Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in bensdiorama's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, May 8th, 2011
1:18 pm	Happy Mother's Day The best thing anyone's ever said to me came out of the blue, in May 2008, 16 months after my Mom died. Roger (my dad) and I were on their everyday walk up on "the hill". As is typical, we encountered some of their friends, and this time it was three middle-aged ladies Roger introduced by their connection to my Mom. An odd, prolonged quiet followed the friendly Hello's, like they were all stuck on a thought and not sure what to do with it. Then, while still half looking at me, one of them blurted out to the other two, "He's just like Shirley, isn't he," to which another said, "OMG yes, he's even got her smile." Lucky me. [note ...This is such a personal thing to me that I've never before related it to anyone. So now, I find myself able to put it here and even FB. Weird, I know.] (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
6:31 pm	Hi Roger, I'm assuming you're not much on Facebook, so am posting a very recent photo of Theo. Apparently he is very much into airplanes. They live under the normal approach to Heathrow about 20 miles out, so hear them all the time from maybe 5k feet overhead. Holly says in this picture he is getting ready to spot and point out a 747. Goodness, what have we done? Chelsea was just out to visit last Friday through Tuesday morning. We went up to Silver Lake Saturday afternoon, planning to kayak, then watch the sunset and stars come out, and head over to a cheap motel in Tahoe for the night. But it was light rain and frequent lightning by the time we got there, so we changed plans. Went for a nice walk about 5:30pm. We were parked over by what we've called the best cabin on the lake. It is the best location by far, and also the worst possible shape by far. It finally had a 4Sale sign on it last October, and I realized I didn't have it in me to take on rebuilding a junk pile in spite of it's Location. We bumped into another cabin owner up there who told us that the place went for $310k! That is just the shack, not the land of course, as that belongs to Forest Service. It has running water (through a pipe from up the hill, as well as from the roof and walls), no electricity, nor permission to do any rebuilding. Just repairs, which look harder than building an airplane. We happened to also run into the deliriously happy new owner. She was carrying out pieces of the so-called floor to her minivan and said she felt like they had just won the lottery. To me, this was a wonderful reminder lesson about perspective. Bev said she is clearly the best possible owner for the place. We'll stick with the granite ledge 200 yards west. I guess I was going to also show some pictures of that trip, which includes Chelsea, 6.5 weeks before due date. The next day at Tahoe was gorgeous. Click, or Copy/Paste all the next line into your browser. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1096623&id=1581098089&fbid=1455652042893#!/photo.php?pid=1096623&id=1581098089&fbid=1455652042893 Cheers, -Ben (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
3:31 pm	possible interest to LJ Idol buffs One of my favorite Republicans is David Brooks. He has a different and as usual, very good column this week. It is a good read for one,like me, who has benefited from ample technical and scientific awareness in the formative years. I thought it might be of interest for LJ Idol buffs, as it points to what often are the most compelling things about a story, and especially about a technical story. I realize this is not new info, but nonetheless, here 'tis, if interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/opinion/08brooks.html (Plus D B is a pretty good writer!) Almost an aside, while reading this column I thought about someone's recent private comment about me being one of two siblings that continued to give church a try as an adult. (That ship has pretty much sailed by a good 10 years back, by now.) But, I will say that I'm very glad for that experience, partly -- maybe even largely -- for what D B refers to as seeing a larger set of human comparisons and analogies. I'm not sure where I otherwise have been exposed to much cultural variation. I think I'm not being defensive here, just stating that I did appreciate some of my adult church experience quite a lot. Other parts, not so much. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 21st, 2010
