A local RC forum turned up a good deal on a power supply and charger (and it was essentially hand-delivered to my door as well):
TP-C610 charger fed by a Much More 20a DC supply. Now I can charge the one battery I own! Getting ever closer to a RC vehicle I don’t actually have to push around my living room 🙂 …
Back in high school I spent a lot of time and money playing around with RC (Radio Controlled) cars and boats. But then I went away to university… didn’t take them with me, and sold them all at a garage sale during a summer break. That was about 15 years ago. Haven’t thought about RC since.
Last weekend a couple my sister knew from Sault Ste Marie came to visit: and the husband, Jason Liepins, wanted to go to a local GTA hobby shop to find some parts for his new RC boat. Fair enough.
So we went on a Saturday afternoon, and we had the parts we needed about 60 seconds after walking through the door. But since it was a bit of a drive to get there… may as well look around for a bit, right? What harm could that do?
Well… seeing all the changes RC has gone through in the last 15 years started to gnaw at my mind. I made it out of the shop with credit card intact… but starting browsing…. browsing random RC sites for reviews… then looking at the buy+sell forums… then Craigslist postings… Ebay… Kijiji… and before you knew it I was starting to underbid on some used equipment: not too serious about it… but pricing out what it would take to get started again.
And one of those bids was accepted. Curse you, Jason Liepins… for taking me to that hobby shop. Because I left my apartment at 6pm tonight… and returned 2 hours later with a wallet $275 lighter. But with a prize as well:
Team Associated RC8 buggy, electric conversion, with extra parts, tires, battery and servo. It has begun. This car actually doesn’t have any electronics in it, yet … it’s an expensive paperweight. But now I start again… Kijiji… Ebay… Craigslist… forums… trolling for deals to make it move…
I actually bought this back in January, but have been too busy using it to think of taking a good picture. A new Dell U2410 (left) to go with my 2405FPW (right) bought back in 2005. I’ve had 2 monitors at work for years now, and it was time to get a second for home as well.
Browsing forums running while watching TV/movies/YouTube? Check! Minecraft in one screen and map viewer in the other? Check!
Playing Spreadsheets-in-Space on both? Oh yeah! 🙂
Last week I did something a little different: Sept 19th-22nd I was in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld 2010!
Halcyon was offered a kiosk in the Solaris Pavillion, and we jumped at the chance. Iain, Pegah and I flew down on Sunday and got to attend a couple of the partner forums, and take a look around the South and West Exhibit Halls as they were being set up (our kiosk wasn’t built yet). OpenWorld takes over a block of downtown San Francisco each year, and Oracle branding and tents are all over the place. They said they expected 41000 attendees this year, the biggest ever, since they also rolled the JavaOne event into this one.
We stuck around for the Sunday keynote (which almost put me to sleep: we were missing 3 hours from the difference in timezones already, and had to get up early to fly in) .. then nibbled on some of the excellent food out in the main tent… before finally making our way back to the hotel. Where we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.
Monday the real work started: the main exhibit floors opened to the public at 9:45am, so Pegah and I had to get our laptops, scanner and paperwork sorted out. We talked to tons of people and collected many surveys as entries to our daily draw (gift certificates at ThinkGeek). And met many Sun/Oracle people who we had only previously known as voices on the phone. It was a long day, but we got to have some fun at the end of it: visiting one of Iains friends who took us out on the town in his classic car!
Tuesday and Wednesday were more of the same: talk to many many people… getting great contact info from some of them… and being ignored by the rest – the life of a vendor at a tradeshow 🙂
It was a late flight home Wednesday night, not landing back in Toronto until early Thursday morning. A successful event all around for us, with the only regret being that we didn’t get to attend the Appreciation Event on Wednesday because we wouldn’t have made our plane.
Hopefully we’ll go back next year!
Yes, yes, I did just get back from vacation last week. But I still took last Friday off to head out to Kashaga Lodge with BJ and Wayne… to ride the great trails around Gooderham! I was itching to get out again, after fixing the blowout of the cam cover gasket (puking oil all over itself and my leg)…
…and putting on the replacement rear rotor…
…and switching to a nice new clean NoToil air filter:
The ride up was long, mostly because of traffic trying to get out of Toronto on a Friday afternoon, but we had BJ’s collection of Ricky Gervais podcasts to keep us occupied, and 2 GPS’s to steer us in the right direction. Plus an energetic dog: Jasper: to keep us all awake:
Finally, we arrived!:
It was a nice little cabin! Propane for the hot water and a couple lights, and a generator to run the water pump, lights, TV, microwave, and anything else we needed to plug in. We didn’t use the TV or microwave at all, and the propane lights and oil lamps provided more than enough light in the evenings… meaning we hardly started the generator at all. Toilet was an outhouse out back, but that’s no big deal for a few guys. Lots of room: bunk beds in both bedrooms and a fold-out couch, plus a screened in porch, deck, and BBQ!
