Apprentice Quest
The massive, multidisciplinary scale of this project has made it clear from the beginning that I can't do it alone, even with the aid of Faun's capable handling of the office, Web site, print publications, and hydroponic garden. We had student help at UCSD and now have a number of volunteers assisting with everything from running around to pondering the network tools, but there's still one major position to be filled.
What I need here is a broad-spectrum tech/apprentice, interested in everything, good at packaging, reasonably literate in a wide range of fields, hungry for experience, and free enough to make a lifestyle change without expectation of a salary package. (I can hear most of you chuckling already!) Seriously, though, I think the range of benefits could make this a win for the right person: world-class contacts with our amazing group of wizards and sponsors, highly marketable hands-on experience, exposure in the media, the amusement of being involved in an engineering project where the bottom line is fun, and the inevitable hand-me-downs and extra goodies from the lab. Depending on one's lifestyle flexibility, we can offer assistance with overhead, but for obvious reasons we can't really PAY, per se. Unless, of course, one of our sponsors wants to donate a person (or while we're dreaming, why not a whole engineering team?) for the duration...
Anyway, if this bizarre notion excites you or might light a fire under someone you know who's brilliant but needs to get off his or her duff and DO something, please let me know!
Random Updates...
Finally, we have a few news bits and thank-you notes:
First, my father back at my old Kentucky home, Ed Roberts, gets a hearty "THANKS!" for a cash donation that will significantly help offset the rigging expense. That plus the proceeds from the sale of the Fulmar almost gets us there. He's in his 80's, graduated from Swarthmore long ago as a mechanical engineer, and spent his career at General Electric designing refrigerators. We need to get him on the Internet... he's currently the only person in the world who receives these reports from us via a quaint network protocol that involves generating hardcopy, packetizing and addressing, gluing on a colorful receipt for the communications charges, and handing it over to an organization that physically transports it some 2,500 miles. I try to imagine the wonders of the Web from his perspective!
Thanks go to John Crump (whom I first met when he was producing "Silicon Valley Report" on KTEH-54) for putting in a number of hours scanning our sponsor logos. Faun is putting these on our Web site, and adding information pages for companies who don't have their own. When done, every entry in our sponsor list will link to somewhere, either the company's page or a local one that gives access and basic product info.
David Berkstresser and Mark Moorcroft are separately but simultaneosly nudging the on-board trailer project along -- Dave has CAD artwork for the frame and suspension structure; Mark has been researching the lightest and smallest possible wheels and tires that will handle the load. We may end up with 8 Honda Civic 13x5 aluminum wheels on stub axles, arranged in 4 pairs. All this is still preliminary research for the big question about whether this will fit and be practical, but we REALLY need it.
Sponsorship of the two 70-pound-thrust Minn-Kota motors from JWA Marine has been confirmed, and we should have them next week. The timing is good for integration into the first test configuration... which means we will soon be on a quest for batteries and charger.
This Saturday we're off on a kayaking adventure -- hooking up with the Cybercruisers in Redwood Creek for an afternoon. Someday we'll arrive at a raft-up in a proper boat, but for now...
The Advanced Coastal Navigation class we're taking from the Coast Guard Auxiliary has grown ever more challenging, with vector calculations for current sailing the most recent topic. The cruise exam, reputed to take 4-5 hours, is looming dangerously on the horizon.
Finally, let us have a moment of silence to mourn the passing of the pasta monopole, whose short but eventful life gave us a chance to test the tuner, make a few contacts, and even listen in on one of the Pacific cruiser's nets. Now we know why they don't make sailboat spars out of PVC <grin>... it's hard to keep that stuff in column! Time for rev 2...
Cheers from the lab, Steve