Inspiration

A penny dropped for me last week. A light switched on.

I am sure there is other cliché that I could use but I will save you the pain.

Over the last two years a change has occurred in my life. My focus has shifted from all things flying towards all things dancing. It is an odd feeling to say the least.

Dance is not something that I ever saw as a part of my life - I got dragged kicking and screaming into it only a handful of years back and once my eyes were opened I found it was something I needed.

Dance definitely gives me my fix of competition and challenge and does so in a more compact and convenient way than flying balloons ever did.

I still love our business and even flying still makes me smile inside once I am doing it but right now I don't ever wake up wishing I could go for a flight. I wake up wishing I could go for a dance instead.

Modern Jive or Ceroc is where I started in the dancing world. It is easy to pick up, very social and fun partner dance that can be done to just about any music.

Since then I have started expanding and playing with West Coast Swing. A more technical dance in some respects but oh so much fun to play with once it starts to click into place.

I am not there yet but every now and then there will be a moment where I get a taste of what it is about and it just blows my mind. It is a smooth and connected dance that is all about lead and follow and playing with the music and your partner.

So, the moment last week was bought about by two very special people. Benji Schwimmer and Kellese Key who were teaching at an event put on by Nuroc Dance Company.

Benji is the winner of So You Think You Can Dance, USA season 2. Kellese is his dance partner and they were out here teaching WCS workshops for a week and doing private lessons.

There were too many moments, laughs and highlights to touch on except to say that I finally can see myself as a dancer and know that this is a part of my life for ever. These guys made that connection for me, made me realise just how important this is to me.

It was amazing to watch them dance, talk and express themselves and the obvious part that dance has played in their lives.

Charlie and I belted out our 2009 Bond routine one last time to get yet another trophy and best of all, the peoples choice award for it. Not a bad way to wrap it up before we start work on this years competitive routine.

As for ballooning stuff, we wrapped up 2009 with our first ever special shape balloon. From go to woe it was my baby to design, certify and test fly.

It was quite a challenge but good fun. Even better fun because it just worked and is still out there working away, doing it's thing with not so much as a phone call or question from the customer.

The only thing I like more than sending a new balloon out the door, is never seeing it again until it has died of old age and the customer rings saying they would like another please!

2009 Aussie Nationals

I don't know why I am starting this up again. I think it is a procrastination thing....

It has been an interesting week for me. This is the first Aussie Ballooning Nationals that I have missed since 1994.

I really needed a break after the Worlds in Austria last year and so, here I am watching the results on the internet and having to admit I am wishing I was there.

It looks like they are having great weather and lots of tasks. Paul is running away with the competition with Edwin close behind. It would have been fun to be in that fight.

Andrew Robertson is flying my racer this week. Giving my balloon away was one sure way of making sure I could not get suckered into going at the last moment.

Having said that I have been dancing like a freak for the past year and have not had any time for ballooning so I would have been under prepared and out of practice. It was probably better to leave it to those more keen.

On the dance front, Charlie and I have won both of the major Aussie modern Jive (Ceroc) comps at advanced level and placed 3rd in NZ.

We also have a routine we choreographed together that has placed 3rd a couple of times now too. Very happy with that result.

With one more major comp to go this year we are working hard to make it a clean sweep before we are bumped up into Masters for the 2010 competitions.

Denied

It has taken a few days to find an internet connection again. Indeed I am now at Vienna airport and waiting to check in for the flight home.

The last flight that I had been hoping for was on then off again.

Unfortunately for a number of us, it was not actually canceled until we were in the air and getting smacked around in turbulence.

The crazy thing was that I was having fun! Sure it was fast and the cut grass fields between all the forest and maize looked awfully small at 30km/h but it slowed down in places and since we were already flying it seemed a shame not to get to throw our markers.

I did have one moment with the balloon bent in half in a wind shear and was wondering if I was going to get smacked into the trees below. Andrew and Camilla said it looked like I was hung on a powerline because it was all lent over so bad.

After passing the launch site and getting the message via SMS that the flight was now canceled, my first landing opportunity was actually at one of the HWZ goals so I landed there and the target officials helped me pack up.

