Just recieved some pictures of the last WCPC

from Byron. The pictures were taken at WoodRat Mountain, Oregon on Jun 05, 2008.

Stop the press

I have a stellar idea for a new business-- A Chicken Sashimi Bar. It will be huge. My acute business acumen is telling me to go for it. And if that succeeds, we will franchise the 'other white meat," a Pork Sashimi Bar. Just email me if you want to cross that threshold and feel that sense of pride every time you look in the mirror and say, yes I listen to Patrick and now I have finally arrived." And due to the high expected demand, I will only except the *first* 20 investors. TICK, TICK, PEOPLE!

Damn tooth!

Here I'm trying to blend in with the locals near the town of Ruch with Brad Gunnuscio.

A little background: back in the day during the height of the Dot Com where the streets of San Francisco was paved with gold and all the brilliant Venture Capitalists were eagerly funding companies such as pets.com and webvan.com, I was partying like it was 1999. Actually, it was 1999-- December 31st to be precise. Predictably, I wasn't exactly sober, coherent or coordinated. The agent responsible for my dental handicap was a street curb.

The curb just suddenly and unpredictable appeared as I crossed the street. Yup, I curbed myself as I attempted the tricky technique of negotiated the street corners but lucky my front tooth took the weight of my body as I fell. After a root canal, eight years and several crowns later, the crown dislodged while I was eating a sandwich at the West Coast Paragliding Championships.

Lame story and I'm sticking to it. More details to follow if you catch me at the right time.

WCPC status

Well, it is extremely doubtful, in fact statistically impossibly to not suck in the rankings. But hey, you gotta try before you can rank. Today was boatload of fun. I decked before making the Grants Pass turn point-- the landing was interesting, I found a postage stamp landing next to tiger country and stalled my wing 5 ft above ground to avoid the fence.

Getting reading for the West Coast Paragliding Championships

Here is a video of my flight at the Dumps from the weekend-- the footage is a little shaky but am working on reducing that undesirable effect.



Anyhoo, I'm happy the learn that the WCPC has defined a serial class glider as a DHV 2/3 and below. I was getting a little concerned competing again the Josh Cohns and Eric Reeds flying the latest comp blade wings.

Today my goal is to locate a medical supply shop in Walnut Creek to purchase a catheter and tube for an in flight Urination System. Aside from the weird feeling of having my kibbles and bits encased in rubber while paragliding, these thing are not fail safe-- a friend who will remain nameless -- cough --Eric B cough pissed himself at Valle. I'll evaluate it over the next several days to see how bearable it is.

Later!

Pictures

Here is a link to my pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/phajek

Stay tuned-- I'll be reporting day to day from WoodRat Mt. from 5th to the 15th of June for the West Coast Paragliding Championships.

Hew Harness

I should be receiving the new Advance Impress 11+ soon. I'm a little concerned that I'm already 3kgs over the max clip in on my medium Trango 3 and the new harness will add another 5kgs. Damn, I'm such a fat fuck; Well, not fat but still will have to loose 10lbs. Hummmmm. Or cut down on consuming beer and switch over to vodka/gin?

Monarca 2008

Arrived in Valle de Bravo on Jan 16th. We worked a swag deal for Gigi and myself staying at the Posada Mary on the square -- $20 per day-- gotta be some benefits hanging out in 3rd World Countries. The weather in Valle can be summed up in one work; stellar. Flying every day, partying like a rock star every night.



On this trip, my goal remained the same-- to suck less in the air. I sensed some improvement for myself but the field was very competitive. More airtime, got some good strong climb rates and felt an increasing sense of competence.

A Weekend with the O'Connors

Last weekend, I drove to Lake Don Pedro for a two day SIV clinic in order to prep up for the Valle de Bravo trip starting this Wednesday.

Six people showed up Saturday and five on Sunday. Those of us who stayed both days received a total of seven tows to 2200ft AGL. After meeting up, we grabbed our gear and took a 20 minute boat ride to an optimally situated Island on Lake Don Pedro.

My impressions of the clinic: It was the shit! It was great-- the weather was stellar, the organization was fine tuned and the O'Connor's had their shit together.

I got to wang my Trango 3 hard, experienced a couple Full Stalls and was giving the experience to work out two cravates at the same time-- on each wing tip --after one interesting full stall exit. I'm told that while performing full stall on high aspect gliders, cravates can occur after the glider exits; one way to mitigate the cravate issue is to let up a bit during a full stall so the tips straighten out a bit. Good times!

Here's several pictures taken during last weekend.