November 07, 2005

Baaaaaa

Jennifer did it.
Lots of other good folks already did it (and more too that I'm too lazy to link to right now).
So I did too.

WikiBlog.

Posted by: Ted at 06:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Putting my inadaquacies out there for all to mock

Over on the right sidebar, a snazzy little meter found courtesy of Dawn. It shows the National Novel Writing Month goal of fifty thousand words, and how many I've actually accomplished so far.

I don't know if I'll reach the magic number or not. My goal is to finish the story.

Posted by: Ted at 03:52 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Well, you're three times further along than me. Of course, we only have your word on that. No one has actually seen these 9300 words.

Posted by: buckethead at November 07, 2005 08:23 PM (Qgvr0)

2 My goal is met when I stop writing. It may take more than 50,000 words to make one coherent point!

Posted by: dawn at November 07, 2005 08:37 PM (Dh1V0)

3 Cool, Ted. Will we get to review the magnum opus when done? I'm hoping to finish, but my writing is not flowing very quickly (and I can't stand just writing crap for crap's sake).

Posted by: JohnL at November 08, 2005 12:20 AM (dYzx6)

4 Absolutely John. Good, bad, or indifferent, I'm putting it up there when it's all over.

Buckethead, I'm positive that you've seen every single word, just not all strung together in this particular order.

Posted by: Ted at November 08, 2005 06:03 AM (blNMI)

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Chicken Soup for the Rocket Geek's Soul

Ok, I did some math and have details about this weekend's high-excitement rocket launch.

The motor was a Contrail Systems L1222 "sparky" (none of us know if it really was, by the way, we were kinda too busy to notice). The motor itself is about 3" in diameter, it's 54" long, of which the bottom 12" is the combustion chamber where all the flamey zoomy stuff happens. The oxidizer tank holds 3200cc's of nitrous oxide, which comes out to .85 of a gallon. Doug estimated that about half of that had been vented when the ignition happened.

The burn time for that motor is listed at 3.1 seconds, but I would guess that it ran out of nitrous (oxidizer), and hence the oxygen need to burn, long before that, so the thrust would've fallen way off from the specs.

But at ignition, well, there was plenty of oxidizer for that, and that sucker lit up with a peak thrust of 2892 newtons/second, which works out to 650 pounds of thrust right off the pad.

I've heard it said more than once at a rocket launch: even our failures are entertaining to watch.

Posted by: Ted at 12:29 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Aah, but which is more entertaining? Your spectacular successes or someone else's spectacular failures?

(And I don't mean that in a shodden fraude [sp?] kinda way -- just that a spectacular failure is prolly more entertaining if it's not one's own effort.)

Posted by: Tuning Spork at November 07, 2005 08:42 PM (W2gEq)

2 Even when watching one of your own disassemble itself on the way up, it's still kinda cool.

Posted by: Ted at November 07, 2005 08:45 PM (+OVgL)

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November 06, 2005

Snark of indeterminate accuracy

The Left won't begin to take domestic terrorism seriously until Starbucks' start blowing up.

Posted by: Ted at 01:49 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 05, 2005

Launch Report - Up Close and Personal Edition

Today was an absolutely beautiful day for flying rockets: 70's, sunny, very little wind. Lucky for us, it was also day two of the three-day BattlePark 2005 launch held in Culpeper, Virginia.

I only flew two rockets myself, but there's a story to be told, and we all know how much I love that. So first, the details, then the good stuff.

My first flight was my Centuri Groove Tube upscale. 2.6" diameter tube-fin design, launched on an H165-Redline motor. Typical great boost from this rocket, and she arced over at apogee and just after going nose down the chute ejected. Recovered about 150 yards from the pads, undamaged.

Second flight, Barenaked Lady on an F24 with a seven second delay. This rocket is ultra-light, and the F24 seriously overpowers the rocket, which is fun as hell and why I do it. Waaaaaaaaay up there in a hurry and recovered about 100 yards away undamaged.

So that was all I flew. I had a few other rockets, but I had a great time anyway, picking a friend's brain for altimeter bay ideas (his always work, and I've never been completely satisfied with my designs), and shooting the breeze with fliers I haven't seen in awhile (frequent commenter Russ was there).