10:20 pm	For months, and months, the back burner of my brain has been trying to figure out and decide what kind of landing gear spring system I should have. Tonight, I've finally figured it out. Yay! I'll basically copy from a Hatz Biplane. Trust me, it was not easy finding info on how these work, or even enf pictures to figure it out. But I did finally find enf to get it, and it is fairly clever. Jim would be a bit disappointed, as he felt I should do his trick design of paired oil and gas (N2) cylinders. His design is fabulous, but I don't have the patience or equipment to build it and risk the unknowns and do-overs. December's Sport Aviation had a cover photo of a homebuilt that is basically a kit SuperCub with TriPacer wings. More to the point for me, was that it showed coil spring landing gear that look like the other option I'm after. So a couple evenings ago I googled enf to find the Sport Aviation guy, Kinny, and was even lucky enf that he emailed me back. Turns out, the gear he used on his kit is taken from a Hatz Biplane. I traded a few emails with Kinney, and moved on to scouring around for pictures or drawings of Hatz landing gear. Kinney's emails were short, and poorly worded at best, and things were really only getting more confusing. Finally, I found a good enf picture from a Hatz builder's web site: From Murphy Build Winter 2010 What they look like installed on a Hatz The consternating but trick thing about the spring gear design is how it uses springs in compression for strut members that are in tension. Here's how, not that you asked: In the Hatz (first picture, above), the strut from the top slides over the strut from the bottom. The bolt in the top spring retainer (hat shape) has a through hole in the inner sleeve and rides length-wise in a slot in the outer sleeve. Opposite hole and slot (inside and outside sleeve) on the bottom. I have also found a spring manufacturer in Dixon, and crazy enf, he's intrigued enf to make springs for me that would be superior, such as being a bit longer and/or having a variable force rate. Short of that, the one thing good from Kinney is that I can buy the springs per se straight from AC Spruce ($94). Onward! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
9:15 am	airplane adventurer A month ago I stumbled across http://chinesepilots.com/default.aspx, a blog from a guy named Jay Yau. Jay bought the same kind of plane I'm building, lives near where I first soloed, flew to Alaska last October, and is doing so again starting Memorial Day wknd. Try to forgive me for stereotyping, but a lot of pilots have a reddish hue to their neck and politics. So I found it immediately refreshing to find someone who early in their web site says "Life is about experiences and relationships, is about joy and love. This website defines, preserves and communicates these subjects to all people who are interested in exploring their lives to the new dimention. I will include collection of photos, moving images, personal discoveries, and the spoken words filled with as much richness about life..." I like his story too and of course hope to do similar trips. I recommend reading his Day 5 entry. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
8:59 pm	My bug For the past 48 hours I've been cobbled from my normal high paced life, due to actually taking proper care of a bad cold, and well, feeling awful enf that very few activities seemed doable. It's been weird. The most doable thing was to focus on some work programming projects, and these are things that are normally very difficult to find time for (at work!). Programming is really good in that it requires full focus, keeping several contingencies in mind and hopefully weaving through a maze toward incremental solutions. (I've sometimes said it's like a board game, only you get paid.) Anyway, a great activity for taking ones mind off of being uncomfortable and sedentary. The flip side is that I start to feel stir crazy wanting to get after some of my own projects. I tried to find something on TV, but that didn't work. I finally made good and got all domestic, picking up clutter, hitting some vacuuming, scouring the butcher block island, and brewing up some decent chicken vege soup. It seemed I might even be feeling less sick ...yay. (For the record, Bev took my temp after dinner: 100.1, and my "normal" rarely breaks over 97.) All in all, it hasn't been too bad an experience; a nice break. I'm so glad I held off till the end of Holly & Theo's visit. And hopefully I can ramp up some tomorrow! Possiblities pending: - chicken coop design, materials, construction - airplane construction - mow the lawns - plant a new persimmon tree and an old lime tree - more on summer garden prep (1/2 done) - not go to the UCD airport open house (done) --ooh, I already checked something off! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
10:18 pm	Photos from our new babies party wknd http://picasaweb.google.com/Ransom.Ben/NewBabiesWknd# From new babies wknd (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 14th, 2010
