Podcasts And The Sansa e260

Back to the Sansa. I have discovered an awesome piece of software for Podcasts. It's called myPodder at Podcastready The Best thing about it is you can download the all in one version and it will work in Linux, Windows and Mac. But here is the best part.... It installs to the device itself and can be used on virtually any computer because the software is launched from the player not the computer. For a geek like me this is very handy folks.

The View From the Pimple

Sled Rides At The Pimple

Derek Dave and myself took a little trip to the Pimple a local launch site. It was my second chance to try my new Sup' Air Altix harness and man is it sweet. This was my first attempt at the Pimple and all went well. I did some brief terrain flying getting within a few meters of the big trees growing on the slope. Short but fun . This picture is pre-flight of my brother readying for launch

Doing Mac leopard OS

Well As you may have read in earlier post I bought a Mac Mini. After trying it for a few days I went online a bought 2 gigs of fast ram and tore the little box part and installed it. Because of it's small form factor it uses laptop ram. After watching a Youtube video it looked doable. All went well and It was running great under Tiger. But My wife and I decided to spend our anniversary upgrading to Leopard. Well things did not go well. I watched my wife do an upgrade instead of a clean install and all went well. My turn did not. I always do clean installs in windows and Linux but based on Jackie's experience I gave it a whirl. My first attempt ended in a stalled install. Second attempt worked but after a few hours I discovered that my machine was locking up if left for awhile and it was shutting my Time Machine back up drive down in the process. Nothing would wake it. Nothing except a reboot. Then it would not reboot or allow a re-install. I took several hours reading Google searches to find a way to reset it. Then a clean install and still problems. I was getting a little short thinking Tiger was the way to go. But While I was at work my wife did a clean install with nothing plugged into it. That worked. It has still crashed a couple of times and some times it will not wake from sleep. Tiger was rock stable. Leopard has a way to go. While I am not impressed with Vista I have to say Leopard has not been a great experience either. Time will tell if either of these OS's can match their predecessors in terms of stability.

Man I Love Linux

This post is coming to you from a Linux Desktop. Linux Mint 4.0 to be exact. I have been very impressed with the rapid pace of development of Open Source Linux desktops. In the last two years I have seen a step by step refinement of the Linux desktop. I have tried too many too mention. The Distros that have stuck around are Mint, Ubuntu, PClinuxOS, Dream Linux. I also use Puppy Linux to refurbish older hardware we sell at our thrift store. Puppy consistently makes old Pentium II's viable work stations for basic computing. Anyway back to my rave. I bought a little Sansa e260 for under a $100 to replace a Creative ZenV Plus that died. I was disappointed by the lack of Podcast support in Windows. So out of curiosity I booted into Mint Linux and fired up Amarok. It saw my player right away and I was able to load songs and setup automated podcast downloads. If it was not for my need to run Photoshop natively I would ditch Windows altogether. But for now I dual boot. I also use Mac and recently tried to do an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard more on that later......

Ever Wonder Who Dave Is?

Well this is Dave!

Looking Back

Dave took this while Paragliding in November. These are views of Kamloops that very few ever see.

The Launch

It's been a while but here is a picture of Dave doing his thing at the Little Dome launch

A Loving Savior

Can't explain it but Jesus has been sweet heavy on my heart lately. He comes like a thick warm blanket and leaves me feeling a deep comfort.

Something to think about

"Sometimes it takes a storm to understand how I really feel"

Thanksgiving Day 2007

It's been awhile since my last post. Here it is Thanksgiving day already. I have much to be grateful for. I have a good life. A great family, a job I love and a Saviour who loves me. What more can you ask for I just returned from the school where I spent an hour kiting my paraglider. That went well. I had several good inflation's while learning to control the wing with my "C's". Jackie's brother Alan arrived we just finished a nice lunch that Jackie prepared for us. It's movie time so talk to you soon.

As I climbed up to Sahali this was the surreal view I was treated to. A blanket of fog slowly moving north to revel a sleeping city underneath.

It was a cool fall morning and I snapped this shot while driving to work. It was brief moment that the clouds opened up and the sun made an appearance.

Flyin,Flyin,Flyin

The boys where getting air time a few weeks back and I took my long lens out (Canon 20D Sigma 70-200 2.8 with a Sigma 2x Tele Converter) and grabbed a few shots. This one is of my brother Derek cruisin.

