McBlog

Wow, I’ve been slack with blog posts, that’s for sure. We’re nine months into the year and I’ve posted almost nothing this year. Hmmmm…

Since July things have rather exploded. In addition to my work with apc.au, working as part-time hot air balloon crew and managing the Experience This! blog, I also picked up some other work:

• I spent a month working as a digital producer/project manager for an online advertising agency. I was filling in for one of their team who was on leave and it was great to work in the creative world once again, coordinating work with designers, helping out the account managers and keeping some developers in line. Of course, not having to wear a suit helped too :)
• I started a whole new aviation podcast with Steve and it’s really taking off (to push the inevitable pun :) We’re calling it Plane Crazy Down Under and it’s getting a bit of a following both here in Australia and around the world. Definitely worth checking out – apparently even non flying junkies are enjoying it.
• Just over a month ago I started a new contract as an IT Infrastructure Project Manager with Aussie Home Saver, a start up company that’s growing rapidly in the home insulation business. As you might expect with a start up, there’s a LOT to do and we’re flat out providing a stable technology platform to support the growth. Fortunately our efforts have been successful and well received so we’ve hit a few home runs and are working hard to keep up the momentum.

It’s certainly kept me busy and at least I’m earning some real money once again. Juggling all my responsibilities and commitments is proving to be rather tricky, but I’m getting there.

Well, it’s been about six months since my last post. A lot can happen in that time and it certainly has:

• We moved house in February to be in the selection zone for McKinnon Secondary College, a school that should be great for Nykolai when he starts grade 7 next year. It gets great reviews and is supposed to be one of the better public schools in Melbourne. The selection zone is rather small and demand to attend the school is high, so renting costs more in the zone than outside. He’s still going to St Kilda Primary for the rest of this year so there’s been a bit of commuting, juggling and so on but we’re managing.
• Things didn’t work out at Evolve and I finished up there at the end of February, finding myself without work right in one of the worst job markets anyone’s seen for ages (it’s worse than the recession of the 90’s, that’s for sure). I’ve spent the last few months applying for jobs and it’s only been in the past few weeks that agents have been calling me back – usually it was silence or rejection slips. Very much a buyers’ market as companies can specify exactly what they want and there are so many people looking for work that they can pick & choose. The market appears to be turning as we enter the new financial year, so that’s a plus.
• I’ve set up and am managing the World Aviation Experience blog. The main aspect of WAE is their Flight Experience Melbourne 737 simulator and the merchandise they have for sale at their online store. We’ve set up the instructors at the simulator on Twitter where they’re tweeting the cool flights that they do and there’s quite a bit of content in the blog already. We have some big plans for expanding the content and linking up with other ventures, so be sure to link in with the blog’s RSS Feed to keep up with the news.
• I’m back crewing the hot air balloons in both Melbourne and the Yarra Valley. I really enjoy it and have been getting some great photos. Of course, we’re in winter now and the flying drops right off over July/August as the weather gets worse.
• I’ve been working on a couple of proposals at apc.au, one an international development project and the other for a refugee based project here in Australia. The Australian project’s under way during July but the international one got put on hold. We’ll see how things go over the next month or so.
• I’m still naffed off that the Australian Government is still pushing ahead with their idiotic Internet Filter plans and have started expanding its intended coverage (gee, there’s a shock). As much as I thought Howard was a complete bastard of a Prime Minister, this insanity is showing that Senator Conroy is the worst Communications Minister we’ve EVER had (and that’s saying something as we’ve had some shockers).
• We’ve been to see Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion production and thought it was good but Varekai was better.
• Kitt and I went to see Dylan Moran live at the Arts Centre on Easter Sunday and, more recently, Avenue Q at the Comedy Theatre. Dylan was hillarious and our sides were aching from laughing so much through the whole show while Avenue Q was brilliant (imagine a deranged adults only version of Sesame St merged with a dash of Tray Parker & Matt Stone). Very happy we went to see them.
• We’ve been watching season 1 shows from Heroes and Dexter (yes, we’re WAY behind – whatever) and have watched all of True Blood (including the latest few episodes on season2). I’d say that these shows plus Battle Star Galactica and the ROME series show that there’s a chance for TV yet, but then I think about the rest of the crap that’s on and have to admit that it’s doomed.

Otherwise, that’s about it and life goes on. I’m keeping busy with applying for jobs and these projects but there’s no real income, so we’re surviving on my savings (now finished) and Kitt’s income. A plus is that I’m getting time to exercise, so I’ve lost a few kilos – still a long way to go, of course…

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 :)

Today saw the inaugural Balloon Sunrise vs Global Ballooning go kart challenge held at Ace Karts in Sunshine. The day began with rain, leading us to think we’d be down graded from Super Karts (9HP) to Modified Karts (6.5HP) as the track is open air. Fortunately, the skies were clearing, the rain had stopped and the track was dry when it came to our race.

