I came across this article on wikipedia, so I decided to make my own. A lot of Inkscape and an order through Ponoko, resulted in the following. I have to make some matching brass hardware to hold the pieces together.

I’m selling a 3.9″ diameter version on Ponoko, with a price point that’s actually very close to Ponoko’s laser cutting cost. I have to play around with their system to see if I can lower the cost. I’m working on custom date ranges. Click here for my Ponoko store.

Google’s Sketchup, which is free (as in beer), is a great tool for sharing concepts and product designs. I decided to rough out a workbench for my apartment using it, and then build it to see how well it integrates in the design process. I had a few ideas what my workbench should be: made out of 2×4′s, have a 4′x2′ top, be about 30″ tall, be built for under $50, and disassemble fairly easily. The size of the top was based on what was easily available and to minimize the cut list, and the height seemed comfortable to me.  Build time was about 2 hours working with a circular saw and would have been a great deal faster with a chop saw. Sketchup was nice to use, and a good alternative for this level of project.

This workbench isn’t meant to compete with a mortise and tenon woodworkers bench. This is held together with desk screws and made of pine. It’s good for light duty work. What’s nice about these 2″x4″ workbenches is that they’re so cheap, and easily modified. Need mount a power strip or attach a pegboard? Just get those deck screws out.

Click the link below for design files and bill of materials.

Design Files

You can download the Sketchup files here. (Please consider donating $1 using the Paypal button on the right sidebar).

Bill of Materials

• (1) 2′x4′x3/4″ table top – Hardboard or otherwise
• (4) 30″ Legs
• (3) 48″  Front and back horizontal rails
• (4) 21″ Upper and lower frame pieces
• (1) 2-1/2″ 1lb. box of deck screws
• (6) 1-1/4″ desk screws for workbench top

The total came to about $38 with materials from Lowe’s.

The holiday brings new things into library that I will quickly consume over the course of a month. This book, or should I say compendium, will not be completed in a few years for the fear that I otherwise be accused of hubris.  TASCHEN’s  “Leonardo da Vinci – The Complete Paintings and Drawings” is a 12 pound, 695 page, 15.4″x10.2″x2.4″ collection of his life’s work. Do not be led to believe that this even begins to scrape the surface of Leonardo’s 13,000 known notebook pages. To my knowledge, there is no single source for all of his works. We are still finding pieces (even underneath other works) after almost 500 years.

The collection is primarily an art book and is divided in three sections: a biography of his life and work, a catalogue raisonné of paintings, and a selection of his graphic works.

The pieces are presented as they are, with a little information on the bibliographical sources to accompany them. The paintings for the most part can be appreciated and studied as they are presented, which are sometimes duplicated in a cropped and zoomed two-page spread. One of the areas where the book shines is including the under-sketches and practice drawings hat went into the paintings. The scientific discussions and mechanical drawings leave me wanting more though. Translations and commentary would make this volume indispensable. Quote Leonardo: “Let no man who is not a Mathematician read the elements of my work.”  It does include references in the back of the book for concurrence of numbering systems between different volume, as well as a huge bibliography.

TASCHEN, overall did a great job compiling this quality book. The size, glossy pages, and ordered presentation are  appreciated for studying his work in detail.  At $45, it’s almost a steal.

On June 9, 2009, I had the opportunity to experience microgravity aboard NASA’s Microgravity University outreach program. This account follows what the Dusty Plasma Team-II (DPX-II) and I did in our time at the Johnson Space Center and Ellington Field where the flight was from. In addition to microgravity, we had the convenience of “flying” in a hypobaric chamber to 25,000 ft, toured the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, and inspected our country’s progress toward the 2019 Moonshot.

I collected thoughts on the experience, some of the neat things I saw, as well as a short discussion of our experiment.

EDIT: WIRED.com did a feature on us here!

