May 2010

I have a LOT of irons in the fire but will attempt to keep this update concise. House projects, my kids activities, MMA workouts, barbecues,....

Family
I celebrated my 18th year Anniversary with my delightful and lovely wife, Marisa. I owe the woman my life. I am a very fortunate guy to have her as mine.
We arranged for a sitter for 24 hours and booked us at the very hip and COOL Bryant Park Hotel. Suffice it to say we had an excellent time both outside and inside the hotel, I upgraded to a park view studio, which gave us an awesome view of Bryant Park. We had a great dinner at the outdoor restaurant in the park. Shopping on Park Avenue at night was great too.
Here's to another fabulous 18 years with Marisa!

My 8 year old twin girl's travel soccer team won their final game. Woot! I believe they clinched the 2010 record in their league. The whole team played with lotsa heart. My girls play outstanding defense but also play forward and scored some great goals throughout the season. Big thanks to Coaches Andy, Kyle and Tony for their time and commitment to the team.

Rocketry

Red Glare 8, Price, Maryland 4/09
My twins and I attended the FANTASTIC MDRA Red Glare 8 rocket Launch April 16-18, 2010 RG 8 photo's. There were some pretty awesome flights/projects there..from Burl Finkelstein's 450 pound @@ V2 rocket, BIG V2 on an O + two N class motors to the four-way Wildman drag race on N 10,000 CTI motors.

We flew the most of our fleet, the girls flying EVETHING in their arsenal. Even my brother and his delightful wife Pattie got into the action. We had given them kits for Christmas and they showed up at the launch with the rockets built and painted. Pattie flew her Binder Design Dragonfly and Dave did the Wildman Darkstar light. Both rockets looked great and flew well twice each.

Our crew had a nice honorable mention by the LCO, Neil McGilvray, as we managed to put together a 5 way Foberg drag race--



the twins with their Little Dogs, my brother with his Wildman, sister in-law with the DragonFly and my Smoke on the Water. Was a definitely a cool race and we were applauded by the enthusiatic crowd!

There was some erratic winds so we lost one lower power (Dr Zooch-Saturn V) two medium power and one minimum diameter high power carbon fiber rocket..who knows, maybe we'll find at Red Glare 9, if a tractor hasn't eaten them...


Upcoming we have a trip to Pine Island, NY for METRA's NERRF 6 rocket festival 2010 launch June 25-27, 2010. Our group will be my twin girls, my brother & sister in-law and some friends. Several MDRA members-The Wacky Corporal crew-will be attending. Possible guest of honor will be my wife on Saturday..she might even fly a rocket or two!

Level 3 Certification
I'm chugging along with my L3 certification scratch build rocket, Cerberus a fairly unique homebrew carbon fiber rocket with outrigger engine pods. The rocket is coming out nicely and I hope to fly it at MDRA's fall 2010 Red Glare 9 launch.

Mixed Martial Arts

I took Tiger Schulman karate course about 4 years ago but dropped out for various reasons. Well being at my my highest weight ever in January and encouragement from my wife, I decided to go back.
The Tiger Schulman's Hoboken school instructors, Sensei Diaz and Bonet, were very nice in that they honored my unused hours so it was easy to get restarted.
The major change was TSK has transitioned focus from karate to Mixed Martial Arts.
The uniform has also changed from a karate Gi to standard martial arts bottoms and a T-Shirt for core classes.

At first it was very tiring and training--I could barely breathe at the end of the class exercises. After five months, with 2 to 3 one hour core kickboxing classes per week I'm doing quite well. I feel much stronger, and my kicks are quite accurate and fast. My current schedule is two 9 PM core adult classes and one 9 PM intermediate Kick boxing class. Tough times to train, but I want to see the kids after work so after 9 PM works best.
Overall the Sensei's & joshu's are fantastic. They are great motivators and teachers. My fellow students are very friendly and helpful also.
I highly recommend Tiger Schulman's if you are looking to lose weight and get in shape. The claim is an 800 calorie workout which I feel is very accurate.

Science Fiction
Writing:: Finally got back into some books and writing. Skimmer is enroute to being completed.

