Jeff Foxworthy made the comment, upon hearing of Larry The Cable Guy's acquisition of a coyote skin coat (you tied the tails together in lieu of buttons) with the comment that you don't want to give a redneck money.
See also me and a day with nothing I really have to do.
To start, I was a half hour late for church. And I didn't even have two honyocks to get ready. I don't really mean to blame the girls for our chronic tardiness because it's all my fault if you count genetics. Like me, they can both spread donning socks into a twenty minute ritual. Or go back to get something, and return an implausibly long time later without what they went back for.
It was far too windy for rockets, so I contented myself with kites. Saw a couple of people flying dual line kites. The first airfoil I flew, the first kite I really had fun with, was a dual line kite, and I'd attributed it's ease of flight with the extra control of dual lines.
Now I know the magic was the airfoil. These dual line kites crashed like crazy, got knots in their lines, etc. The people were having fun, though, and I asked where you could get such a kite.
Last time I asked this, it was when I learned I could get my gorgeous seven foot crayon kite for a buck-a-foot at Burlington Coat Factory. This time the answer was, 'England.'
The soccer ball the Dad of this family was working should have clued me in that they were not Americans. They were, however, maybe the happiest family I've ever seen, genuinely enjoying the kites and the soccer ball and just being alive and together on a hillside in a park.
Anyway, as I'm flying my kites (and rapidly getting bored because while I enjoy a kite, it's not like flying rockets), I notice some mayhem down the hill.
From a distance I could make out that it was SCA type period costumes, foam broadswords, and I thought, That's a scene Dave would make.
I shouldn't use that name, though. I remember back in high school, when I was a fixture at his house, he wanted to legally change his name to Coyote. But it wasn't until I saw an article in the Pitch profiling another foam swordsman describing one of his opponents as 'a man who legally changed his name to Coyote' who claimed his 'heath suffered' when he went without sword fighting that I knew he'd done it.
So I wandered down the hill, and while I didn't find Dave, I mean Coyote, I did find someone else who knows him.
Someone else who, like me, has an autistic child. That's how I knew him.
Oh, and on the way down the hill I spotted a nice BT-60 nose cone and the remnants of a parachute hanging from the power lines. It's a nice long one, I think the one Estes uses for Der Red Max.
Also, while I was flying kites, I stumbled on the ruins of an Estes Gnome that had lost its nose cone. No identifying information, and it'd been out int he elements long enough the tail cone and launch lug assembly came off with no effort. I'll use the plastic parts to build something BT-5ish.
He explained that, no, they hadn't recruited much from whatever circuit Coyote is in (he told me but I forget). I asked if this was SCA and he said, no, it was ______ (I forget, again). He explained that it was similar, but more fantasy oriented, i.e. they had just slain a demon.
On a whim I asked about a girlfriend I remember from high school who was into SCA pretty heavily last I heard, but no dice.
On my way back I spotted the power-line ruined remains of a once mighty rocket. I'd love to have gotten just that nose cone down. I'd already found, walking my kites, the remains of an Estes Gnome, the fin can and guide ring of which I'll build into another rocket If, like my lost rockets, it'd had any identifying marks, I'd have returned it to its rightful owner.
Oh, and I'm legal now. I've launched with the club at SMP, but when out on my own, I was utterly lawless. Part of me wanted to rebel, say, 'Why do I need a permit to engage in lawful recreation in a city park?' But part of me knew I was one sweep away from paying a fine for not being up front about my ballistic intentions.
So I got the permit, which turns out to be impossibly simple and easy to get.
Finally, what am I to do with free time but get an oil change in my car? And while I was at it, I picked up a few bottles of club soda.
I drink the Wal-Mart house brand club soda quite a bit. It's like Perrier, bubbly and minerally, but it's only 50¢ a liter. Since I have a hard time making myself drink plain water, it's a good way to stay hydrated. But they won't stock it aggressively enough, so I pester them with special orders. Seven cases this time, which should hold me for a month or two.
No comments:
Post a Comment