Monday, October 06, 2014

Hello!

Hey, what's up everyone out in blogville?  It's me, Mike D!

I was just sitting here chillin' after another Seahawks win, looking at some old posts here about the big fella, Clyde.   I was thinking, what the hell, I am paying for a domain, but haven't used it since 2011.  I should change that.  I should stop starting sentences with 'I'. 

So here I am.  What are my plans?  I'm thinking of getting I to the habit of writing something weekly.   Will it happen? Maybe, but that could be the Japanese beers left over from watching the GP at Suzuka this weekend talking.  Does anyone read this?  I don't care, I find it cathartic to cast my thoughts out into the ether.  Basically, if I only feel like writing a sentence,  you'll find it on my G+ (I love the G+) which will show up on my twitter and  Facebook pages (until I leave fb again).  If I feel like writing a paragraph or more, you'll find it here.  What will I write about?  Whatever is at the front of my brain.  Today that would be F1, iracing and modifying my racing rig, and of course,  the dog. 

So let's give the a second (third, fourth) try and see what happens!

Mike D out.

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Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Effin' Awesome! Group B Lancias



I love watching the rallies when given the opportunity, but they just don't hold a candle to this stuff. Does anyone really care about the car in today's WRC? It's all about the driver, which is cool, I guess. the cars nothing special IMo. These Group B monsters were like steroid loaded thoroughbreds in a rage on coke with a bottle of whisky. The drivers had amazing skill to tame the hell-beasts.

The crowds? They were plumb crazy.

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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Blackbird in a Box (or not...)

Moving the SR-71

The first trip wasn't as fast as future ones would be...

Apparently this picture isn't of a SR-71 Blackbird in a box as I tweeted earlier. It is the SR-71's predecessor, the A-12 secretly being transported to Groom Lake, otherwise known as Area 51 (See Area 51 Declassified at National Geographic They have some cool pics in the photo gallery). How many 'UFO sightings' do you think this airplane was responsible for?

After a bit of research, I have replaced the SR-71 at the top of my 'bad-ass' aircraft list with the A-12. The reasons are three-fold?

  1. The A-12 was faster.

    What??? But the SR-71 has the speed record to this day!

    That is an 'official' speed record... You can't have a speed record for an aircraft that nobody knows about. Which brings me to my second reason.
  2. The A-12 was classified until 1981. They last flew in '68 but were kept in top secret storage until de-classified. The A-12's were CIA planes... Spooks!
  3. The only remaining M-21 (a variant of the A-12 to launch a D-21 drone) is located at the Museum of Flight not far from where I live. I can go stand under its wing and see the massive Pratt & Whitney J58 engines first hand.


BTW, happy fathers day, fathers! I'm luckily to have a dad and a father-in-law that share my fascination of all that flies. It's always enjoyable to talk airplane with them!

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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

My Favorite 787..

...No, not the the Boeing 787 built just a few miles from where I live that first flew on my birthday... ...The Mazda 787B, which if memory serves me correctly is one of the loudest race cars ever.

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Dang, that thing screams!

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Sunday, May 15, 2011

The End of Dewey Decimal?

The new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago:



Does this mean the end of the Dewey Decimal system?

This is a very interesting setup, but I am surprised if this is the first library to do this. My only issue with it is that it takes my favorite part of the library (or bookstore) away. Sure it is great if you have a laser focus on the book that you are looking for but not so good for browsing. Me, I like to browse. I go in with a certain book on my mind, but after thumbing through the others around it I may leave with something different. A good website setup can alleviate much of this, but you are lacking the tactile feedback that I love (son of a librarian).

Will/are books dying off like magazines and newspapers? While I am one hundred percent in for the web replacing the periodicals, I am not sure I feel the same with books. I did recently read Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris* on the Kindle app on my phone and enjoyed the experience, I would have enjoyed it more in book form. I picked up the Kindle version as I was going on vacation and my phone is one hundred times more portable than the hardback, which I also own. Hell, it wouldn't even fit in my cargo pocket let alone the front pocket where I keep my phone. Only two other negatives that I can come up with for digital versions. When your battery dies, no more reading for you, and when traveling, you cant read between leaving the gate and ten thousand feet. The latter is no big deal for me if I get a window seat, my nose is flattened against the window looking outside that whole time.

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Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Summer Beer

Once again I have chosen New Belgiums Mothership Wit as my beer of choice for this summer. At least when I require the beer to be gedrunken out of a bottle. It is fun and it makes me happy.

Tried one out of my tulip glass yesterday, and Mikey no likey. Bottle today, yay!

Note: Mike has only consumed one at the time of writing. He is not high on teh beerz, he is high on life!

Now.... Music!


You're welcome.

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Tuesday, May 03, 2011

One of These Days, I'm Gonna Take Apart a Lens...

I have an old 24-200 auto-focus zoom lens that isn't worth twenty-fie bucks anymore. Some rainy day I'm going to respectfully tear it apart. A ton of coolness in there (motors, gears, lenses, etc).

Aperture Revealed - 240 fps - HD from Camera Technica on Vimeo.



[h/t Gizmodo]

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