Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Author: Yusef drives a Kia

  • Let’s go flying!

    So you decided to buy a kite and have fun like Yusef, but where to start….

     

    Let’s start with a nice little single line kite, $5 on eBay, pocket size, comes with line and handle.

    Wendy’s kite:

     

    I bought a kite reel to better run the single, it is Wendy’s kite, so I made it easy.

     

    200 meters of low stretch line, with a brake. You can hang on to it or set a stake in the ground, and enjoy it while prepping your next kite….

     

     Welcome to Deltas

    I was short of money, what’s new, so instead of a Ferrari kite, I grabbed two cheap Delta kites for the #1 Grandson and I, set up some new lines and went out. 20+ mph winds, I set up and Bang! the thing took off like a rocket, way too fast at first, then my lessons took over and I had an exciting flight with a good landing. The thing made an awesome, spooky sound as it flew, which adds to the drama. The next day we went out in 5-10 mph winds and the delta flew just as well in light winds as heavy, a nice feature.

     

    Equipment

    The easy part, get some Mason line at the hardware store in the color of your choice, try to buy at least 200 feet, it’s cheap, this will be your kite line. I had some half-inch PVC pipe and conduit to make handles with.

    Yes, that’s Paracord, good stuff for this, so I made my own, but straps and bars are an option.

     

    A stake is important, you need to secure your control lines so your kite doesn’t take off without you, usually a line between your controls. Believe me, it’s a good thing, a tent stake from Wally World works well.

    Oh yeah, the Arsenal.

    1 Delta, 48″ Wingspan

    2 parafoils 70″ws and 102″ws

    1 single line parafoil,24″ws

    5 dual Line sets@ 82 ft long

    1 kite reel at 200m long

    various handles and Paracord

    Total cost $85 and it all fits in a $5 soft cooler from Walmart.

     

    Great Yusef, but how do you actually do it?

    YouTube. Wanna fly Deltas? Watch  this video

    Parafoils? 4 line or 2? Check this out.

    And always look for kite festivals, usually in warm weather, but they are amazing to see. 

    Last, here’s one of my flights, shot with my phone strapped to my hat, no GoPro. 

    A Gallery 

    All of my kites are cheap Chinese knockoffs for now, but they are cheap and fly great! Give it a try!

  • Kites!

    Kites!

    Everybody likes to see a kite in the sky, peaceful and tranquil, hovering in the air, but there is much more to kite flying in the 21st Century as you may have guessed, let’s take a look.

    First things first, I have flown R/C for 16 years, with 8 spent on 3D flying, and have a lot of time/money invested in the hobby, then I moved to Bullhead City AZ……

    Way too much wind to fly my big boys, let alone my little quadcopters and such so, what to do?

    I knew 2 line kites existed, and thought about giving them a try, with a bit of research I found a nice, cheap Parafoil to start out with, and then went to YT, oh boy…. Did you know they make 4 line kites? 5 line kites? time to back up and study. It appears that a 4 line kite has what they call brakes, actually a wing flexing reminiscent of the Wright Brothers original design, but WAAAY better, you can potentially fly your kite Backwards, Spin on a dime, and land anywhere you want, pretty cool.

    When the kite came in the mail, we proceeded to RTFM and all the Bridle lines came into focus, it made sense, after a few bowline knots, we hooked everything up and went up. Power! control! Crashes! it was great fun til the bridles and lines Tangled, bad, so we go back to YT and see what we did wrong……

    Kite Types

    So many types, let’s run through a few:

    Single line – what we grew up flying, add a tail and have fun, there are a variety of fun singles, 75 foot tails, cubes, animals, all sorts of fun.

    Dual Line – these come in Delta wing and Parafoil designs, and they perform! crossing the sky sideways, loops, dives, the wind window is your only limit.

    Four Line – these are the bad boys, dual control lines and dual brakes. Very testy, very fun.

    Five Line – these are the big, kiteboarding kites. The fifth line is a Bailout line; they need it.

    Controls

    This is fun, as there are many ways do control a kite:

    Single Line – kind of obvious.

    Dual Line – you are taking the entire wing and turning it to go where. you want to go. Arms parallel, and pull straight back, pull the left line to turn left, the right line to turn right, etc. Watch your loop numbers, then reverse them to clear your lines.

    Four Line – the extra lines add the ability to shape the wing structure, meaning tight turns and loops, and the ability to land anywhere. But, if you aren’t on it, you crash….

