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Woodinville Skate Competition 2018

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Not far from where we live in Woodinville, there is a skate park.  It is always popular with people hanging out be there skaters, scooter users, BMX riders or just people enjoying the park.  I have been meaning to walk down and watch some of the skaters but have not got around to it before.  However, last weekend, as we drove home, there was clearly something going on at the park so I decided to walk down and see what was going on.

I got there just in time for the beginning of the 15th annual Woodinville skate competition.  Loads of skaters had turned up to compete and they were warming up when I got there.  Indeed, the competition started shortly after I arrived.  They had a bunch of age categories.  The first to go was the 10 and unders.  They grouped skaters into pairs or threes and they had two runs of two minutes each in which to put together their based performance making use of as much of the park as possible and varying the tricks.

We had a brief downpour so, once the group had finished, they had a prize giving for the winners while we waited for the weather to improve.  This wasn’t the only weather interruption but, on the whole, conditions held out and the team did a good job of drying the park out when the rain stopped so that the competition could carry on.

Next came the 11-15 category.  The same format of competition with two runs each and there were a lot of competitors to get through.  The skill levels varied a bit but the nice thing about skating is that everyone is very friendly and supportive so they were all willing to not only do what they knew they could land but also to push themselves to try and get better tricks in.

There was a single group for the female contestants that came next.  Again, a mix of skills on show but again an enthusiastic approach to the competition and, with the conditions looking better, the weather was heating up as much as the competition.

Last to go where the 16 and over group.  Here you had adults in against the older kids (and one kid who was clearly not sixteen but was skating at a very high level.  The advantage that size brings in carrying speed and in athleticism showed itself with the competitors really making some impressive runs.

The finale was the best trick competition.  First the rail was used and everyone took it in turns to have a go at pulling of something cool on the rail without causing themselves unfortunate damage (although a couple came close to straddling the metalwork!)  Then it was over the car for the second phase.  By now the weather was beginning to turn so it was a race against time to get everything in.  When all was done it was time for prize giving.  Scoring for the runs was for the main prizes along with side prizes for best tricks during the runs and then the best trick competition itself.

It looked like a great time for everyone and I thoroughly enjoyed watching and shooting the event.  For those that were there, I have a  larger gallery of shots taken throughout the day which can be found at the link below.  At the bottom of the page are pictures of the winners after receiving their prizes.

www.robedgcumbe.com/client/woodinvilleskate2018/

2,000 Down – How Many To Go?

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Today’s post is the 2,000th post that I have put on the blog.  It is a bit of a cheat that the 2,000th post is a post about being the 2,000th post rather than some genuine content but, as I was looking at the list of posts, I saw that this was coming up and was quite surprised that I had put so many together.  We shall see how long it continues.  While I am grateful to those that read the posts (including those of you that ignore the aviation posts and read the others), it is really something I set myself as a challenge so it is a bit self-indulgent.  However, while I sometimes stress when the prepared post list is getting a bit short, I have enjoyed putting this together.

Cotton Bowl

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I have heard about the Cotton Bowl a lot over the years.  There are so many Bowl games these days that I kind of forgot that some of them are actually the names of stadiums.  I didn’t even know where it was.  Turns out it is Dallas and it is right by the approach to Love Field.  I happened to have the camera in hand as we came down final approach and got a few shots of the stadium and the surrounding facilities.  It looked a bit quieter on this day than is sometimes the case.

Farewell Vlado…

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There has been a string of losses in recent years of aviation individuals.  When you see that there is an accident and someone has died, you wonder whether it is someone you have known.  I wasn’t expecting it to be Vlado Lenoch.  Vlado always seemed to be on top of whatever he was flying.  A lot of my friends knew him a lot better than me but my time with him was always fun.  He always put on a great performance when he was displaying but, when he wasn’t flying, he was a fun guy to be with.

I remember chatting with him up at East Troy where he was undertaking the first flights post restoration of Baby Duck, the P-51 in which he was flying when he crashed.  The accident sadly claimed the life of his passenger too.  We were sitting in the hangar and he was handing around fries that he had bought from a local McDonalds.  He didn’t know me at that time but he was as friendly as someone I had known for ages.

