Anton's House Of Blog (v.2.0.0)

Ukulele Tabs: The Charleston

2011-07-27T22:01:00.002-04:00

Cory told me to upload some ukulele tabs today, so here's one that I transcribed from ukulele mike's version of 'The Charletson' I saw on YouTube:

Here's the tab:

My version is a little different in the second run through the chorus, since I switch up for the higher D7 instead of using the 'Hawiian D7' twice in a row, but other than that it's pretty much verbatim.

Mowhawk River 2

2011-06-05T12:52:00.006-04:00

View Mowhawk River 2 in a larger map

Yesterday I went for a paddle on the mowhawk river, a different part than last time when I went with cory.

This time I put in a little further down the river, near the locks that lead to the Hudson. The launch point was actually pretty nice - it was pretty much a huge parking lot with two boat ramps and a dock along with a large rocky beach.

There were a bunch of cars with boat-trailers (and a few jet-ski trailers). There was also a family doing some fishing, who had managed to block access to both boat ramps: parking their cars so that anyone launching their boats couldn't get a straight approach with their trailers, and then setting up and fishing from the other ramp.

The launch point was right by a dam, but the current wasn't strong at all. I think there was a landfill area close by, which attracted a large number of turkey vultures.

The weather was excellent, and the water was pretty warm. I saw a ton of huge carp in the shallows, which are always amusing because they let you get close enough to poke them with your paddle before suddenly splashing away.

I also spotted another large snapping turtle feeding on some plants, he was a bit smaller than the one I saw last weekend, and his shell was completely covered in brown plants, which made him look like a shaggy rock. I didn't even realize it was a turtle until I saw it taking a bite of a plant and then, when it realized I was right beside it, burying itself in the mud on the bottom. I tried to get some pictures of it, but the combination of the mud, silty water, and glare from the water made none of them look like anything but some soupy water. Here's a picture of some cute goslings instead:

I also passed a bunch of other places that would be suitable for launching a canoe or kayak, as well as another public boat launch. I had never realized there were so many places to access the river before.

I paddled up to the highway bridge across the river (the place where cory and I had turned around when I'd paddled the river last year) before turning back.

Altogether it was a superb day.

A couple more pics available here.

Broken Paddle

2011-05-30T19:11:00.004-04:00

Here's the damage that was done to my paddle on the camping trip the other weekend.

I picked up another beavertail paddle and a bent-shaft wide-bladed paddle to replace it. Now I just need to figure out what to do with a broken paddle.

Day Trip - Burden Lake

2011-05-30T18:51:00.013-04:00

So the weather finally cooperated today, and I decided to head out for a few hour paddle to a lake that's not far from here called 'Burden Lake'.

View Burden Lake Paddle - 2011-05-30 in a larger map

I'd done my recon (using google maps) to find a parking spot where I could launch the canoe nearby, and it worked out perfectly. There was a nice big crushed stone area to park, and a couple access points on a small road.

Just after I got there some other people showed up and started doing some fishing. I had to pardon myself and squeeze past the one guy to get in the water. Was a little awkward.

The launch point was a bit boggy. With that stinky-ass water you get in a marshy bay. That was really my only complaint. The parking was excellent and the people around seemed nice enough.

I paddled around a little bit in the bay, coming across a bunch of fish nests underwater. It was really neat to watch them chase each other around to defend their nests.

I probably saw more fish today than most times I go out. Maybe it was the time of year, but I saw everything from tiny minnows to large bass cruising around.

I came across a little inlet stream running into a secluded bay, so I decided to paddle up it a bit.

It was pretty neat, just wide enough for the canoe and pretty grown in. I didn't go in too far, since I realized I was picking up a large number of hitchhikers (spiders, grubs, crazy bugs). I stopped for a bit to squish spiders and whistle at a red-winged blackbird that was going nuts chirping at me. I must have been near his nest or something.

Getting out of the little stream was harder than getting in, it seemed like all the branches were pointing in the opposite direction, but I eventually made it.

The big reward of my little side-trip was seeing an absolutely HUGE snapping turtle digging itself into the mud on the way out. I couldn't get the camera out in time, but he was probably at least two feet across.

After that little interlude I paddled up the lake, slipping through a culvert and under a bridge.

It was extremely nice weather, so people were out on the lake. There was quite a bit of traffic for a lake of that size, which surprised me.

I stopped on the side of the road where there was a nice little landing to stretch my legs, eat some of the sandwich I'd brought, and go for a quick swim. The water was WAY warmer today than it was when I went camping last weekend. It was very comfortable.

After that I paddled down the other side of the lake. This side of the lake was a lot less populated for some reason (it seemed a lot steeper, and I think it was much more rocky).

I passed by a deer carcass in the water, which was really surprising. I would have expected that snapping turtle to be there instead of the other side of the lake :).

I pretty much continued around the lake and back to the place where I put in my canoe in.

As a side note, I tried using the new bent-shaft paddle I picked up to replace the one I broke last weekend. It is really nice, giving quite a bit of power. It's a little more difficult to J-stroke with though, since the bend reduces the amount of leverage you get for the correction part of the stroke. I'm still really happy with it though, and it got more use today than my other straigh-shaft paddle.

All in all, an extremely nice day. The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze, and the water was warm and clear.

The full set of pictures from the day are available here.

Camping!

2011-05-23T13:04:00.032-04:00

I went out for the first canoe/camping trip of the season this weekend. I wanted to go someplace that wasn't too far since I wasn't sure about the weather and the water temp. Overall it was pretty awesome.

I used a different program for recording my track, and I think it fucked up and I lost my data. I re-mapped the approximate path I took though:

View Big Bay Camping Trip - 2011 in a larger map

I brought a little book and took notes at various points throughout the day. I found it is nice to have a place to take little notes, and it makes writing these posts a lot easier.

Saturday

2:00 pm

I just arrived at the put-in. The water is a bit more... Energetic than I'd like. There a man-made dam here, and the water is flowing quite vigorously.

My original plan was to go downstream and camp at Spy Lake, but I think the water is a little too fast for that right now. I don't know if I'd be able to make it back up the river to the launch point without walking the boat, and the water is too cold for that.

Instead, I think I will go into Big Bay (the other way, West instead of East down the river) and head for one of the sites there. It's much closer to the launch point, but I think it will be OK.

I tried going to another entrance to Spy Lake marked on the map, but there was a closed gate with a 'No Trespassing' sign posted.

Also, apparently I've wandered into eastern Europe.

Time to unload and get the canoe in the water.

?:??

Saw a garter snake, couldn't get the camera out in time. Also there were a few Turkey Vultures soaring around. I'm still at the launch point getting things into the canoe, which requires a short walk since the access point is across the road.

3:30

About 90% of the way down the bay right now.

I stopped at BB1 and BB2 to take a brief look at the campsites from the canoe. BB1 looks pretty good, but is a little close to the launch point for my taste.

It's an absolutely phenomenal day here. There's almost no wind at all, it's nice and sunny at the moment and I have the whole bay to myself.

Animal sightings:

4 more turkey vultures
1 newt (when I stopped to pickup some trash near the BB2 campsite)
1 Beaver (near the put-in)
2 loons

My plan now is to head to the BB3 campsite and setup, maybe grab a snack. Then I might paddle north to the main lake to see what it's like up there.

I kind of want to check out the state campground I know is up there, but it's hard to get moving since it's so nice here on the lake.

Maybe I'll go for a swim (I always say that but I never actually go).

4:43

I just got back to site BB2 after visiting BB3. The weather looks like it's turning, the wind is starting to pick up and there's black clouds moving in.

5:55

Well, I came back to site BB2 after visiting BB3 because BB3 was a little buggy, closed in, and was pretty picked clean in terms of firewood. BB2 is much more open and isn't on a little peninsula and so has more firewood close at hand.

Here's a shot from BB3 looking out over the lake. It's very pretty.

I've got camp setup now, and the blackflies are out like crazy. I'm going to take a quick swim I think and then change into my other set of clothes and get some firewood before it gets too dark.

10:30

Well, it's pretty much bedtime. I had a pretty good evening.

My 'swim' ended up more of a 'splash water on myself while I stand in very cold water'. Afterwards I went to get some firewood, mostly standing deadwood from a couple fallen trees.

Since it has been raining for the last week or so, everything most of the wood was pretty wet. I had to split a bunch with my knife to get at the dry stuff in the core of the logs. During the process I managed to cut my thumb a little. Lesson learned.

After that, it was time to start a fire. It wasn't the best job I've ever done (I never would have been able to start it without my lighter) but it was burning merrily soon enough.

With the fire going, it was time to cook up some dinner! I had brought along a little steak and cooked it over the fire using a grill that was already here at the campsite. My god, it was delicious.

Afterwards, I went and washed the 'plate' (frisbee) I was using. It was while I was cleaning up that I realized that I'd totally forgotten to bring a spoon with me. Looks like no rice/oatmeal for me!

I'm not 100% sure what I'll do for breakfast... Maybe I can cook some soup and just drink it from the jetboil. Kind of a shame that I brought this extra food I won't be able to eat. Next time.

Thankfully, I didn't need any special implements to eat hotdogs. Dee-licious.

After dinner I went and hung out on the shore for a while, listening to the loons and sipping my wine (next time I should bring a cup, drinking booze from the plastic bag isn't very easy).

The weather was fairly good, there was a little thunder and light rain earlier in the day, but it cleared up and now there's no clouds in the sky and absolutely no wind.

Animal Sightings

More newts were spotted while cleaning the old leaves out of the fire pit.
Tiny catfish

That's pretty much it for tonight. Bedtime.

Sunday

6:10

Been up for just over an hour now. I had enough time to get some more water from the lake and boil up some ramen noodles for breakfast.

The mist on the lake was incredibly thick this morning. I could barely see the shore from my hammock.

I slept really well, only waking up because there were a couple owls that had decided to start hooting right over my camp. My only complaint is that things are a little damp around here still. I can feel the mist on my hair and absolutely everything is wet. I don't think it rained at all during the night, it's just the mist from the lake.

