JP's Blog

New Blog

2010-03-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I would enjoy blogging more if I wrote about something in particular that I am passionate about. So what am I passionate about? Well, alot of things, so it's as simple as that! I love learning, learning about how things work and about nature. Therefore I'm starting a blog where I'm going to write about stuff I learn and think is interesting.

It is at:

http://www.cosmicappetite.com

Enjoy!

Bring it

2010-01-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

The new year is here! 2010, bring it. I have no specific resolutions other than to be a more positive person and to learn more. Fortunately most of my enthusiasm comes from learning and thinking about new things so this should work.

On a related note, I’m taking two more classes this term. I’ll be taking molecular biology and statistical mechanics. I think they will be fun. I also started messing with electronics again which is great fun. It’s amazing what is out there and how easy it is to put stuff together. I have this little 16 bit processor that I programmed to read a GPS receiver and printout to a LCD screen. It’s fun.

I also downloaded a new album by a band called The Rural Alberta Advantage. It’s excellent, especially the song Don’t Haunt This Place.

Finals Week

2009-12-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

I took the final for my graduate mathematics class on Tuesday. I have to say that taking a class with a full time job requires some dedication (that I didn’t always have). There were times I had to ask myself why exactly I was doing all this. To compound the situation, this stuff doesn’t come back easy. Sure, I’m very comfortable with math but this was the math course to end all others. After just one semester our final included topics on ordinary differential equations, complex analysis, partial differential equations, fourier analysis, tensors and linear algebra. I’ve taken most of these subjects as entirely separate classes, so to take one course with all of them thrown together 5 years out of school was… intense. It was a challenge though and I love a good intellectual challenge. This is all in preparation for a graduate degree in physics that I could earn on a part time basis. I really think I should have been a scientist so this is a way to ease back into it without nuking my engineering career and being broke. It is interesting and challenging which is what I was looking for. There is one thing I’ve notice though, Physics is definitely different from traditional engineering. It is much more formal with its mathematics and uses a broader more exotic swath of it. I like it.

Excellent Book

2009-11-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

I just finished “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins. It was a brilliant, tight, and crystal clear summary of the major scientific evidence in favor of the theory of evolution. It was entertaining and fascinating just as any book would be that aimed to describe the way in which ALL life on Earth developed. I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone interested in ideas and is curious about the biggest discovery in the history of all of the world. Seriously, I would think even vehement creationists would read it if only for the intellectual challenge of understating the theory, because it really is a beautiful theory.
It starts off with a very funny analogy. Dawkins compares his present predicament with that of a professor of Roman history. The professor is eager to talk about the various innovations of the Romans, their literature, art and engineering. He wants to talk about their beautiful language and complicated societies and history of their military and political dominance. Instead though, he finds that a very large group of people (politically and financially backed) come to his class and disrupt it by asking questions like “How can you be sure the Romans even existed?” He is forced to abandon his class and talk about the evidence for the past existence of the Romans. He says that although we cannot see Romans now, the evidence for them is overwhelming. The people in back disagree and think there are various other explanations for the pottery left behind in the ground. The romantic languages are similar only through coincidence and the roads left behind that crisscrossed Europe were always there. Sadly, the Professor agrees to write a book about why he is convinced Romans existed.
So there you have it. It’s a great book. I really and truly do not understand why some people are so passionately against this area of science. For thousands of years most religions have hinted at a vast inter connectivity between all things. Isn’t it amazing that it is true?

400 years

2009-11-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

Sarah bought a 15 dollar telescope and it’s been a blast to use. It was made for the International Year of Astronomy as a low-cost, high quality telescope to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical observations. Apparently she ordered it a while ago but it was sent to our old address, so I’m glad the present occupant contacted us. It came in a box all disassembled… and I don’t mean that a few parts weren’t attached. The actual lenses had to be sandwiched together and inserted. The focusing tube and main optical tube had be snapped together too. It was very interesting to literally put a telescope together, all the lenses inside are actually composite lenses, and it was fun lining them all up. The lens up in front is 2 inches wide and not bad at all for astronomical viewing. The eyepieces had smaller lenses that were more complicated to set up. There were two eyepiece types, one that simulated Galileo’s true telescope and one that was a little “better”.
The hardest part of using it is focusing it. It has a focusing tube that is held in place by a friction collar to the optical tube. You have to literally move it in and out to get the right focus, so no fine adjustment knob. I would apply force and get nothing until the whole thing shifted an abrupt half an inch ruining the image and hitting my eye. Ouch. I got better at it and eventually got it pretty sharp. Now I use a spin technique to get fine adjustments. Also, the image goes through 3 lens pairings so all the cues are reversed. That is surprisingly annoying to deal with.
So we put it on Sarah’s fancy tripod and started looking at stuff. It was great! We saw the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter to start off with. Jupiter is out nice a bright in the southwestern sky so it was our first destination. The orb of Jupiter itself was way bigger than I thought it would be. I started thinking, hey this a pretty good telescope! There was no denying it, Jupiter is a planet. Last night however I went out a little longer, after my eyes adapted and I even saw one band of Jupiter! Of course the little moons had moved too, all strung out fireflies. I saw the faint haze of Orion’s Nebula and the moon looked absolutely amazing. I am inspired.
Viewing became even more difficult when I started using Galileo’s eyepiece. The viewing cues are correct but the field of view is pencil thin. It was humbling to see first hand what he went through. It must have been frustrating, not to mention he built his own telescope from vague reports of the original one built a year earlier… he even had to grind his own lenses. It is amazing to think this little instrument changed the world 400 years ago. In just that next year in 1610 Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius, The Starry Messenger. He wrote about the phases of Venus, Jupiter’s moons and the mountain and crater shadows on the moon. He is accredited to be the father of modern science, something I think is so embedded in us we take it for granted. He was the first to differentiate science from philosophy and religion through 2 things. First, science and essentially everything in “the real world” can be modeled through mathematics that make predictions about future behavior. These models then are verified through experiment and can be revised to fit the experiments. This change in thinking “revolutionized” (hah) the world forever and I am glad I live AFTER that revolution. I hope this remains a time of reason.

Food

2009-10-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

It’s official, I love food. I thought I just liked it a lot, but after really talking with people, I think I love it. I love going to grocery stores, I love cooking food, smelling food and finally eating food. My meals are one of the highlights of my day. Food is one of those special ways we interface with the world and with nature. If you think about it, most everything we eat was at one point alive, therefore eating is an especially rewarding communion with nature. As we nestle away in our buildings and sit in front of our computers for the better part of our lives, it’s nice to think about one of our last remaining portals to the natural world.
So naturally I’ve been cooking more lately and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. It’s funny… when I cook, everything kind of melts aware. Work worries evaporate away in sautés. The smell of onions and sizzling steak put to shame the recycled air of the office. The sound of sizzling is more stimulating than that of telecons.
I’m amazed to hear that people don’t like the cuisines of entire countries. Indian? Chinese? Mediterranean and Thai? I remember the exact restaurants I first had most of these, most were in Boston. The experience was as thrilling to me as walking out into that country personally. It was seared into my brain. Ok enough with the bad puns.
So yeah, I love food. What do I hate? I hate rushing through meals, overcooked food, ground beef and potato salad. I consider potato salad a form of prison food. It is bland, mostly condiment and often served cold. It is the most disgusting food I have ever eaten and I’ve had boiled chicken feet, cow tongue and eel liver soup. As for ground beef, beef is too perfect a meat to be treated in such a horribly demeaning way. Ground beef in the grocery store is a horrible cocktail of animal fat and a few dozen cow scraps. If I need ground beef for some unforeseen reason, I’m going to ask butcher to grind a roast.
My favorite foods? That’s REALLY hard to say. For some reason eggplant parmesan is amazing to me, it is my comfort food. I used to eat eggplant parm subs all the time in college. I love Jamaican jerk chicken, conch fritters from Belize as well as their coconut ice cream. The food in Belize by the way blew me away. Indian food is amazing as well as Mediterranean. Japanese food is great too but after going to Japan I’ve had both the best food I’ve had in my entire life and the strangest. The single best bite of food I’ve had in my entire life is a piece of toro (fatty tuna) in Kyoto. Sarah videotaped me eating it. It was food nirvana, my entire head was a taste bud.

Books

2009-10-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

I just finished a book called “Rocket Men” and it was pretty good. I would describe it as a wonderful jumble of anecdotes.. and I do mean jumble. I like it, I really do, but it is completely schizophrenic. The author jumps wildly as he describes various parts of the program, the astronauts and the hardware of Apollo. Seriously, I think the author fell into a synclastic infundibulum in the 60s and just started writing. (Any Vonnegut fans out there?) Anyway, it was still good and I finished it because I’m determined to start finishing books. My former self may not have. He did do a good job of finding quotes from Neil and Buzz. It was amazing to read how they described the lunar dust as smelling like ashes from a freshly put out fire and how the lunar module jolted and bucked while it guided itself to lunar orbit. There are many more anecdotes like that that made it worth it. Overall the book helps to answer that question that we all ask but NEVER get a good answer from astronauts… what did it feel like to go up into space?
It was good to read a book glorifying space travel for a change. The press seems to be so negative about it lately, or I might just be sensitive about it. The thing about space travel is that it forces us to build basically perfect machines. Nothing else does this. Our cars are very reliable but if they break it is no big deal, we pull over and call a tow. Planes however are manufactured to a much higher tolerance and have much more redundancy. They simply have to be made better. The parts are looked at through x ray machines and tolerances are phenomenal. This is because if a plane breaks you are in trouble, you’ll have to land or you might die. Now spaceships are yet a whole other level. They are incredibly expensive because they are much more complex AND they have to be for all definitions perfect. If it breaks, then you almost certainly die. The outcome is hardware that is only beat in perfection by nature herself. Like some unnamed government official said during the launch of Apollo 11, if just a sliver of this engineering perfection makes its way into the industrial sector, it will have paid for itself. If that is not a practical reason for a spaceflight program, an R&D program that produces historic achievements, I don’t know what is.
All that being said I’m not in it for the practical reasons.

I've started a few more books including a cooking book by Alton Brown. It's awesome. He describes EVERYTHING about cooking. How does frying "work" on the food? What really happens when you cook meat? And how can you use all of this knowledge to become a master chef. It's the difference between just doing a recipe and understanding how that recipe came to be. It is for the curious.

Math Class

2009-09-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

I've started taking a math class and it's fun. Yeah I know that's nerdy but what can I say? I can't hide from it. Heck, I have two degrees from a notoriously technical university and work as an engineer in the aerospace industry. To be yourself is all that you can do.
So I was thinking, math is spooky. It is spooky how universal it is. It describes literally everything. The movements of stars, the behavior of light, the development of life, and the production of hurricanes. The whole shebang. I mean think about it, if you write a computer simulation about something in reality and it models it perfectly, what is the difference? It's like that story of the tribesman who got scared when you took their picture because they thought you were stealing their soul. Well seeing the math behind something is like that, it's like stealing its soul.
I started reading Penrose's epic physics tome "The Road to Reality". The first part is a little metaphysical but he basically divides reality into 3 parts; the mind, the physical world, and the abstract mathematical world. They are all connected in a very strange and nested way. It's like the self eating snakes Plato talked about called the Ouroboros. Plato used it as a symbol for something that kept re-creating itself in such a way that it was eternal. It does actually seem that way. The mind is a subset or part of the physical world. And the mathematical world is a part of the mind. But then the physical world seems to be a manifestation of the mathematical world.
What does that mean? Who knows. Maybe they are all connected in a deeper way we can't really see. Maybe they are all the same thing.

