Not Aunty Monkey

Not a good day

2008-09-19T20:25:00.002+10:00

After another 2 great tasks and 1 OK task yesterday afternoon, we ended the day in 13th position. It was a fantastic end to the day.

Unfortunately this morning was the complete opposite. There were 4 tasks called: PDG, HWZ, MDDD and an Elbow. We had to choice our own launch site and unfortunately we were just too far to the right for the whole flight. So the results will not be very good.

With all of the tasks going on, it is getting a bit hard to find time or energy to update the blogs, so the best thing to do is keep an eye on the scores here...

http://www.balloon2008.com/index.php?id=146&L=1

The competition finishes tomorrow morning, however they are predicting the weather to be going sour so we are just hoping for another flight to redeem this morning.

Another 5 tasks down

2008-09-18T20:25:00.000+10:00

This morning’s flight was spectacular. It was the flight that everyone had been waiting for all week. Five tasks were declared:

Task 3 – Fly In
Task 4 – Calculated Rate of Approach Task (CRAT)
Task 5 – Hesitation Waltz
Task 6 – Hesitation Waltz
Task 7 – Land Run

For the fly in, we ended driving around on our own in the hills surrounding the main valley trying to find the best position to launch. We ended up driving down a tiny bush track to the bottom of the hill, to the place we thought would be ideal. When we arrived at the spot we found about 30 other balloons queuing up to launch from this small track. Since we had approached this tiny spot from the opposite direction, we were able to squeeze in the top of the paddock and get off the ground quickly.

The first 2 tasks relied on using the drainage down the valley to get to the goals. The CRAT consisted of a circle on the CLP that had 4 segments that opened and closed every 15 minutes. Sean managed to get to results around 23 metres for the first 2 tasks.

There was 2 ways to approach the tasks with the only right hand turns being in the bottom 300 feet (which was very slow) or at 6000 feet. So as you can imagine, there was a lot of climbing and descending going on. Sean opted to sit in the bottom winds which certainly paid off, getting about a 6 metre result on the first HWZ and then about 1 metre on the second.

It was then a case of flying down to a large power line that was the start of the Land Run, which had two 20 minute legs. It is hard to tell how he went on this task in relation to the other teams. We will need to wait until the results come out for that one.

Overall we were pretty happy with the morning. The two HWZ tasks were definitely the highlight.

It is looking like a stunner this afternoon, so hopefully we will get another couple of tasks.

Last night’s tasks, which were a Hare and Hounds and a Hesitation Waltz were canceled due to the very strong winds that did not die down in time. So we sat in the party tent, drank beer and eat a bit more schnitzel.

Finally Flying

2008-09-17T18:23:00.001+10:00

As the weather team promised, we finally got a flight in this morning. The winds above 500 feet were up around the 15 knot mark, but there was a small inversion that was expected to stick around until about 9am. David Levin set 2 HWZ tasks with a planned launch period at sunrise (6.30am).

Sean took of a few minutes after the green flag went up. It was pretty quick flight, with both markers being dropped within 20 minutes of each other. It is too early to say how we went overall, but the second drop of about 8 metres should get some good points.

As much as I prefer events with Observers, the plus side of the GPS events is that you don’t need to go and hunt for and measure markers. So after we packed up the balloon, we headed back to our favorite café to fill out the flight report sheet and drink coffee.

We are now sitting in an almighty refueling queue. Unfortunately we have to take tanks out of the basket to fill, so it slows everything down. Considering today most people would have only flown for about 40 minutes and not used much fuel, it is pretty slow. I dread the day when we fly for a couple of hours.

You might notice I did not post anything yesterday. We did not end up doing much, other than playing Yatzee and hanging out. I did manage to sweet talk my way out of the parking ticket, so that was the highlight of the day.

Weather is looking good for the next couple of days, so we should get a few more flights in. So no more complaining from us :-)

Indecisiveness

2008-09-15T19:58:00.000+10:00

At 4 am we were woken up by an SMS from David Levin saying that the morning flight had been canceled. The SMS also said that it was likely the afternoon would be canceled as well. Sure enough, at 9.30am we got another text to say the afternoon was canceled as well.

So we were faced with a day to find something to do. We headed down to the briefing tent to get onto Google to see if we could find any go karting or paintball in the area, so that we could vent some frustration. Unfortunately there was nothing close and those things that were around were closed because it was a Monday in the low season.
With absolutely no idea what we should do Yosh, Camilla and I decided we would drive to Hartberg to buy a game of some sort, so we could sit around drinking beer and entertain ourselves. Sean decided to stay back and work on some of his OziExplorer plugins, as this was the best way for him to stay focused on the competition when there was no flying to be done.

So we, somewhat aimlessly, wandered around Hartberg looking at shops and having a late long lunch. Having opted to buy Yatzee, we then went on a mission to find a shop that would sell five dice for less that 8 Euro (16 dollars). We eventually did, but on returning to the van we found we had a 20 Euro parking ticket.

Even though we were parked in a 120 minute spot, we eventually worked out that you need to put a clock on your dashboard showing what time you arrived so the parking police could work out if they should fine you or not. This was obviously something we did not know we had to do, so the fine was for not having the clock displayed. We were then faced with working out where we had to go in this town to pay (or argue) the ticket. The guy parked next to us said that we had to go to the police station. So we headed to the other side of town where we knew the police station was. Of course when we got there, they said that we had to go to the council building to pay the fine. So we tramped back across town to the council building, which was almost next door where we had parked originally. On arriving at this building, we asked someone where we had to go and he pointed at a door and said the 1 guy we could pay had gone home at 4pm. What a pain in the ass.

So tomorrow’s (Tuesday) mission is to go back to Hartberg and play the idiot foreigner card and try and get off paying the parking ticket.

We got back to the house at about 5pm and Camilla and I started up a heated Yatzee battle. It took a couple of games for us to agree on the rules, because apparently they play slightly different rules in Denmark. After Camilla, smashed me 4 games to 2, we headed up the hill to another local pub for another meal of random deep fried stuff and retreated back to our house.

At 9.30pm we got the SMS saying…

"Tuesday morning briefing is canceled. Party On! David Levin, Event Director"

So it looks like Tuesday is going to be another day of finding things to do. At least I have the Council of Hartberg to take on… that will fill some time.