There's not a breath of wind at the moment, and only a few blackflies starting to wake up.

I'm going to just hang around a while to see if things dry out a bit.

Maybe I'll take the canoe out for a paddle when I'm done with my soup.

The weather is pretty overcast, can't even tell where the sun is supposed to be, let alone see it.

7:07

I took down everything but the clothesline and the tarps at camp. I'm going to hope as the day goes on things will dry themselves a little. No big deal if they don't, it'll just be a little damper in the pack.

I'm going for a short canoe paddle now, headed up towards the main lake.

Getting in without getting feet wet is hard and awkward.

7:57

I'm almost up to the main lake now. I had to paddle up some rapids to get here. It's much harder than I would have thought. It probably didn't help that I chose a dumb way to go, and ended up hung up on some rocks for a few minutes. Was a bit of a tight spot there!

Somewhere in the insanity I managed to crack my paddle (probably in the part where I was flailing it madly trying to get off the rocks I was stuck on). I'm not too upset though:

1) I have a spare (my kayak paddles) with me in the canoe.

2) I wanted to get a new paddle anyways. The one I have now is a bit too long (it's about 63"). I pretty much end up with my hand about 6" from where it should be.

Anyway, those rapids are going to be, interesting, on the way back down. I'll just have to take it as slow as possible.

For now, On to the lake!

8:24

Made it to the lake! It's a lot bigger than it looked on the maps. I passed one other canoe on the way, and saw a couple more boats on the lake. Also, there appears to be some kind of shrine to the frog-gods.

Here comes the guy again, seems nice enough.

I'm headed back down the river now... Going WITH the current sure is easier.

8:57

Well, I made it back to Big Bay. Going down those little rapids was much much much easier than going up.

Now it's back to base camp to see if things have dried out and time to pack up. It's still overcast, but there's still no wind to speak of. Things are looking pretty good.

9:21

Back at camp. Pretty much everything is still wet or damp. Too bad. Time to break camp anyways and head out. I can actually hear some other people coming up the lake from the launch now (maybe they're just fishing there?). These are the first other boaters I've seen on the actual lake.

10:17

All packed up and canoe loaded. Doing one last check for forgotten items...

Looks good. Lets see if I can get myself launched without soaking myself...

Turns out I can, but not without scratching up my canoe... Hooray for skidplates!

Now, all I have to do is drive back. Another successful trip.

The full set of pictures from the trip are available here.

My God, the humanity

2011-05-01T12:12:00.003-04:00

So, I went and tried to fly the plane... Yeah. Bad things happened.

It kind of glided upwards for a few seconds, before stalling, rolling over, and then powering itself into the dirt. Admittedly, I probably didn't react and shutdown the power fast enough. It got kind of a busted nose:

And a cutup belly:

... and a broken engine mount.

... So yeah, it definitely needs some repairs.

"109's, ASSEMBLE!"

2011-05-01T11:52:00.005-04:00

The end of the build (finally) approaches. The next steps are all finishing up the actual mounting of the electronics and hardware in the plane.

First I had to mount the engine, drilling pilot holes and mounting it with some bolts I picked up at Home Depot. I also had to solder on the bullet connectors for the engine and run the wires through the hole to the compartment over the wings in the fuselage. This required a little more hollowing out of the space, since it wasn't quite large enough to let the wires run through comforatably. It would have been a good idea to do this before putting the plane together.

Here's a shot of the nose attached with the prop actually sitting on the motor:

Next I installed the servo for the ailerons. I used adjustable servo connectors on the servo itself so that I could make adjustments to the length of the servo rods without having to re-bend them every time. This made it much easier to get things installed. I used the same approach on the rudder/aileron servo rods.

Next I used some velcro adhesive strips to mount the speed controller in the cavity above the wings. You can see the wires going forward to the engine, along with the servos installed for the rudder and elevator. The elevator and rudder servos are labelled so I could tell which was which when hooking them up to the receiver.

The last step was actually installing the radio receiver, which I had a little trouble with. Basically the battery compartment was too small to fit the full receiver and the battery, so I had to install it in the removable cockpit. This actually ended up working out pretty well, since it means the aerials for the receiver were out of the way of everything. You can see I had to label the connectors on the cockpit because they weren't visible anymore.

And here's the bottom:

That was pretty much it! The last thing to do was to put it all together. Here's some shots of everything all assembled:

Sexy.

Better late than never

2011-03-16T20:00:00.008-04:00

So, I haven't worked on my plane in a looong time It`s been on my mind again recently, so I`m going to post an update for the stuff that I did before the big bout of procrastination.

When we last left, I was about to start applying the fiberglass to the wings of the plane:

I remember this going pretty well. There was a LOT of sanding, applying more fiberglass, more sanding, spackling, more sanding, and so on. It all got a bit tedious, but the output was pretty good. I thought I had pictures for the various parts of the build, but I'm currently unable to locate them.

I also thought I had pictures of me painting the plane, but they are also MIA. Sorry about that.

I used the following process:

Applied 3 layers of fiberglass, sealing with Minwax Polycrylic (painted on with a brush) and lightly sanding in between each application.
Applied extra minwax, sanded again, and a light layer of spackle (also sanded afterwards again).
Applied a primer coat of gray Createx paint (mixed from white and black) with my airbrush.
Masked off everything that wasn't yellow, and applied the yellow paint. A number of layers were required to get a good finish. There was light sanding with high-grid sandpaper in between applications.
Masked off the yellow areas, and applied a base-coat of light blue-gray (the base color for the plane). This also had a few layers with sanding in between.
Masked (again) the area with the dark green sections and painted those. You guessed it, more sanding in between.
Applied the decals and did some (bad) detail painting with a hand-brush. Decals are a HUGE pain.
Followed up with a few layers of polycrylic for protection (sanding!).

Some things I recall from the process:

My apartment kitchen is not the best place to do airbrush painting. It`s pretty small, and not very well ventilated. Also it makes it difficult to eat dinner in there.
If you`re mixing paints to color match, make waaaay more than you expect to need, and keep it in an airtight container. That way, when you need to touchup a spot (say, if you overspray somewhere, or accidentally markup the painted area), you won't have to try to figure it out all over again (I had to do this).
Getting bright yellows is a pain. I should have been more thorough with the primer on the light areas, or more careful not to mark them up with markers at all.
Don`t drop your airbrush on a tile floor, it tends to break.
You can never spend enough time sanding and spackling beforehand.
Doing details is hard.
Apply decals BEFORE applying polycrylic.
Cutting the polycrylic with some water makes it spray much nicer through an airbrush (same with the Createx paints). I used about 50-50 for the polycrylic, and about 80% paint : 20% water for the paints.
It is absolutely terrifying putting a swastika on anything.

Here's some pictures of the fully painted and decal`d plane:

You can see that I sealed up the hole for the servo for the retracts (it turns out I mis-calculated and the old hole wasn't going to work). I'm going to hold off on them for now, since I've been so slow to implement anything, I just want to get something done.

Currently, I'm working on getting the electronics sorted out:

Hopefully it won't be another year until I post again :)

Chordophone

2011-02-04T19:46:00.004-05:00

I just saw that my app for checking Ukulele chords on my phone (Chordophone) was featured on a post linked from UkuleleHunt:

http://claudio-uke.blogspot.com/p/android-uke-apps.html

Maybe I should finally get around to filling out the chord list...

Labour Day Camping

2010-09-07T20:43:00.017-04:00

Last weekend I took another camping trip into the Adirondack park. This time my destination was the Bog River / Low's Lake area, just a little further north than last time. I tried a different method of keeping track of what happened, and picked up a little notepad on the way out of Albany and tried to keep a pretty regular record of what happened. Here's the outcome of my little note-taking experiment:

10:05 am

On the way. Just stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up this notebook. Worried about wind.

10:56 am

Passing Lake George. Where's cory?

11:03 am

At McDonalds for lunch. Looks like rain to the west, not a good sign (though not entirely unexpected).

11:15 am

First small drops of rain a few seconds ago. They cleared up pretty quickly though.

12:30 pm

Just turned of rt. 30 onto the small road to Little Tupper (the place I was last time) and Low's Lake (the destination this time). Very worried about the wind now. It looks like the kayak paddle is going to get a workout. All the lakes I've passed so far have had whitecaps and wind-spray, even in bays I would expect to be calm. Trouble. right now I'm trying to decide if I should keep going or try to find a more protected lake.

12:39 pm

Going to press on - The GPS is trying to take me a strange way, I'm going to stick to the main road thank you very much. I hope this doesn't get too wet.

1:37 pm

Got to the launch point. Looks like the river is pretty around the launch point is pretty sheltered from the wind. Lots of cars parked, but there's not that many people around. There wasn't enough space on the sign-in sheet so I had to make a new one from my book. Very proud of it despite the fact I'm missing a column. No one needs to know where I live anyway.

I tried carrying all my stuff from the car to the water (about 200m) in a single go. It was going pretty well until it all fell apart. I need to figure out 1) how to strap things in a little better, and 2) how to put all my junk down when I do a single trip.

Going to put in the water now. Wish me luck.

4:36 pm

Camp setup. Had a pretty good paddle (windy!!) so I decided not to go too far. I ended up setting up at campsite #5, which was very well sheltered from the wind while still being open to the lake.

I got the hammock hung, tarp (mostly) hung and just finished throwing a line for my bear-proof food container. I'm on my way to go hang it now and then start collecting wood. This campsite actually has a toilet! I was mighty surprised to discover it.

Also, I need to cut better lengths of paracord - either it's way too long, or, well, way too long. I'm going to have to take the knife to some of it to get some better usable pieces.

I just saw a big group of canoe/kayaker dudes on the lake about an hour ago, all headed back towards the boat-launch. I guess I knew where all the parking spaces went. There's one canoe going around the lake right now (with 2 people in it). It looks like they're looking for a campsite. Good thing I got here when I did.

5:46 pm

Well, and I went and did it. After a few near-losses already, and somewhere in between the food cache and the firepit, I managed to lose my pen. Good thing I brought along an extra pencil still packed from last time.

