A smile

Oh the mighty power of a smile.
I was reminded of this today. If you want to change your outlook and the world you interact with, just smile. It's crazy powerful.

So I was in Fresh Choice (local supermarket), standing in line picking up a little stuff for dinner. Now normally, I'll chat a little with the checkout people. I figure, they're bored as hell and generally seem to welcome a break from the monotony. Mostly I try to get them to talk about their day... good, bad, otherwise. People just feel better when they get the chance to tell someone about silly things like that.

I wasn't feeling like talking though (loooong day) and I only had two things (not much time for chit chat there), but... hrm... what to do. So I just smiled. Bigger than your average polite smile... not huge, but definitely a bit on the goofy smile side. Man what a difference. The check out lady dropped out of highway hypnosis for a bit and lit right up... started to smile. Bingo :)

As I walked back to my car, I noticed (again) how good it felt to brighten up someone's day. But that wasn't it... It was that all it took was a smile.

Still working on it

Still gotta get around to posting those pics. Sorry.
Been busy. Not busy flying, busy with other stuff... "normal" type stuff.

Finally got over to see Ian today!
There are just few nicer people in the world. I'm so happy I finally got a chance to pop over there. Even went to the gym with him and Rob (works for Ian). Yup... imagine me with a bunch of muscle-heads weight training. Think of hanging out with Terry Schutts... eventually you start weight training without even realizing it ;) I'll sleep good tonight.

Now where did I put those photos?
Jim

Busy with other stuff ;)

Sorry.. been busy doing stuff.
Got a bunch of pics, should have time to put them up today (looks potentially windy).
Might have to go visit Ian first.
Jim

GObama!

Came across that when reading some news about him crushing Hillary in Wisconsin (go cheese heads!)
I think it'll be a sad day if Hillary gets the nomination due to superdelegates. I also think there will be rioting in the streets if the supers go against the votes on this.

I'm getting nervous because I always seem to like the one that loses. The outcome will be determined by the superdelegates no matter what (neither can win without them), so the chances of "politics as usual" is pretty high I think.

Anyway....
On with other things :)

I'm feeling much better now. Almost 100%
The weather's warm and sunny again too (it was FREEZING last week!)
Yeah... I'll rub it in... it was 75 deg out. It's 85 now (ahhhhh)

Jim

It's about time

This grabbed my attention
I wouldn't expect behavior like that in any competition... much less from polatitions.
So I did some research.
The more I read, the more I liked the guy.
This wasn't an isolated incident that looked like character. This is how the guy is.

It's been a long time since we've had an inspirational leader. Longer than I've been around anyway.
Have a look.

Some people got together and turned it into this

I look forward to him crushing McCain.

Jailbreak :)

With a price.

Yesterday I was feeling much better. Just in time too as we had a very busy day. We've not had much work lately, so it was nice to have a full on busy day. In fact, the whole time I was sick, I didn't need to fly anyway. I was quite happy to be recovered enough to fly. Well, almost recovered enough, as it would turn out.

I noticed as the day went on, I was losing my voice. Just the same as if I were shouting a lot, but I wasn't shouting. In fact I started talking less and less. Now, my job requires a good amount of talking. But I was limiting things. By the end of the day I sounded like the godfather.

Today I don't sound like anything. I can't talk. I feel fine otherwise, I just can't talk. Well, I can in a sort of "old man in the hospital gasping for air" sort of way. My flatmate's flying the one customer I had on today. Weather's going to hell and the schedule's light, so no worries there. It'll be nice when all this is over though.

Jim

Bleck

I'm horribly up on current events at the moment.
I've been living on my couch for the last day or so fighting a headcold. So I've had way too much time to read the news... all of it. Uhg. I'm feeling quite a bit better now, so hopefully tomorrow I can escape this wonderful little prison.

Jim

It'll come up...

A friend of mine lent me an old "piece of junk" glider to fly. It's old as dirt (in hang gliding terms) and a "stiff horry beast"... "If you crash it, you'll be doing me a favor... I can use the extra space in my garage". I was starting to get the feeling that he didn't like it (or maybe me?).