It was a stand up landing on the road and ended any chance of improving on my position of 49th - the median rank, right in the middle of the pack. Not happy Jan!

It was an interesting week, from not being interested in going at all to all pumped up and ready to go. Intrigued and annoyed at not having observers and using loggers only to convinced that logger only competitions are very bland (despite my inability to fly it well).

I have to admit that not having to stuff about finding and measuring markers was nice and made for much easier days BUT it felt like it was somehow lacking. The lack of fly on tasks and the pressure they bring and also the opportunity to correct for your own mistakes with a good fly on selection have me convinced that observers are a good thing.

It will be interesting to see what time and evolution of the new rules brings or if observers will be bought back into the mix as more and more pilots complain about their absence.

I have to thank Andrew, Yosh and Camilla for all their hard work during the week. They got me in the air and back for breakfast, lunch or dinner every day. Kept me smiling when the results were not what I wanted and focused the moment my mind wanted to wander to warmer, sunnier places. Thanks guys, you are legends.

So what is next? I have a few days once I get home to prepare for the Ceroc Australia Championships in Sydney where Charlie and I are in three events including a showase that we have yet to finish rehearsing. Panicing much???

Having won intermediate/advanced at the Ceroc and Modern Jive Champs a few months back, the pressure is on the back it up with another win before we have to move onto advanced for next years round of competitions.

Go, go, go!

PS: photo was stolen from the 2008 Worlds picasa album - not sure who's it is but it pretty well shows what we were doing all week if we flew!

Wish come true

It looks like the weather may have just opened a small window for one last flight.

I am sitting in the briefing tent having just planned my flight and am waiting for the official briefing and roll call to start.

The tasks are a fly in and hesitation waltz. The fly in is to the launch field and the HWZ has five goals .

We are expecting fast winds to arrive on the surface early so we need to get the flight over and done with as quick as we can.

I am expecting the typical close results on the targets so need to fly this really well to move back up the list.

We need another flight

Friday afternoons flight has been canceled due to high winds.

Results are up from the morning flight and it looks like it was as bad as I expected.

From four tasks I managed to get under 1000 points, putting me back to 47th place. If we don't get another flight in the morning that is where it will end.

Not much else to say really.

Going, going.....gone

Well the lack of blog posts are due to the fact that we have been flying and sleeping and not much else.

After all the canceled flights and a single flight back on Wednesday, Thursday finally turned it on with a full day of flights.

The AM flight on Thursday was a full five tasks. Our results for those were slightly better than they felt from the basket and in the end we had a healthy 3800 points from the possible 5000 including a task win for me with a 1.35m result.

The PM flight saw another three markers on the table at briefing. Again, conditions were challenging and the field was split with half attempting the two hesitation waltz tasks first while the others opted to try the fly-in part of the flight first.

I picked up two great hesitation waltz results, both around the 7m mark for 989 and 988 points for each. The fly-in part of the task did not work for me but the 418 points was still better than nothing.

At the end of the day we were in 13th place, up from 65th after day 1.

Friday morning and we had another four tasks to fly.

Unfortunately nothing really went to plan today and I am not looking forward to seeing the results.

The first task was pilot declared goal which I missed by about 150m - not good when the first 20 places are generally within 10m of the target.

This had me set up too far to the right for the next hesitation waltz goal which I thne missed by 600m. Again pretty depressing when you can see the pile of markers around the target from the other competitors.

The third task was a fly in to the field for a minimum distance double drop. There was complicated little scoring area and the job was to drop two markers as close together as you can but with each in a separate box marked on the field.

I saw it off in the distance somewhere but never go closer than about 4km. Fortunately I think only about 10 people did.

The final task was an elbow where we had to cross a road, fly for 15 minutes then achieve the greatest change in direction we could after flying for another 15 minutes. Flying right back on yourself or 180 degrees change in direction is best.

We had a cunning plan based on all the winds going the wrong direction I had already found during the morning.

It did not work. We achieved about 56 degrees change in direction and have heard of plenty of others who got the 180 degrees.

Right now it is time to get some sleep and hope that we get the last two flights in this competition before the weather turns to crap again. It is already quite windy outside so we will just have to wait and see if we get any more flying.