4,003 words, in memoriam

So long, Roscoe.

R.I.P. Roscoe Q. Copter

    Alas the beloved Toy went down in the river. I am told that if I could find it, it could be rehabilitated, but I don't have a frogman suit and would rather spend the money to buy another than risk my life trying to rescue the toy. But what a run we had. Here's the story.
    This morning, my friend Lee texted from Winston-Salem asking if I wanted a visit and I replied enthusiastically. So he was here shortly after noon. I wanted to try inventing pico de gallo lentil pancakes; as he's vegetarian, I correctly guessed that he would be into it, too. They were really good! I'll have to figure out a recipe one day.
    We took Toy to the soccer practice field at the university. Some South Asian guys were playing cricket (ok, so it was the cricket field), which isn't an everyday site in this area, the weather was great and I got one last brilliant video. Then we went to Granby Park, but the light wasn't right for what I wanted (train trestle shots) so the flying was good but the filming wasn't. Also, Toy flew out of range and didn't fly back automatically. I did the walk toward it trick, and then it came home. THEN we took it to West Columbia Riverwalk and immediately got in trouble.
    I had found yesterday that although I could get very good video and pictures, the works of man are not only tiny from space, they're pretty piddling from 400, 300, or even 60 feet. Gervais Street Bridge is wondrous large compared to a person and very impressive but from just twice its height, it looks pretty unimpressive. So I was trying to get down to bridge height. And I assumed that I knew I was out over the river. I could have used the gimbal to rotate the camera to look straight down to make sure; I had done this yesterday and even today. But I got overconfident. So I flew into a tree and it crashed into the river. As I say, I have been told that I could revive it if I could find it. But that's a cold river, usually shallow and slow but these days deep, fast and powerful. And I'd rather spend hundreds than court hypothermia. Assuming that I could find it and could rehabilitate it, neither exactly a certainty.
    On the other hand, yesterday was so phenomenally perfect, I had great doubts that I could ever top it or even match it. This is not to say that I didn't want to fly Toy anymore, nor that I don't regret its loss. Let's just say that I celebrate even more how much fun I had with it. And hope that I learned something and will be much more careful next time. Bye Roscoe. You were a good Toy.

Converts

    This morning dawned beautiful and also promised a warm day, so I was pretty excited about flying prospects. I figured that south of town looking north would give me the best light, so I went to Barney Jordan Landing. (Yes, I did take off from a landing. Quit interrupting.) That's quite nearby, much the nearest access to the river, but surrounded by warehouses, stadium parking facilities and quarries and quarry traffic. So the river is pretty but nothing nearby is very. It was crazy cool flying and I learned something important. If Toy REALLY loses signal, it flies back home by itself. Then I learned something else equally important: if it's about to land in the wrong place (on your car, say), you can interrupt the automatic landing process to move it somewhere safer and then it will continue to land itself. Two good things.
    The place I really wanted to go was West Columbia Riverwalk, because it's adjacent to the Gervais Street bridge, much the prettiest of the spans over the Congaree. I took some insane video basically chasing a car over the bridge (from 100 feet in the air, of course). Toy is pretty fast! Then when I figured I'd gone far enough, I told it to come home, and found that Toy had fans. A couple were very, very, very interested, and the gentleman was particularly keen to get his own. I showed them the video and then demonstrated a hover and how high Toy could go and then flew it off for some more keen video. I also took a series of pictures that formed a beautiful complete 360 panorama. (More in a second.) They thanked me enthusiastically and I went off home to review my haul.
    The 360 could not be turned into a panorama using my software. Half of it turned out OK, although I had to do some manipulation. The automatic stitching software lost Uptown Columbia somehow. It'll be funny when I go out to buy a new laptop just to be able to make better panoramas. The one from Barney Jordan Landing was cooler, to be honest, if a little industrial. Suffice it to say that the day was big fun and I hardly feel guilty about still not signing up for Obamacare. Was guiltily proud of coining Fauxbamacare for an outfit that charges you $20 per month to certify that you're insured for purposes of beating the penalty. Didn't sign up for that either, though. Tick tick tick.

A new enthusiasm

    I lucked into a 25 cent cassette tape featuring the music from the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater from Hanoi, this specific tape from 1993. I dig it immensely. The only shortcoming is that it comes short; it's only about twenty minutes long, if that. The music isn't incredibly exotic if you've ever eaten in a Southeast Asian restaurant, but it crazy mad cool. The troupe is on YouTube complete with water puppets. You should definitely check it out.
    I was of course going to post something intelligent about how I seek out any distraction possible to avoid taking up my grown-up life, but I just did, didn't I?
    PS: Apparently that's Ha Noi. Never too late to learn!