…and lots of wood for a fire if you want one:
The cabin had a direct connection to the local trails, so we didn’t need to take the roads to get to them. Threw our gear inside, and went for a quick exploration ride Friday evening… after putting some air in Waynes back tire 🙂
Saturday had us up bright and early: picked up some food at the local general store, and breakfast at the truck stop. Saw a flash of 3 deer crossing the road, but didn’t get the camera out soon enough to snap all of them:
Finally we filled up our tanks and headed out. Here Wayne is about to down a shot of premix (he lost a bet 🙂 ):
Trails were wide but rocky, and you couldn’t go more than 30 seconds without plowing through some sort of puddle. Though “puddles” in Gooderham are perhaps larger than us folk from the GTA are used to (but I only got stuck once, hooray!):
Wayne’s bike was built back in 1974 (it’s older then I am!) and had less clearance than the rides BJ and I were on… and the rocks took their toll. Mostly on the pegs, shifter, and rear brake. If they were slight bent they were kicked back into place. If they were more bent they we got out the wrenches….
…but if they were really bent, we got out the axe! 🙂
(we actually didn’t chop any wood with the axe, it was strictly for percussive maintenance)
Wayne also had a problem with his throttle. And by “problem” I mean “it was an on/off switch” (that seemed to prefer the “on” position). After a couple near-misses with him hurtling down the trail WFO we worked on the throttle:
…until it at least looked OK again:
But during the ride after lunch…
…riding through more water and sand, it finally gave up. We tore it down on the trail and found it infused with mud:
We got it fixed, but if we hadn’t had the tools we still would have been OK, as a couple of quads came by while we were playing mechanic (I think we only saw 3 quads all weekend?)
Evenings found us sampling beverages, reviewing our rides from the GPS and helmetcam files, and even watching some Russel Peters on BJs laptop. Oh, and playing with toys you can buy at the gas station for a couple bucks 🙂 . Sunday we packed up early: which worked up well, because after breakfast and a trip to the general store for a clamp to reattach Waynes air filter:
…the heavens opened up and poured for the next couple hours: it was raining all the way back to Toronto. We had time to visit Ken Hoeverman (OFTR President) to say hi, chat about the area, and oogle his tire tree and spare bike collection…
…before making our way home. I had a great time! Cabin was comfortable, BJ and Wayne were excellent, funny riding partners, and there were more trails than we had time to ride.
Special thanks to Ken McPhail and his staff at Kashaga Lodge for making us feel at home, and helping make sure we got settled in!
Finally, moving pictures! In colour! With sound!
Hooray! I managed to get in on the ATV tour I was hoping for. I was worried about them not having room, but it turns out that since it was the day before the July 4 holiday, and the off-season… there were only 4 of us on the ride, including the leader.
Woke up early Saturday, got some gas, and set the cruise control… almost 2 hours later I pulled into the parking lot where the team was already offloading the quads.
Filled out some paperwork, grabbed helmet/gloves and some water and snacks, then we were led through a brief exercise to make sure we knew how to get around 🙂
Then we were off! Crawling down the sand tracks and through the forest:
About 10 miles later we stopped for a quick drink, then headed out again.
We only found one fallen tree too large to pull out of the way, and few puddles. The entire trail was pure sand the entire trip: not a root or rock in site:
A few times we came across other quads (most utility, and a couple sport), but no dirtbikes. We could always see them coming well in advance and everyone was keeping to safe speeds:
Then another quick break in a campsite (that’s apparently packed in the regular season) then we headed back to the lot, stopping for some group photos…
…and “action shots” through the largest puddle we could find 🙂
I had a great time, and it was nice to be back out on some sort of ORV… since my dirtbike has been parked for a month now. Hopefully I’ll get to go out again this weekend: weather looks hot!
Ok, not quite Tinkertown, but close. If reading Tinkertown didn’t make you excited… then you’re not from Kenora 🙂
I was sent to Orlando for 3 days of work. Since that only covered Mon-Wed… and Thursday is Canada Day… that meant I could squeeze in a few days vacation in sunny Florida and only burn a single vacation day before coming back!
First thing’s first: if I’m paying for this… it’s gonna be cheap: I’ll stay in a cardboard box to save a few bucks (as long as it has WiFi 🙂 ). Goodbye nice hotel paid for by work… hello $40/night motel! Surprisingly it’s clean, has a full kitchenette, and the staff have been super friendly (and it has a convenience store on the first floor… and is next door to a KFC, wooo!)
