Updated:
Friday, 24 November, 2006:
YES we have had Turkey and 'such' at the American traditional holiday 'Thanksgiving' - up at Uncle Boink and Auntie Joy's house... just a 'few' of our pictures, taken with Ms. May's fancy (but a bit dated) Sony digital camera:
an assortment of the lady-relatives (don't know why there are no guys in this picture)... - anyway - Mom is near the right - sitting-down, with the white neck-brace. Mom seems mostly fine, now and has a new care-giver and that's something new and wonderful for her, and keeps getting phone calls and visits from friends far and wide.
Mr. Bill driving home to Stuart, after Turkey-Dinner, with his (always awake) driving companion (Ms. May is his sometimes awake driving companion), and our 'constantly in charge' of the Toyota mini-van, is Ms. Mini-Bear who sits on the dash-board most of the time... The Toyota mini-van now has just over 20,000 miles on it (it's now about 10 months old) and it's still doing well - it's getting (on these last couple of trips) right at 25 mpg, and that's pretty good with a head-wind and/or at 70 mph... - so far, so good - we like it a lot - and can get all our boardsailing and/or kiteboarding gear INSIDE it (nothing has to go on the roof!)
Please note that there WAS an image here - it was a sunset and it had "nice colors" but having been taken near dark one evening, from a car moving at roughly 70 mph - it was 'blurry' but nice colors... - Ms. May - who took said image has decided that it is not a 'quality' enough example of her picture-taking skill(s) so that she has requested me to remove said image. I have done so - but I thought people should be made aware of the fact that we DID HAVE a 'fair' image of the sort(s) of colors indicative of great South Florida sunsets!
and - the last picture; a sunset Ms. May took out the window, while tooling along I-95 headed south towards Stuart.
Mr. Bill's new Garmin 76CSx GPS unit continues to be fun, interesting, challenging. Took track-logs from both the trip-up north to Jacksonville, and the trip-back south towards Stuart. The new screen is both color and back-lit, so it's WAY more readable (even though smaller) than the old screen, even in sunlight, and at night - wow - what a difference. This GPS unit also uses the same external antenna as the previous one which was about 10 years old. I'm still working through the owners-book for this new GPS - a LOT of features & functions to learn to use. I'm also studying for the "General" exam for the ARRL-FCC certification.
Updated: Tuesday, 21st November, 2006:
We spent the best part of Thursday(16th) through Saturday(18th) in Jacksonville at the "Florida Yacht Club" helping to run the "National Championships" for the Melges 24 sailboat class. Mr. Bill's great, long-time-friend Mr. Henry invited us to participate.
Ms. May and several others were there for judging, as this was a "Nationals" regatta - meaning a very important regatta. Ms. May and others dealt with a total of 6 protests and one 'redress' request (someone lost a mast over the side (the full-carbon masts on these boats are worth 'about' $8,000 or more (depending on 'bare-mast' or mast with all the rigging and other 'bits'...))
This is a very exciting racing sailboat class with 4-5 people per boat. The boat is similar to, but much bigger (10 feet longer) than our '14'... It is a sloop rigged sailboat with an asymmetrical spinnaker (but this boat has a BIG Keel to keep it upright!))... ANYWAY see below for some pictures of our activities - some will come in a little later from people that we worked with / for during this event... (so check-back-later for more pictures)
Other pictures can be viewed at: Rick's photo-web-site: http://www.rickphotos.com
- all pictures should have a blue border so that they can be clicked-on for a larger version (assuming you're interested in the larger version?
a picture of just one of the 40 something boats that raced in this regatta - this image is NOT click-able for a larger version
Ms. May in her 'keep-warm' outfit... (notice the number of 'layers'?
it was definitely chilly the last couple of days, very windy the first day- =then cooler and very little wind....
Picture here to come at a later-date
Mr. Bill with his 'cannons' (they shoot 10 gauge shot-gun-shell-blanks - makes LOTs of noise),
we used about 100 shells in 3 days of racing... Doing the 'cannons' (noise) is a good task for Mr. Bill...
Picture here to come at a later-date
Mr. Rick - the "Principal Race Officer" (the boss)...
Mr. Stewart - the boat-owner (the boat was a Huckins Yacht - of traditional and interesting design)...
the Race Committee 'Team' picture - from left, Ms. May, Ms. Joleen, Ms. Louise, Mr. Vick, Mr. Rick; Mr. Bill is taking the picture...
Here's a small picture of Mr. Skip - he's the Yacht Club's coach for the younger-set... - he's driving around the race in his boat helping out.