The Terror

2009-08-14T14:16:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading Dan Simmon’s epic The Terror. I consider it a feat to complete any book north of 700 pages! Needless to say, any book that keeps my interest for the long is epic. I loved this book. It was just the right blend of dreary macabre and introspective torment I’ve loved in the horror genre. This may sound crazy but horror is a great literary vehicle to reach true depth.
This by the way was a fascinating blend of history and the supernatural. Simmons chose to recount the experiences of the HMS Erebus and Terror while on their fateful journey through arctic wastelands in search of the Northwest Passage. They were iced in and subsequently spent a grueling few years at the edge of the world with very little provisions and competent leadership. The author adds to their misery but injecting a horrible “bear – like” creature that methodically stalks and terrorizes them. Through the entire book we are really never sure if the thing is just some crazed polar bear or something else entirely but amazingly you end up not caring. The true terrors and evil in the book are wrapped up in the unimaginably hostile environment and the relationships among the crew. The final mutiny and fracture of the crew are where the true horrors surface. This all sounds dark and hopeless but in the end I considered the book weirdly inspirational.
So, this “thing on the ice” is basically indestructible and endlessly able to resist detection. It gets a little old as it mercilessly devours members of the crew so when one man manages to escape from it after MUCH effort, it is moving. These men are forced to endure bitter cold, starvation, scurvy, an evil bear demon, and endless work as they abandon ship and haul their boats all around the arctic circle. I think it is these extraordinary circumstances that Simmons uses to show how noble and inspiring the human spirit can be and simultaneously into what horrible depths it can plummet. And towards the end of the book you realize hell is not that starving wasteland and the devil is not that thing on the ice.

Lunch

2009-07-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty mundane post to follow up my last but I've decided to start posting more. The new house has a great kitchen and it has inspired me to cook more. Lunch today also did.

I had a Caribbean jerk chicken sandwich for lunch today and it S U C K E D. It was described as a Caribbean jerk chicken Sandwich with black beans and banana mustard on a multigrain bun. Sounds exotic and interesting right? Filled with all kinds of tangy spices and flavors? Sounds like it would add some zing to this engineer’s desk job? Transport him to the island of sun and reggae?
It was the biggest bun of suck I’ve ever had to eat.

The chicken was in big chunks, VERY cold (think ice cube cold) and barely covered with a kind of jerk sauce. By barely I mean I could only taste the sauce my dipping my finger into the drops that fell off the sandwich into my tray. This chicken made deli meat taste like filet mignon. In fact, I’d rather have eaten expired sliced ham.
The roll it was on was way too big, extra dry and bland beyond belief. It had the consistency more of a fabric and I think I remember hearing the sound of fabric ripping as I bit through each pitiful bite. The experience was like taking giant bites of a bready brick that tasted like sand.
The only interesting thing was the “banana mustard” which just tasted exactly like mashed bananas with no mustard. I was lucky enough to taste the banana mash once every 5 bites. Those tiny bursts of flavor were torture. They made me realize there was a world out there of tastes and warm food. I think the coldness of the sandwich made my tongue go numb, that or I had probably swallowed it along with all my taste buds upon starting this suck-wich.

I give it a 3 out of 10. It has 1 point because it was completely cooked and the bread was not rotten. It gets 2 points because I was no longer hungry after completing the sandwich.

Life

2009-07-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

I decided a long time ago not to make this blog too personal. Well, there are some things in one's life that you just cannot hide, nor would you want to. They are wonderful things that have the power to change you, mold you and in a sense, redirect you. It's an amazing time for me and I thought I'd like to share.

So here are a few of them.
I married the love of my life two months ago. It was a beautiful day and it has quickly seated itself as one of my happiest memories. A simple thought back to that day and everything else pales. Strangely it comes to me only in bright and emotional bursts like only my most cherished memories do. They are full of wonderful flashes of family and friends, love and laughter, and of course my beautiful bride. I will hold on to them dearly and can't wait to add to them.

We are also about to buy a new house. It is our first house and we have seen it built from the ground up. It's been a long time but tomorrow we go to close on it. It's hard to believe it is almost ours! Especially for me because my family did not have alot of money growing up. I lived with my grandparents and various houses as a child. In fact, I clearly remember thinking I wanted to buy a "nice brick house with central air and heat". Well it has happened and to top it off, my wife and I get to start our lives together in it.

I also changed my job earlier in the year. I moved to a group that I thought I might be able to grow into better. There are transition issues as with anything but nothing too serious. It is challenging and interesting and somewhere where I could be allowed to fully pursue my technical interests.

I am not a religious man but I am spiritual, and I am thankful.

Speed and Innovation

2009-06-18T10:25:00.001-07:00

I bought yet another video game for the PS3 the other day. It’s called Killzone 2 and it is amazingly fun. One thing that blew me away were the graphics. Now, these are good, some of the cut CG scenes look like reality… but better. Like a brighter more dramatically and visually stunning reality. I am floored by the progress in the video game industry. It’s programmers are running neck and neck with computer hardware processing power and speed. They create an incredibly complex simulation complete with physics and artificial intelligence. They are free to imagine any world they wish, any game mechanic, any situation as long as it sells. No limitations. It’s only going to get better. If I could invest, it would be in this industry. The game I bought was developed for about 30 million dollars. Someday soon, it will rival the movie industry. Even in this economic climate, the game industry has only expanded.
Anyway it got me thinking about computers and the electronics industry in general. There is just no stopping it, the progress in this field is blistering. There are no checks, it’s just the free market running like crazy. No government agency to say this or this is unsafe. No entity to monitor anything really. I mean electronics may control critical things but the electronics industry itself has no resistance from anything. Other high tech industries do… Aerospace and Medical for instance.
Over simplified maybe but that’s the idea. So what is the future full of? Doctors? Pilots? Engineers?

Programmers.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

2009-04-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

My most recurring nightmare is being stranding submerged in the darkness of the deep ocean. I am terrified not because I cannot breath but because I am in a strange environment. I look around and can see deep into the nothingness, there is only a faint glow of bluish sunlight . That and one other thing is there with me, the shadows. Huge shadows roam about, slow and steady below me, below me and away from light. It paralyzes me with amazing fear. They are alien. Not ET alien, ET is a known, seen it a thousand times. No, it’s not a whale or even a menacing shark but it’s something else. All I can see are it’s huge eyes, dead and unblinking.
It gets closer.
Closer and I feel it against my feet. It’s skin is thick and rough. There is nowhere to go, and I try desperately to implode out of my skin. I want to leave. There is a real world out there, and it’s full of light and smiles, not dead eyes and darkness. It’s pulling me further down. The light is gone. It is completely black around me. The blackness of space and nothingness. I wish it was space but I know they are all around me. Another bumps into me, uncaringly, unknowingly.
And I wake up.
These are my subconscious fears and terrors. But what is it really? It’s fear of the unknown. But what is really known? Think of the cuttlefish. Cute name but completely and utterly alien.
The cuttlefish looks like Martian sea life. It even has greenish blue blood. This is because it uses copper to transport oxygen instead of iron like we do in our hemoglobin. It has three hearts, two pump blood to its two gills and another to the rest of the body. It’s eye is totally different from all vertebrates, pursuing its own independent line of evolution. It focuses not by reshaping the lens (like us) but reshaping the entire eye like the focus of a camera. They can change to almost any color, mimic any pattern (even dynamic ones) and imitate even texture. They are very intelligent (by product of the brain power needed to run the skin colors) and can learn from conditioning, even through observation.

Next month we go diving in the Caribbean waters off Belize. I am both excited and terrified. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Miracles

2009-04-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

If you think about it, the most interesting place in the solar system is… Earth, hands down. It is home to to a level complexity and organization that is simply unfathonable. I mean compared to the deserts of Mars or the clouds of Jupiter, Earth is like finding a jumbo jet full of ipods in the middle of the Sahara. (Another amazing thing is is it got there because that’s just what sand does given enough time, but I’ll talk more about that later.)
That analogy doesn’t do it justice though, not in the slightest. Biolgical diversity and complexity is.. well it’s unreal. Your brain alone has… get this.. no you can’t, and neither can I but it’s 500 trillion connections. The number is higher at a younger age topping 1*10^15 or 1 quadrillion connections at age 3. This number is over 71 thousand times the age of the universe in years. And that’s the age of well, everything. And it’s more than the number of stars in our galaxy. 10,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy.
We are each a miracle in the truest sense of the word.

Science as ephiphany

2009-04-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've decided to start posting to this blog again! I got a new iphone so I've been in a very social media kind of mood.

I'm a nerd and proud of it. I bought a DVD of a lecture by Richard Dawkins done in 1991. I saw the first hour of it this evening and it was very good. It's called Growing Up in the Universe and is part of an annual series of Oxford Christmas lectures given first by Faraday. He used the term growing up in the universe to refer both to humanity's evolution over millions of years and to our own personal understanding of science and nature. He does a great job in conveying the wonder of the natural world. He even starts out by using a surprisingly effective metaphor with what else but my favorite man made object... a space ship.
He says imagine stepping into a spaceship bound for some far off star system. You'd go into a freeze or sleep for millions of years and then step out onto the surface of an alien planet. But behold, the planet is brimming with life... countless plants and animals. Birds and fish and all types of extraordinary wildlife. Well, that's kind of like what has happened here, with us. We have been asleep for millions of years only to wake up to a beautiful world. It really is amazing and in all too short a time we have to close our eyes again. How lucky we are to see it, don't you think?

25 Things about me

2009-02-01T13:31:00.000-08:00

1. I could not speak until I was 3 and doctors thought I had a learning disability. When I did start talking it was in full sentences… the first being, “Mom can I have some green beans?”
2. My earliest memory is when I was 7 months old. My mom took me to a new mother’s class at the community health center and I remember the projector and images on the wall. My memory is of a giant cone of light with ghostly women and babies in the air.
3. I am the first person in my family to earn a 4 year degree.
4. The only sport I ever played in was basketball my freshman year of high school, it was a total failure.
5. I was suspected of somehow faking my grades in high school. My first year had perfect scores on every test in every class for the entire year.
6. I’m allergic to bubble bath.
7. I have a pilot’s license and would have pursued one no matter the cost or impracticality of it.
8. I read non-fiction almost exclusively.
9. I lived in subsidized housing for part of my childhood. My mom’s rent was 23 dollars per month at one point.
10. I never close the window on a commercial flight.
11. I helped my mom study for her nursing exams at age 5. I surprised her by remembering the latin names of the anatomy parts she said out loud.
12. I entered a gifted and talented program in middle school. The entrance test was unlike any I had taken and remember describing it as “fun”.
13. I have both undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT. It was the perfect school for me. I was accepted early and never considered another school.
14. I earned a phlebotomy license (technician who draw blood) and trained to be an EMT in high school.
15. I consider my curiosity to be my most defining characteristic.
16. I haven’t seen my father in 16 years.
17. I find learning to be spiritually satisfying.
18. I love NBA basketball.
19. I’ve never broken a bone.
20. I’m a big fan of horror movies.
21. I don’t understand people who dismiss the cuisine of entire countries.. ie Chinese, Indian.. etc.
22. I hate hate hate potato salad, and to a lesser extent coleslaw.
23. I’m an unabashed music snob. Life is too short for musical potato salad.
24. After talking with people at NASA, I didn’t love Star Trek that much.
25. My most common nightmares are being deep underwater or in a disabled spaceship.

