From my pre- wordpress days, before I had this personal blog, I had made a webpage documenting the building of my Expedition E350 airplane. So if you are looking for a lot more pictures of the inside of the plane, and its characteristics, and some of my early flights with it, visit that page.
Annular Solar Eclipse – Sunday May 20th, 2012
A SOLAR ECLIPSE. Want to see it? Its Sunday evening, May 20th, 2012. See Annular Solar Eclipse for more details, but in brief:
April 24, 2012 update. Sadly, I won’t be able to go to this eclipse in North America. What a shame.
As consolation, here’s another one: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1365611
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – game
On this page, is a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game.
And a walkthrough on Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy walkthrough.
It totally shows how old I am, that I remember being completely enthralled by this game, when I was young. It was, SOOO funny, back then.
A “Text Adventure Game” is what this was, not the first, not the last, but in my mind, it was the funniest of all time, because Douglas Adams presumably lent his amazing sense-of-humor into the game. It would be funny, even when giving replies to things that it didn’t understand.
I’m posting this, because I don’t have time to play it right now, but I want to try it again, and this time, I’ll be studying its humor style, wondering if it could be applicable to a rule-based chatbot.
Oil sands, tar sands, aerial photos
During Christmas break 2011, I made two different flights from Camrose Alberta, up to Fort McMurray, and from there, north for 50 miles to see the oil sands, or formerly called the tar sands facilities, of Syncrude, Suncor and others. It was a wonderful trip, taking about 6 hours in total, including lunch & refueling in Ft McMurray airport.
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War to start soon.
I may soon need to create a blog category on war. I seem to find more and more articles about it becoming inevitable. These kind of articles don’t seem to be allowed, or believed in North America.
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Writing without “to be”, E-prime
This link about improving my writing, by eliminating the various forms of “to be”, is known as E-prime. I’ll BE wanting to check it out in more detail later. Years ago, I was told that I needed to improve my writing by using “active voice” instead of “passive voice”. I wonder what became of that notion. More things to google, I guess, in my free time.
December 2011 piano improv.
Here are a few examples of how I’m sounding recently, when I sit at my piano ( a Clavinova ) and improvise, while recording it onto a USB drive.
audio_05. 25 secs. Very warm rich sound, low pitch wide chords.
(will sound great on a good audio system, but sounds horrible on a laptop.)
Financial links
My collection of links to articles that I think I may want to revisit.
- about foreign accounts and land and International Man
- A big conspiracy theory – I’ve been too busy to read it all, but would like to read it in depth later.
- All about the Exchange Stabilization Fund
- About Derivatives and the ESF.
- How to own stocks in your own name, not the brokerage.
March 22, 2012 update. I found this interesting, from a Zerohedge article.
“A handful of countries offer “instant” citizenship in return for an investment or contribution. The Commonwealth of Dominica and the Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis are the only countries with an official, legally mandated, economic citizenship. (Note: Dominica and the Dominican Republic are different countries.)
Dominica is the least expensive option. The nationality law of Dominica authorizes the government to waive the normal requirement of seven years of legal residence to acquire citizenship in exchange for a cash contribution. Total costs including all fees for a single applicant come to about $105,000. Add $25,000 for your spouse and up to two children under 18. The Dominican passport holders can travel without a visa, or obtain a visa upon entry, to nearly 90 countries and territories.
The Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis offers two options to obtain economic citizenship. One option is to make a direct contribution to a charitable foundation set up to support displaced sugar workers: the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SIDF). Total costs including all fees for a single applicant under this option come to about $285,000 or $335,000 for an applicant with up to three dependents.
The second option is to purchase “qualifying property” with a minimum investment of $400,000. Fees and closing costs add a minimum of $100,000. Total costs for a single applicant come to at least $500,000 and close to $600,000 for a family of four. The St. Kitts & Nevis passport provides visa-free entry, or visa upon entry, to more than 120 countries, including nearly all of the 27 member countries of the European Union.
In all cases, applicants must pass a strict vetting process that includes a comprehensive criminal background check.
Bogus second citizenship offerings abound. In recent years, I have received offers to purchase passports from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, and Lithuania, among other countries. Some of these offers are outright scams. Others involve illegally purchased or stolen documents. Even if you succeed in obtaining a passport on this basis, it may be revoked at any time and you could be subject to arrest and/or deportation.
Revelstoke airport and skihill
This post is to convey my excitement at discovering that Revelstoke BC has a beautiful airport within walking distance of an amazing skihill! Revelstoke Mountain Resort. I took these pictures to entice my friends to come skiing with me!
Boats
September 28, 2011. Here are the 2 boats I’ve purchased for use at my BC property. A work-boat aluminum “Landing Craft”, and a cute row-boat.
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