Posts from — February 2006

It’s here! My new MacBook Pro! OS X running on a dual-core Intel. Backlit keyboard. 15.4” screen. Friggin’ great.

So far, so good, but a few bumps in the road too. For some reason, I can’t connect to my wireless router, so I’m leeching off of a less-than-clued-in neighbor’s open router, but the first thing I really need is the latest version of xcode so I can compile Radiance, and the damned installer is over 800 megabytes, so as that crawls into my hard drive I’m just playing with the new gadgets like Spotlight and Dashboard, and setting up some of the basic apps. The email program that ships with OS X is vastly improved with this version, and the built-in video camera is cool. Holding my hands over the speakers — where the photosensor is apparently hidden — to force the keyboard backlighting to activate is pure theater, and this thing is FAST. My four year old Powerbook is really looking old and grey at this point, and I’m having fun exploring my first new personal computer in four years.

More to follow, certainly.

When Garmin’s G1000 “glass cockpit” instrumentation system came out last year, I sort-of did a “whatever”. At the time, I still owned niner-three-fox, my beloved little 1966 Cessna 150 with basic cockpit instrumentation (and my handheld Garmin 196 which was impressive enough). The G1000 is something on the order of a $60K option on new aircraft, and I figured I’d never fly behind one of those. Hence my blase attitude about how cool they may be.

Boy was I wrong.

On Saturday, I got checked out in another aircraft available for rent over at Aviation Services, the local airport FBO. Sure, it’s just a 172, but sitting behind a G1000, wrapped in a shiny new panel with that aircraft grey paint (on a leather seat that still smells like new), I felt like a jet captain.

The G1000 incorporates just about all of the old traditional flight instruments, navigation and communications radios, GPS with moving map, terrain and traffic awareness, and rolls them into two large, bright displays and a central control panel. What’s more is that the traditional “six pack” of primary flight instruments (airspeed indicator, attitude indicator, altimeter, turn coordinator, heading indicator and rate-of-climb indicator) has been distilled into one cohesive display that shows those six pieces of information — and a whole lot more — in a single presentation right in front of the pilot. If you get lost, run out of fuel or fly into something with all this info, you suck.

Weather and schedules meshed once again and I booked 914DB for an hour so “fam flight”, or familiarization flight. I’d downloaded the manual for the G1000 installed in Cessna Aircraft (called the “NavIII package”, which is marketing-speak for sixty thousand friggin’ bucks), and read about 200 pages of knob twiddling factoids, realized I had half a manual to go, and went to bed.

Saturday dawned sporting an uncharacteristically overcast sky, and I initially thought I may not get to fly. But the Boulder Airport AWOS was reporting a 1500’ ceiling over the airport — just high enough to legally launch — and the weather to the north at Greely was already burning off. So, off we went.

It’s still a 172, the same type of plane I did all my primary training in, but there are a few differences. The extra 20 horsepower in the SP model is welcome, the ten extra fuel drains (the result of some bullshit court ruling and too many lawyers in general) are not welcome. But the big difference on the preflight checklist is all the extra steps directly related to the G1000. There is a battery backup system that can power the unit in the event of a total electrical failure — this is nice, since everything is on that damned G1000. So, we test that. And we make sure that the avionics bay cooling fans are working; you have to shut off BusA just to hear the BusB fan in the rear of the plane; this stuff gets hot. But all in all, it’s not too much more to worry about and it’s damned fun working with brand-new equipment — 914DB has 340 hours on the hobbs meter since new. Most planes I fly have thousands of hours on them.

After a little button pushing and knob twiddling to make sure I knew how to accomplish the basics, my instructor and I launched into the grey. The temptation to gaze at that panel is strong, but I managed to fly like I was taught by looking out the damned window, stealing occasional glances at the panel to confirm all was well, but also to just marvel at how inteligently the display is designed. After a few miles or so a hole in the overcast revealed itself, so we climbed up through it and were bathed in sunshine and smooth air, with a fabulous view of the mountains. (Once again, I have nothing but shitty pictures to document my aerial explorations. I will get better. I promise.)

Some maneuvers, stalls and steep turns, and a few touch and goes at Longmont later, and it was back home to Boulder. Another plane at my disposal now. Next up, mountain flying instruction!

