ÜberTubester Chixulubster

When I picked up the girls, the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster told me Mo had been asking for sidewalk chalk and rockets.

Last time me and Mo were at Stuff-Mart, she spotted a bucket of little chalk on the clearance aisle. Then, I was going through Hobby Lobby and spotted what I'd been seeking: a huge bucket of 52 large pieces on clearance for like $2.50.



I think Mo was happy with my purchase.

This was the maiden voyage for ÜberTubester Chixulubster, who is the tallest rocket so far in the fleet. I know this because I cannot put ÜTC in my car trunk, he's too über.



He had to ride shotgun to the launch. Now I understand why Randall built a trailer for his rockets. Is he biggest? Well, Thor's Candycane and Mr. Creosote are both pretty big. Weight-wise, all three of those are pretty close. They are the sort of rockets that seem to struggle into the sky. Satisfyingly slow takeoffs you can really grove on. And hey, ÜTC still managed to drive a good 150 yards under canopy on a wimpy little 12" parachute. And there was just about no wind. Tony G, by contrast, drifted better than a quarter mile.



No rockets lost, and that's cool. Of course, Tony G was the smallest bird I launched this evening, but I did launch him on a fairly aggressive C6-3 motor. Plus, there were water hazards.



Mo had fun with the chalk, but more than that she had fun with the mud. Every place that was dust when we launched last weekend got rehydrated by some intense thunderstorms last night (I awoke to another flooded garage/rocket studio/homebrewery).

Mo dug the mud. Big-time. I tried to dissuade her but you might as well try argue with the weather. There was mud and it felt good on her feet. Deal with it, Dad.





Which I did, when we got home. And it only took me twenty minutes after her shower to wash the tub out to the point where it wasn't such a bog the federal government might declare it a wetland.



Em and the Groupies (as DD calls them) came late to the launch. A boy on a bike had come by to watch, and he had fun chasing the first couple I launched. When he saw them coming, he made himself scarce fast.

Then one of the Groupies told me her sister hated 'that kid' because he was 'annoying.' Which I guess means he has a crush on her and she doesn't crush him back. I can relate.

Not So Cute

When your autistic kid has adopted 'yip' and 'not' as alternatives to saying 'yes' and 'no, thank you,' it's cute. Especially when she's excited about saying yes to something and starts up, 'Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip. Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip,' real fast.

See also waking you up in the morning by belly-flopping onto your unsuspecting, sleeping form with all the grace of a sack of cement.

When your 'typical' kid lays in a puddle of melted snow because she was double-dog-dared to, that's cute, too. See also adopting pet rocks from the yard and 'feeding' them.



But when the typical kid forgets and leaves her glasses in the shower and the autistic kid decides to spend her shower making minimalist sculpture out of Sissy's glasses, not so cute.

What The Fu*k?

Yeah, baby! My big break!

I submitted this design to Max Barry because, like Scat, the protagonist in one of my favorite pieces of contemporary fiction, I want to be famous.



So far? Well, I got posted in a blog post. But unlike getting posted here in Lobster Land, this is the blog of a New York Times Bestselling author. Granted, the novel in question is not what put him on the NYT map, Syrup enjoyed commercial success comparable to the Kevorkian Exxxtra Long Bungee.

Of course, my real ambition is to be able to claim a movie prop in my portfolio. That, and I just think it would be funny to have a can which honestly states the recipe of Coke as Max stated it in the novel, one part faintly repulsive black syrup, seven parts water and forty-two parts marketing.

Department of Redundancy Department

Yeah, I know. Rockets. Again. Last night and this morning.



Thing is, Mo asks to go launch rockets because she wants to color on the street with sidewalk chalk. And Em is all about it if there are other kids she can regale with the full history of the Midwest Rock Lobster Space Program.




I think I finally got the parachute on Thor's Candycane fixed. I untied it and set it up fresh and it opened perfectly on all three of its launches today. Mr. Creosote went up four times, and the only time his parachute didn't open I think I just had the wadding wrapped around the parachute too tightly and the air couldn't get into the 'chute to open it in time. There isn't much time with him, he blows his nose cone about a 75 to 100 feet above the ground, so if it doesn't open fast it ain't gonna. He landed in the dirt, though, and was none the worse for wear, just a bit dusty.