Our experiment is worth a small introduction. We began in November 2008 with an application to NASA for the flight. Application is open to national US undergraduate universities that require microgravity for an experiment. It’s a competitive process that determines who has a good plan to make good science in microgravity. Out of 70 teams that apply, less than 30 make it to Houston. This preliminary process determines whether your team has “the right stuff” to complete a project in the time allotted and an experiment worth being placed in microgravity.

The physicists on the team had flown a similar experiment in the previous year, and it had done well. They changed some of their science, and wanted to build it better, so they recruited two mechanical engineers (Chris and I). Our team works in conjunction with an adviser, Dr. Andrew Zwicker, at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. I worked closely with my The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) engineering adviser, Bijan Sepahpour. During our preparation, we were able to draw on PPPL’s and TCNJ’s resources in order to complete the project.

We had to wait a while before we heard back from NASA, especially since the entire program was set to be axed by Congressional budget cuts. I wish I knew why Congress hates science so much.

After being accepted, we had one of two flight dates to choose from; April and June. We chose the latter. The last month leading up to our departure was very hectic. I was heading the construction of this project, as well as wrapping up TCNJ’s entry in the 2009 Solar Splash Competition. In fact, the day after that I came back from the Solar Splash Competition in Arkansas (a 24 hour drive) I had boarded a plane for Houston, TX.

Making Dust Float

The basic premise of our experiment was to visualize the behavior of dust in plasma during microgravity. Plasma is the stuff that stars, lightning, and neon signs are made of. Scientists are interested in this because of certain industrial processes performed with semiconductors and the majority of the stuff in the known universe is plasma. It’s the most abundant state of matter, and holds some really interesting promises for generating massive amounts of power in the future. How did we study this? We start with a small vacuum chamber with two electrodes in it that are held at a potential of about 400 V, 1-2 mA. Dust is placed in the chamber, and a vacuum is pulled to about .1 Torr (atmospheric pressure is 760 Torr). The chamber is backfilled with a Argon, and a plasma forms. The dust floats inside the plasma (more correctly a DC Glow Discharge) by the effects of gravity and the electrodes. The shape of the dust cloud changes in microgravity, which is one of the more interesting phenomenon that the physicists are interested in. Data is then collected by two video cameras (one wide and narrow angle) that is fed live into a desktop computer. To visualize the shape of the 3-D dust cloud, we use a laser sheet that illuminates a 2-D cross section. During the flight, we planned on modifying the voltage, chamber pressure, and position of the laser.

In order to fly with NASA, we had to prove two things. First, we had to accomplish the goal collecting data on the behavior of dusty plasma. Second, and more importantly, the design had to maximize safety for the occupants of the aircraft by conforming to their regulations on size and permissible equipment. So in several last submissions to NASA, the design was proven to complete these two objectives and documented as such.

Now, this is a lot of equipment, and our final apparatus reflects this. It ended up weighing 295 lbs, just short of the 300 lbs NASA limitation. Aluminum extrusions were used for the skeleton. The largest offenders of weight was the dry vacuum pump (67 lbs) and computer (27lbs).

The project had shipped ahead of us packed by the shipping gods at PPPL in a 600 lb (!!!) wood container directly to Ellington Field.

Ellington Field

Our time over the two weeks our team spent in Houston was filled with NASA activities and tours, preparing the experiment, or sleeping. We had ample work to do before our flight since the entire experiment had to be assembled and last minute pilot tests completed at Ellington Field. The aircraft hanger and field that we worked out of was where the flight would be coming from and housed the NASA Microgravity Office. We shared a hanger with a WB-57F, a high altitude weather reconnaissance jet that is one of two still operating in the world. It can hold 6,000 lbs in cargo to a flight ceiling in excess of 60,000 ft (~11.4 miles!!) Just outside our hanger was the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a heavily modified Boeing 747 to ferry the shuttle from alternative landing sites back to the Shuttle Landing Facility.

Some of the more important pre-flight activities for the experiment included a Test Readiness Review (TRR) that was the final safety check performed by 20 NASA engineers and specialists.

