The only rink in Melbourne...
Hosts the only Canadian who hasn't played hockey:
Until now! Learning fast and loving every minute of it! You'll notice my Australian patriotism. Everyone else wears NHL and Team Canada jerseys, but I wear the MightyRoos home jersey - Australia's national team. A Red Deer Rebels jersey would go very well as one of my coaches wears a Kootenay Ice hat and we can't have that go unchallenged...
Oh and Bob, I can hockey stop really well now!
Reasons.
The reasons for me choosing to stay aren't out of any particular passion or love for geology. I think we're all clear on where my passions lie. In fact, I don't really even understand in the end, which is fairly standard for me. I figured I was going to need more wall coverings and that parchment goes particularly well with that nifty Ralph Lauren 'Denim Paint' and Disney Yellow. heh... So, you know, since universities have a lot of parchment lying about, where else is better to get some than from a university?
Anyway, there's only two short years left and there's something of a quitting theme if I walked away... Aughh. I don't know. Lets all be confused together and drink yellow cordial in the outback while watching Sir Donald Bradman tonk another test century over the kangaroos waltzing with Matilda by the billabong under a coolabah tree holding a VB screaming 'YOU LITTLE RIPPER' as the cricket ball splashes in the Todd River for 6 after bouncing off Ayer's Rock.
I keep waiting...
I keep waiting for something really special to bounce along that other people will want to read, but nothing seems to be bouncing lately. Actually, I lie, lots of special things have happened since the last post, thus:
Two weekends ago I finished some forced landing practice in the Texan at Sunbury airport and aced what ultralight people call EFOT: Engine Failure on Takeoff. I know, we do this in GA airplanes, but what we don't do is the dive-at-the-ground-trading-altitude-for-speed-reverse-winch-launch landing technique, which I hereby name DATGTAFSRWL.
The low mass condition that necessarily defines flight in an ultralight causes rapid changes in speed when the engine cuts out. So, from a climb attitude during T/O at 70 KIAS, you pretty much instantly lose about 20 KIAS as soon as the engine fails. To recover that speed and remain above stall, you stuff the nose and dive wildly at the ground reaching and maintaining about 70-80 KIAS until 50' AGL; then level out and fly the airplane to the ground, while avoiding wheelbarrowing, and roll to a stop. It's just like a winch launch, only the other way around... fun fun fun!! I love that stuff... During the week, I applied to get my pilot's permit from Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus). It only took a couple of days to issue the permit, which comes as a nifty plastic card listing all completed quals and checkouts.
The following week (last weekend) we practiced some more circuits and I went solo!! Total sweetness! The sun was going down in the west and I couldn't figure out why it was getting so bloody dark with the sun still above the horizon. Then I took my sunglasses off. This past weekend, my instructor was in Canberra working on RAAus stuff so I didn't go flying. Hopefully pick it up again this weekend with the eventual goal of making a trip across the Bass Straight to Tasmania, if the club will let me.
A fellow student at uni had her birthday party last weekend as well, so we all went out on the town for Friday night and Saturday morning. I'm continually surprised at how loud music is played in clubs. It causes physical pain for me to stand in most clubs and be blasted with their music. I asked some of the people we were out with if they experience the same thing, but they said it doesn't hurt. Cheers to tinitus! The rest of Saturday was flying as detailed above, then I met up with Bruce and Helen and we went to the Chinese New year Celebrations in the city. Happy Year of the Pig to you all, the twelfth and final animal of the Chinese Zodiacal cycle.
I've taken on another sporting goal and have joined a development squad to play hockey! I was going to post a picture to surprise everyone, but cameras are a little hard to come by and I can tell everyone is getting bored with the Manthos picture and wanted an update. There is a very small but passionate following for our sport here and it's totally wonderful to be able to learn at the extreme age of 24. There is one rink in all of Melbourne (4 million people) with a second in another town called Bendigo, which is about 3 hours drive northwest. That's it for the entire state. Two rinks. On my 'home' rink, they somehow accomodate 23 hockey teams, figure skaters, and public skates. As you might imagine, there are some rather interesting training times, and I've been invited to train with a team that goes Friday nights from 2200-0000 and again on Saturday from 0000-0200.
