Back to work.

Yes, I'm working again. That's good in a couple of ways. For one, cra... stuff disappears from here. For another, money appears. But it's really a bit of work. These are the things I have to do:

• Decide what to sell.
  
• Find the item, all accessories and manuals and whatever.
  
• If any accessories are missing or damaged, order new ones.
• Determine a starting price and, sometimes, a minimum price.
• Find pictures online or take photographs of the item.
  
• Write a description, including a plausible reason for selling.
  
• Put all of that stuff together into an eBay page format.
  
• Find packaging.
  
• Determine shipping costs.
  
• Decide how long the auction should be.
  
• Post it all.
  
• Answer any questions that come up.
  
• Verify payment.
  
• Ship.
  
• Handle returns, complaints, etc., if any.

At the moment I have 5 items online. The only one that has bids so far is my old Kindle, which has been bid up to $71. That's not bad, since a new Kindle 3 sells for $139. The other 4 items don't have bids. Two of them are being watched (often bids don't appear until the last few hours). Two I just put on today and no-one has seen them yet.

eBay selling is kind of fun, everything considered, although not as much fun as eBay buying.

In a completely unrelated item, while browsing I stumbled on these heels:

Very cool, but I don't know who would wear them.

My New Best Friend

(This is my first time posting to a blog – I hope you readers will be merciful. Although I’ve never actually met Durf , I know him vicariously through my husband Ed, whose life seems strangely intertwined with Durf’s.)

Durf has his helicopter. I have my new BFF that I spent last weekend enjoying: the Karcher K2.21 power washer.

Once again, we Central Californians had a long winter of rain, fog, and drear. My backyard and patio had become disgustingly green and slick with mold, mildew and untold algae-types. I trekked to the local hardware store, searching for what must be the chemical solution to my problems. I left with my new pal.

Oh, the power and the glory! My patio was de-greened, clean and the way God intended cement to be. The walls, the yard furniture, there’s no end to what I can clean! My husband thinks I’m a bit extreme, but has to admit the patio looks great.

Political gender.

I wasn't going to blog today because I'm busy getting ready to sell things on eBay - I have to pay for that radio somehow. But I keep seeing bulletins about the government being shut down and that's too annoying to ignore. It isn't that I hate Republicans - I actually have a friend who calls himself that. But the GOP now is acting like adolescent boys whose brains are addled with overdoses of testosterone. They'll fight, they won't back down, and it makes no difference if what they're trying to do makes any sense at all. Then there are the Democrats, who are more like young women - confrontation averse, timid, and desperate to please.

Take a pick.

I pick Democrats, because at least their brains are still working. If only they had balls.

Gathering rosebuds, Part 3.

Coaxial helicopters, the type with two rotors and a fly bar, are called 2D because they operate in one plane; that is, the rotors stay parallel with the ground. That makes them easy to fly, but they are less realistic and can't do aerobatics. Collective pitch helis, though, are 3D. I wanted one not to do aerobatics, but because they look better.

I received the mCPX only a couple of weeks ago. It's beautiful. I read the manual, charged the batteries, and soon I was doing rolls and loops and upside-down flying. The problem was, I wasn't trying to do any of those things. As soon as the heli lifted off the ground, it zoomed off in one direction or another, usually "landing" by hitting a wall. I began to learn about repairs, but I also realized that I needed to learn how to fly a collective pitch helicopter.

After a misfire or two, I found a really good website devoted to RC helicopters, with a large section devoted to flying CP helis. One of the first things he said was that it could take weeks to learn how to fly. That's probably broken down this way: 5 minutes flying, 3 days of repairs. But I'd been through that with the Draganflyer, and I was anxious to learn. Then he started talking about radios, the transmitters that control the helis. Here is my current radio collection:

The way that happens is that a radio is commonly packaged with a new helicopter, adding about $50 to the price. The most advanced radio in my collection is the DX4e, which came with the mCPX. I was delighted. Then my flight instructor told me that none of those radios is any good. He said that to maximize the experience of flying a CP heli, I needed a programmable radio, which itself takes two weeks to learn. I wasn't happy about that, but there are some good points. The radio he recommended has ten areas that can be programmed for ten different planes. Even if I couldn't bind the radio to the helis I have now, I could use it for future helis and planes. The only future - no less than a year from now - helicopter I might consider buying is a large one for outdoor flight. That's way down the road, but I finally decided that buying a programmable radio made a lot of sense.

Oh, well. You can't take it with you.

Pilot stress.

This is a little movie that demonstrates pilot stress. I wanted more of the heli in it, and I was trying a camera that, obviously, is not HD (soon to be on eBay), but 2=2.

Gathering rosebuds, Part 2.