Hypobaric chamber

NASA Microgravity University is unique in that we are not just passengers, but considered flight teams and mission crew. As part of the team’s-flight activities, NASA requires that participants get an FAA flight physical and be well versed in emergency procedures for the flight. This includes knowing how to find and use the oxygen hoods in the event of cabin decompression. As an extra measure, they put us through a standard hypoxia training profile in a hypobaric chamber. This simulates the decrease in atmospheric pressure and oxygen that one would see at 25,000 feet, which is 4000 feet below Mt. Everest’s 29,029 ft summit. At 25,000 feet, the air pressure is 37.65 kPa (sea level is 101.33 kPA).

The “flight” transition to this altitude where they decrease the chamber’s pressure can cause quite a bit of discomfort in the ears. The Valsalva maneuver is recommended, and was taught to us by the staff in addition to other information about what happens to our bodies in this environment. The chamber sat approximately 14 of us at a time, so the groups were split up. We were fitted with flight masks and “snoopy” caps that would give us communication in the chamber. After getting to 25,000 ft in about 15 minutes, we were told to remove our flight masks that had been feeding us 100% Oxygen. We were to identify our symptoms of hypoxia and complete as much of a worksheet as possible. It had some math on it, silly visual illusions, and places to write the presidents or our names. Hypoxia symptoms include feeling giddy and lack of judgement. I felt fine, but other than some flatulence (little fart becomes very big and wants out because of the drop in pressure) After about the three minute mark, I didn’t feel like doing the math problems or much of anything. After five minutes, the masks go back on, and then they bring us back down. The supervisors of this test have great fun identifying people that “aren’t all there” and tend to say silly things. The fellow next to me seemed like he was getting aggressive after he tried to take a swing at me with his fist right before our masks went back on. Reactions due to lack of oxygen vary greatly.

The Flight

Microgravity can be had in three ways: falling, orbiting, and getting really far away from any gravitational source. Getting in orbit or away from the earth costs a few billion right now, so that’s out. The best way then (not in a vacuum) is to fall by putting an airplane temporarily in freefall.

The government has this little policy to make every effort to outsource services to other companies. So with the introduction of the Zero-G Corporation, NASA no longer runs their own microgravity flights aboard the KC-135 Stratotanker. Zero-G is famous for running 15-parabola $5,000 flights for anyone with the cash aboard a 727. No problem, right? Well, NASA has experience behind them for one. There is a certain “quality” of parabola that one must hit to simply make a good microgravity environment and good science. The trick is to impart as little acceleration to the apparatus inside the cabin. And I think that our data may show that the NASA pilots may be better, but it’s too early to speak yet.

In the morning, we don our flight suits, get a briefing, and board the aircraft. It really moves quite quickly. The entire flight over the Gulf of Mexico only lasts about 90 minutes, and we have 30 parabolas to do our work. As a bonus we do Moon (awesome!) and Mars gravity (less awesome!) on the last two parabolas. The majority of the cabin that we work in has 1-in. padding and the passenger seats in the back. There are about 6 teams on board with three people each in addition to NASA and Zero-G personnel. The NASA staff, in blue flight suits, act as the “enforcers” that look for people doing stupid things (like not getting down when we are about to lose microgravity) or holding down sick people. The weightlessness we experience is about 0.1 of earth’s gravity. The moon is 0.165-g and Mars is 0.376-g of our nominal 1-g living conditions.

Before the flight, they also give us a gem of a medicine: SCOP-DEX. It’s a JSC-only available mixture of 0.8mg Scopolamine and 5mg of Dexedrine. It’s basically an upper and a downer that is supposed to counteract the effects of motion sickness. While this is very effective, the downer tends to hit you later and knocks you out for the rest of the day.

Microgravity

Probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.

