We really wanted to change stuff up this year for the Outdoor Retail Show, so we called...Sam-o!

Shane and Sam-o! signing off sometime around midnight

This is going to be our 10th year at the Outdoor Retailer Show so we decided to have a little fun with our booth!  Just when we were trying to make a decision on what we should do to make the exhibit different I met Sam Ogden, an incredible artist just graduating from the UNC School of the Arts in Winston Salem, N.C..  I got to check out some of his work which ranges from graffiti and murals to set design and construction. The graphic murals that he had done immediately caught my eye and everybody at Liquidlogic and Native Watercraft was completely stoked with the idea of having our booth painted by Sam-o!  It was soo fun to watch the process.  I am sure it was a little nerve racking for Sam because most nights Woody, Bryon, Bill, Mike or I would be there just to watch it happening.   It was a good scene all around.  Let me set the scene... open warehouse space, white walls, many many many cans of spray paint, some pulsing electronic music, and a man with a plan.  

I will post more photos of the finished product after the show opens.

Good news everyone!

You read that in the professors voice didn't you. Well I am glad to say that I actually have a job as a 3d sculptor. I am currently employed by UNDERGROUND, I have a contract where I work at Fisker Automotive. It's really exciting for me and honestly modeling Class A surfacing is so much more complicated than doing design models, it feels like like a jumped from an intro class to a thesis class. I probably won't be able to post too much up here so sorry about that. I just want to remind everyone that is reading this that I did it without a college degree and no prior work experience (in a related field that is). All that really got me this job was my own will to teach myself and improve my abilities. Never give up and keep trying to find different solution to the same problem. I might eventually go back to school, but right now the next couple years I'm going to try to learn as much as I can and contribute as much as I can to Fisker. Thanks again for all the views and email me anytime you have questions. I'm always available to help someone out. Take care and once I have some free time, I'll try to add more content

Disappearing 1560 Trapelo Rd, Waltham, MA

I am starting to wonder whether Autodesk have introduced a new cloaking device to evade the competition down at the “Factory”? Now you see us, now you don’t!

Student Showreel 2011 TU Graz

I got an facebook message from Philipp Müller yesterday. Phil is a student expert team leader from the TU graz in Austria. He & his team have just created a new youTube video show reel which showcases projects created in Revit & 3ds projects from student experts and the students that where taught at the TU Graz in Austria. Be sure to check it out, cos there is some great work here!

Simply Complex Blog

 

After RTCUSA, Marcello Sgambelluri (he of Revit elephant fame) dropped me a note to say he has started a blog. He has started his blog site to be able to profile projects and Revit families that incorporate complex geometry. Be sure to check it out…

http://therevitcomplex.blogspot.com/

Coldspring Paddling on Shaw TV

Cool! Thanks to my neighbour, Kevin (who sells collapsible fishing boats - called Porta-Botes - through his company Adventure Portable Boats), Coldspring Paddling is being featured in an upcoming edition of Shaw Cable's t.v. show Big Summer.

A reporter and cameraman are coming to my course on Thursday to film a bit of us out on the water and to conduct the interview. Assuming that they decide to use the piece and that it goes to air, I'll let you all know where and when you can see it. (It's going to be hard to tune in over our rabbit ears but I'm going to try.)

Monday Morning Crew Chief: Mission Accomplished, etc...

Mission Accomplished

I guess I've been a bit of a Mission Motors 'slammer' over the last few months. I basically called the company out, in MCN (the UK motorcycle weekly) when I wrote that the company had pretty much abandoned the idea of actually manufacturing motorcycles. 

Few people now remember that Bridgestone - the MotoGP tire supplier - once made whole motorcycles. In the 1960s, the company made tires and some really high-performance bikes. When it became obvious that other manufacturers like Honda would not specify Bridgestone tires as OEM fitment as long as Bridgestone was itself a competitor, the company had to choose whether it would pursue the tire business, or the motorcycle business. I think Mission is in the same sort of position; it can make motorcycles, or try to become a supplier of technology to Honda, et al. I think that they're positioning themselves as high-end suppliers to the car and motorcycle industry.

If I'm right about that, they made a pretty good impression at Laguna Seca last weekend. Steve Rapp obliterated the field in the TTXGP race. Rapp was several seconds a lap faster than Michael Czysz (though Czysz finished second, his MotoCzysz company was probably the one hurt most by being utterly outclassed.)

Based on his 8-lap race time, if Rapp and the Mission R had been entered in the AMA SuperSport race, he would probably have been solidly mid-pack until mid-distance. IE, Mission's taken the e-moto performance envelope and stretched it a good ways towards modern ICE sportbike performance.