Getting Air Time

My brother and I got into the air for a quick flight earlier this week and he snapped a couple of pics. Here is one of yours truly.

Food for Thought

"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

Jesus Christ

PCLinuxOS Desktop

Just a screen shot of one of my Linux desktops.

Mint Linux

I recently had a chance to install Mint Linux on my son-in-laws computer. He was impressed with all it's features and ease of use. Time will tell if we have a convert.

Novice Rating

Well I headed down to Mnt. Woodside to see Jim Reich and try to secure my novice rating for paragliding. Despite almost everything going wrong it seems I passed. I botched my take off and could not get into my seat during the flight so I headed to the LZ and landed ok. We headed to Bridal as conditions where getting rough. I spent the next hour and a half kiting. At 5 pm I had to head home. I was feeling like I had screwed it all up. But atlas Jim emailed saying I had passed.

Fedora 7 "Live"

As you know I spend way too much time fiddling with Linux. This is a screen shot of the latest offering from Fedora . I spent a little time checking it out and I must say it is very nice.

Sea to Sky & Ferry Ride

Here are a couple of shots from the holidays on the way to the coast

McKenzie Launch Pemberton

I was able to connect with the folks in Pemberton. I got two flights in with a couple of pilots there. It was good. This is the view fron launch.

Amazing Kite

During our beach walk we found this fellow trying out his buddies Acro Kite. The design was very simular to a paragliding wing. The little wing had a lot of power and was very fast. It made a wild buzzing sound when it was pushed into turns. VERY COOL!

Beach Walk

Well it is holiday time again and our travels took us to the Island to see family. My brother Shane was able to get out to Dad's so we went over to see him. It was good to see him and Dad and Carol. We did a beach walk at Parkville Beach and then a stop at the Shady Rest, my old work place.

Hum.....

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. - Bertrand Russell

Kris & Micah

Oh well there goes the secret. This is my unnamed daughter and her fellow. Snapped this at the wedding also.

Don't Touch The Bellybutton

One of my daughters who will remained unnamed had issue with my sandals and black socks at the wedding. I decided to get my attention by trying to put a finger in my bellybutton. Well If you know me I cannot let that happen. She still needs a bit of growing to pull that one off. ;-)

Daughters & Weddings

Jackie and I had the privilege of attending the wedding of my Godson Shawn Buekert. Somebody snapped this picture of me and two of my daughters. Kris and Jessi respectively. It was a great wedding and they are a great couple. I am a blessed man. We enjoyed our time there.

Harold At Hullcar

More From Hullcar

This is my friend Harold just as he tugs the "A's" to bring the wing up. You can see the rather rustic launch (read tall grasses and weeds). It seems like a nice morning site.

Hullcar Launch

My bother Derek and several of the Kamloops pilots did a road trip down to Armstrong B.C. To a launch site I had never been to. It's called Hullcar. Named after the small community that lies below the mountain. This shot is of Les Martin heading out after a fine launch.

Sunday Morning

The sun came up. Clouds began to form as it's energy warmed the earth. I could hear the tree leaves rustle as soft thermals let loose. The CBC filled my ears with the days news and I rolled over knowing I had that luxury. Coffee time! I nurtured a cup as I logged on to start my morning routine. I had spent some time the night before listening to some of Roseanne Cash's latest music. I have to say she has gotten even better with age. Very heart felt songs about life in all it's pain and glory. She has a way of bringing it to ya that makes you just stop and sit and listen. Thank God for the sweet gift of music and those who can say what we all think in such a satisfying way. As Harry Chapin once said in a song "music, it's been my greatest friend and my fiercest foe cause it can take you so high, and it can bring you so low".

I love these quiet Sunday's and my time spent with Jesus.

Well back to the dishes and laundry. And oh ya we flew yesterday but I have yet to retrieve my camera so more on that later

Mac's are just Macs

After a few more weeks with the Mac OS I have to say... well what a great job of marketing. I have used the mac daily for several weeks and I have to say it's like every other OS out there. It does some things very well and others not. I like the no anti virus no worries about spyware. That in it self saves a lot of time. But I can't see anything magical about it. Just a good solid OS. I guess what keeps coming back to me is that so is Linux. It also has the advantage of being free and offers choices no proprietary OS can. The Mac Mini on the other hand is quite a little enginering marvel. Quiet, fairly fast, very small. Did I mention it's small? Wel thats all for now.