Microgravity is a funny thing. It hits some harder than others and in unpredictable ways. We were told many times to eat our normal breakfasts. “But then you’ll vomit!” Exactly. You WANT to vomit. You want your body to do it’s thing that is ingrained in our bodily functions because its’ unhappy. After that, you feel better. And surrounding monkeys won’t eat what you ate this morning because that food will make them sick.

So… I lost my breakfast twice on the flight. I didn’t miss a parabola stuck in a seat in the back, though. Pulled out my vomit bag, lost what I needed to, and then continued having fun. It’s a weird little panic that sets in. “Shit, I’m gonna puke… Gotta puke. Gotta puke.” And you don’t think of the convenient vomit bags tucked away in your flight suit. So you scramble around a little bit and then remember you are prepared for this. Sit down, hold the bag with two hands, and a NASA staffer in a blue flight suit will hold you down. It actually stays in the little flight bag pretty well through the microgravity portion since there isn’t much acceleration imparted on things to go anywhere.

Enough talking about that.

Aside from that… damn. That was really fun. Microgravity is made of smiles and puppy dog tails. You look around slowly with everyone floating and working feverishly, and you can’t imagine extending this experience into the weeks that the astronauts preform. It’s incredible. There’s no way being weightless could ever be routine. I could do it forever. It is not comparable to SCUBA diving, or anything that I have ever experienced. I took time to enjoy it and thought carefully about what was going on, but it still went too quickly. At 20 to 25 seconds per microgravity parabola, it doesn’t last forever.

Interacting with objects is the most fun. Imparting spins on things and watching them go or just snatching things out of the air. We missed two flying object debris hazards in our preparation, but I grabbed them as they left the experimental enclosure and put them away in the flight suit.

I couldn’t concentrate on anything with the experiment and depended heavily on my amazing teammates. Anytime I looked at a knob, I would get this tunnel vision that made everything spin. So I kept my gaze distant and not focus on anything in particular. I goofed around a little for the photographer. All of the new people chose to lie down during the 2-g portion, but the flight photographers toughed it out and stood up. I can’t imagine what that feels like.

Other sights

Part of Microgravity University is showing how great NASA is (which it is). Some of the better things I got to see was a ready-to-fly Saturn V rocket on display. Absolutely huge. I’m glad that the new Constellation program is returning to these massive rockets. We also saw the mission control rooms for the ISS, shuttle, and the Apollo program that coordinate with other rooms around the world. STS-125 had just returned on a Hubble repair mission in the previous week, so there was a crowd in the control room hanging the traditional mission plaque.

Celebration in Mission Control

Robonaut!

THE consoles where flight engineers sat during from Apollo all the way through some of the shuttle flights (really!)

Cigar smoke from our nation’s moon landings still permeated everything in the Apollo Mission Control. In the corner is a flag that went to the moon and came back. NASA has quite an artifact fetish.

Neutral Buoyancy Lab

Wow. A 6.2 million gallon (202 x 102 x 40ft) indoor pool built in a hanger that’s only one third below ground. And it is home to a the International Space Station 1:1 training mock-up minus the solar panels. Like everything else in NASA, there are alot of stories passed around about the pool lab. “Took a month to fill. Enough cement to fill 500 trucks for miles.”  I think the key to NASA culture is separating the ‘tales’ from the facts, but it’s such an attractive part about NASA.

We didn’t have the luck of seeing any astronauts train in the facility, but they were removing the Hubble Telescope mock-up that the astronauts had been training on. The facility was home to several other mock-ups of the shuttle that were equally amazing. I got to sit in a shuttle flight chair that I assume that it becomes more comfortable when hitting 3 g’s on launch.

I welcome any questions from new teams. I learned a lot that I didn’t record in this account, but would be happy to share. Contact me with the form on the top of the page.

