contrary actually, I'm just sick and tired of my job taking up so much of my time and energy. See, like all things in the world that run on energy, I have a limited supply. However much is taken up by my gracious employer is just that much less that's available for the things that I truly care about: My wife, my family, my hobbies and interests, ect. I'm sick and tired of being told what a great job I have. Don't tell me fucker, SHOW ME . . . . . . . . I'm not seeing it . . . . . . . . Nope, not yet . . . . . . . . . Still nothing. Please Click Here. I can appreciate what you're doing, really I can, but your dream is not my dream, so quit trying to ram it down my throat. Respect is something that's earned, as is loyalty. You'll get neither from me by demanding it. You'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar my friend.

I don't blog about work, not specifics anyway. That's a rule I established way back when I started this ice cream stand, but the fact of the matter is that my current job is against everything that I stand for on a personal level. Maybe I'm being too much of a whiny assed little crybaby about it, but I fucking hate hypocrites, and right now I feel like I am one. See my dilemma?

Yep, the winds of change they are a blowin' methinks. Justin is getting a bad case of wanderlust again.

Once again: Corporate America. Please Click Here.

If you know me, don't read too far into this. I'm unhappy and venting, that's all. I don't need a Goddamn intervention and I sure as hell don't need Prozac. Large quantities of alcohol maybe, but not Prozac. Neither do I need any feel good phone calls, if you think that I do you obviously DO NOT know me or you'd know that I hate talking on telephones. What I need is a job. A job where I can do MY job, be left the fuck alone, and not have to worry about whether or not someone else is doing theirs. If my bills are paid and there's a few bucks left in my pocket at the end of the month that's a bonus, and better yet if I can still recognize my kids the next time I see them that's even better, and I don't work weekends. Don't even fucking ask. My family will take precedence over my job every time, no exceptions, so be prepared to take a back seat. I have a good work ethic, I know it, but if you push too hard, I push back.

One more time: Corporate America, Please Click Here.

Our dictionary entry for the day is: Cowboy

Definition: Arrogant fuck in a ten gallon hat.

If you don't like that, Please Click Here.

I'm getting to the point where I'm almost embarrassed to call myself a redneck anymore, because ignorant right wing douchebags are giving the rest of us a bad name. Ignorant Right Wing Douchebags: Please Click Here. And on a side note: The next ignorant right wing douchebag that starts talking to me like his way is the only way and since I'm within the boundaries of the sacred state of Montana and it's a given that I will simply nod my head with a hell yeah and a hallelujah to everything he says no matter how backward and fucking stupid it is might just get knocked the fuck out. Seriously. I'm sick of it. I don't give a shit if you think all the Mexicans should be lined up and shot, I don't care if you think all the gays should be lined up and shot, I don't give a fuck if you think there's only one God and you're his personal spokesperson, I don't really care if you think women should be barefoot and pregnant, and I don't give a flying fuck in a rolling donut if you think George W. Bush was sent by Gawd to assassinate all of them dirty sinners over there in the Middle East. If any of you fuckheads ever put forth the initiative to learn to read, you might want to study a bit before you bring your shit to my personal space. I'm a human being, and as such I have certain rights. If I'm talking about you, you know who you are. Back the fuck off.

Spout shit - watch for fist.

Also, quit sending me shit about putting God back in the schools. If you want God in the schools put God in your kids dipshit, they can take him with them wherever they go. All of you fucks are the same, you want God in the schools as long as it's YOUR God. When little Ahmed or Joey Goldstein or Yang Wong wants to worship their God in school then you cocksuckers will shit a rag baby with a bell on it. This isn't a Christian nation, it never was, but it damn sure isn't anymore. Fucking deal with it and quit sending me emails. I'm not going to forward them to anyone except the trash folder. The same goes for all of this In God We Trust shit, we don't trust in God, we trust in money. That's what drives this rat hole of a world that we live in, and no one gives a shit what phrase is printed at the top of the bills. Our capitalist friends will continue to kick ass and take names on Wall Street even if you printed the words to the Hokey Pokey across the top of a C-Note. They worship the metal, not the maker, and like it or not they call the shots.

Self proclaimed Christians: Please Click Here.

One of the main focal points of the teachings of your so called king was pacifism, yet the most violent acts in history have been perpetrated by your religion. Go figure. Your instruction manual says "Judge not lest ye be judged", yet you judge me. Please Click Here.

In all of my life I've known one or two so called Christians that were walking like they were talking. If you think you're one of them, you probably aren't because I'm sure there's something about modesty in that big black book of yours too. Please Click Here.

OK, I'm gone.

Peace.

There's a novel fucking idea.

Pics!

2008-01-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pics of the airplane room in its current state. Still need a work bench!

Fancy cabinets for all my junk!

Shelf brackets and foam pipe insulation make a keen airplane rack!

Still awfully cluttered, but getting better. Now if I only had a work bench!

All for now, more later.

Hello Dan

2008-01-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to say hello to my friend Dan in Pocatello. As you can see amigo, I have no problem with gun pics, LOL.

Don't worry Dan, the finger isn't for you! ;)

Hopefully I'll get the time/urge to get back into blogging soon. It's been a busy several months since my last post, and I'm just itching to tell everyone about it. The Big J Aviation Company has moved to a new headquarters, a new headquarters that had to be remodeled basically from the ground up, and that's not to mention all of the time it took to sort, clean, and move all of our shit. Some of it came with us, a lot of it went to the dump, and as a result we now have a lot more room. Thanks to the fact that this house is bigger, and our possessions are now lighter to the tune of about 5 dump loads in my old blue truck, the Big J Aviation Company now has a dedicated production facility that is no longer located on the dining room table.

Actually it's located on the floor of Big J's new airplane room.

Anybody got a 3' X 8' piece of counter top laying around that they're not using? I need a work bench!

I know I've been a bad blogger, but unfortunately there's only so many hours in a day. Here's a teaser pic of the new facility. I just wish I would've taken time out from all of the scrubbing, dump hauling, painting, screw driving, wood cutting, wire stringing, pipe fitting, and nail pounding and took some before pics, cuz the after pics are a long damn way from where we started. This room is a long damn way from where it was in this picture as a matter of fact, and anyone that reads this knows how much I hate home improvement. Turns out I don't mind it so much when I can work on a house I'm not living in yet.

More to come . . . . .

This Is A Test, Of The Blogger In Draft Video Upload System.

2007-06-29T16:34:00.000-06:00

Here's a quick aerial video of a double glider tow shot from the top of Dick's Telemaster Electro at the recent Billings Flying Mustangs fly in. In this video, we had one of Bob's gliders on top of the plane in the launcher, and Eric's big 100 inch Spirit tagging along behind by a 120 foot tow line. It's an awesome sight to behold, or at least it is if you're into doing different and interesting stuff with model airplanes. I know, the camera angle sucks, but it was the first time that we tried it so give me a break already. Now that the FlyCamOne is available in the United States, there's likely to be a few more of them showing up at the field, which will make multiple camera angles on the same flight possible. Imagine the possibilities!

Sorry I didn't get a lot of video from the Fly In. To be honest, there was just so much interesting stuff going on, that had I filmed it all it would've taken me a month just to edit everything down to a form in which it would've been presentable. Couple that to the fact that it would've required me to watch the whole show on a little 1 1/2 inch screen, and I just wasn't too excited about filming the entire thing. The Fly In was advertised all over the place, on TV and radio and otherwise, so I figured that if anyone wanted to see this stuff they were welcome to stop by and watch for themselves. If you're not from around here, just keep an eye on your local media for a Fly In near you. You can also check the calender of events at the AMA Website.

The Fly In featured some pretty cool demonstrations this year, probably the most popular of which was Clay's rocket plane. Basically, Clay took an Estes Centurion rocket powered glider, rigged it up with a remote igniter for the rocket engine, then we strapped it in the glider launcher on top of Dicks big Telemaster and took it for a ride. Dick would kick the thing loose at altitude, then Clay would glide it around for a bit until it started getting close to the ground. When he was just about out of steam, he'd make a low pass down the runway and fire the rocket, sending the little red bullet back skyward with a trail of rocket exhaust. Clay, being the first class showman that he is, would usually toss in a few vertical rolls as the plane blasted straight up at breakneck speed. I didn't keep track of how many rocket engines they burned up, but considering the number of encore requests that were floating around, I know it was a bunch. I've got some video that I shot during the testing phase a week or two before the fly in, I'll try to find time to post some of it soon.

Another popular demo was the night flying. John had his helicopter all decked out with light wire and night blades, and put on a pretty awesome show in the dark. John night flies his heli every year, and it's always a highlight, well worth the trip out to the Mustang's field. John even managed to talk Brian from Heliproz into taking the sticks for awhile. Brian is a first class heli pilot, and after wowing the crowd with his flight demos in the daylight, didn't disappoint anyone when he got his chance to do it in the dark. Before the night flying got underway, John even took the sticks of my T-Rex a couple of times just to prove to me that it will indeed fly inverted . . . . . . now I just need to practice up until I can get the pucker factor under control.

I did a little night flying with the Mugi Nightfighter, but found that the lighting was insufficient. It's back to the drawing board for me, but I haven't given up by any means. It was flyable, but telling which way was up got a little difficult unless I kept it really close, and really slow, and after two really close calls I decided to put it away before something bad happened. I've got some ideas about how to remedy that problem though so stay tuned. Clay lit up the night sky with his lightwire equipped Abell RC Adrenaline 3D foamy, and Chris put on a pretty good show with his T-Rex 450 heli in night dress as well. I did try to get some video of the night flying, but soon discovered that my video camera just wasn't up to the task. You'll just have to take my word for it, it was awesome.

There were of course many more fun and interesting things going on, but as my sporadic posting of late attests, I simply don't have time to go into all of them. Here's a few pics that I did manage to shoot though. This is just a small sample of what you can expect to see at a typical RC Fly In.

Clay's big Sukhoi gets ready to take to the sky for another awesome 3D demonstration . . . . . complete with the newly installed smoke system adding to the visual effect.

A large scale Staudacher sits on the flightline waiting its turn to get airborne.

Check out the color scheme on this beauty.

Clay poses for the camera with his rocket plane just before the first test flight. The background is pretty empty in this picture, but during the fly in it was full to the gills with cars, trucks, vans, trailers, RV's, and whatever else. The turnout for this year's fly in was phenomenal. Over 50 registered pilots, and countless spectators.

The rocket plane strapped into the launcher and ready for the start of its first powered test flight. Ralpho's Kadet sits on the taxiway in the background ready to fly chase. You can't see it in this picture, but my FlyCamOne is attached to the bottom of Ralpho's plane in an attempt to capture the rocket plane from the air. The amazing thing is, that we almost pulled it off, which is really amazing when one considers that Ralph had no way of knowing what the camera was capturing until after he landed and we downloaded the video for viewing. If you watch closely, you can see the smoke trail, and hear the sound of the rocket motor firing. An inch or two farther forward, and we would've gotten the whole thing. Looks like a good excuse to try again if you ask me!

A typical view along the flightline.

Steve's electric pylon racer. A totally one off design, built entirely from scratch, and man does it haul ass!

Bigger is better, and when Dick gets involved, electric power is sure to be involved. The Axi in the nose of this YAK is as big as my fist, with three 5000 mAh 4 cell lipos providing the electron flow. More juice than a typical lightning storm, and power to spare for awesome flight performance. No need to tear apart your weed whacker for awesome giant scale performance anymore.

Here's the Mugi Mobile from above, shot with the FlyCamOne from Ralpho's Kadet.

Quick Update

2007-06-11T12:13:00.002-06:00

Now doesn't that look better?

The submissions for the logo contest keep pouring in, ~cough, cough, hack hack~, so fast that I don't know how soon I'll be able to judge a winner. So far however, firefly is well in the lead in the logo category, with Wayne uncontested so far as official designer of production facility signage, so keep those submissions coming for your chance to win!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, if you happen to run into me at any RC flying events this summer, be sure to ask me for one of these:

I made them all by my lonesome, because I was sick of having to look for a pen and paper to write down the address for the Mugi site for half a dozen people every time I land one of my Evos. Now I keep a few of these in my wallet, and a big stack of them in the Mugi Mobile for backup.

So How About A Big J Aviation Logo Design Contest?

2007-06-07T11:05:00.000-06:00

Thanks to my good friend Wayne up in Newfoundland for inspiring this one. He was nice enough to take the time to make up this pic for me:

This gives me an idea. Although I'm getting much better than I used to be, I still absolutely suck at graphics design and photo editing. Sure, I can come up with color schemes for airplanes and such, but when it comes to designing logos and putting pictures and text together, I'm just not good enough at it to live up to my own extremely high standards . . . . . . Or something like that. Since I happen to know for a fact that some of my readers, both of you actually, happen to be a hell of a lot better at such things than I am, how about a little design contest?

What I'm looking for is basically what Wayne did all on his own. I want a logo for Big J Aviation, but all of my previous attempts have looked like ass, so here's the deal. Come up with your own ideas of what the Big J Aviation logo should look like, and either drop a link to somewhere the image is hosted, or email the image to me at raginredneck93@gmail.com. Feel free to use any images that you'd like, either photos or graphics (preferably graphics actually), steal them from this site, steal them from other sites, I don't care, just somebody please make me a logo. If you need some images to work with, send me an email and I'll either send them to you, or go out and take them myself if need be.

The one that'll catch my eye will be simple, yet effective. Two or three colors would be just fine since it'll be much easier to get made into decals and such that way. An image or two of airplanes, an airplane, a squadron of airplanes, a cartoon airplane, one or two of my own airplanes, a modern airplane, a classic airplane, a big airplane, a small airplane, a civilian airplane, a military airplane, an RC airplane, maybe even a helicopter, hell I don't care, just something to do with something that flies and the text "Big J Aviation" should be part of the design. Maybe just a part of an airplane, a prop, a radial engine, a busted hunk of crash debris for all I care. If I knew what I wanted I'd design the damn thing myself so let your imaginations run wild.

Ultra modern, retro style, cartoonish, I simply don't know what I want, but I know I want a recognizable logo that I can plaster all over the place. Maybe something that would signify a model company, maybe something that would signify a full scale flying service, a backcountry bush flying outfit, an air cargo company, I've thought and thought and I just can't visualize any one thing in particular. I really don't know why I want a logo, since Big J Aviation is just a fictitious company that I dreamed up in this empty head of mine, but Binford Tools was a fictitious company too and look how famous they are. Wanna know why? They may not have had a real tool company, but they had a logo! Well . . . . . . . . . that and that whole Tim Allen TV show thing, but I still think it was the logo.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot . . . . . . . The Prize! Since Big J Aviation's advertising budget is somewhere in the 7 figure range (after the decimal point of course), I really can't offer much other than exclusive bragging rights to the winner. Whenever you see the logo that you designed stuck on the side of a Learjet, or a limo, or an old red Chevy van full of toy airplanes, you can swell with pride knowing that you're the poor sap that wasted so much of your precious free time sitting in front of a computer designing a logo for some freeloading blogger bum that's too damn lazy and non artistic to sit down and design his own stinking logo.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it? ;)

Oh hell, maybe I'll mail you a set of stickers if I ever get around to getting them printed up.

So You Want To Put An Outrunner On A Mugi Evo But Don't Know How To Mount It . . . .

2007-06-02T23:50:00.001-06:00

Well never fear, because I'm about to make that task a whole lot easier. The design of the Mugi Evo naturally lends itself to a can type motor, but I've devised a simple method of attaching a brushless outrunner using inexpensive and readily available parts. With only a few simple modifications to a GWS 400 gearbox frame, you too can take advantage of the increased efficiency of brushless power, especially now that there are several inexpensive brushless motors available, many rivaling even brushed motors in the price department. I've been using the Tower Pro 2408-21 myself, and have found the performance to be almost identical to my brushed Speed 400 when running the same props, with half of the current draw of the brushed motor I used to run. This power system, including the mount that we're about to make, also happens to weigh about 1/4 of an ounce less than a brushed Speed 400 that it does a great job of replacing. The TP 2408-21 is readily available, especially on Ebay, for $10 - $15, which is about the same price as a typical brushed 400 motor. As an added bonus, many of the TP motors on Ebay include a grey plastic gearbox mount that will work equally as well as the GWS gearbox frames for an outrunner mount conversion. When one considers the benefits in efficiency and power, then factors price and weight into the mix, there really isn't any reason to settle for the short lifespan and inefficiency of brushed motors.

Ready to go brushless? Here we go.

First thing's first, assemble all of the parts and tools necessary. You'll need a GWS 400 gearbox frame, not the entire gearbox, just the plastic frame. I ordered a box of them from All E RC, they cost $1.25 each. Like I said, this is an inexpensive project. If you happen to have an old GWS gearbox laying around, you can use that too. Just remove the spur gear and shaft, and push the bearings out of the frame. You'll also need a Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel, a short (2 or 3 inches) scrap of .188" carbon fiber tube which just so happens to be the same tubing I use for the wing spars in my Evos, a drill bit the same size as your carbon tube, 3 nylon ties to attach your finished mount to your plane, some thin CA, and a hobby knife or two with different shaped blades.

First, we need to ream out the gear shaft hole to fit the carbon rod that we're going to use to reinforce the mount and create a third tie down point to make the motor more secure. I don't recommend using a drill to turn the bit since the plastic will melt if you're not extremely careful. I just twist the bit through with a pair of pliers.

When you've finished enlarging the hole, test fit your carbon tube. The fit should be reasonably tight, but if it can wiggle around a bit don't worry. We'll secure the tube in the hole with a dab of CA later.

Next we'll cut off three sides of the stick mount portion of the gearbox frame. Try not to cut into the top portion of the stick mount, leave a nice flat portion on the bottom of the mount as this will be the platform the entire mount sits on when we zip tie it to the Mugi Evo.

This is what it should look like when you're done, no more stick mount, just a nice flat platform. Don't worry if it's a little rough, the sharp edges will just help to keep the mount from sliding around.

Next we need to make a place for the center nylon tie to sit. If you hold one of your nylon ties around the mount, centered on the large section that's designed to hold the motor, you can easily make a little mark on either side of it with the blade of a hobby knife. When properly modified, these little bumps make a keen retainer for our nylon ties.

Then carefully grind out the material between the marks with the Dremel so that the nylon tie will sit flush like this. Try not to cut too deeply, or you may weaken the mount.

Mount the motor to the plastic mount facing rearward, like this. Think about which direction you want your motor wires to face before installing the screws, and don't overtighten the screws or you'll crack the plastic mounting ears.

Now place the carbon tube into the hole that we drilled earlier. Position the carbon tube so that it hangs just a bit onto the rear portion of the motor can. Make sure that it can't rub on the rotor however, or you'll likely let the magic smoke out of your powerplant in very short order.

Cut the carbon tube off flush with the extended front portion of the mount.

This is what your mount should look like at this point with the motor attached and the carbon rod properly positioned.

Drop a little thin CA onto both ends of the carbon tube, allowing it to wick in between the carbon tube and the plastic mount. Use extreme caution not to allow any CA to get into the motor.

If you use a motor like this one with a long, threaded shaft, you'll likely want to cut the shaft off and use a set screw or collet type prop adapter instead of mounting the prop directly. A long shaft like this would likely get bent on the first landing with a Mugi Evo, so cut it off as short as possible while still leaving enough material to mount your prop adapter securely.

Well, here it is, the completed mount. Now let's take a moment or two to blow/wipe off the dust and shavings, then we'll attach our brushless outrunner to our Mugi Evo.

Start by making a small mark on the centerline of the top doubler, approximately where you want the front of your motor mount to be. I prefer to use a pencil since the marks will virtually disappear if you're not looking for them.

Draw a faint line from the center of the rear of the fuselage, to the mark that you just made. This way we'll have a definite centerline with which to align our motor mount.

Using the tip of an Exacto knife, poke a small hole next to the carbon rod at each end of the mount, and next to the large portion of the mount in line with the grooves that we ground earlier. When you're certain that all six holes are where they need to be, poke the holes all the way through the airframe and enlarge them with a small screwdriver just enough so that you can easily pass your nylon ties through.

This is what the pattern of holes should look like when you're done.

Next we'll secure the motor and mount to the plane. I start by threading the rearmost zip tie around the carbon rod of the mount, then through the holes in the coroplast. Don't pull this tie tight yet however, since we want to tighten the front tie first to get the proper thrust angle. If you use a pair of pliers and a screwdriver like this, you can ratchet your zip ties down extremely tight, just be careful that you don't suck them right through the coroplast!

And here's the finished installation. If you look carefully, you can see the third nylon tie peeking out from under the motor. By installing the carbon tube, and using it to secure the mount to the plane, we can now switch motors simply by removing the screws. No zip tie cutting involved. All that's left is to install the 3mm prop adapter and prop and hook up the wiring.

Here's a view from the underside. When properly tightened, the nylon ties shouldn't allow anything to move around, but they shouldn't be threatening to pull through the plastic either.

Here's the latest Mugi Evo to come from the Big J Aviation production facility. Now I'm off to bed as I'm planning on test flying this bad boy tomorrow. If all goes as planned, the next tutorial will be on how to light this sucker up for some kick ass night flying action. Stay tuned.

I Know I've Been A Real Bad Blogger . . . . . Now Who Wants To Spank Me?

2007-05-28T15:45:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, I haven't been blogging. To be honest, that's not even the half of it. Actually, I took a bit of a blogger vacation, as in I haven't been blogging, I haven't been reading blogs, I haven't been taking pictures for my blog, I haven't even been thinking about things from a blogger's perspective. That's probably a lot of the reason why I haven't had anything to blog about. I've just been so damn busy with so many different projects, most of which are ridiculously fun, that I haven't had any energy left at the end of the day to sit down and write about them.

It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.

I've also not been dancing around in the street wearing a pink tutu, but that's really not relevant to the subject of this post.

What is relevant to the subject of this post is flying. Lots and lots of flying. As much as possible anyway in between working, and fixing things, and building things, and fixing and building things that fly.

And then there's the Mugi Mobile.

In amongst all of my practically daily wheelings and dealings, I've managed to secure for my aircraft carrying pleasure, one 1986 Chevrolet Astro Van. I know, it's not a Volkswagen Bus, but I haven't exactly had too many people offering to sell me a bus for the song that I got this thing for. Like all cheap/free vehicles that I've acquired in my lifetime, it had a few issues. Actually . . . . it still does have a few issues, but not nearly as many as it did when I got it. I really wish I would've taken the time to snap a few "before" pics of this thing, but since I didn't, you'll just have to take my word for it. While the drivetrain is pretty sound mechanically, and the body isn't too shabby either, the interior could be summed up with one word: "THRASHED".

Luckily I just happen to have a wrecked Chevy S10 pickup taking up space here at the Big J Ranch, that just so happened to have had a really nice set of bucket seats in it. Since this van's days of being a soccer mom taxi are over, there was no need for the utterly destroyed remnants of what were once the back seats, so they got a free ride to the dump. The S10 seats mounted easily on the Astro seat bases, only requiring the drilling of two holes in the base of each seat.

After about two gallons of Armor All, interspersed with a whole lot of air hose blowing and vacuum cleaner sucking, applied with a heavy coating of elbow grease, the interior actually cleaned up pretty good. I've of course equipped the Mugi Mobile with radio communications in the form of a CB radio and K40 base load antenna mounted in the roof, a remote power hookup in the back for running battery chargers and other RC related electronic devices, a pretty damn kick ass stereo system (that isn't done yet. A set of 10" subs and a 200 watt amp are waiting in the wings), and a few other odds and ends like trippy little purple lights stashed here and there with more to come in the future. Can't have a shaggin' wagon without trippy colored lights, but the bean bag chair will have to stay home in order to make room for more airplanes. Groovy red curtains are in the works however.

Other than the interior, I've also replaced all 4 tires (one went BOOM on the way to the tire shop, they were almost as thrashed as the interior), repaired the air conditioner (when it comes to keeping my cool, I need all the help I can get), changed the oil and gave it a complete tune up, replaced the tail lights since one was missing a sizable chunk (don't want any undue attention from the Long Arm Of The Law), and a whole lot of other little odds and ends that are too numerous to list. I've still got to check all four brakes, repaint the wheels and install the center caps and trim rings, finish customizing the interior to suit my purposes (half the fun of owning a van in my opinion, although it's a project that's never truly "done"), inspect and repack the front wheel bearings, then there's the fact that the muffler fell off on the way to the drive in movie last night . . . . . . . I'll have to address that little green monster sooner rather than later.

Hey, whaddya expect for a $300 van?

Anyway, here's some pics.

Here she is at the park on a beautiful sunny morn not long ago. If you look carefully, you can see a big yellow airplane that's really happy to not be stuffed in the back seat of an extended cab pickup.

Here's a shot of the interior. I know, the carpet's faded and the seats are the wrong color. I hear it costs about 25 grand if you want a van with everything all new and color coordinated. I can live with it for the price difference. If you look closely, you can see a big yellow airplane that's really happy to not be stuffed in the back seat of an extended cab pickup.