First day of competition

2008-09-14T19:35:00.000+10:00

When we got up on Sunday morning the same weather faced us. Regardless we headed down to the launch site for the 5.30am briefing. When we walked in, there were 2 markers on the tables and a task sheet with 2 HWZ tasks. During the briefing, the competition director, David Levin, decided to put the briefing on hold for 45 minutes while they watched the weather to see if the rain would ease. However when we returned at 6.45, they decided to cancel the flight. After a nice relaxing breakfast at our favorite café, when chilled out at the briefing tent and waited for the official All Teams photo on the field and the welcoming lunch.

The all team photo is always a lot of fun, trying to get all of the balloonists onto a single podium. There is always a lot of heckling and shenanigans.

The welcome lunch in the main tent involved a lot of speeches and a presentation of a flag, created by the local school children, to each pilot. After all 102 pilots had got up to receive their flag, they announced the buffet was open. As the 400 or so balloonists charged the buffet, we decided to go home and grab some lunch and have a snooze.
When we arrived back at the field for the 4.00pm briefing, we found a note saying the briefing would be delayed until 4.30pm. When we entered the tent we found that there was just a single HWZ task. The Met guy was convinced that the rain was going to clear by 6pm. I have never seen a Met person be as certain about something as he was. So David Levin told us to go and park on our launch sites and return at 5.30pm for a supplementary briefing. While other teams took out their baskets and started rigging their burners, we opted to keep the gear in the van knowing we could be set up and inflated in 10 minutes if we needed to. As we entered the tent at 5.30pm the rain had started to get quite heavy. The Met guy was still convinced that the rain was going to stop at 6pm on the dot, so the plan was for the yellow flag to go up around 5.55pm and the green flag to go up at 6pm. So we stood on the field in the rain and waited. As we waited for the flag a couple of fiesta balloons flew over the horizon and we could see that there was absolutely no speed and more importantly the direction was no good. David had set 5 goals for the HWZ in different directions, which was very wise with these unpredictable conditions, however there was none in the direction that the winds (below the clouds were going). So it was starting to look pretty obvious that the task would be canned. The last thing they would want is 102 balloons disappearing into the cloud trying to find the required left turn.

So sure enough, at 6pm the yellow flag went up and 5 minutes later it was followed by the black flag… time to go to the pub. We headed up to the Hofkirchen Balloon Hotel, to find some drinking company, where Joe Hertsill from the US team invited us to come and be honorary Americans and join the entire US team for their traditional team dinner. It is always good to hang out with the US team as they are great fun and also very interesting to chat to. As most people in ballooning know about 25% of ballooning experience and learning happens when sitting around chatting to balloonists. So sitting next to people like Joe, Pat Canon (another experienced US pilot) and David Levin at dinner was great.

A few Puntigamers (the local beer) and a schnitzel later and it was time to retreat back to the house.

Master Briefing

2008-09-13T19:29:00.000+10:00

Saturday’s weather was no improvement. In the morning there was plenty of drizzly low cloud that made flying not an option. So we filled the morning with the usual breakfast eating and hanging out at the launch site checking emails etc.

At 4pm we gathered in the Briefing tent for the master briefing. This was your typical master briefing where they go through specific rules and discuss the program for the week. It was a great chance to finally catch up with people that we had not seen since the last Worlds in 2006.

After the briefing it was time opening ceremony and parade of Nations. We decided that we would not go in the parade, not because we are not patriotic, but because our van is completely covered with the hire company’s artwork, with little room for a single Australian flag. Instead we grabbed a couple of beers and watched the spectacle. The weather had finally become kind and there were a number of sponsor balloons tethered on the field. Plus there was a hot airship doing laps around the crowd. It has been many years since I have seen a hot airship up close and they are certainly very cool. My memories of hot airships really come from the old Sultan airship that used to fly in Australia in the late 70s and early 80s. The technology has certainly come a long way since then.

Once the parade was over, everyone gathered in the tent for dinner and a lot of drinking. You could tell that many people were trying to work out if they should take the gamble that the weather would be bad on Sunday morning for the first competition flight and keep drinking. After a few beers we opted to head home and get some sleep.

Here comes the weather

2008-09-12T21:01:00.001+10:00

After the regular evening thunderstorm, the morning dawned to be another perfect flying morning. As we drove down to the CLP we looked down onto valleys of mist. On arriving we found that they had organized a couple of practice tasks; a Fly In (FIN) to the CLP and a Judge Declared Goal (JDG).

We still had not received our helium, however the CLP was in a deep creek valley and there was definitely some drainage down the valley. So we headed up the valley past the minimum distance and inflated the balloon on the side of the road.

Camilla, Yosh and I headed back to the CLP to watch the 40 or so balloons make their way down the valley towards the target. The morning was incredibly waffley, with the ground wind changing direction by up to 180 degrees every 5 minutes. We spent about 45 minutes at the target waiting for Sean and watching the various pilots play round in the fickle winds. Having chosen a launch site without any helium was a bit of a gamble and didn’t really pay off for us… but allowed us to learn a lot about how the valley works.

Sean headed down towards the JDG, however aborted the attempt because there was only a few landing spots within the valley due to the excessive amount of corn.

After packing up, we started the usually process of finding some breakfast, sitting in the McDonalds car park where there is wireless internet, buying various bits and pieces in the supermarkets and then heading back to the house for food and a sleep.

The weather forecast had been looking a bit grim and the rain showed its face mid afternoon. We had already decided we were not going to fly, so we headed to the local pub. Over a couple of beers and some dinner (I actually had some fish, which was a nice change from pork), we went through all of the task sheets from the pre-worlds and walked through how we would fly them. David Levin, the competition director, used the full list of task last year… including many combinations of 3D shapes, land runs and CRATs. So if he does the same this year, there should be a lot of interesting tasks to think about.

We have not seen a weather forecast for a couple of days, but the last we saw it was going to be raining until Tuesday… with the temperature dropping from 26 degrees to around 7 degrees. At the moment the rain is not heavy, but the whole area is in cloud so definitely not flyable.

Moonshine

2008-09-11T19:16:00.000+10:00

We have finally got the full team together. After a practice flight in the Stubenberg valley, we headed down to Hartberg to pick up a very sleepy looking Camilla. She had just done the bus from Canberra to Sydney, 2 plane flights from Sydney to Vienna and then the train to Hartberg. So after a quick shopping trip we headed back for a relaxing day in your loft, reading, sleeping and generally chilling out. We then headed down to the official launch site for our first practice flight in the main flying area. Sean flew two pilot declared goals both with good results of a few metres.

