I’ve made it out to King Mountain a couple times this year. Have yet to get high and go somewhere, but I am working on it.
On my most recent visit I was able to fly from lower launch on King, to John Kangas’ glider park. I followed a hang glider pilot in and landed on the run way after I did some maneuvers to loose a little altitude.
Greg landed right beside me, but landing at the runway was a little close for him. So no cool pictures of Greg landing in the evening light. Maybe next time.
If you look at the picture above, you can see some sailplanes in the background. I had a good time watching them flying at King mountain. The way those pilots fly those ships in the mountain air is extremely cool. If I had not broken my camera, I would of had some really good pictures.
I’m going to try and get over to Sun Valley this year to fly Baldy. I have heard of some really good flights from there. Two guys even flew from there to Mackay, Idaho. That is about 40 mile over some pretty rough country. Maybe I’ll get good enough to do that one of these days.
Until then, enjoy this video of Tyler landing after a flight from 8th street.
Bruce called and said he was going to try and catch a glass off at Pickle, I told him I’d go. I’m really glad he called. Thanks Bruce.
When I got there Bruce was already there, and he said the breeze had died. We stood around talking and about 5-10 minutes later a thermal started pushing wind over the main launch. This lasted about 25-30 minutes, tappered off again for about 5-10 and started over.
I didn’t need any more convincing, and neither did Bruce. We suited up and took off. I left the ridge and scratched for quite a while before making in up to launch height. We flew around for a while hitting good lift between main launch and Calbus launch. Bruce and I flew for about an hour before landing and getting everyone else going.
On my second flight I was doing about the same as the first when I hooked a nicely formed thermal over near the west launch, this took me, Bruce, Justin, and Rob for a nice ride up to around 1000′ over. I got out the camera and took some pictures and promptly fell out of the lift like a rookie. Justin rode it out for a while longer before coming back to the ridge.
It was a lot of fun, and a really good time. Thanks again for the call Bruce.
The King trip was fun. Over Memorial Day Greg, Kyle and I went over to Moore, Idaho to the Spring Fling at King. We left early and got there early enough to get Kyle off lower launch for his second ever paraglider flight. I didn’t know he was so new until we had his wing spread out on the ground.
I’m still working on the plug-in. These things seem to take more time than a person would think. I’ve learn a lot about the WordPress API, and using functions.
There is a TON of stuff buried in WordPress that I can’t even begin to grasp, let alone understand. Filter, hooks, and includes. These are just some of the stuff that I am working through. I’m sure learning my way through isn’t the fastest, but it is fun in a geeky/nerdy sort of way.
In the mean time, I’ve made it out flying a couple of times. Once to King Mountain, and then again a few days ago.
The King trip was fun. Over Memorial Day Greg, Kyle and I went over to Moore, Idaho to the Spring Fling at King. We left early and got there early enough to get Kyle off lower launch for his second ever paraglider flight. I didn’t know he was so new until we had his wing spread out on the ground.
All three of us had a nice sled ride, then Greg and I joined all the pilots back on lower launch for a real flight. The day had clouds and moisture moving in from the south, so the clouds were present, especially over Mackay to the north. Most of the pg guys got over the ground in rapid succession, and we had a respectable gaggle going in no time.
I was able to work my way up over the knob, and then up to about 9000′. At that point I noticed about 95% of the pilots landing at the upper LZ. I then looked up over my head and saw the cloud forming over King. It had taken on a dark color at some point. So I punched out over the valley and landed pretty close to the lower LZ.
That night we had a really good time at the BBQ. Even with the rain.
The next morning John Kangas kicked us out of bed because Coyote was flyable. The three of us got to launch in time to see Aaron launching.I got off the hill and made it up to the peak. It was a really good flight, nice smooth air with enough lift to go around.
Five pilots got off the hill that morning, and we only landed when it started raining.
Tuesday I went out with Greg to scout a potential flying site just north of Arrow Rock Res. I had spotted some roads on Google Earth that looked like they would take someone up to the top of Deer Creek where the elevation was a respectable 6000′. The best part was that it is about 40 minutes from Boise.
Sadly we got out there and all the roads were blocked as they are now on private property. I haven’t’ been beaten, only stalled. I will find a way up there, I just hope I don’t have to walk the while way.
We stopped at Shaw to see what the flying possibilities might be, turns out not good enough to fly. We managed about 45 minutes at the Crowe on our way home though.
I finally dug deep enough to fix my installation of the Now Reading plugin I installed. Nothing wrong with the plugin itself, but the Apache Server this site is running on was blocking part of the image URLs that the plugin uploads into the database.
What problem this is going to solve in these turbulent times? I’m afraid I can’t really say it is going to do anything that hasn’t already been done. I just want a plugin that I can show what book, or books, I am currently reading. Maybe put up a review of what I thought of them etc.. Nothing ground breaking.
I’ve already experimented with writing a few experimental plugins, and I think this might be a pretty involved project for someone who isn’t very experienced with coding. All I have done thus far is prove that I can say ‘Hello’ on the admin menu.
Stay tuned, this might be fun. Ok, maybe only a geek or part-time nerd would find this stuff fun.
I’ve already found a plugin that says it does what I want to do, but it won’t work in the newest WordPress. Here is a link to the most recent Now-Reading plugin that I know about. It just won’t finish the process of adding a book that was found in Amazon’s database. I narrowed it down to the fact that the url comes back with “.image_s” in it. Minus the “_”.
The code is so convoluted (it probably makes sense to a real programmer) that I can’t straighten out the logic.
