Just a few little thingies to post because I feel like it and am trying to let my brain re-set enough to continue on a presentation...
Telcontar: I've finished the first private draft, which means it's going to be getting worked on a whole lot more before I let ANYONE else look at it. All I can say about this one without giving too much away at this point is that the violence content is unusually low. I don't know how long this one will be given that I'm trying to also wrap up a manuscript, get my research proposal written, and generally stay nice and competetive academically. Oh and make sure that I don't accidentally engulf my bike seat with my butt.
FGSO Treasurer
I got appointed as the treasurer of the forestry graduate student organization in a very interesting race against 2 other candidates. Hey, free food is a VERY strong motivator to get things done... well, and the opportunity to check out other research that's going on in the department that I otherwise wouldn't hear about. Downside? The president seems to really love going to bars and other places where it gets a bit too stuffy for someone who'd rather be outdoors.
Power Wheels?
Well, I had the courage to bike to the local pro-shop to do my last round of test-shooting. Right now, I'm down to 3 models that really fit me really well, although none of them come close to beating out my trusty Chek-Mate recurve. The 3 finalists in my quest for a good compound bow are:
#1 -- Fred Bear Odyssey. Pros: Price (<$300 for a fully set-up kit), minimal hand-shock, can be easily adjusted without a bow-press, smooth draw, extremely comfortable grip, weighs less than 3.5 lbs completely set up, fits in on the back of my bike safely, zero finger-pinch, comes almost-ready-to-shoot, wide draw weight range (35-50 lbs). Cons: Slow compared to several of the other models, needs some work with timing and tuning, a bit unstable, a bit of that "children's bow" stigma, 2 year full warranty.
#2 -- Browning Micro-Adrenaline. Pros: Price (<$300 for a fully set-up kit), low hand-shock, doesn't need a bowpress, smoothest draw of the top 3, reasonably fast, weighs less than 3.5 lbs completely set up, stable, fits safely on bike, comes almost-ready-to-shoot, easy-to-change limbs. Cons: Some finger pinch, handle felt a bit small, smaller weight range (40-50 lbs), a bit noisy, minor tuning/timing issues, a bit of that "children's bow" stigma, 5 year full warranty
#3 -- Bowtech Equalizer. Pros: Extremely fast, very stable, flattest trajectory, adjustable let-off, very quiet, very stable, most forgiving, fewest worries about timing issues in the top 3, fits safely on a bike, very little hand-shock, reasonable weight (4 lbs with everything), life-time full warranty. Cons: Price ($650 by itself), substantial finger pinch, smaller weight range (40-50 lbs), needs modules and bowpress to adjust.
The winner? Who knows. All I know right now is that there's muscles in my back and chest that I didn't realize I had.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Great Laughs
This entry is linked to a website I'm really enjoying lately. It's still a poor substitute for roaming around in the wilds with my trusty little Chek-Mate, but at least it's keeping me from doing too much damage to my walls.
I usually hate rap and hip-hop, but MrSafety Professional Idiot is a lot more palatable than most of the other stuff I get exposed to. His songs and stunts defy description -- you've just got to watch it to see why I enjoy his videos so much. I think the more tasteless and annoying the music is, the more likely I am to gravitate towards it. Consider... my favorite bands are Depeche Mode, Moenia, Erasure, O-Zone, and ABBA ... and I have a real weakness for bagpipes. I also have a particular fondness for Beavis & Butthead and South Park along with the adventure epics involving archery, nature, swords, and sorcery.
And what's wrong with appreciating toilet humor, a good hunting story, or even a good technical discussion? For some reason, there's some kind of really annoying social stigma against someone who appreciates the crude and violent... at least if you're female and Asian. And why is there so much social stigma about necessary digestive functions?
I usually hate rap and hip-hop, but MrSafety Professional Idiot is a lot more palatable than most of the other stuff I get exposed to. His songs and stunts defy description -- you've just got to watch it to see why I enjoy his videos so much. I think the more tasteless and annoying the music is, the more likely I am to gravitate towards it. Consider... my favorite bands are Depeche Mode, Moenia, Erasure, O-Zone, and ABBA ... and I have a real weakness for bagpipes. I also have a particular fondness for Beavis & Butthead and South Park along with the adventure epics involving archery, nature, swords, and sorcery.
And what's wrong with appreciating toilet humor, a good hunting story, or even a good technical discussion? For some reason, there's some kind of really annoying social stigma against someone who appreciates the crude and violent... at least if you're female and Asian. And why is there so much social stigma about necessary digestive functions?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Dental Floss and Super-Glue
I just felt like posting something about some of the greatest inventions: dental floss and super-glue.