P.S. The altimeter reads =~ 7,800’; Brenda & I topped that today — under our own power, no less — when we climbed to the top of Green Mountain, 8,144’ above sea level! Even saw some hawks doing their thing in the canyon as we started down.

This weekend, the second annual Boulder International Film Festival hit town, and Brenda & I took full advantage, taking in two feature-length films and watching a program of short films yesterday afternoon. Everything we saw was shown at the fabulous Boulder Theatre, a quirky old joint downtown with a great old marquee, uncomfortable seats, and a full service bar. Boulder does everything differently.

Friday night we saw “C.R.A.Z.Y.”, which was a great coming of age flick about a whole family, really, but centered on one son and his homosexuality. It was a fantastic ensemble cast and was one of those performances that are all too rare these days, an entire cast that worked well together. The actress who portrayed the mother, Danielle Proulx, was brilliant, as were the two actors who played the main character at various stages of his life. We were treated to a live appearance by Ms. Proulx after the film, but unfortunately she was barraged with Boulder intellectuals each trying to outdo one another with arty film questions, or addressing Ms. Proulx in her native French Canadian tongue. Annoying .

Yesterday’s short film program was marginally entertaining, one standout being a humorous adaptation of “West Side Story”, re-set in Israel, with the Sharks and the Jets replaced by workers at the Hummus Hut and the Falafel King, and an impossible love story between the pretty Palestinian and the handsome Israelli checkpoint guard.

Ironically enough, that short film was followed last evening by “Diameter of the Bomb”, a sad documentary that explores in detail the aftermath of a suicide bombing on the 32A bus. The music was fantastic, the interviews gripping, and the forensic footage - including what remained of the bomber’s head - shocking, if not somewhat predictable. The interviews with the bomber’s family offered a view of “the other side of the story” that we never get on western television. A very interesting documentary, and I was struck by the silence of the crowd as we exited the theater. I like to see movies like that.

There are plenty more offerings today, the final day of the film festival, but I think we’re movied out at this point.

Our dear friend Patty from New Jersey came to visit us this past weekend, direct from Hoboken, NJ, birthplace of Frank Sinatra and baseball, and the place Brenda & I called home for eight years or so. Patty brought a gift, one that took thought and compassion for our current situation, and we appreciated it deeply.

Patty brought cold cuts.

See, when you grow up Italian in the New York area, with Grandparents living in the Parkchester section of Bronx, NY, you get accustomed to having access to fine quality cold cuts — prosciutto, sopressatta and of course, the ultimate in cured fatty meats: coppa. Pronounced “KOO-pa” in my family, this meat is often pronounced “kappa-GOOL” by many Italians. C’est la vie. (It’s similar to the way NJ Italians pronounce the pasta spelled cavatelli “gaba-DEEL”, as in “Hey, Sal, gimme a nice plate of gabba-DEEL and broccoli, huh!”) Call it KOO-pa, call it “kappa-GOOL”, but for chrissake, don’t call it fucking lunch meat, you hayseed. Coppa is a cold cut, not a lunch meat. Go ahead and call bologna lunch meat, and put it on some Wonder bread, and god help you if you think that’s a sandwich. You probably put ranch dressing on your pizza, too (and think Domino’s is pizza, for that matter).

Anyhoo, I arrived home from work Friday night to discover Patty & Brenda had already gotten home from the airport, and Patty couldn’t wait to present our housewarming gift: a little white lunch cooler packed with goodies from Fiore’s Deli in Hoboken. We hastily opened the packaging, which was the standard Italian city deli packaging: single layers of thin sliced cuts of meat, stacked on white deli paper, folded in half and placed in a plain clear plastic bag. No fancy wrapping paper, no scanner labels, thank you very much.

She brought hot and sweet coppa, as well as some sopressatta. We stood in the kitchen, the three of us, peeling off slice after slice of the cured pig gold from the pile, and I was brought right back home. It was a great gift, because I just can’t get that stuff here in Boulder. Whole Foods sells some decent prosciutto, but I have not had a decent sopressatta here, and you simply cannot find coppa at all. There’s gotta be a decent Italian deli in Denver, but I haven’t looked into that yet.

And don’t even get me started on the pizza. That’s for another time, another rant. Right now, I’m gonna go have a slice of coppa.