6:12 pm	flying today I took my Kolb out for some air time today -- first time since September for both of us. I felt like an idiot for letting a perfectly nice sunny Sunday get past me last week, but this one was just as good, plus daylight savings time seems like a good point to make sure I'm able to get out flying without too much hubbub. My plane still seems like it's in perfect condition, even started first pull of the starter. I did 3 touch and goes for starters, then over to Winters and flew some dirt roads out in the low rolling hills and greenery, cows looking at the super sized bee, etc. Geez, I'll never tire of that. Just wait till I can bring you (whoever) along in my next plane --- it is so pretty and fun to zip along like that. More T&Gs at Yolo, then more at Davis, then packed up for home. Looking forward to next time and I need to promise myself to bring my camera! -B ps: Yes Julie, you were right on my FAA physical and me worrying too much. The local FAA Doc passed me on the spot two weeks ago. (He did that two years ago too, and it was revoked the next day when FAA Oklahoma had issues, but clear sailing this time. :) ) (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
8:36 am	Never imagined work could be so different. In the last 12 months our department staff has gone from 11 to 3.5 people. I form the 0.5 part of that as my other 0.5 has been recruited into our parent College. MAE has been borrowing 2 people part time from other departments, and increased the work time of two students to help get by. Those of us remaining are intensely busy and not keeping up. Our admin office people use Remote Desktop so that they manage things at their own desk while sitting up front (reception). We are holding off any rehiring decisions till late March after some budget work is available from above. It's very weird. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 5th, 2010
8:23 am	No, i'm not serious. You can see the attraction tho I used to browse this stuff all the time. I got over it, but some 'favorites', still unsold, pop up in my email occasionally. http://www.johnlscott.com/propertydetail.aspx?GroupID=214323660&ListingID=300188830 (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
9:24 am	My .719 to .781 adjustable reamer story One thing that can be extremely maddening to me is to run into a stumbling block on my airplane build project at the beginning of a weekend, when it is something that could probably be solved easily on a weekday. Yesterday, with a rare sense of getting on a roll, I found that holes in the rudder pedal mount blocks provided in my kit were only .745" ID. The pedal assembly meant to fit into those holes was .760" OD. This excess included factory powder coating, but clearly even if I sanded down to steel at the fit area, they would end up at a stock tube size of .750", too big for the .745 holes in the delron mount blocks. Double DOH! Who all has a .755" reamer laying around in their garage? Anyone? ...Anyone?? About 6 weeks ago, a slightly off-beat friend of mine, James -- who rightfully prides himself as a very good craftsman and bicycle inventor of sorts -- introduced me to Carlos, a possibly even more eccentric friend of his. Carlos has a side business of making or fixing weird little machined things. He has a Bridgeport mill in his Davis garage, as well as a 12" lathe and numerous other small goodies. (He's a younger version of that frumpy, solitairy machinist with only a first name that Roger knew back in the 60s -- what was his name?) In Carlos' driveway is a stepvan, the inside converted to a tiny shop with perimeter workbench and small precision work tools. He uses this to travel to hospitals and repair surgical instruments. The other odd thing about Carlos is that he's perfectly happy to let a friend of a friend use his stuff! So, otherwise being stumped early in my hoped for airplane weekend, I phoned Carlos. And guess what he had to happily loan me: not just a reamer, but a .719 to .781 adjustable reamer. A 10 minute bike ride later, and I'm back in business. Does it get any better?!! Some days are at least as lucky as some of the other days are not. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
10:22 am	a nice place indeed For the record, with all the weather this week in California, Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, has looked pretty much like this every day this week. Don't worry, I'm not entirely obsessed. Just observant. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
