Patrick Coston's Hobby Blog

Driftless Pony Club: Buckminster Album Review

2011-03-19T07:27:00.001-07:00

I learned about the Driftless Pony Club about a month ago after watching this wheezywaiter video on YouTube. I had been watching wheezywaiter videos for 3 or 4 months when he announced his band's latest album was available and they would be going on tour. Since he described their influences as Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Superchunk, Weezer and the Pixies, I was intrigued so I purchased their album. The album was enjoyable start to finish. The music wasn't anything super-amazing. Just your normal rock music. The lead singer was a bit flat but that's his thing and it works. The lyrics are easy to understand but didn't make any sense to me. The songs didn't seem to be about anything in particular and I began to suspect they simply brainstormed clever phrases and put them together randomly for example

Please put the whiskey in before the coke 'cause there are some things you don't want to know
I will never get an F for Effort, that won't bring back my only daughter
In the house of 1982, built like a ship, your legs are like roots
I'll tie your eyes together, even if you sleep forever
If you squeeze my hand again, I'll gladly have a coronary

But then I read the band's web page and learned that the album is based on the life of Buckminster Fuller whom I had never heard of. I knew of many of his inventions but I never knew about the man behind the inventions.

The following text is taken off their web page and describes how they got the idea for the album Buckminster.

Almost two years ago, Nate (the drummer) came to us with a list of essays by Buckminster Fuller with titles such as "In the House of 1982 Built Like a Ship" or "When We Live in Circles and Eat in Merry-Go-Rounds." There were about ten essays, each one with an equally crazy/genius title. He said, for our next album, we should use these as our song titles.

I had heard of Buckminster Fuller. I knew he had invented the geodesic dome but that's as far as my knowledge went. Those essay titles had sparked my curiosity so I read his wikipedia page. Afterward, I wrote a song about him. Over the next couple months, I wrote maybe a dozen more songs of varying quality. All about Buckminster Fuller. By that time, we knew our next album would be all about him.

I was surprised by the scope of his work which went beyond domes and into automobile and map designs, even cities that floated in the sky. He helped popularize the term "Spaceship Earth" and one of the first scientists to consider our impact on the environment. But, most of all, what we found most inspiring about Buckminster Fuller was the incident that led to everything.

In his early thirties, before he had done anything, he was broke, living in Chicago public housing with his young family. His daughter got sick and died. Overcome with guilt, Buckminster started drinking and came close to suicide. But instead of killing himself, he decided to devote the rest of life to seeing what an individual could do to change the world. He saw his entire life as an experiment testing the impact a single person could have on the rest of humanity. That was Buckminster's greatest invention: Himself.

After reading up on Buckminster Fuller, the songs started making sense and the random pictures on the album cover also suddenly starting making sense. The more I listened to the album, the more it made sense and I soon began to realize the genius of this themed album.

I have never met or seen in person a YouTuber but when I learned they would be playing in Philadelphia, I immediately bought my ticket. I was officially a fanboy. I had seen from another YouTuber that reviewed one of their early concerts that they played about 15 songs but at this gig they shared the bill with two other bands so they only played about 8 songs. I have to confess that I really liked the other two bands as well although I felt a little out of place at this all-ages show which seemed to be dominated by high-school girls who seemed mainly there for the Mike Lombardo Trio but who also knew the songs to DPC.

I recorded these songs at the Philly gig.

Song1 - Starts with "When We Live in Circles and Eat on Merry-Go-Rounds" (album: Buckminster) and transitions to Pluto vs Neptune (album: Expert)
Song2 - He Plants Houses Like Trees (album: Buckminster)
Song3 - Inspectors of Inspectors (album: Buckminster)
Song4 - We're Cheap Already (album: Buckminster)
Song5 - Legends of Archery (album: Expert)

The also performed Bike from the album Expert but my arm was tired so I didn't record it.

I bought their 3 previous albums on iTunes. So far I've listened to their album Expert and I love it. I suspect each album has it's own personality. This is definitely music by geeks for geeks although you don't have to understand the lyrics to enjoy it.

We're definitely entering a new period of entertainment where it's many to many instead of few to many. In other words, the number of things we have to entertain us has really multiplied with an increase of TV channels and now entertainers on the Internet. I too have people subscribing to my YouTube channel so I too have become an entertainer.

The following are my best guess at the lyrics of each song. I only include each sentence once. Some explanation is included. I've inserted ??? where I'm not sure.

When We Live in Circles and Eat on Merry-Go-Rounds (full lyrics)

Our beds are empty two thirds of the time
In an office building I'll be recognized
Please put the whiskey in before the coke 'cause there are some things you don't want to know
It's time we gave this some thought, too bad I'll die before I'm gone
When we live in circles and eat on merry-go-rounds

House of 1982 Built Like a Ship (lyrics here)

You were my first experiment. Too bad I'm prone to failure (Fuller's daughter died young)
How can I be a [???] when all I see is tetrahedrons? (the tetrahedron was a very popular geometric shape Fuller used in his architecture)
I will never get an F for Effort, that won't bring back my only daughter (I think what this lyric is saying is that Fuller will give his best effort in everything he does but nothing he does can bring back his daughter who died at a young age)
I don't mind if I die unidentified as long as I'm buried in architecture
What are you offering? Are you offering? Is it free?
In the house of 1982, built like a ship, your legs are like roots
I'll tie your eyes together, even if you sleep forever
If you squeeze my hand again, I'll gladly have a coronary (Fuller died on July 1, 1983, 11 days before his 88th birthday. During the period leading up to his death, his wife had been lying comatose in a Los Angeles hospital, dying of cancer. It was while visiting her there that he exclaimed, at a certain point: "She is squeezing my hand!" He then stood up, suffered a heart attack, and died an hour later, at age 87. His wife of 66 years died 36 hours later)
When I lost you, I didn't know what I would do but then I conceived of what I could be. A family man, inventor and architect. A [???] subject of this [???]? (Fuller's young daughter Alexandra died from complications from polio and spinal meningitis. Allegedly, he felt responsible and this caused him to drink frequently and to contemplate suicide for a while. He finally chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual could contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity)

He plans Houses Like Trees (lyrics here)