On that day I was photographing the first two flights and he brought the P-51 down on a low pass giving me some great head on shots.  Afterwards I thanked him for missing me to which he raised his eyebrows and asked “Where you out there?”.  He always flew the plane with élan.  His takeoffs were always impressive and he was always offering a spare seat to someone he could share the fun of flying with.  Plenty who were closer to him will miss him more than me but I am very sad at his loss and that of his passenger.  Others will express thoughts about him more eloquently.  For me, it is just goodbye…

Time for Another Big Change

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Things are about to get different for us.  We moved to California in 2013 as a result of work changes for me.  Some of the things we had planned worked out well but a few others did not go as expected.  Nothing unusual in that.  However, we started to consider some other options for what to do.  I have now been given a new opportunity which involves a move to Seattle.  Consequently, we are making another move.  We are heading to the Pacific Northwest.

I have no idea what this is going to bring.  Certainly there will be plenty of new things for us to explore.  We have visited the area before but living there will be a while new thing.  The area is full of aviation activities, many of which have been the subject of previous blog posts.  Consequently, I expect a lot of things will be fun to check out.  We will leave behind friends and hopefully make new ones.  The blog will show off a lot of those things as they happen.  Strap in for the ride!

Mitsubishi MRJ90

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The Mitsubishi MRJ program is the first major civil aviation program to come out of Japan in a few decades.  There have been military jets but this is the first civilian airliner since the YS-11.  The program has not been trouble free and there have been a number of delays.  Meanwhile, recognizing the need to have US customers for the aircraft, Mitsubishi has collaborated with a US company to undertake the testing and certification program.

A result of this is that the prototypes have been sent to the US.  Moses Lake in Washington is the flight test center for the program.  The generally good weather and unrestricted airspace makes it a far better location than Japan for the testing program.  Also, it is more convenient for the American flight test team.  The prototypes have been ferried from japan to Moses Lake to allow testing.

The early jets came across a northern route via Russia to get to the US.  However, later jets took a southerly route via Hawaii to get to the US.  I missed previous jets despite them coming via San Jose.  The last of the jets was significantly delayed.  It finally headed across the Pacific but got to Hawaii and suffered a technical issue which delayed it.  I wondered whether it would ferry when I was nowhere convenient to see it arrive.  However, luck was on my side and it made the trip when I was free.

Getting it arriving at San Jose was easy enough.  With a departure time from Honolulu, it was straightforward to predict when it would arrive.  Getting the departure was a different story.  Flight test aircraft do not run to airline schedules.  The crew needed a break and the jet had to be refueled.  Even then, getting it up and running and to the departure runway was a slow process and I waited a long time for it to happen.  The upside to this was that the midday light was gone and things were a lot nicer by the time it rolled.  I was rather late though!

Farewell Alan

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This is a short but sad post.  I read the sad news of the death of Alan Purwin.  Alan was a pilot and entrepreneur who was involved in many fields but was well known for his working in filming movies from helicopters.  He was a genuinely friendly and welcoming person and had been involved in many interesting things.

Alan died in a plane crash in Columbia during the making of a film with Tom Cruise.  You may have seen the news mentioning a crash but that Tom was not involved.  Sadly Alan was, along with another two people, one of whom also died.  It is a very sad time for all involved.

Amusing Decal

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IMG_2768.jpgThe number of stickers you see on people’s vehicles these days is substantial. I don’t much care what the composition of someone’s family is and whether they have a dog, cat, turtle etc. When I saw the above stickers on a car, while it is really more of the same, I couldn’t help but laugh and felt I light to get a quick shot of it to share.

Changing the Blog Link to Facebook

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Putting links to the blog on Facebook is a big part of getting anyone to know about the latest blog activity. When I first started the blog, there wasn’t such a clear way to get an automatic post to Facebook when a new blog post went live. I ended up using a service called Networked Blogs to identify the new posts and automatically put them on Facebook. This worked well. However, it had the same screen capture off the blog that it used each time which meant that, other than the title, no one knew anything about the post.

I wanted to have something more specific so decided to change to the inbuilt functionality in WordPress. This now allows you to link the blog to your Facebook account and automatically post something when new material comes live. I have had mixed results with this. It puts some text from the blog post up on Facebook along with some images. However, sometimes it puts a clear link to the blog itself that anyone can click on to see the post. Other times, it samples the text and images but doesn’t provide a link. That means that no one has access to the rest of the post without having to manually go to the page.

This behavior is erratic so I am having a hard time diagnosing what the cause is. One friend has pointed me at some diagnostic tools in Facebook but they seem to suggest everything should work. For the time being, I have to put up with it. If you ever see something without a link, don’t assume that is all there is. There might be something more detailed lurking just out of sight!