Taking the girls Skydiving

If there is one thing I have been just dying to, it is to take my girls down to IFly Seattle, to give them a chance to experience body flight in the windtunnel… In fact I took them down there last year to check out the tunnel and give them an idea about what it was, and Lara has been begging me to go ever since..

Well, now its vacation time and we are trying to have a fun time together, while still staying in the area, so this seemed like a perfect time to do it. So yesterday I signed us up for some time today. The girls got to share a “Spread Your Wings) package with two flights each, and I order myself a block of 5 minutes… would I have want to order more, yes, sure, but when paying for 3 flyers I figured this would do it for today (it’s not like we can’t find other ways to burn true my cash during the vacation J). Judith might have considered going had things been better, but she joined us so she could watch the smiles on our faces and being the “official family photographer”.

So today we scoot4ed down to Tukwila to have a lot of fun. Now I got to say they have a pretty nice facility down there, and the staff is very friendly.. The guy at the check in desk was coming off his shift so he even offered me free coaching.. very nice of him, unfortunately the instructor on call didn’t think he was quite ready for that.. Oh well. Sucks for me J I got free coaching from his replacement.

So, without further comments, here are the videos of Laras first flight:

And Nisa first flight:

Advertisement

Skiing on Thanksgiving weekend.

First time ever, I have skied in November. and I even managed to get out twice. very nice. It ash started snowing pretty well in November, and the resorts started opening (Crystal Mountain was the first top open – although with limited operations).

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving (happy turkey day everyone), and it was also opening day for The Summit at Snoqualmie where we have bought season passes this.

Since Friday was a holiday, I wanted to take Lara up skiing, even the weather forecast looked like it might be a bit “iffy” driving up there. But on the other hand, that is exactly what ensured that the place wasn’t overrun by people, so we drove up there and hat a good time.

I managed to shoot a bit of video since Lara is not able to ride on her own, which leave my paws free to operate the camera:

Lara showing a surprisingly strong retention of lessons learned a long time ago. First day of the season and she is doing turns and stops..

 

On Sunday I went up with Nisa for a short day. It was short because we had something to do in the afternoon, and since Nisa is new to the ski thing, I didn’t want to overwhelm her. Unfortunately since she cannot ski on her own yet, I didn’t have my hands free to video her, so that will have to wait for another day.

Flying to a fly-in

Loerdag var jeg ude og flyve med en kollega. Vi floej op til det lokale airshow i ARlington (USA’s tredjestoerste airshow).

 

Som saedvanlig har jeg beskrevet turen for mine amerikanske kolleger, og i skal da heller ikke snydes…..

—

 

So Late last week Mike and I hooked up and planned to fly to Arlington together. We both had the idea that being two should hopefully help on the work load of keeping all the “bogeys” in check during the arrival as well as help follow the procedure. Btw thanks to John Calhoon posted the NOTAM links last week. Great help!

Well equipped with all the stuff printed out and studied, I met up with Mike Saturday morning at 8 (to me that is a bit early to qualify for “morning” – night seems appropriate to me). We had agreed that we wanted to get up there early (to beat the traffic so to speak) yet we did not want to arrive at the moment or shortly after they activated the special procedures, because as Mike put it, the controllers will be playing catch-up and getting everything/everyone in line for a while, so arriving at 9 was the plan. A it was – it was a good plan because we only saw one other airplane, and it was a no factor. most days around Puget Sound are way more busy than this.

We departed north from BFI, swung just east of Paine, and joined the arrival procedure at Lake Stevens. It wasn’t really that big of a deal to follow the procedure, they have just hammered out the details to a degree that it seemed more complex than it was. Anywho, we flew up proceeded up towards Green Valley Airport (WA25) and we managed to find it – before spotting the red balloons, once over the airport we got the call from the controller “Red and White Cessna, <..> rock your wings to acknowledge”. Mike dutifully complied (weeeeeeeeeee as my daughters would have said) and we continued to Arlington city (airport was landing to the south) and joined the pattern as prescribed. Actually compared to the lack of traffic until that point there was a surprising amount of activity, I wonder how everyone had arrived there if they weren’t following the same procedures as us. But no matter. Landing was uneventful (props to Mike who knows his airplane). Once on the ground we were directed by the busy little CAP guys to GA parking. I thought all in all the whole arrival, landing and taxiing was pretty slick. Good planning from the airshow folks

Arlington itself was… well Arlington  I like the show, I like the exhibits. We even managed to score ourselves some wings credit listening to Bruce Williams speak about  WAAS GPS approaches. One thing was different form the last 2 years where I have attended. There was a noticeable lack of exhibitors. In particular a lot of the FBO’s that are usually there weren’t. I didn’t see Northway, Galvin and I only spotted Regals supply stand. Apparently the crisis have kept them at home. There were a lot of LSA and kitplanes around though. Mike and I were particular taken in by the CTLS (I think that was what it was called – I cant believe I cannot rember the name). But it was pretty slick and seemed to be a notch above some of the competitors. I also drooled for 10 minutes in the Evektor Sportstar (IFR Equipped). Nice airplane. I am definitely spending some time at Harvey getting checked out in that…. It reminds mee too much of the plane I trained it in Denmark (Grob 115) and the glass canopy gives a GREAT view that I miss a bit when I fly the 172.

