Lee.org

In looking for more batteries, I found the specs for the Sanyo KR1700AU batteries in my Zagi. Sanyo says that at 8C (13.6 amps) the battery lasts about 5.2 minutes. That was exactly my experience. So whoever says they get 7 minutes WOT (Wide Open Throttle) on these batteries is…. well, I don’t think they are.

Also, Sanyo recommends a “fast charge” current of 2600 mA on the KR1700AU! NOT the 1000 mA that the Zagi manual and Cliff Whitney recommends! That means you can peak charge these batteries much faster than you might think!

Hydrogen power appears just about inevitable. Here’s a good pro-hydrogen paper I found mentioned on the EV mailing list. The original is on this site.

I gleaned this estimate from my journal entries. It’s mainly to try and figure out how many battery cycles I’ve gone through (I want to get a third battery pack and charge two of them at the same time. To do this, the batteries should have about the same amount of wear on them.)

total flights
6-7 8
6-9 4
6-10 3
6-12 1
6-14 2
7-12 2
7-14 4
7-16 2
7-17 5
7-20 5
7-21 2

———–

approx 38 flights so far. 19 on each pack.

All this time, I’ve been throwing the Zagi too hard! I’ve been giving it this solid baseball arm toss to make sure it launches correctly. Well, it turns out that it’ll get into the air just fine with a little heave. I’ll work some more on finding out just how light a toss I can give it. I’ll also work on my side-arm throw :-).

Upside Down

I learned how to fly inverted today :-)

I had been at it a while but wasn’t getting anywhere. So I went down to Great Meadows today and Julian was there with 2 new flying friends. I mentioned my troubles to Julian. He took my transmitter and asked me to throw the plane in the air. It was nice being a “passenger” on a flight. I don’t get to do that a lot :-). He gets up to altitude and then FLOOP, he starts cruising around inverted. He’s such a show-off ;-). He showed me the controls and I realized that my trouble had been that I was flipping and then trying to level off when the plane was moving too slowly. I’d give it full down-elevon and end up essentially trying to hover. Of course that wouldn’t work because it’s a 25 oz. plane with only 9.5 oz. of thrust… so I’d descend fairly quickly with the nose futilely struggling to reach the sky. Julian demonstrated to me that I needed a little more airspeed before I could fly inverted.

Correct!	Incorrect – not enough speed	Incorrect – Can’t pull out fast enough

Flying inverted isn’t that hard now. The controls are a bit more touchy. I think the plane is constantly trying to right itself (a good instinct in general!). As Cliff Whitney’s email .sig says, “When flying inverted, down is up and up is expensive.” I haven’t figured out the stall characteristics but I think they’re probably much less forgiving.

Now I’m zooping all over the place right-side-up, up-side-down, in-side-ou.. well, I’m not that good yet.

I also worked on flying very low and slow. Some day I’d like to try jumping over the plane in flight.

Zing Wing Fun with the Zagi

Before Julian, Mike and his son left, we had a VERY fun game of catch. First we were playing with the Zing Wings. Mike really liked them and vowed to buy some. I got mine from Atlanta Hobby. Then we tried using the Zagi as a launching platform for them. We’d wedge a Zing Wing in place on the plane, send it up a hundred feet or so and then shake it loose. I got to fly the plane, which meant that, as Julian pointed out to me -3- times, “When the Zing Wing comes loose, you watch the Zagi, not the Zing Wing!” Some of the Zing Wings wouldn’t come loose. Heck, the Zagi looked like a bucking bronco, pulling left, right, left, right, up, and down. But the Zing Wing would hold on tight. Of course, as soon as I’d set it down, the wing would pop right off. Finally the best placement method was found at the end… Julian insisted it wouldn’t work but I tried anyway, and it did! I held a folded wing along the front edge of the plane by the winglet with one hand and launched it with the other hand. Julian gave it full throttle and off it went, Zing Wing in tow. A little hammerhead stall and the Zing Wing was free.

John E, my neighbor had a good story to tell me about a Firebird XL that they got for their son on his birthday. To make the nice story very short: After finally getting the thing in the air, he did some gentle turns and then the thing just locked up… full throttle, straight flight. And off it went! John told me, “Of course it was funny later. But while it was flying away, all I was thinking was, ‘There goes $150 dollars.'” The plane flew off into the wild and was never heard from again. They found the right spirit and it gives them a good laugh now.I took John out to Great Meadows. We had a lovely time killing the afternoon.

