McBlog

There were a couple of spare spaces on Rob’s flight in the Yarra Valley this morning so, seeing as we weren’t flying in Melbourne (nasty weather), I took Nykolai with me for a flight

It was great except that Nykolai spent the last 20 minutes trying to hold back an urgent need to go to the toilet. Bit hard when you’re in a basket at 4,000 feet. When we landed, we tossed him out of the basket, at which point he let me know that he really needed to do slightly more than just a quick pee….

Ooops…

I took him over to some bushes and he had a pee, but decided that here was not the place to do a quick squat. Fortunately he managed to hold on until we made it back to the winery for breakfast – there he broke a few speed records as he sprinted from the truck to the toilets :)

All good in the end – he’s saying he enjoyed the flight and is happy to go up again. Guess next time he’ll be careful to really try to go to the toilet before we fly…

Yesterday was the AFL Grand Final, held here in Melbourne and featuring the Sydney Swans and the West Coast Eagles – both teams from out-of-state (Sydney and Perth respectively). Apparently it was the closest, most exciting grand final ever and really packed in the punters. A friend of mine was doing a trip to Fort Worth (Texas, USA) for work and he was listening in with workmates in the hotel room. Not bad for a bunch of “foreigners” :)

The only drawback to the whole thing was the amount of glass on the roads this morning. I was crewing the balloons this morning and there was glass everywhere. Smashed bottles, tiny crunchie bits spread through lanes, you name it. From Richmond into the CBD and around, it was all I could do to dodge it – most of the time I had to drive over it and just hope it wouldn’t puncture a tire.

So yeah, the grand final is a big thing here in Melbourne. Yeah, it was a close game. Yeah, the fans can go wild. Yeah, it’s party time – but hey, how about a little respect out there, huh? How about you wankers with bottles learn to control them, eh? Assholes who throw and/or intentionally break bottles around the place should be forced to walk over it with no shoes.

Bet you they’re the some dickheads who bitch and moan about aircraft or balloons flying overhead :)

Spent some time on Saturday with Darren from TroubleChute Rigging learning how to make repairs to parachute/balloon material. Basically, it involves using an industrial strength sewing machine, strong materials, lots of measuring/marking/cutting and some funky ways of folding bits of material around other bits. The end result is a strong patch that covers the area where rips/burns/etc were made in the fabric.

To say that my first one was a dog’s breakfast is being kinda nasty to dog food. The second one, though, was pretty good and, although not up to Darren’s high standards, would have passed inspection if done as a real balloon repair. It’s a good start but there’s still so much more to learn.

This is all part of my studies towards my Maintenance Authority for balloons, an official certification from CASA that will allow me to make, and sign-off on, repairs to balloons. More on that in another posting.

Amazing how two days so close together can be so radically different. Two days ago, things appear to be cruising along for me but Andrew’s laptop frags itself, the c2o server gets a crazy failure and crashes and a tram breaks down, causing massive inconvenience. At the end of the day I’m wondering where that cruisy feeling went.

Then yesterday I’m racing around taking Nykolai to stay with friends, picking up a new laptop for Bill and getting it ready to go (installed, configured, setup for him and handed over), sorting out computer issues at Crumpler and getting Andrew’s laptop working again (without loss of data).

Wound up handing over Andrew’s laptop in a carpark near where we both work and on the way to a focus group meeting I was part of.

Two days ago, cruisy but things going wrong. Yesterday, flat out hectic but successful. Who knows what fun today will bring :)

Had a very crazy time this afternoon – we went to help Andrew and JC select a few birds for their new house – it’s got an enormous aviary near the pool and JC suggested that Nykolai might like to come and help them. We arrived and checked out the place then headed off to Vic Markets where we fought through the ambling crowds to get some great food for lunch and then went to a pet store to seek out birds.

While Nykolai was busy chatting up the staff, I checked out the mice but, sadly, there were no females available. Hopefully we can find some new ones soon as our current pair are coming up on 1.5 years (life expectancy is usually 1.5 to 2 years).

They did have some *very* cute female rats and one of the staff had an enormous cream male draped over her shoulders (he was hiding in her long hair). Guess we can think about upgrading to rats in another couple of years.

JC and Nykolai had decided that a pair of lovebirds and a pair of quails. Staff took a while to eventually isolate a pair of lovebirds, moving birds from cage to cage until a pair was eventually located. Once all four birds were in boxes, we returned to the house to start the next part of the epic adventure – preparing the aviary.

The aviary appeared to have been used previously to house large birds, like Cockatoos or Parrots. This meant there were holes, gaps and overlaps that lovebirds, apparently being veritable escape artists, would exploit to leave the area.

A bunch of us descended on the house and began work within the aviary, leading to many calls of “See the wildlife within the cages” and “Ugly looking beasts, aren’t they!” After a number of hours of fiddling, cursing, nailing, cable-tying and self-destruction via tiny bits of sharp, annoying wire, we had managed to seal off a section of the aviary and the new occupants were released, with much squarking, confusion and racing about the place. They eventually settled down and began to get on with life.

After a refreshing beer, we took our leave. As far as I know, the birds are all fine and enjoying their new space.

One of the benefits of working with Balloon Sunrise is that occasionally you get a chance to go up and fly over Melbourne in a balloon. If there’s a spare place on board, we try to get a crew member that’s not working to have a go. In addition to being a bonus for the crew, it’s also good for them to see what it’s like up there.

My turn came around again today – what a hoot! We flew from a set of ovals in Kensington to Moorabbin airport. A great flight and lots of fun.

I managed to get a few photos and will load them on the site soon(ish).

Nykolai and I both passed our latest Tae Kwon Do grading and are now “Yellow Belt, Three Stripes.” Next grading is at the end of the year and we can go for our blue belts. John (our instructor at Prahran TKD) thinks Nykolai may need to skip a grading as he needs a bit of time to consolidate before going to Blue. Not sure if I’ll be ready but I’m planning to do a weekly adult class as well as Nykolai’s kids/adult class so maybe I’ll be ready… :)

I’ve had the car back for about two weeks now and it’s so good to have wheels once again (even if petrol has sky-rocketed up to AU$1.30 a litre). Fortunately the RX-7 only needs regular unleaded petrol, not super-high-octane stuff – that’s saving me about $0.10 per litre :)

Repairs wound up costing $2.5k, not the $3k+ I was expecting, so that’s even more of a bonus. Plus they replaced the water pump which died during testing – good timing, eh? :)

I’m still taking public transport about one or two days per week, despite living on the worst train line in Melbourne (most delays, cancellations and late-running trains of all the lines – joy!) I’m also still cycling into the balloons in the morning (good for exercise, not just saving the car for “real” runs, etc :)

Lots of entries to catch up on here – been slack, yes I know. Photos to load, stories to tell and major overhaul on the Fly Me Friendly section but no idea when I’ll get around to all this.