evdreamer

Mark,

My dad's work has a few cameras. They got an image of their car and one thief. However, it couldn't get an image of the license plate. My dad's work is going to install a camera designed for getting license plates, but my dad said they weren't in a hurry to install it. The cops got a pic of their license plate at another location. They are from Iowa. My dad said if they were caught they would probably just get a fine. My dad was considering getting an alarm system with radar and vibration sensors.

I have to work in the morning on the 4th. Then I will go to my aunt's house in the evening for fireworks.

I can understand not wanting to fly in the heat of summer. It seems like my summer break has been flying by.

Nick

JPEE

Hi Guys,
Mark,
Sorry to read that you and your wife have to work on the 4[SUP]th[/SUP]…that sucks. This is only the beginning of the summer and it is a tough one for you already. We watched the News just this morning and Judy and I see the that Hurricanes and or big storms are there already……..shessh, you guys can’t catch a break.
Now let’s get upbeat for a bit! We crashed the T-28 the day before yesterday lol, not upbeat anymore right lol. I took my Joe to his RC Field. We flew the Bixler 4 packs and then moved on to the T-28 a pack as I try to provide skill growth for him. He did real well after I took the plane up. Once in the air he was very confident! Later I landed the plane. At that time a guy next to us who had been talking with us tried to help the guy next to him with his son to set up a Buddy Box system. After several tries I jumped in and offered my advice, to be neighborly. I found they had a Dx5 and DX8 Spectrum Transmitter’s they were working with. I explained they have to be matched meaning the DX5 is slider only Transmitter with no programming and is just simple plane TX. So then the guy next to us asked if he could take my radio and hook it up and see if it worked. I said ok. They did a bench test right there and viola they had connectivity. Then he asked if he could take up the guys plane an giver and fly with the kid. Again I said ok. Once there in the Pilots Box a Board member (who provides planes and TX’s but Fatuba only) got into the picture and said he would take over for the guy next to me so the guy next to me came in and then the kid and instructor flew for 12 minutes. Then they landed and I thought ok now Joe and I can get back up. No………… the arrogant father that knows “jack” says to the boy, wanna go again and of course the kid say yes! Then the guy next to me goes over and comes back and asked if they can put a model into my TX for the kids plane to make it fly better. I gave them a channel number and off they went with the set up. So they flew again for another 10 minute flight. This time after they landed I hear the dad, we have one more pack, wanna go again…………….. that’s when I got up and asked for my TX back. I got a shallow “thanks” from the dad as he walked away. Meanwhile, the guy next to me who asked for TX was now flying his stuff. So I put a pack in the T-28. Once linked to my TX I moved all of the surfaces and everything moved! I am a bad boy here………………………… I took off into the wind and she lifted fine and as I started to turn she was diving! I pulled back the elevator in the turn while she was coming down all to no avail. As I made my 180 and the plane was coming back at us paralleling the runway she nosed in. I was POed…………. something fierce. I heard the guys all behind me OH! when she splattered. Then Joe and I walked out to the dirt area and picked up the wreckage and loaded into my car, we went back and got our chairs and other stuff and started to pull away. The Board Member walked towards me so I stopped the car. He asked what happened? I simple said trying to hold back my anger, I don’t know….I had no control after taking off. He said……… do you think it was something to do with the TX being used on the other plane? I replied, I don’t know, I can only say I pulled the stick back and had nothing. He next said……. Well it’s a Bixler so it not to bad. I replied no……. it was our T-28! His eyes got big as melons as he leaned into the car and looked the wing torn off and the complete front of the plane (cowling, motor and all hanging off of the fuselage by the ESC wires and battery) As we drove away I asked Joe, so what did you learn today. He replied, NEVER loan your transmitter out! I had done that to teach him to share and to help others….my lesson was learned too. As they say in the Military, never volunteer! Once home and I cooled off I checked my TX and found one of those nerds had taken my elevator trim and push it forward all of the way. I have to take ownership for part of this for not checking the TX better than I did with just moving surfaces because this could have been avoided. But how nice it would have been for someone to say…….hey man thanks and check your set up as we move your trims.

I need a prop and some epoxy, one clevis and there’s a 95% chance she’ll be fine, think I can save her with a couple of hour’s work. That’s my Novel and I am sticking to it!

Hey Nick, sorry you too have to work in the Judy 4th am. But your evening will be fun!

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Nick,

At least your dad's job is making something of an effort to protect its employees with the camera installation. Unfortunately in todays world you really have to protect your own so an alarm system with vibration sensors would probably be the best solution for his truck.

As an aside I never knew removing a cat converter was such quick work as most I've seen have rusted bolts and you usually have to use a torch to help break the bolt tension. What kind of truck was this on?

Hope your summer slows down after the 4th festivities are done - have fun shooting off fireworks!

