Gold Overshadowed

Just wonderful, our hockey team struggles and we win gold in ice dancing? Those two kids were awesome but will the country accept anything less than a medal for men's hockey? Poor Stevie Y is going to take a lot of second guess based abuse for his picks. So far the ones that were questioned like Drew Doughty have played very well. Some of the old shoe-ins, like Chris Pronger, have played sub-par at best. Just not enough speed in those legs anymore.


My Flight Sim-Cross Canada trip is done. I landed a Witman Tailwind in Victoria BC yesterday afternoon. I have to recount all of the stops but managed the entire trip which started in mid-September with one landing that was in snow short of the runway but 0 crashes. Along the way I used the most realistic settings, radio navigation rather than gps, and actual weather conditions. Next up? Around the world with landings in as many countries as have airports. I'm back to the base scenery since the great pc crash of Jan2010 but the net-based satellite feed is too slow to go around the world anyway.


I got to inform the 110 teams of Lakehead Minor yesterday that there are no affiliations (call ups) in the playoffs. It's a rule that has been on the books for at least 10 years. What about my goalie who is away at the Olympics? We only have one goalie, what if he gets sick? Sorry boys that's why you pick 2 goalies. Consideration is only given to teams with a season ending injury for the netminder and only if pre-approved. My inbox got full in a big hurry.

And On It Goes

My latest attempt at a cartoon, It Must Be Zamboni Dust. 


Nothing much new to say. Northwood is into playoffs and along with that goes the usual change in attitude for some. We've had issues with one goalie being too young all season and it came to a head, he just didn't want to play anymore so we asked for help from other teams and they refused. Had to put my foot down after he started crying when asked to go back into the net for the playoffs. Everyone says they understand. I'm just calling him injured.

Work hasn't changed much, slower if that's possible. It almost feels strange to go in anymore. Can't get used to that, not ready to retire mentally or financially. I can honestly say I spend more time with hockey commitments now than I do at my paying job.

I spent an hour wrestling with Molly's new front wheel and fork this afternoon. They didn't want to go together. After carefully filing the fork for a bit I tried my dremel-clone and then just put a 3.8 drill bit into my electric drill and used the edge to hone out the fork so the axle would fit in. I'm anxious to get out. As soon as my back is ready it's time to hit the road.

I finally got to Vancouver on my cross Canada flight. Haven't had much free time for flying lately. One more hop to Victoria and that project will be done. I have learned to use the radios for navigation and don't even turn on the gps very often.

Time to check out some olympics. If you haven't heard Tigers press conference, he's sorry. I felt especially bad for his mother when they showed her sitting in the front row. He should do something special if and when he returns to playing, like donate his winnings, all of them.

Not Much Is New

Yes I know I haven't been posting much lately. Been in the doldrums for a bit but starting to come out of it I think. I'm working every day this week and that has at least got me moving, walking to and from when possible. The sun is actually just getting ready to peek over the horizon as I make my way in so spring and biking can't be too far off. With all the ice on the roads and no studded tires I just don't want to risk it, heck even walking is treacherous.

Hockey was going well until an incident a week ago soured things a bit. An assistant coach and his former father-in-law got into a heated discussion in the dressing room with all the wide-eyed kids present. He had me convinced he was totally innocent for a while but upon further review, he was as much at fault. They both got a warning that they would be banned if anything else came up. The coach then sent an email about the 'safety' of the dressing rooms with so many people in them. He wanted to limit the people in the room to just one per player. My email got filtered and I never saw it until another coach let me read it on his Blackberry. Every other coach told him there was no way they would agree so I didn't even have to respond. He is out as far as I'm concerned.

Took Eyowen to the Gardens for a makeup game Thursday. Pretty cool on the way home but minimal traffic and ice. Just didn't feel like walking anymore that day.

Saw a funny one while timekeeping on Friday. Penalty shot. Midget player pushed the puck about 2 feet from the centre ice spot and then skates past it. Over, done. No you can't circle around and start over.

My flight across Canada will wrap up some time this weekend with a final landing, fingers crossed, in Victoria BC.

The New Ride

With the lease on the Dakota running out (finally) next month we started seriously looking for a new vehicle. I wandered across the street last Thursday to the Subaru dealer and ran into one of the mechanics who is a really good customer. He towed me through the shop and located a salesman, before I knew it I had an overnight test drive. The '07 Impreza 2.5 Wagon is the perfect size for me but I wan't sure about Sal who is accustomed to riding higher since all we've had in recent decades has been a van or truck. I went for a long test ride before she came home from work and found the newport blue pearl all wheel drive had everything we need. Better gas mileage, super reliable, fun to drive and not bad looking (even if AJ doesn't agree). Once Sal got home we took it out and to my surprise she seemed to like it. I did some online research and was impressed by everything I read. I took it back Friday and made arrangements for Saturday morning and we finished up the deal. The car was traded for another bigger Subaru the day I first walked over, has only 32000km and we got a bumper to bumper warranty through 2014 so we'll know our vehicle costs every month.