He plans houses like trees being sculpted by the masks and seeds
Lets make maps and triangles, lay them flat on the table. Then we'll properly see how the world's meant to be
They don't make 'em like him
He wears watches in threes (Fuller was a frequent flier, often crossing time zones. He famously wore three watches; one for the current zone, one for the zone he had departed, and one for the zone he was going to)
He knows just where he was, is, and where he will be
We're foaming at the mouth to keep the pressure coming out
Synchronize your arm of watches to the times that we're approaching
Shave your head for wind resistant, stay afloat longer than the rest

Inspectors of Inspectors

Call me Trim Tab, call me whatever
Not that I need to make a living, or that you need to make a living
If I just stick my foot out like that, the whole ship's gonna to turn
I don't know what I am but I'm not a category
Please stop [???]
Don't fight the forces, use them
Inspectors of inspectors won't guide you to it

We're Cheap Already

Where would I be? What would I do?
[Augusta?] on a [raid?]
The first is always a [???] that makes the second one already [???]
Staring at the walls, dancing to [???] and in [tetris???] in [???] ... ??? ... will break
We'll be buried in keepsakes
The last time I went in, I failed to leave a tip, cuz I don't think ahead. I'll make it up to them tomorrow with quarters and cigarettes, but I don't smoke
I went to sleep about an hour ago

A Letter to Michael

The things to do are the things that need doing
Thinking is momentary dismal of thinking of hearing from a letter to Michael. I've answered your questions. An array of behaviors in an endless cycle.
It's not enough, you've got to make it up.

El Cid III

You're running in heals, your falling down
You cinch your skirt, adjust your mouth
A rupture here in Tel Aviv, talking over, answer me
We're chemicals and evidence
We're calling off this century
A broken nail, an injury, someone's effects scattered in the street
Hail a cab cuz it's easy when showing leg over sympathy

Dymaxion Chronofile

I guess it's time to write it down. This could take a while. Document a life until it dies. 1983. Write it down (The Dymaxion Chronofile is Buckminster Fuller's attempt to document his life as completely as possible. He created a very large scrapbook in which he documented his life every 15 minutes from 1920 to 1983. The scrapbook contains copies of all correspondence, bills, notes, sketches, and clippings from newspapers. The total collection is estimated to be 270 feet (80 m) worth of paper. This is said to be the most documented human life in history)
Your silence, we hear, again and again and again. Our eyes, our ears, again and again and again.
The words you spoke we'll never know the sound.
The wind blew through the waves and make a round.
We'll never know, but I can breathe the air as I read it there.
I'm not stupid, I'm just naive. I really don't mind and it's how I'd rather be. I'm not a genius, I'm just a man. I really don't mind. This is exactly what I planned.

American Princes

I don't make much money. That's OK. I don't work too hard (Fuller never pursued inventions for the sake of riches. He wanted to improve humanity)
A better man may better himself. I bet I don't amount to much.
The only time I read a book is on my way to class, resting against the safety glass, I forget where I left off.
Wires knit the city to stitches. Hahaha.
Being [???] we make up words, we talk back words, ... ??? .. I know how it sounds. It sounds absurd like hahaha.
Every time I read a book, I mis-interpret what it means. I think it applies to only me. Hahaha.
I make a better liar, friend or witness?
What ever happened to American Princess?

Safe as Houses

Wake up singing rabbit rabbit. I sing the same song. I know where it comes out. It's getting clearer through the static. [???] to the light bulb tied to a new [???].
I know, because it comes easy to you.
I tried to compromise where our body start, and now I can't tell the two of us apart.
And every dirty thought and smoky cough, spills over my teeth and out my mouth.

Lost Unanswered Questions

2011-02-25T16:05:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the last season of Lost and although they did a good job trying to answer the unanswered questions, they still left a lot of questions unanswered. Watch this video and you'll see what I mean.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Some of the things this video asks were answered though.

The video asks "Why are supplies still being dropped on the island after the purge and by who?" They answered that question. There was a company setup to deliver supplies and it had no idea who or what those supplies were for. Ben shut it down.

It also asks "Why can't women have babies?" It's because of the electromagnetic force of the island. That is explained in the DVD that Ben shows the who workers when he shows up from the "home office" to shut down the shipping of the supplies to the island.

It also asks "Why doesn't the rule of time travel apply to Desmond?" It's because he has a resistance for some reason to the electromagnetic force of the island. We don't know why but he's special that way.

Here is a good list of unanswered questions by episode.

My biggest question is "Why was Walt so important and why did the others want him?"

I think Walt was phased out of the show because he grew up too quickly. When you move from one season to the next and he's suddenly 6" taller, it wouldn't make sense that he'd age so much on "island time".

I'd also like to know why Hurley didn't drop in weight after sustaining himself on a diet of natural fruits and vegetables. I remember some character asking the same question and pointing out that he'd actually gained weight while on the island.

How is that Ana Lucia appears as an LAPD cop to Jack after he returns to the mainland after she died on the island?

I like shows that have a beginning, middle and end but I like to know that there's a plan. This show had no plan. They obviously made it up as they went along otherwise all questions would have been answered.

I was entertained for 6 seasons. The show never "jumped the shark" for me but in the end I realize that it floundered around for the sake of being entertaining without having a clear story arc and for that, I'm a little annoyed. This must have been what it felt like to be a fan of Twin Peaks when it ended. At least they got two movies out of it to help answer some of the unanswered questions but I'm sure they were still left unsatisfied just like I feel.

Mel Gibson rants on Facade

2011-01-17T15:49:00.000-08:00

Facade is a one-act interactive drama. You are invited to visit Trip and Grace but you soon learn they are having marital problems. Can you help save their marriage? Every time you play it, it's different, even if you say and do the same thing. If you are rude, you will probably get thrown out. Don't mention the word "melon". They are offended and get angry probably because they interpret it as slang for "breast" even if the context is "Can I have some melon juice?" Does Grace leave Trip or vice-versa? Are you asked to leave? It's very interesting to try to try different thing.

About 90% of the videos on YouTube end with you getting thrown out. People just love to insult Grace and Trip and watch their reaction.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=facade+game&aq=f

I got this funny idea to only use quotes from Mel Gibson rants. I downloaded a few MP3s of his rants and transcribed them then selected the quotes I thought I could use. Then I organized them into sections like Hello, Insult, Art, Therapy so I could more easily find the quotes that were related to what's happening since I have to reply in real time. I did several test runs to refine how the quotes were organized. I probably played over 20 games before I finally got a scene that I was happy with. I was only planning on one video but my drama lasted 35 minutes and YouTube videos are limited to 15 minutes. So I changed my plan to release it as a series of 6 episodes short episodes.

