The first big test you have to undertake on the path to becoming a pilot is the GFPT. It's a milestone which marks the end of basic flight training and the granting of the first (and most important) privilege of being a pilot, to carry the self-loading cargo. Concomitant with this privilege of course is the responsibility for the safety of the passengers you take up with you, and so the primary focus of the GFPT is performing the flight safely. The testing officer is not expecting millimetre precision or flawless execution, but if you make a mistake that puts the safety of yourself and the aircraft in doubt or causes them to question your fundamental abilities, the show is over; do not pass 'Go', do not collect the signature in your logbook.

Google Maps Track of my flight: here
Google Earth users, click here: KMZ file  (Right click on the track and change altitude to "Absolute" to see altitude profiles)


( Epic tale of GFPT... )

Today is 60 years since my father Geoffrey Bruce Wintle was born in Sydney, son of Ellen and George and joining two older siblings, Robert and Katherine. This would've made today his 60th birthday, and given who I've become over the last few years, I feel as though this would have been a big milestone event. I'd have organised a huge party and invited everyone I could think of, his closest friends would've helped me plan and prepare, people would have flown in from all over the country to help celebrate, and I'd have given a rousing and heartfelt speech about what my dad means to me. Tragically, his life was shortened suddenly by cancer at the age of 43 (an age that's starting to feel scarily close for me). So there will be no milestone or party, his parents and siblings have all passed, and I've long since lost contact with anyone who he would call a close friend.

I still feel like celebrating though, because even though I only knew him as a child and had less than four years living with him, he had and still has a profound effect on who I am today. Since I never went through the adolescent phase of realising your parents are flawed humans just like everyone else, my idealised and childlike image of him is still held-up as the ideal for manhood.

So here is the rousing and heartfelt post about how my dad is still a part of me, even 16 years after his death.

--



Bypassing the obvious fact that I bear a striking resemblance to him, his influence is still felt in my life in many subtle and some unsubtle ways. His death came during important and difficult formative years, not long after the death of my mother, and it possibly scarred me in ways I don't fully understand, but that manifest themselves interestingly.

One very immediate effect is his voice is still present in my mind. It's almost like the voice of my conscience, but separate from that and not heard as often. Most commonly I hear it when I'm feeling guilty about something big, and trying my hardest to block it out and press-on regardless. He is invariably goading me into doing the right thing, when all other faculties seem to have been defeated by my ego. It's almost as if my conscience's last ditch effort is to put the <dad-voice> tags on to make me sit up and pay attention. It's easy to imagine someone believing in angels and after-life when the voice of their departed parent is present in their head, and when I was younger I could believe it, in the weaker moments.

Slightly removed from the voice in my head, I was startled recently to hear his voice come out of me directly. I was at a party hosted by some of my good friends who also happen to be breeders. As is usual, the kids tend to push boundaries and cause mischief, but I was witness to some bad misbehaviour that warranted stern words. Almost instinctively I activated some <dad-voice> and gave the kid a reprimand, and I was shocked to hear his voice in my own. It gave me a deva-vu flashback to getting yelled at myself when I was a kid, and obviously caught a few others by surprise as well, who started making friendly jibes about already having the dad-voice thing down pat.

Another influence possibly related to this phenomenon lies in the dream-state; this is rarer than the voice thing, but far more impactful, in that I will have very vivid and coherent dreams featuring him. It has occurred, on average, probably about once a year since he passed; but it's more common when in times of crisis, and disappears almost completely when I'm fairly happy and content. These dreams differ markedly from my brain's usual mixed-up fair, which often leaves me with a distinct "WTF" feeling, even when I can identify the elements it has pulled together. These dreams are always visually very clear and colourful, and have a calm and linear feeling of time with a clear theme, but otherwise are as varied and unique as dreams can be. Here's an excerpt from my journal describing one I had in October 1996, not long before I graduated high school, when I was going through a pretty rough patch living alone amongst strangers:

