Hey hey! Back from the NATS for a short time… I’m leaving again this evening to fly in the 2-meter competition on Monday and Tuesday.

Well, as it turns out, I managed to get 4th place in the Handlaunch event! Wow! I’m pleasantly surprised. I even led my mentor, Bruce Davidson, for a couple of rounds there. It was truly surreal. I was in 2nd place up until the last round, when I really blew it! I scored only 549 points out of 1000 and frittered away my 2nd place finish. Ah well, too much fun! By the way — the term “getting wood” means getting a trophy, which is usually a plaque.

I received quite a few kudos from some really top-notch pilots, only adding to the elation of hearing my named called at a national-level soaring event! Dang.

You can check out more photos from my NATS trip here: 2005 NATS Gallery @ LouisvilleSoaring.org.

Woo woo!

Most who know me know I have a thing for controlling unpowered planes from a distance via radio-waves. My major hobby (outside of teh Intarwebs) is R/C Sailplanes, and starting this Friday (tomorrow) the 2005 AMA Soaring Nationals, AKA “The NATS”. The Soaring part of the NATS is only one chunk of a 6-week set of events that started July 4th. Over 1,000 pilots will be in attendance for this festival of flight.

The Soaring “genre” encompasses a number of events – Handlaunched gliders, F3J “man-towed” gliders, 2-meter (wingspan) gliders, unlimited gliders (any wingspan allowed), RES (rudder/elevator and spoiler only), and Nostalgia (gliders designed before… 1942? 1962?). Me personally am only flying in the Hand-launch and 2-meter events. I have attended handlaunch contests before, but never at the NATS! I’m excited.

The NATS also draws international competitors as well — and one of my fellow LASS-mates (Gordy) is hosting a gent by the name of Jo Grini who has come all the way from Norway(!) to fly as a part of the LASS team. To quote: “There was not one single place around here that did not have an air conditioner. And when you walk out to 90-95F (33-35celcius) you feel the difference I can tell you.”

I’ll be taking a crapload of pictures, so keep an eye on this site and wish me luck!

Took a late lunch today, and I have this to share:

I don’t know if ALL Thornton’s around town are going to switch over to the abomination that the Blankenbaker Road store have become, but if they do – be forewarned.

I occassionally would walk over there to get a tasty sandwich (of my own choosing) from Subway. The old ladies (angry) who worked there were a constant source of amusement and scorn for us here at Power. “What kinda bread you wont?” “I got 3 different kinda cheese here, honey!” All shaking their fists at the system that has entrapped them and relieved them of their dreams and wishes and what-not. Such was their ire that occassionally they’d Peter North your sandwich, despite your tearful pleas of “go light on the mayo”. This back-and-forth required a certain skill. Those uninitiated were always welcomed to try their hand. Eventually you’d master that skill and you’d get a tasty sandwich of your choosing. This whole human drama, for whatever reason, has been put to an end.

{more}

Gone are the clear sneeze-shield and brass rails that decorated the Subway. Gone is the underground-themed wallpaper. Gone are the 5 loaves of bread to showcase the wealth of choice. Tthis has been replaced with an opaque stainless-steel hood so high that you can’t see the hands of the people making your sandwich. Also, the counter is set some 4 feet back, thus only separating you further from the people that will make your sammich. The real deal-breaker — the real slap in the loaf is this: YOU NOW ORDER VIA KIOSK.

Part of the reason I went to Subway (aside from the cheerful banter with the Subway hags) was to actually SEE my sub being made to the specifications I had previously uttered to the sandwich artist! If I said “hey, I’d like light low-fat mayo” I could see them putting the mayo on there and say “WOAH WOAH WOAH” when I had enough. But now I can’t see the sammich before it’s done and for all I know those ladies could be naked from the waist down (GAH!)

Back to the kiosk… when I was about ready to finish my order, some Thornton’s-clad douchebag strolls up next to me and starts pointing and explaining to me what to do next. I stopped him mid-sentence and said “Thanks, but I think I can handle this.” Turns out he’s some executive from Thorntons. He then tore off my receipt as if I couldn’t do it myself and handed me a coupon to get the deal for the day. All of which were within arms reach to me, and made painfully obvious.