    You can start with stock handle controls or mod some. I did because I’m Bob the Builder, or you can buy some big boy toys for big kites. These are nice tools for Big kites, say 3meters and above, so far I’m at 1.8 meters and getting a 2.5 meter, baby steps. I recommend trying out the smaller control kites, they are a lot of fun, and if you want to fly get the bigger ones next.

    I built a set of brakelines, and if I’m feeling saucy I’ll set up a four line kite. The park I just found is awesome, not just for flying either – two dog parks, one with all the ability features built in. Should be fun!

     

    Kiteboarding, I wish they had it when I was young and strong, no need to send you to a YT link. Too much for me.

    Kites are cool, since writing this imma gonna buy some single lines just for fun, you should too,

    Have a lot of fun!

    Next week, I’m getting a Prism Nexus, will report back. Prism is the go-to for good kites.

    ‘Til next time

    PC!

  • The Sacred Glade

    Before Rome existed, the druids lived in Germania, and worshiped the Old Gods, and were Kings Among Men, feared and revered at the time, for they had the fortune of the Gods.

     

    They erected temples and made sacrifice in the nearby forest, pleasing the Gods, until one day…

     

    Rome appeared. They had heard of, and some even fought these Shining Invaders, but no one really believed it, until they Came, Saw, and Conquered everything before it, and then the Gods were angry.

    Flocking

    First you take the area you want to cover, and lay down some PVA, then paint it out, not too thick, and leave some air gaps so it dries in the middle.

     

    I like to do my accent color before my primary colors, I can always enhance later.

     

    “And we came upon a ford, and upon the Right, we observed a small Glade of what appeared to be diseased trees, the engineers said this was due to the Barbarian Temple across the stream, and that no Roman should enter the Glade, we were pleased and made it so,” Commentaries, by Caesar. 

     

    Water

    These came out nice, then I got some turf on the rest and had to repaint/waterize it, but it’s cool.

     

    Single color is OK for a WG table, but a diorama requires more, depth is obtained by using darker colors where you want deeper, due to the limits of the “water” material you use. I use Modge Podge for most things, and acrylic resin for the big stuff. You want to lay down a shallow groove in the foam, then paint darkest, lighter then a bit of sand/ochre on the shoreline, I add some shrubs depending on the scale. Whitewater needs to be dry brushed, after your water is dry (what?) take a brush full of white paint and wipe off 90 percent on some cardboard, then Lightly begin stroking the paint downstream, very gentle, and you will see the wave tops appear, apply as you like for effect. 

     

    Autumn, 1944, France

    Major Richard Licum is tasked with taking the crossroads at Lille Dique, with him is the 69th tank battalion of the Rheem. 

    Licum: Lt. Queef, options!

    We could go to the forest but it’s spooky

    1. Munsch, options

    Well I have a few, they look tasty…

    Shut Up Mench!

    Fortunately they found General Winter, who told them to hold in position, hehe,

     Obergeneral Schitz, is in a pickle, he’s outgunned, and only has a rag tag collection of Stugs, and some old Pz2s, and one Tiger. His forces are mostly kids and old men.

    I needed to make bases for the men, and used Googly Eyes, crushed flat, the men are only a half inch tall, I may leave them with white bases so I can find the little guys.

    I have a few more things to add, new stuff for me, but it should finish nice, and I’ll tell you a story, til then,

    Gallery, https://photos.app.goo.gl/MpHrVHrBcxvotRwD9

     

     

     

     

  • The end of the road

    I wanted to wait for a resolution, but I can’t wait around. It seems my Company bailed on me due to a dubious, unethical series of events, so I’m in limbo right now, maybe go back to Walmart.

    We did make it to AZ, broke as fuck but not hungry, yet, so I decided to build a 1/144th scale Wargaming table. There are 2 million Wargamers out there, and while they love to play, they hate to build, that’s where I come in….

    How it’s done

    First question, what are you going to do? Dioramas? WG tables? Scatter pieces?

     

    Some nomenclature:

    WG: Wargaming tables with fixed scenery and terrain, very tough and take players abuse well, not cheap, if done well.

    Dioramas: very expensive due to the level of detail required, and very fragile when finished.

    Scatter pieces: these are cool, basically rocks, trees and terrain features that can be moved around to create new scenarios, usually with a battle mat.

    Battle mats: I forgot those, imagine a tarp with caulking covering it, a bit of paint and Voila! War gaming!

     

    In this episode I will show you How I do it. I hope you enjoy, let’s begin.

    First is materials. I get slab foam from Home Depot, but it’s widely available, and some drywall mud, this is essential to making foam look like life, then I figure out what to do….