The team is working really good together. Yosh, Camilla and I are the type of people that just get on with it.

One thing we are starting to think is that we will probably end up with a lot of time to stand around on the side of the road. Without markers to have to measure or observers to race to the marker drops it is likely to make the work on the ground somewhat more simple.

At the afternoon landing spot, the land owner appeared in the paddock with a bottle of their homemade "moonshine" schnapps to welcome us. This is very much a tradition in the area. Now I have had schnapps before and it is normally pretty strong... but the bottle she produced was almost pure ethanol. Yosh, who does not drink, did the tactful tipping of the schnapps on the ground without the woman seeing...however he then had to convince her that he did not need anymore.

We finished the day with a team dinner at the Balloon Hotel in Stubenberg. This Balloon Hotel is a 5 star version of the Balloonary in Canowindra, run by the family of Ellina who we met many years ago in Canberra when she came out as part of the Festo upside down balloon team.

You must be back by 9.25

2008-09-10T19:13:00.000+10:00

The next morning we had to have the car back to Vienna by 9.25 sharp, otherwise we would have to pay for another day's worth of rental. So we had an early breakfast at 6.30 and jumped back on the road. Feeling much more confident with the driving, I managed to sit comfortably on 150km/h for about an hour... so we covered good time. It is incredible that even at this speed, how quickly people would pass you.

Then we hit Vienna peak hour. Vienna roads are very narrow so it becomes congested very easily. After feeling quite happy with our timing, we started becoming a bit nervous. We had to drive literally through the centre of town to get to the car hire place... plus we had to still fill the car with petrol before dropping it off. We got to the petrol station near the car hire place with about 15 minutes to go. We then speed to the car hire place, arriving with only 1 minute to spare.

Having just narrowly avoided being stung for another couple of hundred Euros, it was time to jump in a cab and cross back to the other side of Vienna to pick up the van. We have got ourselves a Mercedes 3 seater which is quite comfortable. Well it is comfortable for 3 of the team...however the 4th is in the back with the balloon. As I write this, we are driving somewhere through Austria and I am in the back of the van, sitting on the envelope with no windows to the outside or into the main cab. To communicate with the others I have to yell through the wall. Actually, apart from being hot and stuffy... it is quite comfortable here and a good time to catch up on the blogging.

Anyway back to the day’s events. Once we picked up the van we headed down to Hofkirchen where the event is being held. This took about an hour. We then proceeded to drive around the hills of Stubenberg to find the house that we were staying. The GPS (Amy) took us to what she thought was the address, but after having a very confusing conversation with the house owner we determined that we were not in the right place and she did not look like she wanted us to move in.

We eventually found the right place and we are now living in a nice little loft apartment on top of a huge hill overlooking the valley. The owners don’t speak any English so we have managed to have a couple of conversations with the help of my limited German, the dictionary and some notes in English that the lady's son had printed out for her.

Sean and I then headed down into Stubenberg to watch 40 odd balloons (including the other Aussies) fly from the grounds of a beautiful castle. Apparently this was the location of the 87 worlds.
For those who know Fan Guy and Map Man from Edwin’s team, you will be pleased to know their names have been translated into German for the event. Herr Ventilator and Herr Chart.

Once the balloons had flown away, we refueled the balloon (at an astronomical price) and headed 30 mins down the road to try and find Yosh, who was due to arrive on a train at some time that afternoon. Since Sean's phone has lost roaming service (which is a whole other story), we did not really know what time he was due to arrive, so we rocked up at the station to check the time table. Within literally 30 seconds a train pulled up and Yosh jumped out.

After a quick meal at McDonalds (the only thing open), we headed home and fell asleep again.

Two blokes in a convertible

2008-09-09T19:10:00.002+10:00

About a month ago, I was awarded Omniture Consulting Employee of the Quarter, which had a nice cash bonus attached to it. I decided that I wanted to treat myself to something nice. Knowing that we only had a couple of days in Austria as tourists, I decided that I would hire a nice car and spend a day driving around the Austrian country side.

So after a night of not much sleep (totally jet lagged), I jumped on the train and headed into Vienna to pick up the convertible BMW 3 Series Coupe.
Once I finally found the car hire place, I then had to find my way back to the hotel (about 15km away)... which was not suppose to be a problem because I had the GPS navigator. Unfortunately the GPS (now known as Amy) took a while to locate the satellites... so I found myself faced with driving through downtown Vienna, trying to remember how to drive a manual, on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, navigating by gut. Amy finally found herself and I was fortunately on track.

So after picking up Sean from the hotel, we headed off on out 420km circuit around Styria and upper Austria. Amy kindly navigated us around some very picturesque scenery.

Sean and I have decide that having a convertible sports car is completely impractical... to the point where back seat was piled up with luggage due to no boot space… But it sure is fun.

At about 4pm we cruised into Melk, where we had booked a room in a nice hotel looking over the Dunube River valley. It was a very romantic location and people could definitely get the wrong impression when they saw two boys driving around in the convertible. We had just been joking about this when we walked into the double room we had booked to find only one double bed. Sean promptly tracked down the hotel owner who helped us locate to hidden fold-away bed.

We headed into historic Melk to track down a much needed beer and dinner. Melk is a very pretty, cobble stone type of town. It seemed to be full of the Austrian equivalent of Double Bay or Toorak type of people. We found a nice pub and went to work to attempt to translate the Menu using my high school German. I have discovered that my German is still there but I seem to be able to understand every second word in a sentence. Unfortunately these words are things like "and", "is", "a", etc. so ordering food is adventurous. Having translated "Resche Cordon Blur" to be "Bacon Done Fancy", we decided it would be safer to order schnitzels.

Once we got back to the room. I was completely trashed. Apparently I sat on the bed and asked Sean "Is it too early to go to sleep?" and by the time he turned to answer me, I was passed out.

Vienna Vegas

2008-09-08T19:32:00.003+10:00

We flew into Vienna a few hours ago. It was a long 2 flights (Sydney-Bangkok, Bangkok-Vienna) with only about 40 minutes to stretch the legs at Bangkok.

Having not organised any accommodation before arriving, we spent an hour or so chilling out at the Vienna airport using the free internet to find a cheap (last minute style) hotel. Being not overly interested in getting anything "traditional", we settled on the Austria Trend Eventhotel Pyramide... which basically looks like something straight out of Vegas.

So we have had a short snooze and now we are going to head off to the a shopping mall that claims to be the biggest in Europe. We might even then consider doing some sightseeing... but then again we might just chill out at the hotel by the pool.