Global had 9 racers and Balloon Sunrise managed to get 6 to the track (we had a couple of cancellations due to family issues). After completing our briefing, we donned helmets and jumped in our karts, heading out for a 10 minute qualifying period, then got arranged onto the starting grid based on our best laps. We were supposed to do a 15 minute race but there was a glitch in the computer so we got stopped, re-aligned on the grid in our present race order and then given a final 10 lap race, giving us about 18 minutes racing all up.

I spun out during qualification as I hit the brakes at the wrong time in a corner. I also spun out during the second 10 lap race as a bunch of us tried to get around one of the corners (that one got VERY messy :) Over all, I came 7th out of 15 which wasn’t bad, but was one place off gaining team points :(

We had agreed at the start that the first 6 drivers would win team points where first driver gets 10 points, second 8 and through to 5th getting 2 and 6th getting 1 point.

The end results after all the racing were:

So, a close race with lots of spins and hard racing. Lots of fun was had by all and we’ll be getting a trophy that the winning team can keep in their office for a year :)

Well, the AGP have not been able to come up with a space where we can set up the F1 Racer balloon so they’ve pulled the plug on Day 4 for us. A few of us are going down there anyhow but we’ll only have a few chairs and a small eskie of food & drink. Not quite the same without all the vehicles and the BBQ, oh well…

Maybe tomorrow I can go for a walk and get some shots of the grid girls and some of the other helicopters that are there :)

Sadly, we’re not going to have the shape at the Grand Prix on day 3 :(

While we were inflated on Day 2, Jamie from the on-site air traffic control tower came over with one of the guys from the helipad. Seems that they hadn’t been told we’d be at the race this year, let alone inflated in a field right under the approach path to the pad. Turns out that their AGP contact hadn’t been told either (no comment needed here re: planning, organisation & communication within the AGP :(

ATC and the helipad team were OK with us there provided we didn’t get the basket more than 10′ to 20′ off the ground. They would have preferred knowing about us a long time before so they could plan the approaches differently, but on the whole, they could survive our presence.

Sadly, the AGP didn’t want to take any chances and have pulled the pin on the shape for day 3. They’re going to try to find another place for us to inflate on race day (day 4) but it’s possible we’ll be cancelled all together :(

Once again we’re trackside at the Grand Prix with the F1 Racer balloon. When we arrived, there wasn’t much wind but there were showers of rain coming through so we put the van and trailer next to each other, rigged a tarp and set up the BBQ to cook up some breakfast.

Shortly before the start of the first F1 qualifying session, we spoke with the met bureau and they confirmed that we had a few hours without rain and with relatively light winds, so we dismantled the “camp ground” and started setting up the balloon.

The winds were a little high but less than they’d been on the day of the race last year, so with two heavy 4WD’s upwind and the van downwind, we managed to keep it tethered. Rob was taking it up and down so the bottom of the basket was around 20′ to 30′ off the ground and giving the crew rides so we could see more of the track – I got some photos on my ride but the fence was still in the way :(

We were getting lots of attention from the public with people taking photos of the balloon or shots with themselves in front of the balloon, etc. A couple of people came over to say that they were renting a corner apartment in one of the buildings over the road and we were blocking their view of the last few corners – ooops :)

After a couple of hours, the winds got too high so we pulled it down, leaving it out in case winds eased and a couple of us went to refill the tanks. On our way back, we could see the rain coming so we packed it up quickly, getting it mostly away before the rains came. We then took the trailer and van over to the fence and set up the BBQ for lunch.

Standing on the roof of the trailer we had a good view of the track but again, that damned safety fence was in the way :(

After a short time it became clear that the wind wasn’t going away and the odd rain shower was still coming through so we called it quits for the day, some of the guys heading home right away. I took advantage of some clearing weather to take a ride in one of Professional Helicopter Service’s JetRangers. I called shotgun and was up front with Andy (the pilot) and shot some video (I’ll link it once I sort it out – it’s in MOV format and at 90 degrees ‘cos I was holding the camera on its side – DOH! :)

After all that, I left and took the last of the crew back to the shed before heading home for the day.

Amazing – it’s been a whole week since we last flew the balloons. Every day this week has been foggy, ranging from haze (about 4k to 5k visibility & 80% to 100% cloud cover around 300′ to 500′) through to the complete pea-soup variety (100 to 200 meter vis and 100% cloud cover at 100′).

We tried on Monday as it looked like the fog wasn’t going to roll in – hah – part way through inflation it rolled in and we had to cancel, packing up everything and heading home. Since then, it’s been like living in a hazy white pingpong ball. Even in the afternoon it’s still been hazy with only about 6k to 8k visibility.

At least now it looks like we’re done with the fog – no fog predicted for tomorrow. Nope – no fog – the high winds and rain are driving it away…

*sigh*

7 days without flying – wonder if I’ll remember what to do when we launch next… :)