totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Re: safety concerns, all balloons are tethered, and I have water on hand at all times, not that I've ever had to use the tether lol. If I do get them to fly, I have no intention of letting them fly freely unless I take them out to the middle of a field with no wind and a very limited amount of fuel.

You should come out here, everything’s so saturated right now there’s zero fire danger. Except maybe with dioxygen difluoride. But fuel-wise, maybe fire starter pellets? Fairly light, burn long and consistently. I tried looking up fire resistant fabric out of curiosity, but after a truly painful amount of math it seems to be twice the weight of paper. Maybe just some good ol’ fashioned nylon? I think that’s what actual balloons are made of. Or maybe parachute silk, prolly available on eBay. 
 

4 hours ago, Gargamel said:

As moderator, it’s statements like this From you guys that make me wonder if should notify PD/TTi Legal department before reading any farther.    

And ITAR, the FAA, EPA, NTSB, MPAA, AAA, SAG, MIB, PDQ, RSTLNE... 

[Ultimate Steve]

1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

And ITAR, the FAA, EPA, NTSB, MPAA, AAA, SAG, MIB, PDQ, RSTLNE... 

I wouldn't be surprised if half of this forum was on some sort of explosives watch list.

[Gargamel]

4 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I wouldn't be surprised if half of this forum was on some sort of explosives watch list.

There was that one time I made a series of serious inquiries into obtaining depleted uranium to use as a keel weight in RC racing yachts.    I never did get a response as to the cost per kilo.      I’d only need like 3-4 kgs I said.    You know this stuff is radioactive right? They said.     
 

Only much later it was pointed out that tungsten is denser, and available on Amazon.
 

So yeah...... 99% sure I’m on some watch lists.   

Edited January 13, 2021 by Gargamel
Typo

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

You know this stuff is radioactive right? They said.     

"Yes, that's the point. It will be mysteriously glowing under the water, highlighting the bottom with blue."

[Ultimate Steve]

Mk6 is a design based on newspaper, about 2x2x2 feet although it balloons out to significantly more because the frame is very weak. Stuff kept failing and it took several tests and modifications (and a lot of fuel) but about 15 minutes ago I GOT IT TO FLY!!!

It made it about 2 feet off the ground, not enough for the suspension tethers to detach, and I only got video of the descent, and the flaming fuel partially spilled out due to tether melting issues (which might be fixed now) and then crashed back down. I've probably burned through an unhealthy amount of paper by now, so in a bit I'll experiment with maybe going back to candles, or using something else as fuel. But I'll probably do a few more flights of the current design. I'll have someone hold the camera and I'll manage fuel reloading and tether distancing, as I can't do all three at once. Hopefully I'll get a flight of at least 20 seconds with this method, potentially lasting until something breaks or I run out of paper.

Idk what I'll do for landing though... Without the suspension tethers to keep the balloon above the gondola it might collapse in on itself and catch fire, but maybe not.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Well, about 1 this morning things certainly got... interesting around here. In the “oh God God we’re all gonna die” sort of way. Well, maybe not that bad, but I’m lying in bed reading the forum when I start getting SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNINGs  popping up.  That’s a pretty extreme rarity around here. Didn’t see much wind where I was but the power went out shortly thereafter. And is still out. Upwards of 500,000 people in the dark in the greater Puget Sound area, multiple roads were closed due to trees and powerlines down (including both directions of a major 8-lane interstate. ) That standby generator we got last spring is becoming the best investment ever. But as usual, Comcast is out too.  Help me Elon-1 Kenobi, you’re my only hope.

Seems I picked the right day to take off from work. Which of course, now involved splitting all this: 

I feel like a lumberjack.  I had no idea lumberjacks lived in so much pain.   

Also discovered that this does not, in fact, work: 

 Seems the charger doesn’t like GFCI outlets either, so it’s a lame 5mph charge all night. 
 

Oh, the “oh God oh God we’re all gonna die” part? This guy:

Gust of wind caught him coming over the bridge. Not pictured: the 180-foot drop down to the frigid, churning water below.  Hope he wore his brown pants that day. 

I’m sitting here in a parking lot in town where there’s actually cell service connecting to the outside world for a few minutes, then it’s back to the digital black hole. 

StarLink plz. 

[Ultimate Steve]

56 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Snip

Here in Iowa, we get severe thunderstorms so often we don't bat an eye, often I'll go outside on the porch during them for a short bit. Tornado watches are thought of little more than an annoyance, although if we do get a nearby warning we will go to the basement.

