GoPro mount

Yup, that about sums it up...

Cowboy-Land!

Hahaha... I think that's my new name for the States!
Part of it I'm sure is flying into Phoenix, but I was thinking that even in LA. After living in proper English-Britto-Land for six months... damn if everyone doesn't sound like they're from Texas! I'm sure it'll wear off after a few days.

And man it's nice returning to a country that ISN'T run by BUSH!!!! I distinctly remember arriving before and getting instantly inundated with big American flags, cops wearing all black and assault rifles (I'm not kidding) and huge portraits of Bush... felt like China. Now, there's modest pics of Obama over in official places. Security still has an air of "What are you doing Mr. Criminal?" to it, but whatever. Far less totalitarian than it's been in years past.

Immigration was as it's always been... nice an pleasant. Hahaha, had a chuckle with some Canadians about that over Summer... seems that the US/Canada border nuts over at Niagara Falls are indeed kinda jerks... it's not just me. Growing up there seems to spoil your view of immigration.

Not sure if traveling's just getting easier or if it's the lack of layovers this time (I think both), but I can't believe how easy it was getting to Phoenix. One little hop to BWI and I'm home. Crazy.

Hahahaha... and yes, already missing New Zealand.
Jim

The hard bit

Awe crap. It's leaving time again. :(
I always hate this bit.

I have to say goodbye to so many wonderful people. I'm always torn with thoughts of things I didn't get to. I would have loved so much to teach Julianne hang gliding... to take Royden for a tandem... to finish Zdenick's PG training... to... well, you get the idea. "C'mon MA... just one more D-bag?!"

It's been such a bloody fun Summer. Living in the middle of Queenstown, playing Rock Band with my flatmates... flying with Sean and Nail all the time... working on occasion... practically living at the airport. Life just doesn't get better.

But Winter comes, and thus I go.
I've even been living on borrowed time as well... I delayed my departure and I'm so very happy I did. I needed a little extra time to finish my Private Pilot License (PPL) and it's actually worked out extremely well. Instead of returning with a Restricted PPL, I've got a full PPL, Cessna type rating, Technam type rating, and (my favorite) a Citabria type rating :)

Of course it's always a mixed bag of emotions.
As much as I truly hate leaving, I get to go home now and see all my friends back there.

I'll just miss this place.
Jim

One last hura

Well, it looks like the weather's lined up for one last nice stretch (while I'm here anyway). Should be nice and sunny for the next few days... and oh darn, I've nothing to do but fly :)

It'll likely fall to pieces right around the time I'm due to leave, which will help with the leaving bit ;)

Done

It's been a long haul... but now it's over.
Did my last cross country flight today (in regular planes). So now I get a full unrestricted Private Pilot License.

Ahhhhhhhh.

No more flying bloody Cessnas!
Well, that's a bit optimistic. I'm sure I'll have to drive one around for a flight test or something sometime.

Now I can get back to flying dragonflys :)

Mellow days

It's nice to be back to semi-mellow days again :)
Almost done with flying regular planes over at the airport... that schedule's toned way down already.

So, went up and D-bagged my glider... then we packed up Naill's speedglider for D-bag as well. We've not d-bagged one of those wee things, and hell, I don't think anyone in New Zealand's done it for that matter. So why not? We figured they'd be well suited to it. And it was. Went off without a hitch. Good fun.

One more cross country flight in regular planes tomorrow. Then that's all done.

Ferg at the beach

Life's finally slowed down enough for me to post again.
April's been an other month of cramin-slamin-it with my private pilot license stuff.

I passed my flight test (yeay) and moved onto "Cross Country Flying". Basically, you get a license, but can't go more than 25nm till you finish the cross country stuff... then you can do as you please. Well, that all sounds simple enough (and it is), it just takes a LOT of time. I've been living at the airport for the last week or so. I spend nearly as much time there as the staff.

But, todays a break :)
No instructors are available today, so I can't fly (my next flight is dual). Nice weather today, so I'm going HG/PG.

Last night, I took a stroll down into town, swung by Ferg-Burger, picked up a "CockAdoodleOink" (chicken/bacon/burger) and had a Ferg at the beach :)

Happy Times
Jim

Slow down there sonny

The world's finally slowed down a bit :)
It came in the odd form of my plane breaking. It just blew a "mag"... ignition system stuff of which it has two, so everything kept humming along. It just meant that I couldn't take my flight test this week. I was cramming hard to get it done. This just means that I have an extra week or so to get ready. Less stress.