"I just woke up from a dream. It was one of the best dreams in ages. I was graduating from high school, but I was watching the proceedings from a rocky breakwater sitting with dad. And he was telling me all this stuff, most of which I don't remember, but later in the dream it became night, and my best friend came to visit me. She was Hope, but as a merseal. And she told me she was pregnant and had eggs and I was so happy for her. Then dad was standing there, staring up at the full moon, and he was crying. He said "Uh, the lights" trying to excuse the fact that he was crying, and went and sat back down on the breakwater. I went over to him and gave him a hug and said "Noone cares dad", meaning nobody cared that he was crying, it was okay in other words. Then he said that "...it really chilled me to the bone to hear you think that I left you for a better place". Because I thought that for a brief second a few nights ago in Tilly's bed. So I told him I didn't mean it and hugged him harder and the dream faded slowly and I woke up with tears in my eyes, but happy"

I cannot adequately describe how intense the feelings are when associated with these dreams. As I hinted at above, the central premise of abandonment that characterised that dream was dealt with and (I thought) satisfactorily resolved during a quiet moment of sadness lying awake in bed. As if to reinforce this though, I have a dream where he appears in extreme distress (I almost never saw him cry) and speaks to me as if he were present for that moment and could hear my thoughts. The first time this happened, during the transition to post-parental life; I formulated a construct to support the idea that he was still around, possibly in my head, somehow. These ideas stayed with me, in slowly decreasing terms until well into my late-teens.

--

I owe my love of the ocean to him, wholly. He grew up on the beaches of Sydney, trained as a surf lifesaver from the age he could swim, surfed nearly every day and was commended for bravery during a rescue even before he was old enough to patrol a beach. When mum died and we moved over here to live with him, I knew little of the ocean, and didn't even think I liked it that much. This was a travesty to him, and it wasn't long before he was taking us to the beach on nearly any sunny day we could get. He taught me about the ocean, about it's forces and dangers and how to use and ride the swell while mitigating the risks. It was always re-assuring and exciting to look back at the beach and see dad watching me in the water.

When he died, I lost my access to the ocean, both physically and emotionally. Living in a boarding school in Vic Park, you don't get the chance to visit the ocean more than maybe once a semester, so by the time I left school and started living my life, I'd lost the connection to the ocean and to a valuable source of well-being. This changed though, a few years ago when my uncle took my brother and I back to Sydney for a family reunion. He drove around with me and described for me all the featured parts of dad's early life, including the ancestral surfing grounds, Maroubra beach. I felt drawn to the water for the first time since the halcyon days, and I immediately went to find a surf shop and hire a board. The conditions were pretty bad that day, and I was un-fit and out of practice, but something felt right about surfing there. Dad was on my mind constantly, and I felt like I understood him a little more with each passing minute. I exhausted myself in little more than an hour, after only catching about three waves, but I felt amazingly positive about life. This was my oceanic re-birth, a return to the water and the return of a piece of my soul that had been missing for more than a decade.

--

It's impossible for me to sincerely wish that things were different. Since I'm happy with myself and my life as it is now, how could I wish for what's past to change? It would fundamentally change who I am and how I live, and who's to say that change would be for the better?
When I cleaned away all the voodoo and began thinking clearly, what I was left with was some deep psychological scars from a childhood trauma. These are fully integrated into my character, and I would not wish them gone. I came into this way with a blinding realisation that part of me is my dad; he's half my genes, a chunk of my character and I don't half look like him either. The only way I have left to honour him is to live the absolute best life I know how.

Happy Birthday Dad. I miss you.

Alrighty then. Picture this if you will...

Last Wednesday will go down as quite possibly the highest peak I have reached in a long time. Thrilled by my first "Subsequent Solo", doing two circuits on my own in 15kt cross-winds (and by my own measure succeeding, greatly improving my crosswind technique and handling the conditions well). Fresh from a sensational camping trip, full of good friends, adventure and excessive amounts of sunshine and bourbon, I was feeling refreshed and happy. Freed from several burdens that have plagued me for a while, I had a lightness of being that was welcome.  Excited by the possibility of a new someone on the horizon, I had energy bubbling away inside that I just had to vent.

I rolled up at my usual Wednesday night Scroungers event at the bowling club. I was bowling well but it just wasn't enough to topple the great Patsy, although the scores came close at one point. Without a berth in the final, the only thing left to do would be drink at the bar and talk shit, but many of the resident shit-talkers were absent, and the restlessness just wasn't abating, even after three ciders and a sausage sizzle. I bid them all an early farewell and made a break for home, with a singular goal to get on the bike and discharge, with gusto.