A Different Time

2009-01-07T17:05:00.001-08:00

Sarah’s brother gave me the most interesting book for Christmas. It is entitled The Manhattan Project and is composed of various outtakes from history books, primary sources and first hand accounts. It’s all arranged in a vaguely chronological order and is incredibly readable. I even find myself remarking to Sarah after each entry in absolute amazement. My present job is arguably lacking in innovation and creativity so it’s amazing to hear about this amazing development environment. In fact many things I do have been heavily documented and done by many people for many DECADES, so it’s crazy to hear about people thinking up stuff and racing about to make hardware. This is the environment I had always dreamed I’d be in and it’s ironic that it existed in its purest form while creating the first atomic weapon. Despite any moral objections you may have to the project’s ultimate goal the sheer scale and success of the whole thing is a good study in what people can achieve. The management of the whole effort is astounding but the people themselves I think were the reason for its ultimate success. Sure they were given lots of money and political backing but everyone in particular performed outstandingly. From what I can tell everyone was given a project or task they could not immediately see how to complete.. almost everything they did was a first. There is even one story of a woman who created only finely woven quartz bands and was one day asked to work on an a wartime project in an unknown location. She had no idea what she’d be doing or where but she took it and was asked to design and fabricate a micro-measurement scale. She was scared to death, had never even designed anything much less made jigs and used metal working equip … and she did it. They all did. They went from theory in 1938 to a reacting nuclear pile underneath Stagg Field at the U of Chicago in 1942. This reacting pile was created in one of the densest parts of the country and the only assurance that it wouldn’t detonate were the calculations by Fermi himself. To go from that primitive pile of uranium to a bomb in 1945 is beyond belief. This was only after incredible amounts of ambitious and revolutionary engineering on all known fronts… be it chemical, mechanical, electrical and nuclear.
I can’t help to think how exciting the whole thing must have been.. to have been galvanized for a purpose and to work with some of the greatest minds in the country. An article by Feynman talks about how they all worked so well together. It’s funny because you’d think egos and personalities would quickly fuss things up in a room literally full of Nobel laureates. That wasn’t the case, after lengthy discussions he says the entire room would often come to the same conclusions. Self managing groups.. amazing. I guess when you have an ultimate goal in mind, and everybody can “run with the pack” so to speak, great strides can be made.
The way the all talk about it, the labs were bristling with new ideas, revolutionary ideas and they were quickly implementing them… on the scale of DAYS. I wonder if we will see a time like that again, hopefully for a more inspiring purpose.

2008-12-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

Some music...

Scenic World by Beirut

Recycled Air/Marching Band of Manhattan by The Postal Service

Imitosis - Andrew Bird

Love Me Dead - Ludo

The Passenger - Iggy Pop

Zen Buddhism

2008-12-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

I read something on a temple wall in Kyoto and it literally made me stop in my tracks. It was beautiful, and something I have long tried to put into words. I’ve been to all kinds of churches, schools, and monuments but this… this was something that cut to the heart of it. It crystallized beautifully what I had always sensed. It read,

Everything you have taken for granted is, upon reflection, unbelievably wonderful.

It’s a gem, pure and elemental... a fundamental truth of sentience. And that was my introduction to Zen Buddhism. Zen is not nearly as rigid as a formal religion or even life philosophy for that matter. So what is it? What are it's "truths"? Well, quite literally, you have to find that for yourself. What enlightens someone else will not open up the universe for you. Though there are some interesting stories, like the infamous flower sermon. This is where the Buddha held up a single flower for his sermon before a confused silent crowd and one monk achieved enlightenment. Or one anecdote where a monk got frustrated with being a monk and ran off to live in a village hut. He was sweeping his floor and a pebble hit some bamboo on the floor making a strong pure tone against silence.. and you guessed it, universal truth.

Yeah it sounds a little corny or cheesy but maybe not. I remember this one thing I read somewhere that sticks out.

If you don't expect to find truth here, where else do you expect to find it?

Anyway, in Zen there is no one book or set of guiding material that has been passed down through the ages. What material there is is even contradictory! Instead, Zen is seen as fundamental wisdom about the universe that can ONLY be personally experienced. A Zen master cannot “tell” you the answer. It is said that he can only point his finger at the moon, but would hope you do not mistake his finger for the moon! It is very different from western ideas. God for instance is seen more as the sum of the universe and it’s laws than a separate entity. So the point is no to think about the divinity of a can of coke, in fact that is to miss the point entirely. Zen temples are places to talk about zen but nothing really special. They would say to set up an alter to a flower if you wish... or the entrance to the temple is at the brook. It sounds mystical but it's whole aim is very different for most western religions. The whole purpose of zen as with buddhism is to achieve peace with yourself and the natural world. I think even the Buddhha himself said "You will not be punished for your anger but by it".

So what the heck is Zen? Well, it’s really hard to say, but here a few words that get the point of it.

Since it is all too clear

It takes time to grasp it.

When you understand that it's foolish to look for fire with fire,

The meal is already cooked.

-Wu-men

The Career Advice I Never Had

2008-11-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

I was looking through some shelves when I came across an old spiral bound notebook with the title “Advice to Rocket Scientists” – Longuski. Ph. D. What a strange book! My job could be construed as a dilute form of rocket science, so I picked it up. And I devoured it. I read maybe a quarter of it right then and there! This book just happened to address all of the nebulous career issues cannibalizing my mind recently.

And it was good! It’s refreshing to read something that talks about the aerospace industry so candidly. It’s good in the sense that I understood EXACTLY what he was talking about. The book is dedicated to technical people who are not prepared for office life and career politics. And who can blame us? We grew up on Star Trek and video games… yeah that stuff is made up but surely the real world isn’t so bad. It has companies that produce amazing flying machines, staffed by brilliant engineers who worked effortlessly together. What else but self managed geniuses could produce such monuments to engineering?

WRONG. Aerospace companies are like any others, though I have a feeling they have more than their fair share of disillusioned enthusiasts. Here is some of the stuff it talked about:

1. What is the most important thing about your job? Salary? The work? The Boss?

He claims it is your boss. He/She has control of the first two. You could have an awesome set of duties/responsibilities but your boss could ruin that experience and keep you from getting promoted or gaining recognition. I guess it’s obvious but management and immediate bosses have a huge influence on your career at this company or the next. They write reviews for other jobs and control the flow of information to the upper management. So if your boss is bad, leave. Consider a lateral move or just away, your career is too important (especially in its larval stages) to throw away. This all makes sense and is not obvious to young engineers who don’t really know what a boss can really do. Do great work and get promoted right? In a perfect world maybe.

2. That brings in the next point. Visibility. It is important to be and remain visible for the right reasons. Work on high profile projects, things that have the future of the company in hand. This works in direct contradiction to everything you learned in college… working hard does not automatically pay off. You must be on the right projects and bosses play a huge role in this.

3. Do not take a job that you know how to do. This job will get immensely boring in a few years. I completely agree with this. Aerospace is a field desperately in need of creativity and innovation. If you think a job is “below you” it probably is… Accept difficult tasks, especially something the company needs solved, and be confident. Furthermore, learn as much as you can in other fields while you complete your first impossible task. This is one of the sure fire roads to project lead, the holy grail of engineering.

4. Every 3 years make a lateral move if you cannot be promoted. This is not considered aloof or ADD, the truth is that 80 % of any fields’ practical knowledge base can be learned in 3 years. The last 20 % takes ten years plus. If you stay in one area you will become the guru in the field for the company, learning everything there is to know about it. (Everyone has a guru, someone who has shunned all promotion into management). Gurus will have had substantial salary increases but will plateau in ten or so years. In short, they will be necessary and well paid, but un-promotable. You will be seen as afraid of change and uncomfortable in other subject areas. I guess every company has project leads and presidents and they didn’t simmer in a group for decades to pop up to the top.

I wish I read this in college.

Symphonic Drive

2008-07-05T22:25:00.001-07:00

I listened to classical music for four hours straight during my drive to Corpus Christi.

First I had Beethoven’s Third thundering through my speakers. It was of course fantastic. I’ve never had the drive out to Sugarland be so dramatic. By the time the fourth movement came around the plastic molding was shuttering from the horns alone.

I was so keyed up I put in Dvorak’s Ninth. This was perfect for the thunderstorm I drove through all the way through to Victoria. It was AWESOME to have the triumphant theme blaring while I was driving through literally 10 feet visibility.

After that, things quieted down a bit. I listened to Schubert’s Unfinished symphony and then stopped to get a milkshake in Edna.

After that it was Bach’s fugues all the way to Refugio. I love his fugues as performed on an organ. I’m not just saying that either. They are by far the most played of my classical rotation. Truly, they are sublime. It is amazing to hear the voices toss the theme about and contort it into different shapes colors. This is done to each voice simultaneously while being played against eachother. It is said that Bach would even play fugues as a game. Someone would give him a theme or short musical phrase and he would improvise an ENTIRE fugue in real time. Essentially He would play the same theme against itself and transposed and in every which way and (now here is the kicker) he made it sound good. It’s like playing four games of chess simultaneously and winning.

The cool thing is you don’t have to be a genius to appreciate it. I think your brain vaguely knows something clever is going on as all the notes subconsciously fit into the original theme construct and make sense in the larger musical work.

So yes Bach is my favorite composer. However, my favorite piece of music ever is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I think it is the most moving and beautiful music ever written.

The Rabid Flying Cult

2008-06-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

I’m finally back with a post!
It’s only been what, 6 months? I’ve probably fully alienated anybody who reads these posts. Anyway I’m back, and I have a private pilot license in my wallet!
On February 1st I passed my checkride and am now a fully licensed Private Pilot, Single Engine Land. It was an eventful checkride and it deserves it’s own post as well. Maybe later.
In short, my examiner showed up late with a shirt that said “Alpha Wolf” on it and his computer played recordings that were straight from a 900 number. I had to spend 4 hours with this idiot but I endured and now I have that little green card!
Life has been good since then. I have flown regularly and it has been very rewarding. It is getting expensive but I consider it well worth the cost. Whatever that means.

It’s funny though. I was at dinner with a few friends and one asked me, “WHY do you go fly?” I kind of get that question a lot. I guess people think it’s some kind of outrageously expensive and strange thing to do. Some just think it’s dangerous and others even call it “impractical”. Does the word impractical even have any meaning in a world full of luxury cars, jewelry, and High Def TV? I mean, does it REALLY?
I get stuff like,
Oh, you’re going to Palacios? I can get there faster in my car with all the preflighting and driving to the airport you have to do.

The conversation is essentially over as far as I’m concerned; there is no common ground that can be reached. It’s like talking about religion or politics. What moves me is simply different from what may move you or anyone else.
Of course the engineer in me knows it’s true, all two degrees of him. There are faster ways to get to point A to B. These are concrete facts based on wind speeds and taxi times. But the soul in me did not even bother to do the math. If anything I wish my plane were slower so that I could enjoy the flight more.
In fact just last weekend I flew a friend of mine to Galveston. We flew out there and landed with a gorgeous view of the Texas coast sprawled beneath us. After we tied down we went out to grab a burger at the hotel. Then after that we got back to the airport we saw a helicopter land dozens of feet away! The breeze was nice and we just hung around our plane and watched a few planes land. We then climbed back into my trusty Piper Warrior and hurled ourselves into the sky.
Crawling along the surface in a car is blasphemy.

Flying for pleasure is done by such a small group that nobody really has experience with it. I guess if I met somebody who loved to dogsled around I would think that horrendously stupid, especially in Houston. But hey, if the man loves to dogsled, who am I to judge? If he literally dreams of dog sledding, how can he be expected not to? What kind of man would he be if he didn’t?

