Police Radar

Ouch! And that was the first one. In Lelystad I was quite familiar with police radars and speeding fines. I payed up the fun-tax, and once even took a case to court. Because I was in Canada at the time, I could not be present myself. It was a 40 euro fine or something, but the speed camera showed two vehicles, one of which was my motorcycle.
The judge must have been sleeping, because in his verdict he was referring to my car. It was was my car that was going too fast. Hello.... I was on a motorcycle! However, Dutch bureaucracy sucks all the energy out of you, and I left it at that. What a joke. The judge did not even read my defense letter.
Back to Canada... this morning a police officer stopped me. He did not get a good reading on his radar, but estimated my speed. I was fortunate that his estimate was low. He gave me the lowest possible speeding fine (138 dollar).
The real venom is in the insurance though: one more offense, and I will be paying more insurance premium. ICBC is the only institution who can legally insure you in BC, and they can tack on up to 24000 dollars to your insurance bill. I think my speeding days are now finally over. I give in. I cannot beat the system. I guess I no longer have any use for a 170hp motorcycle, other than stripping out the engine, and putting it in a small aircraft.

Just for Gags.

I am a big fan of Just for Gags, from Montreal, Quebec. I always wanted to be pranked by those people. My friends did one on me at my birthday party. And for two seconds, they had me convinced that my application for permanent residency was denied, and I was to be deported if I did not respond in 30 days.

Slapend geld verdienen

De afgelopen tijd is er een ware revolutie aan de gang op het gebied van software publicatie. Men spreekt er van dat de software markt gedemocratiseerd is. Wat is namelijk het geval? Apple heeft de markt compleet op zijn kop gezet. De gewone man kan nu software verkopen op Apple's appstore. Apple regelt alles voor je omtrent de wereldwijde verkoop, tegen een redelijke provisie. De auteur behoeft slechts de applicatie aan te leveren, en kan vervolgens achterover leunen. Ook ik heb een tweetal applicaties in de verkoop op Apple's appstore.
En daarmee heb ik er een nieuwe verslaving bij. Elke ochtend als ik wakker wordt is het eerste wat ik doe surfen naar Apple's website. Dit doe ik om mijn verkoop rapporten te lezen. Rijk wordt ik er nog niet van, maar het feit dat ik nu slapend geld kan verdienen middels royalties is toch wel heel bijzonder.
Mijn eerste applicatie was een vingeroefening in het programmeren van iPhone en gemaakt op verzoek van Amy. Dit is de iNutrient applicatie. De tweede applicatie, iVOR heb ik gemaakt voor de training van piloten (zoals mijzelf) in het gebruik van Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range instrumenten.

Google keeps impressing me

Year after year, Google keeps impressing me with their products. Currently I am heating my home with electricity. This is pretty inefficient and expensive. Look what Google comes up with: a perfect tool. I'm pretty sure I need to buy some hardware to go with it, but I like what I see in the video. When we finally get the flying cars that we have been promised since the 50s, I am pretty sure they will be coming from Google.

Grounded

Today I had a booking for another flight lesson. The weather was pretty grim, but I took off from home to the flight school on my motorbike. When I got there, I was completely soaked. The conditions were what they call Marginal VFR. And VFR means visual flight rules. So I did not go up today. Damn that Vancouver weather. While I was at the school, I did some google mapping. There is a neat aerial shot of our aerodrome. A small aircraft has just taken off from runway 12.


View Larger Map