Re: 951 Pictures from NYPOWER X

As a lacrosse player myself, i may need to challenge you if i go to nypower next year. i am considering it, because if i am accepted into Rochester Institute of Technology, i will probalby make the trip up there to help me get used to the area, and look into job possibilities... I am going to be a senior this year, and if i am accecpted into rochester, then i will be challenging you with an RIT rocket :) nothing too technological, though.. 3FNC is technological enough for my lacrosse rocket ;-)

Mike

You won't "get used to the area" in July, Mike. In Upstate NY, we have three seasons: Winter, July and August.

I went to college in Seneca Falls, which is not too far from Rochester; in fact, my alma mater, Eisenhower College, was taken over by RIT and absorbed into their humanities department. At the Seneca Falls campus, the dorms were connected to the main buildings by tunnels. There's a good reason for that. Look up "lake effect snow" on Google or a good dictionary service, or on the National Weather Service site.

Can you drive on glare ice? Can you find a warm spot or a working carwash to get the salt off your chassis every night so your car won't rust through before you get your degree? I know lacrosse players are tough. I ran the radio station at college, and I'll never forget sending out a guy who had never seen lacrosse to cover his first game. He was speechless. His best comment was, "Do they still sacrifice the losing team to the Incan gods?"

Just prepare yourself, that's all. Get a big warm room or garage or something to build in over the winter. No one flies until May. And if you want an accurate representation of what winter is like back home, listen to Garrison Keillor describe Minnesota and add five feet of snow.

Doug Pratt

One thing will be in common... orange! Could be pretty confusing for the uninitiated onlooker. ;) Anyhow, I hope you get into RIT next year and make it to NYPOWER. Geneseo is a great field and only about 20 minutes from the RIT campus. It's just about exactly 100 miles from me (in Syracuse).

Some interesting pieces of trivia... the upstate NY region is the ancestral home of the Iroquois Nation where it is claimed that lacrosse started. The field at Geneseo was the oldest piece of property east of the Mississippi sold by a native American tribe (decendents of the buyers still own it). The field was once the official meeting place of the Five Nations where three large trees were planted symbolically to represent the "three doors" of the Iroquois confederacy. The deed (around 1800) stated that these trees had to remain uncut for all time. Two are still there, one died and partial fell a couple years ago and was removed. So two "big trees" are still the only trees for about a square mile. The road into the property is called Big Tree Lane and I believe the Seneca tribe or its chief was called Big Tree. More likely than not, there was a lot of lacrosse played there many years ago!

Kind of ironic that a great rocket field has so much to do with the words "big tree". :-)

Back to the future... ;) if you're from St. Louis (?) then you'll have no problem dealing with July in hot/muggy upstate NY. The winters on the other hand... (see Doug Pratt's message!). If you want even more snow you could always apply to Syracuse. Typically 100+"/year. Go north 30 miles to my home town and it's 300"/year (lake affect snow belt region). Depending on your major, RIT has a 'quarter' academic system and some degrees are 5 years with a co-op work block every other quarter term. What major are you thinking about applying for?

-John

"Mike Walsh, JR." wrote:

You know, 100" of snow would be nice about now....

Joel. phx

115 outside, the AC can't keep up and it's hitting 85 inside around 3pm.

Mike

What size are you looking to go? We've got several 3FNC we could put together, or we could repaint one of our other machines orange and black with a white NC. The kid will gladly go to the line a second time!

Don't let them scare you, the snow is your friend up there. You can't possibly drive off the road in the peak of winter, you just correct the car by bouncing off the piles of snow on the shoulder. Remember, where there's snow, there's no bugs, no sweatting, no humidity and no heat. It's not so bad. And if you live on one side of the lake the walks get shorter in the winter. So there is always an upside, and they have that winter lacrosse crossover game! Drop the puck, eh?

Chuck

>

Oh, I didn't mean to scare him off, just to prepare him. I love upstate NY, and I have every intention of moving back home one of these days. I'd do it right away, but my kids are in fantastic schools here in northern Virginia. My daughter Valerie will start her fifth year of Japanese immersion in September, and I'm not taking that away from her. In October we're going up for a week, to eat sweet corn that was picked ten minutes ago and apples that make every other apple you've ever eaten taste like sweet cardboard.