Books: I just finished Neal Stephenson's Anathem. I enjoyed most of Neal's books, in the same league as William Gibson, father of post modern Sci-fi and cyber punk. Anathem is a little off the beaten track for a best selling science fiction work as it starts out with a laborately descriptive monastery setting. Neal's brilliant. 'nuff said.
Movies: Avatar was very fun to watch. Great job, ALMOST same league as Star War's although it got a little too cutesy at moments. Cameron also violates some basic technical rules as well, but it's easy to overlook. A lot of people are saying Avatar is Pocahanta's on another planet. I disagree and look forward to the next film.
Iron Man 2, what a disappointment. The first film was outstanding and kind of novel- so any sequel would have some difficulty in comparison. Iron Man 2, even taken on it's own, is flash and trash, full of inconsistencies & lazy writing.
The film is an obvious cash-in for furthering other Marvel properties. Too bad, the 'movie series' could have been great, but I highly doubt it

March 2010

Busy!!
Bought a small brick house in Hoboken so been pretty damn busy with projects and stuff. Although small, it's very nice. We like the two decks and the master is roomy with 13' vaulted ceiling..Only problem is neither of the bathrooms located on our floor, will need to drop $ to build a bathroom in master.

Rocketry
Red Glare 7, Price, Maryland 11/09
I took my girls down to our club's Red Glare Nov 2009. The weather was for crap, due to the hurricane but we did manage to have one good launch day!
My brother and Sister in-law came down and I belive they enjoyed themselves, especially with my girls and their high spirits. We gave Dave and Patti some cool medium power rockets so hopefully they will launch them at
MDRA's April 2010 Red Glare 8
My girls managed about 8 or 9 flights each on Saturday, they got to see Jackie C who they adore. She gave them some nice models of her L2 Pink Cobra, which she successfully did her L2 on, congratz Jackie!


I launched my Devastator on a cool J270W, which creates a huge fireball at the nozzle at ignition, just awesome and sinister looking...


ESL 140, Price Maryland 01/10
I managed to extract Steve from Hoboken in January to attend MDRA's ESL 140 launch. We both had a good launch, although there was a dearth of vendors. I flew my Devastotor on a HARD-HITTING Aerotech K1275,was a successful flight. One probelm was my rocksim calculated 5100 feet, however the altimeter reported 7200 feet, need to review the model parameters to see whay a huge discrepancy. Used my modified Garmin GPS dog collar, Astro 220 Tracker to recover the rocket, which landed several miles away from launc. Via country roads was about a 6 mile hike for me. Thank God for that tracker, rocket recovered intact!
Steve got one flight in on his awesome Binder Galaxy,nice recovery and several glowing compliments from MDRA RSO. I just need him to send me the pic's for that days launch so I can post.

Upcoming we have planned a trip to Price for MDRA's March 2010 launch, hopefully several friends will be coming. THEN Red Glare in April for three fun filled days with my twins and friends.
I'm working on a possible L3 certification attempt with a fairly unique scratch built carbon fiber rocket with outrigger engine pods that will airstart, calling it Cerberus


The twins and I are also working on several cool rockets scratch built with Starbucks materials as rocket body and fins....

Hobbies
My CNC DIY
After reading about DIY stuff in MAKE magazine for half a year and seeing some nice homebrew CNC machines over at .CNCZone.com I decided to try my hand at design of a sturdy 3' x 1.5' capable of cutting complexly shaped composite fins for my rockets, bulkheads and probably cool light gauge aluminum doodads. I chose 8020 Aluminum T-Slot 1530 & 1515 extrusions to create the frame, CNC Stepper motor chopper drive kit , completed build last night as electronics. For the actual motors I'm bidding on several different Vexta motors and still evaluating what i want to use for lead screws for all three axis.
X Axis rails will probably be 1/2 case hardened Thomson rail, Y and Z axis I've bought really nice THK low profile linear bearing and track.
Received the 8020 T slot last night, bought from 8020 ebay store, was nicely packaged. Pricey, but definitely worth it for the versatility and strength of the material. Stuff is EXTREMELY fastener friendly

Workshop
3rd Ward
Found an awesome NYC area workshop with great metal working/woodworking equipment-- plus a nice paint spray booth in Brooklyn, 3rd Ward.
Selected the basic membership $39/mo for now,hope to get there one or two days a month in to work my projects and take some welding classes.

Science Fiction
Film
Saw the movie Moon, was pretty good, little bit reminiscent of Space Odyssey. I must have a deep mean streak in me, i was laughing so hard when various 'Sams' get into the capsule for the launch 'home'. Highly recommended!
Writing
Absolutely no progress on Skimmer, I have faith I'll get final edit done in 20101 and submit it to Analog, more pressing priorities right now.

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..

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!

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

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.

Edit of Skimmer

I'm penciling the second edit on paper now. I realized I needed more show not tell so it's become a fairly laborous edit.
I'm hoping to submit it to either Asimov's or Analog before Halloween.