From the it-could-only-happen-to-me department:
I started on my taxes tonight. As I did last year, I will be using TurboTax in my annual Sisyphean ordeal of dealing with incomprehensibly senseless complexity paired with will-breaking fiscal obeisance to my governmental masters. It's early in the game yet, but I'm already growing weary of the sultry deduction tease that TurboTax plays with me:
"Psst! Hey! You may qualify for this deduction!'
Ok, I'll bite: go take a look for me, if you would be so kind.
"Oh no, so very sorry, but it appears that you do NOT, in fact, qualify for that deduction. I don't know any more about your financial situation now than I did just moments ago, before I broached the subject, so clearly there is no reason for me to have even asked you if you were interested in the first place, other than pure, unadulterated spite. Have a nice day. [Sucker!]"
This year, though, the baiting has taken an even more disturbing turn, lapsing into actual physical abuse. Having learned to use the available 'help' windows to get some idea as to whether it's worth getting my hopes up on any proffered deduction, I thought maybe I had gained the upper hand in this chess game of move/counter move.
Turbo Tax is not so easily bested, as it turns out. I opened one of the little help windows, read the text (which quite plainly explained to me that not only did I not even come remotely close to qualifying for the deduction in question but that I was also a greedy bastard for having even asked), and tried to move the mouse cursor to the 'Close' X. As I did, the window moved under the mouse cursor. No matter how fast I moved, how slow I moved, or where I moved, the window moved as well, and I just couldn't click on the 'X' to close it. Keyboard 'Close' commands such as Alt+F4 were too forceful and threatened to close the entire session. After a couple of hours of entering data, I was too timid to take such a drastic (one could almost call it 'nuclear') approach for fear of losing all progress made.
I am not exaggerating when I say that it took me more than 20 minutes to finally sneak up on that damnable 'X' and get the window to close. How can I be so sure that it took that long? Well, because this is what I found under the window:
"For your Security, we have logged you out. We do this automatically if you haven't used TurboTax in the last 20 minutes."
I note two things. First, while I appreciate their concern for my security, I wish they'd pay at least minimal attention to my sanity as well. Second, it's a good thing they travel in a group ('We' do this...) and have me out manned, or I'd be mighty tempted to kick some TurboTax ass right now.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Why I will never fully embrace winter flying
Q: Why will I never fully embrace winter flying?
A: I haven't the heuvos.
Consider:
H/T Lex
A: I haven't the heuvos.
Consider:
H/T Lex
Monday, January 28, 2008
Scratching the Itch
We had a nice, temperate 50 degree day today, albeit with winds at 11 gusting 19. A quick consultation of Al Gore's "101 Things To Do With Your Global Warming" (#1 on Amazon this week) indicated that the best use of this opportunity would be to go fly, both to get some heat into the engine and recharge Papa's and my internal batteries. The 11G19 would have given me pause had it not been coming from 190 degrees, only 30 degrees off of the runway heading.
Papa's battery was a little reluctant to crank the engine, but with 4 strokes of primer and an ever enthusiastic motor, he started right up after three blades. I checked in with the tower and received my taxi directions to the expected runway 22. It was a new voice today, so I was only mildly surprised to receive an unusual query from the tower while taxiing out: "Which direction are you headed?" They usually don't care about that until I check in for takeoff, but since it was a new guy, I figured it was just his style. I told him that I'd be heading out West, and he replied that "they were painting some precip about 20 miles out that way." That wasn't much of a surprise to me considering how cloudy the day was, but it was a bit of a surprise that they had equipment capable of showing it. That's news to me! It wasn't a factor, though, since I'd only be flying for 15 minutes anyway, but I appreciated him sharing it with me.
I could feel the wind a bit on takeoff, but even more prominent was the dragging of the brakes as I failed to get my feet down low enough on the pedals. I chalk that up to being a bit rusty, and I think I can blame the same rustiness on my forgetting to turn on the fuel boost pump before taking the runway. These are small things, but a perfect indicator of why I hate going a couple of weeks without flying. That said, there's more of an excuse for misplacing my big feet than there is for missing a checklist item - that's what checklists are for after all. Duly noted, and herewith tallied up as a lesson learned/reminded.