Here's another shot of the interior. I know, the carpet's faded and the seats don't match, but I hear it costs about 25 grand to get a van with everything all new and color coordinated. I think those vans come with a back bumper that isn't bent too, but for the price difference, I can live with a crooked bumper and off color seats. If you look closely, you can see a big yellow airplane that's really happy to not be stuffed in the back seat of an extended cab pickup.

If you have to replace your taillights anyway, why be boring? These genuine rice rocket wannabe taillights are cheaper than the factory versions, and a damn sight better looking. They fit great with the rest of the van, don't you think? Now all I need is a fart pipe exhaust (which I kind of already have, at least until I make it to the muffler shop), and a big, ugly assed spoiler on the roof and they'll be recruiting me to appear in the next Fast And Furious movie.

I don't call it the Mugi Mobile for nothing, more graphics yet to come. I did these myself, the rest are at the sign shop. The diamond tread aluminum on the left rear door is covering up the big assed hole that was ripped in it by the swing away spare tire carrier that is currently on its way to Korea to be melted down and made into Kias. If you're going to mount a spare tire to the back door of a modern vehicle, add some metal on the inside to back up the bolts. The spare tire now resides underneath where it belongs.

Speaking of Mugis, Morgan is on the verge of releasing yet another new and exciting product, in the form of an excellent followup design to the Mugi Evo. This one will be called the Tea Racer, and is fashioned after a sleek looking 1930's air racer. The plane is of course made of Coroplast, the same 2mm used in the Evo, only this design looks like a conventional aircraft more so than a delta wing. I happen to have in my possession, the plans and build instructions for this little gem, and the Top Secret Skunkworks at Big J Aviation is currently getting tooled up for the prototype build. Expect full buildups, as well as video and flight test results here when the time comes. Don't however, expect free plans for this one. The price will be more than reasonable I'm sure, but Morgan does have to make a living after all. I can assure you all that whatever he decides on for a price, the plane will be worth it. Although I obviously haven't flown one yet since I'm not done building it, I have taken a good look at the design and it seems quite sound, the build looks almost as easy as the Evo, and I expect this plane to rival if not exceed the Evo in speed and performance. Stay tuned here and at the Mugi Site for more information on this exciting new product.

Now on to Chapter 2. Don't you just love catch up blogging?

Speaking of new and exciting products, I was recently made aware of these little gems. The only problem was, that I couldn't find anybody that would sell me one. As a testament to the importance of good foreign relations, Morgan was nice enough to pick one up from a shop in Spain and ship it to me. It pays to have friends, even if you haven't actually met them in person.

This thing is awesome. The FlyCamOne weighs just under an ounce, and has a pretty small footprint to go with it's lack of burdensome mass. What this means is, that not only can I now shoot aerial video with my larger planes, I can attach this camera to just about anything, even my helicopter. At about $75 US, it's still cheaper than even the phoniest wireless setups, and probably lighter when you figure that it doesn't need a 9 volt battery to run it. The FlyCam charges through the USB port of your computer. It also has provisions for adding an SD memory card for expanded capacity. I've been using the 1 gig SD card from my other digital camcorder and so far, haven't encountered any compatibility issues. I don't know how long the battery will last in it yet, but I do know that neither the battery life, nor the memory capacity with the 1 gig card have become an issue yet. Stay tuned on this subject as well, since I've only just begun to explore the capabilities of this exciting new device.

This is the FlyCamOne.

This is the FlyCamOne with the included mount. This camera is made specifically for RC aircraft use, so it includes this ingenious mounting device complete with a right angle mirror so that the camera can look forward, backward, sideways, ect. without creating excessive drag.

This is the easiest and most secure way I can think of to attach the FlyCam to my Mugi Evo. The camera sits just above the plane's recommended center of gravity, and has only a minimal effect on the aircraft's flight characteristics. A 3mm Depron spacer was needed under the camera to keep the control buttons clear of the airframe, but other than that all I used was two carbon rods and two #64 rubber bands. It doesn't get much easier than this. If you happen to notice, and like the outrunner motor mount, stay tuned. I'll be doing a complete demonstration on how to build one in the near future. Being able to easily mount a brushless outrunner to a Mugi Evo opens up a whole new world of power choices, and these mounts are about as easy and cheap as they get. A couple of easy mods to a GWS gearbox frame is all that's required, and the parts cost nil to nothing. I've been flying mine for several weeks now, and I've had no issues with this motor, or mount. Although I kept the performance similar to my brushed Speed 400 with this particular installation, the power consumption is roughly half, translating into about double the flight time that I was getting previously.

Here's looking at you, kid. The right angle mirror mount works flawlessly, although everything in the resulting video is a mirror image. If you use Windows Movie Maker, it's a piece of cake to add a Mirror Horizontal effect to your video and turn it back the right way. Or, you could just leave it backwards for a whole new perspective on life!

Here's a sample of what a Mugi Evo can do with a FlyCam along for the ride. This was the first time I'd flown an Evo with a passenger aboard, but I have to say that the performance was mostly unaltered. It was definitely evident that something had changed, but the plane still performed quite admirably, and after a few clicks of trim here and there and a little practice, I got quite comfortable with the setup.

Make sure you've got your barf bags at the ready, it's time to turn and burn!

Dailymotion blogged video
Wanna Go For A Ride Version 2.0
Video sent by raginredneck93

Well It Flies . . . . . Kind Of

2007-04-15T19:09:00.000-06:00

It was indeed a beautiful morning for flying. The Sky Fly, the CAP232, and of course the Mugi Evo bored numerous holes in the sky much to the childlike delight of their pilot. I can't wait until the Mugi Mobile is up and running so I'll have enough room to take the Cub along a little more often.

Dick even brought out his latest Mugi, rendered in stunning blue and yellow coroplast. Power comes from an Align 430L 3550kv brushless motor (the same motor that's in my helicopter) twisting an APC 4.1X4.1 prop. This power combo has been well proven on several local Mugis already, so no one was surprised that the thing honked along at a pretty good clip. The best part was the visibility. Turns out that blue and yellow are an extremely easy to see color combination, which is a good thing when you're piloting a 30 inch wide wedge across the sky at over 100 MPH. I've got a fair supply of colored coroplast myself now thanks to Dick, but I haven't got anything built out of it yet.

Keyword: Yet. Some time in the near future I intend on doing a full build post on a Mugi Evo, complete with pictures and a plethora of hints and tips that I've come up with over the course of building several of these things. Stay tuned.

Shown alongside Dick's newest Mugi, is of course my battered beast. I still haven't had anyone tell me otherwise, so I'm still claiming that it was the first Mugi in Billings, possibly even the first Mugi in the state of Montana. It's still powered by the well worn Multiplex Permax 400 that I originally installed on it, and it's amazingly still kicking in spite of the 3 cell lithium polymer battery that I power it with. This is a 6 volt brushed motor, being powered by a 11.1 volt battery. Brushed Speed 400's, especially 6 volt brushed Speed 400's, aren't supposed to run on 3 cell li-po's, but this one is still kicking ass although I expect it to make a really cool smoke trail any day now. The brushes are getting mighty worn. The new servos and linkages performed flawlessly by the way. Rock solid control, better than it's ever been, and no control surface flutter even at the highest speeds I was able to attain by doing some mad high altitude dives to near ground level. For the first time since I built it, it was actually capable of sustained inverted flight as well. I finally got to make a few relatively low altitude inverted passes without stuffing it in the dirt. A welcome change indeed.

Now for the skinny on the heli.

As I mentioned before, the first flights were mostly for tuning purposes. When you build an RC heli from a kit, actually putting it together is the easy part. After it's assembled, then the real fun begins. First thing is to set up the head. All of those nifty little linkages need to be synchronized to each other for everything to work properly, and all of the links need to move freely but without any slop. First you level the swashplate, then level each set of arms all the way up the head, finishing by adjusting the blades to neutral, or 0 degrees pitch in other words, when the throttle/collective stick is centered on a linear pitch curve.

After everything is centered and leveled and moving like it's supposed to, then it's time to program the radio.

The first step in this daunting task is to get all of the servos moving in the right direction. If you move the cyclic forward, you don't want your heli to pitch backwards, and if you move the rudder stick to the left, you don't want your heli to yaw to the right. There's several parameters that need to be adjusted in order to make that happen, and all of them take time and trial and more time and more trial. A modern computer controlled radio transmitter is a complicated little bit of technology, and while programming one is usually pretty straightforward after a little experience, the first few times you do it it's a real head scratcher from time to time. I've programmed several for airplanes, but this was my first venture into the world of rotorwing aircraft.

Not only does everything need to move in the right directions, it all needs to move the proper amount. Too little travel and you may not have enough control authority to keep the heli under control if a gust of wind catches it or you need to turn suddenly to avoid an obstacle. Too much and the heli might be too touchy and near impossible to hold steady, or worse, something could bottom out in its travel and hit something else or bind. This situation can result in a torched servo, or a bent or broken linkage, and likely a crashed heli. Obviously, none of these are a desirable situation so all of the throws need to be tried and tested prior to powering up the rotor.

Now it's time to learn about curves. No, not those kind of curves pervert, although I really like those kind too. I try not to think about them when I'm flying though, it's too distracting.

On a fixed wing aircraft, moving the left stick on the transmitter up and down controls only the throttle, and it does so in a completely linear fashion. Down is low throttle or idle on a glow or gas engine/motor off on an electric plane, and up is wide open, with an infinite number of points in between. Pretty much just like the gas pedal on your car. On a heli however, the left stick also controls the pitch of the main rotor blades, and the throttle is not linear since it needs to ramp up faster as rotor pitch is added in order to keep the rotor at a nearly constant speed. Too much throttle and not enough pitch and you can overspeed the head and send parts flying, then send even more parts flying when what's left of your heli hits terra firma. Too little throttle and too much pitch and you'll bog down the motor and lose your head speed making your heli fly about as good as a meteor. Although head speed can be recovered if you've got enough altitude and quit ham fisting the rotor pitch, do it at the wrong time and it's curtains for your helicopter. It's pretty much always the wrong time to lose head speed, so it's a good idea to do some testing and make sure that your pitch and throttle curves are compatible with each other before doing any serious flying.

Most people program at least two sets of curves into their radio, one called normal or hover mode, and another called stunt mode or idle up which is used for aerobatics. In hover mode, the throttle starts at 0 so that the rotor can be spooled up gently without spinning the heli on the ground, and then ramps up sharply at the point in the stick's travel where the heli starts to lift off the ground so that the motor will be spinning plenty fast enough when the pitch starts to really come on. A typical hover mode pitch curve starts out with a nearly flat rotor, I run 2 degrees of negative pitch at the bottom on mine, then it ramps up slowly to positive 10 degrees or so by the time full throttle is reached. Full pitch/throttle is rarely used in hover mode, but it's nice to know it's there in case a rapid getaway is needed.

In stunt mode, the pitch is absolutely linear. It starts out at negative 10 or 11 degrees, and gradually moves up to positive 10 or 11 degrees at the top of the stick's travel. The throttle curve in idle up is a little different though. Since 0 pitch is at the center of the stick's travel, and full pitch is at the ends in both directions, we run full power at low stick, full power at high stick, with a slight dip in the middle to 80 or 90 percent so that the throttle curve looks like a "V". That way no matter which side of the pitch scale the heli is on, it'll have at or near full power at all times for aerobatics, but won't overspeed the head when the pitch flattens out in the middle and the rotor unloads. The lower half of the stick is used for inverted flight, the upper half is used when the shiny side is up.

This brings us to the other reason for the rapid ramp up of the throttle in normal mode. When flying an RC helicopter, you start with everything stopped, then gradually add throttle to slowly spool up the rotor. At some point after lift off, the pilot can then switch to idle up, but never before the heli is airborne. Switch to idle up on the ground or at too low of a head speed and your heli will spin like a top, likely tipping over and sending chunks flying. For that reason, we ramp up the throttle pretty quickly in normal mode so that the point where the heli is hovering on the throttle stick in normal, will be about the same in both throttle and pitch as it will be in idle up. That way the heli isn't as likely to pivot or jump when the flight mode is switched.

Simple right? Actually it is, but it's still damn time consuming programming all of those curves into a radio and taking measurements and reprogramming all of those curves into the radio, only to take more measurements and start all over once again until it's right. OK fine, it really isn't all that easy, but for people like me that like to tinker with things, it's a blast.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the gyro.

As most of you probably already know, a helicopter has a tail rotor to counteract the torque of the main rotor. Without the tail rotor, the heli would spin like mad in the opposite direction of the main rotor as soon as it left the ground. Since the torque of the main rotor is constantly changing whenever the throttle or pitch changes, we use a device called a gyro to make the heli more controllable by automatically controlling the tail rotor pitch in order to hold the heli on a constant heading. Moving the rudder stick will override the gyro and cause the heli to pivot when desired, but leaving the stick centered will once again let the gyro take over and hold the tail steady.

Before gyros, the pilot had to manually counteract main rotor torque with the rudder stick just like the pilot of a full scale helicopter would do with the yaw pedals. Early RC helis were difficult at best, and downright impossible for all but the most skilled RC flyers to manage. Counteracting the tiniest nuances of torque and yaw while sitting in a pilot seat looking forward and flying right side up is one thing. Doing it while standing on the ground and attempting to perform aerobatics is another altogether.

Did I mention that gyros don't adjust themselves either? Neither do the linkages that connect the tail rotor itself to the servo that controls it, and all of them take their orders from the almighty gyro, which has plenty of little settings and adjustments of its own.

Today was the day to find out if all of those things were going to come together and do what they were supposed to.

They did . . . . kind of.

The first couple of times that I lifted the heli off of the ground, it immediately wanted to pivot left. Obviously, a gyro issue. I began making adjustments and all was getting better, but about the time I got things to start to really steady out, there was a loud pop and chunks of the tail rotor servo went sailing across the yard. Luckily the heli was close to the ground or things could've gotten really ugly. Turns out that contrary to the advice given to me by someone that I figured should know a lot more about helis than myself, a Hitec HS50 isn't enough servo for the tail of a T-Rex. Lesson learned.

After recharging the battery and replacing the tail servo with a larger one, still not the optimum but at least big enough to handle the task, I started over trying to set up the gyro and actually managed get the heli hovering about 5 feet off of the ground for several minutes.

WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!

The tail was still pretty lively, but at least I could hold it steady with a little rudder input. I'll have to get someone with a little more experience to help me iron out the finer details after I secure a proper tail servo lest I invest a whole lot of time and still never get it right. Someone that knows their way around gyros can likely get it set up in a jiffy. I could tweak around on it for months and likely still never get it right, quite likely damaging the heli seriously in the process.

Then it seems that my good luck ran out. Right about the time the battery started to die, I thought I heard another pop, only this time from the area of the motor/gear train but immediately afterward the speed control went into throttle cut and I was forced to land. I went inside, replaced the battery, and went outside to fly again only to discover the source of the pop that I thought I'd heard.

I started to spool up, all seemed to be well, but a few seconds after the heli lifted off I heard the pop again, followed by the sound of the motor winding up as if it had no load and the rotor blades were gradually losing speed. Just as the copter settled back to earth, there was a LOUD pop, the whole heli jumped to the side, and the rotor began to spool up again only with a loud clicking noise every time that it rotated. Turns out that the one way bearing must've started slipping, allowing the main gear to spin up with the motor since it was disconnected from the rotor shaft. When the one way finally grabbed and forcefully hooked everything back together, the rotor had lost a good bit of speed, the motor had gained a good bit of the same, and the whole thing went BANG, effectively shaving a good section of teeth off of my main gear. Sort of like sitting at a stoplight, revving your engine to the max, and then jamming your car into gear without ever pushing in the clutch. Ouch.

Seems that I need some more pieces before I can do any more whirly bird flying, like a new main gear and a new one way bearing.

So the short answer to "i am cheap" aka "Closet Flyer's" question left in the comments of my previous post is both yes, and no. Yes, the T-Rex flew, for the better part of a battery pack actually. Yes, it's broken. And no, I didn't crash it and it won't be hard to fix. I even did my first autorotation today, two of them actually, even if they were only from two feet off of the ground.

Sorry I didn't get the video that I wanted, but about the time I got stuff ironed out and got the heli off of the ground, the battery went dead in the camera. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all it seems. There wasn't much to see anyway, just a pathetic helicopter noob doing a not too terrible but not all that good job of hovering a helicopter and thanking all things kind and good in the world that he had the good sense to install training gear (sticks with ping pong balls on the ends attached to the landing skids to help keep the heli from tipping over and sending chunks flying - My wife calls them training balls and thinks it's really funny) before attempting the task.

Special thanks to "finless" Bob White over at Helifreak.com for his outrageously thorough and well made, and absolutely free for the downloading instructional video series on the T-Rex 450. I'd never have made it this far without some serious help from my heli flying friends without all of the knowledge that I've gained from his videos. He has loads of instructional videos on the building, tuning, and flying of several other RC helis posted as well, and all can be found in the Helifreak forums.

As far as the vehicle situation? Do you actually think that I had time to fix the car with all that helicopter tinkering going on? It's OK, I took her out to dinner just to make sure that she won't mind driving the Ford for another week or accidentally set the refrigerator on top of my T-Rex.

As for the rest of my evening? I don't know, maybe I'll work on this.

It started out as a toy free flight plane, but it'll be a full blown micro scale RC kinda sorta Piper Cub when I'm done with it. It's about half way there now, with only a few more minor details to iron out and parts to install before flight testing. The control surfaces have been hinged, the motor and speed control installed and taxi tested, and check out my made from scratch ultra strong and uber lightweight custom carbon fiber landing gear. This one's only a three channel, with rudder, elevator, and throttle control, but if it works the next one's going to have full four channel control, or at least ailerons instead of rudder. Maybe I'll convert one of these for the ultimate in micro scale cool factor.

Projects like this give me something to do while I'm waiting for helicopter parts. Projects like this also serve to confirm everyone's strong suspicions that I'm certifiably bat shit crazy.

You wouldn't want me any other way.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning . . . . . Oh What A Beautiful Day . . . . . . .

2007-04-15T05:43:00.000-06:00

I've got a Krispy Kreme doooooonut,

And I really don't care what I weigh.

OK, I cribbed that one from my sister, but I don't care who ya are, that's funny right there.

It's early, I'm awake, the birds are chirping, the Billings airport METAR reports a wind of 8 knots out of the West/Southwest which isn't too ridiculous, and I've got flying things ready to load in the old Ford and head out to the park. Sorry, no insurance on the Mugi Mobile yet. Must have patience young grasshopper, must have patience. You're gonna love the Mugi Mobile. No . . . . . It's not a VW Bus unfortunately, but it's damn sure not bad for what I payed for it. It's not 4 wheel drive though . . . . . . . Nuts.

Mostly I'm just having a really hard time deciding which one of my beloved pick up trucks I'm going to drop the insurance on. I'm already paying for insurance on three outfits, and that's enough. I really like the big diesel Ford, but my old blue GMC just has too much sentimental value. Maybe I should drop the insurance on the car since it seems to be making a particularly bad nuisance of itself lately, and give the Ford to the Mrs. That way I could keep both of the trucks, and the Mugi Mobile. Since I'll once again be spending the afternoon with wrench in hand underneath the wife's family truckster, I'll have a little better idea as to which one gets the axe by this evening.

The old Cavalier has been a great car, I've gotten 10 good years out of it, but it's getting to the point where I really want to say "enough is enough". On the bright side however, about 75% of the expendable parts of the car are under lifetime warranty, with more soon to come, so if I keep this up I'll have a Rolls Royce before long. If the damn thing "fails to proceed" about one more time however, I'm likely to have a really cool bonfire out in my yard when I douse it with gasoline and toss in a match. Oh well, the old piece of shit could've busted in two 5 years ago, and it still wouldn't have owed me a dime so I guess I should quit complaining.

Before the wrench twisting proceedings commence however, there's a little something that's way overdue to leave the ground under its own power. Since there's a whole lot of folks around here that want to bear witness to the first tuning flights, the test flight will be delayed until after I return from the park. This one will be tested right here at the Big J Enterprises World Headquarters, and I intend on getting video of the occasion . . . . . . . Win, lose, or crash. Stay tuned.

So I Still Haven't Taken Pictures Of All Of The Airplane Projects . . . . .

2007-04-11T03:39:00.000-06:00

You know how it is. Work, Life, Easter holiday, goofing off flying RC airplanes, you know, important stuff.

The helicopter is getting really close to being done, or at least I think it is. If simplicity and instant gratification are your thing, do yourself a favor and stay away from RC helicopters. If you like figuring out mechanical problems and tinkering with itty bitty little parts, then helis are for you my friend. Did you know that Murphy's law counts double for whirly birds?

There's currently 6, yes count 'em, 6 Mugis in various stages of assembly and 3 of them just happen to be made of the coveted transparent coroplast. I'm converting a little bitty tiny free flight toy Piper Cub to radio control and it's almost done. I've scored some really cheap and cool motors and speed controls off of ebay lately that are already slated for various other projects including a few of the aforementioned Mugi Evos.

My Fokker Mugi had an unfortunate high speed encounter with terra firma a couple weeks ago and is still awaiting repair, which is yet another testament to the durability of Morgan's design. This thing drilled pavement at about 90 MPH, AND IT'S REPAIRABLE! Find me another RC model that could do that. I never did get a definite top speed rating on the thing, partly thanks to a finicky speed control that just couldn't handle the mad RPMs of my top secret Mugi race motor. Unfortunately/fortunately however, the speed control didn't survive the crash and will therefore be replaced with one that's hopefully a little more up to the task. Bench testing of this speed control with my motor shows favorable results. Flight tests will commence shortly.

My other Mugi was recently the recipient of new servos as well as the new and improved Big J Aviation Slop Free Mugi Elevon Linkage System which will hopefully alleviate the dreadful control surface flutter that took the servos out in the first place. Flight testing to commence as soon as the weather is appropriate and work schedule allows. This was the first Mugi that I built, and I can't say that it was my best effort. More of an experiment than anything, and the fit and finish on the control linkages have always left a little to be desired. They don't anymore.

My IFO is now the beneficiary of brushless power since a GWS IPS motor can't seem to handle a 3 cell li-poly battery for more than about 5 minutes without making a really cool smoke trail across the sky. What's an IFO you ask? Here's a picture, or better yet, ask these guys.

An IFO looks like a big pair of flying panties, but they're about as much fun as a guy can have without actually sending a pair of panties flying, especially if he doesn't have a lot of room to fly . . . . . . . airplanes that is, not panties. I don't think you'd want to try flying one of these in your bedroom, unless you have a really big bedroom. I built this bad boy for the days when I don't have time to go to the park. I fly it right in my front yard. Loads of fun looping around all the power lines, which will be a whole lot more fun I'm sure now that it has about 3 times the thrust that it used to. All that excess power should translate into an insane rate of climb, provided that the airframe can handle it. At any rate, I shouldn't have to worry about being able to climb enough to clear my shop after launching it off of my deck anymore, it should be able to go vertical as far as I want it to with this motor.

I do have pictures of the "been finished for freakin' weeks" driveway!

No more mud in the front driveway!

No more mud in the back driveway!

Even a good skid steer operator needs a supervisor sometimes.

I am not a good skid steer operator.

Well that's all I have time for today folks. I had a short night last night and therefore have a couple hours of free time on my hands. I've already burned up a good part of it blogging, now I'm off to try to make something airworthy before the weekend. I'll take pictures of the planes soon, I promise. Besides, you definitely don't want to miss the blog debut of the Mugi Mobile. ;)

Lawmaker Arrested For Drunk Driving

2007-03-23T14:24:00.000-06:00

Link on title.

Click it.

I dare you.

Both in face to face conversation, and here on the big bad interweb, I've often been called a scofflaw. I mean, let's face it, I AM a scofflaw, and shit like this is the reason why. If the people that make the laws don't even obey them, then someone please tell me why in the hell I should? The gal riding with this asshole was a member of the Yellowstone County DUI Task Force for crying out loud, and she can't bullshit me into believing that she sat there and had dinner with the guy and didn't know how much he had to drink either. Ladies and gentlemen, can you say hypocrite?

Don't give me any of that old "because it shows you're a better person" bullshit either, because the only thing it shows me is which people are stupid enough to swallow all of the crap coming out of congress and the state legislature. All of those laws that you do gooders have gotten passed in the last few decades in the effort to protect us from ourselves? Hidden back door taxes, that's all they are. The politicians that you duped into passing them don't even believe in them.

Overall, I'm a pretty damn law abiding person. I don't steal. I don't lie. I haven't killed anyone ever, and I haven't killed anything other than bugs recently although that record can easily be broken if some dumb ass decides to let his dog run loose and shit in my yard. I don't use illegal drugs . . . . . not anymore anyway . . . . . . and I can honestly say that I haven't in almost 15 years although I really don't think drugs should even be illegal. I have insurance on my vehicles. I obey speed limits and all other traffic laws, both in my own vehicles and my employer's.

