Your Backup Hobby

Hmmm. Yeah. Interesting.

I would assume for ours here there would be at least a couple of issues.

Drones are banned for the public. If they see drones flying everywhere it might send the message it's fine. It's really not.

Many parts are full on wilderness areas, deep forest below huge cliffs. Very difficult to access. They don't want drone parts littered - one dying would have to be retrieved. The guy we were with was saying our raptors attack helicopters. They'd murder drones on a regular basis you'd have to think. That's potentially a waste of a couple of days for someone to find.

A few other thoughts:

Helicopters are deployed in some cases to lower EMTs to the ground, and/or hoist victims out that would be too difficult to carry out.

And in some cases, they use National Guard units; while expensive, it offers trading and/or flight hours to retain flight status.

And yes birds do attack drones.

www.wsj.com/articles/bold-eagles-angry-b...f-the-sky-1506701429

Yeah, I mean, presumeably with a drone system they'd then send the chopper if it was required. In this neck of the woods every rescue pretty much needs a chopper. There is no easy way out.

Yesterday I finished my backstop, or thought I did. This backstop is meant as a last resort to catch shots that missed the pellet trap, as opposed to setting up targets on it. So I took my backstop outside to see how effective two layers of leftover 2'x2' play mats were. I didn't think that two layers would work, but I was hoping three, or maybe four would. I didn't expect seven. Well shit, I guess I should have experimented first.

So Plan B was to take 20 of the other leftover tiles and cut them small enough to fit into the back side of the backstop, 5 in each space. Tomorrow I will get a couple of tubes of Gorilla Glue, take this whole mess down into the basement, and glue the back side tiles into their spaces.

There were probably some other methods that would have worked. A 3/4" 4'x4' piece of plywood screwed on the back would have worked, and taken about 20 minutes to implement but I didn't have a sheet of plywood handy.

Msample wrote: A few other thoughts:

And yes birds do attack drones.

That's why you arm them.

That is a good point with flight hours though. The helicopter pilots I've known have indicated that you need to keep flying, because if you don't you get rusty and you don't fly helicopters rusty. It's not like fixed wings where you develop a basic set of skills and they persist.

Arming drones; the tin hat brigade will love that.

In other news, I finished the building of the trail around my property. My initial pace out was a little over 2/10 of a mile; its now a half mile due to discovering some ways to meander and thus add length as well as finding out just how much I could clear , brush and small tree wise, with just hand tools. Rode it for the first time the other day ands its quite a workout, which is good. The ground is fairly soft, so riding it, esp on uphill sections, is more work . Between that and some desperately needed rain, its gonna take awhile to "burn in" aka harden up and get faster. No worries, its great to have something literally right on my doorstep rather than loading up the car.

I went for a few hikes in recent days and for the first time in forever, changed the type of shoes I wear. For years I wore Merrell low cut hiking shoes. While perfectly fine, I found myself a little sore esp where I was doing hikes with elevation change. Since I no longer work in the industry ( where I got the Merrells dirt cheap ) I was forced to widen my search. Based on my cousins rec, I picked up a pair of HokaOneOne trail running shoes. They are not only lighter, but have WAY more cushioning . What a difference. I immediately bought two more pair; I know they'll probably be less durable than the Merrells, and when I find something I like, might as well stock up. Esp given the short product life cycle of athletic shoes who knows how long they'll be around. Not to mention the fucked up supply chain of, well just about everything these days.

Urgh. Shoes. Once upon a time Dunlop Volleys were the most excellent shoes for walking in this kind of country - pretty durable, light, with excellent excellent grip. Particularly good for a bit of scrambling over rocks and through creeks etc. And cheap cheap cheap. They changed production and are nowhere near as good anymore - but there's still nothing quite like them. Such a shame.

A much bigger shame - the missing person was a local who slipped off a clifftop. They found the body yesterday. Not good. I also heard the National Parks do have a drone with a heat sensor which they use at night after the choppers have gone home.

I now have a small shooting range in my basement. I can shoot 15 yards kittycorner, and the backstop seems to be backstopping. I have an old workbench that is now a shooting bench. 15 yards sounds short for target shooting, but that's a typical air gun range. Next steps - find ammo that the gun likes. Not all pellets are the same, go fig.

I saw a picture that looked like a guy was getting 10 yards by shooting down a hallway in his house/apartment. That's living your best unmarried person's life.