This crazy new feature called control

    I'm still getting used to having a flying camera that I can actually control. The very specific example was a picture I took several times with the old toys taking off from nearby Pacific Park. It was of interesting Olympia buildings, but also always included the top of the neighboring gas station. And while I am very fond of that gas station because somebody had the brilliant idea to call it Shiv Mart (and to open at least two more Shiv Marts around town), it's roof isn't too appealing from above. And I was looking at my display and thinking "This again," and then realized I could just turn the drone and cut the gas station out. The resulting picture wasn't that electrifying either, but that was just the result of the gloomy day.
    I'm getting better at guessing how far away I can fly without losing contact with Toy. I could wish that the display would show the distance more clearly or better yet that there would be a "You're about to lose it, stupid!" warning. But since I can just walk toward the direction Toy flew in, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to bring it home. (KNOCK ON WOOD!!!) Slightly distressing was that each time it flew home today, it set down ten or twenty feet from the start point. This is ok if I start from a baseball field, like today, but not so good if I'm in the middle of woods. Still, I can abort Fly Home at any point and I can point the camera straight down to see obstructions. I can fly it home by hand if I have to. It's just more relaxing using the Look Ma No Hands method. (The crazy new feature called not needing control.)

I'm going to get the diabeetus

    The longer version was I'm going to get the diabeetus from my less stressful lifestyle. Back when I had to ferry Dad to dialysis and to doctor's appointments, I had to deal with enough frustrations that I had to walk every day just to keep from wanting to punch somebody. These days, frustrations are few and well spaced out and it's easy to skip going walking.
    Then again, floods are frequent and have taken away, seemingly permanently, one of my favorite walking places (Canal Park). A short portion of the Cayce Riverwalk reopened the other day and a much longer portion tied in with Timmerman Trail was open today. This has happened a lot since September; it's like a homecoming every time and surprisingly emotionally draining every time. So if we can just quit flooding for a little while, maybe I can keep diabeetus at bay. Fond as I am of walking in my own neighborhood, it's a lot easier to do this daily when there's a little more variety. Partly to catch up but mostly because I like it, I walked the whole circuit of the Riverwalk Battlefield Connector, Timmerman Trail and the 12,000 Year Historical Park Trail. It took maybe an hour and a half, so not exactly climbing Everest, but it was very pleasant. Take that, Wilford Brimley.

I love it when a plan comes together

    Full version: I love it when a plan comes together by sheer luck and completely out of line with what the actual plan was. I mentioned that I am now freezing some of my food so I will be less overwhelmed with leftovers in the fridge and able to feel more spontaneous about dining out options. That is, I no longer will feel like I can't go out or the leftovers will go bad. I always meant to do this, but life intervened.
    This means that I never learned how long it takes to defrost a pre-cooked frozen meal, and had no clear ideas. I planned to put the dinnercicle in a pot at low heat for 17 minutes, then at medium heat for 10. But muscle memory misled me and I wound up putting it at medium for 17. This turned out to be just right. I let it sit and think about it on no heat for the other ten minutes and it turned out rather well. Not as good as fresh from the pot in the first place, but at least as good as after sitting in the fridge for three days.
    I had to re-login just to look at my stats this morning in order to receive the message that Google is putting a warning pursuant to EU rules on every blog now. So if you see that, that's why. If you don't see that, I'm in biiiiig trouble with the EU.

Posting while sleepy

    Tamara had tickets for Arturo Sandoval in Charleston and the friend she was going with got sick, so I stepped in. She had never been to Charleston, so I also played tour guide in a small way and also took flowers to my mom's grave, which is always nice. It wasn't snowy but it was fairly grey and windy, so we just walked about the Battery a bit and South of Broad, ate not-very-good Lowcountry Boil on Shem Creek, and then found our way to the auditorium.
    Diane Schuur was opening. Neither of us knew much about her, but she absolutely slayed. Particularly memorable was her encore, a capella Amazing Grace, dedicated to the Mother Bethel 9. Sandoval also put on a very entertaining show, singing, scatting, playing piano, percussion and synth, and yeah, some trumpet here and there. I'm not sure he ever picked up the flueghel horn, but it was a delightful show as well. Both seemed a little high; they may have had a little too much fun in Charleston. His encore was A Night In Tunisia, which burned the house down. Pity; it was newly renovated.
    Somebody with a better ear can pass a more intelligent opinion, but I thought the Gaillard Center (formerly Gaillard Auditorium) still needs a lot of work. While very beautiful, a pink La Scala, it struck me as acoustically very very poor. It worked when Diane sung solo; any more voices than that, somebody always got lost. Just an unprofessional opinion of course. Hope I'm wrong and everybody else loves it. Regardless, the show was great.
    Dreams last night were the usual sort of odd. I was in some Philadelphia-like place up north, missing meals and responsibilities to hang out by a railroad track, waiting for somebody to come up from the south. It seemed also that I wanted to go south myself, much unlike my real life experience in Philadelphia. Admittedly, I did tend to gravitate toward 30th Street Station with the idea of wanting to go some place any place, but with the caveat any place but south. Making peace finally? Well maybe.

