Lab Hell

I spent the weekend in lab hell. I was almost finished drafting the labs for Microsoft’s ASP.NET 2.0 course when I learned that 1) the beta I received from them isn’t the official beta after all and differs from the public beta in several respects, and 2) the labs have to be rewritten due to changes coming in beta 2. So, I installed the public beta and started over, working the labs myself step by step, fixing what was broken and retooling them to be as compatible as possible with beta 2. I’m halfway through lab 3 tonight. Tomorrow morning I’ll pick up where I left off.

I took time off to fly my P-51 today. It’s incredible in the air. Even the old hands in our R/C club who have been flying 30 years or more stop and watch when the ‘Stang takes off. The only problem is that the plane is big and heavy and our club’s runway is only 300 feet long. I made a near-perfect landing with full flaps and couldn’t stop the plane before it rolled off the end of the runway and flipped upside-down. (Only minor damage, thankfully.) I’ve just about decided not to fly it any more at the local field, which is only 15 minutes from my house, but rather to stick to clubs with 500-foot runways. Unfortunately, that means driving a couple of hours each way. Sigh.

If  I ever move to the country, I’m going to build my own runway. Happiness is a 500-foot runway in your back yard and a quarter-scale warbird sitting on it ready for take-off.