In other news, I bought a robot! It’s this cool little fully programmable robot sold by the Parallax company. It’s awesome. I’ve already got it follow a flashlight and avoid walls with “whiskers”. The next step is to use infrared beams to navigate across a room. Learning stuff is cool.

Suddenly, Stars

2008-01-14T21:21:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of a great book entitled "The Trouble with Physics". Its one of the few books that points out what is wrong with our theories of nature and what solutions maybe look like. They are pretty deep problems, the kind that leave physicists up late at night. Stuff like, why are quantum theory and relativity completely irreconcilable? Is quantum theory "real" aka are properties of particles still there when not observed? (Einstein in particular hated quantum which is ironic because he practically invented it). What is up with all the dark matter and dark energy? (Dark matter is in all observed galaxies and was discovered when it was found the rate at which stars are going around the galactic center of mass is way too high to account for the observed visible matter in it).
It's a whirlwind tour through the physics of the past few hundred years. It is also a good introduction to string theory which I am getting the impression that he does not like. All of physics research for the past 25 years has been based on string theory. It is a nice theory but it is impossible to test its results. Convenient huh?
Coincidentally, the Large Hadron Collider is still scheduled to be fully operational this year in Europe. Its the biggest particle accelerator to date and should get some press. The present day model for particle physics is referred to as the standard model and is considered complete except for a few particles, one of which being the higg's boson. It is thought the LHC has enough energy to create it. If this is found then the theory will be confirmed, if not then alot of people will be scratching their heads. Oh and as usual with ever new accelerator there are protests to its construction. Some fringe physicists think it might do anything from create a small black hole to convert the earth's mass to a small star composed of so-called strange matter. Don't worry, in any scenario the destruction would take a fraction of a second. So the question is how sure are we about our physics? Does the public even understand physics anymore beyond classical mechanics?

I just finished Carl Sagan's "The Variety of Scientific Experience". It was great, and it was nice to find something from Carl Sagan I haven't read. I share his sense of awe and wonder of the natural world. I recommend everything he has ever written.

Before that I finished Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker". It is a great book on evolution. I really wish my public education had mentioned evolution. The subject is completely fascinating because its subject matter is so large and universal. I mean it encompasses ALL life on earth. Not just monkeys which is what some people think of when they hear evolution, not just germs or fish but every living creature. I find the theory of evolution completely awe inspiring. It is one of the most beautiful things science has to tell us. Who knew that every living thing is related to one another. We are brothers with everything from butterflies to redwoods. Just contemplating this is one of the most spiritual things I've felt. And the evidence for this is overwhelming with corroboration from genetics, geology and all of modern biology. Amazing.

I also got a pair of image stablized bincoulars for christmas! They are amazing and I've already spent hours looking at the night sky through them. The views are spectacular. One perk about visiting my family's texas lake house is that the skies are nice and dark, and the stars big and bright.

Goals

2007-12-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

I've probably already lost any readers who check this blog but I'm going to post anyway.

Ok, so I've taken 3 flight lessons in four days adding up to almost 4 hours in the plane. I'm just about ready for my checkride! Today I went through literally everything I've ever learned in a plane. My instructor said if it had been my actual checkride I would have passed. Woo hoo!

It feels so good to be near a big goal in your life.

This makes me think about other goals I have for myself. I plan for even more life-affirming goals as this next year comes in. If it's one thing I've learned about myself it is that I like challenges and I'm not afraid to fail at something. At the end of my third year of professional life I have gone through 3 very different jobs and moved across the country twice. I have become certified as a flight controller which is something very new to me. I honestly thought it was just not going to be in my personality but it turns out it was. I remember even asking somebody for their advice and they said I should probably get more experience in analysis, that I was just too young. Well, that sealed the deal... I had to try. And I am glad I did, this life experience is so unique I could not pass it up.

All that said I still wrestle with my job, wondering if it is truly the right one for me. That's ok though, I'm still young :)

So I'll leave with a quote from one of my favorite authors.

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things . . . "

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Hallow what?

2007-11-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Halloween and it was pretty much the longest day ever with almost no Halloweeny things to do.

10am-2pm: work

5:30-7:00pm: took a test on the intricacies of MOSFET's, 3 to 8 bit encoders/decoders/multiplexers and mutltilevel NAND circuitry for my Digital Circuits class. (Tests are hard when you can't make it to class)

What a crazy class, I'm taking it for my own amusement. The whole class is basically a series of logic puzzles. It keeps me sharp, sort of . I know this sounds cliche but nothing really compares to the joy of learning something new. The a-ha! moment, that sudden illumination is something I live for. Hopefully I can keep myself in an environment where this is the norm and dare I say encouraged.

7:30-9:00pm: night take off and landing practice with my instructor. It was mind blowing as usual, night flying is so peaceful. Except for the landing part when your heart tries to leap out of your throat.

10:30-5am: Graveyard shift on console-put together a monte carlo simulation for a quick sep analysis between 2am-3am.

I don't think I've ever done so many varied things in one day.

Checkride Training

2007-10-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the PERFECT day to go flying. Well, it was a bit bumpy but who cares? That just makes it more fun. I went out with my instructor to officially start training for the checkride. It was a whirlwind. He had me doing everything from turns around a point and S turns to slow flight and stalls. It's amazing how quickly those skills rust over. Plus, with the crazy bumps staying within a 200 foot altitude band was harder than I expected.

Oh well, it was great training and the view was incredible. I flew over Alvin towards I-45 and I could see the little sailboats in the bay and Galveston off to the South. I love ground reference maneuvers because it's all out the window. I just can't get over how small cows look at 1000 feet.

Ok so that was all the easy part. We got back into the pattern and about halfway down the downwind leg he says, "Lets make this a soft field landing".

Alright, no problem. I'll need full flaps on final, but I'll pad my approach speed with 5 knots for the gusts. A little left crosswind but nothing to fret over. Then as I glide over touchdown I fail to bring the nose high enough. He took the controls and showed me as we glided over the runway.
"Like this" and he pulled the nose up to what seemed the empty blue sky. I was so used to normal landing i forgot how high the nose seemed on the ground as you tried to keep all the weight on the rear wheels. (The reason for this is to get the max braking effect on the rear and to protect the nose wheel).

Then while still coasting along on the runway he says "Alright, soft field take off".

Ack! Ok, 10 degrees of flaps and full power. I take weight off the nose again and try to fly her off the ground in ground effect. I get her up but i DONT hear the stall horn. It's counter intuitive but this is a situation where you do want to hear the stall horn and have it flying in the lowest speed possible. The ground effect is what helps you to cheat aerodynamics and get you flying.

So I fly her a few feet off he runway until she accelerates to climb speed and we are off again. At about 200 feet I go clean (or no flaps).

Then we do the whole thing again and I'm a little better but not much. I do have some things to work on but I'm there. This weekend I purchased some books to help with training. They include a guide to the oral exam and the standards for the checkride.

Yes there is an oral exam IN ADDITION to the written exam. The examiner can quiz you for as many as 3 hours on basically anything. He can say something like "Show me this airplane is legal to fly" or " what do you do if a passenger is hyperventilating". It's a final check to make sure that all those hours of studying will actually be useful in real world situations.

It's "studying" but I like it. I'm training for my checkride!

On a clear day, you can see for miles

2007-10-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

I did it!
I flew my long cross country. That's 217 nautical miles around Houston and it was awesome!
The trip was incredible and it couldn't have been on a better day. I could see for miles and miles in every direction. I was going to write a huge entry about the things that happend along the way. For one thing a country radio station interferes with the Clover field frequency. I've never felt more Texas than when I was flying over farmland with country music piping in over my headset.
Anyway this flight did alot of things for me. For one thing, my confidence was bult much more by being in that plane for so long. By the end she fit like a glove. It's a special bond a boy and his plane.
Mostly though any doubts I may have had about my new hobby were completely obliterated that day. I'm hooked. The view up there is just too beautiful. As I flew out to that first airport everything just felt right. I looked out over the horizon and I was not afraid or nervous. The horizon was now a place, it was somewhere to go and it called irresistably.
I'm thinking people become pilots for different reasons. Some do it for the personal challenge. Others are more adrenaline drunkies, the big kids looking for that next big rush.
I am in it for the view. I am simply awed by flight.

This instense fascination/appreciation for all of this has led me to reconsider some life choices.

The view of Clover field as I left on my first big trip. Notice the blimp in the grass field.

The patchwork farms

2007-09-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Today I flew my first cross country solo. I flew her from my field in Pearland down to Wharton and back… 101 miles through the skies of southeast texas.
This is what I have been training for. I have been striving to get to this point ever since I sat down in that left seat and puzzled over all the dials and controls. In fact, I remember awkwardly taxiing on the ground thinking, how am I ever going to fly this thing? Today it all came together.
So I was nervous in the morning. I had done some pattern work the day before so I was feeling pretty good about stick and rudder stuff. Today was different though. I was going to point the plane somewhere and go. I was going to navigate, use the radios and command my own mission over to Wharton and back. I would be all alone but I felt ready.
I went over my flight plan with my instructor and filed it with a weather briefer over the phone. My tanks were full with 4 hours of fuel, more than enough for my 1 and a half hour journey. (We are expected to take at least an extra half hour of fuel). I preflighted the plan and taxiied down to the runway. I taxiied like a pro.
I did my engine runup and set up the Loran ( a kind of terrestial GPS) for my direct route to Wharton. I took a deep breath and looked around for planes. This is it.
I turned down the runway and gave it full power… the white dashed lines whizzed under me faster and faster then a little pull back and WOOSH. I was in the air. I felt immediately calmer. The trees passed under me and I was on my way.
As I flew over the farms west of the airport I had a little jump. For a split second I didn’t know where I was! It was all patchwork under me, like a giant green quilt. Get it together I told myself, how far off could I be off? I mean I just took off!!

I scanned around me and nothing. It was the same in every direction. What the heck is going on? And then off to my right, just below the right wing a prominent road went off into the distance. Was that highway 6? If that’s it then 288 must cross it and… there it was!! Ok that means for whatever reason I flew southwest initially, no problem. I just turned right and headed for the intersection. I minor flub but it was enough to keep me in check the rest of the flight. The Loran was back on course and everything was fine. Now I know to choose checkpoints close to the airport so I can get an initial bearing. Take off and climbout are dynamic and it’s easy to let the compass drift off a little.

I leveled off at 1800 and looked out the window to make sure I knew where I was.
The big lake was off to my right and the two little lakes I was headed for reflected the sun beautifully. I knew if I headed for the lakes I’d be fine. And that was it. I just kept her trimmed and point for the lakes. Or rather you don’t neceassarilly point the nose at the lake. I mean, initially you do but if the wind blows you off course you will be fighting it the whole time. Instead, point the nose at the lake and if you get blown so the lake is off to the left, point the nose to the left of the lake. This will correct for the wind by putting some of your thrust into the direction of the wind. It’s known as the wind correction angle and can be computed before flight if you know the winds. Now, that angle just an initial guess! All that goes out the window during flight, you just do whatever you have to do to stay on course.

I tried to contact Montgomery Country Radio but nothing. I tried both frequencies. Oh well, I’ll just keep trying. I’m not going anywhere. I just looked out and scanned for traffic, and admired the view. Visibility wasn’t that great. It was called as 7 miles but it seemed a little worse. It’s a little unnerving to see white mist in every direction. 7 miles sounds like a lot but from 2500 feet, you always wish there was more.