So yeah, I just had to try it ;)
Let's see how bad this old hunk of junk really is!
I've got this strange fascination with old gliders. Some truly are obnoxious pieces of junk. It's interesting though to see just how far modern gliders have come and to see where certain things came from.

I've been flying an old Moyes Mars lately. It's an old trainer glider and it is a bit stiff. But it's exceptionally light weight and easy to setup. I love it for that.
The other glider in the picture (on the left) is an Airborne Shark. It truly is a stiff beast. It's a fairly modern moderate preformance glider. My flatmate and fellow maniac Gerardo (pronounced Herardo) was flying it.

He'd flown the Apco the other day and deemed it "not so bad".
Unlike the Mars, the Apco takes FOREVER to setup (uhg!), but whatever. It was a cold grey day with no flying, so why not?

So we drove up Coronet.
The wind was blowing down the mountain (not flyable) but would "come up" just enough to tease us into thinking that we "might get off the hill" (fly). It's kinda like waiting for a wave when surfing... you get ready so when it comes, you just go.

So we setup.
Now the worst thing in the world to a hang glider pilot is to "pack up on launch"... to get ready to fly and then not be able to and have to pack the glider back up and drive down the hill.

While we were setting up (takes a while), waves up "good cycles" were coming up the hill... we were getting optomistic... "this might actually work".

Oh yeah, you know where this is going.
After we get our snow suits on "I gotta pee"... yup, the wind starts blowing pretty definitively down the mountain. CRAP! (no more up cycles).

No... we're waiting!
Neither of us showed any signs of wanting to pack it in. We could see each other checking to see if the other wanted to give up... nope. We were both hating waiting and getting less optomistic by the minute (esp with the wind getting worse) but NO... just a little longer.

After an eternity... "ya know what's going to happen?"
"as soon as we give up, it'll come up"
"yup, just a little longer eh?"
"yup"
(an other eternity)

Eventually, Gera gets out of his harness and starts walking around. If he was throwing in the towel, he'd start taking apart his glider... this was just frustration.

After a bit though, we started to very begrudgingly give up. Lots of explatives followed.
Then... yup... the wind died.
Down is bad.
Up is what you want.
But nothing is ok too... you just have to run like hell.
We don't do "no winders" with tandems cuz we have to be ready for them to not run so well, but solo we'll even do a (very little) bit of "downwind".

As I start to charge down the hill (it's a full on sprint in no wind) I hear Gera saying something... "uh, whatever". After I'm in the air, I look back. I thought he was saying something about liking the left launch better (I used the right) and sure enough there's Gera lifting off on the left.

Sweet :)

It's fun to kayak in the rapids from time to time. Tandem flying is the easy stuff... like going out in the family stationwagon... it's nice to take the Ferrai out every now and then.

Oh, and the Apco?
Yeah, pretty nice actually. Takes forever to setup, but flies quite well.
Jim

Reggae Mon

So I head down to the Salvation Army today... What? Closed?
I'm not really sure, but I'm reasonably confident that it's a weekday. It could be Sunday, but I'm pretty sure it's not. So WTF? OH! Riiiight! It's Waitangi Day! (national holliday)
nzhistory.net.nz/politics/waitangiday-introduction

Well that would explain the Circus being in town. We can't land at the High School cuz that's where the big tent is... we have to use the Rugby field.

And... the Reggae Festival down at the Queenstown Gardens.
Big to-do with lots of music and people. So I wandered down to check it out of course. It's going on all day. I think it ends around 10pm cuz it gets dark then. I had some hours to kill. Something struck me as odd (aside from the distinct lack of rednecks), no cops. Big festival, whole town (it's in town)... no cops. None. No need.

I'd be surprised if they don't bring a couple in after dinner time, but you never know. And yeah... this is a serious gun control country... the cops won't even have them.

Ja Mon
Jim

Omarama

Been off flying in the middle of nowhere.. a place called Omarama :)
(one of my favorite places on the planet to fly).
I'll put up more later.

