My recent trip to Dayton, Ohio has markings everywhere as reminders of the Wright brothers being the first to have a powered aircraft successfully take a man into flight. I got to see a reconstruction of their workshop, wind tunnel for airfoil testing, some of their original aircraft and videos of some of their failures and successes.
The desire they had was great, but they were by no means great designers and it took a few years of testing and retesting to get a engine powered plane to fly more than a few seconds with control.
I've started watching a few YouTube videos about their work, the secrecy as they learned others globally were attempting the same thing. They had a patent in the United States for the design, but that means nothing in Europe and other experimenters were right behind the Wrights.
The one thing I read/saw was they based some of the steering in wing bending that was evident in soaring birds. A competitor had a fixed wing and used adjustable flaps called ailerons to control the steering. Fortunately for the Wright brothers, their documented flights were the first.
Probably the smartest thing the Wright brothers did was to avoid a flapping wing design as it proved to be the biggest flop in mankind attempting to fly like a bird!
I came across this video of such disasters in the early days of manned flight.
Funny now, but I'm sure many were injured and killed in their attempts.
It's amazing how many 'test pilots' wore suits and ties.
It looks like we missed having Halloween with a Full Moon by a few days. I was out walking at 7am and the western sky was lit up by a full moon and only a few clouds.
I did some traveling this past weekend that involved airports with interconnecting flights, museums and sporting events. I passed through Atlanta, Georgia and much of my vacation was in Ohio. Dayton and a day in Columbus.
I noticed people... lots of people.
While the weather was very good (by any standard) we had a little drizzle rain and cool temperatures the first few days then amazing sunny, clear that went from freezing in the early morning to mid 60's (Fahrenheit) in the afternoon. I wore a long-sleeve polo with a jeans jacket and never felt cold. We went to a high-school soccer game on a cold night and those kids were in normal long sleeved pullovers with no additional coats. The spectators mostly had winter coats
It's safe to say that in cold climates, people tend to shower less often than people in hot climates. Fortunately, I didn't get a whiff of someone who's 38 hour antibacterial soap quit working. I did see something unexpected... lots of guys with dandruff. It shows up on dark clothing.
Up until this trip, I would have thought dandruff would have faded away like leprosy, where you've only heard stories and seen photos, but never had a close encounter with a leper.
Treatments for dandruff are everywhere. It's in shampoos, topical liquids... Listerine mouthwash is said to cure dandruff. So, there's no excuse.
I heard of a song Stormy Monday and I heard of an adult model Stormy Daniels, but today the New York courtroom Stormy Wednesday... or was that Stormy Donald?
Not a good day for Donald J. Trump as he was fined $10,000 for violating a gag order by speaking to reporters outside the courthouse.
After, Michael Cohen was on the stand and said Trump never directly instructed him to inflate the value of his assets. Trump's lawyers asked the judge to issue a direct verdict in Trump's favor on the grounds that their case had been proved. The judge denied the motion.
It was reported Trump threw up his hands, said "I'm leaving" and walked out of the courtroom.
Out side, he told reporters "The witness just admitted that we won the trial... and the judge should end this trial immediately.
That said, It won't surprise me if another fine for gag order violation is forthcoming.
Link:
I've often heard famous people (musicians especially) die in groups of 3. This month it's Jimmy Buffet, Steve Harwell and now Gary Wright. Pretty sad as they all died from extreme health related issues....
A few times a year I say I'm going to do a timeline of everything I can think of. My brother and I were discussing the cars we owned and I can recall all of them and the sequence, but I'm unsure of the year for each car.
I know when I started flying model helicopters, but unsure when I quit, started again, quit and started again.
I recently connected with 2 cousins who retired in Florida. One is about 3 miles from me and his brother about 11 miles away. We are filling in the timeline of family events.
This is going to be an interesting project as they have seen different sides to the same story that my brother and I experienced.
Scott Hall, one of 19 defendants charged in the 2020 election interference case in Georgia, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors Friday, making him the first defendant in the case to do so.
