Turkey Day

What am I thankful for? FOR YOUR VOTES!

I will be up against the yo yo guy in the next round which should start in 4 or 5 days from now. I'll post when it starts back up. Then there are 3 more days of voting for me, 3 days off, and then 3 days to determine the winner (if I'm one of the two left to vote on after this next round).
http://www.youtube.com/excedrinexpressgels

Flew for about an hour two days ago, went to the point again. Didn't have to turn once, there or back, very strong ridge lift (3 pictures above). I think 8 or so people flew total.

Round One is Done!

I made it to the next round in the Excedrine contest! If you go there today and vote it shows my video thumbnail moved up in the bracket! Thanks to everyone's support and effort on this, thanks to Davis for posting it on the Oz report!

Make comments to this post and tell me what YOU would do with $15,000! I think I already have some ideas, but want to hear yours.

There might be a glitch with their website though, because you can still vote for mine today against the next two videos, when it should just be the next two videos you can vote for, until the first round is done and then mine should be back up for voting against whoever win. I sent a message to the excedrine youtube account to ask, so we'll see what they say. I'll post updates as they come. Thanks for everyone's help!
http://www.youtube.com/excedrinexpressgels

Excedrine Finals - Two more days

So the way it looks is you can only vote for me or the other guy for this round (when you hit next video, ours are the only two available). So today and tomorrow's voting is going to determine if I make the next round, then it looks like there are 3 more head-to-head votings of the other videos, times 3 days each equals 9 days. So if I make the next round voting for me will start again on Dec. 2nd.
http://www.youtube.com/excedrinexpressgels

Yesterday was a good flying day, went to the point and got some good pictures, it had been a while since I made it down there. Was surprised to get the best climb of the day right there because I'm usually grovelling low by the time I get there. It was about 400fpm and took it to about 4,400'.

$15,000

Thanks to everyone's votes I made the finals so now your votes really count!

I will be paired against one other video in 3 rounds of head-to-head voting until the winner is determined.

Each round lasts 3 days long, and the next round should start right at the end of the of last one.

Go to: http://www.youtube.com/excedrinexpressgels

Click the 'VOTE' tab and hit the thumbs up for me! You can VOTE ONCE A DAY!

Today and the next two days I am being voted against some guy playing the guitar!

Thanks for your support!!!!!

What's at the end of the Rainbow?

Turns out its a landing zone and my front yard!

Didn't make the finals in the Sandisk contest I saw today. Oh well, hopefully I will have better luck with the Excedrin contest which the finals will start in two days. It's pretty chilly here, I ridge soared on Sunday for a little bit before I got too cold. I'm looking forward to experimenting with new approaches sometime when it's calm. That day my downwind was low and slightly fast over the cabins and did a low turn back towards my house for final and landed maybe 20 or 30' from the gravel road in front of my house. It was pretty fun, I did the whole thing at half vg, but I'd like to get more speed on my downwind with full vg . . .

Fall Colors

The leaves have begun to fall, but this is what the sunset looked like just a week or two ago, I didn't mess with it in photoshop or anything.

The finalists for the contests I'm in are announced:

• SanDisk - 18th this month (www.youtube.com/sandisk)
• Excedrin - 20th this month (www.youtube.com/excedrinexpressgels)

I hope I'm at least a finalist in one of them. That Full Throttle contest still has not updated their webpage! They said they would notify the winner on or about Nov. 1st! Just tell me I didn't win already, its tough playing the waiting game on $10,000!

I found what is at the end of rainbows yesterday, I'll share that picture soon.

Vote For Me ! ! !

Feel free to email friends and family this:

It's a little after midnight and voting just started to pick the finalists for the Excedrin Contest. Go to: http://www.youtube.com/excedrinexpressgels and click the VOTE tab, search for me 'alta8bird' and check the thumbs up icon next to the video! Voting ends this Sunday the 16th, then if I make it to the top 8, there are 4 rounds of head-to-head voting.

Check back here or on the youtube page to see if I make it to the top 8 because when my round comes up, there are only 3 days to vote for each round. One vote per person per day is allowed and you don't need a youtube account to vote! Thanks for your help!

SanDisk Contest

Okay here's the deal, this video had to be one continuous shot, with no editing afterwards, so I decided to film a landing just to throw my hat in the contest. Voting hasn't started on this or the Excedrin one, but it helps if you make them look good by rating it 5 stars and making comments. Also below you'll see the infamous Sport 2 song written by Ollie and sung by Tara.

Wingover practice

Got home from work yesterday and got towed up twice for some wingover practice. I am not pitching before roll, but I think that's because I'm afraid I'll do what Steve was telling me happened to him. His first time doing wingovers with full vg he accidentally looped it because after the pitch he wasn't used to the stiffness of full vg so he couldn't roll after pitch and looped it!

I've never gone full on my glider and the manual says there's no reason to, and from what everyone else says is the same - 3/4 is the most you want to go, so that is what I consider full.

Once I get really comfortable with how stiff it is to roll, maybe I can start pitching first better. Eric said he looped it for the first time yesterday! I didn't get to talk to him much about it, there were tandems he had to do and I wanted to practice before the sun set.

I'm trying to get a picture up and will later when I get this technomological crap to start working.

Weekend Flying

Yesterday I was invited to fly at a really nice site only 20 miles from Lookout. Those in the pictures are David Giles, Ollie Gregory, James Stinnett, and Greg Heckman. Ollie and Dave made it back to Lookout, but James, Heckman, and I went so lucky. We ended up being drivers. I was able to stay up for 20 minutes or so but couldn't do much with it. (I think you can click the pictures for bigger versions).

Also, the other day, Eric was trying the hanging camera below his control frame and the cord snapped on him and his camera tumbled into the trees. He was ridge soaring at the time so it gave us a good idea of where to look and he eventually found it! It was totaled but he got the SD card out of it.

I'm waiting to hear from the Full Throttle contest, the 'official rules' say they'll contact on or around Nov.1 the winner. Last contest it took them a while past the date they said, so either that's true again, or I'm not the winner. They haven't updated their page yet either. I'll also find out if I'm in the Excedrin youtube contest finals on the 12th.