corey 
Flordia 2006
We had headed down to Flordia earlier in April to visit with some friends (Hi Jeannie and Tony!) and check out the area (I’ve never been there except to hop on the cruise ship). We had a great time and got to enjoy the nice warm Flordian weather. Sea kayaking was pretty fun, but we need to practice our coordination in a 2 person kayak. I couldn’t tell if we were fighting each other or the current.
The day before we left (a Monday) we headed to the Sun N Fun fly-in at Lakeland, FL. It’s not too far from St Petersburg and since it was mid-day there was hardly any traffic. Unfortunately, it was the very last day of the show and all of the vendors/displays were itching to pack up and go home. We did get to browse around and see most of the vendors I was interesting in seeing. I was a little bummed there was nothing going on at the Van’s Aircraft booth but I did get to meet Jan of Eggenfellner Aircraft.
We took some pictures, but as there wasn’t much going on (though the airshow was still cool, even if it was shorter than the other airshows during the previous week) we didn’t get very many. I will say, it’s hard to get a nice crisp shot when you are zoomed in at 300mm. Now I know I need to increase my shutter speed a bit to make them crisper – I was trying to blur the prop (instead of having the photo freeze the prop) and had adjusted my shutter speed down. That works great for airplanes that are closer but not for ones that require full zoom.
Here’s a couple OK ones, there’s more (maybe not OK but alright) photos in the gallery:
[thumb:789:l] [thumb:808:c]
[thumb:799:l] [thumb:830:c]
Since then we’ve been busy getting the garage ready. I finally got some shelves up and have started organizing. We got a couple nifty organizer items from a line of products called Gladiator GarageWorks – we picked these up at Sears. I’d really like to start working on my airplane again, and I’m really close. We’ve got two benches built (thanks Ross!) and now just need to finish up our shelving.
I’m also finishing up school for the semester, so I’ve got to study this week for my finals. I have my flight sim class final on Thursday the 4th, but it shouldn’t be too rough – I just need to finish my preflight planning and make sure all the t’s are crossed and the i’s dotted. My weather class (which is an online class) has it’s final exam on the 12th and 13th so I’ll be studying for that most of the coming week. I’ve enjoyed my flight class as I’ve been able to do some more advanced stuff (things I haven’t learned through my Flight Instructor yet) but the weather class is boring me to tears. Weather theory is just a buncha random variables all thrown into the wind and seeing how they fall.. voi la! There’s your weather.
Speaking of instructors, I’ve got (again) a new instructor. Ryan will be starting me on my instrument training shortly, so hopefully he’ll be around to finish it! My previous instructor, Kyle, has gotten a job flying turbo-props – so congrats to him and good luck!
Letsee, what else can I talk about. Oh, I finally finished Fallen Dragon by Peter F Hamilton. It’s a pretty good sci-fi book even if he does ramble on quite a bit in his flashbacks. Now I’m reading The Assassins by Oliver North which my mother gave me for Christmas (or my birthday, one of those).
That’s all I got, for now. I should get back to work.
Books and Movies, Movies and Books
Since I haven’t posted an update lately, I figured I would run down the list of movies we’ve seen recently:
Aeon Flux – Action sci-fi. I haven’t seen the original cartoon series but apparently it’s pretty funky. I liked the movie, though the people who over analyze movies probably won’t like it as much. ***1/2
Jarhead – Movie about Marine snipers during Desert Storm: Part 1. More of a drama than an action flick, but very good and shows you what a lot of guys go through while deployed and working in the Armed Forces. ****1/2
Memoirs of a Geisha – Pretty good, though slow in some parts. A drama, so hardly anything exciting going on. But still good. ***1/2
Narnia – Done very well, much better than the TV series I’ve seen a bit of. ****1/2
Syriana – Action/Drama. Basically, our (America’s) oil corporations are evil. So is our gov’ment. Interesting and pretty good. ***1/2
The Ringer – Eh. **
Walk the Line – The Johnny Cash movie. Good, but slow in parts. Another drama. The best parts were the performances. ***1/2
And now, books!
I’ve started reading the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. I have to admit, it’s nothing like I thought it would be, but it’s very good. It’s basically a collection of short(er) stories during this upheaval and removal of a galactic empire. I’m now on book 3 and the time compression has slowed down quite a bit.
I was reading the Dark Tower books by Stephen King but those can be fairly intense, it’s nice to read something a little faster and less emotional.
And, not to leave the other two Media topics out:
Music – I got Monster Magnet: Monolithic Baby! for Christmas, and it’s pretty good. I don’t think I’ve gotten any other music lately, but that’s no surprise.
Games – Started playing EVE Online again recently with a bunch of folks from F13.Net. This is one of those games where you play for awhile, quit, come back, play for awhile, quit, come back… A lot of changes have been made since I last played, so I’m getting caught up on those and trying to figure out what exactly to do with our new Corporation.