Every year or two we get a biiiigg severe thunderstorm (the kind that flatten crops or takes down 300 trees across town or topples trucks and takes out power across half the state for a bit), and that's probably closer to what you got there if it's flipping vehicles. Those can get pretty scary, although I don't think we took much shelter for at least the past 3. Tbf though for the most recent one we were caught in a pickup truck and there wasn't much shelter to be had, we pulled alongside the nearest building.

[StrandedonEarth]

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Well, about 1 this morning things certainly got... interesting around here. In the “oh God God we’re all gonna die” sort of way. Well, maybe not that bad, but I’m lying in bed reading the forum when I start getting SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNINGs  popping up.  That’s a pretty extreme rarity around here. Didn’t see much wind where I was but the power went out shortly thereafter. And is still out. Upwards of 500,000 people in the dark in the greater Puget Sound area, multiple roads were closed due to trees and powerlines down (including both directions of a major 8-lane interstate. ) That standby generator we got last spring is becoming the best investment ever. But as usual, Comcast is out too.  Help me Elon-1 Kenobi, you’re my only hope.

Seems I picked the right day to take off from work. Which of course, now involved splitting all this: 

I feel like a lumberjack.  I had no idea lumberjacks lived in so much pain.   

Also discovered that this does not, in fact, work: 

 Seems the charger doesn’t like GFCI outlets either, so it’s a lame 5mph charge all night. 
 

Oh, the “oh God oh God we’re all gonna die” part? This guy:

Gust of wind caught him coming over the bridge. Not pictured: the 180-foot drop down to the frigid, churning water below.  Hope he wore his brown pants that day. 

I’m sitting here in a parking lot in town where there’s actually cell service connecting to the outside world for a few minutes, then it’s back to the digital black hole. 

StarLink plz. 

Yeah, I live just over the 49th from you and we caught that blast too, knocked out power at work halfway through my shift, after the wind warning had been lifted. At least after I got sent home power was still on there.

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Down in Oregon here... the weather is rarely destructive at the base of the Willamette valley where I live, but there were many trees falling last night. Although there wasn't much rain, the wind got up in the 80 kph range and could have been really bad. No power outages on my side of town, but the more southerly part was blacked out for half an hour.

As far as I can tell from the local news, nobody was hurt, and only a few cars were crushed, so we're OK.

[kerbiloid]

It's a time to invent a tornado powerplant, why all of you have not started?
So much energy just gets lost for nothing.

It would be much better than starships and Mars.

Say, let the tornado lift water, then let it get down through a dam.

So, a deep pit, a pool on the mountain above.
Tornado sucks the water from the pit, releases it on top, into the pool, then it flows down into the pit.

***

Or a high tower with a weight lifted by tornados.

Edited January 14, 2021 by kerbiloid

[CatastrophicFailure]

14 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Here in Iowa, we get severe thunderstorms so often we don't bat an eye, often I'll go outside on the porch during them for a short bit. Tornado watches are thought of little more than an annoyance, although if we do get a nearby warning we will go to the basement.

The weather here is disgustingly mild, rarely snows, rarely gets super hot, never a hurricane but we usually get a few nasty windstorms every fall/winter. This one just surprised the L out of everyone, no one saw it coming. We had a mild wind advisory to start then out of nowhere there were 100kph+ gusts in places.  What we do have lots of around here, are trees, they don’t mix so well with aerial power lines, especially when the ground is so saturated it’s basically mud and they can just flop over. One of those “perfect storms” I guess. 
 

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It's a time to invent a tornado powerplant, why all of you have not started?
So much energy just gets lost for nothing.

Would love to have a wind/solar system, where I am if the sun’s not shining the wind is usually blowing.  
 

Then again, I’m having enough conniptions with this brassafrackin propane gennie at the moment.  Apparently, possibly due to my nonstandard wiring setup, the starting battery doesn’t charge when the generator is running. Must be making the controller wonky cuz the generator shut down in the middle of the night due to low coolant...

 

It’s air-cooled... 

[tater]

Got to drive around in a 91 year old car today (or 93, depending on how you count it was built in 1928, sold as a 1930 at the time).

Model J Deusenberg. Pretty fun.

[tater]

 

EDIT: Cool car. Mechanicals completely restored, the rest has so many original, unrestored parts that it's worth more as-is than to repaint, etc. Fenders have new paint on them ("new" being some time in the last 50 years), but the body paint is original, and much of the interior is. Exactly what my friend wanted, as he can drive it, and even take the dog in the back.

Edited January 21, 2021 by tater

[TheSaint]

54 minutes ago, tater said:

EDIT: Cool car. Mechanicals completely restored, the rest has so many original, unrestored parts that it's worth more as-is than to repaint, etc. Fenders have new paint on them ("new" being some time in the last 50 years), but the body paint is original, and much of the interior is. Exactly what my friend wanted, as he can drive it, and even take the dog in the back.

