Kelly shot me a text message today that said it all:

i has a blog

She’s been kicking around the idea of doing an Ironman Triathlon for a while now – and she was a volunteer for the Louisville Ironman that was held last weekend. She’s been really struggling with whether she should do it or not, especially after working the medical tent and seeing what people look like after some 16 hours of physical exertion. It’s pretty intense! But, oddly at the same time the Ironman is very, very seductive.

I wandered down to the finish line on Sunday and it was extremely exciting and worse still – inspiring! Families cheering on their athletes, people breaking down into tears upon finishing, people collapsing into the arms of the legion of volunteers. I’ve been to marathons before and have completed a half-marathon, but I’ve never, ever seen anything on this level of commitment before. And now, it would seem, Kelly is leaning towards doing it… and that scares me a little.

Kelly and I have done “sprint” triathlons- .5 mile swim, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run – and those are OK. We both finish in under 2 hours. But an Ironman is something completely different. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a full marathon – 26 miles! The time cutoff is about 17 hours. That’s longer than most people are awake on any given day.

Kelly’s other option is to do a half-Ironman distance, which I personally think is a better choice, given her relatively short experience with triathlons – but you know you can’t keep Kelly down when it comes to being healthy. It’s a special kind of crazy, I think.

Whatever her decision, you can track Kelly’s progress here: Wanna Tri Some?

Last weekend my soaring club, the Louisville Area Soaring Society, held a contest – the 2007 Mid-American Soaring Championship. Normally it’s held in Lexington (as has been so for the past 30-plus years), but they’ve had some issues with their flying field and we stepped in to give them a hand this year.

The Mid-Am (as it is known) is also part of a “series” of soaring events located around the Ohio Valley – called the Ohio Valley Soaring Series, in which model sailplane pilots from all over the midwest travel to different cities and compete to become the OVSS champ, and win a new radio or plane donated by a sponsor.

The Mid-Am was the only contest out of the 8 or 9 held that wasn’t “man-on-man” style. This is widely considered to be the gold standard of flying competition, in that each pilot is flying in the same conditions as the other pilots he/she is scored against. The “old” way, known as “open winch”, allowed pilots to wait for good conditions to launch. Man-on-man forces everyone to fly in the same air – good or bad. Soaring is a very competitive hobby and while it might seem like a simple thing, this has a big impact on drawing people to a contest.

I flew Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I did pretty well each day (by my standards) and placed 3rd on Friday and Saturday, but ran into some bad luck on Sunday. All in all a good weekend. As happy as I was about my performance, it makes me happy just putting on an event like that.

Read more here: 2007 Mid-Am Champs in the books! @ LouisvilleSoaring.org

Synopsis: Norweigan FM Pirate explains his buriable transmitter from 30 years ago while inside his homebuilt cat-cage (complete with hamster wheel). A fascinating contraption! He is nutty as squirrel poop, and I love it.

To Conquer the Air -
Skyward – Autobiography of Bird
Tesla – Man out of Time
Wings of Madness
Executioner’s Current
Into The Wild
Into Thin Air
Hell’s Angels
Moneyball
Three Nights in August
Ball Four
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Living Dolls

Acorn Squash with Spiced Pecan Butter BBQ Recipe

Acorn Squash with Spiced Pecan ButterOn cool autumn nights, a sweet, buttery glaze over tender acorn squash is about as comforting as food gets. If you like, substitute butternut squash for equally good results.

For the butter:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup chopped toasted pecans

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To make the butter: In a small bowl, combine the butter, pecans, maple syrup, cinnamon, salt, ginger, and pepper. Mix well with a fork.

For the squash:

2 acorn squashes, 1-1/2 to 2 pounds each

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

To prepare the squash: With a large, heavy knife cut the squash in half lengthways. Remove the seeds with a spoon. Lightly brush the exposed flesh with the oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Put the squash halves, cut sides down, on the cooking grate and grill over indirect high heat until grill marks are clearly visible, about 30 minutes. Turn the squash halves cut sides up. Spread the exposed flesh with the pecan butter. Continue grilling until the flesh is tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Serve warm.

Makes 4 servings.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

plucked from here…

It’s just model planes, it’s just model planes… That refrain is constantly bouncing around my head a lot of the time. Isn’t there something bigger and better I should be doing? I’m no doctor, so that’s out. I’m not equipped to be a philanthropist, so that’s a scratch. Failing medicine and philanthropy, I’ve got a drive to help people it would seem. It’s not something I necessarily decided upon, but it’s certainly there. What is truly strange is that I can really, really stress myself out after I’ve committed to something – but it’s like a hardening process. I end up a better person for it in the end, but there are times when that refrain of “it’s just insert inconsequential thing here” comes in.

That, in a nutshell is what the run-up to the Soaring NATS (for which I covered the Soaring events in the NATSNews publication (July 22-30)) was like. Why put myself under such pressure to write about the events and compete at the same time!? You might not consider it a tough job, but the NATS is serious business. 130 pilots from around the country and I did it for-pay for the largest aeromodelling organization in the world. Not to mention that the Soaring crowd (like an hobby) is filled to the brim with opinionated (you could say cranky) dudes who are as passionate about the multi-faceted hobby as I am. I’ve got to take all that into account.

After I got the first article out, it relieved a fair bit of the pressure I was under. I had most of it pre-written and by that time I was already encamped in Muncie, IN (where the AMA HQ is and where the NATS are held), which is absolutely gorgeous and completely stuns me with silence at night. I got up every morning at 6:30 and went to sleep every night at midnight. I never have more energy, I never eat less and I never more focused than I am at the NATS. It’s like being fired out of a cannon through a week of soaring, and it never fails to inspire me to delve deeper into this hobby.

Despite my focus being elsewhere, I actually managed to do pretty well in the competition at the NATS. I got 5th out of 19 in the handlaunch soaring event, and I placed 6th out of 58(!) in the Rudder/Elevator/Spoiler contest with my EZ Bubble Dancer. RES is one of my favorite events (aside from handlaunch). I got middle-of-the-pack in the Unlimited contest as well, thanks largely in part to a pop-off launch (in which you don’t stay on the towline for very long, leaving you with maybe 75 feet of altitude, as compared to 600-800′, and you don’t get a re-launch!) in the fourth round.

Those successes were good for me, but I count as my greatest success the NATSNews coverage, for which I received universal acclaim. Never was heard a discouraging word from any of the some two dozen guys that came up to me over the week. That’s awesome.

I tried to take a bit of a different tack on the coverage for the NATS, so it was encouraging to hear that so many guys enjoyed my coverage. Soaring has a very committed following, but thanks in large part to the crazy advances in technology, it has become a bit elitist in it’s design. Competition has always been in soaring’s blood, even from the very first years – but now when a competition-level sailplane and gear can set you back $2000-$3000, that raises the barriers to entry considerably for most guys. The NATS is larger than just competition, though, so I thought it crucially important to focus on the “new guys” and let those staying at home for the NATS know that it’s not all about the competition. Doug Pike, a Canadian soaring enthusiast, likened it to “summer camp for sailplanes,” which I think hits the nail right on the head. You’ll never learn more, have more fun or meet more soaring pilots than the NATS. NEVER. If my coverage gets just one more “new guy” to the NATS or interested in soaring, then I’ve done my part.

NATSNews @ ModelAircraft.org

The Road to the 2007 NATS @ RCGroups

Gallery of Photos @ LouisvilleSoaring.org