Steve on “Haze and Mountains” (17 Nov 2008 (Mon) @ 11:41 AM (PST))	Brent: The first motivation was that John had don...
John on “Haze and Mountains” (17 Nov 2008 (Mon) @ 11:17 AM (PST))	I can relate to these feelings, and I think you've...
Brent on “Haze and Mountains” (17 Nov 2008 (Mon) @ 11:02 AM (PST))	What a wonderful experience. It sounds very peace...
Steve on “A Change” (5 Nov 2008 (Wed) @ 7:05 PM (PST))	1. An end to the "war" mentality. A reduction and...
Brent on “A Change” (5 Nov 2008 (Wed) @ 4:58 PM (PST))	What are the top three things you are hoping will ...

Five years ago I helped develop a game system for Brent as part of a team. Part of my job was server administrator, and so I wrote a bunch of procedures and set things in generally trying to be as safe and stable as possible. Well, the project didn’t work out and ended up being shelved. A few days ago, Brent contacted me and told me he wanted to play around with it. I figured, you take a server that’s been off for five years, who knows what kinds of things it depended on that will break now?

I told him, “You can’t just turn it on and expect it to work.”

Well, he plugged it in, turned it on, and well, it worked. The only problem turned out to be a non-problem; I was able to connect and operate the game without any changes to the server.

It reminds me of that scene from Jurassic Park, when they shut everything down and turn it on again...

Finally, Arnold turns back to the box.  He flips the row of 

safety switches back again, then hesitates by the main switch.



				ARNOLD

		Hold on to your butts.



	He throws it.  And nothing happens. There is a very long pause.



				MALCOLM

		It’s not working.



				ARNOLD

		Uh - -



				MULDOON

		Listen, which of you knows how to handle a gun?



	Arnold, who can’t quite understand this, races over to the main 

	monitor



				ARNOLD

			(joyously)

		HAH!  It’s okay!  It’s okay!  Look!  See that?!  LOOK!



	They stare at the monitor, which glows with a faint amber light, 

	the only mechanical thing in the room that’s on.  The left hand corner 

	of the screen displays two words - -



	/system ready.

So there you go. A “Flight” category. Finally.

Feeling better today, and the skies looked ... well, interesting. So I went down to the airport and sure enough a previous group had just returned in the airplane. I asked them how the conditions were and they said that to the north was covered in a fog bank from Olympia to Bremerton. Bummer – so much for flying over the parents house. But I figured maybe the fog would be burning off so I’d make a south departure, climb up and take a peek. If the fog was burning off I would go north.

So I got my stuff together and took off, south departure. As I climbed out, I realized it had been quite a while since I went to the south... I always said the north was prettier because of all the water. But the south has rolling hills... Normally, that’s not too special. Today, there was a low haze layer, almost a psuedo-fog, slinking through the valleys of the hills. Above the haze, the sky was so clear; I could easily see not only Rainer, but also Helens and another mountain between them which I will have to ask Google about...

I think it was Mt. Adams!

Anyways, so it’s crystal clear above the haze; I can make out the details on St. Helen’s blown side and everything. To the north, the impenetrable sea of fog lapping at the Olympia city limits told me “no way”. So I stayed south.

I look to the west and I can see all the way to Aberdeen, Gray’s harbor and the ocean. (Up at about 4000 ft here)

I was kicking myself for not bringing the camera, but I think these things can’t be well captured anyways.

The sun was passing through a layer of high clouds, creating a brilliant orange and yellow early sunset (it was only about 3pm).

Before I had climbed up, though, when I was approaching the south practice area, I saw it. In conditions like today, the haze layer makes it very easy to identify other aircraft because they aren’t tinted by it, so they seem more colorful than the landscape. It was in my path, so I made a right turn to avoid. It wasn’t a plane, I don’t think... I didn’t get close enough for a positive ID, but I think it might have been a hot air balloon.

It was loitering over the practice area so I was nervous about commencing low altitude maneuvers. It got me thinking: every flight doesn’t have to be just work. Flying is for fun too. That’s the point. So I skipped it, and that’s when I climbed to 4000 ft and went west a little. I couldn’t justify to myself a flight that was only personal sightseeing, so I ran through the high altitude maneuvers, including a good period of slow flight.

The power on stall got a little out of hand the first time, but second time was a charm. I took my time between each maneuver, taking in all the sights. Steep turns were my last, and also induced a mild headache.

It reminded me of the very first time the instructor (Ben) demonstrated steep turns. I nearly passed out; I figured there was no physical way I could perform the maneuver, because I couldn’t maintain useful consciousness. But the body adapts and now that’s not an issue.

So after the steep turn I decided to call it a day. I had only been out 30-45 minutes but I had had a great time and it was so pretty.. I decided I didn’t want to run through a bunch of takeoffs and landings, but just accept that today was a fun sightseeing flight with a little practice thrown in.

