happylife

Close-up photoes

Most cameras, whether digital or film, have a mark of tulip flower on it. I don't know who decided that it is the mark of close-up mode. When we choose the tulip mark and take a picture, the focus is set to very near and we can get a close-up photo. In the mode, the depth of field is set to very shallow and we can get a blurry background image. By using close focus and blurry background, we can sometimes get unexpected, vivid, close-up pictures. This picture of a fern I took in the Stanley Park while cycling. It was just a fern but by only closing up to it, I could get this beautiful image. Of course I have no special macro lenses or lighting system. I used just a compact digital camera with macro mode. Anyway, there are a lot of people around me who don't know what the tulip mark on their cameras is. One of my friends, who have a very good digital camera, believed that she can take a vivid picture with the tulip mark on and she always took picture with the tulip mark. Of course her pictures were always out of focus.

Another Vancouver

This is a photo from Denman street in Downtown Vancouver toward north. At the end of this street, over Burrard inlet, and under the cumulus, there is located North and West Vancouver. It is connected to Downtown with the Lions Gate bridge. Most of the residents there are old and rich people who are living a quiet life in a huge mansion surrounded by the sea and the mountains. It seems to be a very good place to live in except two problems. One is the weather and the other is the nights. Because of the high mountains, lots of clouds are produced and they have more cloudy days than in Downtown. The nights in North and West Vancouver is very early because old people go to bed early at nights around the world. I was once surprised when I visited the city about 9 pm in the summer season. It was before the sunset but the most of the stores were closed and I felt like in a ghost town.

Traffic congestion

I often come across a traffic congestion when coming back to Downtown from the airport. I think the largest reason for the jam is bottlenecks. As you know Greater Vancouver is divided by rivers or creeks and we need to cross a bridge or pass a tunnel in order to move from here to there. Those special points often change into bottlenecks because they have only limited lanes and cannot hold too much traffic. Furthermore, in rainy days, there often occurs traffic accidents. Traffic accidents at one of the bottlenecks leads to the worst case scenario. The traffic sometimes stops completely for hours. I don't know the best solution for this traffic congestion but it is no doubt that the infrastructures of Vancouver cannot hold the increasing cars any more.

Oil price coming down

The oil price has finally come down to the regular value. It has been over $1.00 per litter for more than one month. I'm not sure about the oil pricing mechanism in Canada, but I think it changes too rough. It often goes up or down more than 10 cents per litter in a day and it often varies more than 10 cents even at gas stations across a road. Some one must have get lots of money. It looks strange for ordinary Japanese people because we have oil stock system which can stabilize the oil price at least for three months. The system was made because we Japanese have little oil in our country and we couldn't keep our society without the system. On the other hand, Canada is one of the large oil-producing countries, and they can live without such system, however, I think it is better that essential items like oil are priced regularly.

The sky conditions

It was fine today after a long period of cloudy and rainy days. The sky was just like the one in the summer season though the temperature was low. I took this picture from the driver's seat of my car driving to the airport. The aviation weather information is so precise that this sky condition is described as "FEW020 SCT050" which means there are few(1-2/8) clouds at 2000 feet and scatter(3-4/8) clouds at 5000 feet. Of course I could fly today and did practice aiming at the coming flight test. I wish this good condition of the sky continues for a few weeks.

The back seat

Most of the students in my flight school are aiming to be professional pilots and they are flying to get an upper class license or rating such as a commercial license, an ATP license, multi IFR rating, instructor rating, and so on. There are always several students flying in my school and if I ask them to give a ride on their back seat, they would accept me in most cases. This is a good way to learn flying because watching their procedure is a very good help for me and it doesn't cost at all. The only one problem is that they are not always good pilots because they are students. I know a man who was getting a ride on the back seat almost every day and one day the airplane crushed into a valley. Fortunately he was slightly injured and came back alive. Actually there happens a small airplane accident every two weeks in Canada. If I crush myself, it would rather be acceptable because it is my responsibility, but I don't like to be involved in other pilot's accident. Evaluating other pilot's skill is very important when you take a ride on the back seat.

Busy!

I don't like to say I'm busy, but actually I'm busy. Busy to prepare for the flight test, busy to reply to some mail, and busy to write a newsletter for my business. It's now 1:40 midnight in Vancouver and I'm to take a pre-flight test with the chief instructor in this afternoon by when I have to make a flight plan to Hope and Victoria. I have to remember some numbers of the Cessna 152 speed limitation such as VSO=35kt, VS=40kt, Vx=55kt, Vy=67kt, Vfe=85kt, Va@1350LBS=93, Va@1500LBS=98, Va@1670=104kt, Vno=111kt, and Vne=149kt. Oh, I'm tired and sleepy. To go to bed or not is the problem.

A foggy morning

A foggy morning is not bad if it is occasional. We sometimes have foggy days here in Vancouver. Last night, we had strong inflow from the sea which was rather warm and wet. I could anticipate this fog last night because the warm and wet air mass which contains a lot of water vapor is to be cooled down by radiational cooling causing so called land fog. I learned this idea when I was a student in Japan and have read again in the aviation weather textbook. Anyway, this morning fog was so thick that I couldn't even see the opposite side of False Creek. Of course I won't fly today and am going to study for the coming written exam in my room all day long.

A full power on stall

When I was flying solo in the usual practice area, I did a power on stall with full throttle. The airplane would not easily stall with full power and we have to make an extremely nose-up attitude. It's scaring because we feel like flying vertically and we can't see anything but the sky. When the airplane stalls, the nose and each of the wing drops abruptly, and the view through the windshield suddenly changes from the sky to the ground. If we fail the recover procedure for power on stall, we are to enter a spiral dive which is so dangerous that we student pilots are prohibited to do it in Canada. As I was afraid of a spiral dive, I had never done a power on stall but today I did it. The recovery was not so good but fortunately I could return to the home ground with slightly increased confidence.

Bounce

Bounce is a sheet of paper saturated with softener for clothes. We use it in the dryer when we dry our washed and soaked clothes. It is almost indispensable for drying wet clothes because without it, the dried clothes would be too stiff. Anyway, I bought this box of Bounce including 80 sheets when I came to Vancouver three years ago, and today I found that there is only one sheet of Bounce remains in the box, that is to say I have washed 79 times in Vancouver. As I wash almost once a week, therefore, I have lived here for more than 79 weeks. It's a long time and I wonder how many more weeks I would stay here. No one knows where I would be next year. In all cases, I have to get another box of Bounce.