There it was, gone

I need to vent some meaningless things off my chest. I was hoping to have some pictures to post on here tonight, but that is not the case. Technology has once again dealt me a blow.

At work we have brought the first Russian built MI-26 helicopter into Canada. For those of you not versed in eastern-European aircraft, I will enlighten you. The MI-26 is the largest production helicopter in the world, and the second largest helicopter ever built. Nothing in North America, or Western Europe even comes close. 44,000LBS of cargo makes this a very useful aircraft in areas that you can't get into because the ice roads went out a month or two early. Because of politics, and logistics, this has been a big deal having this aircraft here. I have been "lucky" enough to have a part, all be it a very small one, in the process of having it here.

So today, it was taking off from Whitecourt. A big even in our little lives. With great anticipation, I obtained permission from Rose to take her new camera to work, so I could document the event in silicone. When the time came, several of us, armed with some very fancy camera equipment, went off to capture the moment. Thanks to the wonders of digital technology, I took over 45 pictures, without fear of developing them. The laws of averages says that at least one should be worth it.

When I got home, I went straight to the computer to download the memory card. It's at this point our story turns tragic. After a little trial and error, we have discovered that our no-name brand card reader, and our uber-fancy memory card, don't agree with one-another. All the pictures that I took fell victim to the maylay, and I fear are lost forever.

It's not the end of the world, and I know I'll be over it by the morning. I'm just bummed about it right now.

So, if you know how to save corrupted .jpg files, please let me know. In the mean time, I'll be busy pouting.

It's solar powered!

Back in early January, I decided to try something. With some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, and a sale on at Canadian Tire, I purchased a solar panel. 15 Watts. Just enough to give the illusion of being useful.

After buying a few other goodies, because it's never as simple as just buying a solar panel, and some negotiations with The Wife regarding location, I set it up in my living room window. So now when ever the sun is up, I am charging a gel-cell 12 volt battery. Great. Now what.

Good question. There isn't enough power there to really do anything useful, so now that the money is spent, what am I going to do with it? It's a good source of 12 volts, you know, like a cigarette lighter in your car. I dug out my car charger for my cell phone, and whiz bang, I now have a solar powered cell phone.

So for the better part of the last 6 months, (and not counting a few trips away from home) I've been charging my cell phone with solar power. Does it make any difference? Nope. More of a novelty than anything. Am I saving any money? Let's see, $99 for the panel, $30 for the charge controller, and another $20 for the gel-cell battery, there's $149, not counting tax, and all the bits and pieces of wire and clips that I had lying about to finish the deal. I'm figuring the phone uses about 1 watt/hour to charge. At $.10 Kilo-Watt/Hour, it's going to take about 1.5 million hours of charging time to pay back my investment. It would look as though I'm in this for the long term.

So why do it? Again, I'll admit the novelty. Second, I have not been impressed with the current level of consumer grade PV technology available on the market. (PV = Photo Voltaic= solar panel) The price for what you get back does not make it worth it, in my mind. Current solar panels are between 10 to 15% efficient. Having said that, there is a great deal of work to improve that. The University of Alberta is said to be working on a panel that, among other things, is said to be over 30% efficient. May not sound that great, but if you think of what people are doing with solar panels now, double it. (Besides charging cell phones)

Now after that long winded, go nowhere, tangential answer, I'll go back to the original question, why do it? Education. I believe that if I have a better basic understanding of the technology at this point, when the technology improves to a more useful level, I may be able to do much more with it. Today it's a mobile phone, tomorrow, a computer, or TV, or who knows......

So go ahead and call me. It's solar powered.

What once was lost...

Not only has the missing bag made it to Whitecourt, but the hand-made model boat that I bought in Sweden has also arrived. It's a good day.

Oh, Air Canada

So, let me tell you about our trip.
We jumped on a plane one day, and then a train, and then another train, that got onto a ferry, then we got onto another train, and finaly a bus, so we could meet up with our buddy Kyle. Kyle is in Karlskrona Sweden.

Off we traveled around the area. And we saw things like:

And we did a little of this too:

We had fun. When it came time to leave, we had aggreed to do Kyle a favour. We would take back some things for him. We didn't have any luggage, so we could use our baggage allowance on the plane for him. Sure, why not. How bad could it be.





It's only one suitcase, with wheels. How bad could this be? Kyle even helped us to take it to the train station when we left Karlskrona.



So far, so good. When we left Karlskrona, we traveled to Fredericia Denmark. Along the way, we stopped in Copenhagen for a few hours, then it was off to meet up with Brian.

Brian took us around his part of the world. These are some of the things we saw in Denmark:

So now we leave Denmark, we are on our way back to Frankfurt, to get back on the plane to fly home. But first that means, another train.



And we need still need to get the suitcase around:



It's a little frustrating at times:



Crowds on a Frankfurt S-Bahn can be in a bit of a rush:



But we still get a little time in to see some last-minute sights before we fly home.



Then it's on to the plane and on our way to Calgary. By the time we get to Calgary, we have hauled that suitcase about 8,500 Km. No problems. All we need to do now, it the last 450 km, and we are home. Because of time, and Canada Customs, and Air Canada, we thought it was best to check the bag all the way to Edmonton, and we would just get it back to Kyle later. He's not going to be here for a while. We go through Customs, drop the bag off for our connecting flight, and sit back. We have taken trains, ferrys, planes, busses, and even a veggie powered volvo, and every thing has gone off with out a hitch. Our last flight to Edmonton is a little rough because of some weather, but we manage to make it ahead of schedule. 200 Km to go. So we go to pick up the bag, and then it's off to home. We wait at the luggage rack. And wait.



The lady at the luggage counter was pleasent enough. No point in yelling at her when the bag you have dragged half way around the world, get's lost in the last 300 Km. She's the one who has to find it.

The vaction may be over, but the adventure will continue for a little longer. I'll let you know how it turns out.