It provides much needed focus during the week, allows me to pursue a long held goal, and keeps me occupied between weekends when I'm not flying. The raw physical exertion required provides an outlet for all the pent up energy and passion I'm unable to spend sitting considering rocks all week, and I think between flying, hockey, artsy stuff, and hopefully some more travel, I can stand to be at school to complete this project for another 2 short years.
Yes, I had to make a decision and I've decided to stick it out and finish the project. It would be a rather complicated explanation, but you can probably glean the most important parts from everything I've mentioned above. There's only 2 more years left in the award so it will or will not be finished more or less on time and I will move on. I know I told a few I wasn't going to stay, so sorry for that. I wanted to call most of you, but I now no longer have access to a telephone during off hours and my office mate is in my office during most of the work day and interrupting him wouldn't really be very nice. I'll call when I can because I miss you all very much.
Flat Stanley has arrived well and safe and has been on a few adventures so far. More to come.
On Friday the student gang went to Moonlight Cinema and watched Volver with Penelope Cruz. The cinema is a giant inflatable screen that is set up in the Royal Botanical Gardens and at dusk the movie starts. You bring your own food and drink and enjoy a movie under the stars. Quite nice really. Skating on Saturday morning and a bus-ridden festering infection of a commute to get my hockey pants fixed after some stitching pulled the other day. Sunday was a gallery day with Bruce and Helen and then I went to watch a Senior C hockey game at the rink. It is quite cool to see such an extreme mix of ages and sizes all playing hockey together. Everyone from a teenage stick of a girl, who looks like a stick even with full hockey gear on, to 30-something hulks all playing on the same teams. Pretty decent game really.
Anyway, got to go to some talks this afternoon, so I'd best be off. Love y'all and miss you lots!
Happy B-day to Ryan - I tried calling but the phone was off or you were screening unknown numbers!
Is this really an ultralight?
How about this for an
ultralight:
From the same company that brought you the Texan TC, which I fly now. It goes 160 kts on a 100hp Rotax 912S! Put a real engine in that thing and watch it go 200+! It's RG, swept wing, two seater. The picture is of the 1/3 display prototype at the Friedrichshafen, Germany aviation fair 2005. According to the news release, they are starting to take orders this year.
Man I'd like to fly one of those!
** Update: I talked to the FlySynthesis Rep here and apparently, FlySynthesis has put this project on hold. They have moved their factory to a larger facility, and have decided to be sensible and finish their bread and butter airplanes before they start emptying the bank account on novel airframes. They stil have to certify several of their other airplanes and in a dramatic twist, are going to try and get established before going exotic. Darn it... Estimates put this one now five years down the road.
Strange mineral names.
Any thoughts about a regular section on stupid mineral names?
Here's the first in case it turns out to be popular:
Widgiemoolthalite: (Ni, Mg)5 (CO3)4 (OH)2 ยท 4-5(H2O). A hydrated nickel, magnesium carbonate hydroxide of which I've never heard before. Anyone been digging in your yard lately and found any?
CO2 Reduction = Job Loss
Read
this article about the EU setting CO2 emission limits on new cars.
All the talk about the EU CO2 emissions targets causing job losses, higher vehicle costs, economic implosions, war, pestilence and armageddon strikes me as pure bullocks. How is making a car that produces less CO2 any more difficult and expensive than making a 1.5 L engine produce 200+ horsepower?
Car buyers each year pay more for the same vehicle with the changes in price simply due to inflation, minor power increases, option changes, and standard equipment alterations. Car manufacturers pay their R&D staff to develop more powerful vehicles with more power-for-displacement, better shifting gear boxes, shinier paint, funkier plastics, and more cupholders. Honestly manufacturers, get a grip. I love power in a vehicle very much, but when we kill our planet there aren't going to be any roads, petrol, people, or money enough to drive. Make efficient cars, then work on power + efficiency. Even certain V8s I know about out there get the same mileage as my 6 cyl 5-speed. Do you honestly expect me to believe all this spin and rhetoric that developing a more efficient automobile is going to cost jobs and flatten the automobile sector of the economy?
Helloooo! Spend your R&D on efficiency increases. People aren't going to stop buying vehicles because they burn less fuel. What a completely stupid argument. Auggghhh!
