I took my WowWee Flytech Dragonfly on a car-camping trip last weekend. It’s an ornithopter that looks like an oversized dragonfly on steroids. We had access to a large open field and were able to get the Dragonfly up to around 100 feet in the air — about the limit of the remote control.
Here’s a short, grainy video by Popular Mechanics, shot at CES in 2007. Note that the pilot is good enough to make the dragonfly alight in his hand at the end.
Here’s another short “review” by a kid who calls himself “Mongo.” He’s actually a pretty good pilot.
Tips and Observations:
1. If there’s enough wind that it’s making the trees move then it’s probably too windy to run the Dragonfly.
2. I purchased the 27Mhz version at Toys-R-Us for $20 about two years ago. It appears that they’re now closer to $40 and only exist in a 49Mhz version. This may partly be a function of it now being September, rather than the Holiday Season.
3. The Dragonfly charges in about 15-20 minutes, which will provide about 7-10 minutes of flight. When it starts to look “tired” then it’s time for a recharge.
4. The toy turns everyone who sees it into a kid again. One time I had a very excited middle-aged guy walk across a big expanse of grass to ask me about it, his bemused wife in tow.
I love the idea of Mobile Chowdown – putting a bunch of food trucks in one place and letting people go to town. They do it daily in Portland, SF and LA, but not in Seattle (stupid Flanders…I mean city council and health department) To get around this, we have one off events called Mobile Chowdowns – usually in some parking lot somewhere. This time around it is at Qwest Field:
Mobile Chowdown is coming to Qwest Field north parking lot on Friday, October 1st. Gates open at 5 p.m.!
This works out nicely for me (and Annie S.) – there is also a Mariners game that night. Guess I will be hitting the Chowdown before the game. Tickets are $7 in advance (without the usual Ticketmaster rape fee) or $10 at the door.
Well, Top Chef, Season 7 is in the books. I will write my observations on who won after the jump so I don’t spoil it for anyone who has not seen it yet.
I will be honest; I skipped the 5 episodes leading to the finals because, frankly, this season just wasn’t that interesting. There was a twist on the final this season which I did like – the chefs had to make a 4 course meal: one vegetable, one fish, one meat and one dessert. There were no restrictions on the vegetable or dessert, but the fish course had to feature Red Mullet and the meat course had to feature duck. The chefs also had to incorporate a couple additional ingredients into their courses somewhere – pork belly, black cockles and cuttlefish. The chefs also had the use of a past winner as sous chef – Hung, Ilan and Michael Voltaggio were available and the chefs drew knives to determine whom they got (more on this below).
By Blaidd Drwg
In looking at the AL East standings this morning after the Sox swept the Mariners, you will see this:
W-L
GB
Games Remaining
Home
Road
Rays
88-57
—
17
9
8
Yankees
88-58
.5
16
7
9
Red Sox
82-64
6.5
16
9
7
The Yankees just happen to be leading the wild card race, so that means the Sox are also just 6 games back from making the playoffs. The 6 game spread between the Yankees and Red Sox seems pretty insurmountable with just 16 games left in the season, right? Well, maybe not.
One thing we need to consider is schedules – the Sox are 42-30 at home this season, so having more home than road games remaining is a big advantage for them. Here are the remaining schedules for the Rays, Yankees and Sox:
Red Sox
Yankees
Rays
Opponent
G
W-L
Opponent
G
W-L
Opponent
G
W-L
Vs TOR
3
73-73
@BAL
3
58-88
Vs LAA
3
71-74
Vs BAL
3
58-88
Vs TB
4
88-57
@ NYY
4
88-58
@ NYY
3
88-58
Vs BOS
3
82-64
Vs SEA
3
55-91
@ CWS
4
79-66
@ TOR
3
73-73
Vs BAL
3
58-88
Vs NYY
3
88-58
@ BOS
3
82-64
@ KC
4
60-85
Total
16
386-343
Total
16
383-346
Total
17
332-396
Obviously the Rays have the easiest schedule the rest of the way, even with the 4 game series in NY. I think if they split that series, the Rays effectively win the division. It gets a bit more interesting between NY and Boston. They both have 16 games left and play each other 6 of those times. The next 6 games or so will tell where the Sox destiny lies – if they manage to take 5 of the next 6 and the Yankees drop 3 of the next 6 (lets say they go 2-1 in Baltimore and 1-2 vs. TB), that would move the Sox to 4 back of the Yankees. Assuming they both have the same record in their non head-to-head match-ups, the Sox would need to take 4 of 6 to force a playoff, a scenario that is tough, but not out of the question.