I looked for other marker on the ground to confirm my position. There was Needville off to my right. Then there was New Gulf off to the left. I’ve seen cities from the air but this time it was different. I was flying over them. I wasn’t play a video game or watching passively from the passenger seat. This was real.

I located the airport from maybe 10 miles out. It was easy enough to spot because it is in the middle of nowhere. The characteristic white hangers lining the runway might as well have been neon orange. I make my call over the radio and one biplane remarked “she’s all yours” as I saw him take off and turn off into the west. The view of that biplane taking off from a lonely east texas airport at 1000 feet should be a postcard.

I got in the pattern, and turned on final. I was high! Very high. The papi’s were all white. Further telling me what I already knew. I let the power out and my approach steepened. Not enough.
I went to idle. Ok this will work but my deck angle is a little lower than usual. Well my airspeed is perfect and my projected landing spot looks good. I get to within 20 feet and flare and hold it off. Touchdown!!

I taxiied off and onto the ramp to get my head together. This was momentous for me. I had did it! But it wasn’t over. I went back to the start of the runway and did another engine runup. It all looked good. I realigned my gyro and I was taking off again.

The trip back was WAYY easier. I guess because I had already flown it. I even remembered terrain on the way back. Oh, there is that thick patch of trees over there past the twin lakes. Oh there is the golden patch with no trees over there. I had half an hour to calmly fly and drink in the view.
When I got back to the airport vicinity I had a bit of a problem finding the airport. Well I just didn’t find it immediatley. When you are in a plane and monitoring altitude and heading and wings level not knowing where you are going for even a split second is annoying. I just told myself to calm down, just look for it. I picked out off to my right and headed for it.

I landed with no problem. I had flown 101 miles and it was a great feeling. I taxied back and debriefed with my instructor. It couldn’t have gone better.

I remember getting in my car and driving away onto the ramp. My car had never felt so close to the ground. I felt like I was chewing grass. I felt like a bug… doomed to crawl along the surface it’s whole life while the heavens wheeled above him.

How I got my groove back

2007-09-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

I have not flown solo in a plane since June! That’s crazy. I met my instructor at the airport to do a few touch and go’s to get back into good form. We jumped in the plane and I found myself landing a little squirrelly again. I’d balloon up from the runway in the last 20 feet and then “save it” be nosing down and getting back into ground effect before my airspeed died off. Not very graceful at all.
Anyway I did the same thing twice and we taxied off the runway to get gas.

“How was it? Oh, I know they weren’t great”
“You are a little rusty but just take it up a few times and get back into it. I noticed you nose down a little during the final 40 feet or so. You pick up airspeed and then zoom up for the flare… try not to do that”

That was it!! The clouds parted and I saw the light. I had been doing that unconsciously and him saying that just made me aware of it. I think I would pick a spot to flare and would nose down to it when I came close. There is no sense in that. If anything just keep your airspeed good and flare wherever you have to.

So I went back up and that first landing was dare I saw PERFECT. I had found it. My groove was back. I didn’t even taxi off the runway, I gave it full power with flaps up and was back up in the air. I came back and another good landing!

Can this be working? Another touch and go and I was back for my third landing.
It was great. That was 3 good landings in a row. I was back and now more ready than ever for my 1st cross country solo.

Cloud Rapture

2007-08-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I flew a dual cross country to Beaumont. I was excited, this flight would involve jumping across Galveston Bay and talking to Beaumont tower. I got there at the crack of dawn, I almost slipped on dew as I hurried to do my preflight.
We set a course to fly down around Ellington airspace and then came across League City and Clear Lake. I could see my apartment! The air was a little unstable that morning so we could see large clouds building in the distance, especially out over the gulf. The view was amazing. As my head peered over the side I exclaimed over the mic, “this is why I’m learning to fly!”
And that was only the beginning. We got up to the bay and flew over the Kemah bridge at 1800 feet, just under Houston Hobby’s Class B airspace. The water and all the little toy boats slowly passed under us and the sun hit the bay making it glimmer and sparkle. The class B airspace above us higher at that point so we climbed up to 3500 feet. It took us around 13 minutes to cross the bay and it was over all too soon.
When we reached the opposite shore I could see lake anahuac off to my left so I knew were on course. There were a few scattered clouds below our altitude and my instructor pointed them out. It would be easy enough to avoid them and maintain VFR (visual flight rules) flight but they would continue to build. “in half an hour it’ll be worse?” I said. And he just told me to remember what it looks like right now.
At 20 miles out we called up Beautmont Approach and they told us to “squak” radio code 3457. This code is quickly dialed into our transponder so the controllers can identify our plane. We simply read back the number and that was it.
That is the trick when talking to tower, just say back what you the tower tells you. If they say maintain course and altitude of 2500 feet, parrot that back and go to that alititude. If anything it’s less workload because now they are taking care of you and vectoring you in to land. They also will point out other traffic to you as their workload permits. Awesome.
So we were cleared in for a right hand base turn into runway 12. The airport was pretty quiet and I landed no problem. One thing is there is a lot of “frequency” jumping. You talk to approach on the way in and then they hand you off to tower and once you are on the ground and off the runway you talk to ground control. This whole process is then reversed as you leave. Ground control hands you off to tower who then hands you off to departure.
As we left and climbed to 2500 feet I first noticed the clouds, they were everywhere! A layer was forming fast. I had to maneuver back and forth to get around them. I would fly over a few and under some, getting a sense of speed as they zipped by. It was what I always pictured flying to be. I looked back to the coast and what I saw is still burned in my mind. No wonder heaven is cloudy. There were clouds everywhere and building up to huge cloud cliffs out in the distance. They looked so crsip and clear with every bump and ripple reflecting the light and casting deep shadows. The sun was just above them pouring through the ethereal scene like a river of light. What really made it so breathe taking was the 3 dimensional quality the view had. It wasn’t the typical sky with clouds picture you see from the window. These clouds had dimension and depth. I was looking though dozens of miles in a giant cloud canyon.
And the canyon was floating. Below the streaky layers of the canyon floor was the patchwork farms of Texas. A water tower here and a few buildings there. Did those people realize how pretty it was up here?
In our everday lives the world gets abstracted away. The real world is not shopping centers and gas stations. It’s not even fake parks and golf courses. It was this, beautiful and sprawled out below me.

The Written

2007-08-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

I've been studying for the FAA Written exam off and on for the past few weeks. The test is 60 questions multiple choice with a 2 and a half hour time limit. The questions cover a broad range of topics from flight rules and regulations to aerodyamic theory to flight planning. I know this is going to sound nerdy but I actually LIKE studying for it. Each time I look through some of the outlines I learn something new. I've taken the test 3 times and can now finish it well under at hour with a score in the high 80s. Of course, that's not good enough... I'm shooting for a perfect score :)
This just confirms what I've been feeling lately. I'm only really happy when I am learning. In fact, after earning two degrees I'm still taking classes in the local community college.
So for anyone who might stumble across this blog, teach yourself something new!

Day/Night Cross Country

2007-08-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I had yet another chance to fly to Eagle Lake and then on to Brenham. I showed up at the airport at 6 pm ready to embark on my adventure. Is adventure too strong a word? Nope.. at least it certainly felt like one. My instructor and I were going to fly a small plane all over east Texas with most of the flying at night. It's more than your weekend movie that's for sure.

I did the pre flight and give him my flight plans. It was further evidence that pre-flights are vital to safety. Actually it was the first pre-flight where I found something significant, the pitot tube was clogged with dirt. The pitot tube is the small tube like thing sticking out into the oncoming wind. All planes have them, they can be seen near the nose of even the big commercial airliners. They measure the pressure of the oncoming wind to determine airspeed. Thus, the dirt in my pitot tube would have caused my airspeed to read wrong... very bad. The airspeed is one of the core instruments needed to fly a plane. In case you're curious the others are the altimeter, magnetic compass, fuel gauges, oil temp and pressure and engine tachometer. Pretty spartan huh? (thankfully even my Cessna 150 has more than that!)

So there are a number of things to do when you are leaving the vicinity of your airport. I made sure my flight plans were accurate with proper checkpoints, mileages, time of flight and fuel consumption. My instructor pointed out some of my checkpoints for the night legs would be hard to see at night. Duh! I don't know why I put rivers as checkpoints at night. I'll have to stick to major roads and cities off in the distance. I called the weather briefer to get the weather situation and he said it looked great for the night. Incidentally that is an awesome public surface, you call up this service and an actual person looks through radar plots and gives you a complete summary of expected weather in route. How convenient! Then you file a flight plan with the same guy. A flight plan is a quick summary of your flight with estimated time in route and fuel onboard. After you get airborne you call them and tell them to "activate it". They start a timer and if you don't close the plan upon arrival people start to get worried. Another great service, I am so glad this country has all of this aviation infastructure.

We didn't leave until 7:30 and headed towards Eagle Lake. Visibility was 8 miles and it was surprisingly hazy. 8 miles isn't much from 2500 feet. It was kind of spooky actually with the sun setting through the haze, it cast this orange glow all around us. We called the nearest Flight service station on the right frequency to open our flight plan and we were on our way. Wierd thing was they never answered us. We could hear the mic get keyed but no voice. We turned to other frequencies and could hear them. It must have been them with the problem. I hope Montgomery County radio fixes this soon.

The flight to Eagle Lake went pretty nominally. At 3 miles to the airport I began my decent and started looking for the airport. Based on my direction I would be coming on to it perpendicular.
I didn't see if for a while.... and was squinting and straining. Finally the instructor says, " look over your wing".
I was right on top of it. I was overflying it! I great big "ugh" comes over the radio. "Ok I'll bring it around in front and re-enter on the downwind leg"

A little while later I'm turning on final but i am WAY high. He says to add FULL flaps and bring the power to idle. I was high, if he wasn't there I'd have done a go around but there I was practically nose diving for the runway. It felt like it anyway. I pull up the flare and land. This is one small runway, the width is maybe half that of Pearlands. Maybe the width made me think I was farther spaced than I was on downwind leg thus resulting in my high approach.
Anyway there are no taxiways so we turn around and taxi back to the beginning of the runway and take off.
Taking off by the way is my absolute FAVORITE part of flying. It is such an incredible feeling to bring that plane off the ground and see the trees pass under you. It makes me happy just thinking about it again.

So now its practially dark and we are headed to Brenham, about 26 miles away. We get up to altitude and I look around to try and get my bearings. I notice crossing I-10, that is impossible to miss. Then a little while later I see the town of Brenham with the airport behind it. The strip has a pair of strong strobes at the end of it. At 14 miles out I can't miss it. This is a welcome relief because if I can't spot an airport in the day, I'm hopeless at night.

I enter the pattern for Brenham with traffic off to my right. We talked on the radio and he is going in after me. I turn on final and I'm high again. Not too high but high... Brenham actually has PAPI's. I forgot what it stands for but they are two lights that tell you where you are in the glideslope. Two while lights mean you are high. A red and white is right on slope and two reds mean you are low. I had two while lights for the entire approach.
I land a little long and we taxi off the runway. Two legs down!

The diner we were supposed to eat at was closed so we just talked about the trip, filed a new flight plan and we are off. The Brenham airport (code 11R) has sloped runway so our take off was slightly downhill. This resulted in the coolest take off ever. We we up to speed in no time ans we zoomed down.