I, however, do not most generally wear my seat belt unless road conditions are less than favorable, I fire up a cigarette wherever I damn well please if I'm outdoors even in those "designated areas" where some asshole seems to think they can tell me not to smoke even though I'm outside, and I think absolutely nothing about driving down the road sipping a cool one so long as it's only one and not a state legislator's nightly ration. I've even been known to get out of my truck on my way to or from hunting or 4 wheeling and walk into a roadside store with a loaded pistol on my hip, but so far I've never felt compelled to rob the store or kill anyone . . . . . . But then again I'm not generally intoxicated when I get out of my truck either unless my wife's driving, and I'm a firm believer that guns and alcohol don't mix.

Don't bother trying to give me an open container ticket for those beer cans in my truck either officer, those aren't open containers, those are empty containers, and there's a difference. A cop tried that one on me when I was in high school. Aluminum and glass are not controlled substances, and I'm not going to take a ticket without a fight for something that somebody tossed in the back of my truck . . . . . . Even if it was me. ;)

When I get caught for not wearing my seat belt? I pay the 20 bucks and go on my merry way, seat belt unhooked again as soon as the cop's out of sight. I've heard loads of crap from all the "patriots" out there about "Freedom Isn't Free", they're right, it costs exactly $20 every time I get caught not wearing my seat belt, and it's happened several times over the years. The first time I get caught for your nanny assed open container law, I'll do the same thing, pay the C-note and pop another beer. Maybe I should just open an account with the Montana Highway Patrol so they could save the time it takes to pull me over and just send me a bill every month. Seems that freedom is getting more expensive but it's still what I call "The cost of doing business".

Now I'm just waiting for the boneheads to pass a helmet law, which they're sure to do eventually, then it'll be war. Don't be surprised if you see a guy rattling down the highway on his motorcycle with a five gallon bucket on his head. Eye holes are optional, but the hose leading to the keg strapped on the back seat is a requirement . . . . . . . . At least it would be if I were a legislator. ;)

Operation No More Mud

2007-03-17T08:25:00.000-06:00

I've written here before about my yard, and how it's a giant mudhole interspersed with weeds and dilapidated automobilia of every kind. Due to an event in my past, namely spending a good deal of time and money cleaning and fixing up what was a weed infested shithole into a pretty damn nice yard with a mostly dandelion free lawn and an extemely fertile garden spot only to get the proverbial boot when the landlord sold out, I vowed to never invest any more time into a rented lot than what was required to keep from having to use a machete to get from the driveway to the door. I bought this place from my former landlady over a year ago, it's time to start acting like I own it.

First step: The mud has to go. Everyone in my family, me most of all, is absolutely sick of having to drive sideways from the road to the house, and then slog through ankle deep muck from the vehicle to the house, then try to scrape off as much as possible before coming inside to immediately remove our shoes. When the snow started melting I was really beginning to think that selling my 4 wheel drive wasn't the best idea as I played mud racer on my way to work every night in my old blue 2 wheel drive GMC. Driving sideways through the mud with your wheels spinning is fun, but not particularly when there's somewhere you have to be at a certain time.

Thanks to Todd, a good friend of my Dad's, I was given loan of a tired, but character rich, old Freightliner dump truck yesterday, and proceeded to haul 45 ton of gravel onto my property to hopefully cover up a few of the soft spots. I have kind of a soft spot for tired old trucks. I would've gotten another 15 ton if the gravel pit had stayed open a little longer, but I think we can make do. It's not everyday that someone that you've never met will let you just take his dump truck and go haul gravel, and it's definitely not every day that he absolutely refuses to let you pay for the priveledge. Thanks Todd, I owe you one, big time.

As I write this, Brian is on his way from Columbus with his skid steer - Mudhole, meet your maker.

I made three of these "mountains" as my little nephew Jeremiah calls them. Today we turn our mountains into molehills.

Little Jeremiah, an avid truck enthusiast to say the least, finally gets his first chance to drive a big truck, with the help of my daughter Jeannette of course. This little fella points out every truck that drives by with the enthusiasm that only a child posesses, but surprisingly he was kind of intimidated when he finally got to see one up close. With a very small amount of coaxing however, he decided that it wasn't all that scary after all. I still couldn't talk him into going for a ride with me, but I definitely didn't have that problem with my daughter who was all to happy to bounce along when I took the old truck back home to its owner.

My friend Wade showed up to visit with his grandson "Bug", and he was happy to help train Jeremiah in the finer points of truck driving. Unlike my nephew, Bug is an experienced gravel trucker with several miles of safe driving under his belt already thanks to grandpa. These little fellas really take me back to when I was just a little guy sitting on my Dad's lap steering an old tanker truck down a gravel road. Seems like just yesterday.

Well folks, time to get busy. There's a shovel in my garage that really needs someone to lean on it. More pics later.

Hiatus Interruptus

2007-03-12T13:01:00.000-06:00

I know, you missed me. Now quit your Goddamn blubbering, suck it up, and grow some nutsack because your favorite ass kicking blogger is back to kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out on the big bad interweb.

OK, not really, but it sure got your hopes up didn't it?

My kinda sorta job decided to turn into a full fledged source of employment for the last several weeks. I don't know how long it's going to last, so I gotta pay the bills while I got the chance. Go work 14 hours a night, 5 nights a week some time and see if you've got time to write a blog in between trying to do the springtime honeydo's and finish several model airplane projects all at the same time. Fuck sleep, who needs it? More on the model airplane projects later, when I get a chance to take pics of them, but I can assure you that the R&D, Engineering, and Manufacturing Departments here at the Aviation Division of Big J Enterprises Worldwide have been very busy lately, with a production backlog that would make Boeing and Airbus jealous. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that I'll soon have a use for some of those bulk LEDs that I ordered off of ebay a while back. Stay posted.

Speaking of model airplane projects, Eric found out what happens when you feed your Mugi too much. Mugi's are very calorically sensitive, a strict and well balanced diet is an absolute necessity. Let this be a lesson to anyone that's considered giving their Mugi junk food and beer instead of carefully monitoring its intake. Still flies great though, as long as he can keep the speed control from melting.

Now, since I'm running short on time, I'm going to bring this post to a close by getting myself in trouble and talking a little politics.

I really have to wonder just exactly how many screws a person would have to have loose to claim loyalty to either political party anymore. I recently heard that Reverend Al Sharpton is seriously considering running for president on the Democratic ticket.

WTF?

Personally, I don't think that anyone with the title of "Reverend" should be allowed to hold any public office, and I damn sure can't see how a preacher could get elected by the Democrats especially, I thought that was a right wing trick.

Before you start calling me names, just hear me out.

I'm constantly bombarded by my left wing friends bitching about the vast right wing conspiracy to convert everyone to their twisted little idea of Christianity, so why in the hell would the Democrats be the ones to campaign a Reverend? The Democrats bitch incessantly about the separation of church and state any time there's a dispute about something as innocuous as The Ten Commandments hanging in a public building, or a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn at Christmas time, but they have no problem with a preacher being elected to the highest office in the free world? Like I said, I don't think that a preacher should even be allowed to hold any public office, and least of all president. To me that's a far more egregious violation of the separation of church and state than a list of rules that most people would probably agree, regardless of religious affiliation, are the basis for our entire legal system.

Gimme a fucking break, these politicians are all on crack, and so are most of the people that support them. If it weren't for all of the warmongering, handouts to the rich, and the effort to ram a bunch of religious bullshit down my throat, I could probably be a Republican. But then again if it weren't for all of the tree and bunny hugging, gun control, bleeding heart bullshit, and ridiculous crap like this I could probably be a Democrat. Gee, I wonder why I'm not either. Actually, I wonder why anybody is to be honest. And to think that some of these fuckers actually call people like me sheep. If it looks like a sheep, and smells like a sheep . . . . . . . . keep following your "leaders" folks, they're obviously leading you down a wonderful path.

Here's my idea, fire 'em. I'm serious, run the bastards out of the country on a rail and start over. Limit terms for all elected offices to one term only, that way corruption wouldn't have near as much of a chance to take root. Here's another idea, quit electing corporate CEOs and big shot lawyers for everything and pass a law that no one that makes over 100K a year can run for office, maybe that way we could get some common folks with some common sense in there that could actually do some good. I'm plum sick and tired of a bunch of rich good 'ol boys blabbering on the TV and radio about what's good for working class Americans, when they wouldn't know a real job if it came up and slapped them with a cold fish. Now the fuckers want to tax my health insurance benefits to pay for health care for the "less fortunate". In my experience, what the government defines as "less fortunate", I'd usually define as "fucking lazy".

Everywhere I go, I see brand new pick up trucks and SUVs lined up at every light. Half of the pick ups have a brand new ATV in the back, and the ones that don't have one in the back have half a dozen of them on a trailer. There were enough kids in Billings with an extra 50 bucks rattling around in their pockets to sell out the Metra for a recent Nickelback concert. A person can hardly drive past a house for less than 100K even here in little old Billings Montana, and yet houses are popping up like Bill Clinton's pecker on a double shot of Viagra at the Playboy Mansion, and still these fuckers are crying about the economy and coming after me for more cash to help the "less fortunate".

Let's face it folks, the "less fortunate" in this country is the American working class, so get off my ass and start taxing somebody else because I'm already one of the few that's been able to find a job with health insurance that doesn't cost more than my house payment, for the time being at least. Hardly a month goes by without one of the company propaganda films that we have to watch mentioning the rising cost of health care. It's like an omen, it says to me "you know that cheap health insurance we give you? Well don't get too used to it dumbass because as soon as we find a good enough excuse, you can kiss that shit goodbye."

I did things right for the most part, I kept my nose clean, I stayed out of trouble, I didn't get seven nose rings and tattoos all over my face, I didn't dye my hair pink, I strive to maintain a good work ethic and a sense of responsibility, and as a result I've managed to nail down a couple good jobs in my life that came with benefits. The last thing that's going to impress me is telling me that you're going to tax my health insurance so that some purple haired wannabe gang banger that's too fucking good to work for a living can go to the dentist and get his teeth whitened while I'm busting my ass to pay for glasses for my kid because you're little punk busted them immediately before getting the ass kicking of his life, and my teeth are about to fall out of my head because I refuse to pay some Mercedes driving asshole $5000 for an hour's work.

Fuck it, there's no way in hell that I'm the one with all of the answers to all of the world's problems. It's just a good thing that I don't get to listen to the news very often or else I'd likely pop a vein.

I'm really sick of fuckers that won't do a damn thing unless they stand to make money off of it, it wears on a person after a while. Contrary to popular belief, there's really nothing wrong with doing something just for the hell of it instead of insisting on lining one's pockets, it actually feels really good for those of us that qualify for the title of "human being". If more of us, and especially our "leaders", had that attitude, there wouldn't be very many "less fortunate" people left out there that needed my tax money. Hell, if our leaders weren't so busy financing Vietnam Version 2.0, they'd have enough money to pay for everybody's health care, instead of just the "less fortunate". Too bad the bastards can't even take care of their own, the VA medical system is the definition of the word "fucked". Yeah, we'll send you half way around the world to fight in a war that nobody gives a fuck about, and when you get shot we'll stick you in some shithole dump of a hospital and wait for you to die of an infection so we don't have to pay you benefits for the rest of your life. What happened to the whole "no man left behind" thing? You can't bring freedom and honor to another country if you don't have any yourself. Where I come from you lead from the front. Crooks - all of them.

That's enough politics . . . . . . for now.

Here's a short video of Eric's Mega Mugi in action. Sorry I didn't get all fancy on this one, but we've been busier than a cat covering up shit packing dirt two miles at work lately, and I really need some sleep, so you get the quick and dirty version this time. The song really fits my mood though. Enjoy.

&amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20"&amp;gt;Dailymotion&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt; blogged video
Eric's Mega Mugi
Video sent by raginredneck93

Wanna Be My Best Friend Forever?

2007-02-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

Then buy me this.

Or I'd take this instead.

Just kidding.

Ok.

No I'm not.

Well sort of.

You get the idea.

Let me know if you need the address to have it delivered to. ;)

Unwelcome Guests

2007-01-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

Way way back, in the way way backs of my blogging efforts, I wrote this. Now there used to be several stray cats prowling my neighborhood, but recently I've noticed their disappearance, likely due to the efforts of animal control and a few of my fellow well armed vigilante neighbors. Since then, I've noticed the predictable appearance of something else. Something else that is not only unwanted, but something else that I predicted way way back in the way way backs. Contrary to popular belief, stray cats are not a bad thing.

When some people look at a cat, they see this precious, delicate, little creature that was put on this earth merely to be the object of their ridiculous coddling and pampering. Oh you precious widdle kitty come give mommy wuvvies goo goo ga ga blah blah blah bullshit.

When I look at a cat, I see a small but efficient creature, with powerful jaws, sharp teeth, small but effective claws, and lightning fast reflexes obviously designed by nature to be a hunter of small, fuzzy, nasty, disease carrying things. The mangy bastards actually hold a special place in my heart provided that they're absolutely wild and therefore not possibly mistaken for potential pets by the fairer and more sensitive members of my household. Wild, stray cats live outside, animals belong outside, what's the problem? The removal of these feral assassins of rodentia may seem the thing to do, but it isn't. Humane possibly, but not altogether wise as I'm about to demonstrate.

It started innocently enough. First there were a few shredded items in a drawer, then the pitter patter of little feet above the ceiling at night. We named him Gus and sat out a few boxes of D-Con.

Now however, things are getting really out of hand. A recent investigation revealed several holes chewed through the baseboards in out of sight areas in the backs of cabinets no doubt connected to a system of routes and thoroughfares within the walls of my happy home being speedily negotiated by the deplorable little fuzzy vermin otherwise known as meeses. Last night, one was found basking comfortably in one of my daughter's dresser drawers totally oblivious to the fact that he was about as welcome as Hillary Clinton at a Merle Haggard concert.

May I be so lucky as to have total obliviousness be my last and final thought upon this earth.

Then the little fuckers chewed into my bag of dried kidney beans that I was saving to make a pot of my world famous elk burger chili with.

This has gone too far.

This means war.

Mrs. Justin agrees.

Fuck with my beans and you're fucking with your life.

In the past we've relied on mercenaries, aka cats, to thwart this invasion but in spite of their best efforts the enemy has somehow advanced forces past the lines. These hired soldiers are quite effective killers, but they lack coordination and direction therefore I am now required to take over command myself, to fortify our defenses, and to be the foot soldier in this campaign, an act that will require many sacrifices no doubt, mostly in the form of what I call Bob Vilaisms.

Anyone that knows me knows that I absolutely, positively, despise projects in the form of home improvement. I'm quite happy therefore to leave my home somewhat "unimproved" lest I be required to take up saw and hammer in the manipulation of wood into something other than it's raw form . . . aka tree. If houses were made of steel, I'd have the nicest house on the block likely spending weekend upon weekend with my welder, grinder, and cutting torch in hand adding on new rooms, creating all those decorative thingamajigs that house people like, sealing up leaks, painting over rusty spots, ect, ect, ect. Houses however are not made of steel, at least mine isn't, it's made of wood. Did I mention that I hate working with wood?

Obviously however, meeses don't hate working with wood, because they've found ways to bore themselves walkways through the stuff and therefore access my goodies. This whole problem could've been thwarted had mankind been smart enough generations ago to begin building houses out of steel, but they weren't. Let's face it, any mouse that's tough enough to chew through a piece of channel iron can just have the friggin house, I'm not getting in his way, but I haven't found any holes in iron yet, only wood and sheet rock. Did you know that meeses can chew through sheet rock? I didn't. I knew there was a reason why I hated that shit almost as much as wood, sheet rock that is. Awfully delicate and dusty stuff to work with, and obviously not even strong enough to keep a little ol' mouse at bay. Maybe I could mold a house out of solid concrete? Would that be mouse proof?

Anyway, I think I've come up with a solution that won't require me to itch my way through several hours of exposure to the sawdust that I so dread.

Aluminum.

I'm thinking 10" wide aluminum roof flashing glued and nailed to the baseboard in the backs of the offending cupboards, along with an Expando-Foam, metal window screen cocktail around any pipes that I haven't already skirted with thankfully rodent tooth proof metal shields.

Wish me luck.

Combat commences . . . . . . . . . . NOW!

If You've Been Looking For An Excuse To Pray, Here's One For You

2007-01-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I managed to catch a quick bit of footage on the news last night of the area in which young Loic's body was found. The septic tank in question did not have the customary heavy concrete lid that I'm familiar with, it looked to be made of lightweight plastic or fiberglass in the footage as a police officer picked it up and moved it. It is quite conceivable therefore, that the little fella may have either moved it himself, or possibly even just stepped on one side of it and fell in the tank totally accidentally with the lid falling back over the opening afterwards. Either way, this is a terrible way for someone to pass, especially an innocent child. Everyone has to make improvements on their property from time to time, but please, if there's any chance of young children being present, make sure that areas such as this are secure.

Well it seems that Loic Rogers has been found, unfortunately however, he was not found alive and well as we had all been hoping he would. For anyone who's been living in a cave for the last several days, I'm referring to the 3 year old boy that turned up missing in Evergreen a few days ago. His body was found in a septic tank only a few yards from where he disappeared. It is of course conceivable that this could be an accident, and for the sake of everyone involved I certainly hope so, but if it was an accident it was a stupid and preventable one. I don't mean to be judgemental, but ever since that story several years ago that made national news with the little girl that fell down the well requiring a huge but thankfully successful rescue effort, anyone that would leave a hole in the ground like that not covered when there's likely to be little kids around should really have their heads examined.

The fishy thing however, is that the lid was on the septic tank when the little boy was found. According to the story, the tank had already been checked earlier with no results, perhaps the lid had been replaced at that time but there's no way the boy could've fallen into a septic tank and then replaced the concrete lid by himself. The investigation is ongoing however, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what comes about. Once again, I certainly hope that this is an accident but if it's found that it isn't, I'll gladly volunteer my services when it comes time to "deal with" the perpetrator. There is a special place in hell for those who enact crimes against innocent children, and I'd be happy to help speed the responsible party's arrival there.

I wouldn't make it too speedy though, getting there is half the fun after all.

I have more to say, but I'll do so in a separate post. This one is dedicated to a little boy that didn't deserve what he got. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, just as they have been since we first heard the news that the boy was missing.

So I Was Brousing Through The Bills In The Legislature . . . .

2007-01-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

Found a bunch of legaleze and mumbo jumbo, then I happened across this. Just when I thought the political situation in this state was beyond hope, I find a bill that actually makes sense. Now to me this is just common sense, but in our modern day and age these are rights that actually need to be spelled out in black and white for some people to understand. Read it, love it, tell your representatives to support it. You have a fundamental God given right to defend yourself, and the idea that it even needs to be legally protected is absolutely ridiculous, but these are the times in which we live. The rights protected by this bill don't go nearly far enough as far as I'm concerned, but at least they're a step in the right direction.

I also found this. I've heard a bunch of talk about bills requiring headlights to be used at all times and personally I think it's a bunch of hooey. In a day and age when we're all concerned about energy use, I think it's rather ludicrous to make people run their headlights in broad daylight. The juice to run those lights has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is your car's alternator. The amount of rotational force that said alternator will rob from your engine is in direct proportion to how many electrical devices are placing a demand on the electrical system of said automobile. This includes the vehicle's headlights. All that long winded crapola translates into a reduction in fuel economy, albeit minuscule, but when one considers the number of vehicles on the road on any given bright sunny day, it could translate into a really significant amount of unnecessary fuel consumption. There are times however, when vehicles become practically invisible, and I really wonder why people aren't smart enough to turn their lights on strictly out of a sense of self preservation. This bill addresses just that.

A relative of mine took a trip back East a few years ago and told me about a state with a similar law, West Virginia if I'm not mistaken, and although I seldom agree with anything imported from back East, I thought it was a good idea. I still think it's a good idea and I honestly wouldn't mind seeing this bill pass. Just in case you're too lazy or busy to click the link and read it yourself, it basically says that any time you need your windshield wipers, you need your headlights. Makes sense to me, I've been doing basically just that for years but some people seem to think that it's not necessary to run their headlights unless it's pitch black darkness. In times of reduced visibility like snowstorms, fog, during periods of heavy rain (what the heck is that?), or even on particularly cloudy days, whether or not you have your lights on could mean the difference between life and death. Keep that in mind the next time I'm coming at you in my truck. Fully loaded I'm grossing at or over 100,000 lbs., trust me, you want me to see you. Considering the fact that the last legislature had to make it a law to change lanes for parked emergency vehicles however, it doesn't surprise me that they once again feel compelled to legislate common sense. We could save a lot of money on politicians if people would just pull their heads out of their asses.

Just when I was starting to regain hope however, I find this little jewel. Now tell me, how much sense does it make to allow people to burn tires, slag, or hazardous waste in order to dispose of them, but not to create energy? If you're going to let people burn them anyway, why not let some good become of it? Nevermind the fact that huge heaps of tires are piling up all over the world and as of yet, no one's found a particularly good use for them. Is it not feasible that someday, someone could invent a device that could burn tires, which create a tremendous amount of heat by the way, and somehow do so in a manner that wouldn't emit copious amounts of hazardous emissions? Wouldn't it then make perfect sense to allow ourselves the latitude to make use of said technology rather than insuring that Montana will be the only state in the union not doing so when the time comes because we're too busy calling a special session of the legislature and arguing about it while everyone else is generating electricity with "clean tire" fired power plants? Oh well, we Montanans are used to sucking hind tit when it comes to high technology.

To me it's just as ridiculous as the fact that we're not harvesting used fry oil from behind every restaurant in the state and turning it into biodiesel, just a stupid waste when we could be turning a bothersome waste product into basically free energy. This all comes about from the whole fracas involving the cement plant in Trident using metal slag in their furnace. No matter how many times somebody tells these environmental retards, they just can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that they weren't going to burn the shit, they wanted to use it as an ingredient . . . . . big difference. Do me a favor my tree hugging friends, take five minutes and do a little research into how things work before running your mouth in direct response to the jerk of your knee.

Raping and pillaging the environment - Not good.

Letting a free and potentially viable energy source go to waste because some people are too stupid and emotional to see it for what it is - Not good either.

This one isn't too bad. I personally would like to see the use of unmarked police vehicles completely prohibited except for in extreme cases such as surveillance of established suspects, but at least this one gives us the right to make sure that a cop is really a cop before we're required to treat him or her like a cop. Hell, anybody can get online and order a red and blue flashing light and wire it up in the grill of their outfit, that doesn't make them a police officer. It would give them a decided edge in the commission of a plethora of different crimes however. I say paint the damn things black and white like they're supposed to be, put the big ol' bubble gum machine lights back on top of them, and get out there and enforce the law instead of hiding behind billboard signs and playing tax collector. If a highway patrol car is parked out in plain sight along the highway, everyone that sees that car is going to slow down and drive more carefully. If a patrolman in an unmarked car pulls over another car, then maybe they slow that one down, but what about all of the others that didn't even know it was a cop? They might not write quite as many tickets, but it would go a lot farther towards making the highways safer, as well as remove pretty much all question as to who the real officers are. Somebody just might go to the trouble of wiring up $50 worth of lights in order to rob you, rape you, or steal your car. They're not nearly as likely to outfit an entire phony patrol car and buy a full uniform however.

I finally got tired of picking through the bills one by one, I only made it about a quarter of the way through, and decided to do a search to see if anything was being done about the biodiesel issue. I found this. Now how much sense does this make? To be honest I really don't know. I like the fact that under this bill, all diesel fuel sold in the state would have to be at least part bio, but I don't like the fact that under this bill, all diesel fuel sold in the state would have to be at least part bio. Yeah, it's a double edged sword.

With the new low sulphur requirements that recently went into effect, we're likely to see a lot of broken down older diesel vehicles sitting alongside the highway. Vehicles like my old Ford pickup that aren't designed to run on ultra low sulphur diesel fuel to be exact, as well as a lot of newer vehicles since from what I'm told nothing made before 2006 is really designed for the stuff including heavy trucks. Sulphur in diesel fuel acts as a lubricant, and since the entire fuel system of a diesel engine is lubricated by the fuel itself, when you take away the sulphur it's like running an engine with no oil. It won't be long before expensive fuel system components begin to fail. Now biodiesel however, has five times the lubricity of even the "old" diesel fuel, which means that even a small amount used as an additive in this new low sulphur crap would drastically counteract the negative effects of taking the sulphur out of the fuel without any of the negative environmental effects that led to the reduced sulphur levels in the first place. In that aspect, it's a win win.

What I'm afraid of however, is that by requiring the use of biodiesel in all fuel, we'll inadvertently drive up the cost since the infrastructure to support it isn't in place yet. If we had a thriving biodiesel industry in this state already functioning, I'd be all for it, but we don't, and we're not likely to for some time.