    After deciding I glue my foam slabs together and cut/sand it all down, layer it all together, then make a trench for my water courses, this is critical, the material I use wants to level, so you need to contain it somewhat. By this time we have the bluffs, hills and river mostly in place, now we need roads. 

    The Megalith:

    I have a plethora of small stones in the front yard so I went wacky with a Stoned Henge monument, take my psycho mind and some rocks and behold! StonedHenge! 

    I went with the Roman roads theme after watching a YT on the subject, very east/west, with some north/south to follow the river, this is difficult. Try to make sure a straight road looks natural after 2 millennia? Let’s see…

     

    As usual, I had no thought of doing this until I sat with a beer and just looked, and it came to me…..

     

    How it’s done pt2

    Good materials, and an imagination are all it takes, fun or money, it matters not. Build or die is my motto.

    Do your elevation layout first, then paint a base coat of your landscape, brown, green and blue, keep the glue away!

    How do I do landscape, Yusef?

    Foam, a cheap knife from Dollar Tree, some sandpaper and you’re done. It’s important to notice that nothing in nature is static, even with patterns, chaos rules, deal with it and you will make nice scenery! Find primary colors for your rock features, then tint dark, overbrush, then tint light and dry brush.

    I’m out till next week, see ya! 

    Gallery, so far.

    Cheers!

  • Petroglyph

    Bullhead City AZ

    Ten days into a multi week layoff and I was getting really bored, and decided to do a diorama, with the barest needs, as I was staying at the Daughter’s house, and things can get messy.

    The Kit.

     

    Just about everything you need to build a basic landscape, it’s a great buy for the young ones, and and a nice add-on for us old guys/gals.

     

    I watched a video from Mel the terrain tutor, here’s one: https://youtu.be/uBiMry45qhM

    Mel Bose taught me just about everything I know, anyway….

     

    HaHa! it seems there is still a lot of work even though you are working with three colors, which is actually those colors plus black and white for tinting. Let’s begin with a basic wall, and throw some color on it.

     

    That brown is pretty weak, but let’s see what we can do.

     

    Better, let’s continue.

    The scenario: SW desert, USA , a known set of American Indian petroglyphs that can be accessed by canoe in the Spring, so Road Trip!

     

     

    Where is everyone? the model needed the canoes early but the very expensive people could wait til later, next we did some waterfalls and moss, tedious painting and waterworks, but the moss colored paint ended up as a complimentary color for the main wall, coup!

     

     

    After a lot of tricks and fun, I came up with this:

     

    And to add a bit of whitewater, and the finished product:

     

    I wasn’t happy at first, I never am, but painting and tweaking the idea, I usually come up with some thing nice, enjoy!

    PS: there are some petroglyphs, find em all!

    Gallery

    Wanna play?

    It’s pretty simple, and you can go from a window decoration to a full sized wargaming table with the same recipes, and even make money. 

    I’m going to do a dragon on a pile of gold next, and a duck pond, just because, try one!

    OH Yeah.

    Notice I don’t tell you how I do this? That’s for you, or Magic, whatever.

     

  • Death of a Kia

    I didn’t want to talk about it, but it’s part of the journey: my 2016 Kia is destroyed, not my fault, I was in NM when it happened, but. What was supposed to be a turnaround trip turned out to be the wife in the hospital and the son with the keys, and wouldn’t give them back. Next I hear the car was destroyed, as I predicted, and insurance is fucking us, as I predicted.

    San Dimas!

    Why did we stop here? Sleep and gather some things from storage; keyboards! Bass guitar! 

    Bullhead City AZ 

    Vacation, all I ever w, oh nevermind, it’s still hot as… Arizona, so I built a hillbilly smoking area, it works well enough I go into the AC afterwards and get cold.

     

     

    I saw this at Smith’s, no one noticed?

     

    I noticed Smith’s had build your own 6 pack, but I already tried everything they had, so normal beer for now, except,

    a real nice oat ale.

    What the Hell am I doing?

    It appears that my job title may change again. East coast work, which could keep us on the road for another six months, we are getting tired. If we save enough cash, then we finish in AZ, by the river and I work local. 

    More change?

    We have no idea what we are doing now, my job is in jeopardy, which also means I may have no vehicle to drive, well and truly fucked. I made sure to bring my gauges, just in case some HVAC comes my way, til then, spooky time….

  • Beware California

    Bullhead City, Arizona 

    It’s hot, for some reason, it’s hotter than the Sonoran Desert. I will keep this part short, while heat is good, human oven baking isn’t, thank God for AC Technicians, or Phoenix et. al. wouldn’t exist.