With 3 days to play with, I decided on one day of rides, one of getting wet, and one in the dirt (if I can find a dirtbike/ATV place).
Day 1
Turns out my hotel is only about a 15min drive from Islands of Adventure:
The had opened a new Harry Potter ride a short while ago, which apparently had a 4-hour lineup the first couple days. Today it was still 70+ minutes… so I skipped it. Too many people: I would have liked to try something new… but when I can read one of the books while waiting my turn, that’s a bit much.
Lots of other rides to go on: saw the Sinbad show…
…and got soaked on a couple of rides. This one was the worst: between splashing through waves and the water jets aimed at you I stepped off completely drenched…
…which worked out well, since at about 4:15pm the heavens opened up, and because I was already wet I could still walk between rides while other guests ducked for cover.
But then it _really_ started to rain, with some thunder and lightning, and all the coasters had to shut down. But I don’t think Universal made any less money, since they charged $8 for a plastic poncho!
I took in a couple indoor events (3D Spider-Man was cool), but after trying to wait out the rain for an hour I had to go…
…because I got one of the last tickets to the Blue Man Group! Great show! But it was raining hard when I had to walk over there (parts of the park didn’t have good drainage: the sidewalks had 3″ of water on them). And it was still raining lightly when I left. That turned out alright in the end… since I could still re-enter the park with my day pass, and between 8pm and 9pm I managed to knock off the coasters with the long lines I had skipped earlier. The Incredible Hulk coaster had a 45min wait all day, but I rode it twice in 20 minutes!
Then I explored City Walk a bit on the way back to the car: lots of restaurants and clubs open after you’re done with Universal.
Day 2
Lots of water parks to choose from: I decided on Blizzard Beach. But first I needed some watersocks and breakfast. Where to go? There’s a Walmart on the way, with McDonalds inside 🙂
It was only about a 25-minute drive from the hotel, I was there in no time! (lots of cops w/radar on those roads!)
Not too many pictures from today, since I couldn’t really do waterslides or the wave pool with a digital camera in my shorts. But I did grab the camera while having lunch: their big thing is a chairlift to get up to the largest slides.
There was a bit of a drizzle in the morning which kept people away so I got to try the most popular slides several times before lines really started to form. It was a bit couldy all day, but plenty warm, and I was out of there by around 2:30: totally waterlogged. (probably because their lazy river takes 20-30 minutes to make a loop and I went around a few times 🙂 )
Tomorrow I’m trying to see if there’s room for me on an ATV tour in a park North of Orlando. I’m crossing my fingers!
…ah, dodgy Li-ion batteries, strapped to my head… what could go wrong?
I wanted to get another battery for my ContourHD helmetcam… but for such a small battery they aren’t cheap! So I dug around the VholdR forums and Ebay… and found that I could get 2 aftermarket batteries shipped to my door for less than the price of a single OEM (even before tax+shipping!). So I send $28.53 US to Lion Battery and a week later they arrived in a small padded envelope.
The packaging said they were made in China by Cameron Sino. Some of the OEM battery ads made a point of saying that some aftermarket batteries had a poor fit… but at first glance the Cameron Sino copies appeared to be the same size (aftermarket on left, OEM on right):
…but when you put them in the camera you can see that they’re a bit thinner: if you wrapped a piece of paper around them (or a thicker sticker) they would be a perfect fit (aftermarket on top, OEM on bottom)
I charged and discharged all of my batteries a few times and recorded run times (2 used OEM, 2 new aftermarket). It was easy enough to do: just turn on the camera… come back when it’s dead… and then look at the length of the video files it recorded. The averaged results:
OEM runtime: 2h38min
Aftermarket runtime: 1h50min
…in other words the Cameron Sino batteries only had about 70% of the capacity of the OEMs… though the advertising/packaging claims the same 1050mAh capacity of the originals. This wasn’t a huge surprise: I’m well aware of what I’m getting when I buy cheap batteries from Ebay. In this case it turned out to be a deal. Why? If I ordered 2 batteries from the site I linked above (that says they’re on sale) it costs $65.98 for the batteries, $3.30 for tax, and $5.70 for the cheapest shipping (= $74.98). The 28.53US I paid is $30.06 Canadian… 40% of the OEM price.
So, 70% of the runtime, for 40% of the price. And they still last over 1h45m before I have to swap them out. That’s a deal!
I’ve been too lazy to edit the videos of our ride in Barrie last Saturday… but that can be a job for later this week 🙂 . Yesterday my friend BJ gave me a spot on his trailer, and we headed out with 3 other guys (Dan, Jeff, and Rob) to Ganaraska Forest again.
