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| Andrew and James with Andrew's Alpha |
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| Alpha on the runway, ready for take-off |
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| It's a bird...no, it's a plane...no, it's an RC plane! |
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| mid-flight |
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| Dave awarding James his "wings (a nominal honor, i.e., no tangible token bestowed) |
Showing posts with label RC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RC. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
wordless Wednesday: wings
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
long weekend time machine
I wish every weekend were a long one.
On Saturday, I attended a CXWorx class at the GoodLife Fitness Women's Club, located upstairs at the Barrhaven Loblaws. I recently joined, and I'm still trying out various group classes. My favorite so far has been BodyPump, because it's stationary exercise which doesn't require loads of coordination. The woman next to me in CXWorx told me she was getting back into the group classes after an injury. She rushed off to another CXWorx at the Strandherd location afterwards. To my mind, that's extreme. I calculated that if I go to at least two classes a week I'll be getting more value for my money (and it is expensive) than if I were to pay the drop-in rate of $15/class. I'll try to fit in more than that this month, but in moderation.
After lunch, James drove us to the Trainyards (the Website spells it both as two words and as a compound word, perhaps because the street is named Trainyards Drive), so that he could purchase a replacement RC plane for the trainer Alpha that met its untimely end on Wednesday. I'd accompanied James that evening because he was supposed to test for his wings. The instructor, however, didn't show due to family commitments. RC buddy Andrew was there--he obtained his wings earlier this year--and they took up the Alpha. It was flying smoothly up until the controller stuck. The sound of the plane splitting into numerous pieces somewhere in the trees was akin to hearing a crack of lightning in a thunderstorm. RIP Alpha. While Mr. C. was in Great Hobbies, I walked over to Solutions. I enjoy browsing through organizing stuff. Didn't buy anything, though.
We puttered for the rest of the day: James worked on assembling the new plane, and I cleaned up. Charles & Lisa picked us up at 6:30pm to go to Manotick for dinner. We didn't have reservations for the dining room at Black Dog Bistro (plus do I really want to eat at a place with "dog" in its name? apparently many other diners did that evening), and it was a little too warm for al fresco dining, so we moved on, ending up at The Mill Tavern. (You can see "our" second-floor corner booth on the right-hand side in the left banner photo.) Lisa and I both had fish and chips, but she had hers with the sea salt and malt vinegar batter, while I had the regular batter; mine was good, whereas hers was, she said, excellent. Charles and James had burgers, veggie and beef, respectively.
Sunday after church we had to revisit Trainyards for a bolt or screw or some such necessity. This time I wandered the aisles of Bouclair. The rest of the day was a blur. I think I read the newspaper and surfed the 'net a lot. I also baked a peach pie, which took me the better part of the afternoon/evening. It's only my second time making pie from scratch, and I worked it in before and after supper. I had to look up my post from three years ago. And then I had to search for how to scald peaches to remove the peel. This time I poured boiling water over them in a bowl; I think last time I cooked them in a pot. This is now a triennial August ritual; maybe I should have deferred the pie for another year, thereby turning it into my very own "kitchen Olympics" event.
Yesterday I squeezed in a 15-minute abs workout. I'm still feeling it today. Puttered some more.
Today I've tackled decluttering again. I have sooo many boxes full of papers, and I'm trying to scale down. It's not just university notes and copies of journal articles, it's also newspaper clippings. For instance, I came across four related to Patrick Swayze in his role as Orry Main in North and South, the TV mini-series based on the novels of John Jakes. The mini-series was first broadcast when I was in high school, so I'd peg the clippings as being from 1985 or 1986. Needless to say, they're going into the black recycle bin--along with the Carlton Card Shop paper bag with the once-popular Ziggy and his dog Fuzz printed on it.
What can I say? My closet is a Time Machine. (Which reminds me I need to back up my laptop.)
On Saturday, I attended a CXWorx class at the GoodLife Fitness Women's Club, located upstairs at the Barrhaven Loblaws. I recently joined, and I'm still trying out various group classes. My favorite so far has been BodyPump, because it's stationary exercise which doesn't require loads of coordination. The woman next to me in CXWorx told me she was getting back into the group classes after an injury. She rushed off to another CXWorx at the Strandherd location afterwards. To my mind, that's extreme. I calculated that if I go to at least two classes a week I'll be getting more value for my money (and it is expensive) than if I were to pay the drop-in rate of $15/class. I'll try to fit in more than that this month, but in moderation.
