Aloha and Welcome to my small speck of cyberspace! Dec 8, 2010 is the birth date of my blog. Never had one before, but my son encouraged me to have one, and it seemed like a good way to at least keep a log of my RC airplane building and flying. With the initial design kicked off by my son, I'll carry on from here and have fun with it. Now that I have it, I will use it to also keep track of my oil painting efforts, and any other ideas, hobbies, travels, or whatever else that come up. LIFE IS GOOD!

Update on 02/25/2011. It's been a few months since I began this blog, and I am enjoying creating and having it! I like documenting the things I have done in my hobbies, and sharing with my small family. I think Jer and Tad actually view it fairly regularly, as a means to see what I've been up to lately. At worst, it serves as a reference for my own use.

Update on 12/22/2011. This blog stuff is habit forming. My blog is a year old now, and I make an entry about every other day or so as that seems to be the frequency of doing something in one of my hobbies. Like my hobbies, this blog is a lot of fun, and it has become in itself another hobby that I enjoy.

Years are flying by...update on 01/11/2013. Still enjoying maintaining this blog even though hardly anyone sees it. I don't advertise it anywhere or to anyone, and it is mainly just a way for me to keep my own notes and thoughts on my flying, painting, and cars. If a stranger happens upon it, I think it is by pressing NEXT at the top of the current blog they are visiting, lol. It's a great device for me.

August 2014: still here! Took up flying RC helicopters one year ago and got hooked. Had flown micro Helis up to then, but got serious with 450 size for a couple months, then bought the Goblin 500 and Gaui X5 . Also got my Boxster in April 2013. Most importantly, Ariel was born 12/02/12 followed by Skylar 07/20/13, and they are little beacons of joy in our lives. Life is indeed good!!!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

The Spoils of Victory!

The Valley Challenge Finals today was hard fought among Joe, Brandon, and myself.  It matters not that none of the other 5 clubs invited by Bob to compete bothered to show up.  That meant the top three finishers were the 3 KRCA pilots who qualified for the finals by winning our KRCA flyoff two weeks ago.  It was a tough battle with Brandon finishing 3rd with about 1355 points out of 1600.  Joe had 1502 and I eked out the win with 1508!  Holy Moly that was just by a whisker, but a win is a win no matter the margin (sorry Joe).  The pic shows the fine awards for 1st place...$50 cash, the H9 Katana 50 (valued at $250 and donated by Horizon Hobby), and the very important trophy for a year and BRAGGING RIGHTS as VC champ for a year, lol.  I wonder what Bob has in the back of his devious mind for next year!  It was good fun among a bunch of good guys today.  Here is a link to the "awards ceremony" courtesy of Chris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMSStibd2Fc&feature=em-share_video_user

Oh, I flew the SNAFU all day today.  It performed flawlessly.  I did not hit any balloons or fly outside of them on takeoffs and landings.  Ron said I got extremely close on one landing, but the fuselage was inside the white balloon.  My point deductions were something like 1 on task one, 27 on task 2, 52 on task 3, 1 on task 4, and 10 on task 5.  My big blunder on task 3 was getting rattled when Bob announced my mid loop time.  I thought I was running behind schedule, but Iwas really just slightly ahead.  The mid loop time was just under 3 minutes out of the 6 minute target, BUT I was basically done with 3.5 steps out of 6 at that point.  I needed to slow down at that point, but my brain at the time said I needed to speed up.  BRAIN FART!!!  I should have ignored Bob's midpoint time and just flown at my own pace, trusting my instincts, but I got rattled and recalculated what to do, doing so the wrong way, haha.  Oh well, it made the margin of victory smaller, and made the task 5 flight very exciting when Joe only got 6 deduction points!  At that time I was between 10 and 20  points ahead.  All I could do was fly task 5 at the same pace I flew in task 1, and hope for the best.  Whew, I flew task 5 at just 10 seconds longer than task 1, and narrowly won by the 6 point margin, good grief!  I'll take it!

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2 comments:

  1. TCAugust 26, 2012 at 8:48 AM

    Congrats Dad! You're number 1!

    ReplyDelete
  2. maukaonyxAugust 26, 2012 at 7:01 PM

    Thanks, #1 for a year anyway, lol. I won in a good year, with great prizes! And competition was limited!

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