Further Reading

Our PPPL advisor’s blog about the trip: Science Edumacation

NASA Microgravity University

TCNJ Engineering

NASA Microgravity University

NASA Blog

Nebraska Lincoln Blog

One of my favorite books to go through when I don’t have time for a big project is the Ashley Book of Knots (Amazon link) published in 1944 by Clifford W. Ashley. Consider this the grand-daddy of knot tying volumes. It’s definitely a reference for any application that you can possibly think of (it even includes necktie knots). I had some 550 paracord bought from Supply Captain, so I tried my hand at some of the more decorative things. Below is a “Carrick Mat” that serves nicely as a coaster.

I’m in TCNJ Magazine for the NASA Microgravity University project I did. There will be a post coming on it soon, but you can catch the small blurb here.

The Annual Chincoteague Pony Penning and Firemen’s Carnival is held every year during the last week of July on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. During this event, feral ponies living in the national wildlife refuge on the National Park of Assateague Island (adjacent to Chincoteague Island) are rounded up in order that the young horses might be sold at auction to keep the herd at a healthy number. This guide chronicles my experience with my girlfriend during this event.

Geography

A little explanation is needed about the general area first. Chincoteague Island, Virginia is an inhabited island home to about 4,000 people and very few industries (fishing and tourism are its largest).  Assateague Island, which borders Chincoteague Island, is the home of the ponies. Assateague is roughly divided in two between Maryland to the north and Virginia in the south. Each state has its own population of ponies, Virginia being the group that makes the annual swim. This herd is less feral and the overall quality of the horses is higher. Travel is impossible from the Virginia side to Maryland by car since there is a fence separating the two and no driveable road that runs the length of the island. It takes about two hours to make the trip from each National Park Service station. The island is actually occupied by three different agencies: the Assateague Island National Seashore (National Park Service) and Assateague State Park (Maryland), and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (Virginia – U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service).

So, even though it’s called the “Chincoteague Pony Penning,” there are no wild ponies on Chincoteague except after the swim. (Certain ponies are kept on Chincoteague for special care, but the associations that determine the well-being of the herd tend to take a very hands off approach.) The map is centered approximately on the area of the swim. The green area is a very vague map boundary that is actually marsh area. Half the time it is under water. The best map of the area is here: NPS Map.

History

The pony penning event was originally a general livestock auction held on Chincoteague and Assateague that had existed since the 1700s. By the early 20th century however, the horse auction gained more popularity and eclipsed the other animal sales. The swim itself was initiated in 1925 after a devastating fire ravaged the town of Chincoteague. It was decided that the money raised from ponies sold at the annual auction would go towards the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company so that they would be able to better protect the island from future fires. To this day, the money raised at the pony auction still goes to the fire company, along with the ladies auxiliary and one other selected charity. The government regulates the size of the herd to 150, necessitating the auction of roughly 60 foals (young ponies one year and younger). The Maryland herd is controlled through birth control.

The annual pony swim and firemen’s carnival gained international attention after childrens novelist Marguerite Henry’s published the book Misty of Chincoteague in 1947. Sequels to this novel included Stormy: Misty’s Foal, Sea Star, and Misty’s Twilight. The island gained even more fame after Misty of Chincoteague was made into a movie in 1961 filmed on the island of Chincoteague. Several individuals mentioned in the novel played themselves in the film, and younger members of the Beebe family who owned the real Misty pony had minor roles in the movie as well.

Accommodations, Food, and Travel

Chincoteague Island only has one road (Chincoteague Road) leading into the Island. From there, you enter into ‘downtown’ where you will pass most of the hotels and many small business stores. The only road from Chincoteague to Assateague is Beach Road, and is closed after dusk by the National Park Service. (The park is only open during daylight hours, but you can obtain special permits for fishing)

If you plan on going to the annual pony swim, you NEED to book a room at least a six months in advance. There are several hotels on Chincoteague, of which we have enjoyed staying at the Refuge Inn and the Comfort Suites on past trips. Expect higher rates if you are planning on staying during this season. Furthermore, many hotels and campgrounds require a stay of at least three nights during the Pony Penning Week, and there is little in the way of places to stay near the island on the Virginia mainland. To keep costs down, we camped at Maddox Family Campgrounds. Even this was about $40/night, but it includes use of a pool, showers, bathrooms, and small firepits. The flood prone campgrounds was a “claim your own area” field outside the main RV area. It had a fantastic view of the Assateague lighthouse. In the gallery below, you can see some highlights from our Summer 2009 trip.