Snowpocalypse passed us by

    Not complaining in the least, mind you, and all sympathies for those hit more seriously. But here it was the best kind of snow: the kind you see in the air but don't have to worry about on the ground. Fun thing was that weather radar made it look like we were the Southern outlier for the great snowpocalypse. The attached news story said that all flights out of Charlotte were cancelled, but the weather radar looked like we were having the much more serious storm. The difference between 30 and 35 degrees, I suppose.
    It wasn't even supposed to freeze last night, but Harry's outside water bowl didn't get the memo; it froze most impressively. This may have been helped by the fact that it's metal and there wasn't much water. But I'm still a little puzzled about it.
    Dreams last night were another exercise in fabulous dream logic making sense at the time. I don't remember anything specific, but it was the usual thing that was happening simultaneously in a computer game, a book, a tv show, real life and three different cities and or countries. No problem!

Winning Goodwill

    I note first that yesterday's (second or official) entry was #1,800. Not that this is some signal achievement, but it's a neat number.
    There is a specific Goodwill in town that has remained loyal to R&B while the other locations flee to crap country. That is out Garner's Ferry Road. The music is so good that I consider it my personal nightclub and have difficulty leaving, and also have difficulty going out to real clubs of a Friday night because Goodwill is so cool. I realize absolutely how insane this sounds.
    Regardless, because of the weather forecast, I wasn't sure if I would be making it out today (i.e., Friday) like I usually do and so went yesterday. I was buttonholed by a friendly guy who wanted to talk and talk and talk about his hobby of collecting balloon glasses. I'm SO nice, I even pointed one out for him, a good one, too. Then a young man in the electronics section thought a label on a stereo receiver meant that they were asking $157. I showed him the underline that made it $15.75 and then the outlet where he could check if it was working, kicking myself because it looked like a good piece of equipment. Later he came back and told me that if I was interested, it worked. I was.
    They also had a matching 5-disc CD player at the same price, both Kenwood, both apparently early 21st century (a phrase I'm not sure I've ever had the opportunity to use before). My new old receiver is so old that it doesn't have polarized plugs. My old CD changer (not from Goodwill, but really old) has a short in it somewhere or anyway always smells like ions and not in a good way. (Like an electrical fire.) So I jumped on the opportunity.
    It only took an hour to get the new noisemakers set up. Like the item that I didn't want to pay $100 for at His House, this receiver is designed for a home theater system. But for $16 I could live with the overkill. The Fisher speakers sound good with the Kenwoods. AND they're much safer for Amelia to climb on. Win win! I haven't felt this '90s since Clinton was in office!

And now today

    What I love about dream logic is that everything makes perfect sense at the time. The other night, I dreamed that I got a job calling football play-by-play on TV. For one minute. In Iran. Or possibly China. And it all made sense! A one-minute job calling a sport not played abroad in one or another country that might be expected to be hostile to the US or to Americans. Sure! That could happen! Anyway, at last I know what my dream job is.
    As we have snow headed this way and as the temperature got above 40, I went out this morning and flew over to the quarry. The video is crazy cool even though it was totally overcast. Now the sun has come out, dangit. Somebody stop me from going out and flying again. (Yeah, that's going to happen.)