11:09 am	motorcycle rambling First, the weather. You know how the local TV newscasts show weather in terms of a graphic with sun,cloud,rain, or whatever? Yesterday, ours showed the same exact picture for each of the next seven days: rain rain rain rain rain rain rain. Not a lick of sun. In the two weeks since getting back from bright and sunny Colorado, we've had sun on about 1 1/2 days, and low overcast the rest. In short, this January is living up to it's more tradtional weather pattern, instead of what I think has seemed a little more interesting in recent years. But alas, as always during any rain, CA gets the much needed water. Being yesterday was to be the dryest day of the coming 7, I took my Beamer on a ride over to Berryessa Dam. This was my first foray into actual twisties, curvey roads as they are referred to by aficionados. Yeah, it was fun. I found myself musing that I seem to be drawn toward rather serious hobbies. The visualized fun of sport cycling is to get all the speed control -- braking, rpms (torque), shifting -- done very smoothly as one decelerates into a corner and then the complementary actions accelerating out of the corner. It is both technical and artful, and impossible to perfect no matter what the level of expertise. One also has to allow for variations in any piece of the curve. I'm pretty much a scaredy cat. I took Putah Creek Road west from home, because it has at least some twisties on the way to the Berryessa hills. As a technical matter, one cannot afford to do much braking while cornering, as adding that force to centrifugal force greatly increases the point at which tire traction will disappear. Therefore, entry speed must allow for one to quickly back off in the moments entering a turn to straighten up the bike (lessen the centrifugal force) if the closer view shows gravel, water, bumps, dead squirrels, or whatever. The road yesterday did indeed toss up these little gremlins, as it is a farm road, and mud or gravel had been tracked onto the turns in some places. I did good! And, it was fun to get some clean turns in other places too. The big acceleation out with the bike coming back upright and the gremlin variables falling away, all matched to the engine bark and feel of good upshifts, is pretty darn awesome. I'm still closer to little old lady caliber on any of this. And I'm rather content to leave it that way even though I know I'm getting better. I've learned to (usually) make much smoother and faster gear shifts. At first I'd almost always bump the wrong amount of throttle, resulting in a clunk or chirp as the resultant wrong engine torque is whacked onto the back wheel. The gear ratios feel much closer together between 4,5 and 6th than 1 and 2 -- not that you asked. In addition to the above indulgences, my motorcycle is known as a sport/touring bike, so there is also the anticipated fun of occassional day or weekend travels. It is not lost that riding a bike or motorcycle has similarities -- in fun and physics -- to flying a plane or sailing a boat (or sailboard). For now, the motorcycle is a fun interlude without much overhead: Open garage door. 10 second preflight. Suit up. Turn key. Be careful. Have fun. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
10:38 pm	It's being a bit wintery in Davis. Morning bike rides into work and it's hovering just above freezing. I know it's not that big a deal, but it seems like it, just being newly Winter. Also, with Univ of Calif in the poor house, the building heat is turned down and many keep their scarves and jackets on right through the day. My office is fine with all the computer heat. :) I'm tempted to go on about other measures of starkness at work, but that's another post. Despite the new season of cold, it has only barely gotten to freezing and Mike and I each were commenting at Thanksgiving that we're still pulling the last of fresh bell peppers out of our summer gardens. (Mine are somewhat sheltered from frost by weeds. Nice!) I guess that was a brag. :) Plus, it's been sunny for a good two weeks at least. (Yeah Holly, in case you wondered, I read Polly's post about UK weather so I suppose I am rubbing it in a little.) Tonight Bev and I were completely fried out from long work days, and not enf decent food at home, so went out to dinner at Katmandu. I'm not nearly as big on Indian (or Nepalese) food as Bev, but what the hey, we were way over due for that sort anyway. It was pretty darn yummy. Lamb vandaloo and a Sudwerk Marzen for me, btw. It was also the downtown businesses shopping season(?) open house night, where we've traditionally visited all the shops that serve good cookies. Once again tho, we were too late for that. Oh well, still a nice night, and I've always got a chocolate chip or two, or .... at home in the cupboard. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
7:39 am	Thanksgiving scheming #2 Yesterday, work got rather crazy, when it should have been slowing down. While waiting for a 5 minute data copy, I took the chance to jot down a list of some things I might get on the way home for the turkey stuffing. A little wild rice, 2 onions, 2 fuji apples, currants, etc. All good. Work and it's trouble du jour kept going, and going. Finally I left, and about half way home on my "commute" with thoughts returning to my stuffing list, I realize OMG, I forgot the turkey!! How's that for a "Doh!"? It turned out fine tho. The guest of honor -- a 17.75 lb reserved free-range Tom -- was there waiting patiently for me, and is just about to come out of the fridge to greet a big pile of good lookin stuffing. :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