And that’s about it for Media updates. Oh oh I forgot one!
Lost – We’ve recently started watching the first season of this show. It’s pretty good! Of course, the second season has already started so there’s no way to catch up. Next season I will have to setup Tivo to record the shows so they are ready for us once we have caught up.
L8trz!
Straight Flush
How much money have I lost so far? Letsee: $60 on craps, $20 on blackjack, $30 on slots/video poker, $60 on crappy fast food, $30 on __amazing__ internet access.. a lot. (I did get a Straight Flush on one of the video poker games, but since I was only playing with nickel bets that comes out to around 75 cents winnings).
My luck just isn’t here, for some reason. It was fine the first night but ever since then the craps table has been cold. I played a little today and got maybe $15 on top so I pocketed the $20 I started with and played until that $15 was gone. I suppose if you come out even in the end you aren’t a “loser”. I think the whole problem with gambling is this: You play until you don’t have any money left to bet. So even if you win some you end up playing all you won and the money you started with as well. (Obviously, that’s what the casino’s are betting on). I’m certainly glad I’m on the night shift as I don’t feel like playing any games during the day. If I had all night with nothing to do I’d probably have spent more than I have!
We went to the “Hoover Dam”:http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/ earlier this week, which was pretty cool. While it was really really hot, inside it was nice and cool, especially 8 floors down into the generator room. That place uses tons and tons and tons of concrete! The guide said they could easily make a sidewalk all the way around the world, on the equator, with all of the concrete they used on the dam. We had passed a place that did helicopter rides over the dam, something we might check out later.
Due to boredom during the day, I have been able to read a lot. I finally finished “Red Mars”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553560735/qid=1125188317/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-6203825-4293742?v=glance&s=books which is a great book, though a little slow in spots. I think it’s great because there’s tons of politics (Earth’s corporations vs “Martians” vs government vs everyone else) and lots of interesting facts on Mars itself. I’ll be picking up the second book when I return home. I just finished my first Neil Gaiman book, “Neverwhere”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380789019/qid=1125188252/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-6203825-4293742?v=glance&s=books&n=507846, last night: it was awesome. It’s nice to read a “fantasy” book that isn’t the normal unicorn, sorcerer, and warrior mix. The book is very gritty and a little dark, though a light, easy read. The only other book I brought with me is Isaac Asimov’s “Prelude to Foundation”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553278398/ref=pd_sim_b_4/102-6203825-4293742?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance. I’m resisting starting it because I don’t like jumping between series of books. I’d like to either a) finish the Red Mars series first, or b) read all of the Foundation books before starting the next Red Mars book. I’m going to try to go to the bookstore and pickup another Neil Gaiman book (probably “American Gods”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380789035/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/102-6203825-4293742?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).
Well, I’ve been here for 7 days so far and I’m tired of it. Some of us are planning on going to The Strip this evening to catch what free shows we can and get dinner (so hopefully I won’t be bored tonight), but I’m really really tired of the smoke and slot machine noises and fast food. Next Saturday won’t come fast enough!
There’s a lot of activity at Nellis AFB, even during our evening shift (6pm to 2am). Nellis is very large and has a lot of fighter squadrons with F-16s, F-15s, E-6s (A-6s doing counter measures), B-52s, and assorted cargo aircraft. Last night while we were waiting at EOR(End of Runway) two F-16s and two F-15s did go-arounds, which means they abort their landing and go around to land again. When they go-around they put in full afterburner and stay low to pickup speed before returning to pattern altitude. This put them about 200 ft above us – which put them about 300ft away (good ol’ trigonometry). It was very cool to see and feel them fly by that close. (Thank God we had our double hearing protection on).
Since there are 5-6 other squadrons here (from out of state) participating in Red Flag, EOR can get very hectic. There are usually 8-16 jets there waiting to be armed or de-armed, which can cause problems for us when one of our jets can’t find a place to park except are the far end.. makes us run around a lot. Among other excitement at EOR: one of the F-16s (from another squadron) had hot breaks after a fast approach. Due to high speeds they can easily overheat the breaks after landing and even cause them to explode. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but they did catch on fire. The ground crew was able to quickly put the fire out and preventing the tire from exploding but it still caused quite a ruckus. I think there were 5 fire trucks there in a matter of minutes waiting to see if anything else exciting happened.
I did see some F-22s from Edwards AFB fly around and takeoff. I was hoping to find some on the ramp but haven’t run into any yet. I really want to catch them cycling their bay doors so I can see how the missiles and bombs attach to them and get tucked away.
So it’s not been a terrible trip, I’m just bored crazy when I’m not working!
Long Update
So I’ve been slacking on the updates here, figured I could do a real long one and get caught up.. so here goes!
Movies
We (Ross, Liz, Jeremy, and I) saw a Serenity screening early last month, during it’s first viewing at the Highlands Ranch AMC theaters. It was very good, even with the rough edges. I can’t wait to see the polished version in September!