The flight back to Pearland was an hour at night. Night flying is so peaceful. I didn't even have my hand on the yoke for most of it, steering with the rudders. It was an hour flight time so we just chatted and tried to identify landmarks. The air is calm and the view is beautiful. The bright orange glow of Houston was off to our left and the little cities were sprinkled down below us. We passed over Richmond at 2500 feet and it was gorgeous... then we turned and headed straight for Pearland. It was hard for me to figure out where I was through dead reckoning. We had a device called a Loran which is like ground GPS and so I knew where we were through that. My instructor was amazing at identifying every road and city in the distance. I don't feel so bad since he as flown here his whole life.

At 4 miles to pearland I keyed my mic 7 times and the runway lit up like a christmas tree. It was such a comforting site because I was getting worried about were it was. I circled in like a falling leaf and got lined up for approach. It was also high but not as high as the other two and I landed in the black void lined by lights. Well it wasn't that dramatic, our landing light is pretty powerful and lights up a good portion of the runway during landing. We were back.

Grand total was 2.9 hours of flying time with a good portion of that at night. I have one more dual cross country to a towered airport and then I'm on my own. I can't wait!

Fenway Franks

2007-07-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

So I had a big fat post about my last flying experience doing short take off and landings...
It's on another computer though so I wanted to throw up a single picture from my latest trip to Boston. (which is the best city ever by the way)

This was taken while spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon at Fenway. Talk about a baseball experience!
One lady was taken away on a stretcher, the people behind us were the rowdiest bunch ever..
And the sound of the stadium singing "Sweet Caroline" was amazing.
Oh and then a vendor ran up the stairs and dumped his whole tub of franks right next to me.

I had to snap a picture, it makes me laugh every time I see it. Shortly after that he put the franks on one side of his little hotbox and kept selling them. I wish I had a picture of his face because he did not look happy. I've never such a clear likeliness to this:(

Tonight I'm studying for my FAA written exam. The days to getting my license are numbered!!

Why I fly

2007-07-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

I forgot my Houston Sectional map at the airport and went to pick it up today. I stood there for maybe 15 minutes watching the planes come and go.
I swear, when I'm at the airport I feel like a lottery winner on acid.

My instructor said one question the FAA asks when you take your checkride is "why are you learning to fly?" Some people's reasons are for freedom to come and go without lines or hassle, others do it for the adventure and some just for the unique personal challenge. Sadly I even know many people who earned thier licsence and then never flew again.

As for me it is something I've wanted to do since I was maybe 4. Literally around the dawn of my own personality was when I started looking up and saying hey, those machines in the air aren't normal. They are little miracles. It's something more than a whirring clockwork of pistons and pushrods. It's a symbol.. a living and breathing symbol.

It was love at first sight but sadly I could never afford to learn. My only ticket to a halfway decent income was college and naturally I majored in aerospace engineering. The degree was easy.. it turns out when you are genuinely interested in something, it doesn't feel like work.
Even then I scraped by while in college and could only take a few introductory flights.

And now finally it is real. Being in the cockpit is real... landing in a crosswind with your heart in your throat is real... turning away with that storm in my face is real.

It reminds me of the Langston Hughes poem Dreams Deffered

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-L. Hughes

Cross Country Hazards

2007-07-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

Today was my first cross country flight and it definitley made an impression. I had planned a flight between my home airport and a place called Eagle Lake. It's a little airport smack in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if it was made solely as a destination for student pilots making their first cross country trips. My instructor tells me it was base for cropdusters at one time.
The airport is 50 miles or so away due west. I made up a flight plan counting up the mileage to various checkpoints along the away... It had distances to ground cues like road crossings and lakes or rivers in the area. I carefully planned everything taking into account winds that day, and resulting course corrections, resulting ground speeds and fuel burn. I say all this because I've done the whole flight planning exercise 3 times now. For reason or another I've had to cancel it resulting with replan. I can fly that route with my eyes closed now.

I showed up this morning and was called off due to weather. Dark clouds at 1400 feet and darker areas out to the west.

I came back later today (with a whole new set of calculations for the flight plan) and we called the weather briefer. He said there were storms to the south east of Eagle lake but they were moving slowly to the east and that we should be ok. We decided to go knowing that we might have to turn around due to that storm. I felt a little uneasy but I knew we had an out. There were substantial buildups of cumulus clouds out to the north of east and the ceiling was only at 4500 feet. It would be a fateful decision.

I got into the plane for the first time in a little less than a month and it felt good. It fits like a glove and I started it up ran through all the procedures like it was second nature. We got up into the air and I turned and set the course I had planned for. We called to activate our flight plan and started the egg timer. Our little adventure was about to begin.

As we flew along, the view was amazing. The visibility was only 7 miles and there was a haze making the horizon hard to make out so that made the whole thing a little unusual. The cloud buildups seemed to be all around us but they were well out of way. Except of course for the dark clouds out off to our left.

We proceeded to Eagle Lake and the checkpoints came into almost like clockwork according to my calculations... 7 minutes and there are those towers off to the right, 4 minutes and there is the lake off to the right. I was surprised at how well those predictions held out.

As all this happened that dark lines of clouds loomed ever closer. The clouds seemed to be at an altitude lower than ours and it looked VERY dark under them. I drank in the view. It was amazing to be up there around all that weather. Haze, towering clouds, and dark cloud fronts... beautiful but dangerous.

At 15 miles or so to Eagle Lake we decide to turn back. The storm is moving in our direction and although we probably could have made it in, the way back would have hairy. Ok, no big deal, I just initiate a 180 degree turn to the north and transition to the return flight plan. I felt pretty good about turning back. As we looked over our shoulder we could see lightning in the storm and we quickly decided we had made the right decision. As we came back our ground speed zoomed up to 102 knots. It was as if the storm was pushing us away.. I wasn't complaining.

We come back and we zip over my checkpoints like clockwork. I love it! My return plan had taken into acount a tailwind as well and so everything was fine despite the decision to return early. As we travel back to the airport the storms are chasing us. We find that at our home airport the weather advisory is reporting lightning distant in ALL quandrants! We hit a bit of rain and the cloud buildups were huge and EVERYWHERE. I circle into the pattern and set up for landing... and bit nervous about it. It has a good 10 cross wind and 45 degrees and this is the first landing I've done in a while. I turn a little early on final while still a little low but manage to save it by shallowing out my turn and bringing in some power. I land while kicking the rudder in a bit and though it was a little fast and my flare was a little late it worked pretty well.
We taxied quickly back to the hanger to talk about the whole thing.

First of all the storm had changed direction and speed within maybe 45 minutes. Not only that but a whole NEW set of much worse storms had popped up over our home airport. As we debriefed we heard the regular rumble of thunder to the west... the direction we came from. I could have spent the rest of my day at Eagle Lake if we hadn't have turned back. I then drove home in the heaviest storm I've been in down here. There was lighting bolts everywhere and I could barely see the car in front of me! A shiver went down my spine realizing how close we had cut it. With the information we had at take off we were go and IN ROUTE that all changed. In fact when we checked in told them our flight plan was closed due to turning back they said "wheew, thanks for checking back in, we were starting to get worried."

You were worried!!

Well this was all great learning experience and I'm glad I got to do it with an instructor and not just out there by myself. Besides, the view was tremendous. That is why I put myself through all this anway.

Here is a picture of the weather radar when I got home. We left from the area with all the red and were destined for that area with all the yellow. CRAZY.

Air Traffic

2007-06-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

Last night was my first solo outing since April 19th. It was excited to say the least. I got to the airport at around 7.pm. and I could here engines buzzing all around me. I looked up and even saw a little helicopter flying low in the pattern. Everybody had the same idea I did and decided to go out the airport as the summer sun was beginning to set. I was nervous because I didn’t like the idea of flying around in the pattern with so many planes. As I preflighted the plane I could hear plane after plane take-off from the runway. I decided to go up at least once to see if I can handle it.
I taxied up and in the pattern to find one plane in a left hand pattern and a helicopter in the right hand pattern. Ok, no biggie I can work with this. I waited for the plane to touch and go in front of me and radioed for the helicopter position. He was holding for me ( I forget helicopters can just hold) and I was off. Right after I took off an idiot in a Grumman that I hope I never meet again pulled onto the runway. He could barely speak English and was making all kinds of weird calls that night. Furthermore I don’t think he knew where I was in the pattern the whole time. I knew that Grumman was faster than me and apparently he didn’t. Anyway I take off and make my first left hand turn. I hear him radio he was “leaving the runway” which I thought was some kind of abort to the taxiway but no, he meant he was taking off. Ok no biggie… he doesn’t even really know english.
Now it gets hairy.
He makes his call that he is turning base while I was about to turn base. I radio, “did you say base?!”
No Answer. I turn and look around… Fuck, where is he?
Now I’m at final and call final. A little while later I hear him say, “did you say you were on final? Where are you?”
OK, that is not something you want to hear when you are controlling the plane at low speed, low to the ground about to land. I radio back quickly. “yeah I’m about to cross the threshold”
No answer back.
My landing flare then proceeds to suck and I know I can’t spend too long trying to save this landing much less pull off the runway with this RETARD right on my ass.
I initiate a go-around and start a climbout.
As I’m climbing out he radios “ Cessna do you see me?”
This is too much, I don’t know how this guy flies a plane legally. I radio “Cessna 59 Julia is leaving the pattern to the southwest”.
Right after that I hear, “Grumman Alpha turning crosswind”
CROSSWIND!!!! He must have been right behind me, retard.
I climbout out and away from that madman. I go out 5 miles to clear my head.
I fly around and try to relax a bit. My heart was pounding but I looked outside I started to relax. The view was beautiful as always. This is the reason I put up with the headache of pattern traffic.
Then I hear a plane say he is departing and going to be orbiting the runway at 1400 feet. Oh well, he’ll be over my head when I get there.
He will be long gone out of the pattern airspace by the time I get there though.
Then I hear the Grumman retard say he has landed. Alright, I’m going back for some pattern work. I do a 180 and come back in to land. As I am positioning myself to enter on the downwind leg I hear he is taking off again.
SHIT, why does this guy haunt me so?
Ok, I’ll just get behind him. I do a turn for spacing and I hear another call.
“Be advised I’ll be using the grass below you cessna 59”.
I radio back “Copy at what altitude?”
“oh about 800 feet”
Ok, I see the guy above the horizon orbiting doing tricks at 1400 feet. I see the cub tacking off under me and I hear the retard making his base call. I’m at 1000 feet and radio I’m entering the downwind leg.
I hear the retard’s final call and I am comfortably midfield in the downwind leg.
The retard exits the runway as I am on turn from base and I land.
I came down like a ton of shit.
I pulled up way to hard and ballooned up. I gave it a little power which was the wrong thing to do. I cut power and come down again.
Wheels touch but I have too much speed and hop up again.
I’m flying a little and a second touchdown. This one is better and I’m down. I taxi off the runway.
No more touch and go’s. I’m burnt out for the day.
Grand total, 1 go around and 1 landing.
I worked hard for them though.

Trust the Dials

2007-05-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

So the plane has been back up. I haven't updated because there was a crack in one of the nose struts that grounded the planed for a few weeks. I've had two awesome lessons since then.

The first lesson was crosswind landing practice. I definately could have done better but it wasn't so bad. Landing the plane safely is a good landing to me. I did progressively better until I just totally hosed one of them. It was to the point where Jeff crumpled his face and said "ooo, that's not good for the plane". Thank God for prevailing winds.

