Bob Space

I’m noticing my posting frequency is sliding off. It’s not that I don’t have news, y’ understand, it’s just that I don’t have much news that I feel is worth writing about here. The girls grow and learn, the Lady is locked in mortal combat with the Demon of Getting A New Job, and I’m just cruising trying to keep everybody upright and forward-moving.

I also have to wonder what I’m doing blogging in the first place. Generally all I read blogs for is to keep up with friends or with people I find interesting and who have interests similar to mine. (That amounts to Scalzi, Wheaton and Plait. I’m not a big blog chaser.) All I write a blog for is to let anyone who might want to know what I’m doing … what I’m doing. But honestly, I’m a pretty boring guy. I’ve got an average life (since I’m working, maybe a little better than average), loving family, geeky hobbies, and a continuous struggle with weight. Not really worth writing about.

Oh, well. I’ll have more to say when there’s more to be said.

What was (at this time last week) a forecast for a chance of showers Wednesday and Thursday has turned into steady rain and drizzle for Thursday, rain for Friday and Saturday, and probably cooling enough to turn to snow by Sunday night.

I liked this morning. The early light was grey and flat, the cloud cover was even, and there were bands of mist clinging to the hillsides. In other words, it was just like a winter day in Northern California where I grew up. By Sunday a more Nevada-like winter will assert itself briefly, but by Tuesday we’ll be back to mostly clear and highs in the mid- to upper-40s.

Still. There’s snow in the mountains again, and that’s good. And the pernicious haze that had built up in our valley has been washed away.

The Lady of the Manor is pruning the contents of our bookshelves. I’m not happy with some of her choices, but they’re not my choices to make. I will move to rescue the occasional volume, but otherwise we’re probably better off.

Something that turned up in the pruning was Everything Your Fourth Grader Needs To Know, part of a series of curriculum support books we bought back-when.

Very convenient for this moment, when I’m writing a book that should be intelligible to the average fourth grader

Wow. So I’ve been poking through the National Science Education Standards, looking at the benchmarks for grades K-4 so I’ll know what sort of background I can rely on my readers having.

EEK.

I think I’m mostly on the right track, but work must be done.

I start that chapter with a review of properties and measurements: length, mass, time, speed, acceleration. Those are in the standard as “properties of matter,” so I don’t need to do much here.

Next I go into Newton’s Laws. Here I’m on less sure ground. The standard has introduced some basics of motion, but nothing quantitative. I’m going to have to rework these sections, but only to simplify a little and be sure the steps are absolutely clear.

Then I review some basics of electricity. I wasn’t fully happy with this section as it was, and the standard gives me minimal support here. This will take extensive reworking … as near as I can tell, they haven’t been taught about electrons yet, though they do know what a circuit is. This section is going to have to be very building-blocky … very concrete and focused on what works, less about why.

The standard has already talked about friction, so I can couch aerodynamic drag in those terms.

Hmm. Well, the challenge just goes on. At some point soon, though, I must focus on finishing.

“Go” For Launch needs to be really simple in its delivery. Photographs are simple for production, but not always easy to read. Decent line drawings and diagrams are easy to read. Ergo, I need to concentrate on using line drawings. And I can’t draw worth beans. This concerns me.

Escape Plan 1: Do photos and manipulate in Photoshop to resemble woodcuts. This is within my Photoshop skill level … rather easy, in fact, once a tutorial tells you how. It works beautifully. (As I’m sure the folks at The Wall Street Journal have known for decades.)

Escape Plan 2: Retune the NASA graphics I’ve adopted to grayscale. They’re the most complicated of the diagrams, and I really don’t want to draw my own.

Escape Plan 3: The few diagrams left are simple shapes and lines. I can do those with Illustrator.

These minimize rework for me, and give me a way to get the photos in without having to worry about color reproduction.

And now I’ve come full-circle again to my original on-the-cheap production plan. You’d be surprised how much of my life is spent chasing my own tail.

I’m also thinking that my lead-off chapter is the wrong shape. I’m spending too much time on complex legal relationships that don’t really relate to my thesis and that younger readers don’t give a fig about. I need to lead off with the intro, go straight into the Safety Code, give a briefer section on local laws, and just get on with it. The nuances of the legal foundation of model rocketry can go elsewhere (or not at all). (It pains me to say that. Twain called it “murdering your darlings.” But, using my editor eyes, all that surplus stuff is just me showing off what I’ve learned. It’s not central to the book and shouldn’t be so prominent.)

On waking this morning, I had a happy thought for the title of the model rocketry basics book.

