tails from oshkosh

Instead of trying to figure out what's happened with me since May 10th (my last blog posting) and now I figured instead I'd just pretend I haven't neglected the blog for 4 months...

So at the beginning of August I attended Oshkosh AirVenture 2008, the biggest airshow this side of the solar system.  It's hard to describe the immensity of the show, apparently over 10,000 airplanes and 600,000 visitors showed up! Here's a very large photo to give an idea of the scale of the show.

The event lasts an entire week but I was only there for the last 4 days with old Allied work mates Rich, Phil, and Dan.  Rich, his two boys, and I left early Thursday morning and picked up Phil in Chicago who flew in all the way from the UK. After taking nearly two hours to get through Chicago traffic plus another 5 or so to get to the show.

Dan provided the upscale accommodations, his very large trailer with expandable sides and a generator. Nice considering most of the other visitors were in tents with no running water or electricity. It was our home away from home while we explored the show by day and drank around the campfire at night. I think I'd gladly take that over camping under the wing of an airplane as is Oshkosh tradition.

The show itself was amazing and all encompassing. I just don't have the time (or ability) to explain it all but some of the highlights include:

• Flying a helicopter simulator in a trailer
• Seeing a formation of what must have been close to 50 warbirds, mostly P-51s, re-enact bombing raids over the airport with massive pyrotechnics
• Watching the flying exhibitions including; a Rocket Racer, V-22 Osprey, F-22 Raptor, and a bunch of unbelievable aerobatics
• Getting up close and personal with so many experimental and prototype aircraft
• Mixing in my techy side by seeing all the PC game vendors (flight simulator products and such)

Unfortunately I didn't have room on the credit card to drop $150,000 for a new Cessna, or as little as $16,000 for an amphibious ultra-light, or even $650 for a new aviation + auto navigation GPS. However I did manage under $50 for a yoke mount system for my PDA, that was about all my budget allowed!

All in all a great experience that any aviation fan must experience at least once in their life, and I'm sure I'll be back again one day.

Here are some more pics from the show

solo cross country

Now time for some more flying news... I've started working on my next pilot's rating which is the PPL (Private Pilot's License). My current rating is called a recreational permit, which allows me to take one passenger up for a flight pretty much anywhere in Canada. That's been fine for the kind of flying I've been doing, but it would be nice to fly the larger Cessna and be able to take a few people for a trip. Plus being so close to the border with the US it would be great to be able to cross it. And if I get the next level of license by July then I won't have to redo my written exam.

So that's what I'm working on now. I actually don't have to do a lot to qualify, just a few extra knowledge requirements and one more flight test. One of those requirements is called the "cross country". That doesn't mean I have to fly to BC or anything, it just means I have to plan a trip to 2 different airports, and then fly the trip. I do it first with an instructor and the second one alone.

So yesterday (May 9) was my solo cross country. My route was from Windsor to Sarnia, London, and then back home. Total flying time of about 2.5 hours plus some stop over time.

Now the trip itself was actually pretty straight forward. Besides having to dodge some clouds at my altitude, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The only unusual event happened in London, and for anyone not interested in flying at all this will have no interest. But as I lined up to depart I realised I was sitting behind a Diamond D-Jet (bad cell phone picture above). This aircraft isn't yet in production, so what I was behind was a pre-production test aircraft. Right in front of it was another Diamond propeller aircraft, probably a D40. As I waited I heard the tower clear both aircraft to depart, at which point the Diamond prop started the roll and as soon as it lifted off the D-Jet took off immediately behind it. They then joined formation and flew off into the distance. I have to assume they were either doing a photo flight or part of the test flight process. Pretty cool to see though!

During the flight I had my GPS running to record the route (I didn't use it for navigation, honest!), so you can check out the route in Google Maps here. When you're there click the "View in Google Earth" link and you'll get a 3D view of the route.

how i got a hd-dvd player for $20

I know what you're probably thinking, why would I bother getting a HD-DVD player now that BluRay is the HD format winner? For those of you who don't already know, HD-DVD is like the Betamax of our time. It's a new format for hi-definition DVD movies that has now been abandoned by all that used to support it.

So that being said, here's the story. I wasn't actually looking for a HD-DVD or BluRay player, simply because I couldn't justify the cost. Instead I'd been keeping an eye out for an upconverting DVD player since the DVD player we had was old and only played most DVDs if you asked very nicely and polished the DVD to space telescope optical quality.

