Lately, the Critter has hit that age where she goes off and plays outside with the neighbor kids, and we don't feel like we have to provide constant adult supervision. Partly that's because she's a pretty good kid overall. Partly it's because we live way out on a farm where there's not a lot around she could get into and hurt herself. Except the livestock. And the tractors. And the river. But you know, other than that, it's pretty safe. Today, the neighbor kid - another little girl just a couple of years older than our Critter - had to go with her family someplace, and left the Critter to her own devices. My bride and I were spending our Sunday afternoon in one of our favorite ways - on the couch, alternating between reading a crap book, and watching a crap movie when the Critter walked in. She looked at us in our near-vegitative state and said "We could go on a walk!" My bride and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. "This is your mother. I am your father. From your statement, it's clear that you have us confused with some strangers. Some kind of alternate-universe family made of people who walk." Kids. They're funny. We sent her back out to play in the sheep field. That should keep her entertained long enough for us to finish Anacondas 2

After our disappointing first launch, I decided that what we need were more rockets. Bigger. Better. With do-it-yourself technological know-how. So I went back to the store the next day, and asked the guy behind the counter for help. 'Weren't you in here yesterday?' 'Yeah. But there was a river. And some wind. And now I need another rocket.' No doubt this guy was congratulating himself on finding an customoron who doesn't know when to quit. He immediately pointed me to a whole selection of kits to put together, and some bigger engines to go with them. I took home my new purchase and soon remembered what a pain in the ass it was to put these things together as a kid. It takes forever to glue the balsa/cardboard/plastic contraptions together, but over the course of a couple of days I had a new rocket ready to go. The next weekend, the Critter and I marched out to the field, rocket in tow. The wind was blowing away from the river this time, but we still chose a location about twice as far from the water, just to be safe. My bride decided to sit this one out, and stayed safely indoors. Even though it was a fairly clear day, the wind had picked up a tad - but a little wind never stopped Robert Goddard, so I figured what the hell. I'd compensate and aim into the wind a bit. Soon enough, we had the rocket set up and ready to go. This rocket was way fancier than your basic pointy tube with fins: this was a scale replica of SpaceShipOne, the first successful private space ship. (The Critter applied the stickers to provide the finishing touches). If it's good enough for Paul Allen, it's good enough for me. Once again, the Critter chose a more 'supervisory' role rather than risking getting too close to the rocket once it was set up. As subsequent events proved, she obviously is the smart one of the two of us. (More on that below). We started with a smaller engine, just to see how well this rocket would fly, and stand a reasonable chance of recovering it within the same county. Once again, I failed to take a picture of the thing in flight (I really need more hands), but it did go up about one hundred and fifty feet before arcing back over towards the earth. The parachute deployed about ten feet above the ground, providing no benefit what-so-ever, but surprisingly, the rocket held up on impact. The only problem was that on such a windy day, those big wings provided a large surface area for the wind to play havoc. No problem, I thought. I'll compensate on the setup for the next launch. This time around, I felt comfortable enough to jam a bigger engine into the rocket. Looking back, I probably should have realized that having to cut a slit the engine mount with a razor knife to make the engine fit might have been an indication that I was headed for the possibility that the launch might not go quite as the designers intended. *shrug* Hindsight is 20/20. We did a proper countdown (and then stopped to explain the countdown - we've been teaching the Critter to count for months now, struggling to make sure she always remembers '8' and whether '13' or '14' comes first, and here I am reversing the whole thing on her. She's still half convinced I was just making up the concept on the spot to yank her chain), and then pressed the launch button. I was actually trying to take a picture this time: I had the camera all ready to go. However, when the rocket reached about 20 feet in the air, the wind caught those big SpaceShipOne wings and tipped it over nearly 180 degrees. Suddenly it looked less like SpaceShipOne and more like a V-1 flying bomb. I managed to snatch the Critter up and bolt for the other end of the field before it hit the ground (the engine was still going, shooting it across the field for a hundred feet or so; naturally, it went in the same general direction I had chosen to flee). The Critter thought the whole experience hilarious again. I nearly had to change my underwear. As you can see, the rocket ended up in a few different pieces after the second launch (on the plus side, the parachute managed to deploy this time). We decided to collect the pieces and pack it in for the day. Overall, we managed a much better launch rate with the electrical igniters, so I believe that problem is licked. I've decided that the problem this time was the rocket design. Good for actual space ships. Bad for scale model launches. At least, it's bad if there's a hint of wind. After my heart calmed down and I caught my breath, the Critter & I picked out three more rockets of intermediate complexity from a rocket store. I expect them to be delivered in the next couple of days - more updates to come.

Rocket Science: Part 1 A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home in a complete funk. After a long week, and a particularly bad day, I had gone beyond my normal pleasant running state of 'crotchety'. Saying I was 'a little cranky' is about like saying 'Topsy,' my grandmother's nineteen year old, one-eyed, three-toothed toy fox terrier was 'a little twitchy.' Which was a hell of a way to start the weekend. In an effort to snap out of my funk, I stopped off on the way home at the local model shop, which isn't much more than a house with the bottom two floors jammed full of every remote control vehicle you could possible imagine. I've never really desired a remote control dirigible, but it's comforting to know that if I ever do, I know where to get it. Instead, I settled for the Estes Model Rocket Starter Kit. I haven't put together a model rocket in almost a hundred years, and I figured it was about time I started to teach the Critter something approaching science. Rockets are science. That's why they use the phrase "it's not rocket science"... except in this case, it is. Besides, my learning retention was always way higher when the science:put-your-eye-out factor is >0. I whipped the rocket out when I got home and the Critter's eyes lit up in just the way I anticipated. My Bride's eyes lit up as well, but in a whole different way. Turns out, she had never fired a model rocket before either, and wasn't 100% at ease with my assurances that this whole notion of jamming a tube of compressed gunpowder and an ignitor up a plastic tube on a coat hanger was really a good intro to science. "Trust me," I said. Despite that, we got the rocket out into the pasture between the house and the river and got set up. (River. Remember that.) Ella was very keen to make sure every thing was set up 'properly' as she says, but having watched Buzz & Woody strap a giant firecracker to their back a few dozen times, decided to remain a comfortable distance away from the rocket itself and just direct me in how to set it up. It took a number of trials to get the engine to actually light up. I had forgotten how fickle those little electrical igniters can be. I burned through a half dozen before we actually achieved lift off. But finally, we did get a spark, and the rocket shot off several hundred feet into the air, before deploying its parachute. I didn't get a picture of this in all the excitement, of course. I did however get a picture of the river. Remember the river? Yeah. The wind picked up the parachute and blew that little rocket right over the river. And over the ridgeline. And as far as I know, it ended up someplace in the North Sea. Ella thought it was hilarious. To console ourselves, we went and ate at the Chinese bakery. Mung bean paste makes me happy. I was undeterred, and went out and bought more rockets. (You can too - go here!) This time, they came with balsa fins, and sheets of decals, and were the kind you had to actually put together and paint. More on that later.