Florida Discoveries 3: National Museum of Naval Aviation

27. January 2011 · 7 comments · Categories: aircraft, florida discoveries, museum, nas pensacola, national museum of naval aviation, pensacola, rainy day, world war ii
From 2011 01 23 Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola

This past weekend my parents came to visit, mainly for my youngest’s birthday, but I’m sure that Dad was super-excited to visit the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola.

On Sunday after breakfast, we ventured the 30 miles west and arrived at around 11am.  We left at 3:45pm!  Everyone had a great time!  There was so much to see.

The museum is on the Pensacola Naval Air Station itself, which means you have to pass through a checkpoint.  The guard will check for an ID — such as a drivers’ license — and if you just say “I’m visiting the museum” you’ll be let through with minimal fuss.  You might be subject to a random search.  Don’t say I didn’t tell you!  It’s free of charge, always a bonus!

I had visited the museum with my friend Paul (of CrashPlan fame) in December 1998 when I was TDY* to Hurlburt Field for some training with my AF Reserve job.  There’s a lot of wonderful history in this museum, from the birth of Naval aviation in 1911.  They have several originals of “first” aircraft (like the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic), and they also have a collection of “last” aircraft, such as the last F-14 Tomcat to fly in combat.

In those short two years since I was there last, there were many changes to the museum, all for the better!

First of all, the museum made improvements at the front entryway, adding a nice timeline of all aircraft carriers, and they added a lovely children’s play area.

Also, we were able to take a bus tour of the “flightline” section of the museum, where aircraft were parked awaiting restoration. The bus driver/narrator told some great stories of each of the aircraft!

These aircraft parts were recently retrieved from the Great Lakes!
From 2011 01 23 Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola

Another big change was the addition of the “Hangar One” area.  This opened in mid-January 2011 and nearly doubled the indoor display space for aircraft!

????

Up above is the USS Kitty Hawk’s “Homeward Bound Pennant” which was flown on its way home from Japan for decommissioning in 2008.  

???? I took this picture below of the sign explaining how the “Homeward Bound” pennant works, but my Dad (a 30-year Navy veteran) explains is best:

“The red-and-white portion (the “fly”) of the Homeward Bound pennant is traditionally one foot long for each member of the ship’s crew.  If the air wing is included, this would be over 5000 feet!  The number of stars in the blue field is dependent on the length of the deployment.  The pennant is flown during the return leg of any deployment over a year in length.  Again traditionally, after arriving back in the States, the pennant is cut up and the blue portion is given to the ship’s CO.  The fly is cut into one-foot pieces and a section given to each crew member,

In Kitty Hawk’s case, she was “permanently” forward deployed, essentially home ported, at Yokosuka, Japan, since the decommissioning of USS Constellation.  The USA has maintained a carrier based there since the 1950s.  USS George Washington’s there now, the first nuclear-powered ship allowed by Japan to be based there.”

Florida Discoveries 3: National Museum of Naval Aviation

27. January 2011 · 7 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , ,
From 2011 01 23 Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola

This past weekend my parents came to visit, mainly for my youngest’s birthday, but I’m sure that Dad was super-excited to visit the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola.

On Sunday after breakfast, we ventured the 30 miles west and arrived at around 11am.  We left at 3:45pm!  Everyone had a great time!  There was so much to see.

The museum is on the Pensacola Naval Air Station itself, which means you have to pass through a checkpoint.  The guard will check for an ID — such as a drivers’ license — and if you just say “I’m visiting the museum” you’ll be let through with minimal fuss.  You might be subject to a random search.  Don’t say I didn’t tell you!  It’s free of charge, always a bonus!

I had visited the museum with my friend Paul (of CrashPlan fame) in December 1998 when I was TDY* to Hurlburt Field for some training with my AF Reserve job.  There’s a lot of wonderful history in this museum, from the birth of Naval aviation in 1911.  They have several originals of “first” aircraft (like the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic), and they also have a collection of “last” aircraft, such as the last F-14 Tomcat to fly in combat.