Here's a better idea, pass a bill to allow people to make their own biodiesel unhindered by legal hang ups. Let me pass a test, or take a class, or whatever, and get a license that will allow me to buy my biodiesel ingredients from chemical suppliers without paying the "meth tax" which is my name for the outlandish prices that I've been quoted for lye and methanol. I know that industrial users aren't paying $500 for a 50 lb. sack of lye, so I'm led to believe that it's just a ploy to root out the meth makers. When somebody gets caught using their biodiesel license to buy meth ingredients, which is sure to happen sooner or later, hang their ass. Seriously. Get a fucking rope and string them up from the nearest tall tree, let their sorry ass swing as an example to the rest of the fuckers. Or better yet, legalize meth and let the idiots kill themselves and save the rest of us the trouble. That way even I could be "green" and my old sulphur loving Ford could continue to live a long and happy life. The meth users would become extinct long before it took the final trip to the big wrecking yard in the sky.

There were only two other bills even mentioning biodiesel, and they were both the same crap I've seen before designed to stimulate industrial production, nothing to do with private individuals unless they want to sell the stuff.

Seems that independence is a dirty word.

Anyway, that's all I've found so far. I'll pick through some more as soon as I get the time.

Numb Nuts Is At It Again

2007-01-15T05:21:00.000-07:00

Seems some people just don't know when to die. As if the previous unsuccessful round of court battles wasn't enough to certify this asshole's nomination for Yellowstone County's Most Likely To Find Sugar In His Gas Tank Award, Mr. Biggs is once again going to court in an attempt to close down the Shepherd Ah Nei ORV riding area. Of course FFOR is on the case, as are several other local motorized recreation groups, and I've heard that the almighty Blue Ribbon Coalition is even going to get involved. Hopefully this time the douchebag will find himself slinking home with his tail between his legs once and for all.

Get a clue dipshit, nobody's going to pay 4 million samolians for your crappy little 20 acre plot of sagebrush, ORV park next door or not. Buy a damn 4 wheeler and be happy that you don't need a truck and a trailer to haul it like the rest of us. Maybe if you had a little fun once in a while you wouldn't have such a corn cob stuck up your ass. I will dare to say however, that if you don't quit pissing off a large percentage of the local population on a daily basis, you're quite likely to eventually find something else stuck up your ass that will be even far less pleasant than the aforementioned corn cob. Somebody just might decide to make good on one of those threats you keep receiving.

Of course you can help put this sadly misguided and seriously outnumbered moron in his place by joining one of the previously mentioned organizations, or by getting in touch with FFOR, and purchasing one of their raffle tickets. $20.00 gets you not only a chance to win a brand spanking new Honda ATV, but also a snowball's chance in hell of actually having a place to ride it. I've never met a 4 wheeler I didn't like, especially a new one, so you can bet that I'll be picking up one or five. Don't be surprised if there isn't a nifty online order form, this may require an actual phone call to accomplish. These are Montana rednecks we're talking about here, not uber geeks, but I can assure you that if the FFOR is putting it on, this raffle is legit. Get your tickets now before they're all gone and let's send a message to Mr. Bunghole . . . . . . again.

I Ain't Got Much, But These Folks Do - Linkapalooza 2007

2007-01-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'd like to direct everyone, everyone with an ear to the Montana Legislature anyway, over to Sarpy Sam's. He's got a whole category of posts started with the central focus being the actions of said legislature. Sam's doing a great job of covering this, and you can find all of his legislature posts here. I'm quite curious myself just exactly how bad the legislature is going to screw with my way of life this time around, and Sam's making it a lot easier to keep tabs by explaining things in plain English. Last time, I practically yanked my hair out in an attempt to decipher all of the legal mumbo jumbo over at the Legislature's own website. Thanks Sam. Now I'll be able to see if anyone's smart enough to propose a bill making the home manufacture of biodiesel as streamlined as possible.

In a post a while back, I linked to this page over at the Mugi site . . . . . and then the server crashed so nobody got to see it. I talked to Morgan via MSN video message during the Christmas holiday, and he assured me that it would be up and running again as soon as he got back to Spain and got some time to fool with it. It's working now, so go check it out. While you're over there be sure to take a look at Morgan's Flight Training Europe Course 56 page and read all of the diary entries. It's pretty interesting stuff for a wannabe pilot like me anyway. I've noticed a marked increase in traffic since Morgan got the Mugis in Montana page working again, so I'd also like to welcome everyone that's bouncing over here from that direction. While I'm on the subject, Morgan has a lot of cool new products available for the new year in the Mugi Shop, so go give it a browse as well. While the shipping on bulk Coroplast from England is a bit prohibitive, the smaller items can be sent airmail for a very reasonable price and he has some really interesting, and in some cases, hard to find items. Still no Tea Racer kits though . . . . .

Some may have noticed that I recently added a link on my sidebar to Rosellen Westerhoff's site. Rosellen not only does an excellent job of creating outstanding portraits of peoples' dogs, but she and her husband Bruce also train and compete with their Belgian Malinois in the sport of Schnutzhund. Don't feel bad, I didn't know what it was until Bruce explained it to me either. Basically, it's something for the dog lover to do besides primp and polish floofy dog shows. Schnutzhund is for working dogs that know how to kick ass and take names when the need arises as well as an excellent showcase of a dog's agility, temperament and training. Originally created as a way to find and demonstrate the breeding worthiness of German Shepherds, the competitions are also open to other working breeds like Dobermans, Rottweilers, and the aforementioned Belgians. The dogs are put through a series of trials that test their ability to not only behave with absolute obedience in spite of distraction, but also their ability to root out, attack, and subdue an individual both on command, and by reflex. A good Schnutzhund dog will even be trained to instantly go for the gun hand of an armed perpetrator, a very useful skill I'm sure for any K9 trusted in police service or for personal protection which is where a lot of these dogs end up.

Oh yeah . . . . I was trying to concentrate on Rosellen's artwork until I got sidetracked by the bad assed attack dog subject. For a nominal fee, she'll take your photographs of your favorite four legged friends, and meticulously recreate them in colored pencil. The results are truly beautiful works of art and a worthy addition to any den, office, or living room of someone who loves their dog or dogs. I understand that she's also been working recently with pictures of horses, but I'd really like to see what she could do with an elk or grizzly bear myself. At any rate, go check out her site and drop her a line if you're interested.

I've made a few references here lately to the fact that I've been working on this, but just in case you've been too busy to click on the link, I'll go ahead and say that I've recently decided to try RC helicopters this spring. Actually, I decided to a long time ago, I recently actually acquired an RC helicopter however which is a basic requirement if one hopes to learn to fly one. The Align T-Rex is among the most capable electric powered RC helis in the world, regarded by many to be the best actually especially among the smaller models, and I'm hoping that I can manage to do something with it besides making nifty little dirt marks in the grass and getting really good at replacing busted parts.

I bought the motor and speed control at the same time I bought the kit, but decided to leave the rest of the radio gear until later when I'd asked around a little as to what was the best equipment for the job. For Christmas, my wife decided to reverse the traditional gender roles and gift me with a little bitty box containing something tiny and ridiculously expensive. No, she didn't get me a diamond ring, but a gyro for my helicopter which brought me one step closer to completing it. The airframe is all assembled, the motor is in as well as the speed control although I've still got some wire routing issues, and I'm currently working on a mounting bracket for the gyro that will put it under the tailboom and hopefully out of harm's way should the worst come to pass.

I still have servos left to buy, and although I've settled on what I'm going to use for the tail rotor I haven't quite made up my mind what I want manhandling the swash plate. I've got a few ideas, but I'm in no hurry since the weather isn't exactly going to be too good for flying for a few months anyway. I've decided to invest the colder weekends wisely by taking the time to get everything set up as close as possible to perfect before I let a friend of mine, who also happens to be an expert T-Rex flyer, give it a good once over and possibly a test flight if he's up to it. When everything is just so, and John gives it the nod, then I'll take the sticks see what I can do. You can see what he and the T-Rex can do here.

What I was really hoping to shed light on here however, is the phenomenal efforts put out by an individual named Bob White, known on the RC forums as "Finless Bob". Bob, on his own time and absolutely free of charge by the way, has produced an entire series of extremely thorough and informative videos on the care and feeding of various different RC helis. A helicopter is a complicated little bit of machinery, and if one hopes to get one flying well, it must be set up absolutely perfect from the start and lovingly maintained throughout its life or the results will be far less than favorable and likely even tragic. Bob's videos go way beyond the basic information provided in the instruction manual, and not only show in outstanding detail, but also explain in plain English everything a person needs to know from the moment they open that box of a zillion little pieces and screws to the day they win their first aerobatic competition. I doubt that a person could otherwise find nearly as much information all in one place even if they paid for it.

I've watched his entire series on the T-Rex 450, and the amount of knowledge that I've gained was well worth the time it took for all of the videos to download and then some. There's loads of other videos that he and others have made on this page over at HeliFreak.com featuring not only build and setup information, but also flying pointers as well as a lot of fun stuff like demonstrations and even some pretty wild crashes. Be sure to check out the footage of the turbine powered Bergen, there's some serious dollars flipping around in the sky on that one. Thanks again to Finless Bob and the HeliFreak gang.

Well that's about all I have today folks. I hope the new year is off to a good start for everyone and the weather hasn't been too cruel wherever you may be. Time flies when you're having fun so I say why not have as much fun as possible so summer will get here sooner? I'm off to look for some, fun that is, take it easy and if it's really easy take it twice. ;)

PS - Hey Mark, if you haven't puked yourself to death or turned to liquid and ran out your own asshole yet, is this the CAP you were talking about? The gal that flies it is named Debby Rihn-Harvey, and you can find a lot more info here.

There's a picture of another blue and white one here, but I haven't figured out who flies it or who it belongs to yet.

This chick however, is likely to serve as an alternate someday in one of my patron blog babe posts if I can't find any new pictures of Amy. ;)

Is It Summer Yet?

2006-12-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

I hate winter. I hate snow. I hate being cold. I hate getting colds. I hate icy roads. I hate big heat bills. I hate cars that won't start. I hate scraping windows. I hate frozen water pipes. Most of all, I hate it when my niplets get all pokey and rub themselves raw on the inside of my shirt, damn I hate that. There's nothing worse than having sore, bleeding niplets. Yep, I'm ready for spring.

I remember when I used to like snow, back in the days when I didn't have to drive in the shit to earn a living. Maybe after I win the lottery I'll like snow again, just like back when snow meant a good excuse to go sledding. Back when snow meant a good excuse to go do donuts in a parking lot somewhere until the Gestapo showed up and gave everybody the boot. And snow forts, remember those?

I grew up in Eastern Montana where the snow never melts, it just blows around until it wears out. When I was a kid it'd snow a foot or so, then the wind would come up and blow it all up against whatever happened to be in the way. Six foot high drifts sometimes, excellent opportunity to do some serious tunnel building. After I win the lottery, I'm gonna build a snow fort. Then I'm gonna get in my airplane and fly to some island in the fucking Caribbean where it never goddamn snows and stay there until spring. Y'all can have this rotten white shit.

I know, I know, quitcherbellyachin', but it is the first real snow that we've had this winter after all, so I'm still not used to it for the year. By the end of January I won't even notice the crap but right now I'm still lamenting the end of another way too short summer. It's all good though, because before we know it the temp will be hovering around 100 degrees and I'll be bitching that it's too damn hot. Is there anyplace in the world where it stays between 60 and 80 degrees all year, never snows, and there are no bugs? Anyplace? Didn't think so. Better learn to like snow I guess.

So how does everyone like the site's new look? Personally I think it sucks ass but at least it's a change of scenery. I was hoping that Blogger's new template editor would make it easier to customize these blogs, but it turns out that they consider being able to easily change colors "customizing". I already knew how to change the colors, I want photo backgrounds and custom headers and nifty little whizbang doodads that I'm far too uncreative to think up on my own. Maybe since the weather sucks anyway, I should spend a little time researching html code eh? Hell, maybe I should spend a little time thinking up something worth a shit to write since that's what people really come here for anyway, not to see what color the background is today. Sorry, I've just been feeling a little uninspired lately. Don't be surprised if the look changes again however since I'll likely be fooling around with it some more.

Did everyone get everything that they wanted from ol' Santa? I didn't get shit from ol' Santa, but my beloved bride helped me get one step closer to finishing this. The wife and kids loved their stale, half eaten pretzels. We ate loads of my wife's outstanding cooking, and of course my daughter and I observed the time honored Christmas tradition of dancing in the living room and singing along with Boris Karloff's striking original rendition of "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch", which is my favorite Christmas song of all time. Actually, it's the only Christmas song I can think of that I can even tolerate. May anyone who remakes it be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels for I've yet to hear a remake that doesn't suck. While my head was plunged deeply into the toilet over the course of the past week, my world was thankfully devoid of the rotten Christmas music that I'm sure was belching forth flatulently from practically every speaker in town. I think I'll release a Christmas album next year since I seem to be about the only person on the whole damn planet that's yet to do so.

Wulfgar has the results of the weblog awards posted. I didn't win. I'm not surprised. Actually I'm sort of glad I didn't win. Sarpy Sam and Moos put a lot more effort into this whole endeavor than I do these days, so I really don't think that I deserve to beat them. Maybe the new year will bring an uber creative blogstorm out of the old Justinmeister, then we'll see what happens in next year's contest. I don't want anything that I don't deserve. Sportsmanship - get some.

How do you really define a "Montana Lifestyle" though? When you think about it, anyone that lives here has a "Montana Lifestyle", since the one common thread that most all Montanans share is our love of the freedom to just be ourselves and do what we want within reason. With every passing session of the legislature more and more of that freedom seems to say bye bye, but compared to a lot of other states that I've been to we're still mighty damn free lemme tell ya.

Sarpy Sam made a comment a while back about how he didn't really fit the stereotype of a "Montana Lifestyle" because he doesn't hunt or fish. Hunting and fishing are hobbies, not a lifestyle . . . well maybe they're lifestyles . . . for the exceedingly wealthy or exceptionally lucky, but not for us normal folks.

What makes Sarpy Sam fit the Montana stereotype, in my opinion anyway, isn't the fact that he does or doesn't hunt or fish, it isn't the fact that he's a rancher, it isn't the fact that he's likely forgotten more about horses than I'll ever know, it's the fact that even though he doesn't hunt or fish, he's not trying to tell me that I shouldn't. It's the fact that even though he's a rancher, he doesn't look down his nose at me because I'm not. It's the fact that he knows what the word "respect" means, gives it appropriately and only where it's deserved, and doesn't expect any more or less than his fair share of it in return. He takes care of his own and doesn't worry about everyone else's in other words. That's not to say that he wouldn't lend a helping hand should the need arise, we Montanans are well known for our generosity and I get the idea that Sam fits that stereotype quite well, he just doesn't feel the need to force everyone else to do things his way. If you do, then go back to California where you belong and leave us the hell alone.

When it comes to a Montana lifestyle, how could anyone downplay the story of a woman that moved here from New York to marry the love of her life, and rather than trying to make the rest of us into New Yorkers, hopped right into step with the life of a rancher and farmer? After facing the terrible loss of said love, our hero didn't pack up and head back to the Big Apple either, she's sticking it out and running the show just like a real pioneer and doing what she has to do in spite of her tears.

That's how this country was settled in the first place. A lot of folks came here from back east with everything they owned strapped to the back of a horse or piled into a covered wagon. The ones with the grit to be Montanans survived and prospered, the ones that didn't either starved to death or went home with their tails between their legs. Karen may have came from New York, but from what I can see she's been a Montanan all along. Too bad more of these out of state immigrant types don't have the cajones that she's got. If I wanted to live in New York I'd move there, this is Montana and we like it just the way it is tank you veddy much. If you don't have grit like Karen, then pack up your crap and head back to where you came from, we don't need your kind here telling the rest of us how to live.

Congrats to all of the winners, and thanks again Wulfgar for MCing the whole shebang. I'm sure it takes a lot of time to keep track of all the nominations and votes, and I salute you for doing it.

So what are your resolutions for the New Year? Last year I made the same resolution that I make every year: To not make New Year's resolutions. It's great, I always stick to it, I'm never faced with the guilt that some people feel when they gain 20 pounds after resolving to lose 30, I don't have to face the failure of not being able to quit chewing my finger nails, I'm never disappointed when I don't walk five miles a day like I said I would, I don't drink enough anymore to have to worry about quitting, and I'm smart enough to know that unless I just decide to on my own someday, I'll likely not quit smoking until several minutes after they're finished cremating my cancer ridden carcass. The best way to not have to deal with failure, is to not set oneself up for such I say.

Well folks, it appears that even though the ground is shrouded in that meddlesome white shit, the sun is shining brightly and I'm sure that I'll soon have two of my own, and several of the neighbors', enthusiastic rugrats begging me to tow them around the neighborhood on their sleds with my 4 wheeler. OK, maybe I don't completely hate snow. ;)

Bah . . . . Humbug

2006-12-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

So has anyone else tried out this new Christmas shopping shit? Who's the douchebag that came up with this idea anyway? I actually found myself at the mall today.

That's right.

The Mall.

Now I go to the mall about once a year, less if at all possible, and every time I'm dim enough to venture within I'm immediately reminded as to why I only go to the mall once a year. I've been to the mall twice this year. No . . . I'm not pleased.

The trouble is, that there's few places on the planet that I fit in less than at the mall. I'm the kind of guy that can go to a rodeo, a biker rally, a country concert, a rock concert, any kind of a racing event involving any type of powered equipment, a trap shoot, you name it and make myself right at home. But the mall? There ain't no Abercrombie and Fitch on this sumbitch.

Imagine if you will, a grumpy old bastard in a dirty black Carhartt coat (yes, I earned the right to wear Carhartt, no fashion statement here), camo ball cap emblazoned with the logo of the trucking company of your choice, work boots, jeans that look older than most of the mall's typical patronage, a camo T-Shirt, and a really bad attitude, at the mall, in a futile attempt to get in, find what I want, and get out. At least all of the other guys that looked equally as unenthused to be there as I was were being towed along by their wives, I was by myself and therefore woefully without an excuse. Have you ever realized that malls are purpose built to thwart the efforts of people who want to just get in, get what they want, and get out? At every turn is some other schmuck attempting to interest you in something that you never knew you needed until you blindly wandered into the mall.

No, I don't need a cellphone with a camera and an MP3 player built in for $399.95 on a 50 year service contract. My current cell phone is a useless piece of shit and I do need a new one, but that doesn't mean that I'm a moron put on this earth to boost your commissions income you ignorant fuck.

No, I don't need my picture taken and digitally superimposed next to some scrawny assed little beach bunny in a bikini. My coat would look out of place on a beach anyway and she probably wouldn't like the way it smells, even if she isn't real which is probably for the best since if she was real my wife would likely track her down and kick a mudhole in her skinny little ass and stomp it dry. She tends to frown on other chicks sniffing my Carhartt. Ya'll got any pictures of farm gals in that there computer?

No, I don't need a giant pretzel with a teeny tiny little thimble of some kind of radioactive cheese sauce that's likely been around long enough for its half life to expire. No, I don't need some floofy assed coffee drink to wash it down with either. I like my coffee just like I like my women: strong and bitter. And you thought I was gonna say hot and black didn't you?

I can't even go into Hot Topic and find anything cool anymore. Well, except for the chick with the tattoos and the hot pink and black striped hair that works there, she was kind of cool.

I ran screaming from the mall headed for someplace hopefully less populated, yeah I'm a dumb fucker. With squealing tires and cloud of diesel smoke I headed for ~insert favorite overpopulated huge assed box store of your choice~ only to find that it too was not designed for antisocial old goats like myself, at least not at this time of the year anyway. I managed to find a couple of the things that I was looking for, and hopefully the wife takes into account just how much I hate shopping and therefore isn't disappointed when all she gets from me for Christmas is a stale, half eaten pretzel and a thimble full of green haired radioactive cheese sauce. I tried alright, what the hell do you want from me? No, of course that isn't a hot pink hair on my coat, you must be imagining things.

One more observation before I go. Who, pray tell, is the mindless dipshit that came up with the idea of having greeters at the door passing pleasantries even to folks like myself who would obviously rather be left alone? It was bad enough when Wal-Mart was the only place that had them. Back then I figured what the hell? Gives some old retired duffer something to do and keeps his ass out of traffic, big deal. Said old duffer would have been a lot smarter to head straight to the sporting goods section, pick out some fishing gear, and run screaming like a frightened little school girl being chased by well hung pedophile sodomite demons from that awful place in my opinion instead of filling out a job application, but that's just my take on the situation. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for day then get a job at Wal-Mart, teach a man to fish and he'll get a Cabella's catalog, an ice auger, and a walleye boat and never go to Wal-Mart again.

If anyone happens to see me working at Wal-Mart after I retire, please, please do me a favor and shoot my sorry ass. Be merciful, since if you ever see me working at that shit hole it means that I've likely already sold all of my guns for grocery money and therefore am incapable of ending my suffering myself. Thank you in advance for your compassion.

Now, every place I go has greeters accosting me at the door and gleefully exclaiming "WELCOME TO ~insert favorite big box store here~!". As if either they, or I for that matter, are actually happy to be there. You'd think that they actually believe that it's a good idea to give people fake assed greetings as they come in the store or something. What the hell? Most of them aren't even old retired duffers, hell, they're not even cute young chicks, they're these metro looking guys in their mid twenties with perfectly coiffed hair and well trimmed fingernails that don't even have any dirt under them. What are these idiots thinking? Is this little wuss supposed to make me feel welcome? Am I supposed to look at this douchebag and think "I must be in the right place"? Am I supposed to have any reaction to this guy whatsoever except to give him that "say one more word or take a single step toward me and I'll give you a power wedgie just like your mom does every night when you get home from work" look? Hell no.

Either get some old duffer with a genuine smile and nothing better to do out there, or some drop dead little hottie with a pretty face and perky little boobies that might actually have a prayer of cheering me up and put little girlie boy back in the fucking warehouse where he belongs. Let the little peckerhead heave heavy boxes around for a year or two then maybe he'll grow some hair on his nuts and be able to actually relate to a guy like me. There's probably already some hot looking pink haired goth chick with a nose ring and a barbed wire tattoo around her neck back there unloading trucks with a forklift that'd kick his peachy little ass if he got in her way though, so maybe that's why he's working the door. Maybe I should start sneaking into the stores through the freight entrance, I tend to fit in better with the folks on the dock anyway.

Now if you'll all excuse me I must go put my head in the toilet and flush repeatedly until Christmas is over.

With All The Tender Sweetness Of A Sea Sick Crocodile . . .

2006-12-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

The Nominations Are In, And Wulfgar Is Now Taking Votes For The Montana Weblog Awards . . .

2006-12-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

And wouldn't you know it I made the cut in one category. I highly doubt that I'll win, the competition is mighty stiff in the "Most Exemplifies A Montana Lifestyle" class, but I'd like to at least show up for the game if you know what I mean. Of course anyone that doesn't vote for me will not be receiving a Christmas card this year, but then again the people that vote for me won't be receiving a Christmas card from me either . . . . . . .

So go vote for somebody, even if it isn't me, just make sure that you get over to Wulfgar's and support your favorite Montana bloggers.

Just for the record, I will not be voting for myself, just as I did not nominate myself. I don't know why I'm taking the high road this year, but I am so deal with it. The other thing that I'm doing differently this year, is that I'm keeping all of my votes and nominations secret until after the polling is complete, then maybe, just maybe, I'll post them. I'm not ashamed of my nominations or votes, it's just that I don't want anyone to be guilted into voting for me because I voted for them or anything like that. I want everyone to be frightened into voting for me because I'll hunt them down and kill them if they don't. OK, just kidding, I'll aim for the genitalia . . . . ;)

Yes, It Flies. But Then Again . . . Did You Have Any Doubts?

2006-12-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

I managed to make it to the park Sunday morning to test fly the new Mugi Evo, and I'm happy to report that it does indeed fly, however the action of the semi frigid weather upon my stubby little thumbs made it difficult to really wring the thing out. This one's a little heavier than my other one, and therefore flies a little different and I'm not quite used to that yet. The speed is phenomenal, as is the vertical performance or at least for what little I've been able to test it. This bad boy will shoot straight up as far as I want it to at a speed far greater than my other one will run flat and level. Besides manning the catapult for a flawless launch, Mark grabbed the camera and caught a little video of the first flight, but I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet.

Besides the aforementioned numbness in my thumbs, I was noticing that the flight characteristics were indicative of the thing perhaps being a wee bit tail heavy, so I added another 1/4 ounce to the nose but haven't had a chance to test it yet. I've also noticed that the controls were a tad sluggish for an aircraft of this type, but I haven't quite made up my mind whether that's due to the conservative control throws that I set up for the maiden voyage, or perhaps due to the inflexibility of cold plastic. I used flexible control linkages on this one in a quest for less drag, and I have to imagine that cold weather would make them far less flexible than they were sitting on my dining room table when I tested everything. If I had it to do over I would've routed them a little differently as to not require as much flex, but that's a good part of the reason why I keep building these things: I learn something new every time and that's part of the fun kiddies!

