Flight

Yesterday I had my first flight in C-ISLA, or as we call it "India Sierra Lima". It is a high powered ultra light with state of the art avionics. It was more difficult than I expected. There is so much you need to control simultaneously. If you concentrate on keeping one of altitude, course, airspeed steady, the other two are likely to veer off. I did three approaches on a grass strip and then the instructor landed it back at the base, or CZBB as we call it. Twice I heard the stall warning go off. But this puppy has excess power, as it is the GSX-R of the ultra lights. Most important thing I learned yesterday: the throttle is used to control altitude, not so much your speed. Also, if you "floor" it, the plane yaws to the left and the nose pitches up. The rudder is more dominant than stick (elevator + aileron) control.

Blik op de weg

Toch wel jammer dat ze in Canada geen Koefnoen hebben. Maar ja, grappen over files zullen ze niet snappen hier, want die zijn er niet zo veel. Mijn les vliegtuig is eindelijk gerepareerd: morgen heb ik een vliegles.

Snowed In

We can now consider ourselves as being snowed in. The VW Beetle can no longer leave or enter the parking garage, due to all the snow. And as for the Suzuki GSXR, heh heh... it would be a stunt worthy of airing on the jack ass show.

The first photo shows our apt building as viewed from the Burrard bridge. I marked our apt with a yellow arrow. The second photo shows the entrance at Beach Avenue. It's tricky to keep the apt warm, as it is electrically heated. I think I will add some insulation.

Also, Robbert's Xmas gift arrived today: a Digital Versatile Disc containing spoofs on Star Wars. That is pretty awesome Robbert... Thanks!

White Christmas

I am pretty sure that Vancouver will see a White Christmas this year. The roads are clogged with snow, and day-time temperatures are below zero. It makes driving in the city a tricky business. There are a lot of steep hills down town, and cars are struggling with it. Driving on the highway is easy, but all smaller roads are treacherous. The picture was taken with my iPhone around the corner by our office.

Beat the system: pre-paid iPhone 3G

I consider myself a Libertarian, yet some government laws I can only applaud. In Italy it is illegal to sell a cell-phone that is locked to a provider. In Canada, there is no such law protecting the consumers. This means that if you want an iPhone in Canada, you end up paying more than 3000 dollars in fees to Rogers in 3 years. And that is the best case scenario. It may end up being much much more.

Well, I am happy to announce: I beat the system! I got my iPhone from ebay, imported to the US from Italy. This means that my iPhone (the fancy white one with 3G) will work with any GSM provider. I now have a rare commodity in Canada: an iPhone that works on pre-paid vouchers.

I Sincerely hope that Rogers is punished severely as soon as possible for their nasty business practices. I did my part. I hope the rest of Canada will follow.

The bastardization of Saint Nicholas

Today, the downtown area was closed off by police for the parade of Santa Claus. Santa Claus is a big thing, also in Vancouver. Santa Claus has his origin in the Dutch culture, and is derived from Holland's Saint Nicholas. It found its way into American popular culture through the Dutch Immigrants in New York (or New Amsterdam).

It's a bit sad to see Black Pete replaced by an elf, and the white horse replaced by reindeer. Some interesting trivia: pre-war Holland only had one Black Pete. The Canadian liberators wanted to reinstate the festivities for the Dutch kids. When doing so, they decided to have multiple Black Petes, which is how the festivity is celebrated today.

I guess Dutch culture is a fluid concept. The quick assimilation of the Dutch abroad probably helped in replacing the Saint with Santa.

And on an unrelated subject: I am finally officially licensed to operate a motorcycle on the public roads of British Columbia. My third road-test was successful.

Selling

It's been a stressful period getting the game finished.But now SOCOM:Confrontation has finally been released. It had it's share of troubles in the first week, with many unhappy gamers. But both the servers and the game are being improved, which should make them happy again.

