This week marked the beginning of the end. The end of my college career that is. In just 5 short months I will be done with school and on to bigger and better things with the United States Navy, after a short time as an unemployed, bachelor of science in Aerospace Engineering holding, Ensign in the United States Navy waiting to go to flight school.
Until then I will muddle through school preparing for what I hope to be my first ever marathon.
This weekend I was able to attend flight team practice where the team for the first time flew their brand new Cessna 162 Skycatcher. My first impressions of it are that although it isn't much of a looker it does seem to have good flying qualities. It is considerably quieter than the Cessna 150s that we usually fly. Although the Skycatcher was designed some 50 years after the 150 it doesn't seem to have as an advanced a wing from what is visually perceptible. The 150 has a tapered wing, and the Skycatcher has a hershey bar wing with no taper. In the coming weeks I hope to see much more of it as our pilots become better and better at flying it, and the team's second Skycatcher arrives in February.
This weekend has also brought renewed interest in photography and filming. Yesterday the afternoon was spent at Spruce Creek building a gimble for a DIY steadicam. The work continued today, and it should be operational tomorrow, so look for updates with that. As we were working on it today we started thinking about camera cranes/booms and tomorrow the plan is to hash out a better idea of how to build one of those as well. The goal is to have everything operational by next weekend. Along the way we also ran across DIY plans for a dolly, so that may be included as well.
For my parting words I will share something I have come to realize based on two old phrases:
The first phrase is, "You can achieve anything you put your mind to". No as a matter of fact you cannot. It seems to be a motto that American's live by and the rest of the world already knows is not actually true.
The second phrase, "There is no such thing as a stupid/dumb question". Oh yes there is, and far too often I have heard them. My favorites are the ones that are asked mere seconds after someone has just finished explaining that very thing. Why don't people just learn to listen?
And with that it is time to end, thank you, and goodnight.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The Beginning
A New Year and a New Beginning for this blog. I intend to be much more diligent with my posting and a lot more interesting. Many big changes are coming for me in the next year and this will be one of the places that I post these changes.
To start the year off on the right now I ran in a small fun run called the John Dailey Memorial One One Run. I ran it with my cousin Rebekah and her cousins Laura and Emily, their Dad Dan, and Emily's husband David. This was all sort of a last minute deal, I had not even heard about the run until the Thursday before it happened.
The day was a cold one, but with sunshine breaking through from time to time. No snow was on the ground as the rain and warm weather from the previous two days had washed it all away. I found out later that the wind chill was somewhere in the teens. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a shirt, they sold out because of the nearly 800 people that were there.
In the end I think I finished between 15-20th for the people who did the two lap 4.4 mile option. I ran it in 0:32:36.63 which I feel was pretty good given the weather, and how little training I had done. I had only ran 3 times over break.
The goal this year is to run the first ever Kalamazoo Marathon in a time under 3 hours 10 minutes. Ideally I would like to be under 3 hours, but I am going to be realistic for my first marathon.
One thing I observed during the run was how many people have all the gear and look the part of runners, but aren't at all very fast at all. I don't have nearly the proper gear compared to some. I was wearing a pair of soccer sweat pants with a pair of running sweats underneath, a long sleeve shirt, a North Face lightweight pullover, and a pair of Adidas running gloves. Some people were decked out head to toe in purpose made gear and were slow as can be. I just cannot understand the people that dress the part and cannot perform.
To start the year off on the right now I ran in a small fun run called the John Dailey Memorial One One Run. I ran it with my cousin Rebekah and her cousins Laura and Emily, their Dad Dan, and Emily's husband David. This was all sort of a last minute deal, I had not even heard about the run until the Thursday before it happened.
The day was a cold one, but with sunshine breaking through from time to time. No snow was on the ground as the rain and warm weather from the previous two days had washed it all away. I found out later that the wind chill was somewhere in the teens. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a shirt, they sold out because of the nearly 800 people that were there.
In the end I think I finished between 15-20th for the people who did the two lap 4.4 mile option. I ran it in 0:32:36.63 which I feel was pretty good given the weather, and how little training I had done. I had only ran 3 times over break.
The goal this year is to run the first ever Kalamazoo Marathon in a time under 3 hours 10 minutes. Ideally I would like to be under 3 hours, but I am going to be realistic for my first marathon.
One thing I observed during the run was how many people have all the gear and look the part of runners, but aren't at all very fast at all. I don't have nearly the proper gear compared to some. I was wearing a pair of soccer sweat pants with a pair of running sweats underneath, a long sleeve shirt, a North Face lightweight pullover, and a pair of Adidas running gloves. Some people were decked out head to toe in purpose made gear and were slow as can be. I just cannot understand the people that dress the part and cannot perform.
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