I finished gathering a bunch of wood and I'm going to get a fire going and finish cutting it. Then, Dinner! This time I'm better prepared, both in terms of food and in terms of getting setup in time.

So far there have been a few little rain-showers (yeay tarp!) but nothing major. Lets hope it stays that way.

Also my new saw is fantastic.

6:21 pm

Got the fire going now. There was some rain (the hardest yet) but I was pretty good in the sheltered area where I setup camp. Dinner on my mind.

7:55 pm

Waiting for my noodles to cool and snacking on beef jerky. Definitely much better than the dehydrated sweet and sour chicken I had last time. I was going to cook my porkchop - but it was raining crazy hard. At least it seemed crazy hard out here. It's pretty much stopped now - I'm sitting under the tarp on a log now watching the lake-mist as I write. Very nice.

This campsite is much better than the last, in terms of secluded (at least on a rainy labor-day weekend). There's another campsite in view across the pond, but it's vacant tonight [it actually was not, but the campsites are far enough apart that I couldn't tell].

Going to chow-down now and tend to the fire (now that the rain has stopped). Too bad there's nowhere else dry to sit, my but hurts.

8:26 pm

Finished dinner. Delicious. Last log on the fire. Dishes are done, I'm going to spend some time just hanging out and then it will be bedtime.

Oh, the saw I got rusts really fast. I can see some on it right now. too bad I didn't bring any oil with me. Drying it by the fire right now, I'll know better next time.

9:13 pm

Sticks with 'Y's in them are just about the most useful thing you can find in the woods at a campsite. Drying shit by the fire is 100x more effective with them. Also my fire is slowly going out. It showered a couple more times, but not for more than a minute or two.

I've been sitting by the fire watching it run down and learning how to tie knots. I learned the sheet bend and the prussic knot. Combined they let me replace two 20ft bits of rope I was using on the tarp with 2 10inch loops. Yeay knots.

Also I seem to have lost a snap from my hammock. Hopefully it' is not integral to the functioning.

I think I'm going to call it a night soon. We'll see if I do better in the hammock now that I know how to use it a bit better (a bit better than I did last time anyway).

P.S. I think I like this journal thing. Kind of fun to have something to log all the stuff that happened. I might just post it on the blog.

9:42 pm

Going to bed. Already in hammock. I'm continually surprised by how comfortable it is. With the sleeping bag/pad combo it's pretty warm too.

Tonight is a lot cooler (and wetter) than last weekend but I'm still super comfy.

When the wind blows through I can feel it on the bits of me that are off of the pad, but that's basically my elbows only.

I'm not as flat as I could be in a tent, but I can pretty much guarantee I'm drier and more comfy.

Thank god I got the bigger rain fly though!

Trying to decide what to do tommorow. I guess it depends on the weather. If it's nice I might bum around this pond a bit. if it's still rainy, I'll probably just go home.

Bedtime!

4:47 am

Well, it's been raining pretty much nonstop all night. At least it sounds that way with the water coming off the trees. The wind hasn't really let up either. I can hear it, I'm pretty protected from it at my campsite though. Everything is wet (in the bush, not my stuff) so there is pretty much no chance I'll be able to get a fire going in the morning (no eggs for me!)

I'm getting pretty sick of the sound of raindrops on the rainfly. I think I'm going to make for home as soon as it's light enough since I don't think it's going to be a very nice day today.

I'm still bone-dry in the hammock (besides the dampness from my breath and body) but it's going to be interesting to see if I can keep it that way when tearing down camp.

Going to sit tight for a little while longer until it's a little closer to dawn. I should have checked what time that was before I headed out.

5:16 am

Time to start tearing down camp. There's no point in waiting much longer. I can sit under the tarp just as easily and there's work to do.

6:41 am

Managed to cut my hand a little while cleaning my knife. Oops. Waiting for my ramen noodles (part of a complete breakfast) to cool a little bit.

Nearly done packing up, just a few things and a tarp and I'm ready to go. The tarp will be the last thing actually. P.S. Fuck you wind. It's already at full force. At least the rain has stopped, for now.

7:45 am

All packed up and heading out. Just saw my first canoe of the day, heading back (like me). Also a couple loons landed nearby and started calling. I tried to get some video of them, but no luck. Next time perhaps.

It's not as windy as yesterday, maybe I'll take a lap around the little pond here just to check it on my way back.

9:10 am

Just got back. Things are still pretty busy at the dam (my put in point) but there's way more parking than yesterday. Just about to put the canoe up and out. There's probably 5 people here at the moment, two of which are fishermen.

I got passed by another canoe on my way back, dammit :). There were two of them in the canoe, so I don't feel so bad about losing my imaginary race.

9:30 am

Loaded back on the car and headed out. Someone used my improvised sign-in sheet! Yeay!

Also I passed some fishermen in their canoe while coming back, and they said they'd just started out. Then, when I was loading I saw them sadly carrying their stuff back out. Guess they weren't up for a day of cold windy rain. :)

Aight, on the road again.

Also, for next time: leave a change of clean clothes in the car. I smell like a cigarette factory.

End!

As usual, the rest of the photos can be found here.

Here are the maps from the trip, both outbound and returning.

View Hitchins Pond Camping (outbound) in a larger map

View Camping Hitchins Pond (returning) in a larger map

Solo Camping - Little Tupper Lake & Rock Pond

2010-08-31T20:22:00.015-04:00

Last weekend I decided to go camping. I hadn't been in a while, but since I got the canoe on the go, I figured I might as well go a step further.

I basically spent the week beforehand trying to figure out where to go, and finally decided to head up to 'Little Tupper Lake' which is about 3h northwest of Albany, in the Adirondack's. Specifically, there was a little pond off a river you can reach from the South side of the lake, and that was my goal.

View Larger Map

After buying a bunch of stuff I needed (and a bunch of stuff I didn't really need), and getting it all packed into my biggest backpack, I headed out Saturday morning around 10:30. It was a little later than I wanted to leave, but hey, it was the weekend.

The drive up was pretty uneventful. The roads were good all the way, and I was surprised at how built up the park was. I guess I was expecting something closer to Algonquin Park (where I grew up) where basically the only thing you pass between the East and West gate's is trees and lakes. The road I was on basically felt like any normal rural road in Central Ontario, with towns every so often and lots of houses - not at all what I expected from a park.

By the time I got to the lake, I was getting a little worried: there were lots of cars parked in the parking lot and it was much busier than I expected.

After taking everything out of the car, checking to ensure I didn't have any horses with me, and signing in at the ranger station I headed over to the water. The launch point was a little sandy beach just off the parking lot, which was pretty nice.

Everything I had in the canoe, I headed out. The launch is sheltered a bit from the main lake, which is angled pretty much parallel to the prevailing winds. This means that at first it was pretty easy going (I was following a small group of kayakers that launched about the same time as me). Once you round the point though, what felt like a gentle wind turned out to be enough to kick up some good sized waves. Nothing too serious, but the occasional 1ft wave was enough to keep my guard up.

After fighting the wind for a while, I decided to head to the other side of the lake (where there was more protection from the wind). It was a little better over there, but if I stopped paddling for a second the wind would quickly push my little canoe the other way. There were a few interesting things to see, a big beaver lodge, some nice little bays to take a rest in and some islands.

At the south end of the lake there was a little river through a marshy area that headed down to Rock Pond, where I wanted to make camp.

After crossing a few beaver dams there was a short portage to Rock Pond.

While putting my canoe in on the other side, some kayakers stopped to talk. They asked if I was planning on camping on the pond, and warned me that they had never seen it so busy. Terrified that I might not find a spot, I sped up loading the canoe and decided to take the first place I could find.

After checking my map (it had the campsites on the lake marked) I hurriedly paddled into the pond. I passed a few campsites with canoes visible before spotting one (behind a couple of guys fishing from their canoe) that looked empty. Success!

View Camping - Outbound in a larger map

Breathing a sigh of relief I pulled up my canoe and unloaded my stuff.

First off, I had to hang my food-bag the last thing I wanted was to be worrying about a bear sneaking up behind me because I was too lazy to store my food properly. I found a big pine with a long branch and hung the bag before heading back to the campsite.

Next up, I set up the hammock. I'd never done it beforebut I was surprised, how easy it was. I chose a poor spot the first time however, and I had to move it to some trees that were further apart so I could get the rain-fly on. It was super-comfortable to sit in (without the rain-fly) and I'm extremely pleased with it.

Next order of business was to get some wood for a fire. It was getting on in the afternoon and I had to hurry if I wanted to have enough before dark. I grabbed a bunch of fallen logs (there was a ton of brush around to choose from) and set about cutting fire-pit sized pieces. About 1/2 way through the 4th cut, my hand-saw broke. I was more than a little angry since it was brand new (though, it was pretty cheap - still I expected more).

I continued to use the broken saw to cut enough wood to last for a while, and decided it was time to make some dinner.

First I had to get some water (I'd drank the water that I'd carried in during the canoeing portion of the trip), which was fantastically easy using the Katadyn Hiker Pro I'd picked up earlier in the week. It only took a few minutes to pump enough water to fill all the containers I had with me. I was done in time to catch a pretty nice sunset:

Then it was back up the hill for some dinner! On the menu: some dehydrated veggies and sweet and sour chicken.

Overall, it wasn't bad. Both were a little on the 'soupy' side, but after a long day of paddling I wasn't complaining.

While I waited for the food to cook I got a fire going. I tried using the firesteel I brough with me (just to see how it worked), but didn't have much luck and resorted to my lighter to get it going.

By the time the fire was going strong the food was ready to eat and I kicked back and relaxed on one of the rocks nearby.

It wasn't long after dinner that it was properly dark and I decided to break out the Uke.

I basically only played for a few minutes before I realized that the whole lake could probably hear me, so I stuffed it back into the bag and went about getting ready for bed.

Earlier getting the hammock setup (hung) was super easy. It turns out, it's much harder to actually get everything IN the hammock setup in a comfortable way.