Home was the usual maelstrom it is after a camping trip, and it took me quite a while to get everything in order for a ride, but by 21:45 I was under way. Slicing through the cool night air on my slick new road bike, my output was steadily rising as the tail-wind took hold and the energy flow to my legs came on-stream. My usual route was more interesting for the darkness and opposite winds, my headlight was fading, although still enough to see by, and the iPod was cranking a superb shuffle playlist.

At this point, I was absolutely flying. Cruise speeds were in the mid 30's, hills were being dispatched with aplomb, and the heart-rate monitor was complaining loudly that my output was too high for too long. "Like I care, little device, I'M ON TOP OF THE FUCKING WORLD!". I rode along South Perth foreshore, crossed the Narrows and turned for home, blasting through the pitch blackness of the riverside lakes and tunnels at near-on 50km/hr, but emerging from them into a headwind which conspired with developing fatigue to slow my progress. "It's too late for you, wind." I remember thinking, "The endorphins have your number".

About an hour into the ride, approaching the Claisebrook development, a spectacular thing was occurring. "New Person Squee" was exploding in my brain, waves of euphoria made me feel fuelled by a joy so pure it began streaming from my eyes. An excellent and slightly appropriate song from Disturbed ("The Night") was playing in my ears, and I stepped up the pace, to what can only be at this stage, as 110%, giving it all and then some. Words fail to capture it, "The pinnacle of happiness, filling up your soul, you don't think you can take any more, you never wanna let go"*. A quintessential 'runners high', the most powerful I have experienced.

And then they were there... Ahead on the winding, cobbled path.

5 of them.

They've heard me, scattering... No room... I'm out of time.

I'm going right... It's going to be tight... Just enough space, don't move blue man.

But he did. He stepped right, at the last moment, and my shoulder caught his. I speared off the path into some knee-high scrub, I've probably knocked that guy over but I'm in the shit and fast. I don't know if I hit something in the bushes or just panic-clamped the powerful hydraulic brakes, but I was pitched up and over the handlebars. I remember tucking my head in so I wouldn't land on it, and came down hard on the back of my left shoulder. I think I let out a yelp as my clavicle fractured clean in two on impact, but I tumbled again and again before rolling out on my knees just next to the path.

I was dazed, but I knew I was in trouble, and then I remembered the guy I hit. It was totally my fault. I stood up, scanned the group and asked twice if everyone was alright, it felt like a heavy hit, I was doing in excess of 30km/hr and I was sure I'd just badly injured the man in the blue shirt. I didn't know whether to expect hostility, some people would certainly get angry at a speeding cyclist colliding with them or their friend, and I was in no state to defend myself. To my surprise they were all ok, and looking at me in bewilderment, like they expected me to be unconscious at the very least. Without realising it, I had grabbed my shoulder when I stood up, and when they asked if I was ok my initial response was "Yeah, I'm ok". I mean, surely if the blue man is ok, I must be ok too.

But I wasn't. I could feel myself going in to shock, and when I tried to roll my left shoulder I heard and felt a terrible clunk in my upper core. "No, actually, I think I have broken my collar bone." It's probably one of the most common breaks for a cyclist. I looked around confused, and took in the 5 Asian-looking faces staring at me, speaking to each other in a language I didn't recognise**. I struggled to think of what to do, my higher brain functions having succumb to the adrenalin gushing through me. I decided I had to ring someone to come get me, but I didn't have my phone with me. One of the peds offered me his iPhone, but I couldn't remember any phone numbers. I started ringing my old home number out of habit, tried a few times, and was confused as to why it kept telling me it was disconnected. After realising it didn't exist any more, I dialled the new one, and described what happened to Kat.

I asked one of the peds to pick up my bike, and we wandered towards the nearest road. I waited there for what seemed like an eternity, blood having left my extremities I was getting cold and trying to stave off shock, grasping my arm and holding the weight of it off my shoulder. When Kat arrived, I talked them through the task of disassembling my bike so it would fit into the car, and then got in for the short journey to RPH. Adrenalin fading, the pain was starting to get intense, and I thought that ED was probably the best place for me right at that point. They dosed me up with codeine, made me comfortable while I waited to be x-rayed, and then sent me home with my arm in a sling, a prescription for some more meds, and an appointment in a week with the orthopaedic injury clinic.

So there I was. Coming down from an intense runner's high, dosed up on analgesics, and beginning to realise just how much this was about to impact my life. Cancelled flights, cancelled trips, work disruptions, awkward dates. I sank, fast.