For the record, with a full tank of gas, the ICE bikes in the field could have maintained their race pace for 80+ miles. If Rapp had to shepherd the energy in the Mission R's battery for 80 miles, his lap times would have been in the 2-minute range, not the 1:35s.

Still, my hat's off to Mission Motors, who have set a new benchmark for zero-emission motorcycle performance. If anyone, anywhere (Honda?) has a better handle on the challenges of managing the limited energy available in current batteries, they've not shown their hand.

It remains to be seen whether Rapp's impressive TTXGP win on the Mission R reinvigorates interest in Mission Motors as a limited-run motorcycle manufacturer -- or, will it bring in new consulting business from major OEMs who might decide to essentially outsource their R&D effort to Mission and jumpstart an e-moto program with Mission's package, which is clearly the best one that has broken cover.

Bostrom. Wrong choice?

There was a lot of skepticism when it was revealed that Ben Bostrom would get a wild card MotoGP ride at Laguna. At 37, he's probably still close to the fittest man in the AMA Superbike championship -- but he's obviously past his sell-by date as a top-level racer.

He qualified last, almost a second behind his LCR team-mate Tony Elias, and pulled in after an off-track excursion for a completely forgettable race. So the question is, did he suck, or not?

In his defense, Bostrom lapped in the 1:25.6 range in Superbike qualifying, while Tommy Hayden was the fast Suzuki rider in the AMA field, at 1:24.8 (Hayes, on a Yamaha, took pole with a 1:24.5) So if my math's right, BBoz gave up somewhere between 8/10ths of a second and a second to the fastest of the American riders in the U.S. series. Based on this, I'd say that no matter who else Lucio Cecchinello had picked among active AMA Superbike riders, his second bike would still have been the backmarker.

Stoner. Wrong choice.
The big race wiener (er, make that 'winner') was Stoner. After I ranted about MotoGP riders boycotting the rescheduled Motegi round, the FIM released a statement that could have been inspired by my post. And a number of riders, sensing fans' lack of sympathy for their cause, opted to restate their opposition to the race in terms that gave them some wiggle room.

Not Stoner, who told one reporter that his decision was not anti-Japanese at all. He said that if the tsunami and nuclear reactor damage had happened in his home country of Australia, he would not go to the Australian GP, either.

Way to endear himself to his homies, eh?

The first prototype of the Stompers on the Green River

The Test Crew, Day 1 on the Green River in the Stomper 80, Freight Train, Elvis, and Lil A'

The first day that I had the protos of the Stomper 80 the Green was so crowded that I didn't want to have our brand new protos out on the river for the entire world to see.  So we had headed over to the Chattooga river where we knew we wouldn't run into too many folks, especially since it was over 4ft.  The next day was a Monday and we knew that it wouldn't be crowded out there on the river so we decided to drop in on a good flow of 15" on the stick.   A couple of us had paddled the boat the day before but John and Jeff hadn't so those guys were excited.  They geared up quickly and were on their way down the trail almost before I could get my frozen dry suit on.

First thing you might notice is that I made all the cockpits larger.  A large skirt is hard to put on.

I threw a curve ball at the team with these new boats.  I made the cockpits a little larger.  So we all had large cockpit spray skirts which made for a funny moment when we had to decide who was going to be the last one in the boat.  We got it all figured out though.  The other difference in the cockpit area is that the cockpit is recessed a little more and the cockpit is straighter looking from the side than other boats which does a couple things.  It protects your skirt from your paddle bashing it as much and it keeps more water from squirting up under the skirt from the side and back which is the place where the most leaking happens.  I also straightened the cockpit as it goes up and over your knees.  This makes it drier as well because the skirt isn't trying to follow all the crazy curves.  However in the first prototype I did make the recess a little too tight.  :)  I had a hell of a time fitting a large rand skirt into the recess.  I fixed that on later editions of the boat.  Ok lets go back to paddling.

Lil' A cleaning Frankenstein 

Rapid number 1, Frankenstein, showed an obvious difference in a flatter hulled design, quick turning.  The move through this rapid is tight and technical with a quick change of direction and then a boof that Adriene is doing in the photo.  We all smiled at each other with the knowing realization of how nice it made that move.  As soon as we came out of the tight part of the rapid and we needed to make the turn to line up for the boof it happened instantaneously.  The Stomper turned so quickly that I had to back off a little and realign my boof.

That nice flat hull can also have a side affect when it comes to creeking and running rivers in general.  Those can hang up on rocks, hard eddie lines, and currrents and we felt that a little as we dropped off the boof in Frankenstein.  The left edge sort of hung on the drop and made it a little harder to pull the boat level underneath as I  landed.  It wasn't much but I could feel a little instability.  Nobody flipped over or anything but it was something to note and think about as we paddled the rest of the river.  It wouldn't be long before the edges would show a nasty side that I would have to fix in the next proto and would make us all a little nervous.

