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

And this picture is a few seconds later.

Another local pilot just a second before he turned and burned.

One of the local pilots settling his wing. This is such a great sport.

A picture of the lads setting up at Baldy. We had a ball.

Harold pre-launch. Readying himself for his first launch using reverse inflation and at a anew site with no view of the LZ

Les getting ready to launch at Baldy at Vernon

It's been awhile since I got a posting up so here we go. A bunch of Kamloops Paragliders dropped into Vernon for a little flying and a a reserve repack clinic. When we arrived it looked lousy but we hiked to Baldy (Vernon launch site) and waited for a break. After about an 1/2 hour we where rewarded with some good conditions. Les launched first in his usual clean and tidy style. Harold was next and this was his first launch from a reverse and after a bit of adjusting he got off. I was last which is a first for me as usually I am the wind dummy. But we wanted Les to let us know the wind conditions. I was able to get away on my first try. Tat was a relief as I have only done a few reverse inflation to launch. The flight was very nice, quite bumpy but a good learning experience. I landed within 10 feet of my target on my feet. And this picture was taken a few seconds later.

Xman gathering his goodies

Ah a day at the pool. During my visit to Quesnel I had a chance to go to the pool with my daughter Jessi and family. We had a great time and all enjoyed the pool. I got a little vertical to get this shot of Xavier.

My pal Xavier

This is my grandson Xavier showing grandpa his groovy trike.

Harold earns his wings

Harold called me the other day. We got together for a little kiting. In between inflation's I snapped a couple shots of him practicing the fine art of the reverse inflation

Xavier's Hotrod

My grandson was showing grandpa how it's done in his neck of the woods.

More Quesnel

It would seem the Cat was un impressed

Hey have you seen my new laptop?

Had a chance to get up to Quesnel last week-end to see my girls and my grandson Xavier. I was showing off my new laptop and well the picture tells the story. XGL on Mandriva Linux kinda blew every ones gasket. But I think the most fun was had in Winblows using the web cam. It has all sorts of funny addons and virtualizations to have fun with. As you can see they did.