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Showing posts from October 31, 2010

LavaCon 2026 and the future.

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LavaCon is a conference now going on 25 years. Its always fun at conferences where folks collaborate on what the future holds. This year I drove to Charlotte NC from Duluth GA to attend. I used the Tesla in Full Self Drive. I went park-to-park without touching the wheel for over 200 miles. It's crazy. I don't think most people understand how well it works. Lots of nay-sayers still, but it really does work. Be on guard, but enjoy. I spent some of my time "driving" while conversing with Grok as part of my daydreaming. I was discussing with Grok an idea I have of building a West system (cold molded) old style barrel-back runabout maybe 20 feet long- all varnished Mahogony. Of course this boat would have an exotic 12-cylinder engine under a transparent engine hatch between the twin cockpits. We discussed the designs, available actual study plans and pre-lofted design documents for the hull. We also discussed the best engine (perhaps a BMW N73) coupled with a Velvet Dri...
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Another week has gone by. I cancelled my November trip to Europe. The only real travel I have planned for this month is NY and Wichita Kansas. In December I will be getting down to Argentina and Brazil. I have about 4 cities to get to in South America. I joined a really fancy fitness club. It is probably more of a resort than a fitness club. Let's see how that goes. The answer on how I got though the broken key incident is: I went into a store and bought some super glue and I glued the key together. The glue worked perfectly on retrieving the broken bit of key. The torque on the key was handled by the shank. This morning I went out to LZU for a EAA pancake breakfast and hanger fly. I wasn't disappointed. I also looked at the plane that I might buy fractional ownership.
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I flew down to Jacksonville FL yesterday to visit my Mom. It was good and convenient to fly commercial down there for the day. Of course I get upgraded to first class since I travel for work so much. I overslept this morning and missed church. After I buy a plane it will take me 2.5 hours. On this commercial flight, after security and getting to the airports (both ends), taxi time, walking to the ground transportation was about 4 hours, even though it was only 45 minutes in the air. I am not saying that general aviation is more efficient. You start thinking like that and you have forgotten about risks. Do what you do to be safe. Stay home, don't get in the shower. Think. I am studying aviation communications. It is definitely my weakest spot. Back when I was flying around Greene NY the radio wasn't nearly as important as here in the Atlanta area. It is a matter of confidence in the new domain. I hold the highest level Amateur Radio license from the FCC (Amateur Extra), I h...