In those short two years since I was there last, there were many changes to the museum, all for the better!

First of all, the museum made improvements at the front entryway, adding a nice timeline of all aircraft carriers, and they added a lovely children’s play area.

Also, we were able to take a bus tour of the “flightline” section of the museum, where aircraft were parked awaiting restoration. The bus driver/narrator told some great stories of each of the aircraft!

These aircraft parts were recently retrieved from the Great Lakes!
From 2011 01 23 Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola

Another big change was the addition of the “Hangar One” area.  This opened in mid-January 2011 and nearly doubled the indoor display space for aircraft!

????

Up above is the USS Kitty Hawk’s “Homeward Bound Pennant” which was flown on its way home from Japan for decommissioning in 2008.  

???? I took this picture below of the sign explaining how the “Homeward Bound” pennant works, but my Dad (a 30-year Navy veteran) explains is best:

“The red-and-white portion (the “fly”) of the Homeward Bound pennant is traditionally one foot long for each member of the ship’s crew.  If the air wing is included, this would be over 5000 feet!  The number of stars in the blue field is dependent on the length of the deployment.  The pennant is flown during the return leg of any deployment over a year in length.  Again traditionally, after arriving back in the States, the pennant is cut up and the blue portion is given to the ship’s CO.  The fly is cut into one-foot pieces and a section given to each crew member,

In Kitty Hawk’s case, she was “permanently” forward deployed, essentially home ported, at Yokosuka, Japan, since the decommissioning of USS Constellation.  The USA has maintained a carrier based there since the 1950s.  USS George Washington’s there now, the first nuclear-powered ship allowed by Japan to be based there.”

Florida Discoveries 3: National Museum of Naval Aviation

27. January 2011 · Comments Off on Florida Discoveries 3: National Museum of Naval Aviation · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , ,
From 2011 01 23 Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola

This past weekend my parents came to visit, mainly for my youngest’s birthday, but I’m sure that Dad was super-excited to visit the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola.

On Sunday after breakfast, we ventured the 30 miles west and arrived at around 11am.  We left at 3:45pm!  Everyone had a great time!  There was so much to see.

The museum is on the Pensacola Naval Air Station itself, which means you have to pass through a checkpoint.  The guard will check for an ID — such as a drivers’ license — and if you just say “I’m visiting the museum” you’ll be let through with minimal fuss.  You might be subject to a random search.  Don’t say I didn’t tell you!  It’s free of charge, always a bonus!

I had visited the museum with my friend Paul (of CrashPlan fame) in December 1998 when I was TDY* to Hurlburt Field for some training with my AF Reserve job.  There’s a lot of wonderful history in this museum, from the birth of Naval aviation in 1911.  They have several originals of “first” aircraft (like the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic), and they also have a collection of “last” aircraft, such as the last F-14 Tomcat to fly in combat.

In those short two years since I was there last, there were many changes to the museum, all for the better!

First of all, the museum made improvements at the front entryway, adding a nice timeline of all aircraft carriers, and they added a lovely children’s play area.

Also, we were able to take a bus tour of the “flightline” section of the museum, where aircraft were parked awaiting restoration. The bus driver/narrator told some great stories of each of the aircraft!

These aircraft parts were recently retrieved from the Great Lakes!
From 2011 01 23 Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola

Another big change was the addition of the “Hangar One” area.  This opened in mid-January 2011 and nearly doubled the indoor display space for aircraft!

????

Up above is the USS Kitty Hawk’s “Homeward Bound Pennant” which was flown on its way home from Japan for decommissioning in 2008.  