I forgot

    Boy, it's a sign of advancing age when you think you posted your blog entry because you decided what it would be and then never actually posted it. And now, more due to still being asleep than being old, I can't remember what I had decided to post yesterday. I assure you that it would have been vastly entertaining and of great lasting benefit to mankind. Oh wait, I remember and no it isn't and no it isn't, respectively. I went a-flying again yesterday afternoon and again lost touch with Toy. The message of possible benefit to mankind is that things go better when you don't panic. I just walked towards Toy and there it was again. I brought it home, where it will likely be resting for the next few days. We got snow coming! Nothing like what DC is expecting of course, but still.
    Toy (which is now named Roscoe, but I still like Toy) has additional cool features that I hadn't noticed, like showing the street grid I'm flying over on my phone. As the streets in Olympia are named after streets, I can take off from Ohio and land in Texas, Florida or Georgia. Streets, sure, but it counts! It is a measure of just how childish I am that I laughed and laughed at this.
    Future trips will start off closer to the destination be it quarry, river or tall buildings, so I can actually get there without flying out of range. The frustrating thing is that I need an open area to take off from so I can be pretty comfortable that GPS will bring me home without snagging in a tree or power line. The best places aren't overblessed with such takeoff spots. But I'm keeping my eyes open.
    OK, that's yesterday's entry. I'll try to remember to do today's later.

My 2015 achievements

    This won't take long. When I finally got tired of Penny Mountain and shoveled them all in a bag, they amounted to $1.75 or if you prefer, 175 cents. (I was counting while I was shoveling.) Over the course of the last year, through being very, very anal about keeping pennies on hand at all times and paying them out in every possible transaction, I've gotten Penny Mountain down below 25 cents. I think a parade is in order at the very least.
    I am thrilled to report that although I couldn't see anything on the paper towel I wiped the quad copter camera lens with, apparently I got whatever was making the big spot, because I made a late afternoon flight and the pictures and video were clear. That flight was major fun, too, as I had no idea where Toy was now and again. I flew toward the sun thinking that that was back towards me, but nooooo, I saw it flying I guess you could say perpendicular to the path back to me. That Home function came in very handy once again.
    It was also a bit nerve-wracking flying yesterday, since it was very windy (aloft at least) and I kept losing signal. So far, this has just meant that I couldn't communicate with the camera; if I can no longer communicate with the aircraft in general, then I'm screwed. What is also trying is that it didn't appear to be at all windy on the ground. Looks like I need an aviation weather app!

The queen and her general

    Now that I've quit giving the cats dry food at all but only wet, they're even more demanding. I, on the other hand, am a legendary pushover. It's not 3:30 and I would prefer to give them the afternoon food much closer to 5, but I probably can't withstand the whininess for that long. The probability is that I will wind up feeding them half a can (split in two) four times a day. This requires me to be here four times a day, which is no problem most of the time, but sometimes I will want to be out longer than that. I am assured that they won't starve to death in the interim, though.
    Toy went out on a first actual flight, as in one that was going somewhere, this afternoon. It almost went great. Unfortunately the pictures all had a big black spot on them, hopefully the result of an earlier muddy crash. However, I wiped the lens and didn't perceive any gick on there. I will fly again later and see if the same thing happens. Hoping not. Anyway, the actual flight was glorious. (It helps when there's a Home function that brings it home for you, of course!)

A panoply of entertainment options

    It's weird not having cable but being overwhelmed with entertainment options. The number of broadcast channels has proliferated wonderfully and it's big fun. Last night, the legendary "Squire of Gothos" episode of Star Trek was on, as well as Mystery Science Theater 3000. Doctor Who is on every night, although it's a different set of episodes on both Saturday and Sunday. Eventually, there will be three different doctors going. Football playoffs add a lot of options, too, and American Top 40 on radio. And THAT'S my excuse for writing only a paragraph! (PS: Original Doctor was a weasel, wasn't he? Inspiration for Dr. Smith on Lost In Space, no doubt.)

Adjusting a year late

    I'm finally catching up to the notion that the long siege is ended, that I no longer live in perpetual crisis, and fun and socializing is possible. Not that I ever felt that the latter were prohibited; they were just very difficult since I always always always was on call. And even after Dad died, I was so much in the habit of solitude that I didn't think twice about, for instance, putting a third of my CDs in shelves literally on my "dining room table" (card table) such that any potential dinner guest would be in a very awkward position.
    Relatedly, before Dad had his decline, I was planning to start cooking days in advance by freezing individual meals so I could do my cooking on weekends and maybe go out and get a job. But during the siege, I did my cooking days in advance and just kept everything in the fridge, reheating lunch and dinner daily until I ran out and cooked one, the other or both as time and Dad demands permitted. In the intervening year, I've maintained this method as it's very time-saving. But it also saddles me with leftovers that I have to eat or they will go bad, which creates pressure not to go out.
    So I may revive plan A and freeze individual meals; I certainly have the containers for it, not used these four or five years. And today I bought some little Sauder-type shelves that are ideal for CDs, so I can free up the dining room table. Whether anyone comes to eat here or not, Amelia will be thrilled. She was hating those shelves, which are hard for a hefty cat to jump over. We're getting there.