Be sure to check out Morgan's new page over at the Mugi site. He sent me an email the other day asking if it'd be all right if he put this up. I basically said "hell yeah!" If I keep this up I'll be able to start running around with my ass hanging out any day now, just like a real live famous person! It's kind of odd when you think about it, but before the internet came along the probability of a simple yet effective model aircraft designed by an enthusiast in England becoming wildly popular in Billings, Montana was slim to none. These days however, it's not only probable, but highly likely, and that's a beautiful thing methinks. We modelers are no different than anyone else in this neck of the woods. Simple and durable are important qualities to folks around here, and I think that's a big part of the reason why these planes have built up such a following. Practically everyone that sees them wants one, and I don't see much of a decline in interest from the current owners either, especially not from this one. I'm still just as stoked about these things as I was when I blasted across the park with my first one, pulled it vertical and checked out the roll rate. Toss in a little heart stopping performance coupled with a price even my friend Mark could love, and it's no mystery why we love our Mugi Evos. ;) (sm)

Sorry Mark, I just couldn't resist that one, hehehehe.

Ok folks, I've bored you all long enough. I've got some motors to pick up at the post office, and I wouldn't mind spending a little more time working on this before it's time to go to work. At least I'm done Christmas shopping for myself, I suppose I should get started on the wife and young'uns one of these days though. ;)

If They Keep This Up, You Won't Have To Get A Chick Drunk To Get Laid Anymore

2006-12-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

Has everyone heard about this new "Hug Me" shirt? No, it's not a summer version of the straightjacket, but a shirt embedded with all sorts of sensors, and actuators, and gizmos and gadgets that can actually simulate a hug from another human being. The shirt uses Bluetooth technology, and therefore can be activated via cell phone from anywhere in the world.

So what this means is, that I could give one of these to my ol' lady, call some magic number from my cell phone in the middle of the night, and give her a virtual "hug" from the comfort of my rattly old truck cab. Yippee, sounds great. What will they think of next?

This is assuming of course that:

A - My cellphone had signal long enough to actually complete the call, which is seldom/never.

B - She happened to be wearing it when I called.

C - She was awake and had consumed an adequate quantity of coffee when I activated it, thus preventing me from having the inside of my colon hugged at her every whim forthwith from the moment I returned home and she shoved it up my ass.

With my luck the damn thing would be laying in the laundry pile, the cat would be sleeping on top of it, and fire a cat shaped hole through the fucking roof when it was unexpectedly "hugged" from beneath. No thanks, I think I'll just stick to real hugs for the time being.

What I'm thinking though, is if they can make a hug me shirt, what comes next? Could I get slap me gloves for my kids? Kick me boots for the cat perhaps? This technology could give the term "fuck me pants" a whole new meaning! This is exciting technology, I'm off to contemplate the possibilities.

Don't Waste Your Time Reading This Post. It's Way Too Long And There Isn't Anything Worthwhile In It Anyway.

2006-12-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

The man regarded by many to be the greatest fighter pilot ever to roam the skies was born in Kleinburg, Germany on the 2nd of May, 1892. The son of a soldier, he was groomed from an early age in preparation for a life of military service. At the age of 11, he entered the Cadet Corps. in Wahlstatt, but soon found that he had a certain distaste for the rigorous daily routine and strict discipline of military school. He excelled at sports and all feats of balance and physical prowess that he attempted however, and soon earned himself a reputation for being quite reckless due to the constant stunts he was known for pulling.

Revered by his friends for every sort of daredevil escapade imaginable, an important quality for anyone destined to pilot one of the stick and tissue paper flying machines of his era, our future aviator entered the Armed Service in 1911, although not yet as a pilot. Serving first as a Cavalry soldier, and becoming an officer only a year later.

When World War I broke out, our subject was still busy playing horsey, but the disease had began to take hold. For every time young Manfred heard the drone of an "aeroplane" passing overhead, he was overcome with excitement. At this point however, our young friend doesn't even know how to tell the difference between a German aircraft and one possessed by the enemy, let alone how to fly one. Later he would discover that German planes were marked with a cross, and enemy planes with a circle, or Roundel. An important discovery for sure, for soon he'd need to know that information in order to not be a secret weapon for the enemy.

Eventually ending up in the trenches of France, Manfred soon became bored by the endless days of just sitting around waiting for nothing to happen. When sneaking off hunting wild boar lost its appeal, he sent a strongly worded letter to the Commanding General saying that his talents were being wasted, and that he wished to be reassigned to a post with a little more action. In May of 1915, his wish was granted.

The very next day, he'd take his first ride in one of the glorious flying machines he'd been watching as they droned overhead, and from that first terrifying and rather disorienting flight, he knew that his destiny was forevermore to be controlled by stick and rudder. Serving for a time as an observer and navigator on reconnaissance planes, and later as a gunner on one of the larger twin engine battle planes which he affectionately called "The Apple Barge". Manfred had many close encounters with death, but still no taste of what it felt like to man the controls of one of the beasts. Fearing that the war would be over by the time he'd completed his requisite 3 months of training to become a pilot, he was content to continue his current assignment of a Cavalryman observer, attached to the Flying Service.

On October 15th, of 1915, that was all to change however. Upon meeting a rather insignificant looking Lieutenant named Boelcke on a train, Manfred struck up a conversation and soon learned that the man was a fighter pilot. A fighter back then, to a German such as Manfred anyway, was a Fokker, and although primitive by modern standards it was a far cry up the performance and agility ladders from the Apple Crate who's guns he had been manning. From that moment on, he was determined to make pilot, and take command of a Fokker of his own. After only 25 training flights, was ready for his first solo venture into the wild blue yonder. As it turns out, he was indeed ready for that first solo flight, and make that flight he did . . . . . it was the landing that didn't turn out so hot. 2 days later, with passionate resolve and a different airplane, Manfred completed that solo flight and started on his way to being one of the world's most famous legends of aviation.

He managed his first kill on the 26th of April, 1916. A French Nieuport biplane fell victim to the haphazard machine gun that he'd fastened to his two seat training plane, he had not yet acquired for himself his beloved Fokker but he hadn't long to wait. Soon after the news of his prowess in shooting down the Nieuport, he and a friend were given the priveledge of sharing one of the greatest technological marvels of the time, the venerable Fokker DR I Triplane.

With a top speed of 115 MPH, and a climb rate unlike anything else of its time, it could easily outrun or outclimb any opponent likely to be encountered. By using three wings as opposed to the customary two of the era, the wingspan could be shortened thus increasing the roll rate. Aircraft of this time period were definitely not strong enough to withstand very hair raising aerobatics, but the increased roll rate translated into the ability to turn, and just as importantly, stop turning much faster than the French, American, and English planes that it was designed to pursue. This would prove to be one of Manfred's favorite maneuvers in combat. When he would get an enemy plane on his tail, he'd pull his Fokker into an ever tightening circle in which his opponent could do nothing but follow him in a two airplane dance to the death. Neither could fire at the other since there was no way to get on target while turning so tightly, but when his enemy's craft would attain too high of a G loading, it would snap stall, stumbling and falling out of the sharp turn floundering for airspeed and the precious control that it would bring. The speed at which the controls would again become effective was seldom attained by enemies of this pilot however, since as soon as the enemy craft bagan to falter, Manfred would then simply whirl his more agile Fokker around and send the unlucky chap to his maker.

When his friend, who flew the Fokker in the afternoons as opposed to Manfred's morning shift, managed to get shot down in it over enemy territory, Manfred was issued a Fokker of his own. "It climbed like a monkey, and maneuvered like the devil" he was quoted as saying about the three winged aviation legend. The third time he flew it however, the finicky old Oberursel engine, (a notoriously unreliable German copy of the French made, rotating cylinder LeRhone) which had so amazed him upon his first sight of one, sputtered and died immediately after takeoff, forcing him to set down in a field. The resulting forced landing was a far cry from graceful, and although he survived mostly unscathed, his beloved Fokker was basically reduced to so much rubble.

He'd get another however, several more actually, until he found himself in the one that even those with no penchant for aviation whatsoever could likely pick out of a crowd, or at least they could if it still existed. The one painted bright red, as if to mock the inaptitude of the enemy airmen who went skyward attempting to hide in camouflaged planes with the 80 previous victories of Manfred remembered, and an insatiable thirst for his blood in revenge for their fallen comrades.

80 victories. This was by far the most enemy planes shot down by any single fighter pilot, before or since.

CORRECTION: As Jay Stevens has pointed out, this statement is not true. While Manfred did indeed shoot down more enemy planes than any pilot before him, his record has since been beaten, although not during the 1st World War. In WWII however, Erich Hartmann of the German Luftwaffe, was credited with shooting down 352 planes from the cockpit of his Messerschmidt Bf109-G6 fighter while flying on the Soviet front. Thanks for the clarification Jay, and I apologize for the misstatement.

On the fateful Sunday morning of April 21, 1918, Manfred's aerial reign of terror was finally ended. As he pursued a British pilot by the name of Wilfrid May, fellow Brit Roy Brown spied an opportunity while Manfred was thus engaged and took it. When the guns of Brown's trusty Sopwith Camel finished hurling lead at the unsuspecting German airman, Manfred reached the end of his reign over the skies of Europe in a trail of smoke, and a ball of fire. Stories would be told and embellished. A legend would grow. Songs would be written about him, and various things related and grossly unrelated would be named after him, but Manfred Von Richthofen . . . . . AKA: The Red Baron, would fly no more.

What the hell is the significance of all this rubbish you ask? Just hang on a minute, keep reading, and I promise that it'll all make sense soon enough.

Now let's jump ahead a few years to 1967. It was in this year that one particularly ingenious fellow, one who's invention I'm quite fond of actually, managed to invent the world's first fully proportional radio control equipment. His name was Phil Kraft, and to this day antique Kraft radios still circulate around in estate sales and online auctions, many of them still functional although I doubt that anyone accustomed to the fineries of modern equipment would want them for anything other than a conversation piece. Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be after all.

Now Mr. Kraft needed a model in which to test his new invention, but rather than convert one of the existing free flight or control line offerings of the time which would've been far too heavy after adding the necessary equipment which at that point in history was about as light as a featherweight shot put and comparable in size, he decided to design his own so that he could keep the weight to an absolute minimum. What he came up with, was a simple wing and square fuselage affair with rounded tail surfaces designed more for gentle but somewhat spirited flight characteristics over anything else.

Although it was never really designed as such, it loosely resembled a Fokker Eindecker, an early German monoplane.

Since it was regarded by many to be quite ugly, and since it was made out of sticks, and since it basically resembled a stick, the name Ugly Stick, or Das Ugly Stick to pay homage to its WW I German visual cues, was born.

As RC equipment advanced by leaps and bounds over the coming years, and modelers began demanding more and more aerobatic performance out of their planes, the original Ugly Stick design was changed a little here and there, but still remained true to its "simple yet effective" roots, and amazingly enough they still remained . . . . period. The plane was designed strictly for its flight characteristics, not to look like any particular aircraft, but since the plane did indeed loosely resemble the aforementioned Fokker Eindecker, it was only a matter of time until one was covered in a loose translation of the final color scheme favored by the infamous Red Baron: Mostly red, with white stripes trimmed in black from the leading to the trailing edge of the wing, adorned by black crosses.

At that point, a monster was born.

Offered as kits and ARFs by several manufacturers over the years, Sticks as they've come to be called are still sold in a multitude of versions, as are plans for the modelers that prefer to build their planes from scratch. Sticks, Ugly Sticks, Das Ugly Sticks, Das Plas Sticks, Big Sticks, Giant Sticks, Ultra Sticks, Mini Ultra Sticks, plus a multitude of copies by other names altogether flooded the market for decades, and they still do to this day. Famous for their predictable flight characteristics and moderate aerobatic ability, hardly a modeler out there hasn't owned at least one stick in his life or a variant thereof.

Many RC pilots, myself included, regard them as an excellent 2nd plane after an aspiring pilot has become proficient with a basic trainer. With a little aptitude, and some help from an experienced pilot, I see no reason why a lot of beginners couldn't skip the first step and just start out with a Stick and spare themselves the agony of getting bored with a trainer and not having the money or time to move up to something more advanced and capable right away. They fly a little faster than the average trainer, but nothing that shouldn't be manageable with a little experience on a modern simulator and some back up by someone with some know how on the other end of a trainer cord. The part that's still somewhat endured in spite of all of the various variants however?

The Red Baron's color scheme.

Now I'll finally get to the point of this not so little history lesson. I proudly present my homage not only to Herr Von Richthofen, but also to one of the most fun and versatile RC models ever conceived: The Ugly Stick. I pay this tribute with another one of the most fun and versatile RC models ever conceived: The Mugi Evo. Believe me, it took far longer to lay out this color scheme than it did for you to read this post. The 3600 rpm/volt brushless motor strapped to the back of this bad boy says that not only does it look better than my last one, it'll haul ass like a fresh fucked fox in a forest fire. I'd be extremely happy to match the top speed of the Fokker DR I from which its color scheme was pilfered. 115 MPH? Not likely, but as soon as the weather allows, we'll find out. Long live the Baron.

There, now aren't you glad you spent all that time reading this?

He's At It Again!

2006-11-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, my good friend Wulfgar is once again hosting the Montana Weblog Awards. At this point, he's taking nominees in several categories, so be sure to get over there, follow his simple instructions, and nominate your favorite bloggers. You can nominate 3 contestants in each of the categories, just 3, no more, like I said, simple instructions, and every category that gets at least 3 nominees will be eligible for the final vote. This was a lot of fun last year, it requires an enormous effort on Rob's part to keep track of all of the votes, and I long for the taste of victory. Nominate someone, you know you want to.

Especially me.

Nominate me.

I need all the help I can get.

So far the only nomination I've seen is for the Popular Culture category, and if there's one thing I despise it's popular culture. Considering my lackluster blogging efforts of late, I'd probably be lucky to win "Montana's Least Updated Blog", so I guess I'd best quit bitching and take what I can get.

So how about this weather we're having? Has anyone else gotten actual real life frostbite on their nutsack yet? OK, I haven't gotten frostbite on my nutsack, but I know I've been close a time or two. Warmth please, this sucks, what else can I say? I'd go flying but there's regretfully no deicing trucks stationed at Amend Park, and I don't even want to think about how brittle coroplast would get in this kind of cold. Ever seen a Mugi Evo shatter like glass? Neither have I and although it may be cool to watch, I'm not going to be the poor sap to stand out there and make it happen. If anyone else would like to give it a try though, let me know. I'll sit in the cab of my truck with the heater on and take pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I'm sure that anyone that's been reading this blog since its inception is rather disappointed at the the lack thereof this year. Last hunting season I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to take several pictures of local wildlife, and in turn post them here. This hunting season was a total flop however. A lack of time, coupled with a lack of ambition, coupled with a waning interest in hunting in general teamed up to make this hunting season basically nonexistent for me. There was a time when I virtually lived for hunting season, but that time has long since passed. Anymore, my interest in hunting, like my interest in most things, seems to ebb and flow from year to year. This was one of my off years, we'll see what happens next year. I am planning on spending at least a little time with my son this winter in pursuit of wascawy wabbits however, so we'll see how that pans out.

I've always enjoyed hunting smaller game moreso than the big stuff anyway. Rabbits and birds aren't nearly as much work to drag out of the woods, and they're mighty tasty too I might add. In Montana at least, there's still no season or limits on rabbits either, so your hunting is limited only by the size of your freezer. I also tend to spend more time humping the boonies when I'm after smaller game, which makes for a much better hunting experience in general. I'm smart enough to know my physical capabilities, which aren't all that great to be honest. Hey, I can admit it. When hunting big game I tend to find myself sticking fairly close to roads and trails since I know myself well enough to know that quartering an elk and making four or five trips over 20 miles of rough terrain is far outside of my physical limits. I've been known to cover a lot of ground when in pursuit of critters that are small enough to carry and not even notice that they're there however. Lord knows I can use the exercise, and any time spent in the outdoors is better than the best time spent at work in my book. Yep, time to polish up the .22's and warm up the bunny pot methinks.

To be honest, I just have too many hobbies, and my feeble little brain only seems to be able to concentrate on one at a time. Fishing gear, boats, 4 Wheelers, motorcycles, snowmobiles, guns, model airplanes, RC cars, tools, boxes of pieces parts, CB radios, motorhomes, tents, other odds and ends camping gear, junk cars and pieces thereof, this is gonna be the mother of all yard sales if I ever get tired of tripping over all of this shit and decide to sell out. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is fun, but it's also awfully expensive. Did I just mention one of those alphabet soup diseases that those in the psychiatric community love to toss around? Oops. I really should go to a psychiatrist some day, really. By the time they got done listing off all of the letters for all of the disorders that I probably have, likely myself and the shrink would both wind up wearing hug me coats and sitting in a pink padded room. At least it would be warm . . . . and the drugs . . . . . aaaaaaah the drugs. Fuck medicinal marijuana, I want some medicinal harder stuff.

With that, I think I'll solicit a little audience participation. How about a top ten list? Here's mine.

Justin's Top Ten Songs For Which There Is No Stereo On Earth Loud Enough To Play Them Properly.

10 - Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train - Ozzy invented loud, he's gotta be in here somewhere.

9 - AC/DC - Highway To Hell - You should see the looks you get from your mom's church friends when you drive by with this one cranked up, especially when you've got a skull and crossbones painted on the hood of your truck.

8 - Skid Row - 18 And Life - If you think I play it loud now, you should've heard it when I was 18.

7 - Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit - Why do all of the really cool rock singers die of overdoses? Maybe it takes a lot of drugs to make great music.

6 - Mudvayne - Happy - Did I say something about a pink padded room?

5 - Alice In Chains - Man In The Box - Eternal truths set to a kick ass beat, what's not to love?

4 - Offspring - Gone Away - And to think that this is a love song. Just proves that you don't have to be a flaming wimp to love someone.

3 - Queen - Fat Bottom Girls - Fat girls are like mopeds. Everybody wants to ride one, they just don't want their friends to find out.

2 - Dire Straits - Money For Nothing - Even better if you know the story behind how Mark Knopfler came up with it. One of my all time favorites.

And the winner is . . . . . Envelope please . . . . . .

1 - Motley Crue - Girls, Girls, Girls - This one needs no explanation, just crank it the fuck up and toss up some devil horns you pussy.

There, I showed you mine, now you show me yours. I'm going to the hobby shop, this fucking ice cube has to melt sooner or later, best be ready for it when it does.

Keeping A Low Profile

2006-11-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

I picked up two packages at the Post Office the other day. One of them was a box from a Mr. Anthony Lewis of Coos Bay, Oregon. Anybody know this guy? ;)

Anyway, I open the box and what do I find inside? Four jars of the most delicious, home canned, albacore tuna I've ever layed taste bud upon. Mmmmmmmmm . . . . . . . . tuna! (sm)

Thanks Tony, my fish craving is almost satisfied for awhile once again. As soon as the Thanksgiving leftovers taper off a bit, it's fishburgers all around, LOL. Were you still interested in a Coroplast glider? I think I may just have something figured out, and enough extra pieces to toss it together. ;)

The other box was the reason why I've not been doing too much blogging lately, well that and the fact that I've been too busy working to spare any valuable sleepy time sitting in front of a computer. I've been looking for one of these things for months, ever since one of my flying buddies told me about them. At one time they were going on ebay for several hundred dollars, but luckily the supply has caught back up with the damand and Toys R Us and Radio Shack both have them for less than $50. Originally, they were $29.95 all over the place but they sold out almost immediately. I got mine off of ebay before I knew that anyone local had them in stock, or at least they did a few days ago. These things are loads of fun, not very controllable but with a little practice they can be maneuvered rather effectively, and best of all I can fly it in the house when the weather's shitty like it is right now. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Picoo Z, quite possible the coolest flying toy since the frisbee.

Dailymotion blogged video
Indoor Fun With The Picoo Z Micro Heli
Video sent by raginredneck93

That's all I've got for you all right now. I think the Picoo Z is just about charged back up, and I've got all the parts cut out for two more Mugi Evos. One of these two is going to be the lucky recipient of a 3600 RPM/volt brushless motor, and a rather ingenious color scheme that my friend Mark helped me come up with. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the other one yet, but at this point it's going to be ready in case I need a spare. I'm considering pulling the brushed power system off of the first one and just using it for a sloper, and putting that motor and speed control on one of the new ones. Stay tuned for more pics and videos.

P.S. - There's a really cool video of some Mugi combat action on Ralpho's Putfile page from last week, so go check it out!

Calling All Trolls, The Elections Are Over, Come And Get It

2006-11-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

So has anybody switched to this new Blogger Beta thing? Every time I log in it asks me if I want to, but then it takes me to some page where it says that certain things might not work, and there's no way to go back, and my palms get all sweaty, and I start to shake, and this ominous foreboding comes over me, and I just. Can't. Click. On. The button. Help me out here. Will sitemeter and all that nifty jazz still work? Will my blog be lost forever? Will I get groggy, fall asleep, and wake up chained to a drain pipe in a dark spooky basement somewhere? I hate dark spooky basements, especially ones with spiders, I hate spiders.

Ok, on to other news. Since there's no recent breakthrough developments on the hunting or model airplane fronts, I'll have to find something else to wax philosophical about. How about politics? I haven't gotten myself in a heap of trouble lately, about time I set out some troll attractant. Here goes.

So the left won a sweeping victory in the elections. I wasn't surprised. With all of the BS the right has been spewing in the last six years it was about time. Now personally, I like to see a perfect 50/50 split in congress, that way the idiots are too busy bickering back and forth at each other to get anything done. All of my more politically involved readers are now gasping and looking wide eyed at their monitors in horror, but think about it. When have the greatest breakthroughs in history been accomplished? During the period at the beginning of any given industry, before the government got involved. Automobiles, computers, aviation, the internet, all of these things and more grew by leaps and bounds, made millionaires by the boatloads, and bolstered the economy of the entire nation in ways that can't even be defined . . . . . right up until the government figured out a way to tax and regulate them to death. Still we have people all over this country saying "we need to do something". Sorry folks, when it comes to the economy, the best thing we can do, is absolutely nothing. Let human ingenuity take over, it's an amazing force, but it really frosts the asses of control freaks. Quit trying to control stuff, just let it take its natural course, and you just might be surprised what comes about. I hate control freaks. We're individuals for a reason, quit telling me what to do and worry about yourself. Yeah. My Dad taught me that. He was the type that would let me get in trouble, then ask me if I learned anything. My answer was usually yes. What do you suppose I would've learned if he'd been shooing me around like an old mother hen? Every kid needs to burn himself at least once to learn what "hot" means. Guess what folks, we never outgrow that.

My Father and I have long shared similar opinions about politicians as well, we disagree on a lot of things politically, but we've never had difficulty when coming to a conclusion about politicians. They're crooks, they'll tell you exactly what you want to hear if they think it'll get them elected, and never trust one any farther than you can kick a mule. Tester is a wholesome Montana farmer from Big Sandy right? Yeah, I guess so, if you consider organic lentils a traditional Montana crop. All those pictures of him with a dog and a shotgun? Avid hunter right? While I haven't verified it, I've heard reports that a check of Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks records will show that he hasn't had a hunting license in 15 years. So what? He's a poacher? If that were the case I'd vote for him in a minute, but he'd have to come out and admit it. I think it's more likely that the hunting pictures were more of a photo op than reality. Sounds a lot like John Kerry's little trip to South Dakota in the last election, it didn't fool me then, and it doesn't fool me now. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Cornhole Burns fan either, but it would be nice to see someone run an honest campaign for once. The Libertarians at least got a few percent of the vote, hey, gotta start somewhere.

If the economy sucks, the working people are suffering, elect a Democrat. They'll take a little from the rich, give it to the poor, and likely things will get better. Just don't leave them in power too long, or else they'll tax your ass to death and any benefits that they may have brought about will be used up and then some. Simple observation: Take from the rich and give to the poor works really good in those old Robin Hood stories, but in the real world it's called Communism, and it's already been proven that it doesn't work. Keep doing it long enough and pretty soon there aren't any more rich people, then what the hell do the poor people have to work for? If they know that as soon as they manage to get "rich", the government will just take it from them anyway, then what's the incentive to get "rich"? It's a hell of a lot easier to just stay poor and let the government give you everything. Next thing you know, there aren't any rich people left to take from anymore, then everything goes to hell. Doesn't it comrade? Yep, it sure does. I like the idea of giving a helping hand to those that need it, but there's a lot of people taking it, that don't need it, and sometimes the left seems all too willing to give it to them.

