Bashed My Stik . . .

A Stik is a model airplane designed by the late great Phil Kraft.  Allegedly it was built to test various engines that he was working on.  Today it is probably the most common radio control airplane in use.  There are many variations, some are decidedly better designed and built than others.  I prefer the Great Plaines Almost Ready to Fly or ARFs as they are substantially better built than all the others that I have owned.

In this case I inadvertently move the control stick and of course the airplane went where it was told to go.  In this case strait in vertically and full speed.  Did a bit of damage to the engine, so that is pretty hard crash.  It tore the muffler manifold right out of the head, pulled out some of the threads with it.  Fortunately, I have another such engine that I can use the parts from to fix up the engine again.

And I have ordered a new Stik from Tower Hobbies.  I got free shipping on the deal and that alone is worth about $20.  Then I found a coupon that gave me another $30 off and entered that in the appropriate slot on the order blank and reaped that saving too.  I had to get some stiffer control rods and hardware so that soaked up much of the savings.  Got a new propeller for the engine too.

So I have work ahead restoring the engine and putting the new Stik together.  I make it a tail dragger vice the original tricycle designed landing gear.  That entails moving the main landing gear forward and of course adding a tail wheel assembly.  I also reinforce the rear of the fuselage, a weak point now that it is a tail dragger.  I have to add weight and do that internally and I move the rudder and elevator servos aft (cut new holes for the servos and reinforce the area to take the loads imposed by the servos). 

So I have quite a bit of work ahead but I am getting good at it.

I like the plane design and it flies really well.  I see no reason to change as that is what I like to fly.  Others fly all kinds of airplanes, some electrics and some with gasoline engines.  I am still with four cycle glow engines and my Stiks.  It is what I like to do.  And frankly, I like to assemble them the way I want.  That alone is plenty of entertainment for me.

Political Conventions Are Over - - - - At last

Both convents are in the books, both of them had their controversies.  Both seem to have candidates that the populace are uneasy about or at least that is what the pundits wish us to believe.  I must say the Republican Convention was more rational than the Democratic one.

But both had their issues.  Cruz proceeded to shoot himself in the foot.  He repudiated Trump after he had pledged to vote for the winner.  Really poor actions on his part.  He would have been infinitely better off to keep his mouth shut.  But he could not resist, an ego thing, and Trump let him do it and them capitalized on it.  In the end Cruz looses again, pity.  And probably dooms himself in the future.

In Hillary's case there is a definite split in the Democratic Party with Bernie taking his troops out of it.  True Bernie did the final nomination by acclimation trick but a lot of his followers have left the party.  A rift at best.   Then Hillary tried to exploit the "Black Lives Matter Movement" which turned off another portion of her constituency.  She can not win beating the female drum alone.  And Hillary drags Benghazi along with her email issues.  And they will bring up all the past garbage.  Gonna get hot.

I think both parties have shown that the general populace is not stupid.  They are more rationale that  each thinks they are.  Both candidates used their families as much as possible, sort of a new thing going on in both parties.  Or is that they could not get others vet their characters?  Trumps children really shown out in the family thing.  In Hillary's case husband Bill do not do so good.  To much schmooze and again credibility crept in to the mix.  I have to admit I did not listen to the daughter speak at all.  Must now have been much as there was no raving by the media after it all.

Now on to November.  I will stay out of the stock market until then.  The market is very antsy anyway and Europe is shaky at best.  I will invest in more defensive issues, broader based to forestall severe downturns.  And I will buy on down turns.

I think the real issues will start to appear.  One will be tax verses non tax issues.  Another will be immigration.  And a third will be crime, police, war in the Mideast and who knows what controversy will appear on the horizon.  Zika maybe.  There is sure to be some of that floating around and will pop up to each candidate's dismay.  And once again, it will be the independents that will make the difference.  Third party candidates will as usual be shuttled aside as ineffective in all manners.

So the race is on

Unbeleiveable . . .

I think it is unbelievable that Ted Cruz dug his on political grave before the nation.  Did he not sign the agreement with NRC to support the candidate that got nomination?  He did and yet he stands up before nation and will not endorse Donald Trump. 

He is toast.  I am a Texan, I admit I did not vote for him for the US Senate but he got elected.  So he is our junior Senator.  I voted for him in the Texas primary over the former Governor.  Now he pulls off a stunt that is absolutely stupid.  What power had is now gone.  Oh yeah, he will have strong positions regarding the constitution but now will lack the pull to get anything done.  He is now a pariah.  He has proven he is an unrelenting self righteous fool.

Is he morally correct, perhaps.  Is he politically correct, absolutely not since he signed a pledge and does not honor his public pledge.  Personally, I would drum him out of the party but that is not within my power.  But I will not support him, he is worse than Senators John Cornyn, Barbara Boxer, and so on. 

Will I communicate with him?  Yes, here and there, he does have one vote in the senate, and sometimes it can be exercised in the right manner.  But come time for his re-election I will not vote for him.  There has to be a better candidate here in Texas.

He has become in my vocabulary a RINO (Republican In Name Only).  There are a lot of them around, plenty of them in the Senate but up to now he was a sort of a lone wolf.  Now he is just a vote, nothing more.  He will be literally powerless.  He is now the laughing stock of the party.  He is unprofessional.  He is whiner.  He is a loser!

I think Trump was right, he hit Cruz's sore spot and now Cruz wears it like a red badge of courage.

Calmer Now . . .