Tomorrow we are hiring a car and going to spend the day cruising around Austria.

Vienna in a day

2008-09-08T19:07:00.000+10:00

Sean and I have discovered that we are as useless as each other when it comes to being tourists in cities. Having had had a nana nap in our room to recover from the flight, we decided to get on the train and head into downtown Vienna. With no real interest in going into churches, cathedrals, museums etc., we wandered the streets for a couple of hours looking at all the very tall, very blonde Austrian people.

We also began our quest to find good Austrian coffee. There seems to be a large number of coffee shops in Vienna that serve coffee at an astronomical cost of 4 Euros (about $8). I have to say that we very disappointed.

Probably the most interesting thing we saw was the scaffolding on St Stephans Cathedral. Being one of the biggest tourist spots in Vienna, they had covered the scaffolding with a huge digital image of the cathedral as not to disappoint the tourists.

After we decided we had done enough wandering around, we headed back to the shopping mall across the road from our hotel. By this time we were pretty trashed and quite happy to sit around our room and attempt to sleep.

Austria - Only a few days to go

2008-09-01T20:41:00.003+10:00

So it is only a few days until we fly out for Austria for the Words. I have decided to resurrect this blog for while I am away. It should allow me to include a lot more details (to bore family and friends) than I would normally include on Aunty Monkey.

So here is some details about the trip. Firstly the itinerary:

Sun 7 - Fly out of Sydney
Mon 8 - Vienna
Tue 9 - Driving around Austria
Wed 10 - Pick up balloon and head to Hofkirchen
Thu 11 - Sat 13 - Practice flights
Sun 14 - Fri 19 - Competition
Mon 22 - Fly out of Vienna
Wed 24 - Back in Sydney

So where are we actually going...well here...

View Larger Map

Other than that... there is not much to report at this stage. Just that there is a lot of work to do between now and then.

Real Life Whale

2007-05-12T17:41:00.000+10:00

Check out this site. You can zoom in and see parts of a whale at full size. It is amazing detail.

Retro Nerd Hysteria

2007-04-29T06:49:00.000+10:00

Demo of the first Apple Macintosh by Steve Jobs, January 1984. Check out how excited the crowd gets when the chess game shows up on the screen.

Pulling the toys out of retirement

2007-04-25T07:42:00.000+10:00

Sean and I are about to go indoor climbing this morning. This is going to be really scary as I haven't climbed for about 5 years. It was hard enough climbing the ladder into the roof to find my climbing gear, which was buried away amongst the other semi-retired toys. Toys that include...

- Climbing gear
- Camping gear
- Hiking gear
- Tennis rackets
- Squash rackets
- Kath's ski boots
- Bike helmet

... to name a few.

James is starting express interest in going camping. The two of us were going to go camping down at the farm in a couple of weekends, but with only a couple of flying weekends left before the Nationals, that has had to be put on hold.

Aunty Monkey - A new social network

2007-04-21T09:03:00.000+10:00

I am in the process of setting up a new ballooning focused social network (kinda like a MySpace for balloonists).

http://www.auntymonkey.com

This means that this blog will now become more personal focused and all my ballooning banter will be at http://www.auntymonkey.com.

Earth Hour

2007-03-31T21:00:00.000+10:00

Earth Hour just happened. It seemed to be a success from here. It is hard to tell when we live such a bushy part of Sydney and it is always pretty dark. However the Sydney skyline view from our carport did go significantly darker.

There were a couple of highlights. Firstly having a nice dinner by candlelight in the pitch darkness was lovely. We also saw a shooting star, which was pretty amazing to see in Sydney.

The Worlds - Danish Style

2007-03-21T20:00:00.000+11:00

Here is a video of photos from Benny Jorgensen's (Denmark) team.

1997 World Hot Air Balloon Championship, Saga Japan

2007-03-17T21:37:00.000+11:00

I'm on a roll of uploading videos to YouTube. Here is a short video I edited from some of Kath's videos.

Monty Python - The Golden Age of Ballooning

2007-03-17T20:58:00.000+11:00

I can't believe I have never seen this before. Here is the first of 4 parts. The other 3 can be seen here...

Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3
Part 6 of 3

2006 Worlds Video

2007-03-16T08:23:00.000+11:00

I finally got around to compressing this video (not the greatest compression) and put it up onto YouTube last night. In case you were wondering, the music is by The Cruel Sea.

Back flying again.

2007-03-12T20:26:00.000+11:00

The flying season has officially started again. On Thursday afternoon, we packed up the car and headed down to Benalla (Victoria) , with a stop over night at Binalong. Why Benalla? Well that is where the Nationals are going to be in July. I hadn't been ballooning at Benalla since I was 15 in 1990, so I thought it would be worth scoping it out before the Nationals.

It was a very hot weekend (mid 30s), so we only got to fly Saturday and Sunday mornings. Both flights were very enjoyable and all up managed to get about 3 hours of flying time.

The big thing about the weekend was that I flew our 77 for the first time in nearly a year. Last year I managed to put a few holes in it on a tree and hadn't bothered getting it fixed as I had been flying the Kavanagh EX-65 leading up to and during the worlds. It was certainly different flying the lumpy 77 again. I definitely need to do a bit of flying in it before the Nationals.

It was a great weekend. I am now getting excited about the Nationals.

Geeks, Nerds and Dweebs

2007-03-08T12:35:00.000+11:00

We have been having an internal argument at work for the last week or so, between the Digital Team, the Data Analytics team and the Strategic Planners, over who should be called geeks and who should be called nerds. We have kind of come to the conclusion we are all Geeks based on the following Wikipedia definitions.

Geek

A geek is an individual who is fascinated by knowledge and imagination, usually electronic or virtual in nature. Geek may not always have the same meaning as the term nerd. The Merriam-Webster definitions for the word geek are "1: a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake 2: a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked 3: an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity," though these are only three of many definitions.

Nerd

Nerd, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to somebody who passionately pursues intellectual or esoteric knowledge or pastimes, rather than engaging in a social life, participating in organized sports, or other mainstream activities. The Merriam-Webster definition is an "unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially: one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits."

Dweeb

Dweeb, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to somebody who studies a lot so that he or she can present themselves as an intelligent person, when in reality they aren't so smart. The Merriam-Webster definition is "an unattractive, insignificant, or inept person". A "dweeb" can be compared to a nerd although a nerd has more of a passion for knowledge.