2″ PVC

I got a 2″ PVC pipe for my forced-air battery cooler. That’s more like it.

What Prevents People from Listening?

Our development hired people to power-wash the exterior of all the homes. Yesterday, the association stuck a note in our door saying that we had to remove all the furniture from our deck and take off all the window screens.

So why did I have to argue with my family about moving the furniture? It went something like this:

“Dad, help me move this planter inside”
“No, we don’t have to move that. It’s too heavy. They’ll just push it around when they get here.”
“I don’t think so. The letter said to move everything. What about the table and chairs there?
“They’ll move that too.”
“But Dad, look over there next door. See how they took all the furniture off the deck and it’s sitting on the grass? We’re going to have to have to do that too. The letter told us to move everything.”
“No we won’t. Don’t worry. We weren’t even here when they did it last year.”
I start moving the planter inside. “Give me a hand here.”
“No! They’ll do it.”
“Dad, go inside.”

I moved most of the planters by myself.

Ten minutes later, I was out on the other porch and I was a fool. I tried to have a conversation about what to do with the gas grill. I said, “Now I’m just thinking here… maybe we could unhook the gas and they could roll it around the porch when they’re cleaning it. I’m not going to try to roll it inside.”
After reading the letter, looking at all the neighbors’ homes, and watching me move stuff for a few minutes, he replies, “Just leave it.”
“Dad, get out of here.”

I went downstairs and started moving items out from under the upstairs porch. While I was doing this, a workman standing at the next house saw that the planters had been moved inside but the furniture was still on the porch. He said in his broken English and waving his hands to help get the point across, “We going to lunch now. You move that, up there [pointing to the furniture].”
I came back with a nice smile, and pointing to help get the point across as well, “After lunch, we’ll move that off the porch together?” He nodded and smiled. A few minutes later, they went off to lunch.

While I was still moving stuff, my next-door neighbor came out to look at his 3/4 power-washed house. I’ve known him for a few weeks and he’s pretty nice. But today he was a grumpy old man. He gripes at how they missed some spots and how the workmen are no good. I point out that they only stopped for lunch. He gripes at how they dirtied up the windows with the water (yes, he was complaining about water on the outside of his windows). I tell him that they’re here to do power-washing, not windows. He still gripes. I look closer and point out how they have power-washed one of the windows and it looks really good; ,”hopefully they’ll do the other windows when they come back from lunch.” He gripes at that.

He asks me if they’re going to paint the windowsills. I say, “I don’t remember, I think it’s in that thing they slipped in our door. I know they’re going to seal the deck.” He says what a pain it was to get the screens off and asks if they’re going to paint the sills. I say, “I don’t know. It’s written in the contract what they’re going to do.” My dad pokes his head out and I ask him to check the paper and see if they’re going to paint the sills. He goes and says that yes, they will. I point out the one screen he couldn’t get off, saying that they won’t be able to do as good a job painting the sills with that screen on. That they might get brown paint on the white screen and that wouldn’t look good at all. He says that he doesn’t care. I smile and nod that neighborly smile and nod.

I then took another 20 minutes walking around the whole house, removing screens and moving planters and such away from the house.

An hour later, I’m downstairs on my computer and I hear a higher-than-normal-pitched cry from my mother, “Lee! Can you come up here?” I get up there and the two of them are out on the front steps. She starts in on me in a nasty accusatory fast-paced yell, “You were supposed to move all this stuff! Why didn’t you move all this! Now we’ve got to move it before they come. What were you thinking?”
I had had it. First I get yelled at to not move stuff, now I’m getting yelled at because I should move stuff. Even though… get this… I -did- move everything. So I turned it on and redoubled her nasty tone and pace, “I did move everything. LOOK! Do you see how everything is away from the wall they’re going to power-wash? I moved all that! Look. They are going to power-wash this wall [touching the shingled wall] and they are not going to wash this wall [touching the stone wall across from it with some planters lined up against it]. I’m done.” She kept silent. I went back inside.