???? I took this picture below of the sign explaining how the “Homeward Bound” pennant works, but my Dad (a 30-year Navy veteran) explains is best:

“The red-and-white portion (the “fly”) of the Homeward Bound pennant is traditionally one foot long for each member of the ship’s crew.  If the air wing is included, this would be over 5000 feet!  The number of stars in the blue field is dependent on the length of the deployment.  The pennant is flown during the return leg of any deployment over a year in length.  Again traditionally, after arriving back in the States, the pennant is cut up and the blue portion is given to the ship’s CO.  The fly is cut into one-foot pieces and a section given to each crew member,

In Kitty Hawk’s case, she was “permanently” forward deployed, essentially home ported, at Yokosuka, Japan, since the decommissioning of USS Constellation.  The USA has maintained a carrier based there since the 1950s.  USS George Washington’s there now, the first nuclear-powered ship allowed by Japan to be based there.”

Like Watching Paint Dry

26. January 2011 · Comments Off on Like Watching Paint Dry · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Paul and I have gone nearly a week uploading to each others’ computers with CrashPlan.  It’s been quite successful, in that we are successfully connecting to each others’ computers consistently.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I’m seeing just how slow my AT&T DSL network is.  I purposefully selected a data plan that matches what we’d need it for the most — which did not include extreme gaming or running a small business.  Something middle-of-the-road.

With his FiOS network on the East Coast, Paul has already uploaded all his data (nearly 100 GB) to “the cloud”, while I’m less than 10% through.  No fiber availability in my area, unfortunately.

Paul’s upload rate to my own machine is more than twice as fast as my upload to him.

At my house, we’re also challenged with trying to do other things on our network while CrashPlan is active, like uploading pictures and videos.  I have to shut down the data transfer if we’re doing particularly important work.

Ever the optimist, I really want to see this through – I wholeheartedly believe that once the initial transfers occur, you can leave Crashplan on and it does periodic updates only…requiring much less bandwidth.

Fingers crossed!

From GeekMom: Star Wars Fail: Overpriced Cupcake Decorating Kit

24. January 2011 · Comments Off on From GeekMom: Star Wars Fail: Overpriced Cupcake Decorating Kit · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

Last weekend we were at our local mall-like-shopping-location. It isn’t really a mall, since it doesn’t have that old-school enclosed building thing going on. It’s one of those open-air places, where you walk outside between the pretty-people stores. Each of the past four locations we’ve lived has had one nearby. Most of you who live in suburban America know what I’m talking about, right?

We ventured into Williams-Sonoma — the lure of free samples usually attracts my boys. The thought of one day having a kitchen like in their catalogs attracts me. There was a lovely display of Star Wars-themed kitchen supplies. Of course we were attracted to the display like white on rice! The items were pretty neat, certain to make great gifts. There in the middle among the cookie cutters and pancake molds were these “cupcake decorating kits.”

Picture: Williams-Sonoma

My kids begged “Please? Please? Please?” for one of the kits, and since my youngest son is celebrating his sixth birthday this week and we had family in town, I caved in and let him choose the kit of his choice. I’m so glad he picked the Rebel Alliance kit instead of the Galactic Empire one. I thought the set was pretty cute, and at the time I didn’t think anything of paying $12 for it. How could I turn down classic Star Wars???

Tonight my mom and I made some cupcakes for dessert, using half of the baking cups and toothpicks.

That’s what this kit is: baking cups and toothpicks. Probably about $1 worth of product, to be honest.

Photo: Patricia Vollmer

Close Ups of the Rebels. What do you think? Good likenesses? Wait a sec, is Luke relieving himself? Photo: Patricia Vollmer

We devoured the cupcakes and the used baking cups went right into the trash, but I made a point to insist that no one lick the toothpicks and I’m making sure to recycle them. The pictures on the toothpicks are made of a slightly-waxed paper. Not quite cardstock, but a little heavier than just plain paper.

My opinion? Twelve dollars for this kit is a considerable indulgence. My kids were smiling all evening from the cute toothpicks, and one could argue that doesn’t make this all a waste. If you aren’t picky about the baking cups — considering R2, C3PO and Chewie were all on the bottom of the finished cupcake where no one will really see them — you might be able to get away with making the toothpicks on your own.

Consider how many different characters you could glue to toothpicks and stick in cupcakes! Maybe this is what I’ll do for the Mario Brothers cake that’s been requested for the party next weekend.

