Welcome to my Homepage

Pictures

Welcome!

What am I doing??? Why am I here???
This has got to be the laziest way to do a webpage…using Word and saving it as HTML…I mean, I do this kinda stuff all the time…but time is something I’m short of (who isn’t??), so here it is…take it or leave it. I won’t get into boring you with my life story…I’ll do that some other time. Right now, something just basic enough to be tolerable for now…I’ll add the Bells and Whistles down the road… The main thing I’m here to accomplish (yes, there is a purpose here – imagine that!), is to show off a hobby…a hobby that not everyone can do, a hobby not a lot of people want to do (because it can be so (expletive) frustrating)…RC Modeling. This is something I used to do 10 or 14 years ago, and actually got pretty good with. Then, a lot of things happened…the reasons can go like this…I ran out of money, my wife left me, the dog started getting along with the cat…but the real reason was I didn’t have a lot of time, then being away from it, I lost interest. I kept some stuff…moved it all across the country twice…and now I have the bug back. Hopefully this is just like a bicycle…since I haven’t cracked a throttle on one of these things in about 9 or 10 years, I’m just a little nervous about whether I still know enough not to make a total ass out of myself…

History – Everyone Has One
I know I said no boring life story...so I have some history...deal with it!! OK, I have a total lack of pictures from the time when I used to fly, so I can only show things recent…like from July 2002 forward. Back in the Day I used to belong to MACK…Modelers Association of Central Kansas, Great Bend, Kansas. MACK had a small flying field with a paved 300’ runway, and plenty of grass (mainly for people like me who really had a hard time hitting the damn runway!), plus plenty of room for many other things, like control line modeling, rockets, picnics, family outings…the only bad thing about it was the fact that I had to drive 15 miles to get to the field…and being the lazy sort, that was enough to talk me out of doing a lot of flying (little did I know that later 15 miles would be nothing!). At first, I thought “I can teach myself to do it”…WRONG!!!! There’s more to this than you thing…but I kept at it…after destroying 3 perfectly good planes, I decided to get some help. I joined the club, got some instruction (a LOT of it, actually), and found out it’s so much more fun when you can pick up your plane in ONE piece after a typical flight! I went through the trainers, and then discovered Ugly Sticks (I’ve had 3 of them - Ugly Box planes, simple to build, and a lot of fun to fly). Then, I graduated to low-wing aircraft, did a few of those (the most rememberable was a Beechcraft – at least, I think that was it), then discovered “Pattern” planes. Pattern planes are actually aerobatic planes…low wing, long tail…and the thing I liked about them…they go where you point them. Let me explain…trainers (High Wing, Flat Bottomed wing) have a high degree of stability to them…let go of the sticks, and they are suppose to correct themselves when things don’t go right…Low Wing aircraft are not as stable, can do more stunts…but still enough stability that you can make a few mistakes, and still get it back on the ground in one piece. Pattern planes are designed to “show-off”…fly up, fly down, fly upside down, around and around…but the big thing is…you point it this way, it goes this way, until you go another way. I actually found them to be easier to fly...but the bad thing...if you made a mistake, there was no hiding it. It took practice to get “smooth”...which was really hard to do in the Kansas wind, which was always blowing.

In between then and now...I made a detour in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I lived 5 miles from the Atlantic Oceanfront...I got down there maybe once or twice a year (living in Kansas, with the nearest lake 60 miles away...I never learned to swim)...till I got a second job at a local resort hotel. If not for that, I would never get down to the beach...I never really enjoyed it there. I was the farm kid who moved to the Big City. Plus, being just a little overweight, out of shape (and built to stay that way!), I really felt out of place...I don’t look like a beach person...never felt like one. I didn’t fly there, because the nearest flying field was about 30 miles away...a 90 minute drive though traffic...what flying I did see out there was mostly large scale aircraft, and scale jets (which made sense...Norfolk Naval Air Station and Oceana Naval Air Station were right there...and across the river was Langley Air Force Base). The 8 years I spent there was a learning experience...I learned I hate big cities...

The big here and now...away from the city and it’s smog, it’s traffic jams, it’s smelly beach, it’s (expletive) people...I now call home Alamogordo, New Mexico. Now I have fresh air, much nicer people, no traffic jams, and a life that’s much more comfortable for me and my family. It’s a very unique place...look to the west; you see a desert (a very WHITE desert!)...look to the east; and you have the Sacramento Mountains. I mean, the mountains are right there...you go to the edge of town, and you go up. It gets hot in the summer (“but it’s a dry heat...”), but I find that at 44 years of age, I've discovered that I need to be comfortable in my surroundings. I only really miss one thing about the city...it was convenient...everything was right there. Now, I enjoy the wealth of a smaller, closer community...go into a store, someone talks to you...go outside, no ghetto trash...at night, no police sirens to keep you awake. Have I rambled enough yet??? Short and Sweet...I’m more comfortable now than I’ve been for several years...

So I’m suppose to be centering this around RC Modeling...
OK, the history is out of the way...let’s get on with it! I’ve joined Veteran Memorial Park Flyers Association, and put my one and only flyable plane together, to see if I still can do this. And even if I never re-learn this, I can Photo-Joe it to death!!! Armed with my trusty Olympus digital camera and a Sony video camera, I’ve taken some photos and video’s that grace these pages. Hope you like what you see... The flying field outside of town is nice...and only 2 miles out of town (I love small towns!). There’s a paved 800’ main runway, and another paved 800’ crosswind runway. Just what I need...a bigger target than before...(laughter would be nice right now...) And the people are even friendly...at least, they’re friendly now...we’ll wait to see how they treat me after I make an ass out of myself (I can do that...it take no practice). For pictures, the menu is one the left. For videos, menu is on the right. Enjoy...

Videos

Click here for the new improved Video Page - now in Windows Media format