Rain rain, go away
Come again another day
Wittle Wee (the one who wivs here) wants to play!

I went to bCentral looking for a discussion mailing list for the PVPOA. While I was there, a popup said that a person would love to live-chat with me and solve all my problems. I took them up on the offer. I started chatting with “Micky”. After just a few exchanges, I got this feeling like I was talking to Eliza. You remember Eliza… the first electronic psychologist. Here, feel the creepiness for yourself:

Thank you for contacting Microsoft bCentral.
Below is a copy of our transcript.

Topic: I would like to have an automated announcement mailing list and a discussion mailing list. Each for about 200 people. Can bCentral do this for me and for how much?

Micky Hello Lee. I’m Micky. Welcome to bCentral live support.
Micky I’ve received your question and am glad to assist you.
Lee Hi Micky!
Micky In order to serve you effectively, I’d need further clarification about your issue. [Notice how she didn’t mention what she needed clarification on? Suspicious!]
Lee I’m looking for a mailing list manager service like Majordomo or Listserv…
Micky Okay. Please continue, Lee. [If this isn’t Eliza talking, them I’m a schnauzer with a limp.]
Lee Micky, are you a real human?
Micky Yes, I’m a real person out here. [you KNOW that was a canned response! Ha! Eliza says exactly the same thing!]
Micky What I’ve understood so far, is that you need a service that would help you manage your mailing list. [Obvious bad AI. The program constructed the sentence. It’s totally canned right up until “need”.]
Micky Am I correct in saying so? [Automated psycho-babble filler.]
Lee Yes. exactly.
Micky Thanks for the confirmation. […]
Micky Well, bCentral does provide a service – List Builder, that enables you to manage your mailing list, in order to send email newsletters to potential subscribers. [That’s almost what I asked… A human would have been more specific.]
Lee How can I find out more info about it? Is there a website?
Micky With List Builder service, you’d receive tools that can make launching an e-mail marketing campaign a snap. [Captain, all power to the main sales guns!]
Micky Sure. Here is a page that provides detailed information about this bCentral service.
Micky http://bcentral.com/products/lb/
Micky Lee, I’ve sent across the page that has details about the features as well as pricing of List Builder service.
Micky It should appear to the left of our chat window.
Lee You know, this conversation is pretty weird. You’re only getting a C- on the Turing Test. Thanks for the address.
Micky I’m sorry about not being able to promptly answer your questions. [Again, Eliz.. Micky almost understood the question. Context is a difficult mistress.]
Micky Lee, as far as the other question is concerned about managing a ‘discussion mailing list’ could you please elaborate about this, so that I could assist you appropriately? [Wow, this question gets me really excited about AI. “Micky” was able to parse my initial query and knew that I wanted two things.]

[at this point, I accidentally got bumped off the system. My fault.]

Micky YOur response will help me to assist you better.
Micky I really don’t intend to rush you through this, but, I haven’t heard back from you since quite some time.
Micky Are you there online with me?
Micky It seems that you’ve been disconnected from this chat session.
Micky You can always contact our Presales team via phone at the number for further information about this service, before signing up.
Micky The number is 1-866-bCentral (1-866-223-6872), Monday-Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific time. It is a Toll Free Number.
Micky I’m sorry for not being able to assist you any further.
Micky Feel free to login again for assistance.
Micky I’m sorry that we couldn’t finish our discussion, Lee. Thanks for coming to bCentral Live Support. Please come back if you need assistance again. Have a nice day! [I wish this session had timestamps. I’d bet that this closing monologue would have had stamps like 17:34:06, 17:34:11, 17:34:16, 17:34:21…]

16980002:5502374

Since I got bumped before getting the info I needed, I jacked in again.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft bCentral.
Below is a copy of our transcript.

Topic: I would like to have an automated announcement mailing list and a discussion mailing list. Each for about 200 people. Can bCentral do this for me and for how much?