Well it got a lot more exciting when we got to Go Left and Die.  I pulled out on the rocks in the middle of the river to take some pictures and those guys lined up to run it.  At this level it is a super beefy rapid.  The hole is very stout and its too low to run the straight line that gives you tons of speed over the hole so you have to run the normal line and drop into the meat of the rapid.  Grace had a sweet line but Adriene was coming in a little lower and a touch slower so she took a little more of the rock in the center of the drop and suddenly her downstream edge caught and she tumbled straight over the center rock.  In Adriene style she landed on her feet with a big smile on her face.  At this point I knew I was going to have to work on the edges a little to make them more forgiving.  Luckily this was prototype number 1 with many more revisions to go. Adriene wasn't done yet either.

Adriene finding an edge in Go Left and Die

I don't want to make it out like Adriene had a bad day but she did have these two crazy things happen to her on her way down the river.  First she does the crazy flippy thingy in Go Left and then she scares the hell out of all of us at Gorilla.  Gorilla is also a really tough rapid at 15".  The notch is pretty much at it meanest.  The whole volume of the river does a complete flip as it goes through a 5 foot wide crack in the rocks.  It is very hard to stay upright and in any semblance of control through that kind of chaos.  At higher flows you can actually clear the notch and miss that mess. Grace came through beautifully.  Even though he is usually paddles a much larger boat he stayed in control and if not on the surface the whole time he resurfaced under control and headed in the direction he intended.  Now I can't really say the same is true for Adriene.

Grace resurfacing like a champ at the base of Gorilla

Adriene's run was very exciting and scary to watch.  The first time I saw her after she came through the notch she was upside down and headed for the drop.  She was still upside down as the boat started to go off the lip and I was getting ready for a rescue.  If you look at the photo you can see how close she is to the wall on the right of the photo.  If she stays upside down she lands on rocks and meets a rock we all call "face breaker", with her face, but what happens next surprises us all.  From under the water I see her paddle quickly snap a stroke and she is perfectly upright at the moment she hits the bottom of the drop.  She has huge eyes when she paddles into the eddie next to us.  Grace, Freight Train, and I all have huge eyes.  Then she says, "well this thing definitely rolls easily".  At the time I wasn't sure if that was the adrenaline making that roll easy or the actual rolling characteristics of the boat.








The holes below Gorilla were stompy big and tough to get up and over because of the sloping drops that lead into them.  The angle of the slides as you approach the holes in Scream Machine and Nies Pieces make your bow drop down into the foam piles which can lead to excessive poundings and abstract freestyle kayaking of the unintentional kind.  What we were hoping for was what we call a "land and leave" feel in the flatter bottom boats and that is what we got.  In the photos below you can see that John is headed right into the meat of it bow down but the next shot you can see the bow has skipped up and is headed out of the hole and on downstream.  The "land and leave" characteristic is one that I wanted to make sure and keep in the Stomper through out the development.  On this day I found 3 amazing qualities that let me know I was headed in the right direction.  The first thing everyone notices is how quickly it turns.  The second one is the speed and "land and leave" feel that you get while paddling the Stomper. And the third thing that Adriene specifically figured out was how easily it rolled.

Grace entering a BIG hole in Scream Machine

And skipping through!

It the winter the main gorge of the Green can be pretty dark and cold but when you come around the big bend dropping off of Groove Tube and approaching the next big rapid the name suddenly makes a lot more sense.  Sunshine is the warmest and most spectacular spot on the river in the winter months.  The rapid is still scary but the sun gives you a little more confidence.  The rest of the river was beautiful and we were starting to get comfortable with this first proto of the Stomper.  We would paddle proto 1 for a couple weeks before moving onto the next version of the boat.  The Green would obviously be the main testing ground and I paddled it at levels from 3" up to 25" or basically flooding.  I will get a bunch more photos up there for you all to see but for now enjoy the sunny finish of our first day on the Green in the Stomper.

Groove Tube in the Sunlight.

Jeff "Freight Train" Paine with a sweet left line at Sunshine

Lil' A speeding through Hammer Factor

Here is a link to the temporary Stomper pages on the LL page http://liquidlogickayaks.com/stomper_80.cfm
They will start shipping to stores this week.  Stomper 90 starts shipping mid August.
Talk to your dealer and make sure they have demos on order or just get your order in.

Here are a bunch of photos from that first day on the Green.
Cheers
Shane

Back from Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium

Danny Mongno, Wener Paddles regional sales manager and field marketing coordinator, paddling past sailboats in the Grand Marais harbor.

The Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium (GLSKS) is a venerable event. It's the longest-running sea kayak symposium in the midwest, held annually in Grand Marais, MI, a tiny town (population about 300) that just won $40,000 in the We Hear You America contest to help rebuild its harbor breakwall.

When GLSKS comes to town, Grand Marais explodes with activity. Woodland Park Campground is awash in tents and trailers, the beach is covered in kayaks, and Lake Superior Brewing Company is packed every evening. 

The symposium offers three days of tours along with two and a half days of instruction, both on and off the water. Coaches from around the midwest and far beyond come to teach, present, socialize and compete in the manic kayak race to win rights to wear the ceremonial paisley vest.

An ominous designation for a paddling destination.

We don't mind driving long distances for a good symposium, but we took advantage of the opportunity by adding a visit to Whitefish Point, the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes" and home to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.  With Keith Wilke, we learned about some of the famous and not-so-famous wrecks that lie just offshore--some under just 20 feet of water. Interestingly, wrecks in this area were not solely caused by storms and shoals, as they were in the Sleeping Bear Dunes area. Here, many were caused by collisions as shipping traffic converged to move through the relatively narrow channel between Lake Huron and Lake Superior.

We couldn't resist getting on the water, of course.

Sharon and Keith prepare to paddle around the tip of Whitefish Point.

The beach, too, looked like a graveyard--of driftwood, not ships.

From there, we drove to Grand Marais. The next day, we led a group on an 18-mile trip along the west side of Grand Island, which is accessible only by ferry or boat. We paddled along the coast, beneath waterfalls and through arches, admiring the clear water and stunning painted cliffs.

A calm day on the west side of Grand Island.

Then the symposium began in earnest, with nonstop classes and activities. For students, this is an opportunity to learn from a variety of coaches; for instructors, it's a chance to work together and learn from each other. For everyone, it's time on the water, which is always good.

Steve Scherrer teaching a course on boat control for wind and waves. 

Each symposium has its own personality. This one's character is highly influenced by Bill Thompson of Downwind Sports, whose enthusiasm, energy and openness make everyone--instructors and students alike--feel welcome and appreciated; and by Kelly Blades, who possesses a unique blend of wackiness and seriousness. Kelly is one of the main proponents of learning through play, but his dedication to students is earnest.

The race course, explained in graphic detail.

The end of the second day featured the kayak race: 23 instructor/student teams, many of them volunteered by "friends" after they left the Werner Paddles wine and cheese social the previous night--just going to show, once again, that kayaking and alcohol are a dangerous combination. The race featured sabotage, arbitrary rules, collisions, confusion and all the other key elements of a successful competitive sport. The contrast between our race and the highly organized and respectable Greenland games--the subject of the presentation by this year's guest, Helen Wilson--was dramatic.

What keeps us coming back, year after year, to symposia like this one? Partly the camaraderie of an amazing community of coaches; partly the opportunity to give back to a sport that's given us so much. And partly because it's inherently rewarding to share the pleasure of paddlesports with people who are as into it as we are.

Simple Pleasures

A great song from David Myles on a hot summer day.

What does MotoGP stand for? (And what I'd do if I was one of the Japanese entrants...)

Motorcycling's Grumbling Primadonnas? Motorcycling's Greedy little Pr*cks? Motorcyclists who are Grossly Paranoid?..

Fifteen of seventeen MotoGP riders have, incredibly, said they'll boycott the Motegi MotoGP round for fear of nuclear radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant. What the f*ck are those twits thinking? Can you imagine Guy Martin or John McGuinness refusing to go and support their teams and sponsors' home race? Or picture an AMA Pro flat track racer backing down like that? I don't care how fast these twits are; their 'boycott' is pure, unadulterated chickenshit.

A couple of weeks ago, someone emailed me to feel me out about a writing job in which I'd cover MotoGP . The position on offer, it seemed, would have been a dream assignment for me a few years ago; full accreditation and paid travel to races. It was just an exploratory email, and we never got to the negotiation stage, because basically... I'm not interested.

I'm still - at least in principle - interested in MotoGP races. But the World Championship really isn't that good a place for journalists these days. I mean, it's all managed press conferences where everyone hears your questions and the surly, robotic, or flippant responses they provoke. I'm not really interested in waiting two years for my chance to have a five-minute interview with Valentino Rossi, with a couple of PR minders hovering to ensure that I don't ask him any really interesting questions or that if I manage to blurt one out, that he doesn't answer. There may still be some 'Mark Gardiner' stories in the MotoGP paddock - in fact I'm sure there are lots of them - but the structure of the situation ensures they'll never be told.

And besides that, although there may be a couple of exceptions, most MotoGP riders are a bunch of fucking primadonnas.