The next lesson was instrument flying... a whole hour of it! It was a beautiful Saturday morning and once I had lifted off and set a course for due South, Jeff handed me a pair of blinders. It's a set of opaque glass with lenses cut out of the bottom half so you can only see the panel. I was tasked to do a series of maneuvers only by watching the dials and gauges! It is challenging at first but rapidly becomes maneagable.The only thing is you can't get lazy, you have to continually scan everything from the airspeed to the altimeter to the attitude indicator and heading indicator. It's not so bad at all when you are leveled off because you can trim the aircraft to that speed. In fact you can let the yoke go for a while and you will maintain alititude and heading reasonably well. These GA planes are designed beautifully stable. In fact most of the pilots inputs are OVER-controlling the plane. It practically flies itself... more of a reason for anyone reading this to take lessons!
A pilot's licence requires 3 hours of instrument training. Why? you might say, can't only instrument rated pilots fly up through clouds? The answer is yes, federal flight rules maintain that non-instrument rated pilots must be clear of clouds by 500 feet vertically and 2000 feet horizontally. The idea behind the training is that if one were to inadvertantly fly into a cloud, one that could intiate a turn of 180 degrees and fly out of it. No arguments here.
So the maneuvers are trickier. We did constant turn rate turns while mainting altitude. A constant turn rate is designed to get the turned in a full 360 degree circle in 2 minutes. It feels very slow in the cockpit and has very shallow bank angle, only maybe 10 degrees. It is amazing how little you feel while turning. In fact the only indication I had I was turning was by seeing the heading indicator turning. Our ears can only sense angular accelerations. We can only feel the intial thrust of getting into a turn but once we are happily turning our inner ear decides we must have stopped by now. I wish we had evolved a turn RATE indicator, that would have been nice.
So then came the constant speed climbs and decents. These are fun and more challenging. To climb give the engine full power and pitch up to about 10 degees, wings level. Once the higher pitch angle is in there, the alitmeter will begin to spin up.. the climb has started. Meanwhile using the pitch input you can control the speed of the climb. Pull back and you can do a steeper slow climb, even at around 60 knots. Push forward on the stick and you will do a faster shallower climb at around 70 knots are so. During all of this heading must be maintained and alititude scanned so as not to overshoot the target altitude. Once that altitude is reached nose the plane over and reduce engine power. You've climbed in a cloud for all you know. Decents are kind of the opposite, reduce engine power and slightly nose over.
The final exercise was to do a climbing turn and decent. This requires almost everything to be monitored and controlled simultaneously. Once the climb is started the wing is dropped a little to get into a turn and then presto. The heading indicator is turning and the altimeter is spinning up. After airspeed looks good just wait until each dial gets where you want it too. The creepy thing is that I FELT like I was flying straight and level with not climb. In truth I was climbing AND turning! I know everyone has read this effect but the point wasn't really driven home until that lesson. Trust the Dials.

First Steps

2007-04-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

I've flown alone twice this week. I was a little hesitant Monday because the ceiling was 1500 feet and it was hazy. They were calling it as 6 mi visibility and since 3 mi is the legal limit, I went up. Well, once I was airborn I knew it was a mistake. The ceiling may have been 1500 but there was thick haze gradually fading down towards the ground. I couldn't make out the true horizon and at 600 feet on the climbout I knew I was not venturing far. I simply turned back torward the downwind leg and headed back. As I did my decending turns toward the runway but I felt like they were all off because of the lack of a true horizon. I landed and that was the end of that lesson.
Today however was my first TRULY solo lesson. For the first time, Jeff didn't even show up to the airport. I showed up, unlocked the hanger and pulled back the doors to reveal that beautiful flying machine. Today was different, today Jeff had entrusted her to me and my mission was to fly her out to the practice area and bring her back safely. This would be the first time I left the pattern alone.
I pulled her out and did the longest most thorough pre-flight I've ever done. I took my time checking every bolt, even stopping to hear the small creakings as the frame seemed to settle on the wheels. Had I ever heard that before? I must have, it stopped after a few minutes.
I got in and took two deep breathes... Only one month ago, TO THE DAY I had soloed. Now I was pulling it out and flying out to the practice area on my own!
I started up the engine and configured the cabin. The wind was almost direct crosswind at 6 knots. It should veer around to down the runway when I get back and crosswind takeoffs are easy, I decide it is acceptable. I took off with nobody in the pattern... the airport was quiet except for me. Then instead of turning into the downwind leg, I depart. I set a course for heading 21 and keep climbing. I look out the window and the view from 1500 feet has never been sweeter.
As I flew away from the airport. I started to hear people on the radio. There was somebody in the pattern and someone 11 miles out in the southwest. Hey I'm going to the southwest, where is he? It's tricky because people are never where you think they are and sometimes not even where they called out to be. A little while later I saw a small white plane about 4 miles away off my left wing zoom by. How did I see that? Thankfully I've been pretty good at spotting planes. I hear more traffic at the airport so I decide to just fly around. can you believe it? I had the plane all to myself and just flew around, it was an amazing feeling of freedom. I pulled a sharp turn and soaked in the view. For all the grief I give southeast texas, it is gorgeous from above.
I flew around for a while and when it quieted down at the airport I turned back. I had a little moment of panic when I didn't immediately see the airport. Eventually though at about 6 miles I picked it out. I called my position and headed in. I joined the downwind leg pretty close to the runway though. As I was correcting I noticed I had lost 200 feet as well. I was coming to the landing steps and was not at my prescribed hieght... what to do. I proceed to base leg and when I turn to final I find I have overshot by alot and am closer than I thought. With the crosswind I decide not to try and save it, I radio I am going around and give full power and push in carb heat. Flaps go up and I am climbing above the runway. I rejoin the pattern and its all nominal from there.
As I pull off the runway after landing I still think I have it in me to get in one more landing. I take off again and run through the pattern. Everything was right on down to about 20 feet. Then wheels hit and a bounce.. a big bounce. SHIT! I was high again but she was coming down. Then a gust from the left and I'm yawed now, with my nose off to the left. I remeber applying controls but they were sloppy, they always are when I'm slow like this. Especially the rudder and ailerons.
I manage to save it with the rudder and pull back again for the second big landing hop. I land a little sideways and use up so much runway I have to taxi to the far end. UGH, it was bad. I wish I had a video of it, it was my worst landing in a while. I was bummed but still on a huge high from all this. It's a good day when you tell yourself, I can't believe I did that!

Ode to the Airplane

2007-04-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

Blogging about flying doesn't do flying any justice. All I can really do is share my enthusiasm for it. I can't think of anything else that brings together so many of my interests. It feeds the engineer in me, the adventurer... the poet. It polarizes and motivates me in a way few things ever have.
This weekend I can say nearly all of my activities somehow related to flying. I even built an AM radio receiver to pick up aircraft communications in the area. It was a labor of love... I don't think I've soldered that much since college. I had my windows open the entire weekend to get the smell out of my apartment. Anyway, I'm amazed it worked the first time I applied power! I played with it at the airport today.
I also taught myself how to use the circular slide rule flight calculator... that thing is such an amazingly clever device. It is so fiendishly clever! With just the turn of a dial almost any quantity related to flight and flight planning can be "dialed" up. I love it.
Today was beautiful. I flew with Jeff to the practice area and did some ground reference maneuvers at 1000 feet. I can't decide what I like best, the view from high altitude or low. Oh who cares they are equally awesome. Ground ref maneuvers are fun because I'm always peering out the window flying to cues located on the ground. I never realized how many cows there are laying around this place. I even did one of my turns around a cow.
Then we brought it back and I did 4 touch and gos with him in the plane. I nailed them all. I was on today. My hour lesson however was up and we went to the gas tank to fill up. After that Jeff asked if I had a wanted to do a few solo runs. I couldn't resist. I was off and got in two solo landings.
He even told me what I have been waiting to hear. The time has come for me to make my first solo ventures to the practice area and back. I can't stray too far, 25 nautical miles is the legal limit. Still though, this is a great time.

indie for the red states

2007-04-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

I heard that Sup-Pop and Matador Records are going to put out a compilation of various highly popular indie bands. (For all that don't know indie is short for independent- usually meaning a small self financed record company). Think of every cool song you've heard on a commercial, it will probably be there. Indie heavy hitters like Bloc Party, the Shins, Bright Eyes, Air, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, M. Ward, Ted Leo, Cat Power, Silversun Pickups, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Sonic Youth.
The goal is to put the record on the shelves in the Wal-Marts of the midwest and throughout the land. Is this a good thing? I think its a stupid move to put it in Wal Marts. Will Joe-Big Gulp like The Shins?
I think if they put the record in the Targets it would sell though. Getting good music out there is a good thing.
I'm an admitted music snob but indie can't be so underground that nobody can hear it. I think its a good thing if the bands themselves don't sell out. That is to say, doing what EVERY band who becomes popular does. They stagnate creatively sticking with only what sells. Remember Metallica? They were musical geniuses up to and including And Justice for All... after that it was bubblegum crap.
The most forgettable music is stuff that was written to fly off the shelves.

Urchin - self titled or Ode to XM and Itunes my musical messiahs

2007-04-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

I have an xm radio subscription and I don't see how I could live without it. I mean I don't even live in Houston, I live in a bland suburban cultural desert. I have to drive an hour to hear a symphony play, to see a museum or even see a baseball game. The only thing to do here is go to a restaurant really, or go flying. My only link to the creative output of my fellow humans is through my space radio and itunes. How sad is that. I'm thinking my life act III is going to be set in New York.
Boo hoo, I brought this on myself. My point is I would never have heard of band like urchin without my space radio. It is electronic ambient music, full of bassy beats and highly polished electrono-sonic wizardry.. Yet, despite its repetitive nature, it never gets old! It's pretty much the opposite of the Beatles... trying more to establish a mood through gradually changing grooves. It is great driving music and will probably be playing in a Starbucks soon. The music is very atmospheric and almost creepy. The whole thing plays out like watching a memory.

