Logging sailplane flights

I've been doing some sailplane flying out at Invermere, BC lately, and
recording my flights using a variety of tools. Oftentimes there'll be
a Colibri flight recorder in the glider - it's an IGC-certified GPS
and datalogger. But also I often fly with a Garmin Venture cX, which can record flights, and occasionally I've flown with a Wintec WBT-201 Bluetooth GPS/logger.

Here's a trip report of a flight on July 14th, recorded by both the
Wintec and the Garmin. If you want to compare the recording behaviour of the two loggers, download the two .gpx tracks and then open them both in a program like GoogleEarth.

Here's a screenshot of GoogleEarth showing the two tracklogs. I raised
one of them (and coloured it red) in order to separate it slightly so
as to be visible. Note that there is pretty good agreement between the
two tracks except at the end (when the Garmin inexplicably shut off).

Soaring Forecasts with Dr. Jack

The best source of soaring forecasts in N. America is provided by "Dr. Jack" Glendenning, a sailplane pilot based in California.  The Canadian Rockies Soaring Club in Invermere, BC, has sponsored one of his BLIPSPOT forecasts for that location.

The BLIPSPOT forecasts contain a wealth of information allowing pilots to assess the day's flying conditions much better than is possible using the public forecast or even an aviation forecast like the GFA. 

Two versions of Dr. Jack's forecasts are available for the Invermere area. One is the text version containing all major parameters on one page.  The other is an index page where you can select, and view, full-colour maps showing the variability of the parameters over a wider range (the whole NW US - SW Canada area).  Further, Dr. Jack provides access to forecasts produced using both RUC and NAM models.

It costs $20/year for full access to Dr. Jack's forecasts. For $50/year, you can sponsor a BLIPSPOT forecast for your location. Well worth it!

Questions?

(submitted by e-mail)

The connectivity power shift

I read an interesting post on http://slashdot.org about the problem of high prices for internet connectivity in the US.  And I had to laugh, because those rates are very low compared to the rates in Canada.  But then I thought, if US rates are consider too high compared to those in Europe and Japan, what does mean for *our* rates?  They must be unconscionably high (which is just what many people have been arguing).

The Slashdot post I read is here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=254287&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=19965855

Smoky skies in the Kootenays

Today's sailplane flight was marked by the heavy smoke from nearby forest fires, making visibility poor (less than 10-15 km at times). I had to take a 2000m (7000') tow way into the back range in order to find any lift at all. Only once I had reached the inversion, at just under 3000m, was it possible to release and climb up to cloudbase at 3600m. Later I got as high as 3850m and was able to cross the valley to the edge of the Purcells, but the smoke was thicker there and I got shot down.

Here's my flight track:



There are a few pictures from the day on the same website that's hosting that flight track, mtbguru.com. Click on the little camera icons on the flight track to see the picture that was taken at that location.

The flight is also logged at paraglidingforum.com, and on the OLC.

Sailplane flight from Invermere to Fairmont & back

Today I had a short flight in a PW-5 sailplane from Invermere to Fairmont and back. I hit heavy sink and turbulence and decided to land. Here's a map of the flight showing the flight track:

Calgary Stampede 10k

Today was the 43rd running of the Calgary Stampede Marathon - quite a lot of history there. I made a last-minute decision to participate and registered on the last day at the regular price, July 3rd. The next day I agreed to fill in as a volunteer for a friend who had to leave town, so I was now doubly committed to the event.

I awoke at 02:30 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up early and was down at the grounds at 04:45 to help set up the start gate. Rob Stichbury was already working full speed when I arrived! The streets were empty when I got there, but the first marathoners started arriving a little before 06:00, when a small group of about 25 race-walkers started on the marathon course. By the time the marathon and half-marathon runners started at 07:00, the street outside the Mewata Armory was jammed.

Here's the start of the marathon and half-marathon:



My race started at 07:30, but of course since all the racers were wearing an electronic chip, our time didn't actually start until we crossed the electronic sensor at the start line. This same sensor was later used to help the announcer tell who was arriving at the finish line, and she announced the name of every single runner: quite the nice personalised touch.

Here's the view of the start area just before the 10k race started:



For the first time ever, I ran with a heart monitor, and it was invaluable for helping me to stay very close to, but just under, my anaerobic limit. I was so jazzed at the start of the race that I was surprised to see my HR at 177 soon after the start, and I had to dial back the pace to a more reasonable 155-165 beats/min.