After lunch, James drove us to the Trainyards (the Website spells it both as two words and as a compound word, perhaps because the street is named Trainyards Drive), so that he could purchase a replacement RC plane for the trainer Alpha that met its untimely end on Wednesday. I'd accompanied James that evening because he was supposed to test for his wings. The instructor, however, didn't show due to family commitments. RC buddy Andrew was there--he obtained his wings earlier this year--and they took up the Alpha. It was flying smoothly up until the controller stuck. The sound of the plane splitting into numerous pieces somewhere in the trees was akin to hearing a crack of lightning in a thunderstorm. RIP Alpha. While Mr. C. was in Great Hobbies, I walked over to Solutions. I enjoy browsing through organizing stuff. Didn't buy anything, though.
We puttered for the rest of the day: James worked on assembling the new plane, and I cleaned up. Charles & Lisa picked us up at 6:30pm to go to Manotick for dinner. We didn't have reservations for the dining room at Black Dog Bistro (plus do I really want to eat at a place with "dog" in its name? apparently many other diners did that evening), and it was a little too warm for al fresco dining, so we moved on, ending up at The Mill Tavern. (You can see "our" second-floor corner booth on the right-hand side in the left banner photo.) Lisa and I both had fish and chips, but she had hers with the sea salt and malt vinegar batter, while I had the regular batter; mine was good, whereas hers was, she said, excellent. Charles and James had burgers, veggie and beef, respectively.
Sunday after church we had to revisit Trainyards for a bolt or screw or some such necessity. This time I wandered the aisles of Bouclair. The rest of the day was a blur. I think I read the newspaper and surfed the 'net a lot. I also baked a peach pie, which took me the better part of the afternoon/evening. It's only my second time making pie from scratch, and I worked it in before and after supper. I had to look up my post from three years ago. And then I had to search for how to scald peaches to remove the peel. This time I poured boiling water over them in a bowl; I think last time I cooked them in a pot. This is now a triennial August ritual; maybe I should have deferred the pie for another year, thereby turning it into my very own "kitchen Olympics" event.
Yesterday I squeezed in a 15-minute abs workout. I'm still feeling it today. Puttered some more.
Today I've tackled decluttering again. I have sooo many boxes full of papers, and I'm trying to scale down. It's not just university notes and copies of journal articles, it's also newspaper clippings. For instance, I came across four related to Patrick Swayze in his role as Orry Main in North and South, the TV mini-series based on the novels of John Jakes. The mini-series was first broadcast when I was in high school, so I'd peg the clippings as being from 1985 or 1986. Needless to say, they're going into the black recycle bin--along with the Carlton Card Shop paper bag with the once-popular Ziggy and his dog Fuzz printed on it.
What can I say? My closet is a Time Machine. (Which reminds me I need to back up my laptop.)
Monday, July 30, 2012
RC race weekend
So I'm really, really slow in posting photos of the F1 Grand Prix in Montreal in June because I ran into a hitch: I found out that a free Flickr account holds a limit of 200 photos. See, I was going to upload photos to Flickr and then include a link to it here; I thought it would be faster than trying to load them one by one to this blog. Since I already had uploaded 85 Bonn-related photos, I was reaching my limit fast. Consequently, I need to rethink my strategy.
Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the Tamiya Off-Road Championships held this past weekend. I'll add captions and narrative when I have a chance, so readers will have to check back.
Update 2012-08-03: OK, captions added. Not sure a narrative is unnecessary, since the photos capture the event's essence: testosterone, RC cars (RC = remote controlled or radio controlled), and the occasional Significant Other present for moral support. I'll note, however, that since the Friday and Saturday practice sessions went long (7 or 8am to 10 or 11pm), I was glad that Sunday qualifiers and James's actual races lasted from about 7:45am (official start time was delayed by 15 minutes) to 1:00pm. Gave us time for a Meddachschlop, something practically unheard of at our house.
Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the Tamiya Off-Road Championships held this past weekend. I'll add captions and narrative when I have a chance, so readers will have to check back.
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| Sutton Aviation, Rockcliffe Airport (James is seated on the left) |
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| Racers' tables: where they tinker and polish their vehicles |
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| James's two off-road RC cars |
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| Brush to brush away larger dirt particles, Cyberclean to collect the fine particles of dirt from the wheels, especially, a screwdriver, and an assortment of tiny screws, washers, clips. |
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| The off-road racetrack, covered by a tent. The stands give racers extra height so they can follow their cars on track. |
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| James's car is the red one with the blue wing, fifth from the top on this photo. |
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| Blink and you might miss it go by. |
Update 2012-08-03: OK, captions added. Not sure a narrative is unnecessary, since the photos capture the event's essence: testosterone, RC cars (RC = remote controlled or radio controlled), and the occasional Significant Other present for moral support. I'll note, however, that since the Friday and Saturday practice sessions went long (7 or 8am to 10 or 11pm), I was glad that Sunday qualifiers and James's actual races lasted from about 7:45am (official start time was delayed by 15 minutes) to 1:00pm. Gave us time for a Meddachschlop, something practically unheard of at our house.
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