If you asked me last weekend if the Sox had a chance, I would have told you no way in hell – they had just lost back to back games with the A’s in Oakland and had to come to Seattle where they typically play poorly. Well, after taking the last game in Oakland and sweeping the Mariners and coupled with the 2-8 stretch the Yankees are on, right now I am not so sure we should be burying the body – I think there might be a faint sign of a pulse there.
The Mariners have hit 90 home runs as a team this season, which is currently tied for last in the AL with the A’s. That is awful. To put it in perspective, the M’s have 2 guys who have double digit home runs – Gutierrez and Branyan, and Branyan leads the team with 14 and he wasn’t even playing in Seattle before July.
The Mariners lineup in last night’s game has hit 56 HR on the season, the AL leader in HR as of last night, Jose Bautista, has hit 46 HR on the season. Normally I would use the excuse that it is a meaningless September game for the M’s and they are getting guys playing time. Unfortunately, the M’s played most of their regulars last night.
It amazes me that the Red Sox stuck around the playoff race as long as they did – their outfield last night: Josh Reddick, Daniel Nava and Ryan Kalish, all rookies. It is a far cry from the OF they started the season with – JD Drew, Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury.
The Old Willie Bloomquist
Matt Tuiasosopo is the new Willie Bloomquist. He is a guy who is probably a good 25th man because he can play 7 positions but can’t hit his way out of a paper bag and is probably a good clubhouse guy because he is just “happy to be here”. Managers love these type of guys and then fall in love with them, finding a way to put them in the lineup on a semi-regular basis. I understand that Tacoma is playing for the AAA championship and that has prevented the M’s from calling anyone up and that Michael Saunders is hurt, but can you honestly tell me that there is no better option in LF than Tuiasosopo? (Rob Neyer had a wonderfully snarky post about Bloomquist here)
Local product Jon Lester dominated the Mariners once again giving up 1 run with 12 K’s in 8 innings. Last time in Seattle, he had 13K’s and took a no-hitter into the 8th inning before imploding.
The game time was 2:23 last night – impressive considering the Red Sox average game time this season is significantly over 3 hours.
The attendance for last night’s game – 19,063. That is far and away the lowest attendance at a Red Sox-Mariners game that I have been to in the 7 years I have been here. Heck, I can’t remember the last time that I was at any Red Sox game the attendance was that low, in any stadium (it may have been sometime back in 2001).
2. Having no space for a garden, and a lack of desire to do things like “weed.”
I thought I’d give a “self-watering” planter a try.
Self watering planter. Note the Rubik's Cube for "scale."
This picture was taken after I’d pruned about 12″ of leggy stems off of the tops — the plants have grown well enough that the neighbors are taking note of it and dropping hints about how they’d love some basil.
The planter itself has a reservoir in the bottom, and a water feed tube down one side. There are basically “pillars” of soil that go down two of the corners. The soil in the main part of the container then draws up the water osmotically. The result is that the soil is never too wet and never too dry. Basil seems to like it.
What I’ve learned about basil and the self watering planter:
1. Basil hates it (read: dies) when the temperature drops below 50 degrees F. In Seattle this means waiting to plant until at least late May, or rolling the planter inside at night. (My version has wheels, which is a nice feature.)
2. Flower buds on basil need to be pinched off as they develop, at least every few days.
3. Last year I purchased young basil plants in May, and they were small. This year I bought much bigger plants at Fred Meyer in the middle of June. The small plants cost about $1.49. The larger plants cost $2.99. Both of the batches were the same ending size, and I avoided six weeks of “babysitting” by going with the larger, later season plants.
4. Even though the planter is “self-watering” it still needs to be watered at least every couple of days. When the afternoon temperatures get above about 75 or 80 degrees it needs to be watered every day.
5. Basil requires a few hours of direct sun daily. Dawn until about 10:30am seems to work well.
The planter should be available at any reasonably good-sized garden supply store/nursery for about $40-50. Mine allows for a 3×2 grid of plants. Here’s a slightly smaller version. Here’s another that’s similar to mine (note that the caster option is $10 extra.)