The thing is, even upconverting DVD players are a little pricey (around $100) if you want decent quality, and they don't actually play any HD video, they just make DVDs look better on a HD TV.

Then I had a idea. Since HD-DVD players function as upconverting DVD players on the side, maybe with the format war over I could pick one up for cheap? Plus you get the added benefit of being able to burn HD-DVD content to a regular old DVD-R and play it in full HD quality. This would be great for our wedding video which was filmed in HD. So I took a drive by the local Best Buy and found them being sold for $89. Pretty good but still not an amazing deal. However I asked around and managed to find an open box item for only $69. Now that's a price I could handle, so I went ahead and picked it up. Plus it still had the 2 free HD-DVD movies thrown in which made the deal even better.

I got it home, plugged it in, and of course the DVDs look all nice and sharp. Then I threw some wedding video on a DVD in HD-DVD format and wouldn't you know it, it played in full glorious quality. Sweet!

So where does that $20 come from? Well 2 weeks ago I noticed an add on the Best Buy website. Since they were feeling sorry for all of those poor saps who spent tons of money on a now obsolete HD-DVD player, they were offering a $50 gift card for simply showing a receipt that you bought one after some date in January. I figured there's no way I could qualify for this since I paid so little to start with. Well, as it turns out, Best Buy put no other limitations on this program. So I walked in, presented my $69 receipt, and received my $50 gift card. Now that is a deal!

via rail wi-fi leaves a lot to be desired

I'm actually on a train right now heading back to Windsor after a quick trip to Toronto. I'm connected to the internet using Via Rail's in train wi-fi service. Sure that might sound pretty cool, but in reality it's like being connected to the internet via pigeon. I take a packet, print it out, tie it to the foot a homing pigeon, and wait for the bird to arrive back with the reply.

Seriously, it is that slow. I decided to try a test, disconnected from the wi-fi and then connected through my cell phone using bluetooth. Huge improvement in speed! If it wasn't for the fact the some Rogers accountant started foaming at the mouth as soon as I did that I would have stayed connected, but my bank accountant can't handle the per kb charges.

So back to Via Rail's painful wi-fi. I don't know how they can actually charge for this service and I don't think I'll be paying for it again. I know it must be tricky getting wireless internet to a moving train, but unless you can do it with some reliability there really is no point at all.

As for being in Toronto, I was there for 3 days for a Citrix training course. The course was fine, nothing revolutionary but good none the less. And for anyone in Toronto (or near by), the reason I didn't pay you a visit was because I was working every night to finish off a major project so I didn't have any time to myself. Sorry!

a week in paradise

For our honeymoon we picked what looked like a cute little island (Palm Island) in the Grenadines, the southern Caribbean. We wanted somewhere as quiet and relaxing as possible, and boy did we find it!

The trip started with a flight from Toronto to Barbados. On arrival in Barbados we walked off the plane and before we even entered the terminal there was a guy with a sign with our names on it. We went over and a nice lady took us through the airport, did our paperwork, took care of our bags, and pointed us in the direction of our next flight (to Union Island). We had some time so had lunch at Island Grill, the Jamaican equivalent to McDonalds but with better food. I had some jerk pork and Tina some curry chicken (mmmm).

The flight to Union Island was fun, a little Twin Otter (prop plane that seats about 12) that flew us for about 1 hour to the Island. Landing in Union Island was a treat for me, it involved flying over the top of a hill and then diving toward the runway. You don't get that on Air Canada!

On arrival in Union Island we were might by another guy who took our bags and drove us in a golf cart to a dock, where we immediately got on a boat that took us to the final destination.

Getting off the boat we were greeted by the General Manager of the resort, who handed us two cocktails and then had someone walk us to our room, which they had decided to upgrade from a standard room to an ocean view suite. Not a bad start!

The resort and island were well beyond our expectations. The food was excellent, even though it was all inclusive it was a full menu for every meal and it was prepared like a top quality restaurant. The island was small, taking about 45 mins to walk the circumference, but yet it was easy to be alone and undisturbed. We also got their "romance package" which included a private picnic on the beach, a private sunset sail boat cruise, a day trip to some local islands, and a dinner served on the beach at a heart shaped palm tree. I could go on and on but I've probably bragged enough!

