Driving past Ikea, an employee wearing the standard blue and yellow work outfit was waddling through the crosswalk, and not being brisk about it. Sitting there, waiting for said employee to clear the street, it occurred to me that since Ikea gives everything some odd name, he probably works under a sign that says "Rolypoly".

Posted by: Ted at 12:09 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Last night was my wife's late night at the office, and she had errands to run afterwards. When she walked in the door, she handed me a grocery bag full of things, dug a piece of paper out of her purse, dropped it into the bag and commanded me to "Bake!"

It's some kind of cookie that one of the nurses brought in. Liz loved it so much that she got the recipe and stopped on the way home to get the ingredients. I'm thinking Thursday evening, since it's supposed to rain then. I'll let you know how they turn out, because they do sound yum.

Posted by: Ted at 06:08 AM | category: Square Pegs
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1 Looking for testers?

Posted by: dawn at June 07, 2005 07:35 AM (Dh1V0)

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Two Nervous Dogs. She comes, she goes, I laugh, I cry. Go read, and enjoy some of the bestest funniest cleverest writing on the net, before she says "screw it" and packs it up once again.

How's about a little bitter to go with your caffeine? What better than Four Honkies, who are some attitudinally-blessed dudes. Excellent read so far, I have great expectations for this group.

WitNit has this on his sidebar:

Munuvians I Am Methodically Checking Out One By One Because I'm Just A Curious Kind of Guy

Add in the bondage link (I haven't followed it) (yet), and some very sharp writing and I invite you to have a looksee and maybe you'll find something to your liking.

Posted by: Ted at 05:35 AM | category: Links
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According to CalTechGirl:

Starting Tuesday, the BBC will be offering all 9 of Beethoven's symphonies for FREE AND LEGAL download!!!

Not precisely correct, because Mookie and I downloaded Symphonies 1 and 3 this evening. Yay!

Follow yon link for details. There was a quote painted on the wall of our music room in high school:

Music washes from the soul, the dust of everyday life.

Never pass up a chance to absorb a little culture.

Posted by: Ted at 07:31 PM | category: Links
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Viking kitties. You can never have too many Viking kitties.

I've missed them.

Posted by: Ted at 05:48 PM | category: Links
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"Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not." -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair

This refers to changing the focus of his administration from joining the EU to fighting poverty in the Third World.

Thanks to Q&O for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 12:18 PM | category: Links
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I humbly admit to a small role in getting young people involved in aerospace engineering by acting as a mentor during the Team America Rocket Challenges (TARC) of the last three years.

I've also spent time talking to students who're building and launching CanSat payloads (real electronic payloads fit into a space the size of a coke can). Almost every month at our scheduled club rocket launches, we get several teams testing new designs for both TARC and CanSats.

Some of those kids have gone on to participate in NASA's Student Launch Initiative (SLI) program.

Some of the kids involved have gone on to college and are now working towards a career in aerospace. When they do, they get to do things like the Virginia Tech Sounding Rocket Project.

The mission is being sponsored by NASA's Sounding Rocket Operations Contract (NSROC) in Wallops Island, Virginia. NSROC has provided Virginia Tech with manufacturing of most payload components, a rocket motor, as well as official engineering analysis of the design. As part of the process, the students have attended 4 professional meetings at the NASA Wallops facility and have gotten the opportunity to collaborate with NSROC engineers on how to improve the design of the payload. The launch will take place on Wallops Island in mid-May of 2005.

Jealous? You bet I am.

The payload weighs approximately 190 pounds and is about 10.3 feet in length. The Orion motor will carry this payload to an altitude of nearly 60 miles above the surface of the Earth in approximately 150 seconds. After apogee, the payload will reenter, a parachute will deploy, and the payload will splash down in the ocean. A recovery team will then retrieve the payload from the water, and then will be brought back to NSROC's facility where it will be taken apart. The MAGIC instrument will be returned to NRL for analysis and the students will analyze the rocket flight data obtained through telemetry transmissions.

They recently made their successful launch. Check out preflight coolness, and then some launch and recovery pictures. Thanks to Professor Chris Hall for sharing this. Now, how can I get one of those decals for my rocket?

Posted by: Ted at 12:15 PM | category: Rocketry
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There is supposedly a strange synchronicity between the movie Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon CD.

One crucial aspect of the WOO/DSM experience is timing. It is important to begin the CD at the end of the third, final roar of the MGM lion.

