BeachWeb - March 2006
Hang-Gliding in Groveland, Saturday morning, 18th March

- Ms. May is a Solo Hang-Glider-lady-now

- as of about 08:40 a.m. (when the wind was light (but not THAT LIGHT - she still experienced some 'bumpy moments') she soloed two flights - excellent work Ms. May...

AND _ for those un-initiated-types - here's a few pictures of this momentous event... - Unfortunately there's no pictures from 'aloft' - though some day maybe we'll figure out how to do that - some guy from England can write about an hour and 20 minutes of video directly from his Sony Video Cam directly to a DVD _ maybe we'll borrow this one day?



anyway - Ms. May's got a lot of help getting ready... - Ms. Diana in the background, Ms. May in the harness, and her instructor, Mr. Kevin...



Here's another picture taken just the instant Ms. May starts to leave the 'cart' - notice the 'kee' (the aluminum tube sticking-out the back - is no longer on the cart - so - she's just getting airborne, here...



Here's the last of the three pictures showing (from right to left) the cart, sitting on the ground, Ms. May, being towed, and the tow-plane-tug in the air to the right - very good picture taken at just the right instant.

So - Now we've both had our first solo-flights - and we'll continue to learn more from this point on... Like in High-School and/or college when one goes to graduation one perceives that as the ending of the High-School or college environment - it's not - it's 'commencement' - it's the begining of something new...
In Groveland - at Quest Air - this 'trip' - we are 'car-camping' in our new Toyota miniVan.  - It's not a bad way to stay, especially this time of the year, when it's still cool enough to be comfy in the mini-van - later in the year it will probably be too hot!! here's a few pictures of our 'car-camping'



Mr. Bill watches someone launch & get towed-up


   
Ms. May's enamoured of this shade-tree - pretty good shade - even in the middle of the day still nice and cool for a nap in the back of the mini-Van

Mr. Bill putting-together the web-page in the back of the mini-Van - thank goodness for laptop computers (with spare batteries) - we'll have to get a car-adapter-soon... to send / upload the files we us the Quest Air's wireless internet access which is via their cable-company - which is actually a satellite linke - but still the speed is good ...

Mr. (Awesome) Bob and his dog Fender - Notice Mr. Bob's tee-shirt says: "Relax, I'm a professional' -


Hang-Gliding in Groveland; Thursday, 16th - through Monday(morning) 20th) - here's 'just a few' pictures of our visit to Groveland...


Mr. Bill got tired of driving at 05:00 a.m. to Groveland - so we hired someone to do our driving for us - cheap-labour.!

Mr. Zach normally flies our "Tug-Plane" and rarely wears these things - but on Friday morning it was chilly, so...




Mr. Charlie Johnson (Bill met Charlie through baby sitter when Bill was about 14, Charlie's a great friend and an excellent catamaran racer, too! - He came down to Groveland to visit us on Friday, 17th and stayed for lunch.

We have met "Mr. Swift" - he flies this Belgium made 'sail-plane' that is basically foot-launchable - supposedly weighs less than 100 pounds?



image of the whole plane (click for larger)



image of the cockpit only (click for larger)


Latest and greatest - here's the 'last-weekend(11-12 March)' Hubby-Project(s)...  hanging-up the kayaks (to get more room on the porch, as well as to keep the kayaks out of the sun) and so-on and so-forth...









Here's the detail at the end of the kayak - where I put more 'lead' blocks in and have a (traditional) boat-cleat.   I wanted to put cam or clam cleats here but realized that to let down the kayak, having the 'traditional' boat cleat here allowed one to let-out on the line to let the kayak down with some 'friction' so it would be easier on a huggly-bunch...


In early-mid March (7-12) Ms. May went to Portland to attend the annual NCECA conference, and Mr. Bill went-up to Jacksonville (not a bad drive this time - in the new Toyota Mini-Van (and it got 25.8 mpg)) - to visit Mom, do some gardening, say Hi! to Ms. Edna and take some pictures...   We also visited the CPA's office, got Mom a new Macintosh keyboard and (Mighty) mouse for her new computer, and watered some plants.

picture one - while Ms. Mango was 'begging for breakfast'...



and another picture while Ms. Mango was just looking beautiful...



This was a very productive trip - having accomplished a lot of things while in Jacksonville...


We started-off this month up in Groveland - hang-gliding some more - and since today is only the 2nd of March, we'll have to suffer-through with just a 'FEW' pictures of our hang-gliding-escapades, and etc. - obviously will add more info - later in the month... 
On Tuesday, 7th March - Mr. Bill did some more things - like worked on the 'Month-Project' - of Ms. May's design - here's two pictures -
- from the east-end of our house - Ms. May's tired of the WEEDS (I don't blame her, I'm tired of them too) and we're re-doing the downspout and the two green water-drums (now with one with a drain-on-it- so the excess (well some of the excess) water will go to the "jungle' for watering - we may put another drain in the drum if the first one works well...

AND _ Mr. Jimmy Rowell's super-electrician Mr. Bob came out and replaced a number of components in our electric-feed and re-routed some of it to meet code which it DEFINATELY DID NOT when we bought this house!
that's about it for now - more later in the month... oH - Whoops! - almost forgot - one thing we ALWAYS do on a new-web-page-day is to do some cat-pictures - this month we have TWO _ One of Ms. Tigger, and one of Ms. Siew Mei.
last updated:    Saturday, 18March2006 - at appx 13:05p.m. - revID:  2t (from Groveland / Quest Ai - via wireless)