Yeah, so Spring Break or any other Holiday is for productivity, usually on X-Plane. I have one new design, and one older one that is almost complete.

First of all - the older design - the A-47, which replaces the F-40 in my design goals with a more capable, but in the separate technological universe that I've created, cheaper solution to a light bomber. See the aptly named deviation for more details.

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Next - the new design - A VTOL transport to haul 2 main battle tanks to and from the battlefield. Uses geared turbofans to allow engine-out survivability and sheer lifting power. Also in the works is the Russian version of the design, which is pretty much an adapter to attach helicopter engines to a tank.


So - what happened to me over the break?

Firstly, I was a little annoyed at the percentage of e-mails that were just chain letters, so I made my own - join the Church of Scientology or be damned forever.

Next, interesting stuff I've done with car tires - meaning the recently changed tires of my dad's car. "Interesting stuff" meaning attempts to destroy.

First attempt to destroy - by penetrating weapon. Using a bow and arrow, shot thrice at the tire. First shot, aluminum arrow, which missed and hit a steel dumpster behind the tire. The arrow exploded - the tip was shattered and the fins were all blown off from the impacts' shock.

But that didn't stop me from trying another shot, this time with a carbon fiber arrow. You might not be able to tell, but the arrows I shoot are very low quality and are grossly inaccurate, even at a range of ¿¡15 feet!? Yes. So I usually don't shoot the carbon arrows because the company who sent them sent cheap pieces of sh!t to us when we bought them and they are less accurate than the aluminums. But they did give me more firepower, so I shot it.

What do you know? This one missed and hit the metal rim of the tire. This arrow, likewise, explodes, but the front half of the arrow bounced off, and came straight back at me, which causes me to immediately think, while seeing the arrow, aw motherf**ker. Luckily, without fins to stabilize it, the arrow hit sideways, so I walked out without injury or death, hence my mood icon. The arrowhead, despite hitting the steel tire rim, was completely intact.

This still fails to discourage me against shooting another aluminum arrow, from behind a tree for protection. This one hits dead on, but fails to penetrate, which discourages me. Why it fails, we'll find out in "interesting thing #2."

Attempt to destroy a tire #2 - with a blowtorch. These are tires worn down over their rated mileage, they should burn and pop easily. We put a blowtorch, buried partly underground, to the tire, and ran for cover. The torch runs for 5, then 10 minutes. No leakage? What's wrong?

We douse the fire, and walk over to the tire, which has a big, gaping hole in it where the flame hit, and another hole where I hit it with the arrow. What do you know? Steel reinforcement. No arrow I would ever shoot would penetrate the tire.


Other than that, tinkering with musical instruments, particularly messing with my trumpet mouthpiece. I drilled out the bore to make is play ridiculously loudly and then put it to blowtorch in an attempt to harden it to make a better sound. Not safe, and not really successful, although it turned the mouthpiece white, which is pretty cool. The big bore did make a difference, though. Tone is more consistent as well as brassier.