McBlog

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it but, in addition to The Goodies, we’ve been going back in time on TV with The Young Ones. The joys of DVDs and series owners realising that they can wring a few more bucks from the ol’ shows by releasing them to those of us who want to relieve our youth, misspent or not :)

In keeping with this, I’ve pounced on the chance to get my hands on episodes of Blakes 7 – classic British Sci-Fi that I loved as a kid. Now I get to introduce Nykolai to it plus Kitt’s only ever seen a few episodes so it’s pretty new for her too.

Going back in time and seeing what they did on such a small budget has been great fun. Like watching old Dr Who episodes that, despite obviously crappy effects and props, still hold a magic in their story and character development.

Not sure what’s going to be next – it would be GREAT to find all the episodes of Quark on DVD. That would be so awesome :)

Late last week I mentioned that I was starting a new project and that it promised to be “interesting” – oh yes, indeed it is. Not sure if you’ve ever seen the EDS commercial about building an aircraft while it’s in flight? Well, it’s pretty much spot on for what I’m trying to make happen with the new project.

You can go to YouTube to see the EDS advert about building an aircraft while it’s in flight. They also have an earlier advert that is about Herding Cats – haven’t hit this bit yet, but no doubt it’ll come soon enough.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I work for EDS??? :)

This weekend has been a busy aviation weekend, that’s for sure. On Saturday, I spent the afternoon and evening attending the VATSIM Oceania 2007 Convention out at the Holiday Inn at Melbourne airport. The conference is all about operating flight simulators, ATC simulators and the whole “online experience” that people get these days. Amazing stuff.

I went out there with Carlo as a representative of his Flight Experience operation here in Melbourne. He was presenting there so we caught a few others in the agenda and then stayed for the dinner. Between the end of the conference and the dinner, we shot over to the airport for a couple of drinks while watching the aircraft come & go. While there we caught Virgin’s new Embraer E-170 jet come in and park – it’s doing flights around the country to train pilots, cabin crew and ground staff on the specifics of its operation.

On the Sunday I went out the Yarra Valley for a day’s crew training with Balloon Sunrise. We spent some time reviewing the crew procedures manual, then had some pizza for lunch and ended up taking a balloon out to a field so we could rig it, inflate it and deflate it, all without the pressure of commercial operations. The idea was that we could take the time to discuss what was being done at each step and review important issues, etc. Much easier to do in the daylight without passengers and with heaps of time to review, etc. It’s an idea that Rob’s been trying to get happening for a while now and it really did work well. Of course, we wound up attracting a few people who thought we were going to launch. Not likely – it was getting rather unpredictable with winds puffing all around the place. The joys of a mid-afternoon inflate :)

After lunch and while the others were taking the balloon out to set it up, Peter took Marlon & I out for a flight in the company’s new helicopter. We’ve set up Sunrise Helicopters and are running a Robinson R44 (Clipper II) model based off the lawn in front of Balgownie Estate. NEAT!!! A quick 10 minute ride (sadly with me in the back – DOH! :) was a lot of fun then it was back to the training session.

So, quite the aviation weekend. Now, if only I could have added in some flying time where I was at the controls, well, then it would have been almost a perfect weekend :)

As of Monday, I start a new project with my current employer – looks like I’ll be going in to a volatile situation and will be flat out for a while getting up to speed and figuring it all out. Good thing I like a challenge :)

Here in Melbourne we’ve just made it through a major sporting weekend. On Saturday was the AFL grand final and on Sunday was the NRL grand final (admittedly held in Sydney, but televised down here). For the sports mad people here in Melbourne, it was one hell of a weekend.

For the rest of us, we mostly managed to avoid it :)

We went shopping on Saturday out at Chadstone which is usually packed and very difficult to park or move around in. This time it was almost pleasant to be out there (almost!). We were coming home and it was close to “kick off” for the AFL final so we dropped Nykolai off at a friend’s place for the afternoon (family was watching but the kids just wanted to play) and then went home to relax. Very peaceful :)

On Sunday Nykolai wound up spending a few hours with another friend and then I picked him up and took him out to his horse riding camp at Underbank Stud. Due to the Horse Flu problem there were signs warning that horses were not to be removed from the property and non-resident horses were not allowed on. At least the camp was still going ahead.

The camp is happening out at Bacchus Marsh which is where my flying school, TVSA, has their HQ. We dropped in briefly for a quick chat and to check out the place – very nice.

Sadly, I didn’t manage to avoid the sports for the whole weekend – I wound up watching the NRL final on TV at a friend’s place when we went over for a BBQ dinner. One of the guys had put it on so we wound up watching it. While I much prefer Rugby Union over Rugby League, it was fun to watch.

Not something I’ll do often, but occasionally watching football can be fun. Given my last blog entry was about soccer, it does seem as if September has been my “football month” for the year :)