The Northwood kids and parents (210) all took in the Thunderwolves game last night and they had a blast. The game was lost in a shootout but by then they were all ready for bed anyway. I talked the team's management into a moment of silence before the game for the player that passed away last month and every kid is now wearing a decal with her number on their helmets. We found one good picture and a dvd of one of her games after the family requested a picture of her in her hockey gear. The team pictures were taken 2 weeks too late.

Rather than posting hundreds of pictures here I opened another blog called Travels with a Tailwind for rambling about flight simulator.

No I haven't posted my food intake, that just didn't keep me out of the fridge. But I have tapered it and started walking and riding Ethel just about daily. Control seems to be returning.

Goosenecks State Park

Oh Ethel...

...how I haven't missed you. I'm determined to ride 20km every day in December and like someone hit the big switch in the sky, snow. I bolted a saddle to Ethel and hopped on for another 5 km to make my daily quota. Listening to an MP3 book that makes walking a breeze but just doesn't cut it when pedaling somehow. It's going to be a long winter.

Thunder Bay in Flight Simulator with the Tile Proxy utility running from Yahoo Maps

Late Nights

It was 2:15 am when I posted the pic below so I wasn't up to telling the story. After 3 hours of tweaking and testing I have the satellite mapping scenery linked into flite sim. The pic below is somewhere over the Grand Canyon and pretty spectacular, at least I think so. There are still some bugs to work out. The shot was taken at 23,000 feet which is about 20,000 feet higher than I normally cruise, but everything is smooth and the displayed framerate is high enough to feel like I'm moving. Next will be some low and slow tests to see how far I can take it. There are two more levels of graphic quality but I'm not sure the dell can handle much more. I have another gig of memory coming and that may make it as real as it's going to get until Microsoft gets on the ball and links their mapping and flight sim software together.

I attended the first meeting for the Active Transportation committee I'm sitting on. Our role will be education and marketing the new bike lanes, sharrows and active transportation in general. Yesterday was a meet and greet, some review of the structure of the 3 committees, the parent committee and who reports to who etc. The hour spent brainstorming was very productive and lots of ideas were tossed around. The first bike lanes and sharrows are due for spring of 2010 so that should be interesting. It was nice to meet some other bikers who are into it enough to get involved.

Success

Day 2-09

Coffee and toast. Cheese, bread, granola bar and water. Pasta, bread and water. 13 km on Bridget.

I picked up 2 gigs of ram for the Dell today only to find that the 4 slots were filled with 1/2 gig boards so my net gain was only 1 gig. Instead of installing 2x1 gig boards at the factory they cheaped out and used  4x1/2 boards so upgrading means replacing all instead of just adding two. Confused? So was the Dell tech. Their website leads you to believe that you will end up with the max memory that XP can handle. Took a quick flight in the Tailwind over Vancouver and the performance increase with even half of the ram I thought I was getting is visible.

The 10 year-old girl that was killed on Sunday in the ATV accident is one of our Northwood players. Can't imagine how the parents are handling that.

Here We Go Again

Sometimes you just have to go back to what worked so I'm going to be posting it all again. Whatever passes the lips on the way in will be back here. I'm tired of slipping, sort of like having two paths of thought. One says eat right, the other says eat right now.

The Northwood season is under way and things are going well. In 9 games played to date there have been 5 tied. It looks like the teams are fairly even. Our Breast Cancer Foundation pins and t-shirt program is going well. Sal sold 108 pins yesterday and 27 kids got free t-shirts. I ordered 300 so more than 30% are gone in a day which paid for all the t-shirts, so it should get us back to even with a $900 donation and lots of kids happily in new NHL t-shirts.

I picked up a new plane over the weekend. It's a little homebuilt rocket that can get up to 200mph and cruises comfortably at 160. It's pretty easy to fly and has only the bare essentials for navigation. No GPS so radio navigation is a must. The Wittman Tailwind has acres of window so looking around is easy and makes the trip more enjoyable. I'm in Marathon and heading for Thunder Bay next time up.

Toronto

if only it was this easy to go to T.O.

Goodnight Coach

Just finished talking on the phone with Mom and landed in Peterborough. One more hop and I'll be in Toronto. This was a long week or so it seemed. Inventory is all but done and seems so anti-climatic as compared to the stress filled days we used to spend getting ready. Now things are much quicker and logical. We don't take everything out of the computer, count and put it back in. It always seemed to me that more mistakes went back in than were there in the first place.Why not just fix what was wrong?

