7
Jan/100
Jan/100
Reiki the movie
Here it is. Long awaited, and highly appreciated, REIKI!
I hope you enjoy this movie as much as I did. This movie is published in full with expressed permission.
10
Jul/090
Jul/090
My final flying lesson
Finally, after 2 cancelations, I flew my final flying lesson with my instructor, David Chune von Tangen. This marks the end of my normal flying lessons, and means that I’m ready for a preliminary test with the school leader in my flying club, and the skill test with a controller from the the Norwegian Cilvil Aviation Authority. If I pass those, then I’m done, and I can officially call myself a pilot.
Today we decided to fly LN-NRF, a Cessna 172SP from 2005. I love that airplane, and compared to the Piper Cherokee I usually fly it’s a rocket! It’s got a 180 horsepower engine, climbs around 30% faster than the plane I usually fly, and cruises at 120kts, compared to the 100kts I’m used to. It’s also fairly new, less than 4 years old, so if you put your nose really close to the seat back, you can almost get a wiff of that new leather scent! It’s super stable, and when you get to cruise, you can pretty much trim her out, and she flies herself. She’s also equiped with a 2 axis autopilot which flies by GPS (or NAV), so she’ll even get you we’re you’re going without to much hassle.
The weather today was not very good. There was rain, some low clouds and reduced visibility in certain areas. The cloudbase however was pretty high up, around 4200 feet, so we decided to take off and check conditions once we got off the ground. We took off and got good climb performance, around 1000 feet pr. minute, so we quickly got up to 2000 feet. We saw that the weather was ok for airwork, and we continued south to our designated training area overhead Lake Øyeren, just south of Lillestrøm. The clouds we’re getting thicker and lower at the end of the lake, which mean that we had to stay closer to the northern end.
The lesson today was the final D-block lesson, meaning IFR flying. For those not familiar with this term, IFR is short for Instrument Flight Rules, and means that we simulate IFR flight by me flying with a pair of view blocking goggles that only allows me to see the instrument panel. This excercise is designed to familirize the student with flying when there are no visual reference points to fly by, meaning no visible horizon, and no visible navigational landmarks.
The plane is equiped with a GPS, so navigating was fairly easy, but coordinating the plane without visual reference point however isn’t! The danger of flying in IFR conditions is that your mind tricks you into beliving that your airplane is at a different angle than you think, and you end up flipping over or going into a spin. It really is hard to trust only the instruments, and I’ve experience vertigo several times under “the hood”.
We ended the flight with a short trip over Oslo, and the flew back to our base at Kjeller airport.
9
Jul/090
Jul/090
200 billion stolen from space
The avatar of the character Ricdic
It was a strangely terrestrial expense he was to cover, the man who stole 200 billion Inter-Stellar Kredits (ISK), from his bank in the game Eve Online. Ricdic was just going to pay his mortgage. Maybe if he spent a little less money on online gaming and a little more on mundane things like food, loan-payments etc, he wouldn’t have to rob a virtual bank to pay his real life mortgage!
The amount is worth roughly $5100 in the real world, making the exchange rate roughly ISK 39.215.686,27- to $1. As a funny fact, I checked the exchange rate between Zimbawban dollars and US dollars, and it’s almost the same, at 37.456.777,- makine ISK worth about the same as Zimbabwan dollars in the real world!
More in Norwegian here or in English here.
7
Jul/090
Jul/090
Berlin for New Years 09
So this is an old happening, but I didn’t have a blog at the time, and I’d still like to share the experience simply because it was a good one!
My friend Torstein’s father owns an apartement in Berlin, and Torstein had courtly invited my girlfriend and I to stay there with him and his wife Hilde for new years. Personally I had never been to Berlin, hell I had barely been to Germany, so I was not about the let the chance pass! To add to the story, this is the same Torstein that has me hooked on foie gras and perversely delicious variations of shellfish. Naturally he planned a few restaurant visits along the way, from a fancy twist on Austrian cuisine, to the big blowout at Facil, a Michelin star restaurant well known for their awesome decor and equally awesome food!
During our stay we went shopping at B5 outlet mall, we visited all the sights like the Jewish Holocaust Memorial and right next to it the Myth Germania exhibit, showcasing Hitler’s plans for the rebuilt Berlin after the war. Hitlers bunker is situated right next to the jewish memorial, but it’s only marked with a small plaque to avoid neo-nazi pilgrimmers flocking to the site. Getting around was easy as Torstein and Hilde had been smart enough to rent a car for the duration. We used it quite alot, and I suggest anyone who goes to Berlin to do the same, atleast for a day or two.
We ofcourse visited some of the typical tourist places like Brandeburger Tor, the Berlin wall and Potzdamer Platz. We also went by the new Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, with trains in 4 stories, going everywhere in Europe.
That the Berlin people are free-spirited became evident during a visit to the the Badeschiff. The badeschiff are several barges turned into a bar and a swimming pool. During the winter they’re covered and heated, but even then they have an outside area. As we changed I passed a woman walking out of what I thought was the mens dressing room, turns out it was uni-sex. Not only that, but when came down to the pool, we saw that we we’re about the most dressed people there. Most of the guests we’re nude, and luckily not 50+, but rather our age, in their twenties. We didn’t quite find our inner nudist while there, but we didn’t mind that the rest of the people did. Alas no, I don’t have any pictures from here…
New years celebration in Berlin is a perverse thing! It was fckng cold (-20c by night). and we took to the streets to join the party. Short story even shorter, the Germans are quite friendly, and even more so when they have something to celebrate. On the tram we met two girls, Julia and Alexandra, who tipped us on where to go to really see the party up close. We ended up on a bridge, can’t remember which one, but spirits we’re high and fireworks flew low and it was just like blitzkrieg, except everybody was happy and incredibly enough, noone got hurt!
All in all we’ve got great memories and good pictures, which you can see the rest of right here!
Berlin for new years with Torstein and Hilde
15 Photos
3
Jul/092
Jul/092
Scary weather in Oslo
It all came down at once. All the stored fury and wrath of the skies, let loose for about an hour before it cleared up again. For a small aircraft pilot this would have been death. If the lightning didn’t catch you, then the wind would have, and if not the wind then the visibility would have. Not exactly VMC conditions.
Today heaven was hell, and here is my photo evidence:
The weather can be truly fascinating, can’t it?!
More pictures and information can be found in norwegian at VG or Dagbladet.
25
Jun/090
Jun/090
The first post
I just finished installing Wordpress and setting up my theme; all the stuff you have to do to get a decent looking blog, and I thought I’d throw out a little something on what to expect.
I’m currently 28 years old. I work as an IT-consultant and my work involves a bit of travel. In my spare time I’m getting a pilots license, and although I’m almost done, I might publish a few articles on my experiences during my PPL training. I also love good food and wine, and I enjoy cooking.
I’ll be writing about my hobby flying, about restaurant visits and home cooked meals, and about my experiences, both good and bad, while travelling.
And last, to those who wonder about the title of my blog, check out the about section. It has all the answers.
Enjoy…
Pictures