Since his charges were a misdemeanor, his plea deal requires him to serve five years of probation, pay a fine of $5,000 and serve 200 hours of community service. A condition of the plea deal requires Hall to testify in any future proceedings.
Story:
Good wax figures make history and bad wax figures even better history.
One of the latest figures to make the news is Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's figure at the Grévin Museum in Paris. Basically... it doesn't look like Dwayne.
The link had me laughing at how bad the wax statues were.
Celine Dion wasn't close... boobs are too big, wrong hair texture, different nose.
Link:
Travels yesterday took us to the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio. Probably a 50 minute ride from Dayton to see the things in and around Ohio dating back hundreds of years. It was a taxidermist heaven to see settings of animals, deer, wolves, beavers, foxes... you get the picture. How many times do you get to see a 2-headed calf?
There was a cutting of a tree over 145 years old and they had a plastic overlay showing some of the notable things that happened in time and what years the rings appeared.
Lots of agricultural displays, actual farming tools that were used in that era. There was a section on WWI showing the weaponry of guns, uniforms, helmets, a section of kitchen appliances over the years, horse drawn buggies and some early vehicles including locomotive advancements and patented items like a train designed to climb mountains. I got to see a machine used to make car tires and tools used in the fabrication of machinery.
That was a few hours in the museum and an hour riding around the city to see a historic section of houses more than 100 years old.
On Friday, I got to visit the Carillon Historical Park, with some of the oldest buildings in the Dayton area. There were a few hundred displays of things & photos of the made here. NCR cash registers, DELCO automotive parts, Huffy bicycles, Frigidaire refrigerators for example. The Charles Kettering display had a moving mannequin describing some of his inventions and experiences.
The main attraction was the Wright Brothers National Museum where they had recreations of the bicycle store and workshop where they started propeller design and testing models that eventually lead to the building of their aircraft.
A small auditorium was playing movies with actual film footage of their experimental aircraft. I had no idea of the number of failures they experienced getting a working airplane and how they went to Europe to demonstrate it's flight and dispel the rumors as other inventors were very close in their attempts of manned flight.
I'm in Dayton, Ohio for a few days and wasted no time checking out some of the interesting things around the city. Wikipedia lists the Dayton Art Institute as one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States. Founded in 1919, and moved to a new building in 1930, it contains more than 20,000 objects spanning 5,000 years.
Initially, walking through the first corridor had drawings on the walls that looked like they were done by school kids and not professional artists. I had a feeling of 'I could do this shit' but it wasn't until 30 minutes of moving from room-to-room that the 'real' artwork started to appear and some really amazing paintings, sculptures and artifacts were on display. Most of the works were behind glass, some had railings as a reminder not to touch, some were in pedestals with acrylic covers so you can walk around and see the work from all views.
Photos were permitted as long as you didn't use a flash. The problem I found was surrounding lighting reflections in the protective glass often obscure the things I wanted to photograph and moving the camera to an angle where the reflections were minimized distorted the view so it was nearly a waste.
For me, the most impressive painting was called 'woman of the directory 1883' by American artist Charles Sprague Pearce who was active in France. From 4 feet away it had photo-like qualities. I Googled the name and there's a company AllPainter selling reproductions of his work for a few hundred dollars.
More later~~
A guy tries for weeks to get a date with a woman who is a social media influencer. She claims she was bored and agreed to go out. Her choice was a place called Fontaine’s Oyster House where they claim to have the freshest oysters in the city.
The Tuesday's special was a dozen oysters for $15.
When she was on the 4th dozen of oysters with Tabasco sauce, looking for some cocktails, crab cakes and potatoes. He excuses himself to the restroom, only not to return.
The woman video tapes the event to post to TikTok and it gets more than 5 million views.
The waiter recognized the woman and stated "She's here every Tuesday"
Story link:
TikTok link:
@equanaaa/video/7288609310525918506?is_from_webapp=1&web_id=7276123114270066218
(if the long string is broken, you have to copy & paste it into your browser as one)
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