First 45 Mins of Airtime!

Last Friday I clocked my first 45 minutes of airtime for the season - hooray!

There was still some snow up at Woodside launch but cycles were strong enough to reverse, and even with my imperfect feeling foot, I was able to launch well and had a nice flight.

There were quite a few pilots out that day - around 25 or so, so I found it crowded at times, but I ran away from the crowd and was able to find my own thermals out towards the valley rather than closer to launch. It was harder flying that way, as the thermals generally weren't as strong, but I liked tuning into my own flying, rather than worrying about everybody else's.

After 45 minutes, the tips of my fingers were starting to get cold, and as I was slowly getting lower, I headed out to Jim's ranch and landed.

All in all, a great first flight of the season. No pictures unfortunately - my camera battery died, though I will be more prepared next flight.

Time for an Update

Five months ago I didn't think I would be updating my blog again until I flew, but here I am again, unable to resist the blogosphere. Did you miss me?

I had a somewhat traumatic winter, first by having my remaining wisdom teeth removed and then having by foot surgery and all of the fun rehab associated with that. I haven't been ready up until very recently to seriously consider paragliding, but I was finally somewhat ready to fly last week. Unfortunately the weather on that day didn't pan out as expected, and hasn't been especially reliable since. The next few days do look promising however!

I was looking through my old paragliding photos a couple of weeks ago, trying to find some good ones for a website. I noticed that quite a chunk of my pictures were missing, but didn't worry about it too much, as I figured they were backed up somewhere. Well, unfortunately for me, they weren't.

I have backup CD's dating back to 2003, but then I stopped backing things up on CD's and DVD's and went the digital route in 2008. After having my HP laptop essentially die (I vow never to buy another HP product in my life again), and then replacing my PC, somewhere in that kerfuffle, a full year's worth of pictures are gone.

I'm quite disheartened, as all of my pictures from Australia are gone, the pictures from my trip to France where I flew the Ozone Chabre Open have dissapeared, and most bothersome to me - my tandem training pictures went "poof!". That's the bad and sad news. The good news is that I still have this blog, complete with all of my stories and even some pictures that otherwise would have been lost. It may not be everything, but I do like to think I post only the best of the best photos here anyway, even as horribly amateurish as they often are.

The lesson learned is to back up your back ups. One backup is not enough, especially if you accidentally delete it like I did. Silly and unfortunate mistake.

I do hope to be flying again soon, posting here more often, and posting more pictures than ever before!!! I've missed flying - it has been SUCH a long time and I'm really looking forward to another season. My flying plans so far include doing two not-so-serious comps this year, which should hopefully be as fun and rewarding as they usually are.

It's good to be back.