* "The Real Thing" - Faith No More
** I found out later they were Nepalese students, here to study english. They had locked themselves out of their college dorm, and were waiting for a friend to return to let them in, so they went for a walk to kill time. I am grateful for their help and for being so forgiving.

I'm being encouraged to post more, so maybe this will downsample to 16-bit quality in favour of some more frequency.

Great, fun, and uncrowded surf this morning. So good I decided to take the day off and hang around. I had to work for it though, there was a breezy N/NE'er pushing us down the beach and some strong rips pushing us out to sea. Plenty of time to get in position though, the sets were miles apart and coming through in ones and twos. Good size, frequent 5ft'ers with the occasional one bombing in at 7ft. Time for gazing too, and contemplating life as a predatory sea bird, hovering over the dunes looking to swoop on some unsuspecting lunch.

Funeral this afternoon for a friend's step-mum, I'd met her a few times, but don't know her well. I'm going to show some support and hear about her life. I think I've been to far too many of these things already, and I haven't even reached the "funeral season" of life yet.

Things should pick up later though, I'm cooking a beef roast for the girl and I, which should make us warm and happy on what is bound to be a chilly evening. If that doesn't work, I guess we'll have to try something else. New love is fun! Something I guess I'd forgotten over the years.

Everyone who surfs regularly develops a relationship with the ocean. After a while it becomes familiar, its patterns and forces recognisable and even though you're aware that it can never be an equal partnership, you still feel relaxed and in control of most situations.

Well today, the ocean and I had a major bust-up!

With the weather cooling down, the afternoons aren't a guaranteed white-wash, since there's not always a sea-breeze to mess things up. So earlier in the week when Halliday pitched the idea of an after-work surf on Friday, I was partial to it. However the forecast showed Thursday was going to be a lot better, with the afternoon winds still off-shore and more swell on offer. So Thursday it was, and barrelling out of work at 3pm in a wetsuit ranks as one of the funnier things I've done recently.

The day was pretty warm though, and a steady S/SW'er had whipped up in place of the SE'lies that were forecast. My fears were confirmed upon cresting the hill on Karrinyup Rd and seeing the ocean dotted with whitecaps, a sure sign we were in for some turbulent times. I'm not a stranger to the on-shore ocean, but today would be the first time I'd surfed Trigg Point in these conditions, and it turns out there are some unique features here that makes things "interesting".

Some of the best surf that the metro beaches see is just south of that big hunk of surfer-killing rock there at the Point. Sure it was choppy, but there were some genuine 3-fters coming through in the chop, and plenty of crew out in the waves already, so I was eager to get amongst it. Halliday had lost one of his fins last time he was out, so he came sporting a brand new black set which looked more the business than his last ones, which were more like diving fins that bodyboarding ones. Silly boy hadn't got any fin-savers for his new toys though! An over-sight that was going to prove costly later on.

Getting out proved easier than I thought, being low-ish tide and a break between sets meant we could walk most of the way, and it wasn't long before we both had 2 solid rides and maybe another couple of scraggly ones. It was definitely a good workout though, the wind was getting stronger and conspiring with the wind-swell to try and push us into those submerged rocks to the north. While the long-shore current that always whips up in a sea-breeze was peeling off the rocks and heading straight out to sea as a nasty rip.

Probably 15 minutes in to the session I turn around and see no sign of Halliday despite him being behind me not 30 seconds ago. I do see one of the grommets holding a spare black fin and obviously looking around for the owner. It looks a bit like one of Halliday's new fins, and scanning the shore I spot him standing on the beach looking to see if it's washed up. The grom starts making his way into the shore and I figure everything is about to work out well enough.

Not hardly!

In what seems like no time, I spot Halliday back out behind the breakers with me. Quick to explain that he'd lost a flipper, and I notice he's come back out without the remaining one! Before I can decide that he's crazy or explain about the other grom, he's in trouble. We've drifted north, I nail my shin on a submerged rock, and he's in the thick of the rip and hasn't got enough thrust to get out. I immediately head a bit deeper to get away from the rocks, but it's clear we're in trouble.

Without thrust from his fins, he stands no chance of getting out of the rip or making headway against the swell, so I drop my right fin and give it to him. "And Brett... do up the strap!"
Kicking with only one fin on is a strange experience. The asymmetry makes that leg's fatigue stark against the unloaded one, but there's no real way to kick faster or harder with the other leg to try and balance things out. And of course you're down on thrust by a substantial margin.