This was driven home over the last few days, as virtually all of the active riders have said they'll boycott the Motegi round, on the grounds that attending the event may expose them to radiation from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear powerplant.

Really. I'm not making this up. A group of professional motorcycle racers are afraid of a radiation dose smaller than they'll get from an X-ray. I won't belabor the irony of this, because others, like Julian Ryder have already covered this subject. (Read the second paragraph of his excellent 'Ryder's Notes' column on Dean's World, here.) Suffice to say that this boycott, if it comes off, is a direct slap in the face to Honda (which owns the Motegi circuit) and adds insult to the injuries incurred by all the Japanese manufacturers and Japan as a whole.

I know what I'd do in response if I was Takanobu Ito. First, I'd contact Hiroyuki Yanagi and Osamu Suzuki, and convince them to boycott MotoGP. Then, collectively, we'd contact riders, teams, Dorna, IRTA and the FIM and transmit a six-word message: It's over. We're invoking force majeure.

Do the Japanese OEMs have contracts that oblige them to field MotoGP teams and pay riders? Sure. But there's plenty of quid pro quo written into those contracts. No judge anywhere would rule against the Japanese OEMs if, through no fault of their own, they were denied a home Grand Prix.

The Japanese OEMs should send this message loud and clear: Any rider who doesn't come to Motegi is dead to us. If MotoGP doesn't come, MotoGP is dead to us.

I worked in the ad business for years. Before I became addicted to motorcycle racing, I was the vice-president of marketing for a $200 million company. So although I don't have the statistics to prove what I'm going to say now, I'm not just talking out of my ass...

For all the hype within the motorcycle media about MotoGP; for all the endemic mags that cover it, websites, and television broadcasts; for all the hubbub and bullshit surrounding Rossi & Co., it's not that easy to make a business case for any manufacturer's participation in the sport. The motorcycle business is still weak globally and while the U.S. might've hit bottom already, Europe now looks increasingly shaky. The electronic-rider-aided 17-bike show's not that great and it's not at all certain that MotoGP inspires enough motorcycle purchasers to justify the investment. Outside sponsors aren't coming close to covering the gap. There's no indication Kawasaki's been hurt by it's recent decision to withdraw.

In short, Honda doesn't need MotoGP. Neither do Yamaha or Suzuki. Honda and those guys participate because they love racing. Not because they need racing. Forget about that 'Racing improves the breed' bullshit too; some pretty ordinary street bikes now incorporate too much technology for a good racing show.

No, Japan doesn't need it. But MotoGP sure as hell needs Japan.

MotoGP riders all stuck their 'sympathy for Japan' stickers on their bikes after the tsunami, but when the time came to actually show a little solidarity they showed their real colors - every shade of yellow.

Pattern Plugin for Vasari

This appeared on twitter yesterday….the video does all the explanation!!!

Sorry, Santa Claus, there's no such thing as Virginia

Over the last week we've seen a few press releases -- first from AMA Pro Racing and then from Virginia International Raceway -- presenting different versions of the news that the VIR Superbike round was canceled just weeks before it was scheduled to come off. Although I'm not privy to any inside information on this, the news has made interesting reading.

 In a press release dated July 11, AMA Pro wrote...

It is with deep regret that AMA Pro Racing is forced to announce VIR's cancellation of the Suzuki White Lightening Nationals, Round 8 on the AMA Pro Road Racing season calendar. Despite AMA Pro Racing's efforts to preserve the originally scheduled August 12-14 event, VIR staff notified AMA Pro Racing late Monday, July 11, of its final decision not to host or promote the race weekend.

"AMA Pro Racing has made VIR a part of its season calendar for the past decade," said AMA Pro Racing COO and Managing Member David Atlas, "and I am gravely disappointed by the impact this will have on our paddock, fans, and other series participants. I assure all of those involved parties that a significant effort was made to negotiate an arrangement that would have preserved the event."

At first blush, it seemed that AMA Pro Racing was taken aback by VIR's decision to cancel the event -- a cancellation that AMA Pro seemed to suggest was a unilateral decision made by VIR. Then yesterday, VIR released this missive...

"VIR has received a number of inquiries and expressions of disappointment regarding the lack of a 2011 AMA Pro Racing event at VIR. As with any disagreement, there are two sides to every story. We want to make it clear that the decision was not one-sided, as David Atlas' remarks have implied, and that VIR made numerous proposals to AMA Pro Racing to keep this event on schedule. Due to our 10 year history with this premiere event, we are as disappointed by this outcome as most of those we have heard from.