I saved out the individual sound bites from the MP3 rants and removed the obscene words. My story is extremely long compared to the average story which usually lasts about 5 or 10 minutes. Trip and Grace were quite confused by my comments.

All 6 episodes are from a single take on Facade using quotes and sound-bites from Mel Gibson rants with his then girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. All obscenities have been removed. Lucky for me, Mel is one of the names you can choose in Facade.

I downloaded Facade at http://interactivestory.net

I downloaded the 3 Mel Gibson rants at Rapid Share

Rant 1
Rant 2
Rant 3

This is episode 1 of 6 for Mel Gibson visits Facade.

I won't tell you the outcome. You'll have to wait until episode 6 but I can tell you it's very unique as far as videos I've seen on YouTube. I have not seen another YouTube video with this outcome.

I used Fraps to record the video, Dexster to edit the audio and PowerDirector to combine audio and video and upload to YouTube.

Pizza Box Flyer

2010-10-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

You can watch my Parkzone F4U Corsair crash and burn here.

I am now without an RC plane so I'm building my own. This will be a PBF aka Pizza Box Flyer. Here is another example.

Here is my original drawing and idea.

I decided to keep it simple and go rectangular. I bought 10 sheets of depron foam each sheet 14" x 40" in size and 6mm thick. I glued and taped 3 of those pieces together and taped on two flaps.

I'll be able to tell top from bottom by how many strips. Two strips is bottom, one strip is top. There will be no vertical stabilizer. This PBF will have no rudder and will therefore not be able to yaw. The two flaps will act as both the elevator and aileron, aka known as elevons.

I'll purchase some stiff but light weight rods to stiffen the structure.

I'm going to take the guts of a Parkzone F4U Corsair to drive it. I broke down the cost of my Corsair part by part here. I'll use the following for my PBF.

480 Brushless Outrunner Motor, 960Kv: T-28
2 Blade Propeller
Propeller Hub
11.1V 1800mAh Li-Po Battery
SV80 Long Lead 3-wire servo: T28
30-Amp Pro Switch-mode BEC Brushless ESC
AR500 DSM2 5-Channel Sport Receiver
Servo Y-Harness: 3D2, T-28
Pushrods with Clevis

I plan to use zip-ties to strap the engine to the foam. I'll use some kind of flat strong material on the top and bottom so the zip ties won't pull through the foam.

I'm trying to dream up some kind of launch system for example a sling-shot to help get the PBF up to speed. If I can quickly get it high up, I can react and correct issues. If it's close to the ground, a mistake could lead to a crash.

I am not sure how to balance this plane or if it will be too heavy to fly. If it is too heavy, I can always trim the foam back and make it smaller. I'm considering cutting a rectangle about 3" deep from the front center, wide enough for the propeller. The purpose would be to protect the propeller from a front-end crash.

Lost in Space is stupid (Part 4)

2010-08-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

Season 3: The Time Merchant

Time travel stories are very difficult to tell. What happens in the past will influence the future. If you travel back in time, do you replace yourself or are there now two of you? In the case of this episode, the person traveling back in time replaces themselves temporarily until they return to their normal time. Then their old selves return to their normal place and time as if nothing happened. How convenient ... and stupid.

Dr. Smith, the robot and Will all travel back in time. For some reason, the robot's memory is somehow reset to what it was in the past but he managed to eventually remember who he really is. The Will that travels back in time is much older than the Will of 1997 before the Jupiter 2 lifted off into space.

When Will goes back in time, he conveniently appears next to the robot who has also gone back time instead of appearing where is younger self is. Stupid.

Will is also wearing his purple clothes from Season 3. When Dr. Smith went back in time, he was dressed in the clothes he wore at that time. Stupid.

Let's go back to the beginning. During a cosmic storm, Will creates a trap to capture cosmic particles but instead captures Dr. Chronos the Time Merchant. According to Chronos, he controls time. When they captured him, there was nobody running the factory so in his own words "The time tapes have gone amok. They're running backwards, sideways and upside down." He's lost time so he claims that Will owes him time so he hypnotizes Will and they return to his factory via the cosmic trap which as apparently opened up a dimensional opening. Prof. Robinson, the robot and Dr. Smith follow. There are no women in this episode. The stupid thing is that Prof. Robinson somehow knows how to travel through the dimensional portal by placing his hands just right. Stupid.

Dr. Smith seems to know how to use Dr. Chronos time machine. He jumps into the cage and throws the level and somehow he goes to the place and time he wants auto-magically. This happens over and over in this episode with Will, the robot and Prof. Robinson. Stupid.

Chronos explains "Everybody has a time tape. But if they run hither and tither, to and fro, back and forth, never slowing down for a moment ... they use their time tapes up all the faster." Chronos is a bad guy because he blows up planets that waste time so we're supposed to feel good when his factory gets blown up.

At one point, they need more power so Will gets on treadmill since they need axillary power. Stupid.

Dr. Smith travels back to 1997 right before the Jupiter 2 lift-off. He decides to stay on Earth of course. If Dr. Smith does not get on the Jupiter 2 then his weight will not throw off the trajectory and the Jupiter 2 will be destroyed by uncharted asteroids and the Robinson's will cease to exist. But now we'll have a time travel paradox. If the Robinson's die then Dr. Smith can never go back and time and avoid getting on the Jupiter 2 therefore he will get on the Jupiter 2 and we're stuck in an infinite loop. Dr. Smith and the robot get on the Jupiter 2 then are transported back to the future. At that point, the robot and Dr. Smith of the past must then continue the past time line.

At the end of the episode, the factory gets completely destroyed. Based on what Chronos said earlier, that should have destroyed time as well but apparently "time" is fine. Really stupid.

Bonus Stupid: Any SciFi show that goes around the universe finding humanoids that speak English can't be taken seriously. Lost in Space is one of those shows.

Lost in Space is stupid (Part 3)

2010-08-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

Season 3: Episode 17: Princess of Space

This is one of THE Worst Episodes Ever. It was so boring and campy, I had to force myself to watch it in multiple short intervals.

A space pirate is searching for Princess Alpha of the planet Beta. You'd think they could get a little more creative with the names. It turns out that a nurse hid the Princess on Earth by converting her to computer tape and hiding her inside the robot a few years ago before the Jupiter 2 left Earth.