Originally published on Wired.com’s GeekMom blog on 24 Jan 2011.

The Star Wars Cupcake Decorating "Kit"

22. January 2011 · 12 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

This week my youngest son is celebrating his 6th Birthday. I won’t be specific about which day, but with family in town this weekend, I made some pre-birthday cupcakes to serve as dessert.

Last weekend we were at our local mall-like-shopping-location. It isn’t really a mall, since it doesn’t have that old-school enclosed building thing going on. It’s of those open-air places, where you walk outside between the pretty-people stores.  Each of the past 4 locations we’ve lived has had one nearby.  Most of you who live in suburban America know what I’m talking about, right?

We ventured into Williams-Sonoma — the lure of free samples usually attracts my boys. The thought of one day having a kitchen like what’s in their catalogs attracts me. There was a lovely display of Star Wars-themed kitchen supplies. Of course we were attracted to the display like white on rice!  There in the middle among the cookie cutters and pancake molds were these “cupcake decorating kits”.

My kids begged “Please? Please? Please?” for one of the kits, so I caved in and let my youngest son choose the kit.   I’m so glad he picked the Rebel Alliance kit instead of the Galactic Empire one.  I thought the set was pretty cute, and at the time I didn’t think anything of paying $12 + Northwest Florida tax for it.  How could I turn down classic Star Wars???

Tonight my mom and I made some cupcakes for dessert, using 1/2 of the baking cups and toothpicks.

That’s what this kit is: baking cups and toothpicks.  Probably about $1 worth of product, to be honest.


We devoured the cupcakes and the used baking cups went right into the trash, but I made a point to insist that no one lick the toothpicks and make sure to recycle them.  The pictures on the toothpicks are made of a slightly-waxed paper.  Not quite cardstock, but a little heavier than just plain paper.

My opinion?  $12 for this kit is a considerable indulgence.  My kids were smiling all evening from the cute toothpicks, and one could argue that doesn’t make this all a waste.  If you aren’t picky about the baking cups — considering R2, C3PO and Chewie were all on the bottom of the finished cupcake where no one will really see them — you might be able to get away with making the toothpicks on your own.

Consider how many different characters you could glue to toothpicks and stick in cupcakes!  Maybe this is what I’ll do for next weekend’s Mario Brothers cake that’s been requested for the party next weekend.

From GeekMom: Should We Dilute the Kool Aid?

22. January 2011 · Comments Off on From GeekMom: Should We Dilute the Kool Aid? · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

Photo: Patricia Vollmer

When I was little, I remember my mom making Kool Aid.  I have pictures around of me wearing my token Kool Aid mustache.  I even had a Kool Aid t-shirt. I remember sometimes the Kool Aid would seem, well, watery.  Did my mom dilute it on purpose?  Boy, I hope she didn’t.  Sometimes, I wondered if she was sneakily reducing my sugar and artificial color.  I do remember telling myself that when I got older, I would never dilute the Kool Aid!

But guess what?  While I do my best to make the Kool Aid at home to the recipe, I have to admit I water down the kids’ lemonade and fruit punch at the fast-food restaurant beverage machines.  It’s just instinct, I WANT to dilute!

This diluting of the Kool Aid is now a metaphor I’ve been giving to the crime of watering down — or dumbing down — answers to the questions kids ask. JennT posted earlier this week about the incessant “Why? Why? Why?” questions she receives from her kids and in her line of work.  My kids do the same thing, and sometimes it grates my nerves for sure!  But sometimes embedded in all of the silly mindless “Why?”s is a jewel of a question that my sons are truly curious about.  And when my just-as-geeky-as-me husband or I hear such a question we want to stop and give it our full attention!

And if it’s a science or math question?  Stop EVERYTHING!  Break out the props!

My husband and I had a great professor in college who has a pet peeve about “bad meteorology” to the point he made up a website dedicated to debunking several of the most-basic of meteorology myths.  A quote he said that has stuck with my husband Dave all these years was “Be very careful what you put into kids’ heads because it’s very hard to get it out!”. Dave and I take this very seriously with our kids.