I broke my blog

2007-03-05T13:09:00.000+11:00

You might have noticed that my blog has gone very vanilla looking. I was being an idiot the other day and tried to add lots of extra features. Unfortunately it screwed the templates up. You would think that after 11 years in digital industry I would be able to change my blog template, but no.

Oh well, when I get some time I will make it look pretty again.

Cruise Missile or Plane

2007-03-05T08:38:00.000+11:00

This can be seen on Google Maps. Is it a missile or a plane? Link

Earth Hour TVC

2007-03-03T08:13:00.001+11:00

Our new ad for Earth Hour. Share it with your friends.

Training Video

2007-03-01T22:08:00.000+11:00

Imagine crewing for this guy!

VW Balloon Ad

2007-03-01T21:55:00.001+11:00

myearthdream.com

2007-02-28T12:12:00.000+11:00

This is a really interesting concept. The Honda F1 Racing Team have decided to race a car that has no corporate sponsorship. Instead they have painted the car as the earth. They are then asking for people to pledge their commitment (and sponsorship) to the earth, raising awareness for global earth issues. Visit myearthdream.com

Geocaching by Kayak

2007-02-25T16:49:00.000+11:00

Ever since we moved into the house, I have always been meaning to get out the kayak and paddle up Middle Harbour and the valley that our house looks over. Now that I am into Geocaching, I found that there was a cache right there. So I got the kayak, brushed off the dust and spiders, strapped on the GPS and went for a 8 km paddle. It was lovely, even though I only found 1 of the 2 caches along the way. The second looks like it has been stolen (as the previous 3 people have also not been able to find it.

The photo below is of where I got to. It is where the water stops, right near the cache and the point where our house looks our over.

LASER Grafitti

2007-02-24T07:38:00.000+11:00

Only in Japan

2007-02-23T08:35:00.000+11:00

Why anyone would go to the effort of doing this, but this Japanese guy decided he would like to take a hot bath in a balloon. Very odd. link

Bill Gates v Steve Jobs

2007-02-20T08:33:00.000+11:00

Kiwi

2007-02-18T23:12:00.000+11:00

Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager

2007-02-18T22:59:00.000+11:00

This is the first of 6 episodes. Very amusing.

3 Legged Lamp

2007-02-17T08:33:00.000+11:00

Ellie is wearing a lampshade. She had an operation on her knee last week because she had popped a ligament. So she is now wearing a neck cone to stop chewing her stitches. She is slowly getting more cherpy, but it will be some weeks before she can walk properly on her bad leg.

The five stages of a giraffe in quicksand

2007-02-08T22:24:00.000+11:00

Bugatti Veyron - Top Gear

2007-02-05T22:06:00.000+11:00

Geocaching

2007-02-04T20:16:00.000+11:00

I went geocaching for the first time today. Basically this involves going to geocaching.com and type in your postcode. This brings up a whole list of locations of hidden "caches". Many of them have the coordinates of the location that you can put straight into your GPS. Others have puzzles that you need to work out to get the coordinates. You then take your GPS and start searching the landscape to fine the hidden cache.

I went tramping around the hills and bush in Belrose, with little success. I had 2 caches to find. I got to the location of the first, but couldn't find the actual hidden cache. I fell short of the second because I ran out of steam and the tracks took me the wrong direction.

It is a great excuse for running around in the bush and places that you would not normally think of going.

Earth Hour

2007-02-03T13:25:00.000+11:00

Earth Hour is a Leo Burnett initiative that has been supported by Fairfax Digital and WWF (2 of our clients). Basically the idea is to build awareness of global warning, so they are encouraging people and businesses around Sydney to turn their lights off for an hour at 7.30pm on 31 March. Heaps of companies have already committed to it. So hopefully Sydney is going to be nice an dark. Link.

An old classic

2007-02-03T08:34:00.000+11:00

This is the internet at its best. Trust me you will have this song stuck in your head for days. Link

Japanese Advertising

2007-02-01T09:00:00.000+11:00


God bless Japanese advertisers

Happy Birthday Kath!

2007-01-28T17:22:00.000+11:00

It is Kath's birthday today. Her folks kindly offered to baby sit James, so we decided to hire a "Tinny" speed boat for 4 hours and cruised around Pittwater from Cottage Point. It was a beautiful day. We found a lovely little beach and had a gourmet picnic.

James decided to give Hungry Hungry Hippos to Kath for her birthday. He is addicted to it. I must admit, it is a pretty fun game.

3D Thermal Riding

2007-01-27T07:31:00.000+11:00

Recently I have been playing around with OziExplorer's 3D profiling program, looking at some past flight tracks.

In September last year I had a very interesting flight that involved getting caught in a thermal. We took off in the afternoon, which was warm but not hot, from the paddock behind our house at Binalong for a short flight. As part of my practice for the Worlds, I was flying a Kavanagh EX65, which is designed to handle fast vertical speeds. We cruised (quite quickly) up to 3000 feet above the launch site and then leveled out. Then a strange thing happened...

Without putting much heat into the balloon, we found ourselves in a sudden rapid ascent and within a minute and a half we were at 5500 feet where it rounded out. The balloon handled the climb very well, it was more a surprise to find ourselves at that height. After a fast descent, we landed on the other side of the hill having only traveled 2km.

Australia Day

2007-01-26T11:26:00.000+11:00

James (now asleep) and I have just returned from our annual trip to Parramatta Park for the Australia Day ballooning. We haven't flown there for a few years, but we are making it an annual tradition to let Kath sleep in and we go and crew for Sean.

Useless Dog

2007-01-25T06:52:00.000+11:00

A nice film about a useless sheep dog.

An age to remember

2007-01-14T06:59:00.000+11:00

James turned 4 on Friday! Wow he is growing up fast.

Four has always been a significant age to me because most of my earliest memories are from when I was 4. I think it is probably because a lot of memorable events happened to me during that age, like starting school, starting ballooning and my grandfather dying. I probably remember events earlier than 4, but these milestones give time relevance to memories. We had a pretty full on year last year (Japan, America and moving house), so I wonder if James will remember these things.

One thing that has made me very happy is that James (thanks to some nice birthday presents) has discovered the joys of Lego. He is not ready to start building things, but he really enjoys playing with it.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T08:25:00.000+11:00

Happy New Year!