The people on planet Beta figured out how to reduce a person to tape. You can then transmit the person and reconstruct the person on the other end. It's a great way to travel long distance quickly. It's essentially the same as a Star Trek transporter. You are disintegrated and in the process, your atomic structure is recorded. A device can then be sent your structure and regenerate you down to the atom. You have been killed. What is created is a perfect copy of you. For the religious, this means your soul either goes to heaven or hell and the copy has no soul. Little kids just don't think of these things.

In this picture, Will examines Dr. Smith who has been converted to tape and is probably burning in hell.

The pirate has a telescope that sounds an alarm when the telescope is pointed at her. The telescope alarm did not make a sound sound when pointed at Earth because the tape was in the robot which was traveling through space.

The pirate happens upon the planet the Robinson's are on and follows the telescope to the robot. He mistakes Penny for the Princess because she's standing next to the robot.

Penny is taken back to the ship and the Royal Aunt is transmitted by radio to the ship to see if she's the real Princess. I have to wonder why Penny wasn't transmitted to Beta instead. When the Royal Aunt arrives, she has a long talk with Penny and she decides Penny is the true Princess. The stupid thing is the Royal Aunt has a scepter that can prove if she is the Princess or not but she doesn't use it. They have a coronation ceremony to declare her the official Princess with no real evidence. Stupid. The machines rebel when Penny gets the scepter. They want to steal the scepter and take over the planet Beta. Penny tries to stop the machines with the scepter but only the true Princess can do it.

The nurse that hid the Princess on Earth had sent back the message K12B6 to planet Beta. Nobody understood the message. It was actually the encryption key to decode the computer data on the tape inside the robot. It's also the password they use to program the robot. Will figures it out and the robot is told to dematerialize the Princess using the code K12B6. The robot rolls over to the materializer and flips some switches and the princess appears. I'm assuming the robot decoded the data and wirelessly transmitted it to the machine to materialize the Princess.

On a side-note, I think I know why they chose the code K12B6. The French book The Little Prince, which was published in 1943, had the Prince living on an asteroid the size of a house called B612.

On another side-note, the robot can only roll forward and backward. You never see the robot turn using those treads. I'm guessing it doesn't work too well. There are times the robot is moving about freely but they shoot that from the knees up and the operator inside the robot suit is walking.

The servant is discovered to be a robot.

The servant robot is converted to an EBCDIC card instead of tape. That's a bit old fashioned but when the episode aired Jan 10, 1968, the EBCDIC punch-cards has been used for about 4 years to store data and programs so it made sense. The current year in this episode is close to the year 2010 (my estimate) so its stupid they are using paper to store data. You'd think the SciFi writers would have been a little more forward thinking. Or perhaps we're meant to believe that you can store information about every atom of a being in some technologically advanced piece of paper.

Why is it when the Jupiter 2 lands on dirt, it drills deep into the surface? When it lands on pavement, it lands using its landing gear. Remember that there is a lower deck underground. It's essentially their basement in the scene above. Here is a scene from Season 2 Episode 2 Wild Adventure on the lower level looking out the window.

We also learn in Season 3 Episode 10 The Space Creature that there is a sub-basement shown below.

Do you really think there is room for a basement and a sub-basement?

They must think we're stupid ... or a child who doesn't question these things.

More stupid stuff: Will gets into a Deck Vent to hide ...

... then the controls he needs to eavesdrop conveniently appear.

Bonus Stupid: In zero gravity, you have gravity IF you're inside a space ship. But when you're OUTSIDE a space-ship, you float and move in slow motion. Stupid!

More Bonus Stupid: There is no toilet or shower on the Jupiter 2. Stupid!

Lost in Space is stupid (Part 2)

2010-08-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

Season 3: The Promised Planet

I remember seeing this episode as a kid. This episode is a lot of fun but doesn't make a lot of sense.

They finally arrived at Alpha Centauri (or so they think) and land on planet Delta at intersteller relay station 9 which is an advance station for new arrivals for orientation and processing. They're told in a few days there will be a shuttle to planet Gamma where they can join the main colony. Apparently the habitable planets in the system have been populated by humans for 3 years. I'm not sure how they would explain it. The Jupiter 2 left Earth for Alpha Centauri October 16, 1997. They were the first to go so they should be the first to arrive.

By the 3rd season it should be about the year 2000. Actually I'm not sure. There have been episodes where they travel through time for example they landed on Earth in the 3rd Season episode named Visit to a Hostile Planet except the year was around 1950. They left Earth but never explain if they returned to their own time or not.

I'm not sure how many years it was supposed to take to travel to Alpha Centauri but you also have to take into account that faster ships will be built over time and may arrive sooner than the ships that left earlier. My point is that they play fast and loose with time which is stupid. They obviously wrote this for a younger audience who wouldn't question such leaps in logic. For an adult, it's stupid.

Both this episode and Visit to a Hostile Planet use the same special effect.

The shot where they land is also a shot that is re-used again and again. See my last blog post where that shot is used twice for a planet and Earth.

The youngest, Penny and Will are separated from the rest of the group and tested while listening to music and exposed to bright lights. They are told they need to pass the test in order to qualify for the fun colony on planet Gamma. Penny has trouble at first but soon lets go and gets hypnotized by the groovy sounds.

This Delta colony is run by teenagers who seem to like nothing more than to dance to 60's groove music. Will is a square and has trouble becoming "groovy" which is code for getting hypnotized. It turns out these teenagers are actually aliens.

The aliens want to hypnotize the kids so they can perform some kind of transfusion so they can grow old. Apparently their "DNA" forces them to stay young forever.

I'm not sure why living forever is a bad thing. I'm not sure why they want to grow old and die. In the end the aliens fail to perform the transfusion in time. Dr. Smith turns on the music and the kids can't help but dance and Will and Penny get rescued.

The one kid says "All I want to is shave, see?" The unseen kid behind the intercom stops the music and says "We have failed Bartholomew. We must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we can never grow older ... that as time takes the Earthlings forward ... it takes us back ... back to our end." They don't explain what this means. Will they grow younger and die that way?

Here's why this episode is stupid. Once Will and Penny were separated from everyone, the aliens could have forcibly gotten the transfusion. They don't make it clear what harm might come to Will and Penny but if it's simply a transfusion they need, certainly they could have asked for it. The Robinson's may have been OK giving some blood, plasma or whatever the aliens needed to grow old. Instead the aliens tried to hypnotize them with a combination of testing, music and lights.