The return trip was sad (we didn't want to leave of course) but it was highlighted by a trip to the Concorde Museum at Barbados airport. There are only a few Concordes on display around the world and Barbados managed to get one of them being one of the regular scheduled routes for British Airways.

Then it was back to reality. Oh well, it had to end sometime. But feel free to check out some more pics and share in our little piece of paradise!

it's 2008 and it's been quite a year already!

Wow, I haven't posted a blog entry since last year. That's pretty bad, although I do have some valid excuses for being preoccupied.

So I actually did the deed, took the plunge, signed the paperwork, got hitched... yep I'm married! OK so I know it happened back in February but still it's news on this blog so there you go. It was a brilliant wedding, couldn't have been better. One of the few nice days this winter and pretty much everything went to plan.

I have to admit I did get a little nervous before the actual ceremony, not because I had any doubts but probably more just hoping things would all go well plus having to stand in front of a room full of people.

So the ceremony started well, I was keeping my composure and so was Tina. We said and did what we were supposed to and all was going well. Then came the vows. Well I made two mistakes. Mistake 1 - agreeing to write our own vows. Mistake 2 - letting Tina read her vows first! After listening to Tina saying her vows, keeping it together turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Although I didn't get through it entirely tear free, at least I know I took some people down with me.

After the ceremony the pressure was off. We snapped a bunch of pictures and then started the party with some champagne in the bus on the way to the reception.

The reception was a heck of a party. The food was great, we didn't run out of booze, and the dance floor stayed occupied the entire night (and we have the video to prove it!). And I'll even forgive my brother for dedicating a website to my embarrassment in his speech (no I will not link to it).

Thanks to everyone for helping to make the wedding such a perfect and fun day. Special mentions go to volunteer cameraman (Steve) and ceremony DJ (Nigel), as well as our bridesmaids and groomsmen.

The very next day Tina and I started our journey off on the honeymoon... but that's a story for the next post!

In the mean time, check out some pics from the wedding

holidays, gifts, and aircraft mishaps

Well since Tina and I have been otherwise preoccupied with wedding planning (it's getting close!) we haven't exactly been in the Christmas spirit. Not that we aren't generally happy, but very little time or thought has gone into things like Christmas decorating, celebrations, singing Christmas carols, roasting chestnuts, etc, etc. Heck we don't even have our Christmas tree up. So for all of you who have taken the time to send out Christmas cards and/or Christmas letters, thank you and we enjoyed reading them. Just don't expect the same from us this year. However we will be having a very big party soon which should make up for that.

Christmas was good to me again this year and I received some very generous gifts. The most generous (from my wife-to-be) being a Citizen Skyhawk Eco-Drive aviation watch (online demo here). Some geeky flying features such as 24 hour analog dial, UTC (universal time) dial, digital time zone display with analog swapping feature (swaps digital and analog clocks at the press of a button), and a movable outside bezel slide rule for assisting with aviation calculations. Oh and it has an invisible solar panel through the watch face that means the battery never needs replacement.

Speaking of aviation, this morning I decided to go up for quick flight since I hadn't been up in months due to a string of bad weather. The weather today wasn't great but all I wanted to do was some circuit practice (flying around the airport and doing landings) so it didn't really matter. After 30 minutes of scraping frost off of the plane (windshield, wings, tail), I was ready to go.

Things started well, I did a couple of circuits and my landings were working well. After my third "touch-and-go" (land and take off without stopping) I decided to do a "stop-and-go", which means come to a stop on the runway and then take off again.

My landing went exactly as expected, nice and soft and just where I wanted. But as I applied the brakes I noticed the plane was stopping a little too quickly and also pulling heavily to the right. I eased off the brakes and used the steering to keep it going straight but it still came to a quicker than expected stop. Nothing drastic, just not normal. As soon as it stopped I realized what had happened, the right tire of the main landing gear was flat.

As soon as that thought entered my mind, the control tower called up on the radio to ask if something was wrong. I replied "I think I've got a flat tire", and he replied "looks like it, the plane is leaning to the right. Stay right there and I'll see what we can do".

So there I was sitting in the middle of a runway with a flat tire. Unfortunately you can't just call CAA (aka AA, aka AAA) for a tow, instead they had to send an airport vehicle out to pick me up and deliver me back to the flying club. The airplane had to stay where it was for the moment.