Deep pockets

    Having been raised by wolverines, I didn't learn much about how to dress myself and having been raised by cheap wolverines, I didn't learn much about fine, or even very good, clothes. So I had to be told that if the front pockets on your jacket don't seem to be there, it's best to investigate. For reasons that aren't obvious to me, our finer clothes manufacturers sew the front pockets shut. (Don't want disgruntled employees leaving chewed gum in there?) So I have a very fine blue knee-length woolen coat which I was starting to hate because of what I thought were fake front pockets. Now I can love it again. Yay!
    What's funny is that I bought it secondhand. I also have a bunch of blazers, or rather suit jackets without the pants, also bearing designer names or brands and also featuring front pockets that need cutting open to be used. (Not that most people use the front pockets on blazers, but still.) What cracks me up is that since they're secondhand, apparently I'm not the only one who didn't realize that the pockets need to be cut open. Lot of folks raised by wolverines up in here, so it seems.

AHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHA!

    I had a whole blog entry prepared, not a very interesting one, about fresh air ("Times Sqvare!"). Today was another glorious, beautiful day, and also notably uhhhh not cold. Sixty degrees is warm if you're in Duluth, say, but the best my thin blood and I can give it is not cold. Also Congaree National Park, flooded since forever as we've had wave after wave of monsoon rains since the disastrous flood, is finally seeing some let up. And it's expected to rain tomorrow. So I got my ass out to Congaree NP.
    It was a very nice walk, and I very very much appreciated the fresh air. It's less inundated than it was, but still somewhat inundated. My waterproof boots might have seen me through, but having felt cold water in them when they failed to do so, I wasn't eager to feel it again. So I turned around on an inundated trail and on an inundated boardwalk. Heck, even if it rains tomorrow, the waters will go down eventually. And anyway I've seen it all before.
    I brought the quad copter and after I had walked my fill, I asked about it. I had been told that drones aren't allowed in national parks; unfortunately that proved to be true. They were awfully nice about it, though. But what caused the laughter represented in the subject line was that when I flew earlier and uploaded the pictures to the laptop, thence to Facebook, I left the SD card hooked to the computer. So even if I had been granted permission, I would have been MOST disappointed with the (non-existent) photographic results. Note to self: Make pre-flight checklist.

It ramifies

    I really love taking pictures with the quad. I also enjoyed chatting with one of the fellows from across the street about it. Adam loves Harry the cat, so we got along famously. I was freezing solid (Again! Forty degrees is cold! I don't care what you yankees say!) taking pictures of the quarry from right in front of my house, which is pretty damned easy entertainment if you ask me. What I wanted was a panorama of this immense quarry coupled with the nearby, uh, don't giggle when I say "metropolis." (You heard me! Stop that!) My panorama software made a really neat picture, but the curvature of the Earth blew the game. Our region looks a lot more hilly than it in fact is.
    I think I'm going to call it good enough. Yes I have a color printer, yes I could print actual pictures and actually cut and paste them (the very idea!). Or get better panorama software. Or virtually hand cut and paste them using this or another type software. Or crop out the part where the horizon looks bent. (It is, but it didn't look that way in the individual, unstitched pictures.)
    Yesterday I made a panorama showing less quarry and less city. It was also less dramatic and less cool, but the horizon was straight. I could also try flying higher, but am more than a little nervous about that. If I didn't mention, the height limit is now just shy of 400 feet. I can change that in settings, but am not sure that I should. It may be the FAA ceiling; I don't know.
    So in short, boy is this fun! I wish I could get better panoramas, but I can always do video instead, which the Facebookese seem to like better anyway. So all is good!

Lawyer stuff

    A more useful subject line would have been "Dad's Trust is no more," but that sounds so sad! I went to our lawyer's office and signed my name eight times or so. Funny thing about that was having to use my middle name, which I haven't written in cursive but maybe five times since I used to practice it in the earlier part of elementary school. My signature looked very second grade, too, but it improved over the eight times. I guess I should have asked for a blank sheet and practiced, but hey, childish though it might be, it is my signature. So Dad's house and his farm property near Swansea now belong to the five of us. Taxes on the former are high and on the latter are low. I guess we'll cope somehow. And I'm half the trustee I was yesterday. I think I'll cope.
    It was another beautiful flying day. I'll try not to yammer on about it, except to say that 50 degrees is indeed way more fun than 40. Also the app, the software or the firmware aren't operating too well. Got a warning saying Disconnected, but no indication what was disconnected. GPS? The compass? I'm hoping it fixes itself when next I power up. Otherwise Toy might indeed not live long enough to see me registering with the FAA.