Get the timing right, and then get ready for an eerie ride.

The opening credits of the film began to roll to the heartbeats and ticking of Speak to Me. The familiar black-and-white farm scenes begin with the song Breathe. Dorothy is talking with the farm hands, then begins to walk the fence rail. The lyric "And balanced on the biggest wave You race towards an early grave" plays as Dorothy loses her balance and falls from the fence.

Of course, the movie goes on long after the CD ends.

The CD ends with the beating of a heart as Dorothy listens to the Tin Man's chest.

Give it a try sometime (altered personal reality optional). Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the page for links to other Wizard & Dark Side sites.

And your little dog too!

Posted by: Ted at 05:59 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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This makes sense:

It's infinitely better to work with nature than to work against it - just as it's better to work with the grain of the wood. -- Dame Jill Knight

Then again, so does this:

There is nothing that great about nature. Nature is full of diseases; it's full of failures. Almost every organism that's born on the planet fails - doesn't make it to reproductive age. Humans are rather better than that - most of us do make it to reproductive age. In fact many of us reproduce. That's a great achievement, and that's an artificial achievement. If you leave it to nature, all you get is a lot of dead babies. -- Oliver Morton

Hmmmm.

Posted by: Ted at 04:49 AM | category: Square Pegs
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1 Well, that Oliver Morton guy's a real ray of sunshine huh?

Posted by: shank at June 06, 2005 08:22 AM (+H1yK)

2 How about this:
It is best to toward life and health, whichever way that goes.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at June 06, 2005 08:55 AM (Jgwqx)

3 Ollie sounds like he's auditioning to be Kevorkian's chaplain.

Posted by: Ted at June 06, 2005 09:35 AM (blNMI)

4 I bet Oliver Morton is would be big on human enhancement, or cyborgs y'know, then we'd be ultra perfect, screw that bag nature.

Posted by: Oorgo at June 06, 2005 11:35 AM (lM0qs)

5 It's a process as medical knowlege expands. My dad got a new knee last month, fifty years ago that kind of joint replacement was science fiction. We've moved towards the scary future in such tiny incremental steps that Shelley's Frankenstein happens every day in operating rooms all over the world. In her day it was horror fiction. Add better nutrition and biochemistry, and I'd argue that compared to a century ago we already *are* ultra-perfect.

Medical ethical debate isn't a new thing. It happened with germ theory, it happened with blood transfusions and organ transplants. Yesterday's crime against nature becomes tomorrow's commonplace.

Posted by: Ted at June 06, 2005 07:44 PM (+OVgL)

6 Ah yes, we may live longer, we may have cushier lifestyles, but I ask you, are we happy? Has our science crushed crime, poverty and racism? And how many extra fellow-humans can we kill in one fell swoop with our ultra-perfect science?

Sure I may be happier as I sit watching easily accessible porn and eating nachos, and if I live to 100 I'll probably be alive in some nursing home screaming obscenities and shitting my pants, all because science kept me alive.

Posted by: Oorgo at June 07, 2005 11:28 AM (lM0qs)

7 Now who's being a ray of sunshine?

Posted by: Ted at June 07, 2005 11:31 AM (blNMI)

8 lol! I never claimed to be an optimist.

Posted by: Oorgo at June 07, 2005 01:37 PM (lM0qs)

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Our rocket club had a rare Sunday-only launch today, and I managed to sneak over there for a couple of hours this morning (we've got family visiting from out of town).

I travelled very light, only bringing two rockets and a handful of engines. Pity too, because the day was hot and humid and the air was almost calm, meaning straight up and straight down. A perfect day for altitude.

Click here for a picture of the two rockets.

The first rocket (the yellow one) is a prototype of a kit being produced by my buddy Rich of Vertical Force Rocketry. He gave me a pre-production kit to build so I could give him feedback on the instructions and materials, and then make some test flights. It's a ring-fin model called the Odin's Spear and folks, this bird rocks! If you're looking for something new to build after a couple of Estes kits, I very much recommend this rocket.

The second rocket (white with black nose) was an experiment. Someone at NARAM last summer built a single finned rocket that relies on spinning to remain stable (fin detail here). I took pictures of it and built my version to play with. The original basically unravelled the cardboard tube on the third flight (serious torque!), so mine has two tubes, one inside the other for extra strength. Thinking back on it, his might have kicked the entire motor mount out the back to deploy the chute, making the nosecone permanently mounted up front. That's important to remember as you read further on. It's a fun rocket, spinning like a ballerina on handfuls of speed washed down by double-espressos.