Dental floss, besides keeping my teeth in pretty decent shape (but alas, it didn't save me from the cosmetic torture of braces), has a wide array of other uses. I've used dental floss to hold my glasses together long enough for me to get a set of screws for them. It's served as a fairly reliable emergency nocking-point on my bowstring when my brass nocking-point fell off. It's also done a very good job of holding my cat-whisker silencers in place, in fact, it's done a better job than the strand of Dynaflight 97 or B-50 Dacron recommended by most other archers. I've even used dental floss to secure my writing instruments to me and to even measure my draw length when I didn't have a meter stick or tape measure on me at that moment. Dental floss is also great for improvised tea bags when I have loose leaf tea and bags but no way to secure the bags to keep all the leaves from coming out.
And then there's super-glue. Besides the obvious thing of sticking things together, it also serves as a very nice sealant. On a few occasions, I've used super-glue to fill in gaps between various parts of my arrows to keep things secure. I've yet to have any fletching fall off my arrows (scraped off is a whole different boat) and I've broken many nocks but never had one fall off an arrow where I sealed that gap between the shaft and the nock. Most of the nocks I've lost were on my Carbon Express arrows (which I leave un-glued at the nocks so I can fine-tune the arrow and experiment with the orientation of the fletching) or not secured with a nice, thin film of super-glue in that little gap.
Where would the world be without dental floss and super-glue?
Dental floss, besides keeping my teeth in pretty decent shape (but alas, it didn't save me from the cosmetic torture of braces), has a wide array of other uses. I've used dental floss to hold my glasses together long enough for me to get a set of screws for them. It's served as a fairly reliable emergency nocking-point on my bowstring when my brass nocking-point fell off. It's also done a very good job of holding my cat-whisker silencers in place, in fact, it's done a better job than the strand of Dynaflight 97 or B-50 Dacron recommended by most other archers. I've even used dental floss to secure my writing instruments to me and to even measure my draw length when I didn't have a meter stick or tape measure on me at that moment. Dental floss is also great for improvised tea bags when I have loose leaf tea and bags but no way to secure the bags to keep all the leaves from coming out.
And then there's super-glue. Besides the obvious thing of sticking things together, it also serves as a very nice sealant. On a few occasions, I've used super-glue to fill in gaps between various parts of my arrows to keep things secure. I've yet to have any fletching fall off my arrows (scraped off is a whole different boat) and I've broken many nocks but never had one fall off an arrow where I sealed that gap between the shaft and the nock. Most of the nocks I've lost were on my Carbon Express arrows (which I leave un-glued at the nocks so I can fine-tune the arrow and experiment with the orientation of the fletching) or not secured with a nice, thin film of super-glue in that little gap.
Where would the world be without dental floss and super-glue?
Friday, September 08, 2006
I Think I See a Pattern...
Seminar today went well. Informal but it was a real blast being able to talk for almost an hour about evapotranspiration modelling and the use of the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith. I think I could get used to doing longer performances, except I'm not going to drink an espresso right before!
Compound Bow Names
I'm starting to notice some patterns in how compound bow models get named or categorized... some of which include:
1) If it's an insanely fast bow that's marketed as "the fastest on the market", it has the word "Black" in it. Case in point being Mathews' Black Max, Bowtech's Black Knight (no longer in production), and APA Innovation's Black Mamba Extreme. The word "Extreme" and the letter "X" also show up a lot.
2) If it's for draws under about 26" or 27", there's 4 terms that seem to get used a lot... along with a humorous description (to be taken with a few salt shakers of salt) of what they really mean:
a) Micro-bow: the generic term for a bow designed for shorter draw lengths, typically reserved for (b) or (c). For some reason, a lot of guys I know cringe at the thought of even handling a "micro-bow". I don't like this term either... it's annoying enough having short arms and small hands!
b) Youth bow: "Small and usually cute compound bow for a growing kid and usually has the word `Lite' or `Micro' in it (eg. Rapture Lite or Micro-Adrenaline)" or a fairly "neutral"-sounding name like Odyssey or Badge... typically shot by dabblers and kids and they actually tend to be decent bows in terms of neat features like not requiring a bow-press or not having a specific draw length... also tend to be fairly easy to adjust.
c) Ladies' bow: "Small, usually gaudy, compound bow that usually doesn't go past 50 lbs draw weight and doesn't hunt very well but usually makes for a good target bow". These tend to have either girly names (eg. Tigress or Banshee) or annoying names (eg. Selena... sounds too much like some talentless celebrity with the wits of a fermented radish).
d) Short-draw bow: "Smaller high-performance compound bow that guys don't want to be referred to as any of the above in fear of looking wimpy... and can go to 60 or 70 lbs" Names on these bows go all over the place -- anything from APA Innovation's Suphan to BowTech's Equalizer, but they tend to err on something that still sounds as tough as their longer-draw cohorts.