We traveled primarily in a 2008 Subaru Outback that was home to the camping gear and the two kayaks. My kayak was a Dagger Crossover kayak that ended up doing fairly well on the bay. On the island the speed limit is 25 mph everywhere. Scooters are available for rent at $20/hr and up.

Subaru Outback

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There are a couple things to keep in mind, especially if you are a novice camper: weather and mosquitoes. Both have the potential to be very severe. The thunder tends to keep you up all night as it rumbles around much longer than mountainous New Jersey is used to. Bad weather moves in very quickly, and the wind will test your tent to the limits. I definitely recommend several smaller dome tents if you’re bringing the family. If you wish to be closer to the Pony Swim, the Tom’s Cove Campground would be the best place to be, although this campground fills up very quickly. I find it hard to describe the hoards of mosquitoes that plagued our campsite after every rainfall. We found solace in our completely sealed tent, bathing in Off! bug spray, or hiding in the campfire smoke. Chincoteague Island was sprayed in certain areas from above in what looks to be a B-25 Mitchell.

Crabbing

We greatly enjoyed catching our own crab. (Since many other people had the same idea, we only got one that was over the limit.) If you decide to catch your own crab, don’t kill it by boiling. Take a large butcher knife and slice it right down the middle, or an ice pick through the bottom closer to it’s mouth.  I will be posting a proper how-to very soon. Virginia regulations can be found here: Recreational Fishing and Crabbing in Virginia Tidal Waters

The Roundup

The week’s events surround the date of the swim, which is the last Wednesday of July. The Sunday before, the northern herd are rounded up and placed in separate pens approximately three miles north of Assateague’s main road. Monday morning is the first real “spectator” event of the pony penning week. The northern herd is removed from the north pens and is led down the beach by the Saltwater Cowboys so that it might join the southern herd in the south pens. Generally the herd is moved around 7 am, but it is necessary to be on Assateague far earlier if one wants to have a good view of the ponies traveling. For the remainder of Monday and Tuesday, the ponies are checked over by vets from the Eastern Shore Animal Hospital and any sick horses, young foals, or otherwise incapable animals are taken by trailer to the carnival grounds on Main Street of Chincoteague where they will receive additional care if needed. The pen is located closest to the bend on Beach Road by Woodland Trail. (National Park Service Map).

The gallery below shows the pen in which both the northern and southern herds stay before the swim. Two rows of fences separate the spectators from the ponies. It’s also a really good time to see some of the herd dynamics. The foals will often be bathing in the sun while the older ones groom each other on their shoulders. Some smarter (meaner) ponies escape the roundup and won’t be around for the swim.

Assateague pony pen

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The Swim

Wednesday is the highlight of the pony penning festivities; between 8 and 10:30 am (and this is very rough – it has been earlier and later) the ponies are removed from the southern pens and are driven towards the channel between Assateague and Chincoteague. There, once the channel reaches slack tide (low tide), the ponies swim to Chincoteague with the aid of some cowboys and firemen boats. After a rest of about an hour on Chincoteague, the ponies are led by the Saltwater Cowboys down Pony Swim Lane to Ridge Road, then to Beebe Road and finally to Main Street. Upon reaching Main Street the ponies have only a short walk before they reach the pens in the Firemen’s Carnival grounds. On this single day nearly 40,000 people flock to Chincoteague in hopes of seeing the ponies swim or parade down Main Street.