For the descent back to the airport, I trimmed the plane for about a standard descent (slight steeper; I had 3000 feet to lose) and sat back, relaxed, steered with my feet, and scanned the skies. It was a very peaceful five minutes or so back to the traffic pattern.

I had started with a soft-field takeoff, so I decided to end with a short field landing. No repeats, no take 2, just one good landing and call it.

I was amazed as I got both the airspeeds and glide slope all the way down. Unfortunately, the flare still floated (too early on it) and was barely able to get the plane down and stopped in 2000 feet from the threshold. Which is bad because in today’s conditions a short field landing should take only about 600 feet from the threshold.

I suppose this is the problem of training at an airport with a 150 foot wide 5500 foot long runway; it’s tough to internalize “performance” takeoff and landings!

I think today was the kind of view that every pilot wants to take their family and friends to see ... When you would have to have no heart for nature at all not to say “wow!” (And if you don’t say ‘wow’ I’m doing another power-on stall with you in plane... So what’s it gonna be, punk?)

Listening to tower radio now ....

Pilot: “(aircraft) 10 to the south, inbound to land”
Tower: “Be advised we have a large fog bank coming in. You may not make it.”
Pilot: (unintelligible)

What do you get when you cross social awkwardness, a controlling personality, and excess cash?

It’s a clear and calm wind day. I have the airplane reserved. But, I’m sick... So I canceled. It eats me up to miss such a perfect flying opportunity as today but it wouldn’t be safe... Sicknesses can act up differently in the air and of course you don’t want a coughing or gagging fit to take over, say, on short final.

Steve canceled today, so I took the plane up solo (because it was nice out) for my longest solo flight yet (a hair over 2 hours). Did all the maneuvers, including stalls. My evaluation:

Turns around a point: poor
S-turns: fair
Steep turns: good
Slow flight: fair
Stalls: good

Due to the wind and a while since my last flight I did not attempt special takeoffs and landings, just normal ones. Except one case when I did a short landing to avoid a departing jet’s wake turbulence. There were a few “firm” landings, especially the first one. (I could tell I was a little out of practice) But overall no problem.

I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to do the high altitude maneuvers due to the ceiling at about 4,000 feet. I found a hole between Olympia and Shelton and practiced. I had to abort the slow flight when I almost flew into a cloud. (It turned out to be a lot closer than I thought)

Before takeoff I found the elevator to be squeaking. Fortunately, the general manager (a helpful guy) was around and I asked him to look at it with me. He looked at it and said, “Yep, looks like the lubrication is worn off. I’ll put it on the maintenance list. You should be fine. Have a good flight.”

Ah, the inspiration of confidence.

What is it
about the day to day
decisions
actions
movement
that all of a sudden
could possibly
CRACK
dot dot dot

Do you dare
to break the silence
if the other does not
speak or do you
believe there is no
silence to
CRACK
dot dot dot

Is it something small
or large or
do you know what each word
means before you
open your mouth and
CRACK
dot dot dot

Is there so much meaning
or none at all
look around
around and see
CRACK
dot dot dot

Are wind and rain empty
or just-so
or both or
CRACK
dot dot dot

One rises up
the other falls below
CRACK
dot dot dot

Beneath the murky water I can’t
CRACK
dot dot dot

But then suddenly you
focus on what is
CRACK
dot dot dot

Is it a word or a
sound a voice
or a song that
CRACK
dot dot dot

What could the same
call over and over
possibly say to you
or is it wasted on
CRACK
dot dot dot

If you put the panini
in the microwave
it will be soggy
I assure you
But I already know
CRACK
dot dot dot

So many things you
could say or ask
or do I say or ask
them to you
as an ember is
passed from flame to
CRACK
dot dot dot

It is the moment
when I see that you
are just-so
or empty
or one person speaking
to another
saying
dot
dot
dot

We went to see the movie Madagascar 2 yesterday. Theatre was packed. First part: funny. Middle part: boring lion king ripoff. Why did all the other characters get bit parts? Last part: Medium funny. Needs more penguins.

In other news, no flying in a while now due to weather. Not sure when the weather will cooperate (in a schedule-synchronous way).

I’m working on revising exercises for a textbook. One of the exercises:

What does friendship mean? What are the positive benefits and negative consequences of friendship?

It makes sense in context, but out of context, it’s amusing.

I found a giant mushroom today. One of my students took a picture of it.

article

Excerpt:

A pilot who suddenly went blind while flying his plane at 5,500ft (1,676m) was guided in to land by an RAF plane. ... Wing Cdr Paul Gerrard, chief flying instructor, flew his Tucano T1 about 50m next to the Cessna to bring Mr O'Neill safely down. ... He used his voice to guide him [Mr O'Neill] down by telling him to turn left and right, to lower the plane and to do his pre-landing checks. ... He landed about halfway down [the runway] and came to a halt just at the end.