At first I tried putting my sleeping pad in the compartment that hangs below the hammock - which was a design feature in the model I got. It was pretty hot (I was sweating just standing around) and so I decided to just lie in the hammock. That went pretty well for about an hour, until it started to get colder. I decided to grab my sleeping bag.

I never realized how hard wiggling into a sleeping bag while dangling in the air and trying to stay on top of a slippery sleeping pad (that you can't actually grab because its on the other side of the hammock fabric) could be. After a lot of squirming and turning I had enough and decided to just cram the pad directly into the sleeping bag. It turns out, that's what I should have done in the first place - the sleeping bag I have was designed for it (it's got a little flap on the back with velcro that lets you slide the pad into a pocket that runs the length of the bag) and it kept the pad under control while I got in.

After discovering the trick to moving around in the hammock is to reach out and grab the ground to get leverage, I finally fell asleep.

The sleep itself was excellent. I was warm, comfortable, and even managed to roll around and sleep on my side a little bit. I do not ever remember being that comfortable sleeping in the ground on a tent (I always end up jamming my hip into the ground since I like to sleep on my side). It took some getting used to hearing the sounds of the woods again (damn frogs jumping around in the leaves had me very confused for a while).

In the morning, I decided to head out pretty much as soon as I got up - which was pretty early (since I'd gone to bed so late). I had two reasons: I didn't want to be too late getting home and (most importantly) I wanted to make it a good way down the lake before the wind picked up. I didn't like the idea of having big waves coming at me from behind while I paddled.

I made some (terrible) dehydrated eggs for breakfast (next time I'm bringing real food), packed everything up, and headed out. I was the first person on the pond, but I could hear some others waking up as I left (cracking wood for a fire).

It was extremely calm as I paddled back, which was really nice. I really love camping in the early morning, when everything is still and calm and the water is like glass.

I even managed to spot an owl in a tree along the river.

When I hit the main lake, it was equally serene. There was noone around yet (except me and the loons) and it was a beautiful paddle - well worth the trip just for that morning.

The wind began to pick up as I travelled back, but it was behind me which let me take it easy. I stopped for a quick swim about 3/4 of the way back at a little island with a sandy beach. It was quite nice and refreshing.

After that I was pretty much back at the launch point - and it was back to civilization.

View Camping - Back again in a larger map

I did learn a few things when I was out, which I'll have to keep in mind for next time:

Get there early. I pretty much had to rush from when I hit the water until I had dinner in order to get all the way down the lake and get camp setup. It would have been nice to have some more time and a little more relaxing paddle.
Choose a more remote location, or one with better camp site spacing. There were too many people clustered around the little pond for my liking. If I would have been staying another day, I probably would have gone back to Little Tupper lake to grab a camp site that was a little more private.
Use the Kayak paddle against the wind. I used my canoe paddle the whole way down the lake (against the wind). Since I'm going solo, I have to do a lot of correction to go in a straight line which means the wind slows me down a lot more. The kayak paddle is much better at this kind of open-water paddling. I should have saved the canoe paddle for the river at the end.
Get a waterproof backpack. The kayak paddle splashes a lot of water into the canoe. So can the waves. It would be awesome not to have to worry about that all the time.
Get a map case. I had to keep pulling out the map and unfolding it to check my progress. It's extremely annoying in the wind. I should just get a case I can tie to the thwart and have it handy all the time.
Don't skimp on the saw. It broke after 10 minutes of use. Next time I'll do more research before buying one.
Don't forget sunscreen (even in the morning). I have an awesome life-jacket shaped sunburn on the right-side of my body (from the eastern morning sun). Classy.
Get some real rain gear. It didn't rain at all (it was fantastically sunny) but if it had, I would probably have been pretty miserable with only my crappy semi-waterproof jacket.
For a trip this short - leave the uke at home, bring a book instead. I was tired by the time everything was ready at the camp. Also my fingers were tired from snapping branches, tying knots and holding my paddle all day. I played for all of 5 minutes. A book would have been much more relaxing and easier to bring. If I had another couple days it might have seen more use - but not on a one-night trip.
Real Food. I need a real (bearproof) food container and some non-dehydrated meals. More soups (that are supposed to be soup - not 'bacon and eggs soup') and tea. I really wanted a hot drink in the evening.

That's it! All in all, it was a fantastic trip. I can't wait to do another one like it.

A weekend of Canoeing

2010-08-08T17:35:00.008-04:00

I started off on Friday evening with a trip to Rensselaer Lake, which is pretty close to where I live. It's a pretty busy spot, with tons of fishermen along the banks of pretty much the whole lake proper. There are two feeder streams that weren't as busy towards the northwest. I spotted a heron and two big snapping turtles. I was able to get right close to one before he dove. I also spent some time practicing some random canoe strokes.

View Rensaller Reservoir in a larger map

On Saturday Cory and I headed up north to Lonely Lake, a small lake just off Saratoga Lake (a big lake). We went around the lake a bit and then up to the river that led to Saratoga Lake. By the time we got there it was starting to get pretty late, so we headed back (the guy where we parked our car said we should be back by 5:30 when they closed).

View Lonely Lake in a larger map

We saw a couple of herons, a ton of little fish, turtles (unknown type) and a hawk. For more details you can read Cory's impressions and see the pictures I took.

On Sunday, I decided to give a shot exploring another river close to home, and headed over to Johnson road to see if I could find a place to put-in. After looking at the river there for a bit, I decided it would be better to put in from the other bank, but that was private land. I drove to the owners house and asked if I could park and put in from his land, and he said he'd rather I didn't. So, a little dissapointed, I drove off to find another spot. About a kilometer or so up the river there was another bridge with a better place to put it. I had to carry the canoe a bit from the car, but that was OK, it was interesting to say the least.

Here's a video of the portage from my perspective.

After getting down to the water, I headed upstream and almost immedetly had to get out and pull the canoe over some very shallow riffles. It turns out, I was going to repeat this an awful lot.

I came across some nice people and their dog sitting on the river-bank by a park, and the guy said that he thought the river opened up a bit just a little further up. I had to portage over a large expanse of dried riverbed to get to the next bit of water deep enough for the canoe, and along the way I managed to drop my camera in a puddle. :(

The next little bit of river actually had an impressive sized school of trout, about 15 or so, which made the journey a lot more interested.

Once that bit of river ran shallow again, I pulled up the canoe and scouted ahead a little bit. Things were looking pretty grim at this point, and I was plenty sick of carrying the canoe balanced mostly on my head (I really need to buy a carrying yoke for it). I sat there for a while watching the fish in the deeper parts of the river and then decided to head back.

I'd say Sunday was pretty much the most disappointing trip so far, since I didn't actually get to paddle very much at all. Mostly I was just walking pulling the canoe along behind me. I did get lots of practice hopping in and out though :).

View River in a larger map

I picked up a Tilley hat before the trip after seeing the had Cory had the day before, and it was awesome kept the sun off of me much better than my previous 'no hat' solution.

The rest of the pictures from Sunday are available here.

Monday Night Project - PVC Canoe Rack

2010-08-02T23:00:00.009-04:00

Ever since I got my canoe I have had it sitting in the middle of my living room, taking up precious floorspace. I've been thinking for the last few days about what I want to do about that. After looking around a bit, I decided to try my hand at building a rack for it out of PVC pipe.

After a quick run to the hardware store, I came back with the following:

3x10' lengths of 1.25" (internal) diameter white PVC pipe
2x3' lengths of 1.25" (internal) diameter white PVC pipe
4x T-junctions
8x End-caps
8x 90 degree elbows
6' (I think) pipe insulation
12 washers
2 nuts
2 6" bolts

I assembled a few tools:

Screwdriver with nut-driver
Hand-saw
Drill with bit approx. same size as bolts
Pencil
Measuring Tape

And laid it all out. Since it was getting on in the evening, and I'm not supposed to make too much noise after 10, I frantically set to work.

First I cut the 10' sections into the following lengths: 4x40" shafts, 6x25" shafts, 4x2" bits and 2x4" bits. Besides the 4" bits it all managed to come out of the 10' poles. I ended up with some spare PVC at the end, because in fact I cut a little more than I had to. I measured only once.

Next on the 40" shafts and 4" bits I marked the centers on each side of the pipe, and drilled a hole through each of them.

Then I went and cut 4 of the 25" shafts into two pieces: one 10" and one 15". These pieces would become the feet of the rack and were offset with the idea that the feet would be the same length when folded.

That was the end of the cutting. I tried to front-load as much as possible so that I would be done before it got too late. With that done, I started to assemble the actual rack.

First off, I put the corners together using the 2" bits of pipe to join them.

Next I joined them with one of the remaining 25" sections.

This would form the top of the rack, where the gunnels of the canoe would rest.

Next I took two of the 40" tubes and the 8" spacer and put them together.

The bolts I had were just a little too long, but I had just enough washers to make it work.

Next I put the feet together, and it started to take shape.

Next I put the top of the rack on, using the 90 degree elbows to line up the tops of the tubes. It ended up being a little twisted, since I didn't take into account the amount of extra space the elbows would add, but with a little elbow grease it went on.

I repeated the whole procedure a second time for the other half of the stand, and then popped the insulation on the top to give the canoe something soft to rest on. I still need to re-arrange some stuff to get it closer to the wall, but you get the idea.

I'm pretty happy with it, and extremely satisfied that I managed to get it together in a single night. Now if only it wasn't so late I could run the vacuum and clean all this PVC debris off my kitchen floor...

Canoeing - Round Lake Round 2

2010-08-01T22:07:00.004-04:00

So I wanted to go to a new place today, but by the time I headed out it was getting on in the day and the forecast called for rain. Looking for a place close by I settled on giving the Colonie reservoir.

After throwing the canoe on the car I headed out. Unfortunety, when I got there I discovered that the water level was way lower than I'd expected. What I thought would be a rather large body of water was pretty much a slow moving stream and a culvert.

After thinking about it for a minute, I decided to head back to Round Lake where I'd been with a friend of mine earlier in the week. I'd been looking on the map and saw there was an interesting looking river leading out the south side of the lake.