It was sorta successful. So all told I made five flights:

1. Odin's Spear - A8-5 - When the motor burned out you could hear a whistle! Stays low enough for schoolyard launching, chute right at apogee.

2. Odin's Spear - B6-6 - Another arrow-straight boost, very quick and gets great altitude for a B motor. The whistling happened as she slowed down before deploying the chute, again right at apogee.

3. Nameless spinning prototype - D12-5 - About 20 feet up she was spinning and the nosecone came off. Tipped unstable and landed in the grass where the ejection charge went off. No damage.

4. Nameless spinning prototype - D12-3 - I added some masking tape to the nosecone shoulder to make it harder to some loose, but it did anyway some 50 feet up. Chute deployed normally this time and she also spun on the way down. Minor fin damage, can be repaired (although I don't know if I'll bother).

5. Odin's Spear - C6-7 - Zoooooom! Almost lost sight of it way up there, but saw the chute deploy, once again right at the top. Another brief whistle as she slowed down. My longest walk of the day for recovery, maybe 50 yards.

It was almost noon and I had to get going, so I made a quick stop at the Performance Hobbies trailer (gotta love a hobby shop that comes to the flying field!) and picked up a pair of AeroTech H128 White Lightning motors and an AeroTech H165 Redline motor. I'll fly them in my big rockets another day. Said goodbye to my friends and left. I briefly talked to frequent Rocket Jones commenter Russ, who was arriving just as I was heading out.

Short and sweet, that's how to describe my day flying rockets. Big fun.

Posted by: Ted at 02:52 PM | category: Rocketry
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1 It was great seein' ya again Ted even if only for a moment.I knew I had seen that spiral fin design somewhere before.Wish I could have seen it go.Anyhow,glad you had a blast.
My day went pretty well,also.Got up my 24 mm Big Red Max on a D12-7,my Yellow Jacket on a C6-7 and my Goony Max on a C6-5.I also,got around to lofting that CMR Mantra boost glider clone for the first time on a Quest B6-2.It was an awesome boost.However,it wanted to do the falling leaf thing on the way down as apposed to actually flying.Oh,well!At least it didn't slay anyone.HA!The first step has been taken and now I just need a nice high spot to test fly and balance it from.I think it'll fly well after some tweeking.
Speaking of gliders those 1/2A's really performed well today.I didn't expect that kind of alt.Might have to give it a whirl.
Besides that my Goony did a lawn dart due to just the nose popping without pulling the chute.It hit a soft spot so there was no damage.Had to walk out past the High Power pads to get it though.Other than that everything was cool.
Along about 2 or so we where invaded by a load of Boy Scouts(I think)but besides them the crowd stayed pretty small all day.Seemed as if they where the ones with a lot of Astrocams.
One killer cool flight that you missed was someones flying saucer on one of the new G20's.That thing has the most major burn time of any motor I have ever seen.It just kept burning and burning and burning...............It SEEMED like abot 7-8 seconds at least.I'll be flying the Really Really Mean Machine on one of those for sure.In fact a motor like that is what I designed it for.Long and ssssssmokey!Picked up a couple of 29mm/BT-60 centering rings for that today,too.The rear most centering ring is set in up to the fin tab.I will use those to make a flush mounted rear bulkhead so that I can rig up a positive motor retention system.should have thought of it before buuuuuut.......you know about hindsight.
Anyways,I spent a good deal of time yapping with people,talking Mopars with Ken and just getting roasted.I never knew you could burn on top of a tan.Go figure!
Well,see ya next time.

Posted by: Russ at June 05, 2005 11:19 PM (ObxzR)

2 It figures that when the vast bulk of the launches are going on I'm busy doing check-ins and hardly get to see any of them

Posted by: Maelstrom at June 06, 2005 12:05 PM (z62e3)

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Credit where due. Sometime late this morning we lost internet service at the house. When I got home around 1pm I did the normal routine (reset the modem, reset the router, reboot the PC), but apparently not in the correct order or something. A call to Comcast and the help desk technician helped us get back up and running in less than an hour.

I also note that they've gotten used to the idea that many people hang routers off their modems. Time was, they'd have you disconnect everything so that only your PC was on the modem. Now they assume you're using the router and deal with it in a generic way.