In order to see the swim, it is necessary to either stand on the marsh between Memorial Park and Tom’s Cove Campground on Chincoteague or take a boat out onto the channel itself. Boating is the easiest and best way to see the swim; one can launch small motor boats, kayaks, or canoes from the East Side Dr. public boat launch ramp after purchasing a permit for $5 from the Chincoteague Town Hall (call ahead). Parking can be quite an issue during the swim morning, so it is necessary to arrive at the boat launch ramp by no later than 5 am. The swim occurs only 0.5 miles south of the East Side Drive ramp so this is a great way to get right up close to the swimming ponies.

It’s a good idea (whether you are in a boat or on land) to bring bugspray, snacks, and sunscreen.

After the ponies reach the carnival grounds on Wednesday the first foal to swim across the channel (known as King or Queen Neptune) is raffled off with tickets costing only $1.

Pony Swim

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Kayaking

The nice thing about the kayak is that they were easy to launch and we were able to lash up to a pontoon boat that we made friends with. We recommend traveling to the side of the swim that is closer to the Chincoteague Inlet and Tom’s Cove. You have to leave early enough because the Coast Guard shuts down crossing the path of the ponies well before the swim. A line of boats is created by the yellow buoys present in the harbor. There are certain spots on this side of the inlet that you can actually stand in, just watch for jellyfish. Some people spent their time waiting by “clamming” with their feet. The only downside of traveling by kayak is obviously the weather. It’s about a mile from the East Side Drive ramp to the swim. After the swim the weather picks up and the wind will typically be against your travel.

As far as equipment and experience goes, I do not recommend a kayak that you have only brought out on flat water. Several people were in “open” sea kayaks that seemed to work well, although I did not see as many life jackets as I wanted to. You will be in a crowded area with many boats if you choose to travel by kayak and it would be easy to get knocked and drown. Take basic safety precautions. We packed a rechargeable air horn, but didn’t have to use it. Plan to sit in your kayaks for awhile, so make sure it’s comfortable. (We sat for 4+ hours waiting).

After the swim, you cannot cross the pony swim path since they need to ferry an old barge back and forth and can not have wake. We beached our kayaks on the Assateague marshes and rested long enough for most of the boats to clear. If waiting in your kayak is no fun, several groups gather on the Assateague side and wait there in the marshes.

Auction!

Thursday is the second most exciting day of the pony penning week. Foals of all ages are sold at an auction where all proceeds go to benefit the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. Foals that are 2.5 months old and older are allowed to go home with their new owners immediately after the auction, and those that are younger than this age cut off are kept with their mothers until the October Roundup. Some of the purchased foals, however, are a part of a program known as “buy backs.” Certain foals are selected by the firemen and saltwater cowboys to replace members of the herd who are older or who did not survive the previous winter. These foals are still sold to the highest bidder, but they are then “donated” back to the wild herd by their new owners to live their lives on Assateague. Prices for these ponies can reach upwards of $17,500; far in excess of the average price of $1344 in 2009 for a foal who leaves the island after the auction.

Parking for this event can also get very challenging, but there are many people on Chincoteague who allow parking on their lawns for $10 a day not far from the carnival grounds. Friday morning sees the end of the pony penning events as the southern ponies are removed from the carnival ground pens and are swum back to Assateague Island.

United We Ride

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Carnival and other sights

During the week of the swim, the fire department hosts a carnival where you will find BINGO, various raffles (including the pony raffle), several rides straight out of the 1950′s and 1960′s, and typical carnival food. It’s free to enter. Once the herd makes the swim, you can see the herd in the pen at the Carnival grounds.

I definitely recommend taking day before or after the swim to see Chincoteague and Assateague’s other sights. The lighthouse on Assateague still operates, and you can visit during the day. Visiting Assateague can vary and can be found here. Assateague is open from dawn till dusk. The beach is quite nice (especially as you head north past the main parking area) but be mindful of restricted areas. If you are trekking around on the island (whether on the wildlife trail or other) be mindful of the ponies. They are wild animals, and will defend themselves (espeically the stallions) if they feel threatened.