VIR has worked hard to bring the event to fruition for months. Despite requests by VIR beginning in December 2010, AMA Pro Racing did not deliver its proposed contract for the 2011 event to VIR until early June 2011. Resulting discussions made it apparent that insufficient time remained to negotiate the new terms in the proposed contract and, if agreement were reached, to plan, promote and conduct the event in a professional manner.

In an effort to preserve the date, VIR went to extraordinary lengths to reach an alternative agreement with AMA Pro Racing, which AMA Pro Racing chose to reject. Given these circumstances, we had no choice but to take the date off the calendar and notify the public promptly."

Meow. Hiss. Pffthtt!

I think I raced in the first or second year of that ten-year run of AMA road race nationals at Virginia International Raceway, back in the days of the late and unlamented Pro Thunder class. At the time, it struck me as a great track for motorcycle racing, with a beautiful flowing layout; safe enough -- but that it was situated in way too isolated a spot for a National. (Calling it 'International' was a real stretch, unless the locals regret that the Confederacy lost the Civil War, and thus wish the South was, in fact, a different country. In that case, Danville would have been fairly close to the border.)

Back around that time, a Denver-based company called M1 Entertainment took over the promotion of the Road Atlanta round, and called it The Big Kahuna Nationals or some such thing. There was no logical connection between Road Atlanta and that Hawaiian theme, but M1 seemed to do a pretty good job with the Atlanta event. After a few years of putting on the Big Kahuna in Braselton GA, M1 lost it's contract with Road Atlanta.

Without really skipping a beat, M1 announced that it would move the event to Danville. I don't really know how much harder it was to draw a crowd to VIR, but it had to be a heck of a lot harder than drawing a crowd to Road Atlanta. I figure if you draw a 500-mile circle around Danville VA, you encompass a very large population base including the Washington DC metro. That's a large catchment area from which you can draw a minuscule percentage of avid Superbike racing fans. But casual fans will only drive about 50 miles, and if you draw a 50-mile circle around Danville, the population's sparse; the 50-mile circle around Road Atlanta encloses pretty much all of Atlanta.

That aside, last year the VIR race was not The Big Kahuna, it was the White Lightning Nationals. The name change was prompted by the fact that the track (shades of Road Atlanta) had decided to stop doing business with M1 Entertainment. (I have no reason to think that this is because of anything M1 did to cheese them off. I suspect it was just a situation in which the track owners thought, 'OK, we've seen how they do this, now we can do it ourselves.') Some people who were there last year reported that attendance was sparse compared to the M1-promoted events, but let's face it, the last few years have sucked in the motorcycle business.

I think AMA Pro Racing wanted to have a 10-event national championship, and the cancellation of the VIR round will leave them with eight rounds in the 2011 series. When AMA came to VIR a decade ago, it had just 'lost' the Loudon NH race, and the lack of a Superbike race anywhere in the Northeast was conspicuous. How could the AMA really claim it even had a 'national' championship without rounds catering to fans from New York, Washington, or Boston? Although VIR was in the boonies, it was the only dot they could put anywhere near the upper-right-hand corner of the map. Now that New Jersey Motorsports Park hosts an AMA National and solves that problem for AMA Pro Racing.

I think a few racers will miss that gorgeous VIR layout; it was a great track to race a motorcycle around. But frankly,  every team contesting the series is going to lose money this year. I doubt that many team principals are losing sleep over the absence of a round at Virginia International Raceway.

Revit 2012 - Reporting Parameters in CW Panels

I must admit, I don’t why I hadn’t picked up on this one before, but at RTC USA there was an interesting discussion that took place as well as being highlighted by Harlan Brumms in his class on solving common Autodesk Revit Architecture problems on using reporting parameters in curtain wall panel families.
This got me thinking, if reporting parameters can indeed be used in curtain wall panel families, they should be able to drive the depth of panels. If you can report the width & height of a panel, this will provide you with an area value. This could then be used in conditional formula which will parametrically alter the overall depth of individual panels.
For this exercise I started with a curtain wall panel.rft

Next I drew a very simple extrusion in the front elevation plan & locked the extrusion sketch to the reference planes.

I then dimensioned the vertical & horizontal reference plans. Its important you dimensions the reference plans & not the level embedded in the family.

Then select the horizontal dimension you just created & pick the label feature to turn the dimension into a parameter. Name the parameter to something like “width”, set it to an instance parameter & ensure you check the Report Parameter radio button.

Repeat what you did for the width parameter, turning the vertical dimension into a reporting parameter labelled as “height”.
Go to the Ref. Level view, select the extrusion; in the Properties Palette, locate the Extrusion End parameter, hit the Associate Family Parameter button.