YES we have had Turkey and 'such' at the American traditional holiday 'Thanksgiving' - up at Uncle Boink and Auntie Joy's house... just a 'few' of our pictures, taken with Ms. May's fancy (but a bit dated) Sony digital camera:
an assortment of the lady-relatives (don't know why there are no guys in this picture)... - anyway - Mom is near the right - sitting-down, with the white neck-brace. Mom seems mostly fine, now and has a new care-giver and that's something new and wonderful for her, and keeps getting phone calls and visits from friends far and wide.
Mr. Bill driving home to Stuart, after Turkey-Dinner, with his (always awake) driving companion (Ms. May is his sometimes awake driving companion), and our 'constantly in charge' of the Toyota mini-van, is Ms. Mini-Bear who sits on the dash-board most of the time... The Toyota mini-van now has just over 20,000 miles on it (it's now about 10 months old) and it's still doing well - it's getting (on these last couple of trips) right at 25 mpg, and that's pretty good with a head-wind and/or at 70 mph... - so far, so good - we like it a lot - and can get all our boardsailing and/or kiteboarding gear INSIDE it (nothing has to go on the roof!)
Please note that there WAS an image here - it was a sunset and it had "nice colors" but having been taken near dark one evening, from a car moving at roughly 70 mph - it was 'blurry' but nice colors... - Ms. May - who took said image has decided that it is not a 'quality' enough example of her picture-taking skill(s) so that she has requested me to remove said image. I have done so - but I thought people should be made aware of the fact that we DID HAVE a 'fair' image of the sort(s) of colors indicative of great South Florida sunsets!
and - the last picture; a sunset Ms. May took out the window, while tooling along I-95 headed south towards Stuart.
Mr. Bill's new Garmin 76CSx GPS unit continues to be fun, interesting, challenging. Took track-logs from both the trip-up north to Jacksonville, and the trip-back south towards Stuart. The new screen is both color and back-lit, so it's WAY more readable (even though smaller) than the old screen, even in sunlight, and at night - wow - what a difference. This GPS unit also uses the same external antenna as the previous one which was about 10 years old. I'm still working through the owners-book for this new GPS - a LOT of features & functions to learn to use. I'm also studying for the "General" exam for the ARRL-FCC certification.
Updated: Tuesday, 21st November, 2006:
We spent the best part of Thursday(16th) through Saturday(18th) in Jacksonville at the "Florida Yacht Club" helping to run the "National Championships" for the Melges 24 sailboat class. Mr. Bill's great, long-time-friend Mr. Henry invited us to participate.
Ms. May and several others were there for judging, as this was a "Nationals" regatta - meaning a very important regatta. Ms. May and others dealt with a total of 6 protests and one 'redress' request (someone lost a mast over the side (the full-carbon masts on these boats are worth 'about' $8,000 or more (depending on 'bare-mast' or mast with all the rigging and other 'bits'...))
This is a very exciting racing sailboat class with 4-5 people per boat. The boat is similar to, but much bigger (10 feet longer) than our '14'... It is a sloop rigged sailboat with an asymmetrical spinnaker (but this boat has a BIG Keel to keep it upright!))... ANYWAY see below for some pictures of our activities - some will come in a little later from people that we worked with / for during this event... (so check-back-later for more pictures)
Other pictures can be viewed at: Rick's photo-web-site: http://www.rickphotos.com
- all pictures should have a blue border so that they can be clicked-on for a larger version (assuming you're interested in the larger version?
a picture of just one of the 40 something boats that raced in this regatta - this image is NOT click-able for a larger version
Ms. May in her 'keep-warm' outfit... (notice the number of 'layers'?
it was definitely chilly the last couple of days, very windy the first day- =then cooler and very little wind....
Picture here to come at a later-date
Mr. Bill with his 'cannons' (they shoot 10 gauge shot-gun-shell-blanks - makes LOTs of noise),
we used about 100 shells in 3 days of racing... Doing the 'cannons' (noise) is a good task for Mr. Bill...
Picture here to come at a later-date
Mr. Rick - the "Principal Race Officer" (the boss)...
Mr. Stewart - the boat-owner (the boat was a Huckins Yacht - of traditional and interesting design)...
the Race Committee 'Team' picture - from left, Ms. May, Ms. Joleen, Ms. Louise, Mr. Vick, Mr. Rick; Mr. Bill is taking the picture...
Here's a small picture of Mr. Skip - he's the Yacht Club's coach for the younger-set... - he's driving around the race in his boat helping out.