Jim

Fail

Sunset

This place wouldn't be so hard to handle if it wasn't so blasted ugly all the time ;)

3 nutters

Landing on the Steiger range is a blast.
So, well... we had to get our good mate Regan in on the act.

He was keen.


Here he is getting ready to take off... again.


Here's a shot of Gerardo flying just over the range after we took to the air again.
We land on the spine of the mountain just below him.


This gives a good idea of what we're landing on.

The weather's been so good lately that we just take off and climb back up into the sky over the range.
Crazy fun.
Jim

Steiger

Coronet Peak is the main flying site in Queenstown.
The primary takeoff is 2300ft over the valley floor and 2 miles away.
The landing field is below the next mountain over... the Steiger.
The Steiger is a bit lower (only about 1,000ft) but is directly over the landing field.
Most of the Steiger is covered in a pine forest... except the top.

So the other day, my flatmate Gerardo decides... "hey, let's land on the Steiger".
"Sure, sounds fun"

Hahahaha... something you definitely do not get to do back home (on the east coast).


Me after landing


Gera


The view looking down on the landing field.
(the white dot in the middle of the picture is the landing building)

My face feels funny ;)

I'm horrible about going to the dentist. So bad I can't remember the last time I went (well over 10 years ago) But then, I felt my back tooth wasn't as smooth as I figured it should be. Time to go I guess... for the first time, I needed a filling.

Strange process really. Painless (doc says their needles have gotten much better) and quick... 10 minutes. I was expecting so much more pain and time.

The doc said the same thing I've heard any time I've gone to the dentist...
"you had floride in your water"
First thing out of their mouth... every time.
They used to ask if I had... now they just comment on it.
They talk about how they see it all the time... city kids with floride vs country kids without and city kids where they've stopped florinating the water.

And the tooth with the cavity? A wisdom tooth. Came in when I was 25... it never saw floride.

Anyway.
I don't know any different.
From talking to the dentists (on the rare ocassions that I do), I'm happy I had it.
Jim

Soaking

Nothing like a good soaking to break things up a bit :)

Been pretty stellar weather around here lately. Sunny, mid to high 80s, lots of flying.
There's a weird side to it all too. One of my pet names for Queenstown is "Disneyland for adults" (along with "crazytown" and "adrenaline city"). And it is... everything's a little fake and very (very) temporary... if you're here for more than a week or two, you're pretty much a "local". It's a bubble onto itself.

It's nice to escape sometimes (like my last trip to Omarama), but sometimes all it takes is a bit of rain. Big rain = no fly... no town... no hiking... nothing. It's kinda the opposite of growing up, where mom would tell you to "get outside and do something". A rainy day is an excuse to sit inside (read: sleep in) and do nothing... all day.

That works well for a few hours... but then we all start getting itchy. So the phone starts ringing and friends start showing up ;) We start swapping hang gliding videos and whatnot... BSing mostly. Good stuff.

Then the rain broke (like 6pm?)... oh, it stays light here till around 10pm. So we all disperse into the city. I head down to the lake and have a cruise around watching the sun go down and soaking up the "this is why I love it here" vibe.

On my way back... screw it... I'm getting a FergBurger
FergBurgers are easily the best freakin burgers you'll ever have...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergburger
fergburger.com
You can eat in, eat on the sidewalk cafe, or take away. The sidewalk is heated (ski-town) and there's always cool music (seems like a night club often.. common in Queenstown... ha, some places actually double as a nightclub after hours).

Life is good
Jim

Frankton Beach

Ah, once again.
I'll have to get some pictures or something.
Frankton beach is one of my favorite places. It's a small park on the banks of the Frankton Arm (inlet) of lake Wakitipu (the big lake that Queenstown is on). Frankton Beach is cool because, when the wind is right, you can fly there.
And the wind was very right today :)

It's also rather convenient that when the wind is right for Frankton also happens to be when the wind is wrong for everything else... so, oh darn... we can't work ;) We'll just have to go play.

