Funny. I was just telling my friend Erik about the International Male catalog last night. When I was in high school back in the late 80s, IM was a hot source for kids like me (ie: in the boonies of East Tennessee) to get some seriously queer fashion.
That’s queer as in different, y’all. I never even thought about buying a mesh tank top. 
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In much more butch news, Erik made some crazy progress on the CL350 while I was on vacation. Last night he showed me how the thing will start with the slightest press of the electric starter button. It definitely needs some tuning (timing, fuel mixture, etc.) and there are some … uh … idiosyncracies — like when you rev it above 7000 RPM and the tachometer just goes BERSERK!!!
Then we worked on the clutch a little bit and got that working, so Erik took that little 35 year-old motorcycle for a spin around his neighborhood.
It’s a runner!
Just because I did nothing with my aerospace engineering degree doesn’t mean I ignore the cool stuff from that field: ‘Singing’ wings help prevent small-plane stalls
In wind tunnel tests, Salmon stuck sections of plastic piezo-electric film to wing segments. This film vibrates when an electrical signal is applied, producing sound.
Tests using a barely audible sinusoidal tone of about 400 hertz showed a 22% increase in lift, compared with a standard wing. This could translate into a few extra seconds of time for a pilot to boost a plane’s speed before it stalls, says Salmon. The simple tones worked best, though Salmon did experiment: “I can say that songs by the band Spiderbait are more effective than Radiohead’s.�
Spiderbait?! Way to plug the virtually unknown (in the US, at least) Aussie band, Qantas dude! Truth be told I went through a huge unknown Aussie music phase in college. Can’t say I stuck with any of the artists I got into back then, but at the time some of my favorite tracks were on those freebie tapes I got a CollegeFest in the Hynes Convention Center.
Back to the airplane stuff… Once, while hiking on Mt. Washington, I saw a couple gliders buzzing around the summit. Literally: their wings were vibrating in the updraft (I assume), causing a high-pitched hum. No piezo-electric plastic involved with that, but it was really cool to me.
Brothers’ Night Out
Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.
So see more pics from the trip at Flickr.
Coming home — Hezzy embraces her last DuDo’s experience at Logan Airport
Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.
Wollaston Beach (across from the Clam Box) No idea why we look so wonky.
Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.
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