Oli’s Blog

No… not in that sort of way, but in the online world. My good friend, Tekin Ozbek, is using a modified version of my template for his website. I’m actually quite happy he liked it enough to use it (with some colour modifications and differing banner, etc). Check it out at Tekin’s website. I’ve also added Mr Ozbek’s blog to my blog roll - check it out!

On a side note, still working on school stuff (ICT at the moment) and my revision resource is going to stay in the shadows until it is atleast semi-presentable.

Valeo,

Oli.

As a quick update, I thought I’d let you know that I’m building an online GCSE revision resource for myself and anyone else who wants to use it. It’s still in its early days at present but hopefully will pick-up when some of my coursework is out of the way.

This reminds me, I have a fair amount of coursework to either start or finish, this being English, History, Geography and ICT. It’s all fun and games in Year 11…

…Anyway, I shall get back to you at a later date with a link to my revision resource / section.

Take care,

Oli.

I’m quite interested in Obama being elected fourty-fourth President of the United States of America. Not because the man is black. To be honest, I think that those that voted for him simply because they wanted the first African-American US President are racist. A man’s skin colour should have nothing to do with gain to political power. It should be his political policies that gain public appeal. His colour shouldn’t even be a factor. If I was Mr. Obama I’d be insulted by certain people’s display of political reasoning. Nay… I’m not one of these idiots. I think that Obama will lead the US from being the World’s corrupt police infused with ignorance and arrogance to a country which sports an appropriate foreign policy and thriving economy. With today’s USA still being such a prominent economical and political military might - I think every person in the World is entitled to an extensive opinion on who leads this power.

Good luck to you Mr. Obama. I hope you can do a better job than ol’ Bush and maybe clean up some of his mess at the same time.

After quite some time away, I’m back. Alot has changed in my life over the past months and some major events have also occurred. I’m back to get blogging again (with a Vengeance?), and this time I hope to make a post atleast once a week, if not every day!

Anyway, I’ll make my first proper blog post tomorrow - tonight it’s time to let off some fireworks!

Sorry it’s been a long time since I last made a blog post, but I blame stuff going on in school for all that. Finally got my results from my March exams back - an A* for Chem and an A for Biol - bit disappointed with the A for biology, but the only thing I can do is try harder on the next ones (maybe it would have helped if I had actually revised for any of them).

Skylines Training Department is on the way up (-ish). I’ve also got to write the new procedures pages. I’ve decided to cancel my work for IVAO-PL to handle what I’ve currently got on my plate (though, they don’t know this yet).

Life has generally been slow and dull recently, so there’s been very little to say… write… type. Nonetheless, I’ll try to keep focussed on making at least one post a week for you bunch.

Seeya,

Oli.

Well, as it suggests, it’s the Easter holidays for two weeks and a bit now. Last day of term was yesterday (Wed), today was an INSET day for teachers, with tomorrow being a bank holiday. I’ve got quite a bit planned for over my time off:

• Do lots of flying and controlling
• Get back to learning JavaScript so I can continue to PHP
• Learn to create sector files (already started that today)
• Get alot of work done on the Skylines Virtual Training Department
• Start work and expand upon my own Virtual Airline ideas
• Do anything else I feel needs getting done and enjoy myself!

As you can see, in theory these upcoming two weeks should be very productive within themselves, however, whether that will turn out to be the truth is a matter only time will reveal.

On another note I got my year report yesterday. As part of the new education system, the school now does the reports for the end of term before Easter. The reasoning behind this is supposedly one of teachers not finding the time to write them at the end of the school year before the summer holidays. Yet, it seems, atleast for my school, that isn’t fully true as most of my teachers think it’s utterly stupid - and I’d have to agree with them!

My report was a very good one overall, with a slight surprise coming from Technology - a predicted grade of D. How this can be determined by my teacher, I do not know. He’s been of most of the school year so far on long term sick (not that I’m implying he was exagerrating anything but I’ll add that this long term sick leave was paid for - and most of my teachers don’t even think that’s right). This coupled with the fact that I’ve only just literally started my coursework, paints the picture to me that he was talking through his arse. But what would I know?

It doesn’t bother me the slightest anyway, I never intended to take Graphic Products - aiming for Systems and Control, only to find out that they couldn’t offer me that option when I got my subjects at the end of term last year.

Well, that’s all for now, sorry I haven’t updated this in awhile - I’ve just not had much to say nor much enthusiasm to do it with.

See you next time,

Oli.

I know it’s surprising, but that’s what you do with cameras - take pictures! And that’s what I’ve been doing. Trying to learn the basics (and failing) and just learn the operation of my new camera. I’m really enjoying it all. I plan to do some more photography next weekend and go somewhere special or unusual (maybe even just a very good garden centre that I’ve forgotton the name of).

I did go to the airport on Sunday, and was rather outdone by all the other spotters. These were generally 40+ men who had a lot of time on their hands and I didn’t really get many pictures at all (certainly none really I’m happy of) becuase I got chatting to the sad bastards! (You may wonder how I have the cheek to say that about them when I was up there doing the exact same thing - really I don’t, but I have the determination to become a REAL pilot, not just some observer). Anyway… you can view my photos here (or just click the link to the left in the main navigation bar).