Comcast has been extremely reliable for us over the last several years, and although fixes haven't always been this quick and easy, they've gotten it right sooner or later. Your milage may vary, but based on my experiences I'd recommend them.

Posted by: Ted at 02:46 PM | category: Square Pegs
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A light analysis of one of his masterpieces and how defendable it is if the undead rise again. Plenty of interesting background history too, of the more mundane sort.

Thanks to Mrs. Spoons for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 03:06 PM | category: Cult Flicks
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1 Heh. You found it too.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 06, 2005 02:57 AM (AIaDY)

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From Gir.

Immediately following there is a list of 28 different occupations. You must select at least 5 of them (feel free to select more). You may add more if you like to your list before you pass it on (after you select 5 of the items as it was passed to you). Each one begins with "If I could be..." Of the 5 you selected, you are to finish each phrase with what you would do as a member of that profession.

For example, if the selected occupation was "linguist," you might take the phrase "If I could be a linguist...I would learn Hebrew, Greek, Russian, Italian and Chinese." See how easy that is? Here's the list:

The list thus far:

* If I could be a scientist...
* If I could be a farmer...
* If I could be a musician...
* If I could be a doctor...
* If I could be a painter...
* If I could be a gardener...
* If I could be a missionary...
* If I could be a chef...
* If I could be an architect...
* If I could be a linguist...
* If I could be a psychologist...
* If I could be a librarian...
* If I could be an athlete...
* If I could be a lawyer...
* If I could be an inn-keeper...
* If I could be a professor...
* If I could be a writer...
* If I could be a llama-rider...
* If I could be a bonnie pirate...
* If I could be an astronaut...
* If I could be a world famous blogger...
* If I could be a justice on any one court in the world...
* If I could be married to any current famous political figure...
* If I could be a superhero...
* If I could be a comic book character...
* If I could be a jail guard...
* If I could be an animal...
* If I could be a hacker...

If I could be a gardner, I'd love to have acres to play with. Formal, informal, meadow, with plenty of minions to do the heavy scut work.

If I could be a chef, I'd probably lose weight. I eat less when I'm doing serious cooking for some reason.

If I could be a librarian, I'd be in heaven. To be paid to be surrounded by books and to do research all day would be wonderful. I think I'd like to be involved in the efforts to commit historical works to eformats.

If I could be a llama-rider... sorry, I don't swing that way.

If I could be an astronaut, when I wasn't in space, I'd want to be doing educational initiatives for younger kids to get them excited about science and math.

I'm not going to pass this one on to anyone specific, but if you want to take a whack at the ol' meme-pinata, feel free and link back. Your name will show up at the bottom, so there's the link-carrot to go with the pinata-stick.

Posted by: Ted at 11:00 AM | category: Links
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I'm up early this Saturday morning because Mookie has her SATs. I think this is her first try at the new ones, I know she took the old version at least once. She's not done badly, but since you can submit the best scores you get, why not spend a few bucks to improve the numbers, eh?

So while waking up for the drive across county (why can't they schedule the dang thing nearby?), I thought I'd knock off a meme that was handed to me a while ago by Elisson, who just happened to post this bizarre bit o' arcana recently about the oddest guest appearance in a comic strip (plus, he flew rockets).

Anyways, the meme is:

Take a picture of your fridge and/or describe the contents in poetry form.

Uh huh. Right. Early on a Saturday morning, I'm gonna wax poetic. Being a bit cranky and rushed this AM, I'll do a quick description in free form (play those mental bongos in the background and call me beat, daddy-o).

Two types of eggs. Eggs for baking. And reduced-cholestorol eggs for jes' plain eatin'. Lots of each, because two of us went to the store separately last time and both bought eggs without realizing the other did too.

Sodas, the giver of caffeine. Diet Coke (wife), and Diet Pepsi (yours truly), with a few odd Dr. Pepper's tossed in there because I like a little variety. In the drinkable liquids category are also ice water and several cartons of OJ. Milk is there as well, but we use it mainly for splashing over cereal (oh heavenly cornflakes) and cooking.

A half-empty carton of heavy cream, used for cooking, and the remainder used for scrambled eggs and/or mashed potatoes. Also in the back are my containers of base, one chicken, on beef, for making stock when I cook. More convenient than canned, boxed or homemade, and better tasting than those frightful cubes.