I WOULD be the weak member of the team

    OK, we have another gorgeous day, but ten or twenty degrees colder. I understood that you aren't supposed to take the quad copter out in 40-ish degree weather, but did anyway. I did warm it up in the house though. The app, the software, the firmware, or somebody in China decided I was ready for my big boy pants and took me off Beginner Mode without telling me. Anyway, I went up and up and up and no little voice came out of the phone saying that height limit had been reached. I looked at the altimeter reading (I feel so darned grown-up just writing that!) and it said 394 feet. I decided, as I had for 300, that that was high enough for anybody.
    The app also started taking pictures differently, or so I remember from all of yesterday. Previously, there was a flash on the screen showing you that your picture had been shot. Now there's nothing. There is a play button that shows you your pics and or video (I don't remember that being there yesterday either), so I did know that the pictures were being taken when I hit the button.
    I got some crazy neat shots from in front of my very door. The city looks closer, the quarry looks bigger, the football stadium looks tiny. And I got cold. Toy performed like a champ, but I, in two shirts, sweater, scarf, parka and fake Russian fur cap (I got it from a fake Russian) was cold. So I bailed after maybe five minutes. So now we know. Toy works GREAT at 40 degrees. Old guy, not so much.
    I've been reading "The Groucho Letters." Can you tell?

Can't. Stop. Grinning.

    Woke up this morning-- boy, this is going to be the worst blues song EVER! Woke up this morning and the sun DID shine. To me, the view out the windows was the usual grey/white light, but the phone said the sky was blue so I looked better and in spite of great drippiness, the skies WERE blue. So I fed the rotten stinkies, made and ate breakfast and the skies were still blue and the temperature was reasonable. So I got my butt out the door with TOOOOOOOOYYYY!
    I only went by the quarry because the rear windshield was too fogged to make doing a three point turn advisable. Truthfully, what I learned this morning was not to try shooting or videoing between 8 and 9, because the light really isn't good enough. But there had been nothing in the forecast about there being any clear skies today at all, so I figured I had better grab the chance. I did get a cool picture of the skyline from there and some interesting video. (If you aren't on Facebook, this would be a good time to join up, wouldn't it?) Then I went to recently flooded and closed Granby Park to get some shots near the rail trestles. That was just a tiny bit nerve-wracking because the tree cover there is truly awesome, but I found a spot where I could safely go up and down and Toy performed like a champ. Skyline pics from there were even cooler; other shots suffered from poor morning light but were still cool by me.
    It's hard to convey: the new toy is much less running-around-like-a-little-kid-giggling fun than the earlier ones were. They were fun because they were unpredictable and hard to control. This also limited the length of time that they were fun since one kept finding trees, one only flew twice before finding one overhanging a 30-foot-high warehouse, and one came crashing from the sky for no (pilot-error-related anyway) reason. This one goes straight up. It comes straight down. It shouldn't be any fun at all, but I'm totally goofy about it. It takes great pictures and I can see what I'm doing as I'm doing it. Apparently that's all I need. An hour later, I STILL can't stop grinning!

Dank

    I had some wild and crazy dreams last night which I'd love to relate but all I clearly perceive is that when I emerge from my blanket-wrapped and cat-insulated cocoon, it's really damned cold in here. As it isn't cold enough to trigger the heat (67 degrees), I'm left to wonder if I have some weird very borderline illness. I don't feel sick in any way except for being cold all the time. I'm guessing that the increased humidity after days of it decreasing (rain today after a short dry period) is just bringing the old place back to its usual annoying dankness. Why don't I just turn up the thermostat? Good question. Just cussed, I guess.
    The dream that stayed with me best is still mostly forgotten. What was confusing, as often happens in my dream, was that it was a computer game, a movie, a book and real life all at the same time. And a phone call. I had to meet somebody who was going to try to kill me in a specific room at the end of a long corridor that was quite a lot more like a tentacle. I was trying to set up with an imaginary woman I had never met before that I would text her immediately if I was in trouble and she would call the police. I think the person who was going to kill me was also an imaginary woman whom I had never met. Well there are a lot of those.