I'm hoping to get out all my fishing tackle this weekend and figure out what I need to top up on in advance of the opener on May 15. Mostly this will be making sure I have enough 3/0 and 4/0 hooks, new paddletail plastics for swimbait trailers, chunk/flappy plastics for jig trailers, and hooks/weights for dropshot presentations. I might look to pick up another popper, but for the most part I'm set with hard baits. I didn't buy any rods or reels with any of the online discount codes that come and go during the off season, so I'll be reentering the arena with the same gear. I have to get rid of yet more cardboard we keep accumulating and shift things around in the garage so I can get the kayak down from the hoist for the season.

The whole crew is vaccinated, so we're doing the spring guys trip again up to our friend's cabin about 3 hours north (after sitting out 2020). Spend next Friday crappie fishing, then put the beat down on the bass all Saturday and most of Sunday.

JoelCFC25 wrote: I'm hoping to get out all my fishing tackle this weekend and figure out what I need to top up on in advance of the opener on May 15. Mostly this will be making sure I have enough 3/0 and 4/0 hooks, new paddletail plastics for swimbait trailers, chunk/flappy plastics for jig trailers, and hooks/weights for dropshot presentations. I might look to pick up another popper, but for the most part I'm set with hard baits. I didn't buy any rods or reels with any of the online discount codes that come and go during the off season, so I'll be reentering the arena with the same gear. I have to get rid of yet more cardboard we keep accumulating and shift things around in the garage so I can get the kayak down from the hoist for the season.

The whole crew is vaccinated, so we're doing the spring guys trip again up to our friend's cabin about 3 hours north (after sitting out 2020). Spend next Friday crappie fishing, then put the beat down on the bass all Saturday and most of Sunday.

I know I'm short a few things, that I just did without at the end of last season. Mostly sinkers for when the missus and I fish for bluegill in the pond, but maybe another frog or two and some more jigs for bass. I might also spring for some weedless hooks/weedless jig heads. We cleared out some brush around the pond last year, and I know there's now some booby traps where the weeds used to be.

JoelCFC25 wrote: The whole crew is vaccinated, so we're doing the spring guys trip again up to our friend's cabin about 3 hours north (after sitting out 2020). Spend next Friday crappie fishing, then put the beat down on the bass all Saturday and most of Sunday.

This sounds very good.

Also lol at your 3/0 hooks, I have been tying on size 20+ midges as my introduction to fishing.

* Back squat, 240lb/109kg 5x5.
* Bench press, 195lb/88kg 5/3/5/5/5. Getting to my limit here unless I start eating a lot more. If only there was a way to guarantee that 100% of excess calories would be converted to muscle and not fat.
* Pendlay row, 190lb/86kg 5x5.
* Dips, bodyweight + 25lb/11kg. 0/0/2. Triceps were smoked from the bench press.
* Lying triceps extensions, 91lb/41kg, 2x8. Working back up after a deload. Also approaching my limit here.

Total tonnage, including warmups, was 23,472lb/10.647kg. Not bad.

Gary Sax wrote: Also lol at your 3/0 hooks, I have been tying on size 20+ midges as my introduction to fishing.

I know nothing about the trout/fly fishing world, but even a 3/0 hook is a bit dainty sometimes. 5/0 flipping hook with a thick gauge and a 1oz bullet weight to get down through the cabbage, that's THUNDERDOME: BASS.

I was trying to find a to scale chart that had both the size you're using with your rig and the size of the hooks I'm using and I could not. ha.

Msample wrote: Arming drones; the tin hat brigade will love that.

In other news, I finished the building of the trail around my property. My initial pace out was a little over 2/10 of a mile; its now a half mile due to discovering some ways to meander and thus add length as well as finding out just how much I could clear , brush and small tree wise, with just hand tools. Rode it for the first time the other day ands its quite a workout, which is good. The ground is fairly soft, so riding it, esp on uphill sections, is more work . Between that and some desperately needed rain, its gonna take awhile to "burn in" aka harden up and get faster. No worries, its great to have something literally right on my doorstep rather than loading up the car.

I went for a few hikes in recent days and for the first time in forever, changed the type of shoes I wear. For years I wore Merrell low cut hiking shoes. While perfectly fine, I found myself a little sore esp where I was doing hikes with elevation change. Since I no longer work in the industry ( where I got the Merrells dirt cheap ) I was forced to widen my search. Based on my cousins rec, I picked up a pair of HokaOneOne trail running shoes. They are not only lighter, but have WAY more cushioning . What a difference. I immediately bought two more pair; I know they'll probably be less durable than the Merrells, and when I find something I like, might as well stock up. Esp given the short product life cycle of athletic shoes who knows how long they'll be around. Not to mention the fucked up supply chain of, well just about everything these days.

Link for those shoes please?