Oh the pic is from our recent helli-mission up the Remarkable mountains. We (36 of us) flew up one in a helicopter (couple trips) for a flight. The takeoff is over twice as high as the highest "normal" takeoff spot in Queenstown.

Good fun.
Jim

"Fly down"

Massive flydown over Queenstown for Gera last evening. I think nearly every pilot in Queenstown (and we've got a LOT of pilots) flew. Hopefully someone will post some pics (there were plenty)... Takeoff was absolutely packed with gliders. And as someone launched, more filled in the gaps.
We even got special permission from the powers that be to fly hang gliders. So we did.

Gera

It's hard, but it comes and it goes. There are loads of good friends here to lean on. I also knew Gera well enough to know that he'd be very upset if we stopped. He didn't sulk and he wouldn't want us to. He'd want us to go fly.

Passed!

Woo Hoo!
I passed my Navigation test!

Thank god... I absolutely did not want to go through that again!
Jim

Back at it

Ok, so the tests are done... hrm... what to do with all this newfound free time?
Yeah. Of course.

Jim

My head hurts

Took the Navigation test this morning.
Hardest bloody test I've ever taken. I should know pretty soon (paid extra for fast grading) whether I failed it or not. At the end, I honestly wasn't sure if I was going finish.... and it's only 20 questions!

Here's hoping I never have to do that again.
Jim

Deep in the books

One test left (assuming I haven't failed any of the others) and it's the kicker... Navigation. We don't do any "navigation" in dragonflys, so it's the topic I am least familiar with. I've done some before for my Sport Pilot license, but that's it.

So I'm buried deep under a pile of books at the moment... with my trusty circular slide ruler in hand (not kidding). It's hell, but I'm getting there. As luck would have it, the weather's absolute crap which really helps because it means that I've got NOTHING ELSE TO DO!

A bunch of my friends from the States are visiting, which should be fun since the weather is meant to clear later this week and I'll be done with my tests.

Jim

It pays to follow up...

Oh the difference a phone call can make.

For my Pilot License, I have to get a criminal background check. Being in New Zealand, I needed one from both NZ and the FBI. Thanks to Robert's help, the FBI one went super easily.

The New Zealand one for some reason was taking a bit longer. Oh yeah... trying to have it processed on the 26th of December *might* have something to do with it ;)

So after a month (usual waiting period), I gave a call to the Ministry of Justice, and as expected, they were a bit behind due to the holiday (they were closed for a week, tends to back things up)... they were just getting to Dec 24th records. Fair enough.

Well, it being late Feb now... and still no word. I figured it might be a good time to call back. I got a very nice lady on the phone and explained what I was doing and that I'd submitted back during the holiday. Since it'd been a while, instead of getting the "these things take time" speech, she had a dig on the computer and... yup... they'd processed my application on Feb 10th and it was being mailed to my address in the States.... wait... what?!

Hahahaha, so she just posted an other one to me here.
Whew.

Jim

Slacker

We'll I've been a bit of a slacker lately eh?
Last post was... ages ago.
I've been hip deep in two things... one good excuse, the other not so good. Good excuse: studying for my private pilot license. No so good excuse: Guitar Hero 2.

Well, the studying's hopefully almost over. I have my last test Tuesday... there's six total. Last of course assuming I haven't failed any! They take a week and a half to grade. Failing's easier than you might imagine as there are only 20-30 questions. So every wrong answer hurts a lot.

Aside from that... Guitar Hero 2's here!
Thanks to Zach and Sunny who mailed it out to me!

As expected, it kicks much ass. Me and some of the other flatmates are completely addicted, so much time is lost to it. It's been crap weather lately as well, so that helps.

The weather's turned nice though and looks to be nice for the rest of the week. Should be plenty oh fun. Actually had a busy day at work yesterday! A rarity this year (which is ok cuz I have to study so damn much). I should also get to D-bag my paraglider again now as well. Youtube it if you're curious and have a strong stomach... it's pretty radical stuff. It's hard to describe.

Jim

The Fabulous

Well, I promised pics of the fabulous accommodations here.
So here ya go :)

Yup, it's always full of dishes.
We do dishes constantly, but there's 13-15 of us. So it's never done.


A surprising lack of beer bottles.


Home sweet closet.

Happiness

In case you're curious, this is what happiness looks like.
It's my Class 2 medical. Without it, I can't fly.

Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. -
Dr Randy Pausch
That little card took three years, thousands of dollars, eight months of medical testing and more patience than I dreamed I'd ever have. And it's worth every last bit of it. And no, I'm not crying.

Caught in the act

In our never ending quest for weather information, me and Sean found some ski webcams up on Coronet mountain... and... woops, they're still on :)

Well, hell. Let's throw a windsock in front of it.
So I looked up how to make a simple windsock on the net, made a few and hiked up the ski field. On my way up, Shane (an other PG pilot), gave me some idea of where one of the other cameras would be. As luck would have it... he was right.

Funny thing... when I got home to check if I had gotten the camera right... yup.

Weather came right

It's been crap weather for the last week or so... but it came right Saturday. So it's been fun packed days of flying ever since. :)


In the midst of all the fun, I got to solo over at the Wakatipu Aero Club (where I'm working on my Private Pilot License).


Me and the "Technam" (the plane I'm flying)

Ya kinda have to...

As if you didn't know... I'm insane.

I'm also terrified of heights. Seriously. I have trouble climbing ladders. So the mere thought of bungi jumping scares the bejeezus out of me. But, I'm in NZ.. and you kinda have to. Well, you don't, but for me... I'd always wanted to be able to, but couldn't bring myself to do it.

BTW, that's not a bungi. That's a canyon swing. See the bungi guys got bored, so they started playing with rope climbing gear. It's the same, except instead of bouncing, you swing at the bottom. It's bungi on steroids.

That's 4 ton rope with an other 4 ton backup rope.
Can't say I'll be doing it again anytime soon... but wow.
Jim

Wii Sports!

On my way over here, I lost my Wii Sports game.
This was a very sad thing indeed.
Wii Sports is one of the most fun games for the Wii.

Since everything's PAL over here, not NTSC, I can't buy games over here. So, I ordered one from the US and had it mailed here. It came today :)

So today is Wii Sports Day!
It helps that we've got tons of wind, so we can't fly.
Game on!

Medical

As many of you have already heard... I got my Flight Medical approved today :)
To fly as a Private Pilot, you have to have a Flight Medical... so this now means I'll be able to fly without my instructor as I practice for my Private License test.

Happy Times :)

Favella

The Fabulous.
It's the white one on the left. The tin roof one below is also part of the Favella. I'm upstairs in the white house though.

I'll get some interior shots later so you can see what a dump it is ;)

New Years Sushi!

For new years, my flatmate Yushimi made Sushi!!!


MMMMMMMMMM DAMN it was good!


Down at the rugby field, there were a bunch of people camping.
Every year, there's free camping in the rugby. Helps cut down on drink driving.

NOOOOO!

I nearly booked a ticket to Fiji!
It was sometime around Christmas. Not on, but close.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!


Looks nice from the valley though.

HG School

Seems to be a bunch of people this year that are keen to learn hang gliding.
Kelly's got her own glider which makes things super easy (rounding up the gear is generally the tricky bit).







My mate Sean dug up this other beauty for those lacking a glider (himself included). I know... she's a real flash machine :) She's an old beast of a glider, but we're lucky to have her and it'll be perfect for training. I started on a very similar glider myself.

The Fabulous

I've moved into town.
I now live at the base of the gondola in "The Fabulous"

Ha... I thought it was Portuguese... La Favela.
It means "Shanty Town". We just call it the ghetto. Someone tried to spice it up (and couldn't pronounce the Portuguese) and it became "The Fabulous"

It's a dive. Think frat house and you've got the idea. The shower water handle is a pair of vice grips clamped onto the bit that spins. It's good fun. Lots of people. No stress... and no sleep. Well, on the weekends at least. No one takes anything too seriously, especially since people aren't always around all that long. Some stay weeks, some stay months.

Who knows. It's fun for now.

Craziness

So things have been a bit crazy lately.
The weather came right, so work's been full-on. I've started flying at the Wakatipu Aero Club (regular planes). Loads of after work fun with the guys at the flight park. And oh yeah, I've moved. Chaos is my middle name.

I just got the internet sorted. I'll work on getting some pics of the happenings up. Gotta let things settle down first.

Jim

Rain

Well, payment for the perfect day I guess.