10:24 pm	Thanksgiving scheming OH!, okay, now I feel like posting another 'favorite Thanksgiving' -- this one really Thanksgiving as opposed to my last fake substition of Christmas -- and I guess it does have a little to do with "preparations" as prompted by some of the topics from J, i.e. "What to have". It was 1975, just Bev and I, on our honeymoon. We were in an old Volvo stationwagon, camping mostly, out through Utah (brrr) and making it into Grand Junction, CO on that fine Thursday afternoon. We had been looking forward to the splurge of getting a motel, but then had to stress a bit with all the 'no vacancy' signs as we were just getting into town. But alas, we found one, with a kitchenette and tiny oven, as hoped. Score! It was even starting to snow. We got a nice semi-large roasting chicken, a few goodies to stuff it with, and other simplified Thanksgiving food items at a small, independent grocery store. One moral of the story ...it doesn't so much matter what you have for the meal, as much as it matters what, who, and how things contribute to it. Of course, if it's your honeymoon, things are likely to be pretty good no matter what. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
9:12 am	back from London Hi, I got back from my 10day London holiday last night --- wallked in the door somewhere around midnight, which was (I think) 8am London time. Being couped up for long airline flights is pretty awful. For some dumb reason I woke up this morning at 630 so am still a bit zombied! Going across the pond that way, I always think about 2 things: Lindbergh's first (still amazing), and that it might have triggered Mom's failing health 3 years ago (and yes, if not that, something else would have). But enf drudgery.... It's such a joy to have Theo!!! There are a few more pictures up, in case you've not been there recently. http://picasaweb.google.com/Ransom.Ben/Theo# and one more slightly silly video at http://www.youtube.com/user/bensclips (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
4:37 am	US Coast Guard C-130 collision I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, other than it being a solid dip to my otherwise pretty happy mindset these days. Che Barnes, the pilot of the C-130 that collided with a USMC helicopter (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/31/california.midair.collision/index.html), was somewhere between acquaintance and friend. He was part of our pool of friends at UCD airport. He had a Pitts S1 and I shared his hangar for a few months last winter. He was a real nice guy, and it's darn sad he got cut short. It's also just such a weird freak accident that, over all that water, instead of one search aircraft finding a missing rowboat, it instead smacks right into another aircraft. It seems more like "getting hit by a bus" than an airplane accident. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
10:06 am	Grampa me Sort of a double post from facebook for starters: Theodore is wonderful ...expressive, wiggly, soft, warm, and Cute! He's awake for 2-3 hours in the morning, very self-content. Same for an hour after dinner. Otherwise he does a lot of sleeping, eating, and diaper changing, the latter being almost the only thing he's not too charmed about, and indicating a healthy set of lungs. Holly says too that his stomach has been upset from time to time, cause for a little discomfort. For my part, holding little Theo is just like holding Holly and Chelsea, seemingling not so long ago, and the same tricks (and limitations) still work. It's really really nice. http://picasaweb.google.com/Ransom.Ben/Theo# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMjjffYpfc (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
10:30 pm	this wknd This wknd I went mountain biking with Jonathan to a new place, Salmon Falls. It isn't a water Fall so far as I know, but after last week's rain, is a sizable tributary flowing into Folsom Lake. It was a nice Fall day with overcast and a breeze, so just perfect. There were wide open areas with surprisingly expansive views, dry now but covered by the lake in wetter times. For contrast, maybe half of the bike trail was single track through chaperel and oaks, some parts easy riding and others technically challenging. Darn fun and not all too far from home. After that, I finished reroofing the shed as it was trying to sprinkle Sunday evening. I was just doing the ridge crest, but since it was coolish, I had to first lay each shingle piece over a heat lamp so they would take the ridge bend without cracking. Then scurry up the ladder and shinny along the roof top to place and nail down a few at a time. Glad to have finished another summer project ...ps, a summer 08 project, done in 09. (Comment on this)