Pilot's Log

The current terrain scale for Battletech is 1/600. It used to be 1/400 but it changed in later editions.

The game Dropzone Commander has downloadable modern city building paper models in their scale of 1/150. So if I want a batch of buildings in Battletech scale I could print them out one-fourth their intended size...and pack SIXTEEN of them onto one sheet!

* Because my brother got me a smartphone to replace my flip-phone this week, I felt I had to return the favor and find a toy for him. I'll tell you all about it after I give it to him.

* Because my brother got me a smartphone to replace my flip-phone this week, I'm trying to figure out how to use it. So far, I'm way behind it and the whole touchscreen nonsense is somewhat counterintuitive to me.

* Because my brother got me a smartphone to replace my flip-phone this week, I went through Precious's soundfiles (and made some new ones by using a decompiler to loot soundtracks from .SWF files I downloaded over the years) in an ongoing attempt to generate ringtones. I still only partly know what I'm doing.

* In my travels to procure the toy for my brother, I saw a late-model Audi sedan outside Strange--the interior comprehensively burnt out. I started brainstorming hot rod ideas almost immediately.

* Still dabbling with reverse-engineering old Eastern-bloc paper models of aircraft carrier ships into much larger mixed-media models. I have seven downloaded patterns of a planned eight...but my internal math estimates that each "plate" in the scale I'm working with means $10 in materials. So I'll need funding of one form or another.

My sister visited overday, and we gave her more of Mum's stuff and I helped replace the windshield wipers on her car.

I'm playing around with the paper model files again. I wonder about the hobby possibilities of poster printer hardware. Who can I ask about that?

Got fresh ink in the printer now. And Office Max has a two-for-one sale on letter-sized paper of a specific type (no pun intended) so we stocked up.

One of my "someday" projects was a 1/72nd scale aircraft carrier model based on the Colossus--class paper model from Poland. Well, it turned out that another company also made a carrier model--the nuclear-powered Enterprise, as she looked after her mid-life refitting. So I downloaded that model as well. Of course, I have a titanic task if I try to upscale it to 1/72...800 legal-size pages of printout! (As opposed to a mere 270 for Colossus!)

On Wikipedia's entry for the Enterprise, it said that five other ships in the class were planned before the design was superseded in favor of the Nimitz-class, which was much more efficient. Still, that sparked a "What If?" question in my mind...what would be the names of such ships if they had been built? I did a little research, but really couldn't find a good answer as such. Instead, I looked to my own life for my own naval names. Specifically, I looked at where I went to school and their concepts for mascots.

* USS Thames. My first school was United Scioto in Chilicothe, Ohio. Their mascot is the Sherman Tank (yes, their football team is the Tanks!); naming a ship for General Sherman was possible. But the Shawnee Indian chief Tecumseh was from the area too, and he was defeated at the Battle of the Thames.

* USS Fort LeBeouf. Waterford, Pennsylvania. LeBeouf was the site of a battle in the French & Indian War that was important in the career of George Washington.

* USS Lancer and USS Trojan. Deer Lakes district, Pennsylvania; and Saint Petersburg College, Florida, respectively. Good names for Revolution-era ships, but never actually used by the U.S. Navy.

* USS Bald Eagle. Springstead in Spring Hill, Florida. At the time, the Royal Navy had ships named HMS Eagle, so specifying it as "Bald Eagle" made sense to avoid possible confusion in fleet maneuvers.

http://www.awiatsea.com/Privateers.html
http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html

On Facebook I "Like" the Giveaway Of The Day--free software downloads. Among the offers this past week: RonyaSoft's Poster Printer, which I'm playing with. I'm not so much interested in posters as such, tho' that looks fun...I'm blowing up paper models. And so far, it looks like the RonyaSoft program is going to save me both effort and money, by cutting down the number of pages I'd need to print to get the same results.

I haven't decided which model to start with. Tho' that 1/72nd scale Colossus-class aircraft carrier project is the most tempting!

Today first thing when I get up I hear from my folks that family friend Jessica is having problems with her printer and her digital camera, and she wants me to come over and help. Turned out it wasn't really a problem as such...just the usual fact that computers are very logical and sophisticated idiots. But I got her systems back running, and she gave me a glass of iced tea and a file cabinet she wasn't using.

I am taking apart a paper blob that is strangling my inbox. I'll need to get a box of hanging folders.

While I was bored with not being able to adequately contact the outside world, I did a bunch of brainstorming. Tend to do that along with my research addiction.

Anyway, I have, on my hard drive, the digitized files for many of those wonderful Maly Modelarz Polish paper models, of which I've spoken before here. I have one for a Colossus-class aircraft carrier from the WW2 era. With it set to print at "regular size", the resulting model would only take nine sheets of paper or cardboard, and scale to about 1/350.

So what if I wanted a model to scale with the majority of the model aircraft I build? 1/72nd scale? To enlargen the sheet five times (350 ÷ 72 = 4.861, rounded to 5), I could split each sheet into twenty-five proportional pieces (5X5) making the total model 225 sheets of printout. And the model that would be built from these sheets would be...10 feet long!

With Paul Francis' shop nearby, this concept isn't outside the realm of possibility as such. It's just not particularly practicable, especially with the start of school imminent and other things coming along to occupy my mind and time.

Frickin' loopholes again.

Tennessee just changed the immunization requirements for secondary education this year, and all of a sudden they need proof that I got my MMR shots. My problem is that I got those so long ago that my pediatrician is dead, buried and had a public library named for him. I'm not sure my records have even survived the decades and moves that have happened since. But I have to have a doctor sign off on me so I can re-submit my enrollment papers to Tech School. Can a doctor just do a look-up on me just from my name and SSN? Or am I going to have to go to some state health department office somewhere?

* BLUE or
* BROWN/BEIGE?

Want a show of hands one way or another, please? Thanks in advance.