One of the fun things about the Draganflyer is that it can carry a video camera. I have a video from a flight that I'll post when I find it.

The DF weighs 18.2 oz., so it takes a lot of lift to stay aloft. That makes it difficult to fly inside; the heavier a heli is in relation to the rotors' surface area, the more throttle adjustments are required. Keeping the DF hovering at the same altitude requires constant throttle up/down. The best I've been able to do indoors is hover and simple back-and-forth.

With winter and wind (the DF can handle winds up to 10 mph), there isn't that much outdoor flying time in CO. A couple of years ago I decided to invest in a smaller helicopter that I could fly indoors. I bought a Blade CX2.

The CX2 isn't tiny, but it only weighs 8 oz. OTOH, it has less rotor surface area than the DF. Near-constant throttle action is still required, but I can fly in the house. Another advantage of the CX2 is that it looks more like a helicopter. The main differences are that it has two rotors, a fly bar, and no tail rotor. The purpose of the extra rotor and fly bar are to keep the heli stable, with its rotors parallel to the ground. That makes it a lot easier to fly, but much less realistic.

Flying the CX2 inside, I still didn't have enough confidence to learn what I really needed to learn, to fly in all directions. Flying with the nose away is easy, but when the heli turns the actions of the controls are reversed. If the heli is flying toward you, you have to request it to fly right to get it to fly left. That sounds easy, sort of, but when any wrong move will result in pieces flying everywhere, and when one hand is constantly jiggling the throttle, the pressure rises. After a while I decided to go even smaller.

That is my MCX. It's small and it only weighs .9 oz. It's closer to the size of the copter I saw in the James Bond movie. It's really easy to fly inside, and I learned to fly in all directions. When I want to fly nowadays, I flop back in my chair, take off from the coffee table, fly around in circles and every which way, then land on the coffee table. I can't remember the last time I broke any parts on the MCX. The only limitation is one I can't escape, a lack of depth perception that has increased with the approach of geezerhood. I have to bring the copter down slowly to be sure it's over the coffee table.

Finally I decided I was ready for what I'd really wanted all along - a collective pitch helicopter.

...to be continued

Gathering rosebuds.

NuSTAR is over for me, I'm back to my lousy retirement income (Social Security plus whatever I can hawk on eBay), and I'm not on Medicare yet. Nevertheless, I seem to be spending money as if it would reappear automatically. Some of it can't be helped: the house and yard need some repairs, we had to buy a new bicycle rack for our Outbacks ($360!), supplies have to be restocked, etc. Other items are discretionary, though, and I seem to be headed down that proverbial slippery slope. At least it helps to solve my conundrum of "spend while I can or save until it's too late".

The current money vortex is helicopters. Many years ago I was watching a movie, James Bond, I think, and a villain was flying a small radio-controlled heli in a hanger. I thought that was way cool, and I was determined that someday I would do that myself. So in January 2004 I bought a Draganflyer IV.

(I neglected to include a size reference in the photos, unfortunately.)

The Draganflyer, named after its inventor, Joe Flyer, is 19.5" from rotor center to rotor center, diagonally. As you can see (clickable, if you'd like), it is a small circuit board, some arms, motors, and mounting parts. The battery goes on the tray in the lower center. The price for the heli and a radio was $955, a lot. But that was just the beginning.

Since it was winter, I took the DF into our triple garage in Dublin to learn how to fly... well, to hover, initially. That's when I learned that flying is more difficult than it looks. The DF would rise off the ground and zoom off in any direction, usually crashing with broken parts flying everywhere. That went on for weeks. I estimate that to date I have spent $3000 on the DF, and it doesn't even look like a real helicopter.

Parts weren't the only expense.

That's a eucalyptus tree behind our house in Dublin. The red circle indicates the position of my DF, which was hopelessly stuck. Eventually I had to hire a tree company to come out, climb the tree, and rescue my poor heli. $$$$$

The biggest problem was (and is) that as the helicopter gets farther away it becomes very hard to discern which side is the front. I've tried hanging things from it and painting it, but that hasn't helped much. Part of the problem was that I wasn't a good enough pilot to determine direction using the controls - mostly I kept the nose pointed away from me, and if that changed I was in deep doodoo.

My most spectacular crash happened a couple of years ago. I was flying behind our house here in CO and behaving myself - keeping the DF close. Then I noticed that across the street a bunch of guys who were there to do yard maintenance were watching. I decided to show off a little. I thought it would be okay if I gained altitude, as long as I kept the orientation the same. So up she went, and before long it wasn't much more than a dot in the sky. Then a little breeze came along and blew the DF and I had no idea how to control it. I was desperately working the radio when the heli disappeared over the top of our house. The yard guys were standing mouths agape watching, while I was running around the house to spot the DF again. I did, about two seconds before it crashed into the road at high speed. I suppose the only good thing in that was that the yard guys thought it was more or less normal to land that way.

