Thoughts are not for franchise

Best address in town….

Robert — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:55:00 +0000

If you’ve lived in the ‘Deltastraat’, it’s obvious you start hang gliding.

I found my old ‘Lernausweis’. It’s from 1993 and in that era, I lived in a house at the ‘deltastraat’. I still remember the strange look on the face of the instructor when he had to write my address on my student-license.

Lernausweis

You can translate ‘Deltastraat’ as ‘Hangglider street’. But that’s not exactly true. In fact, ‘delta’ refers to river-mouth. But I prefer the link to hanggliding.

Deep Blue

Robert — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:23:36 +0000

I wasn’t playing against Deep Blue…..

click to see the picture.

The ultimate cat-flap

Robert — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:34:23 +0000

While making plans to redecorate the hobby-room, we stumbled upon the question, how to give our cats access to the hobby-room. The most simple solution is to leave the door open. But that will give some draft of cold air. The next solution can be a cat-flap. We already have two doors in the house with cat-flaps, and we don’t want to demolish another door, by putting a cat-flap in it.
So we had to think and come up with a better plan.

At this moment, we are busy building the ultimate cat-flap. A sneak preview on this photo.

Cat-flap

I’m a scientist….

Robert — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:34:11 +0000

The first time you do something, it’s science. The second time, it’s engineering. The third time, it’s just technology…….. I’m a scientist. Once I do something, I want to do something else.
At 1 minute and 14 seconds in this clip at TED.

Cumulus Pixar

Robert — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:48:19 +0000

I’ve been to cloudbase several times, and flown into clouds. But I’ve never seen these types of clouds.

Cumulus Pixar

These clouds are designed by the people from Pixar. And they did a great job.

Look also at their Cumulonimbus. Thunder comes when clouds are angry and rain starts when they are sad.

angry

sad

I can’t find a legal copy of the movie ‘Partly cloudy’ by Pixar. But here is a link. Enjoy it. (sorry, I can’t get the video embedded in the right way. ;-()

Hamster Energy

Robert — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:26:41 +0000

A short clip about ‘Hamster Energy’.
It’s good to think about renewable energy. Not all types of ‘environmental friendly energy’ are good for the environment. The less steps there are between the energy source and the consumer, the more efficient it is.

Link to the clip: Hamster Energy

Ha, ha, lets think about the use of Hamsters in my house for making electricity.
Lets say, a hamster running in his rotary exerciser, can drive a little bicycle-dynamo. That gives 5Volt, 0,2Amp = 1Watt
I need about 2500kW/h a year, is 6,85kW/h a day.
So I need 1000 hamsters, running for 6 hours and 51 minutes a day.
Uhhh… Yeah!… I think my cats will go crazy

No more flying (part three)

Robert — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:50:47 +0000

This summer we went to Tolmin in Slovenia, to enjoy our holiday. We had great weather, in a beautiful country on a nice camping place. Of course, I had my glider with me. The first week, the flying conditions were very good. I made a couple of flights around the Soca valley. The nicest moment was, when I took the only starting moment in one hour. While I was circling at cloud base, I saw all the other pilots waiting at the start.
But after one week of flying, shit happened. I tried to land on a to small landingfield (near Zatolmin). Which resulted in a collision with a tree at the end of the field. Luckily I had no damage to my body, but my hangglider was in bad shape. The tree managed to bend my leading-edge and there was a big tear in the sail.
So, no more flying this holiday.

In the picture (Google earth) you can see my last flight. There was a NE wind. So when I was flying close to the ridge, trying to find a thermal. I realized that the thermals wouldn’t come above the top. That leaved me in a difficult position. I must try to fly to the landingfield, crossing the village. When I started my attempt to reach the landingfield, I encountered huge sink. When you have sink-alarm on your vario for more than a minute, you know that some things are not in the way they should be. I hoped to make a glide to the landingfield, flying on Max. L/D. But my vario told me that it would be impossible to get there. So the only option left was to make an outside landing near the town of Zatolmin. Looking to the ground, revealed a lot of fruit tree orchards. So No suitable landing fields. I spotted two possible small landing fields. Picked one and tried to land on it. Coming in, as low as possible over the trees around the field. Halfway the field, I realized it would be difficult to stop before the trees at the end of the field. At the end of the field, I touched the ground with one foot and tried to flare. But the speed was to high. So I went up 1 meter, bumped to the tree, and then to the ground. Grrrrrr… I immediately saw that the uprights were bended. Okay, not a big problem, I had two spares. I looked to the right…. no problem. Then I looked to the left…… Oh,Shit!! I saw the rupture of the sail and the bend in the leading edge.

Now, back at home. The wing is repaired. And the conclusion of my girlfriend is clear. The ego of her boyfriend was even more damaged than his hangglider. After 119 flights he had his first unlucky landing.

no more flying (part two)

Robert — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:53:27 +0000

This summer, our youngest cat Spot, catched his first bird. The sparrow must have been a young one. Because Spot isn’t the fasted cat in the world. Spot didn’t know that he is supposed to eat the sparrow. So he played a bit with the bird. Luckily for the bird, it was a quick kill.

After the playingtime, Spot wanted to get inhouse, to eat some tasty catfood.

For Spot the killing was only an instinctive action. For the Sparrow, it means the end. He won’t fly again.

No more flying (part one)

Robert — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:30:03 +0000

While cleaning out all the junk in the garage, I found this dead bat.
I’ve no idea how long he or she has been there. The box must have been in the garage for some years, and I haven’t looked in it for ages.
Which subspecies it is, I don’t know. What I do know is that it won’t fly again.

Nice picture

Robert — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:41:10 +0000

Because it’s a nice picture. Here my flight of 23-05-2009 at EHST.
I love my mobile phone with GPS-logging and Google-Earth on the computer.

Is was 1 hour of flying time. Normaly the dragonfly goes to 500m, before you release. But at about 250m, I crossed a strong thermal. It was to strong to resist. So release, and turn into the thermal. Going up to maximum 1320msl
It was great, easy flying.