JPEE,

That was quite a story...the mentality of some people today is simply outrageous. Here your trying to show your grandson to share and because of this guys behavior your grandson walks away with the reality of 'don't share your stuff with anyone'. Or at least not strangers.

I'm glad to hear that he did get a good flight in. Sorry about the crash - hope the foam is easily repairable. Don't blame yourself...as you said, lesson learned.

Mark

joshuaseigel

Aluminium Gravity die casting is one of the standard processes for the manufacture of high-integrity automotive castings. It represents proven and absolute precision technology for the production of large batch quantities. This process is used in carousel casting units or in shuttle technique particularly for the manufacture of engine castings. Optimum heat dissipation from the solidifying casting through the die leads to short solidification times. This results in castings which have good mechanical properties, especially after an additional heat treatment.

BlueBorderRC

Stay away from Blade or Eflite products heli's. They suck. They are so fragile and are made to break. Blades idea is "OK half the revenue comes from the kits and the other half of our money can come from the parts, so lets make them fragile so they break a lot". You can fart and a Blade heli will break. The cheaper Chinese helis from these websites you see every where are tougher then the Blade helis. I speak from experience I have owned a few of both and I wouldn't get a Blade anything EVER again.

evdreamer

John,

Sorry about your plane. It sounds like the guy at your field needs to learn to share the air time with other pilots. I am lucky that the members at my club are pretty nice about letting everyone getting flight time in.

Mark,

The thief used a saw to cut through the exhaust pipes around the catalytic converter. It took less than 15 min. They also took the oxygen sensors. My dad has a Toyota Tundra.

On a side note I have been curious about how effective dollar cost averaging is with using a mutual fund. So, I created a computer program to calculate what would happen adding a fixed amount of money on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis for 34 years of data with the Vanguard 500 index. I was surprised by how big a difference the totals were between the weekly and yearly additions. It was cool seeing what could happen with a small amount of money over time with compound interest using real performance instead of hypothetical returns that online compound calculators use. That is sure a lot easier than going through 10k's and 10Q's trying to find individual stocks to boost the returns.

Nick

JPEE

NIck............ your TRADER! lol

I mean a Stock Annalist Trader. Your software is great, have you thought about selling it to close friends?



JPEE

evdreamer

Happy 4th everyone.

John,

I download all my stock prices from Yahoo for free, so I don't know if it would be legal to sell my program using their data. Most people my age don't have the money to invest or are not interested. I just find the subject fascinating. I have thought of selling my software for some extra money, but it would be time consuming and hard to compete with companies that have more experience and programmers.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Happy 4th of July (almost missed it!)

Did some hotdog grilling today then shot off fireworks tonight before going in to work. All in all, not too bad of a day.

Nick,

Hope your work day wasn't too busy. Your programs are very useful and you don't sound like you need the use of an investor to work with so that is a bonus. Have you considered helping out some friends/family/coworkers who may not be so investor-savy but still in need of retirment/investing help or direction? Could be something to think about...

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

I had some good pork sandwiches and watched a nice firework show at my aunt's house. It was pretty slow at work.

I manage some of my parents investments. I gave some advice to a co-worker new to 401(k)'s.

Nick

JPEE

10-4 Nick I hear ya on the software,

I hope all of you guys had a great 4th! I see someone had pulled pork and someone had Fireworks lol, good for the both of ya. We sat at our nieces house in the 98 degree heat in back yard with 30 others but even under shade with a water, beer or ice tea, it was one hot SOB of a day. Great people, good food and fun was had by all

Gonna go try to epoxy up the T-28 right now! Later guys

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hey guys,

glad to hear you had a good 4th.

Mine was nice but the weekend ended in disaster with me spending 3.5 hours in the ER. I had a prop accidental hit on my hand and had to get my fingers stitched up. This was the nitro plane. Wanted to let you guys know now that my fingers are in better shape. Still hurt though so going to close now.

mark

evdreamer

Mark,

Sorry to hear about your hand. At least you still have your fingers.

I have been enjoying the cooler temps this summer.

The past few days I have been fixated on watching Hemlock Grove on Netflix. I thought I wouldn't enjoy it from the commercials, but I was surprised that I really enjoyed it. I watched both seasons in 3 days.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi Nick,

Yes, I did get lucky that the damage wasnt any worse. Nearly 10 years flying planes and this my worst prop incident. Total carelessness n my part. Going to put the nitro away until I join a club that has tables for starting planes so I wont be on tjhe ground facing while I start it.

I also just got back from vacation to my inlaws in PA so I got to really enjoy the weather your talking about. Very atypical for July...but very nice!

The trip was interesting to say the least as I wasnt able to do very much with the injured hand but it was nice just getting to relax for a week. Tonite is my first nite back to work and it has been trying getting used to using my left hand majority of the time.