We had a quiet night at home last night for New Years Eve. We did however discover that the view of the Sydney fireworks from our car port is fantastic. Sydney has 6 barges of coordinated fireworks situated in different spots on the harbour. From the carport we can see 5 of them. So even though we are a long way away, we still get a great perspective. So much so, for both the 9pm and the midnight fireworks, we had strangers (who were looking for a good vantage point) hanging out in our carport as well.

We also watched Kenny last night. Geez that is a funny film.

A lot of rock

2006-12-31T08:16:00.000+11:00

The other day I was sitting on the balcony, having a beer, when I decided that the 3 palms next to the pool had to go. They were ugly, provided no shade and were blocking the view. So I got up and in a couple of minutes I chopped them down. I then spent 2 days digging out the roots.

This patch of garden became my new holiday project. It was time to do some landscaping.

We went up to Australian Natural Landscapes to get a few bags of pepples to cover the patch of garden. The guy told us that it was $30 a bag and we needed 8! There was no way we were going to pay that much for rocks. He then said that we could get 1/2 Ton of river rocks for $30 (because we had the trailer). So next thing we knew, there was a front end loader dumping a mass of rocks on the trailer.

The only problem with this was that I then had to spend the rest of the day carrying the rocks, a bucket at a time, down all the stairs to pool. 2 days later and I am still sore.

But it was worth it, as the garden now looks a lot better.

Sydney to Hobart on Google Earth

2006-12-26T16:29:00.000+11:00

Just found that you can get a Sydney to Hobart feed for Google Earth. It updates every 10 minutes. It is very cool.

A Christmas Kangaroo!

2006-12-25T14:59:00.000+11:00

Happy Christmas!

I am sitting on the couch, post lunch feeling stuffed while everyone else sleeps - my favourite part of Christmas.

We have had a successful Christmas so far. James did well on the present front. For the last few weeks he has been wanting Santa to bring him a rabbit toy... and he did. However when he unwrapped the rabbit, he exclaimed "A Kangaroo!".

I think the plan for the rest of the day is to relax, swim and eat/drink more. Perfect.

Dog on a Plane

2006-12-24T14:31:00.000+11:00

100 impressions in 4 minutes

2006-12-24T07:50:00.000+11:00

A not so wiggley Saturday

2006-12-11T08:27:00.000+11:00

Saturday morning...we were all dressed and about to get into the car for the highlight of James' entertainment calendar - The Wiggles Concert at the Entertainment Centre. James has been very excited about this for weeks now.

I pick up the tickets and for some reason just happened to look at the date.

"Um...Kath, we are a week early. It is next weekend"

As soon as I said this, my mind went into fast forward mode to work out an alternative activity to suggest before James worked out that we weren’t going to the Wiggles for another week. Luna Park.

So we went to Luna Park.

Talk about a run down, expensive, boring place to go. I think we spent about $40 all up and the best thing James went on was almost the equivalent of a ride you can find at most supermarkets.

But, he enjoyed it and $40 (in my mind) was well worth the money to avoid a weekend of disappointment.

Souvenirs

2006-12-09T18:26:00.000+11:00

Check out Michael Hughes' photo project at Flickr, it is fantastic!

So am I happy?

2006-12-04T21:21:00.000+11:00

Alright, I have had time to think about it and I am not overly happy with my 44th at the Worlds. I think I would have been happier if I ended up in the 30s. I was 394 points short of that, so I guess I was close.

However, looking back at Australia's results at previous worlds, my 44th does not look too bad.

I am now really excited about the Nationals in July. The last time (prior to the Worlds) that I flew an actual competition was the Nationals in 2003, so to actually start having more regular competitions is fantastic.

I know that it seems to be a bit opposite, however I am going to use the Worlds as a warm up for the Nationals.

Another Worlds Video

2006-12-03T20:04:00.000+11:00

Some video from the Worlds

2006-12-03T19:27:00.000+11:00

Here is a nice marker drop from Markus Pieper from Germany.

No TV for a week!

2006-12-02T16:30:00.000+11:00

Oh my god. We just had a thunderstorm and there was a lightening strike near by. As it happened, our Foxtel (Cable) TV went dead and didn't come back. I just talked to Foxtel and they can't get anyone over until Thursday night.

As we don't have an aerial, we are reliant on Foxtel for all TV (including Free To Air). Oh well, I guess we will just have to talk and read.

Its all over

2006-11-28T09:22:00.000+11:00

I haven't posted for a little while. We have been a little busy finishing the event, packing up gear and sending it back to Australia (and partying a bit too).

We came 44th. Is that good or bad? I don't really know yet. It is kind of disappointing, but it is my first Worlds and I didn't really have any expectations of where I would end up. In the end, the US and Germany dominated the event. Australia's results were:

Paul Gibbs - 18th
Edwin Michell - 31st
Sean Kavanagh - 36th
Andrew Robertson - 44th

It is our last day in Japan. We are flying out tonight. I will blog more tomorrow when I am back in Australia and had a little more time to reflect on it all.

We landed in a canal!

2006-11-25T13:31:00.000+11:00

We just landed in a canal. Fortunately it was only 1 cm deep with water, but it was a 2 metre deep drain (about the width of the basket). Once again it was a case of take what you could get when landing today. We had just done 4 tasks and fuel limitations gave us little options before forest. So we (my observer Dottie and I) landed on the edge of a cliff, up against a soft tree and slipped into the canal. We keep the balloon out of the mud, water and off the tree. So basically it was a good chance to wash the mud from yesterday off the bottom of the basket.

The morning (again) had mixed results. It was a PDG, JDG, JDG, FON. I got 3.2 metres on the PDG. About 10-15 metres on the first JDG. The second JDG became unachievable so I got about 1.2km with a lost marker in the forest. Then the final FON I would have got about 2.8km. I think there will be some interesting results for the last 2 tasks. The weather really changed and did not give many options.

Total score wise, we slipped down to 49th position. It was a bit of disappointing result, but not unexpected after yesterday's stuff up.

One more flight to go.

A really hard morning.

2006-11-24T13:58:00.000+11:00

We have just returned from another tough flight. There were 4 tasks - FIN, JDG, FON, FON. The FIN was not too bad, probably about 20 metres. The JDG was a bit annoying, in that another balloon got beneath me and pushed me out of the way on approach, resulting in about 100m. The 2 FONs were a balls up. I did not set my last one far enough away to give me time to think about it...considering we were moving along at 50km/h. It resulted in 620m. The last one really sucked, as we chose one (in a hurry) in a valley too far to the east. By the time we got into the valley we were too far south. So the result (observered because the marker was lost) was about 2km.