View Round Lake Round 2 in a larger map

It wasn't too busy on the lake, and I paddled across the main body of water pretty quickly, making a beeline for the creek entrance. There were a few kayaks and the odd canoe, one of which had a grumpy looking family in it: father, tired looking mom and two squirming kids sitting in the middle. Both parents didn't seem to know how to hold the paddle and gave the impression that they'd gone a little further than they'd expected.

It turned out the river was more of a winding creek through the middle of a swamp. It was occasionaly pretty thick with duckweed and lilly-pads, but was easy going. There were a few people fishing from kayaks as I went along, though it looked like it was mostly pan-fish they were catching.

There were a few heron nests that could just be made out from the lake proper, one of which actually had a bird in it.

I continued down until a small beaver dam at the far end of the lake, after pulling the canoe over it and down into the creek on the far side (the mud was much deeper than I expected, and I forgot how bad dam-water smells). It was a pretty quick moving little stream, and I paddled up a slower-moving arm just to see how it would go. I had to hop out a few times to get over another tree or two before I decided I should turn back. It was beginning to look like the rain was coming in (it never did) and I knew I didn't have a whole lot of time before it would start getting dark.

The trip back was pretty uneventful, I spotted an eagle flying overhead which was a nice surprise, but other than the occasional fish jump it was uneventful. Still fantastic though.

The gorilla-pod worked extremely well for keeping my camera out of the water (which I had quite a bit of after the beaver pond), and so did the dry-sack. Instead of attaching the camera to the thwart like I'd planned, I ended up standing it up on the bottom of the canoe under my seat. That way, even when I used the kayak paddles, it didn't get wet but it was always close at hand.

A couple more pics here.

Gone Canoin' - Watervliet Reservoir

2010-07-31T19:36:00.013-04:00

I went on a great paddle today in the new canoe. Second time taking it out, and I absolutely love it.

View Canoe - Watervliet Reservoir River in a larger map

I went to the Watervliet Reservoir, and after driving around for a while looking for a place to put in, I found a nice little trail that led down to a muddy 'beach' under a bridge where I could launch the canoe. It looked like fishermen used the place frequently (in fact a couple showed up just as I was leaving), and there were scrapes on the rocks that looked like a boat had been put in some time in the past (it was blue BTW).

After noticing some signs that indicated I should not go on the reservoir, and thinking it over for a bit, I decided to err on the side of caution and head upriver instead of out into the reservoir proper.

The river was extremely slow moving, and relatively deep where i started. It sped up a little as I got further upstream, and there were quite a few nice little rocky and sandy shoals that I could have stopped at. There were a few little ponds just off the main river near the starting point, I explored one.

I spotted a couple of otters, some herons, and a ton of small fish. There were a few large carp in there too, but mostly down where the river was slower near the reservoir proper. I stopped at one point and had some snacks that I'd brought.

I had to get out once or twice to get over some shoals or a tree, but these points were few and far between.

I eventually decided it was getting on in the day, and that I should head back. It was actually starting to get kind of dark on the river (it's small enough that the trees block most of the light, and in the late afternoon it could get dark really fast).

The rest of the pictures I took are available here.

On the way home I stopped at the mall and picked up a couple of things that I'd wished I'd had on the trip.

First was a waterproof bag. I didn't get much water in the canoe (except when I tried the kayak paddles) but there was enough that the plastic grocery bag I had was pretty much useless. The waterproof bag should keep me from worrying about that in the future.

I also grabbed a gorilla-pod for my camera. I took my old point-and-shoot with me and there was enough water in the canoe that sitting it on the bottom wasn't a really good idea. Also I think it would be cool to be able to get some shots of me actually in the canoe, and with the gorilla-pod I should be able to mount the camera to just about anything. I plan on leaving it wrapped around one of the thwarts, still in easy reach.

I really want to get some proper roof-racks now, since putting the canoe on and off the car is by far the most tedious part at the moment. I think i'll also pick up a removable yoke so that I can carry it a little easier, hauling it over the shoulder isn't all that comfortable even over the short distance I had to carry it from the car. Especially over uneven ground.

Also, I found out that CardioTrainer, which I used to record the trip, doesn't record times. Looks like I'll have to grab a different program for tracking my progress... Too bad, I like CardioTrainer.

New Canoe!

2010-07-26T21:59:00.008-04:00

After much deliberation, and years of dreaming of owning a canoe, I finally manned up and got one.

I spent basically the entire weekend doing research about which one to buy, and finally I settled on the Old Town Pack. Some criteria:

Solo canoe. I do not need to have more than one person at a time in the canoe.
Lightweight. The lighter the better. I'm going to be lifting it onto the car myself after paddling, I would prefer not to drop it.
Small. It needs to fit both on my car (a civic) and, more importantly, into my apartment.

The smallness was the biggest factor, since in order to get it into the apartment I needed to fit it through a window. After much measuring, I decided that the pack should, in fact, fit.

After work today, I hurried over to The Boat House (a local watersport store) and asked about the Pack. I had found out the day before that they actually had one in stock, so I was excited to see it.

After talking for a few minutes, the owner indicated that they had a Pack available for rental as well, and that if I liked I could rent it and try it. If I liked it, the cost of the rental would come out of the price of the canoe (I was surprised to find it was only $15 to rent the canoe, for some reason I thought it would be more).

I rushed to the car and grabbed my paddle and PFD, and next thing I knew I was paddling up the Mowhawk river in a Pack. It was pretty windy, and I had a little trouble making very good speed against the wind and current combined, but it was fun as hell.

View Paddle Test in a larger map

After my little paddle, I happily went back to the store and put my monies down on the boat. Unfortunetly, by the time it was all said and done I didn't have time to actually try my new canoe.

But now came the real test, would it fit into the apartment?

After arriving back at my place, canoe strapped securely to the roof of my car, and after much measuring, I gave it a shot.

Worked like a charm! Of course, now I have to re-organize my living room...

Behold: Chordophone!

2010-07-19T00:21:00.006-04:00

There are lots of times when I'm playing the ukulele and I forget how to do a particular chord, or it's a chord I've never seen before. There's also lots of times I just want to show someone else the fingering for a chord that I do know, and after lots of acrobatics to make it easier to see, I normally revert to drawing it on a piece of paper.

No longer!

I give you Chordophone - an application for Android that will show chord fingerings. It's extremely simple, just pick a chord from the list and it is displayed on a fretboard on the left.

All the source code is available here: http://code.google.com/p/chordophone/

The project also served as an experiment in how to get an application available on the marketplace. So grab your camera and scan this to go right to the download page:

A little wing-work

2010-04-06T23:50:00.006-04:00

So the next step is the one that I've been putting off the longest, actually cutting the wheel-wells for the retractable landing gear. I was extremely nervous about removing so much of the wing, but decided I finally needed to get over my fear and do it.

I don't have any pictures of the wing during the process, but it basically took me an afternoon of fitting, cutting, refitting, testing, and generally worrying if I was doing things right to get the wheel wells cut.

I'm actually pretty proud of the final product.

Oh, I bought a new sanding bit for my dremel that made all the world of difference. It let me make the wheel wells with nice smooth sides and flat bottoms and made cutting the wing way nicer than cutting the servo hole was. I used a Cone Grinding Stone (with a flat top).

There's a cylinder one that I think would work just as well.

Here are some more pictures of how it all fits together with the landing gear actually in there:

The servo isn't actually hooked up yet, since I ran into a bit of a snag. In order to get the amount of movement that I'm going to need to actually work the retracts, I'm going to need to put a larger head on the servo (to give it more movement distance). Since I'm basically out of wing at the leading edge, that means I need to move the servo back a little bit so there'll be room (since I can't go right to the edge of the wing).

The probem? Well, I'd already cut the hole for the servo! (Big mistake it turns out.)

So, in order to get the servo moved back, I needed to plug up the hole. I used a bit of foam I had lying around and glued it into place.

I still need to re-cut the hole to re-position the servo, but I'm definitely not going to cut as much out this time. I think I only need to make a square hole large enough to just barely fit the servo through... I also shaved off some extra space on one side so that the linkage will be able to reach the bottom of the servo head. I think it might actually work!

Anyways, after getting the wheel-wells for the landing gear cut, I decided I should probably strengthen the wing a little bit (I'm worried that I managed to weaken it enough that it'd just break off if I landed too hard). I just happened to have some carbon fiber strips that I'd bought by accident earlier on hand, and decided to glue them along the wing to add some strength.

You can see I had to cut a channel to lay the strips in and epoxied them in there. I'm going to have to spackle it when it dries before I glass the wing so that it's nice and smooth, but that can wait for another day.

As a side note, I found that I actually had to cut out a V shaped channel in order to get the strips to slot nicely into the wing, and applied generous amounts of epoxy to secure it. I tried just having a slit in the wing and jamming the carbon fiber strip in there, but it was putting a lot of stress on the wing and I was worried it wouldn't hold up under stress.

Next up, some more spacklin', sandin', glassin'

Progress

2010-04-06T23:22:00.009-04:00

Well, after a long winter of procrastinating the weather is finally looking nicer and now I'm thinking of flying again, and that means I'm making progress on the plane again.

The next step is to get the retractable landing gear setup, and so with that in mind I bent and cut the gear. I installed the wheels and am holding them in place with some rubber stoppers I had lying around from some pushrod connectors.

I probably need to secure the wheel stops with a dab of glue, but I'm going to leave that until I'm sure everything is sitting right. It turns out bending wire exactly is harder than I thought, so one is very slightly longer than the other. I'm hoping it won't be a problem.

I went through a bunch of the little tasks that I'd been putting off as well. I finally glued in the plywood that will hold the elevator and rudder servos in,

I finally got around to gluing in the rods that will hold the engine nacelle on,

(Tip: I left the nacelle actually assembled as the glue dried to ensure the pieces would fit together night and snug. I used vaseline on the ends of the tubes to keep them from getting glue inside them and a peice of paper-towel in between the two halves to absorb any excess glue. Worked great.)

And made some cardboard sidewalls for the exhaust ports,

Also I got the steel plate and magnets glued in for the cockpit (the hatch that covers the battery),

Now the cockpit sits in nice and tight and is held in place by the magnets. It's actually beginning to look like a real plane now (about time).