They erase the olders memories of the two kids and send them on their way. Luckily Will gives them some memory cones and they remember in time to return and rescue them.

It boggles my mind why aliens around the year 2010 (now) would want to behave like it's 1960. This episode did first air January 24, 1968 so they some how assumed that the 60's motif would continue to be popular for the next 50 years ... which is stupid.

Bonus Stupid: The alien monkey named Bloop Bloop they picked up in Season 1 Episode 3 Island in the Sky ...

isn't seen much after Season 1. We see this monkey during a take-off in Season 2 Episode 1 Blast off into Space.

Then the exact same scene is used again in Season 3 episode 2 Visit to a Hostile Planet.

I haven't finished Season 3 yet but Bloop Bloop is all but forgotten. They simply write him out of the scripts and assume we'll forget him. They treat us like idiots in this respect, insulting our intelligence and that's just stupid. Since Bloop Bloop is part of the family, they should have taken him off the ship when they landed on planet Delta but apparently they abandon him in the ship somewhere to fend for himself. Poor Bloop Bloop. He's an ignored pet sitting in his own poop somewhere ... starving.

Lost in Space is stupid (Part 1)

2010-08-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I loved Lost in Space but even I could see it was a bit cheesy. I had no idea how bad Lost in Space really was until I got older. I started watching every episode of Lost in Space starting with the black and white Season 1. I'm nearing the finish line half way through the last season which is Season 3. Lost in Space started out as serious science fiction and the earlier black and white episodes are actually quite good. The episodes that started to veer to toward campy in Season 1 are:

Welcome Stranger
The Sky Pirate
The Space Croppers

The best episodes in Season 1 IMHO are

The Hungry Sea
My Friend, Mr. Nobody
Return from Outer Space
A Change of Space

I just gone done watching Target Earth from Season 3 and saw a few stupid things

Here they are landing on the alien planet. Now this shot is used over and over in many episodes.

but then they have the nerve to re-use it when they land on Earth in the same episode. I understand why they re-use shots. They didn't have the budget to shoot different landing scenes.

Dr. Smith and Will knock out their alien doubles with Karate chops to the neck. Stupid! Dr. Smith notices that his double has webbed fingers. Notice the double is also wearing the same ring Dr. Smith has. How do you get a ring on when you have web fingers??? Stupid! The aliens have the ability to copy the humans exactly so why do they have webbed fingers? Stupid!

They take the clothes off the double and go to the trouble of dressing their doubles. Why would they dress their doubles??? Stupid! Here is the alien Dr. Smith waking up. Notice he doesn't have web fingers now. In fact, the other alien doubles only have web fingers for close-ups. Stupid!

The alien doubles easily take over the Jupiter space craft. They fly it back to Earth within a matter of hours. Stupid! The real Will, Dr. Smith and the robot are along for the ride. Will manages to warn Earth that they are aliens so Earth begins to shoot missiles at them. Will tells the aliens there is no possible way they can land on Earth now and yet the ships lands on Earth using the auto-pilot. Stupid! At this point, the robot has knocked out the aliens. Instead of letting Dr. Smith get out on Earth, Will immediately takes off and flies back to the planet ... within hours. Stupid! After Will rescues his family, they don't return to Earth and continue to remain Lost in Space even though it was so apparently easy for the aliens. Stupid!

SimCity 2000: MountCFC

2010-07-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

I just added my contribution to this coop city MountCFC.

21 sections done. 28 remaining. If you want to add a section, make sure you start with the latest city at the end of the thread.

CFCopolis coop city

2010-07-01T21:11:00.001-07:00

It took 49 people and 3 years to build this one SimCity 2000 city! Check out this time-lapse video I just made of the construction of CFCopolis.

Download the city here. If you want to help build the next city, go here.

Bare Bones Version 2

2010-06-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

I've named this "bare bones" SimCity 2000 city Behold!

That's my wife's eye staring out at you from the trees. For a time lapse of the build check out YouTube.

Here are some close-ups.

This one hurts my eyes from the chaos.

It's actually painful to watch since all of the wind power stations flash since they are not generating enough electricity. The map goes black as all the buildings get abandon since the power drops to zero, then the power rebounds and all new buildings are built and the population explodes. This cycles over and over.

After creating the city Bare Bones version 1, I determined this is the smallest city you can create.

I decided to make a city with these 2x2 cities. But filling a 128x128 grid with 64x64 of these 2x2 cities would be boring so I began to think of an interesting pattern I can make. Then the idea came to me that I could create a picture of something. At first I wanted to create a face so I tried converting a lot of different images to black and white to see how they might look. I realized that the image had to be something simple for it to stand out and be recognized like a big peace sign or smiley face for example.

This city is "bare bones" because it only has wind power, road, residential and industrial zones. It has nothing else. There are no commercial zones. There is nothing else in the city like hospitals, police, fire stations, libraries, parks, schools, airports, rail, tunnels, subway, seaport, etc. and yet it easily makes a profit even though the population fluctuates wildly and goes to zero frequently. Even though there's not enough power and there's no water being supplied. Everyone keeps moving out and moving back in and this causes SimCity 2000 to freeze every few seconds. The only other city I've seen do that is my first bare bones city which is essentially the same city, just arranged differently.

Previously I had created a 40x40 icon of my wife's eye from a wedding photo which she had used on a social networking site. She got a lot of attention from that icon mainly from men wanting to meet her. I took the original image and cropped a 64x64 image of her eye. It was the perfect size and no scaling was necessary. I reduced the image to black and white using Paint Shop Pro using Palette component: Grey Values and Reduction Method: Error Diffusion, Stuck, Palette Weighted. There were lots of different ways to reduce an image to black and white and I tried them all and thought this gave the best result for my needs.

I converted the image to a negative because I wanted the eye to come from the trees and not from the buildings to give it a "mother nature" theme. Click on the photo below to see the original picture, the crop and the black and white versions.

At first I created this blow-up which I hand-numbered the rows and columns to guide me.

But it got too hard to follow once I got deeper into the city so I wrote a program to read the black and white image and write out a map I could easily follow telling me what row to put the 2x2 cities for each column.