I tried to bake my pictures into the YouTube video this time… but I still had few other shots to post. The first being something you don’t see every day: an elderly man that rode his electric scooter to the gas station… to fill up a Jerry Can?!?
The ride started out well enough: we tried some new trail South of Wilcox road, until Dans bike lost power and we couldn’t restart it (even after trying new plugs)
While BJ and Rob looked at the bike… I looked at Robs nice Suzuki… to discover BP doesn’t have the market cornered in environmental disasters 🙂
Eventually we had to tow Dans bike back to the parking lot…but not before I kinda sorta mangled a couple of Robs tiedowns in my rear sprocket, oops (sorry Rob!):
Jeff had had enough for the day, and Dan had to put his bike back on his trialer, so Rob, BJ and I headed back out. Visited a couple of the hills and The Lookout, then had some lunch. While picking up some food we met a real friendly guy who asked about our helmetcams (hi Richard!) so I gave him a link to this site and BJs YouTube page (Xhumeka). After a quick bite to eat we got back on the bikes and made our way to the Forest Center… just as the Trail Tours team pulled in as well:
The rest of the trip was uneventful: though we seemed to find a lot more whooped-out trails heading back to the parking lot that we found leaving it. I managed to retain my spark arrestor (the screw that holds it in fell out someplace):
…but I still haven’t figured out how I bent my license plate back almost under my fender. It was OK after I wrapped the tiedowns in my chain… and after I fell over at the top of sand hill… I can’t think of what else I hit? I bent it most of the way back… but it shattered the metal plate mount around it so I must have whacked something pretty hard? Strange:
Other than Dans problems, it was a great day! Forecast was for rain or thundershowers… but the rain held off all day: can’t wait to go again!
Now… on to the moving pictures…
This past Sunday I was out in Ganaraska forest again… but not for a regular ride: this time it was a club event: the Mini Pine 2010!
Getting out of bed before 6 and on the road by 6:30 had me rolling in to Sandraska Park at around 8:15am:
I thought I was a bit early… but the lot was already over half full, and filling up fast!
I had never seen so many bikes in one place before!
And trailers kept rolling in with more: from golden oldies to bikes that looked like they were fresh out of the crate:
In addition to the OFTR trailer there were some vendors present as well: KTM, Yamaha, Husaberg and Gas Gas… some with bikes for sale…
… as well as some private owners with sale signs on their bikes, big and small:
I saw some people I knew…
…and met others while chatting in line… which didn’t start to shorten until close to 10am:
Finally everyone mobbed together for the kickoff meeting: to learn how the enduro guys would launch, how the trails were flagged, safety stuff etc…
…then everyone headed back to their bikes to suit up.
There were 44 groups of enduro riders (up to 4 in a group), all launched one minute apart from each other (so that’s at least 150+ bikes right there) before the trail riders could head out. Soon the low numbered bikes started to line up for the 10:15 start:
The trickle of bikes lining up soon turned to a flood…
…with the most popular brand being KTM by a wide margin. I’d guess the second most popular brand I saw was Yamaha… but maybe that’s just what I wanted to see (because I ride one 🙂 )
Finally the launches started… taking 45 minutes to get all the enduro guys out into the field.
Most of the trail riders just watched, though a few were queued up at the start area to get a jump on things. Lots of kids on smaller bikes with their parents!
Half way through was a gas stop. Anyone who couldn’t make the whole loop in one tank put their jerry cans on a large trailer… and while the riders were making their way through the first section the trailer was towed to the gas stop for them. I should have been able to ride the whole day on one tank but:
a) the gas station I normally use didn’t open until 10 on Sundays… so I was still riding on the same tank that brought me from Toronto
b) I had also sprung a leak: one of my 2 fuel lines was dripping gas fairly quickly. Every time I pulled over I fiddled with it to make it stop… but as soon as I started the bike up again the vibration would cause the leak to come back.
But, since I’m street-legal… I just rode to the gas station while the others used their jerry cans 🙂
Then we were off again:
I think I only fell off once in the first loop… but 3 more times in the second stage (I was getting tired)… but finally bikes started to cross the finish line:
…the same time as the local fire department fired up their grills and started to offer burgers and hot dogs!
Not long after I parked some strangers popped out of the forest as well: a group of horse riders must have been dodging bikes all day.. and ended up coming out at the finish line. After thinking about it for a sec they crossed under the same canopy where the enduro riders checked in… to great applause from the huge lineup at the BBQ 🙂
Finally, here’s some YouTube footage of the event from my camera and helmetcam:
I had a great time… though I was tired and sore by the time I rolled back into Toronto around 5pm. I can’t wait until next year! Since the enduro portion is nothing too serious… maybe I’ll give it a go!