Next stop, more wing-work.

Corrective Surgery

2009-12-01T23:06:00.008-05:00

So it's been a while since I updated... Yeah.

Well, I finally got around to doing some more work on the plane, the next task was to re-attach the nose that I so callously cut off so that I'd have access to the motor mount once the plane was all glued together.

First, thing I went and bought some carbon-fiber rods (1.8mm diameter I believe) and some carbon-fiber tubes (with an inner-diameter of 1.8mm to match the rods) that would slot inside of each other.

Then I proceeded to cut them up. The tube that the rods would slip into got cut to about 4cm, and the rods to about 8cm (twice the depth of the tubes). I figure this should give me plenty of strength and space to work with when I'm sliding the nose on and off, without having the rods or tubes long enough that they'd poke through the cowling of the plane.

The next step was to mark the points where I wanted to put the rods (on the cowling ). I marked the cowling first because it has the least amount of excess foam, and so would be trickiest to get the rods in safely.

From those marks I extrapolated out to the edges of the plane, held the cowling flush with the fuselage and marked the same points on it, and then extrapolated back inwards to get the point on the fuselage that would be around the same spot. It was hard to check if it was correct or not, but it turns out this worked pretty well.

Next step was to grab a little drill bit (actually just smaller than the rods) and drill a guide hole into the cowling for the carbon fiber rods. I drilled the holes by hand because it's pretty delicate work and I needed to take my time and make sure I didn't end up drilling out the side of the cowling.

Once that was done, I test-fit the rod in the hole to make sure it looked pretty straight. Success!

I repeated the process 4 times until all of the carbon fiber rods had nice little holes to poke into.

Then, I did the same thing (with a slightly larger drill bit) for the 4 tubes in the fuselage half.

A quick test-fit with one rod and tube...

... and then give it a shot with all 4.

Next thing you know, the plane has a nose again!

Now all I have to do is glue these things in there to make it nice and permanent... But it's too late to do that tonight, but soon.

Some tips that I picked up:

I had to shave about 1cm off of the rods before they would go into the tubes smoothly. I think they ended up a bit long because the drill bit I had was too short to get all the way into the cowling. Probably a good thing since I think I was really close to the other side... I might make the rods a little shorter (about 7cm instead of 8cm).
Getting the rods to slot into the tubes is a little tricky. It helped a ton to file the tips of the rods that would go into the tubes down so that they were a little pointed. It doesn't have to be sharp, just enough that they are guided into the tubes from a rounded end.
Take your time drilling, and do it by hand. Make sure the holes are nice and straight and it will all work out.

(more) Fiberglassing

2009-10-18T19:10:00.005-04:00

So I've spent some more time fiberglassing the main fuselage. Here are a couple of pictures where I'm trying to show the finish on the body (it's tough to get a good shot of it).

I covered over the hole where the vertical stabalizer is going to go, but I'll cut it out and sand it down before I actually put it in there.

Here's the final finish on the engine nacelle (its just about ready for paint). You can also see a small divot I cut out of the bottom that will be painted to look like the air intake vent on the real plane (instead of the smooth lip they had there in the original model).

The next step will be fixing these two peices back together I think...

Wing Radiators

2009-10-18T16:39:00.003-04:00

One of the distinguishing features that is missing from the original GWS 109 model is the under-wing radiators. I decided that I'd give making some a shot. I had a peice of packing foam that was about the right size, and after examining some reference photos that I had I carved some squares out.

I haven't attached them to the wings permanently yet, since I want to do it after I put the fiberglass on it. I'm probably also going to trim them down a little bit to keep them from interfering with the aerodynamics of the wing too much.

Fiberglassing!

2009-10-18T16:03:00.004-04:00

So progress continues, but slowly. I did some work on the plane during some time I took off a few weeks ago, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

First thing I started on was putting some fiberglass on the detached section of the engine cowling. This was the first fiberglass I've ever tried to apply, and all things considered I think it went pretty well. I used 0.75oz fiberglass cloth and Minwax polycrylic.

In the picture above, you can see the texture that the fiberglass adds to the nosecone. After letting the nose cone dry for a few hours I would apply another layer of minwax to fill in the weave of the fiberglass. The next day I sanded and did another layer of minwax.

Next I moved on to fiberglassing the fuselage.

I followed the same basic process (two coats of minwax on the first pass, then sanding and some more) for the fuselage. In the next shot you can see the way that I covered the control rod tubes. I'm hoping that they'll blend into the body a little bit and not be so obvious.

Next, building the wing radiators...

Aerial Photo

2009-09-21T19:33:00.002-04:00

Taken from my plane with my camera onboard. Kind of neat. Its the building where I work.

Spackl'd

2009-08-31T23:35:00.002-04:00

Got the fuselage all spackled up. Took two coats of spackle because the lines are a pain to get filled right.

I also took the time to cut the radiator a little nicer (it's actually two interlocking pieces in real life) and got the fins for the engine exhaust cut.

I also got the vertical stabalizer spackled, and the cockpit, but I don't have a picture.

Next up: Fiberglass!

Retracts Part 2/?

2009-08-31T23:26:00.007-04:00

Okay, so I managed to get some more progress on the retractable landing gear front, and boy, am I surprised its all working out.

First thing I cut out some channels for the servo arms to run to the retracts positions and hollowed out a little hole for the servo itself. Right now everything is fit for an HS55 servo, which may or may not give me enough throw to fully retract the gear... I'm going to test this of course before I finally mount everything, but since any other servo is going to be bigger than the HS55, I figured fitting it first would be OK.

Next I flipped the wing over and cut a hole to counter-sink the servo into the top of the wing. I need to do this for two reasons:

it gets the servo head level with the retract mechanism
It gets the servo out of the way of the ESC that is going to be mounted right above it in the fuselage cavity. I'm really glad I noticed this before I actually started gluing things!

Here's some more pics of how it fits together:

Going to put the retracts aside for a bit. Next step, spackle the fuselage.

Oops

2009-08-31T23:08:00.003-04:00

I just realized I never put up a picture of the fuselage all glued together, so here ya go:

I also finished sanding them all up so the pieces are ready to be spackled now...

(I'm actually playing catchup with these posts, so forgive me if things don't make a whole lot of sense all the time)

Installing Retracts (part 1 of many)

2009-08-17T18:29:00.007-04:00

First off, this is by FAR the scariest part of the build so far. I'm absolutely terrified of cutting into the wings of the plane. The practice I had cutting out various bits of foam in the last step certainly helped me get the confidence up though.

I've somehow gotten it into my head that I need retractable landing gear (probably something to do with being totally awesome). So the next step in the build involved a lot of planning (i.e. holding the wing and trying to figure out how it was all going to work) and waiting for the retracts I ordered to arrive.

When they finally showed up, I spent some more time thinking about how I was going to mount them and decided I would need to build something to screw them in to. First, I used the actual retracts to trace out the outlines of where I wanted the retracts to go using a marker. This let me get an idea of how it would all go together. Next I cut the little mounting platforms out of some aircraft plywood I had left over from a previous project.

Next came the scary part: Actually mounting them in the wing. First I cut a depression in the wing that the mounting platforms could sit in, and made sure it was snug. It helped to trace the wood with the Xacto knife rather than trying to measure it and get everything lined up that way. Then I had to hollow out some more of the wing to allow the retract mechanism to function.

To do this, I used both the Xacto knife (to cut the sides of the cavity) and then the dremel (to hollow it out and do more serious material removal). I ended up with a ton of tiny styrofoam particles and a little hole in the wing.

A side note: I found it best to run the dremel on its slowest setting with a straight edged rotary cutter (since I didn't have a grinding bit like other people I've seen). The straight edge helps a LOT when carving out sides of the cavity. The only other trick is to go slow and be careful, the dremel will sink through the foam like it wasn't there, so make sure you're holding steady.

I kept going, test and testing and testing after almost every cut. One of the hardest parts is making sure the two sides of the gear are at the same angle. (We'll see how I did when it comes time to hook some actual wheels up to this thing.) I'm hoping I can fix any little errors when it comes time to actually glue the retracts into the wing.

At the end of the operation I had a both retracts (almost) mounted in the wing, but there's still a lot of work left to do.

Building The Fuselage

2009-08-17T17:21:00.018-04:00

So when last I left off, I had just test-fit the newly minted stick-mount for the brushless motor.

The next step was to actually glue that sucker in there, and after reading a bunch of forum posts about getting the engine mounted right (thrust angles!) I decided to bite the bullet and glue that sucker in. I ended up using the same angle that the instructions recommend (I think its 2 degrees to the right) and mounted it pointing a bit down. Hopefully that'll be enough of an angle to offset the torque from the motor. We'll just have to wait and see when I maiden it.

But wait! Thats not all! On Saturday, I decided to get off my duff and do some more work. *Gasp*

I'd received the retracts that I'd ordered on Friday, so I set about planning on how to mount them. After much referring to various pictures and looking for examples on the web I marked off the position of the wheels and mounts. I also took the opportunity to glue in the wing-spar. I used a hollow carbon-fiber tube that I have on hand (I'm going to use them to attach the engine nacelle later) instead of the pole that came with it (since the carbon-fiber is lighter).

The thought of cutting into the wing absolutely terrified me, so I promptly set that aside and set to work on something a lot less scary.

The modification I had originally planned to make to the fuselage before it got glued together was to modify the engine nacelle so that it was detachable. This will make getting to the engine a lot easier [read: possible] and is a pretty popular modification for this model.

I was humming and hawing about whether to cut the nacelle off before or after I glued it, and decided to do it before. I was a bit sloppy with the Xacto knife, but I think it wasn't too terrible. I'm hoping to be able to clean it up a little when I mount it back on the fuselage (with a little help from my good friend Mr. Lightweight Spackle and Mrs. Sandpaper).