This will open up the Associate Family Parameter dialogue box. Hit the Add parameter button & create a new instance parameter called “depth”. This doesn’t need to be a reporting parameter.
Go to the Family Types dialogue & create a new Area parameter as a instance.
Go back to the Family Types dialogue box & do the following; in the formula for the Area parameter we will multiply the width X height to give us our Area.

Next we will add a conditional formula to the depth parameter. So we will use this formula as a test example.
if(area < 4 m², 1200 mm, if(area < 6 m², 600 mm, 100 mm))
What this conditional parameter will do formula is allow the depth of the panel to change based on the resulting area value of the panel. If is less the 4m squared it will be 1200mm thick, less the 6m & it will be 600mm, else it will be 100mm thick,

Next save your panel family with a suitable name. Start a new project, load your newly created panel family into the new project. Using the wall tool draw a straight segment of curtain wall. With the curtain wall selected, go to the Properties Palette, pick the Edit Type button, this will open up the Types Dialogue box for the Curtain Wall.

Set the Curtain Panel to your new loaded curtain wall panel. The cw system will automatically file with the new panel. Finally, using the Curtain Grid tool, start to divide up the curtain wall.

As you divide the curtain wall, depending on the panel size, the area of the panel will be calculated in turn informing the depth of the panels.


The values I added to the conditional formula are not cast in stone, you can easily modify them to get different results or even make a more complex  conditional formula. I have quickly knocked up a youTube Video which supports the above workflow, although I don’t follow it from start to finish, but it should reinforce what I did.

Choosing new drysuits

Hanging out with our drysuits, old and new.

After six seasons, our drysuits were shot. Seams were leaking; holes were spontaneously appearing. Everything has a lifespan, and after six years of heavy use, our drysuits had reached theirs.

We didn't reflexively choose to purchase Kokatat drysuits again. Before replacing them, we examined the materials and designs of drysuits from various manufacturers and talked to paddlers who own them. But in the end, we chose Kokatat drysuits again because we were happy with our old suits as well as the customer service every time we needed advice or a repair. We liked the front-entry zipper (some manufacturers place the entry zipper in back), the high-quality Goretex, and the option of a front relief zipper for women. And the fit was great. (Kokatat is also willing to customize suits for a reasonable extra charge.)

There are a lot of options beyond manufacturer. Here's what we chose and why:

Style: We chose to go with the GMER again -- the Goretex Meridian drysuit with a tunnel and boots but no hood. For us, this is the best combination: Goretex has a longer lifespan than Tropos; the tunnel is great for keeping water out of the cockpit during rough-water paddling or play; the boots keep your feet dry and eliminate the need for an additional gasket around your ankles; the flap over the zipper protects that essential and expensive part; and we prefer to wear a separate hood, not one that's attached when we need it and when we don't.

Zippers: Men have just two choices: zipper or no zipper. Having no zipper means you have to almost entirely take off the drysuit every time you need to pee, which is a hassle in the best of circumstances and unpleasant in the worst. It means exposing the dry layers beneath to the elements, and also exposing your latex gaskets to sunscreen as you pull them over your face and hands, which hastens the deterioration of the latex.

Women can choose no zipper,  a drop-seat zipper, or a front-relief zipper much like the men's but lower down. (The latter requires the use of a female-to-male adapter, of course.) After trying drysuits with a drop-seat zipper and talking to women who have them, Sharon chose the front-relief zipper, mainly because the drop-seat zipper adds bulk to the suit and isn't any easier for her to use than the front-relief zipper.

Color: Alec chose a mango-colored drysuit again because it's the lightest color available, and therefore least likely to cause him to overheat when paddling hard in cold conditions. (Light colors reflect more heat than darker colors.) Also, mango shows up well on the water. Sharon chose a black suit because she is too cold more often than too warm. And besides, she was sick of mango.

New (left) and old (right). The mango color faded over time. Note the change in the cuff design. The older suit has a Goretex cuff with a Velcro closure over the latex. The new one has a neoprene tube over the latex.

Care: Like all gear, drysuits require some maintenance, so we called Adam Knoeller in Kokatat's design department to ask a few questions about how to help our new drysuits last as long as possible. His advice:

• Rinse them in clean water to get rid of dirt.
• Dry them out of direct sunlight.
• Make sure they are dry before storing.
• Hang them on wide suit hangers that support the shoulders. Avoid creasing them.
• Avoid getting sunscreen, lotion and insect repellant on your gaskets.
• Use 303 Aerospace Protectant on the gaskets periodically.
• Lubricate the zippers with beeswax.
• Don't force the zippers; make sure they are aligned before pulling them open or closed.
• Protect your Goretex boots by wearing something over them at all times.

Just add paddlers. The new design includes a mesh-lined chest pocket. 

An open Revit Standard?