Things have quietened down a bit in Baton Rouge.  Seems as though this was a lone wolf determined to do his worst.  Makes me wonder did he have suicide in the back of his mind.  Surely, he must have known that there would be armed response and that he may not survive is activities.

He seemed to have no regard for killing policemen at all.  Sort of stand and fire.  He stood, he fired and then he died.  I wish the story would end there but there are families on both sides of this equation who do not have a clue as to why and what for.  It is truly senseless, It produced nothing but hate.

He took his actions one step further than the assassin in Dallas who was only shooting white cops.  He just shot cops, one of which was black.  So he just killed indiscriminately.  It makes no sense except that it was an attack on authority, police authority.  What a terrible waste to die for.  He will go down as a footnote in time of a era of racial tension caused by the present Federal Administration.

We do not need a war on cops.  They are doing their jobs to support and protect.  Let them be and support them.  They have deal with the bottom of the barrel all the time.  That is hard enough.

I hope calm and sensibility returns to our streets.  We have to deal with ISIS, we do not need to be dealing with our own citizens in an insurrection.

It has Gotten Worse . . .

We can not as a nation tolerate continuous attacks on our police force.  They are there to protect and serve not be targets.  When we peel back the onion on all the cases since Ferguson, MO it turns out the cops were right.  The cops are very disciplined, have standards and are charged with enforcing the law.

Now we have random shooting of police.  That is not acceptable.  And we investigate the shooters we tend to find a somewhat warped personality.  Being a little off is one thing, taking matters into ones hands to kill is another.  We have the right to protest, it is now somewhat part of our society and political make up.  But we do not have the right kill or target our police.

We as a nation we must get beyond this.  We do not have to love each other but we do have to respect each other.  I think the black community is in crisis.  We have to reach out to them in what ever way we can.  They are not bad people.  But the education system and economy have done them no favors.  Yet I look about me and see very much that the black community is part and parcel of us all.

It is not a time for isolation.  It is a time for coalition.  We must come together as a nation and stop this madness.

Disgusted . . .

I am disgusted about Ferguson, MO, about Baltimore, MD, about Baton Rouge, and about Minnesota.  The disgust is that the black community is up in arms, really arms, shooting people.  White police officers under fire.  They are under attack by black males, but black politicians, by black rabble rousers on all sides.

Are some while officers wrong, biased, you bet they are.  But that is the normal distribution of people in society.  Yet it seems that a great deal of the young black community, especially males, blame all policemen but especially white ones.  It is irrational.  It is non thinking.  It is emotional.  It is sad.  It is a break down of our mores, of our trust of the police, of anti authority aspects in all areas.  We are now polarized by this kind of thinking.

I think it is liberalism come home to roost.  Yes, there are victims but that does not mean the police as a group have caused such anguish, something else is underlying it.  Something that has been festering for a long time. 

And it what ever it is, has erupted in Dallas.  Sad for the police and equally sad for the black community.  Killing randomly is not the answer,  I am not sure what the answer is but I know death and destruction of families and friends is not that answer.  It is totally unthinking.

I hope it can be blamed on mental illness.  I hope it can be blamed on something we as a people can treat with.  If not, then we are entering an era of violence.  The Latino community does not react that way.  The Asian community does not react that way.  Only the black community seems to be reacting.  Why?

I do not believe it is drugs.  I believe it is misguided self education.  It is becoming ingrained.  We see it in rap music, now we see it on the streets.   It used to be random gang shootings.  Now it is directed at the police.  Why?

Dallas was having a peaceful but meaningful demonstration against violence.  And now five policemen are dead and another seven are wounded.  And one of the perpetrators is deceased and one is in custody.  Still another is on the run.  I am sure the black community is going to find that person and turn him in to the authorities.

This is not ISIS.  This is within our own communities.  This is in our society.  Why?  What has driven this kind of thinking and action?

The Market Post BREXIT . . .

Well as I expected the market has returned to its normal level just under 18,000.  It seems to land in that area and dither for a while, roll back to 17,500 and start back up.  The market is antsy about the up coming election as usual and not picking a winner.  It is sort of standing on the sideline and watching what is going on.

Corporate earnings have not been sterling and growth is somewhere just below 2 per cent.  Anemic is probably the term to assign to the market now days.  BREXIT provided a weekend of excitement and as usual the market reevaluated the cause for turbulence and has now discounted it.  It really does not effect us in the US and Great Britain is and will remain a preferred ally.  So we will watch in askance and continue to do business with them.  Personally, I think it is a good thing that the British pulled out of the EU.  They had steadfastly retained their currency while all the other members went to the Euro.  They took hit going it alone but that will smooth out in time.

I made one buy, held the issue of a couple of days and then sold it.  I make just under $200 on the deal going in and getting out.  Since the buy was in my IRA, it is of no consequence Capital Gains wise, it is just a blip of a piece of income.

All my other positions returned to their normal levels, some even went up.  And since it was the end of the quarter a bunch of dividends came in too.  Some of the defensive issues I was in  actually went up during the fiasco.  At the bottom of the sell off, I was down about 1% vice the normal reported 2.5% over all.  Now that 2.5% has recovered and the whole thing earned us a couple of hundred dollars.  So thanks Great Britain.

And the beat goes on.  I still remain on the side lines generally in my IRA.  I have been holding a cash position for several months anticipating a severe market correction.  I thought that BREXIT would trigger the correction but it did not.  The regular brokerage account remains fairly static.

So the market is in a sort of status quo, looking over the election and bouncing around a bit.  BREIXT just provide a short buy zone and I took advantage of it.  It was a no brainer.