FM062100 19013G22KT 4SM RA BR SCT005 OVC010
TEMPO 0621/0701 2SM +RA BR SCT004 OVC008

Let me translate that aviation weather forecast for you... It says, "You ain’t going nowhere, buddy!"

I spoke to a former student of mine this morning who works for the Secretary of State. She told me they were coordinating the vote count for Washington into the late night last night. All the counties do their own counting, then submit the results electronically to the main office. The software that manages that is Microsoft written and the Microsoft guys were on site to make sure the data transfer went ok. My former student and several other people were supervising that process to ensure there were no issues. When all the counties submitted their data then her group certified the final state election results.

She showed me an election coordinator contact card with one person for each county, and about a half dozen people for the state central; sure enough, there was her name on that list.

She was tired but clearly very excited at playing such a key role in the election process.

In unrelated news, overheard on campus morning:
girl runs up to guy, waves her arms around and shrieks "I finally got laid!"

Enough momentum to elect Barack Obama, but not enough to stop every other anti-liberty ballot measure?

California is lined up to retro-actively ban and dissolve all gay marriages issued in the state.
Arizona and Florida ban gan marriage.
Colorado bans abortion.

Those states should all be ashamed of their selves.

The elections are over. No more politics. For a little while. We hope.

I was really surprised. I knew the people, as a country, would vote for Obama. No doubt. But I did not believe that it would work out. Voting machines must be rigged, votes thrown out, deceit and scandals. Now I’m scared to have hope. Will Obama and the Democratic Senate actually change things? Or is it the new boss, same as the old boss? I want to have hope, but I know politics well enough that things often get bogged down, and, well, become politics.

Like one commenter said, we will soon have a young generation who thinks nothing of a black man being president. Change is happening.

Daylight savings can be really hard for programs to handle if they deal with any sort of scheduling. The usual approach for times is to store and compute everything in UTC and convert to local time as needed. This can still create some artifacts though... My virus scanner is scheduled to run daily at noon. I opened the history this morning, and all the past months times are shown as having run as 11am.

Probably it stores the actual start time in UTC, and converts them to local. Now that the local conversion is -8 instead of -7, they all show up an hour earlier.

See, it’s a tricky problem...

Went out today to practice short and/or soft takeoff and landings. Not so good; we’ve only done a few of these and I think if an observer had been present and tried to figure out at any given landing or take-off which one I was doing, they wouldn’t be sure. There was, I think one good short field landing and one good soft field takeoff. (But I tell you, nothing says, “We’re all gonna die!” like holding 20 feet above the runway at 60 knots with the end closing in rapidly)

My problem is speed. I can’t get myself to go slow enough. I find myself at 70 on short final, when it should be 65 for regular or soft, or 61 for short. On takeoff, short field climb (Vx) should be 51 (if it’s just me) or 54 (if we’re both there, due to weight); but the usual Vy climb is 76... I pull up to climb steeper and at about 60 that’s when my little internal “stall” horn goes off, followed by Jeff’s disembodied voice, “Death is imminent.”

I cut the practice a little early today because a low inversion was building up haze and clouds at about 500 feet. At first I was just eyeing it, but when I came around and found a small cloud had migrated into the final approach path (with more on it’s tail) I called it a day. Of course from the ground everything looks fine. Just remember the old saying: “It’s better to be down here wishing you were up there; than to be up there wishing you were down here.”

I suppose I should add a “flying” category to my blog.

Happy Halloween!

I dressed up as a casual college professor at home, Lisa dressed up as an Obama supporter in pajamas, and the dog dressed up as a basset hound. Lisa made lots of goodies though.





Lisa carved this pumpkin

We’ll take Olympia to Corvallis.

Driving (estimated 3.25 hours). If we just count the cost of gas (assume $3/gallon and 25 mpg):
198 mi driving / 25 mpg = 8 gal * $3/gal = $24

Not bad!

The AAA estimate of overall cost is noticeably higher:
AAA 52 c per mile = $102.96

Flying is more costly. First we’ll look at rentals, assuming a 65% power direct cruise with 15 minutes of pre and post takeoff engine running for taxi.

172
2 hr engine-on flying * $89/hr = $178

152
2.25 hr engine-on flying * $70/hr = $158

If, like our first driving example, we consider only the cost of gas:

1.5 hr @ 7 gal/hr = 10.5 gal * $6/gal = $63
plus the fuel cost of taxi'ing, assume 1 gal each, 2 * 6 = $12
total $75 for fuel

For comparison, Greyhound for this route is $32/person.