What's this? Has ol' Justin did a flip flop on you all? He's slamming the left? What the hell?

Don't check out just yet my right wing friends, your turn's coming. Assume the position motherfuckers cuz here it comes. How in the hell can enormous corporations turn record profits in this country, yet wages be stagnant at ten years ago levels? A lot of my friends have heard the siren's song of high paying jobs in Eastern Montana and North Dakota now that the oilfields have fired up again. Guess what Einstein, those "high paying" jobs are paying about the same as they were back in the '70s and '80s when my Dad was working out there. Still think you're making a killing? More and more companies have assumed a strict anti union stance, and rather than step in and see what the problem is, our government just turns a blind eye to it and tells us everything is just peachy. That's the Republicans for you. It's no wonder that gigantic corporations funnel money to the GOP by the truckload, the GOP is their cash cow. As long as the right stays in power, they know they can rape and pillage and keep all of the money to themselves. The left does nasty shit like raising the minumum wage and empowering labor unions, big corporations hate that, it makes them pay their slave . . . . um . . . . . workers a fairer wage. Yeah, the end of slavery didn't destroy the cotton industry like a lot of people predicted that it would, but outsourcing is sure as hell getting the job done. Find me a textile mill in this country.

I've long held the opinion that most labor unions were just coasting along pilfering money from working folks and trying to find ways to justify their own existence, but I think a time is coming when they'll need to step back up to the plate and actually pay a few dues instead of just collecting them. The only trouble is, our good friends on the right have made it far too easy for a company to just pack up and move to China for unions to be effective anymore. Factory workers go on strike? Fuck 'em, we'll move the factory to China, we were already planning on it anyway. Now that the left is back in power, we'll see if they make good on any of their promises, or if they get mired in a bunch of social bullshit and spend all their time playing "I told ya so" with the Republicans.

Here's what the left will have to do to impress me. End outsourcing now, end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home as soon as possible without throwing all of those people over there to the wolves, repeal the Patriot Act and replace it with something that still allows investigating agencies to exchange information while staying within the bounds of the Constitution, make good on your promise to further cut taxes on working people, DO NOT reinstate the death tax and don't even give me that bullshit about only effecting the rich. Most of the people hurt by the death tax are individuals and small family owned businesses, especially ranches and farms. Large companies are corporations that are owned by more than one person anyway, the death tax doesn't mean hooey to them. It seriously fucks "real people" though, get rid of it. Don't create any new wilderness, we have enough public land that doesn't do us any good. It's time to realize that the tree huggers are on the fringe. The resounding majority of Americans realize that common sense environmentalism is not only smart, but a necessity, talk to them, not the wackos. If the wackos were the majority, there wouldn't be semi loads of ATVs and snowmobiles running in convoys up and down the Interstate. Don't fuck with my public land access, it's mine, I have the right to use it, but on the same note come down like a ton of shit on anyone caught abusing it. You can bet your ass that I will, as long as you don't fence me out of it.

Pass a single Goddamn gun control law and I'll vote for every Republican on the ballot in the next election, it's time you fuckers realized that gun control is unconstitutional. If people in New York want gun control, then pass it in their state legislature, not in the federal government. I've had an ass full of having my style cramped because some gang banger in LA decides to convert his AK 47 to full auto and mow down a yard full of school kids. The gun didn't do it, the person did, and if he has the capacity to kill a yard full of school kids then his weapon of choice doesn't matter. He's the killer, not the rifle, and full autos have been illegal since the 30's, no new gun control necessary just enforce the shit you already have. Even the hard core wacky assed anti gun freaks realize that they're not likely to pass too many restrictions on hunting rifles. Trust me folks, this country boy could be a hell of a lot more lethal with a bolt action hunting rifle than these city idiots can be with a full auto. Accuracy is a wonderful tool, but I'm not a killer, that's the difference. I am a good shot though, trust me.

Here's my idea for the next election. Any candidates, or every candidate for that matter, can feel free to use this idea if they'd like. I don't even care if they give me credit for it, just as long as they do it. If I were running for office, I think the first thing that I'd do is call up my opponent and set up a meeting. Surely we'd disagree on things, but I'd just bet that if we tried, we could find a lot of common ground on a personal level. I'd suggest to said opponent that we make a public appearance, and promise to the voters that we absolutely, positively, would not resort to smear campaigns and negative ads. I'd then ask my opponent if he or she were willing to agree that neither of us air an ad on our own, in other words, both of us would appear in every ad that we put out, sort of like mini debates instead of attacks and stabs. TV ads could feature myself and my opponent sitting around a campfire, or sitting in a boat fishing, discussing our stands on the issues, not each other's personal lives, but discussing like a couple of normal folks, not like two politicians that hate each other. Maybe we disagree on taxes, maybe we disagree on the environment, but the commercial would show that even though we disagree on those issues, we both like fishing, or we both like camping.

At the end of our little exchange maybe we'd exchange a couple of "what kind of idiot are you" looks, then laugh and say something about enough politics, let's get back to fishing. As the camera panned back and the sound faded out, we'd be talking about which lure we were going to try next. It might be difficult to do when tempers start flaring and differences of opinion got out of hand, but anyone who was truly wanting to serve the public instead of their own personal agenda would be able to grin and bear it in order to present their stance on the issues and put personal differences aside for the filming of a 30 second campaign ad. There you go politicos, will any of you step up to the plate and try it out? Maybe if a few races were run that way, it'd show people that we aren't all that different, we just happen to disagree on a few issues that should not have the power to divide a nation as great as The United States Of America.

The elections are over, the Democrats won, I'll be patiently waiting to see what happens next.

Missed Me . . . . Didn't Ya?

2006-11-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

I seem to have started a trend.

The Mugi Evo population of Billings has grown a bit since last update. I may not have the fastest, but I did have the first!

Tomorrow is election day. Be sure to get out and vote for the crook of their choice, it is our civic duty to play their silly little fucking game after all. As if the outcome isn't already decided . . . . .

There's my conspiratorial reference for this year, I can't let an election day pass without at least one, it's bad for my reputation. On one side the elections are all rigged . . . . . on the other side we have to be sure and vote or else we're some kind of lesser citizen. What's the difference? It'll all turn out the same anyway.

Sorry to be so cynical, I've just been struck with another case of writer . . . . . um . . . . . blogger's block. I'll get my sorry ass back to normal soon, right after I quit getting bombarded every five minutes by another smear ad payed for by another crooked politician or group that stands to gain something by the election of said crooked politician. Our government may suck, but it still sure as hell beats the alternative. At least we think it does. But what's to say that we don't already have the alternative? Ponder that for awhile.

Whatever You Do, Don't Look Outside

2006-10-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a change in the weather. Sunday was nice except for the wind, not that it did me any good. I snuck out a little after day break and did a little flying, but thanks to my recently acquired cold from hell that was about all I had the ambition to do all day. Luckily I had the foresight to leave my more fragile aircraft at home, since my final . . . . um . . . . . landing, proved that I was a little off my game. Did you know that Mugi Evos can . . . . . um . . . . . land(?) upside down at full speed and still survive? I didn't either but I do now. Built up balsa Piper Cubs and CAP232's can't . . . . survive that is . . . . . . . they land upside down just fine . . . . . . . but they usually only do it once. Yeah, best to leave them home until my head quits feeling like it's about to explode. I did try something new with the Evo besides the aforementioned inverted landing though, check out the video.

Luckily Morgan Wood designs tough airplanes, I'll stick to his stuff until I start feeling better. If you haven't checked out the Mugi.co.uk site yet, go give it a look. Turns out that he's a bit of a blogger himself. If you go to his FTE56 (Flight Training Europe) page, he's got really cool photos and journal entries from himself and his classmates at flight school in Spain. Really neat stuff, especially for an airplane geek like me. (Sticks and stones firefly, LOL) I can't wait until his newest creation is finished in kit form.

The Tea Racer is what he's calling it (he is British after all), and it's a really cool looking sort of retro pylon racer made of Coroplast and designed from the ground up for light weight and electric power, no heavy plastic gutter pipe involved like most Coro planes that were originally designed for glow power. There's a picture of one of his earlier prototypes here, he sent me a pic of what the final form is going to look like but I don't know if he'd like me to use it or not so for now anyway I'll keep it top secret. Other than a little narrower wing which effectively gives the plane a longer tail moment and I assume a little more manageable control characteristics, it's basically the same plane as the one pictured anyway.

The wider wing would be better for slow speed control, but a plane called a "Tea Racer" isn't exactly what I'd picture as a slow speed aircraft. Add that to the fact that when working with Coroplast I've found that weight tends to add up just as fast if not faster than wing area anyway, there's not a lot of benefit to going with a larger wing. Mostly you just add drag, the added weight of the additional material tends to eat up any lift benefits on these smaller planes, so I can definitely see why he narrowed the wing. He tells me that he's planning on offering it as a kit first to try to make up for the more than two years that he has invested in designing and testing it, then eventually he plans to release the free plans like he did with the Evo. If I have my way, I'll have a kit making its way across the Atlantic shortly after they become available. I think I've freeloaded off of Morgan long enough, time I ponied up and sent a few bucks his way I think. It's not everyday that we find someone as generous as he is in this hobby, or this world for that matter, where it seems everyone is out to make a buck. Actually there's a lot of stuff that I'd like to order from him, but the cost of shipping from Great Britain can get a little pricey for anything that isn't small enough to go airmail.

There . . . . that's enough advertising for today.

Why isn't there a market for snot? I've got barrels of the shit and no end in sight to the supply. So how about it? Anybody want to buy a barrel of snot?

Didn't think so.

Sorry to be so brief once again, but I seriously feel like ass. I'm gonna go have another Airborne and echinacea cocktail and go back to bed. Snow on the ground and one of our drivers is off for the week so I doubt I'll wind up with a night off. I guess if I'm going to be sick I might as well get paid for it. From what I hear, the snow's supposed to be short lived but the cold assed temps are likely to hang around for a few days anyway. Do yourself a favor and dress up like an Eskimo tomorrow night, I wouldn't advise the nude surfer costume.

Oh yeah . . . . enjoy the video. ;)

Dailymotion blogged video
Cheap Thrills
Video sent by raginredneck93

No Time For A Real Post Today, But I Had To Do Something

2006-10-26T09:49:00.000-06:00

Here's a pic of my latest Mugi Evo. This one came out absolutely perfect, straight as an arrow and smooth as silk. I can't wait to see how it flies. Too bad it isn't mine, I built this one for a friend, and used the last of my Coroplast doing it. Maybe with a little luck I'll get to do the test flight, and get some more Coroplast soon so I can apply what I've learned to a new one for myself. Just a little something to chew on while I'm busy paying the internet bill. Later.

I've Renewed My Membership With PETA - People Eating Tasty Animals

2006-10-23T16:59:00.000-06:00

I made that comment over at Rockstar Mommy's a few days ago.

Someone called me a Republican.

I can handle being called fat, I can handle being called ugly, I can handle being called a geek, but about one more person calls me a Republican and I'm liable to dot the fucker's eye for him.

What? If you're mature enough to be able to handle the idea of where your food comes from then you're obviously a right wing nut job that has a Dubya poster on your bedroom ceiling, Rush "Pussgut" Limbaugh cranked up on your stereo, and a morbid fear of those nasty middle eastern boogie men that are bound to get us any day now? Sorry, but I don't think so. Keep the petty political labels for the terminally ignorant, I don't buy into the name calling anymore, and they don't fit me. Trying to convince me to be afraid of your made up enemy is not an effective control tactic for this hillbilly, it just really reminds me of a chap named Adolph and another made up enemy that suffered terribly at the hands of tyrants. I may have no problem with harvesting my own food, but I'm most definitely not a Republican, and if I had been in the past, I wouldn't be any longer.

You know that bloody, eviscerated deer carcass that you spied yesterday? Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about. The one tied to the flatbed trailer beside the ATV that some guy was pulling behind his pickup. The hamburger that you ate for lunch looked just like that a few weeks ago.

Deal with it. I do. No GOP membership card required. Gut a deer, spoon the seeds out of the middle of a delicious acorn squash, skin an elk, peel a potato, filet a fish, slice a tomato, pluck a chicken, it's all just necessary food preparation to me and anyone that's concerned about the smell really should stuff their sniffer in a cow's innards some time. I have, and I still eat 'em, but I wouldn't advise it for the faint of stomach. Notice I didn't say whether or not I blew chow afterwards.

Why do I bring this up you ask? Well . . . because it's now officially hunting season that's why! Oh sure it's been hunting season for weeks for some folks, but I don't shoot goats, and I haven't had time to shoot any birds, and although I'm not fundamentally opposed to the idea I feel no need to sit in a tree all day with a primitive weapon with hopes of skewering my future food with an aluminum arrow. Nope, my idea of hunting is much the same as my idea of gardening. Pluck it and eat it, works for me.

This year I'm not going to get too concerned with hunting though. I bought the boy and myself deer tags, but I've decided not to set myself up for failure by forking out the bucks for an elk license again. Maybe in a year or two when I've built my vacation time back up to where I actually have time to get serious about it like I used to, but going elk hunting for a day isn't very productive unless one is extremely lucky. It's just a waste of time, effort, and fuel.

Sunday morning found us standing watch on a hayfield near Joliet. A hayfield that turned out to be loaded with deer when the sun came up. A hayfield that turned out to be about 400 yards across, with loads of deer on the far side of it when the sun came up. A hayfield that was about 400 yards across and loaded with deer until my son and a coworker's stepson fired at, and missed said deer. There weren't any deer in it after that.

I think Junior and I should've spent a little more time at the target range last summer. In his defense however, it would've been a long shot even for me, and it was damn cold. A one hundred yard shot is difficult when you're shivering like a puppy shittin' razor blades, let alone four hundred. An older, more experienced shooter is more able to shut off his or her body's reactions to things like cold or being out of breath long enough to make a clean shot, but an inexperienced kid just knows that he's cold. The kid missed plain and simple, but like I told him, there's more shame in the fact that he took the shot in the first place than there is in missing. I've always taught him that if you're not absolutely sure, just say so. I'll never chew him out for refusing to waste ammo or take a chance on wounding an animal. Half of being a good marksman is knowing your capabilities and the capabilities of your equipment, and the only way to figure out what those capabilities are is with experience. He needs some.

This year I've resolved myself to let the boy shoot a deer before I even try. No matter how frustrated I get with his inexperience, no matter how much I just want to beat him over the head with a stick, no matter how many bullets he deposits into terra firma in the general vicinity of deer, I'm not firing a shot until I have pictures of my beloved son kneeling beside a bloody carcass holding my old rifle and smiling.

Smile damn it. I don't care if you're tired. I don't care if it stinks. I don't care if you're about to puke. I said SMILE.

I'm not one of those dads that "insists" that his kids follow in his footsteps. If the boy had no interest in hunting whatsoever I can't say that I wouldn't be disappointed because I would be, but it's his choice and I'm comfortable letting him make it. If he wanted to be a ballet dancer I can't say that I'd exactly support him wholeheartedly . . . . . The fact is though, that the boy IS interested in hunting, and I would really like for him to experience the pride and sense of accomplishment that I did when I bagged my first buck. There's just nothing in the world that makes me feel manly like killing something and eating it. Call me names if you want, just don't come crying to me if you get hungry.

Most of all, my daughter is already expressing increasing interest in taking Hunter Education and going hunting with Dad as soon as she's old enough, and I can't even imagine the embarrassment a young man would feel at having his little sister shoot a deer before he did. Actually I can imagine it, my sister goes elk hunting every year, and actually brings home elk. It's not quite the same though, my sister's older than me, and she usually tosses me a few packs of elk steaks. Anyone know of a good ballet instructor?

Prepare For A Revolution!

2006-10-19T15:25:00.000-06:00

No no no, not some hokey assed political revolution. No Mel Gibson movies will be made about this one, but it's pretty damn exciting news for anyone involved with radio controlled airplanes.

Horizon Hobby has just announced the release of the Spektrum DX7 radio system! I know, no one gives a shit, but this is actually really big news.

Didn't I just mention in response to a comment on my last post that this would likely be introduced soon? Gee . . . I must be psychotic.

For a year or so now, those of us that stick mostly to small, electric powered park flyers and micro helicopters have been enjoying the benefits offered by the Spektrum DX6 Parkflyer system. I have one myself and absolutely love it. This is a fully programmable, 6 channel computer radio system that operates on the 2.4 GHz band like wireless internet does, but it's only approved for use with smaller planes since it lacks the range of the higher powered FM systems. With the introduction of the DX7 system however, the parkflyer restriction is a thing of the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if, in a few years, every other manufacturer of RC equipment has either gone out of business, or introduced similar technology. This is truly a revolution in the industry. Besides having the range to fly everything from foamies and micro helis to giant scale aerobats and 3 meter sailplanes, the new DX7 system also includes more advanced programming features than the DX6 as well as a seventh channel to play with.

What it means is that unlike with traditional 72 mhz FM systems which have been the norm for decades, RC flyers no longer have to worry about which frequency they're on, and more importantly, they don't have to worry about someone else turning on a transmitter on the frequency that they're already using and having their plane shot down by some idiot that's too lazy to ask around as to what channel everyone's using. The Spektrum systems automatically scan all 80 channels on the 2.4 GHz band when they're powered up, and then lock on to the 2 clearest channels. That way there's always a redundant dual RF link between the receiver in the plane, and the transmitter on the ground. The 2.4 GHz band is inherently less receptive to unwanted interference and RF noise than the 72 mhz band as well, which means that no longer will a metal pushrod rattling against a metal screw head be enough to send a plane out of control as it has been in the past. This also allows a lot more freedom for modelers as to where they route servo and motor wires since in the past one had to use caution to avoid picking up interference that way as well.

As if that isn't enough security, FCC regulations require anything operating on the 2.4 GHz band to incorporate "smart" technology. What this means is that each device, be it a wireless router for your computer, a cordless telephone, or a Spektrum RC system, is assigned a GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) code so that devices will only recognize other devices that they're designed to operate with. With a Spektrum radio, the receiver in the plane has to be "bound" to the transmitter that it's going to be used with, and once the binding process (simple 5 second procedure) is completed, that receiver will only recognize that transmitter regardless of how many Spektrum systems or other 2.4 GHz devices are in the immediate vicinity. Since there's over 4.2 billion possible GUID codes, the chances of any two being on the same one are nill to none. I've been flying a Spektrum in all of my planes except the Sky Fly for several months now, and I'm happy to report not a single glitch, these things really work.

Another neat feature of the DX7 is that it will work with all existing Spektrum equipment. The DX7 system includes the new AR7000 dual receiver for use with larger aircraft, but it will also work with the smaller AR6000 micro receivers that I have in my planes, which is big news for those of us that wish to upgrade from our DX6 systems. Spektrum receivers aren't the cheapest ones on the market, but they do compare favorably in price with the higher end FM micro receivers. From what I've been able to find out so far, the price for the transmitter, one receiver, and four large "standard" servos, or a complete system in other words, is supposed to be around $350, which is comparable to similarly equipped FM systems currently available. The DX6 system is $200 with four micro servos and one receiver, so for an extra $150 you get a lot more programming options, a 20 model memory as opposed to 10 with the DX6, and more importantly, you get a lot more aircraft options as well as the aforementioned 7th channel.

The DX7 system also incorporates a feature called "Model Match" that will not allow you to attempt to fly a plane with the wrong model selected on the screen. That way you can't try to take off with your Piper Cub if your radio is still set to fly your Mugi Evo, which is a big plus if you're scatter brained. Luckily I haven't done that yet, but I'm told that pretty much everyone does it sooner or later.

This might just be the thing that will get me to dust off one of my old glow powered planes, or at least it will if I can get my hands on one. Unless Horizon already has a warehouse full of these things, I wouldn't look for them to be too easy to find at least for the next several months. With a little luck, the supply will catch up with the demand by the time flying season really kicks into gear next spring. John and Clay are at the hobby expo in Chicago where Horizon made the release announcement, maybe with a little luck they'll bring a few back with them.

7 channels. That's enough to not only fly the plane, but add flaps, retractable landing gear, and a bomb drop. No interference, 20 model memory, 1024 resolution, what's not to love? I wants me one!

Sure Glad We Did It When We Had The Chance

2006-10-16T13:20:00.000-06:00

Looked outside today? If you haven't, don't. At least not if don't want to be depressed.

Rain.

Snow predicted.

Yuck.

On the bright side however, I should be making some cash this week. It's illegal to pull triples in Montana during inclement weather, so when the snow starts falling my gracious employer tends to need a few more drivers, namely me. Last week's crappy forecast petered out before it ever got started, we'll see what happens this week. Maybe with a little luck it'll clear up just in time for the weekend. From the looks of the National Weather Service reports however, I'm sure not holding my breath. Oh well, I've got a backlog of airplanes that need built, I can deal with one crappy weekend before I go looney.

I have in my grubby little hands, one Hobby Lobby Mini Telemaster kit that's just begging to be modified with ailerons and tricycle landing gear, a Hobbico Flyzone free flight plane that's about half way converted to RC and mostly just waiting on some itty bitty servos that are on their way here from Taiwan or Korea or wherever they come from on the back of a piss drunk sea turtle, a GWS Pico Stick F that's scheduled to receive a reinforced wing and brushless power, possibly ailerons as well, a sort of 3D aerobat meets WWI monoplane looking Coroplast and carbon fiber creation that I've affectionately named "The Evil Little Bitch", and a 3600 kv brushless motor that's just begging to be on a 100 MPH Mugi Evo. OK, maybe 100 MPH is a bit of a stretch, but there's only one way to find out.

As I mentioned in my last post, pretty much all of the repair work is done on my current planes. After spending Saturday afternoon getting everything ready I awoke before the sun on Sunday only to find that the wind was howling like a banshee at my house. All that cussing that you heard at 6 AM? Yep . . . . that was me.

I figured that at the very least a few of the guys would be at the field planning a foray out to some hill in the boonies someplace to go slope soaring, so I tossed the Sky Fly, the Mugi, and after careful deliberation, the CAP 232 into the back seat of the big Ford, tossed my wife and daughter into the front seat, and we headed out for the field. OK, I didn't actually toss them, actually I set them down very carefully . . . the airplanes that is . . . . the wife and daughter just climbed in all by themselves. When we got there, I was extremely bummed that I didn't bring the Cub, the wind was dead calm. @$%!@#.

I hadn't seen the park that busy on a Sunday morning in ages, and most everyone there was flying something. Loads of cool airplanes, but I was so busy flying my own that I only managed to get pics and video of a few of them. My darling wife Carrie was nice enough to jump in on camera duty however, and caught some good video of some of the stuff I was too busy to worry about. Ralpho even showed up for a while, but by the time I got a chance to stop and talk to him with everything else that was going on, he was gone again. That happened to me a bunch yesterday, and I hope I didn't offend anyone, I was just busy flying since I knew it'd likely be the last good weather for awhile. I flew all three of the planes that I had along several times each, even the dastardly CAP232 which I haven't flown in over a month. It handled flawlessly and even though it could still stand to lose an ounce or two in front of the CG, the little bit of weight that I was able to shave off helped tremendously. After battling with the Cub, the ground handling on the CAP seemed exemplary, now if I'd just brought the Cub I could've found out if my modifications fixed the problem. Oh well, there's other days I guess.

The soccer players finally started moving in and taking over the park about noon, so we all headed off in our separate directions. As if we hadn't had enough socializing already, several of us sort of accidentally met up at a local cafe for lunch. It was a great way to round out the day.

Upon arriving back home, I soon found myself stuffed under the hood of a recalcitrant Chevrolet. For some reason my wife's car is not able to just break down, oh no, that'd be far too easy to figure out. Nope, this sorry little #$%!# for some reason feels the need to only have intermittent problems, the kind that will either only happen when she's driving and never show their ugly heads when I'm anywhere in the vicinity, or else the kind that could be caused by any one of a million different things so that I get to spend hours and hours scratching my big empty head trying to figure out what the hell could possibly be wrong.

After raiding my parts car for several little easy to replace tidbits I swapped out the PCV valve and the throttle position sensor to no avail. Next on my list of stuff that's likely wore out and not looking too healthy is the EGR valve, but after checking the spark plugs, running half of a compression check, spending a half hour repairing a leak in my compression tester, and then performing the other half of a compression check, I'd had an ass full of this blasted car. Before I resorted to tossing a hammer through the windshield, I grabbed the Mugi and headed for a nearby school to fire off a couple flights before dark.

Everything went smoothly until I put the Mugi back in the truck. When I set it on the seat one of the control surfaces moved, and something didn't sound quite right when it did. Upon closer examination I found that several of those eeny weeny teeny tiny plastic teeth on one of those eeny weeny teeny tiny plastic gears inside one of my elevon servos had said bye bye to the gears they were supposed to be on and set out to make their own way in the world. That's great for them, but it doesn't make my servo work worth a shit. Anyway, the Mugi is now out of commission waiting for me to replace said servo, no easy task in a Mugi I can assure you, but from the looks of the weather I've got plenty of time to get it done. The next Mugi that I build won't have cheap used servos from Ebay I can assure you. I'm just glad that it did it in the truck instead of in the air.