I made the Queen Izen mistake with the Crapper and I think it's now an officially retired rocket. I could probably patch it up, it's just a couple of cracks in the roof, but I dunno. I put an A8-3 in it, knowing it has all kinds of drag. I thought I'd launched it on a B before, at least, but now I'm thinking I never put anything smaller than a C6 in it. And from the look of things, that was the way to go. He hits the ground before his recover charge can blow.



We also lost Tubester. Well, we did find his nose cone, but not the rocket. I'm building his big brother now, the ÜberTubester Chixulubster (bet you didn't know there was a rhyme for 'tubester'). ÜTC is 56 inches tall, should be considerably harder to lose.









I've also got a couple of two-stage rockets under construction. One with the booster from Two-Da-Lou (M.I.A.), the other on the same scale as Thor's Candycane and Long John Silver but with the bottom 2.75" of his 34" body tube cut off to make a booster stage. I tried the epoxy putty they sell in the plumbing section for fin fillets this time, using a wet finger to smooth it out. Not bad, not as bad as the other two epoxy putties I've tried, but it still doesn't want to smooth out like I want. It makes a kind of welded look, which is cool, but part of the idea is to decrease drag and a rough surface doesn't do that as well as a smooth one.




In other disastrous news, Delta Farce separated from its nose cone and streamer, landing on pavement and fracturing another fin. Delta Farce is famous for this, but maybe I can patch him up again. Teach me to name a rocket with a Larry the Cable Guy reference, right?



The biggest disaster, though, was Stinger. He's been with us for a long time, maybe a year now. Little guy, flies on a mini-A, he's unaccountably failed to get lost in numerous launches. There's not much doubt about his retirement after this.




My theory: a crack in the fuel. When I launched him, it sounded like a firecracker going off, and he launched, but only about twenty feet up, coming down nearby. His engine hook was by the launch rod, and his body was burned and broken into pieces. This is why they use that spongy fuel for larger model rocket engines (and for the big-boy stuff NASA flies). With a mini-A it's a horrible, violent death for some paper tubing, balsa and plastic. With a J570 it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. With the SRB on the Space Shuttle, the Challenger would be unremarkable in view of all the other vaporized missions.

Pied Piper

So Em's usually more interested in the Friendship Circle (her three best friends in the neighborhood) than she is in launching rockets. But since it was right around the corner, I asked if they wanted to ride down on their bikes and watch.



This was the difference between, 'Dad! I don't want to be here. Why do we have to launch rockets? You're obsessed! This is stupid. Mo's eating chalk. No more!' and 'This is so cool! That's Thor's Candycane and the one in the tuxedo is Mr. Creosote and look, this one is The Crapper, it's an outhouse that you can fly.'

Despite no wind at all, we did lose Buster to the tree line. Came close to losing Chief Broom, though a friendly neighborhood cyclist retrieved him before I could go get him.

The girls had a blast chasing the rockets, calling dibs over who got to carry him back.

I thought I'd repaired Thor's Candycane to where he'd open his 'chute, but it didn't open again. I think I just made the inner tube too long on him and there's too much heat when the recovery charge blows. I'm going to build a sequel but with about half the inside tube length. And with a booster stage for nights like this when he might not get lost in the trees without some extra oomph.



Speaking of boster stages. Mr. Creosote could sure use one. He just barely gets enough altitude for a parachute to open before he hits ground. Which makes him, in many ways, the perfect rocket. Still it'd be fun to see him get up and boogie a little more on windless nights, and a booster stage would do that. I might just make my next big BT-80 tube rocket a two stage, but I might just build a booster for this one instead.

I'd lubed up the launch rod and sprayed some silicone down in his launch lugs again, and he still managed to get stuck on the launch rod. So I tried him from the skinny rod, which is barely stiff enough to hold him.




So then by the time we're getting ready to go it's getting dark, fast. Here am I with four kids on bikes, three of them not my own, but who I led down and around the corner for this little fiesta. I could hardly see them, so I told them I'd drive slow behind them to light them up. Which I did.