There has been much discussion on Twitter recently amongst the Revit community about an Open Revit Standard. Now their are many standards out there, but nothing really free or open for the new Revit user. The New Zealand and Australian standards go a long way, so do the AEC UK Revit standards, but nothing typically open source which can be tweaked to you needs. Therefore, be sure to follow the discussion at ....

http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23OpenRevStds

if you want to get involved in this project truly global project.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ride to Work Day post. Not because it's that special day, but because I got a job

Over the last few days, I've spent a few hours working over the Triumph, since it's the only bike I've got that is simultaneously running; titled, insured and plated; and remotely safe at freeway speeds. It's been plagued by a kind of for-the-want-of-a-nail-my-kingdom's-lost problem. It's basically sound (I think) but somehow before I got it, the little fuel screens on the petcock, inside the tank, got broken. Since it also sat unused for several years, there's some rust inside the tank, and as a result there's a continuous stream of crap flowing into the fuel line and clogging the carbs.

The obvious solution was to replace the petcock. It's a Mikuni part -- one of the few components on the bike not proprietary to Triumph -- that costs over $120 to replace. Since that's 120 times what I paid for the bike, you can imagine I wasn't too eager to do that. Instead, I jerry-rigged a fuel pickup using the original petcock, but every time I was forced to go to the reserve setting, it gagged on rust particles. And there's a limit to what you can expect from a $1.99 inline fuel filter, which was my Plan B.

So, I finally bought a used petcock on eBay, that only cost me 35 times what I paid for the bike. Since the carbs have been taken apart too often, I also had to replace a few screws. 

Once I had wrestled the carbs back into place and confirmed that the replacement petcock actually did seem to work, it was time to take the bike for a test ride. So I put The Chick on the back of it, and we headed over to the gym. I stopped on the way to fill the fuel tank and when I attempted to restart the bike it made a 'sparking' sound beneath the seat and all the idiot lights went dark. I checked the fuses, which are pretty accessible; they were all good. Removing the seat to get access to the battery is an incredible fuss on that bike, but on an impulse I reached through to just shift the battery ever so slightly in the battery box.

That caused the lights to come back on, although it still just made a 'solenoid' sound when I tried to engage the starter. Embarrassingly, I had to ask The Chick to push me, but it bumped to life and I returned home to learn that when I was drawing a lot of power from the battery to run the starter motor, it was shorting -- from one or even both battery leads -- to the frame.

I insulated the frame rails near the battery with strips of bicycle inner tube. While I was at it, I rigged a better system for securing the Triumph's seat, so I'd have easier access to the battery in the future. Remind me to take my friend Tim Prentice to task, or at least as him if burying the allen bolts that hold the seat on w-a-y far in under the edge of the seat was a design decision he made. Who thinks it's a good idea to spec a seat that requires tools for removal? And as for running the battery leads right along the frame rails; wouldn't a little additional  insulation have been a good idea?

Making this thing reliable has been like training a persian cat to hunt for truffles. If I'm lucky though, that's all the Triumph needs to be a decent commuter. It won't be a really safe commuter, since it doesn't have mirrors. (Incredibly, mirrors aren't required on a street bike in Missouri.)

But, it should be decent. That's good, because I now have an actual job, working at [NAME OF EMPLOYER REDACTED]. Look out, motorcycle journalism...

Always check the weather

Today we intended to go paddling with Hannah and Josh. We gathered our gear at the crack of noon, then looked outside, where the trees were bending in the wind. "If it's that windy here, it has to be nuts on the lake," we said. So we checked the wind speed at the Harrison Street crib.

We knew there was a storm on the other side of the lake, where Keith was hoping to spend the day paddling. 

But a check of the wind speed on this side of the lake confirmed our observations: at 1 p.m., the peak winds were 61 knots.

So we unloaded our gear and headed down to the lake. The sky was ominous, and lightning crackled in the sky over the lake.

The winds were intense, and the waves were washing over the revetments. 

12th Street Beach was closed when we arrived, and numerous would-be bathers gazed longingly at the waves. After awhile, the sky began to brighten and the lightning moved south, so the lifeguards decided to raise the green flag, which meant they needed to launch the row boat.

We felt fortunate to catch the winds at their peak. Since they were out of the southeast, where the fetch is shortest, they died down quickly. It was a good day for watching waves and taking photos. We'll paddle tomorrow instead. 

Lock profiles in Revit / Vasari conceptual massing

This came up a couple of times during RTC USA, but it seems that some people, whilst they are aware that the sketch profile feature got re-introduced in Revit 2011, they are not aware that you could lock the top & bottom sketches. This concept will only work with forms created from model lines; take a look at the attached youTube for more details. Sadly no audio, but you should get the general concept.