3) The more appealing-looking models tend to be named after predators, especially great cats (eg., Cougar, Jaguar, Panther), poisonous snakes (Viper, Mamba, Cobra), some word that's connected to killing (Slayer, Fatal Impact, Terminator), or rough weather conditions (Typhoon, Thunder, Storm).
4) Less appealing bows tend to be named after non-predatory animals (eg. Mustang, Caribou) or something that sounds like it could come straight from Star Trek (eg., RinTec, ProTec, Trykon).
I know being prejudiced by a model (or even a company's) name is not the best of things, but there are just some names I just wouldn't want to be associated with. I don't know if it's a bias towards traditional bows anyway, but I do like the traditional bow names a lot more -- typically revolving around nature instead of fads. So far, here's a list of some things I'm observing all across the board... without any regard for what the actual bow (traditional or compound) really looks or feels like.
Best Model Names: Falcon, Desert Fox, Vazul
Worst Model Names: Non-Typical, Prestige
Most Common Words: Hunter, Cobra, Viper, Mamba, Hawk, Eagle, Wolf, Ranger
Most Unusual Names: Non-Typical, King's Pawn, Stick
Compound Bow Names
I'm starting to notice some patterns in how compound bow models get named or categorized... some of which include:
1) If it's an insanely fast bow that's marketed as "the fastest on the market", it has the word "Black" in it. Case in point being Mathews' Black Max, Bowtech's Black Knight (no longer in production), and APA Innovation's Black Mamba Extreme. The word "Extreme" and the letter "X" also show up a lot.
2) If it's for draws under about 26" or 27", there's 4 terms that seem to get used a lot... along with a humorous description (to be taken with a few salt shakers of salt) of what they really mean:
a) Micro-bow: the generic term for a bow designed for shorter draw lengths, typically reserved for (b) or (c). For some reason, a lot of guys I know cringe at the thought of even handling a "micro-bow". I don't like this term either... it's annoying enough having short arms and small hands!
b) Youth bow: "Small and usually cute compound bow for a growing kid and usually has the word `Lite' or `Micro' in it (eg. Rapture Lite or Micro-Adrenaline)" or a fairly "neutral"-sounding name like Odyssey or Badge... typically shot by dabblers and kids and they actually tend to be decent bows in terms of neat features like not requiring a bow-press or not having a specific draw length... also tend to be fairly easy to adjust.
c) Ladies' bow: "Small, usually gaudy, compound bow that usually doesn't go past 50 lbs draw weight and doesn't hunt very well but usually makes for a good target bow". These tend to have either girly names (eg. Tigress or Banshee) or annoying names (eg. Selena... sounds too much like some talentless celebrity with the wits of a fermented radish).
d) Short-draw bow: "Smaller high-performance compound bow that guys don't want to be referred to as any of the above in fear of looking wimpy... and can go to 60 or 70 lbs" Names on these bows go all over the place -- anything from APA Innovation's Suphan to BowTech's Equalizer, but they tend to err on something that still sounds as tough as their longer-draw cohorts.
3) The more appealing-looking models tend to be named after predators, especially great cats (eg., Cougar, Jaguar, Panther), poisonous snakes (Viper, Mamba, Cobra), some word that's connected to killing (Slayer, Fatal Impact, Terminator), or rough weather conditions (Typhoon, Thunder, Storm).
4) Less appealing bows tend to be named after non-predatory animals (eg. Mustang, Caribou) or something that sounds like it could come straight from Star Trek (eg., RinTec, ProTec, Trykon).
I know being prejudiced by a model (or even a company's) name is not the best of things, but there are just some names I just wouldn't want to be associated with. I don't know if it's a bias towards traditional bows anyway, but I do like the traditional bow names a lot more -- typically revolving around nature instead of fads. So far, here's a list of some things I'm observing all across the board... without any regard for what the actual bow (traditional or compound) really looks or feels like.
Best Model Names: Falcon, Desert Fox, Vazul
Worst Model Names: Non-Typical, Prestige
Most Common Words: Hunter, Cobra, Viper, Mamba, Hawk, Eagle, Wolf, Ranger
Most Unusual Names: Non-Typical, King's Pawn, Stick
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