"I've done everything I know how to do, so if this doesn't work then we'll learn something." -- Doug Pratt

Later in the afternoon, Doug Pratt readied the rocket he's going to eventually fly for his Level 3 certification. Twelve foot tall, six inch diameter, all fiberglass, he was going to use a hybrid L-something motor.

They had the rocket on the pad (very big motor, so it was loaded on the "away" cell, much farther than normal), and I headed out to ask if there was anything I could do to help. Doug said something about giving them good luck with the flight.

Ha! That'll teach him.

Filling the nitrous tank for the motor seemed to take an unusually long time, and after the countdown there was no ignition. Ivan (another friend) started to vent the nitrous back out of the motor, and while that was going on Doug, Ivan and I walked back to the pad to see what was wrong. There was smoke coming from the pad, and we saw that the igniter wires were smoking. This put us all on guard, and we started visually checking the setup.

Doug switched off the power to the pad, making it safe. Moving over to the base of the rocket, he lifted the ignition wires and the motor instantly ignited! I was farthest away of the three of us, maybe 10-12 feet. Ivan dived away, Doug wound up with all the hair on one arm singed off, and I twisted and turned my back to the roar of this big honkin' motor going on right next to us.

Summary so far: big motor, too close, accidental ignition.

We were busy making sure that Ivan was ok (he hit the ground and rolled) when people started yelling "heads up!" at us. I confess that I had two thoughts before looking up:

1. Uh oh, the chute didn't open and it's coming in ballistic.

2. This was a weird motor ignition, so the sucker coming down on top of us is probably on fire.

When I did look up, I was relieved to see it descending normally under chute. Even better, it was going to miss us. Then came the second bit of excitement.

Fire.

Ivan started yelling, and we ran about thirty feet downrange to start stomping out a brush fire caused by... well, we're not sure what caused the fire. The motor ignition, certainly, but why or how... no idea. Anyway, the three of us were stomping and stepping, holding the fire at bay more or less, until folks with water buckets made their way out to where we were and saved the day.

Ok, failure analysis. While the rocket was being loaded, the igniter wire insulation were chafed or otherwise broken. This caused the ignition wires to short out when they touched bare wire to the metal launch pad. That was problem number 1.

Next, when the ignition button was pressed to light the motor, the short prevented the current from reaching the business end of the igniter, but the relay in the circuit welded itself open. What that means is that although Doug shut off power to the pad, the relay had enough juice in it to fire the igniter, which happened as soon as Doug moved the wires, which unshorted them.

Whoosh! A helluva lot closer than I ever want to be ever again.

Nobody was hurt (beyond that singed arm hair), which was the main thing. The relay box is being disected this evening to figure out why it stuck open and how to prevent it from ever happening again.

Just to give you an idea of the power of the motor: even with only half a tank of nitrous to work with, the motor lofted the forty-plus pound rocket over four hundred feet into the air.

Hanging out with Doug always makes for an interesting day. Afterwards, we hit Country BBQ for some excellent ribs and fixin's and then I headed home; happy, tired, and with another cool story to add to my collection.

Posted by: Ted at 09:49 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 It's a shame you didn't think to get pictures of the look on everyone's faces when that happened

Posted by: Victor at November 05, 2005 09:59 PM (Hfd2P)

2 And for a useful comment: It seems welding gloves and automatic welding helmets might be useful equipment to have on hand, if only to guarantee you'll never need them again.

You mentioned the nitrous tank seemed to take an unusually long time to fill up. Did anyone confirm if that was, indeed, abnormal, or are they filing that away in the "Hmmm, that's strange," file? Might it have had something to do with the small brush fire?

Posted by: Victor at November 05, 2005 10:04 PM (Hfd2P)

3 Next week: Ted experiments with hydrazine and RFNA! Be there or miss the excitement!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 05, 2005 10:30 PM (QriEg)

4 Victor, the reason for the slow fill rate was discovered, but it had nothing to do with the launch. Nothing more than a slightly kinked tube.