So I get my food, which turned out to be a Turkey Sub and some waffle-cut fries (that was their deal for the day). I noticed they didn’t pull the fries out of a fryer like you would expect, but instead pulled them out of some oven-like contraption. DAMN. That stuff is straight-up frozen! And judging by the wide array of other foods they sell (pizza, toasted subs, corn dogs, etc) most of that crap will be frozen as well. I’ll tell you that I was not looking forward to this sammich at ALL.

The food was acceptable, but only because I paid $3.79 for the whole lot of it. Subway is far, far better and I certainly didn’t get EXACTLY the sammich I wanted like I would have normally. I only plan on going back to attempt to push that crap-worthy system to it’s very limits. Like asking that all the condiments be put on “lightly” and demanding that I see the sandwich after each step. Hopefully my skills of sammich-banter will incite a riot, or at least some accusatory remarks from the former Sandwich Artists that are now relegated to impersonal food contruction. As Charlie put it: “It’s like a vending machine with someone trapped inside” (paraphrase). Yeah, that’s it exactly.

While paying for my food at the main checkout, the cashier and I started up a conversation. As she was struggling with the new computers to run my card through as credit, I remarked “Modern convenience sho’ is grand, isn’t it?” She leaned in close (as to not be heard by the Thornton’s execs) and said “We are all about to friggin’ snap here…”

Note: this is repost of an email I sent out ot my friends. It was well received and made a girl giggle on her birthday, so I guess it’s worthy of mass broadcasting. And yes, while I was formulating this rant I did feel like Pat from Achewood.

Further note: This new-fangled Subway replacement is called SubWorks!. To quote the Thornton’s website: “The SubWorks proprietary food program allows customers to order top-quality sandwiches and other food items via a touchscreen menu—and then to receive orders in three minutes or less.” They forgot to mention the subjugation of human interaction.

I have never really considered myself an expert on much of anything save for “What does Ben think about when he lays down at night?”, but it’s becoming apparent to me that people at here at work consider me an expert in THE INTERNET. Obviously they hired me because I had a working knowledge thereof, but I figured there were people here that knew better than I. I apparently was wrong.

By saying “THE INTERNET”, I use the broadest of terms here because while the Internet is as wide as say, space – you don’t find many people with a Doctorate of Space studies. Perhaps you did when the idea of Space was new, perhaps even 10 years after we realized that we could poke holes in the sky. Now there are many, many specializations in Space Science, like astronomy, astropaleontology, astrophysics, temporal physics, etc. Again drawing from the Space/Internet parallel, there are many different aspects of the ‘web to be knowledgeable in. There are the programmers who create the application that you are using to view this web-page. There are people who do nothing but consider how best to bombard you with ads. There are people who consider how best to shield you from those ads. There are people who agonize over font-sizes, “site-flow”, metrics, returnability, content freshness and all sorts of media dynamics. There are grunts like me who help to create and publish the content created by the great hive-mind that is the marketing world. Somehow, I’ve managed through no real effort to be considered an expert in some of these areas. Lets consider that for a moment.

How did this come to be? Is it just that I had been trapped in the insular world of the I.T. world and didn’t bear to think about the other 99% of people who use the Internet like a toaster-oven? I guess that might be the case. I worked a co-op position for an in-house development staff, so there wasn’t a whole lot of “outside contact”, and then moved onto a job in an web-only agency which expanded and imploded in the Great Boom and Bust. For a period of about 4 years there, I was surrounded by either in-house IT complacency or being held aloft by the dot-com who-needs-the-rest-of-the-pie bubble. It was a little like the whole evolution of IT, condensed. Going from slaving away in a cave to being fired out of a cannon, exploding, then drifting lazily back to Earth. Now that I’m in a world and a time where this Internet technology is finally considered as just another tool in the handy-bag, I’m learning more about the rest of it all and at the same time spreading what knowledge I’ve gained on my albeit short journey. It’s nice to feel wanted.

It’s not to say that there aren’t people here at work who don’t get the Internet (I’m sure there are a few, but they don’t necessarily need to get it), but there are folks who just aren’t confident in their knowledge thereof. Like the toaster-oven analogy before, they know it makes toast, but don’t care and don’t need to know just how hot it gets or why it gets hot in the first place. They come to me and say “so can I cook a pizza in that?” and I respond (as per the usual) with “yes and no”. I am assuming that the next part is where I’ve gotten myself into that “trusted expert” role. I usually then attempt to explain to them why you can or cannot do that, or sometimes even why you shouldn’t do that, and then suggest something completely different, like a bagel. It’s all about understanding a communication.

