Well it's been quite a while...Spring 2012 update.

Rocketry

LDRS XXXI June 12-16

Woohoo!! We are finally attending the most awesome The Tripoli Rocketry Association’s 31st annual national launch LDRS XXXI. LDRS stands for  Large Dangerous Rocket Ships!  A great national rocketry event that goes from July 12 through 16, 2012 at Torrey Farms of Potter, NY. There will be all kind of cool rockets there from Burl Finkelsteins huge V2 project to Dave Chance's Black V which spectacularly CATO'ed at previous LDRS

My girls and I are prepping our fleet, repainting several favorites like our trio of Performance Rocketry Little Dogs and Art Applewhite 29 mm Stealth inverted pyramids. We are also building several new ones--top secret except for one extreme project-a phoenix risen from the ashes of long neglect!

Cerberus..

This is a pretty unique and cool project. I've yet to see a level 2 or 3 class rocket with active rocket motor pods mounted on the fins outboard edges (the fin tubes with yellow nosecones)--reminiscent of classical multi motored spaceship.  So I set my sights for a larger challenge after some experience designing and building several self-designed lightweight carbon fiber rockets . A few refresher pictures:

 Carbon fiber skinned Honeycomb nomex fin

8.5" Diameter carbon fiber sustainer body tube.

 

I might be posting for some assistance on Kickstarter in order to get it ready for LDRS XXXI or the Fall 2012 Red Glare. Keep tuned.

Red Glare XII April 13-15 Price, Maryland

Well the twins and I got down to MDRA Red Glare XII. My girls flew their well-used Performance Rocketry Little Dogs as well as their newly made 29 mm Stealths. Girls had several activities scheduled for the weekend so we only flew on Friday. Was great fun and it was nice to spend a little time with friends we havent seen in a while, Dave Weber, Rob, Alex and Peter. MDRA club is full of great and helpful people. Now the long wait for Fall 2012 Red Glare date announcement.

 

Family Stuff

We have a fairly recent addition to our family, a wonderful bulldog name Maxine!

Maxine at 2 moths old

Maxine at 18 months

We got her April 2011 from a very nice Mennonite family near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My wife and I always wanted a bulldog and we just 'went for it'. We found a wonderful litter on Greenfield Puppies drove out to visit and fell in love with Maxine. Our whole family adores her, she's got the sweetest manner and we couldn't be happier with our decision. She travels quite well, the only challenge is bulldogs cant take too much activity on hot days so we need to be careful during the summer.

Our girls play on the NYC Gotham Girls soccer team. The team is doing extremely well with a 6-0-1 record and this past memorial day they placed as finalists in a Long Island tournament. Was held at Bethpage State Park polo fields.  Picturesque, well managed and maintained park and the polo fields were great for the girls to play on.

We've been overly active and enjoying spring--soccer, more soccer, martial arts, home upgrades plus we are doing some urban container gardening, etc. We have fat carrots, several blueberry bushes (well the bushes that survived  Maxine's chompers), and dwarf apples that are doing quite nicely. For some reason my dwarf pear tree has become host to a mini Eco-system. Aphids (these suck and are tough to get rid of), ladybugs (good) that try to eat all the aphids, and then sparrows that fly to the tree and eat the ladybugs (bad). The cool part is the ladybugs manage to lay  clusters of eggs so it's like a perpetual cycle.

We are getting ready for our June house rental in Ocean Grove. It's gonna be beach, fishing, bike riding, beach barbecue,and beach. Plus the several great restaurants in OG and Asbury Park. Also plan to spend a day at the Asbury boardwalk Silver Ball Pinball Museum and arcade has a great selection of pinball machines and arcade games, both vintage and new. Definitely worth a visit.

Wife and I went to Vegas for our 20th anniversary. We had a great time together and I really need to reciprocate with a trip next year to Europe. Especially as she was a great sport and agreed to do this:

We went with Las Vegas Razor Adventures and spent two cool hours climbing rocks and huge dunes in the awesome Polaris RZR all terrain 4 wheel drive vehicles

My thanks to my wife Marisa, for putting up with me for so long, I look forward to our next 20 together ;)

Fitness 

Martial Arts

I continue to train at Tiger Schulman's in Hoboken. For a 48 year old guy who smoked for 25 years I'm surprised at how fit I'm getting.  I have attended core and advanced (includes sparring) kickboxing classes several times a week for the last several years. Our instructor and head of the Hoboken school is Sensei Louis Gaudinot who recently fought at the Izod center and won his UFC Flyweight fight. My wife and I attended the fight. I was proud to be there see my teacher fight and win. The kicker: his match won fight of the evening, which I believe was a huge financial bonus for him.

Sensei G keeps us motivated and is very hands-on during class. If you are looking for an excellent cardio workout and building self defense skills all while boosting your confidence,  MMA training is a great path to take. I recently had a progress meeting with Sensei and he indicated I would be advancing shortly as I tweak my sparring technique. With the next belt ,yellow, I will have to train in grappling to make further advances. I prefer the kickboxing and sparring but as I intend to eventually to make black belt, I will start grappling again.

Tough Mudder

I am registered and training for 2012 Tri-State Tough Mudder in Englishtown, NJ.  Basically it's a half marathon interspersed with some grueling obstacle course. I know several people that have participated and looking forward to the event in October. Participants raise money for the Wounded Warrior project, a noble cause for our soldiers who put themselves in harms way to protect our way of living.

Email me at johnfoberg@gmail.com if you are interested in joining my team for the event. Otherwise please visit  Tough Mudder/Wounded warrior donor and give what you can. I'll update this blog as my training and team progresses.

Preparedness

I recently got more active in Preparedness, survival, self reliance, and self defense. Rather than explain here, I invite you to visit Zombie Squad a great preparedness site. The ZS forums are quite extensive and helpful. The zombie defense premise is a tongue in cheek approach to the fun but serious need for preparedness and self reliance.  I go by the moniker of Cockroach, in dubious honor of one of the greatest survival insect species of all times ;)

Check out the forum, keep in mind there is occasional adult language.

Books and Movies

Recently finished some awesome  science fiction novels with post apocalyptic /dystopian flavoring,. These are highly recommended, and rank in same league as Neuromancer in substance, style and slickness.

Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez. Plots of both books play with the impact to the whole world when IT systems become compromised globally by a MMO/game designer. Great stuff, solid real world basis foundation. I envy anyone who's picking these up for the first time..

Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero by John Barnes. Plots focus on what happens when a internet 'viral' collective coordinate a nanobot infection of the world infrastructure. Exquisite, convincing real. Barnes has a third book in the series scheduled to be published in mid 2013.


Wool 'novellas+ series by Hugh Howey. Great 'novella' series that feeds the plot in tasty bite size pieces. I thoroughly enjoyed the first five and am now reading the prequel novel , First Shift,  although considered part six, it sets the stage for the first five.

Movie wise, I've seen the popular ones like Thor, Avengers, Captain America. I found them enjoyable but somewhat formulaic and predictable. The kids and I enjoyed Thor the best.

I really haven't been impressed with any Science Fiction or action flick I've see in the last year. However I am ecstatic(!) that Ridlety Scott's Prometheus hits theaters within a week! Ridley's Bladerunner and Alien movies are my high water mark for Sci-Fi movies and even after 20+ years they show sublime vision and imagination. Lets keep our fingers crossed that Prometheus joins the ranks of those two legendary films.