But it was a pretty proud moment to finally see my game on display at Wall Mart. And guess what... it turns out we are the biggest selling ps/3 game at the moment. Hoorah!

I still have to make some nice pictures of my new apartment, to share with the people back home. Hopefully this weekend I can make some. I moved in last saturday, and unfortunately missed my ground school that day. Tomorrow another ground school though. The first postcard I received at my new address was from Oma Stolk. On the phone she told me to say hello to Amy, from the Oma she has never met.

Housing Bubble, Credit Crunch

The housing bubble explained. Damn, this guy is good. Be sure to watch all 4 parts of this video on youtube. He makes some very valid points. And the facts back him up. I used to think that an Amsterdam house at the canals would have been the best investment ever. Yet, if you look at it over the long run, it's different. From the 17th century until now, guess what the price development was of these houses? It's exactly equal to the inflation rate.

Also, I learned what Negative Amortization is: very scary!

Aernonautical Navigation

Yesterday I had my second day of ground school. I learned to navigate and plan a flight. In aviation, the emphasis is on safety. This means that protocols are pretty sacred. It also means that the people in aviation are pretty conservative. They are unwilling to abandon their tried and proven methods.

That is why I am currently educated in the use of obsolete technology. And I am expected to demonstrate my affinity with technology that is so old, it predates world war II.

For example, consider Automatic Direction Finder, or ADF. It allows you to determine the relative direction between a radio transmitter and yourself. This technology is so old, only in the most remote parts of the world it is still used.

The successor to this technology is called VHF Omnidirectional Range or VOR. It stems from the 1950s.

Of course, all this technology has long been superseeded by a system that is far more advanced, far more accurate, cheaper and easier to use: GNNS. Everybody is familiar with the US implementation of this, called GPS.

Why burden young pilots with this ADF and VOR stuff? Surely, GPS is the tool to use.

Beach Avenue

Amy and I have found an apartment to house me, her and two cats. So my bachelor days of a single-household are over. I'm looking forward to living with Amy. Finding the apartment was tricky, because 9 out of 10 apartment buildings downtown have a no-pet policy. Yet, we managed to find something really nice. We'll be having the yuppie lifestyles with our new apartment. It is again on Beach Avenue, but this time on the other side. It is close to the Burrard bridge, and has a gorgeous view. Amenities are pretty special too, as there is a pool, a gym, a squash-court, a sauna and a hot tub, all in our building and free for us to use. We will be moving into 907 Beach Avenue pretty soon. And with two bed rooms, we will be able to house a guest as well. Parking will be pretty good too, as we get two parking spots, and a third one for visitors.

Charlie Foxtrot Whisky Alpha Pappa

This is your captain speaking. Today I had my first flying lesson in Canada. I had one in Lelystad earlier, in a Cessna. This time, I flew a Diamond DA20-A1. My instructor Aaron did the landing and take off, but I did the aerobatics (oh, ok, turning left and right, going up and down) and some taxying.

I signed up for ground school, which starts tomorrow. I had to choose between a private pilot license, and a ULV license. With the former you can fly to the USA, and take more than 1 passenger. However, I think that ULV will suffice. Also, the ULV craft that the school owns is much more modern: a brand new state of the art aircraft. So I think I will go with the Evektor Sportstar instead. Getting a license seems to be much easier here than it is in the Netherlands, and pretty affordable. The airport I will be using is half an hour drive from my home. However, CZSB is one of the busiest airports in Canada.

After 25 hours of flight, I hope to get certified, so I can rent a plane, and fly to the Yukon Territories with Amy. It will probably take some persuasion, as she is scared of small aeroplanes.

Northern Sights

My friend Goran has took the time to put a selection of images up on his photo album. It gives a good impression of what we encountered at our epic road trip to Northwest Territories. I do not have a camera myself, so I think that I either have to buy one or build one. So far, I have been depending on Amy and Goran to document my trips. When I was 7 years old, I built my own pin hole camera, and had my own darkroom for developing B&W pictures. In my late twenties, I enjoyed shooting with a film based SLR. Everything was manual, and you had to keep logs of shutterspeed/diaphragm/lens of each photo you took, and only weeks later you could see what you did wrong or right.

