Friday, August 28, 2009

August 09 update

Been pretty busy with family summer activities.
We had a great vacation in Ocean Grove, NJ. Wonderful laid back place. Clean and well maintained beaches. The whole family did some good boogie board and body surfing. The girls are really into ocean swimming. They've become strong and confident in the surf--but that doesn't keep me from staying close by with a watchful eye on 'em.

Writing
The final edit of Skimer has been very difficult to get through, especially as I'm attempting to squeeze a novel's worth of ideas into novella. I'm still working on it, might have to do some drastic reductions. Maybe save some ideas for a sequel. I've promised myself that I get it submitted to Analog by Sept 10th.

Rocketry/Hobbies
Well we had a real blast in Pine Island, NY at the NERRF Rocket festival. Extremely hot at 95 deg each day. Tons of cool people and rockets. My first time at this venue, very scenic and they have multiple racks on two sides to keep things moving, I still miss Higg's farm in Maryland..That venue re-opens after harvest in October ;)
My friend completed his Lvl 1 certification on a very nice Binder Design Galaxy. Guy did an outstanding job and really took it to max by going dual deploy..practically a Lvl 2 flight. Way to go Steve, now for Lvl 2 this fall!


The girls launched their cool Performance Rocketry Little Dogs on Fast Black smoke motors as well as the visually stimulating CTI skidmarks. The launch control officer made some cool comments regarding their rockets. They also launched several ESTES rockets with their friend. The frien's sizzler(which is a small minimum diamter style) did a real high flight on C6-5, was lost but returned by a very nice boy scout.


I did the maiden on my custom fiberglass Binder Design Devastator. Flew perfectly and did 2200 ft on a nice Aerotech J570. Our Rocket club, MDRA will be running fall's Red Glare in October and I have some cool, high power engines planned for the Devastator most likely high power K's and a huge Mogave Green L1390G-P if I get the rocket's GPS tracking stuff all set up.

SCI FI
Saw the sci-fi alien movie, District 9, this month. Was Ok but had some really huge, unforgivable logic holes. Start's off with a huge alien ship getting stuck but the end contradicts some very basic plot premises. Finally the documentary-style part was very cornball. The visual effects were top-notch but those don't equal a good movie for me.
Still holding out for a nice ground breaking SCI Fi flic this year..

Thursday, July 2, 2009

July update

hmm. where am I at now?


Writing
Finishing my final edit (hopefully) on Skimmer, a novella and kernel for my first novel. My experience with working with carbon fiber in rocketry has helped me with the details and plausibility for several plot devices in the story. Let keep our fingers crossed I can get this out for Submission to Analog this month. Like any hopeful new author I have feelings it could be a real hit with scifi readers looking for something different and fun to read.

SciFi stuff
Saw Virtuality the other day, a pilot for a new sci-fi series by Fox. I missed it on regular programming but managed to see it on Hulu. At the moment it looks like Fox will not continue the series. I hope they reconsider as it looks VERY promising. I think it's fresh and does several great new things with tv science fiction. It's about a interstellar space flight to a nearby star. Primary plot devices-Virtual reality, nuclear propulsion drive, reality show in space, AI.
I managed to prompt some good discussion from one of my favorite authors, Jame Strickland, on his blog here. James has two excellent book's in print that I highly recommend. Looking Glass and Irreconcilable Differences.

Also just saw on moviefone a Neuromancer movie scheduled for release early next year. One of the BEST scifi cyberpunk novels ever written! Lets hope the movie is at least half as good as the book

Rocketry
Recently completed this nice custom Binder Design fiberglass Devastator Devastator Build. Normally sold as a wood and paper kit, I had Mike part it out in Extreme II spiral wound fiberglass tubing and G10 fins. Originally I planned on flying it at MDRA's Red Glare this past April but didn't get to launch it. I brought the girls and we got to fly several other nice fiberglass rockets that we all built together.


The girls had a real fun time at Red Glare 6 and as usual the crew at the MDRA launch were really cool.

Upcoming I have my family and friends going up to the NERRF 5 rocket festival at Pine Island, NY in August. We are planning on launching the Devastator, several of the girls' projects, and friends' rockets there.

be well!

Friday, April 3, 2009

Nar Level 2 successful

Well it took a bit but I finally got my NAR Level 2 certification on March 14, 2009.

Many thanks to David W, Jim Cox, Peter A, Dave C and all the nice folks of MDRA for their help and support.

Did the certification on my Carbon Fiber re-inforced Binder design Jaguar.






The rocket will now be going through speed trials as I ramp up on Warp 9 engines starting with an I1299 at the

MDRA Red Glare Launch April 16th

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Back!

Took a bit of a break... Dallied with some 'other' hobbies however I am steadfast and determined to finish the final edit on Skimmer. I'd like to make the submission before our trip to Florida on Feb 17th.
I've gotten into high power rocketry, found a great group of people at MDRA Rocketry Association and will be going for my NAR Lvl 2 high power certification.