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

I finished up my newest sailplane last week and got a chance to fly it on Sunday. It’s an Onyx JW from SoaringUSA, which I purchased with the aid of the 2006 “Rookie of the Year” award from the Ohio Valley Soaring Series.

It’s my first “molded” ship coming, made in the Ukraine and imported here by SoaringUSA. It’s really a thing of beauty – beautiful, immaculate white wing with red tips and really strong to boot. The wing and fuselage are full of carbon fiber and kevlar for strength… It’s so strong and so quiet when it flies! I’m really excited about it.

My next contest is the 2007 AMA/LSF Nationals (aka the NATS) in beautiful Muncie, IN. I’ll be flying handlaunch, RES (rudder/elevator/spoiler) and unlimited class (which the Onyx JW falls into). I’ll also be towing for F3J (link is YouTube), and writing the soaring coverage for the NATSNews. I’m sure I’ll have my hands full…

Kelly called just a bit ago to tell me that Rolando “Chip” Cheng (someone I knew peripherally in high school and college) jumped to his death yesterday morning in downtown Louisville. The Courier-Journal reports: Man who jumped to his death identified.

I encountered Chip at first from my experience on Eastern High School’s Quick Recall team – he was a student a Manual High School (where Kelly went to High School). Manual, being the magnet school that it was, was to be feared, but I seem to remember Chip being one of the heavyweights on a team of heavyweights.

This scenario is unfortunately all to familiar to me, having learned of the death of another brilliant mind shortly before Christmas, three years ago – Ben Edelson. Another genius with a troubled mind crushed under the weight of things they kept all too private.

I can’t pretend to have known Chip to the same level I did Ben, but the similarities are enough to send that pang directly into my gut. Chip’s own words (update: a local copy of his UofL blog) cast a more frightening shadow – one of paranoia, confusion and ramblings I’ve only ever read from someone in a state of advanced mental torment. Be advised that it does lead all the way to the end, giving us a window into his state of mind.

Further: fraterfamilias.blogspot.com

That question is answered by Dr. Charles Dillon of the League of Science in the Monkey Interest.

The monkey in question is Slingshot Monkey, a wonderful contraption with surgical tubing for arms that you fire from your fingers. No monkeys were harmed in this experiment. (He had a tinfoil helmet). The speed was measured by a HotWheels Radar Gun, which are currently $15 at your local, neighborhood Target. Gonna use it one some of my soaring machines as well, I think – I might take it apart and modify it for range.

Oh, and the answer to today’s question is 12 MPH. (Monkeymiles per Hour)

Side fact: Banannon is the chemical ingredient that makes bananas taste like bananas.

I’ll be leaving for the Polecat Challenge (a handlaunch soaring contest) bright’n'early tomorrow morning. It’s one of the two biggest handlaunch soaring contests in the United States, pulling in 60+ pilots! And I’ve had the pleasure of helping Denny (the purveyor of Polecat Aeroplane Works) put the contest together with the help of the Internets, and I even designed the Polecat Challenge T-Shirt – so I’m really excited to get there and do that.

Also, this will be a trial-run of my soaring journalism skills, in that I’ll be doing LIVE updates from the contest with photos, scores, maybe video and reports through the 4 days we’ll be there. The updates will come down here: 2007 Polecat Challenge Live Feed!

I recently made some t-shirt designs for the 2007 Polecat Challenge (a handlaunch soaring contest). They are for sale on the website – pick one up! The pig illustration was done by national Addy-award-winning designed Scott “Airwolf” Schroeder, and the shirts will be printed by MonkeyDrive, a local printer.

Oh, hey, how are you?! Haven’t seen you ’round the Fat Burger in a while, maaaan… I heard you been hangin’ round with those dudes!

I don’t know what all that’s about, but yeah dang I been busy as of late. I’ve got to set down this load in digi-print, so here goes – I’ve got all sorts of stuff going down in town:

I helped to develop and launch a thing for GE called Confessions from the Kitchen with my Flash guy Geoff. Real interesting project, that (in the “saying” sense of the word).

Also, I trained for and ran the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon (13.1 miles). I had this crazy idea that I could do it in 2 hours, and by some aligning of fates, I did it. 2 hours, 35 seconds. I never, ever could have done it without the determination and love of my lady KELLY. I owe her a lot for getting me to that point.

I’ve also been a model-building fool this winter. I built an Apogee handlaunch plane (my first-ever bagged wing), finished my Wind Dancer electric sailplane, built and flew a Redwing electric wing, built an XP-5 discus-launched glider, and am currently finishing up a prototype discus-launched glider for Denny @ Polecat.

Delving deeper into my R/C soaring passion, I’ve been tapped to write the NATS News coverage for the soaring events at the 2007 AMA/LSF Nationals! I’d apparently impressed a few people when I did my coverage of the World Soaring Masters back in September. I’ll be writing daily articles and shooting photos. Really excited about that!

Furthermore, I’ve signed up to tow F3J at the NATS this year! F3J is a class of soaring event that is internationally recognized, and there are “World Championships” held every two years. While most of soaring is an individual affair, F3J a team effort requiring a manager, pilots, callers (people who tell the pilots what is going on) and towmen, who actually pull the plane up into the sky. The 2007 League of Silent Flight / AMA Nationals in Muncie (aka “the NATS”) is hosting an F3J competition this year, and I’m really excited to be a part of it.

I’ll also be travelling in June to the 2007 Polecat Challenge, one of the best handlaunch soaring competitions in the country! And currently, I’m trying to aid Bruce Davidson in his attempt to claim the highest handlaunch in the world!

Continuing the aviation theme, my brother (who recently served OJ Simpson twice in one week at his restaurant, because some people just don’t care for OJ) and I took my dad up to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum up in Dayton, Ohio for his sixtieth birthday (May 6th)! I love that place, and we all had a good time…

Did I mention I’m coaching the softball team at Power Creative? How nuts is that?! Our first practice is TONIGHT.

I need to get things done!