What followed was at least 45 minutes of struggle against wind and waves, fatigue and emotion. It was cyclical, driving hard south to clear the rip, before turning towards the shore and getting blown and washed right back into it. Several times I felt hopeless, as minutes of hard work would go by with little sign of progress, and a few times I thought I was going to have to try and call out for help or face the possibility of my squishy body being ground up on the rocks.

For most of the effort, Halliday was at about my 8 o'clock and on a similar heading. At our closest point it looked like we were about to make landfall, and he succeeded in tumbling over the lip of a large wave and was rolled towards the shore, close enough to get a foot down and catch some precious, sandy bottom. Me? I floated over the back of it and into the rip current again. UGH!

I only caught the edge of it though, and on the next pass I put everything I had into driving for a big roller that was coming through. Futilely kicking with my one fin, I didn't have enough speed to catch it, but it did push me a few metres closer to shore. Close behind was it's bigger brother though, and as it walled up and threatened to crash on my head, I thought this was either going to be my end or my saviour.

Too exhausted to drive for it, and with minimal will left, I ditched the board and ducked under it to try and avoid the imminent dumpage. My board was sucked up and pulled along with the wave, and my leash held up to the abuse as I was pulled along behind it. Usually I'd be fighting to break out of the wave and surface, but this time I just straightened out and let it pull me along. Despite the exhaustion and last-ditchness of the effort, the mammalian diving reflex still worked and my heart-rate slowed as I remained submerged. This was the break I needed, and when I righted myself and thrust my feet downwards, I felt the soft relief of sand between my right toes.

Still exhausted, but overwhelmingly relieved to be almost walking again, I made my way back in to where Halliday was standing on the beach. Bruised, exhausted, but alive.

So, Indian Ocean. I guess this counts as our first big spat. How about some make-up surf tomorrow morning to patch things up?

As a somewhat belated response to droneboy 's recommendation, here I am joining LiveJournal. "It's always been better than Facebook"... righto then!

I intend to consolidate here the best posts from several other blogs that I've had over the years, so you'll see some pre-dated entries begin showing up as I copy them into LJ.

Then I might even start posting some more in the future.

Today marks the first day we've drawn significant amounts of energy from our new 640W solar array.

Not long after starting with MRX I was introduced to the engineering workshop up the back. They have a nicely equipped shop, with a big metal lathe, mill, welding bays and sheet metal tools.

It was the lathe that caught my eye the most though. After waiting for more than 6 months for the machinist "mate of a mate" to get my hubs made, I finally gave up and decided to have a shot myself. I picked up some more 3" 6061 aluminium bar stock and organised time on the machine after hours.

I'm pleased to say the result was fantastic. For my first turning project, I couldn't be happier with the result. Most of the dimensions came in within the normal machining tolerances (+/- 0.1mm) and the ones that didn't don't matter much to the performance of the part. Much gratitude must go out to Dennis, the workshop kingpin. He helped me out a lot on the steep learning curve while making sure I remained safe on the machine. Thanks Dennis!

I'm happy to say I can add "Metal Turning" to the list of amateur skills my hobbies have imbued in me. I now have some hubs for my Recumbent Trike, the final piece in the puzzle before it becomes rideable.. Huzzah!

G'day folks!
Well after a month in Pueblo, two whirlwind days in LA, and many many hours on a plane, I'm finally back on Perth soil (sand) again!

PHEW!

What a trip. Fantastic. Immense. Thrilling. That was just the two days in LA.

On Sunday I arose early and hit Disneyland. That was totally cool, and I spent 13 hours there going on all the rides and just generally being a big kid. The park was absolutely crammed with people, but I was told it was a slow day! Probably due to the US Fathers Day they said. Sheesh, I'd hate to see it on a peak day.

Monday was spent mostly on buses it seemed. Although that was interspersed with a visit to Universal Studios. The rides there were totally awesome and I got some great photos. Unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time as I'd have liked, due to the flight leaving that night. For most of the day I had the camera in a locker too, so the photos weren't that plentiful.

As for the rest of the trip, it was great. I met some friendly people and had a great time partying with them. I got some work done in the interim, which helped. And I basically had a ball staying in hotels, driving rental cars, shopping, the whole works.

Here's hoping it's not too long before I get to go again....

But not yet


not yet