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Your Mom

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Your Mom

  1. My next vehicle is going to be a long bed truck with a camper shell with a single bed, expandable to a double, permanently set up in the back. Screened windoors, a couple usb fans, the 12v fridge, and room for my bike. A wake up and drive off set up still small enough to be a daily driver.
  2. I’m wondering if you might be underestimating the pain the in ass a massive tent like that could be to set up. The first one you posted a while back looks closer to the big old canvas tents we used to set up in the USMC that took 5 of us an hour to set up, granted your kids are probably smarter than any 5 average jarheads. A basic 4 person tent with flexible poles will go up in 2 minutes by a single person. Of the above, I like the simplest one, the 10x14. But I get that you have pressure from the family with certain expectations on the tent. Just make sure you factor in how much fun they’ll be having helping set set up and tear down that thing. I think a big complex tent would quickly make my kids associate camping with more chores. My perspective might also be different because we often camp one night at a time for a quick getaway or a different spot each night on road trips. If I were going to be in one spot 3 or 4 days at a time I might value a bigger tent more. Also, guy lines are a red flag… there are so many campsites without room or suitable ground for staking in guy lines, another advantage of a freestanding tent. On mattresses, when we car camp we sleep on Exped MegaMats. It’s the most comfortable camping mattress I’ve ever been on. Combination of foam and air. Thermorest MondoKing, Nemo Roamer, and Exped Deepsleep are all similar.
  3. I’m pretty good at coming up with stupid ideas and here’s one of them. I’m going to try to max out today. Not necessarily to get caught up, more like punishing myself for getting so far behind the last couple weeks. Sets of 10 scattered throughout the day. Seems like I never have a problem getting to 10, some days I can get to 20 ok, but most days 15 is right about where I lose steam. So I’m gonna stick with sets of 10 today. maybe in the second half of the day I’ll bring it down to 5. Got 30 done before coffee was ready.
  4. Keys, I’d go the other direction on the tent and buy multiple 4-person tents, as many as it takes to fit the family at 2 people per 4-man tent for maximum comfort. It’ll feel more like camping instead of the whole family crammed into a studio apartment. That power system is a knockoff of the GoalZero system. I’d be concerned about longevity with a knockoff.
  5. Some of y’all might be surprised to know that the internet has changed a few things since we were in school. Every kid at every school knows about every party. There are entire instagram accounts and snap groups with tens of thousands of local high school followers specifically for gathering info about house parties in Austin. Gone are the days of passing out flyers and telling the kids at the mall.
  6. Congrats man! It’s a great time to be headed there. Good choice for the right reasons.
  7. Point taken. Where you at these days? You and I had a couple conversations years ago when you were just getting started. Hope all is well with you.
  8. We wouldn’t even get off the gate if that was the case.
  9. That’s not real. It was like a quarter mile visibility that day. That’s a Flight Simulator reenactment based on preliminary data that may or may not be accurate.
  10. As with most other things we go with the low budget solution… MEL stickers over the iPad cameras.
  11. I’ve been more critical of this than I should have on this thread. Yesterday we had a takeoff that required an engine run-up (for cold temps) and I timed it just for my curiosity. It was nearly 60 seconds from getting clearance at a stand still to getting rolling for takeoff with making the turn at an appropriate taxi speed and accomplishing the required run-up. I don’t know what the temp was that morning in Austin or if the run-up was required but you don’t go rushing into a low visibility takeoff. This is me eating a little crow about that. 50 seconds under those conditions isn’t unusual, but I still think you might let the controller know you won’t be expediting this one. I think the investigation will show that the takeoff clearance was inappropriate On the abort thing, above 80 knots we abort for exactly 4 things and a random unidentified voice on the radio isn’t one of them. A high speed abort is filled with all kinds of risk. With low visibility, even more so. Lots of things could’ve been done differently that day but I don’t see that as being one of them.
  12. I spent the mid-90’s getting drunk at Moose McGillicuddy’s in Waikiki most weekends. Don’t really remember much that would be of any use to you.
  13. I’m back. I logged a bunch of zeroes during a camping trip, some early work days, tree clearing, etc… Got back on it this week. I do them the way Rimbo described and I count on the jump. I will admit to sandbagging the jump sometimes. Toward the end of the set the jump becomes a half-hearted hop.
  14. I don’t know how accurate it is. The busiest airports have ground radar. AUS is not one of them.
  15. The problem with that is that you don’t know where SWA was when FedEx said that. Neither did Fed Ex. They could’ve been half a mile down the runway and about to rotate at that point. I don’t trust that animation to be an accurate representation of their exact locations. Its typical for planes to arrive and depart within seconds of each other. The one departing is typically way downfield from the landing traffic and going a similar speed by then. It’s common on good weather days. Not in low vis though.
  16. As soon as they canceled school last week the younger kid and I left our broken tree branches for later and headed to Big Bend. Squeezed in a decent amount in a quick trip. Hiked the Window, good meal in Terlingua, two isolated days and nights out in BBRSP, made it to Ft Davis for a star party at the observatory.
  17. Allegedly, according some some YouTube animation. 30ish seconds is pretty normal. It takes a little time to get moving and round the corner. We also don’t know the position of SWA when they got their clearance. It’s not uncommon to get the clearance well prior to reaching end of the runway, in which case 50 seconds would be perfectly reasonable. There’s no reason to do that on a low vis day but it’s just another piece of information we don’t have.
  18. All correct. I don’t believe the clearance to TO should’ve been given. But even if it was legal, 50 seconds is a long damn time to get rolling and contributed to the whole thing.
  19. I think it was FedEx saying “swa abort”. ATC would’ve used a full call sign and different terminology. SWA said negative, likely because they were beyond the speed at which you are committed to going.
  20. Did not lol.
  21. I think the ILS equipment is on the east side of that runway. Traffic from the terminal approaches it from the west side and doesn’t encroach on the critical area. I don’t know the spacing requirements there but I’d be irritated if I was inside 3 miles on a Cat III and heard them clear someone ahead of me. At the same time, you have to be ready to roll if you take that TO clearance in that situation.
  22. On the AUS ramp deal with Virgin… I may be biased but SWA had no need to yield there. The ramp is wide enough Virgin has room and every right to go around them. The SWA tug driver purposely stopped short enough to allow Virgin to pass around them. It happens daily and you just taxi around the guy. That’s just how it works I don’t think AUS quite needs a ramp control yet, but that’s just me. That big wide ramp has lots of room. Nashville could use one though, it’s tight and congested there. On the near miss today… holy shit. That was bad. FedEx pilots saved lives. Im guessing the SWA was a Max and didn’t have the full warm up time yet. Another reason to not to taxi out single engine if so. Could’ve been something else though. It’ can take 30 seconds or so to acknowledge your takeoff clearance, make the turn, and spool up to roll, but 50 seconds is a bit much with a guy 3 miles out. I don’t know how low the vis was but that’s no time to have tight spacing.
  23. RRISD is out too. AISD evaluating options. Lame.
  24. The kid hanging out that back window is going to drive this same truck off to college in a few months. 15 years and about 260k on the odometer since that pic was taken.
  25. Hey kids, check out the new zip line!
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