By the time I was back at the club they already knew what had happened and the mechanic was being paged from home. When I left the plane was still on the runway and all airplanes had to use Windsor's other runway (luckily I was on the smaller one).

So that's my aircraft mishap story, luckily nothing serious!

Oh, and Happy New Year to all!

first winter storm of the season (p.s. i'm back!)

OK, I know, I've been MIA for a long time on this blog now. My last entry was during the middle of summer from the Vegas desert. So I'm finally back with a new post and things couldn't be more different. I've just dug out from a crazy winter storm which has covered a normally snow starved Windsor in a generous heaping of the white stuff.

So here is a little video to share the cold. For those of you coming from far away to my wedding in 2 months from now, this is what you have to look forward to!



And although I haven't been keeping this blog up to date there has been tons going on over the last few months. I stood in two fantastic weddings (congrats Daniel & Lisa, Dave & Carm). Some friends are having or have had babies. And of course wedding plans keep us both busy. But I promise to at least try and keep this blog updated again!

what happens in vegas ...

... ends up on this blog of course!

Well we had our long weekend in Vegas a few weeks back (Jul 13 - 16) and it was very cool and pretty much what I expected. Over the top, anything goes, and unlimited ways to spend your money very quickly.

We stayed at the Luxor (the big pyramid), which made me wonder why Dubai hasn't built a pyramid yet. Much larger than I expected and the view (both inside and out) from the higher floors is unique. On arrival into the hotel the "let's pretend to give you something for free" antics started immediately. We were approached by what looked like hotel staff asking if we were a couple and then walking us over to what looked like a special check-in area. I was immediately sceptical but listened for a minute as they explained we'd get free tickets to a show... as long as we went to see a new development under construction. Basically a time share. So we politely (we are Canadian after all) declined and went to normal check-in. For the rest of the trip every time we passed through the lobby we got approached by these people, so that politeness didn't last very long! It's annoying but fine if you know how to deal with them.

The trip was organized by a friend of ours (Art) from California. We used to work with him in the days of Allied Domecq and this was a reunion of sorts. 3 couples went, and 4 of us used to work together (Art, Kelly, Jeff, Tina, and myself).

The place really is crazy, almost like a mixture of Dubai and Disneyland without the morals of either. Which brings me to another point; don't bring kids to Vegas! I was in shock over the number of young children being dragged around the casinos by their parents. What a bad lesson to teach impressionable young kids, that drinking, gambling, and sexploitation are cool and fun. Let them figure that out on their own behind parents backs like they are supposed to!

So what did we do? Well in summary:

• Lots and lots of walking in very very hot weather
• Shopping in the mall; highlight for me was playing with an iPhone at the Apple store
• Rode the X-Scream ride at the top of the Stratosphere (see how Tina puts the "scream" in X-Scream)
• Had a chat with Mekhi Phifer (plays Dr Pratt on ER) while in line for pizza
• Walked through as many Casinos and hotels as we could manage
• Checked out the Cirque du Soleil "Love" show (absolutely brilliant!)
• Had some very good (and pricey) food
• Spent a few hours laying by the pool in the "pay" section (where else would have a section of the hotel pool that you have to pay to use?)
• Lots of drinking of course, taking advantage of the fact you can take your drinks anywhere you go (on the street, in the monorail, into other bars, etc)
  

And finally, we happened to come across a booth in our walking that sells discounted show tickets. We checked out if there were any cheap tickets worth going to and it turned out the cheapest tickets were for a show in our hotel on that night.

The show is called "Fantasy" and it is billed as an "adult review for couples", so basically a show with topless dancers. Being at the Luxor we figured at least it would be of a higher quality, so two of us couples decided to check it out. Well, I can say it was just barely worth the price of admission, with the highly discounted $27 tickets that is. Even as a guy it wasn't very impressive, sure some of the girls are attractive (although most had the typical American fake blonde look) but their dancing was lacking and the show lacked substance (is that a surprise?). The best part turned out to be the one guy in the show who was the comic relief, doing impressions of James Brown, Michael Jackson, a black Elvis, and even Tina Turner.

So overall, great trip. I'd definitely recommend Vegas, just be wary of offers that look to good to be true, keep a close eye on your budget, and don't expect much from the topless dancers!

Check out some more pics and a few random videos