The landing was really hard work. With only a golf course (out of bounds) and a forested mountain between us and the end of the map, I managed (after some fairly tense flying) to put the balloon down in a wet paddock between powerlines, a radio antenna, a train line and a highway. The crew, god bless them, were there right when I landed and we managed to pack the balloon up on a tiny bank and kept it dry and clean. We are all pretty tired now after a big carry out.

Some good news is that as of last night's flight we have crawled up to 42nd. So we are in the 40s. We actually have 3 more flight slots left. They are going to have a flight on Saturday afternoon. So I was hoping we might be in a chance to crawl into the 30s. But I think the 2 FONs this morning might have made that a bit ambitious. But you never know.

Well we have 2 hours to get food, fuel and over to Haga for the afternoon briefing.

Another day, another 5 tasks

2006-11-23T20:06:00.000+11:00

What an exhausting day. We flew 4 tasks this morning (JDG, ANG, FON, JDG). The flight went for about 3 hours and a total of 48km. It was pretty hard work and we did not have much fuel left when we landed. The second JDG was about 25 km from the launch site and most people abandoned it. I had some troubles with my Angle (ANG) and was outside the pack, so I decided to abandon it and get as many points on the second JDG as possible. In the end I got 4km from the the JDG before fuel became a consideration. At the time of landing, I think only 3 or 4 balloons managed to get closer, so there should be some points in that task. This will make up for the other 3. My path (see image) shows what sort of steerage we had. There were a lot of long zigs and even longer zags.

Tonight we just did a MIN (minimum distance) in Utsunimya (by the river). I think I managed about 80 metres, which will put me way done the rankings for that task.

Last night was a much better result. I manage to (finally) get a marker within the arms of the cross (2m). It was good enough for a 5th place and 970 points. I then dropped about 80 metres for the PDG and picked up another 516 points.

So where does that point me in the scheme of things? Who knows, I have been slowly crawling my way up the rankings. Today might have done me some damage, but we will see. I am hoping to get into the 40s.

There is meant to be some rain coming in tonight. It sounds like it will be light, so we will probably get a flight in tomorrow morning. So 3 more flying slots left.

Finally a better morning!

2006-11-22T13:52:00.000+11:00

Finally I had a flight that I felt pretty good about. We had 5 tasks this morning and my estimated results were as follows:

PDG - 87m
JDG - 15m (about)
FON - 350m (not so good)
JDG - 15m (about)
FON - 92m

After sitting on the launch field for an hour waiting for the green flag (due to fog in the river valley), I took off mid field and kept to left of the pack for a fair distance. This paid off when I got to the first PDG because most people were struggling to stay left when they got to the river, where the drainage was cranking along at about 8 knots to the right.

I then stuck in the river and did well on the 2 JDGs. I didnt do so well on the FON, but needed to sacrifice it (as my result was not going to be too good anyway) to keep on track for the second JDG. This worked and I scored quite well on the JDG. I must say it is nice to see targets close up (finally). The final FON was a bit too far to the right, so it was a bit of a struggle to get across to it.

So all in all, a good morning. I am finally feeling like I am on top of things and in the groove.

Last night we had a FIN and a FON out at Haga. Sean and I sat up at 5500 feet for most of the flight (next time I think we will both take jumpers...it was a bit cold up there in just a t-shirt). My FIN result was in the bottom half of the pack (around 260m). The FON was a bit better, placing just above the median at 183m.

So as of last night I have moved up a few places to 56th. I am hoping this morning will have a big impact (in a positive way) to my standing.

Bring on this afternoon.

Flight 2

2006-11-21T13:10:00.000+11:00

Wow...that was a heck of a flight. We just got back from doing 2 tasks... a HWZ (Hesitation Waltz) and a FON (Fly On). We launched from the very wet Twin Ring launch site, in a mass ascention. This was the morning to get used to flying amongst a lot of balloons again. A bit different from flying out in the boonies in Binalong on my end.

The wind on the ground was very light and variable, but kicked into about 45km at 1000 feet. The flight consisted of rocketting down to the south, bombing into valleys to wash off speed and hope to get some kick in the right direction. Unfortunately for the first target the valley I chose gave me right instead of left. This meant I had a real struggle to crawl back to my track. After riding some curl over off one of the hills, I managed to get a slight turn, but not enough. In the end I dropped about 870 metres from the goal. I added about 15 metres will quickly changing my declared FON goal before dropping my marker (which was a very good move).

The second goal was the same sort of story. In the end I ended up 138.4m from the intersection. There were quite a few closer than me, but I think there will also be a lot penalties applied. A number of pilots look liked they landed within 200 metres of there markers. It will be interesting to see how that all comes out in the results.

So what did I learn today? This place is a bugger to fly, but a lot of fun.

Check out the photos.

Only way to go is up

2006-11-20T16:28:00.000+11:00

Ah crap...I am coming 3rd last. But we have only had one flight and we already knew that the results would suck....but not that much.

We haven't flown since yesterday morning. The entire countryside has just turned to mud and puddles. We just got notification (by pager) that this afternoon's flight has also been cancelled. So it will be another afternoon of relaxing and doing nothing (which is getting pretty frustrating now).

However, as I write this, the sun seems to be starting to break through the clouds. So hopefully tomorrow will be better.

We spent the morning having a lazy breakfast, doing some laundry and buying gum boots (ready for a muddy rest of the week).

I am trying to fight off a really annoying and persistent cold. I am hoping that come tomorrow (with the help of a lot of Codral) that I will be feeling 100%. I have to say, it really sucks having a runny nose in a country where it is not considered polite to blow your nose in public.

The other problem with not getting to fly is that all we (Sean and I) can do is sit around and think about the 1 flight we have had and as much as we are trying not to do, mull over the stuff up with our distance infringement.

Anyway, it is only early in the week and we hopefully will get a lot of flying in once the rain goes away.

Worlds Flight 1

2006-11-19T13:08:00.000+11:00

We just got back to the competition centre after the first flight. We had 3 tasks (PDG, FIN, FON). Sean and I teamed up together this morning and took a completely different approach from the rest of the field. It was a good tactic, however we just worked out that we were about 400m outside of the maximum 10km. This means we will probably get a considerable distance penalty added to our results for the FIN.

My results for the three tasks were 29m, about 30m (probably plus 800m for the penalty) and 50m for the FON. The are not great results, but hey...it is the first flight and I am just getting myself into the swing of things.