    Boss decides to break off of my next project for a bunch of California jobs, and added more AZ jobs, so I’m booked through the year, better than the beginning.

     San Dimas! (almost)

    It turns out there is a lot of tourism this time of year, so I couldn’t book a room within 35 miles of Ontario, home base in CA, so I attempted to stay in a motel I won’t rag on on but rhymes with dead hoof gin; drug dealers, homeless bums in the parking lot, and meth dealers right above me building a lab. We checked out at 11 pm, and headed to Chuck’s.

    Safe! Bella and I finally got to visit the Wife, it’s been 3 weeks. I realized I haven’t been without people, family or otherwise for 30+ years. Glad to be back, and Momma got to visit her Doggie.

    Of course my scope of work changed before I ever started, additional work here, and a lost project in San Francisco, this one directly Union related (Fuck unions, YMMV)…….

    Interlude, go get a beer……..

    San Francisco, (Hayward, East bay) 

    We were here in June? Since then we learned a lot about where to stay, and now we know… loud, trashy and the entire area is cold, traffic is a joke, but the people are nice, plus one for that. Monday night, I roll over the San Mateo bridge, a toll but no biggie, except Cash Only! What barbarity is this? One time tolls? Debit, credit? I had to scrape sticky coins from my console, but I made it.

    Finally finding Chipotle 2080, I check in with security, and when I go to the site, the manager says “nope, I don’t know you.” I have a key but no alarm code, this cost me and my company an entire day. Idiots!

    While that job went south, my next job did the same thing, so I’m stuck till next week. Did I mention bridges freak me out? At night it’s just a hill, in the morning I want to throw up, just panic for 6 miles.

    The Bay Area

    I didn’t get to San Francisco proper, just the south peninsula, but one thing noticed was how clean it was, no poop, trash, shopping carts, no homeless people, so it’s not all bad up here.

    Gas is $4.29 a gallon, milk is $3.18, those are my marks when traveling– also McD’s coffee, low is $1.08 CO, high is CA $2.40, amazing. This place sucks, and I will be glad to go back to AZ, maybe get my shit together, I’m saving lots of money for a place, til next time!

  • Motel Living Random Thoughts

    People

    Pedestrians. The worst place for them is Santa Clara California, signage everywhere, but drivers are assholes, very dangerous for walkers.

    Worst pedestrians are in Santa Monica, it’s all about them, signs be damned, and they are all pedestrian favorable, WTF?

    People are fat, there I said it, HO LEE Fuck. We are a truly gifted nation.

    Waffle House makes a fine biscuits and gravy.

    Grifters, it goes from a cigarette to a beer to a ride to 20 bucks for drugs.

    Dogs are fine for motels but kittahs, not so much, we sent her back to Cali.

     

    Here’s a dog in action.

     

    You always want to be close to Walmart, everything revolves around them, Target, Home Depot, Panera, Chipotle, Dollar Tree, the list goes on.

    Find a good beer store and try the local stuff, if it sucks they always have West/East coast alternatives.

     

    Gallery of Colorado beers I have tried.

    Met a man named Sam, he runs the Torture Chamber at the Larkspur Renaissance Fair, nice guy.

    Back at my normal job, EMS systems, people complain about the traffic. Yes, it’s horrible but I have one word, you want bad? 210 Freeway anytime.

     Moving day is a drag, you start the day before work, reservations, loadout, etc. then off.

     

    Las Cruces, NM

    Nice place on the Rio Grande, got a carnitas burrito that was all carnitas, nothing else happened. On Monday, I arrive at the job site to find that the local electricians installed my entire system, which sounds great until it dawns on you who did the work, so I spent the next three days cleaning up the project, and, yes, it works fine.

    Bella is a fantastic dog for traveling and living like this, quiet, no potty mistakes while I’m at work, and just a love puppy. We walk and drink a lot, and meet people like Lorenzo.

    Lorenzo is an old cholo from Texas, and was working at the missile range. We talked and drank in the evenings about kids, life travel the whole nine yards. Lots of pizza and weed, and good camaraderie, when him and I both realized we would be stuck one more day, barbeque! Cheddar brats and cheddar bacon burgers, a real fun time.

     

     

    BTW, that’s Erwin our Native American Friend. 

    Where is Lorenzo? I always ask before taking pictures of people, and tell them I’m a writer, doing writer type stuff, he said no pictures, but yes to the story, and that’s cool. I’m not Time Pool or Dan Rather, just a guy on the road, telling tales from America.