Little things you find along the way.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. - Augusten Burroughs

Mac OS X

The mighty Mini has been home with me for a bit now. It's a shame you have to spend all that money to get the Operating System. That was what I was interested in. I have become a big Linux fan and am running a dual boot system on my laptop with Vista and PCLinuxOS . I have spent a few days, well a couple weeks fooling around with Mac OS X and I have to say..... hum.... In some ways it's way cool but in others you gotta shake your head. After a long time with Windows and about two years with Linux I have to say besides the driver issues I would take Linux any day. I stand amazed at what the Open Source community has done in just the few short years. So while I am reserving judgment on this Mac OS until I have really gotten to know it.

Mac Mini

Well somehow I came home with a Mac Mini. Intel Core Duo 1.66 I matched it up with my 19 inch wide screen and started to get acquainted. Well you know me... I just had to tear it apart. I guess I should have taken pictures. Hum I guess I shall have to tear it apart again. Any way it became apparent that I needed more ram. It came with 512 so a quick trip to the CanadaRam and 2 gigs arrived the next day. Apple saw fit to put the ram under everything else so you need to really strip it down to get to the ram slots. Well after reassembly i realized I had not plugged the sound strip back in properly so it all came apart again. A quick reassembly and all was well. And the OS ran considerable faster. I will be spending the next few weeks getting to know it and will post my observations.

The week-end is here

Well my posts have been few and far but here I am on Friday night. Work has been very busy lately. Lots of new projects on the go as we scale up the new recovery model. Well lets see whats new? PCLinuxOS 2007 final has been released and I must say it is very nice. This post is coming to you from my notebook running PCLinuxOS. I have discovered how to dual boot Microsoft's latest offering Vista. I found a little program called EasyBCD. It's freeware and works flawlessly. So I'm running a sweet dual boot. Vista uses a new boot manager and when Linux is installed as a dual boot using Grub to the MBR Vista disappears from the boot. The secret is EasyBCD. When you install Linux just install Grub to the /root partition and then reboot to Vista. Start EasyBCD and follow the simple instructions and your stylin with all that open source goodness. Don't forget to check out the new Ubuntu 7.04 it's pretty cool also. If you have an average computer (1 ghz or better and at least 256 of ram you can run a nice Linux distro. Other distros I have tried and work well are Sam Linux, Open Suse, and the new Mandriva spring 2007 is looking good. I must say I ran Sam Linux on a Pentium 733 with 384 megs of ram and a GeForce 5200. It proved to be a very sturdy distro. I used it for my main desktop for 3 months with no problems.

Harold Gets High

May 31st A few of the boys got out for a flight and they got way up. This picture was taken by Harold. He skied out at over 2700 meters. This is the view from the seat of his wing looking back toward Valleyview and Dallas. this picture is at about 7800 feet above the valley floor.

Hummm.....

The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. - Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Missing Years

Well after a months absence I have returned. The gap was mostly due to a rather nasty Paragliding crash. Five broken ribs. I am here to tell tell you that broken ribs really do hurt a lot. A bad launch resulted in me being flung into three rather large boulders with considerable force. I am three weeks into my recovery and still feeling the effects. Six to eight weeks is the normal recovery time I'm told so a few weeks to go. More postings soon.

A little quote I found

Sometimes you find such clarity in one single sentence. There is an afternoon worth of discussion in these few words



Like so many folks, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

- Kurt Vonnegut

Wednesday Morning

It came as a quiet and subtle surprise. While talking with a friend my hand slipped down to grab a hedge in his yard. I felt the rough dimpled bark as I ran my hand up toward the tip of the slender branch. As I was about to release my grasp it came to me. Through my fingers up my arm and into my conscienceness. There in my finger tips was a bud, a young tender soft bud of leaves pushing thier way into the world. Spring has come to us winter has released it's grip. The cycle of life has once again come full circle. Amen!

One of the local pilots rippin over launch. Man these guys can fly.

Just having some fun. What a great day. The view was marvelous