Assateague Ponies

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Return to the Wild

On the day after the auction, the ponies are lead back to Assateague Island in another (less attended) swim by the Saltwater Cowboys. The ponies follow the same return path. We walked along with the ponies. During the walk, there can be escapees, so make sure to get out of the way if one breaks out of the herd. If you want to watch the swim from the Chincoteague side, be prepared to get muddy. Most people end up wading to their knees in mud in order to watch. I hope this was a good document. Leave comments below if you have them.

Mud

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While on my Colonial Williamsburg/Chincoteague, VA trip we decided to launch a message in a bottle. Could we actually get in touch with people on the shores of France? Would our bottle land on an island after navigating around Cape Horn to land in the Pacific and spawn some cargo cult?

I tend to google everything I have little experience in, and I was surprised to find little information about people that launch their own (NASA’s Pioneer Plaque not included).  I was most interested in methods of housing the papers in a watertight container that looks like it what it actually is (not a piece of trash) and was not going to degrade in the ocean’s harsh conditions.  We would hate to add to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Container

Since this project (like most) was on a budget, the best deal was going to be using Grolsch’s unique beer bottle. A simple wire lever assembly opens and closes the bottle. While the mouth is smaller than most domestic beer bottles, it’s a very heavy and robust. I reasoned that it could stand up to hitting docks and ships and not break.

The Message

Our message wasn’t more than the basics of who we (my girlfriend and I) were. Inside was a 3×5″ photo of us by her Chincoteague Pony, a short message in Latin describing the pony, an e-mail address, and a National Park Service brochure of Assateague Island. Each of these items were in a ziploc bag as extra insurance against water. We jammed all these papers into the bottle and hoped for the best. In hindsight, the only way the finder was going to remove the message was through smashing the bottle. Scrap wire was wrapped around the bottle’s lever mechanism to prevent it from being opened accidentally.

The Launch – 8/1/2009

I figured the key to a successful message was getting it as far out into the ocean as possible. In a probably ill-advised move, I brought my 12.5-ft. long Dagger Crossover kayak out on the Atlantic to launch the bottle. I got out as far as I was comfortable traveling (the surf was rough after a recent storm) and threw it. Pretty simple. I had a fun time getting the water back out of the kayak after I took a tumble through the surf in the return trip.

Found! 8/8/2009

One week later, I received an e-mail that my bottle was found by a group of surfers (from the same area we launched it from). They thanked us for sharing the experience of opening it. While the round trip of the bottle was probably less than a few miles, I think it definitely made their day. So, in the end, we achieved  making a link to complete strangers which I will call a success.

or Grilled Lemon Shrimp? One of my favorite campsite meals recently has been lemon grilled shrimp. I know there are a few recipes floating around online, but this is what I have used to good success.

Ingredients & Tools

• 1 lb shrimp
• 1.5 sticks butter
• 1/2 bottle of olive oil (Mazola pure or similar)
• Rosemary to taste (a few leaves)
• Oregano to taste (a few leaves)
• Basil to taste (a few leaves)
• Garlic salt  (at least a teaspoon)
• 2 lemons
• Skewers
• Charcoal grill, wood fire grill, etc.

Instructions:

1. Peel Shrimp
2. Melt butter over heat
3. Mix butter in a medium dish with oil, rosemary, oregano, basil, and
   garlic salt.
4. Squeeze juice from lemons and mix in with ingredients from step 3.
5. Marinade shrimp in lemon/oil/butter/herb mix for 20+ minutes (refrigerate if possible)
6. Place shrimp on skewer sticks
7. Grill until shrimp are pink and firm on both sides. You wish to add more marinade as you grill them. It may be better to grease the grill if you prefer.

And is ready to advance into a new epoch?

This will be the new personal homepage and blog for Russell Jones III. I will be moving everything from the well hacked and under-maintained www.rj3labs.com to this server. www.RJ3Labs.com will have a new life soon as another website.

More to come.

-RJ3