Posted by: Ted at November 05, 2005 10:33 PM (+OVgL)

5 Whooooaaaaa,Ted!I missed all of that action and adventure yesterday.Glad no-one was hurt.I'll bet Doug woke up this morning smelling burnt hair.That odor will linger in yer nostrils for days.
My own biggest adventure was almost getting konked in the noodle by that Skunkwerks Saturn 5."Look mommy,I gotta Saturn 5 stuck in me favorite hat!Unfortunately it's on me favorite head."
Anyhow this shows how far behind I've gotten in the last few months because I always thought that the largest Saturn was the Apogee which is on temporary production hold.Why?I don't know.That Skunkwerks is major cool though and for $600 it had better be.
Also,I had a great time yesterday hookin' up with my friend Dwayne.Sorry I never got a chance to introduce y'all but we where just sorta going with the flow in making the rounds.We actually didn't leave till well after dark last night.We sat there and bs'ed about anything and everything catching up on news.
Well anyhow Ted it was great seeing you again as well as everyone else too.See ya in a few weeks.

Posted by: Russ at November 06, 2005 08:14 AM (ObxzR)

6 Wow! That was pure excitement reading it, I can only imagine being there!

wish I was there!

Posted by: michele at November 07, 2005 09:03 AM (rxsqq)

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November 04, 2005

I can forgive the whole nuclear weapon thing, but this is a bit much to ask

You inhumane bastard.

Posted by: Ted at 09:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

NaNoWriMo update, as if you care

This isn't going to become a constant and consuming blogging subject. Be relieved or disappointed as you wish.

I'm leaning towards waiting until the story is complete before posting the whole thing all at once. That lets me sneak back and edit the plot without y'all knowing about it ("Luke, I'm your uncle").

Here's my writer's profile for those interested in seeing how many words I've reached, and there's an excerpt there too.

If, IF, I decide to do this again next year, I'll be writing erotica. I figure "in... out... in... out..." oughtta be good for five or six thousand words right off the bat.

Posted by: Ted at 04:30 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ew.

I just deleted a spam email from "Glamour Shots" for holiday family portraits. Isn't that the company that specializes in sexy pinup style photography?

I feel like I need to go scrub my monitor now.

Posted by: Ted at 12:55 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 03, 2005

I was sleeping too much anyway

I'm doing that National Novel Writing Month insanity.

I haven't decided if I'm going to post chapters as I finish them or not.

Rachael is insisting that my story include zombies. I've been known to write erotica (hey, Penthouse counts dammit!). An interesting fusion idea occurs, but the guys over at the Ministry are already debating related details, so I think (probably) not.

Other folks who are crazy too:

Buckethead
JohnL
Dawn
Barb
Pratt
Brandon

More ink than sense, as my Dad would say.

Posted by: Ted at 04:38 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Cool Christmas Present

Pratt Hobbies has a new T-Shirt for that cool kid in your life.

Perfect.

Posted by: Ted at 04:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Play nicely while I'm occupied elsewhere

I'm really swamped right now between work and school and home life, so posting may be light for a few days. In the meantime, here's a picture for you:

Leave a caption in the comments and who knows, maybe I'll award a prize or something to the best.

Posted by: Ted at 04:17 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 02, 2005

Anniversary

Ken and Squip's one-year anniversary podcast is up! Listen to one of the first, and still one of the best podcasts going. Hear me. Hear Cindy talk about me talking about her breasts. And that's not even the best part of the show!

Now, where the heck did we store those champagne glasses?

Posted by: Ted at 08:27 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 *blush* For our second year of podcasting I am going to begin talking ONLY about men's penises.
Fair is fair, right Ted? ;-)

Posted by: Cindy at November 03, 2005 08:02 AM (vg5qz)

2 I hadn't realized that it was such an integral part of every show when I wrote that first review.

And you're right, fair is fair, and it might increase your female audience too. I suggest you play celebrity "helmet or anteater?", and make it an audience polling thing.

LOL

Posted by: Ted at November 03, 2005 10:00 AM (blNMI)

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Bye Skitch

Conductor Skitch Henderson died at age 87.

"When it's right, applause sounds like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce."

Sounds right to me.

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 01, 2005

A Spooktacular Edition of the Carnival of Music

By the guys at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy. Check it out, there are tons of interesting links to follow this time around.

Posted by: Ted at 06:02 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Spoilsport

Thanks Margi, via the Llama Butchers.

Make your own here.

Posted by: Ted at 04:56 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Boo!