So when our sons ask a question like “Why is the sky blue?”, our approaches to the answer might be a little different than non-geek parents.   For a pair of meteorologists with offspring, we waited for that very question with bated breath, as if it were a milestone like learning to walk or ride a bike!

In our house, though, the question wasn’t “Why is the sky blue?”  It was “Why are sunsets red?”  We got it when our oldest son was about 6 1/2 years old.  Definitely a corollary to the dream question!  So I’m now going to share with you how we geek parents approached this subject.

Sunset over Lee-on-the-Solent, Great Britain. © Copyright Rebecca Altman and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons License. http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/1963

We started with rainbows.  Jacob knew the colors of the rainbow by this point, so it was easy to explain to him how red is at one end of the rainbow, and violet is at the other.

Then we discussed the electromagnetic spectrum.  Enter a basic diagram, with the shortwaves on the left, the longwaves on the right.  Jacob could name many of the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as X-rays and microwave radiation.  We explained how red light has longer wavelengths than blue/violet light.

Jacob started getting a little glassy-eyed here…uh oh, it doesn’t get any simpler from here!

We attempted to quickly sum up how the low sun angle at sunset allows sunlight to travel through more of the atmosphere, the color red is able to “scatter” just as readily as the color blue “scatters” when the sun is higher in the sky.  When the sun is higher, most of the atmosphere’s scatterers are receptive to the color blue.  This is a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering.  I fear we might have lost Jacob by this point, but it was interesting seeing how much he did pick up from the conversation.

I remember that it generated more questions about the electromagnetic spectrum and I was so impressed with having a conversation with a 6-year-old about how many things in the world around us are traveling in “invisible” waves.  The music on the radio.  The remote control (or the 8-billion remote controls in our house!).  The microwave oven.  The wireless internet in our house.  The satellite television.

Check out these links for other easy-to-understand explanations of sky color.

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/misrsky/misr_sky.shtml
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/sky.htm

We, as parents, are challenged with teaching our kids the “right things”.  At least, what we think are the “right things”.  Sometimes those “right things” are contested topics such as evolution, global warming, the causes of the Civil War, etc.  I hope to have an open enough relationship with my kids to discuss the varying viewpoints about those more controversial topics and give them the tools to form their own opinions, even if they might differ from mine.

But when it comes to math and science, I personally feel challenged to push the envelope to teach as much as I can when my kids express interest.  I hope to never blow off one of their “Why?” questions, although I have to admit that can get tough at times!

Originally published on Wired.com’s GeekMom Blog on January 22, 2011.

CrashPlan Update

20. January 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,
Isn’t Schoolhouse Rock the BEST????  I Googled images for “Hooray” and this scene from the episode on “Interjections” appeared.

Yesterday we had success! Paul and I did a couple more tweaks with our respective firewalls, and after dinnertime, the grey lights turned green on our CrashPlan GUIs!

This point-to-point uploading is going much much faster than uploading to CrashPlan Central (i.e., “The Cloud”). Paul’s machine to mine = 4.1 GB in about 12 hours, my machine to his = 1.7 GB in about 12 hours.

All of this is faster than my uploading to CrashPlan Central.

If this is successful, then perhaps I’ll pick up a 2 TB external HD at Best Buy and use this as my official backup plan. What we’re doing right now is experimental, lots of band-aids in place to make this work, but I need a long term plan still.

Free, Easy, Automatic Backup???

19. January 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I called it. On Saturday I enrolled in CrashPlan for the 30-day free trial and so far I’m not that impressed. Their website claims “Free, Easy, Automatic Backup”. So far, no.

Paul kindly offered to sign up also — we can always backup to each others’ machines with the CrashPlan GUI without charge — and we’ve spent the past 48 hours attempting to connect to each others’ computers without success. Too many firewalls, port settings and over-my-head troubleshooting going on here. Paul and I exchanged no less than 30 e-mails last night bouncing different ideas to make this work. Most of the ideas were his…since he’s the one who does IT stuff for a living and understands it more than I do.