Crazy that it's in such good condition after so much time. Barn find?

[tater]

7 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

Crazy that it's in such good condition after so much time. Barn find?

Some guy bought it in the 50s I want to say, then died, and my friend got it from his son. It was inside a proper garage the whole time, started periodically, etc. He sent it to the guy who does most high-end restorations and had it worked on to the point it can drive on the highway, etc.

 

[RealKerbal3x]

The meaningless green number under my profile picture just reached a big round number!

Edited January 23, 2021 by RealKerbal3x

[Lewie]

For the last few weeks, I’ve been learning ASL......so hopefully I’ll see Rebekah tomorrow and we can communicate efficiently with each other for the first time!  Kinda nervous, not going to lie...but really excited! I’ll write a post tomorrow dedicated to how that went.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Lewie

[TheSaint]

Spent the weekend visiting old friends, some of whom I haven't seen in years. Very good time, refreshing.

[RealKerbal3x]

I saw the ISS!

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I saw the ISS!

Now we know who made those leaking scratches in it.
Stop sawing! It's enough that it is drilled already.

[Lewie]

On 1/25/2021 at 1:10 PM, RealKerbal3x said:

I saw the ISS!

Nice!

 

On 1/25/2021 at 2:26 PM, kerbiloid said:

Now we know who made those leaking scratches in it.
Stop sawing! It's enough that it is drilled already.

Thanks for the laugh! This post here made my day.

Also.....wasn’t able to talk to Rebekah today.  Only passed her in the hall from gym to lunch. Will have to try again tomorrow. 

EDIT:

Due to the power outage in my school today, the schedules were a bit wacked up (going to/from classes, that is) so didn't get a chance to talk to her today. Well, there's always tomorow....and the next day...

Cheers!

-Lewie

Edited January 27, 2021 by Lewie

[Geonovast]

I bought a car!

[TheKosanianMethod]

On 1/13/2021 at 3:11 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

I wouldn't be surprised if half of this forum was on some sort of explosives watch list.

A few years ago there was someone on here was looking about building a model rocket that could get to space. At one point they were discussing how to make it controllable and there were a couple ideas put forth until someone pointed out that this was essentially a small guided missile and probably very illegal.

I'm fairly certain everyone in that thread is now under watch by multiple governments as likely candidates for A) recruit for making weapons systems and/or B) to make sure they don't accidentally start WWIII.

[Lewie]

2 minutes ago, TheKosanianMethod said:

A few years ago there was someone on here was looking about building a model rocket that could get to space. At one point they were discussing how to make it controllable and there were a couple ideas put forth until someone pointed out that this was essentially a small guided missile and probably very illegal.

I'm fairly certain everyone in that thread is now under watch by multiple governments as likely candidates for A) recruit for making weapons systems and/or B) to make sure they don't accidentally start WWIII.

Huh...me and some friends are planning on making a multi-staged model rocket. Heh. Solid rocket fuel is so easy to make, it's like 'why not?'

Also, NYLT? Nice! I went to that two summers ago...back in the 'Before times' 

And....I talked to Rebekah today!! I got to school at 8...first period starts at 08:20, so I tend to go hang out in the school foyer and talk with my friends. On the way there, I saw Rebekah and Sadie (another friend of mine from middle school) walking down the hall. Sadie left to get to her first period class, and Rebekah turned around. I tapped her on the shoulder (that's the right etiquette, right?) and signed hi. She smiled, and  signed it back. I proceeded to sign 'I am learning sign language'....which got a pretty big smile from her! We made some small talk (how is your day going and the like) before I signed I had to go, and to take care. SO. DANG. TERRYIFYING! I've always been rubbish at talking to girls....and trying to remember the right order/ASL grammar (and signs, of course) was turning out to be quite tricky, so that really didn't help. I had a HUGE smile the entire time (thank goodness we were wearing masks, I must've looked like a fool...it was the biggest, happiest,  dopiest smile ever!)  Anywhos, there's more to the story, but this is as much as I will say. It was really amazing....I've known her for little over a year now, and this was really our first 'conversation' (we had a couple classes together last year, and those were a bit rough. Darci (the lady that interprets for her) really had to help us out....this was just mind blowing to me! So easy to finally be able to talk to her...I can't really say how it feels! Anywho, enough of my joyous ramble....Cheers!

-Lewie

[TheKosanianMethod]

10 minutes ago, Lewie said:

Also, NYLT? Nice! I went to that two summers ago...back in the 'Before times' 

I took the course way back in 2015, and staffed it a few times since then. I was supposed to be an SPL for a course last summer before everything went nutso. We're trying to plan for a course this summer, who knows how it'll work out.