NaRoBloMo (???)

Photo Credit: The New York Zoological Society

#Rocketober is nearly at an end, and if you were a regular reader of The Rocket N00b blog in the past, you may be wondering what gives, and why ol' N00bie here hasn't published a word on model rocketry in nearly three months.

Lotta life stuff, of course. Moving to a new home (the new Rocket Room is huge - Mrs. N00b wanted me to let you know how kind she is to let me use the largest room in the house for this weird hobby of mine), taking care of a wiggly toddler who needs lots of attention, and tech issues.

Antares :(

The old laptop died on me a few months back. All I have now is my refurbished MacBook Air I use to record The Rocketry Show podcast, which the show was able to pick up for a mere ten bucks.

It's not a bad little computer at all - and works a lot better for podcasting than my old machine. But all my pictures and video were on the old machine. While I was able to rescue the data, using it right now is kind of a hassle. And any photos or video I take with my "good" (-ish) camera has to stay on it for the time being. The camera uses an SD card, but the MacBook has no reader. There is a USB cable, but I've never been able to get the MacBook - or, for that matter, the old PC laptop - to recognize the camera when I plug it in. There was probably some software for the camera I was supposed to install which I lost a long time ago.

Since this blog is - at least supposed to be - partly a place for tutorials for model rocketry beginners - rocket n00bs - I like to have lots of good pictures on my posts to make things clear.

Anyway, I've only recently had time to get back to building rockets, and it's time I give this blog my attention again.

The N00b T00b - a recent scratch-built tube fin rocket I put together in about 15 minutes, not including paint

November is National Novel Writing Month - or NaNoWriMo for short. It's actually an international thing now, and the point is to finally sit down and write that book you've always wanted to take a crack at, by simply doing it, whether it's good or not. The goal is to finish writing 100,000 words between November 1 and 30.

Well, I've started and abandoned multiple NaNoWriMo projects over the years, and I know I'm not going to write a novel in the next month - not with a toddler to raise and rockets to build, oh and a job to pay for these things. But blog posts can be short!

So, November will be my attempt at a personal National Rocketry Blogging Month, or NaRoBloMo, if you like.

I'm going to attempt to write something hobby rocketry-related every day for the month of November. One thing that occasionally trips me up here at The Rocket N00b is my tendency to be longwinded, and try to explain everything in one post. I'm not going to be able to do that. But I want to jump-start this blog again, and hopefully beginners - and experienced rocketeers - will find something useful, or at least fun, on here.

A note for you long-timers: I know a lot of readers here are not n00bs, but I'm going to try to get back to basics here. So, before you leave a comment, know that at least some of the information here is supposed to be aimed at the newbies in the audience.

And for you Rocket N00bs reading this - I really have no idea what I'm going to write over the next month. That's the point. I'm going to try to post, post, post. You might come across something more advanced or esoteric, because I hear about a news item or think of something that interests me, but isn't about beginning model rocketry. Don't let that dissuade you from reading more. Come back - there will be plenty of photos of build techniques or... something fun or useful.

The Semroc Bandit - a kit I finished building yesterday

And, hey, if you like this idea, why not join me? If you write a rocketry blog, try a post a day in November. If you don't have a blog, start one! There's free blogging space on multiple websites, including this one (Blogger). Hastag: #NaRoBloMo.

Okay, here goes...

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Have a question you'd like to see addressed on this blog? Email me at iamtherocketn00b@gmail.com.