Beer, Drones, and the FAA - by Joseph Lindberg

Beer, Drones and the FAA

by
 Joseph Lindberg *

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Beer sent by drone? … Not so fast, says FAA.

Minnesota

[Option tested for ice fishing, remote areas now on hold.]

A Minnesota beermaker wants drones to help anglers remotely replenish their stocks of beer, but the government is saying no.

For now.

The Federal Aviation Administration informed Lakemaid Beer that it currently prohibits small businesses from using drones shortly after the beermaker posted video of a test run on Lake Waconia last week.

Inspired by Amazon, Lakemaid had been testing drone delivery system for 12-packs of beer on ice-fishing lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the beer is produced, Lakemaid president Jack Supple said in a news release.

Another test was set for Lake Mille Lacs and the Twin Pines resort before the FAA stepped in. The beermaker’s video went viral and now has more than 100,000 views.

Amazon grabbed the country’s attention late last year after announcing it was exploring ways to deliver packages with drones. It wants to deliver some packages within minutes of the orders being placed.

But Amazon faces the same FAA restrictions as Lakemaid – though the beermaker will be navigating wide-open spaces and wilderness rather than dense urban areas.

“We’d be happy to share our research with Amazon,” Supple said.

The FAA is expected to release new drone restrictions by 2015, but Lakemaid would also have to implement a system to remotely verify age.
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* Saint Paul Pioneer Press, 2/2/2014

Who Has Need, I Stand with You - by Alberto Rios

 

  Who Has Need, I Stand with You
by
Alberto Ríos *
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In this hour, let us grant to each other the grace that is ours
     to give.
In each other, let us see ourselves, and ourselves again,

That all the times we have looked at our faces in a mirror
Should have added up—each face our own, but a reminder as well

We are more than ourselves, that our eyes can see
Into that silver world as far as, and beyond, what we understand.

Looking into a mirror, into a window pane, into the water of a lake,
A photograph—we are here and over there as well. In that moment

All things are more possible. In this hour of ourselves, you and I,
One stronger than the other, let us speak evenly, and make plain

The hope that all this time has held us. Let us extend ourselves
Beyond ourselves into the silver, ourselves bigger and farther,

Ten thousand bodies to choose from suddenly in that mirror, us
Needing only one, so that things seem again so simple.
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* Source: The Orion Magazine, Poetry, May/June 2010