...to be continued

What's scarier?

A couple of nights ago I had a dream in which I was very old. I don't know exactly how old, but my face looked like that of an unwrapped Egyptian mummy. Everyone I'd known in life was already dead and had been for some time. It freaked me out.

So I'll pose this question: What's scarier, a life too short or a life too long?

Manners.

In 1984 Jim, a friend and co-worker at Lam Research, walked up to me, grimaced slightly, looked me in the eyes, and said, "People would respect you a lot more if you got that booger out of your nose." I rushed into the men's room, looked in a mirror, gasped, and then, er, blew my nose. That was 27 years ago and I still remember it.

Was it good manners or bad manners for Jim to say that to me? I don't know what Miss Manners would say about it, but I was grateful that Jim helped me avoid walking around with a giant goober visible in one of my nostrils. Surely there would have been a lot of grimaces, but most people wouldn't have said anything. And when I'd looked in a mirror later... ACK!

When I began my first job in the semiconductor industry at American Microsystems in 1975 or so, I sat down for lunch at a random table in the cafeteria. There were mostly line dollies at the table, and after a while one of them said to me, "You really have lovely table manners, for a man." That felt good, and it made me more thankful that my mother had trained me well. Some people have table manners, some have different table manners, and others have none at all. You know what I mean.

But manners differ depending where you are. In India people often eat with their fingers, for example. In France dinners can last for hours. In England the food is inedible, but I don't know if that goes under manners.

In Korea I told a limo driver to take me to a hotel, but it was the wrong hotel. When we arrived he carried all my luggage inside. A short while later he came back out with my luggage and told me it was the wrong hotel. After he took me to the correct hotel and deposited my bags in the lobby, I tried to hand him a few dollars. He wouldn't take them. Tipping isn't done in Korea. There's tipping in Germany, but only a couple of euro for really good service. In the U.S.... well, that might be another blog topic.

I learned new customs in Japan. One is that it is very impolite to blow your nose in public, especially when you're eating. (Younger people there are starting to ignore that rule.) So people at the dining table sniff noisily to avoid blowing their noses. (Dabbing at your nose with your handkerchief is acceptable, as long as it's silent.) That's one custom that really drives Twila nuts. There you are trying to eat eggs over easy and the entire table is sniffing and swallowing. It's a bit unsettling at first, I admit.

Japanese also slurp their noodles. It really is the easiest way to eat them with chopsticks, and the noises are caused by noodles and soup and not that other stuff.

The one I like best is that it's common in Japan and very acceptable to use a toothpick at the table. That one makes a *lot* of sense. Why sit there with something stuck between your teeth, trying like made to get it out with your tongue, and being uncomfortable the entire time? You don't have to take a toothpick and open your mouth wide and show everyone what you're after. You cradle it in your hand and keep your mouth as closed as possible. It is perfectly sensible, and I almost always put toothpicks on our table when we have guests. They usually don't partake, but I do.

But back to that booger. I read in a newspaper a few days ago that in Thailand it is perfectly acceptable to pick your nose in public. They consider it a normal part of good grooming. Let's admit it, all guys pick their noses, usually surreptitiously. Then there are the times that someone walks in when your finger is up to a knuckle inside a nostril and you desperately pretend that you were just scratching.

Women don't pick their noses, ever, according to Twila. And I believe her, because I don't recall having seen her do it. The part about women never farting has been proven false many times, and the sh*t doesn't smell argument is unconvincing.

Anyway, I don't know about the nose picking thing. I've done it on rare occasions, in private, but I don't like to see people doing it, and then flicking the berries out their car windows. Or anywhere. Maybe a couple of weeks in Thailand would change my opinion, but for now I'm with Twila on that one.

The sandwich.

I had a different idea for today's post, but then this kind of jumped out of nowhere and said, "Blog me! Blog me!"

It all started when I felt a little hungry and decided to have brunch. Twila had picked up some sandwiches at our local, cooly-named grocery store, King Soopers. I'd had one of these Deli Club sandwiches before and wasn't crazy about the cheese, so I decided to find out what kind of cheese it was. Here's the label (clickable):

So I was like, "OMG, it's a SANDWICH!" I thought you made a sandwich by slapping some meat and cheese between two pieces of bread. I never suspected they're actually made from chemicals in some secret laboratory. Rennet, for example. Who knows what rennet is? It certainly doesn't sound like something that should be in a sandwich.

The worst part of all is, I still don't know what kind of cheese was in it.