Doug Pratt

Doug

I'm a fan of the high peaks in the Adirondacks. Tough flying topography but the scenes are incredible, especially the first weekend in October when the trees turn overnight into their fall colors. Me, give me a fresh trout from the Ausable River, a campfire and a cloudless, moonless night. It's amazing how many more stars one can see from there. The downside to the high peaks area is they seem to be a tad chillier than other spots in NYS. We've done -40? F there, the car simply refused to cooperate until it go near Zero. NYS is really an amazingly beautiful state from the Adirondacks, to the Catskills, Finger Lakes region, Niagra Falls.........and 4 feet of snow in one weekend isn't all bad. Mike, enjoy the NY winters and take a lot of pictures, you never know when you'll end up in Arkansas or Texas where big snows just don't happen. My uncle has a pic of the telephone guys working on the lines, bending over cuz the top of he phone poll was covered with piles of snow on the side of the road. Ya just never know.

Chuck

>

APU (rocket motor) sffixed to the motor.

At -40? I figure there will be igniter problems, the batteries would act the same as the car's battery.......shlumpy! :-)

Friction igniter.

Doug

I know you didn't mean to scare him off, I just forgot to use the :-) and ;-) and :-D so I sounded too serious. The biggest problem with this forum is one never knows when one is laying on sarcasm or just plain kidding without the smiley faces......there has to be a better way! :-) I'll lay a few in the old message now and see how it looks!

Chuck

Chuck Rudy

VooDoo Digital Productions

Hey, an Alma Mater theme drag race. Can I get into that one. I can throw together a Scarlet Red and Black Rutgers rocket to smoke your oranges. ;-P Good luck, Mike.

Mark Simps>

Lacrosse champions only wear orange.....lucky for UVa, this year's champ. ;-) Will you be there even if there is an Iron Maiden concert at the dome next year?? :-P Since Rugtgah's often hosts the LAX championship they'd be a welcome addition!

Chuck

Mark Simps>Hey, an Alma Mater theme drag race. Can I get into that one. I can

Sounds like a plan for next NYPOWER! Let's see how many others would like to take part in a massive 'mascot' drag race. School colors and shaped like the school mascot? :)

Wait a second, this wouldn't be fair... not too many TRA members could join in. ;-)

-John

No, I'm definitely going to be at NYPOWER2004. Besides, I'm not an Iron Maiden fan. ;-) I guess I'll have to get started building a flying Scarlet Knight. That should be cool.

Mark Simpson NAR 71503 Level II God Bless our peacekeepers

What an elitist thing to say. Just what you would expect from an overcompensating modroc enthusiast.

Oh, and ;-)

I know just what you mean, and I didn't take umbrage at anything. Adequately and correctly conveying emotion in words is something that writers have struggled with as long as there has been writing. Personally I don't favor emoticons, but I've been known to put (grin) in a message where I thought it was needed, or even ( ) after I learned HTML.

Returning to the subject at hand...I still haven't found the time to get the rest of my pictures up on flyhybrids.org or steal your video clips. This weekend, I hope. I did play around with a few shots from my Pentax Digibino, which was on the base of Chuck's rocket on Sunday when it lit. Four frames a second allowed me to make a neat little animated GIF out of the launch sequence, which I put up on the homepage at

Next time I'll try it with the Digibino on a tripod. Also in a little better focus...Brian had been using the Digibino and he tweaked the diopter setting for his younger eyebones. The camera usually takes much sharper pictures!

Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly, To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high. [holds up eyeglasses] Let's drink a toast as each of us recalls Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls.

Turn on the spigot, Pour the beer and swig it, And gaudeamus igit-itur.

Here's to parties we tossed, To the games that we lost (We shall claim that we won them someday).

To the girls, young and sweet, To the spacious back seat Of our roommate's beat up Chevrolet.

To the beer and benzedrine, To the way that the dean Tried so hard to be pals with us all.

To excuses we fibbed, To the papers we cribbed From the genius who lived down the hall.

To the tables down at Mory's (Wherever that may be), Let us drink a toast to all we love the best. We will sleep through all the lectures, And cheat on the exams, And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest.

Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife. Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life. (Oooh!) (laughter) ... Ready? ... But as we go our sordid separate ways, We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days. Hearts full of youth, Hearts full of truth, Six parts gin to one part vermouth.

-- Tom Lehrer, from "An Evening (wasted) with Tom Lehrer"

- Rick "Did I win the race?" Dickinson

[re: Tom Lehrer]

That's just *wrong*. At least half of the fun is in his introductions.

- Rick "In a somewhat bizzare set of circumstances" Dickinson