The other day was absolutely smashing. Flew a few tandems in the morning. Got to fly my PG in some sweet mid-day wonderful air (wicked good day) and then some more tandems in the evening while everyone else had to sit through a "seminar" (poor buggers). To top it off, went over and flew the gondola with our driver... landed and Richard wanted to D-bag, but couldn't find a tandem pilot to drop him. Ok. Sure. :) Bopped down to the local pub afterwards where everyone was recovering from the seminar. Headed home a bit later and zonked out. Oh, mid 70s and sunny. Doesn't get better.

So, today's fine. It's been raining all day. It'll still be raining a bit in the morning, but should clear later. That's a lovely thing about Queenstown... it rains, then it's over.

Long Days

The days are almost too long here. I know, crazy?
Yeah, it's 9:30pm and it's still light out. It will be till around 10. It'll be light around 6:30am. Hahaha, I've started sleeping with one of those eye cover thingys.

I'm not complaining. I like it this way. It's just weird.

Unsettled

The weather for the last two days has been less than perfect.
We even had thunderstorms the other day... very rare here. I've seen them once before.

Anyway, things cleared a bit, so I headed outside and figured I'd get to those bridge pictures I'd promised...


Here's the bridge from below.


From the side obviously.


Ok, now the fun stuff.
This is what it looks like on top... notice my hand... on the rail.
It's a big railing, you're not going anywhere, but yeah... I have to hold the railing o take a picture.


This is what things looked like when a car went by.
I mean really... I fly for a living.
I should have no problem with this. But yeah, it took a bit for me to cross that bridge. I stopped anytime a car went by. I didn't deathgrip the rail or anything, but I stopped... I could have kept going, but it just felt better to stop.

The irony is not lost on me.

Hike

Decided to have a hike out back the other day. Up past my neighbor's house. There's a trail that starts just up there.


Here's the view.
I know, just horrible.


Here's a bit further.
I don't know how I put up with it.


You can see the shotover bridge pretty well from here.
I'll get some more pics of that later... it's right outside my flat. Seriously.
It's called the "shotover" bridge cuz it crosses the "shotover" river.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotover_River
Ok, but what's in a name?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotover

You might know it from... dum de dum... yeah, Lord of the Rings... like everything else around here ;)

Tea?

The Kiwi's take their tea pretty seriously... One of our pilots, Swanny, likes to have a cup of tea before he takes his tandems for a flight. So on takeoff, there is a permanent propane fired tea kettle with tea, sugar and water. That's dedication.

Aaaah... Queenstown

Yeah, it's like that.

Aqualand!

Couple bad weather days here lately. Ah well, that's Spring for ya.
No worries. We all headed down to Alpine Aqualand by the airport. New Zealand's idea of a public pool... well... kicks ass!

Lets see... there's a lap pool of course. Big deal. Then there's the waterslides, the funpool... complete with water cannons! No kidding. And not like just water jets... these are full on aim at your friends swiveling turret water cannons!... the "lazy river" where you get swept along by the current round and round a winding path... and my personal favorite, the gigantic hot tub :) (like 20 people gigantic)

Well worth the $8 admission price ($4.30US)

Glorious Internet :)

Ahhhhhhhhhh
Oh that's much better.
Got the internet sorted out today. Happy times. Now we have net at home. See, I'm living just outside Queenstown at the moment and my car is in the shop. It takes me an hour to walk to town... it's less if I hitchhike, but that's not exactly reliable. Besides, I don't like being separated from my gear (paraglider) since you never know when the opportunity to fly will arise.

Anyway, it's all better now. And just in time... the weather's meant to go back to crap for a bunch of days. I can only watch so many movies before my head explodes. I find the internet sooooo much more entertaining.

Now if I could only get my car back! Hahahahaha. Priorities. I'll take the net first thank you.

So today was lovely.
It's been pretty crap lately, but that turned around today. Sunny, warm, good flying and flying all day. Yum. Then went down to the local pub where all the pilots hang out after the day's flying is done and hahahaha... there's some guys basejumping off tandem paragliders over town and landing on the beach. Would you believe that's not an uncommon occurrence here? I love this town. :)

Net

Sorting out the net at the moment.
Hopefully have that up soon. Living without internet is... uh... well it sucks. At least we've got plenty of access in town. My car's out for inspection at the moment, so that leaves me to maybe a daily hit... but it should all clear up soon. Oh well.. guess I just go fly ;)

Cheers
Jim

Auckland

Just got into Auckland.
Couple hours till my flight to Queenstown, so I figured I'd surf a bit.
Easiest Pacific flight yet... slept almost the whole flight :)
Did get one movie in "Tropic Thunder". HA HA HA funny stuff.