We've got a nice big high pressure system sitting on us, and the combination of that and the low-ish temps gave me a gratifying 1500fpm climb at 115 mph. I didn't go very high, though, figuring 3000' MSL to be plenty for just a few minutes of stooging around getting Papa's and my juices flowing. I figured I might be in for a bit of a workout on the landing, so I just flew around long enough to regain my feel for flying. You can see that even with the temps today, we've been pretty chilly for the last few weeks:
It was pretty gray and dark, so I ended up somewhat out of focus on that picture. I suspect the automatic setting on the camera gave me a pretty low shutter speed and that's more motion blur than it is bad focus.
As I headed back to land, I tried to think ahead to what it was going to be like. I figured I could expect a pretty good clip on downwind, followed by a long, slow drag down final. Once on downwind, I didn't even need to look at the GPS to see that I was, in fact, moving right along. I made the turn to right base just past the numbers, figuring to keep some altitude in the bank and fully expecting a relatively steep approach as the wind held my ground speed down. Sure enough, even though every sinew was telling me that I was way high and would end up needing to slip it in, we came down more like an elevator than an escalator and hit my normal landing target without having to shed off any excess altitude. The wind being mostly on the nose like it was meant that I would be able to hold alignment with the runway with just a little rudder, but that I could expect a little uncertainty in the flare. I carried a little poser into a pretty smooth wheel landing, so I must have caught a lull in the gusts.
I as I was pushing Papa back into the hangar, I did a little math in my head. I put .23 hours on the tach, which is just shy of 15 minutes in human time. That's about two gallons of gas, which is right around $10. BARGAIN!!
Papa's battery was a little reluctant to crank the engine, but with 4 strokes of primer and an ever enthusiastic motor, he started right up after three blades. I checked in with the tower and received my taxi directions to the expected runway 22. It was a new voice today, so I was only mildly surprised to receive an unusual query from the tower while taxiing out: "Which direction are you headed?" They usually don't care about that until I check in for takeoff, but since it was a new guy, I figured it was just his style. I told him that I'd be heading out West, and he replied that "they were painting some precip about 20 miles out that way." That wasn't much of a surprise to me considering how cloudy the day was, but it was a bit of a surprise that they had equipment capable of showing it. That's news to me! It wasn't a factor, though, since I'd only be flying for 15 minutes anyway, but I appreciated him sharing it with me.
I could feel the wind a bit on takeoff, but even more prominent was the dragging of the brakes as I failed to get my feet down low enough on the pedals. I chalk that up to being a bit rusty, and I think I can blame the same rustiness on my forgetting to turn on the fuel boost pump before taking the runway. These are small things, but a perfect indicator of why I hate going a couple of weeks without flying. That said, there's more of an excuse for misplacing my big feet than there is for missing a checklist item - that's what checklists are for after all. Duly noted, and herewith tallied up as a lesson learned/reminded.
We've got a nice big high pressure system sitting on us, and the combination of that and the low-ish temps gave me a gratifying 1500fpm climb at 115 mph. I didn't go very high, though, figuring 3000' MSL to be plenty for just a few minutes of stooging around getting Papa's and my juices flowing. I figured I might be in for a bit of a workout on the landing, so I just flew around long enough to regain my feel for flying. You can see that even with the temps today, we've been pretty chilly for the last few weeks:
It was pretty gray and dark, so I ended up somewhat out of focus on that picture. I suspect the automatic setting on the camera gave me a pretty low shutter speed and that's more motion blur than it is bad focus.
As I headed back to land, I tried to think ahead to what it was going to be like. I figured I could expect a pretty good clip on downwind, followed by a long, slow drag down final. Once on downwind, I didn't even need to look at the GPS to see that I was, in fact, moving right along. I made the turn to right base just past the numbers, figuring to keep some altitude in the bank and fully expecting a relatively steep approach as the wind held my ground speed down. Sure enough, even though every sinew was telling me that I was way high and would end up needing to slip it in, we came down more like an elevator than an escalator and hit my normal landing target without having to shed off any excess altitude. The wind being mostly on the nose like it was meant that I would be able to hold alignment with the runway with just a little rudder, but that I could expect a little uncertainty in the flare. I carried a little poser into a pretty smooth wheel landing, so I must have caught a lull in the gusts.