     

    An unafraid roadrunner decided to taunt Bella, so I let her stalk the little shit, and he totally toyed with the dog, funny stuff there.

     

    Off to the Colorado River for family, rest and party; Bullhead City to be precise.

     

    I’m a Rocket Man.

    Gallery

    I did make it to my daughter’s house, chilling well.

  • East Plum Creek – A pictoral

    Castle Rock, Colorado

    While wandering around on a day off, we decided to try the Plum Creek “Riverwalk.” Wendy had the scooter charged, so we could go miles…and we did. It turns out that son and my hiking XP, combined with the wife’s power chair, gives us a long range, 3 miles one way on the first day,  a real pretty place.

    Meadows, Interstates, and a wild crippled woman on a scooter.

     


    Here’s the 3 miles up, more meadows and too many rabbits for Bella to keep up with.

     

    Some more stuff. Don’t walk on Colorado concrete or you stub toe very badly.

    We are thinking of moving, cause this motel sucks, but Castle Rock is a nice place, good people, and relaxing. Until then, enjoy Colorado!

    The Gallery

     

    Bonus! View from a tall building

    This is the view from the 24th floor of the Chase bank building in Denver, where we are stuck working,

    I have never been in such a tall building, the Penthouse machinery is impressive.

     

    Here’s what your cat does while you’re at work. I didn’t know she is a Bowie fan.

    Until next time, Cheers!

    (Why am I headed to Las Cruces? Mistakes happen in life, so you fix them.)

     

     

     

     

  • Motel Living, The Second

    Read episode 1

     

    After a very pleasant week of quiet and recovery we got the call, Denver, CO! Four weeks of lighting and troubleshooting at the Chase building in Downtown, Yikes! They also requested my trouble/son to go, so we reset and off we go….. 

     

    Flagstaff was uneventful, probably because it was one night only. I stopped to get a few Tall Cans at the gas station, looked in, saw black cans with the AB logo and said, “Cobra” then I checked in to find I bought Natty Ice, Blaaaaggh! It still worked. We left Flagstaff at nine AM, and the son and wife blaze ahead in Kia Korean Kar, while Bella and I mosey in the OMWC van, do, do, do…..

    All of a sudden I hear brrrrr, BANG! The left rear let go at 70 mph, but the core held long enough to get off the I-40, in Nowhere, 35 miles west of Gallup NM. I have a spare, then I went looking for a jack, no. I call for very expensive towing into Gallup, and spend 3 hours waiting for the Indians who run Firestone service center to change one tire! Back in Cali, it’s 20 minutes at the local llanteria, stereotypes gonna be stereotypes I guess, I lost 5 hours, and the crew was in ABQ waiting for gas money, so, off we go. 

    Castle Rock, CO.

     We landed at Super 8 after a 16 hour tour, a 16 hour tour……….. and they were sold out, even though I have a guaranteed reservation with my card, part of the bargain you see. After some haggling, we crashed in a single til the morning, and here we are, in our double, POS room. 

     

    Until then, I had not considered when we were going to be in CO, then it hit me, Independence Day, and a glorious light show courtesy of God daily, what’s not to love. 

     

    The drive into Denver is no worse than L.A., and back is a breeze at 4 AM. I also traded out my OMWC van for the best thing of all, a Kia Sedona minivan! 

     

    It fits all my stuff and I have room to spare. Where we are staying, we have an indoor gun range, 2 breweries, 2 liquor stores, Jack in the Box, Mc D’s and a laundromat, don’t forget the smoke shop, all within ¼ mile of our pad, oh yeah, Waffle House and Village Idiot for foodie stuff, convenient to be sure….

    After settling in, Yusef goes straight outside to wait for rain, and here it comes, lightning, hail and floods of yummy moisture from the sky. I love it. Every day, the same thing, work, walk the dog, beer and Glibs, until…

     Hey, Baby, it’s the Fourth of July….

    The wife loves sparklers, and being broke, and in a motel I thought I best stick with a few hundred of them and not buy any blowy-uppy things, I knew I wouldn’t need them anyway, not here. There is a definite Motel Culture, a few people decided to BBQ, then others brought meats and chips and….. I brought the Sparklers.

    What started as a few ended up with half the motel enjoying Independence Day together, as Americans, sharing and still living well despite our living conditions, and handing out Sparklers to the kids is mine and the wife’s great joys in life, FIRE!!!

     

     

    Start ’em young! This has been a highlight of our trip to far, change is afoot however, but we shall leave that til next time, 

    Cheers!

    The Gallery, and the Beer Gallery, after the first week, heh.