Okay, rant done. Thanks for tuning in!
What's new Pussycat?
Woah-Woah-Woah-Woah-Woah... Nah, I don't really know that song, but for some reason it just popped into my head.
Not too much new on the Aussie homefront except for the warm summer weather. It was 32 today (that's real degrees), followed by 30-something tomorrow, then 38 on Sunday and Monday. All you sun-worshippers who were jealous of my leaving the winter to the summer of Aus should spend a month in Alice Springs in January and have all your fantasies straightened out. One Aussie summer ought to be enough for just about anyone ;-) Except you, Kristin, I reckon you'd always like the heat! Naw, all kidding aside, it's hot.
I've a bit of ordinaryness for the last week or so... this past weekend, Andy and I went diving again out from Portsea, which is south of Melbourne a ways. That same day, Australia celebrated its birthday as 26 January is Australia Day - a day of drinking and merriment, according to the founders ;-) I actually did sip a bit of inebriating long chain organic hydroxls, but mostly I just enjoyed the fireworks. After diving, Andy dropped me off at the house, which was followed by a trip into the city at the behest of my roommate to catch what was goin' down in the city for the Australia Day festivities. The roommate packed it in after about 30 minutes, but I stayed on to watch the cultural festivites followed by the fireworks, which I have to say Melbourne knows thoroughly how to do. They were from three locations: rooftops of Federation Square, the
Sid Meyer Music Bowl across the river, and from the roof of the
Eureka Tower, the Southern Hemisphere's tallest residental complex (effectively). Sort of a firey trinity if you were to stand on the bridge above the river. In the link about the Music Bowl, you can see the Eureka tower when it was still being built last year - that's probably about half its completed height.
This is also a good picture of the bowl.
This is a good site about all the buildings of the Melbourne skyline.
Just before the fireworks, I got an invite to go to a BBQ in
St Kilda, which is Melbourne's closest beach district. I made my way there after fighting my way through the hoardes of people leaving the CBD after the show, got off a couple of stops too early on the
tram line to St Kilda, and promptly got lost while trying to get directions to where I needed to go. That was quickly followed up by my phone running out of credit, and my frustration. If you ever travel in Australia, you will find so many things to love, but the road system is curiously confusing and it seems to be a shortcoming of the urban planners to make the streets navigable. Part of my confusion lay in the fact that the street I needed was marked as a 'no exit' road from the direction I was travelling, but which it was in fact not a 'no exit'. But, that's pretty small bananas, because Calgary's not much better with all the streetlights everywhere and the interminably long drive to get out of the city just from my Dad's house, which is really on the outskirts. Ahhh traffic, what could I complain about if it weren't for traffic?
Several of the PhDs at Monash seem to be able to afford rent in St Kilda and for fairly obvious reasons they enjoy it. They'd saved a little food for me and I chatted and got the confusingly unfiltered yet somehow less pretentious advice about life in general and doing post graduate studies in particular from some of the wobbling weekend lushes. I ended up staying overnight and fighting with a friendly but persistent cat who wanted the whole foot area of the covers I was sleeping under. I'd kick him off, but he'd leap right back on when my feet stopped moving. Comfortable sleep though, for all that!
Saturday I spent wandering the town in and out of the shops looking at all the amazing array of stuff. The winter season clothes are hitting the racks already! People were in the ski shop (yes, a ski shop -
Altitude) buying boots and last year's ski and snowboard jackets. They actually stock ski racing stuff and I was only too glad to gawk at that while dreaming of my racing days and when I might pick them up again.
I phoned about flying, but the airplane was booked now that it's not broken. I'm slated for tomorrow afternoon and I'm pretty stoked about that!! Makes me wonder though... there's something about a Rotax engine in an airplane that still doesn't seem right to me.
Sunday was spent sleeping in and cleaning the house. It was yucky and it rarely gets organised, thus it was calling out to me for some work. Neighbour's computer is toast, literally. Power spikes fried it. He's got it fixed, but it's still giving me hassles and I can't get the wireless working again. Apparently there's some worldwide upgrading of electrical lines and equipment which is taking a particularly high toll on T.V.s, computers, and other electronica.
Miss you lots!