Frankton is a ridge soaring site. The wind comes up the beach, hits a 45 degree incline for 20 yards or so and sets up a standing wave that you can just fly back and forth and back and forth and... you get the idea. It's playland for pilots.

I chose my flat two years ago for the sole reason that it was next to Frankton Beach.
Me and my flatmates headed out there today for some fun.
We took two hang gliders and a paraglider.

At the begining, the wind was too strong for PG, so we "flew" the hang gliders for a bit. I say "flew", because at a beach site, you can fly them without a harness :) We call it "flying monkey style". You climb up onto the frame and hang on. It's much fun. You're only a meter off the ground, so it's no worry.

Things calmed down and smoothed out, so we headed down to the main ridge and played around for hours. Towards the end, some other pilots started showing up and joining in the fun.

Good times
Jim

Slow News

Slow with the news lately.

New place is pretty setup now. We even have a Kitchen Table (we got the livingroom couch first). Internet's humming along. Summer's in full swing. Pretty good.
The season seems a bit slow for now. Suspicion is that it will be a slow summer... all the businesses are down.

I have to dig through some recent photos today. I have a few things meant for here. Tweaking with my little laptop at the moment, so I'm a bit distracted.

Jim

Internet Good :)

Ahhhhh.
After a bunch of waiting and a good long chat with tech support, we're up and running at home.

See, they have this service over here called Xtra broadband (as in Extra). Part of your password is xtra, not extra. No worries, but if you put in the wrong password (like, oh, I don't know... extra), then you not only don't get on, you get locked out.

After a while tweaking with things and pulling my hair out, I got a call back (yup, they called me) explaining this and how to get unlocked.
Bingo

fun fun
silly willy

Keys

Karma was smiling on me today.
But let's step back a bit.

Omarama is a town a few hours North of here. It is the home of world class sailplaning. We also get to fly hang gliders there. It is absolutely mind blowing flying... some of the best in the world. I get out there every year and have loads of fun flying with friends. Well Tuesday was slated to be an Omarama trip. An added bonus was that a few old friends were in town for the trip. I was psyched :)

After a bit of fun local flying, I reached in my pocket to lend a friend the keys to my car... OH SHIT! Yeah, no keys. I instantly knew what had happened. I was messing around doing aerobatics and had my keys in my pocket. Dropping something in the air pretty much garauntees that you're never going to see it again. Dropping it from a couple thousand feet makes it a certainty. And that's exactly what I'd done. Bugger.

I called around and found out that a locksmith would be able to "remove the cylinder" and fix things. In addition to sounding very expensive, this didn't sound fast either since it was new years day. ARG!

On a very long shot, I called the previous owner of the car. He'd given me all the keys, but would "have a look" anyway. Oh yeah, I couldn't find my spare naturally.

Well, Tuesday morning rolls around and I'd given up on the trip... when my phone rings. He's found something that "looks like it might work". I wasn't getting my hopes up. I borrowed my flatmate's van and headed over. I picked up the key, but it indeed looked a bit different. I drove over to my car if for no other reason than to explain to the property owner that it was going to be there for a bit. I didn't even expect the key to fit in the lock... can I tell you how thrilled I was when it actually worked!

Off to Omarama! WOO HOO!
But wait.. there's more :)

The Omarama trip was all I expected and more. I don't have a hang glider over here (just my paraglider) and the weather was very much hang gliding weather. Well I have very good friends. I had many people offering to loan me their gliders. We all had a great time.

When I got back to Queenstown, I still had an other day off. Some old friends are in town teaching paragliding, so I decided to help out. As a bonus, an other friend is in town and just hanging out with us. He flies hang gliders. Well, Lisa suggested that I teach him paragliding for the fun of it... woo hoo.

Well, we're half way through the day, setting up again for an other flight down the training hill when one of the other instructors (from an other school) asks "hey... did anyone lose some keys?"

You've got to be kidding me!!!!
From three thousand feet up, my keys landed on the training hill!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I still can not believe it!