Then I checked on the internet. Of course someone has already used it.

But I don’t care. I’m going to punctuate it differently and run with it.

The new title is: “Go” for Launch: Model Rocketry Basics.

The other books will be How High? Model Rocket Flight Predictions and Bargain Rocket Science: Model Rocketry Plans and Projects.

I intend a web page for these, probably in an all-new subdomain. They will be PDF, designed for comb or looseleaf binding, and “free as in beer” (no charge, gratis), but not free as in free speech or open source (these are still my fully copyrighted works). I might strike a deal with a print publisher some day, so I need to plan my notices and disclaimers appropriately.

For “Go”, I’m also pondering the layout and whether to stick with Word (whose features and faults I know well) or take it into Pages (which I suspect will be better suited to the layout task but which I’ve never used).

Two months later, I’ve finally figured out how I now want to decorate my office cubicle.

First: Moved two overhead cabinets down a half-meter. Some of those screws felt like they’d been tightened down not long after screws were invented.

Second: Must display model rockets on top of newly-lowered-to-midriff-level cabinets. I’ve already got two here, an Estes Blue Ninja and a Quest Astra III. (Seeing them up on top of the cabinets with their fins at eye level is probably what motivated me to move the cabinets down. They’re MUCH easier to appreciate now.) I’ll probably keep around five models here, of assorted sizes and behaviors, and rotate them as I need to fly them or want to change the display here.

Third: The Featureless Grey Plain, aka The Walls. I’d love to have a 24″ planisphere here, but no one sells a 24″ planisphere and I’m not interested in making one. I’ve stuck the winter constellations from the Star Deck I’ll probably settle for sticking a Star Deck (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/letsgo/familyfun/Star_Deck.html) to a panel behind the rockets; assorted colorful fact sheets about model rocketry adorn the adjacent space.

And I’ve added some International Year of Astronomy 2009 materials outside the entrance.

This leaves one large panel inside, and parts of another large panel. I want some space photography prints, something with manned spacecraft and launch vehicles … details will just have to wait until I see what’s at the Planetarium gift shop.

Club meeting on the 13th … didn’t happen due to a scheduling lapse. We’re scrambling to make up the time together in the coming week, because our meeting space for the 27th will not be as roomy as usual. On the plus side, it looks like I am going to have three for-sure commited fliers, and that’s enough to get the club chartered.

The Estes Liquidator payloader that flew into pieces on first launch (link) is now fully reassembled and ready to haul marbles skyward once more. (But probably just once more, unless Showmanship rears its ugly head. It _is_ a very showy model to fly.)

That reminds me, I need a new tether for the GOBox safety key, since I ruined the spring-reel keyring during the last demo. I had a nifty idea, though, of tying the safety key to the launch rod safety cap. That’s a darn good way of keeping them organized and reinforce some mutual exclusivity in their operation.

I’ve reworked my plans for my NARTREK self-study program, since my notion to create a booster stage for the Astra has run aground. (I can’t get a design to tumble-recover at a safe speed in simulation.) I’ve got some interesting kits ahead of me, including a 1/30-scale replica of Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne and a couple 3x scale cutaway motors. I’m probably going to buy all of those come birthday-time.

I’ve also set aside any intention pursuing high power rocketry, period. My idea was build and fly one HPR rocket, get my certificate so I could say I did, and then ignore it forever after. But the money isn’t there, and isn’t going to be there. Kits are $100-plus, I’d need a new pad, and don’t get me started on motors. It’s not like there aren’t endless challenges to chase while still inside the model rocket box … and the 3.3 pound/2*G-motor upper limit can STILL give a darn big rocket. (and soak up money amply).

The Book is “officially” set aside while I ponder how to solve the illustration problem. And contemplate the title. And reflect on the layout. And scribble notes about refinements to the text. Now you know why “officially” was in quotes — this doesn’t sound like I’ve set it aside at all! (Oh, and now I have two more books in mind, one of Performance Prediction Charts, and one of Cheap Gear Plans.)

Heck’s fire, what is UP with the last four weeks? This is the fourth or fifth celebrity to pass away of whom I’ve been fond.

Much as we’ll miss him, I’m actually glad Ricardo has finally been able to shuffle off the body that’s given him such terrible pain for decades.

Far from a number, but one of the wiliest, cleverest, most talented men in television. Gonna miss him, but he left a wonderful body of work (and not limited to Danger Man or The Prisoner, my fellow geeks. Seek out, for instance, his classic performances opposite Peter Falk in the Columbo series… and he wrote and directed several of those, too).