Looking at the counters, I see that Rocket Jones went over 300,000 page visits last night. Thanks to everyone, even you bots.

Posted by: Ted at 04:39 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 31, 2005

Lucky Guy

That's me. I don't know how I got on Derek's good side* but all I do is mention my sucky banner and he whomps up a great one instanter.

Thanks muchly.

*Oh, now I remember. It involved gifts.

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Banner

That one up there kinda sucks, don't it?

Update: Not that one. That one's cool. I'm talking about the ick one from before.

Posted by: Ted at 12:14 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Words, water, ice, air

Like the title? How very zen of me.

Yeah, right.

On Saturday I once again travelled into our nation's capitol, destination: The Smithsonian's Hirschhorn Museum. When Dawn and I visited a few weeks ago, it was raining hard all day, so we didn't get to experience one exhibit that sounded cool.

It was called "Words Drawn In Water" (this was the last weekend for it), and it was a walking guided tour while wearing an iPod shuffle and headphones. The audio track told you where to walk and pointed out various things along the way, and also included snatches of music, interviews and ambient sounds as you walked along. But this wasn't a regular guided tour, because there were several surreal moments when unexpected insights and visions were planted in your mind's eye.

Very nice, and I'm bummed that it's over, because I definitely would've loved to have gone again.

Afterwards, I visited the Air & Space Museum, specifically to see SpaceShipOne. I had prepared myself to be underwhelmed, because so often you see something like that and think, "wow, that's smaller than I expected." Not this time though. It was actually quite a bit larger than I thought it would be. It's hanging from the ceiling, between the Spirit of St. Louis and the Bell X-1 (the orange X-plane, I think it's the X-1).

Brandon, over at Down With Pants!, is also going to participate in NaNoWriMo. He's also playing in the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, and kindly displayed the logo of my beloved Sharks when his Kings came up just short last weekend (what a heartbreaker, but better you than me, bucko!).

Words. Check.
Water. Check.
Ice. Check.
Air. Check.

Bye bye.

Posted by: Ted at 12:06 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month.

I know of two friends who're going for it (and/or the variation thereof), and I've been poking the idea with a stick. It hasn't jumped up and bit me yet, but it's not fully awakened yet either. We shall see.

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 I had a full-on panic this morning, thinking it started today. Because I have no opening scene. None. I have no idea where to start because I would just rather write in my journal about things that are real.

But alas, I have a day to mull things over and get inspired. I hope the muse visits us all. I mean, how often is one encouraged to ramble at length? I think this mad dash is more of a stress relief than a stressor. Good luck, and you're in good company!

Posted by: dawn at October 31, 2005 08:25 AM (Dh1V0)

2 Now there's an idea. I'd love to read your journal. *ducks* LOL

Posted by: Ted at October 31, 2005 08:54 AM (blNMI)

3 Hey Ted,

I'm giving it a go this year. I did some pre-plotting this year; I have titles for about 10 chapters, a couple of character sketches, and some rough scraps of dialogue that I am pulling together.

However, Buckethead and I both got Civ IV a few days ago, and are considering starting an online multiplayer game, so our word counts may fall short of the 50,000 goal.

Posted by: JohnL at October 31, 2005 02:50 PM (YVul2)

4 I created a little bit of family tension this weekend. My mom came out from Ohio to spend time with her grandson. I figured, hey! What better opportunity to play Civ IV? Mrs. Buckethead did not agree. At all, really. So we went to see Wallace and Grommit, and did a bunch of other stuff.

So I stayed up til three or four in the morning Friday night, Saturday night, last night... and now I'm tatered.

I need to resist the call of Civ IV... Must resist... But I've got the Germans up against the wall, and the Egyptians are getting uppity... Oh crap.

Writing will be difficult. Damn Sid Meiers!

Posted by: buckethead at October 31, 2005 04:51 PM (ztNrs)

5 The first Sid Meiers game I played was something on the Atari 800 - split screen - you in your F86 Super Sabre vs Migs. I spent hours shooting down commies.

Posted by: Ted at October 31, 2005 06:41 PM (+OVgL)

6 JohnL, you are waaay ahead of me on this. I might just start writing and see where it takes me, because I wasn't even considering this a week ago.

Posted by: Ted at October 31, 2005 06:42 PM (+OVgL)

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