Checked the mail this morning and I FINALLY got word on my N-Number registration. Effective May 27th, N325MK is mine. I will have to renew it every year now until it is painted on the side of an airplane, but it is officially mine now .

Several people asked me “why ‘N325MK’? ” … seriously, just think about it a little while and it might come to you .

This is a cross posting, linking to my other website where I posted about testing in martial arts this past weekend.

Topics like this, i have trouble figuring out which site to put them on. Martial Arts is a big part of my life, as such I know it takes its toll on Katherine and our relationship and belongs on this website.

At the same time, I find Martial Arts to be deeply personal (I’ve never invited anyone to one of my promotion ceremonies, and very rarely invite anyone to a demo where I will be performing). 

Katherine has been hugely supportive for me with my martial arts training, and I know that it frustrates and angers her at times. That support makes me love her and want to be with her even more.

 Anyway, here is the direct link to the other posting on the-forgotten.org:

 http://www.the-forgotten.org/2008/06/03/karate-testing/

While we were in Florida we went to a crab place for dinner. Hating any and all sea food I ordered hot wings (the hottest on the menu) and a burger. Katherine ordered gator bites as an appetizer. She then asked if i would try them, and I politely said no (read as: “Hell NO!”). After the wings and the gator bites came out Katherine asked again, and I said I would if she tried one of the wings.

At the time i figured i was going to hate the gator bite and her mouth would be on fire. Regretably, The outcome was that I liked the gator bite and her mouth was on fire.

Gator bites taste a lot like veal, so if you like baby cow you’d probably like a gator bite. There isn’t a fishy smell/flavor to them at all, which surprised me. I still feel kinda bad about her taking that wing …

I’ve uploaded all the vacation photos i have to SmugMug. Check`em out.

This is one that my brother took, i like it the best i think:

An N-Number is the identification numbers assigned to American aircraft. Think of it as a license plate for the sky. When you make radio calls you always prefix your call with your N-Number.

This morning I reserved one for the plane I plan on building. Been trying to find a good one that wasn’t already taken for a while now. When i’m done with the plane I don’t want some random, meaningless, number painted on the side of my brand spanking new aircraft.

N325MK has been submitted to the FAA for approval. In 3 weeks or less I should find out if the FAA approves of my request and get my information. Then all I need to do is actually build the thing .

(For the uninitiated, that N-Number is read as “November 3 – 2 – 5 – Mike – Kilo”)

This came through my RSS feed moments ago, and I must say that I absolutely love the ideas on it.

Top 10 Ways to get Cables Under Control

Having just rewired my desk, i still haven’t gotten my gadgets and cables the way that I would like them too be. I might have to try some of these out after i finish cleaning my room up and regain some resemblance of order to my home life.

One other device that i’ve been looking at is called the CableYoYo … i think that combined with some of the ideas in that post will be the utopia of desktop cable management using a Laptop.

Do you Twitter?

For those not in the know, twitter is a service that lets you send out short messages to all your friends. The messages can’t be more than 140 characters in length and ANYone that subscribes to your feed sees all of your messages.

Annoying? sometimes, it depends on how you use it. If you have it send all the tweets, twitter messages, to your cell phone as text messages it gets annoying fast. However, it DOES have its place and that place is also with text messages to your phone.

I first learned about twitter when a friend of mine was having a baby. He would send out all the updates and then the actual birth. All his friends and family were watching it, and I had it going to my cell phone via text. That was a good use of the service.

Another good use is when you are trying to coordinate an event with a group of people. Yes, other people will get the tweets as well, but it doesn’t really matter. they’ll just ignore them.

Other people use them as a mini-blog. Kinda like “I’m at the coffee shop, reading a book. Stop by to say hey” or “I’m STILL sitting in traffic.” The first example is good twitter usage. The second is bad twitter usage. If you can’t tell the difference, please stop reading now.

ANYway, my point is that its a pretty good service. You can get updates via Text messages, Instant Messages (Google Talk, its like AIM but better), going to their website, or various desktop applications.

My preference is a small desktop application that works like an RSS or email reader and has a single line field that you can post Tweeks with. That way i can see some of the interesting Tweets from my friends, but only when i take the time to look at the application. Very unobtrusive.

If anyone that reads this site uses twitter, post your name in the comments and i’ll be sure to start following you. My twitter name is mbond …

It would be interesting to see how twitter works via various circles of friends. Also I’d like to encourage people that aren’t using it to give it a try. I’d be interested to see how it works for people.

Space invaders, Tetris, Frogger. I’m doomed.

http://www.neave.com/games/