I as I was pushing Papa back into the hangar, I did a little math in my head. I put .23 hours on the tach, which is just shy of 15 minutes in human time. That's about two gallons of gas, which is right around $10. BARGAIN!!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Canoe Gondola: Changing (Saw) Horse Midstream
I cut out the second upper panel piece of the canoe today, again using the circular saw. This cut did not go very well. The blade kicked back a couple of times, resulting in nasty edges like this:
Again, I'm sure glad I'm not working with $300 worth of wood!!
The blade retention nut also worked its way loose again, which besides being somewhat scary interrupts the cut and causes another rough spot in the edge when I start again. When I got to the bow, I just made a rough cut, thinking I'd go back with the jigsaw and clean it up:
That worked very well:
As I was trying to hand sand away the messy edge the circular saw had made, I got to thinking that it really strains credulity that the jigsaw could possibly be any worse, and that I ought to give it a try on the next piece:
As you can see, the fear of a wavy edge was well founded, so I anticipate using every bit of the 1/4" latitude promised by the designer:
On the plus side, in addition to being marginally easier on my aching back since I didn't have to get down on my knees and fight my way down the cut with a recalcitrant circular saw, the jigsaw made a much cleaner edge and a lot less of the burning wood stench I get from the circular saw. Well, to be fair, the cleaner edge aspect only lasted right up until I got to the last inch of the bow and the part broke away because I hadn't thought to go back and support it with the sawhorses as I cut past them:
That was easily remedied, and I learned a lesson about supporting the part better as I cut. Well, partially learned the lesson, anyway, as we will soon see.
The edges from the jigsaw cut are a bit wavier than the circular saw edges, and it remains to be seen if this is an acceptable trade-off for the cleaner, easier cut:
So, what did I mean about only partially learning the lesson of moving the sawhorses to support the areas that I had already cut? Well, I sure didn't see this coming, did I:
When I lined up the two bottom pieces, I found that something had gone horribly awry somewhere:
When I flip one of the pieces over they match far more closely, so the error is not in the tracing or cutting, but in the initial measuring or outlining. I can go ahead and build it this way, but the boat will most likely have an inherent banana shape to it. I'm tempted to do it anyway since 1) it's within tolerance, and 2) just to watch hilarity ensue as Co-pilot Egg struggles to figure out why she can't keep the darn thing straight! Actually, stretched across a 14' boat doing 3 mph, I'm not sure it will matter very much. Decisions like this, in a nutshell, are why I should probably never build an airplane!
Again, I'm sure glad I'm not working with $300 worth of wood!!
The blade retention nut also worked its way loose again, which besides being somewhat scary interrupts the cut and causes another rough spot in the edge when I start again. When I got to the bow, I just made a rough cut, thinking I'd go back with the jigsaw and clean it up:
That worked very well:
As I was trying to hand sand away the messy edge the circular saw had made, I got to thinking that it really strains credulity that the jigsaw could possibly be any worse, and that I ought to give it a try on the next piece:
As you can see, the fear of a wavy edge was well founded, so I anticipate using every bit of the 1/4" latitude promised by the designer:
On the plus side, in addition to being marginally easier on my aching back since I didn't have to get down on my knees and fight my way down the cut with a recalcitrant circular saw, the jigsaw made a much cleaner edge and a lot less of the burning wood stench I get from the circular saw. Well, to be fair, the cleaner edge aspect only lasted right up until I got to the last inch of the bow and the part broke away because I hadn't thought to go back and support it with the sawhorses as I cut past them:
That was easily remedied, and I learned a lesson about supporting the part better as I cut. Well, partially learned the lesson, anyway, as we will soon see.