Too many times, I’ve seen or heard thing that other IT-related folks do that simply make me cringe. I ask “Why do you want to do that?” but with a positively inquisitive tone. I’ve heard on a number of occassions a dismissive slant to that question – think of that character from Saturday Night Live – “Nick Burns – Your Company’s Computer Guy”, and you’ve got it about right. Dang. That just gives IT folks a bad name! The whole reclusive, mind-boggling, superiority-grappling nerd thing is so played it makes me sick. I know it’s hard for people in the IT departments of the world to realize that technology is just a tool and we are but mechanics. I’m talking humility here.

Maybe that is what I’ve been angling for my whole life. The whole mechanic/artist thing. Mixing technology with the intangible to create something more than both. I still don’t think I’m very good at it — that is to say I know folks who are certainly better than I am. But having people look to me for recommendations and information is both nice and bewildering.

Dang. Where to begin? First and foremost, Sufjan Stevens has got this mad plan to do an album for all 50 states… he’s already got 2 in the bag with “Greetings From Michigan” (2003) and the soon-to-be-released (and awesome) “Illinois“. While a plan such as that might seem ridiculous to the uninitiated, he does have a track record that says it might just be completed in his lifetime. Five primary albums in as many years and no signs slowing down (with the handful of side-projects and really excellent Christmas albums). Yeah, sure, it’s folky singer-songwriter stuff, but instead of being horrifying navel-gazing bullshit, it’s good.

Now, what really prompted this rise in respect was his song “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” from “Illinois”. Take a listen to it if you can find it (you might want to ask Carl) – and tell me that he doesn’t make the clown-faced psychotic that Gacy was and make him a sympathetic, tragic character. That’s the depth that Stevens gives to any subject he chooses to write about. His lyrical talents aside, listen closely to the lush yet subtle musical accompaniments. They are brilliant.

It’s all I can do from writing him a crazed letter telling him to continue his trek southward and end up in Kentucky. I just don’t know what he’d choose to write about… he forgoes the obvious (as evident with “…Gacy” and “Casimir Pulaski Day” from “Illinois”.

Anywho — highly recommend, unless you don’t like good music.

Note: The release of “Illinois” is currently being pushed back due to a dispute between his label Asthmatic Kitty and DC Comics. Seems he put Superman (a tiny Supes) on the cover and DC pitched a fit.

Further note: Horrifying navel-gazing bullshit. I will not listen to that.

Even further note: This is not horrifying navel-gazing bullshit. I was just generally saying that I will not listen to something if it is indeed HNGB.

O, what a glorious site to behold! The noble baking potato, expelled from a humble collection of plumbing supplies, cracking the silence with a percussive “PHOOOMP!”, inciting glee onto the faces of those who stand witness.

Imagine if you will a rough and ready collection of irregulars, bound together with the love of Science and the need for senseless aerial bombardment, executing the flawless mechanics demanded by such revelry. Then imagine that on a boat in a lake. Further, imagine that with much beer. Poseidon we respect ye not!

Finally, imagine revellers, merry-making and explosions to delight the soul! All there in the lawless, beautiful abandon required of such activities – Southern Indiana!

That, loyal readers, is what transpired this last Monday, July 4th. We have pictures to prove it: 2005.07.04 – Splosions!.

Much thanks to the Dillon family at large (save for Dalton – what a sucker. He chose Florida over incendiary tubers!) for hosting the event. A grill was lit, a boat was launched, and much champagne (of beers) was had. We celebrated the 4th of July in grand and ostentatious fashion, though the Right-Honorable Raging Bazooka Bear of Destiny did fall that night, inciting a near panic. “Hide behind the trees! The trees are our safety!”

I do hope that next years event will be as grand – hopefully, perhaps more arrogant in its flaunting of Science!

Thanks to Charlie Dillon for the photos!

Hell yes.

Mathnet from Square One Television was awesome. (Thanks to Najati for the photo).