Everlasting Flight

Of all the hard lessons one learns along the highways and byways of life, one is essential and unavoidable: Gravity Always Wins. Also known more colloquially as the "What Goes Up, Must Come Down" rule. Whether it be a baseball, a bullet, or a baby, if it heads upwards you know eventually it will return to the ground, often with a resounding thump. A thump which will sound particularly loud if what fell happens to be your very own noggin. That's right, every time you fall down it is just another example of a force acting on you proportional to the square of the distance to the center of mass we like to call Earth. You can climb a tree or a mountain, hop in a hot air balloon or helicopter, or board the back of the mighty, if mythological, Roc, and it will all end up the same: In the end gravity will claim its own. No exceptions.

Mankind, however, has never been big on absolute and uncompromising restrictions. No one can circumnavigate the globe? Magellan's crew had other ideas (but not poor Ferdinand, of course). You can't split the atom? Tell that to the Eniwotak atoll. Only universities and major research laboratories will ever be able contain the giant, room-sized computers of the future? I think Steve Jobs' bank account might indicate otherwise. In a similar vein, teams of engineers are working toward Everlasting Flight. That's right. You put the plane "Up" and it does not, in fact, "Come Down."

The idea is to build a plane that not only powers itself using energy from the sun, but which can store enough energy to make it through the night as well. Send these planes up to 60,000 feet, well above any weather, and they can circle forever, or at least until their batteries give out from the constant charge/discharge cycle. So the laws of physics will eventually have the last laugh, but a gravitational stay of execution that could conceivably last years is nothing to sneeze at. And while sending planes up that will be able to fly beyond one's own brief lifetime would be a reward in itself, there are significant financial reasons for getting these Forever Planes working. They could serve the same function as a communications satellite for a fraction of the cost, particularly if you are only interested in a single large market, like New York or Los Angeles. Plus, string a few of them across the country or across the ocean and you can make satellite-style calls without the delay induced by having to bounce a signal all the way up to geosynchronous orbit (120 million feet is a bit more than 60,000). Imagine CNN interviews where people don't start to answer questions, then stop when they hear the interviewer tell them to start, then starting again, only to stop again when the interviewer tells them to continue.

Everlasting flight is not true perpetual motion, as it requires the constant input of energy from the sun. Even if the batteries lasted forever, the sun will give out in five or so billion years. Stupid fusion.



No, the only perpetual motion machine is that of remodeling one's home, which truly never ends. I have fallen way behind in my remodel updates, with the earliest photos in today's blog taken nearly a month ago. I will do my best to pick up the pace, but it still may take a few blog entries to get us fully back up to speed. See what happens when you go to the zoo?



When last we left our home-remodeling heroes they were just about to get an entirely new Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system (HVAC). Silver snakes of insulated ducting were everywhere, threatening the townspeople of fair Homeownersville. Only through the valiant efforts of good men like Pedro^ here were we able to get the crafty ducts stuffed back into the roof. This little bit of roof was actually created so that the ducts could go from the old house (below Pedro) to the new house (where the camera is located). The next picture shows the ductwork coming into the loft space. The central vent is the return vent, which may actually end up raised up to the ceiling in the final configuration for efficiency, as hot air has been known to rise.

This is our new behemoth air conditioner, sitting proudly on its new rooftop dais. I actually find it rather pretty, a sort of avant garde industrial cube. Your art appreciation mileage may vary. The more astute reader may also notice the roof has been tarpapered since we last saw it. This actually makes our home relatively water resistant. Not water-proof, mind you, just resistant. As much as SoCal needs a great anti-drought deluge, I would appreciate if the monsoons held off for another month.

This shot comes from back inside the house. You will see more of those slippery, silver ducting snakes running across the rafters. You may also notice a giant metal monstrosity (I already used behemoth. Please send in your own suggestions for words that mean "big monster" to I Need More Monster Metaphors, PO Box 1313, Mockingbird, IL, Esq.) to the left of the chimney. That is my new furnace and air blower which has been located up in the attic. While making it more difficult to kick if it gets out of line, it frees up an entire closet worth of space down in the living quarters.

Changing gears, here are some shots of my new trellis which comes off of the new addition and wraps around a sprawling redwood tree. You can just see my beautiful new AC unit from this angle, although from most viewpoints it will be hidden. The trellis was actually the center of a small point of controversy. The wood for the trellis arrived in late June and sat by the side of the house, doing little but slowly sweating out the last of any excess glue or sap it might have.

I had taken all painting away from my contractor, because he wanted a gianormous amount of money to do it and even back then I knew we needed to find things I could do to save money. To punish me for taking out a nice profit-heavy part of the project, I was told that sanding and staining the trellis would be something I was in charge of. Fair enough. This would be best accomplished while the wood was still sitting on the ground, especially the sanding. I was told the trellis would be going up in September.

I made plans to come and sand all day on the third week of August. Seriously, I had planned on this date for weeks. I told my contractor more than a week in advance I was going to do it that weekend. Guess when he put up the trellis?

That's right. The Friday before I was going to sand all the pieces, our contractor decided they had to go up. Now he had his reasons. Order of operations, making sure his guys had work, etc. All I know is that instead of sanding something on the ground, I would now be doing it 10 feet in the air.



I now know that it takes 3 times longer to sand things while balancing on a ladder. I have so far dedicated two mornings to sanding the damn thing and gotten about 2/3 of it done, so one more morning ought to do it. On the great list of screw-ups it still ranks fairly low, however. And I got to purchase a new vibrational sander, which does in fact seem to be superior to the rotational sander I already have, although a side-by-side comparison has yet to be undertaken. Also, the trellis does look damn funky cool...





You know who else looks funky cool? My lady and her babies. These photos were taken at the Ellen Scripps Browning Park in La Jolla, California, the day after our trip to the San Diego Zoo (see Diatribe comma Panda). This beautiful spot overlooking the ocean is just north of the Children's Pool, which is deceptively named, as it is actually completely overrun by Harbor seals and it is the last place you would send a child, unless of course you wanted said child to be mauled by blubbery sea mammals. Anyway, there are no seals or other hostile sea life up in the park, unless you want to include the occasional garbage picking sea hobo.

One reason we went to the beach was to meet up with my buddy from college Joe Bray, formerly known as "Crazy" Joe Bray. He is no longer called that because he expressed a strong desire to not be addressed as such. He is still crazy. There are no photos of him, mostly because it was so sunny that my camera melted into a puddle in my pocket.

Kayla is in blue while Rylie is wearing white and pink. You can also tell Rylie because she is the one grinning like a crazy baby while her mother hides her face in shame. After the first picture I think Kayla rolled her eyes in exasperation and then crawled off to catch a cab. Good thing that kind sea hobo brought her back to us unharmed.

I like this last photo. I think both these girls are pretty. No getting jealous, Kayla. There is a price for running off with strange beach people: You miss out on excellent photo opportunities.



^ Sadly I have to admit I don't really remember the name of this good fellow, who basically acts as an assistant/everyman for our contractor. If something needs getting done, like packing fiberglass insulation into a hole in the roof, he is the man. His name might be Pedro. I'd swear it was something like Pedro.

Dammit, I am the man.