Fringe benefits

Scientist #1 has gone blonde - really really blonde. She is my new secret weapon in my attempts to get my work laptop up and running at the new offices.
Our previous IT support people didn't move with us, so all those carefully cultivated relationships are no longer necessary and I have to start from scratch.
Yesterday she gave me a lift to work (Scientist #2 required my car to get to class and the new car isn't here yet) and I showed her around the new place.
The new IT person was standing outside the office and actually tripped over his own feet when he saw her; I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and introduced her as my daughter.

Scientist #1 as a blonde.

So now I have a laptop that works, instant response from IT any time I need it and access to all the folders I want. Hehe.

Walter's Birthday Tribute from kids

This is the video Scientist #2 made for his dad's birthday surprise. Scientist #1 gathered pictures from assorted friends and layabouts to add so it was a joint effort.

Many laughs and tears too....

Moving

So we moved offices the other day, from the slightly-shabby-but-spacious to the externally-appalling-but-clean new office about 10kms away.
Of course I ignored this right until the day of the actual move; we had been given quite a few moving dates and I figured this one would change too. Boxes arrived, curt instructions given on How To Move Your Laptop and Which Colour Sticker You Should Use. I was also a little distracted, what with Walter's surprise birthday party, and literally scooped everything off my desk into one box which rattled alarmingly on the day of the move.
It has been an interesting week. People's true personalities are revealed when they have to find their stuff and set up their new space. There's a lot of calculating of the new hierarchy based on space. I'm not sure who first thought up the open plan design (slave traders?) but I do know it is terribly difficult to implement sucessfully. We also have a shiny new security system, based on fingerprints no less, which may or may not allow you in depending on the position of the planets on that particular day.
Some of my colleagues have christened their new space The Fish Bowl. I secretly think of it as The Observation Lab - it's clearly an experiment on how long you can work in 3 square feet of personal space before going insane.

Walter and I go to George

So Walter and I were invited to the KKNK (Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees) Let me clarify that; I was invited with a plus one so I took Walter (it's his birthday soon, early birthday present)

Both scientists refused point blank to take us to the airport. Scientist #1 sniffed that she needed to be "At Work" and Scientist #2 muttered something about lectures. I was a little concerned about Scientist #2 taking us anyway, what with the roadworks and Gillooly's interchange moving daily I did think he might get lost on the return trip. We were booked to fly on Kulula - given that they are a cut price airline they generally oversell tickets so you do have to book in early. What to do? A transfer service costs more than the cost of the flight in Johannesburg and parking at the airport for 3 days would probably cost us a month's bond repayment at least. Then I remembered the new long term parking facility. This required hours of research (well, at least one Tweet) to find out about the long term parking at OR Tambo. I downloaded maps, briefed Bob the GPS and committed the directions to memory just to be sure.
The flight left at 7.45 so we had to be there by 6.20am, which meant leaving home at 5 to have enough time to get lost at least twice. We managed to find it alright (Go left! No wait - try the right hand lane, oh just stay in the middle lane and hedge your bets), but when we got there all the ticket dispensers were broken. I refused to move until an attendant came - in his words "It's our problem, not yours - we won't charge you for a lost ticket, PLEASE go through lady"  Once I had established his name, rank and serial number I drove in, much to the relief of the hundred hooting cars backed up behind me who were now going to be late for their flights. There is no numbering system for parking, so we assumed it would take us at least a day to find the car once we got back "Keep the boarding passes," I said to Walter, "we'll need them as evidence when we try and leave so they don't charge us the lost ticket fee of R250/day"
The bus trip to the airport works fairly well, and we booked in early enough to buy a HUGE breakfast for ourselves at the Wimpy PLUS leave enough time to find the boarding gate. We read the boarding passes wrong so got sidetracked looking for Gate C20 (it doesn't exist) but we did find all the fancy lounges as well as lots of interesting shops so it wasn't an entirely wasted experience.
Boarding was an interesting exercise - we went through the tunnel to the aircraft then out a dodgy little side door, down open steps onto the apron, around the aircraft and then up other open steps to the rear door. Strange.
The next point of concern was landing at George airport. At the moment this is only allowed in clear weather, although I'm not sure if that's because of the equipment or the runway and there isn't a ready answer anywhere on the web.