A huge jar of diced garlic, for convenience, next to a small jar of horseradish, for fire.

Yogurt. Our traditional at-work breakfast is to snag a container of low-fat yogurt and a piece of fruit. Been doing it for years, and you'll usually find at least a week's worth of the "active cultures" in the fridge.

With summer here, in spirit if not officially, veggies abound. We have a huge old Tupperware salad-bar thingie that is chock full of grape tomatoes, broccoli florets, julienned carrots, diced scallions, sliced cucumbers and more. That sits on the shelf above another monstrous bowl full of salad greens. Dressings are in the fridge door (which reminds me, we need to restock as I'm out of Bleu Cheese).

Leftovers. Last night we had Italian sausages grilled, with grilled fruit and veggies alongside. A platter of sausages, pear quarters, green pepper and slabs of onion are waiting for lunchtime picking at.

There's a container of Chicken Mo Fo in there too. Oldest daughter Robyn took some to work yesterday for lunch and brought back rave reviews. That makes me happy.

The crisper drawers are stuffed full of more veggies (top) and meats and cheeses (bottom). The door contains a few various jams and jellies for PBJ's, some ketchup, mustard and other sauces (mostly for cooking) and a brand spanking new jar of yeast for the breadmaker.

Gotta run.

Posted by: Ted at 06:20 AM | category: Links
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I'm pissed off right now. Mookie has spent probably 40+ hours as a student volunteer doing stage managing work for a show put on tonight by her school choir, including 12 hours just in the last few days.

Burney, the choir teacher, didn't see fit to say thank you to her or the other three kids who ran the stage and handled lighting and cues. Not even a mention in the program. He did give the kids what they took as a veiled threat before the show about not screwing it up.

The title of this post is Google-bait. I want anyone who looks for "GarField" or "music" or "choir" or "Burny" to find this.

Mookie would probably say something like, "Mr. Burny, you suck.", because she's too polite to flat out call you an asshole. But I'm not.

In fact, the phrase "ungrateful cocksucker" comes to mind.

Posted by: Ted at 10:32 PM | category: Square Pegs
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First, new Munuvians. Yay! Each of these people had to be nominated to join our happy clan of bloggers, and then voted on in a super-secret process involving thought and counting and everything. We're like the Island of Misfit Toys. I'm the Teddy Bear with the very large ego and the very small diplomatic ability. But hey, my questions get answered.

So please go visit and welcome:

Feisty Repartee
Snugg Harbor
One Happy Dog Speaks
Stuff I Think You Should Know
Quality Weenie
Bobo Blogger
Drunken Wisdom
Two Roads Diverged
AAFFLLAACCKK
And What Next
Id's Cage

Bring pie. Pie's always nice.

Posted by: Ted at 06:39 PM | category: Links
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Gordon Tatro does it again!

It would not be correct for me to copy and paste the letters here (they would not look correct or official anyway, if I did that), so please click this link and read it...the reply from the owner to the State of Michigan...is GREAT!

Don't'cha love it when the beauacracy plays straight man?

Posted by: Ted at 12:34 PM | category: Links
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I'm tired of those lame Bush's Baked Beans commercials. I bet that I could dice that canine traitor fine enough that nobody would know the difference between salt pork and salt Duke.

The more I hear about it, the less I want to see Star Wars. I'd spend the entire movie snickering and mocking the lame-ass names that pepper the franchise. I almost retched over the original Luke "Skywalker", and it's gone downhill in a hurry from there.

The family of "Deep Throat" may cash in on fame. Surprise, surprise. He wasn't the hero a lot of people were hoping for, he was a disgruntled employee getting even for being passed over on a promotion. In hindsight, being capable of that kind of treachery makes me believe that it's a good thing he was never put in complete control of the FBI. I'm not defending Nixon and what that gang of nimrods did, but it's now obvious that he wasn't the only asshole involved either.

Speaking of, damn Bush for causing those homes in California to fall off that mountainside. I bet global warming or nuclear winter or something eco is the cause of it.

Posted by: Ted at 05:34 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Laughing my ass off at these twisted "Love is..." cartoons.

Wegg, thanks. I needed that.

Posted by: Ted at 07:32 PM | category: Links
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But this week's poetry day offering, courtesy of annika, is wonderful.

Posted by: Ted at 12:07 PM | category: Links
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