Got a docs appt this week so to get an evaluation for the hand...hope everything is ok.

Mark

JPEE

Hello Nick and Mark,

Well Nick, it appears you're really getting in some TV time and catching up on your series, good for you! You get a well-deserved rest this summer from school to be ready to go back in September.

Mark, got your email thank you. Both the email and your later postings about your hand really describe what you've gone through you have my deepest sympathies. A brain phart, an accident, not paying attention, or just Murphy's Law that's not important a lesson will be learned as you said and any of those situations, and nobody deserves to go through which you've gone through and are still living. I pray your hand will come back and be 100% and wish you well.

Extremely hot in California, were low on water, can it get any worse, they even have water police driving around walking up and down the alleys and street looking over fences to make sure we water the appropriate time limits and on the appropriate days for our street address! We have also been told that we have to save as much water is we can, however, if we cut back too much and let our yards die out then we receive a $500 fine for that which is the same fine amount for over watering. Murphy's Law............ no way to win.

You fellas take care and Mark keep us posted on your recovery.

John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Thanks for the well wishes.

Had my dr. appt and I have a referral to see a hand specialist for my 3rd finger as it may have tendon damage since I can't straighten it. Oh this is going to be fun I thought! So I have an appt. on Monday to see where we go from there.

We also have been having the hot weather but we don"t have the terrible drought conditions your dealing with JPEE...I saw where they are having the water police looking for water use. I hope they also go after those expensive golf communities that always seem to have lush green growth for those rich golf folks! Somehow they always don't get held to the same water restrictions as the rest of us do.

My trip up to PA I saw people using large drums to collect rain water - dont know if that is something you could use in the future for watering w/o using city water?

Nick,

I will have to check out Hemlock Grove - I saw it on Netflix and remembered you saying it was a good show. Did you see the newsreport that a prison in one of the northern states is changing their inmate issues from orange to black and white stripes as a direct result of the Netflix show 'Orange is the new black' - now isn't that just funny?!

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark,

You're more than welcome for the good wishes and even prayers for that matter. I hope the hand specialist can bring that finger back that's troubling you and you get 100% use again!

It was 103° here today............................ unrelenting. Using the barrels to catch gutter water or rainwater's not real practical here in one of the dryer states and in the particular Valleys where we live. My buddy Jason says.......... water is becoming the new oil commodity. A barrel of oil will be worth a dollar and a barrel of water will be worth $1000.

Answering your question about golf courses, what they've done here in my local community is cut back the grass some 20% of sod from the outside edges and areas of the golf course. This is to say, where the grass grows down to the fence lines all the way around the golf course and under the trees they've taken all of that out, killed it with Round-Up first and put in drought resistant shrubbery! So they are making them tow the line to some degree.The car washes here recycle their water down in a pit through filters and then wash the car with it. Yeah this deal of having neighbors watch neighbors is on TV a lot here with photographs and people turning in their neighbors for broken sprinklers over watering, watering too many days per week. Feels like the Civil War all over again, brother against brother LOL.

Okay you take care….JP out

evdreamer

John,

It would be nice if people had common sense and relaxed on the fines for letting a yard die during extreme circumstances like you are having with the drought. I think last year when we had a drought lots of people were calling the police to say their neighbors were watering their lawn.

Mark,

I hope you have some good news when you see the hand specialist.

I wouldn't recommend having your son in the room if you watch Hemlock Grove because it is very graphic. Yeah, I heard about that prison changing the outfits.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Had my appt yesterday and luckily no surgery needed. Whew! Was told that it was still early and the damaged tendon could heal on its own but needs to be immobilized...so I'm wearing a finger stint to keep the finger extended for the next 6 weeks. Very interesting adapting to these new restrictions both at home and at work. But at least I can get close to full functionality of the finger in the end.

Other than my finger ailments not much going on. Hot like the rest of you for July.

A funny tidbit for you guys: Florida summers are known for afternoon storms, yes each afternoon you can almost time the storms. Well, the Air Force was trying to put up a couple satellites on a Delta rocket since last week and you guessed it, 4 delays mostly due to afternoon storms. The window was only for an hour and at 6:50pm, so not a good time at all. Sad part is they went through the entire fueling procedure each day just to have it scrubbed due to the weather. I'm sure that was a bit frustrating. But their persistance paid off and they launched on Monday.

And SpaceX got a great compliment from their latest customer, Orbcomm. It seems despite a 2 month setback of delays they were able to inject all 6 of the satellites into as close to there parking orbits so none of them had to use any on-board fuel to correct positions - now thats precision! And as a plus the Falcon9's first stage performed a controlled descent, extended the landing legs as planned, and splashed down in the Atlantic just north of the cape. Just one step closer to reusable booster stages that SpaceX is striving for.