The course was flat and fast, and it ran downwind to the west along the river, on Memorial Drive. The nice thing was that the turnaround was at the 6.5 km mark, so psychologically the 2nd half was shorter than the first. At that point I was on track for a 50-minute 10k race, but as we turned into the wind, I tucked in behind a runner who passed me going just a little faster, and got him to "tow" me all the way up to the 14 St bridge. Running in his wind-shadow certainly allowed me to run faster than I could have run alone, and also having a faster running "partner" forced me to push my envelope a bit. I was surprised to see the finish-line clock telling me I finished in 48:05. Not bad for a 52-year old with a torn knee meniscus who only runs once a week (or less!). I later saw that I finished 8/64 in my age-group, which was also surprising.

After a bike ride home for a pancake breakfast, I returned at noon to watch the final finishers in the marathon (over 6 hours!) and helped to tear down, finishing that work (and the mandatory beers) around 16:30. It was a long day!

Thanks to Blair Shunk for going away this weekend and vacating his volunteer spot, and to Rob Stichbury for putting me to work and allowing me to see the race from the other side.

That sinking feeling

I was feeling anticipation and excitement when the receptionist called to say that CanadaPost had a package for me.  Sure enough, it was a large envelope from an eBay vendor in California. I'd ordered a new HP hx4700 PDA a couple of weeks earlier, and it had been shipped by US Postal Service.  All I had to do was pay the GST and the item would be mine.  I gave the postal delivery person my credit card for processing, and turned my attention to the package.  Hmm, the end of it was open - I pulled out the box from inside the envelope, and it was... empty.  WTF?



Upon examination of the envelope, I noticed that the form from the Canadian Border Services Agency contained the message "Not opened".  Does that mean that they didn't open the package, so someone must have since then?  Or does that mean "hey, don't blame us for opening the package; it was open already"?  Either way, I have a problem.  I politely declined to receive the empty package from the postal delivery person.  Then I got his name and the name of his supervisor.



I called the supervisor and after some discussion and a call back after they checked procedure, they said that it's up to the sender to file a claim against them. Upon reflection, this means I'm screwed. The vendor already has my money, so why should they care what happened to the goods?  Since they didn't offer or pay for insurance, they have little leverage against the US Postal Service.  Further, they declared the value of the parcel to be $49.99, so that's probably the maximum amount that they could extract from the postal service.



I could pursue some dispute through PayPal on the basis that I did not receive the goods that I paid for. I imagine that the vendor will claim that he delivered into the shipper's hands the exact merchandise that I ordered, and that thus I have no basis on which to say that he didn't honour our transaction.



While thinking through all of this, I experienced the usual range of emotions involving anger, frustration, blame, self-blame, loss and despair. My immediate reaction was to attempt to purchase a replacement unit from another vendor and get it shipped immediately through more secure means.  I wanted to smother all of those bad feelings as quickly as possible.



Then I recalled some of the lessons I learned from reading Pema Chödron's When Things Fall Apart: her advice is, when confronted with great uncertainty, do not attempt to suppress it or eliminate it, but rather lean into it and embrace it.  Nothing in life is certain, anyway, and ultimately we have little control over anything. Events such as this remind us of the essential dissatisfaction with all possessions, and we should seize this chance to reflect on the real nature of existence. Also, we can be as careful as possible, and take every possible precaution, in all our activities (including on-line commerce), and yet still it's possible and even likely that misfortune will enter our lives. Nothing we do can guarantee us protection from pain, loss, injury or death. We'd be better off recognizing that they're a part of life, and we're not exempt from them.



I've now been robbed of around $400, but in the grand scheme of things that's not very much. Maybe this will turn out to have been a cheap price to pay to learn some valuable lessons.  For one, I now know that I should be very careful to insure the Apple MacBook that I'm currently selling on eBay so as to avoid a similar occurrence featuring me as the vendor.



Another lesson is learned from looking back at the reason for the purchase of the PDA in the first place.  I bought the hx4700 because I wanted a PDA with a high-resolution VGA screen in order to run Pocket Strepla,a real-time flight management and mapping program to be used with a GPS in a sailplane.  I already had another similar program, Soaring Pilot, running on a Palm T|X PDA, but it doesn't show nice colour maps, and I had decided I deserved better.  Before purchasing the HP PDA, I did consider simply taking the $400 it would cost and spending it on rental of a better sailplane than the 40-year old Schweizer 1-26 I've been flying.  But the lure of new gadgetry too strong.  I allowed myself to be possessed by a possession, and now I've been dispossed of it.   Now I will get a chance to experience the pain and suffering that attachment to material objects brings us.