Leaving the Cradle

2007-04-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

This lesson really caught me off guard. I have been flying around in the pattern for the past 9 lessons. 9 Lessons!! That is to say 76 take off and landings all in a row. TOL has been my life and life has been good. (As of now I've done 86 landings but who's counting?)
Today however we left the pattern. He explained I was to do 4 maneuvers and bring her back for a handful of crosswind landings. Ok I told myself, I have just found myself in my most challenging lesson ever... stalls and crosswind landings. I haven't even thought about stalls in months and crosswinds have just been off the radar lately. Now, it was go time.
I performed the crosswind takeoff and climbed out to the southwest up to 2500 feet. First thing was a steep turn to the left. I bank it over to 45 degrees and in watching that attitude indicator with an intense focus I made the cardinal sin for steep turns. I let the nose drop. This starts a decent and I found myself in a really in a steep decending turn. Jeff points it out as I shallow out a bit and pull up feeling some Gs push me down into the seat. I keep in the turn and do a full 360 about face. Ok, that was a rookie mistake, I have to save face. I start another turn to the right and this one is right on, less than 100 feet of altitude loss. Bring it on.
Next is slow flight. I love slowflight. It is a technique to significantly slow the airspeed of the plane. In fact if there is a stiff headwind you can get the thing to practically hover! Slow flight is possible with a suitably high angle of attack and power setting. A high AOA is needed to create the required lift due to the reduced airflow, the high power setting is to overcome the drag induced by the larger cross sectional area presented to the airflow. I slowed her down perfectly... and captured a mere 45 knots with almost no altitude loss. Textbook! I was feeling good.
Now it was stall time. I am not ashamed to say stalls have made me uncomfortable since I met them. This is probably because the second time I performed one I got it into something called an incipient spin. Look it up, its bad. Good thing Jeff was in the plane because I freaked.
So a power off stall is just what it sounds like. It is a maneuver to pitch up the plane high enough to make the airflow separate from the wing, thereby causing a loss of lift. To recover all that is needed is to pitch the plane over to pick up airspeed and get the plane flying. Easy enough right? Just pitch the plane over as it falls from the sky. Piece of cake.
I reduced power, and threw in 30 degrees of flaps. I watch as the airspeed needle quickly sank and then against all instinct pulled the power. The plane quieted to hum and I began pitching up. The sky is all in the windshield and the stall horn began to cry out its horribly high pitch squeal. The frequency went even higher and silence... I was falling and the plane was pitching over. Ok, give it full power and presto! I'm flying agin.
The power off stall went perfectly... he even made me do a turning power off stall. It was awesome, I felt in control the entire time. I wonder though if I'd ever do one alone in the plane.
The power on stalls were less awesome. I had trouble getting them to "break". I'd just kind of hang in stall territory where the deck angle is high, the p factor is high and my speed is slow. It's not a good place to be. We called it off and headed back to the airport.
The entire time he was getting me to be more aware of my location relative to the airport. Pretty soon I'll be able to take the plane away to the practice area by myself and it'd be nice to know how to bring it back. It's amazing how tiny that airport looks from 5 miles and 1500 feet in the air.
I entered the pattern and got ready to land her in a gusty 9 knot crosswind. My first approach was good until the final 20 feet. I didn't apply enough rudder to align the body of the plane with the runway. I ended up placing on the ground slightly sideways. I correct once on the ground but that isn't great for the plane. I gave it full power and lifted up off with the yoke turned into the wind. I was off again.
For that entire set of landings I just was not compensating for the wind the way I should have been. I was being blown off course during the climbout and landing hard. Maybe my brain was full but it was a good experience. I got in 5 landings that night. It was a big lesson and I plan to do better this Sunday for my next. If all goes well he plans on giving me the combination to the hangar this weekend. I will be free to take the plane out, preflight it and fly it to the practice area and back. I am almost as anxious as I was for my solo!

2nd Solo

2007-04-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

Even when flying is bad, it's good. Today I was able to pilot that little Cessna 150 1000 feet into the air and bring her down safely 3 times. It was solid, but far from perfect. I just wasn't hitting on all cylinders and generally felt "behind" the plane the entire time. This is no more evident that in my second landing. But to explain Ill have to give a little background.
So there are 4 things to keep in mind during the decent and final approach of a small airplane. The first is something called carburetor heat. Its basically a work around to fix a quirk about carbs, their inlets ice up! They may even ice up on a perfectly nice sunny day since what matters most is humidity. To protect for this a knob in the cabin is pulled to duct warm air from the engine into the carburetor. Simple enough. It works except it robs the engine of power. The warm air is less dense and produces a leaner fuel/air mixture. I learned this first hand today.
The next thing is flaps. Flaps are awesome. They are slowly lowered throughout the decent to lower the airspeed and the stall speed. Like everything it has its drawbacks though. They can be summarized in this cheesy sentence. Flaps make the wing more lifty at the price of being more draggy.
Then there is engine power. It must be adjusted to account for the vertical speed or decent rate. This keeps the so called glideslope in check. If you are to high come off on the power to come down... to low then bring it in to climb back up.
The final thing is AIRSPEED. Airspeed is the key to everything and must be monitored very carefully. Unless you were born on a plane, it comes as a shock that airspeed is controlled primarily through attitude. If you nose the plane over you speed up, pull up and the speed quickly bleeds off.
Ok so the carburetor heat knob is pulled when the decent is initiated. On my first time up by myself that day I pulled the POWER all the way out instead. The plane went abruptly quiet and the plane nosed over. SHIT I said out loud and over my headset. This is an amateur mistake. I knew exactly what I had done and quickly pulled heat out as well. On hindsight this wasn't so great since that robbed the engine of even more power and sure enough I had nosed a little further down... causing airspeed to build further. I pushed the power back in to the approach setting of 1700 RPM and threw in 10 degrees of flaps. I look back over my shoulder and the runway hasn't drifted too far back. I'm still on schedule.
I make my two turns and now I'm on final. I have 30 degrees flaps by now. There is a little right crosswind and I turn my nose into it to counter it. I'm now tracking the runway in a "crab" sort of manner, flying more out of the side of the plane. The runway is in the same position in the window but getting bigger. That's a good sign, my approach angle is right on. The speed is perfect too... 60 knots.
I get down to about 20 feet off the runway and I notice I still have power in. I normally would have chopped it a little before. No biggie, I chop it then. And then a gust from the right. No problem, i stomp on the rudder to align myself and start to pitch up for the landing flare. I pitch up to high and the plane balloons. This is a term for being to aggressive during the final pitch up maneuver causing the plane to zoom upward. Remember, I don't have power so any zoom will cause my airspeed to drop. It rose a little higher than expected and now I'm 40 feet above the runway and airspeed is bleeding off. In that split second I decide to abort the landing. I have to mentally transition to takeoff and impliment it.... and fast.
I give the plane full power and she responds by pitching up further. This is ok and expected but my speed is not building at all. No wonder, I'm still in landing configuration. I have my flaps hanging out in the flow and I hit the flaps up switch. I lose all 30 degrees in 20 seconds. It is unfortunate that this is a 3 position switch which brings them up all at once because now I'm losing lift. It is not comfortable to see the runway gently coming closer when fully expecting to climb out.
In this time frame I'm still not seeing the climb performance I expected. The flaps are almost to the top though. Why the HELL isn't my airspeed building faster.
That damned carb heat knob is still pulled out. I let out an audible UGH, and shove it in with a hard smack. I immediately feel a burst of power from the engine. It was kind of like somebody hit the turbo button on a racing game. Finally speed is building and I am climbing comfortably out.
The moral is that a go around is much more intense when it is NOT planned. I know now to give it carb heat along with power, maybe even holding both knobs and advancing simultaneously. Also, those flaps should be added incrementally. Throwing them all up is a drastic wing shape change and all the precious liftiness can't afford to be given up when that low and slow.
If anything I feel that I handled the situation well, adapting quickly to my own mistakes. Did I mention I love flying?

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

2007-04-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for this album. I waited all this year and the night it came out I downloaded it. I couldn't even wait to go to Best Buy to buy one of the thousand cheap copies they were sure to have.
I listened to it straight through that night. My experience with this record is similar to my romance with Taco Bell. I crave those grilled stuffed burritos for like a month and when I finally get them, it's shark week on discovery. I devour them in frenzy. I end up paying for it the rest of the night and am generally embarrassed about the whole thing the next day.
This album has just lost its charm over the last few weeks.
That said, the single Intervention is amazing. It is worth a quick dollar download from itunes or wherever. The only other tracks I still like are Ocean of Noise, and My Body is a Cage.
Thier first album, The Funeral is perfect.

The Good, The Bad And The Queen - self titled

2007-04-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who got that Gorrilaz album Space Monkeyz vs. Gorillaz - Laika Come Home? I bought it in Havard Square one cold winter only because the cover had a picture of a monkey with a space helmet. It is a remix of the Gorillaz debue album with trippy dubbed bass lines. It reminded me of monkeys and tropical islands, brilliant.
Anyway, lead singer Damon Albarn has created the skinny hipster equivalent of this album in the The Good, The Bad and The Queen. And it works. It is brimming over with BASS LINES! Bass lines that have been so shunned lately. Basslines to piss off the people who live under you. F U Jack White.
So I give this album a 7 out of 10. It's good but I don't remember individual songs. It all kind of blends together as a slowed down reggaeish mess with Damon kind of whining over it. It's a genuine performance at least. (though a far cry from his Blur work) I recommend it for lazy drives and background music while at work.

Suborbital Skydiving with a soundtrack- amazing

2007-03-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

Gnarls Barkely- St. Elsewhere

2007-03-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hip hop is not dead. If it is then Gnarls Barkley is the undead zombification of the rotting corpse that is hip hop. And guess what, zombies are cool!
First of all I know what you are thinking. I set up this blog to review indie records and maybe in the process help introduce people to the incredible wealth of music out there on indie labels. I'm pretty sure you can get Gnarls at the local grocery store if not for 10 bucks at Best Buy.
This is for good reason though. It is for a lack of a thesaurus really really good. It is exactly what mainstream music needed, something bold but not too bold. It is something new but really not that new. Think of reimagined music that your weird old uncle would have had in his Pontiac. Soul has never been this hip.
This album is chock full of soul, weird funky beats, a Halloween vibe (did somebody say zombies?), and a runaway hit single that just will not go away. The video for Who Cares? is funny and weird at the same time. How can you not like a lonely Dracula walking the streets of present day New York?
My favorites include Go-Go Gadget Gospel, Who Cares?, Just a Thought and Storm Coming.
The beats are are all chopped up and the whole thing just feels very new. It's definitely not your daddy's soul music. I found out that Danger Mouse actually produced it and I'm not surprised. Everything that guy touches turns to gold.
Get it. It will be next to whatever those hacks the Killers have put out.

Peter Bjorn and John- Writer's Block

2007-03-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

I bought this album with a quick and determined click upon hearing the 30 second sampling offered by itunes. It is not the best album ever but then again how many are? I'd have to give it a 6.5/10.0. It stands on it's own two feet but I find myself already "forgetting" about it.
The standout in my mind is definately the 2nd track Objects of my Affection. It is heartfelt and genuine...though bittersweet. It is the jewel of the album followed only by quirky hook infested jingles that so often populate indie records.
They are nice enough though. The song "Start to Melt" is fun with a wierd distorted 60's background. Unfortunately the song doesn't really go anywhere. Know what I mean? It's kind of the same feeling I get when listening to a jam band. I think to myslef, they are really good and I like the feel of thier stuff... but Geez why am I so BORED?
Ok enough Swedish bashing, the glass is slightly more full than empty.
I guess the novelty of their goofy swedish accents faded a little faster than I thought it would. I probably haven't learned my lesson though. Curse you Itunes.

Beirut- Gulag Orkestar

2007-03-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

This is my vote for the best album of 2006. Why? First of all, it is one of the few CD's to remain in the upper layer of the stack i keep tucked away under the dash. I have to admit the shmaltzy horn solos just never get old and I find myself humming them months after first hearing this soon be indie classic.
It is -gasp- DIFFERENT. This a good trait for an indie record. The album is an attempt to meld east european gypsy music with folk-pop and topped off with a slight but noticeable electronic sheen. There is everything from horns, accordians, synthesizers to cow bells... all coming together to create one of the most genuine performances I've heard in a long time. It even brings to mind references to the mother of all indie albums- In the Aeroplane over the Sea.
This shouldn't be surprising because half of Zach Condon's band is actually from Neutral Milk Hotel! There is definitely a resemblance. In fact I loved the album so much I bought the follow up EP- Lon Gisland. It's funny how a misplaced spacing can make a phrase sound so foreign. It is kind of metaphor for what he has done with his brand of gypsy pop.
Now for the short and sweet of it. The album starts out strongly with loud spanish horns set to the broken beat of some eastern bloc funeral. The ethnic tone is set and like most great albums the mood is predominately introspective with some notes of somber remembrance(The Canals of Our City) and some of unbridled joy (Scenic World). The album then ends with a beautiful electronic sequence set to the sound of applause. Perfect.
There are four highpoints in the Gulag and Lon Gisland combined work- Postcards from Italy, the two versions of Scenic World, and Elephant Gun. If anything the singles Postcards and Elephant Gun can be downloaded from the indiepop podcast.