Today is Sunday, 12th of November
and today we drove-out-to "The Florida Ridge" flight-park - near the southwest corner of Lake Okeechobee - about an hour and 40 minute drive (much (MUCH) closer to us than the location we typically hang-glide at near Groveland, Florida... Ms. May had one flight, Mr. Bill had 3 flights but there was very very very little LIFT - and what little there was, was terribly hard to find and stay in. The longest flight we witnessed was about 45 minutes and it took that guy some significant work to stay-up that long. This was frustrating for us since we wanted longer flight(s) (we always want longer flights) but this place is smaller and MUCH closer to home so we had high-hopes and the weather-web-sites "seemed" to indicate a good day (for hang-gliding) in the making. Unfortunately sometimes even the best 'view' of the weather web-sites and all the praying and hoping in the world doesn't make for a great flight day... UGH UGH perhaps it will be better next time...
some miscellaneous pictures from the "Florida Ridge" visit - since Mr. Bill went for a few more flights than Ms. May - these pictures are mostly of him... - some are 'edited'; some are 'raw' - the 'raw' ones are HUGE - be careful if you don't have fast-download speeds...
Picture_1 Bill with the field-crew getting ready to fly Small Large
Picture_2 Bill with one of the field-crew just-ready to take-off Small Large
Picture_3 Bill at the begining of a 'tow' - but still on the launching-cart - slightly out of focus
Picture_4 Bill just-barely in the air - some 'background' stuff makes this one hard to see - Small (only)
Picture_5 Bill with one of the field-crew (Dennis) - getting ready - raw ( LARGE (900 k bytes) )
Picture_6 Bill with one of the field-crew (Dennis) - getting ready - raw ( LARGE (900 k bytes) )
Picture_7 Bill with one of the field-crew (Dennis) - getting ready - raw ( LARGE (900 k bytes) )
As an 'aside' to the hang-gliding section of this month's web-page, we should mention here that Mr. Bill got an early Thanksgiving / Christmas present - a brandy-new (altitude-barometric-sensor-enabled) Garmin GPS-Map-76CSx - when we returned back-home from Jacksonville, on Sunday afternoon, 19th... This newest version of the 10 and 7 year old Garmin units I'd been working with has a HUGE owner's manual and a LOT of things to learn and do / and etc. More information on the huge 'value for money' in terms of functionality will be forthcoming in the future.. - meantime - here's a 'small' (just-about 'full-size') and a larger (about 2x full-size) picture...
as ANOTHER aside to this Hang-Gliding web-page-detail is further 'details' (as we promised, previously) of our (version 3) front-hood-rack to hold hang-glider front-end(s)... Hang-Gliders tend to be 15-22 feet long - and they don't weigh very much (50-75 pounds), but when you put them on the roof-top of your mini-van you need something 'up-front' to hold / stabilize them. - in September / October when we drove to Lookout Mountain Georgia we used this basic rack, but we've 'improved' upon it - now - so here's some clickable pictures...
the whole-rack picture
the suction-cups where it attaches to the hood
the joint between the upright and the cross-bar and the 'compression' member joint made from old boardsailing battens...
Today is 2 Novembrer (Thursday) - Mr. Bill will teach Landscape CAD tonite - and - but / o.k. - today is November and our SBC (Small Black Cat) indicated, this morning (VERY (like about 04:14a.m.) EARLY!) that she had not been the 'lead image' on our web-site for 'Quite Some Time' now - so we decided that:
a.) she was correct - and this indicates a lack of 'compassion' for her need to 'show-off' her beauty and skills
b.) she must learn to 'share' the honor of being on the web with others of the family (noted below)
c.) we have discovered a 'new hang-gliding-(flying) methodology and partner - so here are both pictures as 'Lead' on our web for November, and since it's ONLY 2 November - we really don't have a lot else to report on, huh?
Note Ms. SM in HER chair (we this chair while kayaking a local estuary, earlier this year) and Mr. Bear (recently re-entered the house from his duty as a (Toyota) mini-Van co-pilot) now he's piloting his own flying-box and notice he's borrowed Ms. Wong's kiteboarding helmet... We have not told him that there's not enough wing-span / surface-area to make this box fly; on the other hand he doesn't weigh a lot so maybe he knows something about flying theory and mathematics that we do not know?
Other than animal-pictures, the only other thing to report is that Mr. Bill attended IBEX yesterday and though there was, to some extent the 'same old same old' he also visited with his Cousin Mr. Bronson and his Friend Ms. Lee, and so that helped and there really was some new things (most notably the new RhinoMarine (based on Rhino 4) (though not as many "new things" as some times) but it was still educational and very much worth the drive!
There is definitely a change-afoot in the boat-building industry - more things are 'engineered' to yield higher-performance at lower cost and higher-volumes, but also to reduce waste, increase long-term-reliablity, and to adapt the industry to the decreasing number of 'craftsmen' and the increasing number of 'technicians'...
Later, today, we hope to go boardsailing / kite-boarding, but who knows - at least (if we believe various and sundry people who we think we trust) Ms. May should get another board-sail and mast. Mr. Bill has fixed his blown-out kite that the had to swim-home with about a week and a half ago.
we had some EXCELLENT boardsailing over the period of 'about' 8-11 November - wind blew very good for us -
last updated: Friday afternoon 24 November, 2006; revID: 1n