Crazy Frustrated

We had an inch of snow this week. It was quite pretty. The camera doesn’t show what the eye sees, but even in this picture you can see snowflakes frozen in time. It’s even prettier for us because we don’t have to go out if we don’t want to. So why am I crazy frustrated?

It all started with Christmas. Danita and I heard Bryon would like a drone. I thought drones were multi-thousand dollar devices, but Danita found a palm-sized drone with a very reasonable price and excellent reviews. Brian had fun flying it inside and was having pretty good success — until it got tangled with Elizabeth’s hair. Still, it looked like a lot of fun. I got the itch and bought myself one. When I tried to fly it, it skittered across the room like a demented crab until it encountered a wall. Then it buzzed against the wall like a manic woodpecker while I tried to find the “off” button. After several “flights”, I got highly miffed and sent it back.

But I was still hooked. Surely a better drone would be easier to fly. I found another drone, larger and only mildly outrageous in cost. It is stabilized by a 6-axis gyro, and also stabilized with GPS. It comes with a one-button launch and another button guaranteed to land it where it took off. Great. But I bought it at the wrong time of year for sure. It’s a lot bigger and could be a hazard indoors. Plus, GPS stabilization only works outdoors. So now I need a day that’s dry, not super cold, with low winds and no snow on the ground. We don’t get a lot of those this time of year. And we have our 5-week trip starting in mid-February. Plus, this being Columbia, there aren’t a lot of wide-open spaces for a beginner pilot to safely experiment. There are some soccer fields that aren’t used during school hours. Hopefully, I’ll get to try it before school’s out.

I’m not really all that frustrated. Plenty of things are great. For example, if Danita has lots of leftover ham from the holidays, she might be inspired to make a ham and swiss loaf for dinner. Tres bon!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

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