Rain

Holy crap!... It's raining!
Seriously, I can't recall the last time I heard rain on the roof. Ridgely's in a wicked drought btw.

Sure, we've had passing thunderstorms through the summer... lot's of threats of rain, but they keep seeming to miss us.

Oh, there ya have it... it was just a few drops (not even a "sprinkle") and it's over now. All of 2 minutes.

Forecast is for "showers" today... riiiiight.
The upside... droughts make for wicked good flying :)

Summer Crazies

If you haven't noticed, I don't post much in the Summer (between Memorial Day and Labor Day). Some of it's that I'm just flat out busy. The other is that I spend a lot less time online. I check my email and read the news in the morning, but other than that, I'm offline.

Now that we're coming up on Labor Day, things quiet down and I get back to the internet a bit.

BTW, sorry... not just yet ;)
I've got some video editing to catch up on.
See ya
Jim

Guitar Hero

Here's Guitar Hero on the big screen.

Solo Hang Gliding


Solo Landing


Oh yeah, He jumped out of a plane too




Can't tell if he liked it

June go bye

Summer in general is busy for me, with June in particular being especially insane.
It kicks off with our annual competition and rolls right along into our annual "fly-in". Of course everyone wants to fly in the summer, so we're always busy as can be. Good times.

It's raining at the moment, so I figured I'd take a sec to catch up on my blog here.

I'll have to dig out the pictures, but John came down recently and I was able to set him free... he now flies solo. :) Yeah kids, you now have two crazy hang gliding brothers.

He also joined in on the latest craze around here... Rock Band. We've had Guitar Hero for a while now, which keeps the guitar fans happy, but there's been nothing for us drum nuts... till now :)

As an added bonus, the singing (yes, it has vocals) is rather impressive. I expected just some Kariokie type setup, but they actually make it work. It registers pitch and has the vocal track backing you so it doesn't have that Kariokie sound, but it does have the Kariokie fun.

It's great being able to have four people play a video game together. Much like Wii Sports where you can have a four player tennis match. It makes for much party fun. The 8 foot projector screen doesn't hurt either (no bumping elbows).

I'm naturally obsessed with the drums. The "tutorial" stuff kinda blows, but the "practice mode" is nothing short of stellar. I'm so hooked that I've ordered a second Wii and drum kit. (I love Wii sports too) In October, Guitar Hero will release a band version too. I'm very excited about this since the drum kit is especially good.

Jim

Been a while

As you may have noticed, I've been a bit busy.
We just finished our annual hang gliding competition. Here's the first cut version of the DVD...

ECC4 Cut1

Now that's some creative graffiti

Adblock

Wow.
I was doing a little bit of computer clean up today. I wound up working on a system that I hadn't installed my adblocking software on. I pulled up a few websites and wow... everything was nearly unusable! I had forgotten what the web looks like without adblockers! What a complete and utter mess!

Step one, pull up Firefox's extension page
Step two, add in adblock and flashblock
Step three... ahhhhhhhhhh

Jim

Geeks

In case you haven't noticed, I don't post as much when I'm in the states. Just a bit more of a mellow life here.

The airport house is geek central these days. It's me, Adam and Zach... all hardcore geeks. Well, we got a movie projector and hooked up the Wii and a computer to it. We have no TV. We have movies on demand over the internet (with netflix). Any TV stuff we download. The Wii is the kicker though. I've never played it on a TV... and now I never can. Once you play bowling in life size, a tv sceen just ain't gonna cut it. Lately we've been playing lots of golf and guitar hero. Hahahahaha... it's insane.

Me and Zach got our car running too. He did the majority of the crap over the winter and I fixed the alternator and belts a few days ago. It's nice to be mobile again. Of course the furthest I really go is a couple miles to the grocery store, but hey... sometimes you NEED some ice cream right?

Got the "phantom" ultralight all nice and cleaned up too (yeah, it's called a phantom). It's nice to be able to just go fly whenever I like... hell, I live at an airport right?!

Well that's all that's going on around here for the moment.
See ya

More NZ

Couple more for ya...

