Month: January 2014

What’s New?

New Windows

Notice anything different in this photo? No I don’t mean the snow, we get this level of snow every couple of years. Don’t believe me? Here is a picture from January 10th, 2011:

Old Windows

Now what’s different? It’s not the green door. It’s not even the new “carport.” Yesterday before the Snopocalypse hit we had replacement windows installed. They did the 7 windows you see on the front of the house and the three on the back in 4 hours. Tearing out the old 55 year-old windows was short work. Putting in the new ones didn’t take too long either. Putting in the outside flashing took the longest part of the job. Cleaning up the mess they made was the second longest part of the time.

Drone Down

Subject: Micro Drone 2.0 Troubles
From: Me
Date: 1/26/2014 8:25 PM
To: customercare@extremefliers.com

Folks,

Bought the Micro Drone 2.0 via the 2nd StackSocial group buy. I received it on January 21 and have had only a few chances to fly it. Being a complete novice at flying RC things I’ve been trying to get it to hover a few feet off the ground in my spare room. Today I was quite proud to be able to claim around a whole minute flight time before pushing a control the wrong way and crashing into the carpet from 5 feet up.

I was ready to try my first video. The camera has been mounted from the start, but this time I put in the SD card.

I plugged in the battery to charge it up and after an hour the red light was still on, but I hooked it up to the drone anyway. I performed the linking procedure and when I pushed the throttle forward to take off the motors would wind up and then abruptly stop, leaving all four leg lights flashing in sync with no further response from the drone. Turned off the controller, unplugged the battery and waited a minute. Hooked the battery up, turned on the controller and linked to the drone. On throttle up, it did the same thing, shut off with just the four leg lights blinking.

I tried it with removing the SD card and when the throttle reached 35% the drone would quit. I unplugged the camera with the same results. After 4 or 5 attempts the drone would stop at 30% throttle. Thinking it might be the battery was not fully charged, I hooked it up to the charger and left it for 2 hours (the red light never went out.) Before hooking the battery to the drone I tested the output of the charger with my multimeter and it read 5V. I tested the battery and it read 4.5V.

This time when I connected the battery the drone did nothing, I didn’t even get the usual flashing blue and white lights. The linking procedure on the controller seemed fine (it beeped with the up and down throttle movement), but the drone didn’t flinch. I turned off the controller and unplugged the battery. Plugged the battery back in and I can hear a faint buzzing (the gyroscopes spinning maybe?), but no lights and no motors spinning on throttle up.

Is my battery no putting out enough juice? Battery charger bad? Bad CPU? Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Brian

Let’s Go Motoring

This thing seems like it would be right up the alley of same people who have found hidden tupperware using military satellite technology in every county of, and have a picture of their car in front of every Post Office in the state of, South Carolina. Well it is.

Moss Motoring Challenge

I know we can win us a decal (only takes one point) and most definitely a T-shirt (15 points), but I seriously doubt that we can win the GP or any of the other money prizes. Now if I could retroactively use some of the photos I’ve already taken…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1293

Christmas in January

Micro Drone 2.0

I ordered it on the 19th of December and it showed up today, all the way from merry ol’ England. It’s all assembled and all I have done are a few test flights in the computer room, but it is not at all as easy as it seems in the online video. I’m guessing it’ll take several weeks to get merely good at it and I’ll probably never really master it. Next up crashing drone videos…

You have only a couple more days to get yours at 45% off the list price from StackSocial.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1292

The Cynic In Me

The governing body of U.S. Figure Skating wants you to know that the selection of blonde haired, blue eyed 4th place in the Nationals, Ashley Wagner was selected to go to the 2014 Olympics over third place decidedly Oriental looking Marai Nagasu had nothing to do with race. It had to do with Ashley’s body of work.

Maybe so, but the cynic in me says Ms. Wagner had to go because she had already filmed a Hilton Honors commercial and it just so happens that Hilton Honors is a sponsor of the U.S. Olympic committee and probably has purchased airtime for that commercial during the games.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1290

Self…Something

Self Exa_small Last October for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month the company nurse had a bunch of cards printed up with instructions on how to do a self breast exam (a scan of both sides is to the left, click to view it larger.) The cards are made of hard plastic with a hole and slit near the top to hang on a door knob. At the bottom are two rows of six punch outs with the month’s abbreviation on them. The idea being to hook it on the bathroom knob so you are reminded to check yourself each month and punch out the appropriate tab. She put one in every salaried female’s mailbox and handed them out to as many of the hourly women as she could. Whatever the minimum order for them were, it was larger than the female population at the Valve Store(R) because there is still at thick stack of these cards on a table outside her office.

This morning while using a stall in the bathroom near the Nurse’s office I noticed that this month’s issue of Stall Talk, the newsletter the nurse produces monthly and is distributed in all those clear plastic document holders that mysteriously appeared in all the restrooms last year, was partially obscured by one of those breast self exam cards.

I could only think of one reason it would be there, in a clear holder on the door of a mens room stall, visible to a person sitting on the pot. I was slightly weirded out. But I didn’t know which was worse, the thought of what some off-shift individual did in the stall I was now using or the fact that the days I could be sexually aroused by just looking at a clip art drawing of a woman’s breast were long gone.

One Week Later

I was going to see how long I could go without writing anything, which from the way I feel right now, could have been much longer, but I wanted to keep track of the top transitions, so…

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1288