Sample of program output:

Column 1: 3 8 13 26 30 33 37 40 43 46 48 51 54 56 58 60 62 64
Column 2: 2 5 6 9 11 14 16 18 20 22 24 27 28 31 34 35 38 39 41 42 44 45 47 49 50 52 53 55 57 59 61 63
Column 3: 3 7 10 12 15 17 19 21 23 25 29 30 32 35 36 38 40 43 46 48 51 54 56 58 60 62 64
Column 4: 2 4 6 8 11 14 24 26 31 33 37 41 42 44 45 47 49 50 52 53 55 57 59 60 62 63
Column 5: 1 5 9 12 13 16 18 22 25 27 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 43 46 48 50 51 53 54 56 57 58 60 61 64
Column 6: 3 6 7 10 14 17 21 23 26 29 33 35 38 39 41 42 44 45 47 48 49 52 55 56 59 61 62 63
Column 7: 2 4 8 9 11 15 20 24 27 30 32 36 40 43 46 50 51 53 54 57 58 60 63 64

I needed enough money to build the city but I didn't want to use any cheats to get the money so I built a small bare bones city that made a profit and aged it. All this city had was a street with some wind power and the residential, commercial and residential zones. I budgeted the ordinances to get money and none to spend money. Each 2x2 city costs $130. Since there are 1997 cities, the total cost would be at least $259,610. It was more due to the mistakes I made and had to re-zone, de-zone or bull-doze.

Once I had $2 million dollars, the map was fully mossed over with trees so I had to plow them all down which took a long time because every 3 seconds, this popped up.

There were 1997 black pixels in the 64x64 image which meant that I had to build 1997 2x2 cities.

I used signs along the columns numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. to tell me what column I was on. I numbered the rows for cities with signs 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. That's city rows, not grid rows. It took about 10 minutes to create a column and there were 64 columns so 640 minutes or about 10 hours. I taught my wife how to create rows and we took turns working on it and finished the city in about 5 days so about 2 hours per day.

Once the "chia" city was finished, I turned it on and let the action begin. I aged it so it fully mossed over with trees.

Bare Bones Version 1

2010-05-22T18:18:00.001-07:00

SimCity 2000: Bare Bones Version 1

In this previous post I described a "bare bones" city that I was planning to build. I call it bare-bones because it has the least amount of things you need to build a city which is ...

Transportation
Zones
Power

You need nothing else. No parks, no police, no fire stations, no hospitals, no schools, no water pumps, no power lines, no libraries, no museums, no airports, no seaports, no connections to neighbors, military, etc.

You can actually make a profitable city this way which can be taxed any amount from 0% to 20% and still make money from finance ordinances alone. Finance ordinances are the type that earn you money. The others require you spend money.

I started in the terrain editor with 100% mountains, 0% water and trees. I lowered the water table to the lowest you can have it and still have water. I started on Easy ($20,000) in the year 2050. My new city would only use wind power with no power lines.

I saved the city under a different filename every time I reached a new mile-stone then took a screen capture of it.

Here is the raw terrain I started with. It has no edits from me yet.

I created a small city and let it age over night on speed African Swallow and made about $30,000 which is plenty. You can see that it fully "mossed" over with trees.

Next I carved out a new lower city and added every form of transportation. The streets were all twisty. It had every bridge type.

I destroyed my first city and plowed a new plateau.

I added an upper level plateau and created a city of just street, zones and wind power.

On the upper level I created 3 small cities. The left one is subway only, the middle city is rail only and the right city is highway with some streets.

I grew bored with the direction this was going so I plowed it all flat.

I randomly drew wind power over the surface. Then I zoned the whole thing as low density residential then cross-crossed it with single tile strips of low density industrial and commercial. Then I strategically placed single tile sections of road and watched cities sprout around it. It spread like a virus.

Below is the final city for version 1.

One crazy thing about this city is that it cannot make up its mind as to which industry is in demand. Each month it changes. Watching that it full speed is crazy. It's also the first city I've ever seen to cause SimCity 2000 to freeze every few seconds when aging at full speed. When the power level drops to 0, most of the sims move out, but then the power rebounds and so does the population.

Here are some final stats about this city.

Year: 1,516,123
City size: 30k
Residential: 17k
Industrial: 6k
Commercial: 6k
Traffic: 50
Pollution: 1
Value: 174
Crime: 22
Power: 13
Water: 0
Health: 58
Education: 81
Unemployment: 12

Here are some stat snapshots

I'm planning a version 2 with the things I've learned. I gave up on this version for two reasons. 1. There's a bug in SimCity 2000 when you raise and lower terrain too much. It gets confused and it becomes really hard to impossible to access certain tiles. This made this city very annoying to work with.

Version 2 will have minimal terrain lowering or raising to reduce that bug. It will also have more structure. I'm also planning to have single tiles of each of the 6 zone types: High & Low RCI. In other words, there will never be two tiles touching of the same zone type. When I mean "touching", I mean left/right/up/down. The corners can still touch. The goal is to limit the sims to building single tile buildings. I will also have single tile roads. There will be no two tiles touching that are road tiles. Road will be the only form of transportation I use. Version 2 will be flat and only wind power.

I need to figure out whether the city should be the lowest or highest possible altitude. I remember reading that wind power works better in higher altitudes. I'll need to run some experiments to confirm this. Either that or I'll just make it the lowest level for the challenge.

SimCity 2000

2010-05-15T05:46:00.001-07:00

I'm planning to create a new city in SimCity 2000 but this city will be different than most cities. It will be the un-city ... the anti-city.

The city will have NONE of the optional stuff.

schools, colleges, libraries, museums
police, fire stations, hospitals, prisons
parks, zoos, stadiums, marinas
water pumps, towers, treatments, desalination
acros, mayor house, llama dome, city hall

I will fund 0% of Police, Fire, Health and Welfare and Education. Transportation will get 100% funding. Taxes will be maxed at 20%.

For city ordinances I will will only select the Finance ordinances.

1% Sales Tax
1% Income Tax
Legalize Gambling
Parking Fines

There will be no ordinances for Education, Safety & Health, Promotional or Other.

It will also have no power lines. It will be powered by strategically placed wind power and nothing else.

It will be a bare-bones city with just the following

wind power
zones
transportation

It will have both dense and light zones for residential, commercial and industrial. It will have every possible form of transportation. It will use every possible bridge type.

