Author: Grant

The Return of the Terra-Saurus

Nykolai’s home again at last – two months in Argentina visiting family in Buenos Aires and going to school there. He had a great time but was missing us very much (so I’m told). Arrived back today after a long flight in – fortunately some friends of the family were flight attendants on the aircraft from Buenos Aires to Auckland, so they got bumped to business class (lucky buggers). Had to wait a few hours in Auckland ‘cos their QANTAS aircraft was delayed, but they got here eventually.

So good to have him back :)

Winter Fogs

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… :)

Bit of Winter Work

I’ve been wondering how I’ll manage to pay the bills during Winter when we’re not doing as many balloon flights. Well, totally out of the blue I wind up working with Destra Media doing some project management on a few sites they’re developing. I got a call asking if I could help out – hell yes :)

I’ve been there about three weeks now and it’s a lot of fun, even when the pressure’s on. We’ll see how it goes as it’s consulting work so they could decide to end it at any time. Meanwhile, on we go and I’m able to pay my bills, clear some debt and get through winter with a smile :)

New home network storage

So, here I am thinking that it’s time to update my home network’s file server. My antique Pentium 1 box is starting to show it’s age. Sure, it’s OK and is managing when it’s only me accessing it but put a few more people on it and it dies. It’s got a great, old mega-tower case with heaps of space for hard drives, but it’s power supply is running *really* noisy. This plus the slow-down when transferring huge files or supporting multiple clients and, well, sure, it’s time to kill it.

Talk about serendipity, I stumble over FreeNAS, a FreeBSD based network storage system. Awesome system. You download a 30Mb ISO, burn it onto CD, boot from it and (with a few checks of the manual :) set up your server. Once you’ve got the network card selected and IP address specified, you can start managing it via the web based interface.

Wow – talk about easy – want to add new hard drives? Piece of cake. Want some of them in a RAID structure? Hell yeah – sure, it’s software based, but with a Pentium III and 256Mb of RAM, who cares ‘cos damn it’s fast. Plus, it’s a breeze to add support for Windows, Apple, FTP, etc. Litterally just clicking and configuring and it’s done.

So so so happy with this. Definitely a recommended way of converting an older machine into a useful network file server.

General Update

Still here, still ticking along. The work as crew chief with Balloon Sunrise is going well and I’m working my way towards a commercial balloon pilot license. I’m no longer with the AWU but am still doing some tech support for Crumpler.

I had applied to become an Air Traffic Controller and made it right through to the end. After a number of all-day exam sessions, I wound up getting rejected due to not having the right personality match for the position. Basically, they figured I’d not be comfortable being shoved into their mould and would get bored and want to leave. It was a bit of a shame but well worth doing. I’ve logged the experience and am in the process of revamping my Fly Me Friendly section so it’ll show up there eventually.

Nykolai is with his mom in Buenos Aires (Argentina) visiting family for a month. Kinda wierd not having him around.

The car is running well after a recent tune up – still got lots to go on it – new exhaust, new suspension, probably new brakes then fix up the body work. Slowly getting there with it as funds permit.

Stinking Car Thieves!

Got back to my car last night to discover that some little shit had broken into it and gone through the center console and glove box. They attacked the door lock to get in so now it’s unusable (can still lock the door, just can’t use the key to get in). They also broke the center console lid as they tried to get into it.

All they took was my mobile phone charger that was in the cigarette lighter ‘cos there wasn’t anything else in the car.

At the time I discovered it, I would have quite happily smashed the bastard’s face into a wall if I could have found them. Now that I’ve relaxed a bit, all I can do is hope that they get all that’s coming to them. Just wish I could be there to see them get it…

There’s something fishy here…

I’ve just had my friend Michelle from the USA stay here on her way home after two weeks in Tasmania. Given that she’s a marine biologist, we figured it might be fun to take Nykolai to the Melbourne Aquarium. Well, it wasn’t a bad time and Nykolai managed to have fun, but I have to say it could have been better. At AUS$23 per adult (AUS$13 per child) I found it over priced – half that price would have been more realistic.

The main tank with the sharks and other marine animals was great – walking through a pair of clear-roofed tunnels into rooms with enormous viewing windows provided a wonderful way to see everything. It is possible to go diving in the tank as well which helps the rest of us get an idea of how big everything is in there. Of course, there’s a price to pay for that, ranging from AUS$130 to AUS$270 depending on your experience and equipment.

Most of the exhibits are interesting and there’s some education going on, but we found ourselves left rather flat by it all. A special exhibit was a giant squid recently caught near New Zealand – it’s about 7 metres long and appears to be encased in some sort of kinda-clear material so it’s preserved. From the promotions for the exhibit, you get the feeling it’s going to be bigger. Also, the eye looked rather false.

It may be indicative of the whole place that Nykolai’s favourite part was “The Ride” at the end – basically a simulator that moves around and attempts to give you the sensation of movement. Where the ride could have been related to the ocean (eg: a hair-raising run in a submarine or something), it’s basically a sled ride through a series of ice caverns. Not bad, but how it relates to an aquarium, who knows…

Michelle noted how many eating areas there were in the aquarium, ranging from cafes to a restaurant. She asked if this was an aquarium or a restaurant with funky decor. And what’s on the menu? Fish! :)

So, all up, not a bad time but not worth the full price of entry – perhaps half the price instead?

Still sans phone

Unbelievable – almost 3 weeks without a phone or ‘net connection at home. Telstra keep missing deadlines, stuffing things up and generally acting like an incompetent, bureaucratic bunch of idiots. I know that’s nothing new, but I was expecting that the “big changes” going on over there would have brought them into the present, not sent them even further back into the 1950’s….