STILL love those crises which turn out not to be

    Oh nothing. No really, I'm not just being passive-aggressive this time. Harry the cat wasn't eating yesterday, which was worrying since normally I worry about him eating the furniture or stray body parts of mine. Not that he has ever tried, but the message I am trying to convey is a voracious appetite wrapped in a tabby pelt. The moggy who ate Pittsburgh, if you will. So Harry off his feed is a little scary. Strictly speaking, it didn't even last one full day; by late yesterday he was begging for food again. So I am a relieved fella. Not that he wouldn't benefit from a trip to the vet; not that slightly-listless Harry wouldn't be a lot easier to get to the vet than the usual dynamo he is. But even better that none of that was necessary.
    We had rain this morning, which I think scared everybody after all these months of deluge. (Usual disclaimer that I fully understand that the Midwest has and has had it worse.) The rest of the day has just been chilly and cloudy. So no fun for flying, but no call for Noah either. So far. The weekend is young!

Good heavens!

    No, literally! It seems like forever, but it was more like three days. We got clear, temperate weather again, clearer and temperater (which I assure you is now a word) even than before. So I sent toy up as far as a beginner is allowed to go, 300 feet. I could take it off Beginners settings at any time but a) I AM a beginner and b) 300 feet is as high as a 30 story building, which we don't have any of around here anyway, and seems quite high enough.
    The pictures were only limited by stuff like the usual "don't point your camera at the sun" thing. Otherwise, they are fairly magnificent. Would be magnificenter (you heard me) if I would edit out warehouses and stuff in the foreground, but I kind of like them the way they come out of the camera. Quite a difference from the earlier toys, where I would take 60 pictures in order to get two that were any good. It helps a lot being able to see them (more or less) on the phone screen. Anyway, color me happy with the magnificent new flying machine. I'm starting to get confident that it will last long enough to require me to register with the FAA. I'm perfectly happy to do so if I continue to keep toy out of trees and off buildings. Its flight is so predictable that I'm getting increasingly confident that that will happen.

Well it's been a year

    Dad died a year ago today. I'd like to say something deep about all the personal growth I experienced in that year, but I don't think being dragged kicking and screaming into further adult responsibilities (or whining and moaning anyway) strictly speaking qualifies. The fact that I did carry them all out, however grudgingly, reflects at least a little well upon me. Not surprising is how much I still miss him every day. What a great fellow he was, all the way to the end!
    In other events, I finally picked up the tickets I won months ago for the Jackson Browne show Monday. The lady at the radio station's front desk asked me for my address, which I thought needlessly cruel on a cold morning. I couldn't have told her on ten guesses. Should have just handed her my driver's license (with my address AND my picture) but it's also on a tag on my keys. Anybody else would have taken that off years ago, but I know myself.
    Also I found another receiver (the stereo component, not somebody who fences stolen property) at Goodwill, this one $9, and unlike the $2.75 one, it works. So I'm refamiliarizing myself with my 5-disc CD changer, which isn't as awesome as it seemed in the mid-'90s, but is still pretty awesome. The Fisher speakers are dizzying. I guess my mission should be to get on Amazon or eBay and put together a system worthy of them. But Goodwill hunting is kind of fun in a masochistic sort of way. So perhaps I'll keep at it.

Non-science-fiction science fiction

    I have several books where the writer decided to set all or part of his book in the then near future. They tend not to hold up too well. Dick Francis wrote a great one called Twice Shy where our hero develops a computer program for betting on horses. (I think that's it; it's been a while since I read it. Point is that it was a computer program.) Fourteen years later, his brother has to find it. The program was saved on cassette tape. So in 1995, our other hero has to find a computer that uses cassette tapes. No problem! I didn't have much truck with computers in 1981 but I did in 1995. I thought it was pretty funny.
    Two of the three John D. MacDonald novels I picked up lately were inexplicably set a few years ahead. Ah wait; one was a story. The Trap of Solid Gold, in The End of the Tiger and Other Stories. For no reason I can figure, it was set a couple of years ahead of the publication date, a story about a marriage falling apart due to economic pressures. Then there's The Empty Trap (lot of traps around here), published in 1957, set for no good reason in the mid-'60s. There aren't any major mistakes except for somebody referring in the present tense to the casinos in Havana. I just can't figure out why he would set in the future unless he was bored. He did make up a new Nevada gambling town, but he made up a lot of towns over the years; I don't know why this would trouble him. Anyway it's no deal killer. It was a good book whenever it was set. Just a bit puzzling.