The Territories in the North West of Canada

Yes indeed! That little figure perched on the edge of the waterfall is none other than yours truly. Although I was nicknamed "Abel" after Abel Tasman the explorer, by my travel companion Goran.

Last week, Goran and I did a major road trip. We explored the North West Territories and some parts of Alberta. To do this, we drove more than 6000 km in 7 days. From Vancouver we headed east towards Banff, then Jasper followed by the northern part of Alberta. The trick is to top off your fuel tank every chance you get, as fuel opportunities are few and far between.

The weirdest thing happened in northern Alberta. As we did not buy an Alberta map, we went by a very coarse scale (1:1000000) overview map of BC which showed part of Alberta as well. Only major cities like Vancouver, Victoria and such were printed on this map. And also a place called "Steen River". If a place shows up on a 1:1000000 map, surely, it must be a sizable large community. Well, I just checked in google maps, it is not even listed there. I think it is abandoned, or maybe only inhabited a small part of the year. We had to backtrack to High Level to get more fuel, and a motel.

Canada is composed of Provinces (like BC) and Territories (like Yukon). One of the territories must have been so insignificant, they did not even bother to properly name it. It's name is simply "North West Territories". It's as big as the half of Europe, but with only 50000 inhabitants, many of which live in Yellowknife which was our destination. After merely one night in Yellowknife, our trip home started.

There are not many roads in North West Territories. The few they have are often littered with potholes, or just gravel roads. Some of them are winter-only roads, because they use frozen rivers as roads there. Transport of choice is the bush plane, or boat plane.

We took a side trip, over the Alaska Highway to Liard Springs. It was recommended by us by Brent, the owner of the Bannockland B&B we stayed in while we were in Fort Simpson. Fort Simpson was very remote, only reachable by air of ferry. The people have it hard here. There is a grocery store, but it did not have any fresh produce, other than some spoiled strawberries, and two carrots, imagine that.

Our trip was in the spirit of: "It's about the Journey not the Destination". And during our journey we saw some impressive sights and wild life. We encountered Bison, Moose, Cariboo, Wolves, Black Bears, Foxes and Squirels. Especially the Alaska Highway to Liard is of stunning beauty. Some call it "the arguably most scenic ride in North America". We tend to agree. And the locals told us: "Oh, you will be back, all of them do."

Cell Mafia

Why is it that those stories about astronomical phone bills are always related to Canada? There is this 85000 dollar case, and now this 20000 dollar case. Man, this country needs a consumer uprising. It's because of stories like this, that I stay with my 25 dollar prepaid vouchers. The most an evil corporation can steal from me is 25 dollar.

No turn on red

Damn! And again, I failed my motorcycle test. Here is Canada, you can turn right even if traffic lights are red. It takes getting used to for a Dutchman. However, turning right on red is not always allowed. In Richmond BC, I encountered this sign when doing my test. I failed to see the sign. On a positive note: doing the test is pretty cheap. I payed 50 dollar, which gets you: one car to follow you, one driver for that car, and one examiner that is a passenger in the following car. Two people, one car for one hour and it only costs you 50 dollars. Wages must be low.

Two way left turning lane

Sigh.... I failed the ICBC road test examination for my motorcycle license. I thought that I did very well, but the examiner disagreed. I did all the shoulder-checks, but he wants me to do the right shoulder check as the very last thing when turning right. Also, I did not use a two way left turn lane. Both were enough reason for a fail in their own right. This really sucks. 16 years motorcycle experience, two advanced rider courses, an "excellent drive" on my car road test here in BC, and still they manage to fail me. I'm convinced their driver training system is pretty broken. That's what you get if you give government tasks to commercial companies.