Only a geek would shoot this ;)


This is one of my friends from Dunedin James. He flies hang gliders too. His cast says "I did this rollerskating", which is true.



This is the mountain I get to fly in Queenstown as seen from the airport. Yes, we are that close to big jets.


Sometimes you need to stop and... pick the apples?
Mmmmmm

NZ pics

Ok, here's some NZ ones.
One day we went up to fly the Remarkables Mountain (yup, that's it's name), but it was shall we say, a tad too strong. Peak winds were over 100kph (just over 60mph).

That last one's Gerardo "jacket flying". Open your jacket and jump and it actually pushes you back a bit.

Good times

Delinquent

I'm over my jetlag and the weather sucks, so I have no excuse to not be putting up some pictures.

Kinda funny what comes to roost when you're away for a while....
I left my helmet on my motorcycle tank and forgot to close the visor. A bird found it perfectly suited to being a nest. Hahaha


A mouse found his way into Lance's computer.
Woops.

Ahhh, grasshopper

Wow, wisdom on ... youtube?
... wait much better version...
Music and Life

Hrm... looks like the guy's got a lot out there... have to kill some time and read it I guess.
Allen Watts

Jetlag subsiding

Now I'm at the level of college student... up all night, sleep all day ;)
This would be opposed to the horrid "sleeping twice a day" jetlag you initially get to deal with.

Settling back in. It's cold and windy here, but it's spring so it's on the upslope to warmer days instead of fall.

Good times
Jim

back

jetlag... sleep.. see you

Layover

At Aukland.. short layover.
Queenstown was kinda cool... my plane was delayed so I got to watch my mates at work. We flight right next to the airport. I've not seen it from the ground... let alone from the seat of an airplane. hahahahaha

Ah well... onto the international flight in a few. 12 hours later and a little layover in LAX and it's the moster flight... the one from LA is always the worst cuz you're flying with jetlag... uhg. It'll all be over soon enough.

Jim

Tick Tock

Ah, the long wait... before the long wait.
A couple hours till my flight. I have a few things to do before I go (post office/etc) but it's before 9, so nothing's open. I just wait. And wait.

Jim

Addict

I'm such a freakin junkie.

Today is what we call "stable air". There's not much movement in the air. If it were kayaking, it would be a glassy lake. Most pilots don't even bother to fly on days like this. It's a good bit of effort to get up the hill... after the gondola, it's a 10-15min hike up with a 40lb pack. No worries on days where you're going to spend an hour or so in the air. Today would be a few minutes glide... straight from the top to the bottom. We call them "sledrides" cuz it's like snow sledding.

So, ok... it's not worth it... just hang around the house... maybe take a walk in the park... mellow day right? Uh.... no. Fraid not. What can I say? I can't help myself ;)
What's worse... you think I could just boat around the sky all nice and peaceful like. No. I burn up my altitude quickly with aerobatics (makes you sink about 4 times as fast).

Fortunately, I'm ok with my addiction.
Jim

It's over

But what a wonderful summer it's been.

I leave tomorrow.
It's the last day of Easter here... sunny and warm (70s). Easter is like Labor day for Kiwis. It marks the end of Summer. One last Hura before settling in for winter. My flatmates are busy at work (lots of tourists to fly today). It'll be quiet till the evening. The soaring (staying up in the air) in late season is quite low since the air has few updrafts in it... so I'm hanging around at home cleaning for the move (my flatties are moving to an other place tomorrow too).

It's like a mellow Sunday after a party.

I'm in denial about the hours and hours (and hours) of traveling I'll be doing tomorrow. I like it this way... "I'm not done yet!" hahaahaha. Got some wacky plans for tonight. I've still got 5 cents of fun left ;)

tick tock
Jim

Toothpaste

So I'm over at a friend's house. It's a slow day, so I figure I'll watch a movie. Only catch is that the DVD's pretty scratched up. I pop it in and it eventually plays. I have to skip over some garbled stuff, but it gets going. Naturally, once it gets a good way through the movie... yeah, it dumps.

No worries... toothpaste to the rescue :)
See, toothpaste is a mild abrasive. You can polish up a CD pretty good with it. Not all, but most stuff. Well, it worked like a charm.

Jim