The Range Head,
May 1999

by Jack Hagerty, LUNAR #002

FRUSTRATION!

Can we just pretend that the past two months didn't happen and start over again?

In March our meeting room at the Police Station was somehow dual scheduled in the 7:00 to 8:00 hour (the previous group had it 5 to 7, we had it 7 to 9) so Lynn Kissel volunteered to let us meet at his house which, while greatly appreciated, was something of a surprise to his wife when she got home to find a houseful of rocket crazies! This was the second meeting in a row with scheduling problems and lead to a crucial decision which I'll get to in the next topic.

The March launch was a case study in frustration. After a relatively dry week, it rained for eight straight hours on Friday, from early afternoon until well past midnight. Even though launch day dawned clear and windless, LARPD still had to close the field to prevent damage.

April was even worse. There was no meeting to screw up, but the weather pattern was even worse. All week it was cold, wet and even snowed! We didn't have a chance. Even though it didn't actually rain on launch day, LARPD again closed the fields. Since April was our night launch and very popular, I went down to the LARPD offices to see what I could salvage. We discovered that May 1 had some sort of school tournament on "our" field, but we scheduled anyway thinking that the event would be over by the time we'd start. Wrong. No sooner had I distributed the news that the night launch would be May 1, than I heard from Rec & Park telling me that the scheduled event went past sundown also.

At that point I just gave up. Sometimes you just make things worse when trying to fix them at the last second.

Why am I repeating all of this since you already know it (at least those of you who tried to come out for the launches)? It's to thank everyone for being so supportive and not coming after me with torches and pitchforks. Since I'm responsible for scheduling, I feel like it's my fault when I can't deliver (even if it's a weather cancellation). You can sort of understand two cancellations in a row last year when it was El Nino and they were January/February, but this is a milder year and we not only had March and April canceled, but the rescheduled April launch was canceled because someone wasn't looking at the reservation book closely enough :-(

NEW MEETING DIGS

The March meeting wasn't the only one messed up. In January we wound up meeting in the lobby of the Police Station due to another scheduling snafu. After these two meeting fiascos, I called LARPD and asked what facilities might be available for meetings to make things more reliable. They said the most reasonable (i.e. cheapest) would be the meeting room in the Carnegie Building (in the park between 3rd and 4th Streets). This site has historical significance with LUNAR as we actually held our first regular club meetings there for the first half of 1993. So, starting this month, we'll be using the lower meeting room in the Carnegie Building. This is the one with the door on the 4th Street side. There's parking on all four sides of the block which should be plenty for the number we normally have attending. I've also pushed the meeting start back to 7:30 to give those coming from the City or Silicon Gulch a fighting chance to get there by meeting time.

Our scheduled speaker this month is Mark Jeghers who'll be talking about either altimeters or how to go Mach 2 (or both!). Before him, though, is our biannual auction. The pickings are a little slim this time because 1) People aren't loosing things as much, 2) Other people aren't finding the ones that are lost and, 3) We haven't been flying much! (Oh, I already covered that). There are still plenty of goodies and nifty models for the kids, so bring your small fry and some spare change.

ON THE AIR

(JPEG 36KB)

This is the one we've been waiting for! I got a message from Pierre Valette, the producer/director of the new "Sci Squad" series on the Discovery Channel. We've got an air date but it's a bit later than they originally guessed.

For those that came in late, last October, LUNAR hosted Quest Productions with a special launch to help them tape a portion of the kid's science series "Sci Squad" episode on rockets. At the time they said that the episode should air some time in the Spring. Well, technically they're right as the date of the "rocket" episode is Sunday, June 6 with a repeat on Saturday, June 12. Both shows air at 9:30 AM.

Note that you won't find "Sci Squad" listed in the TV Guide. It's part of a bigger anthology type show called "Discovery World" that runs from 9 to noon which is what you'll find listed in the Guide. Also, as a warning, when I watched an episode recently to check it out, it didn't start right on the announced time but rather at 9:37 and ran to 10:07. Not a big deal if you're just watching it, but something to keep in mind if you're setting up the VCR to tape it while you're out.

OLD BUSINESS

I'm still waiting for a volunteer to step forward to coordinate field setup and takedown. One of these days I'm going to have to miss a launch (note: NARAM is that week in August) and you'll all be standing around wondering what happened. We won't be able to blame that one on El Nino!

Information date: May 26, 1999 lk