MOVING THE BODY

The key to a good road trip is good road music. The eighteen hours of driving gave me time to reacquaint myself with some of my favorite as well as re-listen to some classics from Ontario bands I enjoy. Don't be shocked, but there is no Tragically Hip on this list.

Good Driving Albums
Motorhead "Overkill" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZTdfyaRHK4
Television "Marquee Moon" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6IAalgT4vU
The Ventures "Surfing" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ11y7pYl-8

Albums by Ontario Bands
The Kent Boys "Atticus Finch" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KRqcB-0hd4 Moneen "Are we Really Happy with who we are Right Now?" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWGnkrgMFM0

In between albums I sampled local radio to gather some insight into the people of the areas we cruised though. I was terrified when I was confronted with Boys II Men songs on 3 different occasions; I was wishing I packed pepper spray.

Driving through Ontario reminded me that there are still sleepy towns just "gettin' er done" all over this country. "40 hour week" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38b3RVg7Jpo by Alabama came to mind a few times while I zipped past kids on ATV's and logging roads.

PREPARING TO FLY
Saturday was a bit hectic. We loaded our craft in to the hanger area and got to work at assembling the pieces. The rental truck that brought the craft to Ottawa had to be returned by 2:00 PM so Jeremy and I set out to refuel and return it to the rental agency. This resulted in a two hour ordeal that led us all over downtown Ottawa and helped to hone my cube van driving skills.

If you drive anything that takes diesel fuel and plan on being in downtown Ottawa know this: there is nowhere to buy diesel fuel in downtown Ottawa.

Once the we got the truck returned we made one more frantic trip to Home Depot for parts and we were locked in. We'd have to get up early to make the wings of the craft stay up. The only thing left to do was hit the town and meet the locals. Gooooood times.

!FLUGTAG!
After some confusion as to where the scrubs (our costumes) went, we tracked them down and got ready for action. The last minute changes to the wings were made and we were ready to fly.

In an effort to get peoples choice votes I got intimate with the crowd that was walking through the hanger area, as well as those gathering on the site by the flight deck. My best Carnie hustle was something to effect of:

"You're a healthy looking group, unfortunatly our friend here is not so well. He suffers from an acute case of butterflies in the stomach...we will be performing a last-ditch effort to extract the virus on the flight deck later today. Please send your hopes a prayers via text message; Team 17 on your voting dial."

We didn't win, but it passed the hot, sunny hours leading up to the launch.

3..2..1..SMACK!
Our skit went pretty much as planned, but the craft failed to fly the way we had anticipated. Apparently a small scale model pushed off a computer tower doesn't quite react the same way as a 400 lb craft being pushed hard off a dock.

I knew we'd missed our mark when, instead of the slow float down we anticipated, I saw the craft drop, exposing the bottom side. Whoops. Guess I'll jump after him. I think we all could take something away from our first shot at aeronautical engineering, but Brent's face learned the biggest lesson. Finally, he gets that boxer look the ladies love.

UNDER THE 'OTHER' CATEGORY
- you can consume more than 3 times the recommended dosage of Red Bull and live to tell about it.
- yelling at strangers can help you make friends.
- next time bring the sex appeal.