A mate of mine, Tom, hooked me (and him) up with a sweet flat so that's sorted. Arno's been looking after my car for the winter. Gera's picking me up at the airport. And I got my work visa done before I left the States, so hell... let's just play! Too easy.

Tick tock... hour and 1/2
Jim

Fun at the beach

So my main excuse for being up here in San Fran is to help Tom with his paragliding. So, oh darn, we had to go fly today ;)
I've been staying with Paris and Toni till now. I hopped a train South last night and am now staying right next to Stanford (Tom's doing his PHD here). We drove down to Seaside (next to Marina) and had loads of fun mucking around on the dunes.


Muggin


The locals know how to have fun on the dunes as well.

Keepin busy

Yesterday, there wasn't much flying to be had, so we all went over to the local park (two blocks away) and played frisbee golf.

Today however was different... there was flying to be had.

So we went over to "Mt Tam" for a fly.
Mt Tamapai is the park on the other side of the Golden Gate bridge. It's a nice isolated nature place. Me, Don and some of the locals took a little hop.


Tam's neat cuz you land on the beach. You can fly over the ocean for a bit, which I did. Fun stuff.


Here's one of the locals, Phil, doing a very nice landing.

SanFran

Arrived in SanFran today. I'm visiting some hang gliding friends of mine, so what do we do after grabbing my checked bags? That's right... straight to the flying site :)

Got a lovely flight in at Ft Funston... an icon in the hang gliding world.
Oh yeah, took a hike later by the Golden Gate bridge too. Of course.

Mmmmm... jetlag kicking in.
Jim

Where does the time go?

It's that time again... well almost. I'm heading out to San Francisco to visit with some friends and teach a little paragliding before jumping the pond. That'll be next week.
But all loaded up. I was worried about my bags at first... I'm taking my drum kit and was afraid it would wind up too heavy. I did what I could to lighten things, but it still felt bricky. 70lbs max for Qantas. 50 for Southwest tomorrow. Uhg... Well the scales told a different story. 40lbs. Whew. Even if the scale's off a bit, that made me feel a whole lot better.

Ah well. Off to la la land.
Jim

Buffalo trip

If that ain't "Americanna", I don't know what is.


Ok, we'll get the "oooooh... look at the fall colors!" stuff out of the way first. Yup, I'm jaded I guess. Just looks like Fall to me ;) That's Mike with Natalie btw.


Everyone knows they want to be in the "classic Jim" shot.
You don't have to hide it, ya know ya do. It's ok.


The crew heading out to Tina's Italian Restaurant for dinner on Berny's birthday. Heck, even Gramma showed up :)

There ya go. Didn't exercise my camera too much... like I said, just looks like "Fall" to me ;)

Tick Tock

I just looked at my calendar this morning... OMG!... just over two weeks!
Wow

I'm planning a NYC trip for next week, then it'll be off to San Francisco to teach some paragliding, then POOF! Off to Queenstown!

Fortunately my Visa came in the other day and my flight's booked, so all I really have to do is pack :)

Happy times
Jim

It's c-a-c-a-cOLD!

Um, no thank you. I stayed a little too late this year. I think I'll leave in like August next year! Hahahha, I was brushing my teeth when I noticed I could see my breath... ahhhhhhhhhh!

Ah well. That just means travel season is upon me. Which also means I'll be updating my blog more regularly as well.

I'll put up some pics from my recent Buffalo trip tomorrow.
Jim

Hahahaha

Geek

It's windy. Like unflyable windy.

I've been eyeing an Ipod Touch recently and they're cool as hell, but unfortunately one thing just kills it... no Skype. No Flash either. That's a one two punch in my book. Oh well. It was a fun idea. Then I remember my old solace for not having an Ipod was that I already had a Nokia 770. My little eeepc had long since filled it's shoes. But hey, let's see what kinda hacks people have come up with for the 770!

So... can it be made to run Skype and Flash? The new model, the n800 can. Well it seems that what prevents the 770 from doing so is licensing, not hardware. The 770s the slow cousin, but it might have enough juice. And hell, it'll be fun trying either way.

Well the hackers out there have found a way to make the 770 think it's a 800 and trick it into running the 800s operating system. Getting the software to run was also a bit of a trick, but he he he... I've got Skype running :)

Now it's on to flash.
Can you tell I'm bored?
(tomorrow looks better)