What did you do today?

[PStechPaul]

Today I got the trenches dug for the drains on the NW side of the house:





Found an interesting spider in the dirt. In this picture, it has curled up its legs:



And here it is scurrying away to hide under a rock:



I tried to make a video, but the beast was determined to get away and hide:

http://enginuitysystems.com/pix/house/Spider_4561.AVI

[Dave C]

I've got goose bumps just from looking at the pic. Snakes don't bother me, but spiders give me the creeps.

[dtsh]

Looks like a folding-door spinder, Antrodiaetidae, were I to guess.

[PStechPaul]

Yes, I joined the https://spiderid.com community, and after some searching I concluded that it might be that:

http://eol.org/pages/894607/overview

https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Antrod...0microunicolor



Compare to what I encountered:



It looks big in the photos, but I think it was only about 10-15 mm. However, the descriptions in the references say they are under 7mm.

[edit] That was for the unicolor variety. Some other trap-door spiders can be as big as your hand:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/354804/bgpage

More info:

https://www.whatsthatbug.com/2014/01...tus-pacificus/

https://bugguide.net/node/view/516902/bgpage

[Arcane]

Today I started the first day of my 67th year of life.

[AD5MB]

tool roundup. going through drawers, boxes, cabinets, finding every tool I own and sorting them out.

I started with a screwdriver drawer and layout and marking tools in the well on top of the tool box. nut drivers and allen wrenches in the same drawer. I am up to a phillips screwdriver drawer, a flat blade drawer, an allen wrench drawer, and a layout and marking toolbox, and I'm just getting started. socket wrenches will be another roll around.

[Dave C]

Today I started the first day of my 67th year of life.

Happy Birthday

[Tundra Twin Track]

Today I started the first day of my 67th year of life.

Happy Birthday!

[Dan Dubeau]

Fixed my dishwasher again for the 5th time in as many years. Check valve plugs up with food, floods floor and lower tray. Pull it out, undo a pile of screws, clean out all the crap, put it back together. Fun times.

Now I'm heading outside to put a cedar shingle roof on the kids play house. Father in law gave me a couple bundles left over from when he built his log house over 30 years ago. He had an old flat belt shingle mill and milled all the shingles for his house, and shed himself. He recently started cleaning the shed out to redo the roof, and realized he didn't have enough cedar to redo it, so gave me a bunch. Already re roofed the house a couple years ago in steel, now gonna do the same for the shed.

[DICKEYBIRD]

I figured at least BCRider & maybe 3Phase can at least understand what made me dip my toe into an old hobby (obsession) recently. Haven't flown much since 2007 after flying buddy Brian passed away.

I started meeting some of the old club members for breakfast at McDonalds on Sat mornings & then going to the park a couple miles from the house to watch them fly. I quickly got the bug & renovated some old models to start having fun again. The process was made easy with the availability of cheap computer transmitters & reliable receivers for a pittance at HobbyKing. (I bought 8 rcvrs for $100, free shipping.) I also found some 150 ma NiMh dog collar batteries for cheap on ebay which is plenty of power storage for the very small 2, 3 & 4 channel planes I fly. The transmitter will store setups for 10 different airplanes so I no longer have to maintain a fleet of transmitters & their batteries.

I flew the planes shown below yesterday & had a blast. The yellow glider is a HobbyKing MiniDLG ARF that was given to me by a buddy during my stroke recovery thinking I would benefit from the hand-eye coordination that R/C flying requires. (DLG = Discus Launch Glider, ARF = Almost Ready to Fly) I didn't get around to actually flying it until recently. Turns out its airfoil is too thin & speed sensitive to make the tight turns necessary to chase weak, low altitude thermals. It'd be a great little slope soarer with a little ballast but the closest flying site is too far away for me. The white stripes you see on the wing a bit behind the leading edge were my experiment in airfoil enhancement called "turbulator strips." The idea is to generate some local air flow disruption across the top of the wing to keep the main airflow attached at higher angles of attack than before their installation. They're simply strips of sticky-back 1mm x 5mm foam. It's amazing how well they worked on the first try not knowing much about computing their optimum thickness or placement. 1mm was the thinnest/cheapest I could find easily & I guessed at the 20% of chord location. It completely changed the way it flies at low speeds & delayed the inevitable stall/snap considerably.. It's still too heavy to be a "floater" but it easily doubled the flight time from a decent discus launch. They do increase the drag during the high speed portion of the launch & knocked off about 10-15 ft. of altitude.

The KwikStick 010 is a Cox .010 (that's .010 cu. in.!) powered design of mine that was published in the Feb 2006 issue of Flying Models magazine. It weighs under 5 oz. & its wing loading is under 6 oz/sq in. The little engine runs on 35% nitro & turns up over 28K rpm! It's a very aggressive flyer under power yet thermals pretty well after the engine runs out of fuel.





Edit to add: Here's the other thing I did yesterday. Very close to important veins! 28K prop & a slight mistake preparing to launch:

[Arcane]

..........Edit to add: Here's the other thing I did yesterday. Very close to important veins! 28K prop & a slight mistake preparing to launch:

Clumsy bastard! (I always wanted a chance to say that!)

[DICKEYBIRD]

Clumsy bastard! (I always wanted a chance to say that!)

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

I bought my son a new gaming system. Now I need to figure out how to bring him back down to earth.

[lakeside53]

Clumsy bastard! (I always wanted a chance to say that!)

See, he does need to improve his hand-eye coordination

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

I figured at least BCRider & maybe 3Phase can at least understand what made me dip my toe into an old hobby (obsession) recently. Haven't flown much since 2007 after flying buddy Brian passed away.

Did you only fly control line? I never liked control line. My son doesn't like control line either Here is a video the wife made of my son and I playing with this control line plane in the backyard.