After cutting the nacelle off, I decided that I might as well give the motor and ESC a test-fit to make sure everything was going to meet up in the right places before I glued it all together. Boy am I glad I did! It turns out that the wires on the ESC and the motor were just a little too short (because I had to mount the motor out a little further than originally planned). Since I hadn't glued the whole thing together yet I was able to fix the problem by enlarging the wire channel from the nacelle a bit. This would have been a HUGE pain if I had already glued everything together.

With my trusty Xacto knife I managed to do quite a nice job straightening out the channel to give myself that tiny little bit of extra space that would allow me to mount the ESC right up front.

It was right before I reached for the glue (for the second time) that I remembered something I'd seen on a 109 build thread about a different way to mount the aileron servos (instead of the double-sided tape the instructions mention). So, I whipped out the Dremel and the Xacto knife and made myself a little tray for the aileron and rudder servos. I had to shave off a little of the foam in the fuselage to keep them the same height as they would have been before, but since I hadn't glued the fuselage together yet it was really easy.

There are two reasons I can think of to mount the servos this way: 1) This fixes them more tightly in place (they don't flex at all because they're screwed into the wood) and 2) I can more easily change the servos if anything goes wrong.

With all of that done, it was time to bite the bullet and glue that bad boy together:

Here's the nacelle all glued and taped up:

I haven't actually mounted the little servo tray yet, but here's a shot of where it will go (you can see where I cut away enough foam to keep them mounted in the original position).

Next stop: Retractville

Dried

2009-08-10T22:36:00.004-04:00

Here's a picture of the modified engine mount, all dried up and in place (not glued yet).

As you can see I'm going to need to trim a bit off the end to keep it from sticking into the prop, but that'll be easy with a lil' hacksaw lovin'.

I think that's the only thing I really wanted to be sure of before I glued the fuselage together. I'm going to read up on what the angles/position of the engine should be before I do anything though...

Engine Arrived!

2009-08-10T20:18:00.013-04:00

My new brushless engine for the Me109 arrived today! I'm impressed with how fast it shipped, I ordered it at the end of the day thursday and it showed up at work just before noon. Yeay for the internet and shipping.

Here's the kit I bought (all of it was from innov8tiveDesigns.com, which I heard about on ATTF Podcast) :

Scorpion 2212-22 Brushless Motor (1157 kV)
Scorpion Commander V2 25 Amp Brushless ESC
1 x GWS 10x6-DD Prop
1 x GWS 9x5-DD Prop
1 x GWS 8x4, 3-Blade Prop, Black, Normal Rotation

As you can see from the pictures above, the ESC and Motor came in some bitchin' metal cases, I was very impressed with the presentations.

Now that I have the engine, I decided to see how it would fit. Good lord am I glad I didn't start gluing things already. You can see from the next two pictures that I'm going to have to mount the engine in the reverse orientation. Instead of having the stick mount on the top of the engine nacelle, I'm going to have to flip it around and mount it on the bottom (since there's no gearbox and the spinner needs to be in the middle of the model).

That's all well and good, except that, as you can see from the pictures, in order to get the engine far enough forward to spin the prop in front of the nacelle, I'm going to need to pull the stick WAAAAY out of the housing. So far out in fact, that I'm terribly worried it wouldn't be enough foam to hold the engine safely. So what am I going to do? Well, I rummaged around in a bag of spare balsa wood peices that I had lying around, and managed to find some bits that I can epoxy together to make a longer stick mount. It turns out that they're the perfect size once they're glued together.

I'm going to let the epoxy dry overnight, and might give it another go tommorow after work. Here's hoping everything goes better next time.

Also, I need to clean my table.

Little progress

2009-08-09T11:01:00.006-04:00

I was planning on working on the fuselage yesterday, but after planning a bit, I think I'm going to wait until I get the rest of the power system (engine, speed controller, prop, etc..) that I ordered. I want to make sure it fits before I seal up the fuselage, which I'm hoping will save me some trouble.

So, instead I decided to do what I could and install the guide-tubes for the rudder and aileron into the fuselage halves. This had to be done before I could seal the fuselage anyway, and doesn't depend on the power system at all.

I'm going to modify the engine nacelle so that its removable, but that's going to wait for another day. I can still sand and spackle the fuselage, but I would really like it to be assembled before I do that, so I know the pieces are fitting together nicely.

I also went ahead and enlarged the battery compartment, it was made for NIMH battery packs, and I'm going to be running off of lipo, so it needed to be trimmed back a bit. I'm going to test-fit my batteries before I seal it up, and probably add some fuzzy side of velcro to the top and bottom to make sure its all snug when there's a battery in there.

It begins!

2009-08-08T10:55:00.008-04:00

I've spent a lot of time since I got my plane earlier in the week planning things out (I probably spent MOST of the week looking for pictures of 109's and looking for paint schemes I want to do).

I grabbed a couple reference pictures of the paint-job I wanted to do, and found an old magazine that I had with a ton of great photos. I think that should be enough for me to figure out the paint scheme. I'm going to have 'fun' figuring out the exact paint colors I'm sure...

I found a few threads on building GWS foamies that I'm leaning heavily on for instructions:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=314050 A thread on building a 109G-6 out of the 109E kit
http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8507 a thread on building the GWS 190, but some people have posted a number of helpful tidbits about the 109 as well

After reading through a bunch of posts on these threads and looking very carefully at the various pictures, I decided I might as well get started.

Since I want to get this plane close to the real version, I wanted to take out the panel lines that GWS has etched into the model when you buy it new. That means spackling up the lines and lots of sanding.

Since I got the pre-painted version, it was a bit of a pain to sand (the paint kept binding up the 320 grit sandpaper I have), so I ended up doing it wet (running it under the tap while I sanded). I used my finger and a piece of cardboard from an old cereal box to smooth out the lines as I filled them.

I tested it out on just a portion of the wing first, and you can see in the picture how I ended up sanding most of the paint off when I sanded the spackle. I ended up going through and sanding off the rest of the paint and the fake 'bolts' that are on the wing before I did the rest of the spackling.

I let it sit overnight, and sanded it all down the next morning. I had to do this twice because I had a little trouble getting the spackle to fill the lines and not pull out after I'd done it. Right now I have the top of the wing finished, and am ready to do the bottom.

RC Me109 Build

2009-08-08T10:39:00.006-04:00

So I'm getting into RC stuff. I've had a Mutliplex Twinstar II for a while now and I'm loving it. Its a fantastic plane, but its not THE fantastic plane.

The Me-109 is probably one of my favorite warbirds of WWII (after the lovable lil' Stuka of course) and since I was thinking about picking up a more aerobatic plane than the Twinstar for when I just want to go and mess around with loops and rolls and stuff, I went and picked up this kit from Tower Hobbies.

It came in the middle of last week, and I quickly set to work reading all about it and looking around at various build threads.

I'm going to try to log my progress here. This is my first actual kit build and I'm incredibly nervous about actually doing it. I want to make it as true to the real model as possible, but we'll see how that works out :). "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy" after all.

Adventures In Geotagging

2009-06-23T20:31:00.012-04:00

I like taking pictures. I also like maps. Combine those two things and my love of all things geeky, and you have Geotagging.

I got a new (to me) camera from a friend of mine at work. Its a Nikon D70 and it came with a lens and some random accessories (Memory card, extra battery, etc) for $400. I got it from him on monday, and I've been playing with it the last two evenings.

Tonight, after going and buying a nice backpack-style case (the holster case I had was too small to hold the camera and any accessories) I decided to take a talk at the crossings (which is also the place I go to fly my plane) and take some pictures. Then, to add to the fun, I decided to try and get some sweet Geotagging going.

So I started up 'My Tracks' (A GPS logging app written by Google that can export to GPX) on my Android cellphone (which is GPS equipped) and set off to take some pictures.

After a while of walking around I managed to get some pictures (lambroghini!) and since it was getting dark I decided to go home and try to geotag them. Easy right?

I grabbed GPicSync after a bit of internet searching and set to work. Of course, things never work the first try, and I got a 'missing DLL' error when trying to start the program (why can't Open-Source people ever install apps on windows correctly?). After grabbing the DLL from the internets and cramming it into the install directory, it seems to start correctly.

After taking turns using my Mini-USB jack to copy the pictures from the camera and the GPX file from the phone, I was ready to set off...

Of course, nothing goes right the first time. The program was unable to synchonize any of the times, and so it just made copies of the originals. Yeay... So I look at the GPX file in notepad, looks like all the times are in UTC GMT (I'm pretty sure the pictures weren't taken at 11:59 pm), so I've got to set the UTC different right. I think I'm at -5h from GMT, so that should do me. (WHY can't the program check what Timezone you are in? Seems easy enough)..

So it seems to do something, and I start to get hopefull. Time to download google earth and try out that 'View in Google Earth' button staring me in the face... Looks like all the pictures are a bit off, but close.

So it seems the problem is two-fold. I'm not at -5h from GMT, I'm at -6. Good thing the camera is set to be an hour fast. So its no big deal. The problem is that the camera is also 5m and 52s off, which is enough to put the pictures in all the wrong places.

So I grab a program (after more searching) that lets me edit the EXIF timestamps for the pictures in one fell swoop (its a command-line program called jHead) and after a quick:

jhead -ta+1:05:52 *.jpg

I'm back to GPicSync to test it again (with the correct -4h in the UTC Offset field this time)... SUCCESS! The pics all line up in Google Earth and everything is awesome looking.

Next time it'll be much easier (I Hope).

You can see the the path I took here. I'll post the photos on my Flickr account and they should be all geotagged up if you're interested.

View Picture Test in a larger map

Update: I found what looks like a MUCH nicer program called 'GeoSetter' (its also freeware): http://www.geosetter.de/en/index.html

It has all kinds of time-fixing-previewing-altitude-setting goodness right in the same package. Much more user-friendly and sensible than the GPicSync program I originally used.

People suck

2009-06-21T10:42:00.004-04:00

So yesterday I was flying my Twinstar II R/C for the first time since I painted it. Now, one of the strange things about having an R/C aircraft (or R/C anything I suppose) is that people seem to suddenly love to come up and talk to you. I imagine its like having a dog: people who would normally never come up and talk to you see it and come over to ask you questions or comment on it. It caught me off guard at first, but I'm getting more used to it. Anyway, so I'm flying the plane, and one of the maintenance guys from the park I was at comes driving up to me in his little golf cart and starts asking me the normal 'how much does it cost / how far can it go / where did you get it?' type questions.