I guess using iChat or IM might have been easier to discuss this, but for some reason we didn’t.

Until we get the point-to-point backup working, I have a batch of files uploading to “CrashPlan Central” which is their offsite server system. This is what I’d have to pay a monthly fee for if I choose to go beyond the 30-day trial.

Unfortunately, the backup to “the cloud” has been taking FOREVER. I have a 77 GB package I’m trying to upload (pictures, music, videos) and after 4 1/2 days, 7.9 GB has been uploaded.

Go ahead, do the math. About 10.5% uploaded in 4.5 days = 47.25 days to upload this batch of data. And this is only from the MacBook! This doesn’t include the PC’s data (another 125 GB).

One of the things I did to try to speed things up was direct-connect the Mac to the DSL modem, taking the computer off the WiFi altogether. I also closed everything this Mac was using that involved the Internet. Things like the webcam, weather station and my iPhone on the Wireless were still taking down the bandwidth periodically.

CrashPlan offers to send you an external hard drive to directly upload to, which caught my attention at first, but for $125 for that service, I figured the time would be cheaper.

I understand that once this initial upload completes, the worst of it will be over and we’ll have our data in place. I’ll see how this does through the weekend. If I see better progress, this might be worth keeping…but so far, I’m not quite impressed.

"I Want an Oopma Loompa NOW!"

15. January 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

As promised, Part II of my devious plan to conquer the world. I mean, my paperwork! I need to look into storage options for my photos, videos and these soon-to-be-scanned-in papers.

If you thought my paperwork filing plan was sloppy, our computer’s file plan is an incredible mess. I try to keep up with it, putting everything in it’s appropriate folder on our shared hard drive, but sometimes I get sloppy and will go weeks at a time just dumping EVERYTHING into my MacBook’s “Documents” folder.

I try really hard to file the pictures into folders that have both the date and a brief description of the event. My more loyal followers see me doing this all the time when I point you to pictures on this blog. Each album is just my uploading the contents of the photo folder, which is named such that I can go to the My Pictures folder, alphabetize the folder list of photos, and they’re in date order automatically.  I like it that way, I know not everyone does things the same way…

Anyway…let’s assume I’m organized in that department. Which I’m not.  And that I’ve scanned in all the paperwork I needed.  Which I haven’t.

My next challenge is storage of all of this digital personal paperwork. And photos (I have nearly 20,000). And videos. And maybe even some of the kids’ schoolwork?

Starting two PCs ago, I’ve avoided putting our personal files on our internal hard drives. I have an external hard drive USB-attached to our PC and I ensure all of our PCs and Macs can connect to it to read/write our personal files. The external hard drive is starting to fill out (it’s “only” 200 GB) and it’s time to look into something new…and bigger.

Many of you have weighed in with me on “off site” storage options, and I’ve also have discussions about “on site” server and wireless external hard drive options. All of this will cost us money, and LOTS of time ensuring the files are transferred properly. And the I want to have a periodic backup plan.

Okay, I know I’m starting to sound like Veruca Salt here. I want this, and I want that…

In a perfect, limitless bank account world, I would love one of these Apple Time Capsule external hard drives!

The 2 TB version, please. But I think in reality, I need to (a) consider a 1 TB instead, since we don’t NEED a 2 TB drive and (b) do a little more research. There are lots of allegations of an 18 month shelf life on these things and I would like to see how well the newer ones are doing.

I’m not looking forward to how much money this is going to cost, either. But the computers we have aren’t getting any younger, and the external hard drive everything is on right now is nearing 3 years of age…I’m nervous it’s going to croak really really soon. I’m copying my entire 2010 photo gallery from my Mac to it right now, in fact. But the copying isn’t doing so well — 16 GB of files via WiFi? I used to have a nifty auto-backup feature on our old PC, perhaps I should bring it back on the new one?

Back to the office…

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