I always start by assuming that Clayton is correct. Then, if I don’t agree with him, I figure I must have missed something. However —
Here’s what I think:
McNabb and new coach Mike Shanahan will score 3-5 more points per game than the 2009 Redskins. A big part of that will be (or should be) attributed to the upgrade from Zorn to Shanahan.
The Eagles won’t miss McNabb. Philadelphia was 5th in the league in scoring last year, so some regression back to the pack is figured in the chart below. Kevin Kolb will be an All-Pro within three years.
The Raiders will make a big leap forward with Jason Campbell. Part of that will be due to JaMarcus Russell’s release, simple addition by subtraction.
To sum up:
Donovan McNabb — Overrated.
Jason Campbell — Very underrated.
Kevin Kolb — Mostly unknown commodity, but not for long.
Recently hired offensive line coach Alex Gibbs has left the Seahawks.
I had originally started to write about Alex Gibbs on January 15 — according to the “Properties” of the piece I’ve been messing with for a while. That’s eight months ago. Evidently I think it’s more interesting now that he’s gone.
Of all the offseason hires by Pete Carroll, the biggest and most ballyhooed was the addition of offensive line coach Alex Gibbs to his Seahawks coaching staff.
Gibbs, 69, was heralded as the guru of zone blocking and one of the most-respected assistants in the NFL.
He was the guy who could take late-round draft picks of marginal talent and mold them into a lean, mean fighting machine that would mow down opposing defensive lines with their cut-blocking skills and open up creases to revive Seattle’s ground game.
He was the man excited about the potential of first-round draft pick Russell Okung, the fellow whose familiarity with veteran guard Ben Hamilton made him a perfect fit, the perfectionist who was cussing and yelling and setting a tough tone for Seattle’s rebuilding line at every practice…
Here’s a couple of excerpts from what I’d written:
One of the coaches joining Pete Carroll in Seattle is Joe Gibbs’ kid, Alex Gibbs. Alex’s recent history includes coaching the offensive line in Denver from 1995-2003. In 2004 Gibbs went to Atlanta, staying on as a consultant from 2005-2006. Finally, in 2008-2009 he served as the offensive line coach with Houston. His resume also includes stops in Kansas City, Indianapolis, San Diego, and with the Los Angeles Raiders. His teams are usually among the league leaders in rushing yards…
[Insert Really Cool Chart That Requires A Bunch Of Work That Somehow Never Got Finished Here]
…besides producing 1,000 yard rushers, the teams in Denver were famous for something else — the offensive linemen would consistently take cracks at the knees of the opposing defensive line. Each week the defensive linemen would say: “Yeah, no. I think I’ll take the week off and protect my knees and career.” The Denver running backs would use that opportunity to run wild. Remember when Magic had 42 points in the All-Star game because nobody wanted to get within 20 feet of him? Yeah, that.
Personally I think that strategy is pretty distasteful. I’d guess if the Seahawks win the fans will look the other way. Do the ends justify the means?
The Greg Johns piece goes into some detail as to the whys and wherefores of Alex Gibbs’ departure. It’s a good piece, and well worth reading for Seahawks fans.
I think it fundamentally comes down to just a few things:
1. Gibbs prefers small, agile linemen. Pete Carroll is building a “big” team. It’s a post for another day, but I’ll bet this years Seahawks as a group are on average at least 1/2″ taller than last year, and at least 5 pounds heavier.
2. The Seahawks offensive line is in a shambles, and Gibbs doesn’t want his good name associated with it. (Pure speculation, but entirely reasonable.)
3. Gibbs is too old for this stuff. The man is 69 years old.
Reagan in one of his Western films.
I remember seeing a comedian a number of years ago who said: “Ronald Reagan is 77 years old and he has access to ‘The Button.’ — My grandfather is 77 and we don’t let him touch the remote control.”
I guess that’s an old joke now. If Reagan were alive he’d be 99, and he’s been dead for six years. (Sad thing is, I had to go to wikipedia to confirm he’s actually deceased. He basically went into hiding near the end of his life.)
Further Aside: For those of you too young to remember the Cold War — “The Button” would launch America’s nuclear warheads at the Russians. Just so we’re clear. Watch the movie “WarGames” sometime. In real life Reagan was basically the WOPR computer, minus the scary blinking lights. (And no, the computer wasn’t a reanimated hamburger, though that would be scary.)