The edges from the jigsaw cut are a bit wavier than the circular saw edges, and it remains to be seen if this is an acceptable trade-off for the cleaner, easier cut:
So, what did I mean about only partially learning the lesson of moving the sawhorses to support the areas that I had already cut? Well, I sure didn't see this coming, did I:
When I lined up the two bottom pieces, I found that something had gone horribly awry somewhere:
When I flip one of the pieces over they match far more closely, so the error is not in the tracing or cutting, but in the initial measuring or outlining. I can go ahead and build it this way, but the boat will most likely have an inherent banana shape to it. I'm tempted to do it anyway since 1) it's within tolerance, and 2) just to watch hilarity ensue as Co-pilot Egg struggles to figure out why she can't keep the darn thing straight! Actually, stretched across a 14' boat doing 3 mph, I'm not sure it will matter very much. Decisions like this, in a nutshell, are why I should probably never build an airplane!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A&P School: Starting the engine reassembly
After having torn the engine down to the nuts, bolts, and crankshaft level, we spent some time measuring the dimensions of the crank shaft, connecting rods, piston pins, etc. The tolerances are measured down to 1/10,000" (or .0001", for those that prefer), but since I consider anything beyond .001" tolerance as measured with a micrometer to be no more accurate than a random number generator, we were pretty much just going through the motions.
We were able to get the crankshaft and camshaft installed and the crankcase halves put back together before we ran out of class time. Those were the easy parts, of course. Now we have to figure out where all of the little bits go. That's a daunting prospect!
We were able to get the crankshaft and camshaft installed and the crankcase halves put back together before we ran out of class time. Those were the easy parts, of course. Now we have to figure out where all of the little bits go. That's a daunting prospect!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Another canoe piece cut
At some point late last night, I woke up thinking that I had better cut the bottom piece of the boat before I cut the second side piece. The bottom piece is centered in the 4' x 8' piece of plywood, and the measurements are from the long edges. If I were to cut the second side piece, the edge that I need to measure to the center piece marks would be gone. With that in mind, I laid out the center piece marks and drew the curved lines:
(Note that I deliberately blurred the plans in this picture. I got to thinking that Bateau wouldn't be thrilled with having high resolution pictures of their plans on the internet)
The cutting went a little easier this time since there were no real tight turns to make:
The next step will be to cut out three more of the side pieces and one more of the bottom piece. I'm going to use the parts I've already cut out as templates to draw the cut lines for the other pieces. Even with that, the parts will no doubt have slightly different dimensions because I am by no means precise when wielding the circular saw. I think when I get the rest of the parts cut, I'll stack them up with their brethren and see if I can get them all into roughly the same shape by sanding the edges.
(Note that I deliberately blurred the plans in this picture. I got to thinking that Bateau wouldn't be thrilled with having high resolution pictures of their plans on the internet)
The cutting went a little easier this time since there were no real tight turns to make:
The next step will be to cut out three more of the side pieces and one more of the bottom piece. I'm going to use the parts I've already cut out as templates to draw the cut lines for the other pieces. Even with that, the parts will no doubt have slightly different dimensions because I am by no means precise when wielding the circular saw. I think when I get the rest of the parts cut, I'll stack them up with their brethren and see if I can get them all into roughly the same shape by sanding the edges.
Sunday morning web surfing
Argh, colder today than yesterday! But a wee bit of web surfing found this gem:
Flying in the face of conventional wisdom that states the P-51 as THE best WWII fighter, I've always thought that crown should be worn by the P-47. Granted, the -51 was prettier, but... that big, bullet-proof twin-row radial, that's the engine I would have wanted to fly behind. And that semi-elliptical, Spitfire-esque wing, well, that has an appeal all its own.
H/T Lex
Flying in the face of conventional wisdom that states the P-51 as THE best WWII fighter, I've always thought that crown should be worn by the P-47. Granted, the -51 was prettier, but... that big, bullet-proof twin-row radial, that's the engine I would have wanted to fly behind. And that semi-elliptical, Spitfire-esque wing, well, that has an appeal all its own.
H/T Lex
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)