Long, Slow Burn

Yawn.  CNN (and every other news outlet) appears to be trying to create news and fear and angst.  Some US military satellite has lost power sometime in the last year or so, and is going to fall to Earth.  “Strike” is the term that CNN uses.

Here’s my prediction: most all of it will burn up on entry.  What is left will hit somewhere on Earth and it will be very difficult for the scientists to tell us where it actually hit.

Yes, something may fall on populated areas.  It’s very unlikely but it may happen.  Damage may occur.
I think my prediction is going to be much closer to what happens, that what CNN is leading us to believe.  Yawn.

Okay, his name is Forest, but he’s got a killer setup for making snow. 3 feet in one night! Dang, I need a bigger compressor.

Check out how a child turned $500 in parts and machinery into a mountain of snow fun. Click Here.

I’m just an hour away from leaving for today’s course.  I’m a bit nervous.  Today is the day that I’m most concerned about.  Today the students are cutting their fins for their rockets.  I’ve already cut the PETE from the bottles, folded them, and marked them.  That may be part of the hardest part but there is still lots to do.  Cut the fins, bend the footing flange, cut the relief cuts, cut the spars, tape the leading and trailing edges, and then of course, glue them to the rocket.  Gluing involves applying the glue to the footing flange, positioning it on the rocket, taping down (temporarily) the flange while the glue dries, and then moving on to the next fin.  Four fins per rocket.  After the fins are glued and taped, we wrap a rubber band around the fins to apply a good amount of inward pressure to help keep good contact between the rocket/glue/fin.
Luckily the weather today should cooperate.  It should be high of about 50.  Since the glue will be room temperature, I’ll be able to take the kids outside and get the fins glued to the rockets.

On top of that, I’ve been developing Homework #2.  It’s a bit of work making sure that all of the calculations and units of measurement are correct.  I think I have it done however.  It seems that every homework assignment means edits and enhancements to the Water Rocket Book as well.

Next week: The Launch Day!

I’ve done a write up for my water rocket class I’m offering.  Here’s some instructions on how to build The Bouncer.

This was my first “Send Off” event for the PGR that I had been on.  The morning was below my current riding limit of 42 degrees so my neighbor, Kevin Whitley and I drove down in his truck.  This was Kevin’s first event for the PGR and the weather turned out nicely.  Beautiful, sunny day.  Enough of that though.

We were there to send off the 2125th Garrison Support Unit.  It is my understanding that they were flying to Virginia for a couple weeks of training and then off to Iraq for a 400 day mission.  This is a reserve group so not only are they serving their country, not only are they leaving their families behind, they’re leaving jobs and their “normal” life behind to serve.  What an amazing and impressive group of people they are.  It was my honor to stand in recognition of what they are doing.  By looking into their eyes, I think it meant something to them for us to be there.

The totals are that there were 43 bikes and 11 cages (cars) there for the event.  Once we completed the “meet and greet”, Dekalb shut down 285 for us as we escorted two chartered buses to thei airport.  We even had a helicopter escort.  Very cool.  Thanks to the members of the 2125th for their fine service.  Thanks to the family of the 2125th.  I salute your sacrifice as well.  Thanks to my PGR brothers and sisters for making me feel welcome again, and for everything you do for our troops.

To the 2125th, please come home safely.

I’ve wanted to make snow for about 12 years now. I finally succeeded last night. Mind you, I haven’t been trying continuously. Just here and there. I’m proud to say that I made a small amount of snow last night.

Here in Georgia, it rarely snows. It rarely gets below 32 degrees, even in winter. For the last couple of days however, it has been very cold. One morning, it was 10 degrees! For Christmas I received a compressor and a brad nail gun and a finish nail gun. Very nice. I knew that the compressor was my ticket to lots of things, including making snow.

I searched around and found SnowGuns.com and they pointed me to a T-Gun design. I didn’t have the money for a brass outfit, so I decided to make my T-gun out of PVC as a “proof of concept” design. $20 later (and $5 of that was a brass fitting to convert from my air compressor to PVC) I had a prototype. Would it work?

At 8pm at night it was already down to about 28F with no wind. My son, Griffin, and I set up the ladder, garden hose, and compressor. I got things all hooked up and tested out the compressor settings. The garden hose had some ice in the line so it took some time to express out the ice. I cranked up the compressor, got the water going, … and got some water spray. I adjusted the compressor settings between 60PSI and 35PSI. It appeared at if with that temperature that 45PSI was the right balance between water pressure, air pressure, and temperature. Before long, a small patch of snow was appearing on my grass. Very cool. Below are some pictures. We’re in a drought here so I didn’t leave it running but for 45 minutes or so.

I’ve got some tweaks to make but I’m happy with my success.