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I’m currently finishing season 5 of House of Cards. I’m planning to follow it up with The West Wing, then Veep to lighten things up a little.

Thank you! My hobbies are inexpensive compared to my wife’s hobbies. She’s a frequent world traveler, and regularly travels domestically and abroad to line dance. It’s a huge culture. I traveled with her for a few years, but it got boring to me. We meet new people, but it’s almost always the same faces from all over the country. I’m a home body and she’s a million watts of energy. She can’t sit still. As a matter of fact, she in Dubai as I type this, and will be heading to Phuket on Monday. I’m the Dollar Store and she’s Tiffany & Co.

Don’t tempt me. I have an old DJI Mavic 2 sitting in the garage.

Right on!

Thank you! Coming summer 2025

I’m a lightweight in DCS. Check out this guy, and there are others that have much larger cockpits.

I started with MS Flight Simulator 2020, then quickly discovered DCS (Digital Combat Simulator). After that, no more MS Flight Simulator! Both are difficult to learn for a novice, but DCS is a world of its own. I have an old Omen 3070 laptop. I’m thinking about streaming and showing my learning curve. I’ll use the laptop for editing. I follow a lot of the YouTube DCS content creators, but my favorite is a kid from Canada, callsign Growling Sidewinder. He can fly any plane in the simulator. DCS is not a game you just turn on and play. It takes months to learn to perfect flying a module. As you’ll see in the videos, head tracking, eye tracking or VR are a must to fly this simulator to see all around you. The second video is the A10 CII Thunderbolt /Warthog, the module I’m currently learning.

I forgot to show the AHCP (Armament HUD Control Panel). It allows me to physically arm my weapons, HUD (Heads Up Display), lasers and other flight controls. The AHCP & CDU were hand made by a small company in Australia called Tek Creations.

Photos 1. Complete setup 2.Handmade MonsterTech flight chair made in Germany 3. HP Reverb G2 VR headset. It’s bricked on anything over Windows10, because Microsoft no longer supports Mixed Reality 4. GEFORCE RTX 4070 GPU 5. Lower portion of flight setup 6. Pimax Crystal Light VR Headset . I added the comfort straps and high end fold away speakers 7. Russian Shark helicopter collective that I use to fly the AH64 Apache. Winwing or Virpil now has the actual Apache collective, so I may be switching to that 8. Thrustmaster F16 & F18 sticks. I’m currently using the Thrustmaster A10 Warthog HOTAS, an official Air Force replica flight stick to fly the A10CII Thunderbolt/Warthog 9. Lower setup with Thrustmaster TPR Rudders 10. OBSBOT 4K webcam 11. Elgato Streamdeck XL 12. Webcam 13. UFC & dual Thrustmaster Cougar MFCD frames with real 7” color monitors made by Song Dog Designs so I can physically touch/control buttons in the sim 14. CDU- for entering coordinates and flight plans 15. Thrustmaster Warthog stick & TGO Punisher knife 16. Thrustmaster Dual Throttle for the A10 Warthog 17. Buttkicker Plus - Haptic device locked to my flight chair that gives haptic feedback for everything in to in the sim. It will vibrate an entire house. I can feel everything. 18. Throttle again 19. GEFORCE RTX 4070 GPU 20. GG Steel Series headphones with TrackIR head tracking device- allows my a nearly 360 degree view with head tracking 21. Total Controls MFBB- Multi-function button box- used to control radios, instrument landings, lights and landing gear 22. I use the PS5 to play NCAA25 long distance with my son while he’s preparing to defend his PhD in engineering at UF. It helps him relax. 23. Bose sound bar All of these controllers can be binded to an individual’s needs and flying style. It’s a steep learning curve, but so much fun.

Coming up

Anyone else planning to fork over a kidney to pick up the new RTX 5090 on the 30th? I’m willing to fork over about $4k if I can get the Founders Edition or something from ASUS or GIGABYTE. I figure I can recoup maybe $1k by selling the my current gpu. Currently running a RTX 4070 on my flight sim rig. It does everything I need it to do running about 15 peripherals in 4K, but struggles a little to keep up with everything when I switch to VR (Pimax Crystal Light). I can leave the MFCD Cougar frames on, but I have to disconnect the 7” monitors for the Crystal to run. That’s a first world problem, because I don’t need to see the small screens when I’m in VR. Honestly, if I could find a good 4090 and not get scammed, I would go in that direction instead, because the prices for the 50 are going to be insane for a few months.

From reports I read earlier, police in the suspect’s home state notified Capitol Police and Secret Service that the suspect had suicidal ideations and was visiting the Capitol. Police didn’t detain the suspect until after he completed the entire tour of the Capitol with the pistol inside his waistband.

He passed through a magnetometer and a pat down, then completed a tour with a pistol in his waistband. Unacceptable! https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-capitol-visitor-completes-entire-tour-armed-gun-security-failure

Bruce Springsteen Dancing In The Dark