I had three game on the clock at Grandview last night and the first two went pretty well, a great Atom AA contest with one of Northwood's stars of last year putting on a good show. Next up was a PeeWee AA game that was good and close without any real silliness. And then came the NorthEnd PeeWee AA's. The same team that had the box full last week and with DW wearing the bands again. Coach started off yapping with the first penalty and never stopped even as he made his way out of the rink with just over 10 minutes left in the game. While some guys try to have their team learn when a penalty is called he insists on saying "that's not a penalty that's hockey" and of course the kids keep doing the same thing and then coming to visit me. His team played better without him as they tied the game with about 3 minutes to go but ended up losing with just 3 ticks left on the clock. Thanks again for new timekeeping experiences, never had misconducts before and definitely never two at the same time with a few other minors added in. And he said he was going to give me an easier game.

And what a lovely day for a bike ride. I never got caught in any real downpour but Eyowen is covered in sand and mud from the construction around the shop. At least I broke 300km for the month.

Frogs

Just landed in Montreal. Made my way from Quebec City with just the radios, VFR and no GPS. Speaking of frogs I picked up a pair of lights on the weekend as riding in the dark has become the norm. They're called frogs and made by an Australian company, Knog. Yes Knog Frogs. Just a simple led in a rubbery body that can wrap around any part of the bike or helmet. Easily transferable from one bike to another, cheap and very bright. One red on the back and a white on the bars and I'm blinking along.

J'ai juste débarqué à Québec

   For those of you that don't parlez, I just landed in Quebec City and am heading for a bike shop to check out the new Lapierres. Not really but then what is real? It was a long bumpy flight again and the roughest landing to date. One big bounce after nearly getting lost in the low cloud. Almost zero visibility until I got under 500 feet.
   Timekeeping last night was good, three AA games with one of the old hands and he shared plenty of tricks. There is alot going on and the games move quickly. No time to stumble around looking things up. By the middle of the second game I was comfortable, except for being frozen. Lesson 1: dress like you are walking to work, (except for the ski mask.)
   Off for another 4 days now but have to remember to stay more active. A few of the endless things around the house, a ride or 2, read (Emperor series (Julius Caeser) book 3), design a rack for Eyowen and a few hours at the rink. Supper with the kids on Sunday and maybe with mom and dad on Monday.
   And if you want to look like you speak another language, give Google translate a try. 它确实有效, Funziona davvero. Paste that in and see what it says. Pick chinese or italian to english.

The Heart Does Grow Fonder

After 5 days off and feeling like c**p for the most part I was back at work this morning. I only got out for a spin around the school parking lot with Ginko and a short trip to the library in the 5 days. Bridget felt like a million bucks this morning. As the day went on the pain in my hips and lower back went away so I guess the lost 5 days were my own fault, and Boston Pizza's for whatever ailed my stomach. I did manage a lot of reading.

Last night was Ginko's last here and we spent it playing cards by candlelight. What can you do with a 5 year old when the power goes? I was up reading this morning and the juice went again, he came down for a bathroom run and then headed up in the dark. After getting Bridget out of the basement I came through the living room and was just pulling on my jacket when I saw him sitting there in a chair. The lights were back on by this time but it still scared me silly. And he giggled.

Made my way from Fredricton to St. Leonard Quebec in a rainy, windy flight in the Beaver. Maybe I should stop using the real weather feature. Lord knows how I'll manage to fly into Thunder Bay.

I get my first taste of timekeeping tomorrow night with a 4 hour training session at Grandview. Should not to be too tough as I've done it before just never with the added pressure of a pay check down the road. Just like the refs, once there is money being made you are supposed to be perfect.

Welcome to Moncton

After work this morning I headed over to our storage locker to sort sweaters for the first skates Sunday and to meet the goalies for fitting equipment. I hauled 10 set of pads and 6 chest protectors out last week and brought them to Petrie's for shipping north. They were all teen sizes that we haven't used for years and old school, brown leather and filled with horsehair. Great workout when they get wet from the ice. That's why the old goalies were stand up, once they got down it was so hard to get themselves off the ice.

Sal hasn't gotten over her untip last night, 11 people with a bill of $250 and they tipped $4 on a debit transaction. Last thing she said last night was "4 dollars", and first thing this morning, "4 dollars". Hopefully tonight went a bit better. We think they might have meant $40 but missed the button.

Made two flights in the Beaver today, Port Hawksbury, Nova Scotia to Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island and then on to Moncton, New Brunswick. Brushed up on my ILS landings and just about have the nav radios figured out again. Now I'm looking online for charts and approach plates. The GPS works like magic but there's not much of a challenge in that.