On another note, my Alienware PC is back. And it is just in the same condition (minus the slight dustiness). I’ve messed around with some settings in FS, and have managed to dampen the yawing effect (disabling the ovbious - P factor, Gyro and the like) but my control over it still seems touch and go (no pun intended!). I will make a descion later this week what to do, but I have a slight, yet very painful feeling that Alienware aren’t going to be to happy to part with the money I once gave them in September. I imagine a fight brewing.

Regards,

Oli.

Today I managed to part with £130 of my hard earned cash (well… OK, so Christmas money isn’t necessarily hard earned - but it was MY money) and purchased a Fujifilm S5800. I’ve wanted to get into aviation photography for a long time, but haven’t really taken the first steps until now. I think this will be an excellent training camera and hopefully I can learn a thing or two from friends who are keen photographers.

With it, I bought a 2GB Fujifilm xD-Picture Card and “Langford’s Basic Photography 8th Edition” to complement my more expensive purchase. Actually, I told a little white lie here… I didn’t buy the book or memory card, but neither did I run out of the shop with security sprinting after me. Dad bought it for me - which made me feel a whole lot better that I wouldn’t be loosing anymore notes out of my pocket.

Since this afternoon I’ve been testing it and reading the book to gain a better incite into this large creative field. I should be going to CWL tomorrow (actually… it’s 0027 as I write this - so this morning) to use it as I intended. Hopefully the weather will be at least dry with some good light. Anyway, I’m tired so I’ll end this here and display any images I feel worth public attention after I’ve been to the airport.

Goodnight… err… morning,

Oli.

I had a school trip to the Centrica Barry Power Station as part of possible work experience placements (I’m sorted there) and to take a look at the energy production industry. We had a tour around the place, looking at the complex, gas powered turbines as well as their daily operation. The tour included a short visit to the central control room, a room filled with computers monitoring the many sources of data for the extremely automated station. Whilst there, an alarm sounded and the operator moved toward one of the monitors, to inform us that, “Ahhh…. a drain is slightly overflowing on the East side of the complex” to which his only action was to sit back in his chair and return to his newspaper. It turned out that even the drains are automated to the extent that there are pumps in place and automatically activate should excessive amounts of water be detected flowing out of it.

We broke for lunch, which consisted of a well prepared buffet. Several sandwiches, a handful or two of crisps and one Welsh cake later we moved toward the second activity - producing small amounts of electricity through our own physical strength by cycling on a stationary bike hooked up to a magnet and coil, further connected to general electrical appliances (the more turned on - the more difficult it is to peddle). I was the first to have a go, scoring a measly 1.4 watts (1 watt less than the highest score) because I shot off to fast at the beginning - suffering when the buggers turned on the final piece of equipment to be powered - an LCD monitor. That coupled with two light bulbs and an iPod blasting out Queen managed to quickly finish me after my legs has been making full steam for one and a half minutes. I managed to reach the two minute finish, but only just and felt slightly cheated that the others would do better, simply because they observed my mistake of dashing off to quickly. And they certainly did take note because the second person to have a go peddled a lot slower than me at the start and reached 0.3 watts more to boot. Oh well, you can’t win everything and my legs certainly were thankful of just finishing as the lactic acid bottled up inside them made me almost think I was wearing iron boots - an effect stronger than I normally get when going full out when hill sprinting.

Overall the trip was boring as hell. I admit straight away that I took advantage of it to have a day off school and have no intention whatsoever of going into the energy industry (unless you class advancing the throttles of a B739 to create a whopping 54,600 lbf on take-off).

On another note, my Alienware PC is still not back yet. DHL turned up at 1255 today, when my Mum was out - great! So now I have to wait until Monday for them to deliver it again, or I can go all the way to Newport to pick it up myself - I’m still undecided as to what to do yet.

Anyway, enough boring you.

Oli.

Well, today I’ve managed to sort out work experience. So, hopefully, in five months time I’ll be chilling around Cardiff Academy of Aviation, helping out with admin, cleaning aircraft, maybe even doing the odd back seating for a few lessons. The paperwork has hopefully already been sent off by my school for the club to sign - though I’m not holding my breath. It should definitely be done by the end of this week though.

I also received an e-mail from Alienware today. I sent my Area 51 7500 back to them for repair because I was experiencing issues with USB joysticks. They’ve informed me that it’s on its way back to me (through good old DHL). I’m excited because I’ve been without it (and therefore FS) for a good two weeks almost. I’m currently using the Dell which is fine for your usual web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging and even controlling, but doesn’t quite hack it for FS (well, what do you expect from a 3GHz P4 with 1GB RAM and a measly ATI X300?). Though, I must admit I’m worried it’s not been fixed properly and I’ll still get the same problems. For, if this is the case, I’ll have to look at other options of sorting it out. Alienware support is fine, but their customer communication has a lot to be said for. I keep having to ask them what’s happening, etc. They didn’t even say what was wrong with it and what they did to correct it in the e-mail they sent. I had to bloody ring them, thankfully it’s a free phone number.

Well, enough of my Alienware rant - I will just have to wait and see what happens. In any case, I’m going to order a new copy of FS9, a new Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick as well as a Logitech G5 Laser mouse. Let’s hope all is well and I can relax.

Regards,

Oli.