At any rate, here's the video from yesterday's adventure into the wild blue yonder. Be warned however that this one has some explicit lyrics involved, so don't turn the sound on if you have virgin ears. There's one plane featured in this one that I've been wanting to see fly for some time, and I was most definitely not disappointed. Oh yeah . . . . I even tossed in something that I said I wouldn't just for comic relief. Enjoy.

Dailymotion blogged video
Winter Can Wait
Video sent by raginredneck93

Dreaming Of Calm Wind In The Morning

2006-10-14T22:09:00.000-06:00

I worked Friday night and therefore missed out on one of what is likely the last two nice weekend days of the year for flying. The weather was beautiful this morning, and from the line of vehicles parked on our makeshift flightline at Amend Park as I drove by on the Interstate on my way back into town from Butte, quite a few of my flying buddies took advantage of it. I was really itching to get something in the air this afternoon when I woke up from my nap, but decided to concentrate my efforts on tomorrow instead. Most all of my aircraft were in need of some kind of attention, so I spent the afternoon tieing up some loose ends in preparation for what looks to be another fine day tomorrow.

The ground handling on the Cub sucks. There's just no other way of putting it. At first I thought it was just me and I just needed to get used to the thing, but after the utterly frightening and equally embarrassing takeoff I had Friday, I decided that something must be wrong with it. Dick has the same plane, and he says that for a Cub his ground handling is awesome, and I've never had this much trouble getting any of my other planes off of the ground. Hopefully I found the problem today. Taildraggers tend to respond favorably when the wheels on the main gear have a little toe in. That way if one wheel tries to get ahead of the other one, it turns sideways and acts like a brake pulling itself back in line and keeping the aircraft tracking straight down the runway in the process. A disassembly and close examination of my landing gear today showed that I had one wheel toed in, and the other was toed out. As a result, the whole airplane had to dog track to the left going down the runway to stay in a straight line. No wonder it wanted to ground loop so bad. After a whole lot of tweaking and measuring and retweaking and remeasuring, it now has about 3 degrees of toe in, equal on both wheels. We'll see if that makes a difference.

The CAP is getting mighty nose heavy. After my numerous "firm arrivals" and resulting repairs to the landing gear bracing and motor mount the CAP232 has taken on some considerable nose weight. We have a saying in this hobby, "Nose heavy planes fly poorly, tail heavy planes fly once". Actually it doesn't fly all that bad, but it has to be going like a striped assed ape to land without bouncing like a pogo stick on crack. Getting the CG back to where it's supposed to be would no doubt make it a bit more responsive as well as easier to coax back to terra firma in one piece. First I replaced the busted tail wheel to not only improve the ground handling but to add a little weight to the tail to neutralize some of the nose weight. It broke off a month or so ago, but since I haven't been flying it much since I got my Cub I haven't bothered to fix it, I just stuck a piece of tape to the bottom of the rudder to keep it from getting beat up and called it good. I put a new one on it today, as well as hogging some excess wood out of various areas ahead of the CG (center of gravity) with my Dremel. It's still a bit nose heavy, but no doubt a lot better than it was. Most of the screw holes for affixing the cowl and canopy were getting wallowed out, a little thin CA applied to them tightened the fit right back up. This is a fun little plane and I have no intention of writing it off just yet. Hopefully it'll get a little air time tomorrow.

The Mugi is a bitch to hand launch. I've got some video of some of my less successful attempts, I doubt I'll ever show it here. I may send it in to one of those funniest home video shows and see if I can win some cash, but I won't show it here. Let's just say it's a good thing that the Mugi is double tough. Eric has a Great Planes XPD-8 (check out the claims of only 56 MPH on the site, Eric's has been clocked at 77 on Dick's radar gun, but that isn't with the stock motor either) ducted fan flying wing that's a bitch to hand launch as well. This type of aircraft is basically overpowered as far as pitch speed is concerned, but not from a torque perspective. They can't muscle themselves up off of the ground like a 3D capable plane can, they're more about flat out speed than raw displays of power. It's sort of like trying to take off with your car in high gear, if you could get it rolling first you'd be fine, but from a dead stop it doesn't work all that great. Since the aircraft equivalent of a transmission is a variable pitch prop, which I don't have, I don't have any choice but to get the speed up somehow before leaving the ground or go to a prop with less pitch and lose a considerable amount of top speed in the process. Most flying wings don't have landing gear, but if they did they'd need a rather substantial takeoff run to get airborne. I could add landing gear, and the takeoff run wouldn't be a problem at our field, but that's a lot of weight and more importantly, drag. Most of what makes this thing so fun is the phenomenal speeds that it attains, so adding drag would be defeating the purpose. Anyway, Eric uses a piece of rubber surgical tubing to bungee launch his, but there has to be a suitable hook on the bottom of the aircraft, ahead of the CG, to attach the bungee to. The Mugi now has one, a tow hook that is, anchored to the carbon fiber internal wing spar for strength, and coming out of the belly of the beast a few inches behind the nose. Hopefully Eric is there in the morning, since he said he had an extra piece of tubing that I could have. I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

The Sky Fly works just fine. Like I've said over and over again, for less than a hundred bucks, it's a damn hard plane to beat! I don't get paid to brag this thing up or anything, it's just nice to find a product from time to time that's an excellent value and lives up to its claims and then some. However, if anyone at Hobbico had a few extra bucks laying around . . . . . . ;)

So hopefully it's off to the park in the morning. I hope everyone else is enjoying the beautiful weather as well, since it'll likely be a long winter before we see anything like it again. It's possible that we may have several really nice weekends before winter, but I'm not taking any chances.

UPDATED UPDATE!> Mugi Now Live, And In Color! AND WE NOW KNOW WHAT TO CALL IT!

2006-10-09T13:01:00.000-06:00

UPDATE

I just got an email from Morgan Wood, the designer of the Mugi, and he tells me that the proper pronunciation is "moogy", as in rhymes with "boogy". Boogy is definitely something that this plane can do, so I guess it fits. He's also offered to send me some official Mugi decals for my plane. This guy is starting to tip the generosity scales methinks. I'll be putting up a permanent link on my sidebar to the Mugi site as a thank you. He sells Mugi kits as well as other Mugi pieces and parts there, so go there and buy something. At the very least give him a visit, I think you'll like what you see. He's also working on another design, as well as a bunch of other cool models made out of Coroplast, I can't wait to see what they are!

Actually, this post was supposed to just be an update at the bottom of my last post, so if you haven't read the last post yet, do that first and then this one will make a lot more sense. Blogger is being a grouchy bitch for some reason, so when I try to just edit my last post, it loads, then disapears. It hasn't been too friendly about uploading the still pics of the now decorated Mugi either, so we'll see what happens.

WOOHOO! SUCCESS!

Ok, now that Blogger finally decided to load my pics. Here's the Mugi with some color applied. I know, it's kind of gaudy, but that was the idea. Mugi's the name, high visibility is the game.

And here's the bottom.

Since I am a redneck after all, even my airplanes need smart assed bumper stickers.

And a redheaded hottie riding shotgun!

My Hangar Just Got A Little Bigger

2006-10-08T23:17:00.000-06:00

I did something dangerous Saturday.

No, I didn't rebuild any rear ends. ;)

Actually I built an airplane.

Yep . . . . Another one.

The amazing part is that I actually survived unscathed. In spite of being extremely groggy eyed, I didn't even manage to hack any steaks off of myself with my razor knife, nor did I accomplish my usual SNAFU of welding my fingers together with CA glue. I know, amazing. Better keep the acetone handy just in case though, I'm planning on building more of these bad boys for sure. Actually I'm thinking about starting a factory. After seeing it fly this morning, several of the guys at the field were lining up to place their orders already. The ones that weren't interested in paying me to build them one were asking where to get the plans so they could build one themselves.

Oh yeah, the plans, you can get them here. The designer was nice enough to put the plans out on the web absolutely free, along with a whole lot of information on construction, power systems, and even some really cool modifications including the coolest light system I've ever seen just in case you want to try night flying. This is especially amazing considering the fact that he also sells kits. Be sure to check out the videos, especially the night flying footage.

Anyway, I spent most of Saturday building a "Mugi Evo", which is a simple flying delta wing made out of 2mm Coroplast and a few other cheap or mostly free little tidbits that most RC modelers already have laying around. This is not a plane for beginners, but it's one hell of a kick in the shorts if a person can handle the zippy little bastard. Besides that, it's double ugly tough just in case a person can't handle the zippy little bastard. I can't wait to fly it again, this thing has me stoked.

Don't ask me how to pronounce Mugi, because I don't know. I actually sent an email to the guy that designed the thing and asked him, but he's in England so I don't know if he's gotten the message yet. It must take a long time for all of those little letters and spaces and stuff to get all the way across that big 'ol ocean I think. If he gets back to me I'll let you know, but until then we've just been calling it a "Muggy". At least we've been calling it a Muggy when we haven't been calling it a fast motherfucker, this thing hauls some serious ass. Dick, aka the human radar gun, figures it at over 70 MPH. As soon as I get a few issues straightened out with the control linkages so I can actually trim the damn thing out and hopefully not brain some poor bastard in the process, we'll likely make a few passes over his real radar gun and see what it's actually doing. Either way, take my word for it, it's fast.

The fact that it's so fast isn't even the amazing part. The amazing part is the fact that it's that fast on an $8.00 brushed motor called a Speed 400. I don't know how the hell it got the name Speed 400, most planes that use these things are far from speedy. Then again, most planes that use these things use a big ol' gear reduction and a huge honking prop spinning really slow. This one uses a little bitty prop direct drive right off of the shaft, whirling like a mad bastard and howling like a banshee in the process. Maybe that was how they were using it when they named it a Speed 400, otherwise it'd be called a Really Slow 400, unless somebody was trying to be funny . . . . . . Could happen.

As for the rest of the plane, it's nothing but a few square feet of Coroplast, a cheap speed control (actually free in this case, I got the motor and speed control from another guy that wrecked his Multiplex Space Scooter, I can't wait to show him what his "junk" motor can do hehehehe), a little glue, two used servos that I got off of Ebay for next to nothing and keep around for experiments, a couple scraps of .070" carbon fiber rod for pushrods, and of course a receiver and a 3 cell lithium polymer battery. The receiver and battery are the only parts of this plane that cost anything at all, and they're pretty well protected thanks to the excellent and extremely durable nature of this aircraft, it's made to take a lickin' and keep on tickin' for sure. The design is so simple that even a dog tired truck driver can put one together in an afternoon, and believe me, that's saying something.

I'm gonna get back to putting some decoration on this thing, ya'll check out the video of the first test flights. A 30" wing span and 70+ MPH speeds make this thing a bitch to see in pure white, especially against a cloudy sky. We gonna jazz it up with some color before it winds up going into stealth mode at a really bad time.

Enjoy.

Dailymotion blogged video
How To Huck A Mugi
Video sent by raginredneck93

It Finally Happened

2006-10-06T05:36:00.000-06:00

Yep, it finally did.

Here . . . . . Let me back up a little.

Yesterday I'm sitting around the house doing whatever it was I was doing, likely working on my latest miniature flying machine, (just wait until you all see this one!) when all of a sudden the phone rings. Now it's not very often that my phone rings during the day. The wife's rings constantly but most people know that I'm likely sleeping and won't answer mine anyway, so they don't even bother calling it. Most people that really know me know that I fucking hate telephones and likely won't answer the son of a bitch even if I'm not sleeping, so they still call hers.

Anyway, the phone rings. I grumble a few obscenities, look at the caller ID and see that it's a strange number. Probably some dumb ass with a wrong number I figure. Since there's few things that make me giggle uncontrollably like fucking with poor bastards that get wrong numbers, I figure what the hell and I answer the damn thing. Well . . . . Smoking pot used to make me giggle almost as uncontrollably as fucking with poor bastards that got wrong numbers, but I quit doing that years ago. Smoking pot that is, I still fuck with poor bastards that get wrong numbers. I wonder how much fun it would be fucking with poor bastards that get wrong numbers, while smoking pot. Damn. Probably wind up needing an oxygen tank, or puking by the time that was over. Anyway.

Me - Hello, Big J Enterprises Worldwide, Big J speaking.

Guy on the phone - Uhhhh . . . . . Yeah . . . . . Um I'm looking for Justin?

Me - Well so am I and that sorry bastard better hope that you find him before I do.

Guy on the phone - Ummmmm . . . . . . I think maybe I have a wrong number.

Me - (Thinking "no shit Sherlock") No, this is Justin, I was just shittin' ya, what the hell can I do for ya?

Guy on the phone - (laughing) Oh OK, had me worried for a minute there. Anyway, I got your number from a friend of mine and . . . . . .

So this guy goes on to tell me this long winded spiel about how he owns his own business based out of the Billings airport that deals entirely with high value and time critical freight moving between Billings and all points elsewhere and vice versa. He's got a Cessna Caravan Super Cargomaster that he flies all over the place hauling high dollar electronic gizmos for big corporations and the government, as well as really urgent medical shit like about to be transplanted human innards and stuff. Damn easy job and pays assloads of money.

Me - So what the hell does this have to do with me?

Guy on the phone - Well . . . . Here's the deal . . . . .

He goes on to tell me all about how his little transport business is growing by leaps and bounds, and he's got another plane ordered but Cessna is about 8 months out on the damn thing. Meanwhile he's working double time trying to keep up and his ass is dragging the ground. Where I come in, he tells me, is that he's looking to hire somebody to ride along with him on his runs, help him load and unload shit, (yep, flying dockhand, sounds a lot like what I do now, only without the flying), and in return besides paying a rather generous wage, he's willing to teach this person how to fly and help him or her get their IFR and Commercial ratings. That way when the new plane comes in whoever the lucky bastard is, can jump in one of them and start up a second run.

Me - Sounds like a hell of a deal. But still, why me?

Guy on the phone - Like I said, I got your name from a friend of mine and he told me that you'd love to get your pilot's license, but just never figured you could afford it. If you're half as interested in flying as my friend told me you are, then it shouldn't be any problem for you to bust ass and have your license by the time my second plane comes in. Besides, you already know the freight business, so I don't figure it'd be much of a problem for you to pick up the particulars of air freight over what you have been doing.

Me - Wow, cool.

Just then I hear this huge ruckus coming from the living room. Seems that Mrs. Justin is jumping up and down and screaming like a fucking lunatic. Now if there's one thing in the world that I hate worse than talking on a Goddamn telephone, it's trying to hear a Goddamn telephone over somebody that's jumping up and down and screaming like a fucking lunatic.

"GODDAMN IT WOMAN, GET THE KID TO KILL THE FUCKING WASP AND SHUT THE HELL UP, CAN'T YOU SEE I'M ON THE PHONE?"

"WE WON! WE WON!" she keeps screaming.

"I know we won, I just got offered the job of a lifetime, now if you'd shut the hell up maybe I could find out the details before the battery goes dead in this piece of shit cellphone"

"NO REALLY, WE WON! THE LOTTERY, WE WON! NOW WE CAN BUY THAT DOUBLEWIDE!" She says, still screaming actually.

Now I really want her to stop screaming before the crackheads down the street hear her and storm the castle gates to get that golden ticket. I start looking for my .45, I'll be goddamned if those worthless bastards are gonna take MY new doublewide without a fight.

Just as I look over her shoulder and see the numbers there on the computer screen which do indeed match the ones on the ticket that she's flailing about like an epileptic on crack, I start to hear this voice, a far off voice, and it's weird, like it's coming from all around me and nowhere all at the same time. It's a familiar voice, but I still can't figure where it's coming from. Then, as if I had been grabbed from behind and tossed into another dimension by some repulsively twisted beasty fresh from the depths of the ninth circle of hell, my eyes are cruelly pried open and struggle to see my wife looking back rather annoyed at me through the foggy mist of my recent slumber. Then I realize where I am.

"Honey, really, it's time. Get your lazy ass out of bed damn it, it's time to go play truck driver"

Shit.

And you thought YOU were disappointed. Even my subconscious has a sick sense of humor it seems.

Anyway, here's the airplane video from last weekend. Enjoy.

Dailymotion blogged video
The Joy of Flying
Video sent by raginredneck93

Did Everyone Make It To The Music Store Yesterday?

2006-10-04T11:53:00.000-06:00

Yep, it's October 4th. Know what that means? The new Evanescence album came out yesterday.

Did anyone think that I wouldn't run out and buy it right away? Didn't think so. Actually the wife ran out and bought it for me . . . . . . . I was sleeping.

I've finally gotten a chance to listen to the whole thing, and I have to say that in spite of all of the changes the band has gone through since their last album, they haven't lost anything musically in the process. If anything they've gained since the concentration now seems to be a lot more focused on Amy's voice talents. Ben Moody is one hell of a guitar player, but it's always been Amy that made the band what it is and there was obviously a lot of tension between Ben and Amy. When I saw them perform live, I was actually waiting for them to get into a fist fight on stage. I don't know what happened between those two, and I don't really care, but whatever it was it obviously wasn't good. I think what Amy has said in numerous interviews is correct, Ben's leaving was for the best.

There are a few more "special effects" on this album than on their previous works, but they seem to be well done and not overpowering. In stark contrast to that however, this album also has a lot of slower, more acoustic songs. Obviously an attempt to capitalize on the widespread popularity of My Immortal. Once again, there seems to be a lot more focus on Amy's voice talents, and as a result this album doesn't rock quite as hard as Fallen did, but that's not to say that it doesn't rock at all because it definitely does. I mean face it, Amy Lee could sing the fucking Rubber Ducky song from Sesame Street and it would rock. OK . . . . . . Maybe it wouldn't . . . . . . . But she'd still look hot while she was singing it!

One similarity to Fallen that I was very happy to find, is the fact that I can put this album on and just let it play, I've yet to find a song that makes me want to reach for the CD player remote. I think my patron blog babe and friends have another winner on their hands, and I'll be waiting to see how many songs from this album make their way to the top of the charts. It's nice to finally find a band headed up by a young, attractive, female vocalist that doesn't simply use her body instead of her musical talents as a promotional tool. It's also nice to not have to cringe when I hear my daughter singing along, if she insists on imitating singers at least she's picked one that doesn't prance around half naked on stage shaking her mostly exposed flesh in an effort to sell records with the album cover pictures instead of the music.

Trust me ladies, exposed belly buttons and half an ass cheek hanging out of each leg of your shorty shorts will definitely turn guys' heads, but a little class will go a long way towards keeping them turned. Add that to the fact that I actually buy albums with good music on them, and there's one more reason to concentrate a little harder on the music than the T&A. I just download Britney for free. ;)

Damn . . . . . . Goth chicks are hot!

One Year

2006-10-02T13:35:00.000-06:00

Yep, hard to believe but I'll have been a resident of the fabled blogosphere for exactly one year as of 8:40 PM this evening. Sorry, but I don't really have anything more profound to say than that. I have to be honest, the big day sort of snuck up on me. I've been thinking of what I might possibly say on this momentous occasion for several weeks now, but I honestly thought that I had more time, oops, sue me.

I did celebrate by taking the Cub for several laps around Amend Park this morning with my beautiful bride standing by for ground support, I suppose that counts for something. She did buy it for me after all, it's only right that she see it fly before I have a chance to crash it. So far so good, not even what you might refer to as a "close call" as far as crashing it is concerned. This is one of those planes that would likely take a freak accident, a serious radio problem, or a drastic case of "dumb thumb" to crash. Although Cubs aren't exactly famous for exemplary ground handling, once they're airborne they're a real pussycat. Slow and steady, no surprises, perfect for the days when I want an exact 180 from the CAP232. I've yet to have what I would call a really good landing with it, but every landing so far has been more than acceptable and damage free, which is all I can ask for until I rack up a little more experience with it. Oh, and speaking of experience, as soon as I'm comfortable with the idea and get a sufficient mount constructed, this plane will take over the camera toting duties from the Sky Fly. It's much larger, a lot more stable, has exponentially more power, and is capable of packing along a few extra POUNDS instead of ounces. It shouldn't even notice that a 5 1/2 ounce digital camcorder is along for the ride. My hat is still off to the Sky Fly however, packing anything but itself into the air is far outside of its design parameters, so with that taken into consideration it not only carried the camera, but did a damn fine job of it. Like I've said a hundred times before, if you're interested in RC planes and don't have a lot of cash or don't want a big hassle, the Hobbico Sky Fly is hard to beat.

I've got some video from last Sunday that I'll be sharing hopefully within the next few days, including the maiden flight of the Piper Cub, as well as a lot of catching up to do when it comes to reading all of my favorite blogs. There's a few out there that I haven't managed to visit in a while, and I've spent my last few times at the computer making the rounds and catching up.

Besides all of the reading that I still need to do, I need to hit few other pages and catch up on some new videos that have been posted by different friends of mine as well. I'm not ignoring anyone, I've just been busy for the last couple of weeks, and to be honest it's kind of a nice change. Being able to afford to work only part time is nice too, but it'd be a lot nicer if I had a set schedule and a steady income to depend on. These last few weeks have gotten me caught back up as well as stashed a few bucks away for when things slow back down. Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy the next slow period a bit more than the last one.

Sorry to put everyone off again, but it's off to sleepy nappy time for me. Expect a full post complete with new pics and video as soon as time allows. Later all.

IT FLIES!

2006-10-01T13:53:00.000-06:00

More later . . . . Unless I go back to the park to fly some more!

Who The Hell Needs Porno?

2006-09-20T14:50:00.000-06:00

Sheeeesh! Has anybody else been following the comments over at Rockstar Mommy's place the last couple days? I don't mean to join the already swolen ranks of RSM groupies or anything, but this chick definitely deserves a shout out for her last idea. Anyone that's read her site at all knows that she has some issues in her past, who doesn't right? Anyway, she got this idea to solicit comments from her readers regarding "secrets", and the last I checked it was over 400 comments! Some of the stuff people confessed is pretty tame, but a lot of them? All I can say is . . . . . DAMN!

And here I thought only guys pissed in the shower, was I ever wrong!

Of course I had to tell everyone my deepest, darkest, nastiest, secret as well. Actually I didn't tell anyone what that secret was exactly, I just told them that I once got my finger stuck in my sister's rear end and our dad had to help me get it out, that's all. I left it at that and let everyone stew for a couple of days although I'm sure they will all be enormously disappointed when they find out the rest of the story, believe me it's not what you probably think.

Now that your mind has had a chance to roll around in the gutter for awhile, allow me to elaborate.

A few years ago, the older of my two sisters one day decides that she wants an old Ford pickup like the one that our parents bought new when we were kids. Now my sister is well known for providing a home for wayward just about anythings. Dogs, cats, goldfish, camper trailers, tents (oh lord does she have tents), junk automobiles, boats, cast off building materials, you name it. Why her ol' man hasn't killed her yet I have no idea, but somehow she continues to drag stuff home and he continues to build more places for her to keep it all, so it's all good.

So anyway, Sis scours the classifieds and finally comes up with a '78 Ford half ton two wheel drive, just like the one Dad bought brand new in '78 except for the color, and the fact that this one most definitely is not brand new. I don't remember what she paid for it, it was too much I'm sure, but anyway I checked the thing over and it seemed to be in pretty good shape overall for a twenty something year old truck. After a month or so of running back and forth to work however, the telltale clank that the rear end started emitting when she'd put it in gear made it quite obvious that it was going to need some mechanical attention and the sooner the better. Typical Ford 9 inch rear end, you can't break one, but they're famous for wearing out at about a hundred K. Luckily they're relatively cheap and easy to rebuild however.

Now both of my sisters can put most of you sorry assed excuses for men out there to shame when it comes to knowing their way around under a hood, so with a little help from our Dad she jacks it up, pulls the axles, and drops the third member out of the rear end.

This is where I come in, and how my finger wound up in my sister's rear end in the first place.

Now I have no doubt that Sis could've figured out how to overhaul her own rear end, but since she didn't figure she had time, and Dad was too busy as well, I was nominated and happily volunteered to help out with the task.

When Sis's rear end arrived at my shop, I nearly had to look away in disgust. This was one big, nasty, greasy, obviously abused rear end we're talking about here, and it smelled awful, like burnt gear lube. It was terrible. So I checked my resolve, found that I had none, and set myself to the task of disassembling the chunky bastard, cleaning it up, and assessing the damage. My inspection revealed that the ring and pinion gears were still in good shape, the bearings were fine, it was just that the thrust washers behind the side and spider gears had been galled by a lack of oil which was allowing a whole lot of slack, hence the clank when the transmission was put in gear. I gave her a list, she bought the parts, and upon returning from work that fateful Saturday morning, I set out to stuff as many of those new parts into her rear end as I could, making it shiny and new again.