Bridget got hooked up to the Vado camera for a spin through Kam River Park. I haven't done any editing yet so nothing to show. I found a great new way to treadmill, reading a book. It's not easy but at 3mph I can hold the book and manage to read. Felt like 5 minutes instead of the 20 it takes for a mile.

Song of the day, Simple Man by Paul Rogers.

Is It Really Thursday Again?

I guess that's about the longest period without a post in some time. Time is flying by with my new work schedule, hockey meetings, phone calls and e-mails.

I decided I was slipping in the diet and exercise department so early Monday morning I was up for a 1 mile walk on the treadmill and then did 50 pushups and 50 situps. Felt great. There's something about the buzz after working up a sweat and feeling the slight ache in the muscles. Tuesday morning was another story as the aches were deep and painful. I managed the walk but there was no way this old body was doing ups of any kind. The plan is to start up again next Monday and work up to 50. Walking feels good. Been cutting down the intake and grabbing more water and fruit again.

My flight across Canada has advanced to Sydney Nova Scotia after a 155 mile hop across from Newfoundland. It was an interesting flight featuring fog, wind and engine trouble. You can set variable levels of trouble for increased reality but I have my hands full now that I have quit using the autopilot, so I was surprised by the stumbling of the engine. I tried a few solutions but it ended up being too rich a fuel mixture. My first landing attempt had me coming in sideways with a severe crosswind so I pulled out and circled around to the other runway and got down fine. I'm enjoying the flying much more now that I'm not doing it every day for hours at a time.

Lots of preparation for the weekend as Northwood hits the ice. Everything seems to be ready to go, up until the city cancelled one of the most important session we have. Can't move it up a weekend because of the turkey day long weekend and the next was supposed to be the opening of the regular season. That's the downside of being in the Gardens I guess.

We're waiting for the season premier of Grey's Anatomy. We started watching the dvds of the first 4 seasons in the spring and have seen 100 episodes. I had planned on recording it with Media Center but something in the tuner is not working. It took a Dell tech almost 2 hours to determine that the software was fine but the hardware needs replacing. So we missed the 9-11 and are sitting up til midnight. George dies, a real downer.

Just reading this over and wow, no mention of a bike anywhere. Yes I'm still riding but just taking it easy. Nothing epic, nowhere near my goal and no excuses.

Song of the day, 'Hold Your Head Up' a classic from the 70's by Argent.

Tailwind Thursday

Not much of a tailwind today but since I'm off til Tuesday I guess I might as well enjoy it. Looks like the pattern will be work Tues-Wed-Thurs, off Mondays and Fridays since my sidekick hates long weekends, bonus I guess. We got a few shop jobs in this week so the time flew by.

I cranked up Flight Sim the other day and cruised around a bit for the first time in about 8 months. I've started a cross Canada flight with stops every 60 miles or so, depending on airport availability. My first landing was a bit of a dodgy one. Came in way too fast and pulled out just in time for a go round and then took my time. I've made four short hops from St. John's Newfoundland heading east, hoping for at least one landing in every province. Not much to see on the big island, not in flight sim anyway. Landings have improved greatly since the first.

Hockey is going pretty well so far. Got through another AA draft on Tuesday. I sure hope these coaches get that call from Brian Burke soon. As for Northwood we don't hit the ice until the 27th but are meeting to plan things for the early sessions.

I just realized this week that throughout Conquer the Caribou neither my butt nor my hands hurt. Both have been sort of nagging me, especially my hands. After day 2 of Conquer Cancer they were still buzzing back at the hotel, hours after the ride had ended. Last Sunday, nothing. Maybe because my legs were the focus of my attention. Not really sure.

New Ride

This is a freeware plane designed for FSX. It is a WWII vintage Douglas A26 Invader which was a light twin engine bomber. For FS Ecomony it is a great choice as its fast, can handle up to 8 pax and is fairly easy to fly. Other than having no navigation systems it is great for making some quick $$$. I picked this model up in the Bahamas and am working my way back to the mountains. I'm currently in Miami.

FS Economy

I've used this program before but have now got the knack. It's a set of tasks for flite Sim that pays virtual$. You pick an airport, look for assignments, rent the plane of choice, fill 'er up and then try and deliver the goods or passengers to the required destination. The program tracks gross weight, fuel mileage and costs like landing fees, maintenance and weather factors. Once you land safely you are given your salary less the costs. With the cash made you can buy or rent planes and build a fleet. It gives flying around some purpose and tests your navigation skills as not every plane is loaded with GPS etc. I've been using a Cessna 172 that has AP but navigation is mostly VFR or by looking at the ground and comparing to a chart or map. This is a Google map of recent flights in and around BC/Washington.