In addition, nothing I do can change what has happened: I paid out $400, and now have nothing. I can accept that, and move on, or spend weeks or months acrimoniously fighting for compensation and redress and likely still have nothing at the end of that time.



And a further lesson is from the shipment itself.  A week before purchasing the PDA, I had purchased a Bluetooth keyboard for my Palm T|X (it will also work with the HP hx4700).  When I paid for it on PayPal, I had a sudden bad feeling when I noticed that the vendor's Paypal username was nothing like his email account name, which in turn gave me cause for alarm because it was with a free email service (hotmail, if I recall) which makes it difficult or impossible to identify the real person behind the account.  Add to that his terse and unhelpful response when I enquired after a week as to the whereabouts of my merchandise: "should be there any day".   A repeat inquiry after two weeks didn't elicit any reply whatsoever. I had a strong suspicion I had been scammed. In contrast, the vendor of the PDA provided several emails to me on the status of the transportation of my package, and provided a link to on-line tracking of my purchase.  I had a good feeling about the shipment of the PDA, and a bad feeling about the shipment of the keyboard. And the final outcome wasn't at all what I expected. The keyboard showed up yesterday, and the PDA has been stolen from me.  I made judgements about two shippers, and I was wrong.  What other judgements in my life will turn out to have been wrong?



Again, Pema Chödron teaches us to suspend judgements, or fears, when uncertainty arises, and instead allow us to be open to the unfolding experience. Rather than worrying that our package won't arrive, and spending days or weeks trapped in misery, we can and should adopt a playful, enquiring perspective, and say "I wonder if my package will arrive or not? Let's find out." 



We don't know how things will turn out.  Apparently the Arabs have a saying that the man who foretells the future is a liar, even if he is right.  And then there's the Buddhist story of the farmer whose horse breaks a leg. When his neighbours offer their condolences for his bad luck, he replies that he doesn't know if it was bad luck; he'll have to wait and see.



This, then, will be my guidance in this situation.  I don't know yet whether this was an unfortunate event, or perhaps the best thing that could have happened to me.  I'll have to wait and see!

Canada's outrageous wireless data prices

Prices for wireless data (the charge for using your phone to browse the internet or download data from your office or home computer) in Canada are higher than most third-world countries. Check the graph in this article:

And if you can handle a little obscenity from angry cellular users, read this article on Digg.com

If you used your cellular phone to transfer 500 MB of data in a month (that's about TWO graphics-rich web pages per day), your charge in the US would be between $60 and $70.  In Canada, it would be $1600 with Rogers or Fido !!!!

Don't waste your money buying one of those new data-capable smartphones if you live in Canada.  Instead, buy a wireless LAN card for your laptop and look for free WiFi locations in your city. Or even sign up with Fatport at rates as low as $35/month or $70 for 3 months, at fatport.com  

Another provider is Boingo, at boingo.com  They charge $22 per month, or $8 per day, for unlimited usage at any of their hotspots. Those prices are for laptop access. If you have a cellphone or PDA, you get charged only $8/month!

Telus has hotspots available at $40 for one month or $25/month for a national unlimited subscription.

Here is a list of locations offering free WiFi across Canada: wififreespot.com

Here's a list of 1801 free and commercial WiFi locations across Canada: jiwire.com

And here's a different list: www.wi-fihotspotlist.com

Test post from Blackberry

Virgin Mobile charges less than the other Canadian cellular companies
but their rates are still high... They're only wildly usurious instead
of outrageously usurious. Still, "moblogging" is supposedly all the
rage, so, as long as I can use the "unlimited" data plan on my
company-supplied Blackberry at no extra cost to them or me, why not
get in on the fun?

Now, if only this thing had a camera in it....

--
Stewart Midwinter
stewart@midwinter.ca
stewart.midwinter@gmail.com
Skype, GoogleTalk, iChatAV, MSN, Yahoo: midtoad
AIM:midtoad1

Splashblog

Any pictures I take with my cameraphone will be on Splashblog

test mobile post

here we are, blogging by e-mail! Wireless posting from wherever...

S

So where's the blog?

Thanks for stopping by. Not much here, since I post most of my comments on a blog I run on my home webserver, which you can find at midtoad.org/blog/

Why not take a look there?