At 3 o clock the airshow kicked of.. It reminded me a bit of the last two years airshow.. But it’s cool, definitely worth seeing.

We wanted to get out of there as soon as possible after the airshow was done –not surprisingly so did everyone else who hadn’t pitched a tent already.
We had prepped a bit early by pulling the plane out of its parking spot and pointed in the right direction. So did quite a few around us, so once the ball started rolling, we all moved quickly. Poor mike was in a bit of a hurry to be the dutiful pilots and call up parking and get taxi clearance. I am sure with the number of planes moving and the amount of traffic on the frequency, many – more than half I guess – of the pilots didn’t request the clearance, they just followed along with the other lemmings 😉

But it was all good. Mike got the runup done on the go and we monitored ground when entering the taxiway as required. It all flowed smoothly, all in all a process that seem to work very well for those prepared to follow the stream. If you think you can stop to do your run up, you would be wrong and would have to top the whole line of airplanes following yours. Probably not a good way to do it. Anyway we taxied to the runway where the ground people had us line up in pairs, taxied onto the runway and awaited the signal to go. I didn’t count the seconds between ear plane taking off (from each side of the runway) but I think there was perhaps 30-45 seconds between. Quite cool and it definitely creates a “crowded environment” 🙂 on climb out the guy next to us (a mustang called “Spare parts” 🙂 ) slowly over took us, near enough that we could have logged time for formation flying. But he turned right and we turned left and it was all good.. and hellacool  🙂

The flight home was pretty uneventful. We climbed above Paine’s airspace (but gave them a courtesy-call). The plan was that I should have flow the landing, but as KBFI called out the wake turbulence warnings, Mike took over and did the rest. Slowed the bird down and tried to give the 737 as much separation as possible, but as mentioned we still hit the wake on short final. Something which would have been a nasty surplice if you weren’t expecting it, but Mike did a superb job. On the ground Mike thanked the controllers for the heads-up, and we trundled up to north east parking…

 

MBS Ski day 2009

En gang om året afholder MBS (Microsoft Business Solutions) en ski dag for medarbejderne i Seattle området. Dvs vi bruger en arbejds dag på at stå på ski – lige til at holde ud.

 

I år var vi ekstra heldige. I ugen op til sneede det nemlig konstant i 5 dage, så kom der en dag med frost (godt for ellers kan sneen i området være lidt våd og tung) og på selve dagen skinnede solen fra en fuldstændig sky fri himmel og kun let frost. Det var simpelt hent PERFEKT ski vejr, og vi noed det ja vi gjorde.

 

Jeg stod ud sammen med min nye team kollega Lars-Bo. Han er flyttet herover med familien til jul og de er også glade for at stå på ski, så det kunne ikke være bedre på denne dag.

 

Vi tog nogen smukke sne billeder. Her er et af dem, og hvis i klikker på linketkan i se nogle flere billeder

 

Ski og mudderskred

Godt Nytaar.

 

Jeg troede jeg skulle ud og fejre foerste weekend i det nye aar med en tur paa bakkerne, men daelme om ikke der lige har vaeret et mega mudderskred paa den lokal bakken.. Fandme godt man ikke var paa ski mens det skete.

 

http://www.komonews.com/news/37226989.html

 

Pregame football

Ok. Jeg skal til seahwaks homegame I dag. New england patriots er I byen. Normalt ville man jo nok lave et tailgate party foer kampen. Dvs folk slaeber mad griller oel stole pavillion telte o.m.a. Med ned til en parkeringsplads og hygger sig (laes: bliver fulde).

Nu er vejret ikke super I dag (typisk seattle vinter vejr. Nothing special) sa vi render ikke rundt uden for. Saa visidder I stedet paa en slags koncert sted der konverterer sig selv til pregame druk tempel. Alle nfl kampene der starterkl 10 soendag koere paa storskaerme paa vaegene. Der er buffet og baren er aaben. Det kan sku ikke gaa galt 🙂

Game ON!

/Bo
Sent from my Windows Mobile phone

Danmark nakkede Portugal :)

Det der med Landsholdsfodbold på Tv er ikke jsut nemt når man ikke bor i Danmark.

 

Men gudsketakoglov for TV2Sport. De offentliggjorde da heldigvis et link til hvor man kan se den fantastiske afslutning på kampen.

Linket til udsendelsen er her.

 

Intet mindre end fabelagtigt!

 

Kom så Mortens drenge!!!

Det regner..

Rygterne om Seatte Øholder vand” (pun intended): Det regner PÆNT meget halvdelen af året.

 

Derfor kunne jeg ikke stå for den her lille vittighedstegning:

Græs enke søndag!

Navra.. så sker det… NFL is back on. I dag (lige nu) spiller Seattle Seahawks mod Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Dvs. man sidder klistret til TV’et fra kl 13 til 16. Men men men inden da fik man jo også lige set The Seattle Mariners LAMME TÆVE Detroit Tigers. Ja jeg skiftede over til Football da The Mariners var foran 14-7 i 8. inning.. Så tør jeg godt tro på det.

Nå men vi skal jo også andet end at se Fodbold på en skøn søndag som i dag… vi skal da ud.. og teste hottubben.. ahhh. life is good!