Lee Ah, Micky. We got disconnected. Sorry!
Micky Hello Lee. I’m Micky. Welcome back to bCentral live support. [Eliza’s intersession memory really startled me the first time I saw it. It’s a nice trick.]
Micky No problem.
Micky I’ve received your question and am looking forward to assist you again. [Canned up to “to”]
Lee Go on… [I got into the Eliza act. Of course what I SHOULD have said was, “Tell me about your assist you again.”]
Micky Pertaining to your question, I’d need further clarification about what you exactly are you referring to by saying ‘discussion mailing list’. [Proof that this AI isn’t sophisticated enough yet. This should have been in Micky’s database as a virtually 100% confirmed keyword.]
Micky Is it that you wish to hold discussions amongst a group of subscribers?
Lee Yes.
Micky Thanks for the confirmation.
Micky Please give me a couple of minutes to look into this request and assist you accordingly. [Just like old Star Trek. “Working…. working….” hehe. Nice touch!]
Lee OK. I’ll be here.
Micky Thanks.
Micky Thanks, once again. Pertaining to the feature you are looking for, about managing discussion lists, bCentral does provide a service – Sharepoint team service.
Lee Oh good. Tell me more! [I should have known better. “Tell me more!” gets translated into “Switch to verbose mode,” and no AI is good enough to do a good verbose mode yet. They always sound like they’re getting wildly off-topic.]
Micky With Sharepoint team services, you’d be able to manage an Intranet website, wherein you could manage discussions. However, these discussions, wouldn’t be identical to interactive chats.
Micky These discussions would be something like this. You’d post a topic for discussing, and authenticated users would be able to post their comments about this topic.
Micky Lee, the main administrator would be able to view the domments posted by all participants for these discussions.
Micky Although, I’d like to clarify that you’d either be able to limit the maximum number of authenticated users to 20.
Micky Alternatively, you’d be able to enable ‘anonymous access settings’ and then, more than 20 users could participate in this discussion, However, you’d not be able to determine the name of these anonymous users in case ‘Anonymous access settings’ are enabled.
Micky For further information, you might want to review the page providing additional details about this bCentral service.
Lee Ok… the limitations sound a bit weird but I’m still listening…. [What I SHOULD have said was, “For the love of all life in the universe, end verbose mode! Begin terse mode!]
Lee I’m looking into the SharePoint site now.
Micky Here’s the page for you.
Micky http://bcentral.com/products/sp/
Micky It would appear to the left of our chat window.
Micky Lee, you might want to review this page in detail at a later time.
Micky For your convenience, our entire chat transcript would be emailed to you, as soon as this session ends. So, you’d be able to access all this information.
Lee I’m not looking for groupware… I don’t think bCentral is for me.
Micky Well, I’m sorry to learn that the features provided as of now, are not upto your expectations.
Micky We really appreciate the time you’ve taken to help us know the opportunities to improvise our services. [Even computers give you “Dear John” letters when they realize they can’t get anything out of you.]
Micky Lee, bCentral works to add new features and services that would benefit all business owners.
Micky Thanks for your valuable feedback!
Micky Do let me know if there is any other information pertaining to bCentral, I could provide you with.
Micky Thanks for your valuable time. Feel free to login again for assistance.
Micky Thanks for using bCentral Live Support. We are here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Have a great day! Bye Lee, take care.

16980078:5502374

Technology has run amok. I was furiously taking notes at a meeting of the PVPOA (I’m working on getting them email mailing lists) and…. the best way to describe it is that my pencil crashed. It’s a fancy mechanical pencil… a Paper Mate Titanium 0.5mm to be exact. I got it special because the tip retracts so it doesn’t poke through your pocket. The main trouble is that it pushes too much lead out each time you click it. So my point broke and I clicked it again quickly since I was in a hurry and SNAP. I tried again, clicking more carefully but still in a hurry. SNAP. Again, SNAP. ARGH!

I’m happy with my Pentel Twist-Erase 0.5mm QE515 but the point makes it so that I don’t dare put the thing in a pocket for fear of being given a graphite injection! It’s happened before and it sucked.

Here’s the Allamuchy ball field that I sometimes fly in.

I got a little carried away with Mapquest…. Here is the club field I fly at, RAMAC. The area sure is perty from the sky, ain’t it? And these shots are in winter! The field itself isn’t much to look at. The dots near the bottom of the triangle in the first photo are cars in the parking lot.

Here’s the Pocono field… sorry the images aren’t as good… blame Mapquest!

And for posterity, more shots of the WCCC field.