Take care everyone,

Mark

evdreamer

Happy B-Day Mark!

That is good news about your finger.

That is interesting about the rockets. My physics classes covered a little bit on what it takes for satellites to stay in orbit and some other things space related. It was interesting, but challenging.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Nick,

thanks for the birthday wishes. I did have a nice day, wife made a nice dinner and got some good gifts.

I also got myself a nitro rc car from Hobbyking. It really is more for my son but I'm having fun with it too.... I figured I may want to stay away from things with spinning blades for awhile plus my son showed an interest in electric rc cars so why not. We already did a few break-in runs with it and it is pretty quick. Great thing is I can use my 3/4 gallon of nitro fuel I have left over so thats a bonus, not having to get more fuel.


JPEE,

I hope all is well with you as we saw CA is now in a state of emergency from the droughts. Take it easy out there.

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

That is good you had a nice birthday.

That car looks more complicated than a heli.

Nick

JPEE

Hello Mark,

We just got home Saturday from up north and are still recovering from the 10 day excursion. I just opened up my computer to see that you and Nick have still been posting and yet I'm once again, I am not getting the emails that new posts of been put up.

The top two pictures are the forest fires that were closest to us of the 10 fires in Oregon. The second and third photographs are coming down Interstate 5 showing where farmers used to grow crops there is now mostly dirt and no crops due to not enough water and of the government trying to save some small little fish that's in our water system and they don't want to go through the water pumping stations in the state and wipe out the species. Pictures five and six and seven are all in Oregon again, where we had to drive through the fire area to get back in the California. The last two photographs are of the famous California Lake Shasta in Northern California where a lot of our water comes from and as you can see by the photographs the water is very very low. As we came over the hill into our Valley where we live 30 miles north of Los Angeles we can see our reservoir from the top of the freeway and my wife and I were shocked! I repeat shocked! as we went by and saw that it's half empty....... never in my life have I seen dirt in the bottom of that lake/reservoir, it has always had water wall-to-wall. It is getting spooky here.We can only water our yards three days a week at six minutes per station, and that is not near enough my yards are both on the verge of being lost. Were not allowed to wash our automobiles in the yards driveways or streets, and as we discussed earlier there pitting neighbor against neighbor if somebody violates any of the city ordinances regarding water.

Okay guys that's it for tonight, Mark I hope your hand is coming along congratulations on the RC car for you and your son to putter around with that's got a be a trip.

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

And welcome back JPEE!

Got your email about being in no-signal territory - i know some people that would love a destination like that.

Truely sorry to hear that the water situation has gotten that bad. I know seeing the reservoirs so low in person really puts things in perspective. I do hope things turn around for you guys in the coming months.

Nick,

The car is more complicated then a heli as I have found out! After breaking in the engine through 4 tanks I got the chance to lean it a bit and take it to the streets this weekend. This little thing really moves! I only opened it half throttle and it screamed down the road amazingly fast. My son was laughing so hard as he was peddling on his bike trying to keep up. I turned it to bring it back but didn't let off the throttle and misjudged the turning radius...smack into the curb it went! Turning a heli is so much easier.

I knew something was messed up as the engine was still running but the wheels weren't turning. So took it home to look it over and saw one of the plastic gears was stripped and the dogbone connector was bent. Easy fixes right? Nope...lots of other things I had to remove just to get to the parts themselves. So the car is all in pieces (I took lots of pictures before for reference) and I got real lucky as Hobbyking has the parts in stock so I got them ordered - International warehouse though.

I don't know if JPEE has had any repairs on his crawler but cars are a real pain to work on - just like their full size counterparts! Lots of interference parts that first need to be removed before you get to the broken part. But the car is a lot of fun with the little bit of open run I got. I just need wider streets or better yet an open parking lot. And learn to let off the throttle...

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark and Nick,

Mark, sounds like you have your hands full with the new car. I have not had to replace anything or work on my crawler to date, but then again I'm driving slow and it's not taking a beating like the style of car you have. Though when I did let my grandsons play with it they ran it hard, hit rocks, flipped it over and scared the crap out of me. I thought I was going to be doing just what you're doing now to the transmission or to the drive-train. I watch my friends in Arizona work on their cars and they do have quite a bit of maintenance as well as parts that wear out from the dust and the dirt that gets in all the moving parts. That is one of the nice things about this hobby that you can do helicopters, airplanes, cars, hexa copter's and so forth and get diversified and always find new areas to explore.

I'm going to post a link to a video I took in Oregon of my friends home and his garden railroad. He added some flute music to it but you'll see as I go up high how much smoke is an organ from the fires. The second video will be of my other friends house that's up on a bluff overlooking a brown pasture area just for fun. If you can watch in high definition!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuEM2K2cm_4&list=UUCLn6juyGcM2GPuNFZAeF0w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga7qGXvA-sw