Here you can see what happens if you use George airport when it's raining. Picture courtesy of www.roadsafety.co.za - I'm sure this would be more appropriately found on an airline safety site, but that's South Africa for you - our roads are dangerous.
I researched this quite thoroughly - apparently the CAA is baffled by the overshoot - but I would urge them to fly into the airport seated in the cockpit so they can see exactly what the problem is. I figured it out straight away.
George runway is a little shorter than our driveway. I've seen longer bush strips - and we were in the new B737-800 which is, obviously, a jet. When we joined the circuit for our approach I looked at the runway and was glad I wasn't having to stop a jet 3 feet after touching down, perhaps they should consider a passenger version of the Hawker Harriers that can just descend vertically?

Picasaweb. I promise you it's there - it's the little horizontal stripe 2/3 up the picture. They claim the runway is 2.1km long. Boeing 737-800 landing speed 140KIAS (knots indicated airspeed)

Picture from above, there seems to be enough space to make it longer. Fortunately we stopped in time, so it seems it's well within the performance of the little jet.

We hopped into the transport to Oudtshoorn and set off over the Outeniqua mountains for the Klein Karoo

Picture of the view from Outeniqua pass courtesy Wikimedia

The Easter Bunny

I used to forget which day the easter bunny brought the eggs, when your children are very little that's not a big deal, but as they get older it's not a good idea to get caught out. When they got to around 4 or so, Walter and I used to hide the eggs and make little bunnypaw tracks from the front door with flour.(Note: this only works if you do it early in the morning - otherwise the dew makes them congeal into nondescript white blobs of paper glue). But a memorable Easter Sunday a few years back when I was still flying changed all that.

My instructor checked me out for a solo circuit at Lanseria and I set off stoksielalleen* to practise landings and take-offs. He then rushed off with Walter - I had arranged an intro flight for his birthday, so he was in the general flying area quite far away from the airport.
Things were going well until around the 3rd circuit. I was halfway back (in the downwind leg) when I had a thought: "what if I can't land?" Instant freeze, cold fear. I tried to rationalise. Clearly I could land - they are quite fussy about this - I'd done it many, many times before. It wasn't working. What to do?

This was a big problem. Lanseria is a busy airport with scheduled flights coming and going all the time so you need to have your wits about you. I was planning on extending the downwind leg to get my act together but the tower was having none of that; a jet was approaching so I needed to get down. (Jets are faster than Cessnas, you don't need much science to understand what will happen if you take your time) So I turned onto the base leg and prepared myself for finals. At this stage I was acutely aware of my heart hammering away in my ears, much faster than it should be and took a few deep breaths to try and calm myself and mentally ran through the procedures.

(These are pictures of my friend Margie, on finals here, we learned to fly together - sometimes I rode shotgun)

The thing about landing is, you need to slow down, descend, then gently "stall" the aircraft just above the runway so it touches down in a way that doesn't a) kill you, b) damage the aircraft or c) loosen the fillings in your teeth. The theory is fairly simple: change the angle of attack of the wings to cancel out lift when you're just about to touch down. The problem was that I was overthinking and the more I tried to calm myself, the more I overthought.
I hit the runway hard, with too much speed - which resulted in "hopping" down the runway. I bounced. High. Once, twice, three times. This is very dangerous - and often has a really bad outcome. It felt like forever, I just couldn't get the plane to stick. Fortunately for me the hours of training took over, I remembered the instructor telling me what to do if this happened.  I took control again by getting back up into the sky and flew the circuit exactly how it's meant to be done. I nailed the landing too; but decided to taxi back to the hangar rather than risking more bounces. The tower checked I was OK then thanked me for the "Easter bunny display" and asked me to drop in when I was done - with easter eggs.
So now I remember the eggs are for Sunday and you shouldn't buy them from the airport gift store; they are always more expensive there.

 Happier days - post Easter Bunny display, before grounding (on medical grounds).

*Stoksielalleen - all by myself