It will not have ...

airport
seaport
connections to neighbors
military base

I will start with a terrain of 100% mountains, 0% water and 0% trees. I will lower the water table down as far down as it goes (no ocean possible) then up one. It will start with no river and no coast.

I will start on Easy ($20,000) in the year 2050.

The forms of transportation it will use are streets, highways, street tunnels, subway tunnels, rail tunnels, bridges, rail and buses. Roads, subway tunnels and rail will be as twisted as possible. No straight lines. No patterns. It will also feature every bridge type.

I will build no water pipes, water pumps, water towers, water treatment or water desalination plants. It's going to be a dry city. The sims will just have to go thirsty. I will not add any water or trees.

I'm going to attempt this city with no cheats. I'm also going to screen-capture the city as I build it to create a time-laps video to upload to YouTube.

I haven't named the city yet but I'm sure it will name itself. As I build it, a name will emerge.

To get inspiration, I've been studying every city I can find which is over 1000 cities. The idea for this city came when I saw the city Newark.

It is one of the ugliest cities I've ever seen with high crime, pollution and half the buildings abandoned. It's a total slum and I love it (download).

Most people try for happy, shiny cities like this one (download).

Newark is the anti-city and it's very much reminiscent of the real Newark, NJ. I'm not trying to base my city on a real city. I just hit upon the idea of creating a profitable city that is high in crime, pollution, unemployment and low in value, education and health. A city with none of the usual elements people put in their city. Maybe I should call it "bare bones".

When I'm done, I'll post the city here along with a link to the YouTube time-laps build video.

I'm building the city using SimCity 2000 for Windows 95. I'm using Windows Vista on a fast Dual Pentium PC.

Risk!

2009-10-16T11:16:00.001-07:00

I bought the 1959 First Edition Classic Reproduction of the Parker Brother's Continental Game Risk! I had never played Risk! before so it took me two days to read over the rules and practice play before I had it completely figured out. As of this post (Oct 16, 2009), I have only played two actual one-on-one games with my wife but I had a blast and I look forward to playing Risk! with my family and friends and especially 6 player games.

I am a gamer at heart. My roommate in college was quite the gamer and we gamed a lot at Monmouth University. We played some games similar to Risk! as board games and on his primitive gaming machine. It wasn't primitive then. He usually won but it was still fun. We'd have 4 to 8 player games of various games and I'd work pretty hard to win but almost never did. Since college, I have not played many board games but I get the sense that I've missed out.

I just learned that my friend Jeff enjoys playing Risk! with his friends so I'm looking forward to joining them sometime.

I read how Risk! is played today on Wikipedia and it hasn't changed much since 1959 which is very cool. I thought the game would grow in complexity over time but the complexity has only risen slightly in 50 years.

One thing I like is how you can vary the rules to make the game longer, shorter, harder or easier. I came up with a rule variation on my own then discovered from Wikipedia that it's the way 2 player games are played these days.

I like these rule variations:

Allowing for armies to move to any owned territory during reinforcement (rather than an immediate neighbor), if there exists a connected path of owned territories.
Granting an attack advantage when attacking from or to a territory for which the attacker holds a Risk card

XBox 360 Games for Windows Vista

2009-10-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

I bought Bioshock and Halo 2 for Windows Vista. These were originally XBox 360 games but I don't have an XBox 360 (yet) and I really wanted to play them. I also like PC gaming better than console gaming maybe because I've been PC-gaming long before I was console-gaming.

The mouse is a better control than the console controller for first-person shooters. You can look up and down quickly as well as spin around quickly. A real time strategy game can have lots of keyboard short-cuts. How do you implement that with a console-controller?

I started playing Halo 2 and finished about 1/3 of it when I hit a bug. Suddenly I could not pick up weapons nor use devices. This prevented me from finishing the level and moving forward. I was done. I'd have to wait until I got an XBox 360 to play Halo 2 from start to finish.

Next I started to play Bioshock. This is the scariest game I've ever played. I get totally immersed into the experience. I was really getting into it, playing about an hour per day and I reached maybe the 1/3 point again and the game crashed taking Windows Vista with it. I rebooted and kept playing, saving often, but every 5 minutes it would crash and I have to reboot. I could keep making progress this way but it's a bit hard on my PC plus the progress is slow so I gave up again.

I'd sell them on eBay but the amount I get is not worth my effort so I'll probably give them as a Christmas present to someone.

How to beat Age of Empries II on Hardest against 7 computer civilizations

2009-04-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

I played AOE II using these settings:

All random civs
Deathmatch
Map: Black Forest
7 computer players
Level: Hardest
Map Size: Giant
200 Population Limit
Age: Post Imperial
All Techs
Conquest Victory
All Visible

My secret: Bombard Towers

When the game starts, I build a few houses and start making villagers. Then I build a protecting ring of bombard towers around the town center. You don't need to create a sold wall. Space them apart like trees in a forest.

Once I get about 3 rings of towers protecting my town center, I build a castle and a few stables. From the castle, I build trebuchets. From the stables I build paladins. The trebuchets are for attacking things in the distance like towers, walls and buildings. They are not so good for attacking things that move like units. The paladins are for protecting the trebuchets and villagers. Use the trebuchets to destroy all enemy buildings within reach. Try to keep about 20 trebuchets and 20 paladins at all times. With 20 trebuchets, you can take out a tower or castle in one shot.

The idea is not to get too far away from the bombard towers. Use them for cover as the enemy attacks. Pick an enemy and start expanding the forest of bomard towers toward your enemy. The bombard towers will take out most of the attackers. The paladins are for confronting attackers. Once the attacker stops to fight a paladin, the bombard tower can finish the job. Don't let the trebuchets get too far from the bomard towers. If you run out of paladins, the trebuchets are an easy target and will be destroyed quickly. Use your villagers to repair towers, trebuchets, castles, etc. Build a few monks to heal anyone who has been injured.

This is Deathmatch so you start with 1000 of stone, wood, food and gold but you'll soon run out of stone so you will need to build a Market to buy stone. You will need to start chopping lots of wood to buy Gold and then Gold to buy Stone. Never stop making villagers. Build enough houses to max out population at 200.

If they try to take out your bombard towers with cannoneers or trebuchets, then take them out with your paladins. Persian elephants can take out towers pretty good too. Use your monks to convert the elephants. While an elephant is attacking a tower, you can hit it with the trebuchets.