We (Ross, Jeremy, Dennis, Matt, Chad, Jeremy’s Dad, a few others, and I) went to another Serenity screening last week, on the 26th, and guess what? The actress that plays Kaylee was there! That was pretty cool. She was nice and answered a lot of questions (most of them lame) and signed a bunch of posters. Apparently there’s another screening coming up at the end of this month. Watch the Can’t Stop the Signal website for information!
We (Cheryl and I) also saw Kingdom of Heaven. It was interesting only because the sets and costumes were cool. Other than that it was very very slow and not too exciting. I don’t recommend it unless you are bored and happen to find it lying on the road somewhere. But don’t take my word for it, go see it. (heh heh, i dare you)
Hmm, what else have we seen? Letsee.. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (dumb!), The Princess and The Warrior (not bad), Hard Boiled (Yay! Chow Yun Fat!), Sideways (alright), Napoleon Dynamite (funny!), House of Flying Daggers (reminded me of Hero too much, only a so-so from me).
And of course Cheryl had to watch the season finale of Deadwood without me! Grrrrr! Now I have to catch it on my own somehow, which will never happen because I don’t have HBO! Meanie.
Anime
Finished the Samurai Deeper Kyo series: Not bad. The ending was drawn out more than I cared for (probably an episode (at least) too long – but I guess they ran out of ideas before the season was over). Other than that, I liked it.
Just started the Samurai Champloo series (notice a theme here?) this week and so far it’s not bad. Only watched 2 episodes so far, but I do like the animation style. Not too interested in the characters yet, but we’ll see where it goes.
TV Shows
Jeremy borrowed the discs for a series called Wonderfalls. I had never heard of it before, but apparently it was on TV at some point. I watched a few episodes with him and it’s pretty funny. It’s like Early Edition meets That 70s Show .. or maybe Gilmore Girls .. anyway, something like that. So there’s this girl, see, who starts hallucinating that these inanimate objects (animal figurines, stuffed animals, etc) are talking to her. If she does what they say then something good happens (kid reunited with her dad, for example), but the funny part is her trying to interpret what they mean for her to do with her underachiever attitude getting in the way.. that, and the witty dialog and character interactions (especially between her family) makes it a good watch.
Books
Finally, after much dragging of feet, I finished reading the last book in the Greg Mandel series by Peter F Hamilton. The last book certainly took longer to read than the other two books, even though it was still interesting. I think the steam was gone, thus the slower pace.
After finishing that book I picked up the first book in the Black Company series by Glen Cook. And I couldn’t put it down. I just finished the second book last night, and I can’t wait to start the third. Very good books. Kinda short, but I suppose that makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something.
And still reading the Time Traveler’s Wife. About half-way now, but it goes pretty slow since I only read it when I’m at Cheryl’s.
Flying
So. Weather. Sucks. I haven’t been able to fly much lately with the weather trying to cast doom and gloom all over the Front Range. I missed my chance to solo last Tuesday because I chickened out and “felt I needed to get more practice landing, since I hadn’t much time to do that lately”. What a wimp! Well ok, I hadn’t been able to fly for almost 2 weeks, so maybe I had a good excuse. And, of course, yesterday’s flight was canceled due to weather.
Well, we’ll try again next Tuesday – please please be nice weather!
Vacation/Fun
Cheryl and I went to Ouray again this Memorial Weekend, trekking over to Grand Junction and then down past Montrose to the Orvis Hotsprings. I know I said this last time we went, but it’s a really great hot spring (with usually 0 kids around). The nice thing is that the “public” is kicked out at 10pm, so if you are renting a room or in one of the camp spots you can stay and soak after the riffraff are gone. Makes it sorta romantic, if only you can stay awake that long.
We were able to go mountain biking for a bit, but since neither of us has done much biking lately (say, years) it didn’t last for very long. Now I remember why I like powered sports better.
And we leave for Cancun (again!) on the 6th of July for a 5 day trip. Yay us!
Other Stuff
Ross and Liz are getting married. Congrats! Now, who wants to guess what they will name their first child? I’ve voting for Harold or Latifah.
Gigabyte is coming out with a thingy called the iRam. Hmm, with WinXP loaded onto that we could be playing games in seconds!
Funcom is making a MMO game based on Conan. The Barbarian, not the Librarian. Could be cool.
Mythic is making a MMO game based on Romans! In Space!. Actually, looks interesting. Will watch this one.
Neither Xbox 360 nor the Playstation 3 seem to be shipping with a harddrive. Sigh. Hopefully they wake up and figure out that consoles can’t take over PCs for gaming if they can’t provide at /least/ what we get with our PCs.
ATI’s new Crossfire mutli-GPU video card solution looks pretty kick ass. Not too pricey either, I might have to pick me one up when’s it becomes available.
Phew. Is that long enough?
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