Then this Asshead is in my rearview, his engine revving. I ignore him, watching the bikes going incredibly slowly up the street in what is rapidly becoming dark. When the Asshead's headlights went to bright, I stopped still.

'Turn off your brights,' I called out the car window.

'Hey, asshole, what's your fuckin' problem?' he shouts back.

'I'm escorting kids on bikes,' I call back, figuring this will cool his jets. I mean, this neighborhood, even the crank heads would understand that, right?

'Get them the fuck off the street,' is Asshead's reply.



Then he tried to go around me, at which point I angled my car across the street to block him and got out. Now he's suddenly rolling up his window like he's wondering if maybe he's cussed at the wrong guy. Which is fine with me. I'm not a violent man, haven't been in anything resembling fisticuffs since I was 16 (maybe younger). But this jerk is the last guy I want thinking that.

'I'm protecting them from assholes like you,' I said when he reluctantly rolled down his window again.

He proceeds to tell me how slow I was driving and to repeat that I should get my kids 'the fuck' off the street. At which point, I really wished I was David Banner so I could beat this guy to death and trash his crew cab pickup without having to be an asshole myself.



What pissed me off the more: three of the four kids (one had peeled off at her house by this point) were in my driveway scared that I was about to get killed.

I hope the Asshead in the pickup truck feels good about scaring children because he was pissed off someone had denied him the chance to endanger them. I was probably making him late for a Walker Texas Ranger rerun.

My Old 'Hood

We drove by the house that used to be Midwest Rock Lobster HQ. About a decade ago, we called this home.



It's for rent, so maybe you can go home again, but why would you?



It's a neat neighborhood in a lot of ways. If you'd lock up the bad guys, who are maybe 3% of the population there, the rest could really enjoy the amazing, cool old houses.



That, and I have to say a crowd of Mexicans popping beers around their cars on Cliff Drive didn't look like a soirée I'd join with kids in tow.



We checked out Cliff Drive, as well as the cool old houses in Scarritt Rennaissance. Including my favorite, the stone house with the Indian pillar that would be worth living in no matter what the neighborhood.



We also scoped out some of the under-performing downtown TIF projects. And saw a bike in a tree by a brewpub. I'm no Temperance Union type, but I'd say when you lose a 10-speed up a tree, it's time to look into rehab.

Pork Chops

Grilled up a bit of magic between Santa-Cali-Gon and leading the honyocks of the 'hood to the Wasteland for some rocketry action.

Santa-Cali-Gon

I couldn't stay away from this. I was going to, what with what I'd spent on the County Fair and tickets to the Greatest Show on Earth next weekend. Irish Fest is also this weekend, but it has an $8 admission, so that's $24 for three Lobsters to just walk through the gates.





I bought a lot fewer ride tickets than I'd have wanted to. There weren't unlimited passes available (I hear that's a Monday thing), but even if they were they'd have to be cheaper than the JoCo Fair unlimited ride bracelets, and fat chance of that.





I stayed off the rides except for one trip on the ferris wheel to make the tickets go farther.





They did the Tilt-A-Whirl, then the Yo-Yo. Six bucks to spin your kids around in a circle? Yeah, I know. When you can see their smile from across state lines, it's worth it.





The Himalayan was one they liked last year. I think, though, the carnies have turbo-charged it. Em sat on the outside, though she told me later she'd seen the sticker indicated the larger kid should sit to the outside. I think I could about hear her ribs cracking as Mo was pressed against her, even over the Quiet Riot they were blasting to make the ride more incomprehensibly overwhelming.





Em looked actually terrified on the Himalayan. Mortified. Horrified.

I went along on the ferris wheel. It's an expensive ride and a tame one, but I figured Mo could use some decompression after the Himalayan.




After that and Em went through the fun house (House of Rock, actually), there was tickets sufficient for them each to ride one more ride. I thought I'd prepped Mo for this, all the way back to the line for the ferris wheel, explaining how many tickets were left, about what that translated to at three or four tickets per ride.



But after the Bumble Bee, she started pointing at another ride and I told her nope, out of tickets. We can still walk around the fair, check out the booths, I told her.



At which she had a screaming fit that lasted all six blocks back to the car. Maybe the unlimited ride bracelets I bought at the JoCo Fair were a bad precedent to set...