Make sure you place the paladins in front of the bombard towers or trebuchets and set their stance to defensive so that that they don't roam far. By default it is set to aggressive and they will follow the enemy back to their bombard towards or castle and get killed. The trick is to keep your units under the protection of your bombard towers.

You're going to need to make hundreds of these towers so seek out the stone and gold. You will do a lot of clicking to sell wood for gold.

Next time I will try playing with a smaller map and make the enemy civs ally with each other. I noticed that a couple of computer civs got wiped out from the other computer civs. If they're all on the same team, then they will all come at you.

The smaller the map, the more challenging. I played with a Giant map which gives more time to setup the initial forest of bombard towers. There are also more trees to cut to convert to gold and stone.

My Favorite Superhero

2008-10-25T17:31:00.001-07:00

I went to a graphic novel discussion group and someone asked me who my favorite superhero was and I didn't have an answer. I thought I must have one so I spent a few hours compiling a list of my favorite comic book characters. Here they are.

DC: Supergirl

DC: OMAC - One Man Army Corp

DC: Kamandi the Last boy on Earth

DC: Terra from Teen Titans

DC: Sgt Rock

DC: The Shadow

DC: Flint from Star Hunters

DC: Legion of Super Heroes:

* Ultra Boy

* Wildfire

* Timberwolf

* Mon-El

* Sun Boy

* Cosmic Boy

* Star Boy

* Brainiac 5

Marvel: Punisher

Marvel: IronFist

Marvel: Deathlock

Marvel: Killraven

Epic: Vanth Dreadstar

Epic: Galacia 9 from Starstruck

Charlton: E-Man

Charlton: Rog 2000

Charlton: Magnus Robot Fighter 4000 AD

Eclipse: Mai the Psychic Girl (Manga)

Eclipse: Appleseed (Manga)

* Deunan Knute

* Briareos Hecatonchires

Viz: Alita Battle Angel (Manga)

Viz: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Manga)

First: Nexus

Caliber: The Crow

My top favorite comic characters of all time are all from Charlton

E-Man

Rog 2000 (originally a backup feature to E-man)

Magnus Robot Fighter 4000 AD

But I have say Rog 2000 is my all time favorite comic book character.

Marvel's Punisher is my 4th favorite. I bought Marvel Preview #2 in 1975 when I was 12. His first appearance is in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (Feb. 1974) which I bought at the time and read but it's the more adult comic magazine of Marvel Preview #2 in 1975 when I was 12 that blew me away. Check out how graphic the cover is!

This is his first solo appearance and yet it's pretty much ignored. Marvel.com doesn't list it as one of his appearances. Wikipedia has a minor mention since it's the first time his origin is explained.

Back to my favorite super hero ... my favorites are ...

Marvel: Punisher

DC: OMAC - One Man Army Corp

DC: Legion of Superheroes: Wildfire (fave LSH)

And the winner is ... Punisher from Marvel Preview #2. I have bought a lot of Punisher comics since but nothing compares to Marvel Preview #2 for me. That is the real Punisher and the rest are just derivations.

Remote Control Planes

2008-06-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to get a remote control airplane since I was 10 years old. As I got old enough to buy one, I procrastinated and never did.

One day my 10 year old nephew got a remote control airplane and I had the bug. A couple weeks later I bought my first plane from Hobby Masters in Red Bank, NJ. I got a Super Cub made by Hobby Zone. It cost about $170. The plane by itself only cost $100. Parts are quite cheap. A new engine is only $11. The propellers are $3 each. A new wing is $20. Here is the parts list.

I got a quick lesson at how hard it was to fly and how fragile it is. I've flown a lot of flight simulators but this different. When I assembled the plane for the first time, I didn't follow the manual (it was tucked in with the CD which I didn't watch until later) and as a result, I put it together wrong which resulted in a lot of damage. I broke the plane over and over, day after day, but I kept repairing it with duct tape and buying replacement parts. Eventually it was beyond repair so I bought another Super Cub from my friend who bought it but never used it. I used my old Super Cub as spare parts. The Super Cub shown above is half-old parts, half new parts. The engine is held on with duct tape. I had to buy a lot of propellers since most of the times I crashed, I'd bend the propeller and it wouldn't fly as good even if I bent it back. Eventually half the propeller would snap off. One time I flew it with half a propeller and it actually flew but the vibrations caused the engine to tear away from the plane. The tails on both planes snapped off but duct tape made them better than new. The front-ends of the planes also broke off and were re-attached with duct tape. Both wings snapped in half and duct tape made them all better.

I managed to destroy that it no time as well so I downgraded to the Firebird Commander which is what my friend flew. It costs about $140 with controller. I flew it once and it was very easy to fly. My first day flying was my last day. It was a disaster. I crashed it really hard and broke a lot of things. It got stuck high up in a tree right before a thunder storm. The next morning I went back and found it on the ground in pieces. It was dead. I've lost the landing gear and the wing and tail have lots of damage. I'm buying a whole new fuselage since the current one is dead. I'm also getting a new wing and landing gear so basically a whole new plane.

The local hobby shop near my house does not sell Hobby Zone. Instead they sell planes from Mega Tech. I decided to downgrade once again and I bought the A7 Tornado. It looks cool but it's amazingly fragile. The wings fell off in flight. The tail control broke off internally and I couldn't reach it so I had to poke holes in the side to secure it. The front end could not stand multiple impacts and fell apart. It's underpowered and the tiny battery only lasts about a minute before it starts to die. The prop also cuts out sometimes when I turn. In the picture shown, you can see that I've secured the wings with duct tape top and bottom. The front-end is pretty much gone and I've duct taped what is left for support. I have to secure the battery in place with duct tape. It has no landing gear. I have yet to have a successful flight with it. A successful flight is a full loop. I have managed to fly it straight for a few hundred feet then turn it and crash it. I've flown it about a dozen times and it's nearly dead already. I got it on sale for $60. It cost $80 retail.

So the adventure in RC planes continue. I still have all 3 planes and I plan to repair all 3 for the July 4th weekend and do a lot of flying. I think the lower parking lot at the PNC Arts Center would make a good area to practice take-offs and landings.

I'm always looking for good places to fly. Unfortunately these cheaper lightweight planes are highly affected by the wind. The A7 Tornado is rated for a light 5 mph breeze. The Commander can handle 10 mph and the Super Cub 15 mph.

I'll be retiring all 3 of these planes soon and trying something new.