Now anyone that knows me, knows that I'm mostly worthless on Saturday mornings. Actually, I'm mostly worthless all of the time but that's a different story. After working nights all week however, I'm not only worthless, but borderline dangerous on Saturday mornings, but my sister's rear end was in demand, and damn it I needed to get it taken care of. There it sat, on the back of another truck that was in my shop at the time, all clean and shiny, box of new parts sitting next to it, so I shook off what I could of my sleepiness and set out to get my hands dirty. (But not nearly as dirty as your minds)

Now I'm sure a lot of you wouldn't know a rear end from a spark plug, there's likely a few out there that have forgotten more about rear ends than I'll ever know, but just a quick lesson for the one's that are still wondering what the hell I'm talking about. The rear end, or rear axle of a rear wheel drive car or truck houses the differential, which is a mechanism that allows one drive wheel to turn at a different speed than the other one. How it works doesn't really matter for the purpose of this story though, all you really need to know is that there's a bunch of gears inside that mesh together in a way that allows the drive shaft to propell both wheels, while allowing them to rotate at different speeds in order to allow the vehicle to turn corners without sliding one wheel or the other since the wheel on the outside of a curve obviously has to travel a much larger distance than the wheel on the inside of a curve, in the same amount of time. See what I mean? Clear as mud? Like I said, it doesn't really matter, just picture gears, and let them take you away to your happy place which is where I'll be going as soon as I'm done with this post. See ya there.

Basically, assembling a rear end is sort of like one of those nifty little wooden puzzles with the key. Know the one's I'm talking about? The kind that look like a ball or a cube, but when you pull out one "magic" piece, they fall into a big stack of pieces and then you have to put them all together in a certain order so that each piece you put in holds the last one in place. First goes in the side gear thrust washers, then the side gears, then the spider gears and their thrust washers which hold in the side gears, then the cross pins which hold in the spider gears, and so on. It was in the process of installing one of the cross pins that my finger became embarrassingly stuck, in my sister's rear end.

I had the carrier sitting there, the side gears already in place, a spider gear in my hand with the pre greased thrust washer sitting on top of it. I reached inside my sister's rear end with my left hand balancing the spider gear and thrust washer up against the top in the machined area where it was to reside. I picked up the cross pin with my right hand and placed it into the bore in the carrier, where it was to slide through the bore in the middle of the spider gear in my left hand thusly holding it in place and allowing it to pivot on the aforementioned cross pin, but it didn't. It went in a little ways and got stuck. So I did what anyone who had just worked nights all week and had only an hour or so before gotten off work from a 12 hour shift would do, I smacked it with a hammer. Now that wouldn't have been so bad in and of itself, but remember, my left hand was cupping the gear that I was hoping to propel this 3/4 inch diameter stainless steel pin through the middle of, so you can guess what happened.

Even as that hammer was falling through the air, hurtling at breakneck speed towards the protruding end of that pin, my mind was questioning the wisdom of that action. In its sleep deprived state however, it couldn't decide whether to tell my right hand to stop what it was doing before it was too late, or to tell my left hand to get the hell out of the way of that Goddamn hammer, so it didn't tell either of my hands to do anything except just what they were already. Less than a millisecond after that hammer hit home on the end of that pin, the pin shot like a rocket all the way through the gear, and rather effectively pinned my left middle finger into the bore on the opposite side of the carrier. This bore was machined for a precise fit around the aforementioned pin, so considering that a good bit of my finger was now snuggled up next to it in there, it wasn't a comfortable situation to have both of them occupying that space at the same time. There I was, with my finger stuck, in my sister's rear end.

Now for anyone that's never had their finger stuck in their sister's rear end, I can assure you that when you find yourself in that situation, the first and foremost thing on your mind is getting your finger out of your sister's rear end. That one fundamental need supercedes all other desires, you don't think about hunger, you don't think about sleep, all that you know is that your finger is in a damn bad place, and it friggin' hurts. Numerous attempts to pull the pin back out failed, since it had my finger pinned against the other side of the carrier it was in quite a bind and wasn't going to move without more serious persuasion than I could manage with my bare hands. A quick scan of the tailgate that I was using for a workbench yielded a painful shortage of tools, I'd only just started the project and didn't have anything handy except the hammer that had gotten me into this mess in the first place. No thank you.

It was 6 o'clock on a Saturday morning, yelling for my wife or kids to come and help me was out of the question. My family doesn't sleep, they voluntarily enter a coma for several hours a night, and I knew it was too early for any of them to be up on a weekend. I wasn't going to carry my sister's big ol' heavy rear end across the yard and bang it against the side of the house in an effort to wake anyone up either, so I figured that I was on my own. Think Justin, think. AHA! The toolbox! If I can make it to the toolbox and get a screwdriver, I can put it in the hole in the end of the crosspin and wiggle it loose, thus freeing what's left of my finger! I balanced my sister's rear end on my right hand in an effort to keep all of its bulk from tearing off the rest of my now mostly severed finger, and set out for the toolbox on the other side of the shop. I made it! Victory!

Have you ever tried to open one of the top drawers on a big, rollaway tool box and get out a screwdriver while your left middle finger is painfully stuck in your sister's rear end, and you are balancing said rear end on your right hand? I always thought I was pretty talented with my tongue, turns out that I'm not THAT talented. By the time I realized that wasn't going to work, my sister's rear end, which started out plenty heavy, was starting to get REALLY heavy considering that I was holding it up with one hand, so I headed back to the safety of the tailgate.

Times like this one are a good time to reflect. Reflect on what I have no idea since I was in too much pain to reflect on anything except how damn stupid it was to hit that pin with a hammer while my hand was inside the carrier, but if I'd had something else to reflect on this would've been a good time to do it since I damn sure wasn't doing anything else, standing there with my finger firmly stuck, in my sister's rear end. I thought, I pondered, I considered crawling into the back of my truck made workbench and going to sleep until someone came looking for me, I considered sobbing uncontrollably then decided against it when I though about how funny this was going to seem as soon as my finger quit throbbing.

Just as I was contemplating the wisdom of chewing the remains of my finger off thus freeing myself from the clutches of my sister's coyote ugly rear end, and of course thinking about how much better off I would've been had I just went in the house when I got home and snuggled up next to the wife instead of trying to finish this project without a nap, I heard the familiar sound of my Dad's truck pulling up in the driveway. Salvation! Help at last! He didn't even look toward the shop, he headed straight for the door of the house.

%!@$?^&%$#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I set myself for the impending pain, rolled my sister's big ol' rear end back onto my right hand, and with steely determination set out for the door of the shop which had thankfully remained open. Upon reaching said door I calmed myself, regained my composure, yeah, Mr. Calm, Cool, Collected.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPP!"

Even cool has its limits when your finger is stuck in your sister's rear end.

As soon as Dad reached the shop, I instructed him to get a screwdriver and wiggle the damn cross pin out so I could get my finger loose. He did, and thusly I was freed from the evil clutches of my sister's rear end. My finger turned out to be a little purple, but otherwise unharmed, I finished the reassembly with Dad standing by to make sure that I didn't do anything else stupid, and thus was born the joke.

"If you've ever gotten your finger stuck in your sister's rear end, and your Dad had to help you get it out, you might be a redneck."

And you pervy bastards thought I was talking about her butt. ;)

Teachers

2006-09-18T21:03:00.000-06:00

I've really been getting a kick out of Cruegirl's accounts of her adventures in the classroom lately, so I figured I'd take a minute or two and pay tribute to a few noteworthy teachers from my illustrious past. It takes a special bit of chemistry to make a teacher, about 2 parts selfless generosity mixed with 3 parts insanity. I even entertained the thought of perhaps becoming a teacher myself one time, for about five minutes, then I returned to my senses. I actually thought it might be fun, even rewarding, to be a high school shop teacher. Give something back and all that. Then I thought about some of the kids I'd had in my shop classes over the years, and knew full well that I would've done serious bodily harm to them had they been in my class. Nope, the temperament to be a teacher I do not posses, but luckily there are many out there that do. Here's to the ones that get the formula right.

First Grade - Ms. Helt - This woman was Adolph Hitler's first grade teacher. Ok, maybe not, but she did walk the same. Actually walk is a bit of a misstatement, this woman didn't walk, she marched, like a Nazi Stormtrooper, she even wore jackboots, I'm not kidding, ask my sisters. Kids with "problems" and "special needs" wouldn't have survived Ms. Helt's first grade class, as a result there weren't any. She ran her class like a drill instructor, when she said line up, you lined up. If you didn't line up perfectly straight, quiet, and facing the front, you did it over again until you got it right. One kid, an immigrant from another state, once made the mistake of smarting off to her. Moments later he found himself over her knee getting a yard stick across his behind and not a single one of us were surprised, we'd all had older brothers and sisters that had already survived Ms. Helt's Gulag. I don't know how big of a stink his parents made about the whole thing, but he didn't lip off in Ms. Helt's class again you can bet, and neither did anyone else. Now you're all probably thinking that ol' Ms. Helt was quite the meany, and nothing could be further from the truth. She didn't tolerate shenanigans, but if a kid wanted to learn she'd go above and beyond to make sure that kid learned all that he or she could. As a result everyone left her class more than ready to proceed to the second grade and beyond. I venture to say that there was not a single year in my remaining schooling that I learned even half as much as I did in Ms. Helt's first grade class. Everyone could read at what is probably considered to be a 4th grade level these days, and we all learned a thing or two about respect in the process. Ms. Helt probably set a few records for the number of years that she was a teacher, and because of that there's a whole lot of people out there who got off to a good, if perhaps a wee bit frightening, start on the rest of their schooling.
Second Grade - Mrs. Tenant - Still regarded by me to be the best teacher I ever had. I had teachers that were nicer, I had teachers that wore more strict, I had teachers that were less strict, I had teachers that were more fun, but never did I have another teacher that had it all balanced out as well as Mrs. Tenant. Discipline in her class was strict, but not so strict as to have a room full of second graders living in fear. When it was time to play, it was time to play. When it was time to work, it was time to work. Time was set aside for both and everyone knew which times were which. We did fun art projects, we played games together as a class, and we learned how to read and write and do 'rithmetic as well. She laughed with us, she yelled at us from time to time, but somehow she knew how to make kids want to learn, and we all did.
Third Grade - Ms. Gjierde - She was nice, perhaps a wee bit too nice. As a result a class full of well disciplined farm kids discovered all kinds of ways to get into mischief. She was the type that would allow the classroom to descend into near chaos before she would speak up and settle everyone back down, which although fun for the kids, isn't probably the best way to run a railroad. What she lacked in discipline however, she made up for in patience and generosity. My Grandpa was in the hospital in Billings that year and as a result I missed a LOT of school. Ms. Gjierde spent a lot of time with me in the little bit of time that I was there just to make sure that I got all of my work done and was allowed to pass. She even went so far as to allow me to stay with her while my parents went to Billings to be with my Grandfather as he passed away, both so I wouldn't have to miss any more school, and so I wouldn't have to be there when my Grandpa died. Usually when something like that happened, the janitor at our school would step up and offer to let kids stay at his house and a lot of them did but for some reason I just wasn't comfortable with that idea, neither were my parents, and neither was Ms. Gjierde. Many years later, it was discovered that he was a pedophile when one of my good friends finally came forward, as did several others. Thanks Ms. Gjierde.
Fourth Grade - Ms. Goroski - I was in her first class after her required year of student teaching. Had she started out in a big city school, this poor girl would've likely been swamped by a tidal wave of unruly hooligans, but in the tiny farm community of Plevna Montana she fit like a glove. One of the funnest years I had in all the time I was in school, and somehow we managed to learn a bunch in the process.
Fifth Grade - Ms. Petersen - For some reason she had a problem with my tendency to finish a work sheet in a matter of minutes, then immerse myself in a book while everyone else procrastinated and goofed off. As a result, I never had homework, everyone else did, and I got a "U" (for Unsatisfactory) in citizenship because I was antisocial. Go figure. Anyway, Ms. Petersen was famous throughout our school for coming up with the coolest art projects in existence, she even did the rounds of the rest of the classes "guest teaching" for at least one art project a year because none of the kids could wait to get to fifth grade and do stuff like that all the time. I'm still pissed about that "U".

After Fifth Grade, I moved to a bigger school and as a result had far too many teachers to remember, or write about here. I'll just hit on the ones that were noteworthy.

Sixth Grade Math and Science - Mr. Weininger - My first male teacher, and one of the coolest that any kid could hope for. He had a wild, mad scientist, way about him and so did I, we hit it off famously. He delighted when kids would bring in critters for the classroom, and as a result all of us boys and even a few of the girls were more than happy to contribute to the cumulative collection of bugs, snakes, frogs, toads, lizards, salamanders, crawdads, caterpillars, and all other manner of crawly things. Science was always my favorite subject, and Mr. W's hands on approach to learning about all things scientific was loads of fun. He didn't have to worry too much about discipline either. The fact that he'd often take a bunch of us boys fishing down at the river after school helped to make sure that anyone that gave Mr. W crap was gonna regret it on the playground later. He wasn't just our teacher, he was our buddy.
Ninth Grade Metal Shop - Mr. Russel - Taught me as much as he could about working with metal, even though the powers that be were hell bent that metal shop was obsolete and too dangerous and wanted us to just study a text book for the entire period. As long as we did a few work sheets and helped him BS the bureaucracy, he'd let us spend plenty of time in the welding booths learning something worthwhile. (A lot of us spent plenty of time in the welding booths smoking cigarettes and blowing the smoke into the exhaust fans, some kids smoked other stuff and blew the smoke into the exhaust fans, but that's a different story). Besides knowing just about every possible way that mankind could influence the shape and properties of steel, aluminum, copper, and brass, Mr. Russel was just a cool old boy, more like a wise old uncle than a teacher. He didn't have too many discipline problems either.
Tenth Grade On Shop/Vo-Ag - Mr. Larson - As far as teachers go, this guy was a god. In the three years that I was in his class as much as humanly possible while still taking all of those crappy required classes in order to graduate, I further perfected my welding skills, learned how to wire a house, how to hang tape and texture sheetrock, how to work concrete, how to shingle a roof, basically how to build a building from the ground up as well as learning a few things about running a metal lathe. We learned how to grow plants in a greenhouse, how to figure out streamflow, and how to survey land for an excavation project. As if that wasn't enough, Mr. Larson also got me involved in FFA Ag Mechanics, which allowed me to travel all over the state and compete against other aspiring gearheads in all of the above subjects. I kicked ass, won a few, got third in the state my Junior year and second as a Senior, served as a chapter officer my Senior year, and won a stack of other awards. They were some of the best times I had the whole time I was in school. When I got my first truck as a sophomore, Larson helped me rebuild the engine, then stayed at the school half of the night so I could get it put in before school got out for the summer. That wasn't the last engine that I swapped in his shop either, nor the last time that he stayed half the night to let me finish up a project. I've stopped by to visit Mr. Larson a few times over the years, but a few years ago he finally had enough of playing second fiddle to the athletics department and gave it up. He works for the County now from what I understand. Damn shame if you ask me. Hell, I've made a living for years off of what I learned in Gym Class . . . . . NOT!
Tenth Grade On English - Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Grosheider - Taught me how to write. These guys are the reason that you can somewhat decipher this jibberish that I spew. I'm sure that they don't read this, because if they did there'd be little red marks all over my posts pointing out my spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. Considering that they didn't teach what was exactly one of my favorite subjects, the fact that they got me interested at all is a testament to their expertise. Grosheider even got me to write poetry for heaven's sake, and I friggin' hate poetry. Both told me that I had the makings of an outstanding writer, we all know that's BS but it made me feel good at the time anyway. They're a lot of the reason why I started blogging in the first place, they taught me a lot about writing and for every year that I wrote exactly nothing, more and more of that knowledge went down the tubes. Not only did they teach me how to write, they helped me to discover that I actually enjoyed writing, so now I do this as sort of an homage to their efforts.
Tenth Grade On Art - Mr. Culbertson - Big Dave as we called him behind his back. He had a really cool beard, and he played rugby in his spare time. He was a mountain of a man, and he had a reputation for not taking any shit, either on the field or in the classroom, so his discipline problems were nigh nonexistent as well. If you'd asked me before I entered his class for my one required year of Art, I'd have told you that I couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler. After I got done voluntarily taking 3 years of his class, I could not only draw a crooked line that looked straight, but I could paint a picture of a lowrider on a beach complete with palm trees reflected in its gleaming finish, carve a sparkplug out of plaster, and draw a pencil sketch that didn't look like something hanging on the wall of Ms. Helt's first grade class. Now if I could just remember how to do any of that stuff now. He had this really cool sort of old hippy thing going on too, I liked him. Besides being one hell of an artist, he was just an extremely interesting guy.

So there you have it, a brief outline of some of the outstanding educators that helped to make me the well balanced and remarkably sane individual that I am today. Just think Cruegirl, in 25 years one of your students might be writing something similar about you on their blog, or at least looking at their old yearbook and wondering why you looked so old back then, but you look so damn hot now. Excuse me, I've got to go find my old yearbooks . . . . . . ;)

It's Getting Late, Maybe I'll Have Time For A Real Post Tomorrow

2006-09-18T00:56:00.000-06:00

Now this is what I call "family resemblance". I don't have any fresh pics, but mine has a tail now, and control surfaces, and pushrods, and the motor has completed its first test run with flying colors. 283 watts at 27 amps static with an APC 12X6 prop. Not exactly the makings of a 3D ship, but this is a Cub, it's not supposed to be able to hover, just fly. At least I know that I don't have to worry about frying the batteries or the speed control, I could probably get away with a little more prop even and still be safe. Mine doesn't have skis though, at least not yet. ;)

Now I Know Who REALLY Loves Me

2006-09-14T14:16:00.000-06:00

Ok, actually I already did know who really loves me, but she just had to prove it yet again.

Remember this post? The one where I just blindly tossed this out there hoping that perhaps, just maybe, possibly, there was a snowball's chance in hell that someone, like a friend or family member planning on getting me a gift some time in the next, oh, 50 years or so might possibly see it and think "oh yeah, he's into things like hunting, and ATVs, and motorcycles, and the outdoors, and OH YEAH, MODEL AIRPLANES!"

Instead of "Wow, look at this useless piece of worthless garbage, it totally looks like ass and isn't good for a damn thing, but I'll bet Justin would really like it because Lord knows his house isn't nearly cluttered enough as it is, he needs more worthless shit that he couldn't give a rat's ass about!" like they usually do.

I swear, if I get one more fucking thing shaped like Marvin the Martian I'm going absolutely, certifiably goddamn postal on whoever hands it to me with that "you should be eternally grateful" look on their face.

I'm serious.

If you think I can't figure out how to convert an assault rifle to full automatic you're sadly fucking mistaken. I have access to 100 round AK47 magazines.

Postal.

Yes, I did like Marvin the Martian cartoons when I was a kid. Yes, I still get a kick out of watching the sawed off little genocidal maniac's antics from time to time even to this day. No, I don't want or need a collection of 7985 Marvin the Martian figurines and other various Marvin the Martian themed collectibles.

News flash people:

I LIVE IN A TRAILER HOUSE, AS IN NOT A LOT OF STORAGE SPACE. IT PISSES ME OFF WHEN I HAVE TO HAUL A PICKUP LOAD OF SHIT THAT I NEVER WANTED TO THE DUMP TO MAKE ROOM FOR THE ONE GODDAMN THING THAT I DID WANT ALL ALONG. WOULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN A LOT EASIER FOR EVERYONE IF YOU'D JUST GOTTEN ME SOMETHING I ACTUALLY WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE? THAT WAY YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO STAND THERE LOOKING ALL REJECTED WHEN YOU ASK ME WHAT I DID WITH THE RIDICULOUS VELVET MARVIN THE MARTIAN POSTER YOU BOUGHT ME AND I TELL YOU THAT I USED IT TO LINE THE BED OF MY TRUCK BEFORE I LOADED IT WITH THE REST OF THE WORTHLESS SHIT YOU GAVE ME THE LAST TIME I WENT TO THE COUNTY DUMP.

I know, I know, manners and all that. I've just never been too good at acting excited when somebody gives me something that only a complete idiot that just landed on this planet from Jupiter could possibly think that I wanted. These people are supposed to be my family, don't they know me? Why the hell do I even talk to these people? They obviously just ignore me anyway, otherwise when I was saying something like "John's got this really cool new plane down at the shop, it's a (insert favorite model aircraft here) and it has a (insert favorite optional and really cool model aircraft feature here)", they wouldn't be hearing "I have at least 2 square inches left in my house that aren't quite stuffed with worthless shit just yet, I want another Marvin the Martian figurine".

I really don't mean to be rude, and yeah the thought is nice, but I have a firm policy when it comes to gift giving. If I don't know someone well enough to know what they're into and what they might like, I don't know them well enough to be obligated to buy them a gift for any occasion whatsoever. The reciprocal is true as well, if you don't know me, if you don't know what I'm into, please, PLEase, PUHLEASE don't waste your money buying me a gift, really, just show up, it's enough, I'll genuinely be glad to see you if you promise not to get me some worthless afterthought that I'll now feel obligated to keep into perpetuity. You retire 3 dollars and 49 cents richer, and I don't have to feel like an asshole when I open the box and give you that "Who the fuck did you buy this for because it sure as hell wasn't for me?" look.

Too expensive? Not really. Yeah new planes are expensive, ATVs are definitely expensive, guns aren't too cheap either, but there's a lot of little doodads that aren't expensive at all by themselves but really start to add up when one adds them to the total cost of a new project.

Servos - $10.00 - $25.00 a piece depending on what size they are. A typical plane needs 3 or 4, and they come in all kinds of different sizes but I'm constantly experimenting, so I can never have too many spares on hand.

Glue - $2.00 - $5.00 a bottle, not much at all. There's a million different kinds of glue, pick one.

Trim Sheet - Basically colored, self adhesive vinyl like what's used for making signs and graphics on cars, trucks, vans, billboards ect. Which also works really good for decorating model airplanes.-$5.00 a sheet. Once again, can never have too much on hand, and color isn't all that important.

X-acto blades - a buck or two a pack. Doesn't matter what size or shape, I'll find a use for them.

Dean's Connectors - Little gold plated solder on type electrical plugs used for wiring batteries, motors, ect. when a reliable high current connection is needed. $5.00 a pack. Don't know what I'm talking about? John and Clay do, why not ask them?

Tools - The sky's the limit here, really. Name a tool, chances are I either have it or want it. If you don't know me good enough to know which one's I likely already have, you probably shouldn't feel obligated to buy me anything. Save your money, it's OK, really, I won't hate you, I won't be offended. I don't expect anything from anybody. That crap that your mom taught you about always bringing a gift, forget that shit, I did.

Ammo - Oh yeah, I already have most of the guns that I want, but what good are they without ammo? As with the tools, if you don't know me well enough to know what kind of ammo I might need, don't bother buying me anything. Honestly, I really won't be offended.

Great rule of thumb:

If it's useful, if it does something, if it's something that I can do something with, if it's something that I'd buy myself, if it's a T-shirt that offends you, if it's something that I could and would eat (hey Tony, planning on bringing any tuna back with you?), if it's a gift certificate for a store where I'd go to buy something myself, if it's a book about something that I'm actually interested in, if it burns gasoline, if you made it yourself (I LOVE handmade stuff, I'd rather have just about anything handmade by anyone than anything made in China no matter what it cost. We have the coolest coffee table in the world, and it barely cost anything except the time it took for two of our very good friends to make it. It's beautiful, built to last, it came from the heart, and it's one of my family's most cherished posessions.) - GO.

Thank you to all of the people over the years that didn't need to read the go list in order to "get it". I'd thank you personally but I don't want to offend anyone that doesn't "get it" any worse than I already have.

If it's useless, if it just sits on a shelf, if it has anything to do with knitting or needlepoint, if it's a T-shirt that doesn't offend you, if it's "cute", if it eats, if it doesn't fly, if it doesn't have an engine, if it doesn't take either batteries or gasoline or both, if it can't be used to build something else, if it requires a large amount of maintenance, if it needs watered, if it can't be used to kill something that I can then go on to eat - NO GO.

If you've gotten me something from the no go list, thank you for the thought, but next time just give me the cash instead of wasting it, or like I said before, just don't get me anything. Don't be pissy, don't be offended, just don't waste your money. You obviously don't "get it".

It's really that simple.

Oh yeah, one of the people that actually knows and loves me: My dear sweet blushing bride. Have I mentioned that this chick friggin' rocks?

The gift that she got me for my birthday Tuesday:

I'm about halfway done building it.

I've still got to finish gluing the tail, hinge the control surfaces, and install the radio gear.

I DO NOT need a Marvin the Martian figurine to put in the cockpit, but I do still need servos!

This post is dedicated to all of the guys who got new socks from their wives for their birthdays. NANNY NANNY BOO BOO, sucks to be you!

OK, I'm done venting to the blogosphere now.