Then the part that sucks: He mentions to me that the guy who normally flies his (awesome) scale helicopter at the park was asked to leave and go to another park. So I ask him why, and apparently the people who live on the edge of the park were complaining about (get this) the SMOKE from his helicopter. Now, I suspect they're just assholes, but that strikes me as totally stupid. Its a park, a public space. The guy is a GOOD pilot, he's not doing irresponsible things, just flying back and forth in an open field.

So I'm talking to the maintenance guy about it, and I slowly learn that these people are even bigger jerks than I thought:

As far as I can tell, they never talked to the guy with the heli. They just called the park and complained.
They called the fire-department and reported the smoke (knowing full-well that it was from the helicopter), which is a waste of EVERYONE's damn time, and as far as I'm concerned, one of the worst things you could do.

So anyway, finally the park administrators decide that they should just cave and ask the guy to leave. So now he has to fly at another park. The worst part is, that the park he's flying at now is smaller and much closer to a heavily-trafficked road and a HIGHWAY. Sure, there are more people that fly RC stuff there, but that doesn't mean is safer. It makes me really mad that these people have the gall to complain about someone like that, especially the way they went about it.

Yeah, so I'm really disappointed in humanity.

Posting from email

2009-06-21T10:41:00.002-04:00

This is a test of the automated posting system for mah blog. Maybe it will work, maybe not. We'll have to wait and see...

(BTW: if you're reading this then it worked!)

Painting my Twinstar

2009-06-18T08:54:00.009-04:00

Flat-white all around wasn't working for me. I kept loosing track of the plane on cloudy days and it was difficult to tell orientation once the plane got further away. Also, it was very difficult for me to pick it out of the sky when I'd glance down at the screen that was showing my camera feed from the plane.

So I decided to paint the plane. I whipped up a couple of possible paint schemes and decided to try my hand at giving it a custom paint-job.

Here's the whole week's worth of painting done in about 5 minutes:

I kind of ended up with the main paint scheme of the first design, with the tail of the second. I wanted to do entirely the first paint scheme, but messed up when I was masking things off (that'll learn me).

Steps involved were:

Clean the plane with alcohol to remove any chemicals from the moulding process when it was created
Sand down the entire body of the plane (using 300 grid sandpaper) to provide a smooth surface
Fill in the larger gashes with lightweight spackle
Tape off the important bits I didn't want to get any polycrylic in (pushrod holders, cockpit, engines, control surface joints)
Lay down a base-layer of polycrylic to paint over
Lightly sand the base-layer in preparation of painting
Mask off the areas that I didn't want painted black
Paint it black
Remove black-masking and apply masking for red areas
Paint the town red
Remove masking tape from red areas, and patch up any spots that the masking tape tore off of the black paint (because I didn't wait long enough to let it dry)
Fix up any edges that weren't sprayed neatly with white paint, and fix the error I had on the one wing by hand with red paint
Cover entire thing with final protective layer of polycrylic
Happiness

Running BattleGround Europe From a RAMDisk in Windows7 64-Bit

2009-06-04T18:38:00.006-04:00

After the new 1.30 patch, I've been having problems with stuttering at random times when flying. Since I suspected these stutters were due to the game hitting the disk to load up terrain tiles, I decided to try out running it from a RAM Disk.

I ran 1.29 from a RAM Disk before, but there have been some pretty big changes since then. For one, Playgate (the old launcher) has been removed, which means any registry files I had setup wouldn't work anymore. Also, I switched to using the Windows7 64-Bit Beta (build 7100).

Setting it up was pretty straightforward, so I'll just get to the instructions:

1. Find a RAM Disk program that works with your OS.

I ended up using Cynatek RAMDisk Beta (which is free for the time being). I tried a couple other programs before this, but was unable to get anything to work without BSOD'ing my computer every time I started the game.

2. Setup a RAM Disk big enough to hold the game.

My RAM disk is setup to be 900MB. This is about 100MB larger than it needs to be, but I didn't want to starve the game for HD space on its install disk. You might be able to cut it a little closer, but those are the settings that work for me. I'm using a FAT32 partition setup to be my 'F:\' drive. If you have a different drive letter assigned, just substitute it for 'F:\' anywhere in these instructions.

3. Copy your 'BattleGround Europe' game directory to the RAM Disk

I had the game installed to 'C:\Games\Battleground Europe\'. I just grabbed this directory and copied it entirely to the root of my 'F:\' drive. This left me with a 'F:\Battleground Europe' directory.

4. Rename you 'Battleground Europe' directory on the RAM Disk

This step may not be necessary, but I did it so I'm going to include it. I simply renamed the 'F:\Battleground Europe\' directory to 'F:\WWIIOL' so that I wouldn't make typos when editing the registry (thats coming up). It might help to have a name that is less tha 8 characters and contains no spaces since the registry entry seems to use old DOS-style directory names.

5. Create a shortcut to the RAMDisk .EXE files

Open the "F:\WWIIOL" (or wherever you copied the files to) directory on the RAM disk and right-click on the 'Playgate.exe'. Choose 'Send To' and then 'Desktop (create shortcut)'. This will make a shortcut on your desktop that will launch the online version of the game. You can also make a shortcut to the 'ww2.exe' the same way if you want to run the offline practice mode.

If you're using Windows7, make sure to set these shortcuts to run in 'Windows Vista, Service Pack 3' compatibility mode, and check the 'Run As Administrator' box to avoid nasty mouse-freeze problems at the main menu.

6. Create a backup registry file

The next steps involve modifying an entry in the registry to point to the newly copied directory. We want to be able to switch back to using the version of the game on-disk before applying updates or for testing, so you should make a .REG (registry) file that will restore your current settings. This used to (pre 1.30) involve editing 2 seperate sections in the registry, but is a lot easier now that playgate is gone.

I just made a file called 'BattlegroundEurope_Disk.reg' that contains the following text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Playnet\apps\appid1\instance1]
"Path"="C:\\Games\\BATTLE~1"

This bit is Windows7 specific, so if you're running a different version of windows you might have to search for the 'Playnet' entry in your registry (using 'regedit.exe' from the start menu) to find the entry.

You should also make sure that the "C:\\Games\\BATTLE~1" matches the directory you installed the game to. In my case it is installed to "C:\Games\Battleground Europe", but since the registry uses old DOS-style filenames its a little mangled. Look at your registry entry if you're unsure what this should be.

7. Copy your 'BattlegroundEurope_Disk.reg' file

Make a copy of the file you made in Step 6 and name it something like 'BattlegroundEurope_RAM.reg'.

8. Modify your 'BattlegroundEurope_RAM.reg' to point to the RAM Disk

Open the 'BattlegroundEurope_RAM.reg' file in a text editor (don't double-click, right-click and choose 'Edit'). Update the line that starts with "Path" to look like this:

"Path"="F:\\WWIIOL"

Save the file, and close it. If you copied the game files to a different directory in Step 3 or 4, you should use whatever drive/directory combo you used. In my case, the game is located in "F:\WWIIOL" as previously stated.

9. Merge the 'BattlegroundEurope_RAM.reg' file into your registry

Double-click on the 'BattlegroundEurope_RAM.reg' file and confirm that you want to add the contents to the registry. This will overwrite the "Path" value to the one you specified.

10. Run the game

That should be it. If everything went smoothly you should be able to start the game by following the shortcut that was created in step 6. If you need to go back to running the version from the disk (or if you need to install an update to the game), simply merge the 'BattlegroundEurope_Disk.reg' file you created in step 6 beforehand.

Applying Updates:

Before you apply an update, be sure to run the 'BattlegroundEurope_Disk.reg' file you created in step 6. This will allow the patch to run and update the version of WWIIOL on your hard-drive. Simply copy the updated files back to your RAMDisk after the update has been applied an re-run 'BattlegroundEurope_RAM.reg' to launch from the RAM Disk next time.

Eye-Fi

2008-07-01T23:34:00.004-04:00

I ordered an Eye-Fi SD card for my camera the other day. Its a special Secure Digital memory card (2 GB capacity) that also has a built in 802.11g/b wireless card. The awesome part is, it automatically uploads pictures that your camera has taken as soon as you enter a recognized wireless AP.

I set it up a little while ago (which was extremely fast and simple) and its working like a charm. It takes a few seconds (probably about a minute or so) to upload, but its 1000x better than having to walk over, take out the SD card, hook up the cardreader, and transfer the files.

The nice thing is, it doesn't REQUIRE that your computer be on. It will automatically connect to the internet and upload pics even if your computer isn't on. Which is pretty good. Not really a problem for me (since I have my media PC on all the time at home), but it'll be fantastic when I'm on the road... Of course, there's always the restriction that I actually take pictures in the first place.

To prove that it works, here's a picture of some of the toys lying around my apartment (automagically uploaded to my Flickr account mind you):

(Shhhh)

2008-06-26T21:49:00.005-04:00

I updated some stuff on the google code page for freetar. Don't tell anyone. Its a secret.

Freetar Availability

2008-06-26T18:49:00.001-04:00

As I posted on my old site, I'm unable to continue work myself on Freetar. Unfortunetly, it looks like the freetar site ( http://www.freetar.net ) has lapsed into obscurity.

But fear not! Freetar is still available is from the google code page ( http://code.google.com/p/freetar ) Unfortunetly, the forums and wiki may be lost forever, but the content can be rebuilt, better than before, on the google code page.... Maybe....

New Blog!

2008-06-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

So there were some... Security problems... with my old blog. I think. I dunno. I'm moving to Blogger.com because I'm lazy and don't want to have to actually administer the blog anymore.

Thats right. I'd much rather just let someone else update all the software and make sure that its secure and stuff. I'm also pretty sick of wading through nothing but spam. Maybe this will be better?!

So, get ready for 1 or 2 updates and then years of silence! Yeay!