Addie's place on the web

Planning my next holiday

Addie — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:34:04 +0000

It’s that time of the year again: holiday season. This year I will go back to the US to fly again. I have joined a tour organized by 2 Dutch pilots; Jeroen van Rossum and Ferdinand de Wit. These guys have been flying in the US for several years and started organizing flying adventures in 2008. I joined the tour in 2008 and really enjoyed it. It’s great to fly in the US. That country is filled with airports and the service provided to pilots is amazing.

For us Dutch pilots it’s amazing that you can fly for hours without having to cross country borders, filling flight plans, studying air regulations/laws for the country you’re flying into. Jeroen and Ferdinand have arranged a nice tour this year on the West coast. Have a look at their website (it’s in Dutch, but has all sorts of maps showing the routes): http://www.blueskyflyingadventures.com

It’s also amazing how easy it is to get the paperwork done. It took me over 7 months to get permission to fly in Australia, but it takes 1 fax to fly in the US… Amazing, since I thought that the Americans would be far more demanding since the attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Now it’s time to do some studying. I need to refresh my knowledge of radio communications and airspace classification again. Furthermore, I will need to look into mountain flying and ceiling and visibility. This tour will take us to higher ground and temperatures, which requires some planning in order to make sure that we get off the ground safely.

With a bit of luck, I will be flying a Cessna 182T, which is great since it’s got a bit more power and as a result the limits are not as critical as for a Cessna 172. This plane is also equipped with a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. I have been flying a Cessna 172 with a G1000 on the previous tour. It’s a great piece of kit… all this computing power in front of you, makes flying even better…

That’s it for now. I’ll be back when I have more

Blogging using my BlackBerry

Addie — Thu, 13 May 2010 18:15:26 +0000

I just installed the WordPress BlackBerry app. Although I am not sure if I will use it, it’s nice to play with it.

It’s a shame…

Addie — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:23:21 +0000

Today I had to remove the Guest Book

Spammers have found a way to dump their sh… in my guest book. I am not going to try to keep them out, because they have far more resources, time and money available than I have. It’s a shame…

Updating, testing and changing…

Addie — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:56:32 +0000

For those who have looked at the site over the last few weeks, you may have noticed that the layout has changed and changed and changed again. Well, it’s all about the changes I am making to the site. I am looking at several WordPress plugins, themes and settings.

Over the next few weeks I will update the individual posts on the site in order to (finally) phase out Gallery 2 and migrate to the NextGEN Gallery. In the meantime, things may change, work or not work, etc.

Google map changes

Addie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:05:04 +0000

Today I have changed the Google Maps plugin. All the posts containing maps have been updated to use the new plugin. From a readers point of view, almost nothing has changed. The only difference is the ability to zoom in on the map by clicking on the magnifying glass symbol on the left. This will bring up a full screen version of the map.

That’s it for today. Over the next few weeks I will start to replace the picture gallery.

So what’s going on?

Addie — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:01:23 +0000

Over the last few days I have been looking at a new picture gallery. And I have found the one I will migrate to: NextGEN Gallery. I have also looked into options to put my pictures on a Google Map combined with the GPS tracks. I found a plugin that can do so: XML Google Maps. As a result I will move away from the Inline Google Maps plugin.

While you will probably not see any changes while I am migrating the pictures to the NextGEN Gallery, you will see the impact of the Google Map plugin change. The new plugin uses a slightly different approach and since I can’t run the two plugins at the same time, you will see all sorts of strange messages in the maps that are now on my site. I will start to update the posts in order to solve the errors as soon as possible.

In the end, it will be much easier to look at my pictures and you can see where they have been taken (assuming I had my PhotoTrackr with me…).

Updating my site…

Addie — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:36:08 +0000

It’s been a while since I looked at my website. I’ve been back from Australia for a few months now and it’s time to solve my picture gallery issues. And while looking into that, I will probably make some more changes to the site. You may have noticed that the theme has changed and that certain items in the menu appear and disappear every now and then. Well, I am experimenting, so every now and then stuff may work or not

A new episode

Addie — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:17:17 +0000

I have been traveling in Australia for just over 10 weeks now. Tomorrow (Saturday 16 May) I will start a new episode: visiting my relatives that live here. Some of them I already met, since they came to The Netherlands. Others I only have heard of.

You may have noticed that I have posted a lot of new items over the last few hours. I have covered all days of my holiday so far. As a result some of the posts may not appear on the first page. Just go to the bottom and click on “Older Entries”. The frequency of new posts will go down a bit for now. But when I have something interesting and access to the Internet, you will read about it here.

Back to Melbourne

Addie — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:08:45 +0000

After all that nature it’s time to get back to the concrete skyscrapers. Thursday 14 May I will start driving to Melbourne, but again this is too far to do in one day. Well, it’s too far for me to do in one day. When you talk to the average local, he will drive from Adelaide to Melbourne in one day. But I am on holiday and want to enjoy it…

The first track will bring me to Ballarat. In 1851 they found gold here and that made this place famous. I took no pictures today. There was just nothing that was good enough to hold on to.

The track of today:

Friday 15 May I drove on to Melbourne. But not before I toured the town of Ballarat. The weather is absolutely miserable. It’s wet, windy and cold. Not a good day to be out there. There’s a nice lake in this town (Lake Wendouree) and there are quite a few rowing clubs along it as well. But have a look at the pictures. There’s something missing here.

After that it was time to get to Melbourne. I have to get the car back, do my washing and prepare for the next phase in my holiday. More on that later.

The track of today:

Walking in the park

Addie — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:34:16 +0000

I am staying at a very nice B&B in Pomonal and my hosts suggested that I should go for a walk up to the Pinnacle. From there you should have a great view over the whole region. But before I start climbing up there I went to the Boroka lookout; it’s the only lookout I couldn’t visit anymore yesterday since I ran out of daylight. The weather is a bit funny today, so the views from the lookout aren’t great. But it’s clear that the weather is improving for now, so up to the car park where I start my walk up to the Pinnacle.

It’s a nice walk up there and once you get to the Pinnacle lookout, you are rewarded with a great view. Well, you don’t have to go up there yourself; you can look at my pictures here.

When I got down to the car park again, the weather was getting worse. It started to rain and therefore I went back to Halls Gap for lunch. After lunch it looked a bit better. I intended to go for another nice walk, but by the time I got to the start of it, it was raining again. And although I have a nice raincoat, it’s just no fun to go up these tracks when it’s wet. Therefore a change of plans; I just cruised around and every now and then stopped to look at the scenery.

It’s been a nice day in the park. It’s a shame that I have to leave this place again tomorrow, since there are a lot more nice walking tracks up here.

The track of today:

Wednesday 13 May 2009