Careful what you wish for

    That is, be specific what you wish for. I finally got the clear day I had been dreaming of for drone flying. However, I forgot to mention that it would be nice if it weren't windy. First thing, practically, I went out and flew a bit in the neighborhood. Although it was windy, I had no problem flying. I did have a slightly exciting time when the drone's app crashed. The drone didn't though; the app doesn't have a lot to do with flying it, only taking pictures. I landed and the app reopened no problem.
    Later, after lunch, I tried flying at the nearest boat landing in hopes of photographing how high the river is. The winds were nerve-wracking, however. If I had more experience with toy, no doubt it would be no problem. It's not like trees were blowing down, bending over, or even waving in the breeze noticeably. But I wasn't comfortable and bailed. The same thing happened at the Horseshoe, the scenic part of the University. There the hazard is trees, not water. I got n-n-n-n-n-nervous and landed too fast and actually managed to crash the uncrashable drone. No damage except for getting dirty as far as I can tell. Knock wood, anyway.
    I know a lot of places I can fly where wind isn't a problem, but with such a kickass camera it seems sad to go to non-picturesque places to fly. I know intellectually that I need practice and starting out in safer places is best, but I can go there any time it's too overcast for interesting photography anyway. It's not fair! I'm holding my breath until I turn blue! Or get a pony! OK, I feel better now.

Married, buried

    Just kidding! But I dreamed last night that I was suddenly married to Alice. It was not exactly a church wedding. I think it was in a restaurant or bar. My parents were there, well, happy and happy about it. But the wedding didn't so much happen in the dream but had just happened. The rest of the dream (possibly affected, as they often are, by whatever old-time radio show was playing) involved trying to get food (I SAID it was a restaurant) and trying to find my car. I wasn't too chuffed about the wedding, being married, or being married to somebody I haven't seen in seven years. Still don't know what happened to my car, though.
    Paul and I went to Sevenoaks Park today (in real life) with the new drone. It's just crazy. It works so well it's awesome, or awful in the sense that it's full of awe. Awe-inspiring, I suppose is the term that we use for that one. The cheap ones were much more exciting in that they were unpredictable, but since one is in a tree over a building and the other two unpredictabled themselves to death, this is ever so much better. Deadline to register with the FAA is 2/19 and I can now actually imagine it still being flight-worthy by then, as opposed to the Syma products. I certainly will register with good grace if it's still going then. Dreaming of clearer skies, though.

Oh, the rain stopped

    The rain stopped but it was much cooler today. Not cold or anything, but just cool enough to be a problem. That's hardly cold at all, more like slightly not warm. You see, the firmware on the new quadcopter required an update or it couldn't be flown in temperatures less than 20 degrees Celsius. This is to say 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Not that it would blow up or anything, but there might be a problem with the battery. As the battery is half the cost of the thing, problems with the battery are to be avoided.
    DJI apparently set out to create a foolproof firmware update, but they underestimated our foolishness. They said to connect to WiFi. The copter has WiFi. So I thought, fine, that was easy. But it wasn't; it wouldn't work. They should have said, "connect to WiFi other than the copter, it's closed-circuit, stupid." I needed something from Whole Foods so I downloaded the update there. Ran errands, got home, updated the firmware on the controller and copter, which caused many annoying noises but no disquiet otherwise.
    By then, it was getting to be late afternoon; I wanted to recharge the copter but I also wanted to fly and check out the camera. The cats had their own agenda. They wanted wet cat food but it was early for that. So I am so darned nice that I only flew about five minutes each in two locations, shot 19 pictures and came home and fed my damnable cats. Pics would be spectacular with clearer skies; they were damned fine as is. I can't wipe the grin off my face. TOOOOOOYYYYYY!

Without a song

    Our first high school band director was an idiot. Later, I got to know him a little as an adult and it turns out that he's a great guy. But exclusively as a band director, he was an idiot. All he knew about discipline was yelling or yelling louder. As a teacher he was a really good clarinet player. But I only just realized what an idiot he was.
    My freshman year, we played three songs in our halftime show. I don't remember one, unless it was Virgen de la Macarena, which we DID like. But two I definitely remember. One was Without A Song and the other was Tara's Theme. I didn't know anything about Without A Song at the time, and we played it so poorly that nobody learned much about it from us. In my old-time radio listening, I finally heard it properly, which is to say Porgy and Bess style. That was maybe OK in 1943; in 1977 in an integrated school, and coupled with Tara's Theme from Gone With The Wind-- well, color me retroactively mortified.
    Perhaps the thinking was that hey, it's 1977, it's the New South, we're so advanced that we can just forget all that slavery stuff. Did I mention that he was from California?