Back onto topic. I’ll be very interested to see how the offensive line shapes up this year. I’m going to be especially interested to see if the Seahawks employ the cut-blocking tactics described above.
My hope is that the Seahawks elect to knock people on their butts the old-fashioned way, by using the larger athletes to shove the opposition around.
With Mrs. Iron Chef, she did something that actually made me pause a bit. We needed to get Lysol and she was concerned about what is in the product and that there was no ingredient list. Fair enough, I really don’t like that chemical companies can get away with not listing the ingredients to their products. Who knows what toxins are lurking in those.
A couple of minutes later, she decided that she wanted to buy some yogurt. She picked up some Yoplait Light Orange Crème Yogurt and just put it in the cart. I have looked at the ingredient list for this yogurt previously and I can tell you it is something that I would never buy. I laughed as she put it in the cart and I pointed out to her that she was looking at the label for the Lysol, but didn’t even check to see what was in her yogurt. She looked, and this is what she found:
Do you know what is lurking in your yogurt?
Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Non-Fat Milk, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Modified Corn Starch, Non-Fat Milk, Orange Juice Concentrate, Kosher Gelatin, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Lime Juice Concentrate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Aspartame, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Natural Flavor, Annatto Extract, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3.
That is a total of 14 ingredients – I added the bold to draw attention to a couple of things. I always get a kick out of “Natural Flavor”. What exactly is that? I am disturbed by the fact that they list both Grade A Milk and then just Milk in the ingredients. Makes me wonder what grade of milk is ending up in this in addition to the Grade A and why.
I was also very bothered that the second ingredient on the list is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). In case you are not aware, food items have to list their ingredients in the order of the percentage of the finished product that they make up. This means that the HFCS is the 2ND MOST ABUNDANT INGREDIENT IN THIS PRODUCT! I won’t even get going on the dangers of HFCS and how it short circuits our body’s sugar processing. The real humor in all of this is on the front of the package – the product is described as “Nonfat Yogurt with Aspartame & other sweetener.” They advertise the sweetener that is the smaller percentage of the total and just call the HFCS the “other sweetener”? I really think that they should have to replace “other sweetener” with HFCS. I would be willing to bet that no one would buy the product.
Something that is probably also lost on most people – there are no active cultures in this yogurt. It is thickened exclusively by the cornstarch and gelatin (Nonfat milk won’t curdle and thicken – all the milk solids have been removed, along with all of the nutritional value, which is why vitamins A and D are added in). It probably should not even be allowed to be called yogurt. By comparison – the yogurt I buy, Grace Harbor Farms Golden Guernsey Yogurt, has 2 ingredients – Grade A pasteurized cow milk and Live Active cultures. Yes, it is plain yogurt, but still, my great grandmother would recognize it as yogurt, I am not sure she would know what the hell Yoplait is. Another plus – I am buying a locally produced product from local cows. Does anyone have any idea where Yoplait gets its milk from? Not only is it local, but also Grace Harbor Yogurt actually costs about the same as Yoplait ($4.29 for 32 oz of Grace vs. $4.21 for 32 oz of Yoplait at Ballard Market). You don’t like plain yogurt, throw some cut up fruit in it or try it on cereal instead of milk – yes it is good. (Grace also makes a vanilla yogurt which is pretty good too)
I don’t want you to think I am singling out Mrs. Iron Chef – this experience is illustrative of what millions of Americans do every day, they don’t look at food labels. I personally think that everyone should have to see the movie Food, Inc. as well as read Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan (I highly recommend “Food Rules” – is will take 30 minutes to read) or any of the other dozens of food writers who have voiced their opinions on the subject. Heck, go visit a feed lot – you might actually give up meat. I have been to one, I still can’t get some of the images out of my head. I have not given up meat, but I am much more aware of how what I buy is raised and where it comes from and I now make every effort I can to buy humanely raised, local and grass-fed where I can.
I really wish people cared as much about what they put in their bodies through the food they eat as they do about the chemicals they are exposed to.
There is a fun and occasionally difficult baseball trivia quiz on sporcle right now. It is 50 questions with a 9 minute time limit. I managed to score 35 out of 50, and there were a couple of questions that I realized I did know the answer to after the fact. There were also a couple I had absolutely no idea on and would have never guessed in a million years. So, I you have 10 minutes to kill and want to test your baseball knowledge, I recommend it.
FlatbreadGarden 