The weather (rain) looks like it is going to move in this arvo, so we might have a day or so of no flying.

Finally in the air

2006-11-17T15:19:00.000+11:00

Excuse me if my spelling is average. I am sitting in the back of the van, driving to the competition centre to register for the event.

We finally got in the air. It seems like it has been a long journey to get to this point, but I (flying solo) had a stunning flight out of the Twing Ring race track this morning. I managed to drop a couple of practice markers (one under 5 metres) and fly over a few practice goals. So I am feeling good about how I am performing at this stage.

Yesterday morning was too foggy to fly. A few people waited around for a couple of hours for the fog to clear, but we really did not feel the need to do that, as we had plenty of logistical things to do (e.g. going to a bank, eating etc.). The afternoon was then too windy to fly.

Our accommodation is fantastic. We have 3 small houses between Sean's and our team. So the Robertsons can sleep in one, the Kavanaghs can sleep in the other and the others can not sleep (i.e. drink and dance to the music from a laptop) in the other.

James is doing really well. He is doing a lot of sleeping in the car and in various restuarants.

So all in all, things are going really well and spirits are very high. Competition starts in 2 days, so hopefully we will continue that way.

Another day in Tokyo

2006-11-14T21:43:00.000+11:00

I am sure I said in the last post that the mission was not to exhaust ourselves. Well we failed at that. We did a lot of walking today (except for James of cause). We went for a lovely walk around the Imperial Palace Gardens and then around the streets of Tokyo.

We are now back at Narita Airport, staying at the Holiday Inn. There are a few other balloonists staying here tonight, so it is starting to feel like it is all beginning now.

So tomorrow is the day of picking up cars/vans, balloons and heading up to Motegi. We might not have internet access so readily available after tonight, so I am unsure when the next post will be. But then again, our team consists of a lot of geeks...so i am sure we will find a way to get online.

A day in Tokyo

2006-11-14T08:55:00.000+11:00

Well we have successful made it to Japan and survived our first day in Tokyo.

James managed to sleep the entire flight over here, but we were all pretty exhausted after a full day of walking around Tokyo being tourists (most of the time James was on my shoulders). We mostly hung around Ikebukuro and all the crazy shops.

We are going to do a few more things around Tokyo today, including the Imperial Palace Gardens, Ginza (and the Sony Building) and a 7 storey building of kids activities. We are then going to head back to Narita (Tokyo Airport) and spend the night there.

Tomorrow we need to pick up the balloon and clear it through customs. I was talking to the freight company people yesterday. They seem to be over complicating things (and stressing themselves) by trying not to inconvenience us. Basically they have trying to work out a way that we can clear the balloon through customs, pick it up and not have us need to wait a couple of hours tomorrow.

Then we are heading up to Motegi and settling in.

The mission today is not over-exhaust ourselves today being tourists.

Time to get focused

2006-11-11T06:24:00.000+11:00

Ahhh...it is Saturday morning and it is time to start focusing on Japan. It has been a busy few weeks at work, but fortunately I am not feeling exhausted (like I normally do when I start a holiday).

We are flying out tomorrow night, so we can now spend the weekend packing. It will probably take all weekend because James has a habit of unpacking things at the same speed as we can pack them.

The balloon was shipped (planed) off yesterday. Sean very kindly packed it all off for me yesterday - thanks so much buddy.

Some happier news

2006-11-09T09:24:00.000+11:00

We are going to finally have another Nationals. The ABF have announced that there will be a Nationals held in July 2007 in Benalla, Victoria (the location of the 1990 Nationals - for those of us who have been around long enough to remember back then). We haven't had a Nationals since 2003, so it will be great to finally have a bit more competition flying in the country.

So I guess I can use the Worlds as a practice event for the Nationals.

Some extremely sad news

2006-11-09T08:29:00.000+11:00

The other day we heard that Masashi Kakuda, the director of the Worlds and one of the most respected people in the ballooning community, had been taken to hospital with serious heart problems.

This morning we received news (Les Purfield's email is below) that Masashi has passed away. This is extremely sad news and even worse that it has happened right before the event that he has dedicated so much of his life to.

---

To all Participants and Officials

We are very sad to inform you that Masashi Kakuda passed away today, November 8, 2006, from complications of a myocardial infarction.

Masashi has been a dynamic force in ballooning for many years. He was the Event Director for two World Hot Air Balloon Championships in Saga, Japan and was scheduled as the Event Director at the 17th World HAB Championship in Tochigi, Japan.

Masashi believed in the power of air sports to bring people together. With that in mind, he formulated the World Grand Prix for Ballooning. Starting in 1998, this was a competition held in three continents/countries - Wisconsin,/USA; Luxembourg/Europe and Japan/Asia. Pilots from the various countries joined as one team, forming friendship across cultures and national boundaries.

Masashi will be greatly missed by his family, his ballooning friends and all who had the privilege to share time with him.

The 17th World Hot Air Balloon Championship will begin in Tochigi, Japan on November 18th. Masashi had assembled a first class team of people to work with him on the Worlds. This team will continue Masashi's plans for the event. Mr. Les Purfield has been named the Event Director for the 17th World HAB Championship.

Details of the funeral/memorial services and of Masashi's family contact address will follow as soon as it is known.

Where is Motegi?

2006-11-05T16:45:00.000+11:00

I thought I should stick up a map of where Motegi actually is. Basically it is about 3 hours drive North East of Tokyo.

So what's the plan?

2006-11-04T18:13:00.000+11:00

I thought I should outline what we are doing, so here are our rough movements while we are away:

Sun 12 (overnight) - Fly out of Sydney to Tokyo
Mon 13 & Tue 14 - Hang out in Tokyo
Wed 15 - Head up to Motegi
Thu 16 to Sat 18 - Practice Flights
Sun 19 to Sat 25 - Competition Flights
Sun 26 - Key Grab Flight & Party
Mon 27 - Back to Tokyo & send off balloon
Tue 28 - Day in Tokyo & fly back to Sydney over night
Thu 30 - Back to work

We are not sure how much access to the web we will get while we are in Motegi. We are staying in a couple of houses in the middle of nowhere. But chances are we will find a way to go online.

One Week to Go!

2006-11-04T07:55:00.000+11:00

There is one week left to go before we head off to Japan for the Worlds. It looks like it is going to be a very crazy week at work, so my focus at the moment is to not get too exhausted before we go. Fortunately we are flying out on the Sunday night next weekend, so I have a couple of days to wind down before heading off.